Knights of the Realm (MLP)

[Kinni]

New chapter.

Chapter 29 - Choose

"Chaos Magic: Energy Maelstrom!" Twilight cast.

A purple ray of light was shot from her horn and hit one of the walls, which had been gathering energy in strange patterns in preparation for something. However, Sparkle's attack turned all the energy into a maelstrom, denying the efforts of the formation and eventually exploding, causing damage to the wall.

The first dozen meters of defenses the group had to go through were relatively easy to deal with. Only relatively, because most ponies would find even those defensive layers an unpassable barrier. But after that, they left the corridor and got into an open area, that was when the real trouble started.

"Wind Sword Style: True Slash!" Rarity shouted.

This time, instead of creating wind blades, she used the wind to push herself forwards at an incredible speed while also coating her blade with a multitude of sharp winds. She slashed with her enhanced sword while passing through a snake-like magical construct, managing to cut it in half despite the hardness of the pseudo scales.

The defences in that open area were incomparable to those from earlier. Not only were they powerful, but they were also tricky. There was no easy way of defeating them. Some of the defenses absorbed magic shot at them, others were able to nullify extreme sudden changes like the chaos effects, others only appeared after they had already dealt with all obvious defenses in an area and passed through it, appearing without warning, and some even seemed to change to adapt to what was throw at them.

"Rainboom Triple Punch!" Rainbow Dash shouted, advancing forwards.

She accelerated to near sonic speed and repeatedly crossed the sound barrier with three rapid punches, which were enhanced by the winds just to prevent Rainbow from breaking her hooves in the process. The three directed rainbow shockwaves flew towards a cannon that was gathering a ridiculous amount of energy and struck it, making half of it explode.

And the defences were varied. Some created powerful magical constructs to attack the intruders, others shot all sorts of spells at them, others created formations that changed the area itself, making fields that were harmful to any being who was caught on one of them, others still were extremely tricky mechanical traps, which couldn't be predicted by magic flow, since they didn't use magic.

"Empathy Drive: Shared Reality!" Fluttershy cast.

She extended her empathy towards Sunset and Applejack, who had been caught in a dangerously powerful sleep spell, and were almost losing consciousness. Her spell forcefully brought their awareness up to her level, cancelling the effects of the spell that had hit them, and allowing the two to avoid a dangerous trap designed to attack those caught by the sleep spell.

But even in this kind of situation, the Knights and Squires weren't actually fighting with their full strength. It couldn't be said that they were holding back, but the eight certainly weren't pushing themselves to their limits. And it was easy to understand why, because not only did they need to buy time for the others to defeat the changeling base, but the protectors of Equestria were also very aware of the upcoming fight against Queen Chrysalis, so they were saving their strength to have something to unleash when needed.

And while they didn't know that, their friends would need all the time they could get.

-

The blessing of a princess was powerful, but it had a limit. Bunker Breaker, after several minutes of heavy spellwork, was finally reaching the limit on his blessing.

It had a ridiculous effect, considering that he managed to fight by himself despite starting at the heart of the Changeling base. But part of it had certainly been because of his own specialty: The siege spells he cast were already quite powerful enough to cause large scale havoc in the area of impact, having an advantage in this kind of fight where there were a lot of enemies bunched together and there was no chance of hitting any allies. Having Celestia's blessing boosting his attacks only made this even more pronounced.

But even with that, he would have been unable to handle things had he stayed in a single place and allowed the changelings to gather their strength towards him. No fool, he kept moving around, without even knowing where he was going, just to try and keep himself fighting and causing trouble for the changelings for as long as possible, since he knew this was probably the best he could do to help the others.

Thankfully, his luck was good, and he ended up getting close enough to the entrance to be able to attract the attention of Shining Armor, Spike and Night Time, who were invading.

He laughed as they got close, stopping to blast some of the closest changelings who were pursuing him, them Shining Armor's shields started battering them, and Night Time threw a huge amount of ice shards in their direction, both of them managing to defeat the advancing changelings.

"Anything to report?" Shining Armor asked, once he got close enough.

"I got out from a cocoon thanks to the princess' blessing, but there weren't any other cocoons there, so that should have been the 'interrogation' room." Bunker said simply "I ran around for a good bit before reaching here and caused a lot of havoc so the changelings are trying to unite to catch me, and the blessing is running out."

"Understood. Follow behind me and use your spells as needed." The captain gave the order and immediately started moving forward again, to go after the new wave of changelings that was approaching.

Things soon settled on a rhythm. Shining Armor and Spike met the changelings from the front, with their shields and Right Arm of the Dragon, respectively, helped by the fact that they could both block their ranged attacks as well as attack. Bunker Breaker (who had lost his blessing soon after joining with them) and Night Time stayed on the back, using ranged attacks and also dealing with any changelings that tried to sneak up on the group from behind.

But eventually they got to a more open area, rather than the corridors of before, and that was when the Changelings proved how much trouble they could be as opponents.

After all, this was a true changeling base, different from the simple warehouse they had attacked before, this place was much more well-defended and the changelings there had a lot more tricks to use.

Some changelings tunneled through walls and floor, attacking from unexpected directions. Some changelings joined with others in formations, fusing their powers and attacking with powerful spells. Some changelings used their transformation skills as camouflage, and moved stealthily towards the group, to attack from close range. But what was definitely the hardest aspect of fighting changelings was their ability to share information via the network.

While their usual tactics were effective in the beginning, the more time passed, the more the changelings adapted and started countering their skills. Despite their power, Shining Armor's shields were being broken more and more often with combinations of multiple piercing-type spells, forcing him to reduce his offence and put up extra defensive shields. Spike's Right Arm of the Dragon was fast and powerful, but in an open space, the changelings were capable of avoiding it with quick flight movements after their brethren had seen him attack so many times, which forced Spike to be more conservative with his movements to prevent them from getting too close. Both Bunker Breaker's siege spells and Night Time's combat-adapted weather magic were things the changelings had seen before, and had counters for. Shining Armor and Spike had separated in order to prevent the changelings from focusing their forces too much, while Bunker Breaker and Night Time were almost glued to one another, his long range attacks together with her short range skills being barely able to respond to the multitude of threats.

They wouldn't be able to resist for much longer, Spike had already been forced to tank a few attacks with his body (which was thankfully tough enough to take it), but in this critical moment, help arrived.

"Venus Love Charge!" A purple and orange pegasus, Venus herself, appeared from behind and flew straight into a conglomeration of changelings, body wrapped in multiple heavy layers of lightning. As soon as she touched the group, all the lightning disappeared in a tremendous explosion that created a shockwave powerful enough that even the group of heroes had to struggle not to be bowled over by.

After that, she flew towards them, taking advantage of the momentary respite their unexpected attack had given the group of the captain.

"You are a really welcome sight." Shining Armor said "Things were getting pretty rough."

"Then you are going to like this next part." She grinned at him.

Almost immediately, he heard a very familiar sound, of dozens of hooves moving in single step.

"Guards! Support the captain and the others, fight against the changelings!" A voice resounded, and dozens of members of the guard moved in, attacking every changeling they could see.

Shining Armor grinned as well "Let's do it!" He shouted, and the group went back to the fight.

-

"We, Changelings, have our destinies decided for us ever since we are born." Thorax had eventually been convinced to talk with the three fillies "Queen Chrysalis is our absolute ruler, and each changeling is tested repeatedly to discover their specialties. Then they are trained and put on their rightful positions, ready to do their work as members of the hive."

"Well..." Applebloom tried to put her feelings into words "Ah figured since ya were so dependent on love, that the feelings of the changelings would be taken seriously."

"Feelings? There is no need for feelings. Only the will of the queen." Thorax tried to say with confidence, but doubt crept into his voice.

The cutie mark crusaders had almost completely forgotten that Thorax was supposed to be an enemy, they just wanted to try and defend the way they saw the world. Scootaloo put in a question, given Thorax's words.

"Well, does that mean the plan to get the amulet was only the idea of the queen, and the rest of you don't really want to hurt ponies?"

Thorax took a moment to understand the question "Want? The changelings don't have wants, only the will of the queen exists, and the need to feed." But traitorous thought swirled through his head, like 'Of course I don't want that. So many changelings are being hurt...' and he recoiled, expecting to be punished. But it didn't come, the battle keeping the attention of the managers of the network strictly on fighting the intruders, while Chrysalis, who would have been able to hear and understand what he was thinking even in that situation, was completely blocked from that part of the network.

"Well, I figure that once the Knights defeat Chrysalis, you will need to think about what to do then. Maybe you could ask the princess to see what she thinks? If you don't really want to hurt anypony, I'm sure she won't turn you away." Sweetie Belle said innocently.

No... Chrysalis...? What to do then...? No more fighting...

The ideas kept rising to Thorax's head, without opposition. Even as he tried to remind himself that this was against the changeling rules, Thorax still could not help himself. And to make matters worse, he could feel through the network that the fighting in the base was getting more and more serious, and he felt sadness upon so many changelings being hurt and still unable to stop fighting.

The crusaders watched as Thorax seemed to struggle with something, feeling like they shouldn't interfere now that he was thinking about it.

-

The battle between the ponies (and dragon) and the changelings was reaching a fever pitch. It was no longer a small scale conflict, but had gained airs of an actual war. The pony side had split itself into dozens of smaller groups, some of earth ponies carrying spears and shields and meeting their opponents with force, some of pegasi flying through the air to flank opponents and defend against other fliers, some of unicorns galloping through the area and acting as mobile artillery with varied spells, and some mixed groups performing their own special duties. And their elites had beein invigorated by the appearance of reinforcements. Shining Armor was looking at the entire battlefield and using his shields strategically to deny enemy advantages, Venus was using all her varied attacks and focusing on causing as much mayhem as possible in the least time, and Spike had taken on a more defensive posture, protecting the most vulnerable among their own fighters.

In contrast with the ponies' shouted commands, the Changelings fought in an eerie silence, but no less intense because of it. A lot of their strategies were similar to those of the ponies, since the changelings were experts in imitation, as well as the stealth and formations of before, but the main threat of the changeling force was their absurd level of coordination. The changelings instantly reacted to protect their vulnerable members and attack the weakened portions of the enemy force, the changelings could sometimes miss with a long range attack, only to reveal the true target was a pony fighting another changeling in another part, surprising him with an unexpected attack, the changelings' magical formations could be joined or left at any time, allowing them to adjust to the needs of a constantly changing situation.

The battle could really go either way at that point, so Spike decided to reveal his last hidden card.

Spitting out a small black fireball to his hand, he held it for a moment before focusing and making the fireball grow and become far more menacing.

"Draconic Art: Magic Charge!" And then he threw the fireball at a concentration of enemies, who were unable to react in time due to the unexpectedness of the attack.

That wasn't very well polished, but the skill was able to "charge" the magic to the same point he would be able to potentially release it in the future, borrowing the same principles of the Right Arm of the Dragon.

That was a fairly good moment to use that ability, since none of the Changelings had seen it, and the surprise would help a lot in that crucial moment.

So that was why they also decided to unveil something.

Jumping on each other and forming a pile, a huge group of Changelings held each other and started glowing, and then the glow started to get bigger and bigger as more changelings joined the pile, that also started to get higher and higher, until finally it became too bright to recognize the pile of changelings before the glow suddenly disappeared.

And revealed the form of a dragon.

"Focus your attacks!" Shining Armor shouted, and every single available pony focused their attacks on the dragon, including him, Venus and Spike.

In the face of such an overwhelming offense... the Dragon staggered, then put his head backwards and prepared to breathe fire.

"Defence!" The captain shouted again, before putting up the strongest shield he could muster, a multilayered, lotus-like construction.

"Venus Love Barrier!" Venus shouted, and forcefully took every available drop of moisture in the room to create a layer of ice on every single part of Shining's shields.

Every other pony who could help in the protection did so (and Spike, who put his arm as a final defence) and then the attack came.

The backlash was amazing, and almost knocked Shining away all by itself, but then the dragon just kept breathing fire without stopping, and the effort of trying to maintain the barriers was growing.

"Hey." Venus called to him, also suffering from trying to keep the barriers cool "Have you ever heard of combination attacks?"

Armor could still talk, so he answered "My sister told me about them. Apparently most of the time you need a lot of planning, but sometimes things just click..." He got what she was trying to say "Do you think...?"

"Can't hurt to try." She answered with a smile.

Finally, the dragon stopped attacking, and everypony could drop their defences, it was then that the two acted.

"Combination Attack!" They shouted.

Shining Armor created an incredibly dense and solid barrier in the shape of an arrow.

"Grand Barrier..." He started.

Venus summoned a multitude of lightning bolts and started layering then around herself.

"Venus Love..." She started.

"LIGHTNING BREAKER!" The two shouted with all their strength, and sent their attacks together.

Just a moment before impact, the lightning seemed to fuse with the shield.

And then it hit, forcing the dragon backwards for several dozens meters. He managed to stop himself, but then his image started wavering, and cracking, and then it shattered into hundreds of changelings.

But even with that, they would not give up, and the remaining changelings, still so many, returned to their attack.

-

Eventually, things got to much for Thorax. Both his doubts, and the pain of the changelings he could feel from the network were only increasing, and there was just nothing he could do.

He ran away, moving towards his fellow changelings. In his mind, a single word kept repeating itself: Why.

Why were things like this? Why did they have to suffer like this? Why did they have to fight to get something that would only lead to more fighting?

The words of the three fillies kept swirling through his mind. Decision, peace, feelings...

When he got to the battlefield, everything suddenly became clear, and then his voice resounded through the entire changeling network.

"Brothers and sisters of the hive! How long have we hidden ourselves and fought against the ponies? The answer is that it's been too long! Queen Chrysalis was supposed to be our leader and protector, but how many of us have been hurt just today for the fullfilment of her plans? The answer is that it's been too many! Why have we been forced into those roles we haven't chosen? We are not serving the hive, because that only serves Chrysalis! She is the reason why we suffer! Do any of you desire change? Do you desire something different? Do you desire peace, and love that doesn't need to be stolen? Chrysalis says that her way is the only one, but I shall reject that! Join me, and together, we shall CHOOSE!"

That message had gone through the network in only a second. The message was received by every changeling in range, and they all were faced with a choice. The managers of the network under Chrysalis tried to punish Thorax for his rebellion, but soon rebellious thoughts started appearing in more and more changelings. The words and feelings that Thorax had transmitted simply touched the heart of those changelings. Not all of them, but many, and they choose him.

Suddenly, every changeling staggered. By instinct, Shining Armor shouted "Stop!" and all the ponies stopped attacking. The changelings had also stopped, and they all turned to look at Thorax, who was undergoing an amazing transformation.

He grew to nearly the same height as Chrysalis. His colors changed, some of him was green, some was orange, some was blue and some was purple. Two new horns in the form of antlers grew from his head. And three jewel-like growths appeared on his neck. The size of his body, his wings and his tail, they had all grown equally, reaching proportions similar to those of Chrysalis.

But that wasn't all, a shockwave was emitted from his body, and many of the changelings who were hit by the wave also started changing. They didn't change as much as Thorax had. But some of their physical features shifted to be more similar to him, and more important, their colors also changed to become much more vibrant and varied than before.

King Thorax looked at his changelings and gave his first order "Help the ponies, defeat the Chrysalis loyalists."

And then mayhem started.

-

In their cell, the Crusaders were so preoccupied with trying to decide whether or not to use their escape scrolls that they didn't even notice when marks appeared on their flanks.

-

Chrysalis ws enjoying the sight of the Knights and Squires doing all the work for her, when she suddenly felt like a part of herself had been ripped out.

"AARRRRGH!" She screamed, and then realized that a lot of her changelings had left her, but the network still insisted they were there.

Chrysalis sent a pulse containing enough magic to annihilate an entire building (as Sunset would put it) and obliterated Trixie's Fake Reality spell. Then she saw what had happened and what was going on. With a sound that was halfway in between a roar and a snarl, she teleported to the base.

The ponies, having been alerted by her scream, immediately followed her, prepared for anything.

 

[Kinni]

Chrysalis is strong.

Chapter 30 - Fighting Chrysalis

The sudden split in the forces of the changelings and the subsequent combat between the new faction and the old definitely tipped the balance of the scales of the battle in the direction of the ponies. And despite how surprising it was, they adapted pretty well, giving support to the new colorful changelings and taking advantage of the enemy confusion to reorganize themselves.

However, King Thorax was unable to help, because very little time after giving his orders, he found himself in a fight with Queen Chrysalis.

The start of the fight was particularly interesting, as the changeling king knew he was going to deal with her fairly soon due to his daring to steal some of her changelings from her. As such, when Chrysalis appeared with a snarl in a violent teleport that made the air scream, Thorax was already prepared, and immediately caught her with his telekinesis (his extra horns helped a lot with that) and pushed her up with full strength.

The result was that Chrysalis was slammed through the thick layer of the roof of the base, making a direct path to the outside. Thorax immediately teleported outside as well to continue the battle.

His first movement had been very deliberate. Knowing how angry Chrysalis was likely to be, he decided to force her outside to protect the changelings and ponies from the aftereffects of the battle, changing the battlefield to a place with no one to harm.

It turned out to be a fairly wise decision, as Chrysalis' next move after he appeared was to unleash a combination of unicorn and pegasus magic by creating a tornado made of fire that she threw at him.

Thorax could have simply blocked the attack, but that approach was too passive and would give too many advantages to Chrysalis, he decided instead to run at the tornado of fire, layering as many shield and cold spells on himself as he could on short notice, in order to pass through the danger zone to rush at Chrysalis.

Turning into a rhynoceros at the last moment, he tried to gore the monarch with this horn, but she teleported at the last moment and appeared behind him. And then, with a wave from up to down, a wickedly sharp scythe blade formed from her hoof and tried to cut him apart, but Thorax turned into a small hawk at the last moment and avoided the cut by a small margin with a desperate dive.

Turning back to normal after that, Thorax tried to use his telekinesis to pull her towards him and hit Chrysalis while she was disoriented, but having experienced his telekinesis once, Chrysalis managed to free herself with an omnidirectional pulse of magic before she got close enough. Then she shot him with a freezing spell to hold him before shaping a leg into a piledriver to hit him with.

But Thorax reacted faster than she expected, turning into an elephant to break out of the ice prison and hitting her with his trunk, but then Chrysalis' shoulders sprouted blades that cut into the trunk, forcing Thorax to revert, but he turned into a crocodile and tried to bite her, but Chrysalis turned her wings into spears to pierce both sides of the mouth of the crocodile...

And the fight went on, with both of the Changeling Monarchs using a lot of pony style magic but making a lot more use of their natural changeling transformation skills. Chrysalis preferred to mold parts of her body, while Thorax was better at full transformations. And it didn't take long for a pattern to emerge, Chrysalis was doing more and more damage to Thorax, predicting his moves better and being hit far less often.

Thorax was only a newborn changeling king, while Chrysalis was a lot more experienced, and as she managed to start getting control of her rage, Chrysalis could put her superior experience to good use, to the point that she was dominating the fight and could win at any moment.

And just as expected, she did. Hitting him with a binding spell that trapped him in a multitude of chains, Chrysalis then turned her front legs into an immense hammer, that she raised up, empowered with a violent amount of magic and then swung down like the blade of an executioner. Thorax tried his hardest, but he had only managed to get rid of most of of the chains (the spell suppressed his ability to teleport) before he was hit.

The newborn changeling king fell down like a meteorite, hitting the roof of the base and going through it in a vicious reversal of his first gambit in the fight, before crashing down in a relatively empty area of the battlefield and creating a crater.

But even as he felt the aches in his body, even as he looked at Chrysalis up above, preparing herself to finish him off, King Thorax wasn't worried.

-

Chrysalis charged her magic perhaps more than necessary, but that was exactly what that usurper deserved! She was ready to rain down annihilation upon him and scourge even his memory from existence...

A ballistic pegasus rammed into her.

-

Yes, King Thorax wasn't worried. From the beginning, he already knew that Chrysalis was an opponent too powerful for him to defeat. But he didn't need to defeat her. Different from her, he had allies who could help, powerful allies who could be counted on.

The Knights had taken over the fight.

All he had meant to do in that fight was wound Chrysalis enough, exhaust her enough, that the Knights and Squires would have a better chance of winning against her.

A group of his changelings came to stand around him, guarding his fallen form from whatever enemies could come. The changeling monarch then decided to tie up a few loose ends, and used the newborn network to send a message to a few of his changelings to go all over the base and free every single being that had been trapped for use as a love battery by the changelings.

And he sent another one of them in a special mission.

It didn't take more than two minutes, and the changeling returned with the Crusaders.

He smiled at them "Hello, you three. Thank you for your help."

The three fillies blinked and were unable to react for a moment, Scootaloo was the first to recover "You're... Thorax?!" She exclaimed.

"Indeed I am. And congratulations on your new cutie marks, by the way." he spoke calmly.

"Wha- new?" Applebloom spluttered.

The three fillies looked at their flanks.

The subsequent squeal of joy knocked out Thorax for a moment.

"Okay. Those marks are cool, but what do they actually mean?" Sweetie Belle asked.

It really wasn't clear just from looking. All three marks were pretty similar, featuring the same tri-colored shield (red, pale grayish rose and grayish purple) with two shapes inside it and each other. Applebloom had a heart inside of an apple, Sweetie Belle had a musical note inside of a star and Scootaloo had a lightning bolt inside of a feather.

"Well," King Thorax started, attracting their attention "You helped me see the path, helped me fulfill my destiny, achieve my best... Maybe your marks are for helping others find their destinies."

The three looked at each other, Applebloom grinned "Well, I think that sounds like a lot of fun, but what do you say?"

The other two grinned at her.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, HELPING OTHERS!"

-

Trixie knew that Chrysalis would try to kill the newborn changeling king as soon as she got the chance, so the unicorn decided to prevent her from getting that chance. Thankfully, the fight between the two had given her enough time to charge one of her Spheres of Charge by using the magic container Pinkie Pie had brought. So, as soon as Rainbow Dash hit Chrysalis, Trixie prepared and cast a particularly powerful spell.

"This place is no longer part of the world...

"Perfect Illusion: Isolated World!"

This was one of Trixie's costliest spells. Even with the support of the Sphere of Charge, the show mare still had to spend two whole seconds charging to obtain enough magic to actually cast it. The wave of magic spread to an area that would become the battlefield, one containing only the Changeling Queen and the eight ponies.

And then, it fooled the world itself. It forced the world to think of that area as something that wasn't connected to itself, thus separating the arena from normal reality.

It had limits, only being able to fool the world for two minutes and needing the caster to be on the same patch of isolated world for it to work. But its virtues were equally apparent, it didn't need to be sustained, leaving Trixie open to do other things, and it was very hard to dispel by any means other than simply waiting it out.

It was the perfect spell for that situation.

Chrysalis barely spent a second stunned before casting a spell that threw several magical arrows at Rainbow Dash and bucking backwards with a leg shapeshifted into a spike, almost goring Pinkie, who had shifted behind her and attempted a punch.

"Wind Sword Style: Wind Cage!" And Rarity turned all the air around Chrysalis into a rushing maelstrom keeping her pinned.

But it didn't even last half a second, as Chrysalis shapeshifted her wings to triple their original size and gave a mighty flap, disturbing Rarity's control of the wind with sheer strength. Then Fluttershy reached her side, having ran over with a cheetah animal spirit, before trying to claw her. But Chrysalis grew separated armor plates to defend herself, before making a scorpion tail out of her own and trying to sting Fluttershy.

"Chaos Magic: Hungry Earth!" Twilight's spell got there just in time.

Striking the ground, it created dozens of huge mouths made out of earth that attacked Chrysalis, one of which managing to bite down on the tail. Dismissing that transformation (she had done the same for every transformation as soon as it served its purpose) Chrysalis released a burst of magic from her body that destroyed all the mouths, but during that time, Twilight and Fluttershy had joined hooves and prepared a spell.

"Duo Magic: Chaotic Butterfly!"

They released a dozen butterflies made out of swirling, chaotic energy, that flew towards Chrysalis. She jumped and flew to the air, releasing a blast of magic to destroy the butterflies. Sunset teleported right in front of her, already using her Trance Mode, and cast a powerful spell at point-blank range.

"Double Magic Enhance: Solar Sphere!"

A mini-sun that was still twice the size of the Changeling Queen hit her without giving her a chance to react. Causing an explosion that Sunset had to dodge by teleporting away. However, once the light faded it revealed that Chrysalis had only been scratched, due to increasing the thickness of her scales at the last moment. But she didn't look happy.

"Blast it! Why do they always throw suns at me?!" She shouted "See how you like it!" And she cast a spell that created a red sun double the size of Sunset's, and threw it at her at high speed.

The unicorn tried to teleport away, but suddenly Chrysalis' telekinesis squeezed her horn painfully, breaking her concentration.

"Merged Spell!" Twilight cast as fast as she could "Effect Sign: Reverse Target!"

And suddenly it was Chrysalis who was about to be hit by the sun. But she teleported at the last moment, appearing next to Applejack already slashing at her with a scythe blade coming from one of her hooves. The farm pony punched out right at the base of the blade, the point her Eyes told her was the weakest, managing to break the scythe. She charged magic into her hoof for a punch at Chrysalis' weak spot, but she grew spikes all over her body and shot them at Applejack like arrows. But Rainbow Dash suddenly appeared and carried the earth pony away from danger, dropping her off next to Trixie, before coming back at high speed.

"Rainboom Punch!" She shouted, punching beyond the sound barrier to create her special blast of magic.

Dash followed the blast with her hoof, forcefully putting more magic into it before the hit. But Chrysalis sprouted an immense claw from her shoulder that grabbed both the blast and Rainbow's hoof at the same time. The terrible impact made the claw crack, but it held, and Chrysalis reduced its size to bring the pegasus closer and try to gore her with her shapeshifted horn (it had three extra spikes), but Sunset teleported close and blasted Chrysalis with an overpowered fireball, stunning her for long enough that Rainbow Dash managed to charge herself with lightning to shock the changeling and escape.

"Duo Magic: Truth Seeking Arrows!" Both Trixie and Applejack shouted.

A dozen arrows of light shot themselves at Chrysalis, who teleported to avoid them, but the arrows teleported together with her, so Chrysalis grew a wide and thich shield from her right foreleg and blocked them...

And the fight kept going. With the Knights and Squires slowly realizing to their horror that, despite being weakened by the fight with Thorax, Chrysalis was still more than strong enough to take control of the fight. They used every single trick they had, combined attacks, sudden teleports, illusionary duplicates, Rainbow Dash acting as transport, Applejack pointing out weaknesses, Rarity's wind attacks, Pinkie's shifting, Sunset's brute force and all else they had trained together. But despite all of that, Chrysalis was getting increasingly close to taken one of them out of the fight, which would break the careful balance that left them face her. And they were tiring fast.

"Triple Magic Enhance: Grand Solar Seeking Blasts!" Sunset cast.

She created two dozens homing blasts of solar magic that attacked Chrysalis. But expending so much magic at once had been a mistake and Chrysalis didn't fail to take advantage of it, shifting to pegasus wings, she shed dozens of feathers that glowed with power and attracted the blasts of magic. At the same time, she teleported right in front of Sunset... And screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

The point-blank blast of powerful sonic magic broke through Sunset's boosted aura defences, cut into her body, caused internal injuries, made cracks appear in her bones and even shattered her internal magical formation, forcing her out of Trance Mode. Blindly, Sunset teleported away, trying to get time to patch herself up, and then shouted to the others.

"She's too strong! You five need to distract her!"

The five immediately understood, and Applejack took the first step, shouting to Chrysalis:

"Hey, Chrysalis! How's the family?"

The changeling queen immediately remembered about her recent loss, and snarled before flying towards Applejack, spells ready. But Rainbow Dash immediately flew over and grabbed the farm pony, flying at high speed and shedding feathers charged with lightning to slow Chrysalis down. The changeling broke through the feathers and summoned an entire plane of fire, ready to slam them, but then Pinkie was on top of her, punching with both hooves on her back and driving chaos magic inside her body, breaking her concentration (it tried to warp her insides into something useless, but her magic suppressed the effects automatically).

Chrysalis formed spikes to pierce through Pinkie, but she had replaced herself with a plushie version, which subsenquently exploded into a shower of acid confetti. The confetti started eating through her scales, until she set herself on fire and burned it all away in a single blast. Then she noticed that an absolutely gigantic blade of wind had formed above her.

"Wind Guillotine!" Rarity shouted, making the blade drop.

Chrysalis turned her wings into a huge claw that snapped closed on the blade, breaking it but not preventing Chrysalis from being buffeted and cut by a huge blast of wind. When she recovered, the changeling saw Fluttershy right in front, Staring at her. But she only got stunned for a tenth of a second, before waving her right foreleg upwards while turning it into a pseudo-flyswatter, hitting Fluttershy and making her fly, before Rarity manipulated the wind to bring her out of harms way.

And that was all that was needed, because the Knights were ready.

They had activated a fairly powerful Overdrive and prepared a combination attack.

"Power and precision, united in a single spell...

"Perfect Duo Magic Enhance: Ultimate Seeking Arrow!" Sunset and Trixie chanted and cast together, creating an arrow combining the best of their specialties, an attack covered in illusions that would prevent any detection, and powerful enough to cause heavy damage to anything.

But that wasn't all, because Twilight still had her part to do.

"Magic refined and perfected...

"Ideal Sign: Grand Enhance!"

That was their third ultimate combination attack, the one that had Twilight taking on a lead position. And her role was simple but effective: Using her conceptual magic, Twilight took the already masterful attack from her partners and enhanced it into an ideal state.

"COMBINATION ATTACK: SUPREME ARROW!" The three shouted, as the arrow became golden and then disappeared, seeming to hit Chrysalis almost instantly.

She gave a horrifying scream as the arrow pierced her body. And then the hole left by the arrow started shining with a light of pure destruction, and cracks started appearing on her body, and more light started to leak out from those cracks, until Chrysalis was shining brightly.

And then she exploded. Her entire body seeming to disappear due to the sheer power of the event.

The three Knights fell unconscious. Then their Squires relaxed... Until Applejack blanched.

A black hoof emerged from under the earth, and it pulled its owner out of the ground.

Revealing Queen Chrysalis.

 

[Kinni]

Long fight.

Chapter 31 - Rise of the Squires

The hearts of the Squires were cold as they stared at the changeling monarch, who gave them a wicked smile but didn't seem to be in a hurry to attack them. And the five understood why, as there was only a little bit of time remaining before Trixie's spell ran out and Chrysalis was able to leave.

Applejack was the first to find her words, because she had finally understood "Ya… Ya split off a piece of yerself and left it ta take the blow and be destroyed in yer place." The words came with difficulty "But how, how did Ah not see it?"

Chrysalis chuckled in dark amusement "I have seen many with the Eyes of Truth, and you are not even close of achieving the full depth of this power. Simply put, you were not good enough to do it."

Shame and anger wrestled inside Applejack, but she remembered Trixie's teachings. She remembered when Trixie told her to not let her mind and her sight be clouded.

The farm pony understood. Truly understood for the first time the depth of deception that could be found in the world. She understood how far she still would have to go in order to truly be able to see the perfect truth.

And with that understanding, she suddenly saw more.

"She's weakened!" She shouted to the others, before breaking into a gallop in the direction of the changeling.

Yes. Chrysalis had been weakened by using such a dangerous method, which was the reason why she held off on trying to attack the Squires, preferring to make them think they had no chance.

Applejack saw through this deception, and realized that Chrysalis now had only around one third of the power she exhibited during the fight with the Knights and Squires. And she realized with a measure of horror that she now was at around ten percent of what should be her full strength. Which meant that even the terrifying battle capacity she had showed in their earlier fight was only around thirty percent of what she should be able to do in her peak state.

But there was no time to consider that, as Applejack reared up for a punch while bracing against the earth and using considerable amounts of earth pony magic as support. Chrysalis again created spikes on her body to forestall or redirect the attack, but Applejack's new insight was still good, and she realized that, deciding then that the time for concerns over her own body was long past.

She punched directly on top of one of the spikes, cracking it and making Chrysalis gasp from the transmitted force, at the cost of a deep and painful cut right in the middle of her hoof. Channeling her earth pony magic to be able to step firmly even with that, she prepared another punch, but Chrysalis didn't play along, jumping and flying away, now that Trixie's spell was almost over and the isolation of their part of the world would be over. She didn't really need to fight them, anyway.

-

Pinkie was angry.

If this was in the past, she would have tried to suppress her anger, but after learning a lot about emotion magic, she managed to realize that anger wasn't necessarily a negative emotion. It could be a drive, a sense of indignation over an injustice that led her to trying to fix it.

Her anger flared when Chrysalis mocked Applejack, and Pinkie decided that she didn't mind being angry for a friend.

Her emotion magic responded, and Pinkie discovered something essential.

She had never been able to harness more than ten or fifteen percent of the power of her emotions, but now she realized that it had been because her emotions were too diffuse, and the true path forward in the path of emotion magic was focusing on a single emotion at a time. Her anger had made every other emotion seem less important, and that focus made her able to draw an astonishing forty percent of the power of her emotions.

Power flooded through her tired body, and she felt more than revived, she actually felt stronger than ever. She looked as Applejack attacked Chrysalis, already knowing what she had to do, and making a decision when the changeling queen went flying and Trixie's spell ran out.

Chrysalis was not going to run away that easily.

Pinkie allowed her power to explode, ready to be used, causing a red glow to emanate from herself. With a grin, she stomped the ground, and released more magic than she ever had in her life.

"Chaotic Arts: Inescapable Arena!"

A circle of red grew from her, and encompassed all the area of the former spell.

And then, the skies and the earth around them became red and faded, and the flying Changeling Queen disappeared at the edge of the spell, only to reappear in the opposite edge. She looked at Pinkie Pie in disbelief.

"It's rude to leave a party in the middle." Pinkie laughed.

-

Fluttershy had despaired for a moment. With the Knights unconscious, who could possibly defeat Queen Chrysalis?

She stopped, surprising herself, with the realization that the answer was them. The Squires. They had to do it.

Fluttershy was tired, even with her abnormal magical capacity, the almost continuous use of powerful spells, including pushing herself to the limit in the latest fight, had made magical exhaustion start to creep into all her muscles.

However, the pegasus realized that being tired didn't necessarily mean being weaker. She could pull just as much magic from her soul as always. It would just be harder, it would hurt, it would cause internal damage. And none of those things would dissuade her from fighting.

More than that, the entire situation had heightened her focus, to the point where Fluttershy dared to try something she had never been able to achieve before.

Her talent was talking to animals, but most ponies didn't realize that this included things that most would consider monsters.

And she was going to channel the power of one of them, a manticore in this case.

Fluttershy's Empathy Drive was based on a connection, and for the Animal Spirit version, this meant that she had to not only understand the animals in terms of their characteristics, but she also needed to connect with them in terms of feelings.

This wasn't only things like hunger and pain, but also the interconnection of bees, the playfulness of bunnies and the stoutness of bears. Which were characteristics in a more metaphorical sense.

But for something as strong as a manticore, connecting with only a single characteristic simply wasn't enough to allow her to channel their power. Which was one of the things that kept her Empathy Drive from being a completely unfair ability.

Fluttershy had always felt that, in order to channel the power of a manticore, she would need to focus on three specific characteristics, which corresponded to the animals the manticore appeared to be a fusion of. She would need the majesty of a lion, the power of a dragon and the trickiness of a scorpion.

Any one of those things would have been beyond her reach before her training with Twilight, and even now they were spotty enough that she preferred to use other animals, who she had a greater ease in, but she had two reasons why she felt it would be possible now. The first was her newfound confidence, gained in this overwhelming situation.

The second was the fact that she had been fighting Chrysalis for those last few minutes. Her empathy had felt a lot from Chrysalis, and the Changeling Queen had majesty due to being a queen, trickiness due to being a changeling, and her power was also undeniable.

Yes. Chrysalis embodied the same three characteristics that Fluttershy was trying to embody herself in order to channel a manticore.

Fluttershy thought about Chrysalis' more positive qualities. She associated Chrysalis' power with Sunset, who also wielded great power, and associated her trickiness with Trixie, who was also a particularly tricky individual. But most of all, she tried to focus on how the different aspects of Chrysalis' being existed in harmony with each other.

With this she started to feel as if herself had those qualities. She felt the majesty of a ruler, commanding those around and fearing nothing. She felt a sensation of overwhelming power under control, power she could unleash at any moment to chance the face of reality. And she felt how tricky one had to be in order to survive in a world of falsities and trickery, where it was impossible to make sure that you weren't dancing on the hoof of another unless you completely hid your inner self.

"Manticore!" Fluttershy shouted, and the aura appeared around her. But it was much stronger and more real than any other animal aura she had done before, and seemed like a slightly translucent manticore with Fluttershy only barely visible inside.

She flew, the wind barely serving as an inconvenience even as she accelerated at an extreme rate. With a roar, she swung her paw in order to slash Chrysalis in half, managing to score wounds on her barrel even as she reinforced her armor. Then, instead of pressing on the attack, Fluttershy dodged backwards with a sharp movement by flapping her wings, having predicted Chrysalis' subsequent attack via the stab of a hidden blade sprouting directly from her abdomen.

The fight was only just starting.

-

When Chrysalis revealed herself to still be alive, Rarity knew that simply fighting the way she had been doing previously wouldn't work.

Attacking as artillery was useless against an enemy who could get close to her in an instant to attack. And Chrysalis would do it, because Rarity's wind attacks were now the greatest firepower their team had to try to deal with the changeling queen.

In fact, Rarity actually had a way of increasing her mobility. It was a spell inspired by the way she felt upon seeing the magnificence of Rainbow Dash's flying ability. And she had worked together with the pegasus in order to make it work. But after having to be rescued from terrifying crashes by the quick pegasus multiple times, the white unicorn had decided that it was too dangerous.

"Wind Wings!" Rarity shouted, and in an instant she managed to feel her entire body just from the touch of the nearby air. Rarity took control of every single aspect of the wind around herself, and created wings made out of wind to focus her powers before taking off.

Rarity had decided that it was worth it at this point despite the danger.

Just losing focus for a moment would lead to her crashing into the ground and sustaining heavy injuries from the immense speed she was moving. But in this kind of fight, losing focus for a moment would be a deadly mistake regardless of what she was doing.

Rarity shot into the air, feeling the rush of pressure while almost instinctively reducing its effects on her body. And looking from a distance, it would be difficult to recognize her as anything but a pegasus due to her movements.

Taking the skies as her domain, Rarity released a huge blade of wind to hit Chrysalis just as Fluttershy retreated from the other's attack. And Chrysalis had to fly sideways in order to barely avoid this devastating attack.

And the unicorn was only accelerating, ready for anything.

-

It had been a long time since Rainbow Dash felt like she was too slow.

She wanted to protect all of her teammates, and their previous fight had showed that even her reactions weren't enough to do so.

But Rainbow Dash decided that this was just because she was constantly speeding up and slowing down, which took time.

So obviously, her instincts told her that the obvious solution was simply to maintain a constant high speed forever, being able to reach anywhere in their arena in an instant.

The fact that she didn't need to turn much due to the wrap around nature of Pinkie's arena made that something that could actually work.

So the pegasus accelerated to two thirds of the speed of sound while the others were attacking, and noticed that even maintaining just this speed while fighting already took too much energy.

Rainbow Dash decided to train later in order to deal with that issue.

As soon as Chrysalis dodged Rarity's attack, Rainbow Dash hit her with a high speed punch and got away before the changeling queen even had the chance to counter-attack.

This was the beginning of the last phase of the battle.

-

"Pinkie!" Applejack shouted, while running towards Chrysalis "Multiple impacts!"

The other earth pony immediately got it, Chrysalis should be better at dealing with single strong blows than she was at dealing with multiple weak ones, perhaps due to the nature of her strengthening. So Pinkie shifted forward, seeing the world like the place she wanted to go was only a step away. With a snarl, she stomped the ground, mixing her earth pony magic with her chaos magic, forcefully turning all the loose earth into dangerously sharp shards of crystal, volatile due to an excess of chaos magic inserted at the last moment.

Pinkie threw all of them at Chrysalis, who turned to the side and shifted a wing into one similar to that of a dragon, blocking all the hits with some difficulty. That was because Chrysalis wouldn't commit common mistakes in a fight against multiple opponents, and was now facing Fluttershy, coming towards her with a mouth open for a bite. The Changeling Queen's answer to that was flipping in the air to go upside down, bringing up her tail, turned into a kind of morning star with a blade instead of spikes, in a vicious, magically accelerated strike.

Fluttershy challenged that attack with sheer strength, bringing up her manticore head to clash against it to prove her superiority. She won the clash, but was stunned for a brief period. Meanwhile, Rarity, having heard Applejack's words and feeling like a surfer on the world's most dangerous waves, created several small wind blades to shot at the changeling, all the while trying to maintain the control of her flight. Instead of defending, Chrysalis created dozens of big spikes on her underside, ignoring the wounds made by the blades for a moment.

Then she teleported, appearing somewhat below and in front of Rarity, before shooting her with all the spikes. The unicorn, supernaturally aware of all the disturbances in the wind, did a forceful series of high speed turns that made even the air scream. She succeeded in dodging all the spikes by a hair's breath, but lost control of her flight and was forced to do a high-speed, blind teleport upwards, evading a crash but losing the ability to do anything but keep herself in the air for the next two seconds, due to the magical stress on her brain.

"GET OVER HERE!" Pinkie shouted, with a feeling that would not be denied.

She extended a hoof, willing it to reach Chrysalis despite the distance, and grabbing the changeling queen before slamming her to the ground in an eye-searing chaotic motion that seemed to ignore notions of space. And then Applejack was there, punching at the Queen's face and every other weak spot she could reach on short notice, knowing that Chrysalis would take advantage of any possible opening. But it still wasn't enough, and Chrysalis was able to shapeshift extra joints and length into her legs while enduring Applejack's multiple punches and Pinkie's own chaos magic infusing punch.

And Rainbow Dash came for another attack run, only for Chrysalis to use her new legs to grab her in a spiderlike grip and be carried away. Wasting no time, she bit right at Rainbow Dash's neck.

"GAAH!" The pegasus screamed, but her physical enhancements held and Chrysalis was unable to deal a critical injury immediately.

Having only instants to act, Rainbow Dash forcefully crashed into the ground, with a force that would break the bones of any normal pegasus.

Rainbow Dash wasn't a normal pegasus, but the impact still rattled her enough that she was briefly stunned, even as she escaped Chrysalis' grasp with a combination of the crash and a forceful application of wind manipulation.

Rarity sent even more wind blades at Chrysalis, her focus sharpened even further, managing to keep her flight going perfectly despite her attack. But Chrysalis refused to give ground, shifting her armor enough that she managed to catch every strike in the strong parts and avoiding deep injuries. And then she had to deal with Fluttershy, appearing suddenly with a slash of claws, managing to score a deep wound on the side of the Changeling Queen, breaking through even the hardened defences with the majesty of a king.

But Chrysalis had the same majesty, and she didn't shrink away from the pain, instead sprouting several vinelike tendrils, that snaked around the manticore aura and grabbed it, allowing Chrysalis to, in a wind-assisted, bizarro version of a martial arts throw, launch Fluttershy-Manticore away. And then Pinkie Pie got there in a shift, again turning the earth into projectiles and launching them, at the same time as another wave of wind blades reached Chrysalis.

Both attacks scored wounds on her flesh, and Pinkie advanced for another chaos-infusing punch, but Chrysalis sprouted a hand-like set of tendrils from her side, that grew and grabbed Pinkie, before separating from Chrysalis' body and glowing with magic that prevented the earth pony from shifting away.

And then Chrysalis screamed.

The sound was loud and carried magic that seemed to go through all defences and strike directly at the mind. Everypony was stunned, and that was bad news for Rarity, who lost control of her flight. She desperately tried to recover before hitting the ground, but a squeeze in her horn from Chrysalis' telekinesis left her helpless as she crashed.

"GAAAAH!" Rarity screamed, feeling her bones broken.

Applejack recovered from her stunned state at that moment, and she could see the situation with absolute clarity. Chrysalis was shifting a leg into a spear-like form to pierce through Dash's heart. The target was still trying to deal with her previous injury, Rarity was in no state to interfere, Pinkie was unable to escape her trap, and Fluttershy was too far away to reach in time, even though she had also recovered.

The farmer herself was too far away to render any help.

In desperation, she forced her eyes more than ever before, and realized that she just had to somehow get there in time, there was no one else who could stop Chrysalis. She needed...

"OVERDRIVE!" Applejack shouted, unleashing a phenomenal amount of magic.

And then she stepped forward, forcing herself with pure strength to cross a path no one else could see, walking through space to reach Chrysalis' position in a single step.

Chrysalis couldn't react to that unexpected movement fast enough, she had already committed herself to the attack on Rainbow Dash, and Applejack channeled every remaining scrap of power of her Overdrive into a terrifying buck, aimed at Chrysalis' chest, seeking her weakest point, the heart.

"AAAAARGHHH!" The Changeling Queen screamed, as she received a buck that would obliterate any tree. Applejack's last thought before falling unconscious was satisfaction that she had at least weakened the enemy enough to help the others.

Chrysalis was in bad shape, her entire body full of cracks which dripped blood, her self-regeneration unable to cope with such an injury so fast. Feeling her weakness, Fluttershy dived down to attack her, while Pinkie struck her forehooves together, creating a spark that she turned into a flame to destroy the hand. The Changeling Queen was still able to fight, and faced Fluttershy's bite with a piledriver punch from one of her legs, neither of them gaining an advantage. Pinkie Pie shifted to Applejack's side and waved a hoof, causing the earth pony to be covered in earth before disappearing, keeping her away from danger. Rainbow Dash took of in Chrysalis' direction, intending to help Fluttershy in close combat.

The Changeling Queen disengaged, flying in Pinkie Pie's direction, with a leg shifted into a spear to try and pierce her. The earth pony immediately realized that Chrysalis was quite capable of teleporting directly to her if she tried to escape, so she created flames again and shifted them into arrows with her chaos magic, hoping to cause as much damage as possible. Chrysalis still kept on her path, despite the additional injuries, but at the last moment Pinkie Pie clapped, producing a tremendous shockwave that changed the trajectory of the attack, making it pierce only Pinkie's abdomen, instead of her heart.

But that was still a heavy injury, and so Pinkie shifted away, disappearing completely, because she knew her main priority was keeping her Inescapable Arena running. Chrysalis turned to fight the approaching Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, and got hit in the back by many wind blades, courtesy of Rarity, who wasn't as out of the fight as expected.

"OVERDRIVE!" The unicorn shouted, unleashing her power.

"The wind cuts through everything..." Rarity chanted.

Chrysalis immediately shot a fireball at the unicorn, hoping to get her before she casted... And the fireball passed right through her, the Rarity in the field being only an illusion.

"Wind Sword Style: Great Wind Slash!" The voice came from everywhere.

Rarity suddenly appeared right to Chrysalis' side, her sword clad in a gigantic blade of wind. But the changeling queen reacted quickly, using every scrap of power remaining on enhancing her defences, to endure the attack.

With an impact like a localized tornado, the wind blade sent Chrysalis flying, blood coming out of every single one of her wounds, and even more cracks in her armor. But Chrysalis still managed to straighten herself out in the air, as Rarity fell unconscious from the overdrive.

And then Chrysalis was hit by Fluttershy's stinger.

That was the trickiness, as she hadn't used the stinger even once before, and now was injecting the changeling queen with the most concentrated and magically enhanced poison she could.

As a result, her defenses were down when Chrysalis screamed again.

Except this time it was much worse. This was the Banshee's Wail, the last ditch weapon of changeling royalty. Even Rainbow Dash who could completely focus on defense felt her bones rattle from the strength of the magical sound, and blood came out of Fluttershy's ears due to her proximity, before she collapsed.

Still, the worst effect was that the all-around attack managed to hit the hidden Pinkie Pie, disabling her Arena. And Rainbow Dash saw numerous changelings coming, attracted by the Wail, which also served as a general summon for the soldiers.

Chrysalis forcefully expelled most of the poison with a vomit and flew off towards her Changelings.

Dash knew that she was still not done, that she could recover enough if given love, so the pegasus realized that she had no choice other than to defeat her before she had the chance.

That was when she felt something click. She understood that this, this kind of do-or-die pressure was what she needed in order to use the special ability she had felt during her trainings. And she understood the nature of her ability, and grinned as she named it:

"Limit Break!"

Rainbow Dash took off, accelerating far faster than she had ever been capable before. Countless spells were shot at her from the changelings, but she barreled through them without missing a beat. Reaching Chrysalis, she broke every single tendril she tried to use against her with quick and vicious punches, before creating a hurricane on her fist and smashing towards Chrysalis' chest... and changing targets to hit her abdomen at the last moment.

The pegasus landed, as Chrysalis hit the ground hard enough to leave a crater.

"Wind Destroyer Hoof." She said simply, completing the name of what she had done.

"How..." Chrysalis asked with her voice weak, somehow being still alive "How did you know I moved my heart...?"

Dash didn't hesitate to respond "I didn't know. It was just instinct." She prepared to attack Chrysalis one last time, seeing as the Changeling Queen seemed to be holding herself together with sheer will, parts of her body falling off.

Then she collapsed.

"Hey!" She was still awake, but unable to move "What is this?!"

She tried to summon lightning to finish Chrysalis off, but saw that even her magic was impossible to access. This was the price of the Limit Break, she had went beyond her limits and her body was unable to handle it.

Rainbow Dash could only watch as the changelings landed around Chrysalis and joined their powers to teleport her and themselves away, with the other changelings soon following suit.

She sighed. At least she had hurt Chrysalis enough for her to retreat...

-

The next day, Princess Celestia was reading the report about the mission, and she put both forehooves on her face when she got to the part about Venus.

"It's already starting... Other heroes are being infected by that silliness... The dignity of the protectors of Equestria is getting further and further away..."

It took a while for her to recover.

-

One month later, the proclamation of the five new Knights had come. Shining Armor and Spike were sitting side by side, watching it and talking.

"Are you really sure you want to be a Knight?" Shining asked the dragon "You saw how hurt they got after that battle. And it's taken this long just for them to recover enough to be able to participate in the proclamation."

Spike nodded "Of course. If I can help make it so they don't have to get hurt quite as much, it would be worth even if I get wounded like that." Then he grinned at the unicorn "By the way... I've been meaning to ask..."

Shining Armor felt a little uneasy "Ask what?"

"What were you talking about with that Venus once she pulled you away from the crowd that day? Did she give you her contact information?" Spike asked teasingly.

"None of your business." Shining answered with a blush, then he tried to change the subject "And what about you? Did you try to ask Rarity out? I saw how you looked at her."

"It wouldn't work out." Spike answered in a resigned voice.

Shining thought this was a little strange "Why do you seem so certain of that?"

Spike sighed "It's a little complicated, but one of the things Princess Luna helped me train in was the dragon sense for ownership in all its forms. I'm not exactly a specialist, but I could tell that Rarity's heart already belongs to somepony.

The unicorn was about to ask for more details when the ceremony got into the climax.

"As such, it is my honor and pleasure to proclaim you five as Knights of the Realm, great heroines of Equestria!"

The two joined in clapping and their conversation stopped for that moment.

And this was the day where the legendary Eight Knights of the Magic Soul were truly formed.

Squires/Changeling Arc End

Next: Deer Arc

 

[Kinni]

New Arc.

Chapter 32 - New Mission

Two Months After the New Knight Proclamation

Inside a meeting room, two high-ranking members of the Wonderbolts were talking with each other.

"So..." Spitfire asked "What did you think of her? Will she work?"

"Well, she is certainly skilled, as you might expect from one of the Knights, but that's not really what you're asking." Soaring answered.

"Indeed. There was no way that part was going to be a problem." Spitfire mentioned.

"If you want to know if she's capable of working on a team without unbalancing everything..." Soaring nodded "Then the answer is yes." He made circles with a hoof "She did fairly well in syncronizing with others, and her attitude doesn't show any ideas of being better than the others or expecting any kind of special treatment. I guess the Knights really are as humble and approachable as ponies say."

Spitfire smiled "I was hoping that was going to be the case. I don't think there is going to be any problems with insubordination, given that she asked for my autograph as soon as it was remotely appropriate. And I think that, in the future, she should be able to help a lot in creating new performances."

"I guess we should give her the good news, then." Soaring said.

The two of them left the room to go to the waiting room were Rainbow Dash was waiting for the results of her test.

"Candidate Rainbow Dash." Spitfire started, with a neutral expression "We have analyzed the results of your three days in this testing camp."

The pegasus Knight had a mostly confident expression, but still wasn't able to rid her face of all small traces of worry.

"And the conclusion we have reached is..." She smiled "You have passed. Welcome to the Wonderbolts."

"YEEEEAH!" Rainbow Dash shrieked, unable to contain her joy, she spun in the air while pumping her forelegs up and down.

Spitfire waited until she was done celebrating, before speaking.

"Okay, so the first order of business will be..." She was stopped by a flash of light.

And as soon as the light faded, everypony could see that a scroll had appeared right in front of the rainbow pegasus. She took it and read it, before looking at Spitfire with a complicated expression.

"Well..." She started, stopped, then started again "It looks like duty calls. I'll start as soon as I get back from this mission. Unless I have to recover first. See you soon!"

Then she dived right through the cloud layer in the room, instantly fixing the hole as she passed through.

After a moment of silence, Soaring spoke:

"I guess we'll need to get used to that now that she's on the team."

-

Celestia's scroll had told Rainbow Dash to join up with the other Knights at the center of Canterlot, so that was where she went.

Reaching the fountain, which was the specific meeting place, Dash saw that Sunset was already there, but otherwise there were no other Knights present.

Rainbow greeted Sunset and the two settled down to wait for the others. They didn't have to wait long, as Pinkie Pie jumped out from inside the fountain only a bit later. Then Rarity teleported there, appearing together with a bunch of crates. Then Twilight teleported in bringing together Fluttershy and Trixie did the same together with Applejack.

"Ohh..." Trixie spoke as soon as she caught Rarity in her sights "Those crates... Does that mean everything is ready?" She asked the clothier unicorn.

"Indeed, darling." Rarity nodded "I have managed to finish the armors for all of us!"

"Amazeroonie!" Pinkie shifted right next to Rarity "Can we see them? Can we?"

Sunset decided to be the adult in this situation (the only pony around older than her was Fluttershy, who probably wouldn't do it) "That can wait until after we receive our mission." Then a scroll appeared next to her "It says here we should go to the Royal Center of Magical Research first, since they've got something new for us." Sunset shrugged "Guess the mission this time is not time-sensitive."

"Let's first teleport those crates to the castle's holding area." Twilight said, writing a scroll and teleporting it "Some guards can keep an eye on them so we don't have to keep carrying them around."

Rarity nodded, and both her and Twilight cooperated to send the crates to the right location via teleport. After that, the eight Knights took off walking, since the building they were headed to was fairly close by. They used the time to get updates on what the others had been working on during the time they were separated.

"Ah managed ta master Space Step." Applejack said proudly "Now Ah can use it whenever Ah want."

"That's a really nice thing, since you were the least mobile member in our last mission." Trixie mentioned.

"Besides the weapons, I have finished building my second weapon." Rarity said in a mysterious manner.

"Let me guess. It's a sword." Rainbow Dash teased.

"Yes. I like swords." Rarity didn't deny it.

"I can see that. As for myself, I've been working to create a normal version of the Wind Destroyer Hoof. Something I can use without needing a Limit Break. It's going well." Rainbow Dash explained.

"Now my Emotion Charge is good enough to reach 50% whenever I want, and sometimes I can even get to 60%!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"That's pretty nice. If you get to 100%, you gain special abilities depending on what emotion you're using." Twilight recalled what was known about it "They're different for everyone, so I can't help more than that."

"And I... I finally managed to master Soul Mirror." Fluttershy said, once everypony else was done.

"Congratulations!" Twilight praised.

Further conversation was stopped, as when the eight were almost getting to the building where the Royal Center of Magical Research was located, Pinkie Pie suddenly had a small spasm.

"Problems?" Twilight asked, instantly serious. The Pinkie Sense was something that she had never been able to understand the mechanics of, much less replicate, but it was still an asset that could not be denied.

"Not exactly..." Pinkie shook her head a little more than necessary "It's weird, but I think what this Pinkie Sense is saying is that we should stay here and not get involved until everything is resolved."

"Until what is resolved?" Rainbow Dash asked, looking around "There doesn't seem to be anything in particular happening."

She had spoken too soon. Once her words finished resounding through the air, strange noises started leaking out from the inside of the building. Sounds of magical blasts, explosions, roars and several other sounds, which were more difficult to identify reached the ears of the waiting Knights. Rarity and Fluttershy smiled slightly at Rainbow Dash's abashed expression while Sunset shook her head. Then they started paying more attention to the sounds in order to try to discover what was happening inside.

They didn't need to bother. Only a few seconds later the closest wall of the building exploded, and after the resulting cloud of dust dispersed, the eight Knights had a pretty good view of what was going on.

There was an immense monster halfway out of the building. The monster could be compared to some of the weirder chaotic creatures the Knights had faced during the situation with Discord, as it was a monster with very little in common with any natural creature of the world. Specifically, this monster seemed to be a mass of flesh covered in deep fish like scales, with far too many tentacles, eyes and mouths, of many different shapes and sizes. However, that creature didn't seem to be a walking contradiction like the aforementioned chaotic creatures, instead looking like something that was designed to be able to live in the depths, due to multiple eyes giving it many forms of vision for an environment without light, and the multiple mouths and tentacles of varied styles could be used to catch and eat all sorts of varied prey. It looked like something that could actually exist somewhere.

Then some of the tentacles started spewing magic (being stopped in the air by some wards which were placed around the building), and everyone could see that it was a magic user too.

That was clearly a being that had evolved into being the peak existence in whatever environment had spawned it. So it was no surprise that it took even the Knights a moment to notice the pony holding onto it.

She was a unicorn mare with a light yellowish gray coat, a mane of brilliant amaranth with moderate purple and grayish violet highlights, dark purple eyes and a cutie mark of a waning moon with sparkles. She was also wearing a sweater and glasses. The three original Knights recognized her as Moondancer, chief of Celestia's Special Division of Extreme Magical Research, so they understood why the Pinkie Sense had told them not to do anything. The other five didn't know who she was, so they felt slightly on edge at the prospect of just watching what was happening.

Moondander was holding onto one of the bigger tentacles (in a part without any extra stuff) with her left foreleg, and she was using her right foreleg (surrounded by sharp rings of magic) to fend off any tentacle that tried to get nearby. With a flash of her horn, Moondancer created an energy shield around herself just before the monster started bombarding her with spells. Then, with another flash she conjured up a magical blade that started spinning incredibly fast and moved to cut the nearby tentacles. Then she started conjuring spheres of light that floated towards the sky before starting to shoot repeated blasts of magic at the monster.

Roaring, the monster starting shaking its tentacle to force Moondacer off, but she clung on grimly for a few seconds, before using another flash of magic to conjure four magical chains connected with the ground that forcefully held that tentacle still. Then the monster started to attack the unicorn directly with tentacles and every bit of magic it could get, slowly breaking the magical shield. But Moondancer kept creating new shields faster than he could break them.

She kept conjuring more of the spheres of light, until Moondancer had enough for her next trick. Finally letting go of the monster, she used another spell to make all of the spheres of light join in a formation. They started dancing around each other, and releasing bits of magic that turned into more spell script.

And then the formation released a gigantic blast of energy, straight at the monster.

There was a horrifying shriek as the blast of energy completely covered the creature for several seconds. When it was over, the monster was still alive, but it clearly was in bad shape. Several of the tentacles had been destroyed, along with most of the eyes. The creature in general seemed to covered in cuts and burn marks, and it was clearly stunned.

And Moondancer still wasn't done.

With a stomp to the ground, she made a magic circle appear around herself, and then she charged magic for a second before shooting at the building. The blast of magic activated another magical circle on the building, which was connected to Moondancer's circle by several lines of light. Then she raised her right forehoof to the air, and the light spheres in the sky started charging energy and spinning around each other in a complex pattern.

Then they shot a powerful beam of magic straight at Moondancer, who received it in her hoof and condensed all the power into a sphere, before pointing at the monster.

"Magic Ritual: Entropy Spark." She released a beam of energy with the consistency of pure light.

The light completely covered the monster, and it released a silent scream, since not even sound could escape from that light. The extremities of the monster started vanishing little by little, like they were being turned into more of the light. And this "unmaking" started spreading through the body of the monster faster and faster. Bigger sections of the monster disappeared at an accelerated rate, and then it finally vanished completely, and Moondancer stopped her magic.

She waited for a moment, seemingly checking whether everything was really over, then seemed to notice the Knights "Hello!" She waved at them.

The eight ponies came closer as she interfaced with the magic circle of the building again and started fixing what had been broken in the battle.

Being the one who was most familiar with the magical researchers, Twilight took the lead "Hi, Moondancer. So... Business as usual, I gather?"

The five newest Knights got a weird expression on their faces upon hearing those words.

"Yep. Nothing extraordinary. And you Knights are still doing well, according to the data Celestia sent us." Moondancer spoke without reservations.

"That's right." Twilight pointed to the five apprentices "These are our apprentices and the newest Knights of the Realm. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie who are mine, Applejack and Rarity who are Trixie's and Rainbow Dash who is Sunset's." Then she turned to the five to introduce the researcher "This is Moondancer, chief of Celestia's Special Division of Extreme Magical Research, who is based here." She pointed to the building, who was already almost completely restored.

"Hello to you guys." Moondancer did a little wave to the five.

"Hello!"

"Greetings."

"Hi!"

"Nice ta meet ya!"

"Hello..."

The five answered in their own ways, then Sunset spoke:

"That spell was pretty cool. What was it?"

Moondancer sighed "It's basically something that forcefully returns things to zero, via borrowing from the concept of entropy. But it is far from a complete product. Even I can only use it with the help of the Central Magical Circle..."

Trixie decided to get the meeting back on track "Ah, not that Trixie isn't enjoying this conversation, but Princess Celestia told us to come here get the newest research you've been working on."

"Oh yeah. I almost forgot." Moondancer wrote a few complicated patterns in the air and then made them play a small song in conjunction with the movements of her horn. Then a small metal box which didn't seem to have any way of opening appeared in the air, before Moondancer pushed it towards Trixie.

"I'm sure you'll like this one. It's an analysis of the magical nature of space based on tests performed via more than three hundred different spells that affect space, and including every single spell variation we could find. This is pretty much a blueprint for learning about space." Moondancer said, proud of the work.

"I'm sure this will be very useful for us." Twilight assured her "Sorry for not having visited recently, these days have been busy."

"Don't worry about it." Moondancer smiled playfully "Just keep being awesome and us researchers will be happy." She then turned to the newest Knights "But you should come on over when you can. We are really interested in performing some direct experiments." And with that slightly ominous line, Moondancer teleported back inside the building.

There was a moment of silence.

"We can check that later." Sunset said "For now, let's actually go see what mission Celestia has for us this time."

-

Later, when the Knights were in a meeting with Celestia...

"The deer are acting up again." The princess said.

The three original Knights immediately got unwilling expressions on their faces "Ah. I knew this was going to happen someday, but I didn't think it would be this soon." Twilight whined.

"... Did we miss something?" Rarity asked "None of the information you told us to memorize mentioned anything about deer."

"That's no surprise." Sunset said firmly "We have focused on the real threats to Equestria. The deer aren't a threat as much as they are an annoyance."

"An annoyance at a level that the Knights have to deal with it?" Rainbow Dash asked "That seems weird."

The Princess decided to explain things briefly "Deer in general aren't a problem. It's just that they have a tendency to elect representatives that embody the worst of the power-hungry politician stereotype." She waited a moment for that to sink in "They do things like hinder Knight activities in their territory with bureaucracy, as well as manipulating diplomacy in an incredibly wily manner. All that to get extra concessions and more power."

"Right... And what are they doing this time?" Applejack asked, feeling a little out of her depth.

"It's the Challenge of the Knights." Celestia said "Ontensibly created to test whether the Knights are really capable of protecting Equestria, it can only be called when there are at least eight active Knights of the Realm that haven't gone through the test before. They go through nine challenges, one for each of them and a team challenge. Every challenge is, by design, rigged to give the deer side an advantage, and they will cheat as much as possible as well. If the Knights lose even one of the challenges, we will have to give the deer a part of our territory."

There was silence for a moment.

"Those... Those are some truly annoying conditions." Rarity mentioned "How did they get you to agree to them?"

"The boss deer of the time was just really, really annoying, okay? I just wanted him to shut up." Celestia sighed "Anyways. While they are annoying, the deer just aren't that much of a threat. The Challenge of the Knights was issued fifteen times so far, and the Knights never lost a single round. I believe you are more than capable of dealing with that."

Applejack looked at the original Knights, their leaders, who were currently commiserating about this being "the least glamorous part of the job", but eventually Sunset looked at the Princess and gave the answer for all of them.

"We won't disappoint you."

 

[Kinni]

Armor!

Chapter 33 - Deer and the City

Before they actually set off for their mission, the eight Knights gathered in the storage room in order to finally wear the armors Rarity had made. And of course, she had to make a spectacle of it (Trixie approved).

"First..." Rarity announced, standing beside the eight crates while the others faced her from a couple meters away "IIIIIIIt's Rainbow's armor!" She lifted a bundle from inside one of the crates.

"Yes!" Rainbow Dash cheered, and dived down right next to Rarity.

The artificer unicorn didn't keep her waiting. Unwrapping the bundle, she revealed a set of armor pieces, which she started placing on Rainbow Dash's body with meticulous precision, all the while she was explaining stuff.

"For this, I have taken inspiration from the style of armor of the ancient Pegasus Light Brigade. It doesn't provide much protection on its own, but the spells on it are designed to ressonate with the energy of the wearer generally, and with pegasus magic specifically. The design concept is that it will strenghten everything you can do from the ground up."

As Rarity mentioned, it was a pretty light set of armor, except for the gorget part. For the rest of the armor, the pieces were thinner and covered less area, but they were put in such a way that the most critical points were properly protected. The whole armor was colored in variations of light gray and silver tones, and it gave a feeling of belonging to the sky, like the armor would be able to fly on its own. As soon as it was done, Rainbow Dash started flying around, doing flips and other difficult maneuvers, and exulting on the feeling of freedom it gave her.

"Awesome!" Was her veredict as she landed back on the ground "You're the best, Rarity!"

The unicorn smiled in appreciation and started runmaging on another crate with her telekinesis.

"The next one is..." She seemed to be enjoying the looks of anticipation of the others "Fluttershy!" She announced, taking a bundle of this new crate.

The pegasus herself flew over to Rarity, who started the same process on her.

"For Fluttershy, since most of the time she will be using Animal Spirit or similar abilities, I have decided to make the protection even less of a priority than Rainbow's armor. Instead, the concept is increasing natural affinity so that Fluttershy can use her empathy more easily. The spells on this armor act as kind of a middlepony, helping with any connection between the user and the target. Bond magic is difficult, so it mostly just helps a bit."

This new armor was colored in tones of green and blue, and most of the area was taken up by the connections in between plates, instead of the plates themselves. The pegasus in such an armor gave a feeling of belonging and approachability, like she fit perfectly in the world and accepted anything.

"Thank you." Fluttershy did a small bow of appreciation and went back to the others.

Rarity went on, taking another bundle from a crate "The next is Pinkie Pie."

"Oooooh... Incrediroonie!" The pink earth pony showed her appreciation, somehow appearing next to Rarity already dressed in the armor.

To her credit, the artificer recovered almost instantly "The spells in this armor were creating using a special artificer method of sleep-casting, since I don't understand enough chaos magic to do it normally. From what I can understand, they affect any magic around and increase the factor of chaos in it, which should help with any magic you do and hinder any enemy magic. The inspiration for the physical design is popcorn."

That was the weirdest armor yet, basically a fullplate with extra protrusions of varied size and shape that shifted freely all over the surface of the armor due to only being loosely conected with it thanks to small chains. The color was a pinkish red, and the constant shifting made Pinkie Pie seem like a being of chaos magic that couldn't maintain a single shape for long.

After that, Rarity called for Twilight, who walked forward politely to allow for Rarity's fitting.

"For Twilight I had to use the same method as Pinkie Pie, for the same reason. The spells on this one seem to help with changing its shape and properties, so you can manipulate it with your chaos magic. I also put extra spells to hold basic spells for using merged magic. The physical design is an adaptation of the clothes of an archmage."

That armor was dark blue with while highlights and seemed like an stylized, plate version of a wizard's robe and hat. Using it, Twilight seemed mostly like a magic knight, except that the runes on her armor gave an unknowable impression, giving a certain sense of mystery and hidden danger to the design.

"It feels... Magical." Twilight spoke dramatically, earning a few giggles.

Then, it was Applejack's turn, and she stepped forward without hesitation.

"For Applejack, I remembered our mission on the castle, so instead of trying to do something with the Eyes of Truth, which would be even harder than managing chaos magic, I decided to create an armor with magic focused on enhancing the natural earth-shaping magical abilities of earth ponies. With this, you should have a lot more options in combat."

Applejack's armor was almost completely normal. It was a red full plate similar to heavy infantry style armor, except that the part of the legs was incredibly overdesigned, with an excess of runes and extra layers of varied shapes. With this, Applejack felt like a titan of earth, connected to the ground in a profound and deep way.

"Ah feel like... like Ah can move a mountain." Applejack spoke, while trying to get used to her new sense of the earth.

After that, Trixie was the next pony called.

"For Trixie, I decided that the best way to help her style would be a magic armor that suppresses magical vibrations, making it easier to perform spells undetected. But similar to Twilight's armor, I also put an extra, a special part that can hold a Sphere of Charge for you to use any time you want. The physical design is just as you can see."

Trixie's armor was the weirdest, since most of it consisted of plates that were connected to her usual cape and hat, and replicated the design of those parts to the point it was hard to tell they were there. However, some armor parts were put on the underside of her barrel as well as her legs, just for some extra protection. All in all, it seemed like a subtle, plainsclothes type armor, that could also attract attention depending on what Trixie did, just right for the showmare.

"Trixie's magnificence is increased!" She declared grandly.

Obviously, Sunset Shimmer was the one chosen next.

"Sunset's armor has the simplest concept. Overwhelming power. The magic on the armor helps in power channeling, which makes it easier to use stronger spells. It is also designed to interface with the magical circle inside your body and make it easier to use Trance Mode. The physical concept is the old "sun knights" who served Celestia in the distant past and specialized in sun magic."

Sunset's armor was mostly a normal plate, with some stylized leanings similar to Twilight's own armor. But the main theme of the armor was the sun, the color was mostly orange-red, and the detailing brought to mind flames. There were also images of the sun on certain points. All in all, Sunset seemed like a Magic Knight as well, except one which also had a sense of overwhelming power and high temperature.

"I think I know how those villains felt every time they talked about 'unlimited power'." Sunset spoke with barely restrained glee.

And after that, Rarity put on her own set of armor.

"As for me, the armor is made to be able to ressonate both with my own telekinesis as well as with my swords. The magic in it will make it easier to control, reduce the cost and even lessen the burden on my mind. The physical concept are the armored dresses made by Artificer Magic Star, since they are the perfect fusion of elegance and functionality."

Armored dress was a really good description for it. It was a nearly seamless fusion of plate and fabric. It was colored light blue and silver, and using it, Rarity practically oozed elegance. The feeling the unicorn gave while wearing the armor was that of a fairytale knight, a feeling of unreality due to the sheer beauty of the ensemble combined with the obvious power it projected.

The Knights were still checking themselves over when Rarity spoke something strange:

"So beautiful... It's hard to resign myself."

"Resign yourself? What are you talking about, Rarity?" Trixie asked curiously.

"I read the stories." She said in a determined voice "I know that none of the Artefacts used by Knights managed to last for too long, simply because even the sturdiest of them can't handle the level of magical combat the Knights go through... And I know I'm still getting better, and will make even greater works later... But it is still hard to accept." She put her head down.

The other Knights simply had no way of consoling her. So the original three decided to change the subject by mentioning that they should be going. This brought Rarity out of her funk.

And despite quite a lot of grumbling about doing the Knight equivalent of "chores", none of them delayed much. There were many restrictions against teleporting inside Deer lands, so they had to teleport outside of the Emerald Green Forest and wait for Deer guides to slowly bring them towards the center city, where the Challenge would take place.

Thankfully, despite being slow, the travelling time was nice.

"And then, Trixie's apprentice managed to achieve the level of being able to see the 'paths' through space, but it was only the most basic and primal understanding, not enough to actually step through them and save her partner." Trixie narrated, while using illusions to reproduce the scene in a stylized manner "But she wouldn't allow such a small barrier to overcome her, so Applejack performed an Overdrive!" She did an exaggerated burst of light "Ignoring her limits as she pulled a burst of magic from her soul! And she stepped through space and she bucked the changeling queen in a critical attack!"

A bunch of deer were watching Trixie's performance with bated breath, while Applejack was trying to ignore all the eyes turned towards her. Trixie was telling the story almost as if she had been there at the time but this was mostly because the new Knights gave detailed reports about what happened while the others were unconscious. Very detailed reports.

As the performance got into the climax (with Rainbow Dash puffing up her chest proudly), even the other Knights, who had seen variations of that performance more than once, were unable to keep from watching Trixie's show with their full attention. And once it was finally over, there was no one in earshot, whether pony or deer, that didn't start clapping.

It turned out that the deer in general were fairly good hosts, and they liked the Knights.

They were travelling via a convoy of enchanted platforms, which moved through the forest at a speed somewhat higher than a brisk walk. And the deer guides were clearly very experienced and dedicated to the confort of their passengers. They kept their guests entertained every step of the way, with songs, books, games, interesting conversations and food. The platforms also had cushions and all sorts of amenities to keep the Knights rested and happy.

And that was not all, the platforms even kept making stops in interesting places to strech their legs in walks, take baths in clear rivers and appreciate multicolored flower fields. And the forest itself was also just generally beautiful and peaceful, due to the constant efforts of the deer. This was pretty much a first class experience that any rich tourist would pay big bags of bits for.

And even that was not all, the Knights were also well-received in the various villages they passed on their route, being asked to demonstrate their magic and having the local deer show their traditions and give them some of the best of the local food specialties. And why would the deer act so positively towards their opponents in the challenge? This could be understood by the words of one of the deer who approached them in a village:

"My sister is one of the deer chosen to do the challenge. She's amazing and has trained a lot, so I hope you'll show her and the others how good the Knights are, because seeing the strength of the Knights was always one of their dreams."

And Applejack could see that he was completely honest about that. The same thing about the other deer who approached wanting autographs, or who liked having the Knights over and tried to make everything confortable for them. As princess Celestia had said, it wasn't the deer in general who were the problem, but the simple fact they seemed naive enough to completely believe that this whole system based on the challenges was something that celebrated the Knights, showing to all that they were strong enough to protect the land.

The Knights were really, truly popular and the deer seemed to not mind at all their repeated defeats in the previous challenges, seeing the simple duty to test the Knights as an honor that put the strongest deer, the deer that were part of the challenge, as an important part of the stories and legends. Those deer seemed to be remembered more for their losses against the Knights than for their succesful accomplishments, and that was not in a negative sense. The stories of their defeats were told in a cheerful manner, with an emphasis in how much they learned from the great protectors who were admired for both their power and character.

It was really quite flattering, all in all.

Of course, with all of this, the Knights felt the journey go by very quickly, and soon they found themselves standing right at the entrance to the deer capital, Deervania.

As they entered, the Knights got astonished by what a beautiful place it was, and by the fact that even with such a big city, the deer were still able to make a perfect fusion of the deep forest with their own way of life. The city was a bustling place with buildings and streets in several different levels of height, with countless bridges connecting their various levels, and several buildings that were like islands, separated from all but a few small paths, as well as connections which bridged all sorts of different places. Their buildings were not only connected to the trees, they were part of the trees, with some alterations that seemed purely magical in order to make the vegetation accomodate the deer without killing it.

And it wasn't as regular as a normal city either. The habitations of the deer were a festival of colors and shapes, some snaking around tree trunks, while others were hanging below tree branches, connected by organic cables that looked too thin to handle the strain. Flowers and fruits grew from all sorts of unexpected places, making a decoration that also looked fairly tasty.

But despite their travelling experiences, the Knights weren't there as tourists, and after reaching Deervania, they were quickly taken to the main plaza, where the announcement meeting for the Challenge would be held.

The eight Knights stood in a stage surrounded by a crowd of deer. In the other side of the stage, atop a raised platform, the chief of state of the deer, Marching Water, stood.

"Hello, my brothers and sisters!" He started a speech "This is an auspicious day, because after far too long without any Knights of the Realm existing in the world, eight of them have appeared within such a short period!"

There was a cheer, Marching really knew how to work up the crowd.

"Eight! Exactly eight! This can only be a sign that our generation is blessed, because we have the chance to become a part of the legends!" More cheers "Today, we have here Sunset Shimmer, Trixie Lulamoon, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie. These young Knights who have already proved their strength and their will!"

Pinkie Pie was getting a little restless from having to remain in a single place, so she secretly made a clone who started to run around the city with chaotic shifting.

"And tomorrow, we shall be witness to their power! Tomorrow, we shall test them in the Challenge of the Knights! We have prepared nine great challenges featuring some of our own strongest heroes, and I guarantee that we shall see some wondrous feats! May the Challenge be Legendary!"

The cheers reached a fever pitch, and Applejack was looking ar Marching water with a face of someone who had bitten bitter lemons. She had never seen a pony, or deer, that was as fake as him. It was truly a new and unpleasant experience for the holder of the Eyes of Truth.

-

As Marching Water had said, the Challenge would actually only occur on the following day, and it was already getting pretty late, so the Knights were subsequently guided to a small but cozy inn, where they would have dinner and sleep their last night before the challenges.

"Here is the food." The owner of the inn brought the food to the table the Knights had in the dining room. Since this was an unusual time for dinner, the ponies could eat in relative peace (there were some deer, specially children, watching them from the edges of doorways, but they were well-behaved enough to give them space), but before they began eating, Sunset sighed:

"Twilight?" She didn't need more than that.

Twilight activated a spell and sent a pulse of magic over the plates of food. They started glowing piece by piece and Twilight spoke:

"A few small poisons, a cocktail that would take effect around eleven hours from now and make us sluggish and unfocused. Just the kind of thing that the Princess warned us about." She sent a new pulse of magic, this time colored blue "Done, now it's safe for eating."

"I wonder what is the justification for trying to sabotage us even before the competition starts." Rarity spoke.

"Ah think they consider all of that ta be just part of the test." Applejack shrugged "When she gave us the food, I could see something like playfullness from her."

"That seems to fit. Let's just eat, put the usual wards on the rooms to prevent other problems and go to sleep." Trixie gave her veredict.

-

The next day, after breakfast, the Knights took another spelled transport in order to get to the arena of the first Challenge (apparently, each Challenge would have its own arena).

The place where they went was an empty space the size of the main plaza of Canterlot. It was empty because all the trees in that place had been removed with magic (they would be replanted later). All around the place were several raised platforms serving as stages for the deer audience to be able to watch from a safe distance.

The Knights were directed to a waiting place on one side of the arena, while the deer who was going to be fighting went to the other side together with his team to make the final preparations for the challenge. The Knights still didn't know what exactly the challenge was going to be, except that it would be one of the "single pony" challenges, since the team challenge was always the final one.

But they didn't have to wait long before Marching Water came to inform the Knights and the audience about what exactly the challenge would be.

The deer flew above the arena in a magical flying platform "It is time, brothers and sisters!" He started winding up the crowd again "The first challenge of the Knights is about to begin... And what would be better to start it other than a kind of battle that symbolizes the Knights better than anything else?"

With that said, the earth near the Knights started shifting, and moving, and then being displaced as something started slowly coming out. At the start it was impossible to recognize the mass, but as more of it was revealed, and the earth covering it started to fall off, everyone present understood what it was.

It was a pony. A house-sized, magical (there were runes vibrating with power engraved in it) wooden pony construct. With a lance in a slot on its shoulder.

"Of course I am talking about jousting!" Marching Water explained, and the cheering reached an amazing volume "Which member of the Knights is going to accept this traditional challenge?"

Rarity decided to ask the three original Knights, since they were the teachers and the others usually deferred to them:

"So, who should WHAT THE-" Her question was interrupted by the sight of the three.

They were fighting. And it wasn't mere play fighting. They were fighting so intensely that the other five Knights immediately raised their aura defenses and left for a safer position. Sunset was throwing around high-level destructive magic, Trixie appeared to be trying to make the others blind, considering the extremely bright spatial distortions and illusions she was creating, and Twilight had split herself into many copies who were releasing spells with all sorts of weird effects.

But such an intense fighting couldn't last long. In fact, the fight in its entirety wasn't even one minute long when Sunset made the deciding spell:

"Double Magic Enhance: Earth Breaker Ballista!"

And she shot a ridiculously large magical ballista bolt that created a big explosion and made the Knights stumble from the shaking of the earth.

When the resulting cloud of dust went down, everypony and deer could see Twilight and Trixie fallen down and groaning inside the resulting crater, and Sunset shakily walking towards the others.

"So..." She started, her horn shining menacingly "Does anypony else want to compete with me for the position?"

The five shook their heads frantically.

"Good." She smiled and started walking towards the pony construct.

The other five Knights, who were the apprentices of the other three, still could barely believe what had just happened. They were united in one thought:

'Was that really necessary?!'

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 34 - The Hour of the Deer

"Haha! It looks like the Knights are very hot-blooded." Marching Water commented "But that is how Knights should be! Don't you all think so?!" He asked the crowd.

They answered with a cheer. The deer head of state maintained the expression of a sports commentator, but on the inside he was gloating.

'Hahaha... This was an unexpected gain. After this kind of fight, those three will find it really hard to overcome our challenges. It would be better if the others had also been involved, but this is already enough. I can't wait to see the look on Celestia's face when she has to give up the territory rights!'

Outward, he kept his commentary "The rules of this Challenge are simple, the goal is to drop your opponent into the ground. But the most important part are the restrictions. In order to keep the spirit of jousting, no magic that doesn't directly affect either the rides or the lances is allowed. Let's see a great battle!"

The crowd cheered again, louder this time, and Marching allowed himself a big smile, he had a good feeling about this challenge.

-

Sunset was about to teleport to the back of the pony construct when Applejack called her attention with "Hey, Sunset." The unicorn looked back, and Applejack used the eye language to give the Knight the information she had got from her Eyes of Truth.

(Applejack: Ride Trap. Arena Traps.)

Sunset Shimmer simply nodded and then teleported to her position, before infusing both the construct and the lance with her magic in preparation.

Marching Water went back to narrating "And it is time for our very own challenger to take the field! An expert in wood magic with experience in hunting dangerous creatures, she has trained a great deal during the past weeks in order to master the art of jousting... Say hello to... Flower Field!"

A doe with light brown colors and dark green eyes walked into the arena to the sound of cheers. At the same time, another construct started coming out of the ground and she hopped onto it. As expected, it was a deer, and also had its own spear. Different from the rider, this one had antlers, which were wickedly sharp. She also started infusing magic on her construct.

But different from Sunset's use of magic, Flower Field's actions started actually changing the riding construct.

Its sides started growing more and more, and the enchanted wood itself seemed to shift little by little. Soon, it became apparent what the doe was trying to do, as a head with antlers was formed and started pushing out of the initial construct. Soon, there were two more deer constructs by the sides of the first one, each with their own lances. And that wasn't the end, as those new constructs suffered similar morphings to create more constructs, and this kept going until Sunset was face to face with an astounding twenty four deer constructs.

"And it appears that Flower Field has decided to use her specialty of wood magic to gain a bit of a numerical advantage! While Knight Sunset Shimmer seems to prefer to use a more traditional approach. But I think there has been enough preparation time, don't you agree? Let's start! Three, two, one... Go!" He announced, and both sides of the combat started running at each other.

Sunset was grinning, it had been worth coming to do this mission just for the chance to participate in an actual joust. And as soon as she got close enough, Sunset decided to start things off with a probing attack, charging a force spell into the lance and slashing at the doe.

Flower had her mount rear back to avoid the slash, and then six different deer constructs were attacking the pony at the same time, forcing Sunset to charge the legs of her construct with magic and jump above all of them, preparing to land right behind the main opponent, with the doe on top of him.

However, she wouldn't let such a thing happen so easily. Four of the deer constructs formed a ladder by jumping on each others backs, with the fourth then jumping forward to intercept Sunset. They clashed in the air, and the unicorn had to activate an acceleration spell to allow her ride to right itself before falling to the ground. But soon, she realized the real problem, Flower Field had manipulated the deer construct that hit her, making it sprout branches that started trapping Sunset's own ride.

And three other constructs moved towards her, one starting to sprout branches as well, while the other two sent their lances at Sunset. Wanting none of that, the unicorn channeled a rejection spell through her construct, destroying all nearby branches with a huge amount of transmitted kinetic energy. At the same time, she also channeled a heat spell through her own lance and used it to fend off the enemy attacks, while making her ride move away from the danger zone.

And suddenly she was surrounded by ten deer constructs, which joined in a ring and started generating branches at an alarming speed, while also blocking above her with their lances, ready to stab. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Sunset decided that the air was less well-defended than the ground. So she charged as many shield spells as she could into her pony construct and jumped out, forcing her way through the wall of lances.

-

'Perfect.' Marching Water thought, activating the trap in the construct 'Let's see how she'll deal with that.'

-

Simulating a critical hit from a spear, one of the rear legs of Sunset's construct got blown off.

That wasn't actually a surprise. Applejack had told her about a trap, and Sunset's magic had detected the trap and determined its purpose, even though it was somewhat concealed. She had even already set a spell in order to deal with that automatically, so this wasn't a problem either. The spell simply reconstructed the leg without reforming the magical trap from before.

This kind of thing was normal. The kinds of deer heads of state that caused trouble generally had a few things in common, and the most important was that, while they were pretty good at politics and diplomacy, they really sucked at those kinds of small plans and schemes, which was the reason why the original Knights had been more annoyed than worried at the prospect of facing off against one of them.

Sunset Shimmer returned her focus to the fight when one of the enemy constructs drove a spear into the ground, activating a hidden trap that sent a directed explosion at her. She charged a shield spell into the spear and used it to cut the explosion in half, protecting herself.

-

"Looks like Sunset is having fun."

"Ah, what?!" Rainbow Dash was startled from the sudden appearance of the voice.

Turning back, she realized that Twilight had been the one to speak, and both her and Trixie had sneaked up behind Rainbow and the other Knights at some point.

"How are you already up after that?!" Rainbow Dash asked, pointing at the crater they had left.

"Pft." Twilight seemed to think that was funny "Princess Celestia used to train us by having an all-out spar against her after having an all-out spar among ourselves. This is easy in comparison."

"Trixie really hopes she is indeed enjoying this, considering she stole out chance of fighting an actual joust." The showmare grumbled "Ah, but is seems like she has decided to end things already."

-

After cutting apart several more explosions, and having to deal with barriers made of deer constructs that could regenerate from damage, Sunset decided that it was time to end things already. But perhaps Trixie had rubbed off on her too much, because the Knight decided to do so by using what was perhaps the flashiest tactic possible.

"Burning Ride!" She announced with a feral grin.

Then she did something extremely ill-advised, and channeled a fireball spell through her own wood construct. As expected, this resulted in it catching on fire. Sunset controlled the flames enough that her aura defenses could handle the heat, and made the pony construct advance upon the enemies.

With this, the tables had changed. The fire kept any small branches from being able to entangle Sunset's ride, and she was able to bull through every single one of the deer constructs with unstoppable momentum.

Her own construct wouldn't be able to last long, not with the flames consuming it as they were, but this was a competition of throwing the opponent to the ground, not one of keeping your ride in one piece. Sunset got closer and closer to the main enemy construct, going after Flower Field who was on top of it.

Obviously the doe realized what she was trying to do and started gaining distance, but it was too late, Sunset had already gotten close enough. She channeled a rejection spell into her lance and held onto it, releasing the spell and launching herself with the propulsion, as her pony construct finally collapsed.

Flower Field tried to stab at Sunset using her lance, but the unicorn held onto her own lance and used it to block the stab while still moving forward. And then she used her final spell of the match, charging the lance with attraction magic and doing a swipe that glued the doe to the side of her weapon.

Still riding the momentum of her launch, Sunset dragged Flower Field through the air and pointed the lance downwards, together with the opponent.

With a flat sound, the weapon pierced the ground, the doe fell upon it due to Sunset cancelling her previous spell and the unicorn kept herself above the ground by holding onto the other end of the lance.

There was a moment of silence as everydeer processed that scene, before there a roar and a multitude of applause from the crowd.

To Marching Water's credit, he recovered quickly "Amazing! Knight Sunset has used an incredibly skilled maneuver in order to reverse her disadvantageous position! That's the kind of amazing stuff we've come to see! With this, the first round of the Challenge of the Knights ends in a victory for them!"

Meanwhile, Sunset had dropped down to the ground and offered a hoof to help Flower Field back onto her hooves. She accepted gracefully.

"Aah... That startled me. Suddenly abandoning your mount and flying at me..." The doe complained good-naturedly.

"Your control of wood magic is good, but you were not decisive enough. You tried to slowly corner me when an overwhelming offense would be a lot more difficult to deal with." Sunset advised.

After a few more words, the two separated and went back to their respective places.

-

The next arena for the challenge was reasonably similar to the first one. It was also an empty space from which trees had been removed, but it was smaller than the first one, and a circle slightly bigger than a house had been drawn in the center of it, and would serve as the actual arena.

Marching Water was still in his flying platform to announce things "The first challenge was traditional for Knights, but the second is something that goes beyond simple tradition. It's one of the most ancient struggles in history, the contest of pure strength... I am talking about Ring Out!"

He waited for the cheers to die down before continuing "The rules are fairly simple, the winner is the one who manages to throw their opponent completely out of the circle, and no magic is allowed except for body enhancement and manipulation! Who will the Knights choose for this challenge?!"

The aforementioned Knights looked at each other for a moment while the cheers kept going strong. But that was really no discussion...

"Rainbow Dash." Seven voices chorused, and the pegasus took off towards the circle... Before being brought down by Sunset's telekinesis.

"The rules don't permit flying." She said.

The pegasus sadly made her way to the circle with a walk.

From the other side, came a buck with a yellow coat and red eyes.

"It seems that Knight Rainbow Dash has been chosen to defend their honor, while the challenger is Strong Earth, an expert in earth magic. He is famous for his use of a golem exoskeleton to protect his village against the attacks of yak raiders. And the judges have decided to allow him to treat his exoskeleton as his body for the purposes of this challenge, which means we are going to see some intense fighting!"

While the crowds cheered, Rainbow Dash looked at Marching Water and wondered how he was able to say that with a straight face, specially considering that "the judges" basically meant him.

Still, there was nothing to do except go and win anyway to make his cheating useless, and Rainbow entered the circle with that decision.

Just like before, Marching Water allowed both contestants a few seconds to prepare before the beginning of the match. Strong Earth immediately created his exoskeleton, which was just a tiny bit bigger than the wood constructs of the previous match, and was in fact so big that one of its hooves was touching outside the circle.

Of course, he wouldn't lose as long as even a small part of him remained inside the circle, different from most versions of this game, where just touching the outside was enough to lose.

Anyway, Rainbow Dash used that time to focus on the natural magical formations inside her body, so that she would be able to get the highest possible effect out of her body strengthening. She also remembered her special combat lessons with Sunset, in order to decide what should be the best course of action to take in that battle.

"It's time. Let's... Start!" Marching Water announced.

Strong Earth attacked with a punch as soon as the voice resounded, and the speed was only slightly slower than that of a normal punch, which made it alarming for a hoof the size of a door. Not being a fool, Rainbow Dash elected to not try to test her strength directly against the enemy immediately, instead parrying the blow while doing a slight movement to the side.

The impact jarred her, but it wasn't an unreasonable amount of strength, so Rainbow Dash felt confident in running up to the body of the enemy in an attempt to punch, but she had to change her target at the last moment when the right leg of the enemy came in with a swipe at her. Focusing energy into her right foreleg while bracing with the other legs, the Pegasus blocked the swipe with a huge blow that managed to stagger the enemy for a moment, but her follow-up attack to the body barely made the earth golem slid back at all, and then she had to dodge a stomp from the other leg.

-

"It does not look like Dash is having fun." Rarity pointed out, while looking at the pegasus fighting.

"That's normal. She can't fly at the moment, so Rainbow should be feeling a little restrained." Fluttershy explained.

"She's a big filly, she can deal with it." Sunset showed her confidence in her disciple.

"What do you think she will do?" Fluttershy asked Sunset.

"Well..." Sunset considered "She can either do something smart, or something ridiculous. I know what is more likely between those two."

The others nodded, agreeing with her.

-

As noted, Rainbow Dash was not having a good time. She wasn't exactly losing the battle, but she wasn't making any headway either. Even her toughest blows were endured, and the skills of the opponent were too high for him to allow her to easily use some kind of trick.

Still, there were good news. After a few rounds, Rainbow Dash had become used to the attacks of the enemy, to such a point that she could devote a bigger part of her concentration to thinking. And she started thinking about her teacher, specifically her Trance Mode.

'She said it was done by taking magic from the air and mixing with your own magic to create a fusion energy that's more potent. Maybe I can use that to strengthen myself more.'

Without any better ideas, Rainbow decided to do it. The first part was gathering ambient energy from the air, which she instinctively did via an esoteric application of pegasus magic. Having suceeded in the first step, she went on to try and fuse this new energy with her own magic. That took a few tries, but eventually she managed to weave the energies together in harmony. Then she focused on the magical formations on her body and sent the resulting energy mix towards them.

An aura similar to Sunset's when she used Trance Mode appeared on Rainbow Dash. She felt her strength increase several levels and tested it by blocking the next punch of the golem with a stiff defence. The result was that the enemy recoiled while she remained completely unmoved.

"Oh yeah!" She cheered "That is what I'm talking about! I'm going to call this EX-Mode!" She shouted, before running towards the enemy.

Obviously realizing that this was a bad sign, Strong Earth attempted an attack with both forehooves at once, using every once of power he could draw from his magic. But it was far from enough, as Rainbow Dash responded with a punch that blew both his hooves to the air, despite having a lot less windup time.

And Dash soon got close enough to hit the body, and she stopped for a single moment, thinking of her martial arts lessons. One important thing was reducing the time your hoof remained in contact with the enemy in order to increase the impact. Otherwise, it would end up being more of a push than a punch.

But a push was exactly what she was interested in at the moment, and she drove her right forehoof into the body of the golem, using enough power to actually make his back legs leave the ground.

And she followed up with a left punch, making the enemy go even higher in the air, before bracing herself and twisting her body for a massive double-hooved strike that sent the golem flying.

Rainbow Dash deactivated her ability and waited until Marching Water had confirmed her victory before flying back to the others... Only to be greeted by both Sunset and Twilight glaring at her.

"What is the matter?" She asked.

The two looked at each other and Twilight spoke:

"Sunset, she is your apprentice, you deal with her."

Then she turned and walked away.

Sunset walked up to Rainbow Dash's side and put a leg around her shoulder, in a somewhat threatening manner.

"I saw that what you did was similar to Trance Mode. Could you tell me how exactly you managed to draw the magic from the air?"

"I.. I just... Reached out and took it?" Dash said, already realizing that this was the wrong thing to say.

"I understand." Sunset said in a voice that was calm but with angry undertones "You just instinctively did something incredibly difficult that usually requires a complex internal magical formation. And then you mixed both energies, another incredibly difficult thing that usually requires a huge amount of meditation to discover the perfect ratios and combination method. And then you just channeled the energy mix through your natural magical formations, one more incredibly difficult thing that usually requires a lot of trial an error to understand the interactions of the new energy. Is that right?"

"Yes." The pegasus said, wanting things to be over already.

Sunset removed her leg and pulled Rainbow's face to look right into her eyes.

"After this, we'll have a spar. No holds barred."

Rainbow Dash nodded and sighed as Sunset turned away.

"Oh, by the way..." The unicorn spoke, still with her back turned "That was awesome." And walked away.

Rainbow Dash had an awkward smile on her face, as she moved to join the others.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 35 - Tale of Deer

After all that, they once again got on the transport platforms and moved through the forest to get to the next challenge arena. And it didn't really take long before they got there, and they saw that this time the fighting arena was very different.

This was an area that didn't actually need to have trees removed, because it just naturally didn't have trees. The reason for that was the valley-like hole in the ground, which would be very dark and foreboding at night, but during the day it could be seen that the hole wasn't actually all that deep, and it lead to some sort of underground river that wasn't slow and calm, but wasn't rushing and furious either.

All in all, it was still foreboding, but not as much as it would be at night. And connecting the two sides was a thin yet firm-looking rope.

The content of the match seemed pretty easy to guess, and Pinkie Pie piped up:

"Ohh! A circus hanging rope act! Can I do it? Can I?" She begged the others, specially the three leaders.

Trixie spoke in an apologetic voice "Sorry, Pinkie. But you know that buck is going to add all sorts of restrictions to try and give his side an advantage, and it won't be a lot of fun for you."

"Ah. But... But hanging rope act..." Pinkie whined.

"Don't worry Pinkie, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with your own challenge." Twilight was conciliatory "Trixie, it seems you already have a good idea of who should take charge for this one." She looked at her partner.

"Indeed. Trixie's opinion is that your other apprentice is the one most suited for this challenge." She responded.

"Me?" Fluttershy asked, doubtful.

"Trixie is positive of that. There is no way for them to know about Soul Mirror, so it should be an unparalleled trump card for this match." Trixie was absolutely certain, as usual.

"You can do it, Fluttershy. Show them your skill!" Twilight encouraged her disciple.

"Okay." Fluttershy nodded "I'll do it then."

But before she went forward, Marching Water still had to actually announce the contents of the Challenge.

"As you all can see, what we have here is a hanging rope. And I think this makes it obvious what kind of challenge we are going to have in this arena. I am talking about the Balance Duel!" He waited a beat "Both contestants will walk on this rope, and the loser is the first one to lose balance and fall to the river below. The restrictions are simple, no harming your opponent or the rope. And no flying either, since it would defeat the purpose" Another beat "Who will the Knights choose to represent them in this match?!"

Seeing her cue, Fluttershy flew up to the side of the hole, right next to the rope, before landing and waiting.

"It appears that Knight Fluttershy has decided to step up to the plate." Marching Water announced "And on the side of the challengers, we have a face that should be very familiar to everydeer who follows the entertainment news, and quite a few ponies as well!" He waited for a moment as a deer started walking towards the other side of the rope "I am talking about Living Leaf, of course! The famous performer who earned great merit with her rope tricks, and also defeated several villains!"

As her name was mentioned, Living Leaf got close enough for every one of the Knights to be able to see the details of her appearance. She was a doe with light orange fur and leaf-green eyes, and had a particularly small build.

"Hey, Fluttershy, catch!" Pinkie shouted, and threw a rope at the pegasus.

Fluttershy caught the rope and immediately understood what it was for. She had to bind her own wings, just to make sure. She took a few moments to figure out the best way of doing it, and then wrapped up both wings twice before doing a good knot. She returned her attention to the hanging rope just as Marching Water started talking again.

"Now that both contestants are ready, I'm going to count to three. On three, both of them should get onto the ropes so we can start the match. okay? One, two, three!" He announced, and Fluttershy and Living Leaf jumped on the rope on their respective sides.

Fluttershy almost lost balance right from the get-go. She hadn't exactly trained for this, after all. But just the general physical and mental training of the Knights was enough for her to adapt quickly and be able to stand on the rope with her legs together.

-

As soon as Marching Water saw Fluttershy almost fall, he smiled internally.

'This is too easy. Maybe allowing Leaf to manipulate the rope with her magic won't even be necessary. I wonder what will be the expression on the faces of the rest of the Knights when she falls?'

He settled down to watch the show.

-

Knowing that it was better to leave nothing to chance, Fluttershy immediately started her ability.

"Soul Mirror!" She announced.

Just like all of Fluttershy's techniques, Soul Mirror was based on Empathy. And in fact, it was much more dependant on it than things like Animal Spirit, which only used the empathy as a sort of "path" for the energy of her soul. This technique was exactly as the name implied, a mirror. And what it reflected was the very soul of the opponent.

The pegasus smiled and relaxed, before starting to walk on the rope with sure steps, like she did that sort of thing everyday. And Living Leaf, looking at her, could feel an intense familiarity from Fluttershy's new movements. Which was obvious, considering that the Knight was imitating the doe herself. And she obviously wouldn't simply let Fluttershy get close, thinking (rightly) that this would be a bad thing for her.

So Living Leaf charged magic into the rope, and suddenly multiple strands of it separated to attack Fluttershy.

Soul Mirror was an ability with limitations that were easy to see. While Fluttershy could copy Living Leaf's skills, she couldn't copy her abilities, and as such couldn't simply disable the attack by using the rope magic of her own opponent, as much as she felt that would be a cool way to fight. However, the strengths of that ability were equally apparent.

Fluttershy reinforced her muscles with magic and jumped high in the air, while still moving forward. Then she landed and proceeded to run on top of the rope, in a magnificent display of the doe's skills. She dodged more and more of the rope strands that Living Leaf was sending her way, sometimes with small movements and sometimes with jumps.

That was a demonstration of the true might of Soul Mirror. She did indeed copy the skills of her opponent, but it was through an active process based on connecting with the enemy. And that same connection could be used to completely predict the actions of the target.

Fluttershy considered it pretty cool, though she still would have preferred being able to disable the opponents with their own attacks. But the Knight was getting closer and closer to the doe, who was finally pushed too far.

"HAAA!" She shouted, and released a huge amount of magic all at once.

Understanding that she needed something undodgeable, Living Leaf had used her trump card, forcefully decreasing the temperature of the rope to near zero levels and allowing pure heat transfer to affect the entire arena and the air around it, creating an area of cold that could not be escaped.

The rope was immediately coated in ice, with the exception of the part the doe was on. The sudden blast of cold spread through the air with the speed and sound of an explosion. The sides of the hole also started freezing over, even though they were pretty far from the rock. The air itself started congealing drops of ice, due to the humidity of the river below.

Even that wasn't enough.

Knowing she wouldn't be able to evade, Fluttershy focused every scrap of power she had available on her aura defences. She might not be as flashy as Sunset, but she was close to her in terms of pure power, so that was a significant amount of energy devoted to shielding. But most importantly, while Living Leaf had tried her best to create an attack that couldn't be dodged, she had made it too diffuse, and the amount of cold the Knight had to endure was lower than it could have been.

The doe still refused to give up, she desperately prepared herself for another spell, planning to attack as soon as she recovered enough from the previous power expenditure. However, it was far too late. Fluttershy stepped forward once, twice, three times, using every bit of borrowed skill together with her own magic to avoid slipping on the ice, and she managed to get into range.

Then she simply Stared at her opponent. Why mess with what worked?

Living Leaf managed the amazing feat of enduring half a second under Fluttershy's Stare before her body froze and she fell down from the rope.

While Marching Water was announcing her victory, Fluttershy looked with interest as a deer hidden in the river used water magic to bring Living Leaf back up from the river, floating in a bubble of water. But that ended up being a mistake.

Fluttershy had disabled Soul Mirror to be able to use her Stare, and the lack of the doe's skill helping her made the Knight lose balance while trying to see what was going on. And she also fell from the rope.

Not wanting to take a bath after winning the battle, Fluttershy forcefully opened her wings, snapping her ropes, and she flew next to the opponent, smiling at her, before going back to the other Knights.

They were smiling a little too widely, and she felt embarrassed.

"That was great!" Pinkie exclaimed "I'm not even disappointed I didn't get to do it anymore, you were just amazing out there! I specially liked the part where you fell down and had to fly." Pinkie said without even a hint of mockery, which only made things worse.

Fluttershy blushed and looked down, embarrassed.

-

The fourth challenge arena was also relatively straightforward. It was a race track.

It was shaped like an O, and was full of sharp inclines and declines, and the terrain in general was pretty bumpy. Along the lines of the track, there were small crystals with runes engraved on them. In the empty area in the middle there was a double-sided crystal board. On the track, there was a very clear starting/finishing line, since it had a large demarcation and an actual arch.

"Oh, a race? That would have been fun..." Rainbow Dash whined, since she had already had her turn.

Marching Water was explaining the rules "In this race, we have anti-teleportation wards set up, and it is also against the rules to fly."

Rainbow Dash's changed expression "Well... It would still have been fun."

"And that's because this is actually an obstacle race!" Marching Water announced "All over the track we have put magical traps with a variety of effects, and our racers will have to deal with them while they try to cross the track. To prevent cheating, we have also put special crystals on the sides of the track. The racers will wear necklaces with crystals that will have to pass through the middle of each pair of crystals, crossing the whole of the track, to be able to be recognized as victorious."

"Hmm..." Trixie made a considering noise "Trixie believes that this is the perfect stage for her to create a real show."

"Are ya sure?" Applejack asked "Ah could use my Eyes of Truth to see the traps." She mentioned.

"Indeed. But Trixie believes they have something more than just the traps in store for us, but it won't matter with the strategy Trixie has designed." She said proudly.

"If you're sure, then go for it." Sunset said simply.

As Trixie walked towards the starting line, Marching Water went back to announcing "It appears that the Knights have chosen to send Knight Trixie to participate in this challenge. And on the side of the challengers, we have... Ground Tree!"

With that, the opponent also started making her way towards the starting line. She was a doe with a red coat and blue eyes, and she had a powerful build, being easily twice Trixie's size.

"Ground Tree should be known by many of you for being an expert in protection magic. She once defended an entire village from a flood all by herself!"

Both contestants got to the starting line and were given their necklaces as the crystal board lit up to show their names and head shots. Then the two started to charge some magic to prepare before the race started.

The doe was the first to finish, creating a shield magic that was shaped like a dome, leaving her back exposed. Trixie looked at her and charged for two more seconds before announcing her magic:

"Perfect Illusion: Detect Zone!"

And a pulse of magic was released from her body, expanding through the entire racing track and nearby before seemingly disappearing. And Trixie still wasn't done, she kept charging and casting spells of unknown purpose until Marching Water announced that the race was about to start, and then she focused on the track.

The announcement board lit up again, showing a countdown, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

"Start!" The announcement came, and both contestants immediately started running.

Ground Tree was fast. It wasn't at a ridiculous level, but she would be a pretty good contestant in a normal race. Trixie was also no slouch, combining her physical conditioning as a Knight with the use of telekinesis to force herself to go faster. At the beginning, the doe took the advantage, but the unicorn was only a little bit behind.

Of course, this was an obstacle race, and they soon reached the first obstacles. Ground Tree hit a spell that created a fast growing tree that tried to trap her... but simply barreled through it, her dome shield protecting her. Trixie hit a trap that caused several spears to rise up from the ground and try to skewer her. She used a spell to slightly shift their movements, passing through the gap resulting, but the effort caused her to slow down a bit, allowing her opponent to pull ahead.

Next, Ground Tree stepped on a freezing trap, that also didn't manage to affect her movements in any way, while Trixie stepped on an explosion trap, which she defended against by creating something like a board made of magic, that she used to ride on the energy of the explosion and actually end up slightly ahead of her opponent.

That set the pace for the next three minutes. Ground Tree kept up her level of speed unchangingly, none of the traps managing to get through her strong shield (none of the traps attacked her directly from behind, for some reason), while Trixie sped up or slowed down based on what traps she had to deal with, her needing to react quickly and use different methods for each of them. All in all, both of them remained pretty even, with the doe staying ahead slightly more often.

But they were almost reaching the finish line, and it was there that the cruelest trap showed itself.

It was actually Ground Tree who triggered it, but the trap had actually been set up so that it would be triggered no matter what. This was the true method that Marching Water had thought to prevent the Knights from winning. What that trap released didn't actually seem that bad from just appearance. It seemed like a sort of red mist that spread through the air and then just settled there, blocking the path forward. However, all those who were watching could see that the red mist was actually a lot more dangerous than it seemed, from the simple fact that the ground and air near it seemed to blacken and shrivel, like death itself was conceptualized on it.

Ground Tree understood how terrifying that thing was, and she turned her shields from a dome to a complete sphere, actually slowing down a bit to be able to reinforce her defences to the maximum possible. Trixie started casting all sorts of protection spells to the point where she began to shine just from the overlay of so many spells. Then they both plunged fearlessly into the mist.

A second passed, and then another. And a form emerged from within the mist. It took only a moment for her to be recognized as Ground Tree. All the deer who were watching immediately expected Trixie to emerge from the mist right after her. But it didn't happen. One, two, three seconds passed without the Knight appearing. And the doe managed to cross the finish line.

The reaction of the crowd was subdued, they couldn't believe what they were seeing, but that was the only subdued reaction. The crystal board immediately lit up to announce Ground Tree's victory, fireworks were shot into the air and formed figures of deer, colored lights formed patterns on the ground that also represented deer, and a victory music that was often heard in deer sporting events started to play.

As for Marching Water, he definitely wasn't subdued either.

"Incredible! My brothers and sisters, we are seeing a historical event! This is the first time one of the challengers has managed to beat one of the Knights in the Challenge! This is a complete upheaval!" He announced in an exceedingly excited voice.

The crowd was still silent. They could not believe what they were seeing.

And it turned out they were right.

"Are you sure?" Trixie's voice resounded through the area.

All eyes were drawn to the origin of the voice, a few meters beyond where Red River had stopped, an empty stretch of track. Suddenly, Trixie seemed to materialize from thin air.

"Because I thought the finish line was over here." She said in a mischievous voice.

And then, right next to the Knight, the finish line appeared exactly the same way Trixie had done. And at the same time, the finish line Red River passed through disappeared like a soap bubble bursting, and the crystal board that had announced the doe as the victor returned to the same state it had been during the race. Finally, the triumphant music cut off with a shocking suddenness.

A few quicker-witted deer had recognized that the "finish line" Ground Tree passed through had been in the wrong location for being truly the finish line, and then Trixie walked across the end of the track with an impish swagger.

The following scene was almost like a repeat of what had happened previously. Fireworks were shot into the sky, multicolored lights formed patterns on the ground, triunphant music began to play, and the crystal board announced the winner. But the patterns in the sky and the ground were representing ponies, and Knights, and the Princesses. The triunphant music was a famous piece which was frequently used in pony sporting events, and the crystal board announced the name and face of Trixie.

It took two entire seconds for the crowd to react, but then the silence was replaced by a monumental cheer, as their emotions which had been played with during the whole race finally had a release. Trixie bowed to the crowd, and amplified her voice with magic to thank them for the appreciation. Then she walked towards Ground Tree, who was still trying to recover from the sudden change of situation.

Trixie reached up to put a hoof on the shoulder of the doe "Your ability is amazing. Thank you for helping make this a show to remember."

Ground Tree sighed and answered her "You're welcome. But how did you do it? You were behind me the whole time!"

"Ah, the answer for that is simple." Trixie grinned at her "That was just an illusion!"

-

"I don't get it. What even happened there?" Rainbow Dash asked the others.

"I... Think I know what she must have done, but it is difficult to be sure when I was watching from this far away." Sunset admitted "I'm sure Trixie's apprentices will be able to enlighten us, though."

Rarity nodded "Yes, it was a magnificent performance, as she would say." She smiled "She made great use of her armor."

Applejack decided to explain everything "Basically, she completely bypassed the plans of the deer. Her first spell was actually Illusion Switch, where she put a very realistic illusion on her place and made herself invisible and hard to detect." She paused for a moment "And then she simply got on top of Red River like she was a mount, it was surreal to see. I think she used telekinesis to reduce her weight and let the illusion deal with the rest."

Rarity took over for her "And then she simply manipulated her illusion based on what was going on. Manipulating an illusion is easier than making one, and she has enough control that the magic she was using was hidden by her armor, to the point where Ground Tree couldn't detect it even though it was so close." She shook her head in bemusement "And then she let herself be carried through the whole thing, and protected by her own opponent, and then she activated pre-prepared illusions on the finish line, to make it seem like it was earlier than it should have been, and on the arena itself, so that it would change based on what Marching Water would expect to see if Ground Tree won."

Applejack finished things off as Rarity took a breath "And then she just sneaked to the finish line and disabled all her illusions."

There was a moment of silence as everypony else processed this.

"Wow." Fluttershy summed things up.

Twilight chuckled a little bit "That's our Trixie. For most magicians, knowing their tricks would make things less wonderful, but in her case, it only makes what she does even more amazing."

After that, they waited until Trixie finished speaking with the doe and walked back to them.

The Knights were now halfway done with the individual challenges.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 36 - Deer Piece

Trixie walked over to the rest of the Knights with an air of the cat the ate the canary (though Fluttershy would protest the figure of speech). Sunset and Twilight started clapping to her, and the other five soon joined them. Trixie bowed playfully.

"Thank you. Thank you. You all are too kind."

"Ya deserve it." Applejack spoke with a tone of finality "But there was one thing Ah don't understand."

"Speak, and Trixie shall enlighten you as far as she is able." The showmare said.

"How did ya know that ya would be able ta protect yerself using the powers of the enemy?" The earth pony asked.

"Oh, Trixie didn't know about that." The unicorn said simply, then continued upon seeing Applejack's surprised expression "Trixie's original plan was quite different, but once she saw how the abilities of that doe worked, Trixie decided to change things up." She touched her left shoulder with a hoof "After all, the original plan required much more physical effort, and Trixie's body is still hurting a little, so she decided that this was best."

"Haha." Rainbow Dash laughed "So that means this was pretty much a spur of the moment thing?"

"More or less." Trixie admitted "Trixie had vague ideas for things to do based on all sorts of situations, so she only had to bring a few of them together on a plan."

Everypony took in this new insight about how Trixie's mind worked. And then they had to get on the transport platforms again in order to go to the next arena.

-

After looking at the arena for the next challenge, everypony had a single thought:

'That is really small.'

And indeed it was. While most of the previous arenas could comfortably house a hundred ponies (though they would have to be able to fly in the case of Fluttershy's arena over the river), the present arena would reach its limit around thirty ponies in. It was again a circle drawn on the ground, except that there was no need to remove trees to make space for it, because it was small enough that it could be put inside one of the natural clearings of the forest.

Once again, Marching Water started announcing the challenge.

"I'm sure everyone present wants to know what this next challenge is going to be about, considering our arena doesn't give a lot of clues, right?" He started making suspense "Well, all those who are here know what weapons are, right? They are the tools created to allow their wielders to fight better, fight things they weren't able to fight before. Every civilization has their own weapons and variations on weapons. But if there is one weapon that can be considered the noblest of them all..." He paused for a moment "It is the sword."

The crowd started to roar, already understanding what he was getting at. He continued to speak "As such, it is with great pleasure that I announce the nature of this challenge... It shall be a duel of swords! A true battle of pure sword skill! A battle to honor the endless and limitless path of the sword!" Even he was starting to get affected by the atmosphere.

The other Knights looked at Rarity and saw that she had a disturbingly broad and out of character smile on her face. The kind of smile that would have been more at home on Pinkie Pie's face. Her eyes were literally shining with eagerness.

"Trixie guesses we don't need to wonder who to send for this challenge, regardless of whatever restrictions it may have." She nodded to her apprentice "Go show them what you're made off, Rarity."

Rarity hefted her Wind Ruler Sword in her telekinetic grip and walked to the inside of the circle, still keeping her gleeful expression on her face.

"Of course, this challenge also has its own special rules." Marching Water explained "But in this case, they are easy to understand. Neither combatant is allowed to use any sort of magic or abilities with the exception of what's necessary to manipulate their weapons. This shall be the purest contest of sword-fighting ability in the world." Then he looked to the circle "And it seems like Knight Rarity has been chosen to represent their side in this challenge. So, in this case, I should introduce the challenger!"

From the side of the deer, a buck came walking out. He had a green coat and golden eyes, but perhaps the most interesting detail was that he was actually carrying eight swords at once, in sheathes all over his body.

"The combatant we have here is Wing Cooler. He is widely considering to be the best sword user among all of the deer, who has gone on journeys in order to improve his abilities and ended up achieving numerous feats, to the point where the tales of his adventures became popular even outside of deer lands. He is the founder of the eight sword style, and many members of his dojo have come here to witness a fight between him and one of the Knights."

A few of the deer on the side the buck had come from piped up with cheers at being mentioned. Then both Rarity and Wing Cooler were facing each other, the unicorn with her sword held in a standard attack position, the buck having drawn his eight swords, who were lazily spinning around him in simple orbits, but together, they formed something that experts would recognize as a fairly amazing defense, with enough versatility to deal with all sorts of attacks.

"Now that both contestants are ready." Marching Water announced "It's time to... Start!"

Rarity decided to attack aggressively from the beginning, and sent her sword in a slash. Wing Cooler's swords were fairly small compared to hers (as in, they were normal sized), but he didn't let that scare him, being used to fighting. He sent three of his swords in a small formation and parried Rarity's sword to the left while he himself took a step to the right. And he didn't stop there, also sending two of his swords to stab at Rarity, one at eye height and the other at leg height.

The Knight obviously wouldn't let herself be defeated so easily. She brought her own sword back and used it as a shield, the handle pointed upwards. The two attacking swords tried to sneak around the defence but were beaten around by quick movements of the Wind Ruler Sword. However, that had only been a distraction, and from Rarity's right, the previous three sword defensive formation had sneaked around the long way to try and attack Rarity's back. At the same time, from Rarity's left, two other swords came slashing in out of rhythm arcs, denying the possibility of being blocked with a single strike.

Rarity's response to that was unorthodox. She struck the earth with the flat of her sword, creating a dust cloud that obscured the sight of her position. Wing Cooler immediately made his swords inside the cloud slash in a complex attack pattern, prepared to immediately strike at Rarity once he discovered her position due to one of his swords being blocked. However, it was not to be. Rarity was using the Wind Ruler Sword, and despite the fact she couldn't manipulate the wind with it due to the restrictions of the challenge, simply wielding the sword gave her a magical awareness of all wind in her surroundings, making it extremely easy to simply dodge every single sword. She charged out of the dust cloud together with her sword, prepared to attack the opponent who only had a single sword left to protect himself.

But Wing Cooler could also use unorthodox strategies. The jumped in the air and balanced himself in the handle of this final sword, like he was an acrobat, before flying up, trying to gain enough time for his swords to come back. But Rarity wouldn't make this easy for him. She jumped on the flat of her own sword and rode it like it was a board, getting closer to the opponent, before jumping off from the sword and allowing it to slash. Wing Cooler's response to that was also jumping off his sword, before using the handle to push himself downwards, increasing his falling speed and avoiding the attack.

That was when his swords arrived. He used four of them to press against the underside of his body and reduce his speed, so the impact with the ground was merely jarring. The other three were sent to attack the falling Rarity together with the sword he had been using to fly. They attacked four different points of her body, but the attack was simple and without any special movements to make it harder to dodge or block, since Wing Cooler was already reaching his limit with the level of precision that had been necessary for the previous feats. Because of that, Rarity was able to easily fend all of them off with a single slash, before moving her blade to slow down her own fall, showing the grace of her sword style.

That was when Wing Cooler decided to change tactics. He shifted to pure offense, by bringing all his swords back to float in front of him before making them slash at several different heights, angles and timings, all the while he moved just behind the blades in order to be able to provide the maximum possible amount of force to his attacks. And then the battle got several times more intense and hard to understand. Rarity choose to face her opponent using the exact same strategy as him, and that resulted in a chaotic mess of slashes, stabs, parries and quick movements as both sword wielders tried every single trick they could in order to hit their opponents. The buck attacked several different places all at once, while Rarity used the size of her sword and the power advantage of not needing to split her focus in order to retaliate with single slashes. Both of them started getting nicks and scratches from near misses, but that only seemed to inspire them to attack even more ferociously.

The crowd and even Marching Water himself had all fallen completely silent at the sheer degree of skill that was being shown in that fight, to the point that, when Rarity opened the range again with a helm-splitting slash and a jump backwards, several of them felt like they had been holding their breaths for a while.

And the reason why Rarity had done that, was because she understood that with the current tactics, this would become a simple battle of attrition, which wouldn't be very fun for those watching. Instead, she decided to reveal her trump card. It was something she could have used from the beginning, but Rarity was Trixie's apprentice, so of course she had to make things as dramatic as possible. And with a moment of concentration, she focused on her new sword, which would make its first public appearance at that very moment. And straight from within Pinkie Pie's mane, a sword came flying.

It was similar to Rarity's Wind Ruler Sword, with the same huge size and general shape, except that the runes on it were different, and the magic formations as well, and the sword seemed somehow more solid, like it had been made to resist anything.

"The earth upon where we all trod is the strongest support in the world! May this power be channeled by me, and the ground turned into my domain! This is the Earth Ruler Sword!" She announced.

Rarity slowly grinned. Of course she couldn't use the earth manipulation abilities of that sword in a contest of pure sword skill, but she had already tested the sword, and there was something special she could do now that she was wielding it. The same way the Wind Ruler Sword gave her a magical awareness of the air around her, the earth version did the same regarding the earth.

And so, Rarity actually brought the handle of the sword to her mouth before taking a step forwards.

"Clang!" Came the tremendous sound of clashing blades, because Rarity had suddenly moved 10 meters in an instant and Wing Cooler had barely been able to resist the attack from the sword held on the teeth of the unicorn.

And then she stepped again, going back to her previous position while slashing at her opponent with such strength that any normal blades would have been broken by the attack.

-

"Ah, she's Flash Stepping." Sunset recognized "This is usually an earth pony technique, since it relies on harmony with the ground, and even if an unicorn can have it, teleportation is just so much more convenient."

"How fast is she even going, anyway?" Applejack asked doubtfully.

"Not actually all that fast." Rainbow Dash said with the air of a conosseir "The impressive part is that she manages to go from zero to maximum speed and then back to zero in an instant and with extreme precision."

Twilight considered "First pegasus flight, and now earth pony techniques... Is she trying to become a budget alicorn or something?"

"That... Seems possible." Applejack admitted.

"It's the sort of thing she would do." Trixie agreed.

-

In the arena, the situation of the fight had completely changed. It wasn't enough that Rarity was now moving fast enough and doing sharp enough movements that it was difficult for the buck to even try to attack her, but Rarity still had all her telekinesis available since she was moving around with pure muscle power. So at the same time as Rarity was doing tremendously powerful straight line attacks at her opponent, her Wind Ruler Sword was also attacking with just as much ferocity and power as before. Wing Cooler was giving more and more ground, and he magical hold on his blades was getting less and less certain.

And instead of simply exhausting him, Rarity eventually decided to finish things off in style.

She got on her rear hooves and grabbed each sword in one of her forehooves. She prepared her attack while her opponent was trying to get his breath back now that her fierce attacks had temporarily stopped. She made both swords vibrate with her telekinesis and focused on her rear legs so that her step would be just as strong and precise even without using all four legs. She extended her forelegs to the sides, with the blades being horizontal.

"Two Sword Style: Horizon Cut!" She announced, and an instant later, the battle was over.

A terrifying sound of tearing metal swept through the area, and Wing Cooler went flying out of the circle, every one of his swords broken in pieces after he tried to defend from Rarity's latest attack. His body had a big cut through the middle. It wasn't something life-threatening, but the sheer shock of the attack had rendered him unconscious.

After her victory had been announced, Rarity walked out of the circle and went back to the other Knights.

"So... How much fun did you have?" Rainbow Dash asked eagerly.

"A lot of fun." Rarity answered with a smile "But perhaps it was too much. I don't think my body was quite ready for doing so many flash steps in sequence." She said, looking down slightly.

"Just rest for a bit, then." Sunset said "There's still time before the team challenge."

-

The next arena stage was also a place where the deer didn't need to remove trees. That was because the arena was set in a natural quarry. Marching Water quickly started explaining the challenge.

"When this place, full of high quality rock, was found by Slash Flower nearly two hundred years ago, she felt like she had found a buried treasure. And in honor of that, the challenge this time is Treasure Hunting!" He announced, then waited for the crowd to settle down a bit "But with a twist. In this quarry, we have spread thirty very special rocks with magical sigils, fifteen of them have the symbol of a pony, while the other fifteen have the symbol of a deer. These sigils will detect when the rocks are broken, and put marks on the sky to keep track of how many are destroyed. The first contestant to destroy all fifteen of his own marked rocks will win the challenge. It is forbidden to interfere with your opponent or their rocks in this challenge."

Having heard that, Sunset thought for a moment.

"Both Applejack and Pinkie Pie would do well in this." She concluded.

"Let Pinkie do it. Treasure hunting is a game, so she should have with it." Applejack graciously offered.

"Are you sure?" She saw the other nod "Thank you, Applejack!" Pinkie warped to her partner and gave her a back breaking hug (good thing the Knights were tougher than most ponies), before hopping to the mark on the ground which represented the starting point.

"It seems that Knight Pinkie Pie was chosen to represent their side in this challenge. And on the challenger side we have Glamour Sun!" Marching Water announced, and then kept speaking as the doe walked towards the starting point "She is an explorer of the underground caves that exist underneath our forest, and is famous due to her great power over earth magic."

Glamour Sun was a short and stout doe, with a yellow coat and orange eyes. She smiled at Pinkie when she got there, and then the two started charging their magic.

Pinkie Pie had discovered that her Emotion Charge worked better with a focus on a single emotion, but different from the fight against Chrysalis, she wasn't exactly angry at the moment, and it was difficult to force that emotion. However, some work allowed her to use Emotion Charge with other emotions without a problem, and in that case, she was using Joy.

Similar to the fight against Chrysalis, a colored aura of power appeared around Pinkie, but now that she was using joy instead of anger to power herself up, the color of the aura was pink instead of red. Meanwhile, Glamour Sun also powered herself up, except that she was more subtle, and the greatest indication of what she was doing was the pulse of magic that crossed the ground in the whole area of the challenge.

-

Marching Water was gloating inwardly again 'I don't know what that Knight things she will be able to do, but there is no way she will win. Glamour Sun can detect all her rocks immediately with her magic, and even if she manages to find the rocks fast enough, one of the pony rocks has a little surprise...'

Outwardly, he simply announced the start of the challenge "Three, two, one... Go!"

-

Glamour Sun immediately took off towards the closest of her own rocks, while Pinkie waited for a moment as she grabbed her mane with a hoof and pulled out a few strands of hair from it. She then threw the hair forward and activated her magic.

"Clone Technique, Go!" She released her power, and the strands of hair she had thrown turned into twelve copies of herself.

"Pinkie Squad, let's go!" All of them shouted, and then they blurred away, going in different directions.

-

"Can someone please tell me that Pinkie didn't easily duplicate the armor that I spent a lot of time into?" Rarity asked, fidgeting slightly.

"Don't worry, Rarity." Twilight reassured her "She only copied the form of the armor and used her chaotic powers to extend the effects to the copies."

"Ah." Rarity blinked "That actually makes me feel a lot better, thank you Twilight."

"Anytime."

-

But Glamour Sun still ended up being the first to break one of her rocks, which sent a pulse of energy that made a deer symbol (the exact same symbol it had on the rock) appear on the sky above the quarry. And then she moved a little further and broke another rock, adding another symbol to the sky scoreboard.

Then one of the Pinkie clones found a rock with the pony symbol in a hard to see hole, and hit it with a chaos-infusing punch that made it shatter, sensing a pulse of magic that made the pony symbol appear in the air near the deer symbols.

And then the challenge shifted into high gear. Glamour Sun could make a beeline for each rock, and she was pretty fast, but the Pinkie's were many and their ability to shift made their mobility extremely great. It was to the point that Pinkie would probably win easily were it not for the fact that the pony rocks were all in fairly well-hidden locations, half-buried inside the earth, behind bigger rocks and even sometimes in hidden holes. There was also the fact that they were all different shapes and sizes, to the point where it wasn't easy to search for them. Despite the doe's early lead, Pinkie quickly caught up, and she actually surpassed Glamour Sun when she hit her fourteenth rock.

She had already found the last rock by the time Glamour Sun was destroying her fourteenth rock. It was the biggest rock yet, more of a boulder than anything else. Pinkie hit it the same way she had hit the others... and failed to even make a dent.

"Huh." Was the only reaction of the Pinkie clone. She briefly wondered how much effort the deer had taken to reinforce the rock to that point, because it was roughly fifteen times as resilient as a diamond. She would need something special to be able to destroy it quickly enough, considering that Glamour Sun was running rather fast towards her own final rock.

"Everypinkie to me!" She shouted. And all other Pinkies appeared beside her.

Then they made a formation around the boulder and started charging magic, before moving forward and hitting the target with continuous attacks.

"ATATATATATATATATA!" They all shouted as they punched, creating a weird sound effect. The boulder started showing a few cracks.

Then they turned back and bucked the rock all at the same time, increasing the cracks and making the boulder leave the ground.

"Pinkie...!" They shouted while doing it.

Before the boulder started falling, they moved below it and kicked it even further upwards.

"Pie...!" Their voices joined and became even louder than before.

And then suddenly the group of Pinkie clones and the real Pinkie Pie were standing in the air above the rock, standing in a way that made it look like they had reverse gravity. Then all the Pinkie clones joined their forehooves and gave a boost to the original Pinkie, in a jump down directly at the boulder.

"COMBO!" She shouted, and hit the boulder with such strength that it completely turned into powder, instead of merely breaking.

Glamour Sun, who had already raised her hoof to destroy her last rock, looked over with a sigh.

Pinkie and the Pinkie clones briefly celebrated by themselves as she was declared the winner, before looking at the doe.

They had an idea.

 

[shlok]

I just got done reading up to 36 WHY ARE THERE SO FEW LIKES?!?
TAKE ALL OF MY LIKES!!

 

[Kinni]

Why are there so few likes? I have no idea, man. I guess the title of the thread doesn't really grab people?

Chapter 37 - The Embodiment of Scarlet Deer

The Pinkie squad shifted to the side of Glamour Sun, and then Pinkie spoke with her:

"Break it, let's have some fun!" She encouraged.

Not understanding what Pinkie wanted, but willing to see it, the doe did as asked.

The last deer symbol appeared in the air, and Pinkie Pie looked at it before glancing back at Glamour Sun and grabbing her hoof.

"Let's go up there!" She said, indicating the symbols in the air with her other hoof.

Then she jumped, carrying the doe along.

Glamour Sun got startled by the suddenness of the Knight's actions, and tried to hang on for dear life as they went up. She didn't need to bother, as Pinkie Pie had a very secure grip on her, but it made her feel better.

Pinkie's jump wasn't nearly enough to reach the symbols in the sky, but one of the Pinkie clones also jumped up and gave a boost to her when she got to the apex of her jump. And when Pinkie reached the apex of this new jump, another Pinkie clone appeared, having needed to receive a boost herself to reach that height, and repeated the process to send the Knight even higher up.

And with this slightly ridiculous manner of movement, Pinkie Pie and Glamour Sun got higher and higher, with the doe eventually just relaxing and wondering what exactly the Knight was planning.

The two eventually got so high up that they could even touch the symbols in the air. And then Pinkie let her go.

She had an instant of panic before somehow landing on the air. Pinkie attracted her attention by waving a hoof and then "popped" one of the pony symbols. Glamour Sun felt a pulse of magic come out of it and head back towards the ground, and then she had a thought she just had to confirm.

"Did... Did that just made the rock come back?" She asked.

Pinkie nodded with an excited smile "Let's play!" She said, and waited.

Glamour Sun knew what she wanted, so she walked over to one of the deer symbols (knowing that Pinkie's magic wouldn't let her fall) and popped it, resulting in the same pulse of magic as before.

She giggled and shared a smile with Pinkie, and then the two started popping the rest of the symbols.

It was pure fun. With nothing on the line, both of them simply popped the symbols in the air for the sheer pleasure of doing so. Sometimes simply sticking a hoof into them, sometimes using kicks or other martial arts moves, sometimes walking into them with extra drama. And somehow there always seemed to be more symbols, so they kept popping them way beyond the original thirty.

But eventually, they got tired of it, and Pinkie jumped down with Glamour Sun, sticking one of her rear hooves outward once they were close to the ground and somehow slowing down the fall, before the two jumped back to the ground. They smiled and waved at each other, having become friends, and then they went back to their respective places.

-0-

After the Knights once more got on the transport platforms and were moved to the next challenge arena. And it was a return to the previous style of arenas, a large space from which trees had been removed. But it had a few special features of its own.

On the side near the Knights, there were two entrances to the underground on opposite sides of the field, to the right and to the left of where the Knights started. One of those entrances had a sign bearing the symbol of a pony while the other had a sign with the symbol of a deer. On the far side there were three of those entrances, two of them mirroring the other side by being near the edges and the last one being near the center, almost directly to the front of the Knights.

Marching Water didn't waste any time before explaining the newest challenge "Hello! We are here with the penultimate individual challenge of this Challenge of the Knights. And we have another very traditional game! You might notice that the challenge arena is underground this time, and the reason for that is because we are doing a labyrinth this time!"

This time there was a mix of cheers and mumbles "I know what you are thinking! You think that not being able to see what is going on inside the labyrinth will make things boring. But allow me to allay your fears. We have already thought of that!" He waited for a moment "Both contestants are going to wear special necklaces again, except this time the necklaces will reveal to us their position underneath the ground!" Now the cheering was undivided.

Applejack looked at the other Knights "I think this is a challenge appropriate to my skills."

"I agree." Twilight said "I'll have the last one, whatever it ends up being." Then she tilted her head thoughtfully "I wonder what kind of cheating the deer will do this time..."

"Let me check." Pinkie said.

-0-

Marching Water was gloating inside again 'They may have surpassed every single challenge so far, but this time they have no chance. Their entrance to the labyrinth has no path to any of the exits, and even if they make a path, every single trap inside is programmed to become much more intense when activated by a pony, and our own contestant can use her powers to find the quickest path out and follow it with great speed. This challenge is in the bag.'

-0-

"Ah, the usual. No path to the end, specialized traps, the opponent was chosen precisely to have an advantage..." Pinkie informed the others, and then turned back to look at them.

Applejack had gone cross-eyed "Pinkie. Would ya please warn me ta stop looking at ya the next time ya do something like this? And what have ya even done, anyway? Ah didn't catch it."

"I... I also don't know..." Pinkie Pie admitted sheepishly "Twilight, what did I do?"

Twilight Sparkle had tilted her head so much it was nearly horizontal "I'm... also not sure... I think you channeled some kind of concept, but I couldn't tell what it was." She blinked "It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can do all the time."

"No, it doesn't feel like I can do it very often." Pinkie confirmed.

"But going back ta the Challenge..." Applejack decided to hurry things along, while she blinked repeatedly to try and recover from the previous shock to her Eyes "Ah think this is the kind of thing mah abilities will be able ta deal with relatively easily."

"Then go forth and show then your power!" Trixie dramatically encouraged.

Applejack nodded and started moving towards the pony entrance of the labyrinth.

Marching Water noticed it, and he started announcing "And for the penultimate individual challenge, it seems like the Knights have chosen Knight Applejack to be their representative!" He turned his head to the other side, the deer entrance "While the challenger side is composed of a doe that I'm sure many of you who are here today will recognize! She is the leader of the Aurora team which specializes in playing all sorts of extreme sports and performing amazing feats of skill and courage! I am talking about Wind Shade!"

The cheers were particularly loud this time, as a doe with a red coat and golden eyes started walking up to the deer entrance to the labyrinth. She seemed to be completely used to getting attention, and kept pausing momentarily to wave or blow kisses to the crowd. Applejack felt like both Trixie and Rainbow Dash would get along well with that doe.

Eventually, both contestants reached a line marked on their respective entrances to the underground labyrinth. Auxiliary deer quickly went up to them and provided the necklaces, which started to glow faintly when they were put on, Applejack's in orange and Wind Shade's in red. Then, they looked at Marching Water, waiting for the announcement of the start of the competition.

He didn't leave them waiting for long "It's time, everyone! Time to begin the seventh part of our Challenge of the Knights! Let us see what they are going to show us of their power and skill! It is time to start! Three, two, one... Go!" He shouted, and both Applejack and Wind Shade quickly ran towards the underground.

Knowing that every second counted, Applejack immediately used her Eyes of Truth to see through the entire labyrinth. She took a moment to take in every passage, to take note of every trap, both what kind it was and its location, to understand the position of every wall and every doorway. Most of the time Applejack didn't show much of what she had learned from Trixie, but her simple sense of paying attention to every detail and planning considerably before making a move definitely showed the influence of her teacher.

After taking in every detail, Applejack started to move while planning the best route possible to get through the labyrinth. Wind Shade could use her wind powers to recognize the best path, and her wind-boosted movement would definitely be fast, so the Knight knew that she should try to get as many advantages as she could get. The three original Knights could play around quite a bit on these challenges, but their newest companions simply didn't yet have the detailed portfolio of trainings and abilities that allowed them to easily tackle most situations.

Applejack's route was a weird path designed to go towards the most convenient exit while taking the straightest path she could manage except in situation where trying to do so would actually delay her. It avoided as many traps as it could without forcing Applejack to take on weird detours. It broke through three walls, because any other walls that could be broken through to create a straighter path for Applejack would take longer to break than the time she would gain by going through them. And most of the curves it had were quick redirections that didn't take her far from the straight path.

All of this planning happened while Applejack was still moving through the first few meters of the path and was just about to reach the first triple intersection. She took a right path, as planned, and then moved left and immediately did a Space Step to completely skip a trap whose activation range almost reached the end of the corridor. That avoided, Applejack ran forwards to the next intersection, and ignoring both the right and left paths, she charged magic through her armor gave a series of punches to the wall in front, breaking it down and opening up a path where she could actually reach one of the exits.

While this was going on, Wind Shade was moving quite quickly through the labyrinth, following her wind sense to go through the quickest route to reach the east exit of the labyrinth. She was moving so fast that the first trap she passed through simply wasn't able to hit her with its flame payload. Wind Shade ran through the corridors, at one point even running on the walls, due to being unwilling to slow down.

And thus their competition went. The crowd outside watched the ground since the light from the necklaces was showing their positions through the ground (it wasn't bright enough to get through the ground, but special spells made that irrelevant). Wind Shade had a faster movement speed, but her route had to go through several curves and detours, while Applejack kept going mostly straight.

The Knight kept looking at her opponent through the walls just to be sure she had an advantage. Even with her superior route, Applejack still had to use Space Step several times to compensate for the great speed her opponent was showing, even though doing it repeatedly was still hard on the Knight. She even took advantage of an explosive trap by creating a very resilient earth board to absorb the shockwave and use it to increase her speed.

Applejack knocked out another wall, and created an armor of earth to endure a trap consisting of numerous wind blades. Then she got an idea and started manipulating the earth as she moved, forcefully creating a wave of earth that carried her through the corridors of the labyrinth. She increased the speed of it more and more, and rammed through every single trap on her way, before also ramming through the third wall, without needing to stop to break it down. Her speed eventually reached more than she had been able to do with her previous running and space stepping.

However, seeing as she was getting close to the end, Wind Shade revealed a new burst of speed, and even with her new mobility, Applejack predicted she wouldn't be able to win.

So, Applejack recalculated. Now she had a way to get through walls without losing any time, so the best possible route was a straight line. Forcing her earth-shaping to the limit, she completely ignored the whole point of a labyrinth as she proceeded to take the shortest path. And she was getting closer and closer to making up for the difference.

For the final part, she did a much longer Space Step, getting the leading position and finishing the path in a single motion.

A second later, Wind Shade also came out of the labyrinth, to be greeted with the sight of the crowd cheering loudly again, and Applejack already outside. The doe simply smiled at the Knight, without the slightest trace of shame or sadness for her loss. Applejack walked over and shook her hoof firmly before going back to the other Knights.

"Have ta thank ya, Rarity." She said, upon reaching them "This here armor really helped a lot. Being able ta use earth-shaping so easily is definitely something amazing."

Rarity grinned and passed a hoof through her hair "Of course, darling. Every one of my armors is amazing. It's just that there hasn't been much of a need for their functions so far, so the true potential of most of them is still waiting to be unleashed.

"I can agree with that. I can't wait for us to get a real mission, where I can put this thing through its paces." Sunset said eagerly.

-0-

The arena for the last individual challenge was the weirdest one yet. It was actually an aerial arena, suspended over an area of trees. And it actually didn't have even a single bit of solid ground, being consisted of eight markers in the air, connected to each other by white lines, and demarcating a zone shaped like a rectangular prism and with the size of the Grand Hall of Canterlot Castle.

Marching Water didn't waste any time to start announcing the Challenge "Since this is the final challenge, all of us know which Knight is going to represent them for this duel. It shall be Knight Twilight Sparkle!" There were a lot of cheers "And I'll explain this Challenge now. It is something that I feel like Twilight will be fairly interested in." He waited for a beat "A long time ago, an ancient society of mages tried to invent a form of duel to settle differences in a way that wouldn't result in destruction and injuries..." Twilight's eyes went wide, understanding what he was getting at "What they came up with were the Spellcard Duels, matches of exquisite magical control and precise movement. And while those duels have went out of vogue for centuries, there are still enthusiasts who practice then as a sport."

"And one of those enthusiasts is the challenger for this match! She is Aurora Star, five times winner of the International Spellcard Duel Challenge, and famous user of Astral Magic!" The cheer was somehow even bigger than the last time. The doe who came flying onto the field had a white coat and purple eyes, and seemed to be used to the attention, but not enjoying it to the same degree as Wind Shade did.

"For those of you who don't know about it, allow me to explain the rules of the Spellcard Duel. Both contestants are forbidden from leaving the field and from blocking the attacks of the opponent. Every attack must be an automatic spell whose formula may not exceed five lines. Every spell pattern must have a safe spot. The spells may last for as long as the user wants, but they can only have a single spell active at one time. All spells only activate on contact. And finally, no spells are harmful, but must only change the color of part of the opponent, to show that they were hit." Marching Water spoke without stopping.

"Guess I'll be going." Twilight said, and started walking in the direction of the midair arena, without seeming to care that she was walking on air.

She kept walking, somehow going faster and faster without seeming to actually move her legs any quicker. Aurora Star had stopped over on one side of the arena, and was floating there without a care, so Twilight walked over to the other side and started doing stretches while still neglecting to have any kind of visible support to stand on.

After a few seconds of that, she stopped, and Marching Water decided to announce the beginning of the challenge "So we are going to start this Duel in three, two, one... Go!"

"Star Sign: Starlight Blaster." Aurora Star announced her first spell.

"Chaos Sign: Light Shifting." Twilight responded with her own spell.

As might be expected, Twilight was quite a fan of Spellcard Duels. The way she announced her Magical Sign abilities was based on the format used in those battles. She had never actually trained for this, since a form of fighting that was specifically designed to be non-harmful simply wasn't a priority for the Knights, but Twilight had always liked seeing the creative and beautiful spell patterns that the duelists used.

Considering that she was a champion and a veteran in those battles, and was facing against an actual Knight, Aurora Star didn't waste any time with a probing attack. Her spell consisted of a huge blast of magic that took most of the space in the battlefield and itself shot off hundreds of small balls of energy that actually had a homing property.

But that didn't give Twilight any pause. She was a Knight, and they are the kind who simply refuse to show any weakness. Her initial spell was both offensive and defensive, and the defensive part created a dozen illusory copies of Twilight made of light infused with chaos magic, which had been achieved by the Knight slightly merging herself with the light around (the armor helped in this point). They were far from being Trixie level illusions, but they were good enough to confuse the rudimentary targeting that Aurora Star could give her spell under the constraints of the spellcard. Thus Twilight could dodge the rest easily with her true body by moving along with the light (still refusing to simply fly normally).

The attacking part came in the form of more chaos-warped light, this time shaped into arrows that simply showered the entire stage to give her opponent few paths to run. But Aurora Star was a champion, and Twilight wasn't the only one who could merge offense and defence. The answer of the doe was to simply fly in a certain way that everytime she was in real danger of being hit it was during one of the periods where her spell turned her immaterial and impossible to hit. They weren't long periods, but they were enough.

Both of those defensive maneuvers could be considered as top-class within the universe of spellcard duels. And those kinds of things were the reason why they were considered great ways of testing the skill in magic of the duelists. Within the constraints for the level of spells that could be used, these kinds of effects were impossible without a through understanding of your own magic affinities and spell creation methods, the kind of thing that is prized among mages even more than simple power.

-0-

"That definitely isn't a true Magical Sign." Rarity noticed, and looked at Trixie "I know you can miscall even your greatest magic, but that's only because it is based on illusions, so how is she doing that."

Trixie answered simply "She isn't miscalling. The name of her Magical Sign was derived from this kind of competition, so she can call spells for this competition in the same way of her Magical Sign, even if they are not true Magical Signs. It's a loophole, basically."

Sunset piped up "Still, this is really fun to watch, now I know why these things are popular."

"It's even better with the Eyes of Truth, believe me." Applejack spoke, while focusing firmly on the fight.

-0-

Only twenty seconds after the confrontation began, Aurora Star decided to switch up her spells. Usually she would force longer confrontations to wear down the focus and mental strength of the opponent, but she (rightly) decided that trying to compete in those kinds of things against an actual Knight would be worse than pointless.

"Aurora Sign: Rainbow Shower." She announced, cancelling her previous spell.

Her magic came out quickly, a necessity for that kind of battle, where the smallest opening and flaw was enough for a defeat. Six prisms which were slightly bigger than her appeared forming a circle around Aurora Star, and they started to lazily spin in that circle. Above her, something like a minisun appeared, but it was more like a big lamp than a true ball of fire. The light of that sun hit the prisms and was split into hundreds of rainbow colored bullets, which were spread over all of the arena both by the simple shape of the prisms and by their rotation. Obviously some of the bullets passed through the doe's position, but it was simple for her to set them all to be immaterial while they were in range of her. The spell had no aiming capabilities, following the premise of simply attacking everywhere.

Twilight still maintained her spell for five more seconds, but it simply wasn't that useful against that new attack. While she couldn't go immaterial herself, Aurora Star's prisms turned any attack that passed by them immaterial, and while she wasn't covered by a prism, the doe simply dodged the bullets that came in her direction, because they were too predictable due to being a simple spray of attacks. And Twilight's illusions weren't useful against an attack that didn't aim. So she changed things up.

"Chaos Sign: World of Chaos."

Twilight's speed at switching spells didn't lose to her opponent. Her clones stopped being mere illusions, and they started creating balls of energy that spewed more bullets, which this time were shadow based, and harder to see. More importantly, zones of chaos started appearing in between the two duelists, and every time Twilight's bullets hit one of them, those bullets started doing random (randomness determined by detecting solar radiation in a constantly shifting field, a common trick) short range teleports (while still mostly moving in the direction of the opponent. While Aurora Star's bullets that hit the chaos fields simply had their routes scrambled, some still going forward, while others uselessly shot to the sides and some even turned back on their master.

Twilight and her clones started moving around the field, with the original dodging all bullets, sometimes helped by the chaos fields, though they also moved randomly and were hard to predict. Her clones were hit by bullets sometimes, but the only result was a plaque with the word "CLONE" in it appearing briefly over their heads. And Twilight could switch positions with her clones, so there was no way to tell which was the real one (unless you had some way of detection beyond normal eyes).

However, even that wasn't enough to beat Aurora Star. Her spell was automatic, so she could devote most of her concentration to feeling out the magical fluctuations of the bullets that got too close. They could sometimes teleport straight through her prism shields, but she was able to tell where they were going by understanding where they would teleport towards in the moment their destination was set. This was an incredibly complicated trick, but it was sometimes necessary to deal with random attacks, which she had to face often in her high-level Duels.

And she was only devoting most of her concentration to it because simply defending wouldn't give her the victory. Aurora Star was also thinking about which spellcard to use in order to turn things around. And she decided after only twelve seconds of having to deal with the enemy attack.

"Universe Sign: Galaxy Spin!"

She teleported to the absolute center of the arena and created another one of her "Suns" which collapsed into a "Supernova". Instead of simply emitting light, it started shooting blasts of magic that turned any projectile they hit immaterial, and that was only the defensive part of the attack. She also created four spirals of light at the edges of the arena, which started to shoot great numbers of light bullets, and spiral around the arena. And even that wasn't the end, she also created several small portals in front of the spirals that caught some of the bullets and redirected them to other portals which were aimed at Twilight and her clones.

That was a particularly intense attack. Even with her ability to shift places with the clones, Twilight Sparkle had no choice but to get closer to the center of the arena to survive, and she soon realized that the blasts from the "supernova" were also capable of hitting her for a win. So after a few seconds of dodging, the Knight decided to change tactics, and then smirked as a particularly fun idea came to mind.

This is really not necessary... But I feel like it.

"Merged Spell!"

She actually decided to use a true Magical Sign to finish the battle. It was completely unnecessary and would be very hard to do without going over five lines for the spell... But what would the Knights be if they weren't willing to do unnecessary hard stuff?

She actually had to dodge for two full seconds after cancelling her previous spell before her final attack was ready.

"Material Sign: Dual Nature!"

But the result was more than worthy it. Twilight's spell actually mirrored the material nature of everything in the arena. With this, every object would be at once material and immaterial, which made Aurora Star's defenses completely useless, because any attack would at once hit and not hit. That spell didn't include any attack capability, but it wasn't needed, because the doe's own attacks would be the greatest threat to her.

To her credit, Aurora Star immediately cancelled her own spell, but it was already too late, the Dual Nature itself kept the attacks going, as they could still exist even without existing. The doe flew away from her own supernova, but Twilight shifted right in front of her, distracting Aurora Star for a crucial instant before shifting away and allowing an attack to hit that she had kept her opponent from seeing with her own body.

Twilight immediately cancelled her spell, and Aurora Star's entire coat turned hot pink.

The crowd went wild.

 

[Kinni]

Arc finish. Next one will have a lot more plot significance.

Chapter 38 - Deer Emblem

The cheers were specially loud and crazed. Some extra dedicated fans of Spellcard Duels even started shooting spells into the air that turned into all kinds of patterns of bullets, blasts and other kinds of magical projectiles. This was a scene that was usually only seen at the end of really high level Spellcard Duel Competitions.

This pretty much qualified.

Aurora Star looked around. She was familiar with this kind of scene, only she was usually not the one who wasn't in her original color during it. Twilight Sparkle swam towards her, and the doe wondered what the Knight wanted.

"Could you give me your autograph?" Twilight asked, conjuring a notebook and a quill.

Aurora Star was so surprised that she almost fell from the sky "What? It should be me asking for your autograph!" She recovered quickly.

"Well, I can give you one if you want, but..." Twilight gave a little sigh before adopting a focused expression "I've always liked Spellcard Duels. I could never train in them because of my training to be a Knight, but I always had the habit of watching recordings of them when I have the time. Your matches are some of my favorites, and meeting you in person for this fight only reinforced my admiration. I'm happy it was me who ended up fighting you." The unicorn smiled.

Aurora Star just looked at her. Then she grabbed the quill and started writing on the page Twilight's magic was indicating "Let's trade." She said.

After she was done, Twilight conjured a piece of paper and wrote her own autograph on it, before passing it to the doe. Then she conjured a camera and took a photo of the two together (she changed Aurora's Star color back to normal first), then she duplicated the photo and passed the copy to the doe.

Then she shifted back to the rest of the Knights. Neither Sunset nor Trixie needed to say anything, they just put their hooves on Twilight's shoulders while grinning.

"That was awesome!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"Darling, did you really need to go that far?" Rarity asked with a giggle.

"That seemed fun, maybe I should try to make an ability based on it." Pinkie spoke in a halfway serious voice.

"Ah... Congratulations." Fluttershy said with a smile.

"Welp. Ah learned a lot about magic just watching that. Maybe Ah should go to one of them spellcard duels sometime..." Applejack spoke with an air of doubt.

"Thanks, girls. Now all that is left is the team battle, is everyone alright for that?" Twilight asked.

They all responded in the affirmative. Rainbow Dash said she was at "120%" for some reason, Fluttershy said the training was harder, Sunset said their fight wasn't that strenuous (both Trixie and Twilight glared at her), Trixie said she was ready to be magnificent, Rarity said she was eager to try out the full power of her Earth Ruler Sword, Applejack said she was solid like a rock and Pinkie Pie said she could do a party marathon.

With all that eagerness in mind, the Knights got on the transport platform for the last time, ready to take on the final challenge, whatever it could be.

-0-

The last arena didn't seem to be much initially. The Knights saw a natural clearing with a small, rustic three floor tower. The space seemed fairly small... Until they saw that there were no crowd seating available around the clearing. Instead, there were floating cameras recording the clearing and sending the images to a special seating place far away. And the cameras were not only placed around the clearing, but they were also placed in several positions above the forest, multitudes of cameras, with some being even farther than the horizon.

Because the arena this time wasn't just the clearing and tower, it was a significant area of forest. That was the biggest arena in all of the challenges.

Marching Water's floating platform was far higher this time, and a floating camera accompanied him. That camera wasn't transmitting only to the audience, but also to a magical screen right by the tower where the Knights were. The deer head of state soon started explaining the challenge, since there was no need to choose or announce the participants.

"It is time for the final challenge! It is time for the team challenge! Ever since the beginning, it has always been said that the true strength of the Knights was their ability to become stronger by fighting together... Today, we are going to see this by ourselves! And this challenge is also a very traditional method of combat. We call it... Castle Battle!"

He waited for a bit, knowing that the audience would be cheering "As you can see, the Knights are starting next to a tower. This tower is their castle, and losing it means they lose the battle. Each and every one of the deer challengers also have their own castle that they must defend. The Knights will obtain victory if they can take over, by which I mean enter and infuse their central jewel with magic, every one of the enemy castles. Accidentaly destroying one of the target castles counts as a defeat condition for the Knights"

He waited for a moment before continuing "And yes, that means the Knights need to take over the enemy castles while the deer only need to destroy the castle of the Knights. If the challenge isn't at least this unequal, don't you think the powerful Knights would be bored?" He waited for another moment, already foreseeing the response of the audience "And there is also another point! This is a timed battle. This challenge will only last for ten minutes, and if the Knights are unable to take every one of the enemy castles before the end of the time limit, this is also considered a loss for them!"

-0-

Marching Water was gloating more than ever 'You have done well to reach this point, but I know you should already be tired and hurt, there's no way you'll be able to win this time!"

-0-

"So... Business as usual, then?" Twilight asked in a doubtful voice.

"He didn't even restrict our magic use... I didn't think anyone could be this overconfident." Sunset was dangerously close to being flabbergasted.

"So, Applejack, what is the distance from the targets?" Trixie asked her apprentice, keeping her head in the game.

"Pretty far. And they are pretty spread out." She started sketching out a diagram on the ground showing where the enemy castles where in relation to their initial position.

"Hmm... We have two objectives here, defending our castle and taking the castles of the opponents. Trixie thinks my apprentices should stay here and defend the castle. Rarity's abilities can control the area effectively, and Applejack will see through anything sneaky they might try." Trixie put forward a suggestion "Though since we have eight targets and only six other Knights available, that means two of us will have to take two targets each."

"Let me and Rainbow Dash do it. She's the fastest, and I have the quickest long range teleport." Sunset offered "There's no way we are going to fail."

"Yeah!" Her apprentice agreed.

Trixie looked around to see if anypony had any objections, when no other ideas were forthcoming, she nodded and pointed at the diagram "So, Rainbow should first go to this one, and then fly to this one here." She was pointing at different targets "While Sunset should start at this one and move to this one. This should be the best way to take advantage of your speed. The others don't really matter that much, just choose whatever you fell like it."

Trixie, Fluttershy, Twilight and Pinkie Pie choose their own targets, and then the Knights just had to wait for Marching Water to announce the beginning of the Challenge.

He didn't leave them waiting for long:

"With all that said, I think it is time to start our final challenge! Ready... go!"

Rainbow Dash took off flying, quickly breaking through the sonic barrier with a rainboom and disappearing from view. Fluttershy called "Empathy Drive: Animal Spirit!" and choose an eagle spirit, before flying off at high speed, Pinkie Pie called "Emotion Charge: Joy!", displayed the pink aura again and shifted away, and Twilight, Trixie and Sunset teleported away after charging their magic briefly.

Rarity looked at her fellow apprentice of Trixie "What do you think they are going to try against us?" She asked.

"Well, Ah was looking at our tower, and..."

-0-

Rainbow Dash flew. It was rare that she got the chance to really cut loose during a mission, so she appreciated the time where she could fly at full speed, as short as it ended up being (moving beyond the speed of sound made you get to places really quickly). It was a tower just as small and rustic as their own. The Knight dropped back down to subsonic speeds and made to enter via the front door.

But of course things couldn't be easy. An immense magical circle activated when she was getting close and created a barrier of earth in front of the door. Rainbow Dash stopped and tried to see if there was an alternate route, and the barrier of earth started sprouting cannons that shot rocks at her at high speed continuously.

The Knight dodged them with a few quick movements and decided to just break through the barrier. Accelerating, she hit it with a powerful punch... which caused the entire tower to shake, because the barrier transferred the force of the punch to it. And the little bit of the barrier that Rainbow Dash managed to break reconstructed itself.

"Ah... So it is using the tower as a hostage." The Knight realized the deal.

And then the earth barrier created a spike to try and pierce through Rainbow Dash, who was forced to retreat.

'This is going to be annoying.'

-0-

'This would be a lot easier if I didn't need to keep the tower in one piece.' Sunset thought to herself.

The unicorn Knight had quickly realized that the magical circle that was summoning swords and sending them to attack her, as well as creating a magical net of swords to block the path forward... Was actually connected directly with the foundations of the tower. Any direct attack on any of those things, or even on the circle itself would threaten the integrity of her target. And of course there were anti-teleportation wards on the tower to prevent Sunset had been forced to simply teleport around and passively defend while using scanning spells on the tower.

'I can't attack the circle... But maybe I can prevent it from receiving magic...?'

-0-

Trixie would freely admit that she was having a little trouble. The tower she had reached had some particularly troublesome defences, a powerful wind barrier that was like a tornado and prevented the showmare from even getting close. And her teleportation also couldn't be used.

Thankfully, the more active part of the defences, consisting of wind blades that shot at her from time to time, simply wasn't really threatening, because Trixie could simply confuse the targeting with illusions and conceal herself from view, so she had the chance to really focus on analyzing the target and think of a plan.

'This magical circle is a weak point. I just need to figure out a way to use it.'

-0-

Fluttershy felt somewhat offended when she got to the castle that was her target.

The reason for that was the fact that the defenses of the castle were in the form of tree branches that snaked around the tower to prevent entry and some that tried to reach her to trap the pegasus. Fluttershy was offended because one of the biggest reasons why she had agreed to become Twilight's apprentice was to be able to talk to trees, and now that she was dealing with having to fight an actual tree, she couldn't talk to it because it was pretty much just conjured wood instead of an actual living thing.

'Still, those tree branches should be generated by some kind of magic circle. I guess this is a good opportunity to train my abilities.'

Fluttershy was still aiming for an ability capable of replicating the abilities of the opponents, but she had to work hard for it.

-0-

Twilight was suddenly reminded of her brother.

There was a reason for that. The tower had a magical circle that created special automatic protections to keep the Knights from going inside and completing the challenge. Those protections weren't that strong, but they had been connected with the support structure of the tower in a way that made getting rid of them a delicate and potentially time-consuming endeavor.

And those particular protections were in the form of layers of shield spells, together with special "ramming shield" spells that were shot at her if she got close. Twilight got reminded of Ground Tree, the competitor in the Race challenge, and thought it was fairly probable that each castle was being protected by magical defences based on the abilities of the competitors.

Still, this wasn't really very important at that point. What Twilight really had to be concerned about was how to get through the protections and finish her part in the team challenge.

-0-

Pinkie Pie bounced around happily. She hadn't expected this, but it turned out that she was getting the chance to take part in a hanging rope act after all.

The tower that she had chosen as her target turned out to be protected by countless strands of rope that kept trying to catch and bind her. Parts of the rope also kept releasing waves of cold or heat whenever she was in range.

However, none of it was dangerous to Pinkie. She could shift positions incredibly fast and use her chaotic abilities to slip through even the tiniest gaps. And since she didn't have to bother about going to a second tower, Pinkie could play a little with the ropes before doing her job.

She waved to the nearby cameras as she moved from rope to rope doing tricks.

-0-

"Ah... Looks like they are coming. All of them." Applejack spoke conversationally.

"All eight? That means they must have some sort of special defences in place to protect their castles. How do you think we should deal with them?" Rarity asked.

"Well... Ah guess they will be able to brag about being beaten up by the Knights for the rest of their lives. Perhaps we should leave a few scars for them ta show off?"

"I don't think that's quite what they want. Things should be natural." Rarity responded "So we should fight them normally, but not get too hang up about the possibility of leaving scars."

"Understood." She sorted her thought out for a moment "Flower Field coming from the north underground via tree roots, Strong Earth is coming from the east underground by controlling the earth, Living Leaf is trying ta sneak a few ropes unnoticed close ta the ground on north-northwest, Ground Tree is advancing from the north without any sneaking around and trusting her shields, Wing Cooler is coming from straight up above our tower, Glamour Sun is preparing ta act as artillery from long range in the southwest, Wind Shade is gathering speed and preparing to charge at our tower from up and southwest and Aurora Star is hiding right behind Ground Tree with immateriality activated and probably intending ta go straight through her and surprise us at the last moment."

Rarity raised both swords "Then we should focus, holding back to not hurt them too badly is hard."

-0-

Rainbow Dash tried to remember what Sunset had said about magical circle based defences. It was something like they could seem to be intelligent depending on how they were made, but in the end it was all programmed reactions, and if you did something unexpected they wouldn't be able to do anything.

With that, she got an idea. Rainbow Dash flew off for a bit before turning back and accelerating into another Sonic Rainboom, but instead of allowing the shockwave to expand, she gathered it in front of her like a digging drill. And she flew right into the ground, some distance away from the tower.

It was fairly unlikely that the magic circle would have been programmed to deal with attacks coming from below the ground, and understanding that, she went down a good bit before turning and moving towards below the tower and then going up and emerging inside.

After that, it was a small matter to activate the central jewel and take control of the tower. And after that, Rainbow Dash flew off to her next target.

-0-

Sunset understood very well the weaknesses of magic circles. The ones who drew magic from the air were simply incapable of sustaining large-scale phenomena for long. For those magic circles that had to create extremely powerful effects, the only way to get enough magic was by connecting them with special magic reservoirs via special channels.

The tower she was facing was obviously like that, so Sunset Shimmer decided that the best way to bypass the defences was by simply starving the magical circle of mana. And to do that, the simplest method was to destroy the magical channels.

She evaded the swords by teleporting high up in the air and creating a magical platform to stand on. Then she charged magic for a bit.

"Double Magic Enhance: Solar Bombardment!" She shouted.

And truly it was a bombardment. The multitudes of energy spheres that Sunset dropped around the castle didn't seem like much, but their destructive power was considerable, and their quantity was such that their effect became a lot more exaggerated. Sunset left the part of the magic circle alone, but blasted a ring of destruction around it, with holes that were dozens of meters deep.

The defences of the castle lost all power and Sunset simply had to walk inside to activate the jewel before running out and teleporting away.

-0-

The main problem facing whoever Knight tried to go against the magical circle was the fact that trying to damage it would affect the foundations of that tower that they couldn't allow to be destroyed.

However, Trixie had an advantage in that case by the fact that trying to damage it wasn't the only way she could deal with a magic circle.

"Perfect Illusion: Flux Control!"

The magic circle started inactive and activated when Trixie got near (probably due to the cameras detecting her), but that meant that there should be a way to make it turn inactive again. She just needed to detect the part of the circle that received this sort of on/off instructions and convince it to turn the circle back to off and not change it again.

And with Flux Control, she didn't even need to be all that precise. That was a magic designed to deal with magical programs and other similar things, and the effect was "convincing" the target off whatever she wanted. Trixie just needed to convince it that "it's time to be off for a while" and she was golden. It was somewhat more complicated than that, but not all that much.

Trixie simply strolled inside.

-0-

"Empathy Drive: Soul Mirror!" Fluttershy shouted, casting her magic.

Obviously, there were no deer around for her to use the Soul Mirror on, but magic was by nature versatile. With a little bit of work, she managed to aim her Soul Mirror at the magical circle itself. It didn't have a soul, but it had a complex structure of connections and instructions linked by magic.

Soul Mirror could only reproduce skills, not abilities. But that wasn't important in this case. Since the magical circle didn't have a soul, it couldn't truly have abilities. Fluttershy simply reproduced the way in which the circle was capable of manipulating magic to manifest and control wood. She couldn't simply affect everything at once, because it needed a direct connection with the physical structures around in order to create from them, but Fluttershy could affect things that were nearby, so she simply walked through the front door, using her superior magical power to suppress the original orders the magical circle was giving to the branches and force them to allow her passage.

-0-

Twilight had only used the stored spells in the armor for her Merged Spell, and could still use the ones in her body to perform another one and be able to use a Magical Sign for some impressive magic to get through the defences of the castle in a clever way.

However, she didn't feel like doing that.

She had already played properly in her individual challenge, which had been less than half an hour before. It was fun, but her mischievous side had appeared again, and she couldn't restrain herself too much or her chaotic side would be even more difficult to predict the next time she let it out to play. The fact that the previous time didn't result in too much damage was proof of the fact that allowing herself to act freely in defiance of conventions once in a while really (which she didn't really do too much before the Canterlot Destruction incident) made her chaotic side behave more. Simple things like pranking her partners and deliberately doing the opposite of what people expect.

After all, the nature of her magic was chaos, and just because she was a good pony didn't mean she had to be excessively stiff and uptight.

So, she created a stick and threw it.

Obviously, the defenses reacted, sending multitudes of shields after the stick, ready to destroy any possible threat. Twilight smirked and shouted a chaotically-charged word:

"Catch!"

And then every single shield that had gone after the stick fused together into a gigantic dog made of shields that caught the stick in his mouth. He ran back to Twilight and deposited the stick at her hooves.

"Good boy, good boy!" Twilight praised, rubbing his head, which made his tail waggle.

Then she took the stick again and charged it with a big amount of chaos magic before throwing it at the entrance of the castle.

This time no shields tried to break it, since the shields that composed the dog were technically going after it. The stick managed to enter into the castle unopposed and the shield-dog went bounding after it.

A few moments later the dog came back with the stick in his mouth. But there was something stuck on the tip of the stick. It was the jewel.

As Twilight activated the jewel to finish things off after the dog brought it to her, she reflected that there was no rule saying that she had to activate the jewel while it was still inside the tower.

-0-

Pinkie Pie was wondering if she could could get into one of Living Leaf's rope acts. She was sure the two of them together could do some very fun things. It was something to be considered.

Pinkie finally decided that she had already had her fill of fun and simply used her chaotic movement to slip through everything and reach the jewel.

Chaos magic was pretty hard to deal with, specially when you had to use automatic systems.

-0-

"Earth Sword Style: Rising Earth!" Rarity shouted, raising her Earth Sword.

In two different positions of the area, Flower Field and Strong Earth were surprised when huge chunks of earth flew up into the air, taking them away from their attack plans. They got very confused and alarmed and those chunks of earth suddenly shot up at high speed, cut certainly not as much as Wing Cooler, who had to deal with being hit by those two chunks of earth. Thankfully for the deer, Rarity was gracious enough to bring the earth back into the ground slowly.

Then she raised her Wind Sword and cast another spell "Wind Sword Style: Barrier Whirlwind!"

And an extremely dense and powerful whirlwind formed around the castle creating a multipurpose barrier that completely prevented most of the enemies from actually being able to attack. Wind Shade got caught up in the whirlwind and spun around rapidly before being thrown out at high speed, Living Leaf's ropes were shredded by the strong winds due to part of them having already passed through the point where the whirlwind was formed, and Glamour Sun's first few rocks were slowed down to nearly nothing by the barrier.

On the other hand, Ground Tree and Aurora Star simply got through the barrier easily, with the former using her own force fields to protect her while the latter couldn't be hit in her current immaterial state.

So Applejack got to work, she did a Space Step right in front of them and charged her magic before delivering a tremendously powerful punch on the big doe. Even worse, she used her Eyes to localize the weakest part of her barrier, so it was broken through relatively easily, allowing most of the power of the punch to hit the body of her opponent and send her right back into the whirlwind, which only made things worse.

Aurora Star went right through her and through Applejack, preparing to send a spell at the tower. The earth pony simply space stepped to in front of her and charged her magic again.

"Truth Seeking Blow." She announced flatly.

Her next punch actually reached through dimensions to hit at Aurora Star's actual body, also sending her flying (though she managed to keep her immateriality and avoid being also hit while passing the whirlwind).

Then Marching Water surreptiously activated a mechanism that caused a hidden trap in the Knight's tower to explode, destroying the foundations.

Applejack simply charged magic through her armor and stomped on the ground, using earth manipulation to restore the foundations of their tower. Of course she had already seen the trap. And Rarity also took the time to send a blast of high pressure wind at Glamour Sun, that she barely managed to dodge.

The defenders weren't going to be overcome so easily.

-0-

Rainbow Dash quickly got to the next castle, which meant that she got a front row seat for when it went flying into the sky.

'What.' She thought.

-0-

'There's just two towers left. But that means I can redirect all the energy of the other six into them. This should be enough to stop them from winning... Please.'

Marching Water was getting desperate.

-0-

Rainbow Dash flew after the tower, and immediately realized that her previous strategy wouldn't work again. The defenses were now covering everything in a cocoon of stone, including the underside, and simply breaking through would cause too much damage to the foundations of the building.

But then she had an idea. Rainbow Dash realized that she would simply need to prevent the castle from falling, so there was a way, but she would need to be fast.

It wouldn't be a problem.

"EX-Mode!" She shouted, and activated it to get the greatest amount of physical power she could.

"Wind Destroyer Hoof!" She announced.

This was the non-limit break version of the attack, but it was still pretty powerful. Rainbow Dash reached the floating earth cocoon and hit it dozens of times in a second before using a whirlwind punch to drill through the barrier and get access to the tower.

The transferred force destroyed the foundations, and the tower started to topple... But then Rainbow Dash flew all over and touched every single part of the foundations, injecting magic on them 'Just need to do it like Applejack does...' She thought.

And the foundations fixed themselves, allowing her to simply go in and activate the jewel.

Later, she would get another earful for somehow instinctively using magic shifting to imitate earth pony magic.

-0-

Sunset realized several things very quickly. The first was the fact that this magic circle used the magic specialty of Aurora Star, Astral Magic, given the amount of light bullets, lasers and other kinds of star based shots. The second was the fact that a huge amount of energy had been redirected and gathered into a reserve in the tower, so using her previous strategy would be useless, given that the circle wasn't drawing energy anymore.

Still, after teleporting around just outside the range of the anti-teleportation wards, Sunset thought of a new strategy that was able to deal with this new development.

"Trance Mode!" She shouted, getting into her most powerful form.

But that was just preparation.

"Amplify Domain!" She shouted, casting the special spell.

She expanded the domain in which she could use her magic directly to be able to cover the entire magic circle.

Her idea was something that appealed to Sunset in a deep level. She was going to forcefully take control of the magical circle itself, by fighting its magical defenses directly. It was going to be power against power, and even using the Trance Mode, this would have been impossible, considering the huge reserves of magic that could be thrown against her.

But that was the point. It could only throw magic against Sunset. It could only use the normal defense patterns that had been imprinted on the magic circle. If this was an actual enemy with this much power, just a competent level of magical skill would be enough to allow victory, but this wasn't a living enemy, it was only a simple program, and just because she liked to overwhelm her enemies with power, didn't mean that Sunset didn't know how to be clever.

Emitting magic at one place to get the defenses to react and then inserting magic in another place while they are occupied. Deliberately spreading her magic over a large area to find the weak spots in the formation, that it cannot shore up due to that not being part of the programming. Tricking the flow of magic into gathering at damaged spots that cannot hold much magic at once. Those and other tricks Sunset used to slowly overwhelm the defenses of the circle. Finally, it got to the point where the magical reservoir simply could not keep up, and Sunset took control, shutting off the defenses.

Activating the jewel was a simple matter after that.

-0-

'How...? That didn't even take ten minutes...' Marching Water could not believe what he had seen. But still, there was nothing he could do about it, except for...

"Finish! With this... The Knights of this generation have proven their mettle, and won this Challenge! The protectors are strong as expected!" He waited for a moment "And now... It is my honor and privilege to invite the Knights for a victory party!"

He was a diplomat after all. He had to play to the crowd.

-0-

A day later, Princess Celestia got a letter with a photo in it. It was a photograph of the eight Knights posing (in ridiculous poses, of course, why would you even ask?) together with eight deer.

'I would get worked up about them corrupting young heroes of the deer, but...' She considered logically 'Considering how much deer like Knights in general, that ship had probably already sailed before they even went there.'

She closed her eyes and meditated.

'They don't seem to have overdone things and hurt themselves either... At least they have this much sense. While things are peaceful at the moment, I have a feeling this is not going to last much longer.'

Deer Arc End

Next: Shards of Chaos Arc

 

[Kinni]

New arc!

Chapter 39 - Return of Chaos

It should have been just an ordinary day for Spitfire. Taking the first year members of the group in a training exercise, checking for potential specialties and leadership potential, and doing reams of paperwork.

But instead, it turned out that Mauna Keep mountain, the place where they were training, was suddenly assaulted by what seemed to be a simple freak storm, but turned out to be a much more dangerous Freak Storm.

When the high-speed winds started, Spitfire ordered the members to assemble the fortifications they had brought in case of such an occasion, with the idea of simply waiting until the storm passed. However, the winds only became stronger and stronger, to the point where the fortifications were starting to break, so Spitfire ordered all the pegasi to join in a special defensive flight formation to try and escape from the area of effect of the storm.

It worked, despite things being touch and go for a bit, but they soon realized that the storm wasn't going to stop any time soon, and the town of Soledad's Harn was right in its path. And with how fast the storm was moving, there was no time for the town to be evacuated.

And they also realized that this wasn't just a common storm. The biped goblin-looking thing that was 30 meters tall shooting lightning all around with multiple limbs that he moved like a conductor to the movements of the winds was a pretty big clue. Even though they were prepared for many kinds of dangerous situations, that just wasn't the kind of freak weather the Wonderbolts were equipped and trained to handle.

But... Thankfully for the Wonderbolt leader, there was somepony else available who could deal with the situation.

One of the first year Wonderbolt members took off her uniform and spoke a few whispered words. Then, in a rush of magic, she was dressed in thin but powerful-looking magical armor.

She was Knight Rainbow Dash. And seeing her prepare like that, Spitfire calmed down a lot. If a Knight was there, that meant things would be okay.

Rainbow Dash called for their help. That was one of the benefits of Knighthood in Equestria, a level of authority where you can request help from any nearby ponies in case of need. Of course, considering the types of need that Knights have, the most common cases were requests from military or similar ponies or groups, so the Wonderbolts were a good choice.

"Wonderbolts!" She started a speech "Today, you stand to protect the lives of many innocent ponies! Today, you are going to go beyond anything you have ever done, for you won't be able to accept anything less! Today... You are going to be awesome."

She waited for a moment until her words had sunk in, then she gave actual orders:

"All of you, join together and make the strongest tornado you can! Move!"

They did it. Spitfire naturally took the lead and pushed herself in a way she hadn't done in years. Every single one of the pegasi put forth all their effort and pulled out every single scrap of magic they could possibly muster. Under the orders of the Knight, the Wonderbolts managed to reach levels of achievement that they definitely wouldn't have been able to in most circumstances.

The tornado grew, as the air itself hummed with the combined magical power of all the pegasi, the winds got stronger and stronger, and the immense amount of pegasus magic released in the air even caused the chaotic storm itself to react, "rearing back" as much as it was possible for something like a storm and gathering together to try to break through by force.

And even then, Rainbow Dash wasn't satisfied, as she watched from the side of the tornado, seemingly resisting the immense wind force without problem "Faster! You can do better than that!" She shouted, and released a pulse of magic into the winds of the tornado.

That pulse of magic touched every single one of the pegasi, invigorating them and allowing the group to push themselves even farther, but that was the least of the effects of that pulse of magic. The biggest effect was that it managed to briefly connect all of the pegasi in the tornado in a way that allowed them to pool their efforts, achieving a feat of teamwork that was far beyond whatever the Wonderbolts could have been able to do on their own.

And then, the winds of their tornado finally reached the leading edge of the chaotic storm that was threatening the village. And the shock of the sheer amount of ominous power they suddenly got in contact with almost caused the Wonderbolts to break away, unable to maintain their weather manipulation going. But they refused to stop. Each of them knew the others needed their help, and they didn't want to leave their companions helpless. That would have been the case even without the connection Rainbow Dash provided in between them, and that only made them even more dedicated to their task.

While the Wonderbolts did everything they could to resist the storm, Rainbow Dash was frowning. She already had suspicions, but the touch of the magic of the storm confirmed everything. What they were dealing with was chaos magic. Rainbow Dash immediately thought of Discord, before remembering how Sunset had said that sufficiently skilled mages could use chaos magic even if it wasn't part of their natural talent. Still, doing something like this certainly seemed like the kind of thing Discord would like. She supposed that the others would be able to tell her either way, but the main point was the fact that they had to deal with the situation, whatever was the cause of it.

Thankfully. Rainbow Dash was specially well suited to dealing with chaotic magic.

That was because of her magic shifting ability. During their encounter with Discord, Rainbow Dash had managed to severely wound him thanks to shifting her magical signature to harmony while doing a Sonic Rainboom, and later she figured out how to shift to harmony whenever she wanted.

This had some limitations. It was practically useless in one on one fights, because harmony depended upon a connection with others. The blow against Discord was only as effective as it was because every single one of the others was also trying to save Twilight and Pinkie at that moment, and because Discord was a true being of chaos, and more susceptible to that power. It had an average effectiveness when used to fight alongside her fellow Knights, because trying to focus their disparate wills into a useful amount of harmonic power in the middle of a hectic fight was complicated and somewhat predictable. But in a situation like that, where many individuals were focusing their wills in a single task and with a single objective... Then it was perfect.

Rainbow Dash had helped it along, sending a bit of harmonic magic to help the connection of the Wonderbolts and prepare the way for her attack, but now it was time for her to show what this kind of power could do in the hooves of somepony who was good enough to harness it. She saw that they were starting to be overwhelmed by the power of the storm, and that the source, that strange monster, was close enough.

"Retreat!" She shouted to them, and dived into the tornado.

She felt the other pegasi almost literally throw themselves out of the tornado, and then she used her pegasus magic to take control of it, forcing the winds to become even stronger by focusing them more and more, making the tornado smaller but increasingly dense, to the point where the air would have started to change into a liquid state due to the sheer pressure, were it not for the amount of magic coursing through it.

But that was only half of the equation. While Rainbow Dash was increasing the physical power of the winds, she was also harnessing the harmonic power from the focused efforts of the Wonderbolts. Using brief pulses of harmonic magic to direct it and fuse it with her will, Rainbow Dash was satisfied to see that the extremely dense tornado was also glowing with magic. So she waved her hoof upwards and the tornado actually started going down into a horizontal position. And with the way she was "holding it", the tornado was looking more and more like a spear.

The "goblin" clearly didn't like what she was doing, but it also clearly had no intention of stopping and trying to run away. The chaotic storm simply kept advancing, trying to sweep through the Knight with simple power. Rainbow Dash wondered if the monster even had enough intelligence to understand the concept of retreat, or if it was more like a living magical focus. Regardless, it wouldn't change the outcome.

"Harmonic Breaker..." Rainbow Dash started, focusing her muscles and magic for a single, powerful effort.

"Tornado Spear!" She shouted, throwing the tornado like a javelin.

The attack flew strangely slowly through the air, but there was a simple reason for that. The chaotic storm was using all of the power it could spare to prevent anything from getting close to the goblin "core". The tornado spear had to get through not only the simple physical power of the the storm, which had been building up for a while, but also the magical suppression of the chaotic energies that were at least intelligent enough to try and protect their weak point. Instead of a battle on the wind, this seemed more like a drill tunneling through the earth.

But there was no question to the ultimate outcome, as the Wonderbolts recovered and watched the titanically powerful magical attack slowly but steadily get through every single layer of defense the storm had in its path. They felt excitement for having had part in creating that scene, and they cheered when the goblin got pierced and exploded.

The storm dissipated into several high speed winds going in disparate directions, but the chaotic energy, now without a focus, turned into dozens of different bizarre effects on the environment, mostly creating a few short-lived monsters. One part of the wind got turned into some kind of wind monster that attacked the Wonderbolts, but Rainbow Dash flew in front of them and easily dealt with it.

As soon as she judged that the situation had came back under control, Rainbow Dash turned to Spitfire.

"I need to make a report and see what the situation is like in general, so you all should go back to base and keep an eye for more weirdness."

The Wonderbolt leader nodded at her, and Rainbow Dash flew off, quickly surpassing the speed of sound and flying from out of sight range.

-0-

Rainbow Dash got a message when she was nearing Canterlot that said to come back for a special meeting. This only increased her suspicions that the chaotic storm wasn't an isolated incident. She kept going and soon got to the same meeting room that everypony else used for that sort of situation. She soon realized that she had been the last one to arrive, and also that Fluttershy was the only other Knight who was wearing her armor.

"Knight Fluttershy, it seems like you were not the only one to have needed to fight recently." Celestia said, before turning to Rainbow Dash "Knight Rainbow Dash, I assume you have something to report, but first Fluttershy needs to inform everypony of what she told me."

The pink-maned pegasus cleared her throat and began her tale "I was going through the Misty Print valley, checking on the animals there... When I felt the presence of chaos magic in the air. Before I could decided whether it would be better to try to check it out or go back and get the help of the others... I heard a roar, and the hydra of that place came forth and tried to attack me."

She then stopped and shook her head before continuing "Ahm... But don't get the wrong idea. She is usually very calm unless somepony invades her territory. But this time, she was under the influence of chaos magic, which took the form of a minotaur-looking monster that was riding on her back." She blinked a few times "I knew that the hydra would cause a lot of damage if I just left without doing anything."

Fluttershy sighed "So I changed to my armor and used the manticore Animal Spirit again. I fought with the hydra for a few minutes, until I managed to attack the minotaur monster and destroy it. And then I could calm her down."

They all thought about that story for a moment, and then Princess Celestia nodded to Rainbow Dash, wordlessly asking her to speak.

"I was on Mauna Keep mountain together with a group of Wonderbolts when a storm came. It didn't seem like anything strange at first, only a fairly strong storm, but when it didn't pass and we had to forcefully fly away from it, it became obvious that the storm wasn't normal. I ordered the Wonderbolts to make a tornado and channeled it into a spear of wind empowered by harmony, since I could tell the power was chaos-based." She took a breath "The focus of the chaos was in the form of a kind of goblin thing and when it was destroyed, the storm dissipated."

Nodding, Princess Celestia then looked at Twilight Sparkle "With this new information, what we are facing here seems pretty obvious. Since this is your specialty, you explain it to them."

Twilight nodded, then cleared her throat and began to speak "Essentially, what we are dealing with here are Shards of Chaos. They are a phenomenon where a portion of chaos magic without direction fuses with a will of some kind instead of simply spending their energy causing chaotic effects. This only happens when the direction of the will drives the chaos magic into causing even more trouble, instead of doing something constructive. This renews and strengthens the chaos magic. Usually this is a rare occurrence, so for it to happen twice in so short a period..."

She sighed "The only possible explanation is Discord. The destruction of his body spread chaos magic all around the place, and I imagine that since he was destroyed by us, his influence on the chaotic magic made it so the shards of chaos created started activating at the same time, in order to cause more problems for the Knights, who would have to deal with them."

Celestia nodded "This all seems to hang together. But in that case, there shouldn't only be two Shards of Chaos activating, so do you have any idea of a way to track down the others before they cause too much damage?"

Twilight smiled "Actually. I have a perfect way of doing that. There's a special ritual I designed to take advantage of Fluttershy's empathic abilities for a tracking tool. And considering we have two specialists in chaotic magic here to serve as samples..." She looked at Pinkie Pie meaningfully.

Celestia agreed with the proposal, and soon Twilight had drawn a large magic circle inside the meeting room. In the middle of the circle was a map, and Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy joined their fore hooves in a circle around the map.

"Let's start." Twilight said, and activated the circle.

 

[Kinni]

Another chapter.

Chapter 40 - Six

It didn't take very long. A pulse of magic spread out from the magical circle and expanded beyond the room, beyond the castle, beyond the city. The magical power was dispersed into uselessness, but it had only been used to kickstart the process. Trying to search all over Equestria using magical power had always been an impossibility, instead, Fluttershy's sense of empathy lightly touched all over that huge territory. It was so light a touch that it could do nothing in most situations, but when it made a connection with magic similar to that of Pinkie and Twilight, their connection was enough to send data of the location towards the map.

The trio of ponies had their eyes closed and could not see the results of their search as it was happening, but the other ponies in the room had no such restraints, and they used their superior senses to be able to see the map clearly despite not being able to remain inside the magic circle. They saw as red points started to appear on disparate locations. First one, then two more almost at the same time, then another one, yet another, and after a longer pause, a sixth one appeared.

They waited a few more moments as the spell ran its course, but no other red points appeared on the map, and the trio who had performed the ritual opened their eyes and shook their heads, before looking at the map.

"Come. It's already over." Twilight called the others, and they stepped over the inactive magical circle and crowded around the map.

For a few moments, they simply watched, silently trying to work out where each of the target locations were supposed to be. Celestia was the first to come to a real conclusion, so she cleared her throat and began talking:

"I can already tell that this is not going to a simple matter in any fashion. The closest Shard of Chaos is in the Rottweil Tunnels, territory of a particularly strong pack of diamond dogs. They are the Jeweled Commandos, famous for their skill with gemstone magic as well as their physical prowess." She said in an even tone "Also, there were no Shards on the Great Canterlot Quarry, and for that I am grateful."

"There is no way any Shards of Chaos can form there, the place is too chaotic, so any will of the type that could form one would end up split into pieces among the disparate chaotic energies." Twilight Sparkle, who was the specialist, pronounced, and Celestia accepted the explanation.

"Gemstone magic, huh? This could be interesting." Rarity said, already trying to think about ways of using that in her artificing.

"Ah'm more worried about what kinds of havoc a Shard of Chaos could cause in a place like that." Applejack commented.

"Moving on," Celestia decided to keep explaining "The next Shard of Chaos is in the southwest region of the Forest of Kalindor. This place is Zebra territory, and while they don't get to the same level of nature management as us, the Zebras have their own way of manipulating nature to act in harmony with it. It's a little similar to what the deer do, actually."

"I had a nice talk with a few of the trees of the deer about the nature magic. I wonder how the zebra trees feel about it..." Fluttershy mentioned.

"So that's what you were doing? I thought you were trying to Soul Mirror the entire forest." Rainbow Dash half-joked.

"Perhaps later..." Fluttershy muttered.

"Okay..." Celestia tried not to think too much about it "Almost at the same distance, but nearly at the opposite direction of the previous one in relation to here... It's the city of Saddleoak, a rare majority pegasus population that doesn't live in a cloud city. The reasons for that revolve around the fact that the city was built at the center of a weather configuration that caused all sorts of magical effects on the climate around the place. One of the biggest and best schools for weather magic specialists is located there, and they just need a lot of pegasi to keep things under control in general."

"Ah. A Shard of Chaos right in the middle of a city? That can't be good." Pinkie Pie said.

"I've already faced one chaotic weather condition today, why is this coming up again?" Rainbow Dash complained.

"Do you want a lecture about the most common types of chaotic energy effects?" Twilight teased her.

"No!"

"And after that... There's one on Lake Tsucara, which is a common tourist destination due to the clear waters and friendly aquatic life. It has one of the most famous underwater forests in the world as well, with the inhabitants of the place using them as their main source of food." Celestia kept going.

"And again normal ponies are in big danger." Sunset sighed.

"There is no way this won't somehow involve laser sharks or something, is there?" Applejack asked blandly.

"Water, water creatures, underwater plants... There are just so many ways the Shard could manifest..." Trixie said.

"Right... And about the next one, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that this Shard is in the middle of the Arrankar Mountains, very inhospitable place, no ponies that can be in danger. The bad news is that I'm pretty sure the Shard is right on top of an old fortress used by Warlock Black Hooves, a mage expert in ice magic that was a great foe of the Knights of the Scarlet Dream." Celestia said in an apologetic voice.

"Yeahh... This is definitely going to be a thing." Twilight said.

"Must brush up on my fire spells." Sunset spoke blandly.

"Hmm... An old fortress used by a wizard... A'm sure it should have plenty of traps and hidden passages." Applejack considered.

"I'm not ready for this. The Fire Ruler Sword is still only a vague idea..." Rarity muttered.

"And the last one is in the quarry of Longborough, because chaos magic seems to have a strange affection for quarries." Twilight was nodding, Celestia sighed "And this place has everything. A pretty big and important river crosses nearby, there's a city of majority earth ponies that has a focus on earth magic research, there's a forest nearby where some interesting varieties of herbs grow, the quarry is connected to one of the biggest mountains in Equestria..."

"This makes it pretty much impossible to predict what the Chaos Shard is going to do... Not that it is much easier to predict the behavior of chaos magic at the best of times..." Trixie complained.

"I'm surprised more Chaos Shards didn't get into troublesome places like this... I guess since it hasn't been that long from when he lost his body, Discord's powers are still very diffuse, so even his will wasn't enough to warp the probabilities to a level where it would cause the most trouble for us..." Twilight made her contribution to the discussion.

'So... There's six places to go, and I think we should hit them all at once, but how do we divide things up?" Sunset had practical concerns.

"I think that in this situation, the best decision is getting a few reinforcements so that nopony has to go alone." Celestia said, then cast a spell "And we have just the right number."

"Who are ya calling?" Applejack asked.

"You'll see." Celestia said.

-0-

A few minutes later, those who had been called arrived. They were three ponies and one dragon, just enough to reach twelve individuals who could go to the mission. The dragon was obviously Spike, and the three ponies turned out to be old "friends" the original trio had met and fought in their first mission (well, they fought two of them). Yes, they were the three avatars of Luna, now completely free of any traces of the black magic that had infected them before.

Dark Moon was the unicorn, with a gray coat and silver mane. She didn't have a cloak of shadows anymore, but an actual black cloak with a hood that hid part of her eyes. Silver Soul was the earth pony, with a dark blue coat and yellow mane. She had a big saddlebag and a broad smile on her face. Lightning Chaser was the pegasus, with a light blue mane and a green coat. She walked in the stiff and ready manner of the guards, with her eyes looking forward at all times.

"Ah, Spike, how have you been?" Twilight immediately went to talk with the dragon and gave him a hug.

"Oh, you know the deal. Luna's been putting me through all kinds of difficult training so I get better faster... And it works, but the effort is... Very tough." He answered, while Sunset and Trixie gave their own greeting to him.

Meanwhile, the avatars were introducing themselves to the five Knight who had never seen them before.

"I'm Silver Soul! Nice to meet you!" Was the introduction of said pony, who insisted on shaking hooves with everypony in a way that reminded the others of Pinkie Pie.

"This one is called Dark Moon..." The unicorn spoke in a "spooky" voice, looking at the others from the corners of her eyes.

"I am Lightning Chaser." She said in a businesslike tone, seemingly trying to project enough seriousness to single-handedly counter all the silliness of the rest of the room.

The five Knights introduced themselves as well, and Rainbow Dash asked Silver Soul:

"You're the ones that our teachers fought in their first mission, right?"

"Right." She agreed, and Lightning Chaser raised a hoof "Except for her." She put the hoof back down "But none of us actually remembers it, since we were sunken too deeply on the darkness."

"And not the fun kind of darkness, either..." Dark Moon interjected.

"Exactly, it was the darkness of dark magic." Silver Soul said "Apparently I got taken out rather fast due to a surprise attack, while Dark Moon managed to last for a good bit of time." She looked at Lightning Chaser "And she apparently hit Sombra with a lightning bolt. It must be really sad to have done something awesome like that and not remember it."

"Hah. That would really be uncool." Rainbow Dash agreed.

The Knights got on well with the avatars. Pinkie kept making silly faces at Lightning Chaser, trying to get her to crack a smile, and Rarity somehow got into a conversation with Dark Moon about providing her with clothes to go with her "goth style".

But the fun had to end sometime, and Celestia pulled Spike for a few words.

"My sister has informed me that you are ready to become a Squire and accompany the Knights on a mission to receive a promotion to Knight." She said, stunning him "Are you willing to do it?"

He recovered after a few moments and put a hand over his heart "Yes, I am." He said.

"Then, you are now officially a Squire." Celestia smiled.

Everypony congratulated him, and then Rainbow Dash had a thought:

"Does that mean the avatars are Squires too? Will they become Knights?"

"No." Celestia and the three avatars spoke in unison.

Realizing that there should be a reason for that, Rainbow Dash asked "Why?"

Celestia sighed and began her explanation. "It comes down to the fact that they are connected with Luna. And Alicorns cannot be Knights, for there are some fairly important duties that are mutually exclusive between the two." She closed her eyes "The duty of the alicorns is to be pillars that support the pony civilization. As such, they must be simply guardians and cannot act recklessly in ways that could compromise their role as pillars. On the other hand, Knights have to act recklessly, doing things such as the Overdrives and magic that warps their own souls, because their role is to deal with the threats to Equestria, and so they manage to achieve great feats that go beyond what the alicorns could do due to being limited by their roles. But the price of that is having to take great risks, to the point where it is common for Knights to die by sacrificing themselves for the world."

The atmosphere became somber. They understood what she was saying, and each one of the Knights had come to terms with it in their own ways.

After that moment, Celestia got the attention of the others and proceeded to give orders:

"I have thought about it and decided which pairs to form and where to send each of them. I believe Sunset and Spike shall make a good pair for Longborough, since her power can deal with most unexpected circumstances and he is tough enough to survive said circumstances." They nodded in acknowledgement "Rarity and Silver Soul should team up for the Rottwell tunnels, because their abilities are well-suited towards fighting underground or against Diamond Dogs. Twilight and Fluttershy should go to Lake Tsucara, since Twilight's ability with chaos magic should help prevent problems and Fluttershy's connection to nature would help with many of the possible issues. Applejack and Dark Moon should go to the fortress in the Arrankar mountains, since Applejack's eyes can detect hidden problems and Dark Moon's darkness magic is powerful and versatile." She took a breath before continuing.

"Rainbow Dash and Trixie should go to the forest of Kalindor, since they combine strength and trickiness well-enough to deal with the possible issues. And this leaves Lightning Chaser and Pinkie Pie to go to Saddleoak, and the combination of powerful chaos magic with weather magic should help a lot against possible chaotic weather."

Nopony (or dragon) seemed to have issues with that, so the pairs went off to plan and prepare.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 41 - The Duos Set Off

Silver Soul was talking with Rarity while they made their final preparations. Rarity had put on her Armor and had her two swords on her back, while Silver Soul had taken a special artifact, a magical silver necklace containing a ridiculous amount of compressed silver. She could turn normal earth into a silver-like substance and use it in a pinch, but having actual silver was better.

"This is going to be great!" The avatar said "Luna will be pretty stoked to be going on a mission with the Knights, even by proxy, when she wakes up."

"And I'm sure she will be happy that her apprentice is finally coming into his own, as well." Rarity said, and looked closely at Silver Soul's necklace "It's rare to see an old artifact that is still whole this days."

"Oh yeah. The Knights keep breaking them." She said with a giggle, which turned into a snort when she saw the pained expression on Rarity's face "This one wasn't even made by a real artificer, it was a present Luna received from the Mage Association of Relemb." She became lost in thought "I actually married one of them in the following century."

Rarity got curious "How does the marriage thing works for avatars?"

"Oh? Ah, I guess you wouldn't know given that we've spent too long under Sombra's control." Silver Soul reasoned "Basically, we are treated like normal ponies for this. We can get married, we can have children, and neither our partners nor our descendants have any special privileges."

Rarity nodded, then thought of something "Partners? Do you mean..." She didn't complete the thought.

"Ah, I know what you mean. Me and Lightning only like stallions, but Dark Moon likes both stallions and mares." The earth pony answered.

"I understand." Rarity said, and then she asked "Could I take a closer look at your necklace?"

"Sure." Silver Soul said, and took it off before handing it to Rarity.

"Hmm... Some very interesting space compression spells... Based around material elemental affinity for the silver element... It's a very well-done piece of magic, nothing exactly out of the ordinary, but to execute it so well in so little space is praiseworthy." Rarity muttered a few more things, then looked up at Silver Soul with a smile "What do you think about an addition to it?"

Silver Soul's grin was all the answer she needed.

-0-

Fluttershy was checked over by Celestia in order to make sure she was in top-shape before going. She didn't even bother to remove the Armor. Twilight put on her own armor and busied herself with charging it with the merged spell components and retesting the shapeshifting properties of it.

When the Princess was done, Twilight and Fluttershy spent a bit of time going over their combined techniques (as teacher and pupil, they had quite a lot of those), making small plans for general situations (trying to make specific plans against problems caused by a shard of chaos was a fool's errand and reading every bit of information they could get about Lake Tsucara.

"Ah, and have you developed any new techniques since the last time we talked?" Twilight didn't forget to check. Developing new techniques was one of the official Knight pastimes, after all. (Sunset was the one who decided that, she reasoned that it must be true considering all the varied techniques they showed in the stories. Twilight and Trixie agreed with the idea.)

"Ah yes. I pretty much finished one earlier today." She said casually.

Twilight looked at her "And... What is it?"

Fluttershy looked back, approached Twilight, put a hoof on her shoulder and said "It's a secret." With a teasing smile.

"Awww." Twilight complained, before recovering "I just hope we don't have to use the emergency system."

"I agree." Fluttershy said.

The Knights and Spike still had their Fluttershy feathers that could connect to her, and the avatars received feathers as well. However, this time the distance in between the groups was far too large for Fluttershy to be able to maintain complex communications with the others (she had said she would be able to do it eventually, once her abilities developed more), so they had worked things out to only call her in case of emergency, so that she and Twilight could direct reinforcements to the right place. Simply shoving emotions at the feather would be enough, and Fluttershy wouldn't be able to receive any more than that, anyway. She could also sense if the holders of the feathers got extremely distressed, such as receiving big injuries or worse, which would call for the same reaction.

"Well... I guess everything is ready." Twilight said, and Fluttershy nodded, so the unicorn prepared their teleport spell.

-0-

Applejack and Dark Moon didn't really have a lot of things to do before going. Applejack had to wear her armor, but otherwise there was not much to do. So Applejack decided to ask for details about Dark Moon's powers.

Big mistake.

" [...] And so, by being swallowed by darkness, I become one with darkness and as such darkness becomes one with me. Like this, I can chance the darkness like I change myself, and make it solid as well as turn it into the greatest attack and defense, manipulating the world around via the darkness channeled by my dark soul [...]" Dark Moon just kept going on and on.

Applejack had heard the word "darkness" so many times already that it didn't sound like a real word anymore. And the avatar was still going.

"[...] For the true meaning of this darkness is the space that swallows all light. With this, I can devour anything by sucking it into the darkness-"

"Dark Moon." Applejack interjected.

"Yes?"

"Ah think Ah understand yer darkness powers more or less." She spoke with a voice that brimmed with forced calm "Ah think we should use the remaining time before we have ta go by planning our general approach."

"Hmm... I still had a lot more to say, but I guess this is indeed important." She sounded a little disappointed, but nodded "What do you mean by general approach."

"Since we don't know what we are going ta find, specially because we are dealing with chaos magic, we can't make any detailed plans. Instead, it would be better ta define a general approach, how best ta work as a team in regards ta mobility, attack and defense." Applejack's voice had returned to normal "There is also the matter of quickly passing information that Ah gain with my eyes, so that ya can understand the situation at all times. I have a way to do it, but it needs eye contact."

"Those are indeed factors that we have to plan for." Dark Moon spoke in a thoughtful voice "I guess most of the defence and mobility should be taken care off by me, since it's easier to use than your earth magic."

"Ah think ya should pay attention ta the matter of long range attacks. Ah can do them, but earth magic really isn't suited for this." Applejack pointed out.

Their discussion continued, and Applejack managed to keep things mostly on track, even if she was still hearing the word darkness far too much.

-0-

"And you don't need to worry too much about diplomatic issues. Because Knights have a lot of leeway for simple faux passes. It would be different if you acted like a jerk or committed an actual crime, but there's no chance of that." Trixie was explaining to Rainbow Dash what she expected of her, considering that they weren't teacher and student and didn't have as much experience together as those pairs.

"You sound like Sunset. I thought you would be a lot more demanding of precision and stuff, to make your plans work right." Rainbow Dash said.

"That's Rarity. You're thinking of Rarity." Trixie joked "That also has its place, but micromanagement is always a crapshoot, much less involving a pegasus like you, and much less in a situation involving Shards of Chaos. If I really need to give you specific orders, I'll just create an auditory illusion to give you the instructions at the perfect time."

Trixie had put on her armor while Rainbow Dash was getting treated by Celestia, though that was mostly unnecessary. She hadn't been in an actual fight, and had simply channeled her magic at a slightly high level to be able to perform what she did. Still, it was better to be careful about those kinds of things.

"So, what do you expect?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Trixie expects that we will find a few welcoming zebra who will be completely surprised when the forest turns against us and will need to be protected. She expects having to rescue zebra from the bowels of chaotic creatures, and also expects some kind of chaotic arena, maybe an underground world or a place made out of a combination of uncountable trees." She stopped for a moment "But don't count on it too much."

"Okay... I agree that seems probable... By the way, that thing about Rarity... Is there a story there?" Rainbow asked casually.

Trixie smirked at her knowingly "Actually, there is indeed a story. Trixie put her apprentices through a few exercises to test for their potential skill in command. Applejack did well, being able to see through the heart of the matter and make snap decisions. But Rarity... She gets too bogged down in details and isn't able to react properly when things don't go as planned."

"Ahh... I can see that." Rainbow Dash agreed.

"Speaking of that... Did Sunset do something similar with you?" Trixie asked.

"Yeah. And she said that my best style of leadership would be going in front following my instincts and allowing the others to act according to the situation." The pegasus said in a level voice.

Trixie looked at her "Somehow, Trixie is completely unsurprised by that."

-0-

Pinkie quickly put on her armor, and when Lightning Chaser asked if there was anything important she needed to know, decided to explain something important about her Emotion Charge:

"I managed to reach a level where I can use 80% of the power of my emotions but I can't go up any higher because it always feels like I'll lose control, and to even reach this point I need to slowly elevate the power of my emotions so I can't start with full power." Pinkie spoke in two breaths.

Lightning Chaser was grateful for the quick and direct sharing of information, and decided to ask something.

"Could you help me with something? I have some experience with using my magic to deal with chaotic effects, I even helped fight Discord once. But it has been a while, and I think it would be best to refamiliarize myself with it."

Pinkie agreed, and they went to a place where they could do it.

"Okay. Do it." Lightning Chaser asked Pinkie Pie.

The Knight charged the air with a high amount of chaotic magic and threw it at the pegasus, who allowed it to settle around her and start causing strange reactions as it shifted the nature of the air repeatedly. After a few seconds of this, Lightning Chaser started using her magic to create black-colored versions of her namesake, forcefully breaking through the restrictions of the chaotic magic.

While she looked at Lightning Chaser's techniques, Pinkie could not help but remember something.

"Hey, this black lightning you use looks like the same type of lightning magic that I've seen Tempest of Destruction using during that mission, so is there some kind of connection? Is this just what happens when you get really good at lightning? Can you do lightning clones too? Did you know him?" Pinkie unleashed a series of questions that would put most ponies out of balance.

But Lightning Chaser wasn't most ponies. She broke the entire chaotic field, dispersing the magic, and then started calmly answering Pinkie's questions:

"Yes, there is some connection, but only in the sense that he copied the black lightning from me. No, this is not just what happens when you get really good at lightning, it's a special technique that grants the attribute of destruction to the lightning. I can't do lightning clones, that is one of the techniques he created himself, but I can use colored lightning of different types with different attributes, which he never managed to do. I do know him, but we never had a lot of contact, mostly he faced Knight Flurry."

"I got it..." Pinkie thought for a moment "Do you want to hear details about how Sunset annihilated him?" She said with a smile.

Lightning Chaser couldn't help but crack a smile at that. She quickly schooled her expression back to neutral, but Pinkie cheered internally.

"I would like that, yes."

-0-

"So, little guy, it's you and me. I hope you cover me from danger when I'm busy with other things." Sunset said.

"I really hope my abilities are enough for this mission. There is so much that can go wrong..." Spike said.

"That is how things always are when you are a Knight. You must face all enemies and threats without knowing whether you are strong enough or if your abilities are suited to it. You trust in your companions and keep going no matter what, and if nothing else works, you start being reckless." Sunset did a small speech about it.

"... I guess you're right... I can't really just keep worrying about things. I need to relax and deal with things as they come. I need to remember how much I've trained and how much stronger I've gotten since I started. Master always says that remembering my training would help gain confidence." Spike said.

"That's the spirit. And I also seem to have heard something about you being able to fly now." Sunset grinned at him.

"Yeah. I finally got to the point where I can use the draconic aura to form wings. It really..." Spike seemed to have difficulty expressing himself "It really was something that made all the effort worth it. I've been dreaming about flying for a while."

"That's cool. I just never found a true flight spell that was right for me." Sunset sighed "Teleportation works well most of the time, and in a pinch I can improvise something... But flying is still one of my weak points."

"Then, I could carry you flying so that we can join our forces." Spike suggested.

Sunset grinned again "We could call it Draconic Weapons Platform! A flying weapon that blasts everything nearby!"

"... Why do I feel like this is not a spur of the moment thing?" Spike asked.

"Because it's not. I have something similar with Rainbow Dash. The Rainbow Weapons Platform!" Sunset declared.

"That makes sense."

-0-

A kilometer from the Rottwell tunnels, a circle of light suddenly appeared on the ground. If one were to have good sight, it would be possible to see letters shifting rapidly within the light. The circle got more and more solid, and the light got brighter, until the point where, like an explosion without sound, everything reached the peak for a moment and then vanished.

In the place of the circle, there were two ponies. A white unicorn and a blue earth pony. Rarity then spoke:

"Ahhh. Teleporting so far still wears me out a little, specially with a guest along." She smiled a bit.

"Do you need a moment or...?" Silver Soul asked.

"The walk towards the cave is already enough for me to recover my breath." Rarity said, grabbing her swords with telekinesis and making them float.

Silver Soul nodded and the two started walking in the direction of their objective. They still hadn't gone three hundred meters before Rarity sighed.

"What?" The earth pony avatar asked.

"We should have already been intercepted and asked about our business, according to what I've been able to gather about the Jeweled Commandos." She answered "The fact that they haven't done that yet means that something has disturbed their usual patterns badly already."

Silver Soul thought for a moment and nodded. She then activated her necklace and coated herself with a layer of silver. Preparing for any unexpected surprises.

The two moved quickly but calmly, covering the rest of the distance to the entrance of the cave in a short time. Nothing jumped out to attack them, but as they got closer to the cave, Rarity got more and more certain that this wasn't going to last for long, because there was something inside the cave that was interfering with her magic. Even with the power of her Earth Ruler Sword, she could barely feel the earth of the cave, much less control it, and the air was the same. This was definitely something that could be called enemy territory.

When the two actually got inside, Rarity saw that if she was close enough to the earth or air that she wanted to control, she could overcome the interference, so things weren't in the worst case scenario. Still, the unicorn quickly focused herself to the limit, knowing that things could get hairy in a hurry.

The cave was dark (unnaturally so, the light coming from the mouth of the cavern was being smothered somehow), and Rarity quickly cast a small night-vision spell. Silver Soul, being one of the avatars of the princess of the night, clearly wasn't hindered by the darkness. And the two had an instant to see what they were going against before the attacks started.

The interior of the cavern was full of towers, four meter tall structures which seemed roughly made, as if in a hurry. The towers created barriers that formed a winding path through the cavern. Each tower had a big gemstone on top, and they were extremely well-cut and flawless, as well as not having the normal color variance of natural gemstones. Instead, they were solid and vibrant colors all the way through, some red, some green, some yellow, some blue and yet other colors. Those beautiful gems made quite the contrast with the rough towers.

However, their beauty was slightly undercut for Rarity and Silver Soul when they started shooting spells at them.

Rarity immediately activated her wind wings and flew into the air. The ceiling of the cave was only seven meters tall, but it was still enough space to maneuver, because Rarity had trained a lot in flight techniques ever since the fight against Chrysalis. Silver Soul released a wave of silver to create a barrier against the spells.

The two immediately realized that simple defense or avoidance wouldn't even be enough to survive for a minute, because those were clearly not ordinary spells. Some of them were homing, and some were area of effect based, meaning that Rarity's ability to dodge was compromised. Meanwhile, Silver Soul had problems because some of the spells were piercing, capable of going through her barrier, while others caused disruptions in the magic she was using to control the silver in the first place.

And that wasn't all. There was a ridiculous variety of spells being used against them, to the point where it was only possible because each jewel could release several different spells, and they shot fast. Some spells were heat or cold, others were lightning, some were pure kinetic energy, while others were projectile based, some spells were explosive while others released a pseudo-acid.

The two shifted their focus to attack, Rarity deliberately flying close to the nearest towers, knowing that the spells would have to hold back to preserve them. Silver Soul surrounded herself in a sphere of silver and bulled forward, also approaching the towers.

"Wind Slash!" Rarity cast, releasing a cutting slash of wind and sawing two towers in half.

"Silver Stab!" Silver Soul followed her lead, creating a spear of silver and gouging a huge hole right in the middle of another one.

The towers crumbled, but the jewels teleported away to nearby towers, and kept up their assault. Silver Soul suddenly alerted:

"MOVE!" And jumped away, while Rarity did a sharp dodge in the air.

The earth under them exploded, as a Diamond Dog jumped out from it and slashed right where Rarity had been previously. Then, he was hit by a dozen spells in quick sequence, but instead of harming him, the spells seemed to buff him, with magical barriers appearing, his claws gaining an edge of red light, his legs shining green and other things that were less visible but could be felt happening.

After that, he advanced on his opponents, while the towers kept attacking them with their spells.

Rarity landed on the ground beside Silver Soul, knowing that this would be difficult.

-0-

Twilight and Fluttershy appeared five hundred meters away from Lake Tsucara, in the southwest side. And it was immediately obvious that things weren't right.

The numerous ponies running away from the lake and screaming as well as the multitudes of tentacles constructed from algae sweeping around the area were a pretty big clue.

The main priority of the Knights was always helping others, and so their first move was explicitly for this purpose, and it was Fluttershy who made it.

"Empathy Drive: Grand Search!" She cast, releasing a pulse of magic that spread over the entire area.

That was the base spell that had been turned into the ritual used previously. In such a limited area, Fluttershy could expand her empathy to be able to sense every living being in range, which also made her able to find every single innocent that was in danger. More than that, she could also touch Twilight with her empathy to give her the same information.

And Twilight Sparkle was quite capable of doing something about it.

"Chaos Magic: Interference Pulse!" Twilight released a pulse of magic of her own.

But this pulse was fairly different from Fluttershy's. It was actually designed to interfere with any bit of magic that it encountered. Fluttershy had to deactivate her Grand Search while it passed, before reactivating it. But it was worth it because of the effects of that spell.

All of the tentacles that were dragging ponies towards the depths of the lake were acting due to the influence of chaos magic. It was difficult to interfere with them for most ponies, but Twilight was an expert in chaos magic herself, and so, even having to spread her magic through a very large space, the effects of her magic pulse "stunned" all of the tentacles, preventing them from moving for a while and also causing parts of them to fall off, as the lowered efficiency of the chaos magic meant that the laws of physics had the final say over some structures that were far too fragile to work normally.

And that was only the opening act.

"Empathy Drive: Animal Spirit!" Fluttershy charged her magic "Manticore Edition!"

And once more she channeled the spirit of the manticore. Fluttershy flew right to the closest ponies in danger and slashed through the tentacle that was threatening them. Twilight did a chaotic shift and started casting spells all over the place, creating small earth monsters that turned the battle into a war. The two moved forward towards the lake and kept with their attacks, saving more and more ponies in the process. This was helped by Fluttershy's Grand Search, which gave her a constant awareness of everything, which she shared with Twilight.

The two kept getting ever closer to the lake, and the stunned state of the tentacles couldn't last long. As such, the opposing chaotic magic quickly honed in on the two of them as the biggest threats and sent a lot of tentacles at them, and not only that, but smaller monsters that also seemed to be at least halfway plant based started crawling out of the lake and attacking.

But it didn't help. Twilight and Fluttershy cut through them like they weren't even there, and even the biggest tentacle vines were barely slowing the two down.

Without hesitation, both of them plunged into the water, and finally they were faced with something that was actually challenging. The whole underwater forest attacked them all at once, and with the support of the water taking most of the burden of keeping the vegetable structures standing, the rest of the chaos magic was free to increase their size, thickness, number and ferocity. The fact that they were closer to the source of the chaos magic also helped. Twilight and Fluttershy also had to worry about keeping up the magic they were using to breathe underwater, which was basically creating a pocket of air on their muzzles and drawing air from the water into it.

They defended themselves from the multitude of tendrils, claws, spikes and teeth that were thrown at them. The two were trying to rescue four ponies who had already been dragged down into the lake, so they didn't stop to fight, instead simply rushing through as fast as they could. Twilight created a chaotic vortex of water around herself as a defense and attack, while Fluttershy simply kept going with her Manticore Spirit.

Luckily, the chaotic effects seemed to want their victims alive, so the tentacles who got them had encased the underwater ponies in bubbles which also put them in stasis (according to what Fluttershy could feel). The two broke through the crowded waters and managed to reach the endangered ponies one by one, allowing Twilight to teleport them to safety after destroying the bubbles.

And then, the Knights had one last thing to do. They needed to deal with the chaotic forest that was still attacking and would still be a danger to the innocent ponies. This was a problem, because they couldn't just destroy the forest, given that the livelihood of many ponies depended on it.

However, they didn't really need to, because the two were actually perfectly prepared to deal with that situation. They joined their hooves and charged magic for a second, while the numerous attacks got closer and closer to them.

"Duo Magic: Power Gift!" They called.

Fluttershy was connected to every living being in the area due to her Grand Search, and that included the chaos warped forest. So with Twilight's help, she poured energy into the core of the plants and used it to utterly supplant the chaos magic that was controlling them, returning everything to normal.

Fluttershy and Twilight then had a short conversation via empathy that ended with the two of them flying back out of the water.

"Is there anyone who is still missing?" Twilight asked, after having cast a spell to enhance her voice.

There was a rush as ponies around the lake called for their families and friends, trying to find each other. The Knights watched as most of them had success on that endeavor, but in the end, five ponies still remained missing.

"They must be inside the underwater tunnels." Fluttershy said.

"Yes. The tunnels that shouldn't exist." Twilight was resigned.

Because Fluttershy had noticed that the bottom of the lake had disappeared, as an underwater cave network appeared, a place that could be called a subworld, given that it was apparently created entirely by the chaos magic warping the place.

And they would have to go in.

-0-

Applejack and Dark Moon appeared in the snow-covered cliffs of Arrankar Mountain and immediately had to use their aura defenses to protect against the cold. Heavy winds blew through the air, carrying with them such cold that even thick insulating clothing would only extend the time before a pony without sufficient magical abilities fell to hypothermia.

Thankfully, both of them did have sufficient abilities, and knowing that they were going to a place like this, they had already prepared and even cast spells of protection against the cold on themselves, spells that reduced the burden that their aura defenses had to take to keep the two warm.

After a moment to get used to the situation, Applejack used her Far Sight to confirm the position of the Fortress. And that was the first sign that things weren't right.

The fortress was at the same time magnificent and scary. It was perched at the top of a particularly sharp incline. The walls were solid and dozens of meters tall, with their tops being covered with wicked spikes. The design of the walls was composed of strange, beautiful, complex and varied spiral patterns, that seemed to change whenever they weren't being watched. The gate was a steel structure that seemed to meld perfectly with the stone around it, and was an arch with an iron grid inside it, which seemed to lack any visible means of opening. And there was no moat, but around the fortress there were three circles of nasty looking runes.

All of this was well and good, but the important was what wasn't there. There was none of the wear and tear that would be expected for a place abandoned to the elements for centuries. There was also none of the damage from Black Hooves famed final battle against the Knights of the Scarlet Dream. Both of those things had appeared in the most recent pictures of the place (taken by an extreme adventurer pegasus called Rising Star who made a living by taking pictures of dangerous and inhospitable places). Which meant that something was very wrong.

Applejack couldn't be sure of what was happening, because she would need to get closer in order to actually see through everything (she still hadn't been able to combine Far Sight with the other capabilities of the Eyes of Truth), but they simply wouldn't get anywhere by just standing there, so Applejack informed Dark Moon of what she had seen and then the two started making their way towards the fortress.

The walking was calm for about three minutes, and then Applejack called:

"Stop."

Dark Moon did so and looked at the Knight, wondering what the problem was. Applejack explained by drawing a sphere of earth from the ground and throwing it forward.

As soon as it touched the ground, the sphere was skewered by eleven spikes of ice that suddenly surged out from the ground in a burst of magic.

"Magical trap." Applejack declared "Another thing that should not be working right now."

Dark Moon nodded and the two returned to their walk, the avatar went into battle-ready mode, coating herself in darkness, just in case, but Applejack's Eyes were doing pretty well with spotting the traps, and she could disable them safely, sometimes by throwing things, while others she had to shift the earth to break the hidden magical runes (there were different types of traps). They made steady progress.

And finally, the two got close enough to the fortress that Applejack could see the truth of it.

"Memories..." She realized.

But before she could elaborate, there was a reaction from the fortress, or rather, from above it, as a pony appeared in the air over the fortress. It was an earth pony stallion with gray mane and white coat, except for his hooves, which were black as coal. He was most definitely Warlock Black Hooves.

"So... You have come here to bring and end to me?!" He spoke in an angry voice "You shall see the true power of the cold of death!"

That said, he charged magic, and the whole fortress did the same, and from within the fortress, a gigantic ice sculpture of a minotaur appeared and jumped towards Applejack and Dark Moon.

-0-

Rainbow Dash and Trixie teleported already inside the forest. They kept their eyes and ears open as they walked through the trees, going in the direction of the zebra "village" that was closest to the place where the Shard of Chaos had been detected. They got into sight distance of the buildings and... Didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

Feeling obscurely disappointed, they walked into the town, which was a somewhat loose collection of buildings in a certain area. And the two could quickly see what Celestia had meant when she talked about the zebra acting in harmony with nature. The terrain of the forest was bumpy, but instead of flattening it for the convenience of easily coming and going, the zebras had chosen to follow the same strategy of the trees of the forest (which grew in all sorts of weird configurations and angles, according to the uneven terrain) and simply adapted to the place.

Houses were shaped according to the terrain they were in, with some shaped like triangles that hugged upward slopes, others were located at the bottom of depressions and were built in a way that the entrances were on the "ground", like they were a basement of a house that was now missing. Some houses supported themselves in configurations of trees, something like tree houses which had supports on the ground, while others simply took the trees as part of themselves, like a house under a tree where part of the walls was made from the roots of that tree. And with those configurations, entrances, exits, windows and all those parts had an immense variation from each other, with the zebra putting ramps, bridges, spiral stairs and all sorts of other things to facilitate their movement around, creating situations like a door being situated right above a deep depression, and so connecting straight to a bridge that led to another high ground. No two houses were the same, and Rainbow imagined that the zebra foals would definitely get a lot of fun just walking around the place.

As for the inhabitants of the town, there was also nothing strange there. Almost all of them were zebra, though one or two ponies could be seen as well as a donkey. As such, while they got some stares due to being strangers, most of those who saw them didn't really seem overly concerned. And after a minute of walking through the town, they seemed to have been recognized, and a zebra mare with red earrings on both ears and a blue ring on her neck, as well as a cutie mark in the zebra style that seemed to depict some sort of fruit came to talk to them.

"Knight Trixie, Knight Rainbow Dash?" She walked up to them, looking the two up and down "Why are you two here? Did Knight Rainbow come to watch Knight Trixie's show? But I didn't hear anything about this."

Trixie assumed the lead "Actually, the two of us are here on official Knight business. By the way, what's your name."

The zebra seemed surprised "I'm Medaka. And that seems serious. Do you need any help?"

Trixie shook her head "Not at the moment. We'll just take a look at things slowly for now."

Medaka nodded and left them to their business, Rainbow turned to Trixie "Shouldn't you have asked if there has been anything strange?"

"No. If there was, she would have mentioned it, now that we are here." She closed her eyes for a moment "More importantly, I've been running a spell to detect chaos magic ever since we got here. The level of chaotic energy in the air is higher than normal, but not that much higher, and not at a level that would make things happen. We should keep going and see if we find anywhere that has a higher level of chaos."

Rainbow Dash nodded and the two kept walking around the town. It was a fairly peaceful way to spend half an hour, and Rainbow only didn't get bored because her instincts were telling her that something was definitely not right around there. Still, they didn't find anything, so Trixie decided to change tactics, and so they went to speak to Medaka again.

"Could you tell us about any particularly interesting places on the town?" Trixie asked.

Medaka nodded "Yes. I know of a perfect place, come with me, it's not far."

And she took them to a place that was somewhat separated from the main collection of buildings that composed the town. Five minutes of walking through the forest led them to the thing Medaka wanted to show.

It was a tree. But it wasn't just any tree. This tree was thicker than any of the others, with more and bigger branches, as well as more leaves on them, the roots were also big, to the point they could be faintly seen where they were just below the ground.

"This is the Colonara tree. It's an old tree that mutated over the years until it became like this. The roots of this tree go farther down than any of the others, to the point she can actually draw water directly from the underground river that supplies this entire part of the forest." Medaka said proudly.

Trixie walked in front of the tree and checked for chaos magic. The results were immediate, it had a much bigger amount of chaotic energy inside it, to the point where it should be doing something. And that made it even stranger that the tree didn't seem to be doing any different from normal, the chaotic energy seemingly inactive.

Wanting to get to the bottom of this, Trixie tried a spell to analyze the tree directly... And immediately had to cut it off, getting a headache from the backlash.

"Medaka..." She said slowly "Why does it feel like this tree is only a part of something much bigger?"

"That's because it is." The zebra spoke carefully "This whole section of the forest is something like a colony, every living being is connected to every other living being and they all share everything. It's like they are all part of a single organism."

Rainbow Dash blinked and Trixie sighed.

'A single organism, huh? I have the feeling we have just gotten to the main issue here.' Trixie thought.

-0-

Pinkie Pie and Lightning Chaser teleported in just a few meters away from the entrance of Saddleoak.

"And then Sunset was like 'Annihilation Nova!', and she made this huge ball of energy, like whoa! And it was so huge she had to teleport away to escape her own attack, like oops!" Pinkie was telling the story.

Lightning Chaser didn't react outwardly, but Pinkie could tell that she was smiling on the inside.

And then the wind picked up suddenly and a vortex of air appeared in the sky. It gathered clouds onto itself and quickly turned into a colossal storm cloud.

Both Pinkie Pie and Lightning Chaser thought about going after it but decided not to for different reasons. Pinkie Pie realized that there were no traces of chaos magic on that sudden phenomenon, and she remembered Celestia talking about the weird climate of that place. Lightning Chaser, on the other hand, looked around and saw that the ponies around them didn't seem to be worried about that situation. Both of them decided to wait and see, but prepared themselves to interfere if things got out of hand.

Soon after the storm appeared, a squad of six pegasi flew from the city and took a formation just below the storm, flapping their wings and molding their magic in a way that managed to intercept most of the force of the winds and rain that were coming from it.

"Pinkie. Is this something normal for this place?" Lightning Chaser asked.

"It seems so. There's no influence of chaos magic around anyway. And it doesn't look like they need our help." She answered.

It certainly looked like they had things in hand. The storm was getting smaller and smaller, and the pegasi kept moving around it in an expert manner, taking care of the most troublesome areas. And then Pinkie felt a warning from her Pinkie Sense and, from within the center of the remaining mass, a purple lightning appeared, and the storm seemed to implode in itself, before splitting into a dozen individual, chaotically charged clouds.

"Time to go!" She said to Lightning Chaser, before starting her Emotion Charge.

10%

The pegasus avatar immediately flew into the sky, where the pegasi team was bravely trying to deal with this new development, but their concerted efforts were not being very effective, for the individual clouds ran away as soon as they were making some progress, with another "fresh" cloud moving to take their place. She flew as fast as she could, and charged black lightning on her wings.

Pinkie started to run on the air, going directly up to the storm and using chaotic shifting to speed up. Even so, Lightning Chaser got there first, and speared the closest cloud with a huge bold of black lightning. The storm itself seemed to roar in response, and she screamed "Form a barrier!" to the six pegasi, knowing that things were about to get rough.

And she was right. The eleven remaining clouds joined together and formed a giant griffin made out of chaos clouds, who swiped the air, causing a powerful wind to slam into Lightning Chaser and the six pegasi. She managed to block the wind with a shield of white lightning, though she had to retreat a few meters in the air, the pegasi were thrown kilometers away, though their shield protected them from injuries.

But the chaos weather griffin had miscalculated. It used to much power with that attack, and Pinkie Pie was more than ready to exploit such a flaw. She shifted right in front of the griffin...

20%

"Chaotic Arts: Burst Magic!" And released a burst of chaotic energy that was so tremendous it actually managed to make all the clouds that composed the griffin waver in and out of existence for a few moments... Revealing a point of light in his lower part.

"There!" Pinkie shouted, and Lightning Chaser didn't dawdle.

She created another bolt of black lightning shot it straight through that light, and with a mournful sound, the griffin disappeared.

Lightning Chaser flew to Pinkie's side "This is just the start, isn't it?" She asked.

Pinkie nodded "Yes. And the worst part is, I could fell that the chaos magic that did this came from somewhere inside the city."

-0-

Sunset Shimmer and Spike appeared next to the quarry and the Knight immediately started charging magic, for she had felt a big amount of chaotic energy in the air, similar to what happened when Twilight had time to spread her magic too much in their spars. Her action was proven correct moments later, when several stone golems appeared from the quarry and came straight at the two.

"Magic Enhance: Comet Dash!" She cast, shooting her magical projectile straight at the closest golem.

"Draconic Aura: Right Arm of the Dragon!" Spike was only a beat behind, as he created his aura and punched the next goblin.

The following minute was a flurry of violence. The golems were big and strong, but that also made them good targets, and the Knight and Squire were more than powerful enough to take advantage of that. They destroyed enemy after enemy, and there were none left after a bit.

The two kept looking around, ready for another wave, until Spike said "River!", having managed to see something even from far away. Sunset nodded.

"Draconic Weapons Platform!" She called, and jumped into the air.

Spike didn't wait, he jumped into the air as well and used his magic.

"Draconic Aura: Wings of the Dragon!" He called, and two big, powerful-looking wings appeared on his back and allowed him to float in the air. Sunset landed on the left wing, and Spike took off, flying fast towards the river.

Sunset soon could see what Spike saw. Fishlike water golems were jumping out of the river and going after a bunch of fisherponies, who were trying to run away. With Spike swooping right over them, the Knight went back to shooting powerful spell after powerful spell, destroying the enemies with high efficiency.

After they were all gone, Spike changed directions and flew towards the city, saying "More enemies!", and this time there were a lot more ponies in danger, as several earth golems which looked similar to rabbits had spawned inside the city limits. The duo resumed their sistematic annihilation of the chaotic monsters, but even after they were all gone, there was no time to take a rest, for the next wave of enemies appeared in the forest. They were wood golems which looked like walking trees, and Sunset couldn't use fire magic due to the risk of a forest fire.

That barely slowed the two of them down. Sunset switched to using more impact based spells and just kept up her powerful attacks. After a short period of time, the wood golems were all gone... And then Spike changed directions again, this time to the mountain.

"Oh, come on!" Sunset shouted, even as she prepared for a new round of fighting.

This time the chaotic monsters were different, they were arms coming out of the earth that kept extending more and more. Sunset was already beginning to get tired of having to destroy those kinds of things repeatedly, but the situation finally changed when one of the arms was destroyed by a flurry of wind blades.

Sunset looked around and saw who was responsible. It was a beautiful unicorn mare with dark green coat and sky blue mane. She was riding a wind current and had a zither made out of pure magic floating by her side (her cutie mark was of three musical notes).

"Do you need some help?" She asked.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 42 - Chaos is Varied

The diamond dog was soon revealed to be one fairly troublesome opponent. Not only was he fast and strong, he was also unnaturally coordinated with the spell towers and had a huge amount of resilience, both from the shield spells layered upon him and from his ability to dig into the ground as both cover and mobility enhancement.

No matter if it was elemental slashes, or a physical slash enhanced by flash step, they weren't able to get through the defenses of the enemy, and Silver Soul's manipulation of her element didn't have any better luck. It didn't help that the both the diamond dog and the towers were very magically aware, and trying to charge more powerful attacks led to the combatant retreating into the ground while the towers attacked with the intent of disrupting whatever was being done.

Rarity, even while having to deal with all of the varied spells that were being thrown at her and a fairly skilled and fast combatant that was heavily boosted by magic (and that she couldn't really hurt considering that the chances of some kind of manipulation via chaos magic were almost one hundred percent), still had enough focus to be able to think.

Specifically, she was thinking that this situation was quite bothersome, but also in a particularly important lesson that her teacher Trixie had drilled into her. The lesson was that the most perfect something seems, the most likely it is for that thing to have some huge hidden flaw.

And she was thinking about this gem magic. Not only were there different gems which were capable of different spells, but the same gems could use multiple spells as well. And they were not only simple things, but had a big variety in terms of effects and process as well as being capable of aiming. Besides that, the gems could escape from bad situations and were even capable of discriminating targets to be able to change from attacks into buffs depending on what was being targeted.

It really was far too good, and so there should be a hidden flaw somewhere, and Rarity had her own suspicions about what kind of flaw there could be in this gemstone magic. But she wanted to be sure, so it was time to take a calculated risk.

"Cover me!" She shouted to Silver Soul, returning both Ruler Swords to her back and running in the direction of the tower closest to the wall.

She had chosen a good time and a good place for it. The diamond dog was on the other side of the battlefield and too far away to easily interfere, even with his boosted speed. But even so, such was not an easy task. The towers focused more on the opponent that was coming closer, and the amount of spells sent in her direction was fear-inducing.

So this was a moment for Rarity to show, once more, why the Knights were so respected. The amount of physical training all of them had to do was no joke, and even though it wasn't her specialty, Rarity had taken well to it. She moved with an astounding speed, specially for a unicorn who was using only her muscles instead of any magic, but the most impressive part was her courage. She was moving closer without stopping, dodging sharp projectiles, area explosions and extreme temperature changes by the barest of margins, running and jumping without the least hesitation, with ferocious and yet graceful movements. She had to use her perception to read the magical pattern of every spell that shot at her and react appropriately.

And yet, even with this, she would have a lot more trouble if Silver Soul didn't immediately start moving in her direction and shooting silver spikes to intercept as many of the spells as possible. Even with this kind of help, Rarity didn't quite manage to get to the end with pure muscle power. There were still twenty meters left before the tower and she realized that she couldn't dodge and keep going forward the same way.

'Well, nothing to it then. It's a little hard to do this without the help of the Sword, but...'

And at the last moment, Rarity enhanced her body with just a touch of magic power, just enough magic power to do what was needed without messing up what she was preparing.

Then she pushed off the ground in a Flash Step, completely escaping the danger zone and reaching her goal in a single movement. At that moment, Silver Soul stopped and turned to rush at the diamond dog and prevent him from interfering, now that he was also getting closer. Rarity had asked the avatar to cover her, and that was what she intended to do.

The Knight only had a few moments before the towers retargeted, but she didn't need more than a single one. There was a reason why she had refrained from using more than a touch of magic during her advance up to that point.

'Amplify Domain.' She thought.

And with this she extended the range of her domain to cover the jewel in the closest tower. And so she could feel them, the diamond dogs that were directly connected with that jewel as well as all the others. That was the weakness of this kind of gemstone magic, they were controlling the gems from far away, and that control could receive interference.

Rarity had plans for other situations, but she had been really hoping that "direct control" was the right answer, because the plan for that situation was her favorite. After taking an instant to understand every single part of the magical pattern they were using...

"RULE!" She shouted, channeling magic through the gem.

She reproduced it perfectly, in every detail. And she used it to take over all of the gemstone towers in that particular "room". Obviously the diamond dogs on the other side didn't want that to happen, but she was close while they were far away from that place, she was fast while they were slow to react to the sudden change, and more importantly, she was full of stored magic while they had been continually using theirs.

Also, it would be annoying if they could keep trying to take back control, so Rarity broke the magical channels that could led to the "central" of the dogs. That done, she used her new control of the gems to disable the spells that had been put on the diamond dog they were fighting.

"Restrain him!" She called to Silver Soul.

The avatar heard her, and she started sending threads of silver to wrap around the dog. He moved to break out of them, but Silver Soul kept close to him and kept making more and more threads, slowly making it so that it was getting harder for the dog to evade by the minute.

Eventually, he tried to jump into the earth to escape, but without having to worry about being harassed by the towers, Silver Soul could put everything into trying to restrain her opponent. Weaving a rope of silver, she wrapped it around the leg of the dog and threw him into the air.

That was pretty much the end of it. Without being able to use the ground to aid his movements, even slashing with his claws all he could, it was impossible for him to avoid being completely engulfed in a prison of silver, up to his neck, without being able to do anything to escape.

Rarity walked near him "Are you willing to talk now?" She asked.

He growled at her, but that was all.

"Okay, I think I have an idea of what this is, but it'll take a bit of effort to be sure." Rarity said, then closed her eyes and sent a controlled pulse of magic into the diamond dog's head.

He immediately used his own internal magic to try and fight her off, but two things were working against him: The first was the fact that he wasn't particularly skilled in simple magic manipulation and defenses, the second was Rarity wasn't trying to harm him (which would allow the dog to defend himself instinctively) and instead only trying to find anything that shouldn't be there.

This was a feat of magic that demanded absolute precision, but Rarity had that in spades.

And after only half a minute of that, she found what she was looking for. It was a small and almost unnoticeable bit of magic, a mere fragment of chaotic energy. And she destroyed it.

Then she withdrew her magic and looked the dog directly in the eyes before asking "Could you tell me what happened?"

He seemed to struggle with himself for a few moments before opening his mouth and speaking:

"Dogs digging. Found big gem." His voice was gravely "Needed to protect big gem from others. Wanted to steal it. But... How would they know about jewel? Why did we need to seal cave from others?" He looked like he was trying to answer a difficult problem.

"It was not your fault. I think that gem combined with a shard of chaos from Discord. There was chaotic energy in your mind, which must have made you and every other dog paranoid." Rarity said.

His face was down "Then... Other dogs. Still controlled."

"Do not worry." Rarity reassured him "I am Knight Rarity, and I have come because of this. I promise I'll rescue your friends and destroy the shard of chaos. I'll even do my best to prevent the jewel from being destroyed, but no promises." She made a signal to Silver Soul to release the dog, and then looked at him "Do you want to come with us to help? What's your name?"

The dog looked at her for a moment and said "Named Ein."

-0-

Without waiting any longer, Twilight and Fluttershy dived back into the lake and swam into the chaotic space tunnels, the pegasus restarting her Grand Search and Manticore Spirit in order to be prepared for anything.

Still, the chaotic space was large, and for the first few minutes, the two didn't find anything dangerous. So they had time for a conversation via Fluttershy's empathy.

'This is a lot bigger and more dangerous than the shard of chaos I destroyed earlier.' Fluttershy said.

'There is a simple reason for that. Shards of chaos, even those of such a powerful being like Discord, don't really have a lot of natural power.' Twilight explained 'Their instinct is to gain extra power via creating chaos. You and Rainbow Dash managed to get two of them before they gained a lot of power, but let's say Rainbow Dash wasn't there: That chaotic storm would have swept through the city and caused a lot of damage, increasing the power of the shard.' She stopped for a moment 'In this case, the shard managed to gain power fast because there were a lot of ponies nearby for it to attack."

'That makes sense.' Fluttershy said 'I guess that means Applejack and Dark Moon aren't going to have much trouble, considering how isolated their shard is.'

'I wouldn't say that.' Twilight cautioned 'Magic in general is difficult to predict, chaos magic even more so. I can think of ways to create a big effect without using a lot of chaos magic, so it's difficult to say what that shard could do, specially if it managed to find some kind of hidden magical artifact.'

Fluttershy agreed with that assessment, and the two kept going in silence for a few more seconds before the attack.

It was completely unexpected. Specially for Fluttershy, who was using her empathy as a radar. A huge green clawed hand came scything out of the wall of the tunnel in a slash designed to cut them apart.

However, both Twilight and Fluttershy were Knights. It would take more than a simple surprise attack to bring them down. Fluttershy brought both claws of the manticore forward to protect herself, while Twilight simply turned part of the water into a crystalline shield.

Both of them were forced an entire meter back and realized that the hand was quite literally just a hand, not connected to any arm. They counter-attacked, Fluttershy with a rushing headbutt and Twilight by sending piercing crystal shards after it. But the hand seemed to have completely adapted to the environment, and it dodged by moving through the water without any resistance, better than any fish, like it was made of literal light.

Twilight realized that this must be a chaos monster made by using one of the captured ponies as a core, and as such, it was imperative for them to destroy it and rescue the pony. She passed a quick plan to Fluttershy via empathy, and charged a bit of magic in preparation.

Fluttershy dived at the monster coming slightly from above. Both of them slashed at each other, ending in a tie, but the monster was pushed back towards Twilight, exactly as planned.

"Chaos Magic: Water Chains!" The unicorn cast.

Their synchronization was perfect, which was to be expected from a teacher and a student who were also literally connected via empathy. The chains of water formed at the perfect position to snag the opponent and make it immobile. There were literally a dozen chains, holding the hand not just physically but magically. It was a spell that had no attacking component, being used purely to restrain.

And Fluttershy took advantage of that by accelerating and literally diving through the hand in a piercing rush, boosting herself with a big amount of magic (too much, was Twilight's opinion. She needed better control) ripping out a bubble containing an earth pony stallion as she passed.

And that was when another surprise attack happened. In the same way as the hand, a weird chaotic version of an octopus seemed to materialize out of the closest wall and rush at Fluttershy.

The pegasus knew what the priority was, so she threw the bubble to Twilight and raised her protections as much as possible to take on the attack.

Twilight charged a teleport spell as fast as she could, looking at the situation and getting ready for anything.

It turned out that Fluttershy's defenses were useless, because the new monster didn't want to harm her. It wrapped the tentacles around the aura form of her manticore mode and started dragging her deeper into the tunnels, moving at high speeds.

Twilight finished her spell, teleporting the victim to the outside of the lake, where the other ponies would be able to help them. As soon as she was finished, Twilight started charging a new spell at the same time as she moved forward, trying her best to remain in Fluttershy's range despite the speed at which she was being carried away.

"Chaos Magic: High-Speed Route!" She shouted.

A variation of the flying route, this spell forcefully accelerated Twilight to speeds that even Rainbow Dash would consider respectable, but there was a price to use it, specially underwater. It didn't have any way to deal with the pressure of moving at such speeds, which forced Twilight to spend a lot of energy with her defensive aura.

And the next fifteen seconds passed in a blur, as the Twilight raced to keep up with the extremely fast octopus. Fluttershy kept attacking to destroy the tentacles and try to free herself, but they were constantly regenerating, and even with all the power of the manticore spirit, she still wasn't able to free herself from its grasp.

And then, they got to the end, and Fluttershy could feel exactly what was waiting for them in that last room. As such, she quickly made a decision to take a risk.

"Magic Burst!" She shouted, forcefully disrupting her own animal spirit spell.

The rushing, explosive energy of the disrupted spell tried to go out of control, but Fluttershy forcefully channeled it into not attacking the center of the octopus, where the innocent pony was located. She grit her teeth not to cry out as her body burned in pain due to the sheer effort.

But it worked. The chaotic monster was finally destroyed, and the innocent pegasus filly was unharmed. They lost speed and Twilight managed to catch up at the next moment, immediately activating a prepared teleportation spell to send the filly to safety.

Then the two had to spend even more magic to swim away in opposite directions in a sharp dodge, as a huge spike lodged itself at the point where they had just been.

So the two finally had to face their final challenge for this mission. A chaotic creature created by a fusion of three innocent ponies with all remaining chaotic energy that the shard of chaos had, along with the shard of chaos itself.

The very arena of the fight was the definition of chaotic. It was a warped space in the form of countless bubbles of existence that wove around each other, mixed together, reflected each other and simply existed in a state of superposition that you would need an entire, thick book of mathematics to explain. The easiest way to describe was a honeycomb composed of honeycombs that were somehow all inside each other in a loop.

Fluttershy closed her eyes and decided to simply use her empathy to guide herself rather than try to make sense of that mess, while Twilight was actually making notes of ways she could use that arena against the very chaos shard that was creating it.

As for the chaotic creature itself, it was a being that could only thrive in the ocean depths that the chaotic space was emulating. It looked like three different creatures fused together. The first was a sort of centipede that served as the bottom part of the monster. It had a segmented body where the proportions were wrong, because every segment had different sizes. And the legs were shark-like monsters, many of which were already being released to go after the Knights.

The middle part was a cylinder of ice inside of which there was a huge fire. The cylinder was full of spikes, that the fire and ice combined to shoot via steam pressure, which was exactly what had been the first attack. As for the top part, it was a strange biological piramid, which was full of eyes that soon started to fire slow lasers at the two. And at the tip of the pyramid, there was a red crystal that seemed to radiate chaos itself. It was also most likely a trap.

As both of the Knights charged their own magic, Twilight had time to wonder about how her other apprentice was doing.

'Well. With the amount of power she can muster, I don't think she's going to have many problems.' Was the conclusion.

-0-

The minotaur came out swinging with a stomp, taking advantage of his heavy weight, but Applejack was already prepared to deal with him. With a shout of "Attack the head!" to her current partner, Applejack channeled her magic into the ground via her armor and raised a mound of earth to hit the side of his leg and force the stomp to miss the target.

Dark Moon had already jumped into the air, riding her own manifested solid darkness which flew through the sky with as much ease and mobility as an actual pegasus. She flew right towards the head of the monster, who brought a hand up to slap her out of the sky.

"Darkness is unstoppable! Dark Rush!" She shouted, and coated herself in a thinner layer of darkness that wavered like and aura.

The spell made her accelerate, and Dark Moon faced the slap by simply making it a contest of strength. And even with the sheer weight of the huge hand, the ice was the thing that broke in the confrontation with the darkness. It was rendered into thousands of pieces and Dark Moon barely slowed down.

But before she could actively attack, Black Hooves made his second movement. Again charging power along with his fortress, he cast a spell that created a deep black cloud above the fortress, and that cloud started to hail extremely dense and hard bits of ice. Still, this wouldn't discourage Dark Moon, who simply shaped part of her darkness into a pseudo-umbrella and kept going.

The minotaur still had one hand left, and attacked with it to prevent the unicorn from reaching his head, but Applejack (who had made herself an armor of earth to deal with the hailstones) rammed into the minotaur's right leg, unbalancing him and making his attack miss.

Dark Moon finally got close enough for an attack, which she had been charging for the last few seconds. And she shouted it eagerly:

"Darkness is everywhere! Dark Blast!" And threw a sphere of darkness at the enemy's head.

It hit, but didn't seem to have caused any impact initially, but after a moment, the minotaur's head exploded from the inside, and his body fell to the ground. Yet at that moment, Black Hooves was finishing another spell, sending a multitude of birds made of ice, of all sorts of shapes and sizes to attack.

Applejack knew that they weren't making any progress, and soon the opponent would be able to build up enough power to overwhelm them. So she decided to change strategies, and shaped the earth into a ramp as she ran upwards and in the direction of the fortress.

"Let's get inside!" She shouted to Dark Moon, who dropped down to her level and flew beside her.

"What's the deal here?" She asked.

"The shard of chaos managed bring life ta the memories of Warlock Black Hooves and his fortress. It's like a powerful illusion, ta the point where it can use the mechanisms of the fortress ta draw energy from the dragon pulse like the warlock used ta do in order to power all this." Applejack explained.

"What do we do?" Was the next question.

"The Warlock is the center, if we can destroy him..." She left it in the air.

That was the point where the two had to defend themselves against the birds. Dark Moon showed the true flexibility of her darkness magic by creating tendrils of darkness to attack the birds, shields to block their path, and all that while still flying forward just as fast. Applejack on the other hand, had a different tactic.

"Space Step!" She shouted, and stepped hundreds of meters forward, arriving inside the grounds of the fortress. Then she focused her earth magic and got to work. In the fight against Canterlot Castle, Applejack had been able to create amazing feats of earth manipulation despite a lack of training for that, or an artifact that could help, thanks to the existence of the chaos zone. Now she had both, and while this place didn't qualify as a true chaotic zone, the nature of the memory magic meant that it would serve.

And now she could do a lot more.

Huge amounts of earth came out of the ground and covered Applejack, before expanding to double the size of a house, and then start to form a shape. A bird-like head, a pair of wings, and four legs ending in claws. It a a griffin made of earth, and after being made, it flapped its wings and took off, mocking several of the laws of aerodynamics in the process.

The earth griffin flew towards Dark Moon, at the same time as Black Hooves was finishing yet another spell, a huge cone of cold energy that even her darkness powers would have difficulty defending against. But the earth griffin managed to block the attack with its body. And the ice birds also weren't having any luck with getting through the layers of defense it had.

So, Applejack could focus on trying to take down Black Hooves, and she somehow decided that the best plan was to grab Dark Moon and throw her at the warlock.

The avatar laughed as she accelerated even more with her powers, cutting through the air and approaching the surprised warlock "Darkness devours everything! Dark Abyss!"

And the darkness shaped itself into a mouth that swallowed the warlock whole.

Dark Moon flew forward a few more meters before stopping and looking back where the warlock had been and saying:

"This is the meaning of the power of darkness."

Applejack on the other hand, was focusing her sight as much as she could, having figured out that something was wrong as soon as the attack was finished.

And so, she was not entirely surprised when, in a rush of wind, the warlock appeared again over another part of the fortress, condensing out of the air like snow.

"You think this is enough to destroy me?! Outrageous!" He shouted, casting another spell that created eight manticores made of ice that joined the birds in attacking Applejack and Dark Moon.

There were another few seconds of quick combat before he cast one more spell, that summoned cold spirits who flew through the air and tried to invade the bodies of the duo to freeze them to death.

He was obviously getting stronger with time, but Applejack had seen enough.

She hadn't been wrong in her assertion that the warlock was the center of everything, the shard of chaos was definitely inside his body. The problem was that the memory magic was acting like a secondary core, forcefully keeping the warlock alive and the fortress working, and incidentally also preventing the shard of chaos from being destroyed. And the worst part was that the memory magic was tied to the place itself, being powered by the memories of the warlock, his experiences in the fortress and his final battle.

And destroying the place simply wasn't a realistic option. Due to the combination of the magical defenses which were at full strength and the simple sturdiness of its construction (most of it still remained even after a titanic battle with an entire group of Knights, after all) not even Sunset would be able to do such a thing.

This was a truly troublesome magic. And made Applejack remember one of the most tiring lessons she had ever received from Trixie.

-0-

2 Months Earlier

There was a rock on top of Applejack, that rock was incredibly heavy and impossible to move. No matter what magic she tried to use, or what movements she tried to make, it was all useless and she couldn't get rid of the rock. She was slowly being crushed, and when she got to her limit, the weight of the rock reduced itself to allow her to recover before going back to normal.

But still, she knew that were it not for that, she would be crushed to death. The fact that the rock was an illusion would make no difference.

"Why can't Ah... Break... This illusion...?" She asked with labored words.

Her teacher, the one who was controlling the illusion, answered.

"This is not just an ordinary illusion, because Trixie has actually tied it to the world itself. The illusion affects the world and the world supports the illusion. That is the true meaning of a Perfect Illusion. Normally you'd still be able to destroy one of those by breaking the connection between reality and illusion, but in this case, Trixie has made the ties to the world a lot stronger than usual. Simple power isn't enough, unless you are willing to use enough power to rip apart existence itself." Trixie looked at her apprentice seriously "Finding a way to deal with this kind of illusion is the next step in your path towards mastering the Eyes of Truth." She said in a firm voice.

-0-

As both she and Dark Moon had to deal with the new threats Warlock Black Hooves had created, Applejack reflected that this situation would be problematic... for most. But her teacher had trained her well.

She already knew what to do.

-0-

Surprisingly, even after those incredibly foreboding words, nothing happened immediately. It seemed like that particular Shard of Chaos was significantly more patient than most chaos related things.

So that meant that the Knights had some time to prepare. Trixie asked Medaka:

"Could you tell me everything about this place? The nature of the connections, the types of living beings that are part of it, the space it occupies, the geography of the underground river... Everything you can think of."

And the zebra explained things, she explained a lot. Trixie seemed to be understanding everything, while Rainbow Dash's mind was struggling as it heard things like 'colony tissue fusion', 'multiple independent cnidaria construction' and 'sinkhole dropping'.

Still, Rainbow Dash had to keep listening to what was being said. It was weird, but Sunset had determined that part of Rainbow Dash's amazing instincts had to do with her subconscious. She could absorb information that her conscious mind couldn't interpret but her subconscious was capable of acting upon. Sunset had a theory that Rainbow Dash's magic shifting was possible because of her subconsciously memorizing magical patterns.

But still, Medaka did speak a lot. To the point where Trixie conjured a glass of water for her to recover at the end of it.

"So, what is the plan here?" Rainbow Dash asked, while the zebra was drinking.

"Okay, it's obvious that the shard of chaos is somewhere inside the underground river, so first of all, we should go to the closest blowhole and-"

She was interrupted by a violent shaking of the earth.

"What's happening?" Medaka asked in a panic "This place doesn't get earthquakes!"

Her question was answered once the ground started literally rising into the earth, carrying all the trees and individuals with it. Rainbow Dash immediately flew into the air to try and take in the entire scene and understand what exactly was happening.

What she was was that a huge amount of land in teh shape of a turtle shell was being raised in the air by millions of thin tendrils of earth. And then it started to walk. And as it passed through more land, it started sucking up the matter underneath and becoming even bigger.

Trixie sighed "Okay, change of plans. First, Trixie will have to limit the damage of this thing."

It would be better to do that quick, So Trixie didn't hesitate and called upon the power of the Sphere of Charge that was stored in her armor. It was a lot of power, and Trixie had to take an entire second to create a spell formula that could take advantage of such a big amount of energy. She could have done it faster, but it would cause unnecessary strain to her mind.

"Perfect Illusion: False Perception." She stated, casting the spell.

Trixie had figure that the shard of chaos had shifted things around so that the system of beings that composed that part of the forest became only a single being, which also had taken on the inorganic parts of the place of which all that life depended and made it a literal part of the resulting creature.

This was a pretty annoying situation, but that also meant that Trixie could affect the entire thing like it was a single being, and that was the meaning of the spell. The land creature clearly wanted to walk around and suck up more matter from the rest of the forest in order to grow ever larger, so Trixie's spell was aimed at preventing it from doing so.

The illusion was channeled through the nearby tree and spread through the entire "body" of the monster, and after a moment, it stopped walking and started moving backwards. What the creature was "seeing" (its perception was somewhat complex, due to being a creature of chaos made of many different things and beings all at once) were parts of itself returning to the land it had left, forcing it to go back and retrace its steps in order to get them back.

"This should keep it in a loop for a while." Trixie said, satisfied.

Rainbow Dash landed next to her and spoke:

"The underground river is different from before, the water is flowing through the sky itself while going in and out of the earth from above and below. It's very weird, but I found the closest place where we can go in."

Trixie was about to answer when suddenly a pulse of chaos magic was emitted from within the chaos creature and suddenly the minds of the Knights were attacked.

-0-

Everything was one with the chaos. Why should you be lonely and separated? All become one, bigger than the sum of its parts...

That was the message that the chaos magic was carrying to try and make its targets into another part of the creature. The chaos magic that went inside Rainbow Dash's mind found an endless sky with an ethereal version of the pegasus flying around it. The chaos magic formed itself into words to be heard by that inner self, and flew over to it. Except that the ethereal pegasus was very fast, so the words needed to make themselves faster and faster to be able to reach it, but even that wasn't enough, so they kept going faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and faster-

-0-

"Huh, mental attack." Rainbow Dash spoke blandly.

"Yeah, it is an interesting approach." Trixie considered.

"HAHAHAHAHA! CHAOS!" Medaka laughed, her eyes turned into multicolored swirls.

She rushed up to Rainbow Dash and tried to punch her, only to be dodged easily. The pegasus Knight then gave a punch of her own, this one successful.

"Get a gold of yourself!" She ordered, infusing harmony magic into the blow.

The zebra staggered, rubbing her head with a hoof and said in a pained voice "Owch... What happened?"

"Chaos magic possession." Trixie said blandly "And Dash, this should have happened with the other members of the town as well, you should go there and deal with it."

Rainbow Dash took off, and soon Trixie could see in the sky the glow of the sonic rainboom (harmony edition) and smiled, thinking to herself that having somepony who could use harmony magic, even in a limited capacity, really made things easier.

"We're not going to let you power up as you want so easily." Trixie spoke with a smile as she looked at the ground, like she was addressing the shard of chaos directly.

A few moments later, Rainbow Dash landed next to Trixie "Done." She said "I put in enough harmony magic in the air that they are going to be safe for a while."

"And her?" Trixie pointed to Medaka.

"I injected her directly, so..." Rainbow Dash said.

"Okay. I guess we should go, then." Trixie nodded, then did a high speed teleportation and ended up riding on Rainbow Dash.

"AH! Not you too!" Rainbow shouted.

"Fly forward, my steed! Into the depths we go!" Trixie announced grandly, and Rainbow Dash had no choice but to take off, going directly into the entrance to the underground river she had seen before.

-0-

"Inside the city... That does make everything more complicated." Lightning Chaser said grimly.

Pinkie nodded, and then one of the pegasi from the team that had tried to stop the chaotic weather phenomenon shouted at them from the distance, flying as fast as she could in the direction of the duo.

30%

"How do you think we should best deal with it?" Lightning Chaser asked the Knight.

"Hmm..." Pinkie thought "The chaos changed that weather, that means this chaos guy likes weather things, so I think that trying to attract him by making some interesting weather would work well." She said.

Lightning Chaser nodded, and flew off. The pegasus that had been coming closer during it finally reached Pinkie.

40%

"What's going on here?" she asked.

"Knight mission. A bunch of mischievous bits of chaos magic are causing trouble everywhere!" Pinkie exclaimed, then giggled "Mischievous. That is a fun word to say, mischiieeevooous..."

The pegasus blinked "Ah... Anything we should do?" She asked.

"Just keep yourselves safe and pay attention to any possible weird things so that you can alert us." Pinkie said seriously.

"Okay..."

60%

At that point, Lightning Chaser had reached an altitude she judged sufficient to minimize the problems that would inevitably arise when the chaos magic got its hooves (or tendrils, or whatever, she wasn't sure) on the weather manifestation she was about to create.

The avatar focused on her magic and started manipulating the air around, making big portions of it spin little by little and create a zone of turbulence that was similar to a hurricane. She started putting more and more strength into it, and forcing the winds to spin around themselves in multiple separate paths forming something similar to a sphere made of a multiplicity of winds spinning in every direction. And anypony who looked at the sky from the city would be able to see it, since the winds were strong and wild enough to actually distort the light passing through them.

And then a pulse of chaos magic warped through the air and entered into the hurricane.

Pinkie closed her eyes as she tried to track down the place of origin of that pulse.

70%

And Lightning Chaser saw as her wind manipulation ripped itself away from her control, and changed incredibly suddenly. The whole thing acquired an orange tone and two eyes appeared on opposite sides of the "sphere", but the true biggest change was that the wind seemed to change to the consistency of jell-o, without changing its speed and direction of movement one bit. This meant that the wind caught on fire due to the attrition, while giving a screech that sounded like a swamp trying to whistle.

And then it started to drop towards the city, picking up even more wind in the process and getting even bigger, turning into an ersatz meteor/hurricane that was capable of cutting anything in its path and kept drawing all the dust in the air in its direction.

Lightning Chaser wouldn't simply let the chaos do whatever it wanted, especially considering that she had been the one to create the seed weather that the chaos had distorted. So she dropped after the eyed flaming jell-o wind hurricane meteor and flapped her wings to accelerate as much as possible, trying to get close to the chaotic weather event despite the heavy turbulence that followed it.

At the same time, she charged a lot of magic and used it to start creating her response to this threat. Given her name and talents, it wasn't surprising that her choice was lightning, but instead of using the same black lightning from before, Lightning Chaser was actually focusing a lot more power in order to create purple lightning, which had the reverse effect from the other. While Black Lightning represented destruction, the purple version represented creation.

When Lightning Chaser had accumulated enough of her namesake in order to do what she wanted, the meteor was still fifteen seconds away from impacting the city. That was the advantage of getting up so high before doing her job. So the avatar was almost leisurely as she threw a torrent of lightning the size of a river down into the direct path of the meteor. In the instants before impact, the lightning formed itself into a web before forcefully creating a wind dead zone.

The moment of impact started with a blinding flash of light as the purple lightning magic competed with the chaotic magic over the control of that specific area of sky. Like a negative meeting a positive, the two forces canceled each other out at a fast rate, causing reactions due to the sudden disappearance of energy, such as shockwaves that completely smothered the fire of the meteor.

The moment of impact ended with a rush of wind as the web, that had stretched itself to its breaking point, actually ended up breaking, letting a much weakened and smaller concentration of winds pass through. But that had been enough, Lightning Chaser simply channeled her magic through the remnants of the purple lightning in order to control the wind of the area directly, completely annihilating the rest of the chaotic energy and its effects.

At the same time, Pinkie Pie opened her eyes and smiled. She had managed to get the scent of the chaos shard, and looking above, she saw that Lightning Chaser didn't need any help and had already dealt with the bait. So Pinkie charged a bit of magic (it was actually a significant amount for the standards of most people, but Pinkie had reached such a high level on her emotion charge already that this level of power expenditure barely registered) and shapeshifted the air above her into a huge sign, saying:

'FOUND IT. FOLLOW ME!'

Along with a drawing of Pinkie's face. That done, she waited until the avatar had seen her message before letting it disappear and starting to walk towards her destination. Her current partner soon flew down to her level, so Pinkie accelerated, shifting forward repeatedly to the point where the pegasus had some trouble keeping up.

But it didn't take long. Soon they reached their destination... Saddleoak's Special Weather Magic Academy.

"Just as expected." Pinkie nodded.

80%

But before they could go in, another pulse of chaos magic came from inside the academy and fused with the air in a kilometer long area around the school. The effect of this new bit of chaos... Turned the air red.

"What was that in aid off?" Lightning Chaser asked, seeing that the magic really wasn't doing anything else.

"The shard is trying to use all the chaos in the air as a smokescreen to be able to escape." Pinkie realized "Not gonna happen." She stated.

Then, Pinkie, who had already reached her current limits in terms of Emotion Charge and was covered in a pink aura of power that seemed almost solid due to the sheer amount of energy it consisted of, charged a lot of magic and prepared a spell of her own. Then she slammed her hooves on the ground and declared it:

"Chaotic Arts: Bring on the World of Chaos!" She spoke with relish.

The effects of the spell she used couldn't be described as a simple pulse of magic. Instead, they were more like a wave of magic that was nearly solid, enough to cause all ponies who were caught up in it to stumble. Lightning Chaser was the closest pony to Pinkie, and she could feel something like an impression of the Knight as she cast the spell.

She was also the first witness to the effects of Pinkie's technique, as after the wave had expanded to the same size as the area covered by the red air, the effect actually started, expanding from the ground under Pinkie's hooves and outwards, changing the entire area.

And what a change it was. Pinkie calling the effect a world of chaos wasn't overstating things. The air became multicolored and formed several shapes of warped objects and animals. Those shapes shifted and changed, mixed and matched, making more and more weird configurations in the mist.

Still, none of that prevented any from seeing the ground and the buildings which were also being affected by the magic. The ground started to sway like waves in the ocean, some of it also distorting itself to create mounds, spiraling paths and other types of rough terrain, and other parts went even further and completely detached from the ground to make flying platforms.

And the buildings were the parts that changed the most. The school itself bent and flowed until the separate buildings and their rooms forced themselves into a misshapen tower, which started to wobble from one side to another while the outside part of it started spinning around the main tower, like a wheel.

And while the other buildings didn't go that far, they each seemed to be trying to outdo each other in terms of ridiculousness. Some shifted their proportions to grotesque levels, like a completely flat building that still contained all the matter it had before. Others preferred to simply do things instead, like one that started jumping on top of other buildings while singing (somehow). There was also one who turned into a real, biological elephant. And every place Lightning Chaser looked, there was another unexpected things to see.

But in the end, this all lasted only a few seconds. Then Pinkie Pie slammed her hooves to the ground and said "Okay. Done now." releasing another wave of magic.

And suddenly everything was back to normal. The avatar almost stumbled out of sheer whiplash due to the enormous change, but a small part of her still managed to take note of the fact that the red air had also disappeared.

"What..." She managed to utter, without even being able to put a questioning tone in her voice.

But Pinkie didn't answer her, instead pointing to a pegasus stallion that was flying through the air and shouting "There! It's him!" And vanishing into a chaotic shift.

-0-

Sunset had only one thing to say to that question.

"I wouldn't be against it."

The unicorn seemed to consider this for a moment "Then it's settled. My name is Aura Music, do you know what is going on around here?"

Sunset answered quickly, not knowing when the next wave of chaotic creatures would spawn "A shard of chaos magic has come here and is causing trouble. Also, considering how the first few chaos events were very similar, and happened in different places, I can bet this isn't just normal chaos shenanigans, but there's somepony actively manipulating the shard."

The unicorn (and Spike) were trying to digest this revelation when Sunset continued "I can tell you're a user of music magic. How good are you?"

Aura Music grinned "If I say I'm the second best in music magic, nopony will dare call themselves the first!" She declared grandly.

Then Spike shouted "Problem at the river again!"

"Then let's put it to the test." Sunset said, and Spike went flying, followed by their new ally.

It didn't take long for them to reach the river, and following the tendency of the events, this time the threat was even more elaborate than ever. There was only one monster created, but that monster was really big, the size of three building forced together. The monster was made of water and had the shape of a catlike head and two square hands that weren't connected with the body.

Sunset immediately hit it with the most powerful fire spell she could muster, making a good bit of water from the head part evaporate. But that was when it became obvious why the monster hadn't bothered leaving the river, as it simply replaced the lost water with more coming from the river. Then she had to dodge a swipe from one of the hands.

Aura Music was the next one to try. With a flow of magic, she made her zither play a short melody that was beautiful yet ferocious, seeming to contain a hidden power that harmonized with the magic itself. The unicorn then grinned beastially and shouted:

"Grand Sound Vibration, Annihilate the Universe!"

It was a very overbearing and exaggerated name (even Sunset thought so), but it couldn't be said that it was entirely undeserved. The magic rushed through the air as a directed sound wave, and it forcefully spread and covered all three of the parts of the water creature. And not only covered, but the music magic forced its way through the very chaos magic that was animating the water and infected every single droplet.

And then they all vibrated. The pure energy contained on the droplets of water caused them to vibrate at high speed, the aqua monsters breaking apart due to the violence of those vibrations. But even that still wasn't enough, and the monster started reconstituting itself.

When Sunset released a spell that shot like a laser towards the part of the "left hand". And after it passed through, something seemed to have happened, as all the water on the thing dropped back into the river. Aura Music looked at the Knight questioningly.

"You exposed the weak point." Sunset said simply "But this isn't going to work. Whoever it using the shard is trying to gather power and hiding until them. You felt the chaos magic, can you use your music magic to search?"

Aura Soul thought about it "I can, but trying to search this entire place would be like a frog trying to drink an entire lake. It's too much. That's not my specialty."

Sunset pointed at herself "I can take care of the issue of power. With some care, my Magic Enhance can be used on your search spell. What do you think?"

The unicorn grinned "This would be like giving wings to a tiger! The difference between normal and enhanced spells would be like the difference between heaven and earth! Let's do it!" She extended her wind current a little to her side.

Sunset teleported to her side and activated her Trance Mode, put her hoof on Aura's shoulder and started charging magic.

The music mage concentrated for a few seconds with her eyes closed, before opening them and shouting:

"Grand Sound Search, Cover All Existence!"

And the spell activated, but before its effect could start, Sunset did the equivalent of smothering the spell formula with her own magic, forcefully preventing its activation. She didn't have the same level of harmony with this new pony as she had with her original partners, so a difference approach was needed. She couldn't hold the spell like that for long, but it was long enough.

"Quadruple Magic Enhance: No Hiding Place!" She shouted.

Then a wave of beautiful sound resounded through the entire nearby area. And if the previous sound spell had seemed powerful, this one carried the feeling of being able to crush the entire world, such was the power it had. There was absolutely no way to prevent oneself from being caught by it, it was a true and unrelenting search spell. But the real value of the magic was only shown when it found the target.

Suddenly, all the energy of the spell that was covering the area seemed to shift, and in an instant it converged in a single point, somewhere to the west of the city, where a gigantic arrow appeared in the sky to point out the result. There was truly no hiding place for the target, and the arrow carried such power that it was almost impossible to destroy.

"There!" Both Sunset and Aura shouted, and Spike went flying in the direction of the arrow, with Aura Music carrying Sunset only a little bit behind him.

At their speed, it would only take a few seconds for them to reach the arrow, so naturally, that was when things went wrong. Sunset suddenly turned back and shouted:

"Triple Magic Enhance: Blast Shadow!"

And she shot a cone of energy. It was big enough to be able to block Spike's fully adult form if he were already able to achieve it. And it was just in time.

With a violent sound, something hit the cone of energy. Sunset staggered from the pressure of whatever it was, but it didn't last for long. Blue beams of energy that had been deflected by the cone hit the ground around where the three were. And the parts of the ground which had been hit... vanished. Like they had simply stopped existing.

Sunset dropped her spell and the one responsible for the attack was revealed.

It was a minotaur. He was fairly tall, and his top half was colored red, while the bottom half was dark blue. His eyes were silver colored and shining, and he was standing on a portal in the air.

Sunset immediately recognized him. Mostly due to the portal. This was Claw Marked, the annihilation of space, an ancient enemy of the Knights of the realm of the generation of Knight Aurora Dream, the Devourer of Existence. He was a particularly powerful mage who could use space and time magic, but rarely used the latter. The reason why had become obvious for Sunset after reading the research about space magic Moondancer's group had compilated (it also involved time, since the two were connected), time magic was absurdly dangerous.

The guy was obviously another magical construct, made by the same mastermind who had created the Tempest of Destruction they faced in the Changeling case. Considering that it was very likely that he, like the other one, wasn't as powerful as the original, hopefully this meant she didn't need to worry about time magic at all.

Sunset thought all of those things in instants, then she made a snap decision.

"Spike!" She shouted "Go deal with the shard! Me and Aura Soul will take care of this one!"

Spike hesitated for a moment, he was going into an unknown situation without backup. But he remembered Sunset's words. Going into situations where he couldn't be sure whether he would be able to do anything was just business was usual for a Knight. And Sunset was counting on him. The dragon flapped his wings and accelerated.

Sunset shot a powerful fireball at the opponent, just trying to get some more time to think. She looked at Aura Music, who simply nodded at her, as if saying that she wouldn't back down at this point.

"Hey, do you want to become a Knight?" She asked casually. Many Knights were originally heroes who were later chosen by the princesses and trained to become even stronger. They had planned to offer the possibility to Venus when she turned up again.

"I can't." She answered simply.

And yet, this simple answer brought Sunset's mind into an overdrive (but not an Overdrive, of course).

Claw Marked retaliated with a swipe that sent a line of space magic into them, and Sunset again had to use a spell to deflect part of the magic. But even as she was doing that, Sunset had a series of thoughts that went through several logical jumps, but could be reasonably expressed like this:

'She can't. Not that she won't, or that she prefers not, but she can't. Just today I heard about how avatars can't become Knights. There could be other explanations for not being able to, but there's also the matter of Venus, who appeared very conveniently, like this one. They are both separate species like Luna's avatars, but from where could they have come from? Celestia never felt the need to create avatars. Cadance. Cadance was having meetings with Luna and could have learned from her. Cadance is the alicorn of Bonds. Her possible avatars use love and music magic. It all fits together.'

She didn't have proof, but Sunset felt that she was right. As Aura Music used another of her ridiculously named attacks to retaliate, Sunset decided to leave that for later.

Still, a part of her couldn't help but be glad of her luck. Sunset felt that if it was simply a question of defeating this magical construct, she alone would be sufficient, but of course, just defeating the construct would leave the mastermind completely free from reprisal, and they couldn't have that, could they?

With the help of this new ally, the chances of success of their special plan had gone up a lot.

 

[Kinni]

Cliffhanger alert.

Chapter 43 - Identity of the Enemy

After that, there was only one other thing to do before the trio walked forward towards their target. Rarity grabbed three of the gemstones which were the focus of the magic and shaped a bit of earth to create a holding place for them which she could easily carry on her back. One was red, one was green and one was purple. As she was doing this, Rarity also talked a bit about what she had understood of the magic used:

"This is a really functional sort of magic. You put energy inside those gems, which also contain all the formulas for the varied spells they can use. Like this, you can essentially use powerful magic from a distance and with a much lesser cost for the users." She stopped for a moment "But the best part is that each of those gems can draw energy from the environment, and they are able to easily share energy with each other, so if you have enough of those gems together in a system, it is functionally the same as having unlimited power, because you can draw in enough energy to recover whatever you are spending."

Ein nodded "Knight is smart. All those are right."

"The most impressive part is the delicate craftwork necessary to engrave the multipurpose magic formulas in the gems." Rarity said, then they started to walk towards the next room "But dear, is there anything else we should know before we go towards the end?" She asked.

"There is one. Gin is Boss of the Group. Gin is Strong, he fought with Ursa Major and tied." Ein answered "And that without gem help."

"So, a truly strong opponent, isn't it?" Rarity raised an eyebrow "I suppose I shall have to focus my efforts on dealing with him, then."

After that, they left the first room where they had been fighting, going through a short corridor before coming out inside of another room with more of those towers. Except this time there were a few differences from before. Most notably was the fact that some towers were joined together, with their gems also connected by threads of magic, while other towers had gems with more than one color.

As expected, the magic attacks were even fiercer in this room, partially because it was closer to the "command central", making it easier for the dogs to control, but mostly it was because of the new gems. Some of them targeted other towers and strengthened them with spells, others had multiple effects at once due to the mixing of more than one gem type in a single tower, fast spells that were also piercing, area of effect spells that also slowed down the opponents...

And this time, there were two diamond dogs who came to attack. They were just as skilled in hit and run tactics as Ein, but they were also really good at supporting one another, and the spells cast by the towers to buff them were also stronger, including even a special shield spell that had an acid property, trying to melt anything that came in contact with it.

However, none of that mattered. The gem magic used by the dogs was really good, but Rarity was now carrying the gems of her own to use, and while she wasn't an expert in them, her magical skill and ability in controlling artifacts made it so the Knight could display the strong points of that particular magical method with great might.

Rarity faced the overwhelming attacks of the towers by being even more overwhelming than them. She used the gems in her possession to shoot spells at a much higher rate than they could do before, and combined those spells with her normal attacks using the Ruler Swords of Wind and Earth. Not having to fuel most of the magic she was using, Rarity showed at the same time power and control, using an onslaught of attacks intelligently in order to open up a path to reach the towers.

Doing that, she could disable the towers one by one, also draining the magic of their jewels in order to restore the power she was spending at an incredible rate. As for the enemy dogs, knowing the nature of the spells they were utilizing, and having the gems as a focus, it was easy to disable their buffing spells, and then Rarity just restrained their arms and buried them in earth up to their necks, reasoning that it would be easier to simply deal with the shard of chaos itself more quickly instead of trying to cure every single diamond dog individually.

As for Silver Soul and Ein, they pretty much just acted as supports, Ein was pretty good at Earth Magic, and together with his normal physical abilities, he had both short and long range covered in a similar way as Silver Soul's silver manipulation. The two of them found a good rhythm, first hindering the enemy dogs while Rarity was busy, and later by intercepting some of the spells of the towers.

After all the towers in the room were disabled, Rarity recharged the magic in her gems and the three proceeded forward again. The next tower room ended up in the same way, despite the fact that now there were some tower combinations completely dedicated to powering up other towers, as well as fusions of three gems, and even towers that shot spells that created traps on the ground, as well as three diamond dogs attacking at once. Rarity had a bit of trouble adapting to the changes at first, but soon that room was also completely conquered.

Of course, that was when Ein said that the "big gem" was in the next room, which should be the last line of defence.

The three stopped for a moment in order to readjust themselves to the best possible states, and then walked the rest of the way towards their final challenge.

It was immediately clear that this would be different from any of the previous fights. Instead of dozens of towers, there were actually only ten towers, formed into a diamond formation. The walls to the sides of the towers were angled, in a way that made it impossible to go around them in order to get to the prize behind the towers, which was their target.

It could only barely be seen from the position the three attackers were in. The gem was shaped like a diamond and had the size of a wall. It's color was a kaleidoscopic combination of nearly every color one could think off, and which seemed to change depending on the angle it was watched from. Besides the towers, there was something else protecting the gem, it was a multicolored and multilayered shield spell, which seemed to be getting power from the cave itself.

And despite being in a smaller number than in the previous rooms, the towers in that room gave a bigger sense of intimidation. First, because the diamond formation was truly a Formation, with lines of magic connecting the towers, and more lines connecting their gems. The gems themselves also seemed brighter and more real than any others, despite being only single colors gems, having furious auras of energy. But most importantly, the power of the Formation was being directed slightly above the towers, into a vortex of magic that the trio could feel in their very souls.

And then there were the diamond dogs. Ten of them, all silent and with sharp eyes, their postures ready to pounce. Their leader, Gin, was easy to see. He was twice as big as an ordinary diamond dog and had a silver fur and bright green eyes.

Both sides saw each other at the same time, but the first to make a move was Rarity. She activated all three of the gems she was carrying and shot two blasts of magic, straight at her partners.

Those were her own special versions of the gemstone magic buffing spells the diamond dogs used. Both Ein and Silver Soul started shining with a golden glow, and Rarity yelled "Attack the towers!" at the same time as Gin began to move.

With a step that sounded like an explosion, Gin launched himself right at Rarity at insane speeds. The Knight brought her Earth Ruler Sword to bear and it clashed with the fist of the opponent.

Rarity didn't budge, and Gin also wasn't forced back, but their collision released a tremendous shockwave that made both of Rarity's partners fly a few meters to the sides. Their buffs protected the two, and they landed standing and immediately rushed towards the towers, while the other diamond dogs moved to try and intercept them.

And the vortex of magic above the towers also started bombarding all three intruders with continuous spells. That was how the final battle started.

Rarity shouted "Wind Slash!" and brought her Wind Ruler Sword in an attack on the legs of her opponent that was too low for Gin to block with his hands. He dealt with that by crouching and protecting his head and chest with his left arm, before clawing forward at his opponent.

The claw was so strong that the air itself screamed at its passage, and the cutting edge of the attack actually extended two centimeters past the actual claw. Rarity used a forceful application of wind magic to throw herself backwards. She took a moment to send another layer of buffing spells at her partners before Gin did another forceful step forward trying to run her through, forcing Rarity to do a sideways flash step to evade. Her previous position exploded into shards from the attack, and then the Knight had to deal with an encirclement of spells from the towers. She ripped a heavy ring of earth from around herself to use as a makeshift shield, and used the resulting smoke cloud to conceal her next move, a flash step directly at Gin, using her Earth Ruler Sword like a jousting lance.

The diamond dog managed to forcefully grab onto the sword with both hands to stop it, and then he stomped the ground, using his earth magic to send a wave of earth at Rarity, who responded by breaking it with a burst of earth magic, but that had only been a distraction, and he suddenly released the sword and did a powerful overhead strike with both claws, forcing Rarity to flash step to dodge again as the missed attack created a veritable line of destruction on the ground.

Having gained a few moments to breathe, Rarity sent yet another layer of buffing spells to her partners, who had almost reached the towers as well as shooting a multitude of earth spheres at the other diamond dogs to keep them from attacking her partners from the back.

Then she had to deal with the fact that the controllers of the towers (which were probably hiding somewhere nearby) decided that trying to get through the buffs of Silver Soul and Ein would be useless, and instead decided to focus their efforts on the Knight. An onslaught of spells was shot not only at her, but around her as well, creating barriers to the sides in order to prevent any easy ways to dodge.

"Wind and Earth Style: Tornado Stones!"

So she countered instead, sweeping both swords and creating her magic, an indoors tornado that was loaded with stones, and using it to trigger the spells of the enemy early. But then Gin appeared behind her, already slashing with such power that the shockwaves were digging a deep trench on the ground, having aimed at the exact space of time in which Rarity couldn't use a spell again.

The unicorn responded to that by jumping at her tornado, deliberately getting caught in the winds to dodge Gin, then she stood on one of the stones and jumped out, managing to land a few meters behind the diamond dog.

And then she smiled, as she saw the maelstrom of energy distort and finally dissipate. Her buffing spells were pretty good at protecting their targets, but they had another effect which was their true aim, they created interference on the channels of magic used by the towers.

And then Rarity brandished her Wind Ruler Sword and charged it with as much magic as she could get on short notice (quite a bit, she wasn't top tier in magic capacity among the Knights, but the Knights were truly above the norm, in comparison with normal ponies she was ridiculous) showing a fierce grin on her face as she created a blade of wind that was twice as big as her own (already huge) sword.

"Wind Sword Style: Great Maelstrom Slash!" She shouted, and launched her attack… which the enemy dodged in an explosive movement.

"Support Version." She added, in a mischievous voice "Now!" She shouted.

Then, three things happened in close succession. First, the attack compressed itself to the size of a pony and slowed down as it moved in the direction of the towers. Second…

"Silver Armor Activate!" Silver Soul shouted, channeling magic through her artifact necklace.

There was a wave of silver as most of what she had flowed towards Ein. The silver engulfed him and shaped itself around his form, turning into a Knight-style armor with runes that hummed with power. That was the special mechanism Rarity had added to the necklace. And then the wind shot that Rarity had created merged with the armor to become an extra barrier.

And the third thing was that the newly barbed diamond dog ran through the towers at amazing speeds, before jumping towards the literal final barrier.

The shard of chaos understood what was happening, and every bit of magic it could draw from the environment was forcefully turned into attacks that mirrored the spells used by the gem magic of the diamond dogs, bombarding Ein with a variety of magic.

But even if it was only temporary, Ein was still using an armor created by an artifact altered by a Knight and powered by an avatar, and had an extra defense spell made by that same Knight, not to mention that the diamond dog himself was very strong and very determined. He weathered all the force and pulled back a fist, commanding the silver to gather in it, making a house sized mass of silver shaped like a pile bunker.

And he struck.

The noise was indescribable, as Ein's attack smashed through the barrier and, a moment later, crushed the gem and the shard of chaos inside it. There was an explosion of light…

And every single diamond dog present collapsed.

Moving like the wind, Ein managed to reach the side of his boss Gin in seconds.

"Gin. Gin, you okay?" He asked.

There was no response for a moment, and then a big hand touched Ein's shoulder.

"Good dog. Best friend." Gin said.

Soon, all the other dogs were also up, and it didn't take long for the situation to be explained to every member of the group (Gin sent dogs to free those that Rarity had buried) and the Knight was listening with interest to one of the dogs talk about the processes used to craft their magical gems.

"It is a pity that the jewel ended up destroyed, though." Silver Soul commented in the Knight's earshot.

"Ah." Rarity said "I knew I was forgetting something."

Then, she walked up to the fragments of the jewel. Everyone else watched with interest as the Knight pulled out her Earth Ruler Sword and concentrated for a few seconds, charging magic. And then she shouted:

"Restoration!"

And in a scene that could only be called beautiful, the fragments of the destroyed jewel floated into the air, from the biggest shards to the smallest pieces, which danced around each other, spinning in the air to reach their proper positions, before joining little by little with soft movements, creating a melody of the sounds of their touches.

And then it ended, the jewel almost completely free of any traces of having broken previously. It was still multi-colored and still beautiful, though the lack of the shard of chaos made it lose the previous color shifting effect.

The cheers that resounded through the cave were deafening.

-0-

The first priority of the duo of Knights was finding a way to avoid the attacks of the submarine chaotic creature. Twilight simply started warping from place to place to dodge all the varied attacks that were thrown in her direction. While Fluttershy, on the other hand, simply waved a hoof and created an extremely resilient defensive sphere around herself that managed to tank everything. She had simply used her Grand Search to make a "suggestion" to the chaos magic itself. (Both her teacher and fellow disciple were users of chaos magic, so she had experience enough to be able to do something like that.)

During the first round of attacks, Twilight and Fluttershy discussed the situation. As before, the biggest problem the two of them faced was the fact that their opponent was a chaos monster created around innocent ponies, and as such they needed to be careful in their attacks in order to avoid harming them.

'I think I can keep it busy to give you time to set up.' Were Fluttershy's thoughts.

'Really?' Twilight asked.

'Yeah. It's time to show the surprise.'

And the pegasus focused inwards. Similar to when she used the manticore spirit, Fluttershy had to focus on more than a single trait to be able to reach a state where she could unleash the power of this spirit. And the traits she focused on were power, solitude and multiplicity.

"Empathy Drive: Animal Spirit." She announced "Hydra Edition!"

It was a monumental magic. Even Fluttershy's great magical capacity was hard pressed to be able to activate and keep it going. And the most obvious reason for it was the size. The hydra shaped energy construct that Fluttershy manifested around herself was even a little bigger than the immense chaotic monster, and it was just as ferocious and majestic as a real hydra.

With a roar, Fluttershy-Hydra attacked, crossing the chaotic space in between herself and her opponent in a movement that would probably disorient her thanks to the almost constant changes in direction and perspective, except that the Knight was still with her eyes closed and orienting herself via empathy.

The hydra bit down on all three separate parts of the monster, a rain of attacks washed against her skin, but she refused to let go, enduring everything without even reacting.

Twilight had to take a moment to look at her student's achievements, and then she herself got to work. Thinking back to her fight against Discord together with her other apprentice, Twilight used the slipstream method, and spread her magic around all of the chaotic space.

The Fluttershy hydra was taking most of the attention from the chaotic monster with her huge size and refusal to let go, so Twilight only had to warp to dodge a few stray threats while she concentrated on her magic. Fluttershy was still running her Grand Search, which meant that Twilight had complete knowledge of the positions of the three innocent ponies inside the chaos monster, and that was what she used for her working.

Manipulation of space was one of the cornerstones of chaotic magic. There was a reason why "warping" was the most common indication that a particular pony had that ability. Twilight, as a masterfully trained mage who had explored her chaotic magic for years, was particularly good at it.

And to activate her magic, she did a small song.

"There are some here who should not be part.
There are some here who don't belong.
Could you free the things apart from here...
By the time I finish this song?"

And then three ponies were suddenly floating right next to her, enveloped in protective space magic.

"You did it!" She cheered, quickly charging magic and teleporting the three innocents to the outside of the lake.

The reaction from the chaotic creature was immediate. With a screech that could be clearly heard even outside the lake, all three parts of the monster ripped themselves away from the fangs of the Fluttershy hydra in a movement that warped their proportions to a ridiculous level. And it didn't stop in just escaping, the body of the creature warped itself even more after that, all three parts fusing together nauseatingly and combining into a single mass of disparate parts and materials crudely forced together, a true being of chaos.

This being of chaos then roared in a multitude of voices, releasing a wave of magic that caused the chaotic space they were in to start to collapse, intending to bury both Knights in the "Space between spaces" of the breach caused by its actions. Fluttershy acted quickly to avoid it, using the hydra heads to bite down on the edges of the space and forcefully keep it open.

But then the creature pounced upon Fluttershy hydra... only to warp at the last moment and attack Twilight instead.

On the face of it, this was a smart move, considering that the hydra spirit made Fluttershy very resilient, and there was no way to tell if even a full power attack would be enough to dislodge her from her task, while the unicorn seemed to be a much weaker target. However, that particular unicorn was Twilight Sparkle, one of the three original Knights of the Realm of the generation, direct apprentice of Princess Celestia and veteran of dangerous missions.

She was a pony that would not be easy to take down at all.

"Chaos Magic: Space Link!" She shouted, and created a portal in front of herself as a shield.

The attacking tendrils of the monster which were aimed directly at her ended up going into the portal. A moment later, two tendrils managed to sneak around the portal, but that moment was all Twilight needed to warp away again (She canceled her portal, cutting away the tendrils which had gone inside).

"Merged Spell!" She used her trump card, seeing that Fluttershy would not be able to resist forever and needing something with enough punch to deal with such a powerful foe.

"Water Sign: Subsume the World!" She cast.

The spell was truly worthy of its name. All the water in the cave seemed to come to life all at once, turning from just a passive medium for the battle into an active participant, and its presence in the battlefield overshadowed Fluttershy hydra and the chaotic monster combined. And not only that, but it also overshadowed the chaotic world itself, breaking down the barriers between the many interconnected spaces and turning them all into a single underground lake.

And even that wasn't all. The water expanded and devoured the very magic that had been sustaining that chaotic space, taking its place. The world of chaos was now a world of water, and Fluttershy did not have to keep holding it open on her own. But while Fluttershy was relieved by the appearance of the water, the chaotic monster very definitely was not.

It screamed, but the scream was completely smothered by the water, the same water that was subsuming everything in range, every bit of matter and every bit of magic, with the exception of Twilight and Fluttershy. And that meant that the chaotic creature itself was swallowed up and consumed by the living water, the Shard of Chaos releasing great amounts of magic to create varied effects in the hopes of escaping, but without any success. The multitude of colors and sounds were veritably kaleidoscopic as the shard of chaos was finally destroyed.

After a few moments where the water tried to find more things to devour within the specifications of the spell (Twilight was very careful not to let things go out of control) it finally calmed down and Twilight and Fluttershy canceled their respective spells. The lack of the chaos magic and the results of the battle had ended up with the two Knights standing at the bottom of the lake, only it was much deeper now.

The two allowed themselves to mostly relax and then slowly swam out of the lake, only to be greeted with a crowd of ponies, headed by the five they had saved from within the chaotic space.

"Hurray for the Knights!" One of them called " Hip hip hurray!"

"Hip hip hurray!" It was echoed by everypony else there.

This was just another chapter for the Knights of the generation.

-0-

The power of the warlock was increasing more and more. Before Applejack could put her idea into practice, he had used another spell to create another ice minotaur, only this one was obviously a lot more powerful, made of much thicker ice and animated by a lot more magic.

This wasn't just an impression, Applejack in her earth griffin form raised up into the air and dived down at immense speed at this opponent, to the point where the simple weight of her "armor" was enough to turn it into the kind of projectile that could bust down magically reinforced fortress walls, just because of the speed.

And yet, when they clashed, despite the terrifying sound and shockwaves of the collision, the ice minotaur only had a few scratches, which were quickly mended by the magic. And then Applejack had to channel a burst of magic through her earth griffin in order to deal with the cold spirits that were trying to get inside and affect her. Dark Moon was having to keep moving incessantly in order to deal with them and with the ice birds, not to mention that the two were slowly being worn down by the constant need to use magic to deal with the cold and the hail.

But still, things hadn't gone out of control, and Applejack wouldn't be forced into using an Overdrive to deal with the situation. She put her plan into action by first shouting:

"Moon!"

Dark Moon took a moment to be able to turn and look at her, and Applejack looked through the "eyes" of the earth griffin construct directly into the avatar's eyes.

Message sent, Applejack pulled away from the ice minotaur towards Dark Moon. And the unicorn flew to take her place in fighting the construct. She proceeded to unleash the full power of her darkness into the construct, taking advantage of her smaller size to fly all around it and avoid its attacks, all the while giving a speech about the powers of darkness (the exact same speech she gave Applejack, even. Down to the cadence and tone, clearly she had practiced). The warlock directed a greater number of ice spirits to attack her, trying to finish things quickly, but that was exactly what the Knight had hoped he'd do.

Applejack didn't really listen to Dark Moon's speech, she had heard it all before, not to mention the fact that she currently had better things to do. So she looked all around the area, using her eyes of truth to pierce the memory magic and see the true and real state of the fortress and surroundings, she took in every detail and established them all as Truth within herself.

This had taken a bit of time, but the distraction provided by Dark Moon was enough for Applejack to do all that she needed. And now that everything was done, the Knight decided to do things a little theatrically, as a sort of tribute to her teacher, since it had been her lessons that allowed Applejack to reach such a level.

So, the Knight manipulated her earth magic to bring herself to the top of the head of her griffin construct. Then she pointed directly at the Warlock.

"Warlock Black Hooves!" She shouted "Ya are a being that should not still exist in this world! Yer time has passed and ya have already been defeated, and the only reason ya still stand is due ta the chaotic magic bringing this memory to life! Ya are just a memory of the past, an illusion! And Ah... Will destroy this illusion!"

At this point a few ice birds were almost touching her, but Applejack had already said everything she needed to say, so she simply took a Space Step, directly arriving right in front of the Warlock.

She pulled a hoof back for a punch and called:

"Truth Seeking Blow: Imagine Breaker!" And punched him in the face.

She charged the punch with the Truth of the area that she had confirmed earlier. But she wasn't trying to destroy the illusion directly, in fact, her target was not even the illusion at all.

She was actually targeting reality itself.

Applejack's ability was based upon reminding the world of its true form and convincing it to reject the illusions itself.

The results of the punch were tremendous. A powerful light shone from every inch of the fortress and the area around it. Everypony who was at least decent at magic sensing would be able to tell that a ridiculous amount of power was being used all at once, and the resulting effect wasn't really a spell, because even the most complex and advanced spell formulas would be hard-pressed to contain so much magic.

After a moment it was over, and all the traps and magic protections of the fortress disappeared, the fortress took on the damaged and weathered look it should have had, and the hail, the minotaur and the other creatures, and finally the Warlock itself also disappeared. Leaving behind the Shard of Chaos.

Applejack punched it.

Afterwards, the Knight started to fall towards the ground, there was no way she could fly with earth magic without the support of the memory magic. But she wasn't worried, this kind of height wasn't nearly enough to leave her seriously hurt, and even if it was, Dark Moon was already diving to catch her.

"Wow!" The avatar said after having caught Applejack "That was awesome! Ahem... I mean... So, the memory returns to the darkness, just as it should be..."

Applejack only smiled.

-0-

When Rainbow Dash got into the path and entered the river, she decided that she didn't really want to get soaked, so the Knight used her wind manipulation to create a cloak of air around herself to block the water. It was a somewhat precise feat of magic, but nothing draining for a Knight. And of course, she did not include Trixie in her protection, because turnabout was fair play.

Of course, Trixie simply used a spell to do something similar and avoid the water as well, because of course she did.

Rainbow Dash, as she was going through the underground river, thought about how weird it was to be flying underwater. It was a different experience than flying through the air, instead of pushing the air around through her wings to propel herself forward, Rainbow Dash was using the air to push the water around backwards, making the whole air cloak move forward. This meant that she did not have any feeling of rushing air at all, which was weird.

Still, she just kept moving forward, taking care not to expend too much energy and focus on accelerating, since she needed to be prepared for any kind of sudden change to the situation. But the first unexpected thing that happened was instead due to her passenger, Trixie, who cast a spell.

It did not seem to do anything, but Rainbow Dash soon got an explanation for what had been the deal when Trixie used another spell to whisper a few words into her ears.

"It was trying to use an illusion to make us go the wrong way. Tch, trying something like that in front of Trixie is like asking for a humilliation."

Rainbow Dash nodded inwardly and kept going for a little bit more, then she felt a magical emanation coming from forward, probably from the Shard of Chaos, but again nothing seemed to happen. Trixie sent words to her again.

"The Shard is rearranging the path forward, to keep us from finding it. But Trixie can use her magic to find the right path, just follow the arrow."

Then, Trixie cast a powerful spell that swept through the entire area, and almost as an afterthought, it also put the image of an arrow on Rainbow Dash's mind.

The pegasus followed the directions of the arrow when the tunnel started to split between multiple parts, the path was weird, and frequently she had to squeeze through small gaps or do repeated sharp turns to be able to follow the indications of the arrow. At one point, the path was truly too small, and she had to use a punch to widen the gap enough to be able to pass.

"We're almost there." Came another message "Things should get a little more intense now."

Her words proved to be absolutely correct. Since trying to mislay the Knights was not working, the Shard of Chaos resorted to flat out attacking them. Roots, rocks, leaves and all sorts of other materials from the area were turned into weapons that tried to skewer, crush, pierce and cut the Knights.

But the two would not be defeated so easily. Trixie used spells to create illusionary copies of herself and Rainbow, to force the enemy to split apart its attacks. While Rainbow Dash used her weather magic go manipulate the water around herself into the form of weapons and shields to deal with the attacks.

And things kept getting harder and harder, as the Shard of Chaos was spending more and more energy to try and fend the Knights away, to the point where it was beginning to warp the materials into weird shapes and behaviors. But then they burst into view of the Shard, which was floating in the water and connected to everything around it by red lines, and it did a final struggle by collapsing the tunnel, trying to bury both Knights alive.

"Rainboom Punch!" Rainbow Dash accelerated and delivered a hit straight at the Shard, destroying it.

And then, Trixie teleported both of them out of the tunnel, without the Shard of Chaos to mess up the space, there was no reason she couldn't do it.

Of course, the reason why she did as such wasn't just for them to escape from the collapsing tunnel. She also knew that with the Shard of Chaos gone, there would be nothing sustaining the tendrils of earth, which meant the entire thing would fall to the ground.

Rainbow Dash understood that perfectly once the teleport finished and she saw herself right underneath the small landmass. And it was reinforced when it began to fall. Trixie got down from her back, and Rainbow understood what she should do.

"EX-Mode!" She shouted, activating her ability, thus increasing her strength.

The Knight quickly flew up to the falling landmass and started pushing against it, making it slow down. Yet, it wasn't enough, and she started using her wind manipulation to create currents to help reduce the speed of her target.

She did manage to make the landmass fall slower, but it still wasn't enough to prevent it being a catastrophe, but thankfully, Rainbow Dash wasn't the only Knight present.

"Perfect Illusion: Element Ruler!" Trixie shouted, and cast her magic.

Her magic did similar to what Rainbow was doing and manipulated wind currents in order to made the air act as a brake on the landmass. Except that he efforts were far more large scale. A true whirlwind, just as big as the landmass itself, was formed by her spell, and it was that effect that managed to finally slow the area to a relatively safe level. Trixie's spell had actually worked by convincing the winds that the conditions to create that kind of phenomenon were present, via illusions.

And so, both Knights kept going until the thing had almost landed, and then Rainbow Dash flew and grabbed Trixie to bring them both away from the landing zone.

The two looked at the results.

"Well. This place will need some reconstruction efforts, but Trixie believes this counts as a success." Trixie said.

"Was it just me, or was this really easy?" Rainbow Dash asked "I mean, the whole 'colony drop' thing was a little tiring, but apart from that..."

"Trixie thinks we just had a rather good matchup for this mission. Trixie's illusions could contain it easily, and your harmony powers restrained what it could do." Trixie answered.

"I guess sometimes we just get lucky." Rainbow decided.

-0-

The pegasus stallion who was pointed out by Pinkie Pie was completely surprised by the situation.

"Ah... What?"

He stopped in the air, startled, upon seeing both an Earth Pony with an aura of power and a strong-looking pegasus moving towards him. But before any answer to his question could be given, if indeed somepony was willing to give an answer, something else happened.

Above the wings of that pegasus, two new wings sprouted, only they were made of some kind of dark red energy and were five times the size of his normal wings. With a pulse of magic the winds around the pegasus went wild, and both Pinkie and Lightning had to stop their advance.

"What?! What's going on?!" The pegasus shouted, panicked, his wings and legs flailed about, but he was unable to affect his situation in any way, as the red wings flapped once, in a jerky, unnatural way, and he began to fly upwards quickly, with the winds becoming even more furious and clouds filled with lightning appearing around him.

"Ah, it seems like the Shard of Chaos tied itself to his subconscious." Pinkie Pie nodded knowingly "This really is something uncommon."

After that there was no time to keep talking, as the clouds shifted, turning into the consistency of jelly, and they started spewing globs of themselves over the city.

Realizing that she definitely did not want those things to be hitting the city, Pinkie shouted "Clone Technique!", creating dozens of clones of herself, which started warping repeatedly and destroying the globs with punches.

It was not as easy as that made it sound. Those globs were charged with not only a whole bunch of undirected chaotic energy, but also lightning, which served as a direct medium for the chaos magic to channel itself into whatever it hit. Several of the clones were destroyed when the channeled chaos magic turned them into balloons, or made them melt (like chocolate) or warped the air around them into fire. However, a lot of the clones managed to resist the changes, and absorb the chaos magic, showing how skilled Pinkie Pie had become in creating clones, and how much power she had to provide them. She also kept replacing the lost clones, so she was not losing ground, but the energy costs were not low.

Meanwhile, Lightning Chaser kept trying to approach the pegasus or attack the chaotic wings with lightning, but both ideas were foiled by the wind manipulation of the chaos shard. It had already created an incredibly confusing zone of contradictory wind currents, that appeared to contain something like half a dozen whirlwinds spinning in different directions and angles. And those winds were actually also capable of redirecting her lightning from the distance she could reach.

Pinkie Pie quickly realized that this was going nowhere.

"This is going nowhere." Pinkie said. She had seen that even with her preventing the chaotic attacks from striking the city, the battle that they were fighting was disrupting the routine of the city enough that the Shard of Chaos was managing to get back whatever power it spent, and even a little bit more, and was constantly replenishing her chaotic clouds. So she sent a clone to talk with Lightning Chaser.

"Do you have any strong attacks that can break through those defenses and destroy the chaos shard?" The Pinkie clone asked.

"I do. But it takes a bit of time to set up, and it doesn't discriminate targets." Meaning that pegasus would be hit as well, were the unspoken words.

"I (Pinkie) have (has) a way to deal with that." The Pinkie clone assured her, before going back to the original.

And just after that, the original Pinkie Pie clapped her forehooves together and charged some magic, before shouting.

"Chaotic Arts:" At that point, every single clone was sucked back into Pinkie's body "Chaotic Aura!"

And then her aura exploded. That was the only way to describe what had happened. The pink aura of power from Pinkie's emotion charge expanded to the size of a house, and it acquired an appearance of solidity and strength.

The globs of chaotic cloud were still falling, but Pinkie already had a counter for that. She shaped her solid aura into a huge mouth, that extended in a tendril to devour every single one of the clouds.

Seeing that, Lightning Chaser flew up to do as planned, reaching a much higher point than the pegasus had (the poor pegasus had pretty much given up and was only holding still and hoping the two would be able to help him) and started to charge magic at a rate that very few ponies were capable of.

Obviously, the Shard of Chaos didn't like where this was going, so it turned to go after the avatar, but...

"I want a hug!" Pinkie shouted, and somehow jumped towards the pegasus, shaping her aura into two legs.

She hugged the area of extreme wind phenomena, bringing the whole thing with the pegasus in the middle towards her "chest" (really just the front part of the aura).

Lightning Chaser didn't even hesitate. After having charged her power, she started spreading her magic into the nearby clouds via strands of colored lightning, except those strands were a lot denser and longer than normal lightning. First she created a line of red lightning, then black lightning, then blue, purple, yellow, green and orange. It was a true rainbow of lightning. And it created colored clouds charged with the lightning.

Meanwhile, Pinkie was keeping the Shard of Chaos busy by messing with its weather magic via a gigantic fan made out of the energy aura.

Lightning Chaser then fused the various clouds together and forced the resulting mass to shoot lightning of its own. The result was a sphere of multicolored lightning that started descending towards the pegasus. While it was in the air, the sphere shifted to become a powerful looking hand, which seemed to contain enough power to break through anything.

At the last moment before impact, Pinkie forced a thread of aura inside the chaotic wind world of the shard and coated the pegasus with her aura via it.

The attack was devastating. It hit the wind like the collapse of a mountain and the energy contained inside the attack unleashed itself like the wrath of a thousand storms. It annihilated every single fragment of chaotic energy that the Shard of Chaos could output, and even snaked right into the pegasus' body and overwhelmed every possible defense the Shard could use, destroying it directly with complete momentum.

But Pinkie's aura prevented the pegasus from being hurt at all in the process.

The stallion fell unconscious when it was over, but he was completely unharmed. And while both she and the avatar were descending, Pinkie asked Lightning Chaser:

"So... Does that little number have a name?"

"Yes." Was the answer "It is called Seven Colored Sky: Lightning Retribution." She shook her head "I don't usually put names on my attacks, but since I am fighting beside a Knight, it is traditional."

Pinkie grinned at her.

-0-

Spike was flying pretty fast, so it did not take long for him to find the target. Thanks to his enhanced senses, he saw the target before she saw him. She was a unicorn mare with a lilac coat and mane, and the cutie mark of a wheel. She was standing in a green field to the east of the city.

She was releasing bursts of chaos magic from her chest to try and remove the sign that was pointing her out, but as previously stated, this had been created by a particularly powerful spell, and it would take much more effort than that to get rid of it.

Due to his speed, he was almost upon her by the time the unicorn finally saw him. She snarled and waved her right foreleg violently, shaping the earth in front into an egg like golem that had dozens of legs around its body and jumped straight at the dragon.

Spike turned and slashed with his wing, borrowing the speed from his flight. Upon being hit, the golem was rendered into thousands of pieces, completely destroyed.

"What are you doing?!" He shouted at the unicorn "Do you realize the consequences of wielding a Shard of Chaos?!"

"Shut up!" The unicorn shouted back at him "I will not give up on this power, no matter what anypony says!"

She then released a huge burst of power that made the earth underneath her rise up in the form of a tree golem that had a trunk-like body and four arms.

"I am Peppermint, and I will take control of my own destiny!" She shouted, as the golem grew, and it grew to the point where it was easily a match for Spike's promised "adult form".

The golem threw one of its arms at Spike, making it extend like a whip. The Dragon Squire knew it would be hard to dodge with his big wings, so he canceled that spell and let himself fall, his smaller profile being a much harder target. The attack missed him, and before he could fall all the way to the ground, Spike had already prepared his next move.

"Draconic Aura: Arms of the Dragon!" He shouted, and the aura of arms of his adult version appeared, looking even more solid and real than the last time he had used them.

He stopped his fall with th left arm, and punched at the golem with his right arm, but that golem was obviously leagues above the egg golem he had easily destroyed. Using three of his arms, the golem managed to stop Spike's punch, and it attacked with the last arm.

Spike pushed off the ground with his other arm, throwing himself to the air before coming down above Peppermint with a double claw slash.

That was when the chaotic nature of the magic the unicorn was using began to really show itself. With another burst of power, the earth golem remolded itself backwards, in a truly bizarre fleshlike fashion. Spike's attack hit the ground, carving deep furrows into it, and then the golem flowed forward like a wave, trying to engulf Spike. He pushed off the ground with both arms to jump away and decided that it was time to change strategy.

Cancelling his draconic aura again, Spike charged magic as he started to fall towards the ground.

As he finished his next spell, Spike remembered the words of his teacher. She had said that his tendencies, likes, desires and all that was close to his heart was the best source of power and what he should focus on. And it had not taken long for Spike to sum up all of that with a single word: Dragons.

His draconic aura and magic charge were based upon his potential power as a dragon, but this newest ability was different, and focused upon his identity as a dragon. To be precise, it asked the question of: What if he had been born a different kind of dragon?

"Draconic Self: Earth Wyrm!" He shouted, and changed.

His body lenghtened itself a little, but his limbs grew twice as much, resulting in a strange lanky appearance, the tail also disappeared. The claws of hands and feet grew larger and sharper, and his eyes also changed, getting some kind of transparent protection pellicle. Finally, his scales shifted around, changing from a streamlined appearance into a configuration that seemed to favor protecting the back and arms.

All this takes some time to describe, but the change was nearly instant, and was finished before Spike could hit the ground. And he did not actually "hit" the ground, but dived into it as easily as if it was water, and then moved through the underground with the speed of flight.

He was far too fast for Peppermint to react. In instants, he had traveled the whole path up to right below the golem, and then moved upwards, digging into the golem. The digging abilities of this form were magic assisted and incredibly strong. As he dug upwards through the golem, he shaped his magic to make the nearby parts of it crumble as well, instead of simply making a tunnel, he was trying to destroy the golem from the inside.

He was fast, but when the unicorn realized what was happening, she acted decisively. Detaching the head of the golem and making it jump off, just in time to avoid an invasion by Spike. And then she retaliated, releasing another burst of magic that transformed the earth of the golem into wood, not just the head, but the body as well, and she controlled the wood to fuse the head back into the body, manipulating the branches of both parts into crushing Spike.

But the Dragon Squire still had not shown the full might of his ability.

"Salamander!" He shouted, and changed again.

His appearance was now more similar to his original form than to the wyrm figure. He now had two additional crests to the sides of the first one, and they were somewhat pointier. His tail had become longer and larger, and the color of his scales had changed to a deep red.

With a shout he released a powerful fire from his body, burning the wood golem that had been trying to strangle him.

Peppermint screamed, but then she released another burst of magic and took control of the fire itself, and made the golem explode.

"Gaargh!" Spike screamed, as he was thrown through the air due to the sheer force of the explosion. Cracks appeared in his scales, due to the power of the attack, and the unicorn simply made the parts of the fire that had been scattered come back together into a cohesive golem form.

'Why is she getting stronger?' Spike thought, and then realized that there was something else he needed to worry about.

He hadn't noticed it during the fight, but there was a line of weak chaotic energy going all the way to the city.

'What is she doing with that?' He asked himself, but stopped, deciding that defeating her was the most pressing matter.

And when he looked, Spike saw that Peppermint was partially merged with the golem.

"Stop! You're losing yourself!" He shouted at her.

"Hahaha! This power is amazing!" Was her only response, and her golem threw a bunch of fireballs towards Spike.

They weren't really dangerous, and that really convinced the dragon that Peppermint was losing control, she seemed to have lost sight of what was happening in the battle.

Spike knew that, as a Knight, he would have to kill in order to defend Equestria, but this wasn't that kind of situation. He did not think that unicorn was the kind of threat to Equestria that needed to be destroyed. And in that case, he would have to do his best to save her.

"Diamond Scale!" He shouted, and changed one more time.

This new appearance had the same long tail of a salamander, but his crest was back to normal. His legs became thicker and he got a little shorter, but the biggest change was that his scales turned into a diamond hard material, and his color turned to silver.

He had an idea, but for that he would need to be tough.

Peppermint threw more fireballs at him, but she was clearly more interested in general mayhem, since she kept setting all the nearby grass on fire. Spike ran in her direction, ignoring the fireballs that kept splashing onto his body. And once he got close enough, the dragon used a spell to throw himself right at the unicorn.

While previously, Peppermint had managed to defend herself incredibly well, this time she was too addled due to the chaos magic to react when Spike approached and held onto her.

The fire golem wasn't an active defense, but just remaining in contact with it was already forcing Spike to spend a lot of energy to keep himself unharmed by the heat. If it were an adult Diamond Scale, they would be able to resist even diving in lava, but Spike was still a child, so his version was a child as well, and didn't have the same amount of natural resilience.

Still, he was more than strong enough for what he was trying to do.

Using a series of pulses of magic, he managed to find the exact location of the Shard of Chaos within Peppermint's body (a little below the heart), and then he charged magic to his index finger and promptly pierced the chest of the unicorn and the shard of chaos at the same time.

"Gah!" Peppermint coughed, and the golem started to crumble due to the destruction of the shard.

Spike held onto the unicorn and jumped off, charging magic again for a final spell.

"Heal!" He shouted, and used all the power he could muster.

There were many kinds of healing spells, and the only one Spike had learned was the kind that helped the patient's body restore itself. But it would have to be enough.

The two landed, and the next few seconds were a blur for Spike as he kept pouring power into his working. And at the end, Peppermint had changed.

"Ahh... What's going on...?" She asked.

She had become flat like a pancake. Like a two dimensional version of a pony. Spike was guessing that this was a reaction of the chaotic magic in her body to the healing spell he had used. But she was alive, so everything else could be dealt with. He had seen the three suffer worse accidents due to Twilight's own chaos magic, so it wasn't like this was unrecoverable.

"Guess I'll just wait here, then." He muttered, before starting to talk with the unicorn.

-0-

Seeing that direct attacks were not working well, Claw Marked changed his tactics. He closed the portal he was attacking from, disappearing at the same time, and reappeared diagonally down and right from the duo, and also several meters upwards. From there, he created two dozen stone sized portals and started to shoot lasers from them.

"Grand Sound Shield, Block Everything in Existence!" Aura Music shouted, casting a spell.

With the melody of her zither, an invisible barrier blocked the lasers that Claw Marked was shooting, and even continued blocking from every direction when the minotaur sent the portals to attack from multiple angles. Sunset took advantage of this time to plant a rune on the ground.

Claw Marked then combined the lasers of several portals into one big laser, that managed to pierce through the barrier of sound, forcing Sunset to teleport herself and her partner upwards to avoid the attack. Then she told Aura Music "Cover Me!" reactivated Trance Mode and teleported right next to the minotaur magical construct.

"Double Magic Enhance: Great Seeking Spheres!" She cast, creating half a dozen spheres of power that Claw Marked barely managed to evade by jumping into his portal again.

But of course, they were seeking spheres, and when the minotaur reappeared at the other side of the field, they simply turned back and flew at him again. Sunset used that distraction to form three more runes, while Aura Music charged her magic for a new attack.

"Grand Sound Wave, Smash Through All!" She shouted, and released her magic.

It was an indiscriminate attack, and Sunset was forced to teleport outside of the radius of it, but Claw Marked had even more trouble, he had used close range space manipulation to make the seeking spheres blow up, but that left him open to be hit by the sound wave, and it actually visibly harmed him, breaking his aura defense and making him spit out blood, but he was clearly not out of the fight yet.

Opening another portal, he dropped through it straight over Aura Music, and channeled space magic into his fist in order to try and punch a hole through her. The avatar quickly sent a magically charged bolt of sound to try and deal with the punch, and was halfway successful, the space magic was broken but Claw Marked still managed to punch her right in the face.

She was stunned by the attack, but before Claw Marked could follow up on it, Sunset teleported into the scene and hit him with a punch of her own, making him fly away. Instead of following up, she planted another rune on the ground, and the minotaur took advantage of the distraction, throwing a portal like a disc to try and decapitate her.

But by that point, Aura Music had recovered from being stunned, and she took over the defense with another bolt of magic music to deflect the portal. Then, she counter attacked by creating several blades of wind and throwing them at the minotaur construct, just to get a bit of time.

"Any plans?" She asked the Knight.

"Just need to make a few more preparations, and then he will be finished." Sunset answered confidently.

"Then this mage shall do her best to make sure your preparations aren't interrupted! This I swear with the heavens and earth as my witness!" Aura Music got fired up again.

She decided to go on the offensive, and played a small melody to make her wind current stronger and faster.

She reached up close to the minotaur construct and actually decided to use her magical zither as a melee weapon, batting at her opponent, who blocked with a fist filled with magic. But blocking was the wrong way to deal with that weapon, because Aura made another note sound out, channeling the vibrations right into his body.

He forcefully separated himself from her, trying to resist the vibrations that were trying to tear him apart from the inside. She kept on the offensive, even jumping fearlessly through a portal that he had just used to try and escape. Still, he managed to recover enough to actually try and deal with her, even if he had to avoid directly blocking the zither that she was still using as a weapon.

The close combat lasted only a few seconds before Claw Marked managed to use a portal to send Aura Music away, but that was enough for Sunset to finish setting the runes she needed. And she had also charged enough magic to do something that would have been completely impossible were it not for the fact that she was currently in Trance Mode.

"Attack after me!" She shouted to her current partner in combat, and then she started her plan.

"Triple Magic Enhance: Great Spatial Scramble!" She cast, releasing a pulse of magic that spread through a wide area, and while it did not leave any visible changes in the world, all who were nearby could feel that things had become different.

Aura Music felt like there was some kind of static in the air, something invisible and intangible that could still somehow be felt, like the buzzing of a fly that you could not see nor hit. Claw Marked, on the other hand, was much more connected to space, so his reaction was to hold his head in pain, as if he had the worst headache in the world.

And that was only half of Sunset's move.

"Double Magic Enhance: Restraining Chains!" And she cast another powerful spell just after finishing the previous one.

To do that, she had needed to hold a second magical formula on her mind at the same time as she was doing another spell. Trixie was better at that kind of thing, but as long as the formulas weren't too complex, Sunset could also do it if she tried. Golden Chains materialized around Sunset and threw themselves at the minotaur, who was too stunned to react and was caught by them.

The first spell had scrambled space on a magical level, preventing the use of teleportation or portals. Of course, the real Claw Marked would not have been sealed so easily, but that copy was far weaker as simply could not deal with such a quick change in the situation. The second spell had restrained the minoutaur construct, but two big spells in quick succession had completely wiped Sunset out, and it would take a few seconds for enough magic to recover for her to fight.

But thankfully, Aura Music had followed Sunset's instructions. Barely a second after the chains had done their job, her wind current had brought the unicorn right next to the minotaur construct. She charged more magic than she had ever done in that fight, and played a note in her zither that seemed to carry the feeling of approaching death.

"Reaper's Whisper..." She whispered, and unleashed a sound that only Claw Marked could hear.

That was something that could be called a true Death Spell, a magic that attacked the connection between body and soul directly. It bypassed any physicality, and the only defense possible was the power of the soul itself. The minotaur used every single scrap of magic he had, and his limited will of a puppet, leading to a struggle of several seconds.

And perhaps Claw Marked could have survived had that spell been used in the beginning of the battle, but by that point he had used too much energy, and been injured twice, and without the powerful will of a true warrior, he simply couldn't hold out. His body turned into motes of light and started to disappear...

"Activate formation!" Sunset shouted, and activated the runic formation she had prepared during the battle.

The runes glowed with a brilliant light and shoot beams of power that connected with the motes of light from Claw Marked's body. The connection made, Sunset activated the last part of the circle.

"Origin Search!"

That was a magic that did exactly what the name advertised. The Knights knew that the mastermind would certainly send more constructs after them, but they didn't plan on simply allowing such a one-sided situation. This spell was a way to go after the mastermind directly.

The spell tracked the origin of Claw Marked right to the point where he had been created, in an operation that took several seconds. She quickly realized that there were no anti-teleportation wards on the place (probably because it would be really suspicious) and so getting there would be a simple matter. Sunset had already recovered most of her magic, and so she teleported right there:

"See you later!" She shouted to Aura Music, right before disappearing and reappearing elsewhere.

Quickly she saw that she was inside some kind of old, underground palace, that seemed to have fallen into disrepair. Knowing she would probably need some help, Sunset used a special spell to summon her fellow Knights. It was quite a convenient spell, that allowed even those that couldn't teleport to come towards her, and the seven other Knights quickly accepted the summons, knowing that this was probably important.

Naturally, this was when things started going wrong.

-0-

Suddenly, just after Sunset got an answer to her summons, her magic was disrupted. The feeling she got was of mirrors, so whatever it was had to do with illusions.

'It still felt like the teleportations worked, so I guess they must be somewhere in this place.' Sunset thought.

Looking around, she saw the passages warping and reshaping themselves as illusionary magic was cast.

"Well, that's going to be a bother." She said out loud.

"Indeed."

Sunset turned back and watched as Trixie walked into sight. The two ponies sent magical probes at each other, and went through a complex process to make sure that the other one was indeed real and not another illusion. Trixie was the one who designed this process, so the reliability was high.

"And you barely even notice the illusions." Sunset said, smirking.

"This mage is indeed good, and can even use the real to trick like an illusion, but they are not Trixie." The showmare responded, and started walking to a certain direction.

"How long do you think it will take for Twilight to find us?" Sunset asked, walking after Trixie.

"It will still take a little time. She always did have problems with the most complex illusions." Trixie answered "As for the others, Applejack can see through illusions, but this mage will definitely have ways to deal with that, so Trixie thinks Rainbow Dash is the most likely to find us first, because of her instincts."

"I think it will be Fluttershy, that empathy thing is very useful for those kinds of things." Sunset gave her opinion "Where are we going?" She asked.

Trixie smiled "As Trixie has said, this mage is good, but she is better. They did a good job hiding it, but Trixie still can tell from where the illusion magic is coming from."

After that, the two proceeded in silence, preparing themselves for any kind of possible ambush, but still, they managed to go in peace until their target, which was seriously strange.

"Ahhh... That is annoying." Trixie said.

This was because they had found the source of the magic. It was a big mirror, and Trixie could tell that it had been created specially for that kind of job, which meant their mastermind was completely out of reach by that point.

"Hehehe..." A female voice came from the mirror.

Suddenly the image of a pony appeared there. She was a unicorn mare with a heliotrope coat and a pale blue mane, and she had a cutie mark of mirrors.

"I admit you were clever to be able to find this base, but I, Radiant Hope, am not so stupid as to be caught that easily." She spoke in a smug voice.

"Why are you sending those constructs against us?" Sunset asked directly. It was worth a shot, since opponents that felt they had the upper hand had loose lips.

"Hehehe..." She laughed in an annoying manner "Why, it is simple. It was an order from my master Sombra, of course."

Sunset had an expression of bewilderment "You mean he prepared to the point where he had an apprentice who would avenge his death?"

"Hehehe... You know nothing. Master Sombra gave me this order personally. You think he is dead? Master Sombra is immortal!"

The shock of those words almost made Sunset miss the sudden pulse of magic coming from above, but she managed to send a powerful blast of pure magic in that direction with amazing speed.

But even with that, she couldn't change the outcome.

-0-

Twilight had to scramble a lot of the illusions with chaos magic to be able to find her way. Feeling remnants of Trixie's magic in the air (probably left on purpose) she followed them, since her partner was the best suited for dealing with illusions. Despite the work she had to do to keep following the path, there were no surprises until she found the two.

Twilight was still some distance away, so she couldn't hear what they were talking, but she saw the unicorn in the mirror, and she definitely saw when Sunset suddenly attacked upwards.

And she saw when the whole area in front of her, including her two partners simply... Disappeared.

The place had become an open area, and there was now an earth pony stallion with a white mane and grey coat in the middle of the emptiness. He was turned to the other side and did not appear to have noticed her.

'No...' A thought flashed through Twilight's mind 'No, I can't fell them anymore.'

Sending her magic in a powerful pulse, she realized that both Sunset and Trixie were just... gone.

'No... I won't... I won't let this happen!' She shouted within herself, and then she ignored all notions of carefulness.

"Overdrive!" She shouted, and her body exploded in more power than she had ever brought out with the technique "Merged Spell!" She shouted again, and fused the mix of energies from her body (she had used the spells on her armor before) into the rushing power she had already gathered.

'Still not enough.' She thought, as the earth pony turned to face her "Overdrive!"

And the power that already had reached a ridiculous level instantly grew by another order of magnitude. The power Twilight was holding was so great that the space around her started to warp, the ground changed to ice and small chaotic creatures were born from the air. The earth pony leapt at Twilight, using the same magic that he had used before to make everything around his path disappear.

"Time Stop." Twilight said.

The earth pony stopped in the air as the time in the entire area was stopped. Twilight looked up at him, tears in her eyes as she continued her magic.

"Time Reverse..." She seemed to struggle to say the words.

And like a tape being reversed, everything that had been turned to nothing was restored in reverse order. Twilight seemed to be under a great burden, but she didn't stop until everything was done. Sunset and Trixie were back, and there were no signs that anything had happened.

And both Twilight and the earth pony had become wispy and ethereal, as if they were no longer part of the world.

"We shall wander FOREVER!" She shouted, bringing the magic to a close.

And both she and the earth pony that had been responsible for all that... Disappeared completely.

 

[Kinni]

Hello guys...

Chapter 44 - Resolution

There was silence for a few moments as Trixie and Sunset struggled to process what had happened.

"I'm going to send a message to Celestia." Sunset said, breathing heavily to try and calm down.

"Okay...." Trixie said, doing the same thing "Trixie will make sure Radiant Hope can't interfere with anything here. It seems the connection was broken, but..." She didn't finish her statement.

Sunset did what she said, while Trixie ran a few diagnostic spells. Fluttershy appeared soon after, and she instantly realized that something was wrong.

"What happened?" She asked carefully.

"I don't..." Sunset started speaking, before stopping and taking another deep breath "I don't want to have to repeat myself, so it's better to wait until the others get here."

Fluttershy could feel that the emotions of the two were in extreme turmoil, to the point where she was surprised that they were still in control of themselves, even if it was obvious that they were not okay.

Over the next minute, the rest of the apprentices arrived. Rainbow Dash got there first, and feeling that things were tense, simply waited by the side of her teacher. Pinkie Pie came later, and was about to try and cheer the two up when Fluttershy looked at her and shook her head. Then Rarity got there, and saw that something was very wrong just from the faces the two were doing, so she also waited. Finally, Applejack got there, and her eyes widened as she looked at a seemingly empty part of the room.

And then Princess Celestia teleported in. By her side was the dragon Spike, and held in her magic was the unicorn Peppermint, who was still in a 2D state.

All the Knights straightened themselves up when the princess arrived, and Sunset and Trixie even managed to relax a fraction.

"Hello, my Knights." Celestia said with a serious expression "I have already received Sunset's report about what happened here, and so I will have to extend this mission of yours to include a rescue of Twilight."

"What happened with her?" Fluttershy asked "Sunset said she would explain when we were all here." She looked at the unicorn.

Celestia looked at Sunset and Trixie with kind eyes "I think it would be better for me to explain." She cleared her throat "Perhaps the biggest magical lesson that can be learned is that the most powerful magics have the biggest consequences, and in order to save Sunset and Trixie, Twilight completely ignored this lesson and used a particularly powerful time magic." She realized that Applejack wanted to speak "What is it, my little Applejack?"

"Ah can see it." She said, pointing to the same empty space as before "It's like a subword, a place only barely connected to reality."

"Indeed." Celestia agreed "Twilight has been caught in the gears of time, and it's hard to say what are her chances of coming out, or even what her current situation is, but there is still a connection that can be exploited to reach her, and so you have a chance to help."

"What do we need to do?" Sunset asked "Neither me nor Trixie understand enough about time and space magic to be able to open this path."

"That means we need to bring a pony who does know enough." Celestia said simply, and cast a small spell to send a message.

It did not take long for another pony to teleport in, and it was a pony who was familiar to everypony there (except Peppermint, who was currently too unconscious to count), it was Moondancer, chief of Celestia's Special Division of Extreme Magical Research.

"Of course," Trixie realized "it was her research on space magic that allowed Twilight to do that."

"What's the situation?" Moondancer asked "The Princess simply gave me an emergency summons, so I came here as fast as possible."

She had clearly been in the middle of working on something, since there was some kind of slime on her hooves and parts of her coat were burning with some kind of magical fire that did not cause harm to her. The situation was explained quickly, and the researcher went up to the "connection place" and started doing a few diagnostic spells.

"Hey, Applejack." She called "Could you help me here?"

The Knight went over to her "What do I do?"

"Just tell me what you are seeing, since the Eyes of Truth will be able to understand the nuances better." Moondancer said.

And so it was done. The other Knights simply tried to relax and recover from their exertions while Moondancer and Applejack worked out a way in. Celestia had teleported away, saying she needed to help Peppermint, but Spike was still there, and commiserating together with Sunset and Trixie, who had recovered to the point where they were almost normal, but a tension could be seen in their bodies if one looked closely.

It took an entire hour of work, as Moondancer kept creating more and more runes on the ground, the walls and even the air, and connecting them in fairly complex formations that looked like spiderwebs of light and energy. Applejack was focusing as much as she could to see any small changes on the connection, and providing the researcher with every bit of information she could gather about the way the space was folding and the flow of energy.

"Okay then." Moondancer said loudly enough to attract attention "Almost done. This ritual will use the power of the dragon lines around this fortress, together with the bonds you have with Twilight in order to open a path to her." Everypony else walked towards the center circle she was indicating, while Moondancer was still doing calculations and redefining variables on the magical formation.

Sunset then looked at the dragon "Spike. You will have to stay here."

"What? Why?!" He asked forcefully "I also want to help save Twilight!"

"Moondancer will have to stay here to keep the path open for us to come back, so she will need to be protected, which is a job for a Knight. The mission still isn't over yet, but you pretty much qualify. Besides that, your bond with Twilight will also help us to come back once we get her." Sunset explained patiently "And we will come back, make no mistake about that. We will tell Twilight exactly how dumb she was to go that far, you will greet her once we are back here, and she will be there to watch your Knight proclamation." Her voice had taken on a tone of determination.

Spike looked like he still wanted to argue but could not find any way to refute those arguments. He took a moment to look at Moondancer, who was doing the final checks on the formation, before nodding "Okay. I'll trust you girls, and complete my own mission."

Sunset smiled at him, and the Knights moved to the points in the formation that Moondancer indicated.

"Okay everypony..." Moondancer started "It's time to start this ritual!"

She made her horn glow and then the web of magical formations started to shine little by little, spreading outward and getting stronger and stronger, until every one of the Knights could feel the enormous amounts of energy that it was pulling from the dragon lines.

"It's time! Charge the formation with your magic!" She shouted to them.

Sunset, Trixie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie unleashed their powers to the maximum they could, creating actual rivers of energy that flowed into their parts of the formation. Sunset started her Trance Mode, and Pinkie Pie did an Emotion Charge, both of them far surpassing the amount of power any of the others were providing (though Fluttershy made a good showing).

The point in the center of the formation started to darken and waver as space bent around itself. The distortion grew... but then it stopped growing.

"Not enough power..." Moondancer said "Well, this is going to mess things up for later, but I'll have to overdraw from the dragon pulse!" She cast another spell, and then the air became electric with energy while the ground started to shake wildly on the outside of the formation.

The point in the center grew into a sphere, dark as the limits of space, the existence twisted itself, breaking apart and creating a hole in the world that seemed to lead everywhere. The shaking grew worse, and the roof of the underground palace started collapsing, opening the place to the light of day, the roof over the formation fell but was devoured by the spatial distortion before it could hit the Knights.

And then the distortion, that was now a hole in space shaped like an infinity symbol, again stopped growing.

"Still not enough power..." Moondancer muttered, then she looked at Sunset and Trixie and got an expression like she was about to do something extremely distasteful.

"Sunset, Trixie!" She called "There's not enough power to open the path!" And then she closed her eyes and focused.

The faces of the two Knights lost all sense of the calm they had before, and their eyes acquired a disturbing glow.

"Not enough..." Trixie said, in a voice that was like a volcano right before eruption.

"Power...?" Sunset finished, in a voice that combined outrage with a touch of insanity.

The two looked at each other, as if trying to confirm that the other had heard the same thing, and for a moment, both of them gave off an impression of a shared sense of will.

Then, as one, they roared:

"UOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHH!"

And like a dam had been broken, the two unleashed such a level of extra power that even an alicorn would consider dangerous.

They were no longer like a river, but instead a geyser of power that threatened to slip control and scour the very earth with destruction. This was such a pure power that it seemed like the world itself was in harmony with it. Moondancer struggled to channel all of that power into the formation, even if she had previously prepared herself.

While that was happening, Pinkie looked at the two of them with surprise 'They're emotion boosting... I didn't think it was possible to get so much power from your emotions without an emotion charge...' She thought.

Fluttershy was also surprised 'Their love and concern for Twilight is overflowing... Those emotions are so powerful...'

The distortion in space grew even more. The infinity symbol split into thousands of identical symbols overlapping each other, the color managed to become even darker and it hummed in a way that all who were nearby could feel it in their very souls. Finally, the distortion became an actual hole leading into light.

"Go!" Moondancer shouted, and the seven Knights jumped into the opening, going to rescue last of their number.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 45 - Twilight and Darkness

The passage through the opening in time and space felt different for most of the ponies who went through it. Sunset and Trixie barely felt anything, as their concentration was entirely on Twilight Sparkle, and on focusing their determination to save her. Applejack got a headache, as her Eyes of Truth got glimpses of realities far beyond what she could comprehend, but she refused to close her eyes to the truth. Rarity focused on her armor, trying to see if the passage would harm it in some way, because she did not want to have the equipment of any of the Knights fail them at a critical time.

Fluttershy was still focused on the emotions of Sunset and Trixie, while Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were the only ones who were simply enjoying the ride for the kind of unique experience it was. That wasn't because they weren't serious about rescuing Twilight, but instead it was because the two understood very well that worrying about things unnecessarily would only wear them out, and would not help with rescuing their friend.

And it was really something to enjoy. The feeling of moving through space was slightly similar to moving through water, except that you did not need to hold your breath and there was always a sense of energy in the air. The sights were kaleidoscopic, a multitude of images mixing together in beautiful patterns that were ever changing. And the sounds weren't overshadowed by those sights, and they felt like a harmonic orchestra of natural sounds that came from all sorts of distances and instruments but managed to fit together neatly, and they gave off the idea of light and magic itself, not to mention the fact that they seemed to be slightly different for every listener, because it echoed with the sounds of their own being.

The time they passed in that crossing seemed to be at the same time very long and very short, as appropriate for a place bent around time. The ponies could remember taking in every single detail of the passage, which should have taken a while, but they also remembered that the whole crossing occurred in the short space of three breaths. Regardless, they finally reached their destination, which they were sure off because the place felt like Twilight.

The seven Knights appeared from thin air in an alley with buildings similar to Canterlot, walking out of the alley, they realized that the similarity was not mere coincidence, because they were in a city that was remarkably similar to Canterlot, but to Trixie's detail oriented eyes, it simply was not even close to being a passable imitation. Buildings were in wrong places and angles, some parts were too close or too far together, others simply did not exist in the original city in any form... And that was just the subtle stuff.

As for the things that truly brought home the fact that this wasn't anything like a real city, there was the fact that several parts seemed to be replicated multiple times in different locations, the fact that some buildings were only two dimensional cardboard cutouts, and most importantly, the fact that the space of the place bent in such a way that moving forward for a certain period of time would take you right back to where you started, but different from similar effects, there was no visible limiting line to the place, so one could look to the distance and see their own bodies in the distance in all directions, endlessly repeated, which meant that the many instances of the space were arranged like a honeycomb.

And that was only the space. Even more unsettling than it were the ponies.

Because of course there were ponies, except they did not seem any more real than the city itself. There were earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi, of varied colors and frequently wearing small articles of clothing in the Canterlot fashion. They walked (or flew) in and out of places and even traded words with each other... but they were off in many ways.

Again, Trixie could tell exactly everything that was wrong. And while it was harder to see than the problem with the buildings, it was no less problematic. The first point was that the ponies were somehow too homogeneous. The variation in their body types was limited, as were their colors, and even looking at many different cutie marks, you could not find one that did not have a simple design. They also walked together in an unconscious rhythm with very few deviations, and the words they spoke with each other were statements that were repeated by other ponies with the exact same cadence in different situations.

And then there were properties that the place and the ponies shared with each other. The most important was that both were intangible for the Knights. Neither simply touching nor using spells were they able to affect anything at all, and none of the ponies seemed to be able to perceive their existence. They were like ghosts haunting a place, except that the place and ponies they were haunting seemed more like the ghosts of the equation, due to their limited appearance of life.

After two minutes in which the Knights saw all of that, Trixie started talking.

"This place... Is mostly Canterlot, but there are lots of famous locations from other cities, and even some from Ponyville." She nodded "It seems like this city was made by Twilight's awareness and thoughts."

"Yeah." Sunset agreed "Look, there is the library." She pointed to a fairly good replica of the tree library where both she and Twilight lived.

"But if this whole thing is Twilight, then what about that villain you mentioned?" Rainbow Dash asked "He should be here, right?"

She had barely gotten the words out when the earth began to shake. She gave a sheepish look to the others, and then the seven prepared themselves for trouble.

It did not take long. Soon, a section of the "main street" erupted in light and was completely annihilated. From the center of the annihilation zone something like a portal emerged from the empty space left behind. And this portal swept across the area sideways, depositing a pony in the middle of the destruction.

That was the pony that Sunset and Trixie had seen at a glance just before Twilight disappeared with him, the same earth pony stallion with a white mane and gray coat. But this time they could see a few more details:

The most pertinent was the fact that the stallion did not appear to have a cutie mark, but also his eyes seemed to be simple black pits that still managed to pass on an impression of menace. The seven Knights were alarmed by the sudden appearance of such an enemy, but their alarm did not last long, because their physical and magical senses told them that this new figure wasn't any more solid than any of the other ponies in the city, and the same way they could not affect the ponies, they were also unable to be affected by anything the "blank stallion" could do.

And of course, he did not seem to be able to see them, and instead began terrorizing the city. He could simply make a throwing motion and whatever was in the direction he was pointing exploded into light and was annihilated, like he was throwing some sort of invisible destruction spell. His movements were strange and jerky, seeming to pass through space regardless of how his legs were moving, and his "jumps" did not disturb the air, earth or space in any way, despite his speed of movement.

The "ponies" of the city reacted to the appearance of that monster, running away and screaming, still not being terribly convincing pony illusions, since their panicked movements looked far too smooth and the lack of variety in their sentences was highlighted by the situation. The Blank Stallion moved in a random pattern, apparently trying to cause as much destruction as he could with his powers. But he only remained unopposed for around ten seconds, because that was when Twilight appeared.

Stepping out from the library-home Sunset had pointed out earlier, came "Twilight Sparkle". That name deserved quotation marks because, despite looking a lot more detailed and real than any of the "civillian ponies" (to the point where anypony would be able to notice their fakeness by looking at one of them and her side by side), there was still a sense of shallowness to the pony that appeared, like it was an actress who could perfectly copy the appearance, voice and mannerisms of Twilight but missed the spirit of the character in some manner.

"You won't get away with this, you monster!" Twilight Sparkle shouted at the blank stallion, then she cast a spell at the ground under her feet.

The spell created a construct for Twilight to stand on, it was a gigantic paper airplane, and she released a pulse of magic to send it flying forward towards her opponent. The airplane flew fast through the air, and soon it was close enough for the two to attack each other.

Blank opened hostilities with another one of his invisible annihilation spells, but Twilight sensed it coming in some way and took a prodigious leap of the airplane before it was destroyed. At that point she was just above Blank, so it was her turn to attack, which she declared with a shout:

"Chaos Magic: Rain of Frogs!"

And with a burst of magic, the surrounding skies were filled with frogs that dropped towards Blank. He did a longer version of his earlier movements in order to leave the impact zone, and his decision was proven correct moments later, when the frogs started landing on the ground and exploding like bombs.

But it would not be that easy to avoid Twilight's attack, for the rain of frogs drifted to aim at Blank's new position, giving him only a few seconds to try and escape. Instead, the stallion waved both hands, his annihilation spell hitting the closest frog and expanding in a sphere much bigger than any previous spell of his, that managed to block and annihilate all of the frogs that were falling towards him.

That gave him a moment to breathe, and he made full use of it, charging magic in both forehooves and slamming them together, creating a plane of light energy the size of a building and shaped like a disc that he threw at Twilight, who was still in the air, simply ignoring gravity, before appearing away from his previous position to evade the next round of frogs.

The disc flew and spun through the air, and Twilight looked at it with a face of extreme concentration, charging magic to prepare for her next move.

The next thing that happened was a magical exchange so fast it could be called instantaneous. The disc of light stopped in the air and Twilight threw a blast of pure magic at the center of it and moved behind the blast. The center of the plane of light was destroyed and Twilight moved right into the gap, and then the rest of the plane exploded into a huge sphere of annihilation, but Twilight's destruction of part of it had created a small empty space in the center of the sphere that Twilight took refuge in.

That had been an extremely precise movement, because the space of time between the plane of light stopping in the air and exploding was less than a second long, but it was something that was worth doing, because the explosion of the plane of light actually disturbed the surrounding space, in a way that would make it impossible to teleport or shift. And since Twilight's pocket of space wasn't affected by the explosion...

"Chaos Magic: Earthen Army!" She shouted, while the explosion started disappearing.

And just after the explosion vanished, but just before the spell was completed, Twilight shifted forward and appeared just above Blank. The spell sunk into the earth and started creating numerous creatures of varied description, but Twilight knew he would just run away again if that was it, so she actually attacked him physically, starting with a weird upside down mule kick.

Blank blocked, but Twilight followed up by pushing off of the ground with her forehooves and twisting as she went over his body and hitting his side with a leg.

The next few seconds were extremely hard to follow. Twilight kept jumping and twisting all around while raining blows on Blank and charging magic, which prevented him from simply appearing away, so he had to contend both with Twilight's continuous attacks and also the earth golems, which forced him to divert magic to his blows to destroy them as they came and avoid being overwhelmed.

And then he changed tactics, forcefully bringing out enough energy to make Twilight and the closest golems retreat a step, he drove a spear of annihilation into the ground, which he actually manipulated to cause an explosion instead of simply removing things from existence. He used the power of the explosion to fling himself upwards and out of reach of the golems.

But Twilight would not let him escape so easily, she jumped along with the explosion to move side by side with Blank, and then revealed the other reason why she had been charging magic.

"Hunger Sign: Devouring Mist!" She shouted, casting the most powerful spell of the fight.

And her body released a pulse of black mist, something that usually wouldn't be inclined to pulsing, but chaos magic did weird things. The black mist covered everything around, including Blank, showing that it had a higher thickness than normal mist and was somewhat "swampy".

"GROAAAAARGHHHHHHHH!" Blank roared in pain.

A sphere of light ripped itself out of the mist, and its screams showed that it should be Blank himself, despite the fact that the sphere was smaller than even his head had been. The sphere flew all the way back to the point where Blank had appeared and vanished in a quickly appearing portal.

The black mist dissipated, and Twilight reappeared. She charged magic again and released a pulse of magic that restored the city to its previous state, before Blank had appeared. Nodding, she flew back into her home, and a few seconds later, the civillian ponies came out from where they had hid and then simply went back to their normal routines as if nothing had happened.

The Knights looked at each other.

"Okay, thoughts on what we have just seen?" Trixie asked.

"I think Twilight and that guy are still fighting somehow, and that was a representation of that." Rainbow Dash said, in a rare thoughtful manner.

"That guy... Do any of ya know who he is? Because he is a construct... Though Ah can see he is somehow different from the others... Ah don't understand how." Applejack said.

"I know a lot about old heroes and villains, but I can't think of anypony with similar powers and description." Sunset said.

Fluttershy waited to see if any of the others had anything else to say, before calling their attention with a cough.

"Twilight is here." She said, and immediately the others got more focused "I can feel her heart in every one of the ponies in the city, except that stallion... But I can't feel where her soul is. She could be inside any of them."

There was a moment of silence as they considered that.

"This place, and time magic... Is just weird." Rarity said.

The group spent a few more minutes talking about specifics of what they had found out and deciding what they should do to try and save Twilight, but they were surprised by a familiar shaking of the earth. The seven stopped and watched as the blank stallion appeared again, attacked the town again and was fought off by Twilight again, in the exact same manner as before.

"A time loop..." Sunset muttered after it was over "So that's how she has trapped him."

"And what does that mean for out plans?" Rarity decided to be practical.

"Nothing much, but I have a few ideas about how this place works that I need to test." Sunset answered.

More details didn't seem to be forthcoming, so the seven returned to their previous discussion and decided what they were going to do, and split up to do it.

Trixie started walking through the streets, trying to figure out how the spatial lines worked, Applejack started looking around to see if she could tease some more information via the use of her Eyes of Truth, Rarity checked the buildings with her magic, Fluttershy approached the ponies and tried to feel their emotions, Rainbow Dash flew off in a random direction hoping to find something by luck, and Pinkie and Sunset went off to one side to make a few tests using their magical specialties.

And so it went. Time was extremely subjective on that place but it felt to the seven like they spent a few hours doing their work before Sunset sent a signal upwards to gather everypony back towards her.

"So, anything important to report?" Sunset asked.

"Actually, there was something..." Trixie started "The fight has happened dozens of times, and while it seemed like it was always the same in the beginning, it has actually been slowly changing." She sighed "Blank is now surviving the devouring mist and attacking back, forcing Twilight to use Heat Mirage to take him out."

"Blank is getting stronger. But Twilight is not." Applejack said simply "If this keeps going, she will eventually be overcome, and that would be bad."

The others revealed what they had figured out about the place and the situation, but for most of them, there was nothing particularly noteworthy to report. But then Sunset started talking:

"I discovered why we haven't been able to affect this place."

The others (except Pinkie, who already knew) became attentive instantly.

"This place is a time loop, and it works as a different level of existence separated from us. But Pinkie and I worked out that we are slowly starting to get dragged into the level of the loop. This means that we are beginning to become able to affect things, but if it goes on for long enough, we may become just as trapped in this loop of time as Twilight and Blank." Sunset said grimly.

There was a moment of silence before Trixie said what they were all thinking.

"It's just one thing after another, isn't it?"

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 46 - Twilight Time

There was a moment of silence.

"Okay." Trixie said "We need some concrete information if we want to make any plans that have a chance of suceeding." She looked at her fellow apprentice "Sunset, send Trixie the information you've collected, she will make a prediction."

While the apprentices looked blank at those words, Sunset had an interesting reaction. She hesitated for a period of time so small most ponies would have missed it, but then nodded and started a spell, while looking at Trixie with slight concern.

The spell finished, and she sent a small beam of magic into Trixie's horn. The unicorn looked focused for a moment but then relaxed and looked at Rarity.

"Rarity. Pay attention to this. Trixie intends to help you create your own version of this spell in the future." Having said that, she returned to what she had been doing earlier.

Trixie closed her eyes in a clear sign of focus and started casting spells repeatedly, creating magical symbols in the air. She was also muttering a lot, and Pinkie and Fluttershy thought that she looked a bit like Twilight while she was doing that. The symbols filled the air around her and started moving in strange patterns and shifting little by little, adopting new shapes and colors that got ever more complex.

The sheer size of the formation of symbols also kept growing as she added more and more of them to the pattern, soon the formation grew to the size of a fully three dimensional house, and it was dense enough with symbols that it started getting harder to see Trixie through them.

But they could still see her, and they saw that Trixie was looking more and more strained as she weaved her complex web of magic. None of the others dared to talk, fearing to break her concentration, but their concern about what was happening was obvious, specially if one looked at Sunset.

And then Trixie finally finished the first part of what she was doing.

"Multiplicity Magic: Perfect Database!" She shouted, and stomped the floor, making all the symbols light up.

Lines of light connected the symbols together in a true web of magic, and then they all fused together into a beam of light that gathered right above Trixie's head, turning into a sphere made of thousands of incredibly small symbols. And then Trixie charged magic again, but this time for fifteen entire seconds, gathering so much magic that it gave the feeling of more power than an Overdrive.

"Perfect Illusion: Prediction Formula!" She shouted, releasing a powerful pulse of magic.

The idea behind the spell was simple, by creating a model of the world and inserting into it all the variables involved in a situation in order to literary predict the future. As might be expected, this was an extremely difficult thing to do, and even though Trixie just wanted to predict parts of it, and the fact that the place they were in was remarkably isolated, this was something that took a lot of effort.

As demonstrated by the fact that, as soon as the pulse of magic disappeared together with the entire formation, Trixie collapsed on the ground.

"Trixie!" Sunset shouted, moving to her partner's side to check in on her.

"Trixie is okay." The unicorn said in a weary voice "But she is not going to be up for any heavy spellwork for a while." She got back on her hooves "But the results were worth it." She stated "The temporal cascade is accelerating at a constant rate. According to Trixie's calculations, we have one hour before we are swept up enough in the time loop to be able to affect things without needing to use too much power, but thirty minutes later we would be too linked with the loop to the able to escape it."

"That's not a large time window." Rarity said, seemingly just to try and prevent another awkward silence.

"Right. That means we can't waste any of the time we have." Sunset took charge "We should prepare as much as possible during the next hour."

"Trixie will prepare a few spell circles to help compensate for her strain." Trixie announced.

"That's good, I'll do something similar." Sunset agreed "Dash, you should charge as much magic into a cloud as you can, to prepare to use big spells." The pegasus nodded "Do you have any ideas for Rarity or Applejack?" She asked Trixie.

"Rarity should probably help Trixie with the circles, but Applejack is a different case." She looked to her apprentice "Do you think you can use your Eyes of Truth to keep an eye on things and make sure the escape route is clear?"

"Yeah, Ah can." Applejack nodded.

"Then that is decided." Sunset said "Now there's the other two." She looked at Pinkie and Fluttershy.

"I think we should focus on trying to find Twilight, even if we have to check every one of those ponies." Pinkie said "I think a combination of my Emotion Charge and her empathy should be enough to make a Twilight sensor!"

"Yes..." Fluttershy agreed.

"Okay. In that case we all already have our tasks." Sunset summarized "Let's go!"

And so it was. Trixie, Rarity and Sunset were writing out large amounts of spell circles and runes on the ground and walls for later use, preparing spells which would be sufficiently versatile to deal with most situations (they would improvise in case those weren't enough), Rainbow Dash flew into the sky and created a cloud to inject with magic, in a way she had previously trained with Sunset (the goal of the training was getting her used to handling large amounts of magic, and those were large amounts of magic even by Sunset's standards, so it didn't need to be said how much power she could gather), Applejack was patrolling the part of the city closest to where they had come in, which was the place with the biggest magical gap, their planned exit point, and making sure they would be able to use it when needed.

As for Pinkie and Fluttershy...

"Duo Magic: Empathy Search!" The apprentices of Twilight announced, weaving their magic together.

They were going through the boring and unenviable task of checking on every single one of the ponies in the city. The simple aspect of making sure they weren't going to check the same one more than once already took some effort (Fluttershy had to empathically "mark" those she went through), but even more than that was the simple fact that there were a lot of those ponies, enough to test even the endurance of the Knights, both in terms of magical capacity as well as the simple will of managing to keep going with the same spell dozens of times.

But they kept going, and every one of the Knights did their best in the hopes of being able to rescue the last of their number. The situation of the battle was changing faster and faster as Blank kept getting more powerful, and by the time the hour was done, Twilight wasn't able to defeat her opponent any more, and barely managed to survive each "loop" of fighting by using her magic defensively.

The preparation time felt like it was way too short, but when the hour was over, Twilight's disadvantage was so obvious that they didn't dare to hesitate.

"Triple Magic Enhance: Grand Nova!" Sunset shouted, casting her magic.

She had already entered Trance mode, and so even such a powerful spell did not take long to charge, and the effect was impressive, creating a cone of magical power that was powerful enough to be a threat even to an actual mountain. But of course, Blank had gotten remarkably strong, so even that wasn't enough to break through his defenses.

The stallion simply stopped his attack on Twilight and forcefully created a concave barrier out of his light magic, which exploded when hit by the attack, making most of the energy of Sunset's spell vanish, at the same moment, he also created a disk of magic and threw it at Sunset.

Rainbow Dash detonated it with an overcharged lightning bolt from above to help her teacher, before shooting a dense sphere of lightning at Blank. At the same moment, Sunset and Trixie had finished their spells, and surprisingly, so did "Twilight", who was apparently aware enough to coordinate with the Knights.

"Triple Magic Enhance: Seeker Bombardment!" Was Sunset's spell, and it created dozens of magical missiles that attacked Blank from all sides.

"Perfect Illusion: Fog of War!" Was Trixie's spell, which she could only cast with the help of several magical circles activating at once. And the spell made it so that Sunset's missiles seemed to multiply, also changing patterns and timing, making it nearly impossible to know which were the real attacks to be blocked and when.

"Chaos Magic: Thousand Needles!" Was Twilight's spell, and it created a thousand needles that pierced towards Blank while carrying an explosive power, mixing seamlessly with Trixie's illusions.

This had actually been an attack pattern that the three had worked out, and it was devastatingly effective even against such an opponent. Even though Blank extended his magic to annihilate most of the enemy spells, he simply had no way to create a truly perfect defense, and so a few of the attacks slipped through the gaps.

By the time the triple offensive had ended, Blank had been reduced to a head which was supported by a thin "cloud" of light magic. But then the situation took a drastic turn, as the stallion who had always been silent up to that point suddenly roared.

"UROOOOOOAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!" The sound was loud enough to shake the space itself.

And Blank's light magic devoured his head and then shined brightly for a moment, before retreating and revealing that his body had been completely restored. But even that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was that the pony closest to the battlefield suddenly screamed as his body was overtaken by the light magic, which faded to reveal that he had turned into a perfect copy of Blank.

-0-

There was an important reason why Applejack wasn't directly involved in the fight against Blank. She had to remain next to their exit point and prevent it from closing in case of a sudden change, but she still helped with the battle by providing information to the others.

And she was the first to realize what was happening.

"He's taking over Twilight's spell!" She shouted.

The second Blank moved to the side of the first one and then both of them started to throw dozens of light spheres at their attackers, who once more had to turn their energies towards defense to resist this sudden assault.

But Applejack could see that the situation was even worse, because Blank's magic was already slowly taking over the other artificial ponies.

-0-

Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had just finished checking the last pony in the loop when the fight started.

"Why...?" Fluttershy asked "This was the last one, so why haven't we found Twilight yet...?" Her voice was full of sadness.

Pinkie put a hoof on her chin, in thought "Maybe we missed something since the start." She looked at Fluttershy "Are you sure Twilight is in one of the ponies? I have a feeling things aren't so simple. This is how chaos magic works."

"But she has to be inside one of them!" Fluttershy declared with certainty "Which means..." There was a moment of silence as Fluttershy thought about Pinkie's words and arrived at a revelation "That's it!" She shouted "She is indeed inside those ponies, but her soul is shifting between each of them so fast we can't detect her!"

Pinkie nodded, thinking that this seemed right "So what do we do?"

Fluttershy blinked "Well..."

But before she could finish her thought, Blank roared and she saw him taking over one of the ponies.

"He's taking over Twilight's spell!" Applejack shouted at that moment.

"Oh no..." Fluttershy began, and then blinked "Wait, this could actually help." She flew over and grabbed the pony they had previously checked, dragging him back towards Pinkie "With less places it can go, Twilight's soul will be easier to catch. Pinkie, try to keep this one free from Blank's influence." Pinkie saluted and started injecting magic into the body of the pony, trying her best to fight off the power of Blank "We can rescue Twilight!" She shouted to the ones currently fighting "Just hold him off for a bit!" Hearing that, Trixie, Sunset, Rarity and Rainbow Dash started fighting with even more ferocity "Applejack, could you..." Fluttershy stopped talking as she turned back and saw what Applejack was doing.

The worst situation had occurred, and the opening in the time loop was trying to close. Applejack was physically and magically holding it open, but it was clear that she would not be able to hold forever.

"Guess I'll have to do it myself." Fluttershy muttered.

Then she started charging magic while at the same time visualizing her goal.

Twilight. Her teacher Twilight. Twilight's personality and her magic. Twilight's body and soul. Everything that Twilight was appeared in Fluttershy's mind, as she reached deep inside herself to call her empathy to its highest levels.

She would not fail.

-0-

"Wind and Earth Style: Dust Storm!" Rarity shouted, slashing with both swords.

Her spell created a thick cloud of dust that blocked the sight of the many Blank copies and also blocked their constant bombardment of light spheres, since it forced them to detonate when they touched the dust. Rarity focused herself as much as possible to keep her defense up as long as she could, because any extra time she was able to give for the others to prepare counted.

Initially, the four Knights (plus the fake Knight) maintained a strong offensive, trying to prevent Blank or his copies from gaining any advantage they could build upon.

"Perfect Illusion: Forgotten Mist!" Trixie shouted, unleashing the full potential of the magic circles.

"Chaos Magic: Hidden Space!" Twilight shouted, warping space with her chaos magic.

Trixie's spell created a dense mist that blocked the awareness of every single one of the Blank copies, while Twilight's spell manipulated space to hide the Knights. Rarity's spell finally broke and she lowered her swords, breathing heavily to try and recover from the immense exertion she had went through. The Blank copies immediately started throwing more and more magic at the mist, slowly breaking it apart, while the original Blank created a gigantic spear of light magic and started stabbing into the manipulated space, making it unravel little by little.

The advantage of the Knights had not lasted long. As more and more Blank copies appeared, even their combined power and skills were slowly overwhelmed, to the point where now they were fighting completely on the defensive. Were it not for Fluttershy asking for time, they would have already tried something reckless to try and reverse the situation.

"Duo Magic: Enhanced Harmonic Blast!" Rainbow Dash and Sunset shouted, mixing their magic together.

As soon as Twilight and Trixie's defense finished being destroyed, the two were already ready to unleash their own technique, which started with Rainbow Dash gathering most of the remaining magic in her cloud and forcefully turning it into part of a harmonic rainboom, that Sunset subsequently enhanced. Their attack was a veritable drill of power, that crashed into Blank's spear of light and managed to destroy it.

The only reason why they were still able to survive in front of dozens of Blank copies was the fact that none of the copies were as strong as the original Blank. But Blank was still getting stronger at an appreciable rate, and they would have no way of holding on for much longer.

Thankfully, it was then that the situation changed.

A pulse of very familiar magic swept through the space, and the copy Twilight nodded and disappeared.

But most importantly, the fight stopped immediatedly as both sides turned to look at the origin of that magic. And there she was, right beside Fluttershy and Pinkie. Twilight was back.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 47 - Twilight Returns

Fluttershy was focusing like she had never focused before in her life, even during that terrifying fight against Chrysalis. She was thinking about Twilight. Her smart teacher who had showed her the path to doing such amazing things in the world of magic, who was courageous and strong, but most importantly, kind.

She thought of Twilight's smile and her laugh, as well as her voice. Fluttershy believed that the two of them had a deep connection, so she just... needed... to find it... And her will passed through all barriers following that connection.

There!

It was like trying to reach out from the ground and catch a falling star that crossed the sky, but Fluttershy's magic reached through the overwhelming distance, refusing to give up. On the outside Pinkie saw Fluttershy glowing with an aura of power as she channeled extreme amounts of magical power in an attempt to make the impossible possible.

Because what was magic, if not the will to change the world?

But even with that, even with all of her power, Fluttershy could not quite reach it. She was ready to bet everything on using an Overdrive when a miracle happened.

The "falling star" reached out to her.

After all, if they had a true connection, why would Fluttershy have to do all the work?

The two touched, and Fluttershy was almost overwhelmed by joy, but her work wasn't done yet. With a herculean effort, the pegasus firmly embraced Twilight's essence and started pulling herself back through the (infinite yet short) distance back to her body. And even though she had a natural connection with her material form, the return path was even more difficult, partly due to having to keep holding Twilight, and partly due to weariness from her earlier effort.

But again, she wasn't alone this time. Twilight's will joined with her, and pushed along with her own power to help them cross the final barrier. It was difficult to say how long that final journey took, but it was something the two of them would always cherish.

And suddenly, it was over. Fluttershy was back in her own body... And Twilight was right there beside her.

"Twilight..." Fluttershy whispered, as if to try and convince herself of the reality. This was really Twilight, the true Twilight, with everything that she was.

"Fluttershy..." Twilight replied, looking at her with tears in her eyes and positively radiating joy to Fluttershy's senses. She looked like she was going to say something else, when suddenly...

"Gaarrgh!" Twilight vomited blood and collapsed on the floor.

"Twilight!" Fluttershy screamed, and Pinkie screamed right along with her. Fluttershy reached out with her empathic senses to discover what was wrong....

Pain. Overwhelming pain in the whole body. Magic was impossible to reach.

Twilight was hurt. Hurt badly and Fluttershy didn't understand what was wrong and she didn't know any healing spells and-

"Twilight!" Sunset and Trixie shouted in unison, from the other side of the area.

Fluttershy turned to them, getting over her panic due to the reassurance of their presence, and then Pinkie Pie sent her a message via the feather connection 'They'll help.'

She understood perfectly. The original Knights had received a much broader and deeper magical education than the newest ones, they would be able to help.

"Switch!" Pinkie shouted at the two, and then she and Fluttershy took off towards Blank.

-0-

When Pinkie Pie shouted switch, both Sunset and Trixie understood perfectly what the plan was. Both of them started preparing teleports to get to Twilight's side, but the strange properties of that place hindered them, and the teleports were slow enough for Blank to get over his surprise and start an attack on them.

But he had evidently forgotten that Trixie and Sunset weren't the only Knights he was facing, and the two trusted Rarity and Rainbow Dash to keep the situation under control.

They weren't wrong to trust.

"Rarity!" Rainbow Dash shouted, flying down to the ground at supersonic speed "The circles!"

The other Knight nodded and pierced her Earth Ruler Sword into the ground at the same time as Rainbow Dash struck the earth. The two unleashed their magic power into the soil... and broke every single one of the previously prepared magical circles.

Twilight was already back and they just needed to escape, so there was no reason to hold back anymore. These circles would become useless, but the result would be worth it.

The broken circles disturbed the dragon pulse in the area, which was already pretty strained due to the state of constant battle of the time loop, and it discharged an insane amount of magic energy into the air. Usually it would explode immediately, but Rarity had use her magic on the ground an controlled every single bit of the disturbed magical power, though it was a strain even for a pony of her particular capabilities.

Instead, the power was channeled in a line of magic towards Rainbow Dash, who grabbed hold of it, focused it and finally released it in a way to create the greatest possible effect, instead of most of the power dissipating harmlessly like it would usually happen.

"Double Arts!" Rarity and Rainbow Dash shouted "Broken Circle!"

And their combined attack took the form of not a wave, but a veritable tsunami of power unleashed right in the direction of Blank and his copies. They had to abort their attacks as they tried to deal with this ridiculously overpowered menace, and Trixie and Sunset managed to teleport while Pinkie and Fluttershy got enough time to reach their place on the battlefield.

This gave the duo some time to breathe, and they managed to see that the city had changed completely, now looking like some strange, dark and rocky abyss with crystals scattered around. They wondered if this place had been made by Blank's memories, and whether that meant he had taken over the spell completely.

-0-

As soon as they reached Twilight's side, Sunset and Trixie shared a quick glance to communicate about where each of them would work to be able to divide their efforts.

They used their magic in a trained way, managing to avoid any mistakes despite their worry about their partner. They quickly scanned her body and got to work on the most critical places, their medical knowledge coming in handy to understand what to prioritize. Which was important, because there was a lot of stuff wrong.

Lacerated muscles, torn ligaments, internal bleeding, generalized stress fractures on most of her bones, but worst of all was the heavy organ damage, specially in the heart and liver.

The two original Knights worked in perfect coordination, focusing on the critical areas to ensure Twilight's survival, not caring about completely fixing anything since time was of the essence and they could hopefully deal with everything else later.

Their state of concentration was so high that both of them were aware of every millisecond that passed, and so their work seemed to last an eternity, even though it was barely five seconds until Twilight partially recovered.

"Ah... You two..." Twilight spoke with a raspy voice "I don't feel good."

"Of course." Trixie said, her voice was harsh but unable to conceal her relief in seeing that Twilight seemed better, and she didn't stop her spells either "What were you thinking? Overlaying Overdrives is a forbidden technique for a reason."

"I had to!" Twilight did the closest to a shout she could in her condition "I couldn't leave you... dead..."

"You idiot!" Sunset scolded her "We weren't dead! That guy had some kind of gap magic, and it trapped us someplace. I'm sure you could have freed us if you weren't so impulsive!" Sunset was also keeping the treatment going.

"Ah... Then... I guess I really messed up, didn't I?"

"Yes." Trixie said "Trixie would be more irritated with you if you hadn't already planned a way to go back." Sunset and Twilight looked surprised at her "Trixie also saw those theories about time magic. What other reason could there be for you to not be getting stronger while he is, even though it was you who cast the spell?"

Twilight sighed "More like I refused to do anything that could prevent me from going back. I wasn't exactly thinking straight enough to plan something like this." She looked at the two "But I definitely was going to find my way back... You two are like family for me and I never wanted you to feel bad because of me."

Sunset's eyes softened "I'm an only child, but I always felt that if I had sisters, it would be like with the two of you."

Trixie was the next "Trixie has always considered the two of you to be her sisters."

Twilight smiled slightly "Then, should we just go forward and start calling each other sisters?"

Sunset smiled as well "I have no objections to that... sister."

"Trixie also has no objections."

Twilight nodded "Then, from now on, we are sisters."

There was a moment of silence and then Sunset spoke "So, but first we need to deal with that guy and get out of here."

Twilight grinned "This is not going to be a problem. He committed a great mistake and has already lost. Just look at Applejack."

The two did so.

Applejack was no longer struggling to keep the portal opened, and it seemed completely stable.

It took a moment for the other two to understand, but then they grinned as well.

-0-

When Blank managed to get through the tsunami of magic unleashed by the breaking of the magical circle, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were already ready to get into the fight.

"Chaotic Arts: SURPRISE!" Pinkie shouted, throwing a pink sphere of overcharged elemental surprise.

As might be expected, this named attack was much more powerful than her original surprise balls, and had a rather astonishing effect. It burst into a huge swarm of cyborg dragonflies with electric powers that started attacking Blank and his copies.

It was, indeed, very surprising.

"Hydra! Multiplicity edition!" Fluttershy cast her own magic, creating her Hydra armor construct.

However, this time it was different. This hydra had dozens of small heads, each one at the end of comically large necks and carrying sharp teeth in their jaws. The heads pounced on Blank and his copies, biting and headbutting with powerful strength.

And the Knights together actually managed to do something astonishing, they reached the point of actually forcing Blank to remain on the defensive.

Obviously, Rarity and Rainbow Dash would not simply let Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie do everything themselves, and they were a big part of the reason why Blank was struggling. Rarity was focusing on the power of her Wind Ruler Sword, and she and Rainbow Dash joined their wind manipulation abilities with extreme coordination to attack everywhere at once.

Pinkie also was a big part. After her dragonflies had been taken down, the chaotic pony simply kept doing ever-changing spells, first multiplying herself to match the numbers of her opponent, and then releasing such a diverse range of attacks that truly showed the potential of chaotic magic.

But still, the biggest contributor to their success was Fluttershy. Her hydra heads and necks took on a huge amount of space, pressuring the opponents from all sides, and while they could remove parts of the construct, Fluttershy had deliberately made it very fragile but easy to repair, creating a true undying beast that would not leave even a single moment of time for her opponents to catch their breaths.

However, it couldn't last. Eventually Blank was pushed to the point of actually detonating his copies, creating a cataclysmic explosion that he deliberately kept contained in a relatively small space in order to annihilate every single thing that was attacking him. Even then, the Knights barely managed to get out of the way in time, and Fluttershy's hydra construct was completely destroyed.

The spell was so powerful that even with his amazing new power, Blank had to stop to recover for a bit, and at that moment, Pinkie noticed something:

The explosion had actually caused cracks to appear on space itself.

Getting an idea from that and knowing she didn't want to let up on the attacks, Pinkie spoke quickly to Fluttershy:

"Follow my lead." And she raised a hoof, channeling her magic.

She touched the space with her will, doing so with ease due to the properties of her chaos magic. Fluttershy came with her, and she suddenly understood what Pinkie Pie was trying to do. Both of them exploded with power, Pinkie Pie idly thinking that this would hurt in the morning, since she had been using the full potential of her 80% Emotion Charge far too much in a single day.

And in an instant, their spell was complete, and they unleashed it straight at the cracks in space.

"Double Arts!" They both shouted "Black Hole Rising!"

Instantly, in a ridiculous multidimensional warping that gave headaches to everypony watching (except Pinkie), the cracks folded upon themselves forming a pseudo icosahedron that then exploded into a hole in space that started dragging everything towards it, starting with Blank.

It wasn't really an actual black hole, but "merely" a magical disturbance that had some of the same properties. Blank, unprepared for the sudden appearance of it, ended up flying right at the "black hole" and crashing into the "side of it" (because apparently it was solid somehow, and even Pinkie didn't expect that one).

He started punching the black hole, which started expanding, and then the Knights ran away, seeing that staying so near that thing wasn't recommended. They stopped besides the three original Knights, and Applejack casually strolled to join them moments after.

Fluttershy immediately flew forward and hugged Twilight, who was sitting on the ground, being careful not to jostle her injuries.

"It's great that you're back..." Fluttershy muttered. Twilight didn't say anything, knowing that this didn't need a response.

After that, Pinkie also hugged her teacher, and the other apprentices also expressed their happiness for Twilight being okay, but their celebrations were eventually cut off by a ferocious roar.

"GROOOAAARRGHHHH!" It was Blank, and once more the entire dimension shook as his power grew. He raised a hoof and gave a colossal punch to the "black hole", making it break in half and dissipate. He then turned his head towards the Knights. The four who had been fighting him tensed up in preparation, but Sunset and Trixie stopped them with a gesture, wearing calm expressions, which were mirrored by Twilight.

Blank threw a big sphere of his gap magic straight at the Knights, who didn't do anything to stop it at all, the original Knights knowing what would happen, and their apprentices trusting in them. The sphere exploded and made everything nearby disappear... except for the Knights.

They were completely unharmed and standing on nothing, almost like they were ghosts that did not belong to that world.

Blank stopped and looked at them without comprehension. Then Twilight started talking, enunciating very clearly despite her injuries, like she was giving a lecture:

"The hardest part of conceptual magic isn't actually manipulating the concepts. Instead, it is avoiding the negative influence of the concepts on yourself. I didn't care about that with my spell, and you could say it was 'a spell to trap oneself into a time loop and drag somepony with you'. Or rather, that was the price I paid for being able to achieve my true aim."

She stared at Blank with pity "I don't know how you were made, or how much influence you had over your actions in attacking us." Then her eyes hardened "But there is one thing I'm certain of. After being dragged with the spell, you got a chance to make a choice, which may well have been the first choice you ever made in your life."

She continued "Like I said, I was the one who cast the spell, so I was the one who was the most trapped by the well of time. If you had chosen to try and escape the loop, even if it wouldn't be exactly easy, it would be a lot easier than if it was me who tried it. That was fine with me, since my biggest reason for using the spell wasn't really to trap you."

She shook her head "But instead, you choose to gain power, and in doing so, got more and more trapped by the chains of time. So we were both in the same situation, and my friends here reached through the barriers of time and managed to interact with us, despite not being burdened by time like us.

"And that was when you committed your last mistake. In your search for power, you actually took over my spell, effectively taking my burden for your own. Now I was no longer trapped, and since my friends here came to get me, and not you, their temporal distance from you increased along with mine.

"Now, we are so distant that only my words will reach, no longer able to interact in any other way, and even that will end soon. So, I have to thank you for helping with my mistake, and say that I hope that somewhen you may redeem yourself for yours."

With those words, Twilight disappeared from Blank's vision, together with the rest of the Knights.

The stallion raged and destroyed everything around. But he was unable to affect anything outside his prison.

-0-

"They're coming." Moondancer said.

Spike perked up and looked as the portal that had been dormant suddenly activated again, and he could barely contain his joy when he saw all eight of the Knights fall off the portal, which closed behind them (though Twilight was held in Sunset's telekinetic grip and didn't actually reach the floor).

"Twilight!" He shouted, running over to her "You're okay!"

"I'm okay." She agreed, smiling.

Moondancer, who knew a lot about Overdrives, simply walked over to her and asked "What's the prognosis?"

Twilight looked thoughtful for a moment "I won't be able to use any magic for around four months. And it will take at least two more months after that for my body to recover enough to be able to channel any useful amount of power."

Spike looked worried "But you will be able to come watch my Knight proclamation, right?"

"Of course!" Twilight said, nodding.

The others nodded "We'll all be there." Sunset added.

Then she looked around and notices that the area had a lot of new craters, burns and other signs of a battle "What happened here?"

Moondancer was the one who responded "Another one of those construct enemies came here, but me and Spike defeated him, no problem."

"Oh, you have to tell Trixie the details!" Said unicorn spoke, and the others soon also started asking for the story. Spike showed an air of pride and started telling the story.

Twilight looked around at all of them, smiled and closed her eyes "I'm back."

Shards of Chaos/Time Loop Arc End

Next: Flames of Annihilation Arc

 

[Kinni]

Interlude 4 - Crusaders and Luna

"Okay, are ya really sure about this?" Applebloom asked Sweetie Belle for the third time in fifteen minutes.

"Pretty sure." The unicorn filly answered "I asked Rarity, who asked Twilight, who asked Moondancer, who sent us the instructions to perform this ritual. Apparently it was created by Princess Luna centuries ago as a way to allow ponies to dreamwalk even if they don't have any ability in that kind of magic."

"And that's another thing." Scootaloo said "Why can't Princess Luna help with this? Dreams are part of her deal, aren't they?"

"Miss Cornflower petitioned Princess Luna, but she is apparently too busy with something." Sweetie Belle answered patiently "She told us this herself, were you not paying attention?"

"Honestly no." Scootaloo admitted "I was kinda distracted by how awesome her house is."

"I can understand that." Sweetie Belle allowed.

Because it really was a cool house. Cornflower lived in a remodeled observatory, which was appropriate, considering her astronomy cutie mark. It had a system of mirrors in place that covered all of the walls and were set up in such a way that one could see the sky even from the inside by looking at them. The ground was painted with star charts, forming a beautiful configuration, and there was a model of their corner of the universe floating in the main room, a model in scale that moved by magic, spells that the unicorn refreshed every day.

Staying inside that house was like living in an astronomy book.

"Ah understand all that too, Ah just..." Applebloom tried to put her feelings in words "Ah just feel like we might be in a little over our heads." She indicated the surrounding situation.

They were standing next to the bed where Cornflower was currently sleeping, in the middle of a complex series of diagrams with strange materials scattered around in precise intervals, things like the hair of a squirrel (Fluttershy had helped with that one) and a cube of wax with a very precise shape and weight (Rarity had helped with that one) along with other things, none of them really rare or dangerous, but certainly an odd assortment, all in all.

And why were they trying to use a ritual to walk into the dreams of an unicorn astronomer? Because of the reputation they had garnered in the previous months.

After having gained their cutie marks, the three fillies went around trying to help other ponies with their cutie marks. Some of them were ponies even younger that needed help to find their cutie marks, but most of what they did actually had to do with ponies who were having trouble with their cutie marks (they even managed to help Diamond Tiara and thus make friends with her) and frequently they ended up helping adults who were rather well-connected.

Because of that, eventually word about them spread, and the three ended up traveling frequently to do those jobs, and they were in fact jobs, because the fillies were actually being paid for them, though the prices were very negotiable. Cornflower was their most recent client, and it wasn't a long way to go, since her house was on the outskirts of Canterlot, however, her situation was particularly unique in the (admitely limited) experience of the Crusaders.

Her story was that recently she had been getting nightmares she could never quite remember but which left her with a feeling of dread when she woke up. Initially this had nothing to do with her cutie mark, but eventually things changed. Instead of just a feeling of dread, she felt drained and depressed, and worst of all, with less enthusiasm for space. Everything always cleared up in an hour or two, but the time was slowly growing longer.

Of course, she had tried to get Luna's help with that, but the princess was too busy. However, when she mentioned the part about her loss of enthusiasm for what her cutie mark was about to one of her friends, the friend thought that sounded like some of the things the Crusaders dealt with. Cornflower thought it was worth a shot and decided to call them.

And they quickly saw that their usual techniques would simply not work, since everything seemed to revolve around those nightmares. So eventually they decided to try the current solution, literally walk inside the dreams of Cornflower to see what was actually going on.

Applebloom sighed as she put on the finishing touches on the preparations for the ritual and started double-checking everything to make sure nothing was out of place. Considering both Twilight and Rarity know about this, I'm sure it can't really be dangerous...

Finally, everything was done, and Applebloom stepped on the central rune as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle moved beside her, and pushed a little bit of magic into it from her hooves.

The room glowed faintly and then the formation circles they had prepared started emitting a kind of light mist that was contained within them. Inside the mist, the crusaders looked to the outside and noticed that the world out of the mist started seeming more and more faded and unreal, as if a dream. All the sounds of Canterlot, that were so constant it was difficulty to notice them slowly faded away into silence, ironically making them more noticeable for their absence.

Eventually, everything from the outside, all the sights and sounds, disappeared completely from their awareness. But instead of that leaving just darkness, something else seemed to have filled the gap. There was a sort of bubbly, uncertain feeling in the air that the three could feel on their coats. There was also a low sound that was difficult to identify, but seemed to have the cadence of a song. Finally, the mist around them started to thicken and coalesce into ephemeral shapes that got more and more elaborate with time.

And then, Cornflower seemed to shift somehow. They felt like she was looming over them, even though they could see quite clearly that she was still sleeping in the bed, immobile.

And suddenly, both her and the bed disappeared.

After that, the mist started to grow fainter, not due to receding, but because it slowly started to to spread in all directions while only having a limited amount of it. Soon, there was no more mist, and the surroundings started to brighten slowly, as if the light of the sun was breaking through a cloud that vanished little by little, having previously blocked all light.

And yet, different from what usually happened in reality, the sun shining through actually made the stars visible instead of wiping them out, as if there weren't truly stars in the sky, but much closer and smaller objects that were reflecting the light of the sun. The result was a starry sky in the middle of the day.

And the place they were in was also illuminated by the "sun" (despite the presence of the light, the actual sun didn't seem to appear at all in the sky), and it was instantly familiar to the crusaders, because they had seen it that same day. They were in Canterlot... more or less. It was kind of a weird, dreamlike version of Canterlot with lots of buildings and streets that didn't really fit together at all and which seemed to follow similar lines to the constellations showing in the sky.

"So this is Cornflower's dream." Applebloom said, looking around "So far there doesn't seem ta be anything strange, but Ah'm sure we'll find something."

The other two agreed with her assessment and the three started walking around and exploring, until Scootaloo realized something:

"Wait, if this is a dream, doesn't that mean I can fly right now?!"

Sweetie nodded at her "According to the instructions of the ritual, we can actually do anything we can imagine in the world of dreams, but there was a warning not to try anything too crazy or you could get a bad headache once you woke up."

"Okay, I'm going then!" Scootaloo said, then she focused, jumped, flapped her wings... And fell back into the floor "Wait, what gives?!" She said, getting back on her feet "That didn't work at all!" She accused.

"Really?" Sweetie Belle was surprised "Because the documents were pretty clear about it."

Deciding to test it herself, Sweetie Belle started trying to make a harp appear out of thin air, resulting in absolutely nothing happening "Huh, that's really weird."

"Maybe it has something ta do with whatever is going on with Cornflower?" Applebloom suggested.

"Maybe..." Sweetie Belle said hesitatingly.

And it was at that point that the situation suddenly changed. The sky seemed to split open and two figures emerged from thin air as if from deep water and started fighting each other while flying. It took a few seconds for the fillies to be able to recognize the figures, but when they did, they were astonished.

The first of them was actually Princess Luna, wearing some extremely heavy and powerful-looking armor while the other was... something weird.

It had approximately the same body shape and size of Luna and also seemed to be an alicorn mare. But that thing didn't seem to be a real being at all, mostly because its body was somehow wispy and ethereal, like a magical construct, its colors were also similar to Luna's but somewhat glowier and when the fight approached the crusaders, they could see that the face of the thing looked more like a parody of a pony's face, being all sharp lines and circles that created an unsettling sketchy effect.

The crusaders could only watch as the fight progressed, and they saw very clearly the moment where Princess Luna noticed them. She blinked and very obviously started fighting even harder, trying to drag the battle farther away from the fillies.

And she had success in that, because the pseudo alicorn didn't give any signs of even noticing their presence, much less actually trying to go against them. But most importantly, Luna was obviously stronger than her opponent. The difference wasn't very large, but it was noticeable after a minute of combat that the creature was being forced more and more into the defensive.

Eventually, Luna managed to catch her opponent in a restraining spell consisting of silver chains that it could not break in time before the Princess was able to charge and fire her finishing move:

"Lunar Style: Moonlight Ray!" She shouted, and created a disc of light that spun and fired a powerful beam of silver magic.

That beam of magic completely engulfed the creature and covered it up for several seconds. When it faded, the only thing left of the opponent was a bit of smoke that quickly faded away. Luna kept watching it for a few seconds, as if trying to make sure her opponent wasn't going to suddenly come back and attack, and then she flew over to the Crusaders.

"What are you three doing here?" She asked.

"We're doing our job!" Applebloom took the lead in announcing. Then she explained the events to the princess.

"I see..." Luna said "It all makes sense now..."

"Then, what is going on, Princess?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Luna sighed "That thing you just saw me fight is called the Tantabus. It is a creature that should never have existed."

She stopped for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

"I suppose I should start at the beginning. You three know that I have spent the last century under the thrall of Sombra, don't you?" They nodded "Of course, due to the rules of the mind control, I couldn't directly go against his orders, but I could still choose to interpret them in the ways that caused the least amount of damage."

She sighed again "Of course, it wasn't as easy as that makes it sound. I was under the thrall of the dark magic during this time and with only the barest glimmer of control over my actions. So in order to do so, I created the Tantabus, a mental construct that would give suggestions to my subconscious about doing good acts by giving excuses to it, like not using all my power against some heroes because I needed to keep energy in reserve in case Sombra gave me a new order. Things like that. And over time it became pretty elaborate."

She looked up "Then I was freed by the Knights, and I thought that the Tantabus had simply disappeared, given that I couldn't find it in my mindscape and its purpose was complete. But that was a mistake. I should have investigated the situation more." Luna looked at the three "What actually happened was that the Tantabus merged with the remnants of Sombra's mind control spell and my dark magic. It managed to gain sentience and escape to hide inside the dreamscape."

She stopped for a moment before continuing her story "Recently, I discovered its existence and tried to deal with it. However, the Tantabus is crafty, it used a special spell to make its existence faint outside the dreamscape, so I can only remember it exists when I'm in the dreamscape. The same way, even if I inform somepony about it in their dreams, they would forget as soon as they wake up, so I can't just call for help."

"But..." Sweetie Belle remembered something "Weren't you refusing Cornflower because you were busy?"

"Yes." Luna agreed "But the only thing I knew during my awake time was that I had important business in the dream world, and sadly not understanding everything about the dream world when you're awake is actually something common, dream magic is a difficult and mysterious field, and that would not have made me suspicious at all." She nodded slightly "Going back to the story, I have been spending the last few weeks trying to deal with the Tantabus, but it keeps reappearing no matter what I do, and it is slowly getting stronger. Your story made everything make sense, it must be using destiny magic to steal energy from Cornflower in her dreams to restore itself and get stronger. Knowing this, I can deal with it permanently." She looked at the children gravely "It is going to come back soon, so you have to leave, the ritual has a special method for leaving the dreamscape, use it."

The three fillies briefly looked like they wanted to argue, but it was a direct order from the princess, so they sighed and focused... But nothing happened.

"It's not working." Applebloom said, confused.

Luna put a hoof to her forehead "Of course, how could I have missed this...? Tantabus is using a spell to force normal rules into the dream world to prevent me from simply using my superior imagination to unmake it. This must be interfering with some of the functions of the ritual... Wait a moment."

Luna did a few small scan spells on the three for a few seconds and then sighed in relief "Okay... The protections to keep you from getting hurt in reality are still there, so you can stay, but be careful, you never know what the Tantabus will try to do." Having said that, she flew into the sky.

The crusaders didn't have to wait long, only half a minute passed before Tantabus reappeared like a flame being lit. Luna had already prepared for its return, so she didn't waste any time before using a spell.

"Dream Magic: Dream Lock." She declared, and sent a pulse of magic that spread outward and passed through the entire dream world of Cornflower. Then she advanced at her opponent to return to their earlier fight.

At the beginning, there didn't seem to be any noticeable difference from the first time they fought, despite the spell Luna had used. However, it soon became clear that "something" had changed. Tantabus was fighting with a lot more desperation than before, as if aware that this time losing meant death.

The fight was brutal, with both combatants alternating between blasting their opponent with powerful explosive spells and hitting them with nasty combinations of physical attacks that rang even louder than the explosions. The sheer side effects of the battle were causing more and more destruction in the dream city, and Luna was slowly getting the upper hand.

But of course things could not be as easy as all that. At a certain point, the Tantabus managed to get Luna to back up for a bit by using an omnidirectional blast of magic, and then it charged and cast a spell that caused the mindscape itself to tremble.

Initially, the spell didn't seem to do anything else, but when Princess Luna flew over to resume their fight, it was pretty clear that the character of the struggle had changed. The Tantabus was now hitting much harder and forming her spells much faster, and it wasn't long before Luna was the one who found herself on the defensive.

The crusaders watched with concern as Luna seemed to struggle more and more in the fight.

"We have to do something!" Scootaloo declared "We must help princess Luna somehow!"

"But what can we do?" Sweetie Belle asked, her voice sad "How can we help in this situation?"

"Ah don't know." Applebloom said, stomping the ground in frustration.

To the surprise of not only her, but the other two fillies, her stomp resulted in the ground shaking and a large fissure appearing.

The three were unable to find any words to react to that, so Sweetie Belle didn't say anything as she used a normal telekinesis spell... And managed to easily raise an entire carriage into the air.

They stopped to consider the implications, and then grinned at each other.

-0-

Princess Luna recognized that she was currently in a difficult position. The Tantabus had given up on stealth and was using its full power against her. That meant that, combined with the disturbances the battle was causing on the dreamscape, Luna could be certain that she would be getting reinforcements from the dream guard section of her guards soon.

However, she was still in a difficult position due to two facts. The first was that the Tantabus using its full power was really remarkably powerful, enough to make Luna have to fight seriously just to buy time until the arrival of the reinforcements. And the second fact was the certainty Luna had that Tantabus would try to escape through any gaps the reinforcements tried to use to get in, and as such she needed to be prepared to prevent its escape, which really was pushing her concentration and magic to the limit.

As such, Luna was remarkably surprised when the Tantabus was hit by a carriage that was flying through the air.

She got even more surprised when she saw that it was the fillies who were responsible for it, which became obvious when Scootaloo flapped a wing and created a huge wave of wind that shot towards the Tantabus.

The creature used a barrier spell to block the wind, and the other two were already preparing the next attack. Applebloom stomped on the ground to break the foundations of one of the houses, which was then subsequently thrown at Tantabus by Sweetie Belle's telekinesis.

Tantabus was about to try and shoot a spell at the three, but while Luna was confused by the situation, she would not let the fillies be harmed if she could help it. So, the princess shoot a hasty light force spell at her opponent to get its attention.

Tantabus blocked the attacks from both sides with a spherical barrier, then shot a grenade spell at Luna before turning and shooting a powerful beam of energy at the three fillies. Scootaloo was the one to respond to that, managing to manifest an amazingly powerful lightning bolt in an instant, and throwing it at the enemy attack.

The two attacks exploded against one another, and Luna smothered the grenade spell with a darkness sphere, before flying at Tantabus with wing blade spells at the ready. Slashing at the Tantabus dozens of times per second (which would make her wings really sore later) she managed to occupy it enough to keep the fillies out of danger for a few seconds, which they used in an... unusual way.

Sweetie Belle had ripped the section of street where they had been out of the ground and was now using her telekinesis to move it at the Tantabus with the three riding on that improvised transport.

For Luna, the remaining minute that the battle lasted was a combination of surrealness and urgency. It was surreal to see the three fillies do things which should be far beyond their ability and surprise the Tantabus at every turn, but the urgency of making sure they would not get hurt was also pressing.

Of course, the very nature of the ritual would protect them, but she wouldn't simply rely on that, specially considering that the Tantabus seemed to have the same knowledge of magic as her.

It turned out that her fears were unfounded. Tantabus was simply trying to damage their astral forms enough to force them out of the dreamscape, which would not cause anything bad to happen to them. And also, the three fillies showed themselves to be astonishingly good at avoiding injury.

Applebloom was capable of crossing her own arms and blocking spells that would destroy houses while only receiving scratches in return. Scootaloo kept hindering the Tantabus with multiple small hurricanes and wind blasts. And Sweetie Belle's control of their transport was good enough to make extreme high-speed dodges (and she was apparently keeping herself and the other two glued on the platform).

And you couldn't forget about their attacking abilities either. Scootaloo was throwing around lightning like it was going out of style, Sweetie Belle was using her telekinesis to hinder the Tantabus' movements at critical moments, and Applebloom could throw punches that were so powerful the enemy had to really focus on defending.

Of course, they weren't actually causing much damage to the Tantabus. Their powers were significant, but untrained fillies simply did not have the skill to get through the defenses of the enemy. Most of their success was in protecting themselves and hindering the Tantabus enough for Luna to be able to prepare her spells.

And that was enough.

"Lunar Magic: Annihilation Ray!" Luna cast, when the Tantabus overextended itself trying to retaliate to a combination of a punch from Applebloom and a bolt of lightning from Scootaloo.

Her ray of energy engulfed the opponent, and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo helped by using their respective abilities to keep the Tantabus from managing to escape from the effect radius of the spell. Luna poured a lot of magic into it, to make it certain that her enemy wouldn't be able to escape anymore.

And when the spell was over, there was no trace left of the monster.

Luna raised her head to thank the three fillies but they had already disappeared.,the death of Tantabus negating the spell that was keeping their return mechanism from working.

The princess decided to talk to them later, and started looking over to start fixing the damage to the dreamscape.

-0-

The crusaders were surprised to wake up on the floor of Cornflower's house. They were even more surprised to note that it was already day at that point, but it soon became clear that they had fallen asleep after leaving the mindscape, which made everything make sense.

Soon after, Cornflower herself woke up, and thanked them, since she was feeling okay for the first time in many mornings. She asked about what had happened, and they informed her of the basics: That Luna's job was related to her problem, and the three had helped her with it.

There were some thing to do after that. Mostly telling her to introduce any possible new cases to them, as well as settling the matter of payment (Applebloom had turned out to be the one who was good at those kinds of things) but soon the three had left, and decided to walk a little bit through the nearby park to think about what had happened.

"That was really awesome!" Was Scootaloo's opinion.

"I agree, even though this is not really the kind of job we usually do." Applebloom said.

"I just wonder why we were able to do those things in the dream world..." Sweetie Belle said.

"Maybe the ritual we used interfered with the magic of the Tantabus?" Applebloom guessed.

"Or maybe we can actually do all that normally." Scootaloo joked.

"Yeah." Applebloom grinned "I could just stomp like this-"

Her statement was suddenly stopped when her stomp made the ground shake and caused a fissure to appear. The three fillies looked around for a moment, looked at each other and looked at Applebloom's hoof for a few seconds.

"We need to talk to Princess Luna." Applebloom stated.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 48 - The Flame Returns

"So, what did you think?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"That was pretty cool." Rarity said "It must have taken a lot of practice to get everypony synchronized perfectly."

"Yeah, and I'm sure the pegasi in the audience were even more impressed. They would understand how hard it is to push your manipulation of tailwind to that point." Rainbow Dash agreed "And what about you, did your promotion attract many customers?"

Rainbow Dash was referring to the spell Rarity was using to shift the clothes she was wearing at certain intervals with different models, essentially turning herself into a billboard for her craft. Of course, every single one of the combinations had been chosen to complement her appearance in different ways, showing off her range in terms of design.

Rarity did a little grin "Yes it did. I've passed my contact information to a lot of prospective clients already, and I have so many ideas for special orders to do for them!"

The walked off while still talking. Rainbow Dash had invited Rarity to watch the latest performance of the Wonderbolts, in which she had one of the hardest roles, as the right center manager of the tailwind, a proof that she was becoming a trusted member of the group. And since the audience was going to be huge, Rarity decided to use the opportunity for some merchandising.

And both of them had already finished their obligations for the day, which was good, because that means they did not need to leave anything hanging when they got a summons from the princess.

"Ah." Rarity said when she saw the scroll appear in front of her and Rainbow.

The two Knights opened their scrolls and read them, seeing that it was a convocation for a new mission and they needed to see the princess for more information.

"Let's go." Rarity said, and charged a teleport spell to take herself and Rainbow to the castle.

She was one of the first Knights to get there, and while she looked around and waited for the others to appear, Rarity could not help but remember how unexpected it was the last time that she was called to this place.

-0-

Two Months Earlier

Rarity teleported into the castle. According to the scroll she had received, she hadn't been called for a mission, but another important matter that she should know about. Rarity was surprised to see that Applejack was the only other Knight present, and she wondered what it was about.

She didn't need to wait long, and she was surprised to see Princess Luna appearing there instead of Celestia.

"What happened, princess?" Applejack asked.

"I have called both of you here because your sisters and their friend helped me with a certain matter yesterday and that exposed some strange matters." Luna said calmly.

"Ah, you mean that dreamwalking ritual? And what do you mean by strange matters?" Rarity asked.

"Indeed. The three helped me deal with a creature from the world of dreams, which was connected to what they were trying to do. As for the strange matters, to put things simply, the three of them seem to have unlocked levels of magic power that are far beyond what any foal should have." Luna said "They can do some spells at a level that it would usually take Knight training to achieve."

"That... That seems dangerous." Applejack said "Do ya have any idea why that is?"

"I do have some ideas, but the main reason why I called the two of you here is to make sure. I already got permission from Scootaloo's parents, so I'm now going to ask you two for permission to allow Moondancer and Minuette, the highest level pony researchers in Canterlot, to examine your sisters."

There was a bit of silence as they considered that.

"Well, I guess that is something needed." Rarity agreed.

-0-

One Week Later

The two Knights had been called again to receive the results of the examination of their sisters. This time, only Moondancer was there to talk to them.

"What happened ta Minuette?" Applejack asked.

"Sleeping. We did quite a few all-nighters these last days." Moondancer answered, in a tone that suggested that she needed some sleep as well "But enough about that, I'm sure you want to know what is actually going on."

"Indeed." Rarity said.

"Well, to put it simply..." Moondancer started "It is a phenomenon related to their cutie marks. They somehow managed to achieve a natural fusion of bond magic and destiny magic."

"And that means..." Applejack was still confused.

"That means everytime the three of them helped another being with their destinies, they got a part of their energies, and I imagine that helping King Thorax really caused a great effect, considering his ascension. The fact that it was in that even that they gained their cutie marks is a great part of why the effect of that was so great." Moondancer said "That is the destiny stuff, the part of the bond magic is that the energy they received ressonates with the souls of the three due to their bonds and is amplified due to it. As such, over time as they helped other ponies, the three accumulated energy until they reached the level of power they have now." She nodded "Though thankfully, this is already the limit of what their magic combination is capable of. Even helping a lot more ponies wouldn't make them more than a little bit stronger."

"Then that is the reason..." Rarity muttered "And are there any particular problems?" She asked.

"Actually yes." Moondancer answered "The first and simplest problem is because of the bond magic. They can only use that level of power when all three of them are together. This is not such a big thing, but the second problem is far more concerning. Because they don't have the necessary training for their bodies to be able to handle so much energy, they can only use their fullest potential for at most one minute before their bodies can't handle it anymore." She shook her head "I imagine this is why they were unaware of their abilities until that time with Luna. They must have had some sort of mental block that kept themselves from hurting their own bodies by using all that power, and that mental block was erased when they used their powers in the dreamscape."

"Wait, something doesn't seem right about that." Rarity said "When they were helping Princess Luna, there was no sign of them overwhelming their bodies with power, and I'm sure the fight lasted more than a minute."

"It was a dreamscape." Moondancer said simply "The rules were different." She put a hoof on her chin "But changing the subject, the three of them informed me that they wish to be trained as Squires. What is your opinion about that?"

Rarity had to summon her couch.

-0-

Back to the Present

That had led to a lot of uncomfortable conversations. The crusaders were very stubborn on what they wanted, but while there had been Knights who were younger than them in the past, those were usually heroes who arose in complicated situations and faced off against many villains before being chosen for the position.

In the end, a compromise was reached. The three would train with Princess Luna, but most of the training would be to master their abilities, and they would not be allowed to go on missions until they got a little bit older, unless there was a true pressing need for it.

But while Rarity was thinking about those things, all the other Knights except Spike appeared, with Twilight being teleported in together with Princess Celestia.

And Celestia did not wait much before getting into matters "My Knights, I'm afraid that the mission I have for you today will be particularly dangerous."

"Ya mean... Dangerous even in comparison with most Knight missions?" Applejack asked.

"Yes. Because Flames of Annihilation has escaped from her seal." Celestia said gravely.

The three original Knights paled, and while the others did not, they still seemed somewhat nervous.

"Flames of Annihilation... You mean that mage that killed all of the members of the Knights of the Scarlet Dream?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yes. But the story is more complicated than that." Celestia said "Twilight, if you could explain her story?"

"Okay." The unicorn sighed "Flames of Annihilation was originally one of the Knights of the Scarlet Dream herself. She can be considered one of the greatest mages in history, having created many spells that are still used these days, even though she was an earth pony." Twilight closed her eyes "Her specialty, however, was actually purification magic, which she managed to use via her flame spells, earning her the title of Purifying Flame."

"What is this deal about titles, anyway?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Knights that reach a certain level of power receive titles based on their specialties. I'm afraid that none of you have managed to reach a sufficient level yet." Celestia said.

Applejack looked directly at Celestia to try to see if she was joking.

She wasn't.

"Well... Going back to the story..." Twilight put things back on track "She was a great heroine with a number of feats to her name, but then came a warlock called Steel Mind. She was a powerful user of mind magic, and she managed to control the Knight and turn her against the others, in a series of events that are too complex for me to get into here."

Twilight sighed "Of course, the Knights of the Scarlet Dream didn't want that to be the end, and over the course of their next few adventures, they fought against Steel Mind and Purifying Flame with the purpose of freeing the latter." She stopped for a moment "Eventually they were successful.

"Of course, purifying flame went back to them, and they returned to being the complete Knights of the Scarlet Dream." She stopped again "But things just weren't the same. No one knows exactly what happened, but Purifying Flame started getting more and more melancholic, and sometimes aggressive, and always reckless, purifying away parts of her own self for greater power.

"Eventually, she became a villain again, that time by her own will. She started calling herself Flames of Annihilation, which is the name we still call her, and she fought against her old companions several times. They tried to get her to see the light and be redeemed, but nothing they did helped. Eventually, in a tragic day, their final battle was fought, and Flames of Annihilation killed every single one of the Knights of the Scarlet Dream except for one, who she injured critically. That last one, Knight Rose Water, the Ordeal of Gravity, used the last of his strength to seal his old companion beneath the ocean itself, perishing in the process. That was the end of the Knights of the Scarlet Dream."

There was silence as the ponies tried to process what they had just heard. And then Pinkie Pie decided to try and change the subject somewhat:

"What was her actual name then? You have just been calling her by titles."

Twilight shook her head "That's because her name doesn't exist anymore. When I said she purified away parts of her own self, this was while she was still a Knight, and she went even farther after becoming a villain. Flames of Annihilation is now the only name she has because she purified away the very concept of her own identity. Celestia knew her name but can't remember it anymore, all records of it were erased... She has lost herself completely."

This time the silence was even longer, as the Knights suddenly understood why Celestia had said they weren't strong enough. If titled Knights were powerful enough to mess with reality to such an extent, it made sense that their own abilities wouldn't compare.

"Okay, powerful threat to Equestria, I get that. But what does she actually want, and what should be our plan to deal with her?" Rainbow Dash was the one to get things moving again.

Celestia fielded that question "What she wants is very simple. The same thing she wanted before her imprisonment, the life of me and my sister."

"There's no way we're gonna let her get even close." Sunset said in a calm but incredibly firm voice.

Celestia kept going "Flames of Annihilation is currently walking in a straight line towards Canterlot, and destroying everything in a radius of five kilometers from her path. I have already ordered the evacuation of every single pony living anywhere within the predicted destruction zone. And since her movement is predictable, the best option for you would be setting up magic formations in points along her route in order to ambush her with powerful prepared spells and combinations." She shook her head "But there are a few extra things we need to discuss first."

They waited, Celestia said:

"First, Spike won't be a part of the operation because I've sent him together with Luna's avatars to Brasinari, where a Shard of Chaos managed to fuse itself to a manifestation of shadow monsters. The latest reports from them say that everything is going alright, but it will still take a while for them to manage to deal with every last source."

The Knights nodded in understanding.

"The second thing is, of course, related to Twilight." Celestia looked at said pony, along with the other Knights "She has already recovered her ability to use magic, but it's far from a level where she can fight along with you, and because of that Twilight will have to sit this one out."

Twilight Sparkle looked briefly mutinous at those words, but considering she hadn't even been able to reach there under her own power, she really didn't have a leg to stand on.

"The third thing is that me and Luna are going to be using a special spell to prevent Flames of Annihilation from using all of her strength. Normally this kind of thing would not be possible, or at least not from range, but considering how singleminded she is about her objective, we have a sufficient connection to allow that to happen. However, that also means the two of us will be unavailable to protect Twilight in case one of those construct warriors appears to try and attack her. So, one of the Knights will have to remain here to protect her during this time."

Princess Celestia looked at the Knights, who were watching her with expectation.

She smiled "Fluttershy should be the one to do it. She has finally managed to perfect her new ability, and it is one that would be particularly good in one on one battles." She looked at the pegasus "Do you accept this task, Fluttershy?"

"Yes!" Fluttershy agreed without hesitation. Twilight looked at her apprentice and smiled slightly.

"Of course." Celestia said "If the other Knights fail and Flames of Annihilation manages to reach the castle, Fluttershy and Twilight will have to fight against her, and I would not forbid Twilight from defending herself in such a situation, even if trying to fight would aggravate her injuries and make the recovery take even longer."

The six Knights of the mission looked at each other and then turned to Princess Celestia and nodded. They understood what she was getting at, this was just one more incentive for them to fight with all their strength.

"Now, the only thing that remains to be done is sending the six of you on this mission." She summoned a scroll "This has an analysis of the movement pattern of Flames of Annihilation, as well as the damage area and every single piece of information available about her capabilities."

Sunset grabbed the scroll in her telekinesis and she and the others read it quickly, knowing every second counted in this situation. Then she returned the scroll to the princess.

"Are you ready?" Celestia asked.

"Yes." Sunset nodded "We already decided a place to teleport to where we can make the last plans and start the preparations."

"Then go, my Knights." Princess Celestia said "I believe in your strength.

They nodded, and then disappeared in a combined teleportation spell.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 49 - The Empty Flame

The six Knights appeared at their target, an empty field that was far from any cities or forests. Since this was definitely going to be one of the biggest points of conflict, the Knights had chosen it specifically because of those qualities.

"So, it's going to take an hour and a half for Flames of Annihilation to get here. Enough time to go over her abilities as a group, plan and prepare." Sunset said seriously.

"That's fair." Rainbow Dash said "So where do we start?"

"We should probably start with the most obvious part, the flames of annihilation that give her the title she has." Trixie decided.

"Okay. From what I understand, it can be considered a continuous spell. She creates the initial flame and keeps it burning by feeding it magic, but there are a few things to make note of." Sunset explained "The first is that she is not going to weaken at all. While using large scale destruction magic continuously would be impossible for most mages, forcing them to attack in discrete waves, recovering their magic in between each wave, which would give you gaps to exploit. Flames of Annihilation is not only a particularly powerful mage, but she is also using indiscriminate fire magic, and you know why fire magic is the type most often used as destruction magic, don't you?" She asked the others.

"It's because fire can get stronger by burning things, so if you want something destroyed, using fire means you don't need to use as much power, because part of the energy will be supplied by the simple act of having the fire burn whatever it is." Rarity answered "That also means it is harder to control fire magic perfectly, which I know very well because I'm having a lot of trouble trying to create my Fire Ruler Sword."

"Exactly. So that means even though she is causing a lot of destruction in a wide range, she is not actually exhausting herself because all this means she is not actually using all that much power to keep the spell going. Well... Not all that much power by her standards, while I, for example, would need an Overdrive to feed that sort of spell for half a minute." Sunset admitted with an embarrassed expression "This is not any more tiring for her than normal telekinesis would be for a normal unicorn, and considering that she can also use Trance Mode, or rather, the ancient version of Trance Mode... She is not going to get tired any time soon."

"Ancient version?" Pinkie asked.

"Yeah. This sort of techniques and spell are improved over time to become more powerful or easier to use, that is one of the duties of the department of extreme magical research. In this case, the old version used physical manipulation of one's own body in order to create the internal magic circle, while now this is done purely in energy terms." Sunset explained "It's not any more or less powerful, but it is definitely easier to use, doesn't hurt nearly as much, and doesn't have any chance of crippling you." She said blandly.

There was a moment of silence before Rainbow Dash tried to get things back on track "Too bad we don't have Spike with us, though." She said "His immunity to flame would come in handy."

Trixie shook her head "The notion that dragons are 'immune to flame' is one of those overstatement things. They certainly have a high natural degree of fire resistance, but the kind of flames that our enemy is capable of using goes way beyond what that resistance can withstand." She looked down "There are reports of Flames of Annihilation killing old salamander dragons, which are the dragons with the greatest fire resistance. Trixie is mostly glad Spike isn't here, actually."

There was another moment of silence, and this time it was Sunset herself who broke it "Moving on, there is actually some good news. It seems unlikely that Flames of Annihilation can use the more tricky elements of purification magic. There are no reports of she doing that after going to the evil side, and losing parts of yourself to get more power doesn't exactly make you better at the more subtle forms of magic. I wouldn't say it is impossible, but I would be very surprised if she did something like purify us of our desire to fight, which is the kind of thing she was capable of doing before."

"Purification magic sounds scary..." Pinkie said "And yet, I find myself interested in learning that kind of thing."

Sunset's eyes went wide "Ahh... Talk about this with Twilight later... Going back to business, the last thing we need to consider is her mastery of fleshmolding. Fleshmolding is a class 1 forbidden magic, which means the only records of its existence are incredibly classified, and only the Knights have permission to learn it, and even them need to ask the princesses in order to receive that permission." She shook her head "Not even the highest level magic researchers have the permission for more than simply knowing it exists."

Rainbow Dash sighed "I never understood those things. If a magic is forbidden, why would you teach it to anypony?"

Then she saw that her teacher was grinding her teeth, obviously annoyed 'Oh no. What did I say?' She thought.

"If you enter a store and see a door saying 'forbidden entry', does it mean no one can enter it ever?" Sunset asked in a deliberately calm tone.

Rainbow Dash was trying to decide how to answer when Sunset did so herself:

"No! Because forbidden in this case just means that most ponies can't enter under most circumstances!" Sunset ranted "It's the same with forbidden magic! That just means the average pony doesn't have permission to use it in average circunstances, but other ponies have!" It was clear this was a pet peeve.

"Understood." Rarity said "But why is fleshmolding forbidden, anyway?" She tried to change Sunset's focus.

The unicorn took a moment to calm down "There are two main reasons. The first is that you have two choices about how to learn it, either you kill a lot of ponies, or you have a great chance of dying yourself. The second is that even if you successfully learn fleshmolding, any mistakes can resulting in literally crippling yourself."

"Really?" Pinkie seemed a little green "Why would anypony use it, then?"

Sunset sighed "Because it is really effective in what it does. It is one of the best forms of healing magic that exists, and one of the few which actually works better on its own caster." She shook her head "Regardless, the point is that this magic gives Flames of Annihilation even more endurance, since she can recover from magic exertion using it. There is a limit, since that means using magic to recover damage caused by magic, but it is still something to make note of." Sunset sighed again "Even more pressing is the fact that she can use it to recover from most injuries. It is difficult to say how far this can go, but I would bet that any injury that doesn't kill her outright can be recovered from.

"And that's pretty much it." Sunset concluded "Does anypony have any ideas on dealing with her?"

Rarity nodded "I have finished making the Water Ruler Sword, and it is telling me that there is an underground river nearby. Using it I can get enough water to help deal with her fire."

Pinkie raised a hoof "And I think I should change the environment around us into things that don't burn easily, so that she doesn't have as much fuel for her fire magic."

Sunset looked approving "Both of those are good ideas. And of course, we should set up the most powerful magic circles we can here. I imagine the best thing to do would be divide them evenly between offensive and defensive circles."

And the discussion continued, as the Knights prepared for what could possibly be the hardest battle of their lives so far.

-0-

Spike and the three avatars of Luna were currently fighting. However, while to the casual eye, the fight may have seemed like a deadly battle, more experience watchers could see that all four of them were actually remarkably relaxed and casual, like what they were doing wasn't in fact a battle, but more like a chore that could be tiring but wasn't truly dangerous, something like spring cleaning.

"Darkness without stars! Dark Sky!" Dark Moon shouted, casting her magic.

The darkness of her magic covered the sky, casting a shadow on the entire area. Many of the shadow monsters were devoured by that new darkness, while the others frantically scrambled to try and get away.

The main reason why this was so easy for them was the fact that Dark Moon specialized in darkness magic, which is particularly effective against shadow magic (because darkness eats shadows), the same way shadow magic is effective on light magic (because light only makes shadows stronger) and light magic is effective against darkness magic (because light destroys darkness). If it was only a matter of shadow creatures, Dark Moon by herself would be enough to deal with it, as she had done often in the past. However, considering that a shard of chaos was involved, it was best to send others with her, and that had proven to be the right thing to do when they had faced the main focus of the shard.

"Moonlight Fury." Spike declared, using his draconic self magic to change his form.

This time, his body acquired an elegantly rounded appearance, he got slightly taller and his colors changed to variations on white. And perhaps the biggest change of all, two curved horns grew on his forehead. Spike started attacking soon after, by firing moonlight blasts that materialized on the space between his horns. Lightning Chaser was helping him by shooting several strands of green lightning, and both of them efficiently started getting rid of the rest of the shadows.

In general, shadow monsters weren't really all that strong. There were two reasons why they were usually threatening: The first was the fact that there was never a small number of them, instead there was always a ridiculous amount of monsters to fight everytime, which could tire even experienced heroes. The second reason was the fact that they were immaterial, which meant that they could not be harmed with purely physical attacks. Were it not for this, even normal civilians would likely be more than capable of defeating them if there weren't too many.

So it wasn't a surprise that it didn't take long for the group to finish off every single threat on that "nest", as they had done on several nests before. They were about to leave and move towards the next nest when Silver Soul stopped then with a cry of "Wait!"

They stopped, and looked on in curiosity as the earth pony avatar sent her silver drilling into the ground, looking like she was focusing extremely hard. It took fifteen entire seconds, but eventually Silver Soul seemed to find what she was looking for, as she blinked and raised her hoof to bring her silver back out of the hole.

And the silver brought something with it as well. Silver Soul deposited the strange object on the ground where all of them could see it. It looked like some kind of magical amulet made by weaving together pieces of roots of many different trees into the form of a pony. The thing pulsed with magic in a fairly complicated pattern.

"Ah, darn it." Dark Moon cursed "It's Sombra again, isn't it?"

"Something felt weird about the situation right from the start, but that is concrete proof." Silver Soul sighed "Luckily, I don't think he's around or we would have noticed by now. But that just means doing this was part of one of his plans."

"Still, we can't just leave thing like this. We'll have to finish this job." Lightning Chaser said.

"You're right." Spike said.

-0-

Flames of Annihilation could be said to be many things, but one thing she definitely couldn't be considered was stealthy. The Knights who were waiting for her arrival did not have any trouble spotting her even from a long distance.

The first thing they saw was the fire. It was a wall of flames that could be confused with a forest fire from a distance, except for the fact that it didn't spread as fire did, but kept moving forward with a regular speed in an extremely unnatural way. It didn't take long for the fire to reach the start of the parts that Pinkie had changed (turning the earth and grass into white stone with smiley faces), and the fire weakened at that point, allowing the Knights to see the pony who was causing all of that.

She didn't look all that impressive. She was an average sized earth pony mare with an orange coat and light blue mane, the kind of pony that would not draw attention while walking in a street. There were only two things about her that were different from normal: The first was her cutie mark, a rather simple incense candle, but it looked somewhat faint, like a half erased drawing. The second were her eyes, or rather the way they were fixed. While most ponies would look around all the time, that mare kept looking forward without losing her focus even for an instant.

Flames of Annihilation was single minded in her goal, and she only looked towards Canterlot and the princesses.

During the last minute before she reached their range, the Knights did their last preparations and focused for the fight. Pinkie raised her Emotion Charge the last twenty percent needed to reach 80%, Rainbow Dash gathered the energy of the clouds around her, Rarity connected herself with the Water Ruler Sword to bring her water control to the max, Sunset and Trixie connected with the circles and started creating the formulas for the first spells they'd use.

Meanwhile, Applejack looked at Flames of Annihilation with her Eyes of Truth and frowned darkly. Trixie was the only one to notice, but it was to late to ask at that point.

"Water Sword Art..." Rarity was the first to cast "Geyser!"

A torrential blast of water shot itself towards Flames of Annihilation, but before it could reach, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie flapped their wings (the earth pony having created pegasus wings made of papier mache for the task) and added to the attack.

"Double Arts!" They called together "Perfect Freeze!"

Their particular magical abilities worked together in strange harmony. While Rainbow Dash's weather magic forcefully removed the thermal energy of the water to transform it into ice, Pinkie Pie actually injected the water with negative thermal energy, making it even colder but turning it back into water in the process. The result was a supercooled spear of water that was continuous instead of being divided in droplets, and had a magical intent designed to freeze everything in the world.

That attack combination could have frozen even one of Sunset's pseudo suns, but the Flames of Annihilation were not that easy to affect.

As soon as the water came into contact with the wall of flames that was the first defense of their enemy, they vanished. It was almost like a magic trick, but the sheer level of power of the flames completely destroyed the water, down to the lowest molecular levels, and even the very energy and connections that made the magic. But their job was done, for the wall of flames weakened perceptibly, and Trixie and Sunset were already casting spells to take advantage of that.

"Perfect Illusion: Force Breaker!" Trixie cast, at the same time as Sunset was casting "Multiplicity Magic: Destroyer Spear!"

Trixie's spell created a ridiculously huge scything blast of magic that cut downwards in the direction of their enemy. Almost automatically, a ring of fire rose up from the flames behind Flames of Annihilation and combined with the upper part of the barrier of flames, creating a ridiculously powerful defense... Exactly as planned, as the illusion broke against the flames, having done its job to open up a path.

In comparison, Sunset's attack was deliberately restrained and small, an arrowlike blast that contained an immense amount of condensed power, drawn from the formation of magic circles they had prepared. It flew through the air and broke through the remains od the flame barrier, then was covered by new flames that rushed to try and destroy it, but it managed to break through every single one of them and hit Flames herself.

Causing no damage whatsoever, her aura defense having nullified the attack that had been weakened by the flames. But it opened up a path, and Applejack did a Space Step straight next to the opponent, then she bucked with all the power she had charged, aiming directly at the weakest point of her heart.

That had been necessary because the very destructive nature of the magic of Flames of Annihilation meant that it was practically impossible to be particularly precise with spells next to her, which meant that simple teleportation magic or even the chaotic shifting Pinkie could do simply could not be used to get close, but Applejack's Space Step did not have the same problem.

"Truth Seeking Blow!" Applejack shouted, her attack much more powerful than the one that had previously crippled a (weakened) Chrysalis.

Applejack's hooves hit the body of the opponent... And it felt like hitting a mountain. Every single scrap of energy she had channeled for her attack was blocked by Flames aura defense. And Applejack realized that even all the attacks they had used had failed to even slow their opponent down, as she simply kept walking. More flames came to destroy Applejack, but she Space Stepped back towards her previous position and shook her head for the others to see.

Her partners immediately understood. Their Plan A had been using Applejack's movement skills to cause damage to the opponent, but apparently she simply did not have the firepower to break through the defenses. Which meant they would need to use some less safe methods. And Sunset was the one to initiate their second plan.

"Triple Magic Enhance: Grand Ray!" She cast, shooting a powerful beam of magic at the barrier of flames.

And so, the fight continued for several minutes. Applejack was mostly manipulating earth to create barriers, while Rarity was mostly using her water to reduce the fire, and Trixie, since few of her skills were very destructive, used her illusions to create opportunities for the others.

Meanwhile, the other three kept switching between helping with the defense and using powerful attacks on Flames of Annihilation. Pinkie managed to chaos shift right next to her and infuse an immense amount of chaos magic with a punch, as well as set a powerful explosive that also covered her opponent in acid, but Flames of Annihilation still didn't miss a single step, forcefully turning her internals back to normal and recovering from the damage of the explosion and acid (which was mostly superficial, as her defensive was ridiculously powerful) via use of her fleshmolding.

Rainbow Dash used the strongest single target variations of her rainboom, as well as simple direct attacks enhanced by lightning channeling. She was able to feel things breaking when she hit Flames of Annihilation, but the enemy still didn't stop walking, recovering quickly with fleshmolding. Even then, Rainbow understood that this continuous healing wasn't something that could be done forever, and every injury they gave their opponent counted for something.

Sunset was the most effective. Her destructive spells were powerful and varied, and the injuries she gave her opponent were clearly bigger and deeper than any of the others. However, no matter what she did, Flames of Annihilation kept walking without slowing down in the least.

And that was a problem. As Flames of Annihilation got closer, her defenses became ever stronger and more elaborate as she could use more and more of her power directly. The Knights were using the full potential of the magic circles and other preparations they had made, but as the flames got closer, the sheer heat of them forced the Knights to spend more and more energy on their defenses, making their attacks less effective.

But the heat was only half of the story. These were Flames of Annihilation, and their true danger lay in their magical nature. Their very essence was based around the idea of destruction, and as such, simple proximity to the flames forced everything into destruction. The Knights had to fight that magical nature using their auras, because if they didn't, their bodies would break down even without actually being hurt, and their minds would collapse into nothingness as their very thoughts were destroyed. Forcefully holding onto existence in the face of pure destruction wasn't something easy, as it meant constantly forcing awareness of every piece of themselves, and they wouldn't have been able to do it without the special training of their minds and souls.

And of course, the Knights were also constantly taking advantage of teamwork to create more powerful attacks and defenses, the strongest being a combination in which Sunset forcefully enhanced one of Dash's Rainbooms by four entire levels, managing to actually open a hole on Flames' body, which wasn't as damaging as would be for most ponies, since she was constantly using her fleshmolding to prevent blood from escaping from her injuries as well as keep her muscles working perfectly even when they were damaged. And as such, not even those powerful combination attacks managed to slow her down.

Eventually, it got to be too much. The Knights were feeling the tiredness as they pushed their bodies beyond their limits in terms of continuous high level magic flow. Flames of Annihilation was sending dozens of shapeless constructs of fire, launching tens of blasts of fire in all directions and moving her wall of fire like a sandstorm that wasn't slowed by anything and destroyed all that it touched. The barriers made by the Knights barely managed to form before being destroyed, and the six started being forced to retreat, as the enemy was so close that it felt like they were at the bottom of the ocean, being pressured by hundreds of thousands of tons of water, just due to the sheer effort it took to not die immediately when faced by the massed attack of a single Flames of Annihilation, which was comparable to the power of entire armies.

But the Knights still had one last card to play.

"Double Arts!" Rarity and Rainbow Dash shouted, the former driving her Earth Ruler Sword into the ground while the latter struck it with a hoof "Broken Circle!"

And the same powerful attack they had used in their last mission came into play again. The Knights were ready to leave that place, so there was no reason to leave the circles intact, and they might as well get whatever use they could out of it, and hopefully wound Flames a little more, perhaps even open a chance for a last powerful attack before the retreat. The Knights had made a lot more and more powerful circles this time, so the tsunami of power that swept towards Flames was even bigger than before.

The rushing power crashed against the wall of flames... and broke. No more a tsunami, it seemed like just a wave crashing against the beach without managing to significantly change it. The wall of flames was pushed back and some of the power even managed to reach the fallen Knight, but it was clearly the last drags of the energy, and once again, Flames of Annihilation wasn't affected enough to reduce her movement rate.

Sunset "tsked" in annoyance and joined her magic with Trixie's and Rarity's to execute a group teleportation away.

During the whole fight, the enemy hadn't even looked at them.

-0-

The guard flew into the room and landed next to Fluttershy, who understood immediately what was the situation.

"Knight Fluttershy, an enemy is coming. He is a male pegasus who controls a kind of golden mist. We are unable to slow him down. Two minutes estimate." The guard efficiently passed the necessary information to her.

"Understood." Fluttershy nodded "You and the rest of the guards should stay away and remain on alert for other potential threats."

The guard saluted and flew away, and Twilight looked at her apprentice and spoke:

"Are you ready?"

"Yes." Fluttershy spoke with a rare confidence "Take a look and your apprentice will show how strong she has gotten." She smiled sweetly.

"Okay. I won't be distracted by anything." Twilight said, and walked down to the end of the room.

The place they were in had been specifically chosen as the battlefield. It was the back hall of the castle, and was usually used as a meeting room for high-level foreign dignitaries, since it was big enough for two hundred ponies to fit comfortably inside, meaning that those dignitaries could even bring their support staff, and there were amenities ready to keep them there for hours in cases of particularly tricky negotiations. The room had been emptied of chairs and other furniture, becoming only a huge rectangular open space that was more than enough to allow a fight to happen.

And among the "amenities" there was a reinforced hatchway where the VIPs could hide themselves in case of dangerous situations, leading to a particularly secure room deep underground. That was the other reason why the Knights had chosen to wait on that room, the fact that it was the only entrance to the place where both princesses were hidden, protected by a good number of guards.

The estimate made by the guard was off by only a few seconds, and the pegasus crossed the threshold exactly one minute and fifty six seconds from the warning.

The pegasus stallion had a dark blue coat and a gray mane, and his cutie mark depicted a cloud. Fluttershy, thanks to her empathic senses and previous experience, managed to recognize him as one of the warrior constructs that were being made by Radiant Hope (as far as they had been able to determine).

As the guard had mentioned, the pegasus was carrying with him a cloud of thick golden mist. Fluttershy focused on him, and on his magic, and activated a very special ability.

"Empathy Drive: Soul Emulate." Was the name.

And she made a connection between herself and her opponent. She briefly felt his experiences and his desires, and she got a sense of his soul, therefore his magic. And then she emulated it.

It wasn't simply trying to do something, it was more like creating a part of herself that was the same as him, but the effect on Fluttershy herself was immense. Her coat and mane changed to the same colors as those of her opponent, and one of her eyes also shifted, this time to a deep purple. Her body started emitting the same kind of golden mist as her opponent, which she understood completely, in all its strengths and weaknesses.

She was ready for battle, but that was perhaps not the most important effect of her technique. Fluttershy had gotten a sense of everything about the opponent, and recognized that he really was a construct, but more than that, she understood that he was different from most constructs, and probably in the same way as Blank had been.

'Sombra is really tricky.' She thought, then focused on the battle.

But she would have to inform the others about it as soon as possible.

-0-

The six Knights appeared in their planned secondary position, far enough away from Flames of Annihilation to be able to partially recover from their exertions as well as prepare more magic circles and whatever else they decided was necessary for the fight after experiencing the power of the enemy.

The ponies breathed heavily and tried to calm their hearts and relax their muscles for a few seconds. Then Pinkie Pie reached into her mane and took six of the potions inside, one for each of them, which they drank to recover a bit more from their heavy magical exertion.

Only after that, did Trixie speak:

"So, Applejack, what did you notice?"

The others also looked at the earth pony with curiosity, Applejack sighed and explained.

"She's... hollow. Ya said she purified away her identity, but it went a lot farther than that. Ah don't think she has any emotions left, and most of her mind is gone too. Everything about her that wasn't related ta fighting has been burned away. And Ah really don't think she has enough left of herself ta use purification magic against us, like ya said, it feels like she is just an automaton designed ta move towards the princesses and kill them. She's barely even aware that we exist, since Ah imagine she could only recognize the princesses by this point, everypony else would just feel like part of the scenery."

Pinkie looked horrified, though that was quickly changed to an expression of determination. Trixie looked thoughtful, and the other Knights had expression that wandered around "uncomfortable". They looked at Applejack and wondered what exactly was the experience of seeing those things, then Sunset decided to get things moving again.

"So, any other comments before we get to the preparations?"

Rarity was the one to answer "I have. There's no convenient underground river around, so I would like to ask Rainbow to gather some clouds so I have water for my spells."

"Okay." Sunset nodded and Rainbow Dash flew off.

"And considering what Trixie's apprentice said, together with the things Trixie noticed during the fight, she has a few ideas of a new strategy that should allow us to deal with Flames of Annihilation more easily." Trixie said with confidence.

"That's good. What do you have in mind?" Sunset asked.

And so it went. The Knights planned out their new tactics and prepared everything for the next round of fighting. And after everything was done, they did their best to rest and try to regain as much of their stamina as possible. And it still seemed like the time had not been enough when Flames of Annihilation appeared on their sight again.

The Knights waited until she got closer and then activated various magic circles. But instead of creating attacks to shoot at their opponent, they created spells that fixed themselves upon the bodies of the Knights and were constantly reinforced from long distance by the magic the circles could draw from the earth. And those spells were all based around improving their movement and defensive skills.

And then the six spread and attacked from all directions. The idea Trixie had hit upon was based on hit and run where every Knight would attack from a different angle, forcing Flames of Annihilation to keep shifting her focus, which would also open up an opportunity for the next one to attack.

And it started out working remarkably well. Rarity had condensed all her water into her sword, creating a heat sink that could also be used to attack and defend, and she had her Earth Ruler Sword active to move quickly with flash steps. Rainbow Dash was just repeating her previous strategy while also looking out for the possibility of needing to rescue the others. Applejack was using her Space Steps to weave in and out of range, and using her Eyes of Truth to discover the perfect moments to attack in a way that would distract the opponent from the others, since she couldn't deal a lot of damage.

The other three, on the other hand, were making a lot more use of the mobility enhancement parts of the circle spells. Specifically, these spells were enhancing their ability to perform precise operations in negative conditions. Which meant that now they were free to teleport and shift even while very close to Flames of Annihilation, greatly enhancing their tactical options.

Besides that, Trixie was mostly doing similar to her apprentice Applejack, and focusing more on distracting Flames of Annihilation on critical moments to improve the situation of her allies. Pinkie Pie was proving herself to be a particularly nasty fighter, as she kept using her chaotic magic to create explosions, acid, blades and other lethal implements that constantly caused visible damage to Flames of Annihilation that she had to heal, as well as doing more of her chaos infusing punches. But as expected, the most effective attacking Knight was in fact Sunset. Her destructive spells were causing even more damage than Pinkie was capable of, and she was also singlehoofedly dealing with most of the offensive and defensive flames of their opponent, canceling them out with powerful spells.

The Knights kept up their attacks and retreats not only to avoid being a target of full focus for their opponent (which wouldn't end well) but also to return close to the magic circles so the spells in their bodies could be reinforced to be able to keep dealing with the oppression of the magic of the Flames. Combining all of that made their strategy work like a charm, and the damage they were dealing to their opponent was piling up.

But it wasn't enough. Applejack was constantly sending signals using her eyes about the state of the opponent, and they simply were not about to be able to win a battle of attrition. Their magic expenditure was great even for trained Knights like they were, and the mental burden of standing so close to destruction attribute magic, along with the pressure of having the possibility of dying if they committed the least mistake was even worse. So Sunset waited for the right moment to implement another plan. And it started with...

"Now!" She shouted to Rainbow Dash.

"EX-Mode!" The pegasus shouted, exploding with power much faster than she had been able to do before.

She moved at Flames of Annihilation at extreme speeds and hit her with a cataclysmic punch.

It was a hit that broke a lot of things inside her body and completely got the attention of the enemy. Rainbow Dash hastily flew away from a terrifying meteor at her best speeds, and everything was going exactly as planned.

"Trance Mode!" Sunset shouted, and exploded with power that the other Knights would be hard pressed to match even with Overdrives.

She teleport right to the side of Flames of Annihilation and quickly performed her spell.

"Quintuple Magic Enhance: Heartseeking Destruction!"

That spell was roughly the equivalent of cramming ten high level siege breaker spells into a small arrow, but the ridiculous powerful somehow wasn't the most dangerous part of that magic, instead it was the fact that it was designed to attack and destroy the heart of the opponent, as the heart was the symbol of life in magic, and it was practically impossible to survive with it destroyed even for masters of life magic.

The destructive arrow hit not with an explosion, but with an implosion, as the power of the magic refused to dissipate into the environment and forcefully tore through the powerful defenses of Flames of Annihilation.

And the result... Was a failure.

Even though the arrow managed to pierce deep within the body and open a big wound, the defenses of the enemy had deflected the attack and made it miss the heart. And then something absolutely horrifying happened.

Flames of Annihilation looked at Sunset.

For the first time, she had moved her eyes away from her goal, but it soon became apparent that she wasn't looking at Sunset, but at the power Sunset was emitting. And then... She spoke.

"Trance Mode... I remember... I could do that too... Was it... Like this...?"

Sunset was in a privileged position, and because of the hole on the enemy's body, she could see when runes started engraving themselves on her flesh. And she teleported back to the others just in time.

"Trance Mode... Forbidden Shift." Flames of Annihilation chanted, and it activated.

To compare Sunset's Trance Mode to that one was like comparing a lake to the sea. The energy exploded with so much intensity that the shockwave almost bowled the Knights over. The amount of power was even greater than what Twilight had used for her time spell, and the sheer concentrated mass of power and the nature of destruction of the user made the space around her fall apart and turn into nothing.

The protection spells that were being fueled by the spell circles immediately broke, unable to endure such an insane increase in the power of destruction that the enemy was emitting. And then she attacked, not with a simple wall of fire, but something more like an entire horizon of pure flames.

Sunset and Trixie immediately activated an emergency teleportation... Which didn't work, the destructive power in the air disturbing the space too much.

And the flames were beyond any defense.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 50 - The Flame and the Mist

The Knights did what they could. Sunset and Pinkie Pie used the immense amount of power they had access to in a very rough manner, liberally throwing energy at the approaching flames to try and at least slow them down. Rarity spread the water she was controlling to all of the Knights, trying to create heat sinks to prevent them from burning even before being hit.

Neither of those actions would be able to do more than slightly delay the death of the Knights, but thankfully, Rainbow Dash did her job.

"Tailwind!"

With a wave of a hoof, extremely powerful winds were created by the pegasus, who then flapped her wings, connecting the winds to her own control zone and taking off at the amazing speeds she was famous for. The winds were dragged with her, and they swept up the other five Knights, forcing them away from the instant death zone. The movement was very rough and unrefined, but speed was of the essence, and while normal ponies would probably break quite a few bones in such a situation, the Knighs were hardier than that.

Still, even with Rainbow Dash's quick actions, the Knights were not out of danger. The spells that Flames was using have achieved a newfound level of power after her Trance mode, and even with Rarity having created a heat sink, the temperature of the flames was enough that the Knights were forced to flare their defensive auras recklessly just to keep from being cooked alive.

A second passed, and even that ceased to be enough as all the water boiled away into steam and they had to endure the heat by themselves. But then Sunset, still in her own Trance Mode, shot a series of quick barriers that blocked part of the energy of the destroying flames.

And Rainbow Dash accelerated, pulling them even harder to the point where they were finally out of danger. The Knights stopped flaring their auras and felt some pain from their muscles due to how hard they had channeled their magic in order to endure. Another second passed and they finally reached outside the range in which the flames were disturbing any teleportation, and the three unicorns joined their powers to teleport the group away and into their third interception position.

The six collapased on the ground in an undignified manner, the extreme effort they had gone through in such a short time combined with their previous exertions being too much to allow them to handle their state in a cool manner (as much as they wanted to).

Rainbow Dash, Sunset and even Pinkie Pie canceled their own special modes, since they needed to conserve their strength as much as possible. Wordlessly, Pinkie Pie grabbed another six potion bottles for them to drink, but that was pretty much the limit, the second dose was still effective, if noticeable less than the first, but any other doses of the potion would have only marginal effects.

The six rested for a bit and checked the condition of their own bodies, knowing that any small problem they missed could be fatal. But after that was done, came time to talk:

"Sunset... You said her Trance Mode wasn't stronger than yours..." Rainbow Dash spoke slowly "So what was that?"

Sunset shook her head "It isn't inherently more powerful, but she was using Forbidden Shift, which means she was deliberately ignoring the limits of her own body to get the most power possible. I could technically do that as well, but it's not worth it because your body starts to decay from the inside." She stopped for a moment "I guess she is using fleshmolding to keep regenerating herself, but I can't imagine the pain she must be feeling."

Pinkie sighed "Everything we learn about this pony makes her seem more and more messed up."

There was a general silence of agreement.

"Okay, now that we understand what's going on, what is out plan?" Rarity asked "How are we supposed to get through that?"

"It's going to be difficult." Trixie was the one to speak "With the way she is now, simply attracting her fire to other directions won't help much, because the simple side effects of her attacks can kill, and because she increased the power of her flames so much that even getting close to her to try and take advantage of a distraction could prove lethal due to the passive spread of her power. The magic of destruction becomes a very effective defense at this level."

"What are her weaknesses, then?" Sunset asked. Trixie looked at Applejack, who immediately understood what she was getting at.

"Most of it isn't really things that will help us a lot." She started "Even after using Trance mode, Ah could see that she is still under the restraint effect of the spell of the princesses. With that she should only be able ta use around eighty percent of her full power. There is also the fact that she is pushing herself far too much in terms of self healing. There is a limit ta how much ya can heal with magic, especially when it comes ta magic exhaustion. It was still under control before, but now that she is using that special Trance Mode, forcefully healing herself is pretty much the same as consuming life for power. Ah think that she won't be able ta survive until tomorrow, no matter what we do."

She sighed and went back to her observations:

"Of course, it won't matter ta her as long as she can kill the princesses, and Ah think this is something we can use. Creating illusions that look like the princesses, it's possible ta make her confused, but she definitely will be able ta tell after destroying them." She closed her eyes "Also, while her defense must have increased due ta the Trance Mode, it should not be ta the same degree as her attack power, because it's harder ta turn pure power into defense than it is simple destruction, specially for somepony who lost most of herself in exchange for power... In fact, now that she needs to use extra power ta heal herself from her own power, that makes it easier for some kinds of attacks ta be able ta injure her."

"Hmm..." Trixie thought hard about it "Trixie believes there is no reason to use spell circles to enhance us in small ways like we were doing before, since there is no way it could be enough to matter against what we are fighting. Instead, Trixie proposes we use a single massive spell circle to take advantage of the efforts of the princesses."

Rarity was the first to get it "Ah, you mean similarity, don't you?"

The showmare nodded "Exactly. By creating a power sealing spell circle that can connect with the spell used by the princesses, we should be able to increase the level of sealing on her powers. It could be possible to reduce her to only 50-60 percent of her usual." She put a hoof on her chin "Normally, this would be difficult, because it is almost impossible to hide the resonance such a thing would have on the target, and they wouldn't simply walk into the target point, but Flames of Annihilation won't deviate from her route no matter what. The only problem is that the circle will have to be really big and spread out, otherwise the simple effect of her walking close would destroy it."

She stopped for a moment, before continuing to speak "And while it is difficult to affect her with internal illusions because of her passive magic resistance, Trixie believes that a special prepared spell should be able to exploit her obsession with the princesses and trick her into removing the defenses around her heart, but to actually deal with her..." She looked at Sunset meaningfully.

Sunset nodded gravely "I have an idea, but it will be dangerous." She looked at her apprentice "I am talking about plan C."

"Plan C?" Rainbow Dash was surprised "You mean... But that means..."

"Yes. We are going to have to endure one of the attacks of the Flames of Annihilation."

-0-

Upon performing her Soul Emulate, Fluttershy immediately gained a profound understanding of the abilities of her enemy, specially the "golden mist" that he created, and because of that, she got very motivated to avoid letting the stallion approach even close to the end of the room where Twilight was standing.

His ability could be roughly classified as part of the enchantment type. Essentially, the golden mist was just an ordinary mist that had been altered with magic to acquire incredibly deadly properties. This was a particularly versatile ability, because "Mist" (she had to call the enemy something, didn't she?) could not only manipulate the physical properties of the mist, like making it extremely resilient to use as a shield, but he could also manipulate the magic properties of it as well, being capable of such things as blocking and delivering mental attacks. And of course, that was only scratching the surface of what he could do.

But now Fluttershy had the exact same abilities as him. Her Soul Emulate wasn't truly perfect (yet), but copying the powers of a construct of a powerful warrior that wasn't as strong as the original (which she could feel with her empathic abilities) was something she definitely could do. Fluttershy was ready, and while Mist was surprised for seeing her using his ability, she advanced and attacked him first.

Forming her mist into a spear, Fluttershy tried to pierce through the mist of her opponent, but even surprised he wasn't helpless, and managed to deflect the spear away before it could pierce more than a few centimeters. Then he counter attacked, lashing out with a tendril that was enchanted with cold and managed to freeze the surface of Fluttershy's own golden mist before she enchanted heat and melted away the ice.

After that, she sent a dart of golden mist with a chaos enchantment flying to hit her enemy. It forcefully altered the attributes of the enemy mist and scattered it, allowing Fluttershy a chance to advance in a ramming attack to try and finish her enemy off quickly.

But of course it wouldn't be that easy.

Mist flapped his wings and flew backwards to get a bit of time to reestablish his mist. He managed it a moment before Fluttershy hit him, dragging him forwards as both their mists ended up entangled. He used that opportunity to enchant parts of his mist with piercing properties, sending five arrows of mist at his opponent at point blank range.

Knowing that blocking would be difficult, Fluttershy enchanted 'stop', forcefully making her own mist 'grab' the arrows, turning them to her control.

And so their fight proceeded. While Fluttershy had exactly the same abilities as mist, she was a different pony with a different perception of the world, so the way she used that ability was different from him. Mist tended to be less mobile, relying on his mist for defense, while Fluttershy never stopped, always attacking from different heights and directions.

Their use of enchantments was also different. Mist tended more to use simple concepts such as direction and reflection, while Fluttershy frequently put together enchantments that were related to things like precedence and insanity.

Their battle was unsurprisingly equal, both of them spending nearly equal amounts of time attacking and defending. And it was a complex battle, fought in two different fronts at the same time: There was the merely physical fight, in which both of them tried to get through the defenses of the other and destroy their bodies, and there was the battle of wills, in which the two of them used dangerous enchantments with mental effects on each other to try and defeat them without needing direct attacks.

Mist made Fluttershy blind, and she retaliated by forcing him to sleep. Fluttershy made him feel as if somepony was squeezing his heart, and he retaliated by making her believe she had lost her wings.

Fluttershy would have died already if she hadn't received training in mental defenses, but even with that, the enchantments were applied directly and thus were much more effective than normal mental attacks. She could shake them off quickly, but they still managed to affect her somewhat. And of course, Mist himself was also very good on the side of mental defenses as well.

But things couldn't remain in balance forever, and as frequently happens in these situations, it was will that tipped the scales. Fluttershy caught a glance of Twilight on the other side of the room and got a new burst of strength, which also gave her an idea on how to finish things.

So she did another enchantment, this one an enchantment of pure emotion. Empathy was Fluttershy's core, so she pushed a big part of herself into the enchantment, forcing Mist to feel her emotions. And the construct, not being a true being, was overwhelmed by the tide of emotions for just long enough.

Fluttershy wrapped her mist around that of the enemy and found the weak spot, the point he was using to be able to breathe. Her mist rushed through the gap and pierced through the enemy's head.

Fluttershy waited a beat and then relaxed, feeling her own Soul Emulate cancel itself as the enemy died. She was able to see the remnants of his body disappearing into the light as her own mist faded. Then, she looked at Twilight.

She flew towards her and landed nearby. Twilight smiled at her.

Fluttershy couldn't contain herself anymore, she rushed at Twilight and wrapped her up in a hug.

-0-

There was a lot of discussion about whether it was really worth using such a dangerous plan. But Sunset managed to calm all of the others down by asking if they had any ideas with a good chance of working that were any less dangerous. When nopony managed to bring up a suggestion, they shifted towards discussing specifics about the plan, with every one of the other Knights deciding that, if they couldn't prevent the two from taking those risks, they should at least make sure they were as prepared and protected as was possible to be.

First were the protection spells. Dozens of the most advanced ones were cast on Sunset and Dash, and Applejack used her Eyes of Truth to look at their weaknesses and help adjust the spells into being perfectly specialized for enduring the attacks of Flames of Annihilation. For most purposes, this wouldn't be useful, either because such a level of defense wasn't necessary, or because the enemy would simply use different spells, but the situation they were in was definitely one in which this would help. Rarity's help was also needed in order to create a resonance between the new spells and the armors they already used for protection.

After that, Rarity proved her ability by creating two small artifacts on the spot. They were ice necklaces, made using the water Rarity had been using with her Water Ruler Sword. They were filled with magic and runes were engraved on them, and their goal was creating a barrier/heat shield that would also reduce the power of the enemy attacks. Rarity called them a "rush job that she wouldn't accept on normal circumstances", while the others thought they looked pretty good and their effects were impressive, so that was just Rarity's perfectionism acting up again.

Pinkie Pie was a surprise. Apparently she and Twilight had been working on a way to infuse others with chaotic energy that they could use in a reliable manner, and of course, the hardest part of all that was the word "reliable", they had been working with Fluttershy to make sure that ponies with chaotic attributes were capable of using it. They weren't at a point of the research where it could be said to be "complete", but there were already enough results that Pinkie felt that Sunset and Rainbow would be able to make use of it a single time. She did the procedure on them very carefully and put the energy in a dormant state, saying that they would have to use their will to activate it and make it do what they wanted.

Finally, Trixie cast a few layered illusions on them that, when the time came for the two to be attacked, would trick Flames of Annihilation into hitting them with only the edge of her attacks, instead of them needing to endure a direct hit.

The fact that, even with all those counter measures, neither Sunset nor Rainbow Dash were completely confident, really showed how much of an impression Flames of Annihilation had made on them.

And then they had to take care of the other preparations, of which the most important was the construction of the great magic circle. Every one of the Knights helped with that, and then all of them tried to prepare themselves for the critical moment of that crisis. They would never forgive themselves if something bad happened because they hadn't been ready enough, so they all felt the time passing quickly as each of the Knights did their best to achieve the highest level of ability that they were capable of.

And then their enemy appeared in the horizon. Still walking at the same speed as before, but now carrying along a true world of fire that created an almost apocalyptic scene.

The Knights waited at a relatively safe distance as Flames of Annihilation entered into the zone of the circle and slowly walked towards the center. And when she got there, the circle activated, shining brightly and resonating with the enemy. A circle of light seemed to dive into her body, and she hesitated for a single instant before continuing her movement.

"It's done. It worked." Applejack confirmed.

That was the signal for the plan to be put into action. Sunset was riding Rainbow Dash as she flew straight at Flames of Annihilation. The two charged magic quickly to have enough for their defenses. And they were also using their super modes again in order to get every single bit of advantage they could.

Pinkie Pie threw a powerful chaotic sphere that she had been charging for a while over the two of them. Rarity used her Earth Ruler Sword to create earth barriers right in front of Flames. They did their best to reduce the impact.

She attacked, with a huge burst of fire that completely destroyed Pinkie's chaotic sphere and Rarity's barriers. But the illusion worked, and the two Knights were only at the edges of the attack when they made contact.

At the last moment, both of them activated the chaotic defenses on their bodies, and their defensive spells also activated, along with Rarity's artifacts. The two of them also channeled every single bit of power they had charged into their armors and auras, creating the best possible defense they were capable of making.

But when contact was made, they discovered that they had still underestimated the power of their enemy.

The high energy chaos was melted while being able to have very little effect, the combination of defense spells and armor held up for an astonishing half a second and finally the two were able to feel the power of destruction on their own bodies, protected only by their aura defenses, which ended up shattering completely.

Both ponies were flung backwards, burns over their whole bodies from the fire, and other myriad injuries caused by the presence of the destruction concept that tried to bring an end to them in every way possible.

But they landed standing. The two were covered in injuries, their armors were completely destroyed, and they stumbled and vomited blood, but they were still conscious.

And a sensational power exploded from within them.

"Critical Mode!/Crisis Mode!" They announced together, and the last part of the plan began.

Those were abilities that Sunset and her apprentice had developed together. The initial idea was, considering that they would inevitably get hurt in their missions, could they find a way to get stronger due to the injuries, instead of weaker. This could seem impossible, but there were precedents, like the Prevail spell of Knight Kind Water, the Alchemist of Runes. Essentially, it was a way to turn their own injuries and pain into a sort of magical sacrifice, and as expected, it really wasn't something simple and straightforward, there were lots of rules and restrictions they had to accept to make it work.

Eventually, the two had success in creating versions of that ability tailored to themselves. However, they still shared many things, including the most important rule: The power they gained could only be used against whoever or whatever had caused the injuries on the first place.

Sunset's version of the ability was Critical Mode, and it was definitely well suited for her. It was an ability that synergized well with her Trance Mode, since it also increased the amount of power she could have access to all at once. The two energies mixed together to create a raging red glow. That power wasn't inferior to that of an Overdrive, but that kind of layering abilities could not be used excessively in order to avoid injuring the body permanently.

Rainbow Dash on the other hand, had a more subtle ability. Her Crisis Mode was created as a way to maximixe the effects of her instincts. Instead of simply giving herself more power, the Crisis Mode actually enhanced her senses beyond their limits, specially the magical sense, which also synergized well with the EX-Mode (since it also improved the senses), and with a greater awareness of the world, Rainbow Dash would have more information for her subconscious to put together into her instincts. Her glow was similar to Sunset, except that it was purple and seemed to include small lightning bolts.

And then Trixie did her part.

"Perfect Illusion: World's Obssession!" She cast her previously prepared spell.

It used an amount of power far beyond any of her other illusions, since it had to get through the passive defense of the opponent, to the point where it definitely wasn't good for any other situation. But for that one, it was perfect.

Flames suddenly had the absolute impression of Princesses Luna and Celestia being behind her.

She did not snarl, her face didn't change expressions, but she released so much power all at once that even the Knights who were far away had to use aura defense to protect themselves from the side effects of the spell. The only possible comparison would be the fall of a meteor, given how amazingly destructive were the flames she sent behind herself.

And of course, expending so much energy all at once meant that Flames of Annihilation didn't have a lot of power left for defense, so that was when the two Knights struck.

Rainbow Dash looked at Sunset and talked to her using the eye language, in a way that was much more fluent than she had ever been capable of. And she sent some pretty specific spatial instructions via that, before taking off at supersonic speeds.

She channeled her Sonic Rainboom into a sphere and shifted its magic into the destruction type. After all, she had a great example of a user of destruction magic that she had been seeing for a while and was still right there, so she just had to copy it. After that, she slapped the sphere and sent it straight at Flames.

That was when Sunset acted, she teleported directly to the place Rainbow had told her, in the exact moment she told her. It was the perfect place, since Rainbow had deliberately left a gap on her energy that allowed Sunset to take over the spell herself upon reaching there. This was an extremely quick and delicate operation, and then there was just one more thing to do:

"Hectuple Magic Enhance: Heart Destroying Will!" Sunset enhanced the magic.

It took a phenomenal amount of power. So much that both her Critical and Trance modes were canceled out due to the sheer effort that took. This was definitely the strongest spell she had ever created, this was the greatest collaboration of master and apprentice.

There was neither sound nor light, as every scrap of energy of the spell was consumed only to harm Flames. And her heart was totally destroyed.

She stumbled and fell to the ground, stopping her walk for the first time.

Then her magic pulsed. Once, twice, three times. And her flames seemed to burn with even more intensity for a moment.

And, impossibly, she stood up.

Her eyes were open and once again she was no longer looking at her destination. Everypony could see the hole in her body where the heart was supposed to be, and they saw tendrils of magic forcing the blood to flow even without a heart. Applejack was the only one who really understood.

'No self... She considers even her body and life as tools... Since she had no self, she doesn't consider the heart as the origin of her life, and so she could survive...' Were her thoughts.

Flames of Annihilation looked around and took sight of each of the Knights.

"I remember... Enemies should be annihilated."

She spoke without emotions, but suddenly all the Knights felt a devastating sense of oppression. It looked like they had graduated from being obstacles to enemies, and she really wanted to kill them, so her very magic was trying to crush their existence without the need for any spells.

And yet, that was not the scariest thing. For she then opened her mouth again and started to chant:

"I am power purified...
My body is a channel for the fire of my will..."

Sunset understood immediately what was going on, and she went white.

'Soul Aria?!'

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 51 - Soul Aria of the Flame

"I have fought over a thousand battles..."

Flames of Annihilation continued her chant. It seemed to go beyond the mere physical sound and resonate with the very souls of the listeners, carrying with it a feeling of powerful desolation. Sunset saw that Rainbow Dash seemed to want to attack her and so she shouted:

"Stop!"

She could hear Trixie ordering the same thing to the others. Of course, she knew just as well the meaning of such a chant that came from the very soul, since it had been princess Celestia who had taught them about it.

"Believing in justice...
Without any reward..."

Yes. That had been a particularly memorable lesson.

-0-

4 Years Earlier

"The Soul Aria is one of the most powerful techniques that has ever been recorded." Celestia said "Calling it a spell is something of an understatement. Instead, it is more like a manifestation of the soul of the user." She closed her eyes for a moment "Essentially, the user forcefully defines themselves, using the strength of this definition as a way to directly affect the outside world." A beat "What do you think about that?" She asked her three apprentices.

"I think it sounds really strong." Sunset was the one to answer.

"Strong, huh..." Princess Celestia muttered "It is certainly strong, but it is also a trap." She spoke with finality.

"A trap?" Trixie asked.

"Indeed. Defining oneself is a double edged sword. You may gain power from the definition, but you are also throwing away the multiplicity of your soul, giving up on the variety of magic in exchange for a single goal. It's like removing all of your limbs, as well as your nose and mouth just to make your eyes stronger." She shook her head "The consequences are terrible. Perhaps calling it a trap is too harsh, magic and the mysteries of the soul are infinite, so perhaps there could be a way to do it without losing oneself, but as far as I am aware of, just like users of Light Magic, there were no users of the Soul Aria who managed to have a good ending."

The three teenage unicorns thought long and hard about it, understanding that this was something important. Eventually, Sunset spoke, raising a practical question:

"Do you think we are going to eventually fight against somepony like that?"

Celestia closed her eyes in thought "It's possible. It's not a particularly common ability, but there were many teams of Knights who had to deal with it."

There was an obvious response to that "So how do we deal with it?" Trixie asked.

"Well, the first thing to know is that you shouldn't attack the enemy while he is chanting. The Soul Aria is a technique of the soul, and it is completely impossible to stop from activating after it starts. Even if the body of the enemy is completely destroyed, their soul will still remain, and it will anchor itself on the very Soul Aria, and when it is finished, the enemy will be returned to the same condition he was in when he started." She stopped for a moment "So the best thing to do is waiting until the enemy finishes chanting the Aria and activating and then attacking." She sighed "I know this is the opposite of what I told you to do in general, but Knights must be adaptable. Apart from that, high level mages can generally survive as still cast magic as long as their soul remains strong, so you must attack the body and the mind in a way to disturb the soul. Souls can't be directly attacked, so this is the best you can do."

The three nodded in understanding.

-0-

"In search of revenge, I purified myself..."

The Flames began to shift, looking like they were becoming more ethereal and less connected to the world, yet somehow more powerful.

"Together!" Sunset ordered, and teleported to the place where most of the other Knights were.

An instant later, Rainbow Dash was there as well, and the six Knights were gathered together.

"Yet, I can no longer remember anything..."

The presence of their enemy seemed to expand, almost as if she was taking over the world around and making it into parts of herself.

"We can only attack after she is finished." Trixie said in full seriousness.

The other Knights knew there should be a reason for that, and so they simply waited and watched as she finished her chant, trying to prepare themselves for what was about to come.

"All that is left, are the Flames of Annihilation."

And then, the World changed subtly.

The Knights had an impression of both an endless desolation and an endless will, and realized that this was Flames of Annihilation. This was their enemy at her most basic and raw. Magic was imposing your will on reality, but this was more like she was imposing her own self on reality directly.

And of course, there were also physical changes that the Knights could see with their own eyes.

The flames that had become ethereal did not return to reality, instead, it was more like reality itself was shifting closer to the same state of being as the flames. In fact, at that point the flames seemed even more real than at any point in the previous fight. They were positively brimming with the intent to destroy, and the Knights couldn't avoid shuddering with the realization that, while that intent wasn't actually directed at them, they were still in the way.

The flames weaved themselves into two distinct agglomerations. The first was light, creating a ring around Flames, and even though it was light, the proximity of the flames was enough to burn and force her to have to continuously regenerate herself. The second agglomeration was like a whirlwind around her that prevented anything from coming close. Even now, when they were literally reflecting her soul, the flames remained shapeless, only weapons of destruction.

"I wanted to leave that to the princesses..." Flames spoke "But I'll just have to hold on until them."

-0-

On the Basement of Canterlot Castle

"Your Highnesses, what's wrong?!" One of the guards asked in a near panic.

The princesses had suddenly screamed and fallen to the ground at the same time as the spell they were working had shattered like so much glass.

"We are... Alright..." Princess Luna said woozily, trying to get up and failing.

"She... Managed to break the spell and we got hit with a backlash..." Celestia said, with a forced calm.

The two of them slowly tried to recover, and Princess Celestia could not help worrying.

'I hope they are alright.'

-0-

There was a moment of silence after Flames of Annihilation said those words.

Then, she finally took another step an suddenly shewastooclosetheyweregonnadie-

Five of the Knights were dragged into the air as Rainbow Dash used Tailwind again to force a retreat. She had already been moving an instant earlier, her Crisis Mode still enhancing her intuition to amazing levels. But it wasn't enough, as all of them screamed in pain as the simple proximity of those devastating flames had been enough to overwhelm their defenses and make their very organs tremble and their muscles tear.

'How is she so fast?!' Was the thought shared by all six of the Knights.

They looked back and saw that Flames was still walking with the same speed and cadence as before, only she was somehow covering a lot more ground than she should, and it almost looked like no part of the world wanted her presence, and kept pushing her forward to another one. Applejack saw what was actually going on and had to force herself not to blink.

Flames of Annihilation was somehow destroying distance itself, the distance between her and her target.

And she was gaining on them.

Rainbow Dash got angry at that sight, but they still had one card to play.

"Rarity!" She shouted.

Her partner understood immediately, and brought out the Artifact of hers that hadn't gotten much use on that mission, the Wind Ruler Sword.

"Wind Mail!" She shouted.

Her magic spread through the air, fusing seamlessly with Rainbow Dash's Tailwind. The wind grew in strength and turned into a multitude of small whirlwinds, which wrapped around the five non-pegasus Knights like armor plates. Rainbow Dash grinned and then declared confidently:

"Let's see who is the fastest here!"

And with a monstrous flap of her wings that created a crater on the ground just from the force of the wind, Rainbow Dash accelerated madly and broke through the sound barrier. And instead of letting the Rainboom form, she fused its energies with her wind, trying to go even faster.

Rainbow Dash still wasn't good enough with her Tailwind that she was capable of bringing others with her beyond the speed of sound. She couldn't protect them appropriately, and even Knights would have to spend too much energy protecting themselves from the extreme wind resistance for it to be worth it. That was why she and Rarity had worked out the Wind Mail, with her taking the burden of protection while Dash focused on speed.

The Knights had pulled away slightly, but Flames of Annihilation was still accelerating, so Rainbow Dash was forced to push herself further and further to keep increasing her speed, while Rarity was pushing herself to keep the team protected.

In a few seconds, they reached Mach 2, and it was still not over. The environment around them became a blur and yet they were still accelerating. Another few seconds and they reached Mach 3, and that was finally the limit. Flames of Annihilation wasn't accelerating anymore, so Rainbow Dash kept her speed, despite being able to go faster, since they needed to be able to attack.

Rainbow Dash smirked, and then paled as she realized a very important fact:

"One minute!" She shouted, manipulating the wind to force the words to be heard by her partners.

Indeed, they were now going so fast that they would reach Canterlot in one minute. That was all the time they had to finish the fight before the consequences became much graver.

That was the beginning of the final stage of the battle.

Trixie was the first to attack, she held nothing back and attacked with the most vicious spells she knew, trying to destroy the mind of her opponent directly. It was difficult, because smaller targets were harder to hit, and there wasn't much left of the mind of their enemy by that point, which was why she hadn't done that before, but now there was absolutely no other choice, if she could help even the smallest bit with defeating the enemy, that would be enough.

Sunset focused, and decided that it was time to be reckless. She forcefully reactivated both Trance Mode and Critical Mode at the same time, almost passing out from sheer pain as the extra burden made all of her internal injuries worse, then she charged magic for a few seconds before attacking.

"Septuple Magic Enhance: Curse of Burden!"

The overwhelmingly powerful spell managed to pass through the wall of flames, and it hit directly on the body of the enemy, causing black chains to appear and clasp themselves on every inch of her flesh. That was the strongest curse Sunset knew, amplified to the highest possible degree, and forcefully extended as Sunset kept her super modes going to supply it with energy.

It was an attack that tried to burden every single cell of the enemy's body at the same time.

Body and mind, the two sides of a coin of which the third side was the soul. The two original Knights present magnificently used the perfect method in complete harmony to try and finish off their overwhelmingly strong opponent.

And yet, it wasn't quite enough. Flames of Annihilation, despite all of the attacks, her soul was still firmly set on her task and she refused to die.

"Overdrive!" Applejack shouted.

She could see a lot of things, and thus she knew that no normal attacks of hers would be enough to help at that point. She needed something beyond the limit to have any chance, and so the Overdrive was her only option.

"Do ya want ta replace reality? Then let's see what reality has ta say about it!" She focused all her power and punched "Truth Seeking Blow: Imagine Breaker!"

Her attack forcefully reminded reality that it was supposed to be existing in a place where only the reality of Flames currently existed. For a moment it was like the whole world was pushing against Flames' soul.

The world broke first.

Flames of Annihilation stumbled, but managed to remain walking and not lose any speed. Applejack felt cheated.

But at the last moment, she Saw something.

'What was that?' She thought, moments before falling unconscious 'Was it the future...? There is only one way ta win.'

Using the last of her strength, Applejack shouted, trusting Rainbow Dash to carry her words to the others.

"Close combat!"

-0-

Pinkie had been thinking a lot ever since she heard about the purifying magic. It wasn't really something that often happened with her, but something about it just seemed to interest her, but seeing Flames of Annihilation and her use of that magic caused her some discomfort that she couldn't really explain... Until that moment.

'She's wrong.' Pinkie thought 'The whole way she used purification, her concept of purity, it's all wrong.'

While the others attacked, Pinkie kept thinking, feeling like she was on the edge of something important.

'She threw away everything else to become more "pure", but real purity should have contrast. Being only one thing meant her pure traits didn't have a way to shine brighter in contrast. The real purity should be containing everything, but focusing on just one thing.' She gasped as she realized something 'And that's the same for emotions. Even if you're feeling just one thing, it doesn't mean the other feelings aren't still meaningful.'

And with that realization, she knew that she could finally achieve the full potential of her emotion charge.

And the emotion she was feeling the most strongly was anger.

'How dare she?! How dare she want to kill the princesses?! How dare she still be fighting even after those two got hurt to try and defeat her?! And how dare she think she can reach Twilight and Fluttershy?!'

25%

50%

75%

100%

-0-

"Emotion Charge: 100% Anger!" Pinkie snarled, at the same time as she heard Applejack's words.

Her red aura of anger exploded and then condensed, forming into a perfect red crystal that put itself right on top of her heart and seemed to radiate menace. Pinkie's eyes turned into the same shade of red as the jewel, and then she jumped.

Rainbow Dash and Rarity were surprised at the same time as Pinkie broke free from the wind and dived right at Flames of Annihilation.

Right through the flames.

The other Knights looked on in horror, but then she made it past, somehow still alive despite having touched those destructive flames directly.

She had lost her left foreleg and right back leg, but it seemed to matter not a whit as she landed with her left back leg and twisted her body to bring her right foreleg to bear in a punch. And the moment before impact, there was a mini sonic boom, as her hoof broke the sound barrier on its own.

The sound of the hit was closer to that of a meteor hitting the earth than a normal punch, but that paled in comparison with the other effect of the punch.

It had made Flames of Annihilation stop in her tracks.

This wasn't because of the strength of the hit, titanic though it was, but because of the huge amount of chaotic energy she had infused inside the body of the opponent. It could be seen that it was wreaking havoc on her body by looking at the injuries that got worse as they watched. It could be seen that it was wreaking havoc on her mind by looking at her unfocused expression.

But that wasn't the end.

Before Flames could try to recover, Pinkie punched her again, doing the same thing, and the Knights, who had stopped as soon as their opponent did, looked on in wonder as they saw Pinkie's legs start to regenerate. (Except Applejack, who was currently unconscious and whom Rarity had started carrying in her telekinesis.)

That was the power she had gained upon reaching 100% anger: Regeneration.

Pinkie kept hitting her opponent over and over, with both forehooves when her second regenerated. The first zone of fire around Flames was burning her constantly even worse than it was already burning her opponent, but just like Flames, Pinkie could regenerate from the damage. And Flames was now incapable of directing her stronger flames at her opponent, because of her rigid Soul Aria. That was her weakness.

Pinkie usually would have started using chaotic attacks instead of just punching by now, except that the power gained through her anger wasn't suited for that. She was only capable of two things now, beside the regeneration: Chaos infusing and strength enhancement.

But that was all that she needed for that situation. Pinkie Pie was currently the toughest pony in the world, capable of surviving a dive through annihilation flames and punching hard enough to get through any aura barrier, and she could take advantage of that by attacking with infusions of chaos that targetted the enemy's weakness.

Flames of Annihilation still resisted grimly, refusing to die even as her entire self was more and more scrambled by the chaos magic. But she had no way to counter-attack, her attempts at increasing the heat of the first zone of flames proving not up to the task to overcome Pinkie's healing, and eventually, even she reached her limit.

Like a candle being blown out, all of her flames disappeared at once. Then, obtaining a moment of clarity just before death, she spoke:

"But I wanted... To kill the princesses..."

Then Pinkie's hoof came down for the last time, and her body vanished away as dust. Even at that last moment, she didn't manage to show a single shred of emotion.

-0-

On the Basement of Canterlot Castle

"It is over." Celestia said.

Luna looked at her "How do you know."

Celestia shook her head "Her influence has disappeared from the world, can't you remember now?"

Luna gasped in realization.

Celestia closed her eyes "Goodbye... Bell Maker..."

-0-

With Twilight and Fluttershy

Twilight snapped her head up when she felt a magical disturbance, and just after, the six Knights who had left on the mission appeared on a teleportation. Trixie was right at the front, smiling widely, which immediately made Twilight feel calmer, since she wouldn't be like this if they had lost somepony.

Then she caught sight of the entire team and saw that they, to be honest, looked like they were about to collapse. Trixie herself was walking very slowly and carefully, Rainbow Dash was actually walking instead of flying, Rarity was breathing hard without caring about appearances at all, Sunset looked like she was moving only through inertia, and Applejack was unconscious, being held in Trixie's telekinetic grip.

Most of them were dirty and full of small injuries all over their bodies, while Sunset and Rainbow Dash were dirty and full of big injuries, that looked like things that should have already rendered them unconscious.

The only exception to the general theme of "warriors coming back from a hard fight" was Pinkie Pie, who was completely clean and uninjured, and in fact, looked like she had just woken up (and as you might expect, she was very much a morning pony).

"We're baaaaack!" She announced, jumping to her teacher and fellow disciple and giving them both a hug "That was awesome! I even got to one hundred percent emotion charge!"

"That's... great, Pinkie." Fluttershy managed "Is that why you're looking so fresh?"

"Yep!" Then she stopped "But actually, I'm feeling a little bit tirezzzzzzzz."

She immediately fell asleep and started snoring, and the only reason why she didn't fall to the floor was because both of her forelegs were still around Twilight and Fluttershy.

Then Celestia appeared in a flash of teleportation and, taking a look at the situation, immediately browbeat both Sunset and Rainbow Dash into going to the emergency area for a few rounds of healing. Rarity summoned two couches and put Applejack on one of them before lying down on the other and going to sleep. Fluttershy offered to carry Pinkie Pie to one of the spare beds in the castle and Trixie... Siddled up to Twilight, with a mischievous smile.

"So... Did you finally do it?"

"What do you mean?" Twilight replied, a little too fast.

"Trixie means you and Fluttershy. Did you really think Trixie wouldn't notice?"

"Ahh... Ah..." Twilight blushed "I..." She dropped her head with a sigh and a smile "Yeah."

Trixie's eyes shined "Tell Trixie everything."

"Well... She hugged me and I couldn't help but ask... She said yes, and then we discussed how that could work, since I'm her teacher but I don't want to take advantage of that, and we set up some ground rules."

Trixie smiled, of course the most important thing for Twilight in this kind of situation would be that. She sat down to hear the rest of the story.

'Now, there's just those two who need to realize their feelings.' Trixie said, thinking of her apprentice and another pony.

-0-

Princess Celestia put her forehooves on her face and sighed "Maybe I was the problem all along..."

The reason why she was thinking like that was simple, two of her three apprentices and their five apprentices had, individually or in pairs, over the course of the last month, come to her with a very troubling request.

Apparently, they had become concerned that they were not getting stronger fast enough to overcome the obstacles they were gonna have to face, and they wanted to receive special training from her to be able to go beyond their limits and reach a new dimension of power. Even Pinkie and Fluttershy, who had recently gotten a lot stronger, felt that they were nearing a wall they needed to surpass.

And the worst part was, she had a lot of ideas about it.

'I don't want to have to see them getting hurt because the armors weren't strong enough.'

Rarity said she needed to be able to create better artifacts, so Celestia put her through the Samsara of Ten Thousand Lives (The complete version of the Samsara of 100 Lives she had put her apprentices through), so she could live out many different destinies and gain experience of the world (most ponies who tried ended up losing their minds, but she had faith on the Knights).

'I reached the limits of my Emotion Charge, but I need more than that to face those kinds of enemies.'

Pinkie Pie wanted to learn purification magic, so she taught her the basics and sealed her at the center of the earth where she would have to rely on her chaos magic to be able to survive until she became good enough at purification magic to purify away the spell keeping her trapped there.

'Ah was barely any help. Ah need something more.'

Applejack wanted to truly master her eyes, so Celestia took her to near Tartarus and told her to Look at it without blinking for a few months.

'My Soul Emulate is still not good enough, I need to become even stronger.'

Fluttershy wanted to reach a new level in her empathy, so Celestia took her to the Great Canterlot Quarry, currently a focus of constant chaotic and magical shifts and told her to live there for a few months, only eating and drinking whatever she could find there (which meant eating and drinking quickly before the thing could change in something perhaps non-edible).

'Looking at her power, I knew I wanted to walk a different path.'

Sunset was concerned about the possibility of losing herself in search of power like their opponent had done, so, once she finished healing from her injuries, Celestia sealed away her magic and started sparring with her everyday at full power, telling her to meditate about herself on her spare time.

'Trixie has seen the limits of her current abilities. She needs to reach an even deeper level.'

Trixie wanted to obtain greater control over the very duality of concepts of reality and illusion, so she asked Luna to leave Trixie to the "Shadowlands", one of the most dangerous parts of the realm of dreams, where she had to survive for six months.

'I need to become even more awesome to be able to help the others.'

Rainbow Dash didn't really have any ideas, so Celestia decided that she should train her weather magic by taking care of the weather above most of Equestria for six months.

And of course, Twilight was planning to ask the same after she recovered, and Celestia already had ideas about it.

"Why does it come so naturally for me to invent those types of training?" She asked herself, then smiled slightly "Well, at least life is never boring."

Flames of Annihilation Arc End

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