Knights of the Realm (MLP)

[Kinni]

Interlude 5 - Moondancer and Spike

It was the day of the Shards of Chaos mission. Seven of the eight Knights had just opened up a portal and jumped through it in order to go on a rescue mission for their last member. Spike and Moondancer had been left outside to keep the portal safe and act as a connection to allow the others to come back more easily.

"What are you doing?" Spike asked Moondancer, seeing her drawing magical circles on the ground.

"Preparing." Was the answer "Unlike the Knights, I'm not strong enough to be able to fight using just my power, so I'm making preparations so I can help you in case it is needed."

"Ah, that makes sense." Spike said, and looked around once more to see if there were any problems coming.

It was pretty much unneeded, considering that he would have already noticed any changes in the situation just with his passive senses, but Spike was bored, and it was better if he didn't keep staring at Moondancer.

The situation was already awkward enough without dealing with that. Spike almost wished Princess Celestia was still there, but chaotic magic was unpredictable even in the best circumstances, and it was really for the best that she had taken Peppermint away to be healed immediately.

For the better or for the worse, Spike didn't need to keep thinking about, because as he was examining the magical circles to see what he could understand about them, his hearing captured distant walking sounds, and he looked at their source to see the new threat that had suddenly appeared.

She was a... pony, perhaps? It was difficult to tell, because while their shape was very similar to that of a pony mare, there were some glaring features that completely did not fit into the appearance of a pony. Specifically, they were rabbit features: Ears, eyes, whiskers and tail in the style of a rabbit, but sized for a pony body, and her whole fur was a light violet. And when Spike paid a bit more attention, he realized that her body shape itself wasn't entirely identical to that of a pony. Specifically, the hips were arranged in such a way that she would probably be more comfortable walking on two legs instead of four, even though she was walking on four when Spike saw her.

It seemed to be some kind of technique for moving fast, as the "pony" was coming towards them in a kind of bouncing run that looked somewhat weird, but covered ground fairly effectively. Spike called to Moondancer, already focusing on the threat:

"Possible enemy coming."

Moondancer looked up and saw the direction Spike was looking. She did a small spell that manipulated the air in front of herself into a lens to be able to see at a distance.

"Ah, it's another one of those constructs." She said.

"Anyone you recognize?"

"Another famous old Knight. That's Bunny Hammer, the Guardian of Existence. She was originally a normal rabbit changed by a spell from an warlock as part of a plan that she ended up foiling."

"Anything I should know about?" Spike was already preparing for battle.

"Probably just physical combat. Her dimensional locking magic is definitely way beyond whatever those constructs should be capable off, and most of her long range needs were covered by her partner." Moondancer was putting the last touches on what she could of the magical circles.

"Partner?"

"A breezy who was her first friend. She was called Knight Ribbon, the Legendary Partner, because she was always together with Bunny."

"Understood." Spike tightened his fists and ran towards the enemy to initiate hostilities.

"Draconic Aura: Arms of the Dragon!" Spike used his usual opening move, creating his energy arms and punching at the opponent.

But Bunny Hammer wasn't the kind of fighter who would just allow herself to be hit, and while the construct couldn't reproduce her perfectly, it was enough to allow her to react to that sort of attack without problems. She got up onto her rear legs and extended her right foreleg, manifesting a hammer made out of red energy that she held with both forehooves and swung at the fist.

Both Spike and Bunny recoiled from the impact, neither one managing to get any advantage over the other, but Bunny recovered first, and she moved to Spike's right side in an instant, using a flash step. She swung the hammer again, and this time Spike barely managed to bring his elbow to block the attack, but out of balance, he was sent flying.

But Spike was very determined, he had barely left the ground when his left arm forcefully pierced into the ground, and with a sound of tearing earth, the dragon forcefully reversed his momentum and flew right at his opponent, swiping his right arm in a back hand that made Bunny Hammer be the one to fly.

Spike made to follow her, but suddenly realized that she had left a surprise right at his feet, a carrot made of the same red energy of the hammer, and it was quickly destabilizing.

Spike blocked with both arms, but the shockwave of the explosion still rocked him, and then his eyes started to sting, as he realized the explosion had released some sort of poisonous green gas, and even his draconic biology was having trouble trying to fight off the damage. Bunny Hammer came to attack as he was distracted...

And ran into a barrier.

"Magic Ritual: Endless Magical Barriers." Moondancer announced "I may not be a Knight or a Squire, but I'm still here, you know?"

Bunny Hammer looked at her and immediately flash stepped with a swing. Moondancer created ten layers of barriers to block her, and the enemy managed to break through all but one of them. But the force of the attack had been bled off, and Moondancer had time to channel more magic into the remaining shield to drive it forward and force Bunny away.

The enemy then had to turn back and swing her hammer once more, as Spike had already recovered from the poison and was ready to greet her with a punch. Again, the shock of their attacks was tremendous, and again neither of the two managed to gain an advantage over the other. However, this time, both of them recovered at the same time, which meant that Bunny Hammer decided that she had to change things up.

Instead of attacking again, she started to Flash Step continuously, showing exactly how much mobility a true close combat expert had when pressed. Spike could barely follow her movements with his eyes, and he brought his arms around to protect himself, but of course Bunny Hammer had an answer for that.

Stopping her movements for just a moment, she struck the ground with the hammer, creating a shockwave that traveled along the earth and bypassed Spike's defense. He felt his organs shake, which meant that attack would have probably disabled most opponents by itself, and it managed to stun Spike for a short time.

So, of course, Bunny Hammer turned her attention towards Moondancer. But by that point, the unicorn had already prepared for such a thing.

Moondancer had created dozens of overlaying, moving shields, creating a formation that reminded one of a lotus flower, except that it was multilayered and didn't have any blind spots due to the flying shields defending it from the air, along with some shields partially buried on the ground and probably some which were underground as well.

Bunny Hammer flash stepped all around the field, attacking from every direction, but even though she could destroy some of the barriers, there were always more to take up the slack, and Moondancer was constantly creating even more of them. And so, the opponent had made no progress by the time Spike decided to change things up as well.

"Draconic Self: Sonic Wyrm!" He shouted, and changed.

He became slightly taller, his legs changed into a form more similar to that of a wolf, and he got thinner and more "streamlined", like a jet. His colors also changed, to a light blue and gold. And then, he moved.

Sonic Wyrms were the fastest dragons in the world. After growing up and gaining their wings, they could easily reach multiples of the speed of sound, but even before that, their natural magic was based towards speed, and they could move at extreme speeds while still having perfect control of their movements.

And Spike definitely showed that, as he managed to keep up with Bunny Hammer's flash stepping. He couldn't use the draconic aura as well (for now), but as he fought off the enemy, she wasn't able to bring her whole power to bear against him due to having no time to brace herself, so for the next stage of their fight, the next hundred (very fast) exchanges, the two of them were surprisingly evenly matched.

And that was when Moondancer made herself known again. She decided that the best way to help was using her magical shields to cut off Bunny's routes and herd her towards Spike, as well as hindering her movement to keep her off-balance, and pretty soon, the magical construct was taking damage little by little.

So, she decided to change the script again.

Opening her mouth, she created a sphere of green light (different from the energy manipulation she had been doing) inside it. And then she fired it, in a blast of green light that split into dozens of strands that all hit Spike at once.

It wasn't that powerful, but it broke Spike's rhythm, so he almost missed the secondary effect of the attack, Bunny's wounds healed visibly.

Understanding that he didn't want her to be able to use that continuously, Spike immediately drove back into the fight, but even though he attacked even more aggressively than before, he was unable to prevent Bunny from charging up again a few exchanges later, this time a sphere of blue light.. At the last moment, Spike dodged away from his opponent in order to avoid the attack.

However, the blue attack had its own gimmick as well. It split into dozens of small blue spheres that homed in on Spike.

He dodged again and again, forcefully changing his direction a few times, and managed to successfully make the attacks lose track of him, but it took a good two seconds, and Bunny had time to charge yet another attack, and charge way beyond the level of power of the previous spells.

This time, the sphere of light was orange, and instead of firing at Spike, she shot straight up, and it disappeared on the overhanging clouds. Moments later, a beam of energy fell from the sky straight at Spike.

Exploding into movement, Spike managed to avoid the attack, but that was only the beginning, soon the space was full of a constant stream of beams of magic, and it was all Spike could do to keep dodging even with the hypermobility his newest form conferred him. And there was no chance of Moondancer helping either, because she was dealing with her own stream of attacks, and had to focus every single shield she could create upwards in order to endure.

Thankfully, Bunny herself seemed to need to manually control that attack, so they didn't need to deal with the possibility of being attacked by her in addition to that spell. But they were being worn down, and Bunny seemed to have energy to spare. And Spike was wondering why Moondancer hadn't mentioned anything about those abilities. And soon he got his answer.

"She's using the abilities of Ribbon... I think this is a special construct with two cores, one for the Bunny abilities and the other for Ribbon's..." Came a whisper in the wind, a small spell Moondancer had done to pass information.

Spike nodded inwardly, still doing his best to dodge, that seemed like a strong possibility, but how could they defeat her, then?

"Why don't you try the Mana Twister form?" Came the whisper again, and Spike briefly considered the possibility that she was reading his thoughts, before realizing exactly what was the plan she had thought off.

Still, the attacks weren't stopping, and Spike needed at least a moment of peace to shift his form. So he ran to Moondancer's side, taking advantage of the protection granted by her shields.

"Draconic Self: Mana Twister!" She shouted, and changed again.

This new form was very different from any of his previous forms, starting with the fact that he now had four arms instead of two. He had become monocolored with a purple color, but this purple was much sharper and brighter than the color he had in his normal form. His eyes were also different, having achieved a kind of "depth" that was very difficult to describe, looking like they were portals to the deep space, and if one looked closely, they could even faintly see stars within them.

His crest had split into two "antennas", that grew from opposite sides of the head and pointed in opposite directions, almost touching each other. The antennas gave a mysterious impression, as if the space between them was somehow different from the entire rest of the world. Finally, his body had become shorter and stouter than before, looking somewhat chubby.

Mana Twisters were some of the rarest dragon breeds in the world, and the reason for that was the fact that while most dragons were generalists that were not weak even outside their strong points, their particular breed was a true specialist, which was unable to fly and did not have particularly great physical abilities. Their only strong point was their natural ability to manipulate magic, and that was what the two were counting on to defeat their enemy.

"Ghhhh...!" However, protecting Spike, even for the small period of time that he needed to transform wasn't easy, because she now had to endure the entire bombardment that Bunny Hammer was capable of now that she had only a single target.

Blood flowed down from the side of her mouth as she bravely endured the feedback of the attacks. Once more, Moondancer marveled at the strength of the Knights. Even though she was using the magic circle as a medium with access to a huge amount of power, she was barely holding together, while the Knights faced those kinds of odds using only their own power.

Still, she was at least capable enough to do her task, and she managed to hold on until the newly transformed Spike joined his four hands together and twisted.

But he didn't twist his hands, instead what he twisted was the magic in the environment, forcefully bending the blasts of power of the opponent and causing them to strike the earth instead of the shields.

Moondancer sighed heavily in relief, that had been close.

Upon seeing that her attacks weren't working, Bunny Hammer changed tactics again. This time she charged a red light attack, and by the looks of it, it was going to be even stronger than the previous one.

Spike looked at Moondancer "Tch, I don't know how I can get close enough to her in this form."

However, the unicorn only smirked "As one of the top magic researchers in Equestria, I know a lot of interesting magic. I'll support you."

Then she activated a different set of magic circles, and Spike saw and felt several lines of magic congregate around him and slowly fuse together.

"Magic Ritual: Dragon Enhance." Moondancer spoke, and the lines melded into Spike.

The dragon felt as if his body was exploding with power. His magical senses were enhanced beyond anything he could imagine, and he felt as if he could warp space itself just by twisting the magic in it.

Boost magic was a rather powerful and uncommon magical category, and magic capable of affecting dragons was the same, so the kind of boost magic capable of affecting dragons was something extremely difficult to see, but of course, Moondancer herself had explained it when she spoke about knowing a lot of interesting magic.

And before Spike could react to the sudden changes, Bunny Hammer finished charging, and she fired a monumental blast of magic at the two, and it was clearly powerful, enough that even Sunset would be impressed. Immediately, Spike felt herself being forced forward, and realized that another one of Moondancer's shields was pushing him, this time created entirely by her own magic, since the magic circle was occupied.

In the last second before hitting the blast, Spike brought his hands together again and twisted.

And the gigantic blast of magic split in two like a river. Even though Bunny Hammer kept pouring more power into the blast, it was like Spike was an unbreakable dam that split a river in two. He got closer and closer, moved by Moondancer's shield, until he finally managed to touch his opponent.

And again, he twisted.

Having two cores meant that the Bunny Hammer construct was powerful and could use two distinct sets of abilities, but that was the equivalent of having two souls in a single body, and the smallest loss of balance between the two souls would lead to catastrophic consequences.

And that was exactly what happened, Spike managed to twist the connections between the two magical cores, causing a chain reaction that resulted in an immediate explosion.

-0-

Spike opened his eyes and saw Moondancer looking down at him.

"What happened?" He asked.

"The explosion of the construct was stronger than we expected. It knocked you out since the Mana Twister isn't a particularly resilient dragon. It broke your Draconic Self, but you've been unconscious for only a couple of minutes."

Spike looked at himself and saw that she was right, he was back to normal form, but it seemed like they had won. He stood up and winced, as his body protested the sudden action.

Ignoring it, he asked Moondancer:

"What about the portal?"

"It's still there. It looks like the Knights are still fighting."

"Well, I guess it's back to waiting, then." Spike said, and he and Moondancer started walking back towards the portal.

"What was that Dragon Enhance thing you used about?"

Moondancer smiled and started to talk about how it worked.

The awkwardness Spike had been feeling before was all gone now. Amazing what a fight could do to bring ponies and dragons together...

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 52 - Strange Artifacts

Four Months After the Flames of Annihilation Incident

Celestia sighed.

The reports that she had been reading were not that troubling, but they had come at an exceptionally bad time. With the exception of Spike, every single Knight of the Realm was currently undergoing harsh training (including Twilight, who had started only recently, and whose training consisted of surviving inside the Cage of Numeria) and Spike was already on a mission (giving help to the city of Pomares against a swarm of hydras).

Considering the fact that things didn't seem to be too dangerous, Celestia even thought of sending the newest Squires, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, to do it, but she decided against it because of the other matter that was currently causing stress to her, Warlock Sombra.

After the matter with Flames of Annihilation, Fluttershy had come to her with troubling news. Apparently she had understood why the recent Warrior Constructs they had seen were different from before, and the reason for that was that Sombra had modified them to be used to gather data on the Knights. She had even replicated what she had seen for Applejack to take a look with the Eyes of Truth (Soul Emulate was very versatile) and the farm pony had agreed with Fluttershy's conclusions.

Of course, the Knights would try to develop new abilities so that Sombra would still be surprised by some of it, but considering how smart he was, it was better to have a trump card on hoof. And the fact that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had never fought publically meant that they were perfect to serve the role of the trump card. And so, sending them on a mission at such a critical time would probably not be worth it.

Calling the Avatars was also a no go. Apparently, Cadance was creating her third one during that month, so her other two would be indisposed. And Luna's avatars were still tracking down the biggest conglomerations of Shards of Chaos around Equestria.

As such, Celestia eventually hit upon an unusual solution: She could send one of the Knights that were still training, and give long range support herself to help keep things under control.

This would be impossible for most of them, since their training wasn't the kind of thing that could be paused, but there was one Knight who could go on a mission without interrupting her training. And as luck had it, it was exactly the Knight she would have wanted for that kind of mission.

After all, who better to deal with artifacts than her?

-0-

Rarity's trial was one that would have destroyed a lesser pony before a single day had passed, much less the three months that she had already endured, but one would not know that just from observing her day to day life. In fact, she seemed to not be training at all, and only living her normal life and work.

However, that was only because they couldn't see the struggle that was going on in her mind. The Samsara of Ten Thousand Lives was considered one of the harshest trials a pony could be submitted to for a very good reason, and it was because it forced the pony to experience the lives of ten thousand versions of themselves, all at the same time.

Of course, it was more complicated than it seemed. Truly experiencing so much at the same time would crush the mind of anyone, so the Samsara acted as a medium to prevent such from ocurring. Rarity's perception of the alternate lives was in constant flux, some of them fading into the background, mere whispers of could be, while others came into stark relief, allowing Rarity to experience everything as if she was indeed living those lives.

Rarity was holding on to her routine because of that, because it served as a fixed point in the middle of the constant flux that threatened to tear away her very identity. But of course, that wasn't the only danger, or the Samsara of Ten Thousand Lives wouldn't be worthy of its reputation. The very routine that allowed Rarity to keep herself sane was also dangerous, because in the multitudes of alternate lives, there were many in which Rarity was doing the exact same things, and it would not take much for the unicorn to forget which self was her real one and be lost in the middle of the Samsara.

To deal with that, Rarity had taken to following in the footsteps of her mentor, and every night she weaved a complex pattern of fabric and held onto it while sleeping. After awakening, which was the most uncertain point of her identity, Rarity looked at the fabric, comparing it to what she had made in the night before, in order to determine which self was her real one and her real reality. And of course, similar selves weren't the only danger, for it could also come from the overwhelmingly different lives she was experiencing.

In one life, she was a wandering spirit in a world destroyed with miserable ponies and others that tried to eke out a living and avoid the notice of an all-powerful tyrant that wouldn't allow them to regain their footing, and she did her best to guide others in their decisions through whispering in their ears, just to help a little bit. In another life, she was an all-powerful tyrant, who had allowed herself to be overcome by the power of light magic to save the life of her sister and ended up turning the world into a dollhouse, trapping all beings and controlling every aspect of their lives, even their very forms.

Those strong feelings and identities threatened to overwhelm her, so Rarity had to focus on herself, had to believe that her own life, even the little things, was absolutely as important and magnificent as anything she saw on her alternates, it was a battle involving her very own sense of worth. And even that wasn't enough for some of the world she saw, perfect utopias who were so beautiful, it would be easy to lose herself in them, to forget about her own life and become merely an observer of an ideal.

To survive that, Rarity found herself holding onto an even bigger ideal: If those world were truly perfect, then it was only her duty to try and make her own world even a little bit more perfect, closer to the best state it could be, so that existence itself became just a little bit more beautiful. But even that had its own downsides. She could easily be overcome by the very ideal that she was using to hold onto herself, and subsequently change herself to try and force the world to achieve her ideal, becoming a fallen Knight in the process, a threat to the Equestria that she had sworn to protect.

And to fight against that, the only thing she could rely on were her friends and fellow Knights. Every night, she talked with Rainbow Dash, who crashed after doing her training and seemed to be a few steps away from having her conscience fly away into the endless flows of the weather. She could not disappoint her, and she hoped that her presence would strengthen Rainbow Dash as hers did for the unicorn.

In the same way, once in a while she visited Sunset, who always seemed like she should be in the critical session of the hospital, but looked like she did not care about her injuries, and the only thing that truly affected her was the meditation she did every day, in which it seemed like she was fighting to prevent her self from shrinking away and disappearing into nothingness. Sunset always looked somewhat reduced while doing so, as if any misstep would result in her simply ceasing to exist.

And of course, there were the others, whom she could not see because they were training in distant places, though sometimes she felt like she could feel the presence of her teacher in her dreams. Every single one of then was going through that to grow stronger, to prevent the possibility of losing any one of their companions, and that meant that Rarity would be betraying their bond were she to succumb, so she must not allow that.

And so the days passed. Rarity had already finished her Fire Ruler Sword, but after so long in the Samsara, her knowledge, experience and perception had all been increased, and she had started to realize how flawed her creations actually were, to the point where she destroyed her Fire Ruler Sword as soon as she made it, followed by destroying her other three Ruler Swords and even her armor, deciding to start over from the beginning and create new artifacts that would be more fitting. And she even had plans to replace the armor of her partners as well, considering that she already had to create new versions for Sunset and Rainbow who had lost their own in combat.

And there were also some other ideas for artifacts she had...

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a letter from the princess.

Reading it, Rarity furrowed her brows.

"A mission, now?" She spoke in slight disbelief, then made up her mind "I guess Princess Celestia should know what she is doing, I'd better go there and see what's the situation..."

The letter had only said that she was being requested for a mission and more information would be given personally, so Rarity would have to teleport to Canterlot, but first she needed to make a few preparations.

Rarity had destroyed her Ruler Swords, but it would have been foolish to leave herself without any special means of defense in case of emergencies. She created the "Ruler Daggers", weaker versions of her Ruler Swords that she could use as mane decorations.

She did so, putting the four in a pretty arrangement and feeling their power, before teleporting to the Canterlot Castle.

-0-

It didn't take long for Rarity to speak with Princess Celestia, who told her that she had decided to send the unicorn because this mission didn't seem to be anything particularly dangerous.

"... But still, I think it would be best to check up on it sooner rather than later." Celestia finished her explanation.

"Okay. I understand that, but what exactly is it that you want me to investigate?"

"There are concerning reports about a group of thieves who are breaking into houses of rich ponies to steal valuables." Celestia answered "Usually, this would be a matter for the Guard, but those thieves have strange artifacts that have so far allowed them to deal with any guards who tried to stop them."

"Artifacts, huh... Now I know why you thought I would be perfect for this mission. In this case, you want me to not only stop the thieves, but also figure out where they got the artifacts and whether there is any danger of more of those things appearing to cause trouble."

"Exactly." Celestia nodded "Just to be safe, I will be providing long range support and will remain in contact with you at all times during the mission."

"Then I guess there is no reason to delay things... Where should I go to intercept the thieves?"

"According to our intelligence division, taking into consideration the pattern of their actions, their next crime should occur in one of three cities: Marelago, Otogena or Aranantes. I'd recommend you to go to Otogena, since it is located in the middle of the two other cities, and when I receive a report about their latest crime, I'll send a message with coordinates for you to teleport and intercept them." Celestia explained carefully.

Rarity nodded at that, and a quick look at a map gave her the coordinates of her initial destination. One long range teleport later, and Rarity was gone.

-0-

Otogena was a medium-sized city. It was not as big as Canterlot or Manehattan, but it was miles ahead of a place like Ponyville.

Rarity did not waste the opportunity of visiting such a city. She might be there on a mission, but it was a reactive style of mission, something that she had to wait for. In that case, there was nothing wrong with enjoying herself while she waited. Celestia, who was communicating with her via a magical connection, giggled when she saw Rarity check herself in a first class hotel, telling them to send the bill to Canterlot (since she was in a mission, it was allowed).

It was already time for lunch, so she ate a phenomenal hotel meal before leaving to tourist around. This was made easier by Princess Celestia, who was the best tour guide one could hope for. She had been present during the founding of the city and knew all sorts of little facts and anecdotes about the city and the ponies that had lived in it, as well as knowing about the most interesting spots to see.

Over the course of the day, Rarity ate some ice cream which had personally been recommended by Celestia and was appropriately delightful, went to a museum where she saw the greatest painting of Black Brush, the greatest cubist painter of all time (Celestia told her a funny history about how he had originally been a realist painter, who only did a cubist work due to losing a bet, but ended up changing focus after receiving acclaim for that painting), and took a relaxing boat trip through the peaceful river Mortis.

After a fun day, that Rarity managed to enjoy despite still having to deal with the Samsara, the Knight went back to the hotel for dinner and sleeping in a massively comfortable bed. She didn't forget to weave her newest configuration (she had taken supplies with her just for that purpose) before sleeping, and as she fell asleep, she thought that it wouldn't be bad if the thieves took two more days to appear (the maximum Celestia had thought it would take before their next crime).

Of course, things would not go as she hoped. And she was woken up in the middle of the night by Celestia's message:

"Rarity, wake up, they are here."

Rarity moaned as she got up and checked her work to make sure this was indeed the correct world.

"Agh, three in the morning... Why can't those thieves attack at a more reasonable time?" She checked the coordinates "At least I turned out to be in the right city."

Yawning, Rarity teleported away.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 53 - Strange Artificers

Rarity appeared in the middle of the dark and lonely streets. And it did not take long for her to find the running thieves. If they had the chance, they would have already teleported away, but the defense spells in the houses of rich ponies frequently had parts designed to temporarily seal away the teleportation ability of any invaders, and that was the case that time.

Rarity examined the thieves, trying to get whatever advantages she could before the fight...

[Darkness Pain Nature Spirit]

It was a delicate balance of using enough attention to find out the information she wanted but not enough that she would lose control over her awareness. There were four thieves in total, two unicorns, an earth pony who were running through the street and a pegasus who was flying slightly above the street. One of the unicorns was a stallion, while the rest were all mares. This was all that Rarity could determine about them, for all four of the ponies were wrapped up in layers of darkness that looked somewhat like blankets, and concealed both their colors and cutie marks, making them look like shadows which had somehow escaped to the physical world.

Apart from that, there was one other interesting aspect. Each one of them was carrying some kind of artifact floating along with them, the unicorn stallion had a globe, the mare had a spear, the pegasus had a scroll and the earth pony had a necklace. Rarity narrowed her eyes upon noticing that those artifacts looked rough and without artistry, as if they had been made by amateurs, but they still looked somehow familiar...

[Craft Gold Battle Light]

But it would be better to think about that after subduing the thieves. Rarity wasn't hiding her presence, so they noticed her very quickly.

"On no! It's a Knight!" The spear thief alerted.

"Don't worry, it's just one of them!" That was the scroll thief, who activated her scroll.

It soon became clear that the layers of darkness of concealment were produced by the scroll artifact, because it released several waves of darkness that completely covered the thieves and the surroundings.

"So, that's how you want to play it, huh?" Rarity muttered to herself as the darkness prevented her from seeing anything.

That kind of thing could work on ordinary guards, but it wouldn't work on a Knight, specially not Rarity. She simply activated the Wind Ruler Dagger and connected with the wind currents to gain a sense of the general positions of the enemies and what they were doing.

The spear thief ran straight at her, apparently able to see in the darkness and confident that Rarity couldn't. She waved her spear and released a beam of power straight at Rarity, powerful enough to break through the walls of a house. Rarity was almost insulted that they thought this would be enough to deal with her. The Knight simply raised a double layered barrier of earth to forcefully resist the attack.

The thieves were clearly surprised at her being able to defend so easily, but they had good coordination, and the next attack came immediately after the first. This time it was the globe thief, whose globe flew at Rarity and changed forms, turning into a wall of stone that came straight at her head.

Rarity was leisurely as she used a water charm to instantly create twelve liters of water and she rode on the water to avoid the attack, but the enemy seemed to have predicted that, and moved and shaped the earth into a concave dome that blocked Rarity from moving anywhere but forward, while the necklace thief activated her own artifact, and every link in the necklace released a different spell, shooting all of them at Rarity.

This time, the unicorn used her Earth Ruler Dagger again, forcefully taking control of the earth the opponent's artifact had created, forcing the globe to return to its previous form and shaping the loose earth left behind (for the artifact had actually teleported part of the earth under the user to do its work) into a powerful shield that easily resisted the barrage of low-level spells.

'Okay, I think I've seen all that I needed to, I just need to use my Fire Ruler Dagger and-'

[Fire Burn Death Chaos]

'-and be very careful to avoid harming the enemies unnecessarily.' Rarity finished the thought after shaking off the latest round of almost loss of control.

Rarity released a wave of flames straight at the opponents. The spear thief retreated back to the others, and all of them defended against the fire, magic blasts from the spear, multi spells from the necklace, a new earth barrier from the globe and condensing almost the entire darkness (except what was concealing the thieves) into another shield.

They easily managed to withstand the flames, but that hadn't been the point. Rarity had deliberately made it flashy but low powered in order to distract the enemies, and as they were focused on them, Rarity activated two other Daggers to finish things off.

With the Earth Ruler Dagger, she made the earth under their feet come up to their necks and trap the thieves, and with the Water Ruler Dagger, she wrapped their artifacts in water and forcefully cut the connection the thieves had with them. (And that was another indication that those weren't made by a professional, because better artifacts would make it harder to do something like that.)

The whole thing happened before the thieves could understand what was going on, and Rarity smiled at a job well do-

[Triumph Might Power Battle Conquest Survival Calling Being Pain Feeling Knowledge Magic Destruction Order Ruler Sin...]

-0-

Celestia immediately realized that Rarity was losing control.

Even in all her years, Rarity had only been the fifth Knight to whom Celestia had tasked with surviving the Samsara of Ten Thousand Lives. And she could proudly say that none of them had ever lost themselves, because Celestia knew a lot about that trial, and she understood exactly what kind of pony would be able to survive it, and Rarity was one of them.

Of course, that also meant that she knew where Rarity's limits lie, and she was aware that such a situation was possible during the mission.

However, that was exactly the reason why Celestia had been constantly on oversight during the mission, and she managed to help Rarity by speaking just a single word, that was transmitted directly to the unicorn via their connection.

-0-

'Rarity.'

"Auff..." Rarity sighed, shaking her head "That was a little unpleasant"

'Indeed.'

"I kinda lost focus due to the feeling of victory. Better to pay attention to prevent that from happening again.

That said, Rarity had dropped the artifacts upon losing control, so she manipulated the water again to draw them towards her. She also reinforced the restraints on the thieves (and saw that their faces were now exposed after losing control of the darkness artifact) to make sure that they would remain in place until the guards arrived (it wouldn't take long, she was already hearing the sounds of galloping).

Now Rarity had all the time in the world to check what exactly she had felt to be so familiar about their artifacts. She looked closely, noticing fairly quickly that those artifacts were indeed very roughly made, to the point where it would take significant effort to make them work if you weren't the pony they were made for, and it seemed like each of the thieves had made their own artifact, but it wasn't like even rough artifacts were such an easy thing to create, so how-

At that point, Rarity realized something, and she very nearly lost control again, this time out of pure rage.

'Hey Rarity. Even though you're still stable, your emotional output is pretty concerning. What is going on?' Came Celestia's voice in her head.

"I just saw something that I really need an explanation for." Rarity replied absolutely politely and with a smile, but the fact that she had spontaneously created a flaming tornado behind herself was a pretty good indication of how she was feeling.

Rarity walked towards the bound thieves, carrying the flaming tornado behind her. She gestured to a guard that was approaching to wait, and that guard seemed to have suddenly remembered something very important that he had to do somewhere else.

Rarity stopped in front of the thieves, who seemed somewhat upset by that turn of events, and she smiled sweetly at them before talking:

"These artifacts you had... I thought they looked familiar, and I finally realized why. The core, the center of them, the most important part of it, that works to link with the soul of the user, it is just like my designs." She stopped for a moment "It is simplified enough that any pony could potentially create it, but it is definitely based on my own artifacts. Now, I am going to ask this just once: Where did you get that design?"

-0-

'Wow, it's been a while since the last time I saw criminals so eager to go to jail.' Celestia remarked 'Did you manage to let off some steam?'

"Yes, actually." Rarity replied, sounding much calmer "But things are still not done yet."

The thieves had spilled everything. Apparently, there was a fashion store in the city of Coloratus which was owned by a pair of Earth Ponies. In the show section of the store, there was actually a working replica of Rarity's Armor. The leader of the group had asked about how that was possible, and the two owners had actually given her the design for the "Artifact Base", which the four used to create their artifacts.

And now Rarity was standing in front of that store, getting ready to confront the plagiarists and ask what exactly had been their goal. The name of the store was 'Fashion Style', which Rarity felt was good but generic, she got in the door.

Both earth ponies were currently in, as Rarity had ascertained before entering. One of them had a lilac coat and violet mane with a cutie mark of three buttons, and was wearing a scarf, while the other had a bicolor cyan/light gray mane and an amber coat with a cutie mark of a plumed hat, she was also wearing a different style scarf and a flower mane decoration. Both of them seemed to be cleaning up on the store when Rarity got in. They turned to her with the "shopkeeper's smile" upon hearing but their mouths dropped when they actually saw who it was.

"I-I-I..." The flower mare started.

"IT'S RAAAAAARITY!" The scarf mare shouted.

Rarity had a strange expression on her face. This wasn't something she had been expecting. Those two mares were actually squeeing.

"Oh my Celestia, Rarity is here, in our shop!" Scarf was jumping in place looking around wildly.

"What do we do, what do we do?!" Flower was running around from side to side.

Rarity raised her eyebrow.

The two of them finally snapped out of their panic and ran over to Rarity, shouting "Rarity, could you give us an autograph?!"

The Knight put a hoof on her face as she heard Celestia laughing through their connection.

-0-

She did give them autographs.

Eventually, Rarity had managed to calm the two of them down enough to get an explanation. "Flower" was called Coco Pommel, while "Scarf" was actually Suri Polomare. They had become Rarity's fans after seeing her wearing that magnificent armor that she had created.

"Look, look!" Coco called Rarity over with a grin "We've managed to create our own version of your armor, and it even works like an actual artifact!"

Rarity had to admit that the two of them had talent. Their copy of her old armor wasn't rough and unrefined like the artifacts of the thieves, but appeared to ooze love and care for detail. It wasn't a perfect copy, since a lot of the more subtle parts of her armor could not be detected by simply looking at it, but their project had a nice spark of creativity in which they didn't simply reproduce Rarity's design, but actually changed some things to give the same effect while using their own techniques.

"I can see the base of the artifact is a simplified version of my own base designs. It is actually pretty impressive." Rarity said casually "Could you show me the formulas and everything you've researched to get to this point?"

Suri came out of the back room with a small smile "I knew you were going to ask that, so I already went and got everything." She put down a huge stack of papers on the ground.

"We did a lot of things to try and recreate the abilities of the armor, but none of them worked. Eventually I hit upon the idea of using an identity signifier to force a connection with the soul, and Coco managed to figure out how to make it work without needing complicated materials, so we worked together to make it." Suri explained proudly.

"Ah, I understand." Rarity said, thinking that some ponies could be really naive "Did you show your designs to a certain pony two months and a half ago?"

"Oh yes, she was very polite. How did you know about that?" Coco answered.

"Well..." Rarity started awkwardly "It turns out that she used the design together with her friends to create their own artifacts and become a gang of thieves."

Coco and Suri looked at Rarity with their mouths open.

"Also their artifacts were all badly made." She finished.

There was a moment of silence before Suri Polomare said "We... Really screwed up, didn't we?"

Rarity nodded "Indeed. The work of you two is great, being capable of allowing anypony to create their own artifacts with enough effort, but that is also dangerous, since it allows criminals to obtain powerful abilities with a lot of ease." She looked down to the papers "As such, I shall have to dispose of those documents, to prevent them falling in the wrong hooves."

Coco swallowed and looked at Suri, before nodding "Okay. It feels a bit bad, but we don't want anything bad to happen because of this."

"Right." Rarity nodded solemnly and prepared her Fire Ruler Dagger.

However, before she could activate the magic, something bizarre happened:

An eye appeared on the top document. And before anypony could react to the sudden change, the papers seemed to explode in a pulse of magic, multiplying themselves and flying away at huge speed through the window.

There was a beat.

'Rarity. That just now was a shard of chaos, wasn't it?' Celestia asked.

"Indeed it was, and if I'm right, it seems to have spread the knowledge of easy to create artifacts throughout Equestria."

'That's just what I was afraid of.' There was a mental sigh 'Bring your new friends here, we should prepare as soon as possible.'

-0-

"... And that's why I have drafted you as the new Royal Artificers." Celestia explained to the two designers "Your duties will revolve around improving your original formula to make creating more powerful artifacts possible, so that our guards throughout Equestria can be prepared for whatever new foes appear. And also, I shall send you requests for special artifacts for you two to create."

"Ah... But we are just fashion designers." Suri said.

Celestia's eyes softened "I know. You can still do that, I'll even set up a teleportation formation to take you to your store and back whenever you want as well as a special guard. But you two do have a lot of talent that even Rarity recognized, and it's been a while since the last time I had dedicated Artificers working, so there are a lot of things I would like for you to do. You can always say no, but I think it would be a waste."

The two ponies looked at each other and talked quietly for a few seconds. Then they looked at Celestia and nodded, at first shakily, but later firmly.

"Very well. This place shall be your special workshop and you can make requests of materials and information by asking the guard at the door to send a message. I'll go along and set up that formation." Celestia walked off.

Suri looked at her partner and smiled awkwardly "Well... What do you think we should do first?"

Craft SubArc End

Next: Mission Trip Arc

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 54 - Trip

Fluttershy was taking a bath.

Those were simple words that evoked a variety of images. However, none of those images could come close to the reality of what was going on.

The place where she was taking a bath was a small lake most of the time. But sometimes it changed into a tower of liquid that defied gravity, sometimes it was a river in the shape of a circle that flowed without beginning or end, and sometimes it was simply a tiny puddle in which somehow Fluttershy managed to soak herself.

And the liquid in which she was soaking herself also changed from moment to moment, sometimes it was boiling water, sometimes it was an acid strong enough to burn away the air itself, and sometimes it was literally ice cream. But even with all those changes and others, Fluttershy didn't seem to be struggling at all.

Even as the world wildly changed around her, Fluttershy remained constant and unmoved. It wasn't like she was fighting the world, and more like the world itself was avoiding disturbing her.

Looking up with a sigh, the Knight extended a hoof.

The hoof disappeared and reappeared in the distance, right next to a small stone. And just before Fluttershy picked it up, the stone turned into an apple, that the Knight brought back to herself and took a bite out of.

It was sweet.

Fluttershy remained like that for a few more minutes, eating the rest of the apple and relaxing, and then she got out of the bath, not even needing to dry herself off as the water simply fell away from her.

"So, this is it." Fluttershy spoke to herself "That was the last day."

She took off on a flight.

-0-

Rarity was calm as she waited the last minute before the trial of Samsara would end.

If she were now the same pony she was at the beginning of the training, the anticipation would have disturbed her focus and control of herself under the spell, but by that point, her mind and focus had developed enough that she was completely centered and sure of herself even during the last few seconds before release.

But it was still jarring when it happened. Rarity's focus had been stretched so much that suddenly not having the Samsara to keep her attention made her accidentally spread her awareness outwards to a much greater degree than she had ever been capable of.

The sense of information would have been overwhelming for most ponies, since she could pick up details of every object in her surroundings, down to the tissue level, including their connections and every bit of wear and tear that they had. But for Rarity, it was only briefly disorienting. If somepony with a good enough magical sense had been looking at her at that moment, they would have seen her presence briefly expand to colossal proportions, as the strength that had been sealed by the Samsara was finally released.

Shaking her head, Rarity started going over her abilities to figure out what had changed:

First, her magic was significantly stronger. Second, she could adjust the focus of her awareness to an astounding level, which would allow her to make extremely minute adjustments and manipulation of her artifacts, so she could create things that would be much better than what she could have made before.

And besides that... huh? Somehow Rarity didn't feel anything else different, even though she knew that the trial of Samsara should have been enough to fundamentally change her.

Deciding to ask the princess about it later, Rarity set herself towards making her new artifacts. She would be creating advanced version of her Swords and armor. Rarity briefly thought about making new armor for the others as well, before deciding that it would be better to wait until she had seen their new capabilities, so she could personalize their artifacts better.

Rarity had already planned the designs while in Samsara, so the only thing left was to make them.

It wouldn't take long.

-0-

In the middle of a certain deserted plain in the outskirts of Equestria, a strange phenomenon was going on.

If there was a pony walking there, they would have noticed regular tremors happening, tremors that started out so weak that they were barely noticeable if one wasn't paying attention, but which kept getting stronger and stronger, to the point where the many small animals that lived around decided to leave the area for their own safety.

And if that hypothetical pony was an earth pony, they could have used their magic to understand the reason why the tremors were happening: There was something under the earth that was slowly digging itself closer and closer to the surface.

At this point, said pony would probably become terrified and run away, and thus, they would be unable to witness the scene that would occur soon after.

With a final explosive impact, a huge hole opened up in the middle of the plain.

And out of the hole came... something strange. The figure looked like an earth pony, but was completely black and without definition, like a shadow somehow brought into the tridimensional world. It was carrying Pinkie Pie on its back, said pony currently sleeping.

The figure walked out of the hole and laid Pinkie on the ground, before nudging her lightly with a hoof to wake her up.

The Knight yawned cutely and stretched out her legs, before opening her eyes and wincing at the light before smiling in joy.

"I'm finally out!" She cheered.

The shadowy figure nodded, then sunk down into the ground, becoming bidimensional and revealing itself to have been Pinkie's shadow all along.

"Ah...!" Pinkie exclaimed, enjoying the sun for a bit "I wonder if the others are already done as well..."

Saying that, she walked off.

-0-

When everything was done and Applejack could finally look away from Tartarus, her eyes were horrifyingly bloodshot and the remains of her armor lay in pieces around her.

"Argh... Ah know Ah wanted ta become stronger, but that was really unpleasant." She muttered to herself, blinking constantly to try to deal with the pain in her eyes.

"Guess Ah should go back home, then." She said with a nod, and took a step.

That single step brought her back to her farm, crossing half of Equestria in the process.

-0-

Rainbow Dash idly spun a hoof, creating a tornado.

This was definitely an amazing feat of weather magic that was worthy of a Knight, but even more impressive was the fact that she was keeping the wind perfectly contained so that it didn't even move the leaves of a nearby tree.

And yet, for all that Rainbow Dash's power and skill in weather magic had increased in the last six months, she couldn't help but feel like she should be stronger than that.

"I gotta ask the princess about it..." She said idly.

And as if by magic, a scroll from the princess appeared in front of her.

"They're all back?!" She shouted, then took off on a flight that got supersonic almost immediately.

-0-

There was an empty room in the castle, and it was there that it happened.

Out of a portal came Trixie and Princess Luna. The alicorn looked just like she always did, while Trixie... Looked strange.

Perhaps the best way to explain it would be saying that Trixie looked slightly unreal, like she was halfway between reality and illusion, like she was an entity that had escaped from the realm of dreams.

"So, Knight Trixie, how do you feel being back in the real world after so long?" Luna asked.

"Weird. It is more solid than the dreams, but it still feels a bit hazy. Different from what I remember of it."

"Reality and dreams are more connected than most ponies will ever know. This is only a sign that you have understood part of it." Luna stopped for a moment "Ah... My sister is calling for you. It seems like she has a mission in mind for the Knights who have finished training."

"Then let's go."

The two vanished.

-0-

After Sunset recovered from her last "spar" with Princess Celestia, an observer wouldn't be able to see the difference between the way she now was compared to the way she were before the training based only on physical characteristics.

One would have to look into her eyes to see the difference. This Sunset looked more introspective and less prideful. She still had an air of being sure of herself, but it seemed tempered somehow, as if she was intimately aware of her own limits. Her presence seemed smaller, but somehow stronger and more condensed than before.

And yet, she wasn't satisfied with her current strength.

'Why do I feel like there is a barrier inside me, preventing me from reaching higher?'

Those were the thoughts that occupied her mind at that moment. But they were banished away when a scroll appeared in front of her face.

"So... The others have also finished, haven't they?" She muttered, after reading the scroll.

Then she teleported.

-0-

Celestia looked over the eight gathered Knights. Considering that Twilight was still unavailable, they were all the Knights she was currently capable of gathering.

She had a pretty important reason for calling the Knights, but first, there was another important matter to deal with.

"The mission I have for you isn't particularly time sensitive, so if you have any doubts you'd like me to clear up, now is the time." She said.

Of course they had doubts, which was why Celestia was asking. She had taught ponies for an incredibly long time, and it was easy to recognize the awkward fidgeting and the uncertain looks of her Knights.

Upon hearing her words, they still seemed uncertain, but eventually Sunset managed to find her voice:

"I just... I just feel like there's something wrong. Like I should be stronger than I am now after all that training."

Pinkie was the next to express herself "It's the same for me. I managed to purify my shadow, and I can do some things with purification magic... But I should be able to do more."

With the exception of Spike (that hadn't been through six months of intense training), all the other Knights expressed similar opinions, with Fluttershy even being particularly vocal about her concerns.

Celestia smiled at them, that had been exactly what she had expected.

"There is a reason why you are feeling like that, and it is a pretty simple reason." She said, and nodded when she saw the Knights start to pay careful attention.

"After training for so long, and focusing so much on just gaining more power, you have lost your direction." She spoke "There is a reason why Knights go on frequent missions while they are still in training, it's to help focus their selves in the right direction for gaining true strength." She stopped for a moment "After you finish this next mission, you'll certainly be able to get through the 'wall'."

The Knights discussed this among themselves, relaxing somewhat. Then Fluttershy spoke up.

"It's too bad that Twilight isn't here, though, since she is going to go through the same thing."

"I wonder how she is doing?" Pinkie asked to herself.

-0-

Meanwhile, Inside the Cage of Numeria

"AAAAAAAAAARRRGHHHHHHH!!!" Twilight screamed, as she turned all of her blood into a bomb in a last ditch effort to avoid being eaten.

-0-

"I'm sure she's fine." Sunset said "She is tough. And in that case..." She looked at Celestia "Which kind of mission do you have for us?"

Celestia smiled and passed over a scroll to her "This is the detailed report, but in short, there are some concerning incidents happening in Granura, at the western edge of Equestria. More and more ponies are going missing, and out intelligence division has detected flashes of phenomenal magical power appearing from various places within that area. Your mission is to investigate what is the cause of the flashes, deal with any problems and find and rescue the missing ponies."

Sunset passed the scroll to Trixie and nodded at the princess "Understood."

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 55 - Arriving

Despite the place they had to go to being very distant, all that meant was that they had to use a series of teleports to move there, instead of a single large teleport. The eight Knights arrived at their destination in only a few minutes (they rested a bit in between teleports).

"... And that was the worst part of my training." Rarity said, finishing a thought she had started just before their latest teleport.

The idea had come from Trixie. Apparently, she, Sunset and Twilight used to tell each other stories about the harshness of training in order to motivate each other and build up friendship whenever things were getting a little hard. As such, the recently reunited Knights were talking about their biggest struggles in their recent special training.

"So... Sunset has spoken about how her soul almost escaped her body while she was meditating, Rainbow Dash explained how she almost dissolved herself in wind, and Rarity spoke of her struggles to maintain awareness of her own existence." Trixie helpfully summarized, before looking directly at her apprentice "By the way, Rarity, congratulations on your two new apprentices."

"Thank you." Rarity bowed slightly "I haven't been able to teach them as much as I should yet, because of the training, but after this mission, I'm going to."

"Right." Trixie said "Who goes next, then?"

"Why not ya?" Applejack suggested.

"Okay then..." Trixie sighed.

"My own training was surviving in the Shadowlands. The most dangerous part of the realm of dreams." She started, using her "storyteller" tone "It is a place where identity and meaning cease to exist. The only rule there is action, and all who dwell in that place are only defined by their actions... I can't really explain it.

"Regardless, that was a place where the boundary between self and outside was very thin. The worst part of my training there was when I accidentally left most of my identity behind, picking up other things instead without realizing it. I believe I spent the equivalent of two real world months having become a completely different pony, and only barely aware that something was wrong.

"Eventually, I had to rip my own self apart so I could remember who I really was and seek the parts of me I had lost." She concluded grimly.

"Right..." Sunset started "I think yours may have been the harshest training so far... So, who wants to follow that?"

"Ah, guess Ah should go next." Applejack said, then waited for them to do their penultimate teleport, to avoid getting cut off in the middle.

"Okay... Ya know what mah training was, and ya should understand that Ah saw a lot of things Ah really would prefer not ta have seen.. But if Ah were ta say what was the worst part... It would have ta be when Ah was seeing Tirek."

All the others stiffened at her words.

"It took a while for me ta accept it, but Ah couldn't avert mah eyes from the reality. The restraints on him are slowly weakening more and more, and he's going ta free himself soon. Not immediately, but soon."

The silence after her words was absolutely complete, to the point where it seemed that even the wind had stopped blowing.

"O-okay..." Sunset decided to get things back on track "Moving past Applejack's incredibly ominous words... Who will be the next one to talk about their training?"

"Me, me! I'll do it!" Pinkie hastily volunteered herself.

"Well..." She started, seemingly trying to think of the right words "Trying to survive at the center of the earth was pretty rough. At the beginning, I kept using my one hundred percent Anticipation mode, since it could protect me, but it was not possible to keep it going forever... And I couldn't simply protect myself with chaos magic, because the center of the earth is already pretty chaotic.

"So I had to use purification magic to purify away the most harmful parts of the matter around me, and it was pretty difficult since I wasn't all that good at purification magic in the beginning, so I ended up having to switch to one hundred percent anger mode to heal me when I got too injured.

"However, I think the worst part was when I actually got good enough in purification magic to try and escape from there." She sighed "And because of the spell Celestia used on the core, I would have to go all the way back to the surface without stopping, otherwise I would be pulled back to where I started." She sighed again "So, I decided to purify my shadow, so she could keep moving while I was sleeping, and I would move while she was sleeping.

"And actually purifying the shadow was the worst thing. In magical terms, a pony's shadow is their hidden side, the parts about themselves they hide from the world and even from themselves... And I had to face every single one of those things in order to purify my shadow."

Fluttershy put a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder, and the Knights silently showed their support.

"Then I'm the last one." Fluttershy said.

"I guess my experiences were different from Pinkie's. In my case, the worst part of my training was the beginning." She closed her eyes in thought "I really don't understand what you three did to create a place like that, but in the beginning, it felt like the land itself was inimical to life, and just trying to survive there consumed all of my energy.

"Things only got better when I realized that it wasn't that the land was inimical to life, but it simply didn't understand what life was. And its conception of life was chaotic, believing that it could only exist if it was constantly changing." Fluttershy sighed "Eventually, I managed to reach harmony with that place."

They all nodded in understanding.

"So..." Pinkie started "Does that mean that Trixie's training was still the worst?"

"It appears so." Fluttershy said.

"There's still Twilight who hasn't finished yet." Trixie noted "And that's not really the kind of competition I'd be happy winning."

"Now I feel kinda inadequate." Spike piped up "I've been going on missions constantly ever since I became a Knight and thought I was doing pretty well, but your training is on a completely different level."

"There's no need for you to feel inadequate." Sunset said "The fact that you haven't been given that type of training yet just means that you haven't reached a bottleneck with your abilities yet." She nodded "You're still growing steadily, you don't need to be in a rush to do something like that."

"Ah... I understand."

After that, the Knights performed their last teleportation, and arrived at Marefloni, the city which was the closest to the region in which the magical disturbances had been detected, and which was also the place with the highest number of disappeared ponies.

This time, there was no need to keep the presence of Knights secret, but since there was a chance this was going to be a long mission, they still went to a hotel and reserved some rooms.

"So... What's the game plan?" Rainbow asked, once they were gathered in a single room for a meeting.

"The intel department has determined that the magical flashes came from several different locations, and they have pinpointed some of those locations." Sunset explained "We're going to split into two groups and check out those locations to try and find out whatever we can."

"If we're going to be split, wouldn't it be better to split more, so we can search faster?" Pinkie asked.

"No." Was Trixie's answer "That would help search faster, but it would increase the risks involved. And anyway, not everypony has the same level of perception abilities, so gathering into teams that are guaranteed to find something is better."

"Ah, I understand. So, who is gonna be with it team?" Pinkie asked.

"Team 1 is going to be me, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Spike." Trixie said "Team 2 is Sunset, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack."

"And the places we are going to visit are those..." Sunset said, pulling out a map with a few marked spots.

-0-

The first place team two visited was a cave excavated inside the earth. And it was easy to see that it wasn't a common place. There were remnants of pots, knifes and all sorts of small objects, but the most interesting thing were the remnants of a complex magical formation, which had been mostly erased, to the point where it was pretty much impossible to tell what had been its original purpose.

"Have you figured out anything?" Rainbow Dash asked Rarity and Applejack, after they explored the entire cave.

"There's some really deep malice in this place. Also, a sense of secrets. Ah think something was created here, but Ah don't know what it could be." Applejack answered.

"I have an idea." Rarity said with reluctance "And Applejack's opinion lines up with my thoughts... But I think it would be better to look at another one of those spots just to be sure."

"Well... Okay." Said Sunset, and then the four left the cave and teleported to their next destination.

This time, the spot they appeared in was a small and narrow valley, hidden from view by a forest that grew around it. And immediately things seemed familiar. There were also bits and pieces of small objects, as well as remnants of an erased magic formation. Once again Applejack and Rarity checked around with their own sensory abilities, and the results...

"It's the same thing. It's not exactly the same, but close enough that it doesn't matter." Applejack said.

"Indeed." Rarity said "Then I guess my idea was right."

She sighed. The other three waited for her to explain.

"What is being done is the powering up of artifacts." She sighed "It is an incredibly difficult ritual, mostly because you need to use a ridiculous amount of energy to make it work, but sometimes it is worth it for getting really powerful artifacts." She looked down "However, the worst part is that I can't think of any time in history where this ritual was utilized multiple times in a short period. The energy expenditure is simply too much.

"And since the other abnormality is the disappearance of many ponies..."

The other three Knights looked at Rarity in horror, as they understood what she was getting at.

It seemed like things were serious.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 56 - Search

The two groups of Knights reunited back at their hotel after having checked the sites (they were not attacked by anyone, nor had any other unforeseen incidents occurred) and they shared the information they had gathered. The eventual conclusion was that Rarity had been right about the artifact enhancing rituals.

"Which means there is one thing we can be certain about whoever is responsible for these incidents: One of them is a mage of great technical skill, because that kind of ritual is not something an average mage would be capable of doing." Trixie mentioned.

"Anything else we need to worry about?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Considering the ability of our enemy with magical rituals, we also need to be wary of the possibility that they may use some of those powered up artifacts as pieces for powerful rituals." Trixie said "So Trixie would suggest that we prepare all our anti-ritual tactics, just in case."

"And what are we going to do next?" Fluttershy asked.

This time, Sunset was the one who answered "Since we now have a relatively clear target, it's time for your empathic tracking to be useful again."

Fluttershy remembered the Shards of Chaos case and understood what the plan was. The next several minutes featured she and Pinkie Pie carefully drawing the magic circle to perform the empathy ritual ("fighting rituals with rituals!" Pinkie said), Twilight could have done it more easily, but the two were also knowledgeable enough to do this, specially Fluttershy, since she was the only truly essential part of the set up. A map of the nearby areas was also easily provided, with Rainbow Dash flying to a nearby library to request it.

Of course, the situation wasn't exactly the same as the last time. Searching for Artifacts was even more imprecise than searching for Shards of Chaos. Rarity was a specialist, so she used her impressions of Artifacts in general, and the impressions of the ritual sites in particular to serve as one of Fluttershy's supports for the ritual.

"And while some of them definitely were, not all of those artifacts were created using the simplified creation method, given that there are reports from over two months ago, so it won't help as much." Rarity said.

Trixie was the other support. She had her own impressions of the ritual sites from her research spells, which were added to by Applejack's own understandings, communicated via the Eyes of Truth.

Even with all those elements together, it would have been impossible to succeed were Fluttershy the same as she was during the last time she used the empathic search. However, even discounting her training, she was much stronger than at that time, and soon the magic succeeded.

"What exactly are we looking at?" Rainbow Dash asked, pointing to the several red dots of varying sizes and designs that had appeared on the map.

"Okay... We are dealing with twelve different Artifacts here." Fluttershy started explaining "Two of them are what I would classify as 'support artifacts'. They seen to have connections to every other Artifact, one of them having much stronger connections than any of the others. They also seem to have connections with the land itself, probably formation magic." She closed her eyes and concentrated "There is also one Artifact that 'rules' over the others. It has one-sided connections with every other Artifact and can draw power from them... And it can also resonate with the support Artifacts and every other one at once to use even more powerful formation magic... And they are all drawing large amounts of power from another source."

With every word Fluttershy spoke, every other Knight grew paler and paler, as they understood enough about artifacts and formations to know what kind of power could be brought to bear by that kind of setup.

"Artifact Formations... Clearly our current enemy doesn't think small." Rarity muttered.

"Then, considering the formations, Trixie believes we have two targets, which we'll have to tackle in order, given that one is blocking the way to the other." Trixie started to think of plans "The first are the defense formations, along with whatever resistance there is in that place, which will probably involve Artifact wielders. The second is the power source that we need to cut off. Considering the lack of information, a rigid plan wouldn't work well..." Trixie paused thoughtfully "As such, it would be better to set a number of goals, which we'll try to fulfill as it becomes convenient."

"It would definitely be better to destroy whatever Artifacts we can, whenever we can." Rarity said "Being able to reduce the power of their Artifact formations will certainly be great."

"Same thing goes with the formations." Sunset said "Using our means to destroy them would reduce the resources of our enemy. And if there is a chance to get through the defenses and cut off their power source, that would definitely be a priority."

"In this case..." Trixie was still thinking "Trixie expects that our best option for avoiding most of the possible plans of our enemy would be an alpha strike from a sufficient range, followed by a sweep with formation breaking attacks. After that we should act as needed."

They all agreed with the plan, so they started their final preparations before the mission.

-0-

To avoid complications, the place they teleported to was two kilometers away from the location of the enemy base, and they crossed another kilometer by walking, to stand in the best spot for their ranged attacks.

And they had a lot of time to prepare.

Applejack wasn't very good at ranged attacks, so she teamed up with Rarity and Trixie in their combination. The former was the center of the combination, using her ruler swords to create a multi-elemental attack, while Applejack added magic to aim at the weak spots and Trixie added an illusion to fool defensive measures.

Rainbow Dash condensed a harmonic tornado into a ball. Sunset created a mini-sun and started cramming more and more power into it.

Fluttershy used the Soul Offering spell to give part of her power to Pinkie, who created a super-chaotic sphere and charged it to the very limit of what the spell could handle.

And Spike cast the most powerful destruction spell he knew and enhanced it with Magic Charge.

"Triad Magic: Grand Elemental Missile!"

"Tornado Maelstron!"

"Great Sun Destruction!"

"Chaotic Strike!"

"Draconic Art: Magic Charge!"

The five attacks flew through the air and exploded into the barrier. Obviously the defense measures activated, but there were so many powerful attacks in such a short period of time that there was no way for the defenses to avoid being overwhelmed, and an immense explosion carved an opening in the formations.

The response to that didn't take long to show up. A monster that seemed to exude power burst from the ground and advanced towards the Knights.

It was a monster that would be considered pretty strange normally, but since the Knights all had ample experience with chaotic creatures, that particular monster didn't even make the top 30 of the weirdest they had ever seen.

It was a creature with a round body, three heads and three legs. The legs were nothing like pony legs, and their obvious flexibility put one to mind of tentacles. The heads had three eyes and a mouth, and each eye was tricolored. Each mouth had three big fangs among a multitude of smaller teeth. The heads were faintly reminiscent of pony heads, except their angles were sharper, making their faces look like triangles.

The body kept up the theme of threes. There were three sulcated lines running horizontally through it, and three triangular symbols acted as sort of tattoos on the flesh of the thing.

Rarity understood what that was instantly:

"An Artifact! An autonomous one!" She shouted to the others "It's connected to two more Artifacts!"

Every Knight there was well-versed enough in magic to understand the implications. Their enemy had apparently made the autonomous artifact create a monster based on the number three, to take advantage of the law of similarities with the triad of Artifacts.

And then the fight started. The monster jumped towards them, charging power in each of his mouths, and the Knights rearranged themselves, Spike, Sunset, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, who were the toughest, took the position of the vanguard, with Pinkie just behind them and the other three in the back.

The fight was complicated and hard to describe. The monster had a variety of ways of attacking, using blasting spells, spells to create other monsters (always in groups of three) as well as other, weirder effects (like a spell that reversed gravity briefly). And it also used its tough body to its advantage, swinging it around using the legs as pivot, and even using it to smash down.

And there was one factor that complicated things: The Knights were constantly aware of the possibility of being ambushed, and were deliberately holding back most of their power to prepare for any eventualities. Applejack in particular was even less focused on the fight, instead keeping watch of the area around to prevent any sneak attacks.

As such, the battle turned out to be surprisingly even. Trixie's constant illusions kept the monster confused, Sunset and Rainbow Dash attacked him unceasingly to force him to spend energy defending, Fluttershy had activated her old Manticore spirit and was doing hit and run, Pinkie Pie was keeping him off-balance by changing the terrain, Spike was using his dragon arms to block whatever attacks seemed dangerous, and Applejack was keeping an eye for any weak points they could use to wrap up the fight quickly.

It was tense, and concentration heavy, but the fight didn't really take a lot out of them given their experience and how much they were holding back. Specially because it took only thirty seconds for Applejack to find what she was looking for.

"Sunset!" She shouted, and the unicorn turned to look at her.

Applejack passed on the information she had gotten via her gaze and then returned to looking around. Sunset backed off a bit and started charging her magic. The other Knights stepped up their efforts to cover for her, and after a few seconds...

"Double Magic Enhance: Scarlet Missile!"

The spell Sunset shot was particularly restrained in regards to design, being a bullet shape of red energy, surrounded by white rings. It vibrated slightly as it flew through the air with deceptive slowness. It was a spell that had been made for a single purpose, and that was clearly demonstrated by the fact that, when it hit the monster, the spell drilled into its body without any issues.

The monster roared and exploded with energy to try and defend against the attack, but it was already far too late. The spell had been specifically designed to target the weaknesses in the body of the thing, caused by the fight and the imperfections in the artifact linking, and mercilessly cut through everything before hitting the core artifact and completely destroying it.

The monster roared once again, before breaking apart into innumerable motes of light... That formed a spell circle above the area.

"Hah!" Pinkie shouted, clapping her forehooves together.

She released a chaotic shockwave that completely destroyed the circle before it could activate. The Knights would not fall into a trap that easily.

But the enemy was even trickier than they had imagined.

An instant later, eight new ponies appeared on the battlefield. Seven of them appeared right beside the Knights with the exception of Spike, and another instant later, they had vanished again, taking the Knights with them.

Spike forcefully kept calm and considered things as he looked at the last new pony, a unicorn stallion with green coat and mane and who was carrying a cube Artifact using telekinesis.

He had been the only one not to be teleported away, presumably because the enemy had prepared for Twilight and not him, because that kind of forced transportation would be difficult to do without extremely defined parameters. That last enemy was probably the one who was supposed to teleport Twilight away, and presumably deal with her.

In that case, the best way he could help would be destroying the power source of the enemy, after getting through that opponent.

He raised his arms and prepared for battle.

-0-

Rainbow Dash looked at her opponent. He was an earth pony stallion with a red mane and yellow coat, with a leaf cutie mark. There was an Artifact shaped like a wheel floating in the air beside him.

They were currently in a closed space shaped like a plain. She knew she would have to defeat him in order to escape, which was complicated by the fact that his Artifact was apparently sealing off all weather magic, to the point where she couldn't even fly.

This was going to be troublesome.

-0-

Fluttershy looked at her opponent. She was a pegasus mare with a blue mane and gray coat, with a boat cutie mark. There was an Artifact shaped like a tower floating in the air beside her.

They were currently in a closed space shaped like a mountain. She knew she would have to defeat her in order to escape, which was complicated by the fact that her Artifact was apparently sealing off her empathy completely, making most of her abilities impossible to use.

This was going to be troublesome.

-0-

Pinkie Pie at her opponent. He was a pegasus stallion with an orange mane and black coat, with a quartzite cutie mark. There was an Artifact shaped like a trident floating in the air beside him.

They were currently in a closed space shaped like a desert. She knew she would have to defeat him in order to escape, which was complicated by the fact that his Artifact was apparently sealing off all chaos magic, to the point where even doing chaotic teleports was impossible.

This was going to be troublesome.

-0-

Rarity looked at her opponent. She was a unicorn mare with a pink mane and coat, with a lamp cutie mark. There was an Artifact shaped like a shield floating in the air beside her.

They were currently in a closed space shaped like a forest. She knew she would have to defeat her in order to escape, which was complicated by the fact that her Artifact was apparently sealing off her connection with her own Artifacts, making it impossible to use them.

This was going to be troublesome.

-0-

Applejack looked at her opponent. She was an earth pony mare with a green mane and lilac coat, with a door cutie mark. There was an Artifact shaped like a mandala floating in the air beside her.

They were currently in a closed space shaped like a frost plain. She knew she would have to defeat her in order to escape, which was complicated by the fact that her Artifact was apparently blocking off the sight of the Eyes of Truth, making it difficult for her to use any of her abilities.

This was going to be troublesome.

-0-

Trixie looked at her opponent. She was a pegasus mare with a blue mane and brown coat, with a ball cutie mark. There was an Artifact shaped like a horn floating in the air beside her.

They were currently in a closed space shaped like an empty city. She knew she would have to defeat her in order to escape, which was complicated by the fact that her Artifact was apparently preventing illusions from being formed, making most of Trixie's spells useless.

Thankfully, she was prepared for that sort of thing.

-0-

Sunset looked at her opponent. She was a unicorn mare with white mane and coat, with a flower cutie mark. There was an Artifact shaped like a mirror floating in the air beside her.

They were currently in a closed space shaped like a cave. She knew she would have to defeat her in order to escape, which was complicated by the fact that her Artifact was interfering with energy flow, making big spells difficult to form and Trance Mode impossible to activate.

Sunset grinned, this was going to be fun.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 57 - Unequal Fights

Fluttershy breathed deeply and started checking out what she could still do.

She still had access to all her power, which meant that the effects of the Artifact should be quite restricted by necessity, otherwise why wouldn't they seal her power as well?

Fluttershy then did a simple wind manipulation, to confirm that the weather magic was still unrestrained. It was, which meant that she had a good way to fight. It was definitely not her specialty, but she still knew enough about it.

All that was done in only a few instants, which was good, because the enemy wasn't interested in waiting, she flew at Fluttershy, her tower artifact releasing lasers from all sides, lasers that curved to aim at the Knight.

Fluttershy drew the water from the air and increased the amount with a spell, shaping it into a sphere around herself, by forcing the lasers away. Then she took on the offensive, flying at her opponent and shaping blasts of wind to hit her. The enemy blocked them by creating an energy shield via the tower.

And then the fight had moved into close range, and Fluttershy's attacks took on a much more melee approach, physically using the air and water she was controlling as a blunt instrument, while the enemy created several floating energy spikes and combined them with her tower to create a weapon of her own to contend with Fluttershy's.

Both of them were attacking fiercely, looking to cash in on any weakness of the opponent, but not the enemy was the first to change things up, releasing more lasers out of the tower in the middle of her attacks, to which Fluttershy responded by using another spell to increase the density of her water defense and block even those shots.

And she had surprises of her own. Just after defending, Fluttershy released a pulse of weather magic that flash-froze the bits of water she had cleverly made stick to the enemy, just before doing an all-out attack that the enemy failed to completely dodge, and ended up with a leg broken.

But just after that, the enemy revealed yet another attack, having combined multiple lasers into an extremely powerful move that shot at Fluttershy at high speed. The Knight crossed her forelegs and released another pulse of magic, this time flash freezing her own water shield, turning it into a thick ice defense.

The laser broke through the ice, but it had been weakened, and Fluttershy's aura protected her from heavy injuries. And also, her enemy wasn't the only one who could set things up in advance.

She was completely focused on the Knight, and had missed the charging lightning that had been created as a secondary effect of Fluttershy's most recent attack. And it shot directly at the unsuspecting enemy, with overwhelming power.

But just before she would be hit, the tower moved on its own and created a thick energy shield that managed to absorb most of the energy, with the enemy pegasus only receiving a medium shock.

'So, it's an automatic defense as well.' Fluttershy though 'Guess I'm going to have to act a little reckless...'

-0-

Pinkie Pie didn't need to think much to decide on how to fight. She had gone through a lot in order to develop her new ability, and this was the perfect time to use it. Besides, her Emotion Charge was very connected with her chaos magic, so it also couldn't be used.

"Shadow Duet..." She announced.

Her shadow popped out of the ground, turning solid and becoming a copy of her, made of shadow but just as physical. Then, the two ran toward the pegasus, their movements in a perfect cadence.

He really did seem to want a close range battle, because he made no move to get away or to fly into the sky, and his confidence was explained when he made a sweep with the spear, releasing a powerful shockwave that rammed into his two targets mercilessly.

They flinched, but proceeded to stomp on the ground, forcing earth pony magic into it to shape earth spikes that tried to gore the pegasus, who swept the spear once more to create a new shockwave to destroy the spikes, then both Pinkie and her shadow suddenly flash stepped forward, appearing right in front of the enemy and kicking at him in perfect harmony.

Spinning the spear, the pegasus released a short range shockwave to block the kicks, but the Pinkies seamlessly transitioned into a combination of physical attacks that aimed at radically different spots, this time channeling large amounts of magic on their hooves to get through the defenses.

The pegasus was forced to fly backwards to avoid their blows, but the Pinkies flash stepped right in front of him and continued their attacks, putting on pressure.

Knowing this wouldn't work as it was, the pegasus retreated upwards, quickly charging power with his spear for a much more powerful shockwave.

The Pinkies stomped the ground again and shaped the earth into a series of domes to shield themselves from the attack. And when the shockwave came, it was extremely destructive, tearing through the multiple layers of defense with overwhelming destruction.

But it did work, and the Pinkies only flinched a little before recovering and taking advantage of the cloud of dust to attack unexpectedly, jumping with excessive power to launch themselves at the flying pegasus.

Their kicks were fast and furious, and even a hasty defensive shockwave failed to completely block them, allowing the two to hit the pegasus with such strength that he spit out blood.

But he was still in the fight, and he spun the spear again to charge up a tremendous shockwave while they couldn't escape.

Except he hadn't counted on Pinkie and her shadow using each other as launch platforms to jump hundreds of meters away horizontally, completely dodging his massive attack.

And then the Pinkie's were attracted to each other like magnets, coming back at high speed to try and hit the enemy again.

The pegasus dived at the last moment, and Pinkie spun her shadow like a dance partner and threw her at him.

The fight was only getting fiercer.

-0-

Rarity sighed and returned three of her four Ruler Swords to her dimensional pocket, only keeping the Wind Ruler Sword out. It seemed like she wouldn't get to try the new tactics she had thought of just yet.

Still, she liked using swords, and even if she couldn't activate her Artifact, it still served as a pretty good sword, which was fitting to fight against an opponent who had a shield Artifact.

And the enemy mare also didn't seem interested in making the first move, so Rarity cast a spell to coat the sword in wind and flash stepped before slashing with her sword.

The attack was incredibly sudden and fierce, but the enemy was ready, and her shield released a pulse of power, creating a multitude of translucent energy shields that surrounded the Pink Mare from all sides.

Rarity's attack broke through several of the shields, but while they weren't very strong, they had been placed in clever positions and angles, bleeding off the energy of the sword much more efficiently than a straight defense would be capable of. And then some of them surrounded Rarity, and tried to fuse together to completely engulf her.

But Rarity wouldn't just let that sort of thing happen easily. She used a spell on the ground, creating earth spikes that destroyed most of the surrounding shields, and then a fire spell that she slashed through with her sword, releasing a powerful wave of fire at the enemy.

Again, the shield-wielding mare managed to block the attack with her multiple shields, and then revealed another facet of them, by shooting a light spell on one of them that was bounced between a large number of the shields as if they were mirrors and strengthened in the process, before coming straight at Rarity at supersonic speeds.

The attack pierced right through the unicorn... because it was only an illusion, Rarity having used the fire to block the opponent's view while she changed positions. And during the time that light attack was being used, Rarity was using multiple earth spells to create dozens of extremely dense spears.

Elemental magic (she had learned to create the artifacts), illusions (her teacher was Trixie), physical combat (she enjoyed it), teleportation (it was always useful). Rarity was definitely showing that she was far from helpless even without being able to use her Artifacts.

And there was still one more thing she was good at and hadn't used yet, though she was about to.

Telekinesis.

At the moment where the opponent realized that she had been fooled, Rarity was spreading her telekinesis outward into each of the dozens of spears. She grabbed them all and sent them to attack.

Most unicorns, even if they could lift that much, would only be able to throw the objects at the enemy, but Rarity had enough fine control to send the spears dodging in between the moving shields of the enemy.

Some of them were actually caught in the middle, but a dozen actually managed to get all the way through the defensive field.

For a moment, it seemed like that would be the end of it, but then the enemy roared and conjured an overpowered bubble shield around herself. Though even that wasn't quite enough to completely defend against Rarity's specially crafted projectiles. They managed to pierce into her flesh before being destroyed by a burst of magic, but the wounds were shallow.

Then, the enemy screamed in anger, and all the shields around her started spinning at high speed, and she started walking at Rarity, carrying the shields with her.

The Knight decided that this was probably dangerous.

-0-

Rainbow Dash sighed in annoyance as she looked at her wheel wielding opponent. Blocking off weather magic was a serious cramp in her style, specially now that she had trained in it for so long. She wondered what her teacher would suggest in this situation.

'Just break through them with overwhelming power!' Mental Sunset's voice spoke in her mind.

Well, she could do that, she guessed. And then Rainbow Dash focused, because the enemy was doing something.

His wheel spun in the air, creating a powerful hurricane that he then threw at Rainbow Dash.

The pegasus thought about Sunset, and all that she had talked about energy manipulation, and specifically the part about how it was very easy to accidentally blow yourself up due to not handling the unstable energies carefully enough.

'So, let's not be careful.' Rainbow Dash thought, and clapped her forehooves together while forcing high amounts of magical energy into each other.

The explosion was considerable, and managed to clear up the hurricane, but Rainbow Dash had to use every scrap of defensive power she could muster in order to not get more than scratches from it. (Sadly, she couldn't use EX-mode, because that involved weather magic to draw energy from the air) All in all, it was a good defense, but she needed to refine it if she wanted to use it to win the fight.

And while the enemy was startled by that attack, it had been too far away to actually harm him, so Rainbow Dash did something she wasn't really used to doing at all.

She started running.

She ran at the opponent, who quickly recovered from his surprise and made the wheel spin again, this time creating a huge sphere of water that he threw at Rarity before freezing it to become a dangerous projectile.

Rainbow Dash clapped again. This time doing the incredibly difficult task of manipulating the unstable energies mid-explosion to direct them forward instead of simply being a spherical expansion. The resulting explosion completely annihilated the ice sphere, and got near enough to the enemy that he had to create a barrier of wind to protect himself.

And Rainbow Dash was still getting closer.

So the enemy stallion did something unexpected. He got on a wind current and flew away.

"Hey! Get back here!" Dash shouted, increasing her speed to try and reach him.

It seemed like the enemy was determined to make this a long range battle.

-0-

Trixie quickly started casting spells.

She knew that one of the problems with the fame of the Knights was the fact that the enemies would know about their most frequent tactics and most used abilities, and would prepare for them. And so, it was common for the Knights to face situations in which their best abilities were sealed off. So, of course, being a Knight who had trained ever since childhood, Trixie had prepared for that sort of situation.

She checked exactly which were the mechanisms and limits of the illusion sealing, as well as which of her abilities were unaffected. This immediately presented her with a lot of options, and she took one of the relatively conservative ones to start with.

She was going to actually use her close combat style on a mission for the first time.

So Trixie cast a few shielding spells, a few spells to increase her physical capabilities, and most importantly, she cast a few analysis spells that were the true core of her strategy.

She was fast and decisive, so she had already finished with the most important stuff by the time the enemy pegasus attacked.

She charged and shot a powerful lightning bolt from the horn, but Trixie had already been moving as soon as he started. Before the enemy attack was even halfway there, Trixie had already cast a spell that disrupted the path the lightning was going to take, resulting in it going off course.

And then Trixie moved, running towards the mare for a moment before immediately switching up and teleporting right next to her with a punch going at her face.

The pegasus panicked and flapped her wings to move away, evading the punch but losing her balance. And Trixie capitalized on that by shooting a light spell that blinded her before moving in for another attack.

Realizing the danger, the enemy charged a lightning bolt with the horn Artifact and shot it into herself, before releasing from her body a quickly expanding sphere of magical lightning.

Such a thing was effective as a defense, but she didn't manage to harm Trixie, who had forced part of the ground up to create a shield and block the enemy attack. And she followed it by picking up one of the bits of rock that had been displaced by the explosion and shooting it at the pegasus at high speed.

Said enemy blocked the attack with a blast of wind, before flying straight at Trixie in an attempt at close combat.

But Trixie had been observing her closely, and she saw the change in the flow of the battle coming. Trixie moved slightly to the left and swung a hoof at the head of the approaching enemy, at the perfect angle to avoid the attack of the other.

The pegasus aborted her attack run and flew up, charging magic for a wind spell with the hoof, which Trixie was already moving to counter.

And even as the fight continued at fast pace, Trixie was already setting up her next strategies.

-0-

Sunset decided that this was the perfect moment for some banter:

"Oh, so you sealed away my Trance Mode?" She spoke mockingly "You didn't need to, I already sealed it away myself!"

And with that, Sunset used magic to boost her body and ran straight at the white unicorn.

It was true. Sunset had decided that the search for pure power wasn't really the path she should be walking. And to show her determination, and force herself to improve in other directions, the Knight had deliberately prevented herself from ever activating Trance Mode again.

The enemy didn't react to her charge, seemingly content with keeping her floating mirror interposed between the two of them, so Sunset was the first to attack. Big spells were problematic, right? So she used small spells.

A lot of them.

Sunset fired a veritable barrage of low-level attack spells, in such variety that one would be able to fill a textbook on those kinds of spells just by looking at what she was doing. Her rate of fire was insane, since each spell formula was very simple.

But while the opponent was surprised by that powerful attack, she reacted calmly, raising her shield Artifact and activating it to create a translucent barrier in front of herself. The spells hit that barrier and stopped, before the mirror emitted a pulse of magic, and made those spells fly back at Sunset.

But the Knight didn't even flinch.

"So that's your gimmick, huh? Guess I'll have to step things up a notch!" She said.

And then she increased her rate of fire even further, blocking her reflected spells with more magic, and even still attacking the opponent. And that wasn't even the main point.

When the enemy was about to reflect this new round of attacks, three of the spells Sunset had fired suddenly fell down and hit the ground.

The shockwaves made the ground shake, and it distracted the enemy, making her only able to deflect Sunset's spells instead of reflecting them, but the worst part was yet to come. The magic channeled itself through the earth and created spikes right under the opponent.

But the fight wasn't destined to end so quickly, and just before the enemy was pierced, her mirror Artifact glowed along with her body, and the spikes were destroyed.

Sunset followed up by releasing yet another wave of small attacks, before immediately teleporting to the opposite side of the opponent and doing the same thing to attack from two different directions.

Really, not being able to use big spells barely slowed her down at all.

-0-

Applejack focused on her earth magic. She didn't have the artifact armor made by Rarity that made it easier to use it, but she had long since grown out of needing it to do impressive things. It would be nice to have it, but Applejack was still a fairly impressive geomancer just with her natural capacities.

So, she decided to be the first one to attack, doing a probing strike to discern the enemy capabilities, since her ability to collect information from them had been reduced due to the blocking of her visual abilities.

She created a catapult made entirely out of earth, and used it to send a heavy rock hurtling straight towards the enemy.

Her response to that was... unusual. She activated her mandala artifact and manipulated space itself, forcing the rock to land far away from her. And then she followed up by sending a line of energy towards Applejack, who dodged it, and the line proceeded to split the battlefield into two parts, one of which (the part Applejack was standing on) being forcefully twisted upwards in defiance of gravity.

And then the true battle started. Applejack kept jumping from foothold to foothold, trying to get closer to the opponent while also throwing more and more rocks at her. The enemy, on the other hand, kept warping space more and more, creating eye twisting patterns of earth formations with strange gravity, and Applejack knew that if she were hit by one of those lines of magic she would be split apart, so she had to keep adapting to the increasingly weirder space around, to be able to move and dodge.

And the situation kept becoming ever more untenable for her, specially when the enemy started duplicating spaces, which was more or less an illusion, but allowed her to send double the amount of lines of magic, each one traveling on its own unpredictable path, forcing Applejack to focus on even more things at once.

But then something changed. And the enemy gasped and was forced to abort her latest attack and move her mandala to protect her face from a rock that had managed to move through an improbable spatial path and end up directly on top of the opponent.

Applejack smiled. What she had done hadn't been something like analyzing the patterns of how the spatial distortions worked in order to figure out the optimal path. That kind of thing was more the specialty of Rarity or Trixie. Instead, she had simply kept watching the opponent.

She observed her reaction to each of Applejack's positions and each of her launch attempts, until the point where Applejack managed to determine what was the perfect position to throw the rock based entirely on the enemy's expression.

After all, just losing the Eyes of Truth didn't mean that Applejack couldn't see the truth.

But even with her newfound advantage, Applejack kept cautious, she was sure the enemy still had some cards left.

-0-

Spike didn't hold anything back, knowing that time could be of the essence.

"Draconic Aura: Full Dragon!" He shouted, and his magic exploded.

This was the ultimate form of the first ability he had developed for himself, and there were a lot of emotions bound up on that skill. The origin of that ability were Spike's dreams for the future, knowing that he would be a powerful dragon but not willing to wait and let others fight in his place until then.

His complete form included the arms and wings of the dragon he had used before, except that this time they were much more solid and less translucent, making it almost impossible to see Spike on the inside of the form. The rest of his body was appropriately big and impressive, with scales that resembled armor and a head with a crest like a crown.

And with a step and a flap of his wings, he dashed forward at the opponent.

The unicorn clearly wasn't ready to face down a huge dragon, so he panicked, but still managed to activate his Artifact, creating several layers of barriers in Spike's path.

The Knight forcefully broke through those barriers, but was slowed down by then, and wondered if this was something designed for Twilight. The barriers were made by "hardening air", in a way that worked through the principles of order, which meant that thing could potentially counter chaos.

Still, that was only an idle thought, and Spike focused on trying to defeat the opponent, who had used the time gained with the barriers in order to create an earth construct in the shape of a giant minotaur soldier, which he set upon Spike.

Spike punched at the thing, but it was resilient enough to take the blow, and retaliated by using it's sword to try and slash Spike apart. However, the dragon was also very resilient, specially in that form, so he was barely scratched. But Spike noticed that the enemy was already animating more earth constructs, so he should finish things off fast if he didn't want to get overwhelmed.

So he decided to kill two birds with one stone (though Fluttershy would protest the metaphor), and grabbed onto the earth minotaur with both hands.

"Dragon Magic..." He intoned "Great Shockwave!"

And he spit out a powerful spell directly into the chest of the construct. It was a pure destructive shockwave, and the minotaur was barely managing to keep itself together once it ended.

And then Spike did the second part of the plan.

Using his titanic strength, he picked up the construct and raised it into the air for a moment before slamming it into the ground, breaking it into pieces.

It was like an avalanche. Immense pieces of rock jumped in all directions, and even though the enemy tried to create barriers and send his unfinished constructs to protect him, it was still not enough, and he ended up being hit and rendered unconscious.

Spike proceeded to pick up the cube he had dropped and break it, before running in the direction of the base, preparing for any possible defenses.

But even more than that, Spike was worried about the unaccounted for Artifact. There was the autonomous one, the two supporting artifacts, and eight artifacts for the enemies. That added up to only eleven.

Where was the twelfth Artifact, and what was its purpose?

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 58 - Unequal Victories

Fluttershy spared a moment to think that this wasn't really the way she liked to fight, but at that moment, she did not have the luxury of choosing her methods.

So she channeled Rainbow Dash and decided to attack with overwhelming power and momentum.

Fluttershy flapped her wings and spun her forehooves at the same time, creating a mini hurricane around herself to fly forward at extremely high speeds (unless you were Rainbow Dash, in which case it would merely count as "not slow").

The enemy's response to that was again releasing a multitude of lasers from her artifact and shooting them at Fluttershy. But the Knight already understood the strength of those lasers, so with a twist of weather magic, she covered herself in a coating of hyper dense water, which blocked enough of the power of the lasers that Fluttershy only got scratched.

And then she was on top of the enemy, and the battle once more became very hard to follow.

Fluttershy flew around like a hummingbird, aided by her personal hurricane, and she attacked from all angles using every weather magic attack one could think of. She threw lightning like it was candy, formed spikes and hard balls of ice to attack, and even managed to make cutting winds.

The enemy was put on the backstep, having to use her artifact more actively for defense, blocking most of the attacks with directed lasers and letting the automatic defenses handle those that got through. But the pegasus obviously knew that she couldn't let herself keep being overwhelmed like this, so she slowly charged the magic of her artifact while she kept up her defense.

And then she revealed a new trick.

Forcing all the stored energy into a single point, she created a laser blade at the end of her artifact at the same time as she was swinging it.

Fluttershy was too committed to her attacks to dodge, and she felt extreme danger from that attack, so she erupted with power once more, focusing every bit of strength she could muster into the aura defense of her right forehoof, using it to block the blade.

The exceedingly dangerous attack still managed to score a deep cut on Fluttershy's hoof, but it was indeed blocked, and it had taken a lot of power to do so, causing Fluttershy's stream of attacks to stop.

The enemy pegasus took advantage of that by releasing a counter attack, a stream of lasers that Fluttershy easily blocked with more water, but that bought enough time for the enemy to ride her tower and fly away at high speed, and she was also charging energy for more extra powerful laser attacks.

Fluttershy flew after her, and when the enemy started shooting her barrier breaking laser attacks, Fluttershy recklessly spread weather magic in the air, forcing wind and water to push her around and dodge the extremely power shots. One, two, three and Fluttershy caught her.

Then she smiled and shifted her own weather magic in a specific way, drawing all the magical energy that had been charged in the air through the battle towards herself. And it all came in the most efficient manner possible, as lightning bolts.

At that point, both Fluttershy and her opponent were hit by the magical equivalent of twenty lightning bolts, all at once.

After an instant that felt like an eternity, Fluttershy opened her eyes and smiled. She was feeling pain all over her body, but her enemy was unconscious. The tower artifact had been destroyed trying to block all that power, and the remaining energy was still enough to win the battle. Fluttershy's amazing resilience had won the day.

However, she never saw the spell coming from behind.

-0-

Pinkie's opponent knew that he was at a disadvantage, so he decided to change things up. Charging even more magic into his spear, he dove at the ground and managed to plunge right into it like it was liquid, thanks to the magic of his artifact.

Sensing danger, shadow Pinkie drew the other Pinkie to her, and the two of them charged their magic to prepare for anything while falling the last few meters to the ground.

And it was an appropriate response, as the enemy pegasus released a powerful shockwave from his place beneath the ground, causing an eruption of rock to fly into the sky like a volcanic eruption composed completely of solids.

Adapting at the last moment, Pinkie fused with her shadow, creating an aura of dark power around herself, and then she punched through the numerous heavy projectiles with powerful blows, but this time it was the enemy who had used the lack of visibility as an advantage, and in a near plagiarization of Pinkie's earlier attack, the pegasus flew up at high speed and swung the spear into Pinkie, hitting her with a shockwave.

The Knight had managed to focus her defensive strength at the last moment to receive the blow, but the attack was still strong enough to send her flying into the ground at high speed, and it even canceled out her shadow fusion.

Still, Pinkie didn't stay stunned for more than a moment before charging magic into her shadow again, making it sink into the ground and starting shooting earth spikes at the enemy at high speed.

He blocked them with sweeps of his spear, but Pinkie took advantage of his distraction to jump straight at him again.

She hit him with two punches, one in the chest, making him spit blood again, and the second at the base of his wings, foiling his flight.

The two fell down from the sky in a twisting tumble, Pinkie continually attacking to prevent the enemy from escaping, while he kept using short range shockwaves to block her punches and try to dislodge her from him.

The two hit the ground and rolled, and the pegasus blindly stabbed with his spear... piercing right through Pinkie's chest.

She gasped... and then reached forward and grabbed his shoulders. And smiled.

"Psyche!"

Before the pegasus could understand what she meant, the situation had changed. Now he was stabbing shadow Pinkie, while the real Pinkie was lying flattened in the ground like a real shadow. And an instant after that, the situation changed again, and this time the pegasus was stabbing the ground, uselessly piercing the shadow, while the real Pinkie was grabbing him.

It seemed like Pinkie didn't need chaos magic to do weird things. Shadow Switch was definitely a bizarre ability.

"Nighty-night..." Pinkie whispered, rearing her head back.

And then she headbutted the opponent with skull-cracking force.

He fell to the ground unconscious, and Pinkie felt her chaos magic come back as his artifact deactivated. She charged magic in a punch and destroyed the spear, before jumping away at full strength as the Pinkie Sense warned her of 'DANGER!'.

But it was still not enough, as the powerful spell covered too much area for her to escape.

-0-

Rarity reassessed her situation as she used another flash step to open up the distance between herself and her opponent. She used a few carefully controlled thrown darts to sneak through the moving shields, only to learn that the enemy was hiding herself behind a powerful barrier of invisible shields that could not be used for offense, but were so resilient that no ordinary attacks could break through. And considering that ease that attack was having in destroying the forest, it would be dangerous to be hit by it.

Rarity thought of two plans that she could use to be able to win the fight. One of them safe, the other dangerous. She decided to try the safe plan first, and try the dangerous one if it didn't work.

Of course, the safe plan was rendered much less safe when the enemy realized that she needed some ranged attacks or Rarity would simply continue maintaining her distance, and she subsequently started shooting razor sharp bits of shield at high speeds in the direction of the Knight.

Rarity used a spell to create a water shield in front of her. It was only enough to slow down the attacks, not stop them, but it was enough to allow her to block them with her sword. Rarity kept moving to keep her distance from the enemy and still maintained her water shield in between the two.

At the same time, she was preparing her attack. She was currently doing a lot of things at once (using the water shield, controlling her sword, doing her flash steps) but the part that caused the most strain was still the attack. It was like a much improved version of her multiple special projectiles attack, in which she was still creating dense earth spears and shooting them at the opponent, but there was one part that was different: She wanted to have all the spears hit the same point.

Obviously, that took a lot of calculations based on how the enemy's shields were spinning and how much she could alter their routes, as well as her possible movements, but Rarity was capable of doing that. It just took a while.

"True Hit." She spoke quietly as she finished the complex spell formula and sent the two dozen stone spears flying.

The enemy immediately understood the danger of those spears, so she stopped attacking in favor of focusing fully on defense, but Rarity's spell had been well-made, and the spears nimbly dodged the moving shields and started to stab in a place above the mare's shoulder. One by one they started reaching the target, and the constant hits were weakening that spot on the shield enough that soon they would be able to pierce it.

But then the enemy roared and brought many of her moving shields back towards her body, interposing them between the spears and the weakened part of the shield.

Rarity sighed 'Dangerous plan it is, then. Dash would probably be happy."

And she put it into action before the enemy could regain her balance. Flash stepping close to the area of the shields, Rarity used a spell to create a cloud of dust that completely covered both fighters, blocking off all sight, and then she dived in. The dangerous plan was of course, a direct attack from close range.

Without being able to see, the opponent was forced to spin her shields randomly to try and get Rarity, but the Knight had an overwhelming advantage: She was telekinetically holding every single bit of dust in the area, effectively giving herself a perfect sense of everything around the space. The initial shields were dodged, and when she got closer, she had to parry a few of them as the close defense of the enemy was dense, but she got through.

And then she slammed her sword into the opponent with all the telekinetic strength she could muster, which was quite a lot.

Her personal shield broke under the blow, and the enemy was sent flying, obviously unconscious.

Feeling her connection with the artifacts return, Rarity caught the enemy artifact with her telekinesis and destroyed it with a powerful wind slash.

She barely had time to feel victorious over it before a spell hit her in turn.

-0-

Rainbow Dash was getting more and more annoyed. The opponent was being extremely careful to stay out of her reach, even as she refined her control of the explosions to go further and further.

And the worst part was, she wasn't even successful on trying to bring the opponent fully into the defensive, as even as he kept his distance, the stallion was still sending showers of ice spikes, lightning, and other weather magic attacks to try and harm Dash, which forced her to divide part of her efforts to counter those new attacks.

Eventually, the Knight had an idea. She created a much smaller explosion at her hooves, using the shockwave to propel herself in the direction of the enemy. She gritted her teeth as the shockwave definitely did not leave her unscathed, but she could handle it.

With repeating shockwaves, Rainbow got into range before the opponent could react, and launched a particularly powerful explosion at the pegasus.

Panicking, he activated his wheel artifact and created an immense hurricane. It only managed to block the explosion ofr an instant, but the strength of the winds launched the enemy away at high enough speed that he managed to avoid the attack.

Rainbow Dash went back to propelling herself through explosions, but at that time she had refined her technique enough to not cause much damage to herself. However, the enemy wouldn't let her repeat her plan so easily, and he began to use his artifact to create gale force winds to increase his speed enough to keep out of Rainbow's reach.

And thus, balance had been restored to their fight, as a cat and mouse game at speeds approaching the speed of sound, in which explosions and extremely powerful winds were turned from weapons into simple forms of propulsion, though the word simple was perhaps inappropriate, considering that both fighters were actually having to do very technical things to use such extreme measures to move.

However, one thing had changed. The enemy pegasus was now too swamped with having to control his own running away to be able to counter attack, which meant that Rainbow Dash was free to set the pace of the fight. And realizing that simply going after him wasn't working, the Knight changed tactics.

Creating another powerful explosion, Dash directed it at the ground and controlled it so that, when it hit, a veritable eruption of rocks exploded from it, scattering high-velocity shards across the entire sky.

The stallion stopped, and he created a powerful shield of wind in all directions to defend himself. And it worked... Until a gigantic hoof made of earth appeared at hit him with overwhelming impact.

Rainbow Dash felt her powers returning 'Earth pony magic really is useful', she thought.

The Knight had dived through the storm of shards and used the enemy's confusion to end the battle by channeling some earth magic.

Dash then flew to the opponent and destroyed the wheel artifact. She barely had time to feel proud about the fact before being hit by a spell.

-0-

Having gotten a measure of her opponent in direct combat, Trixie decided to change tactics. She teleported behind one of the buildings and immediately started casting several "trap" spells, at the same time observing the opponent to figure out her capabilities in that sort of situation.

The enemy pegasus seemed to be able to see through the building, and she simply flew over it to attack Trixie. The trap spells activated, attacking her with a variety of offensive spells, but Trixie had not had time to set up any truly powerful traps, and the pegasus managed to barrel through the attacks without much issue.

Trixie teleported again, farther away this time, and resumed creating trap spells, but the opponent also reacted faster, and flew with great speed towards Trixie's location. She crashed through the traps again, only to get surprised as Trixie had disappeared.

In the moment the opponent was distracted by the traps, Trixie had teleported precisely behind her, and drove a hoof straight to the back of her head.

But the opponent was tough, and that wasn't enough to render her unconscious. But before the pegasus could counter attack, Trixie had already teleported away. And a moment later, a trap she had deliberately not activated suddenly came to life, exploding and taking the pegasus' attention for a moment.

Then she opened her eyes and immediately moved forward, going in Trixie's direction, and instead of flying over the building in the way, she actually plowed right through it, using the magic of her artifact to enhance her movement. Accelerating to her highest speeds, she attacked Trixie before the Knight could teleport away again.

And her hoof simply passed straight through the unicorn, like she was an illusion.

It wasn't actually an illusion of course, at least not in the magical sense. Trixie had simply created a construct in her image to use as bait, and teleported in the opposite direction, since she had noticed the pegasus could not see behind herself.

It turns out that those that are certain of their immunity to illusions are actually easier to trick. Or at least, that was what Trixie was thinking as she again teleported right above the pegasus preparing a punch, but this time she had reinforced her hoof with powerful impact spells.

The blow knocked out the pegasus and drove her into the ground with enough force to leave a (small) crater.

Trixie then cast a spell to destroy the horn artifact (she had spells like it prepared ever since she knew artifacts would be involved). And then she shouted:

"Overdrive!" And exploded with power.

She had predicted the trap, and even predicted that it would come just after her victory, at her most vulnerable point, but it was still not enough to avoid the trap completely, so she had made a choice.

With dozens of possible spells running through her mind, Trixie looked at the gigantic spell light bearing down on her. At the last moment, she realized what sort of magic it was, and decided that the best option would be to ignore defense completely.

She wouldn't die anyway, so it was best to attack the enemy.

"Perfect Illusion: Restraint Effect!" She cast, and aimed the attack at the enemy who was attacking her.

Just after that, the spell hit her, and Trixie blacked out hoping this would be enough to help the others.

-0-

Sunset had a great sense for fighting, and she proved that when the opponent suddenly changed her tactics.

The white unicorn activated her artifact, creating dozens of small mirrors all around herself that absorbed all the attack spells Sunset had been shooting. Then she made the mirrors fuse together into a big mirror, which subsequently shot a powerful sphere of magic made of the combined spells.

Sunset responded by casting an attack spell that was particularly restrained by her standards. Using a thin needle of magic to attack a precise spot at that sphere.

Simply jamming a bunch of spells together wasn't really a high-level technique. That was because while powerful, the resulting energy mix was very unstable and difficult to control, and Sunset's spell targeted that precise weakness. The needle disrupted the balance of the sphere and caused it to detonate prematurely, completely negating whatever threat it could have been against her.

And she didn't stop there, sending a wave of attacks straight through the explosion to take advantage of any possible weakness the enemy might show after her attack. And it seemed like that had been a good call, because the opponent was forced to block the attacks instead of reflecting or deflecting them.

So Sunset didn't let up. She teleported close to the opponent and started a combined barrage of close range attack spells and melee combat with her enhanced strength.

The enemy was blocking or deflecting them, but she was quickly being overwhelmed by Sunset's relentless attacks, so to escape, she herself used a teleportation spell.

However, that had been a mistake. Sunset was used to dealing with opponents who could teleport.

As soon as she felt the spatial disturbance start, Sunset grinned. She quickly cast a very special spell, and managed to have it complete by the time the white unicorn vanished in the air.

It was just in time. The magic she had cast followed the enemy through the spatial zone, gaining power from it. It wasn't a complex spell, and in fact, the only thing it could do was destabilize and explode.

But that was enough, as soon as the teleport ended, the change in conditions caused the magic to do exactly what it was meant to do... Right on top of the enemy.

Sunset teleported to the sound of the explosion and wasn't surprised to see the enemy unconscious. Her powers were back, and she quickly destroyed the shield before turning around to look at the immense spell light coming in her direction.

She had been suspicious of something like that ever since the teleport to this area, but this was confirmation. That left just one thing to decide: What would she do about it?

She could tell that it wasn't an attack spell, so Sunset really had just one possible answer: She would counter-attack.

"Overdrive!" She shouted, exploding with power.

She cast the biggest spell she was able to in the time remaining.

"Triple Magic Enhance: Foe Seeking Blast!" She shouted.

Her spell was a powerful blast that would follow the spell light right to it's source and attack. Sunset was then hit by the enemy spell and fell unconscious.

-0-

Spike quickly flew forward, and perhaps inevitably, the terrain in front of him lit up as the defensive formations activated.

Since those formations were not only being powered by the magic from the environment, but also supported by two artifacts, the defensive measures they were able to use were definitely beyond normal.

Magical chains manifested themselves and tried to restrain Spike. Blasts of heat and cold magic alternated themselves, taking advantage of thermal shock. Barriers of earth erected themselves to block his path. And he was also being blasted by too many different types of spells to bother to name.

Such a powerful magical assault was definitely capable of getting through even Spike's significant defensive power, but of course, he wasn't just going to let himself be pounded into defeat.

A lot of Spike's training had been practical. That was partially because that was simply the best way to bring up his power quickly, but mostly because as a dragon, such methods were the best suited for his training.

As such, being attacked in such a manner actually brought forth feelings familiarity from within Spike, oddly enough. He knew what to do in such situations.

Casting his own protection spells, breaking enemy spells with his own attacks, feeling the flow of energy to avoid the most powerful threats and seek the weak points in the defensive formation. But most of all, he knew how to protect himself, defending his vulnerable areas and keeping himself uninjured.

He focused wholly on those tasks, and time itself seemed to lose all meaning as he simply kept up the flow of his actions at the same time as he focused completely into trying to figure out the location of the artifacts.

He had a plan to get through this fast.

Spike himself wouldn't have been able to say how long it took, but he finally managed to pinpoint the locations of both artifacts. And since they were both connected to the defense formation, why not blown all three up at the same time?

"Dragon Magic: Channel Strike!"

And that was what he did. Channel Strike was magic based on the idea of gifting power to others, except that instead of making the power more stable and harmonic to allow others to use, Spike purposely made the power as wild and destructive as he could.

The channeled power crossed through the lines of the formation, being attracted by the artifacts Spike had pinpointed, and the whole thing turned into a terrifying chain reaction as it reacted with the immense amount of power it was already channeling, causing what Sunset would euphemistically call a "complete linear energy breakdown".

Spike removed his arms from where they were protecting his eyes and looked around, seeing that the whole place had become a crater.

He spared a moment to check himself for any extra injuries or lack of strength, but even the two continuous fight hadn't taken enough out of him to worry about. So he quickly started flying towards the point where the source of magic should be. It didn't take long for him to get there.

And then he saw something horrifying.

Dozens, perhaps even hundreds of ponies, from foals to old age ones, both male and female, of every color you could imagine. They were all trapped in a gigantic cage.

And none of them had cutie marks.

-0-

Applejack's worries were soon confirmed when the opponent activated her mandala artifact again and space itself started... breaking apart.

It was even harder to follow than the previous space manipulation. Applejack felt like her mind would be hurting if she still had the Eyes of Truth working and could see exactly what was going on. Points of void started appearing everywhere in the surrounding space, and they started expanding and connecting together, separating the space into several "rooms" that were constantly shrinking.

'So it's like this, huh?' Applejack through, moving as far away from the shrinking parts as she was able to.

Despite how bad the situation seemed, she was actually relaxed. She understood very well why the enemy had not simply done something like that from the start, and how she could exploit that fact.

It would be embarrassing if she didn't, considering her fellow apprentice was Rarity, whose specialty was artifacts.

It was obvious that the mandala hadn't been made for such a thing. Looking closely, Applejack could see a few scratches appearing in the material, and feel how the magic flow was going berserk. The fact that this had been an "ordinary" artifact that had been ritually enhanced did it no favors either.

But of course, the enemy understood that, and she knew that she could deal with Applejack before the artifact broke completely.

In normal circumstances, at least.

So Applejack decided to help it along. She felt the flow of magic of the surrounding space and charged her own magic before pouring it into the void space, disturbing it even further. For a moment, it seemed like every piece of void was actually eating itself at the same time.

And the artifact could take no more, and exploded.

The space proceeded to return to normal, as Applejack's Eyes of Truth returned. She quickly Space Stepped right next to the shocked enemy mare and punched her out.

Then jumped.

Her Eyes of Truth had seen the truth of that whole place, and it was a trap about to go off.

Feeling the spell light coming, and knowing that the jump wouldn't be enough to escape, Applejack charged her magic and jumped again from the air.

And she charged worrying amounts of magic into her right forehoof and punched with it.

"Truth Seeking Blow: Boundary Break!"

Applejack smashed through the walls of the subdimension, escaping beyond the limits of the spell light.

She landed in the ground and turned around to see the true enemy.

She was a unicorn mare. Her coat was pinkish lilac and her mane was part purple and part aquamarine, and she had a cutie mark that resembled a falling star.

However, the most concerning thing was the globe that was floating beside her. It was shaped like the world, but it was translucent enough that anypony could see inside it.

It was carrying hundreds of cutie marks.

"Interesting." She said, in an even voice "You are the only one who managed to escape my trap." She narrowed her eyes "It seems I'll have to deal with you personally."

Her horn shone, and Applejack immediately space stepped away fifteen whole kilometers. Trying to fight that enemy directly would be pointless. Applejack had just needed a single look to tell that she was covered in more protection spells that Canterlot castle. She was also directly connected with the dragon lines of the land via the formation, not to mention the immense amount of power she should be able to call from all those cutie marks.

And yet, despite Applejack's prompt actions, it was not enough. Starlight Glimmer (for that was the name of the mare) managed to charge an amount of magic even Sunset would consider respectable in an instant, and she channeled the spell through the land itself, homing on Applejack with extreme speed.

The Knight was hit by the spell and she was suddenly back before the enemy.

'Conceptual magnet spell.' She thought 'No matter where Ah go, Ah'll be pulled back here. It would take too long ta break it.'

And then Applejack used a flash step to dodge the barrage of spell lights the unicorn was shooting towards her. She had to remain close to Starlight, but she could still move around a bit, and a single look was enough to tell that she didn't want to be hit by it.

'Destiny stealing magic. This isn't good.' Applejack's thoughts whirled as she sought any way she could possibly deal with the situation.

And yet, things hadn't gotten as bad as they could.

Starlight's globe shone, and it started shooting powerful spells like they were rain. Manipulating earth and wind to cripple Applejack's mobility, launching flames to block away paths of escape, and creating constructs of all sorts of forms that tried to attack the Knight. Even with her Eyes of Truth, she wouldn't be able to remain unscathed for long, and if she were hit even once, there would be no way for her to avoid having her cutie mark stolen.

Despite understanding all that perfectly, Applejack did not despair. She was the holder of the Eyes of Truth, so she would not turn away from the truth. She was a Knight of the Realm, so she would never give up. And even as she did her best to keep going for even a few seconds more, Applejack thought of something she could do.

She remembered the last time she had been in such a dangerous situation, in the battle against Flames of Annihilation. How, at that last moment, she had managed to get a glimpse of a way to win.

'Could Ah do that again?' She asked herself, and the answer was yes.

It wouldn't be easy, but her training had not been for nothing. She would turn that miracle into something she could replicate, she was going to look into the future.

Her thoughts clear, Applejack jumped into the destiny stealing magic.

At the very moment the magic was affecting her, and her fate was sealed, Applejack pushed her Eyes of Truth to the limit.

If she didn't go at least that far, there would be no way for her to see the path to victory.

Applejack fell down to the ground and had to struggle to remain conscious. She had never felt so weak in her life. She didn't feel any of her magic anymore, and that was even worse after how much stronger she had become ever since choosing the path of the Knight.

But she couldn't collapse yet, she needed to do one last thing.

She reached inside her own mouth and took out a very special scrap of paper. It was a way for the Knights to send messages to Celestia no matter the condition they were in. She focused on the paper and a word appeared on it, before the paper vanished to go towards Celestia, allowing Applejack to finally fall unconscious. That word was...

'Crusaders'.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 59 - Crusaders and Spike

Celestia looked over the trio of fillies that she was about to send into the battlefield and couldn't help but remember ten years before, when she had accepted three filly unicorns as apprentices. The circumstances were different this time, but the memory remained.

"Crusaders, are you ready for your first mission? Ready for the chance to become Knights?" She asked the three.

They looked at each other, perhaps searching for something, then turned their gazes back on Celestia and nodded.

"We're ready." Applebloom spoke for the three of them.

"In that case..." Celestia's voice adopted a more serious tone "The situation is as follows: Of the eight Knights I have sent in this mission, seven of them have already been disabled, at least according to the amulets that track their states. The only one who is still fighting is Spike." She sighed before continuing "I am currently unable to establish a connection for communication with any of them, including Spike. But the special message delivering system still works, and Applejack used it to ask for you. Specifically, her message was the word 'Crusaders'. I wouldn't usually send you into such an uncertain situation without backup, but I trust the judgement of my Knights."

"Understood." Scootaloo saluted "So we need to go there and fight alongside Spike to deal with whatever problem it is?"

"Exactly." Celestia nodded.

-0-

Starlight Glimmer was feeling an emotion that she enjoyed very much. That emotion was satisfaction.

Her apprentices had all lost, despite how much the battles were stacked in their favor, and how powerful their artifacts were, but that barely qualified as an inconvenience in her opinion. They had been useful to exhaust the Knights to allow her to steal their cutie marks more easily. They had served their function, as that was all Starlight really cared about.

However, it wasn't to say that everything had gone absolutely flawless. Knight Twilight Sparkle hadn't appeared, so there was one loose end she still had to tie up. But most importantly, both Knights Sunset and Trixie had detected the traps, and instead of trying to break out (an almost foolish endeavour, the fact that Knight Applejack proved capable of it was pretty much a miracle) they instead counter-attacked, and Starlight Glimmer didn't have many preparations for such a scenario.

The incredible amount of power she was capable of harnessing due to both her artifact having so many cutie marks and her connection with the dragon lines via magical formation meant that any ordinary attacks would be unable to even scratch her, but of course, the Knights had done the complete opposite of using ordinary attacks.

The spells they used were downright vicious, and pretty much impossible to dodge because they created a connection based on the very cutie mark stealing spell Starlight was using on them, creating a path straight to her. With that, and because she had used a lot of power to make her own spell undodgeable and unblockable, Starlight couldn't really deal with their spells easily. And even though she knew Trixie could do something like that (because Sunset did it before it was Trixie's turn) the Knight's spell was tricky enough to get through the hasty counter measures she had thought of.

The only option Starlight had was using massive amounts of power to conceptually "freeze" the spells in place. After everything was done, she would be able to slowly break them over time, but for now they would be a constant bother.

She was thinking that she would only have to wait for the magical formation to deal with the dragon before she could go and pick up her disciples to leave. But those plans were derailed pretty much immediately.

Starlight got shocked when she felt a terrifying magic shockwave sweep through the entire area. The magical formation she was connected to was completely destroyed, and the magical backlash felt like her organs were being scrambled.

"That... That dragon destroyed my formation...?" She spoke incredulously.

And the magical backlash wasn't the only problem Starlight had to deal with. With one less source of power, it was suddenly a lot harder for her to keep "frozen" the spells of the Knights. She focused on making the necessary adjustments to handle the new magical strain, but inwardly she was also declaring revenge on the dragon Knight.

-0-

Spike forced himself to remain calm and analyze the situation.

Apparently, the source of power of all those artifacts was these ponies. These ponies that were currently cutie markless. That meant Spike couldn't simply "destroy the power source". Perhaps it would be possible to prevent the enemies from receiving that energy, but that would require the help of the other Knights, because he wasn't really specialized for that kind of thing.

And that was as far as Spike's thoughts went, because he suddenly felt the distinctive space shifting of a teleportation spell near him, and turned to face whoever was coming.

This was proven to be a wise decision when the arrival, a unicorn who had stopped in the air via levitation, immediately shot an overpowered spell shaped like an energy drill at Spike.

He crossed his arms in defense, and the ridiculously powerful attack pushed him back hundreds of meters before he finally managed to deflect it. At that point, he saw a rain of spells coming towards him, so Spike flew straight to the unicorn, charging his own magic for an attack.

The rain of spells fused together and sped up right towards the dragon, so he mixed offense and defense by infusing his charged power into his draconic aura, making it twist and rage, almost like a dragon-shaped storm. His speed increased dramatically, but it still wasn't enough to avoid the terrifying fused spell, which reached him and exploded with amazing power.

Of course, avoiding it had never been Spike's intention.

From the depths of the explosion, Spike came shooting out. He didn't have his aura anymore, and his scales were full of deep scratches, but his eyes were clear and he was very much still in the fight. And before Starlight Glimmer could react to his sudden appearance, Spike was already attacking.

"Dragon Slash!" He shouted, swiping his right hand and releasing a line of powerful cutting magic... straight at the artifact.

It cut through the air with a booming sound, and broke through a barrier that appeared to protect the globe. Three more barriers appeared in succession and were also broken through, but the fifth and last barrier managed to block the attack.

Spike had come remarkably close to succeeding.

Starlight snarled and prepared her next attack, but Spike was already moving, having decided his course of action previously.

'I must be faster than that.' He thought, and cast another magic "Draconic Self: Sonic Wyrm!"

It was the same transformation he had used in his fight together with Moondancer. Spike dove towards the ground, accelerating himself with wind currents, and reached it before the enemy unicorn had finished casting her next spell.

The next few seconds of the battle were wild and difficult to follow. Starlight kept releasing a multitude of arrow-type spells and tried to bracket her opponent with them in order to hit, while Spike was moving at extreme speeds but also stopping on a dime and changing directions before reaccelerating explosively, his movements too unpredictable for Starlight to be able to hit him.

And of course, Spike wasn't going to limit himself to only evading, since his Knight training had made pretty clear that such was a losing proposition, but he did wait long enough for the unicorn to start believing he was being cornered, just to make his counter attack more of a surprise.

And the first rock Spike threw at super speed almost put Starlight's eye out, having pierced through the unicorn's regular defenses thanks to his dragon magic, with only her aura managing to protect her. And seeing that the surprise attack didn't work, Spike started giving Starlight a taste of her own medicine, using the speed of his current form as an advantage to release his own multitude of rocky projectiles straight at his opponent.

And thus the fight came to another stalemate. Starlight was forced to use more of her power to protect herself, allowing Spike an easier time in dodging her attacks, but her defenses were too strong to be pierced easily by his rocks. And before one of them choose to change tactics in order to break the stalemate, something else happened.

A rotating disk of power suddenly hit Starlight from behind, cutting through her defensive spells in an instant, and forcing Starlight's automatic escape spell to trigger in order to save her. The fight stopped for a moment as both combatants (Starlight from a different position, both higher and more horizontally distant) looked at the newcomers, three fillies, one of each pony tribe, the Crusaders.

The three of them were standing in a triangular formation on a floating wheel of light, with Applebloom being in front. Then a point of light surged above the three, resolving itself into something like a cutie mark, one depicting the silhouette of a horned insect. And the wheel of light turned into an eagle, flying straight at Starlight.

Spike understood the situation quickly. If Princess Celestia had sent the Crusaders to help, that probably meant that the other Knights were disabled. So, the dragon Knight would have to work together with the fillies in order to defeat the enemy. He jumped straight into Starlight from the other side, joining the Crusaders in a pincer maneuver.

"Destroy the artifact!" He shouted, as the battle entered its next stage.

-0-

The wheel of light was now an eagle, and Scootaloo, who was the one responsible for moving around, couldn't be happier at an opportunity to fly so freely, even if the stakes of the situation were too high to allow her to enjoy it completely. She could feel the other two via her bond magic: Applebloom was steadfast, keeping control of the defenses and watching for any sudden changes in the situation. Sweetie Belle was driven, focusing entirely on the opponent and attacking any perceived weak points.

It was their second real fight, and the first even since they had been trained. Just like the first one, they had help from another fighter. But apart from that, the situations were very different, and the current fight, despite their higher control of their powers, was definitely tougher.

Starlight seemed to have an endless variety of spells. She teleported around, set up mines, shot homing blasts and manipulated the elements. In response, Spike was using his remarkable speed to attack her from all directions, keeping the enemy's focus away from the trio of Squires. Because of that, their own defenses (mostly hexagonal shields created from the surrounding air) and attacks (mostly lasers fired from the eyes of the eagle) were able to work, specially in combination with Scootaloo's precise control of their flight.

This triad technique was something they had developed with Luna's help. To reduce as much as possible the strain to their bodies, the trio channeled their magic through an external focus (the wheel of light), which allowed them to show the true worth of their bond and destiny magic combination: Borrow Destiny.

They could imitate the powers of those they had a close bond with, and that included those they had helped get their cutie marks, which wouldn't be that impressive, but it also worked on the powers of King Thorax, since they had helped him achieve his destiny. And it was exactly his shapeshifting powers that they were using to create the eagle, which meant they could shapechange just as freely as the changeling monarch.

And it came in handy. Starlight teleported away to charge a spell and shot off an immensely powerful homing beam at the trio. Normal defenses wouldn't work, so they turned the eagle into a floating turtle, using its shell to block the attack. Then Spike took advantage by rushing to Starlight before she could recover to try and destroy the artifact.

But she was smart, and had previously cast a spell to deal with that possibility.

Centered on the artifact, an omnidirectional magic blast was released, hitting both Starlight and Spike. But the unicorn had designed the spell to reduce its power in response to her barriers, while Spike's current form was relatively fragile, so the dragon definitely came off worse in that exchange.

Starlight pressed her advantage, quickly casting a powerful blast at the dragon. But Spike wasn't that easy to defeat.

"Diamond Scale!" He shouted, and changed at the last moment.

The unicorn's hasty attack couldn't penetrate such a defensive form, and Spike counter attacked at the same time as he was hit, shooting off a dozen sharp scales at his opponent.

She managed to block them, but was surprised when the Crusaders appeared in a teleport right next to her. They were once again flying in a wheel of light and the cutie mark floating above them was now Sunset's.

"Magic Enhance!" Sweetie Belle proclaimed, casting a spell "Homing Missile!" Scootaloo and Applebloom shouted together.

A purple magic projectile grew in the air and shot straight at the artifact, forcing Starlight to blindly teleport sideways, to give herself time to cast another spell to intercept the missile that homed in on her. Not wanting to remain on the backstep, she immediately counter attacked with a series of small spells launched at the fillies... that passed right through them.

It was only an illusion, explained when the Crusaders appeared from a teleport behind Starlight, with their floating cutie mark having changed to Trixie's. It changed again to Rarity's, and the trio used her telekinesis to attack Starlight's artifact with a huge number of flying rocks.

Starlight teleported again, but was roughly thrown out of her teleportation as Spike had assumed his Mana Twister form and disturbed her magic. She was forced to create a layered shield spell to block when the Crusaders brought the stones back around, but it was also broken by Spike's magic disturbance, which meant that Starlight had to quickly change spells to keep up her defense.

The Knight and Squires were attacking without rest. They knew that it would be impossible to outlast Starlight given that she had such a powerful source of magic under her disposal, so they didn't spare any effort.

Yet, it wouldn't be easy to deal with the enemy. She decided to change tactics and conjured an immense rock that she then shot towards Spike.

The Crusaders changed to Rainbow Dash's cutie mark and flew at high speed by conjuring wings of air before using a mini-tornado to deflect the rock. Then, they changed to Fluttershy's cutie mark, activating Soul Mirror with great speed.

That may have seemed like an odd choice, but the Crusaders had pretty much ran out of Knight cutie marks they could use reliably. Pinkie and Twilight's chaos magic was too uncontrollable, while Applejack's Eyes of Truth were simply too complicated. They still had other options, but trying to use Fluttershy's abilities was what popped on their heads. And it turned out to be exactly what was needed.

Because with their connection, they felt the power that Starlight was forcing herself to restrain. The power of the counter-attack of two of the Knights. And, acting completely on instinct, they reached their magic towards the restrained spells and undid the restraints.

Starlight was unable to stop them. She was unable to react to such an unexpected maneuver, and she looked above herself with unmitigated surprise showing in her eyes, as the spells cast by Sunset and Trixie came back into normal existence.

One was a fiery energy sphere surrounded by rings of rock, the other was an arrow of light covered in sigils that hurt the eye just to look. They flew at Starlight Glimmer with the inevitability of a river.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" She screamed, her body exploding with power, along with her Artifact. And the latter glowed so brightly that it completely concealed the unicorn.

Spike and the Crusaders couldn't see what happened, but they felt a tremendous pulse of magic power just before the spells exploded. Then they had to brace themselves as the shockwave rippled through the entire area. And while the shockwave lost power quickly as it traveled, the power that it started with was immense, to the point that deep furrows were carved on the earth near the epicenter of the event.

Finally, they were able to see Starlight... And she was still standing. She had lost her left eye, her entire body was covered in injuries and her Artifact was full of cracks, but she was still standing. And that wasn't even the worst part.

Inky black strands of noxious power were floating around her body, entering and leaving it with a painful cadence, her colors slowly darkened, and the power seemed to solidify into a dark aura that was unmistakable.

It was a good thing the Crusaders had lost control of the Soul Mirror beforehand, because otherwise, the connection of souls would have harmed them, as Starlight Glimmer was using Dark Magic.

And just as they realized that, Starlight Glimmer acted. With a snarl, she released a multitude of magical projectiles, using far more power than she had been able to during the fight.

The barrage of attacks would have overwhelmed the hasty defenses the Crusaders managed to erect, but at that moment, Spike changed forms again.

"Mana Twister!" He shouted, and changed.

Spike spun his arms and twisted all the magic pathways around him, and the magical projectiles were forcefully redirected away from the heroes... But they didn't stop. Starlight Glimmer was attacking relentlessly, having abandoned any thought of trickery in exchange for attempting to overwhelm her opponents with pure power. This was probably due to the effect of the Dark Magic on her mind.

Spike's situation worsened quickly, as the effort needed to protect himself and the Crusaders continually started to strain his already tired and injured body, and the scratches on his scales started to multiply. And to make things worse, Starlight's control of her new dark powers was improving quickly, making it harder and harder for him to keep deflecting the spell.

And yet, he did not stop. Because one of the biggest lessons for a Knight was trusting in their companions, and when he was blocking the attacks, the Crusaders were completely free to act.

And yet, they did not attack immediately. The power Starlight Glimmer was currently demonstrating wasn't the sort of thing that could be broken by a hasty move. So the Crusaders used every single second Spike was able to buy them to the utmost, until Sweetie Belle had an idea.

It was a crazy idea, but it was always said that doing crazy things was the job of a Knight. The mental discussion of the three was short but heated, and then their decision was made. Sweetie Belle whispered "Sorry, Princess Luna." and then the cutie mark above them changed to that of the alicorn of the night.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Sweetie Belle screamed as an aura of dark power covered her body and colored the wheel of light with black.

She had no idea how other mages could use Dark Magic freely as she had heard about. Just producing that energy, by focusing on the emotion of loneliness, was enough to make it impossible for her to focus on anything else.

But she wasn't alone.

Applebloom was connected to Sweetie Belle via their magic, and she used her own focus to prevent the mind warping effects of the magic from spreading further than her unicorn partner. And that left Scootaloo free to use the power of the dark magic freely.

The Crusaders teleported above Starlight and cast a powerful moon beam spell at her. But even such a surprise attack wasn't quite enough to take her out. She redirected the raging power of her spells to block the beam, and then the fight entered its final stage.

Using the power of dark magic and princess Luna's spells (which they couldn't use normally), the trio was actually able to achieve the feat of managing to match Starlight in direct combat.

The spells of the opponent were brutal attacks: Lasers, missiles, arrows... Every single type of magic oriented towards destruction was used, and the battle sounded more like a war between armies than a fight involving only four mages.

The Crusaders were more subtle, as Scootaloo didn't need to deal with any mental influences, so she was free to use the extra power in any way she wanted. She conjured wings of air to give maneuverability to the trio, she used multiple teleports to move to advantageous positions, she set up multiple shields and barriers, along with using attacks on the ground to destroy the opponent's footing.

But even with all of that, the combination of the artifact and dark magic simply gave Starlight too much power, and the more time passed, the better she got at controlling her powers, and the Crusaders were losing ground. So they decided on an all-or-nothing gamble.

Teleporting to an extreme height to gain time, they proceeded to gather massive amounts of power, preparing the most powerful spell they were capable of.

Starlight instantly detected the rising energy, and she accepted the unspoken challenge, beginning to gather her energy for one massive attack as well.

Both sides charged for ten entire seconds, and then they fired.

The Crusaders were shooting a building sized beam of moonlight tainted with noxious darkness that revolved chaotically. Starlight's attack was also a beam, one made of fire so hot in had turned the air into plasma, and covered with dark energy that seemed to be able to summon death itself.

The two beams of power collided with each other, creating a shockwave that scattered all of the surrounding clouds. And the struggle started.

Both sides fed every single drop of magic they could spare into their spells, both sides refusing to give up, and their spells utterly rejecting each other in their attempt to establish dominance. But at the end, Starlight simply had too much power to spare, and she was slowly winning over the enemy attack...

"Dragon Slash!"

Like lightning from a clear sky, it was completely unexpected. By the time Starlight realized what was happening, her artifact was already split in half... courtesy of Spike, back in his Sonic Wyrm form.

The artifact could not resist the massive damage, and exploded, releasing all of the cutie marks to go back to their rightful owners.

-0-

Eight Knights teleported to the area of the battle, and from the destruction that had been wrought and by the sheer amount of wild uncontrolled power in the air, they could understand just how terrifying of a battle had happened.

In the middle of that destruction, the Crusaders were sitting on the ground, with Scootaloo and Applebloom trying to comfort Sweetie Belle. Beside them, Spike was lying down on the ground with his limbs spread. The four of them showed all signs of having gone through a battle, specially Spike, since the deep scratches on his scales were plainly visible even from a distance.

Except for Applejack, they were all surprised to see the Crusaders there, but they understood more or less what the situation should be.

"Spike! Are you okay?!" Twilight shouted and ran to the dragon's side.

"It's not as bad as it looks." Spike said, but Twilight ignored him and started to fuss over his injuries.

And she wasn't the only one to do something like that.

"Sweetie Belle, what's wrong?!" Rarity ran to her sister's side.

The other two Crusaders opened space for Rarity to reach Sweetie Belle "Sis... I... I..." The filly tried to talk but Rarity enveloped her in a hug and shushed her.

Rainbow Dash then landed next to Scootaloo "It seems like there was an awesome battle around here, could you tell me about it?"

Scootaloo grinned "Only if you tell me about your awesome battle."

"Okay." Rainbow Dash answered, and launched into a detailed narrative that had Trixie nodding in satisfaction.

Applejack walked over to Applebloom and smiled "So, Applebloom, can you tell me what happened here?"

The filly sighed and nodded, before doing a short explanation:

"We teamed up with Spike to fight that unicorn (her name is Starlight Glimmer, by the way), we managed to get her to be hit by Trixie and Sunset's attacks, but then she started using dark magic. So we had to use dark magic as well to keep up, with Sweetie Belle being the one who channeled it. And we managed to create an opportunity for Spike to destroy her artifact." Then she sighed again "But as soon as that happened, Starlight ran away with a teleportation spell, so we could not subdue her."

Applejack blinked. She had realized that something like that had happened as soon as she saw Sweetie Belle, but it was still unexpected.

"Well, you'll have more chances to catch her later." Applejack said "And besides, you three have something important to look forward to."

"Really? What?" Applebloom was confused.

"Your proclamation as Knights, of course."

Mission Trip/Starlight Glimmer Arc End

Next: Sombra's Return Arc

Rookie Knights Saga End

Next: ****** ******* Saga

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 60 - The Shadow Rises

Inside a deep abyss, under a mountain and only accessible to those who were capable of teleporting and knew the way to get past the phenomenal amount of wards, was one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Cut off from the rest of the world by a terrifying magical barrier that possessed the attribute of decay and drew energy from the world itself, was a place that could be reasonably compared to Tartarus. A veritable hell of monsters that were ever-changing.

Frequently, questions were raised about why places like that needed to exist. Why would you seal away dangerous things instead of destroying them? But that particular place was a good example of one of the reasons: Because the monsters sealed there were literally unable to be killed.

Created by an ancient evil warlock called Menagerie, those were beings that had the very concept of death forcefully stripped away from them. While this might seem like a miraculous feat, those monsters had actually been considered failed products by their creator, because the process had removed their intelligence and made them uncontrollable, along with many other side effects.

Still, their ability to live could not be doubted. Even Knight Aurora Dream, the Devourer of Existence, who had the ability to eat anything in the world, was incapable of permanently destroying them. It fell to one of her fellow Knights, a unicorn named Road Rash, who had the title of Ruler of Void, to seal them away with a barrier that they could not pass simply due to their very nature as existences who only knew life.

He also threw a mountain on top of the prison, just to be sure.

Ever since them, through countless ages, the monsters had been trapped inside that prison, where their existence was a constant struggle. They could not die, and the only thing they understood were the principles of life. They could only eat, grow, change... Their bodies were constantly mutable and they cannibalized each other constantly, briefly joining together as organisms when one ate another one completely, but they always separated again at the end, only to begin the cycle once more.

And at that very moment, every single one of the undying monsters were together in a single organism. A being that should not be able to exist in the world, only kept alive by the impossibility of its parts to die. A creature that did not have a beginning or an end, a monster made of uncountable mismatched parts. And that monster started to climb.

That wasn't anything new. The creatures were always moving around in all directions on their confined space, but what was strange was that the creature kept moving upwards without the least hesitation, without stopping or changing its course.

And soon, the irregularities grew ever more pronounced. Even as the entire mass of the creature recoiled and trembled, as if trying to get as far away as possible from the barrier, the creature itself kept moving upwards with no pause. Eventually, the barrier was so close that parts of the creature started to rip themselves off from the main mass, turning back into separate existences.

Yet still, the monster didn't stop its advance. More and more of it was torn off by the simple measure of trying to get close to something that was so inimical to its very flesh, until eventually, only the core was left, a mass of flesh with four nubs resembling limbs that still persisted on climbing upwards.

As it got closer and closer, the mass started to decay little by little, but this was actually something that explained a lot. The monsters that were sealed in that abyss wouldn't be able to decay, since it basically meant a death that went cell by cell, so the creature that was climbing towards the barrier was an existence that was never supposed to be in that place.

And that existence really wanted to get out.

Even as every part of its flesh was decayed, that monster still forced its dead limbs and body to move upwards relentlessly. And finally... It crossed the barrier.

The creature kept climbing up, and its flesh started to be reborn. Little by little, the vitality returned to it, and when it got out of the abyss, the thing was back to being completely alive.

Finally, it started to morph, the mass of its flesh becoming extremely compressed, until it reached a certain point and actual features started to appear, until slowly it made a remarkable transformation. It turned into...

"Ahhh! I'm finally out." Twilight Sparkle said, working out the kinks on her neck.

After she made a few stretches, to make sure everything was working right, Twilight Sparkle teleported away.

-0-

Celestia sighed as she thought of the current situation. It was not like things were bad. On the contrary, the situation Equestria was going through was actually pretty good.

Now that Twilight had finished her training, there were twelve Knights who were available to deal with any crises (okay, it was more like ten, since the Crusaders could only fight while together, but that was still a high number). The training of eight of the Knights had gone well, and seven of them were focusing on developing their abilities further after having experienced the latest mission. Also, Luna was there and her avatars were available, and Cadance was creating her own avatars, which meant even more power available.

But Celestia could not help but think that this was merely the calm before the storm. And that was not because of paranoia, but because of various worrying factors that had piled up together: There was Sombra's scouting of the abilities of the Knights, together with his strange movements relating to shadow outbreaks. There were the reports of King Thorax about Chrysalis Changelings being spotted with increasing regularity. There was the strange silence of the remaining chaos shards, with no serious incidents having occurred in some time. And now, there was that Starlight Glimmer mage, who had came from nowhere and managed to get very close to defeating the Knights completely.

All those things together made it clear that, although the situation appeared peaceful, there were a lot of possible problems boiling under the surface.

And the worst part was, Princess Celestia couldn't do anything about it that she wasn't already doing. Her eight most trustworthy Knights had gone through heavy training, while she was constantly sending the newest Knights on small missions in order for them to quickly build up experience, the most recent of which was an incident involving artifacts.

Luna's avatars were following up on the changeling reports, while Cadance's were apparently tracking the chaos shards, and her own intelligence network was looking for any information about Starlight, but even her apprentices (who had been captured) didn't have any idea about where she could be. (Also, the magical researchers were looking into counter-measures for her cutie mark removal spell).

Indeed, she was doing everything she could, but Celestia would never stop worrying.

-0-

Inside Fluttershy's cottage, a unicorn and a pegasus were cuddling together.

"Ahhh..." Twilight sighed happily "This is so much better than that nasty cage..."

Fluttershy smiled "I know what you mean. My training was also pretty rough."

"Sorry." Twilight said, since she had been one of the people responsible for the state of that area.

"Don't worry."

"So..." Twilight started "A lot of things must have happened while I was training. Princess Celestia told me to ask you girls about it. I only know that the Crusaders became Knights and they have left on a mission together with Spike."

"Well..." Fluttershy thought "I guess the most important thing was the mission we went through. The same mission the Crusaders finished to become Knights."

And Fluttershy told the tale. She didn't have the same flair as Trixie, but she was a patient storyteller that answered any of Twilight's questions about details with great care, and she also managed to get her emotions across pretty well in the retelling, which significantly enhanced the experience.

There was even a particularly long digression about Rarity's solo mission, to explain about the whole artifact formula thing. But in the end, they came back to the matter of the Crusaders using Dark magic.

"Princess Luna said that it isn't something they should be doing often, but their method should work to allow them to use both Dark and Light magic relatively safely, so they are going through training to master it."

And after the story was over, Twilight's first comment was:

"It's sad that Starlight is an enemy."

"Yeah." Fluttershy agreed.

"It's always sad when strong mages become threats to Equestria." Twilight said, with her eyes closed "Since that means one less possible Knight."

"And she would definitely make a good Knight." Fluttershy thought about it.

-0-

Meanwhile, on an alternate dimension...

A heliotrope colored unicorn mare was fighting against seven powerful enemies. All of them attacked together, and it created a web of magic that covered up the entire sky, before falling towards the unicorn with the finality of a mountain.

"Harmony is the tendency of the world..." She chanted with her eyes closed, before opening them and shouting "Equality Shift!"

A pulse of magic spread around her and expanded to the size of a city. Every single one of the enemy spells were touched by the magic, along with every bit of space not occupied by a living being.

And then the spell activated, and the energy of the spells was "equalized", spreading equally to every single point touched by the spell, completely disabling the magic.

"You'll have to do better than that!" Starlight Glimmer bragged to her enemies, as she began to weave another spell.

-0-

The two thought about that for a moment, before Twilight decided to change the subject:

"You mentioned those two who became Rarity's apprentices... Coco Pommel and Suri Polomare was it? How are things going with that?"

Fluttershy brightened up "Oh, Rarity said that things are going swimmingly!" She nodded "Apparently she has got them to the point where they can create small artifacts easily. And they have received a task from Princess Celestia to create magical swords to allow guards to be able to fight against shadow monsters."

"That should help." Twilight said "Also, you talked about the new abilities of the Crusaders, but what about you girls? What have you been working on?"

Fluttershy smiled "Oh, that's actually pretty fun! I have actually started to use my empathy to affect entire places at the same time!"

"Tell me more."

And Fluttershy did. She talked about her recent experiments with the kind of detail that only a magic nerd like Twilight could be interested in. And Fluttershy also asked a few small things to Twilight, who was still her teacher.

And after all that, the conversation went to the other Knights.

"Rarity said she was finishing her greatest pieces so far, and that was a week ago, but the only thing she told me about them was that they weren't more swords." Fluttershy frowned "Pinkie is trying to fuse her purification magic with her chaos magic and emotion magic, and she said she is having a lot more success with the first part..."

"I'll see if I can help her with it later..." Twilight mumbled.

"As for the others..." Fluttershy continued "Sunset and Trixie only told me that they were going to achieve their dreams..."

"Wow..." Twilight muttered "I can't wait to see that."

"And what are those dreams, anyway?" Fluttershy asked.

Twilight smiled teasingly "You'll have to wait and see."

Fluttershy pouted at her, but Twilight bravely resisted the cuteness.

"Okay..." Fluttershy gave up "Applejack told me she was working on seeing into the future, and Rainbow Dash... I'm really not sure."

"What do you mean?"

"I asked her about it, but she just said she was going to use weather magic to go 'Boom!' and 'Blam' and 'Crackatoom!' and apparently she expected me to understand what she meant." Fluttershy said doubtfully.

"I think only her teacher would be able to understand." Twilight said.

"What about you?" Fluttershy asked "What have you been doing?"

"Ah, I'm working on magic based on action and reaction!" She smiled with confidence, before adopting an expression of doubt "Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it karma? Anyway, it's all about being able to hijack energy from metaphysical deeds and turn it into power for physical purposes, mediated by dual-purpose restrictions." She concluded.

Fluttershy tried, she really did, but she did not have any idea what Twilight could be talking about. So she asked something else:

"Is this why the interior of your body is different now?" she put a hoof on Twilight's stomach "I can feel it shifting constantly, but I don't exactly understand the purpose..."

"Ah, no. That's just the chaotic body." Twilight explained "It makes me harder to injure. I've been trying to achieve it for some time, but it's only recently that I've managed to muster enough determination to forge it."

"I see..." Fluttershy nodded "Then, I guess this is it. That's everything about it."

"Then let's stop talking about work." Twilight said, and reached over to kiss the pegasus.

-0-

Meanwhile, in Sairaon, a small town on the outskirts of Equestria...

"Sarge!" An earth pony guard ran into the office of the highest ranked guard in town, a pegasus called Roll Card.

"What is it?" The pegasus asked, surprised by the panicked tone of voice of his subordinate.

"The lookout reported a problem! A huge problem!"

Roll Card decided against asking for clarification, instead going to see for himself. He flew over to the observation tower and asked the guard in charge, a unicorn mare called Rampant Cross:

"What's going on?"

"See for yourself." She said, weaving a spell to create a telescope of light in front of him.

The pegasus took a look and immediately paled. The entire horizon was a single dark line, even though it was day. That was because of an absolutely massive army of shadow monsters that was marching towards the town.

He almost succumbed to panic, but recovered when Rampant Cross asked:

"What should we do?"

Training taking over, he remembered the first lesson of the guards: The civilians came first.

"Send a message to our superiors warning about this. Then you should come after me, I'm going to need every guard in the town to help with the evacuation."

She nodded and started to compose her message, while he flew off to organize things.

That was the first part of the worst shadow outbreak of the last ten thousand years.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 61 - Knight Stories

"Okay, this is taking a while. I'm bored." Sunset complained.

The eight main Knights were waiting in a garden just outside Canterlot Castle.

"Speak for yourself." Rarity said "I've been doing nothing but making magical weapons in bulk ever since Princess Celestia received news of the Shadow invasion. I'm glad to have some time to rest."

Shadow monsters were fairly annoying because for normal ponies, it was impossible to even hurt them without some kind of magical weapon. And different from normal outbreaks, there were simply too many monsters coming from too many directions for the Knights to be able to deal with the situation. So, Celestia had been forced to send the conventional forces, though they needed to be outfited with special weapons, which was where Rarity had came in.

"What about your apprentices?" Trixie asked "Didn't you say they were a big help with this problem?"

Rarity sighed "Yeah, they were. After Spike and Luna's avatars discovered Sombra's hoof on that shadow outbreak, Celestia ordered them to research some countermeasures against shadow monsters, and they came up with a design for magical weapons that were very simple to produce, while still being effective, which are the things I've been creating."

She shook her head and continued "However, they simply don't have the production capacity to create the needed amount of weapons fast enough to help." Another sigh "I've been teaching them about ritual artificing ever since our last mission, but creating a ritual to forge magical weapons in bulk takes a while, even if they're so simple and both Moondancer and Minuette are helping. So I have to do this drudgery work."

"Yeah. I know how you feel." Rainbow Dash said "Even if what you are doing is awesome, repeating the same awesome thing over and over again without changing anything is not awesome at all."

"Then you should be happy that this is almost over, my dear Rarity." Celestia said.

"Your highness!" Rarity ran towards the princess, who had just appeared from a teleport "You mean it?!"

"Yes." She nodded "You just need to make one more batch and it will be enough for the guards to hold out for a while."

"Oh, thank you..." Rarity said, then walked towards the pile of scrap metal that she had been using for materials.

The unicorn Knight stopped, took a deep breath, and started focusing her power.

A house sized chunk of scrap metal rose fifteen meters into the sky, slowly going higher and higher, until it reached a point where it looked like a fly from the sheer distance. Then the flames started.

The metal was enveloped by multiple flows of flames in multiple colors. The Knights and Celestia could feel that these flames were being controlled to an extreme degree of precision, and Applejack's Eyes of Truth revealed to her that each of the flames had specific magical scripts "engraved" in it (it wasn't possible to really engrave flames, but that was the closest way to describe it).

After that, winds came spiraling into the flames, turning the whole thing into a hurricane of metal and fire. And finally, came the time for the water, as a small rain cloud formed above the metal and started dropping water on it. But it wasn't simply ordinary rain, as skilled eyes would be able to see that every single drop of water was being precisely controlled, and they were all falling into the structure on a complex pattern.

"Forge of Creation." Rarity declared, and a final pulse of magic was released.

Weapons started to rain from the sky. There were swords, spears, axes, arrows and other types of weapons in various sizes and shapes. They rained down and landed just above the ground, in a cushion of air that Rarity conjured with barely a thought.

"Perfect." Celestia said "Thank you for the work, Rarity. Now you girls just need to wait until Luna finishes her search for Sombra and you can go on your mission."

Saying that, she grabbed all the weapons in her telekinesis and teleported out together with them.

"Well... I guess we just have to wait, then." Twilight said.

She really wasn't much better at simply waiting than Sunset, so she tried to think of something to talk about.

"Ahh... Speaking of forging..." She said "I have to thank you for this new armor you gave me." She said to Rarity.

Not only Twilight, but all the other Knights had also received new armors that had been created by Rarity. That included even Spike and the Crusaders.

"You're welcome, though I haven't exactly finished them yet." Rarity said "I wanted to customize them to help with your new skills, but it's been so little time since you finished developing those..."

"Wait, you mean the finished versions will be even better?" Rainbow Dash asked "Awesome!"

After that, there was an instant of silence before Rarity spoke something else:

"That reminds me of something..." She looked at Twilight "You weren't here at the last mission, but we talked about the hardships of our training. Do you want to share your thoughts?"

Twilight thought for a moment "Well, I guess there's no harm in that. Well..." She tried to think of how to start the story "Basically, the Cage of Numeria is a prison for undying monsters. But what you would not expect is that due to their aura, the whole place became somewhere without the hold of the concept of death.

"After going there, I spent a long time fighting against those monsters, but eventually I got too tired and was eaten. But inside the Cage, there was no death, so I remained completely aware even as my body was dissolved into its most basic parts and became part of the creature.

"Little by little, I started to develop an awareness of each and every single part of myself, so I used my magic to start rebuilding my body." She smiled bitterly and shook her head "I finally realized how amazing healing magic masters actually are. Even after such a tireless effort, the body that I managed to recreate was completely crippled.

"The insides didn't line up correctly, the bones were either too thick or too thin, the nerves were overly sensitive and spread in places that would receive damage with every movement... And my heart was shaped wrongly, so it hurt with every heartbeat. So of course, I was quickly eaten again."

The other Knights were speechless at Twilight using such a casual tone to speak of such horrifying events. But she continued, heedless of their reaction.

"I realized that it would be too difficult to improve my skills to the point where I could fix my body completely, so instead I started to develop a Chaotic Body, a special physique that changes constantly but remains lifelike due to the power of chaos. In doing that, I slowly managed to overcome the undying beasts, and I learned a lot more about the power of chaos magic, so I could start developing new techniques."

She nodded, and looked at her companions. After a moment of silence, Sunset spoke:

"Yeah, that's pretty rough. But I think Trixie's training was still worse."

"Again, Trixie isn't really happy at winning that kind of competition." Trixie spoke.

Then there was another moment of silence, as the Knights tried to think of something else to talk about. This time it was Applejack that came to the rescue.

"Ah... Twilight mentioning it reminded me." She looked at Trixie "Ya said your favorite Knight was a master in healing magic. Ah wanted ta hear more about that."

"Oh yeah!" Rainbow Dash burst out "I've been reading some stories about the Knights ever since Sunset mentioned it, so I am also curious..."

"You read?!" Fluttershy interrupted her, surprised.

"Well..." Rainbow Dash looked awkward "Yeah... They are pretty cool... Anyway, I think it would be fun to hear about the Knights you three consider your favorites." She looked at the three senior Knights.

"Right... Trixie also thinks the same. How about you two?" The showmare asked Twilight and Trixie.

"I have no objections." Twilight said with a smile.

"It's a way to pass the time, so okay." Sunset said "Since Applejack asked you, why don't you go first, Trixie?"

"Right. Then Trixie will tell the story of her own favorite Knight." She declared, then took a deep breath and started narrating:

"Our heroine began her story as a unicorn called White Marble." Trixie used illusions to add to the experience, producing the image of a green unicorn mare "When she was a child, she gained a cutie mark for treating an injury of one of her school mates, and eventually she joined the royal guard, since her dad had been a guard and she wanted to help keep others like him alive.

"She became a battlefield doctor, one with a high degree of skill in healing magic. This was a period of time where Equestria was constantly suffering attacks from the underground lava demons, so she experienced life and death situations many times over the course of her work." Trixie showed a mini-scene of guards facing off against lava demons "And one time, the worst case scenario happened. Her unit was surrounded and they were slowly being obliterated, to the point where even she had to take up arms and try to fight.

"She was heavily injured very quickly, but White Marble soon found out that she could keep fighting as long as she could keep healing herself." The scene changed to White Marble fighting, though it was depicted in sillhouette, or it would be too gruesome "So she started to fight while disregarding her own life, receiving horrifying injuries but killing the enemies in the process. Eventually, the lava demons focused their efforts on her, but even that wasn't enough to kill her, and the tide actually turned, allowing the remains of her team to survive."

"When Princess Celestia received the report about it, she called for White Marble and gave her the opportunity to become a Knight. Our heroine accepted and received a two-month long crash course to learn several secret Knight techniques and increase her magical ability to the highest level possible." The scene changed to White Marble receiving a storm of magical attacks from both Celestia and Luna.

"That's usually how it was done in the past." Sunset piped up "Instead of receiving an all-around education like us three, the Knights were heroes who received focused training to sharpen their specialties to a ridiculous degree."

"Indeed." Trixie said, not minding the interruption and even using it to build atmosphere "She returned to the battlefield a changed mare, leading a specialized charging unit from the front, and keeping not only herself, but every single member of the unit constantly in health. She became a crucial part of the war effort."

"And of course, such would make her a target. Eventually, the king of the lava demons used his magic to banish her to the dream realm." Now the image was a powerful-looking lava demon throwing White Marble into a portal "However, that turned out to be a mistake. White Marble eventually came back, and she had bound her soul partially to the dream realm, creating what she called a 'dreamsoul'. This made her even harder to kill, to the point where she received the title of 'The Immortal'. She defeated the lava demon king and ended the war, but that was just the beginning of her legend." Trixie stopped for a moment "Also, Princess Luna became the new ruler of the dream realm."

"Later, one mage raised a particular student with a talent in blocking abilities, and used various methods to turn him into a behemoth that would be able to fight against White Marble, which combined with his focused ability to prevent her from healing herself, would be used to kill her." The scene showed a behemoth that could only barely be recognized as a former pony "It didn't work." Trixie deadpanned, causing a bit of laughter.

"Still, it was a pretty bad situation. The enemy was very resilient, and White Marble had to rely on her dreamsoul to keep her alive after she had received so many injuries that her body stopped working. In total, the fight lasted for a whole week, and White Marble's body had even started decaying by the time she finally won." Trixie showed the scene of the Knight fighting the behemoth,

"I'm not gonna lie... That is pretty horrifying." Rainbow Dash said, though her voice showed that she was impressed.

"She called the experience 'unconfortable', which I'm sure must be some kind of record in the field of understatement." Twilight said, then she rolled her eyes and pouted "And of course, she fixed herself up to perfect health in a single spell, which is really annoying after what I had to go through."

Fluttershy patted her head comfortingly, and Trixie changed the scene once more, and this change caused everypony to focus again, because this time it showed White Marble fighting against Tirek.

"However. Her greatest feat was also her last." Trixie was somber "She fought alone against Tirek to keep him from obtaining a powerful artifact, while Celestia and Luna were busy elsewhere." She closed her eyes "When Celestia came back, she found out that the whole battlefield was dead. The plants were dead, the ground was dead and even the air was dead.

"The only things left alive were Tirek, who was only not dead because he is pretty much unkillable, and a unicorn filly who had no idea what was going on." Trixie said.

"What... What happened?" Applejack asked.

"Denial of Origin." Trixie said "Or at least, that was the best explanation anyone could find. It is basically a theory about how by sacrificing one's own magical path, it was possible to achieve one extreme phenomenon of the opposite path. In that case, instead of healing, it was death." She stopped for a moment "Apparently White Marble managed it, but she also sacrificed everything but her life. Losing her memories along with all her magical skill, and she ended up reverted to the age of a filly. She even lost her cutie mark."

None of the Knights could say anything in response to that.

"Celestia ended up giving White Marble to be raised by one of her cousins. She grew up as a farmer and lived a perfectly normal life." Trixie finished the story.

Everypony spent a moment thinking about that. They understood the dangers of the profession of Knight, but that didn't mean they were completely fearless of them. Eventually, Twilight decided to change the subject:

"Okay. I guess it's my turn then." She said.

Trixie moved to the "audience" (a true showmare could turn anything into an audience) and allowed Twilight to take her place.

"Knight Aurora Dream, the Devourer of Existence, is my favorite one. She is my idol." Twilight started with a different tack than Trixie "She got her cutie mark as a young earth pony filly for eating rocks, and as an adult, she earned a living as a showmare dedicated to eating things no one should be able to.

"However, one day. A city where she was staying was attacked by an army of mutated beasts created by Warlock Feral Claw." Twilight said "And seeing no other way to survive, she decided to do what she did best: Eating." Twilight giggled "Even she didn't expect that to be so effective, but it turned out that her actual talent was in a very rare and dangerous kind of magic... Hunger Magic."

Twilight nodded "Under such extreme circumstances, she entered in a magical frenzy, and started eating the beasts like they were candy." She smiled broadly "And while for most ponies, such a thing would result in a tragedy as they ended up eating the entire city, along with the innocents, she managed to control herself and snap out of the berserk state.

"After that, she decided to use her powers to protect other ponies, and she fought against Feral Claw's minions continually, as well as fighting to get her magic under control. She saved countless lives, and then Celestia called her to receive training and become a Knight." Twilight continued "Eventually, she managed to defeat Feral Claw by eating him along with his entire base."

Twilight smiled again "But that's not the best part. Despite her troublesome magic, she managed to remain a successful Knight, by developing a technique called Dual Essence, that allowed her to remain in control even in a berserk state. She even managed to live to retirement age, which is a rarity among Knights. She married, had children, all that good stuff."

Fluttershy clapped politely "That was a good story."

Pinkie smiled at her teacher "I can see why she is your favorite."

The others expressed their thoughts as well, and then Sunset moved to start her own story.

"Amber Tree, the Black Knight. That is the name of my favorite." Was how she chose to start "Technically, she would be Knight Amber Tree, the Black Knight, but Princess Celestia didn't like the redundancy and created the rule that you should skip the Knight part if the title already includes that word."

There were a few scattered laughs, and then she continued "She was a pegasus, part of the Night Guard. One day, her unit was sent to hold the line against Minotaur Red Skin, one of the enemies of the Knights of the time. They only had to last until the Knights arrived." She shook her head "Instead, Amber Tree ended up defeating him herself... I can only imagine the faces the Knights made when they arrived."

There was even more laughter at that.

"So of course, she was selected to be trained as a Knight, and Princess Luna herself was the one who gave her lesson... Because her specialty was the same as Luna's: Close Combat!" Sunset grinned "Initially, she fought using an ice sword and shield, along with her physical abilities, but eventually she developed her greatest skill: Essence Armor!

"It is basically a way to create armor based on your own soul, purely out of energy, and it's as powerful as you would expect." She stopped for a moment "Amber Tree gained her title from it. And with time she rose up to become undoubtedly the strongest Knight of her generation.

"Eventually, the villains realized that she was the greatest obstacle to their plans, so they joined together to execute a masterstroke." Sunset stopped "Using magic to banish her to an empty space without any allies, where she would have to fight the six strongest villains of the era, fighting together in order to get rid of her... The Sinister Six..."

Sunset looked at her audience and saw that they were all interested, specially Rainbow Dash.

"Each of them was a threat on the level of Sombra... And she beat them all." Sunset grinned even more broadly than ever "She defeated all of them and managed to get back home. And after that... Equestria became peaceful."

"What do you mean?" Pinkie Pie asked.

"It's just that her reputation was so great, that the enemies of the era realized that their best chance of completing their plans was to just... Wait for her to die and then try it." Sunset said simply.

"Wow..." Rainbow Dash had no words in response to that.

Everyone thought about that new story for a bit, before Rarity came up with another topic:

"'The Immortal', 'The Black Knight', 'Devourer of Existence'... Those are some really ominous titles. Is this a trend, or something?"

The three senior Knights looked at her, then at each other. The message "Dark Realm" passed through their eyes... And they collapsed in laughter.

"What did I say?" Rarity was confused.

"Nothing... It's just..." Sunset found it difficult to regain control.

"You just made us remember a Knight whose title was 'Seeker of Darkness'. And her story is so funny that we had to laugh." Trixie was better at it.

"Now Ah'm curious." Applejack said "What's the deal with her?"

"Okay..." Twilight got her last giggles under control "You know how there are records about all the Knights, and once in a while, the three of us asked her for details about certain Knights with impressive or interesting records... But she never answered any questions about the Seeker of Darkness."

"However." Sunset took over "When Luna came back, we eventually thought of asking her, and she was happy to tell us." She stopped for a moment "Apparently, Celestia didn't like to talk about that particular Knight because of all the headaches she suffered because of her."

"Okay. Let us begin with the mare, or rather the filly, herself. She was born as Dark Realm, and she was an earth pony." Trixie continued "Obviously, for her parents to have named her that, they weren't normal. In fact, they were part of a cult of magic users who worshipped the idea of 'Pure Evil'.

"And she was raised in such an environment." Trixie stopped for a moment "So she was traumatized one day when she realized that none of the ponies in the cult were actually pure evil." Trixie shook her head "So, this six year old filly, who knew enough dark secrets of magic to fill one hundred scrolls, decided that there is only one thing she could do."

"She left on a journey, trying to find a being that was truly pure evil. And she started calling herself Seeker of Darkness." Sunset continued "She sought out the biggest tyrants in existence, she dove deep into sealed abysses, she approached the most wicked sorcerers... But none could satisfy her search for pure evil."

"She even became Tirek's apprentice for two years." Twilight spoke "Which meant he was definitely pretty evil, but apparently not evil enough for her tastes." She shrugged.

"What." Rarity was too surprised to be able to turn it into a question "How did that happen?!"

"When Luna asked how she managed to become Tirek's apprentice, she only said 'persistence'." Twilight answered "As for how she discovered that he wasn't pure evil? She refused to explain, saying that it was too depressing to think about."

At that point, the Knights that didn't know the story could understand the reaction of the three. It was really a strange story, and it was probably going to get even stranger.

Sure enough... "So, after a journey of ten years, our filly is now a teenager. And she has failed to find the pure evil she was looking for. What is her reaction?" Trixie spoke "She decided that, if even the darkest soul had a trace of light inside, then that meant that good was more powerful than evil. So she went to Canterlot and asked to be made a Knight."

"She... asked?!" Fluttershy's voice was noticeably louder than usual at that point.

"Yeah. Just straight up asked." Sunset answered "That sort of thing only happened like three times in the history of the Knights." She shook her head "Still, since she hadn't actually commited any crimes during her quest, and she had the skills, the princesses eventually decided to accept her, after making sure that her heart was in the right place, even in a weird way."

"And that was when the problems started." Twilight said "Dark Realm's specialty was severing magic, the opposite of the bond magic of the Crusaders. Her favorite spell was called 'Word of Power: Death', and it worked by forcefully severing the connection between the body and the soul of the target.

"Dark Realm was also a master of Dark Magic, and she loved to create and test new spells. Which is nice, but..." Twilight shook her head "To give you girls an idea, there's fifty three spells created by Dark Realm in the forbidden magic record. And they're all really intense stuff, stuff like poison magic and zone of death." Even Twilight seemed to be a little weirded out by that "Also, her greatest regret was always that she was unable to complete her 'masterpiece', 'the darkest of dark magics' Parasite Soul, a spell that was supposed to turn the caster's soul into a parasite in the body of the target."

As everypony tried to imagine such a thing, Sunset said something else "Also, Princess Luna said that she was always cheerful and upbeat, even when talking about that kind of stuff."

The incongruity of that imagined scene left the Knights speechless for a bit. Trixie continued:

"So, as you might imagine, keeping Dark Realm under control and preventing her from accidentally causing international incidents was a full-time job, and that was what caused Celestia's headaches. Specially because she seemed to have a knack for getting villains to turn to the side of good, starting with her family and the cult. This is definitely a good thing, but has a ton of logistical problems... Luna called her 'the most baffling Knight in history'."

After a bit of time to process things, Rainbow Dash was the first one to talk:

"I can understand why you three find that funny..." Then she seemed to think of something "Wait, since you said she was the most baffling Knight in history, then who was the strongest Knight in history?"

Sunset sat down and started drawing circles on the ground with her hoof, mumbling some words that sounded like "tried so many times" and "what even is strength anyway?". Twilight and Trixie patted her consolingly.

"Did I say something wrong?" Rainbow asked.

"It's just that Sunset always wanted to know who was the strongest Knight of all time. But Princess Celestia always refused to give a clear answer, saying that it was difficult to judge the relative power of different types of magic and different specialties." Twilight said "And when Sunset finally found a version of the question she would answer..."

"In this case 'If you were facing a great threat and could call upon any Knight in history to help you, who would you call?'" Trixie explained.

"Celestia's answer was Knight Thistle Down, the Eyes of Magic. And the reason was because of her combination of power and versatility." Twilight continued "And since versatility isn't exactly Sunset's strong point, she became a little down."

"Oh..." Was Rainbow Dash's response "So... What was Thistle Down's deal, anyway?"

"Applejack should know about her." Trixie said "After all, she was one of the holders of the Eyes of Truth."

They looked at the earth pony, and she nodded "That's right. But she was a specialist in spells, using her Eyes ta see through the most basic elements of magic. Celestia even said once that even she couldn't match up ta Thistle Down in terms of sheer magical skill. She could pretty much use any kinda magic with ease, so calling her versatile is an understatement."

Applejack then continued "There was even a time where she used her Eyes ta see through every magic Tirek could use, then she countered all of them easily, beat him up 'like a sandbag', in the words of the historian, and threw him back into Tartarus."

The Knights nodded, that was really impressive.

"Besides that..."

She was interrupted by the sudden apparition of a black scroll above Trixie.

Every Knight immediately focused, and Sunset snapped out of her funk. Trixie pulled the scroll close and read it.

"She found him." She said simply.

The rest of the Knights nodded and prepared mentally.

The mission was about to start.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 62 - Cave of Shadows

"Second division, retreat! Third division, take their place!" Shining Armor shouted to the ponies under his command.

He was currently in charge of the most important front in the battle against the shadow monsters. It was a front that was defending an area that could be called "the heart of Equestria", as most of the food and other vital resources that were consumed in Equestria came from that area. And not only that, but it was the most direct and clearest path to Canterlot.

As such, it was definitely an area of phenomenal importance, and the fact that Shining Armor had been chosen to lead the defense there was proof of the trust the Princesses placed on him, and he was not willing to betray that trust.

Still, Shining Armor was an experienced commander, and he could see that the situation was difficult.

The problem wasn't the power of the shadow monsters. In fact, even after two straight hours of combat, none of the soldiers had received heavy injuries. The real problem is that they Would. Just. Not. Stop. Coming.

Each of the guards had magical weapons provided by Rarity that were extremely effective against the shadow monsters, and their battle doctrine was very well prepared to deal with them, considering how long the guard existed, and how many times they ended up fighting shadow outbreaks.

All of that meant that even the overwhelming numbers of the shadow monsters were not enough to get through, and they were taking heavy losses instead, but that didn't seem to matter, as they apparently had unlimited numbers of troops.

Facing enemies with numerical advantage was nothing new during shadow outbreaks, but there was a world of difference between fighting an enemy with a numerical advantage and fighting an enemy that literally had inexhaustible numbers.

The area of battle was a narrow mountain pass, the most defensible place in the whole area, and Shining Armor set up several divisions of guards to cycle while blocking the advance of the enemy, because the stamina of ponies was limited, and they just couldn't keep fighting unceasingly.

And Shining Armor also used his shield spell at specific intervals to give the guards more time to breathe. All in all, it could be said that the circumstances of the battle were optimal.

And that made Shining Armor even more helpless. There was literally nothing else he could do to make the situation better, and he could see that they would not be able to last forever. The stallion even thought about asking for reinforcements, but pretty much every guard was already active and fighting shadow outbreaks somewhere around Equestria.

And the problem wasn't exactly their stamina either.Even though it would be a concern eventually, the more pressing matter were their magical weapons.

They were only the lowest quality of possible artifacts, and while it was enough to allow them to fight equally against the shadow monsters, such continuous heavy fighting was slowly wearing down their very structures. There were spares, but they would definitely not be enough to keep going forever. And Shining Armor had already received news that Rarity, along with the rest of the Knights, had left to deal with the source of the shadows.

He could only hope that they would be able to deal with it before it was too late.

-0-

The Knights quickly teleported to the coordinates that Princess Luna had sent them, finding a small opening in the middle of a hidden path in a certain mountain range, an opening that pointed down towards the darkness. Marking a cavern that seemed to be incredibly deep.

Fluttershy and Applejack, who had the best senses out of all in the group, immediately shuddered as soon as they got close to the cavern, just from the sheer aura of malice and menace that was projected from it, mixed with the disturbing magical working of the owner of the cavern.

"Sombra's inside." Applejack said "Not an ounce of doubt about it."

"I can feel it too..." Fluttershy said "He really hates us, specially you three." She pointed to the original Knights "Apart from that... It's difficult to get any particular reading... There is an immense mass of shadow monsters, and their essence is spread enough to conceal anything else."

"Trixie thinks that must be on purpose." The Knight said "Sombra must be using spells to spread the essence of shadows around to conceal his trap from us. Because that is definitely a trap. He would know that we would come here, and he will be prepared."

Both Twilight and Sunset grimaced, remembering the trap they had fallen into on their very first mission.

"We'll need to be wary at all times." Sunset said "And I think we should layer a few protection spells before we go in."

Everypony agreed with that idea, and there was a brief interlude in which they did that before walking inside the cave.

They went in a loose formation, consisting of three rows. The first row consisted of Sunset, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, since they had a combination of resilience, firepower and speed that made them suited for the frontlines. The second row was Trixie, Pinkie Pie and Applejack, a trio with some good versatility. And the last row was Twilight and Rarity, who were good at long distance combat.

It was a dark place, but a few light spells took care of that. However, they could not completely remove the shadows. The entire cave was made of jagged, sharp paths that created big shadows when exposed to light.

The Knights walked deeper and deeper into the cave, and even the ones who were comparatively bad at perception slowly became aware of the ominous aura of the place, and they understood that lesser warriors would have their mentalities ground down even before facing any actual dangers.

The Knights were well-trained enough that it wasn't as much of a problem, but it still counted as a small burden that could have a determining effect in the middle of critical situations.

Still, they walked for quite a while before the situation changed.

There was no sound, there was no detectable magic flow, there was no light or anything to herald it, but a spell was suddenly shot from the back of the Knights, a spell radiating hatred and malice.

Rarity turned around, and slashed with all four swords at the same time, completely annihilating the core of the magic with the use of a lot of power.

The Knights tensed up, readying themselves for the following assault, but it never came. Eventually, Applejack spoke:

"That... Ah did not see that coming." She seemed slightly shaken by the concept "Was that an illusion?"

Trixie, who was the expert in illusions, answered her:

"No. Or at least, Trixie doesn't believe the illusion is the main part of it." She shook her head "The spell came from behind, from a place where you weren't looking at the time.

"There is definitely illusions involved, otherwise the rest of us would have detected it earlier," Trixie continued "But Trixie believes the true core of this trap must be magic used to keep watch over us, so it can develop spells from places where your vision isn't covering at the time."

There was silence as they considered that, then Sunset spoke:

"So that means Sombra has a big level of knowledge and control while within his base, but we already knew that before going in." She turned to Trixie "Trixie, I imagine you can't hide us from his view, otherwise you'd have done it already, right?" The unicorn nodded "Then we should take advantage of it. Applejack, how much you can cover with your vision constantly without tiring yourself too much?"

"About 180 degrees." Applejack said.

"In that case, here's my idea:" Sunset said "Applejack should keep watch over the right side, and since there will be no attacks from somewhere she can see (and if there is, she will see them in advance), the rest of us will just need to pay attention to the left side, meaning it will be easier to defend from the attacks."

Nopony opposed the idea, and thus they returned to their advance while following what Sunset had suggested. And it quickly became clear that it had been a good idea. The stealthy attacks from within the cave intensified incredibly fast, both in terms of frequency and power, as well as becoming more diverse.

If there was a theme to the attacks that the Knights suffered over the next few minutes, it was shadows. But they were shown a perfect lesson about how versatile shadow magic could be. Some of the attacks were physical, blasts, projectiles and minicreatures that tried to kill them. Some of the attacks were subtle, like a creeping shadow that almost managed to completely paralyse Rainbow Dash before she even noticed, or an almost invisible poisoned stinger hidden like a trap just under the ground. And some were esoterical, like a shadow that disturbed the sight of whoever beheld it, or a shadow that released a sound that could not be consciously heard, but was intended to cause the Knights to lose control of their own organs.

Less experienced or prepared Knights would not have been able to get through all of that, but the group had been hardened by their missions, and they had prepared defenses against all sorts of threats, knowing that it would be dangerous to venture inside Sombra's base. Their prepared spells and their sharp senses allowed the Knights to get through all those traps without even needing to use too much power, which was good, because they knew they would need it later.

Eventually, things changed. Whether it was because Sombra decided that the current tactics weren't working, because they had reached deep enough that his power and influence were bigger, or a combination of the two, things changed. And the Knights suffered a taste of what the guard was dealing with all over Equestria.

They were attacked by an army of shadow monsters. Their appearances varied and their skills as well, but they were numberless and they came from all directions. However, there were two facts that made that situation different from the others. The first was that instead of holding the line, the Knights were trying to break through and head deeper and deeper, and the other was... They were powerful Knights of the Realm.

And they started to show a bit of the results of their training and development.

Rarity's Ruler Swords swam through the air in a complicated dance, raining elemental damage onto crowds of enemies relentlessly and without interfering with each other. Rainbow Dash flew so fast she seemed to bypass the sound barrier entirely, hitting any enemy that seemed to be even close to being a threat. Fluttershy seemed to become an entire army by herself, expanding projections of uncountable beasts and monsters.

Pinkie Pie smirked, holding a sphere of chaos magic that had been purified to impossible levels, with a cry of "Pure Chaos!", she threw that sphere at a group of enemies that suddenly ceased to be anything that could be described as functional. Applejack moved like an illusion, appearing and disappearing all around the place, hitting very important formations and runes with pinpoint attacks, crippling the enemy's forces little by little. Twilight had duplicated herself en mass, turning her clones into living bombs that released terrifying chaotic distortions.

Trixie had completely disappeared, illusions of her appearing in the middle of the enemies and using spells to put them against each other. Sunset was the most destructive, releasing continuous spells that bombarded the enemies with amazing power, and yet enough control that they didn't even hinder her own allies who were right next to the areas of effect.

While the guard sections were enduring the attacks of their own shadow armies, the Knights were quite frankly outclassing them by an utter factor, demonstrating enough ease that it was clear that they still had a lot of power that was being held back.

Eventually, the horde started to diminish in size and ferocity. Not because they were running out, but because Sombra seemed prepared to try another approach. The shadow monsters started retreating more and more, allowing the Knights to move forward even faster than before. And they realized it, and prepared themselves to deal with the next plan of the warlock.

It showed up soon after, when the Knights reached a huge space in the middle of the cave, looking somehow like an arena. A single pony stood in the middle of it.

It was an earth pony mare with a dark green coat and a lilac mane. Her cutie mark was a rock with bite marks.

Of the Knights who were entering the room, only the three veterans recognized her, and their reactions to it were sharply divided in two camps:

Sunset and Trixie immediately blanched, then looked at Twilight, already imagining what her reaction would be. As for Twilight herself?

"What." She spoke, and that single word was filled with so much anger that both Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie almost stumbled.

"What happened?" Fluttershy asked, not understanding what was going on.

Twilight didn't seem to hear her. Her anger seemed to condense and take physical form, thanks to the chaos magic that started to leak out of her body and run wild. Yet, she was still not completely out of control, as none of the power of chaos affected the other Knights in the least bit.

"They dared..." She spoke "They dared to create a copy of Knight Aurora Dream, the Devourer of Existence?!" Twilight snarled.

And with that, the other Knights understood what had Twilight so worked up. And as suddenly as her anger had appeared, it seemed to disappear, with Twilight drawing all the chaos magic back into her body. But if one looked closely, it was possible to see a disturbing gleam in her eyes, as if she was a bottle ready to explode.

"I'll take care of that." She spoke, in a tone that left no space for argument "You go on ahead."

Then, before anypony could say anything, she dashed forward in a chaos assisted gallop that covered distance so fast that even Rainbow Dash could respect it. The Knight construct saw her coming, and braced itself, its magic surging and feeling like a bottomless abyss that could devour anything.

But before the construct could do anything with the power it had gathered, Twilight gave a final leap and shouted:

"CHAOTIC SHIFT!"

And suddenly all the angry chaos magic she had been restrained exploded out of Twilight's body and englobed both her and the enemy for a moment, then there was an instant of confusion as the whole world seemed to be wrenched out of place, and Twilight magic ripped away space itself, dragging the entire area together with the construct and herself in a powerful chaotic shift.

"Well, that was disturbing." Rarity said "Did she just break through all of the layers of protection of this base?"

Pinkie nodded "Twilight said that it is very difficult to restrain chaos magic unless you are devoting all your resources to it, and considering how angry she was..."

"Do you think she will be able to deal with that construct by herself?" Rarity asked.

Instead of answering, Trixie directed a question to Applejack:

"How powerful would you say that construct was?"

"It's a lot better made than any of the ones Ah saw before." Applejack said "Ah think it should have around half the power of Princess Celestia."

"Considering that the original Aurora Dream was a top Knight, that means this copy only reached half the level of the actual Knight." Sunset said "If that is the case, then we don't need to worry. Twilight is the one who knows the most about her. A half-baked copy like that isn't going to defeat her."

-0-

Outside of the cave, the world exploded. Twilight hadn't bothered to control her chaotic shift, so a multitude of short-lived chaotic effects surged into existence at the same time as the two ponies appeared.

Reacting to her sudden shift, Aurora Dream activated the magic she had gathered, revealing exactly what her fighting style was like. Tendrils of darkness erupted from her sides, and they conglomerated in the form of eight prehensible blood-red tentacles. The tips of those tentacles shifted and formed mouths that looked like venus flytraps, and each of them seemed to be an abyss in and of itself.

Twilight wasn't intimidaded by that. On the contrary, seeing it only made her angrier, as she could see that this mockery was simply unable to show the true power of Aurora Dream. The Knight didn't even need tendrils of darkness, and could turn space itself into an abyss of hunger that didn't have a start or an end.

Still, even though she was furious, Twilight kept her focus. She would not allow herself to be defeated by a mockery of her idol, so the first thing she did was cast a small but powerful spell on herself, just to be on the safe side. That done, she released her grips on her own anger, and spoke the words that heralded the beginning of the battle:

"Chaotic Release!"

-0-

The remaining Knights moved forward, keeping to the same formation as before. The ominous air of the enemy base got thicker and thicker, but even worse was the fact that the enemy defenses seemed to have fallen completely silent. Every single one of the Knights kept their guards up, knowing that the next maneuver by the enemy would be coming.

And even then they almost failed to react, as even Applejack's Eyes of Truth didn't see what was going on until the last moment.

AS the ground turned into a shifting mass and it seemed like space itself was attacking them with overwhelming dominance.

It was almost indescribable. It was like a rain of spells, except that the ran was coming from literally everywhere around them. None of the spells were particularly strong, but there were such a barrage of them that the aura defenses of most of the Knights crumbled in seconds, with only Fluttershy and Sunset being able to keep theirs going.

The other Knights screamed as their bodies were battered by a multitude of spells for half a second before their prepared defenses kicked in.

Still, even those would break soon if the rain of attacks was allowed to continue, but Sunset and Fluttershy had managed to communicate with a glance and were already ready to counter attack.

"Double Arts!" They shouted "Aura of Destruction!"

Sunset and Fluttershy were the two members of the Knights with the highest amount of magical power, and they showed that by using that combination. It was like a hurricane of destructive power that appeared in the middle of the group and grew into a house sized maelstrom of pure annihilation.

Well, not "pure" annihilation, because despite the power of the attack, it passed straight through the Knights without harming any of them, thanks to the support of Fluttershy's empathy.

Such a massive attack also counted as a defense, and the barrage of spells melted in front of such a huge directed power, and then it was over.

The Knights who had been wounded tried their best to restore their defenses, while Sunset and Fluttershy prepared for the next round of attacks.

Except it never came.

"Wait... We didn't defeat the source of the attacks, so why aren't they continuing?" Sunset asked.

"I think I have an idea." Rarity said.

Sunset looked at her, and saw that Rarity was holding a blue card in which a short message was written:

'Trixie will be back later.'

And it was only then that she realized that Trixie was missing.

"I guess she went to deal with the source." Sunset said "And I didn't even realize she had gone..."

Fluttershy went to try and help the other Knights recover from their injuries, as Sunset thought:

'I wonder just how much she has hidden.'

-0-

Trixie was currently walking around in a subdimension made entirely out of mirrors. She had managed to detect the source of the attacks and teleported himself inside that dimension in order to face the responsible party.

It didn't take long to find the enemy, because the dimension was small, and Trixie's grasp of details prevented her from getting lost inside of the maze.

It was a pony she had seen before, but not in person. It was the mare called Radiant Hope, but weirdly, her cutie mark was different from before, and instead of a couple of mirrors, it was a flame. However, it was definitely the same pony as before. The smug smirk on her face was proof of that.

"Well... It's true what they say. The Knights are really valorous." Radiant spoke in a mocking tone "You came straight here into this deathtrap without any hesitation."

Trixie spoke, calm and collected, showing dignity "If the Knights were afraid of jumping into deathtraps, they wouldn't be able to act as the protectors of Equestria." She smirked "And besides, Trixie is very confident that she will not be killed so easily."

"We shall- FLAME ANNIHILATION!" Radiant Hope interrupted her own words to launch an attack.

It was a terrifying eruption of flame centered around Trixie's position.

Suddenly, one of the mirrors broke and she cut off her spell to release a powerful pulse of magic, that revealed Trixie standing on her other side.

"Oh, done already?" Trixie asked "But you seemed to be having so much fun trying to burn that illusion." She mocked.

Radiant Hope glared. She knew that, if not for her automatic defense, she would have probably lost control of her leg without even noticing it.

With a thought she made dozens of mirrors light up, with a variety of spells.

'It seems like she got angry.' Trixie thought.

-0-

The remaining six Knights had moved onwards once they realized that the coast was clear, but once again they were prepared for any sort of sudden sneaky traps.

But it wasn't really necessary to go that far. Because the next trap that was waiting for them was anything but sneaky.

The tunnel they were going through suddenly opened up into a deep and dark abyss. And on the other side of the abyss, a long way away, was the passage to the rest of the cave.

"Why would they even have such an obvious trap?" Rainbow complained.

"Probably because it is not the kind of trap you can avoid just by seeing it coming." Sunset decided "Applejack, what do you have for me?"

The earth pony looked intently at the abyss, which proceeded to look back at her.

Applejack's eyes twitched, but she didn't blink, and she didn't look away.

"There's something very powerful and very wrong down there." She said, after a moment of thought.

Sunset sighed "In that case, I guess there's no choice. Rarity, you have the command from here on."

"You're going down?" She asked.

"Yep." Sunset said, and jumped into the abyss.

-0-

"Magical Bombardment: Wide Style." Sunset declared her magic just as soon as she started falling.

An amount of magical power that was far beyond what any of the other Knights could casually summon exploded out of her body into a spell that could be accurately described as a "city destroyer". There were literally hundreds of small spells that had a lot more power than you'd expect, and they rained down in a formation that covered every single inch of space in the abyss.

It wasn't in the least bit overkill. For a moment, it seemed as if the darkness itself was recoiling from the countless explosions, but then it became clear that there was an unspeakably huge monster whose parts were spread all around the abyss.

Breaking through the first layer of the monster, Sunset realized that what she had just destroyed was like the leaves of a tree. So the next thing she would have to face would be the trunk.

Sure enough, a mass of flesh and power that was reminiscent of a tornado whipped up at her.

"True Grand Ray." Sunset declared, this time focusing the power into an extremely small circle.

The resulting spell was a surprisingly thin beam of energy, but when it hit the mass, everything burned.

Even the movement of the monster was stopped by the amazing amount of power that had been focused, and the destruction followed down the path of the metaphorical "trunk", leaving a bright path of destruction that Sunset followed down, using a spell to accelerate her fall.

And then, the remnants of the spell got wiped out by an explosion of chaotic energy, and Sunset finally reached the bottom of the abyss, and reached the metaphorical "root".

It was a "being", but only in the most strict use of the term. The thing was as big as four ponies, and was composed of a ridiculous mishmash of different types of tissues and organs, spread around leaving a lot of gaps, and forced together by chains made of darkness. The whole thing gave an air of chaos.

"So that's why the Seeds of Chaos haven't been showing up later." Sunset said "They were being gathered in order to create this thing."

Having said that, she prepared for the fight.

-0-

"I can still hear the sounds of the fight even from here." Rainbow Dash said "Sunset really doesn't know how to do anything with subtlety."

The five remaining Knights had already crossed over the abyss and headed even deeper into the enemy base. So it wasn't strange that she would be impressed by how far the sounds carried. However, those would be the last casual words any of the Knights would be able to speak for a while.

"We're almost there." Applejack said.

The tension immediately shot up to an amazing level, and the five Knights prepared themselves for everything.

Suddenly, the whole tunnel around them lit up in a complex spell pattern. If any of the original Knights were there, they would have recognized the pattern as another version of the same forced movement spell that had caused trouble for them in their first mission.

"Nope!" Applejack shouted.

In an instant, she did a space step to appear several meters forward, and then targetted a very specific part of the formation with a magic infusing hoof strike.

The rune was destroyed, and the spell fizzled away into nothing.

"Haaa..." Applejack sighed, but then she looked at the others and shouted "Careful!"

Still, there was very little they could do. Applejack returned to the others and they joined their forces to push forward a powerful magical defense. But while they could protect themselves from being hurt, there was nothing they could do about the other reason for the attack.

A wave of pure shadow battered at their shield, seeming like the entire earth above them was trying to crush them, like a falling mountain. Their shield stood strong, for the five seconds that the wave lasted, but when it was over, the five found themselves trapped inside a sphere made out of shadows.

Together with them, was a unicorn stallion with eyes full of hate and magic. Sombra himself, in the flesh.

"Since he couldn't pull us into his trap, he brought the trap to us instead." Applejack said.

The five Knights prepared themselves, for what came next would be one of the biggest struggles of their lives.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 63 - Fighting in the Shadows

Guard Lieutenant Water Sky, a green pegasus mare with a raindrop cutie mark, was already feeling tired, but more mentally than physically.

She had received the duty of commanding seven guard regiments to hold Alamare Pass against the invasion of the shadows. She had all the training and skill necessary for that, as well as a cool head, so she did her job admirably despite the stacked odds.

But commanding in the middle of such a critical situation was an immense burden on one's mind, and while she did her best to keep going, the pegasus knew that eventually it would get to be too much for her.

"Divisions four and five, take the blocking position! Division 13, prepare for a long range magical artillery barrage, fifteen thousand meters forward, charge level 4!"

Her commands were obeyed quickly and with quite a lot of precision, which managed to reduce the pressure the front lines were facing momentarily, but Water Sky could see that her soldiers were just getting more and more tired.

And like it had to happen eventually, things just got out of control. The fatigue got to one of the guards in the frontlines, and he received a deep slash from one of the shadow monsters. The line was broken, and there was a scramble as the guards tried to pick up the escalating number of wounded as well as dealing with trying to defend against the shadows coming in and rebuild the line all at once.

Even Water Sky got in on the action, flying forward and gathering huge globs of water to launch at the enemies and slow their advance, but the situation wasn't improving.

Until a voice echoed through the entire battlefield:

"Draconic Self: Salamander!"

The voice came from a small dragon that had somehow appeared right in the middle of the biggest concentration of enemies. He raised his arms and suddenly exploded in flames, their fire so hot that the closest shadow monsters disappeared almost instantly. And he wasn't done.

With another gesture, the flame expanded outwards in small waves that were perfectly targeted to destroy the front line of the shadow monsters, including the ones who were causing havoc in the middle of the ponies, while not harming any of the guards at all.

It took only a few seconds, and then he created a barrier of fire to prevent any more monsters from coming immediately. After that, he resumed his normal form and quickly made his way towards Water Sky. With a salute, he spoke:

"Lieutenant, I'm sorry for having taken so long." He said seriously "It took a bit of time to get here after I was pulled from my previous mission."

"Did Princess Celestia send you here to help us?" The pegasus asked.

"Yes. Though I'm not going to be staying long." Spike said "Me and the Crusaders have to teleport around all of Equestria to help reduce the pressure on the critical fronts."

"I understand. That was plenty." Water Sky said "How long do you think that fire barrier will last?"

"Around ten more minutes at most." Spike said.

"That's more than enough. Thank you, Knight Spike."

The dragon nooded and disappeared in a teleport. And Water Sky started giving orders to reorganize the front, taking advantage of the time she had been granted.

She also felt her nervousness lessen quite a bit. She had been looking at things the wrong way. She didn't need to do it alone. This was something that concerned the whole of Equestria, so she knew that the princesses had her back.

-0-

Meanwhile, in another front entirely, several guard divisions cheered as they saw their uncountable enemies being destroyed by a rain of minisuns and moonbeams.

-0-

Usually, the chaotic release wasn't focused enough for a proper battle. It was simply too random and unpredictable to be useful. Discord, as the Spirit of Chaos, didn't have that problem, but for most wielders of chaos magic, it was generally a coin flip whether they'd be able to accomplish whatever it was that they wanted.

However, the feelings of the wielder influenced their actions while under chaotic release, and there were few feelings that worked better at focusing chaos magic than anger, specially if your goal was defeating the target of that emotion.

As such, using such a technique was actually a great way for Twilight to start the battle, considering the kind of enemy she was facing.

"BURN!" Twilight yelled.

The power of her chaos magic combined with her anger was terrifying. The very air was set on fire, and a wave of heat similar to a volcano eruption exploded towards the enemy construct.

One of the mouths chomped down, and it was like a piece of the world had suddenly gone missing. The fire was devoured, the heat was devoured, even the energy of the spell was devoured, leaving behind a disturbing feeling of emptyness.

But Twilight, even in her chaos addled state, was smart enough to know that it would be impossible to defeat her enemy so easily, and that was okay, because she had a lot more attacks to use.

And Twilight proceeded to shift around the battlefield, releasing chaotic bursts that only had one purpose in mind: Destroying the fake Knight.

Her attacks were unbelievably violent and aggressive, reflecting her state of mind, Twilight released hundreds of seeds that exploded into trees with sharp, drill-shaped branches. Twilight pounded the ground, causing the entire earth around the battlefield to shatter into explosive shards. Twilight shot a beam upwards that hit the clouds and made them rain acid and lava. Very few things could survive having to deal with such a variety of overly destructive attacks.

Sadly, the fake Knight happened to be one of them.

Even though it was far from the level of the original, her Hunger magic was powerful (to be fair, the original was so strong she could not be described as merely powerful). And while she technically didn't have much versatility, it really wasn't needed when her extra mouths could and would devour anything.

Every single attack Twilight made was devoured. Nothing could get past the defenses of the enemy, Not Twilight's area of effect attacks that had an impressive effective range, not Twilight's sonic based magic, that reached the enemy too fast to be reacted to. The hunger mouths devoured everything that came near, forming a nearly unbeatable defense.

But nearly didn't mean completely unbeatable, and even the original Knight had struggled in battles sometimes, which meant that the fake one would have even bigger flaws on her defenses. But it wouldn't be easy to find them unless Twilight took a bit more risk, so that was what she did.

She directly stepped into the region controlled by the mouths, resuming her relentless assault.

From such a close range, and with such focus, even the nearly unbeatable defense of the mouths was not enough to protect the construct completely, and dozens of attacks rained down and battered its aura defense.

However, there was a flip side to that tactic. Twilight was now close enough to the enemy that she had to constantly worry about being devoured by the mouths. She shifted chaotically all over that small area, doing her best to avoid the effect of the mouths, but eventually it was not enough.

It was just one instant where she was at the wrong place and Twilight's front half disappeared, devoured by one of the mouths.

An instant later, she recreated the missing part of her body and kept going without interruption.

That was another reason why Twilight had decided to use the chaotic release. While her level of mastery of the chaotic body wasn't enough to recover that fast (yet), the additional power of her chaotic state allowed her to do it. And the way her chaotic body worked, as long as she wasn't eaten in a single bite, Twilight could endlessly regenerate herself, making her one of the few types of opponent that Hunger Magic users had trouble with.

And so, that extremely intense and terrifying fight continued. Twilight swarmed the opponent with countless powerful spells, forcing her to try to defend herself at the same time as she tried to attack the Knight. And the unicorn was constantly losing parts of her own body as the hunger mouths clapped shut and devoured the surrounding space, but also constantly regenerated them, keeping herself in the fight. It was definitely something that could be called a "Battle of Monsters".

Little by little, Twilight's constant attacks started to wear down the resistances of the construct. Even though only a little bit of their power reached the enemy, since they were mostly devoured by the mouths, the barrage of attacks was continuous enough that the damage started to add up, and the body of the fake Knight started to show some injuries.

In contrast to Twilight, the construct wasn't losing any body parts, but that was actually something Twilight intended. Even in her uncontrolled state, the Knight knew that taking away parts of a user of Hunger Magic was a bad idea. It only served to increase their metaphorical Emptiness, thus making them stronger.

That was a lesson that many of Aurora Dream's enemies had learned during her career. It often turned out to be the last lesson of their lives.

So, in hindsight, perhaps what happened next could be considered an inevitability.

With a roar and a phenomenal burst of magic, the construct stopped the movement of all the mouths for a moment... And then they turned and ate its body.

Somehow, every mouth took out an equal part, in a way that seemed almost ritualistic, until all that was left was the head. This all happened while Twilight was trying to free herself from being frozen by the burst of magic.

By the time she managed, it was already too late. The hunger mouths and their tentacles exploded into a ridiculous amount of black threads that looked like strands of fur. And then those threads opened up, revealing themselves to be mouths that could move independently. Mouths that could eat forever without getting full.

The Battle of the Monsters had reached a new level, but who would be the winner in the end?

-0-

Trixie had already taken note of the fact that Radiant Hope's cutie mark was different than expected, so it wasn't a complete surprise when it changed again, but the first move of the enemy was still quite sudden and ferocious.

Her cutie mark changing to a target, Radiant Hope shouted "Pursuit!" and created dozens of arrows of light that shot towards Trixie. Then the mirrors shone with magic for a moment and the arrows changed direction. Heading towards a seemingly empty patch of space.

Trixie had already changed her position again after being discovered, leaving another illusion to attract attention.

The arrows hit empty space, and forced Trixie out of hiding, though they weren't quite strong enough to break through her defenses. Radiant Hope prepared to keep on attacking, but another mirror suddenly broke, and she scrambled to use another pulse of magic to reveal Trixie's location once again.

She was just behind the enemy unicorn, who attacked her hastily, but Trixie managed to teleport away. Radiant Hope used another pulse to verify if the Trixie that appeared after the teleport was the real one, but this time Trixie hadn't replaced herself with an illusion, having predicted Radiant's reactions.

In just those few short exchanges, Trixie had already showed her skill in terms of illusionism and trickery. The thing that had been hit wasn't Trixie, but instead an invisible illusion she placed in front of her real body to take the hit and convince Radiant that her plan had worked.

Still, Radiant Hope's defenses were extremely thorough. Even though she had already seen it once, Trixie wasn't able to get around her scapegoat mirrors. That was a strange ability that interacted strangely with her opponent's body.

After that, the battle entered an extremely heated state. Radiant constantly used her magic pulses to confirm Trixie's location, preventing her from hiding herself under illusions. The Knight was forced to use illusions directly on the attacks to trick their tracking and make them veer off course.

Radiant responded to that by changing her cutie mark to one of lightning and taking over the aiming. Trixie then used illusions to trick the lightning bolts into believing they had already hit something, causing their charge to dissipate. Radiant changed her cutie mark to one of a raindrop and showered the entire arena with extremely destructive high pressure water jets, hitting even herself and relying on her mirrors to protect her.

Trixie's response to that was using an illusion to trick space itself into folding over and creating a safe space for her.

And while that might seem like Radiant Hope was completely dominating, that wasn't the case, as evidenced by the scapegoat mirrors regularly breaking during the fighting. Trixie was constantly using slow invisible illusion spells that hit Radiant and attacked her in different forms, probing at her defenses. That included even an illusion that was supposed to make her magic go out of control and explode while still inside her horn, because offensive illusion magic did not mess around at all.

Radiant Hope decided to go even further. Her cutie mark changed to a star and she summoned a horrifying amount of magical power from the world of mirrors itself, creating a galaxy of star shaped spells that warped the space around to ridiculous proportions, making it break and reform chaotically.

After another pulse of magic to confirm Trixie's position, Radiant shot her spell towards her, and then she felt a light tap to the back of her neck.

It was Trixie's horn.

"Grand Illusion: Ruler Dream." The unicorn said solemnly.

And she exploded with an amount of magic comparable to what Radiant had just used, wrestling away control of her magic, and making it attack the villainous unicorn.

At the last moment, Trixie escaped via a pre-prepared gap and let Radiant be hit by the full force of her own magic. Dozens of mirrors broke.

But she got what she wanted. Trixie had figured out Radiant Hope's secret. The unicorn had turned herself into a living artifact. As such, she was definitely still in the fight, but now that she knew about it, Trixie could get around her defenses.

The Knight let herself feel joy at a successfull plan while still keeping an eye on what the enemy would do. Her scheme had started when she figured out how to trick Radiant Hope's magic pulse detection, but deliberately refrained from doing so at first, lulling Radiant into a false sense of security.

Then she waited until the mare used a recklessly powerful attack, leaving her defenses in the weakest state. However, even with that, she would need to use a lot of power to muster a spell powerful enough to turn her power against her, and she couldn't simply charge up slowly during combat, as evading her attacks took pretty much all the power she had to spare.

Thankfully, the Knight had a solution, and it was called Sphere of Charge.

Previously, she had needed to constantly focus on a Sphere to keep it under control, so its utility was limited. But after her training in the dream world, where she had learned lessons about the self, and some work to perfect the method, Trixie managed to fuse the Sphere of Charge to her own body.

And not just one. Trixie had fused eight of them with her flesh. So it was basically like being able to use Overdrive without the drawbacks eight times every mission.

Of course, Trixie had developed her illusions even further to take advantage of that.

She was still thinking about what her next move should be when she felt something change. And it came from the area Radiant Hope was in, which was still covered by the folds of rampaging space.

"It's been a while since I've last used my true cutie mark. It's quite... refreshing." Radiant Hope's voice sounded.

With a pulse of magic, she turned the space back to normal in an instant, and Trixie was able to see her new cutie mark.

It was a mirror. But unlike the mirrors cutie mark Trixie had previously glimpsed, that one was a single, majestic crystal mirror. And Trixie could tell that Radiant's aura had changed. Even though she had only used a single spell, the Knight knew that she was ten times more dangerous than before.

That was the true power of Sombra's apprentice. The fight between the two was about to change again.

-0-

If someone were to ask Sunset for advice in fighting a powerful user of chaos magic, she would laugh and say "Don't get hit."

If she were actually speaking seriously, however, Sunset would say that the secret was being flexible. Chaos magic was constantly mutable and changing, so you had to adjust to its changes to be able to use your own abilities to the fullest.

"Eruption Burst." Sunset declared, opening up the battle with a spell that was similar to a mini volcanic eruption, in which the lava was composed of dynamite.

That was a spell powerful enough to serve as a finishing move if Sunset was the same as when she went on her first mission. But now that she had gotten so much stronger, it barely qualified as a probing attack.

It was necessary, since the opponents she was facing these days were also much stronger than before, as proven by the fact that the enemy wasn't suppressed by such a destructive attack, and instead even counter-attacked with countless tendrils of diamond, that flew through the air in Sunset's direction and exploded into a shower of shards filled with rampaging chaotic power.

Sunset took a single instant to check, and indeed, the chaotic energy made it impossible for her to teleport.

Thankfully, Sunset had already known for a long time about her weaknesses in regards to movement skills. Teleporting was fast and convenient, but there were far too many ways to make it impossible to use, so it wasn't reliable. And Sunset had still not managed to find a flight spell that agreed with her, so the unicorn's solution had been somewhat... interesting.

Considering it had to do with moving at high speed, Sunset had actually worked together with Rainbow Dash in order to create her new technique. And its name was:

"Extreme Movement!"

And then Sunset exploded. Almost literally.

She continually created thousands of small explosions of power that released shockwaves to push her into insane accelerations, like some kind of bastardization of a rocket fuel engine. Those explosions were exquisitely controlled to impart mostly kinectic energy to Sunset, and to be able to move her precisely. However, they were still powerful enough that without her amazing aura defenses, Sunset would be severely harmed by the explosions, and that was not even mentioning the sheer strain of accelerating and changing directions so sharply. There was a reason the term "breakneck speeds" existed, and Sunset was experiencing it with her own body.

However, it was definitely worth it, as Sunset flew through the air in a tightly controlled course, avoiding the areas with the highest concentration of attacks and using her shields to break through the weak spots.

Because of course there were weak spots. Chaos magic was powerful, but ordliness and precision weren't really part of what it could do. Even Twilight was unable to change that reality (she simply worked around it), much less a mindless being composed of many shards of chaos. But it wouldn't be easy to take advantage of them, which was why Sunset decided to break out another one of her new trump cards.

"Magic Charge." She declared with solemnity. A point of light appeared on her right side and started to grow.

By that point, the chaos monster had already changed up his attacks again. Its body warped itself to become a huge, fanged mouth and it expelled a breath that turned the air all around into acid. Sunset reacted instantly, using her extreme movement to fly upwards, leaving the acid area so fast that it didn't have time to corrode her defenses. And then the point of light grew into a sphere, and Sunset called a new spell.

"Destroyer Quake!"

The unicorn shot a small beam of light downwards and it reached the ground, creating a powerful earthquake directly on top of the enemy. But power wasn't even the most impressive part of that spell, being overshadowed by her exquisite control.

While earthquake magic brought to mind images of unrestrained destruction, Sunset had put in enough power on the spell to restrain it to a very small area, causing the shockwaves to keep bouncing back and growing stronger in their small space, causing havoc to the body of the enemy. This was the sort of things she used to need an Overdrive to do, but now she had something better.

It was the Magic Charge. Similar to the Sphere of Charge used by Trixie, it was a storage of power that could be activated to supply energy for extremely strong spells on a dime. But while Trixie's charges had to be prepared beforehand, Sunset had enough magic that he was capable of creating charges in the middle of a fight, simply by devoting all of her "spare" energy that wasn't being used in the fight to charge up a new sphere.

It wasn't easy. In fact, it was by far the hardest thing Sunset had ever mastered. Not only did it require for her to be able to constantly split her attention to create and feed the magic charges while she was already fighting, but using every single drop of available power all the time was the magical equivalent of continually straining one's muscles to the max without any rest, and that was as tiring and painful as you might expect. But it was definitely worth it, and Sunset started charging another sphere just as soon as her spell was released.

The following battle could be described as a study in contrasts. Sunset's violent method of moving and powerful spells contrasted with the amazing degree of control that she showed, maximizing the effect of every bit of magical power and not wasting anything. Attacking fluidly to target the constantly changing enemy, sometimes with pinpoint strikes, sometimes with area of effect blasts, and sometimes with heavily directed homing shots.

When asked whether it was better to fight smartly or overwhelm the enemy with power, Sunset would answer that the best option was smartly overwhelming the enemy with power.

The Knight didn't get it all her own way, however. This was a powerful enemy, an entity created from many shards of chaos, and it wouldn't be defeated so easily. Many times, Sunset was forced to pop off her magic charge early to create an extra defense when the attacks of the opponent got too overwhelming, and other times she watched her carefully chosen spells have no effect when the enemy changed into a form that had different weaknesses.

Still, Sunset was slowly getting the upper hand. Her attacks were slowly refined to damage the core of the opponent, targeting the structure that connected the chaos shards to form the "heart" of the creature.

As might be expected, that part was pretty tough, with many ways of redirect and diffuse damage around to prevent it from being easily destroyed, but Sunset was a specialist in destruction magic, and little by little the effects of her attacks piled up, until all the chaos shards were filled with cracks, looking like they were going to break apart at any moment.

Yet, Sunset did not ease up on her vigilance. She knew of Sombra's preference for complex tricks and tactics, and she had noticed several things during the battle that pointed towards something sneaky being brewed. Mostly unusual flows of magic and parts of the surroundings that changed slightly without apparent reason.

So, when she was sure that her next big spell would be able to destroy the opponent, Sunset spent some extra time creating additional defenses to be prepared for any eventuality before actually releasing her last attack. And sure enough, it was not wasted time.

As soon as her attack spell got close to the enemy, an extremely powerful magical formation activated itself, and the walls of the abyss broke and flowed towards Sunset's projectile.

The magic of the Knight was completely destroyed, but that still wasn't the end. More and more earth flowed away from the surroundings, except that flowed wasn't really the right word. The violence of the movement was like there was a terrifying hurricane ripping apart everything around and dragging the earth into its orbit.

The fact that Sunset had prepared her defenses was good, because even with that she was only barely able to avoid receiving injuries from the sheer chaotic whirlwind of high-speed rock shards that battered at her position.

And then it was over. The battlefield had changed completely, and instead of a relatively narrow space, similar to a well, it was actually looking more like a wasteland, where the closest walls were very far away. The thing that hadn't changed was how dark eveything looked. The wasteland was completely black and featureless, looking almost like a void.

But by far the worst part of it all was the chaotic monster. All that earth had gathered and compressed itself into an "armor" for it. Since the thing was still constantly changing, the armor was composed of hundreds of disks of earth, floating around the creature in several layers, like a lotus flower that had been endlessly reflected between two mirrors. Behind the armor, Sunset could see that the cracks on the shards of chaos had all healed.

Those disks perfectly followed the continuous changes in the body of the monster, and they were filled with runes that seemed to connect to each other in a complex magical formation. Taking one look at it, Sunset felt like there was some sort of inteligence woven among those runes, like something else had taken direct control of the monster via the formation, and so she realized what it must be.

"Formation Spirit, huh..." She whispered "Sombra is really a troublesome opponent."

And then she focused again, getting ready for the next stage of the fight.

-0-

"I'm sorry if you prepared this trap for our teachers, since you're going to have to settle for us." Rarity spoke lightly, trying to get information out of Sombra.

"Everything is according to plan." Sombra said in an emotionless voice "Simply dying is not punishment enough for them."

Rarity started having a bad feeling, but she still remembered to look at Applejack, who signaled that they were indeed facing the real Sombra.

"Really, then what exactly is your plan?" Rarity asked, already giving Ranbow Dash a signal about what the plan was.

"I want to see their faces when I show them your lifeless bodies. Only after that will they be killed." Sombra's emotionless voice changed to contain a trace of viciousness.

"That's not going to happen!" Rainbow Dash shouted, accelerating forward at great speeds, though not exactly her best.

And the reason for that was the fact that the pegasus was also preparing a technique at the same time.

"True Body: Wind Channel!" She declared.

And Rainbow Dash's physical form changed. It was something subtle, something one would need to pay particular attention in order to pinpoint, despite it being easy to notice that something had changed. Essentially, the edges of Dash's body seemed to have become slightly ethereal, almost as if the limits of her body were thinning in order to allow her to fuse with the surroudings.

Rainbow Dash suddenly appeared right in front of Sombra, and hit him with a powerful punch.

He didn't even seem to feel it, and neither was he moved even the slightest bit. Sombra looked down at the pegasus and declared:

"Shadow Legion."

It wasn't an explosion, or an eruption, or anything like that. Instead, it looked more like a spontaneous creation, as an army of shadows appeared around Sombra, an army composed of all sorts of shadows, big and small, shadows of beasts and plants, and even of objects.

Faster than even an instant, Rainbow Dash was completelu surrounded and attacked from all directions, but none of the attacks managed to hit the pegasus, who managed to slip away like a breeze and reappear next to the other Knights like a breath. There was a reason why she had been the first one to attack.

Rainbow Dash's path of development had started with trying to fuse her weather magic with her body enhancement abilities, as those were her most powerful traits.

Soon she learned (very painfully) that it wasn't simply a question of shoving weather magic through the body enhancement channels, since it wasn't pure energy, and thus could not fuse with her flesh and blood with the same ease. So the solution she found was in changing her own body, thus making it compatible with such energies, and allowing her to transcend the limitations of mere physicality. That was the True Body technique.

As soon as Rainbow Dash retreated, she immediately advanced again, having realized that Sombra's defense was due to magically removing part of his own physicality out of the world, mediated by shadows, so she simply needed to hit both his body and his shadow at the same time to get around it.

But before she had a chance to do that, Sombra declared another spell:

"Shadow Sky."

The entire arena darkened slightly.

And for a moment Rainbow Dash felt as if her body was ripping apart from the inside out. The Knight retreated back to the others at the same time as she supressed the raging magical energy in her body with an effort of will.

"He's... corrupted the weather magic?" Applejack spoke, almost not believing what she was seeing.

"Are you okay, Dash?" Rarity asked.

"I'm okay... But that makes it harder for me to use most of my abilities..." The pegasus said.

At that moment, Sombra's legion of shadows attacked, dashing straight into the group of Knights. The one to meet them was Pinkie Pie.

"Emotion Charge: Pure Joy!" She shouted, and activated her ability.

Pinkie Pie had taken her purification magic a lot farther than before. Eventually she reached the point of being able to purify her own emotions, as well as hold those purified emotions within herself to be able to use them whenever she wanted. Using those pure emotions, she could attain any Emotion Charge she needed without needing to slowly build up her emotions to the boiling point, which would be pretty difficult for a lot of them.

Of course, not every possible Emotion Charge was useful. Some of them, like Compassion, simply had effects that were far too specific, while even condensing a strand of Pure Despair had almost killed Pinkie, so she never even tried to use it on an Emotion Charge.

However, that still meant she had a lot of options, and the Pure Joy was the one most suited for the situation. The Emotion Charge of Joy interacted with her chaotic magic in a much more direct way than the anger one, to the point where it was difficult to tell where the emotion magic began and the chaos magic ended.

Essentially, Pinkie's abilities of chaotic replication and chaotic shifting were enhanced, which meant that the legion of shadows had to face a legion of constantly teleporting Pinkies. It was a surprisingly equal matchup, as both sides had constantly replenishing numbers and were capable of defeating their equals with only a single hit, resulting in a battlefield of constantly shifting black and pink.

Of course, Sombra wouldn't allow such a stalemate to continue for long.

"Shadow Shard." He declared.

And the legion of shadows exploded into destructive shards that annihilated all the Pinkie clones at once. But before anyone could react to it, Applejack shouted:

"FOLLOW ME!"

And she moved at high speeds towards a specific spot on the battlefield. The other four Knights followed her without question, and it was just in time.

The place where the Knights had been standing, along with most of the battlefield, was completely destroyed when the "walls" and "ceiling" of the place exploded into shadow shards and caused widespread destruction and havoc. Applejack had taken the group to exactly the right place in order to avoid the explosions.

And that was just the beginning. The small battlefield had transformed into a huge isolated world, and it was a world of shadows, with shadow trees, shadow clouds, shadow rivers... even the very air itself contained traces of shadow. So it wasn't really unexpected that the world itself had turned against them.

They were attacked unrelentingly. And not just physical attacks: Temperature changes, gravity manipulation, energy bursts... All sorts of attacks were sent their way. But none of those attacks managed to reach the Knights, because Applejack was continually moving and leading the other Knights into safe spots.

Eyes of Truth: Future Sight. That was the ability Applejack was using. She wasn't as showy as some of her teammates, but Applejack was still able to do some extraordinary stuff. That particular ability worked via checking possibilities, and was based on gathering all the data of the battle with the Eyes of Truth and using that data to make predictions of the most likely possibilities.

But Sombra was a skiller warlock, and he had already made plans for such things.

"Shadow Chaos." He declared.

The world seemed to start vibrating. It was a relatively minor effect, but anyone could see that it was much more powerful than one would expect. Specially considering that Applejack suddenly stopped moving to grunt in pain and rub at her eyes with a hoof.

"What happened?" Rarity asked.

"Chaos magic." Applejack answered "He's put so many random elements in the world that Ah can't account for all the possibilities." She looked at Pinkie "Can ya help?"

She shook her head "No. I could make it even more chaotic, but that wouldn't help."

Thankfully for the Knights, Sombra wasn't capable of attacking just after doing his most recent spell, so they had time for that sort of conversation. However, that time was limited, and soon the next wave of attacks showered the area where they were.

"Wind Style: Eternal Wind Barrier." Rarity declared.

And the air itself, even the parts of it that were contaminated with shadows, shaped itself into an omni-directional barrier that protected the Knights. And it truly protected them, the barrier not being simply physical but also magical, capable of blocking even esoteric attacks such as gravity changes.

That amazing barrier was only possible because of two Artifacts Rarity possessed. One of them was the newest version of the Wind Ruler Sword, while the other was the Horseshoe of Link, one of the four new artifacts she had created based on her fellow apprentices. That specific one was based on Fluttershy's empathy abilities, and she had used it to connect to Rainbow Dash, who was still in her wind state.

It was only through that connection that Rarity was able to create such a powerful barrier so easily, and it was definitely worth it, as not even a thread of the enemy attacks managed to get through, relentless though they were.

Not that they kept trying for long. Sombra wasn't the type to keep doing something that wasn't working, since that would give his opponents time to recover and counter attack. So he declared another spell.

"Shadow Crush."

And the sky fell, or at least, that was how it felt. A mountain of shadow was dropped straight into the Knights, and it was so big that only Rainbow Dash would be fast enough to get out from under it.

But escaping from it wasn't the only option. Fluttershy flew up a few feet and declared a spell of her own.

"World's Harmony." Her words seemed to echo directly in the soul.

The effect of that spell wasn't the sort of thing that could be seen in the usual manner. In fact, any normal pony who looked at the pegasus at that moment wouldn't notice anything unusual. But for skilled mages like the Knights, Fluttershy's aura, her very essence, seemed to disappear, merging into the world.

The shadow mountain crashed into Fluttershy, and broke apart into nothing. The pegasus herself didn't even flinch.

'Oh yeah...' Rainbow Dash thought 'Sunset said that Fluttershy's defensive abilities were amazing, didn't she?'

That was truly the case. Even Sunset herself had difficulty actually injuring Fluttershy.

The pegasus Knight had trained in one of the places in Equestria that were most inimical to life, and from that she had learned that instead of fighting against the environment, it was easier to use her empathy to enter into harmony with them. And from that she developed the ability to enter into harmony with the material world itself.

Thanks to that harmony, she could take on part of the conceptual toughness of matter, allowing her defense to reach such astounding levels.

But Sombra wasn't discouraged by that, and a pulse of magic swept across the shadow world, as he prepared his next spell.

The Knights kept their focus, knowing that Sombra should still have quite a lot of cards to use.

 

[shlok]

Ooo more stuff

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 64 - Struggling in the Shadows

While in the chaotic release state, Twilight was far from what could be considered sane. However, despite her insanity, it didn't keep her from realizing the gravity of the situation on her own way.

While she had previously held the advantage in the fight against the fake Knight, the situation had completely reversed. The head of the opponent was the only weak point left, and the increase in her abilities meant that it was much easier to defend. Twilight was forced to attack the mouths instead, and while her chaotic spells were powerful enough to actually affect them instead of simply being swallowed, that came at the cost of expending a lot more energy than she could afford to, which meant that even her increasing powers were unable to keep up, and she fell into a struggling position, trying desperately just to stay alive.

Every new spell Twilight used took two entire seconds to charge, and even though she was using her chaotic movement skills, the fact that she was only able to use spells with such a large gap between them meant that the hunger mouths could get much closer than she would have liked, and Twilight's chaotic body worked on overdrive, restoring itself continually at the same time as it was being devoured.

If the situation continued, it was clear that Twilight would lose, so she once again changed her tactics. Except that instead of simply increasing the risk, she did something a lot more dramatic.

Between one moment and the other, Twilight's body changed. Her flesh darkened and her eyes became bloodshot. Opening her mouth showed that her insides seemed to be suffering from corrosion little by little, her legs inflated and even her horn lost its luster. It looked like the Knight was being ravaged by a horrendous disease.

A few moments later, one of the mouths took a bite out of Twilight, and then it suddenly started corroding quickly, as if it had been infected by whatever it was Twilight had.

Poison magic. That was a forbidden spell created by Knight Dark Realm, the Seeker of Darkness. Twilight had mentioned it before, so it stayed on her mind, which was why she used it despite her chaotical state. It was forbidden because it was extremely dangerous not only to enemies, but also to allies and even the caster. The normal method to cast it involved blocking oneself off from the spell first, but Twilight simply didn't have the level of control necessary for such a thing, specially in chaotic release.

So she didn't really try, and instead used the weak points of the spell as a feature. By restraining the range of the magic to the limit, she was able to poison only herself, making the enemy come into harm from their own attacks, and without needing to use more energy to target her. And she simply needed to use her chaotic body to keep herself alive in the face of such a powerful poison.

The decaying mouth was eaten by three other mouths, which also started decaying, only slower. Those three were eaten as well, and finally the poison was dispersed enough to lose efficacy.

Hunger magic, being based on eating, naturally had ways of dealing with harmful substances. However, despite that, the flow of the fight shifted once again. This time it was the fake Knight that was spending too much energy and would end up running dry first... Only if the notion of energy was the only consideration in the fight, which it wasn't.

Chaotic Release was a powerful ability, but it had an immense flaw: Lack of control.

That didn't just mean that it was unreliable for achieving complex objectives, but also that it wasn't stable. Twilight had already spent a significant amount of time under the effects of having released her own restraints. Her powers had increased continually but that came at the cost of slowly slipping further into chaos, to the point where her very own existence was at risk.

In her fight against Discord, she had gone so far that the Shred of Self was forced to activate and bring her back, and that same Shred of Self had already appeared: An immaterial grey clone of Twilight, who was floating a few meters above, observing the battle. Except that this one was fairly different from the one Twilight had conjured before.

It seemed more solid, and more self aware, and yet at the same time it seemed more detached from reality. But instead of seeming less real than the surrounding environment, it made the surroundings seem less real by comparison. It watched the ferocious battle between Twilight and the fake Knight, she watched as the unicorn's body started fraying at the edges, as if something massive was trying to emerge from it.

The Shred of Self watched as Twilight finally lost what little restraint she had, and forcefully shoved herself down the various mouths, instead of trying to avoid them, being devoured completely. It watched without showing any expression, and then it opened its mouth and spoke two words.

-0-

"Crystal Mirrors." Radiant Hope cast as her opening move.

The world of mirrors changed all at once, and then every single one of the mirrors was reflecting Trixie, from every conceivable angle. The Knight had a feeling, and after a few tests saw that it was true: She had become unable to hide herself under illusions anymore. It was a spell with some similarities to Applejack's Eyes of Truth.

"Mirror Light." The enemy continued.

Dots of light released themselves from all of the mirrors and converged in Trixie's direction, an overwhelming rain of attacks.

Trixie expended one of her charges.

"Grand Illusion: Chaotic Dream!" She shouted.

All of the dots of light lost their direction at the same moment, as if they were part of a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut. The result was pure chaos, with a multitude of attacks hitting each other and the surrounding battlefield. And Radiant Hope, the wielder of the spell, was hit by the chaotic backlash, causing her to lose her focus for an instant.

It was enough. Because when she recovered, Trixie had already teleported right next to her, another charge filling her with power.

"Grand Illusion: True Dream!" And Radiant Hope was hit by an overpowered illusion spell at point-blank range.

And she was swept into a powerful dream.

Trixie didn't waste any time, and immediately charged up an offensive spell: A powerful explosive arrow, aimed straight at the heart of the opponent.

But as soon as it was shot, the enemy teleported away at the last second. Even though she was still under the illusion.

'Another automatic defense spell?' Trixie thought, annoyed.

That was the worst part of facing Radiant Hope, Trixie felt. Not the fact that she was linked with a magical formation and thus had practically unlimited power. Not the fact that her magical specialty was good at seeing through illusions. But simply the fact that she was incredibly prepared, with all kinds of automatic defenses and ways to resist even the most esoterical attacks.

Trixie followed her teleportation. She realized that Radiant Hope was about to break out from the dream, but still had time for one more spell:

"Grand Illusion: Shifting Dream!"

For a moment, every single piece of Radiant Hope's artificial body tried to transform into something different.

Crunch!

A number of cracks appeared all over Radiant Hope, as if she was an egg that was hatching. She suddenly snapped her eyes open and snarled:

"Reflect!"

And Trixie was hit with the exact same spell she had just used.

Of course, Trixie knew how to deal with that, since it was her own spell. She simply (simple is relative) used a precise illusion to paralyze her own body and prevent it from responding to the sudden changes, and then they passed and her body was completely unharmed.

However, that took long enough that Radiant Hope was able to release another spell and restore her body (the spell was pretty similar to Rarity's Restoration spell, which gave Trixie an idea). And the Knight immediately followed up with another powerful spell to keep the advantage.

"Grand Illusion: Passionate Dream!"

And the spell Radiant Dream had been building exploded inside her horn, as Trixie's magic forced her into an uncontrolable emotion burst.

"Kih!" Was Radiant Hope's only reaction to her sudden maiming.

She flashed away like light, gaining distance from Trixie, who teleported after her.

Trixie's fighting style after becoming unable to hide was based on suppressing the enemy with superior power. It was simple and direct, and yet careful and precise, specially because her enemy actually had more power than her, and so overwhelming her with power was harder.

It was not impossible, since it was just a question of controlling the flow of the battle, but Trixie's situation was truly dangerous. She was having to spend her charges in order to keep ahead, and every spell of hers was intended to end the battle, but Radiant Hope's toughness was great enough to allow her to survive.

And Trixie's charges would not last forever.

"Grand Illusion: Complete Empathy!" Came her next spell.

Now there were two charges left, and Trixie suddenly changed her focus. Instead of a direct attack, she forcefully connected Radiant Hope's awareness with her own. It only lasted for a moment, but that was actually intended. Radiant Hope, who wasn't prepared for that, had no time to gain knowledge from Trixie's awareness, while the Knight got exactly what she wanted: She figured out where was the connection between Radiant Hope and the mirror world, the source of the endless energy she was powering her magic with.

That was what she targetted next.

"Grand Illusion: Power Surge!" And she used another charge.

The Grand Illusions she had used until them were inspired by her fellow Knights, and as such, the current one was based on Sunset. Trixie's spell seamlessly mixed with the energy of Radiant Hope and rushed into the connection, intending to destroy it.

From the mirror world itself, a burst of power rose and blocked Trixie's spell.

'Of course.' She thought 'Yet another countermeasure.'

But she didn't stop. She couldn't stop. Trixie released her last charge.

"Grand Illusion: Denial of Nothingness!"

And Trixie released the illusion of an incredibly powerful blast, and turned it into reality. Something that had taken all three of the Knights previously she could now do on her own. The reality would only last for a few moments, but it would be enough to hit.

"Mirror Domain!" Faced with Trixie's overwhelming offense, Radiant Hope displayed her own trump card.

It was as if the world of mirrors converged into a point right in front of her. That single point did not grow, and yet its presence seemed to fill the entire battlefield.

The shock of the two spells was absolutely astounding. Radiant Hope's Mirror Domain was a defense based on the very concept of reflection, capable of turning part of the power of an attack against itself, but Trixie's created attack was so powerful that it managed to overwhelm even that defense.

Still, the portion of the attack that actually managed to reach Radiant Hope was still not enough to give Trixie the victory. The enemy's wounds had increased even further, but since her body was an artifact, even those were unable to significantly impair her fighting ability.

So, Trixie dashed at her, using her aura to reinforce her body and attacking with direct physical combat. She targetted Radiant Hope's wounds and tried to directly destroy the portion of her artifact body that contained the connection with the mirror world.

However, all of Trixie's efforts ended up being not quite enough.

"Crystal Shackles." Radiant Hope managed to cast.

Like lightning from a clear sky, chains of crystal restrained Trixie. She immediately tried to activate her Overdrive... but was unable to, the chains also suppressing her ability to use that technique. The Knight drove her magic into the chains, looking to break that restriction, but it was already too late.

"Heart Curse." Radiant Hope declared.

-0-

As she was fighting against the monster, Sunset couldn't help but have a slight feeling of familiarity. A powerful user of chaotic magic who was only barely guiding their powers (full control at that level was impossible)... It felt like fighting against Twilight when she was under Chaotic Release.

It wasn't completely the same, because Twilight didn't have the level of extra power that thing could use, while the monster wasn't able to compare with Twilight's spell versatility. However, it was similar enough that Sunset could use the experience as a guide.

Not that it could be considered easy. In fact, it was a lot harder than the previous portion of the fight. While before Sunset had been able to overwhelm the enemy with skillful use of her spells, now she was being overwhelmed herself.

One moment, the chaos monster had shaped itself into a dragon, breathing out a legion of chaotic insects that teleported directly on top of Sunset before exploding, with her only barely managing to expel them from her body before suffering serious injuries. The next moment, the chaos monster turned into a raging river of chaos that rushed at Sunset at near supersonic speeds, forcing her to use her extreme movement more and more to avoid it, because the river could flow through the air without any hindrance whatsoever, disregarding the laws of gravity.

The attacks of the enemy were ruthless and tyrannical: Transforming the very air into noxious poison, creating a rain of extremely sharp rock shards that left no place untouched, even creating a tornado that spread chaotic dust that could destroy everything all around the area. Despite that, Sunset was still able to counter-attack, using a combination of teleports, extreme movements and brutally powerful yet exquisitely controlled attacks.

However, it wasn't just the attacks of the monster that were tyrannical, his defenses were just as problematic and hard to deal with. Thanks to the control of the formation spirit, the monster's reactions to Sunset were quick and decisive. The enemy turned into gas, shadow, crystal or whatever else could better resist Sunset's attacks. The enemy erected countless barriers of every variety. The enemy shifted around chaotically to avoid every attack it could. The Knight was unable to make any headway.

One could say that Sunset was being completely suppressed. But that wasn't really a new feeling for her. In the countless times she had fought against Celestia during her training, she had been suppressed every single time. So despite the despairing situation, Sunset's state of mind was calm and placid as she considered what to do.

The Knight had lots of plans for ways of actually dealing with that enemy. However, most of those plans required quite a bit of setup. Sunset knew that lots of things could change very quickly in a fight, specially against that type of opponent, so such plans were unreliable at best. With that being said, Sunset turned her attention towards other avenues of strategy. It could be said that there were three different ways to defeat an opponent: The first was to attack their weakness, the first was to whittle them down, and the last was to cause them to self-destruct.

Considering the enemy, the third method was probably the most plausible, and Sunset was reminded of Trixie, who had always excelled at that sort of thing.

"Grand Basin." She declared, activating one of her most esoterical spells.

A huge and majestic water basin appeared between Sunset and the monster. That water basin seemed to be slightly spectral, and yet also incredibly solid. And after Sunset manifested the basin, the entire structure of the fight changed dramatically. For one thing, Sunset stopped moving around or doing any other spells, concentrating entirely on controlling the basin.

The chaotic monster attacked once again, this time releasing a multitude of black threads that left cuts on the space itself as they travelled towards Sunset. But when they were halfway there, just above the basin, the black threads seemed to have gone berserk and started attacking one another.

The enemy stopped feeding energy to them, but Sunset took advantage of that to take control of the remnants of the spell and sent them back at the monster, forcing it to swipe them away with a huge water paw. However, the water paw itself lost cohesion and turned into a blast of steam that shot into the enemy, who blocked with the armor.

Grand Basin was a spell Sunset had designed to fight against Twilight. It was based on the idea of interfering with enemy magic. It was not efficient enough to have good results against most magic, but since chaos magic was difficult to control, it was the perfect target for it. Sunset had managed to turn the tables and successfully snatched away the dominant position in the battle.

It wasn't like the enemy was completely helpless, though. The formation spirit could guide the chaotic spells of the monster, using a variety of different approaches to try to get around Sunset's technique. It attacked in all sorts of ways, it used multiple attacks at once, and it even attacked the basin directly, trying to find out the weaknesses of the spell.

With this, the fight between the two of them reached a strange kind of equilibrium. Sunset had an advantage, being able to deal with everything that the enemy tried, and even attack. However, it wasn't decisive enough to overcome the opponent, and she was unable to increase the pressure because controlling the basin was taking all of her power and focus.

The next stage of the battle would begin once that equilibrium was broken. And it ended up being the enemy that managed it.

"Kkh!"

Sunset struggled, but the chaotic monster had finally found a tactic that she was unable to deal with. More and more chaotic energy started filling the air. It was the most unstable and reactive type, but the chaotic monster was keeping it from activating simply by virtue of shoving that power inside Sunset's basin. She kept forcing it away but the immense amount of power was overwhelming her ability to interfere with.

Slowly, the basin was infected by the chaotic energy to an increasing degree, and Sunset started to lose control of it. Then, finally, the spell broke.

-0-

Before he could finish casting his next spell, Sombra was surprised by Rarity suddenly appearing right in front of him, specially since he knew for a fact that space was too disturbed by any ordinary teleportation methods to work. As such, he was not prepared for the Knight's attack.

"Earth Style: Grand Heavy Chop!" Rarity shouted.

She raised her earth sword and brought it down like the executioner's blade. It impacted like a boulder falling from the sky, hitting such such strength that it overwhelmed Sombra's defensive spells and aura defenses, sending him flying and actually harming him for the first time in the battle.

She stepped forward to appear next to him again and this time Sombra realized what she was doing.

It was actually flash step, a feat of pure physical strength and control, except that it was at a level way beyond anything that Rarity should be capable of doing, since moving at such extreme speeds put a huge burden on the body. But she didn't need to worry about that because of another of her new artifacts: The Horseshoe of Body.

Based on Rainbow Dash's strength enhancing skills, that artifact could be activated to give Rarity's physical capabilities an extreme boost. She wound up for an horizontal slash combined with a fire spell, but Sombra hit her away with a blast of shadows. However, before he could get time to breathe, Applejack had appeared right next to him.

Different from Rarity, what she was using was Space Step. Normal teleportation wouldn't work, but her Eyes of Truth allowed Applejack to instantly see through the disturbances in space, so it wouldn't be easy to cripple her movement. And instead of using a common attack, Applejack decided to do something smarter.

"Eyes of Truth: Spell Breaker!" She punched at the enemy.

The physical power of her blow was great, but its real worth was the magic that infiltrated Sombra's body and traveled through a very specific magical connection.

Causing Sombra's Shadow Sky to vanish. And he couldn't recast it either, because Applejack's attack had destroyed the magical formations related to it in the shadow world.

"Shadow Flood." He cast.

Like a volcano eruption, a flood of shadows exploded from the ground, forcing both Applejack and Rarity to retreat in order to escape the onslaught. But even that would not be enough to give Sombra a chance to try and turn things around, as one of the Knights rushed through the shadow flood to hit him with a punch packed with lightning.

It was Rainbow Dash, who had changed into her True Body: Lightning Channel state, which wasn't hindered by the Shadow Sky anymore. She hit him dozens of times over before being forced to retreat by another magical burst. Sombra was starting to get more and more injured, despite soaking most of the damage with the power of the shadow world.

The warlock released a series of binding spells, knowing that Rainbow Dash was fast enough to dodge most of his attacks. That suceeded in forcing her away, since the spells kept chasing her. And it was then that another Knight attacked. It was Pinkie, as should probably be expected.

"Emotion Charge: Pure Hope!" She cast.

The effects of that particular technique were dramatic. Pinkie was enveloped in a huge pony outline made out of blue energy. That outline became more and more real, until it was pretty much a copy of Pinkie, except transparent and blue.

She swiped a hoof at Sombra, who was once again thrown around by the power of the attack. It really seemed like the Knights had managed to obtain the upper hand from him.

But Sombra had actually been preparing a special spell, which was why his counter-attacks hadn't been as powerful as they could, and it was finally ready to be unleashed.

"Shadow Collapse!" He yelled.

Every single one of the Knights around them were blown away from the sheer power of that spell, but those were merely the aftershocks of it, because the true target of the spell... was the material world itself.

It happened without any indication. For a moment it seemed like the spell had done nothing, but in the next moment, a wound opened on space itself.

And one of Fluttershy's legs exploded into dust.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 65 - Triumph in the Shadows

'Things truly do change fast.' Thought Shining Armor, as he was desperately trying to hold back the shadow monsters with his shield magic. One moment, they had everything under control, with the guards being able to hold back the enemies while cycling through without suffering many losses.

But then, the shadow titans appeared.

Shining Armor would definitely have to submit a change in doctrine for dealing with shadow outbreaks. It was true that shadow titans were rare and hadn't appeared for literally thousands of years, but that was the biggest shadow outbreak in eras, so they should have had made preparations for the possibility that some would appear.

And yeah, things would have been fine if it were only one or two shadow titans, but four of them at once? That was a little too much. The Knights had been trained to deal with unexpected threats, but this was above what they could do, specially now that they were weakened from fighting so long.

Still, they gave it a valiant effort, Shining Armor making and unmaking dozens of shields in sequence to block the attacks of the amorphous titans, protecting his ponies. The magical sections joined together and showed the most powerful spells they were capable of. The flight divisions swooped down en masse, while the ground based divisions climbed atop the enemies to attack with great bravery.

And it mostly worked. Their desperate offense had managed to take down three of the titans, but it had taken pretty much all they had in order to achieve such a feat. And that truly meant everything. The magical divisions were experiencing complete exhaustion, while the flight and ground divisions had finally lost their magical weapons, thus being reduced to using their racial skills to be able to achieve anything. And since they were also exhausted, that wasn't very effective.

The menagerie of smaller shadow monsters that had scattered away while the titans came in finally came back, and now Shining Armor was using the last dregs of his strength to keep his shields up, hoping that support would come soon.

And thankfully, he managed to hold on just long enough.

"Venus Love Charge!" A beautiful voice resounded through the air.

And Cadance's pegasus avatar, the self proclaimed Warrior of Love, Venus, dove from the sky covered in a red and pink lightning. She crashed through the last remaining shadow titan, and impacted the ground creating a magical shockwave that wiped out most of the surrounding shadow monsters.

Shining Armor took the opportunity to dispel his shield and take a breath to try and recover, as Venus flew towards him.

"Looks like I got here just in time." She said.

"Thanks." Shining smiled at her, before getting serious "But things aren't under control yet. We have completely run out of magical weapons.

"Then maybe you should look back." She said with a smile.

He did so just in time to see a teleportation flash that left behind a bunch of crates containing magical weapons. He returned to look at Venus and grinned.

-0-

"Those two still have a long way to go if they want to become truly great researchers." Minuette said, looking at Coco Pommel and Suri Polomare, who were currently collapsed at the floor, unconscious.

"At least they are competent, so the rest is a matter of time." Moondancer spoke, while casting a few spells.

Minuette nodded, and that was all. But being called 'competent' by the two highest level magical researchers under the command of Princess Celestia was something that would cause envy in pretty much the entire magical community of Equestria.

They deserved it. As without their help, the magical formation that Moondancer was currently using to mass-produce magical weapons would not have been completed, or at least not as fast as it was. Minuette started teleporting the new weapon crates into a holding position, from where they would be distributed to the guard divisions that needed them.

-0-

"Chaotic Rebirth." Those were the words that Twilight's Shard of Self spoke on that critical moment.

And then, for a moment, time seemed to flow backwards, but that wasn't quite what happened. Instead, the magic forced Twilight's essence to escape from being devoured by the enemy. And it congregated onto the Shard of Self, forcefully turning it into Twilight's true body.

It was a very powerful technique, that deserved the name of "rebirth", but that didn't mean there were no demerits to it. The main one was the fact that, since the Shard of Self was the idea of Twilight's restraint, using Chaotic Rebirth meant she became unable to use any other chaos magic for a while.

But she didn't really need to. After all, Twilight had been trained by Celestia since childhood, and she always loved to learn all sorts of magic. Besides that, you didn't need chaos magic to create chaos.

"Magical Formation: Charge Explosion!" Twilight shouted, pouring all of her magical power into the spell.

The construct was only confused by Twilight's escape for a few moments, but that was already enough. Twilight finished her spell and then the very air around the enemy exploded.

The target for Twilight's spell had been the magical charge that had been imprinted on the air as a result of the leaking energy of both warriors. Chaos magic was terrible about that, and hunger magic wasn't much better, so there was a lot of energy there, and when it was all activated at once...

The result was a spectacular level of destruction.

Twilight tried to catch her breath, since the fight had been extremely tough and draining... And then the enemy construct came galloping out of the smoke of the explosion.

She had recovered her original body, but that was actually an indication of weakness, as she had become unable to sustain her devoured form. Her body was battered, and she had been reduced to only a single mouth... But she was still alive, and one mouth was enough to eat Twilight.

Her speed was quick, and she immediately got close enough. The construct extended her mouth to devour her enemy...

And the spell Twilight had cast on herself at the beginning of the fight, which had remained intact throughout all of it, finally activated. After all, Twilight couldn't afford to lose, so of course she would leave a guarantee.

The spell forced the construct into Twilight's mindscape. The enemy would usually have been able to resist it, but it was significantly weakened after the fight, so it wasn't able to.

The knight construct appeared in a confused land where all sorts of objects and places seemed to have been shattered into minuscule pieces and mixed at random. A land where there was no up and down, no idea of gravity, no points of orientation. A land where space and time didn't seem to behave rationally, with distances and periods being unable to be judged.

A being with a will of its own would be able to resist the influence of that place, but not that construct. Before it even realized it, the thing had split into pieces, and each of those pieces became Twilight.

After all, it was her mind, so it was only natural that Twilight would be there.

-0-

Radiant's curse caused Trixie's heart to explode.

Surprisingly enough, that did not kill her.

"What?" The unicorn artifact was clearly confused, but then recovered "Crystal Annihilation!" She cast.

A storm of crystals completely destroyed Trixie's body. And yet, Radiant Hope could feel that she was still alive. Thinking of a possibility, she quickly cast a specific detection spell, which confirmed her suspicions.

"A dreamsoul? You have a dreamsoul?" She was incredulous "But how is it possible for you to have hidden it from my Mirrors of Truth?!" She snarled.

Had Applejack been there, she would have gotten angry at Radiant Hope for actually believing that she could see through all illusions with just a single spell, when she didn't even understand the true meaning of Truth.

But she wasn't there, so Radiant would remain not knowing. Instead, she immediately started to cast a spell that could target the dreamsoul and finally kill Trixie.

But how would it be so easy to kill a Knight? Trixie finally finished the spell she had been preparing:

"Grand Illusion: Recovery Outline!" She shouted.

And suddenly Trixie was back, almost as if Radiant Hope had never destroyed her body. Trixie was smiling at her opponent, and the sheer strangeness of that situation actually caused Radiant Hope to pause her casting for a moment.

But she was smart, and immediately returned to it "You can't fool me with those illusions!" She snarled.

"You're right." Trixie admitted. The body she had conjured was indeed an illusion "So, I'll have to ask for your help with that."

And then, without any input from her, Radiant Hope's crystal mirrors shined with power and poured that energy into Trixie's illusion. And it was like filling in the outlines, as the illusionary turned into real.

Healing magic was very demanding, as Twilight had found. For true high-level healing, one would need at least two things: First was an amazing level of precision in your magic use, down to the smallest detail. While the other could be either enough power to make use of that precision, or a high enough level of affinity for healing magic, to make it less costly (White Marble had both things, of course).

Trixie definitely had the first pre-requisite. However, she did not have either of the possible second pre-requisites. Usually, that would mean she wouldn't have been able to make use of healing magic. But she rarely fought alone.

Recovery Outline was a spell created to make use of that fact. She had enough precision to establish where the healing should go, so she just needed someone else to provide the power. Usually that would be one of her allies, but as Trixie had just showed, an enemy worked just as well.

"What?!" Radiant Hope seemed about to lose her mind "I'm still controlling the mirrors! How did you do that?!"

Trixie smiled and looked at her, gaining time to recover her energy after such a draining spell. She talked to buy more time:

"I didn't take control of the mirrors!" Trixie said, pointing at Radiant Hope and acting in the most showy manner she could "What I'm controlling... Is you!" She finished.

At that moment, it was like an illusion had been broken, and Radiant Hope could feel Trixie magic, in the form of gliphs that had been created inside her body "How...?" She was barely able to think.

"You see... Artifacts were made to be wielded..." Trixie said "That includes you as well, isn't that right?" She smiled.

It wasn't a nice smile. In fact, it was pretty much as far from a nice smile as a smile could be without deforming the mouth somehow. Trixie's smile seemed to reflect every single nightmare that any pony had ever had. And upon seeing that smile, Radiant Hope truly lost herself to fear.

"AHHHHH!" She screamed, channeling every single bit of magic from her body and from the mirror world she controlled to try and rip Trixie's magic out of her body.

But it was a moment too late, as Trixie had bought just enough time to break the anti-overdrive restriction of the chains.

"OVERDRIVE!" Trixie shouted "Grand Illusion: Chaotic Breakdown!"

Trixie's spell forcefully changed the magical gliphs inside Radiant's body into a formation that affected all the power that she was channeling inside her body and caused it to go out of control.

Which caused Radiant Hope to blow up.

A few moments later, Trixie felt a small teleportation spell activate from the previous spot of the enemy unicorn. It was probably some sort of final countermeasure. Her body had been destroyed but her core "what would be a heart in a normal living being" had managed to survive and escape. That was truly a shame, but it really couldn't be helped.

Trixie finally collapsed, her body fine (she had even managed to avoid falling unconscious after the Overdrive, a true show of her growth) but her mind and soul tired beyond belief. She had truly walked on the edge with that battle, and it came down literally to her final plan.

The whole time, Trixie had been slowly inscribing those gliphs on Radiant Hope's body under the guise of attacks. This was all to be able to restore her body using Radiant Hope's own powers. And of course if the attacks managed to defeat her, that would be best, but if not then it was a problem.

Because Radiant Hope was truly a hardy and powerful opponent, and worst of all, she was skilled too. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have easily been able to tell that the effect of the gliphs on her body was extremely limited, and they were in fact just a big trap, designed to take advantage of the mistake the enemy did end up making, which was trying to rip them out by force.

But those weren't ordinary circumstances, because Trixie manipulated her opponent into committing that mistake in a truly masterful way.

First, she lulled Radiant Hope into a false sense of security, into believing that she was about to win, and Trixie was all out of moves. She intended to use an Overdrive to sell the impression, using half the energy for a spell and holding the other half for her final trick. That would mean damaging her body slightly more than an ordinary Overdrive, but it ended up not being necessary when her Overdrives were sealed.

That was good news and bad news. The good news was that she wouldn't have to do that very complicated Overdrive trick. The bad news was that she needed to split her attention into trying to remove the overdrive seal while she was executing the last part of her plan, which was one of the most harrying experiences she ever had.

Because the last part of her plan wasn't something simple either. She needed to truly sell her deception while also doing all the other ridiculous demands of her plan. The first point was breaking Radiant Hope's expectations by not dying, thanks to her dreamsoul. But that also meant enduring the pain of her heart and body being destroyed and focusing enough to do her grand illusion and subsequent manipulation of Radiant Hope, in a way that she would not notice, causing her to be knocked out of mental balance.

Trying to deal with the overdrive seal while doing all of that was simply putting salt on the wound.

But she did it, which meant that Trixie could continue her performance. The next step of which was to sell the image that she was in control now, acting casually and revealing the gliphs at an appropriately dramatic moment. This was made more difficult by the fact that Trixie was still working on removing the seal so she could use her Overdrive to finish things up.

It was difficult, and she could not delay her actions too much, or Radiant Hope would be able to regain her cool and everything would be ruined.

Finally, she hit Radiant Hope, who was already on an unstable state of mind, with Nightmare Smile, a dream based fear illusion that took essentially no power at all to cast (which was good, since magical power was at a premium after she restored herself). That caused the enemy to panic and fall into the trap, and Trixie managed to finally remove the seal in time to take advantage of it with her Overdrive.

It was hard. It was truly making a performance on the edge of death. But she had succeeded.

Fighting on the edge like that was Trixie's path as a Knight. And with that successful performance, she felt like she was one step closer to finally achieving her goal of so long.

"I hope the others are alright..." She said.

-0-

Sunset was hit by the backlash of her broken spell, and the chaotic monster took the chance to attack her with all it had. It was only at the last moment that she managed to recover enough to both use her extreme movement to evade and use a lot of quick spells to block. The following few seconds of the battle were fierce and frantic, with Sunset barely managing to keep herself from being defeated.

But then she spoke two words, casting a spell that would be the beginning of her counter attack, the words were:

"Battlefield Oath!"

For a second, it felt like a whole new world was being defined, a world that existed entirely in the form of the battle between Sunset and the monster.

And then it vanished, but Sunset drew support from that, from the very idea of that battle, and her power rose to levels that even her Trance Mode could not get even close to matching.

"Essence Magic: Space Upheaval!" And she proved it by releasing an astoundingly powerful spell.

Her magic shattered and then fixed space itself. It was easier than merely destroying it for complicated reasons (essentially, space liked being whole, and would go against you), and it was enough to be an extremely powerful attack, as the side-effects of such a thing were capable of utterly wiping out the powerful offense of the chaotic monster, as well as giving it a wound across its entire body, which was almost deep enough to reach the core.

That was followed by the monster fixing itself in a single instant, before shifting to the form of a hurricane of lightning to attack Sunset.

Because that was the cost of the Battlefield Oath. While Sunset could be enpowered by the battle, her opponent was also capable of the same thing, since he had been a participant of the battle just the same. And that was a lot of power.

The battle reached an entire new level. Both of the combatants tried to overwhelm each other with some of the most violent and terrifying spells they were capable of. Sunset's Essence Magic was her newest developed technique, which she was usually only capable of using in a very limited capacity, and was just as powerful as that implied, with Sunset showing off her mastery of all sorts of dangerous destructive magic, while the chaotic monster was doing such ridiculous manipulations of reality that even Sunset was surprised, despite having known Twilight since they were children.

Through it all, the battle had turned into a standstill, and if it continued for long enough, Sunset would definitely be overwhelmed again.

But that was okay with her, because she wasn't intending in letting things drag out for long. And she wasn't counting in being able to overwhelm her opponent quickly either. She just needed to wait a little bit.

She needed her opponent to draw more and more upon the power of the battlefield, she needed it to rely upon that power, she needed that connection to be made between both combatants and the battle, because only then would it be strong enough for what she had planned.

And when she judged it to be enough, Sunset's actions were swift. She teleported far away from the enemy while leaving a decoy, retracted her magical aura completely and then she executed the most crucial part of her plan, by casting a spell with five simple words:

"Domain Magic: Curse of Absolute!"

Magic based on creating Domains was one of the highest and most difficult types of magic to cast. That was proven by the fact that, despite how powerful Sunset currently was, the only reason she managed to use that successfully was because she had tricked the chaotic monster into connecting itself with the spell, thus being able to use its power as well.

And that wasn't the only reason why she had done that, either. Curse magic was a subset of bond magic, since it was based upon creating a bond of mutual harm between the caster and the target, so having the chaotic monster connect to the Battlefield Oath made it a target as well, when the Curse of Absolute manifested.

But what was the Curse of Absolute? It was a magic based on one of the concepts Sunset understood very early: Enhancement. As in, it was magic that forcefully enhanced whatever magic was used inside the Domain until the limits.

That might have seemed a good thing for most people, but it wasn't, and Sunset understood that very deeply. Enhancement never worked without control, a lesson she had learned very painfully indeed. And the enhancement of the curse were truly all around, forcing everything into a higher state without regards to how it would fit with everything else or if the user would be able to actually control the result.

Sunset knew what would happen, which was why she retracted her aura and stopped casting any other spells, the chaotic monster on the other hand...

Its body warped and broke as multiple spells backfired in a variety of ways inside it. There were explosions, fire, objects materializing into the flesh and even more of those effects. The monster was once again ravaged by a great power. But this time, when it tried to recover, it only caused more and more harm to its body.

Sunset watched all this with a focused expression, before speaking:

"Looks like it's not gonna be so easy."

Because the formation spirit had realized what was happening, and managed to stop the use of magic before the monster died. And in the end its body was harmed but not destroyed, meaning that Sunset still had something to do.

She galloped straight at the monster, using only her physical power, without any magic at all. After that, she jumped up into the "chest" of the creature to avoid its swipe (the thing had also worked out how to attack without magic), and then charged power into one of her legs and hit the monster with all she had.

She only channeled magic at the last moment, and only the most basic possible power enhancement, but she still felt as if an explosion had gone off inside her leg, and blood started seeping out. Yet, the result was worth it, as her physical hit managed to get the monster to try crazily to throw her off (she held on with her other legs) and also pierced through its flesh, allowing Sunset to get closer to the core.

And so she kept at it, pounding on the monster and digging herself deeper until she reached the core and started attacking that next. Upon which the monster struggled even more crazily, to the point of raising a gigantic tentacle and slamming it into its own chest. The impact managed to break several of Sunset's bones and cause internal injuries, because she couldn't protect her body with magic for obvious reasons.

But she didn't care about such things. Sunset could heal herself after the opponent was dead, which would deactivate the Curse of Absolute. She simply kept attacking to the point where she could barely feel her legs anymore, much less raising them, but with a final effort, she forced one last kick out of her abused body, and managed to shatter the enemy core.

With a last roar, the chaotic monster broke off into pieces, allowing Sunset to land on the ground. She immediately set upon using healing magic to restore her abused body back into a stable condition. While she did that, she thought about the fight, and about the Essence Magic.

"Just a little more..." She spoke to herself "I'm almost there..."

-0-

As soon as the spell was completed, Sombra was attacked from all sides. Pinkie punched him with her aura construct, Rarity unleashed all four Ruler Swords at once in a devastating elemental barrage, Applejack Stepped over to his side and punched straight at his heart and Rainbow Dash bathed him in powerful lightning.

Clearly, the four Knights had been incensed by his actions. Sombra had expected them to counter attack, but he did not expect that it would be this vicious and overwhelming, like they had been holding back during the entire fight.

That was, in fact, the case. But Sombra still wasn't willing to even consider such a notion, as he tried his best to defend himself against those attacks, using every possible advantage the shadow world could grant him. He didn't even consider that as he readied his own counter-attack, another exceedingly powerful spell aimed at the Knights who were attacking him.

However, he was forced to consider that, when his powerful spell was completely blocked by Fluttershy and her World's Harmony.

The pegasus looked at her, and her eyes was something he could only describe as "disappointment". It was like she was saying "did you really think you could get me to back off just with that?". It was like she didn't even care about the loss of her leg (she could restore it later, but still), and she knew that Sombra couldn't repeat his previous spell so easily, due to the rules of the material world.

As he was struggling with that concept, the other four Knights attacked him again. All in all, Sombra was completely on the backhoof.

There was a reason why the Knights were holding back: This battle simply wasn't tough enough to force them to go all out. Sombra might be a great mage, with an astounding number of tricks and preparations, but he simply was not that good at fighting. The five had previously fought against Chrysalis, and even weakened like she was, the changeling queen had been a much more dangerous opponent.

She fought as if she was saying "one of us will die here, and it won't be me". In comparison, Sombra was simply far too worried with trying to keep himself alive, and far too used to overwhelming the enemy to death instead of fighting properly. And now that they had already exposed their power (they had been holding back just in case of any other surprises), they went on to take full advantage of it.

"Ruler Magic: Triaune of Wings!" Rarity cast.

For a moment, Rarity looked like she had three pairs of wings: One made of fire, one made of wind, and one made of water. Then the moment passed, and the true form of her triaune was revealed: Elemental wings that constantly changed between different properties, wind for speed, fire for acceleration and water for maneuverability. All together, it gave her flying skills that even Rainbow Dash had to respect.

It was a complex spell, only possible due to another of Rarity's new Artifacts: The Horseshoe of Sight. Based upon Applejack, it gave her a heightened level of perception, and awareness of her spells. It seemed like a smal thing, but it certainly worked as a veritable multiplier for her abilities.

And Rainbow Dash obviously wouldn't simply remain quiet in face of such a thing. She started attacking faster and faster, and her lightning body kept getting brighter, because she was actually charging up for a big spell. And then she suddenly stopped right in front of Sombra and attacked.

"Weather Charge: Lightning Spark!" She shouted.

Her wings of lightning grew to a gigantic size, and Rainbow Dash flapped them once, releasing a huge wave of lightning at Sombra. He was battered to the point where even with the support of the shadow world, he was barely able to prevent a truly critical injury.

However, he still had one last trick up his sleeve. Sombra used not one, but two very powerful spells at once. One of them was a dimensional spell, which he used to isolate Fluttershy away from the others, while the other one...

"Shadow Empire!"

Was a very powerful killing spell, which released a rain of shadow crystals from all over the shadow world, leaving absolutely no safe spot.

Faced with that, Pinkie used her hope construct to protect the other three, receiving the entire attack herself, and the construct she was using as armor proved to be exceedingly resilient... but not quite to the levels of Fluttershy. The attack lasted for fifteen excruciating seconds, and when it was over, Pinkie's body had received countless injuries, to the point where it seemed like she was struggling just to stay on her hooves.

However, contrary to the situation, Pinkie just grinned and cast another spell:

"Emotion Charge: Pure Anger!"

And very quickly, the blue construct disappeared, letting the other Knights leave, and Pinkie's body was dominated by a red aura, just like during the fight against Flames of Annihilation. And in a matter of seconds, her body regenerated back into peak condition.

As might be expected, this was definitely bad news for Warlock Sombra. But his situation became even worse when Fluttershy reappeared and immediately cast another spell:

"Empathy Drive: Soul Emulate!"

And with that, Sombra received a taste of his own medicine, as Fluttershy began using powerful shadow magic spells against him.

The reason why Fluttershy had been so passive during the fight, only defending, was because she was preparing that. A normal Soul Emulate would not work, since she would be able to copy Sombra's own powers, but not his connections to the shadow world, that were the part that truly made it effective.

But over the course of the battle, her empathy had slowly managed to sense every single bit of connection between Sombra and his created world, and so, she was able to copy it, and turn the Shadow World against Sombra.

Upon seeing the situation deteriorate more and more, Sombra did exactly what would be expected of him in such a situation:

"Shadow End!" He shouted.

That was a very special spell, designed specifically to make the shadow world self-destruct. The result was astonishing, the isolated world turned into a maelstrom of chaotic destruction, forcing Fluttershy to focus on defending the other Knights, leaving Sombra free to make his escape.

Or at least that was his plan. However, he had committed a big mistake: He overlooked the presence of Knight Applejack.

As soon as he started his escape spell, Applejack appeared right in front of him with her Space Step. He had lost the support of the shadow world, and his own power was occupied with casting a spell, so that was the single moment in which he was most vulnerable, and it didn't escape the eyes of the Knight.

"Eyes of Truth: Perfect Death!" Applejack called, and punched.

Her hoof was both material and immaterial. It passed through Sombra's flesh and final defenses as if they weren't there, and finally hit its target: The ethereal connection between Sombra's body and his soul. And with a single hit, that had an impact without impact, the target was destroyed.

Applejack stayed there for one second, Looking at Sombra's lifeless body, before Stepping back into the protection of Fluttershy. Rarity asked her a question:

"Did you See it?"

Applejack nodded "Yup. Ah know what Sombra's been using to cheat death."

 

[wildman902]

Nice

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 66 - Leaving the Shadows

Sometime after the end of the fight, all eight of the Knights gathered together just outside of the cave's entrance. All of them carried signs of having been through ferocious battles, but on some they were more subtle than others (Trixie, since she had completely reformed her body, only showed her tiredness in her eyes, for example).

"Right. So what have you found out, Applejack?" Sunset asked the other Knight.

"Putting it simple... Sombra's method works a little like the Crusader's Bond Magic, or like a corrupted version of it, at least." Applejack started "He bound his soul to this world by creating special magic... artifacts, Ah suppose ya could say, but from what Ah understand, they have ta be really massive ta be able ta take effect from anywhere in Equestria. Ah mean tower-sized." She explained.

"There should be seven of them, based on what Ah could see of the magic signature." Applejack finished.

"Hmm... If we know the type of magic he is using, we could track it down to find those artifacts and destroy them." Twilight said.

"Not just that." Rarity spoke "Since he must always have a connection between those places and his soul, we could also use it to locate Sombra, no matter where he may be hiding now."

Trixie agreed with that being a strong possibility, and the Knights talked about a few more ideas, but those were only preliminary discussions, since they were all far too tired to truly plan out anything serious. It was decided that Applejack would give the magic researchers the information so that they could start working on the problem, and then the group teleported back home.

-0-

The next day, after the group did their final debriefing of the mission with the princesses, Trixie followed Applejack back to the farm.

The farm pony was bucking trees when her teacher finally got into the reason why she was there:

"When do you think your Eyes of Truth will recover?" Trixie asked.

"So, ya noticed." Applejack said conversationally "Ah'm not really surprised."

"Rarity did as well." Trixie said "She just decided to not say anything, since she knew I would see it."

"Did she?" Applejack smiled "Ah guess she would."

"Okay, no more delaying." Trixie said, finally using her "teacher" voice.

"Ah think mah Eyes of Truth will only stay closed for one week, at most." She sighed "And it's official now. Ah'm really not suited for the Path of Perfection."

"That's just one step closer to figuring out your true path." Trixie said, conciliatory "Take care of yourself, 'Jack."

Trixie then left the farm. Thankfully the situation wasn't as bad as it could have been. Forcing magic like that was always dangerous.

Trixie sighed as she fell in deep thought. Everypony was doing their best to get stronger and be able to better protect Equestria and each other, and she accepted this, but still felt the desire to be able to take on some of that burden, to allow them some relief, and she knew that Sunset and Twilight felt the same way.

Thankfully, the fight in the constructed shadow world had given her some inspiration. With just a little bit more work, and Trixie would be able to reach an entire new realm.

-0-

A little bit later, on a training area well away from any ponies...

A meteor of fire and hyper-hot gas crashed into the ground, adding yet another huge crater to the much abused area. The center of the meteor then released an explosion that shot fragments all around at incredible speeds, and also revealed that Sunset had been in the center of it.

The unicorn looked like she had seen better days. Patches of her coat had been burned off, there were dozens of small cuts all over her body, and worst of all, the wounds from the earlier fight against the chaotic creature had reopened.

And yet, the Knight remained defiant, her eyes sharp.

"Are you sure you want to keep going?" Her opponent asked "You won't be able to last much longer at this rate."

"I don't need to last for long." She declared "I can feel it... I'm almost there. Just a little bit more and I'll reach it." She then shouted "Make your move!"

Nodding, Princess Celestia shot a spell capable of destroying mountains at her.

-0-

A bit later, at yet another isolated battlefield/training ground...

"What do you need me to do?" Pinkie asked.

"Just do the biggest variety of spells you can muster." Twilight said "If I want to be able to hijack the magical concept of reaction, I need to be able to react instinctively to any kind of magical concept."

"Right. That makes sense." Pinkie nodded "Guess it's time for a special Pinkie Magic Surprise!"

Having said that, Pinkie put both her forehooves together and started charging multiple balls of elemental surprise and fusing them together into a chaotic agglomeration that was only kept barely in control as it got bigger and bigger.

"Surprise!" Pinkie yelled suddenly.

Her spell disappeared, and hundreds of copies of it appeared all around the training ground, and then they exploded.

Spike, who was watching all this, decided to go back home.

The news he had for Twilight could wait for later.

-0-

Later...

"Hey, Twilight. Your brother asked for Venus' hoof in marriage."

"He did what?!"

"She said yes, by the way."

Sombra's Return Arc End

Next: Wedding Arc

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 67 - Wedding Preparations

"Almost there!" Suri Polomare shouted.

Her part on the work currently going on was the lightest of all three ponies who were currently working on the magical ritual currently taking place. That didn't mean she was any less important, as her job was to keep track of possible points of failure and shore them up as needed, but that did mean that she had enough time to actually talk, unlike the other two.

Rarity was telekinectically controlling thousands of small ritual stones in a complicated pattern. Each of those ritual stones was controlling the movements of a multitude of matter particles, thus allowing Rarity to work with unparalled precision. And along with that, Rarity was also providing the core of the concept that would be engraved on the artifact.

Coco Pommel was translating the magical waves into rune bases that would be amplified and forcing them into every bit of material, thus implanting the magical concept into the very soul of the artifact, instead of using normal runes that could be targeted as a weak point.

The three were already pretty familiar with the entire process, since Rarity decided that the best way for her apprentices to learn would be by working with her on some important projects. They rested a bit after every single completed piece, but the work marathon had still worn them down almost to the limit.

That particular piece was, in fact, the last thing they were going to do for a while, so Rarity had calculated their limits perfectly.

Slowly, the artifact started coming into being. Suri soon had her hooves full as small bits of discrepancy accumulated, causing several near magical outbursts she had to contain, as well as forcing her to use several of her pre-prepared spells to fix the issues and bring things back to the right track. Situations like that kept occurring nonstop, showing just how difficult it was to create a top level artifact, as even with all their preparations and experience, Rarity and Suri were unable to prevent those things from happening.

In the case less skilled mages tried something similar, the problems would be so overwhelming it would be impossible to save the creation, regardless of how many preparations they made.

Still, the three ponies kept their cool and managed to get through the hardest part of the forging, finally giving birth to a new powerful artifact. It was a necklace, composed of a huge variety of gems and giving an impression of solidity. When it finished, Coco and Suri collapsed on the floor, panting with exhaustion. Rarity was also extremely tired, as her task was the hardest of the three by a long shot. However, she could still bear it.

All three of them took a few moments to rest, and then Rarity spoke:

"I'm very proud of you two. Thanks to your help, the most important preparations for the wedding on our side have been completed smoothly." She praised "You should go back and rest, to absorb what you've learned here."

They nodded, and Suri asked "This necklace is part of whose armor?"

They had been forging the newest suits of armor for the Knights, in preparation for the next battles, so it was natural that she would think that was the same, however, that turned out not to be the case.

"That's not an armor piece." Rarity said with a smile "It's a wedding gift."

+0+

"Okay, we're done with the inspection of the thirteenth section." Rainbow Dash sighed "How many more sections are there left, anyway?"

Fluttershy, who was next to her, answered "Twenty-five."

"Argh." Dash groaned "I know we need to stay on guard against the changelings, but that is still pretty ridiculous." She complained.

"But thanks to you towing me all around the place to check, we're going to be done three times faster than otherwise." Fluttershy tried to look at the bright side.

"Just thinking about that makes me feel ill." Rainbow Dash commented "Okay, where to next?"

Fluttershy gave her answer, and the two went off flying towards their new destination, with Rainbow using her magic to accelerate Fluttershy much faster than she would be able to by herself. The participation of the shy pegasus in the operation was using her empathic abilities as a radar to detect even the least trace of hidden changelings in the area.

Those two could be considered the first line of defense of the wedding, as their combination of speed and resilience would be more than enough both for the case they were attacked while on their own, and for the case where they had to move back to reinforce someone else.

Those qualities had only been enhanced by the new Artifact Armor they had recently received from Rarity.

+0+

"For you, Fluttershy, I grant the Harmony Armor," Rarity declared, using a spell to send all the armor pieces towards the pegasus.

Superficially, it looked quite similar to her first Knight Armor, but that was only at a glance. Looking closely one could see that every "open" part of the armor was actually protected by superthin metal "ribbons", they fluttered seemingly in tune with Fluttershy's breathing and heartbeat.

"This armor has some conceptual similarities with Twilight's old armor, in the sense that it can change form. However, it is very different in execution." Rarity explained "The basis of this armor is harmony, both with the wearer and the world. As such, not only will it respond to your animal spirit usage, but also your World's Harmony." She nodded "But the best part is, the connection with the world means it can react on its own to whatever threats present themselves, and even do things like fuse with your body to defend your heart directly."

"Thank you, Rarity." Fluttershy smiled "I'm sure it will help a lot."

"An now, my darling Dash." Rarity looked at her "I'm sure you've been looking forward to your own plate."

"Since it's made by you, I'm sure it will be awesome!" Rainbow declared.

"Thanks for the confidence." Rarity smiled "For you, here is the Primordial Armor." She sent it to Rainbow Dash.

Different from Fluttershy's, Rainbow's armor barely resembled the one she had before. It was still mostly light, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of an elegant brigade style, the armor was instead rough and uneven. Wild would be the best world to describe it. It was heavier in some places (like the neck) and lighter in others, but the design didn't seem haphazard, but instead "instinctual". It was far different from normal suits of armor, but looking at it would could not see any particular weak spots.

The whole ensemble gave off a feeling of wild, untamed power. It almost looked like this armor would tear to pieces anypony who touched it without being worthy.

Naturally, Dash loved it.

"Yes!" She cheered "You're the best, Rares!"

The unicorn nodded in response, before explaining "Your armor was made to reflect the concepts of primordial weather. It's the most powerful and hardest to control out of all kinds of weather magic. This armor will only respond to your greatest efforts, but if you master it, every single bit of weather magic you do with it on will become much stronger.

+0+

Meanwhile, in one of the borders of the temporary town where the wedding would be held, Sunset and Trixie were double checking the magical defenses.

"I never thought I would one day say those words, but the security measures we got here might be going a little over the top." Sunset was the one to say that.

"Which part?" Trixie asked with a smile on her lips "The heavy duty anti-teleportation wards? The extreme communication jammers? The multiple barriers and emergency spells for every single attendant?"

Sunset shook her head "No, all that is still fine, but the whole special magical convergence ritual, capable of making the entire town turn into a plane... That is the over the top part."

"Nah, you're looking at it the wrong way. If we don't end up using that part, it can serve as an special post-wedding attraction." She nodded.

"I suppose you're right." Sunset sighed, with a small smile.

The two were the second layer of defense for the wedding. They were focused more on the defense formations and in making sure the guests would be unharmed no matter what, but they could move to other places if necessary.

They too, were wearing new Armor.

+0+

"Sunset, your armor is here." Rarity said.

When she put on the armor, Sunset could see that it looked like a much more elaborate version of her old one. Each piece of armor was adorned with engraved details that formed magical circuits, including even sun images. And it gave the impression of power, to the point where Sunset seemed to become bigger when she put it on.

"The main feature of this armor is that it reduces the burden that magic takes on your body. The actual defensive features aren't as important in comparison. Also, it is perfectly keyed to your style of magic, so there's no need to be overly cautious of it while executing big spells." Rarity spoke confidently "I call it Awakening Armor."

"I wonder how it will react to my new mode..." Sunset muttered "Thank you, Rarity. I can tell that this one is special."

Trying not to think about what Sunset could be talking about, Rarity turned to Trixie "And this is yours."

Trixie's own armor at first appeared to be a lot more obvious than the last one, being composed of countless rings engraved with magical symbols and fused together in the shape of plate. However, once she put it own, the rings seemed to melt into her clothes and body, making it look like she wasn't wearing armor at all.

"This armor is magically reactive. It will specifically react to your illusions, allowing both for enhancing them, and for allowing you to micromanage your defenses for maximum efficiency." Rarity explained "It is named Grand Armor."

"Perfect." Was Trixie's only comment.

+0+

Meanwhile, Twilight and Pinkie's position was rather difficult to determine with precision. That was because they had split into dozens of copies, who were patrolling the city in a way to not leave any place unmonitored. They were pretty much the only ones capable of doing that, and were the main anti-infiltration measure, as well as the third line of defense.

They were having several conversations at once, either with each other or with their own copies, but one of the main topics was the new artifact armors they had received from Rarity.

+0+

"This time, I didn't need to use sleep-casting to create the armors for you two." She explained proudly "Instead, I simply fused engrams of your magical signatures during the start of the forging process, and designed them on the fly based on the random flows of the chaos magic. I know that sounds terribly hard, but trust me when I say it is much, much harder than it sounds."

"I have to congratulate you. Dealing with the randomness of chaos magic isn't an easy task even for us." Twilight said.

"Wow! That feels so nice!" Pinkie declared, having dressed herself inside the armor before Rarity even laid it on the ground.

Having already expected something like this, Rarity simply put Pinkie back on the ground. The armor she was now wearing looked like a far more advanced version of what she had before. Instead of connected plates, it seemed to be made of countless metal spheres that shifted all over her body continually in an almost liquid way. It gave the impression that the armor was a living thing that also had a predilection for chaos magic.

"Your armor takes advantage of the sorts of space manipulation chaos magic can do, so based on your thoughts it can create a hundred layered defense in the space of an inch or something of that nature." Rarity explained "It is also emotion reactive, and can store any extra emotion energy to give you a pep-up at a crucial moment. I call it Myriad Chaos Armor."

"Fantastimazing!" Pinkie exclaimed.

The next to be given her armor was Twilight, whose own version was both extremely similar and utterly unlike her previous armor. The design was still archmage-like, but now the metal had been polished to a mirrorlike sheen, except that it didn't seem to reflect the things nearby, but a whole other world of unknowable things that could only be seen from the corner of the eye. They mixed together with the magical sigils into an appearance that one could not examine overly carefully.

"Your new armor ended up pretty different from the last one. It seems to manipulate the very magical concepts of cause and effect as its main purpose." Rarity frowned slightly "That's the best I can tell. I'm not entirely sure what exactly is going on with it, but you'll definitely be able to make good use of it. It is named Axion Breaker Armor."

"Hmm..." Twilight muttered after putting it on "I certainly will."

+0+

Meanwhile, the last line of defense were Applejack and Trixie, who were protecting the bride and groom.

Due to her particular magical specialty, and her connection to Cadance, Venus was pretty much an irresistible target for the changelings, and during the leadup to her wedding, reports of changeling activity had increased greatly, which resulted in the level of preparations that the Knights had taken in relation to the wedding's protection.

Rarity and Applejack had been chosen as the last line of the defense due to their particular specialties. No one would be able to sneak past Applejack, and Rarity's varied elemental spells and close combat ability covered both area control and close combat.

And of course, Applejack had also received an Armor from Rarity.

+0+

Her particular armor was similar to the one she had before. The leg portions were still incredibly overdesigned, and they still made apparent a connection with the ground. However, the helmet was now filled with crystals, and it made her eyes look more distinct and delineated, looking almost as if nothing could escape them.

"Looks like ya managed to create something pretty special here." Was Applejack's comment after putting it on.

Rarity nodded "I knew you would notice. Most of the design is like an updated version of your previous armor. But the helmet is a very special piece. It is designed to augment your abilities by focusing a myriad of truths from a myriad of worlds towards you. I used my experiences in the Samsara of ten thousand lives to make it, so I named this the Samsara Truth Armor." She explained.

+0+

And so the gauntlet was thrown. Would the changelings dare to charge into such a defense and try to capture Venus?

Because if they did, there would be a trap waiting for them...

 

[wildman902]

I love this fanfiction.

 

[Kinni]

I love this fanfiction.

Click to shrink...

Thank you for the praise.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 68 - Wedding Guests

Before the wedding could actually start, both Venus and Shining Armor were very busy greeting all the guests that had been invited. On Shining's side there was his family and friends (most of whom were guards), while on Venus' side were Cadance's family (who had decided to treat the avatars as their own children), and a big mix of ponies and others from all around, mostly from the crystal empire and the city of Belemoor (most of those were also guards, of course).

"Uufff... Weddings are hard work." Shining Armor commented after a particularly grueling session of greetings "And the fact that we're probably going to have a changeling attack doesn't help."

"But isn't that exciting?" Venus asked him "The day we confirm our bonds with each other is also the day where we might deal a decisive blow to the changelings." She then nuzzled him "Besides, delaying our wedding would just give them more chances to cause trouble, and I know that you wouldn't stand for that."

Shining Armor smiled and nodded "Yeah, but I'm still going to worry." He then looked at Rarity "Any news about the princesses?"

Said unicorn closed her eyes and cast a spell, receiving a reply after a few moments.

"Looks like this is going forward after all." Rarity said with a wry smile "Apparently the shards of chaos formed a Congregation of Chaos and the princesses have to contain it for now." She shook her head "Because of course they would find the most inconvenient time to do that."

Applejack, who was beside her, rolled her eyes "And we're going to have to dealt with that after this mission. Of course."

Rarity then closed her eyes again, apparently receiving another message. After a few moments, she spoke.

"A tendril managed to escape the Congregation." She opened her eyes "The Crusaders and Spike were sent after it. Want to bet that it's going to come straight here?"

"No bet." Applejack replied, before closing her eyes and opening them again, this time seeing through a great distance. It took only a few moments for her thoughts to be confirmed.

"Hey, Fluttershy." She muttered seemingly to herself "Tendril of Chaos coming, ETA is three minutes." And she sent an image of what she had seen via her empathic connection with Fluttershy.

Said pegasus received it and proceeded to pass it along to the other Knights present in the city. That was a demonstration of how much she had grown. Previously, even with the connection of a feather as a medium, she wouldn't have been able to do so much, but now Fluttershy was capable of all that and so much more.

Pinkie and Twilight, who had received the message as well, passed the word along to the guards via their multiple bodies, and said guards proceeded to initiate the appropriate counter-measures, which were mostly based upon herding the civillians (who already knew something like that was probably going to happen) to the most heavily protected areas. Further steps would be taken once more details were known.

Rainbow Dash flew Fluttershy to a better scouting position, and soon after both of them could see the approaching Tendril. It looked somewhat like a comet, with a sphere in the center and a flaming tail dragging behind it. However, the sphere was spinning at high speed like a drill, and the flames of the tail were actually green, and their movement made them seen almost solid instead of simply being fire.

Fluttershy took the time to remember what Twilight had taught her about such things. Congregations of Chaos were what happened when an extreme amount of shards of chaos joined together, resulting in an existence that went backwards and actually obtained inteligence. When one of them appeared, it meant that Discord rebirth was nearing.

Meanwhile, a Tendril of Chaos was a shed off piece of a Congregation, designed for an specific purpose. It acted like a smart spell, and whatever form it took greatly surpassed the threat level of ordinary chaotic events created by shards.

At that point, it couldn't be denied that the Tendril was going straight towards the city, and with Applejack and Fluttershy's combined senses, it didn't take long to decide that it would take an unreasonable amount of effort to intercept it. There was a brief discussion between the Knights via Fluttershy's empathy, in which they decided to allow it to hit, while keeping track of the possible impact sites, just to make sure.

A few seconds later, both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash saw that something was following the Tendril. It was Spike and the Crusaders, with the dragon having turned into a massive flying form, and the fillies using their power to provide extra propulsion. The result looked like a dragon wearing a jetpack.

"So... Awesome..." Rainbow Dash muttered before regaining her focus.

The rest of the Knights were informed of that new development (though they already knew that the four would come) and the last few preparations for impact were done by both the Knights and the guards.

The Tendril crashed right in the middle of the city, the impact not causing any physical damage but releasing a pulse of chaos magic that scrambled all of the automatic magical defenses, causing them to go haywire and disperse random effects throughout the entire city, forcing the guards to fight back.

And that wasn't the last of it. As if the crash was a signal, hundreds of changelings suddenly burrowed out from the ground a distance away from the city and charged towards it.

Every single one of those changelings was wearing an Artefact Armor. All of them shared a common theme of "modularity", seeming like they were designed to fit with each other, but they were different enough that it became clear that each changeling had built their own armor.

Chrysalis had obviously made good use of the techniques that had been spread around by the shard of chaos.

All those things happened within seconds of each other, but neither the Knights nor the guards were taken off-balance by them. A series of rapid fire messages passed through Fluttershy's Empathy Network as the defence force scrambled to respond.

'Falling back to the city limits.' That was Fluttershy.

'We'll give support to the guards and watch out for ambushes.' Rainbow Dash.

'I'm coming towards bride and groom to initiate protection plan Chaos Realm.' Sunset Shimmer.

'I'll give support to Sunset.' Rarity.

'I'll take over the Command role. Rarity should assist me when she is done.' Trixie.

'Copy that.' Rarity again.

'Me and Pinkie are going to isolate the effects of the Tendril.' Twilight.

'The defences will be up and running again before you know it!' Pinkie.

'Ah'm gonna keep watch on the critical areas for any more surprises.' Applejack, doing the neat trick of making her accent come across via empathic communication.

Their roles were decided quickly and easily, since they had made plans upon plans to be able to react to all sorts of eventualities, so the only thing needed was executing them. Before ten seconds had passed, all of them had already started:

Sunset teleported close to the impact site of the Tendril, before setting upon it with a veritable bombardment of sealing-type spells. Rarity accompanied bride and groom in a frantic gallop towards Sunset, keeping aware of any possible ambushes, her swords drawn and ready.

Applejack focused her powers with a chant of 'Myriad Truths...', expanding and focusing her sight. Pinkie Pie and Twilight slammed their dozens of forehooves (from all the clones) into the ground at the same time, channeling magic through the defense systems to fight chaos with chaos.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew back to their chosen battlefield, the former doing her scouting role to the utmost, while the latter was focused on keeping both of them safe.

Quickly enough, the changelings got ever closer to the limits of the city, when they started to jump into each other, their armors merging seamlessly to allow them to form animal constructs, each of them composed of more than a dozen changelings. In their previous appearance, such a thing was reserved to only a few elite groups, but the armors seemed to make it easier. There were scorpions skittering through the ground, wasps diving forward, ants crushing everything they passed...

However, before they could enter the city, the first wave of guards rushed out to meet them. And every one of the pony guards was also wearing Artefact Armor.

One of the first jobs Coco and Suri had received was to refine their basic artefact forging method in order to create a standard procedure for the Equestrian Guards to create their own artefact armors, which would be designed to have synergy with each other and the normal tactics of the Guard.

The enemies had enpowered themselves... but the Equestrian defenders would not be left behind.

The two forces clashed, heavy armored earth ponies breaking the charge of the big enemies while lightly armored pegasi flew through the air in weather manipulating formations and magically enhanced unicorns alternated between covering fire with spells and protective barriers.

More and more reinforcements from both sides kept showing up, increasing the scale of the battle successively. The changelings were known for their horde tactics, but even they were hardpressed to outnumber the contingent of guards, which seemed to consist of about 90% of the ponies in the city, many of whom had lay in wait for the time of battle.

Fluttershy and Rainbow swooped down to support the guards, keeping most of their strength in reserve to deal with any eventualities. Fluttershy was also keeping careful track with her empathic senses, so when groups of changelings started disguising themselves as guards to try and infiltrate their enemy, she led Rainbow Dash into quick strikes to deal with those.

And yet, that wasn't the biggest reason why she was doing that, Fluttershy was actually waiting for a very particular changeling to appear. And soon enough...

'Chrysalis has infiltrated the city.' She sent the message 'I can't figure out her exact position, but she's here.'

Upon hearing that, two of the Knights reacted in very particular ways. Rarity tensed up, knowing that her duty would be to delay Chrysalis if she came after Venus before the Chaos Realm operation was complete. Meanwhile, Trixie used a spell to send a message to a very particular duo of ponies, who were waiting at a very particular location.

They were Moondancer and Minuette, and they were inside a small open space located almost three miles under the ground.

"The time has come." Minuette said, upon receiving the message.

"Let's do this!" Moondancer declared with a grin.

Together, they called "Magic Ritual: Ultimate Prison!" As they activated a gigantic ritual circle, which was located too far underground to be affected by the chaos.

The result was a sight to behold. A gigantic sphere of energy appeared around the city, a shield spell so powerful that not even Shining Armor's strongest barriers could compare. It didn't only enclose the city, but in fact an entire zone that was three times the diameter of it. That was to catch even the stragglers and rear guard of the changelings inside and prevent their escape.

That operation wasn't just about protecting a wedding, but about dealing a blow to Chrysalis' forces that they wouldn't be able to recover from.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 69 - Wedding Activities

Since the possibility of chaotic interference on the operation was far too great to be ignored, many plans had been made in order to deal with such inconveniences. But simply trying to reduce the problems wasn't really the best they could do. So why not create plans that took advantage of the disadvantages?

It was from those thoughts that the protection plan Chaos Realm was born. The initial idea was as simple as it was gutsy: Using the chaotic interference itself as a way to bring Shining Armor and Venus away from danger. But of course, that definitely would not be something easily accomplished.

Chaos magic was notoriously difficult to wrangle, to make do what you wanted it to do. That was the case even when it came to chaos magic produced by one's allies, as Trixie and Sunset had learned over their childhood. Of course, the difficulty of doing the same with enemy magic was much greater.

So instead of merely turning the chaotic magic into a beneficial state, the solution they had reached was to have it both ways, driving the magic into causing a problem that would also be an advantage. That was the basis of what Sunset was trying to do.

She shot spell after spell into the evershifting mass of the Tendril of Chaos. Most of those were spells which had already been prepared before, their formulas extremely familiar to Sunset, only needing minute alterations to suit the flow of things, while others were pretty much improvised on the spot, less precise creations which relied on power to break through the momentum when the Tendril was going in an unwanted direction.

That was the reason why Sunset was the one doing that, instead of Trixie. While the illusionist's magic was far more precise, Sunset's magical potency and endurance were two aspects that resulted in a higher chance of success for her. The possibility of the two working together had been raised, but discarded, as putting extra pressure on the chaotic Tendril would actually have the opposite effect, in most cases.

For Sunset, what was occuring was nothing less than a true battle, as she used all sorts of methods, including the magical equivalent of reverse psychology, in order to make the Tendril's magic move little by little towards the result she wanted.

And it was difficult. Even after one whole minute of intensive spellcasting, Sunset still felt that things could go either way. But at that point, another variable was introduced. Spike and the Crusaders had arrived.

"Sunset, what's the situation?" Spike asked, while flying above the Tendril.

As if his words were a spell, the chaotic conglomeration started to twist and change madly, causing Sunset to scramble to keep up. And yet, the unicorn's expression showed a rare smile. Luck was on her side, as the appearance of four more Knights had caused the tendril to deviate a little further towards her chosen outcome.

"Cover me!" Was what Sunset ordered. The bride and groom were getting closer and closer, so it was nearly time for the play to be acted.

The play where the Tendril of Chaos would become the Chaos Realm.

+0+

Trixie was doing quite a few spells simultaneously. As the one in the commander position, she had to keep up an oversight of the main areas of the battle, send messages with orders to every group in order to move more effectively, and also conceal her spells with illusions to avoid any interference from the chaotic energy that was still running rampant at the molecular level. Still, she was more than aware enough to react to Applejack's warning.

'Enemy teleporting towards your position.' Was the message that came through Fluttershy's empathic network.

In the next instant, Trixie reached her magic towards the spells she had previously prepared and altered them slightly to suit the situation before casting. The first was an illusion layered on top of the environment, designed to interfere with the opponent's awareness subtly. The second was a trap for releasing a targetted illusion that would act directly on the opponent, attacking their mind to make it harder to detect other spells. The third was a small teleportation, designed to send Trixie away from the space disturbance that heralded the opponent's teleportartion, and thus away from immediate danger.

In the following instant, the enemy arrived, and they immediately showed that it wouldn't be an easy battle. As soon as the space warped and the pony appeared, they released a spell in a wave all around them. The magic immediately gathered at the position of the illusion trap, revealing and breaking it at the same time. Then, it dispersed into the environment and did the same thing to the layered illusion.

It had barely taken a second. Trixie couldn't help but widen her eyes at that. She also finally saw the appearance of the pony, which had the head shape of a mare, but a slightly mismatched body shape.

'Rarity, how fast can you take over the command role?' She asked via the network.

'If nothing bad happens, about thirty seconds. The Realm is getting close to completion.' Was the answer.

'That should be fast enough. Applejack, any intel on the enemy?'

'It's another one of those living constructs, definitely' Was the farm mare's reply.

Trixie had a sinking feeling. She turned her attention back to her opponent and started preparing several spells at once, for any possible case. She was sure that was going to be a hard battle.

Then the construct took a step forward, and its skin started to glow with power. Trixie realized with a start that this was due to a hidden magical circle inside her body, apparently engraved on the very muscles and bones. A moment later, it activated, plunging the world into darkness.

Or so it seemed. Trixie soon realized that instead, she had been thrown into a small created dimension, cut off from her allies. And considering how it had been done, there was no way for her to leave without defeating that opponent.

+0+

'Almost... Almost...' Sunset thought, while she was frantically delaying the mutation of the chaotic tendril. She just needed to hold out until...

"We're here!" Rarity declared, galloping next to the pair of bride and groom, already having reached the point to where Spike and the crusaders had retreated to.

At that moment, Sunset finally 'lost control' of the chaotic spell, and it expanded in a silent wave of purple that engulfed everyone around. Including Rarity.

Thankfully, they had a countermeasure for that, too.

In an explosion of light, Rainbow Dash dove at supersonic speeds directly towards Rarity. Coated in a layer of pure harmony magic, she cut through the chaotic space and carried Rarity away before the purple wave shrunk back down taking all of the living beings still inside into the Chaos Realm. Where they would be out of reach until the spell was broken.

Just as planned.

Rarity sighed in relief as Rainbow placed her back down and flew off. The unicorn immediately started casting spells to take upon herself the role of Command. The worst case scenario hadn't happened, with Chrysalis not having attacked before they could get bride and groom to safety.

However, from there onwards, things would become a lot more inexact. The Changeling Queen was a strong opponent, even with all the preparations they had done. How well things would end up in the end would ultimately come down to how well they managed to deal with her.

+0+

Trixie was annoyed. It had been the first time in her life that she had been in such a stiffling battle. Even during mock combat battles against both Twilight and Sunset at the same time she still felt like her spells were having some effect, even if it wasn't enough to stop her from being overwhelmed by their combined forces.

The construct she was fighting, on the other hand, was capable of disabling each and every one of her attempts with contemptuous ease, even she wasn't simply shrugging them off. Trixie soon determined the magic she was using to be a form of similarity magic, manipulating particles of magic energy to form patterns and using their simbology as the basis for her spells.

That meant the construct had an extremely precise awareness, on the level of particles, which made it difficult for any illusions to be detailed enough to fool her. But even worse than that, the construct had spread those particles over the entire area of the subspace, meaning they were always in contact with Trixie, preventing her from hiding. The subspace spell seemed to have been designed specifically with that in mind.

And trying to fight straightforwardly wasn't any use either. The construct body was abnormally tough, much more than that of any other construct. That meant a greater difficulty in transmitting magic, which meant a greater strain on the materials, and subsequently meant the construct wouldn't last on the long term, but it was devilishly durable on the short term.

The fight was pretty much a succession of trying things only to see them not work or directly backfire. Trixie could only fool her opponent with adaptable constantly shifting illusions that managed to ride out the magical detection, but those were so astonishingly difficult and draining to do that she could only use them for very simple illusions, barely enough to keep her opponent off balance.

Any physical attack was immediately countered by omnidirectional magical shots that were quite a pain to dodge or block. And yet she had to keep up her offensive, as that meant the opponent couldn't simply muster up its attacks enough to gravely wound her. It was a dance at the edge of death, and Trixie was sure that, if things kept going the way they were, she would run out of energy and subsequently die.

Yet, Trixie wasn't fully concentrating in the battle, but actually devoting quite a bit of attention towards trying to figure out what was the deal with her opponent. That might have sounded like a mistake, but she knew that it might end up being the key to her victory. Simply focusing on the fight and not thinking about anything else meant ignoring other possibilities, and Trixie couldn't afford such.

And truly, it was difficult to figure out. All previous Artifact Beings they had faced where clearly based on real historical warriors, from either side of the good versus evil spectrum. However, Trixie couldn't match that particular enemy to anyone she had ever heard of (and the group had done a lot of extra research upon seeing that fighting historical figures was a possibility).

And the fact that this being had abilities which seemed to have been designed specifically to counter her made this even more odd. What were the chances that Radiant Hope would have found out about an unknown ancient warrior which just happened to have that specific set of skills?

That thought was the one which led Trixie into figuring out the truth. Such a thing was exceedingly unlikely, but much more likely would be the possibility that Radiant Hope's ability wasn't truly limited to historical warriors.

'So that's the case. This Artifact Being is completely original, custom designed specifically to kill me.' Trixie thought 'I must have really scared her last time.'

But knowing that led to a few inquiries, like about the limitations of the enemy's creation ability, which might be the reason why this one Artifact looked notably hodgepodge. Maybe the template itself was flawed in some way, since it was original instead of following the similarity of something that actually existed.

Trixie then got an idea about how to use her new knowledge. That idea might be her only chance to win, but it would require some set up.

If it worked, however... Trixie would be able to reach a whole new level.

+0+

The chaotic realm where the ponies and the dragon appeared was very different from the subdimension where Trixie was fighting. It was far larger, for one thing, and it didn't have clearly defined borders, but simply regions where moving past would cause one to teleport elsewhere in the space, or change their personal gravity, or simply be incapable of covering any more distance regardless of how much they moved.

Those regions weren't delineated with any consistency either, some parts being longer or shorter, with the limits forming all kinds of weird shapes that overlapped with each other in the tridimensional plane. Essentially, it was weird, though thankfully, it didn't seem like those border zones changed over time.

The area where they could be was also pretty strange, while still being surprisingly stable. There were floating lamp posts, inverted trees and all kinds of other bizarreness, but there wasn't the kind of constant transformation that caracterized many of the chaotic events.

The five Knights, the alicorn and the guard had more than enough time to make those observations, because the main threat in this realm hadn't actually had time to materialize. They could feel it, however. They could feel the power focusing itself and shaping out a form to be used for combat. The chaotic tendril was truly a powerful and complex spell.

Of course they tried to attack it before it even finished forming, but it wouldn't be so easy. Their first round of spells was absorbed and turned into extra energy for the tendril's combat form. So they did a bit of analysis and managed to figure out that it wouldn't really be possible to negatively affect the tendril before it was done.

So they used the time they had in the best way they could. Preparing themselves mentally and focusing, as well as talking with each other to develop some general strategies to fight against the threat (as they didn't have enough information to prepare specific strategies). And that was when Sunset dropped a bomb on the others:

"I'm going to leave this fight to you four." She said to the other Knights "And you two would do better by acting as support." She said to the bride and groom.

"But... Why?" Spike was the first one to cast off his shock and respond.

"It's just in case." Sunset explained "Just dealing with this chaotic realm isn't the end of the mission." She shook her head "Chrysalis is a dangerous opponent, so saving my strength for facing her if necessary is the best course of action in my opinion." Then she smiled "Of course, if you guys end up having too much trouble I'll step in, but... I believe you are more than strong enough."

There were a few seconds of silence before they responded with a "Yes!" all at the same time.

Cadance smiled as she looked from the side, then both her and Shining Armor voiced their agreement of the idea.

The shaping of the battle form was already halfway done.

+0+

Despite the fact that Rarity had taken up the position of command, she didn't really get to do much commanding, as only half a minute after that, Applejack sent a hurried message to her:

'Chrysalis diving at your position!'

"Four Barrier!" Rarity shouted, invoking the power of her four Ruler Swords to create a multi-elemental shield. It was the best she could do with such limited time.

Chrysalis appeared from seemingly thin air right in front of Rarity, who had just enough time to see her expression of rage before the impact.

Chrysalis attack was extraordinarily violent, and Rarity felt like a mountain had been thrown at her. She was swept along Chrysalis flight and her barriers broke one by one. Then her armor started to break, and the sheer impact was about to reach her actual body when she shouted:

"Rebirth!"

And the broken pieces of her armor flowed back into the frame, forcefully interposing themselves in the path of Chrysalis attack. And not only that, but the material seemed to have changed, becoming thicker and with several layers, exactly designed to deal with that specific attack.

That was the ability of Rarity's own Armor. The Rebirth Armor. As long as she was alive, the Armor could repair itself and adapt to whatever opponent it faced. That was the only reason Rarity managed to avoid injury. The armor managed to hold Chrysalis back for enough time for help to arrive.

"Vortex Crash!" It was Rainbow Dash.

She dived at Chrysalis, punching with a vortex of wind at the end of her hoof, a vortex that was almost like a tiny hurricane. The hit connected, and Chrysalis was forced back. And before she could recover, Applejack suddenly appeared in front of her, looking like she had always been there.

"Myriad Steps." She announced, before pulling her hoof back for an attack "Myriad Blows."

And she attacked. Chrysalis grew shields to block, but Applejack's hoof seemed to disappear, and suddenly Chrysalis was hit from the other side unexpectedly.

At the same time that was happening, Fluttershy was also doing her spells:

"World's Standard." She announced, as the world for a moment seemed to consist of only her and Chrysalis "Animal Spirit."

And the eagle animal spirit manifested itself around her. But instead of being just an energy form, the spirit had manifested itself in a more solid and physical form, one that looked a bit like an ordinary eagle, except that everything in it was More. It was like the absolute ideal of eagles, with glistening feathers, claws that could cut the air, and eyes that saw through endlessness. It was a version of an eagle powered up by the world itself.

Fluttershy then dove at Chrysalis at speeds that even Rainbow Dash would find challenging to achieve. She slashed with the powerful claws and managed to rake a visible groove on Chrysalis' shell.

At that point, Chrysalis had enough. she charged her magic and unleashed a devastating shout, using sonic magic for an attack on everyone at once.

Pinkie reacted instantly. She took a deep breath while her Armor shaped itself into a megaphone (it looked very silly), and then shouted "NOPE!".

Her shout carried a big amount of chaos magic, and it interfered with the sound wave of Chrysalis' attack, reducing its speed to a comparative crawl. That gave Twilight the change to do her spell.

"Reaction." She spoke solemnly, three rings of power spinning around her "Magical Denial."

The three rings shot out and spread into countless strands of power that fused with the enemy sound waves and canceled their magic.

Chrysalis saw that, and her eyes narrowed. The Knights had the advantage, but the fight was only just beginning.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 70 - Wedding Brawl

When the tendril of chaos finally finished forming itself, it didn't take a genius to see what the form had been inspired by.

It was a scorpion. It had the form of one at least. All the details were there: The legs, the claw-like pedipalps, the segmented tail ending on a stinger, and the general body shape. However, even someone who had never seen a scorpion in real life would be able to tell that it wasn't truly a scorpion.

It was far too big, for one thing, being easily twice as large as an ordinary house. The pedipalps were also weird, seemingly being made of crystal. And not only that, but something seemed to glisten inside them, something red like blood. The legs were different as well, as while the number of them was right, each and every one of them had something... odd, about them.

One was slightly longer than the others, leading to the backside of the scorpion being unbalanced. Another was metal, and sharp like a blade. Another looked like a birds leg, scaled up and with a black talon. Yet another was blue and seemed strangely malleable, like clay. And so on and so forth.

The stinger was strange too. It was split in two, one point being on fire, while the other was electrified. The carapace was layered in a way that should have made the body look bigger, but somehow didn't, and then there was the "face"...

The front part of the body was covered by a huge compound eye, but in the center of it were the chelicera and mouth. It was unspeakably weird.

"The drain effect is done, we can attack now." Applebloom, who had been running analysis on the enemy, spoke.

What she had used was a watered down version of Applejack's own magic, accessed via their bond magic. Since Applejack was her sister, she had the easiest time using it. Which was needed, because the Eyes of Truth were by far the hardest magic to access out of all of those they had bonds with.

Regardless, Spike was the first to go on the attack, just as they had planned. He jumped into the air, briefly manifesting gigantic dragon wings and flapping them exactly once. That produced gale-force winds that propelled him forward in an incredible acceleration. And yet they were perfectly controlled to avoid even touching his allies.

He dove forward, extended his right hand and shaped his magic. It formed a lance-like claw with a spiral pattern. He pierced at the eye, but one of the pedipalps suddenly shone with a ruby light, which created a barrier over it, helping it parry Spike's powerful attack.

Following that, the bird-like front leg vibrated for a moment, and Spike was hit by a veritable cannon of wind. But he had chosen to be the vanguard because he was tough enough to handle such things. His entire body briefly became reflective like a mirror, and the wind's force slipped around it, incapable of causing any harm. In fact, he used the wind to quickly force himself to the ground, following up with.

"Dragons's Charm: Earth Shaker!"

The earth under his fists moved like a wave, turning into a tsunami of rock that fell on top of the scorpion with the inevitability of a mountain, while the ground under it shook to ruin the footing of its multiple legs. The stinger shot into the wave like a missile, exploding and turning it into a rain of mud, the tail was only briefly stingless before it regenerated.

But Spike's attack had done its job, and exposed a weakpoint in the enemy's defense. The crusaders had teleported upwards, and then they shifted to using Sunset's bond, as they wanted the highest possible attack power.

"Bond Magic..." Sweetie Belle was the one who chanted. She was the best of the trio at pure destruction spells "Bombardment Blast!"

A rain of destructive shards of reactive magic crashed down onto the scorpion, battering every inch of its shell with dozens of explosions, causing a series of cracks to start appearing. The creature recoiled, but then its eye turned silver, and suddenly the scorpion vanished.

And it dropped down onto the Crusaders.

"Starlight Beam!" Sweetie shouted, reacting only barely fast enough. She shot a beam of power directly upwards, which had been so hastily put together that it could barely slow down the opponent.

Such wasn't her intention however. The recoil from her attack actually pushed them backwards, aided by Scootaloo's manipulation of their disk.

That earned them three whole seconds, enough for the pegasus filly to take the lead as Sweetie let Sunset's bond lapse.

"Bond Magic. Grand Wings!" Was the spell Scootaloo cast within that short period. Using Rainbow Dash's bond, she created a pair of wind construct wings, which she flapped once.

The Crusaders moved so fast it seemed like teleportation. They didn't go very far, but the simple side effects of that movement were enough to briefly disorient the scorpion while they barrel rolled from below it to just above it.

"Lightning Piercer!" Scootaloo followed up, creating a spearlike lightning bolt in her hoof and driving it down onto the enemy's shell.

At the last moment, she realized that the cracks in the shell had already healed, but it was too late to stop. Scootaloo hit the enemy and focused all her power into piercing as deep as possible, forcing the enemy downwards as she did it. Still, she couldn't pierce deep enough before two of the scorpion's legs wavered with power, and the trio was hit by a powerful soundwave that was also a cutting slash.

Scootaloo grunted in pain as a long cut opened on her flank and her bones and organs rattled. Such a close range attack had done a lot of damage, but she was still able to flap her wings to explode away from such a dangerous position.

Not that the scorpion would allow for them to escape so easily. It jumped off the air itself right at them, raising its metal like upwards to bring it down like a scythe. And yet they had gained enough time for Applebloom to take the lead, changing to Fluttershy's cutie mark and bringing out their greatest defense.

"Shield Spirit!" And a mirror appeared above them, showing the cutie mark of a familiar shield. The eyes of the trio shone with power as three layers of shield spells came into position.

They weren't yet capable of using World's Harmony, but by adapting some of Fluttershy's previous spells, they were able to borrow the might of Shining Armor, as interpreted by Fluttershy.

The enemy attack hit and pressed down with overwhelming momentum. One, two seconds and the first shield broke, one, two, three seconds and the second shield broke, one, two, three, four seconds... And the scorpion was hit from behind.

"Draconic Might: Mountain Breaker!" Spike punched out, hitting with such violence that one attack matched the destruction caused by the Crusader's earlier barrage.

He prepared a second punch while the Crusaders fell back to regain their metaphorical breath. However, the enemy's stinger came down, and he was forced to punch it instead.

It was a mistake.

As soon as his fist made contact, the stinger delivered its deadly payload. It was dragonsbane, the substance that was harmless for every other being, but reacted with dragon scales, going through them and changing into a lethal poison.

There was very little of it, but Spike's body was wracked with unimaginable pain. He was unable to even move, much less defend himself when the tail came back for another sting.

"Double Bond!" The voices of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shouted in unison.

And in the very next moment, the scorpion was hit from below with a punch that contained a powerful destructive spell, sending it flying upwards. It was the Crusaders, who now had the Cutie Marks of both Rainbow Dash and Sunset hovering above them. Connecting to two destinies at once increased the burden considerably, but the three could still handle it.

Combining Rainbow Dash's weather control and Sunset's Magic Enhance turned the Crusaders into a meteor-like form that shot through the battlefield at dizzying speeds, hitting the enemy with destructive attacks at close range. But after a few seconds of that, the scorpion adapted. One of its legs lit up in flames, causing the entire area to heat up like a furnace. The incredible heat disrupted the surrounding air, preventing the trio from moving as fast as they had.

And the enemy wouldn't let them get away and regain speed. It stayed on them like they were connected by a short string, and the battle devolved into a close range battle of spells and physical might, while the Crusaders had to endure the powerful heat of the leg.

Until the scorpion was suddenly hit by a vortex of cutting wind, disrupting its rhythm and allowing the Crusaders to escape.

The source of the attack was Spike, who had stopped in the air. His body was completely red, but not because of Draconic Change. Instead...

"Shed Scale." He announced and took a step forward.

That step had an effect similar to that of a volcano erupting. The air itself seemed to explode and Spike appeared to have teleported directly next to the opponent instead of moving there normally. He sent a punch out, and the hit was like a falling meteor, the shell around the area was rendered into pieces, exposing the interior.

That was Shed Scale. Spike's magic designed around sacrifice. By giving up the defense of his scales, he became a lot more vulnerable, but received exceeding power in exchange. The fact that dragonsbane would no longer work was just a bonus.

But despite the powerful attack, the monster wasn't staggered. It lit six legs at once, creating a multi-elemental omnidirectional barrage of attack spells that Spike had to move away from, due to his lowered defenses.

The fight was reaching its boiling point.

+0+

Trixie had a plan. However, it wasn't the kind of sudden genius breakthrough that would turn the tables immediately. She had simply found one shining light of possibility of victory, something she would have to struggle in order to reach.

She continued the fight with a renewed resolve, and her mind started doing complex calculations. She had fought for long enough, and moved around enough, that she had managed to get a very precise picture of the structure of that subspace. In a sense, it could be said that her entrapment had been a blessing in disguise, as it would be much harder to calculate what she needed out in the constantly shifting real world.

Even then, it took two whole minutes until Trixie was ready for the next phase of her plan. Setting off a sphere of magic containing three different spells, she distracted the construct long enough to open the distance again, then focused all her power into setting up an extraordinarily complex sigil on the ground, before advancing on the enemy again.

The construct prepared a spell to destroy the sigil, but Trixie wouldn't allow that, so she did the only thing she could to prevent it... Trixie deliberately lowered her shields and exposed herself to attack. The construct shifted targets at the last moment and shot her with the destructive magic, which Trixie wouldn't be able to dodge at such a short distance.

But dodging had never been Trixie's plan anyway. She jumped backwards and erected a hasty protective barrier, at the same time directing her vital spots away from the area of impact.

The hit still almost caused her to faint, opening a deep gouge on her side and shedding blood. Still, Trixie borrowed the momentum of the attack to move away again, immediately putting another sigil on the ground and jumping forward again.

Trixie's assumption appeared to have been correct. The enemy was smart enough to try and destroy such obvious setups, but as a construct, it had very firm priorities, and if there was a chance to truly wound Trixie deeply, it had no choice but to take it. As such, Trixie kept doing her setup, allowing the enemy to heavily injure her again and again, shedding blood as the price to advance her plan. Trixie knew Twilight would be frowning if she was there, but that only made her more determined to succeed, even as it gradually became harder and harder to even move her body.

Trixie's vision turned hazy from bloodloss, and she lost the feeling on her flank. Her mind was in a delicate state between consciousness and unconsciousness... It was the perfect state for what she was about to do. Almost without meaning to, she started to chant.

"As the night falls and the shadows grow...
I devour the Infinite and forge the Dream..."

Her movements became even faster and surer as she was laying the final sigils. A normal opponent would have been alarmed, but all that the construct could understand was that Trixie's life was hanging by an increasingly frayed thread, so it kept going.

"The Self is nothing...
And the Self is everything..."

Finally, Trixie set down the last of the sigils, and spoke the last lines of her spell.

"A such, the Self is the World, and the World is the Self...
For in the Realms of the Unreal, Reality and Illusion... Are the Same."

The magic activated, and it not so much spread around the world as it simply became such that it had always been there all along. Except for the construct, everything in the space, and even the very space itself, and even Trixie herself... Changed. They all became hazy and unclear, seemingly less solid, less detailed. Like a dream, like an Illusion.

And in the very next moment, Trixie vanished.

+0+

The upper hand the Knights had on Chrysalis did not last long. After a few hits she seemed to regain her balance and sped away from the attacks, flying to an area where she had three entire seconds of freedom before the Knights could reach her, which was more than enough time for her next action.

"Flesh Doubles..." She announced in a low voice that still managed to carry across the battlefield perfectly.

The results of her technique were horrifying in several different meanings of the word. He sides bulged and expanded like the belly of a pregnant mare, but they continued expanding even beyond that, reaching a point where each of the fleshy growths was the same size as Chrysalis' original body.

With a grunt from Chrysalis, the two growths split from her body, at the same time as they shifted into a very familiar form.

It was Chrysalis. Both of them had turned into copies of Chrysalis. The three seconds ended, and Rainbow Dash arrived, punching out with a vortex of wind in her hoof. The left side Chrysalis waved a leg and blood shot out from beneath her shell, mixing with the air and turning into a powerful blade of wind.

Rainbow realized that she couldn't affect that wind, couldn't overpower Chrysalis' blood control of it. She shifted her attack into a parry, hitting the blade only briefly to disrupt its trajetory, and yet a long cut appeared on her leg. At the same time, a second Chrysalis flew at the second Knight to arrive, Fluttershy. Reaching her with unreal speed and punching out at the pegasus' eagle construct.

The hit sounded like the air itself was exploding, and Fluttershy was launched backwards, even her vaunted defense unable to completely mitigate the damage. And at the same time as that, the third Chrysalis (the original) teleported away from her position. But instead of bringing only her own body, she purposedly grabbed along a huge sphere of air from around herself.

As a result, most of the Knights were only able to tell her destination point in a very general sense, being incapable of any exact predictions. They still prepared for her arrival as much as they could in the brief instant it took for the teleport to complete, but they weren't ready for Chrysalis to have heated all the air to the point of plasma while in transit, the result being that the arrival was more like a localized volcanic eruption that distracted the Knights nearby.

It distracted them enough for Chrysalis to form and shoot a wickedly sharp black spike that flew at supersonic speeds straight at Rarity. The unicorn already had her swords raised, and condensed a barrier of water and earth to receive the attack, and she also had her rebirth armor shift similarly, but even so the hit was so strong that Rarity almost vomited blood just from the effect of the shockwave.

And the first Chrysalis to attack proceeded to teleport instead of pressing her attack on Dash. She appeared right beside Pinkie, managing to force her teleportation despite the earth pony having deliberately leaked a huge amount of chaos magic to disrupt it. Still, she was slower due to that, so Pinkie had time to defend herself.

"Emotion Charge: Pure Sorrow." She declared.

Her transformation was instant. In one moment she was regular Pinkie Pie, but in the next moment she appeared to have been reduced in size, her color was a dirty white, and a faint mist surrounded her.

Chrysalis opened her mouth as spat out a blast of energy, had hit the mist like it was a solid shield, causing a powerful explosion. Pinkie's expression changed slightly, showing that she was hurt, though her body didn't show any marks.

Fluttershy's own Chrysalis dove down at extreme speeds at Twilight, who reacted fastest of all:

"Reaction: Momentum Breaker." She cast.

A sphere of space above her became colored a sickly yellow, and when Chrysalis passed through it, her speed fell to a quarter of what it had been before, giving Twilight enough time to teleport away from the impact radius.

And since she had been trying to attack all of them, it was no surprise that the Chrysalis that attacked Rarity followed up with a strike on Applejack, teleporting again and showering her with created spikes. The earth pony dealt with that better than any of the others, though, Stepping a few consecutive times to avoid every spike and even retaliating with a long range punch that hit Chrysalis in the horn and momentarily stunned her.

It wouldn't have been possible before, but with Chrysalis' power split into three, her resistance was low enough. Applejack tried to take advantage of that, but Chrysalis disappeared, and the same was true of the Chrysalis who had attacked Pinkie. Both of them reappeared beside the third Chrysalis, and they glared at Applejack as a unit.

Chrysalis had realized what the earth pony was doing. Her future vision allowed her to warn the others of Chrysalis attacks, making it so they could defend more easily and accurately. That was an advantage the changeling queen could not allow them to posses.

As one, the three muttered three words under their breath:

"Curse of Blackness..."

And then, they shaped their forelegs into spikes and pierced their own eyes. Applejack was barely able to contain a scream, as she felt like her own eyes had been pierced as well. Opening them up again, she was startled to realize that her future vision had been blocked.

'A curse... She removed her own vision to block my future sight...' Applejack realized, and passed the information to the others immediately, so they could prepare for not having any warning.

Applejack expected Chrysalis to follow up by focus her attack on one of them, but instead, two of the Chrysalises started shaking, cracks appearing all over their shells, those cracks spread to cover their entire bodies, at the same time as the shaking became ever stronger, and a dangerous looking light started to leak from the cracks.

And they exploded into tens of thousands of shell shards that rained down all around the battlefield.

Feeling the danger, the Knights tried to stay away from the falling shells, but there were just too many, and as they fell those shells started to bubble and crack even further, and they turned a brilliant white...

"World's Harmony!" Fluttershy shouted, protecting them all with her magic.

The shells exploded with a power that was incomprehensible based on their size. The battlefield briefly became an apocalyptic scene as if the world was ending.

And when it was over Fluttershy was revealed to be in bad shape. Her coat was covered in injuries and missing patches, her legs were unsteady, and was vomiting blood. But her eyes were still clear, and the World's Harmony was still up. No one else had been hurt.

"Restoration!" Rarity shouted, raising her swords.

That was the magic she had previously used to restore a broken inanimate object to its previous state. But that wasn't the true purpose of that power. She actually learned it to use the spell as a healing magic. That was something she had been trying to learn for a while, as Trixie had quickly realized that Rarity was well suited for learning such spells.

The magic swept over the group, mostly focused on Fluttershy, but also swirling around the other Knights who had been injured. The spell was a combination of extremely accurate telekinesis as well as some biological manipulation in order to build up extra material to replace what had been lost. Either way, its effectiveness could not be understated, as it literally rebuilt its targets, inside and out.

Thankfully enough, it seemed that using that attack had taken a lot out of Chrysalis, so she didn't return to attacking right away, giving time for Rarity to do her magic, but by the time it was over, Chrysalis was already diving towards her next target.

It was Fluttershy. Everypony had a brief period of confusion while they wondered what Chrysalis wanted to do, but before any conclusions could be reached, Chrysalis pulled back a leg and punched at Fluttershy.

"Gah!" That wasn't Fluttershy's voice.

Applejack turned and saw that Rarity appeared to have been hit in the head. She was woozy, even though her armor had obviously shifted to try and protect her.

Applejack's eyes widened as she realized what had happened.

'Chrysalis hit Rarity through the World's Harmony... She managed to target Fluttershy in such a way that the energy of the attack would be transferred to Rarity's position... How is that possible?'

But her thoughts were interrupted when she saw Chrysalis move her head slightly and realized that she was the next target.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 71 - Wedding Inconveniences

If someone were to ask how Applebloom was feeling while she managed the double bond, she would probably downplay it by saying that it was a lot like trying to concentrate with two ponies screaming in her years about completely different subjects. In truth, the feeling was more like her body had been split into thousands of pieces, half of which were screaming about something while trying to pull away from the other half, which were also doing the same thing, and the pieces were all mixed together.

However, it was difficult to argue with the result. The disk they had been standing on since the beginning grew into a dome-like winged construct made of half weather magic and half magical strings, all supported by bond magic to keep it from collapsing due to the extreme opposing forces. That construct was doing a reasonable impression of an alicorn, as it flew around at high speeds, shrugged off dangerous attacks and shot off powerful spells.

They had taken the leading position in the fight, seamlessly cooperating with Spike by taking the brunt of the enemy's counterattacks and putting on pressure from the front, allowing him to exert his destructive power to the maximum efficacy. Usually their roles were the opposite, as Spike's resilience was one of his better qualities, but his current state of no defense meant that such an approach wouldn't be possible.

Still, even as the four young knights worked together in an amazing display of skill and power, it soon became clear that it still wasn't enough. The Crusaders were exerting maximum effort to just barely deal with the constantly changing, powerful attacks that the scorpion conjured from each of its legs. None of them were straightforward, some coming from an entirely different position than the focusing power, some having attacks hidden within other attacks, some being traps that sprung up when least expected, and all sorts of other tricks.

The Crusaders used everything they had learned and then some, managing to keep ahead by a thread, but they were slowly losing ground. Meanwhile, Spike was free to focus fully on attacking, dashing in and out whenever there was a chance and causing major damage to the body of the scorpion. However, he still couldn't deal enough damage to outpace the monster's unreal levels of regeneration, which was even enough to rebuild torn legs in a second.

Worst of all, their opponent was actually evolving during the fight. They had actually almost managed to take it down soon after Spike went into Shed Scale mode, only for it to escape by a thread via judicious use of both teleportation and barrier spells, but since then Spike's attacks were being mitigated more and more by the Scorpion's own defenses, while the Crusader's interference was proving less effective, giving less chances for Spike to strike those blows.

The situation was rapidly becoming untenable, so the Crusaders decided to change things up.

"Dual Bond!" Was declared again, only this time it Applebloom had taken Sweetie Belle's place in saying it. It wasn't truly necessary to match the species, but it helped a bit.

The symbols over them changed again. This time they were the cutie marks of Fluttershy and Applejack, and together with the change in the marks, the power around the Crusaders also shifted. From a construct of wind and spell aura, it shifted into a more subtle form that brought a mountain to mind. It was a dense and solid mist that enveloped the Crusaders like a suit of armor.

They had been flying when that happened, and they fell with such speed that was as if gravity had a grudge against them. The trio crashed on top of the enemy like a falling house.

The crash stunned the scorpion for a moment, and they used that moment wisely, all three of them reaching out with their aura to restrain the beast's jaws, legs and tail. Those tried to trash around and escape, but the grip of the crusaders, forged out of will and power, could not be broken so easily.

An opening made, Spike attacked without hesitation, dashing to the monster's side and letting it rip with an almost berserk ferocity, gouging into the pseudo-flesh of the beast with claw attacks that could tear apart diamonds. And the monster, who could not defend itself, was being opened up little by little.

The next thirty seconds were extraordinarily intense. Spike was literally digging his way inside the body of the enemy, and each time he got close to where the core of that existence had to be, the Crusaders found it more and more difficult to keep the enemy restrained. Soon enough the monster stopped even pretending to care about its own body, and used powerful destructive spells at point blank range.

It could not 'aim" at the crusaders, so instead it attacked the ground, his spells affecting mostly his own body, but by simple proximity the crusaders started to receive some damage, and the monster healed itself rapidly enough to offset the damage it was doing to itself, while the crusaders were using each and every scrap of power they possessed just to keep it restrained.

Still, even as their injuries piled up, the trio declined to give the enemy even an inch of space to work with. Their concentration did not waver in the slightest, and Sweetie Belle, who was keeping the 'balance' at the time, worked with all her strength to compensate from any deviations caused by the enemy's efforts.

Ultimately though, when Spike was about to deliver a fatal blow, the last desperate effort of the enemy proved to be beyond their ability to handle. The monster compressed itself to the point where cracks could be seen even in its blood, and chaotic energy leaked through the cracks, shining ominously.

At the last moment, Spike realized what was happening, and quickly dashed out of the blast zone, but the crusaders, even if they noticed the danger, simply had no energy left to move away. The monster imploded in an eruption of powerful chaotic energy, such being mostly directed upwards, exactly at the trio.

Despite the sturdiness of their current form, that 'attack' was more than enough to drive them over the edge. Their aura was broken through, their magic was shattered like ceramic, and even the final defenses of their bodies suffered under the onslaught of power. The crusaders lost consciousness all at the same time.

-0-

After an indeterminate amount of time, Applebloom opened her eyes. She looked around groggily and quickly ascertained two things: One was that both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were nearby, and already stirring. And the second was that Spike was still fighting.

The enemy had changed, and instead of a scorpion form, Spike was facing off against a dozen flying serpentine forms. And from what she could see, he was doing fairly well. In fact, he seemed to be moving even faster and hitting even harder than before.

The other two woke up and also saw that, leading to a shared sense of awe to pass through them. They hadn't realized that Spike was that strong.

But instants later, they realized that their assumptions were mistaken. Upon looking closer at the dragon, they realized that despite avoiding all the attacks of the serpents, more and more injuries were opening up on his body. The conclusion was clear, Spike was simply ignoring the limits of his weakened body and moving at full strength despite the wounds.

At that moment, something shifted inside the mind of the three, they completely forgot about Sunset watching the fight and their world was reduced to a single realization: Their companion needed help, so they had to move.

The three fillies struggled and stumbled as they got up, their bodies screaming that they were past their limits, and yet the crusaders stood. They did not speak, and neither did they look at each other, but a feeling of shared understanding passed through them.

What they had been doing before was not enough. They needed to go further. They might have never managed that during their training sessions, but they just had to do it. Their will simply refused to consider any other option.

"Triple Bond." The three spoke in unison.

Their magic, previously reduced to a trickle by the injuries, sparked back into a torrent of power, a hurricane created by three energies clashing, mixing and twisting around each other. Three cutie marks appeared above them: Twilight's, Pinkie's and Rarity's.

Sweetie Belle was the one to channel Rarity's bond, while Applebloom focused on Twilight and Scootaloo on Pinkie. Now there was no one left to ground them, so each of the fillies had to rely on themselves to maintain their sense of self, as well as trusting that the others would do the same. Even the slightest sense of doubt would destroy the fragile yet powerful bond that allowed them to mix those disparate powers.

The hurricane of power started wild and uncontrolled, but the trio's will slowly brought it under control, and the three separate powers started feeling like one. The aura of the three condensed into the shape of a sphere, and the power was far more dense than whatever they had been capable of before.

The serpents noticed that sudden change, and the brief distraction allowed Spike to destroy two of them with attacks consisting of all the power he could muster. Then, the Crusaders opened their eyes and took a step forward.

That step stemmed from the chaotic powers they were harnessing, and it took only that one step to appear in the middle of the battlefield of dragon and serpents. And immediately after appearing, they attacked.

The attack was like a fist of pure telekinetic power, slamming into the battlefield and sparing only the Knights from its wrath. The serpents were all driven into the ground with minor damage. But damaging them hadn't been the point, the Crusaders knew that despite the monster having split into multiple bodies, it should still only have a single core, and with the chaotic expertise borrowed from Twilight and Pinkie, the trio could detect it.

Stepping once more, they appeared beside one of the serpents, which didn't look any different from the others, and before said monster could rise from the ground, it was once again forced back down, this time by a focused blast of magical energy. And though said attack was powerful, its true purpose was simply to delay the enemy for them to prepare their real strike.

The air above the sphere cracked with sparks both electric and fiery, simply a side effect of the tremendous level of chaotic power congregating at that point, and yet such chaotic effects did not spread even an inch further, held in check by a powerful sheath of telekinesis.

That word, sheath, was entirely appropriate, because what was being created was a blade, one made of matter and space twisted up by chaos, and forged through pure power and Rarity's borrowed skill. It only took a few moments for it to form, a pillar of energy shining like a supernova. Then the Crusaders spoke in perfect unison:

"Bond Magic: Severing Chaos."

And the blade struck. But it wasn't as simple as merely a chop, instead the blade briefly seemed to exist on every point of its trajectory simultaneously, leaving no room for even such a powerful chaotic entity to avoid it.

When the attack ended, there remained not a trace of their target. And soon the other serpents twitched and dissolved away like mere illusions.

The three fillies cancelled their magic then, knowing that it was over. It was just in time, as they couldn't have endured that state any longer. They saw Spike looking at them and collapsed into unconsciouness, their job done.

+0+

Due to its simple mind, the artefact being that was facing Trixie was literally incapable of feeling an emotion as complex as frustration. And yet, the current situation of the battle left it dangerously close to learning such.

The reason for that was Trixie's current battle strategy. She simply appeared suddenly and hit the enemy once before disappearing again. The construct tried every strategy it could, from trying to guess when and where Trixie would appear to simply hitting the entire arena at once, to give her no place to hide. None of them worked, it was far from smart enough to outpredict Trixie, and when she disappeared, it didn't seem like she was anywhere within the arena.

The reason for that, of course, is that she really wasn't, or rather, her physical body wasn't. The Realms of the Unreal was a powerful technique that turned its area of effect into a state that was halfway between reality and illusion, including the caster herself. As such, Trixie could make herself appear and disappear as easily as she could conjure illusions. And when she disappeared, it wasn't like she was hiding, but instead her physical form had ceased to exist.

Despite being powerful, however, it wasn't an unbeatable technique, specially considering it was the first time Trixie used, thus she hadn't had time to work on its flaws. The cornestone of the magic was the creation of a subspace overlayed onto reality, and Trixie used that space as an anchor for her soul, like a more advanced version of the dreamsoul. Otherwise, making her physical body disappear would be nothing more than a needlessly elaborate way to commit suicide.

It was better than simply using a dreamsoul for two reasons: One was the fact that it was far more difficult to destroy a subspace than a dreamsoul, while the second was the fact that, combined with some dream magic to support the space, it allowed her to create anything she wanted within, just as easily as she conjured illusions.

In theory, anyway. Currently, it was taking all that Trixie had just to make and unmake herself fast enough to be useful in combat. And obviously, there were also many ways to disturb Trixie's control of the subspace or hinder her magic in other manners. However, the opponent could not do any of those, because it was far too specialized. Since it had been created to counter the abilities Trixie had shown Radiant Light, it simply wasn't prepared for her new skills.

Trixie attacked in a very calculated way, hitting the opponent in places she had pinpointed as possible weaknesses and taking note of the results. She had to do things as such because the physical form she was conjuring was in the same state of between reality and illusion as everything else in the subspace (with the exception of the enemy), which meant her attacks only had half of their normal effect (another flaw of her technique).

The unicorn illusionist methodically hit several spots on the body of the construct, slowly getting a sense of its structure. It would be much harder if the enemy had been built properly, but as Trixie had realized before, its production had been rushed with an emphasis on short term combat, so there were quite a few weaknesses to be found, both big and small.

She didn't rush to attack them, however. Trixie had a few hunches about traps Radiant Hope could have put inside a weapon designed to kill her, so she had to make sure to know enough to avoid them. And soon enough Trixie figured out the perfect place to start attacking.

It was under the enemy's body, right next to the right foreleg. From what she could see, it was very close to the core of the artefact. It would usually be a very awkward place to hit in other circumstances, but not when Trixie could appear wherever she wanted. She kept her hit and vanish tactics, but this time focusing only on that single spot, where she slowly began to break through.

It was very slow, though, so Trixie started to replace one of her hooves with a drill every time and using it to attack. Eventually she would need to learn to conjure things without replacing parts of herself, but for the moment it was enough.

The enemy realized that it was nearing death, thus its attacks became wilder and more reckless, but it wasn't enough. Trixie had total control of the fight, and it wasn't long before she pierced through the enemy's core. And then disappeared again.

It was just in time, as the construct self-destructed in a massive explosion, clearly intended to take out whoever managed to kill it. But Trixie had foreseen that possibility, and prepared for it.

She reappeared soon after, and realized that the subspace was slowly starting to vanish, only supported by her own magic. Trixie then closed her eyes and computed another set of calculations before doing the ritual to reverse her technique and make everything real again.

The subspace collapsed and she found herself back on her previous position. Trixie took a step and fell to the ground.

'Looks like that drained me more than expected. Guess I'll leave the rest to the others.'

Was her last thought before slipping into unconsciousness.

+0+

Applejack was thinking fast. That was something she had become accostumed to doing ever since her Eyes of Truth had gained the ability to see into the future, as being able to take decisions quickly in response to what she saw was preeminent.

However, that was far from the only use of fast thinking, and in fact wasn't even the most important. In reality, the ability of the Eyes of Truth to understand what they saw on a deep level would always be the most powerful one. That had always been the case for every wielder of the Eyes of Truth in the past. And such an ability would be useless if Applejack was incapable of acting on that information in a timely manner.

Making things harder was the fact that the Truth Applejack saw wasn't something that could be easily explained. In fact, the Knights had made some experiments, and even with Fluttershy applying her empathy solely towards Applejack, with an entire ritual to help pass the information along, there was simply far too much that she wasn't able to understand.

As such, Applejack was the only one who could make effective use of the deeper information her Eyes uncovered, which went back to the necessity of thinking fast, drawing conclusions fast and acting fast. It was a very important role on the team, and one which said pony took extremely seriously.

Upon seeing Chrysalis' impossible attack, Applejack had already focused on trying to understand it, which only became more pressing when she found herself the next target. Being able to accurately determine the relation between Fluttershy's World's Harmony and real space, as well as hitting it in such a way to target a precise location with enough power was something that she quickly deemed to be impossible, so the question remained as to what she was doing instead.

Applejack had observed Chrysalis enough during the battle to see through her magical specialty. It was life magic, using her own life, her own essence and her own existence as both fuel and object for her powers. She had also seen the attack that had hit Rarity through Fluttershy's defenses. Using knowledge of the former, she needed to decypher the latter.

In the first moments, she realized that Chrysalis' attack had contained not a hint of space magic, in the following moments, she was surprised to find bond magic as the answer. It was difficult to accept, as Chrysalis didn't have enough of a bond with Rarity to overcome the metaphorical distance created by Fluttershy's defenses, and even if she had, Rarity would have noticed the forming bond and been able to stop it.

What was she truly bonding to, then? Applejack pondered that question through a few instants that seemed to last an eternity, and suddenly an answer leapt out of the void of truth: Herself. Believing that, despite how strange it seemed, Applejack looked towards Rarity once more, and forced her eyes to see much deeper than usual, until she found what she was looking for.

It was scales. Chrysalis' powerful attack hadn't only been an attack, but the exploding scales had split into innumerable shards, so small that even Applejack's eyes hadn't noticed until she looked closer, and they had spread around everywhere, but mostly on the Knights, marking them in her senses. It was probably a counter-measure designed for Trixie's illusions, but it had an unexpected effect.

Chrysalis could target her own self, that connection overpowering Fluttershy's defensive space, and turning her spell into a channel to hit beyond harmony. It was truly an unfortunate occurrence, and Applejack's first thought was to tell Fluttershy to drop her spell, but then she realized something: If Chrysalis was connecting to herself in order to attack them, that also meant she was connecting them to her. And Applejack was uniquely suited to take advantage of that.

There was only a few moments remaining before Chrysalis' attack, and Applejack Looked at her foe, preparing her best attack and adapting it to the current target. All the magic she could spare went to her right forehoof, while the rest was dedicated to bracing herself against the coming attack.

As if they had planned, both the changeling and the knight attacked at the exact same moment.

"Eyes of Truth: Heart Destroyer Blow!" Applejack called, just before receiving a hit that she was certain had cracked her skull.

But she hit, and her powerful strike went through Chrysalis' defenses thanks to her own power, and struck at her heart directly.

"Gragh..." Applejack moaned in agony, before looking up to see the damage her attack had caused.

Chrysalis seemed to have shrunk in on herself, her whole body was trembling and her eyes were unfocused. And yet, Applejack's heart fell. Despite putting everything she had in an attack on the enemy's weakest point, it still hadn't been enough. It was certainly effective, but far from a critical injury for someone like Chrysalis.

Applejack sent two messages through the network, one was for Fluttershy: 'Drop the spell'. The other was for everypony: 'Go all out'. They wouldn't get a better opportunity than that.

The time she took on that was too long, however, as Chrysalis wouldn't allow an attack against her heart to go unanswered. Applejack felt like her hoof was being held by something, preventing her from retracting it, and she Looked to see what was going on.

It was just in time to see Chrysalis' heart forming a fanged mouth and biting down on her hoof.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" Applejack screamed in pain. She looked down to see a bloody stump in the place her hoof had been.

"Restoration!" Came Rarity's spell, and Applejack's hoof was reconstructed.

It wasn't like everything was alright, however. The amount of magic needed to do such was enough to make it almost impossible to channel magic through that hoof, essentially crippling several of Applejack's techniques.

Still, Applejack's message had been passed, and the first one to respond to it was, of course, Rainbow Dash.

"True Body: Primordial Storm!" She called.

The space around her turned into a chaotic maelstrom of conflicting weather patterns. The air continually crashed into itself, heating up due to the pure pressure, but the warm air couldn't escape upwards, instead being forced back down in a manner like a horizontal hurricane, building up ever more energy. At the same time, the many foreign elements condensed together into crystaline drops of water.

And the water wasn't really water, but a different substance forced into the general properties of water by the system itself. That pseudo water reacted with the energy of the hurricane, creating an increasing electrical charge, which itself reacted with everything else in the space, mixing the "water" and air into an extremely reactive matter that caused all of it to light up like an explosion.

But that explosion wasn't allowed to expand beyong that space, instead reflecting itself over and over again, tearing down the mix of substances and creating strange molecules of matter that would not be able to exist in any other conditions. To make things simple, it could be said that Rainbow Dash had become like a young planet, a state far from stability, in which the weather could be generously described as "impossible".

Not that she completely understood all the details. The only thing she knew was that this was such powerful weather that she would die just by being in the middle of it, were she a normal pony. But she was a Knight, and her will was breaking limits, so she finished things up by fusing with her created weather.

What she experiences at that point wasn't pain, not really, but simply the feeling of being aware of each and every point of that weather, just like it was her own body. An instant later the magic was done, and Rainbow Dash's appearance had changed to become at once vague and distinct, as her silhouette remained the same, even as her body changed into a constantly shifting maelstrom of colors and shapes that gave the impression of a storm in a bottle.

And Rainbow Dash moved towards Chrysalis. But instead of working with or around the air in the path, she simply seemed to ignore it, as if her personal being had precedence over the natural world. She punched her enemy, and her punch was fire, and it was lightning, and it was ice, all at the same time, paradoxically fusing together disparate elements, and her punch was without sound or shockwave, as every drop of energy was completely focused on defeating Chrysalis.

That one hit affected the changeling queen more than what any of the others (save Applejack) had managed to. Cracks spread in her shell from the point of contact, and Chrysalis recoiled a few feet away in surprise and pain.

Just behind Rainbow Dash was Pinkie Pie. She did things different from the pegasus, starting by congregating her power before calling out a spell. Her magic was much more low-key, showing that it was a particularly special technique, as chaos magic generally couldn't be described as low-key. Only if someone were to look closely would they be able to tell she was even using magic, and just by noticing that the area around her seemed unnaturally still, as though frozen in time.

And if that hypothetical observer were to keep watching, they would notice a very subtle change, looking like their eyes were unfocusing, but instead of Pinkie splitting in two, it was more like a thin mist had split off from her head. Of course, that wasn't quite what was going on, but it was close enough to understand. Pinkie was essentially splitting part of herself in half. Specifically, her mind.

Duplication was a common spell in the arsenal of chaotic mages. However, that usually only meant creating multiple bodies which either had some sort of slight artificial intelligence, or were controlled via multitasking. What Pinkie was doing was something much more complicated: She was splitting her "ego", her "consciousness" into two. And it wasn't even a true split, as only part of her ego had been copied, instead of her entire mind.

But copying just that much was already enough for her current purposes, because it allowed her to do something that had been impossible before.

"Split Technique: Dual Charge!" She finally cast her spell.

Two strands of pure emotion awakened within her, one was hope, which spread through her body, while the other was joy, which fused with her split off ego. This was an evolution of the Emotion Charge, achieving two pure states of emotion at the same time, thus obtaining both of their powers at once.

The result of that was Pinkie multiplying herself dozens of times (normal clones, not ego divisions) and each one of her copies was enveloped by the aura of hope. Each aura was significantly smaller than the usual for that power, but they were still a lot bigger than the earth pony herself.

And by the time Chrysalis had recoiled from Rainbow Dash's attack, all the Pinkie Pies were already poised to attack. What followed was a veritable barrage of punches, as each and every one of the hope-enhanced Pinkie clones attacked continuously, hitting every inch of Chrysalis' body. It didn't take long for the cracks Rainbow Dash had left on her body to begin widening.

But while the Knights could go all out, there was no reason for Chrysalis not to do the same thing. While the other four Knights were still preparing their own attacks, the changeling queen unleashed her full power.

Just like when she had created copies of herself, the focus was on the sides of her body, but instead of bulging out, they outright exploded, forcing both Rainbow Dash and all the Pinkie Pies away. The holes left behind showed that the interior of Chrysalis' body had turned into a physical darkness that wavered and contorted in and of itself. Applejack was specially surprised because the change was even greater to her Eyes of Truth, including the very worrisome observation that the location of her heart had become vague and hazy.

And yet she wasn't done. The darkness inside Chrysalis poured out through the holes in the form of a liquid black mist, and Applejack realized that the mist was made of uncountable grains of basic matter which had been compressed way beyond reasonable limits, to the point that a tenth of an inch sized grain weighted as much as a boulder. The earth pony wanted to warn the two about that, but before she had the chance, Chrysalis attacked.

The mist struck down like the very sky was falling, in an attack that left almost no room for evasion. Rainbow Dash reacted with extreme speed and only barely managed to dash out of the way. But Pinkie Pie did not manage it.

The sound of the hit was like a hundred bolts of lightning striking at the same moment, and then there was only one Pinkie Pie remaining, unconscious inside a crater just below Chrysalis. Even the extra resilience of the hope aura wasn't enough for her to endure a single hit.

And things got worse. Almost before anyone could register what had happened, Chrysalis was already on the move, as if that hit had not been anything special for her. And she moved right towards Rainbow Dash. The pegasus increased her speed to the maximum and used every single trick she had in order to try and lose the changeling queen, but none of that seemed to have even the slightest effect, as Chrysalis reached her in instants.

In truth, Chrysalis was using her mist. The sheer weight of it was enough to bend and compress space, leading to a velocity that not even Dash could match. At the last moment, the Knight abandoned her attempt to flee, and instead turned around and attacked Chrysalis with everything she could muster, at the same time as the changeling attacked her.

Their two blows clashed for a few instants before Rainbow Dash was launched away into the distance, unconscious and with most of her bones broken.

"Forge Magic: True Spell..." Rarity chanted, with Applejack Looking straight into her eyes.

Because while Rainbow Dash hadn't managed much, her efforts still bought enough time for the other Knights to start trying to counter attack. Fluttershy and Twilight were preparing something big, but Applejack and Rarity could go immediately. And what they did was the best teamwork spell they had managed to develop.

During the whole battle, Applejack's Eyes had gathered as much information as they could on Chrysalis, and while most of the time she was the only one who could make use of it, that particular spell was an exception. In it, Rarity used her various artefacts as focus and base for a multitude of spells, that were then customized in real time by the information received from Applejack.

It was magic designed specifically to match their current opponent. It was Rarity's Forge Magic used to forge spells instead of artefacts.

And Rarity teleported, replacing herself with the air beside Chrysalis, and slashed with a sword of fire, which was boosted and synchronized by several other spells, managing to rake across Chrysalis' body, harming her much more than Dash's last attack had managed, in spite of being several leagues less powerful.

Chrysalis responded by swinging with her mist in another near inescapable blow, which Rarity flowed around like water, riding on the edge of the attack. She slashed with her fire sword again, and while Chrysalis tried to dodge away, she found herself rooted to her spot, courtesy of earth manacles around her legs that interfered even with her space manipulation.

And so it continued for a whole seven more exchanges, lasting around four seconds in total, as Rarity fought almost like she could see the future. But the difference in power between the two was just too large, so that was the limit even for such a strategy.

And in the perfect moment, when Chrysalis was about to catch the Knight, Applejack acted:

"Myriad Steps: Chaotic Wandering..." She called, and stepped into nothingness.

Chrysalis recoiled as if struck, sparing Rarity from being hit with an attack. Applejack had just struck her... from within her own mist.

Chrysalis' chaotic shapeshifting was undoubtedly powerful, but exactly because it was chaotic, she did not have perfect control over it, allowing Applejack to slip inside like it was one of the chaotic spaces of her fellow Knights. And while she could not target Chrysalis' heart directly, she could hit close enough to be effective.

Chrysalis' mist slashed around Applejack's position, but she had already stepped towards another part of it, showing the real ability of her Myriad Steps. And of course, Rarity used that very momentary distraction to score another hit on the changeling queen.

And so the two teamed up on Chrysalis, one from the inside and the other from the outside, acting in perfect harmony. Neither of them thought that they could defeat her like that, but Twilight and Fluttershy had asked for them to buy as much time as possible.

In the end, the two managed to keep it going for ten more seconds before Chrysalis broke through it, screeching gutturally as she forced her mist into a cutting hurricane that caused heavy injuries on herself, but almost killed the two Knights.

Thankfully, it had been enough time.

"Trance Mode: Harmony Shift..." Fluttershy called.

The whole world seemed to stop for a moment, as she took a breath that seemed to be echoed by existence itself. Her magic and the magic of the environment mixed together seamlessly, and the resulting energy spread around the whole field, ready to be tapped.

Considering that was both magically powerful and skilled in harmonizing with the environment, learning Trance mode was a no-brainer. However, the original version of the technique would not help much, as the increase in power wasn't enough to justify the effort. So, she instead tried to develop as customized version of it.

The result of her attempts was the Harmony Shift. Instead of simply absorbing energy from the outside, she created a harmony between inside and outside, both making the power she could access much stronger than normal, and also allowing her to keep recharging herself with outside power.

The visible result of the technique was that Fluttershy's appearance changed to the point where her entire body seemed to have turned into crystal that shined like starlight. She took advantage of the momentary weakness of Chrysalis upon generating that powerful hurricane and flew at her in a tackle faster than she had ever managed to move in her life. Fluttershy followed it up by grabbing onto the changeling queen and locking down her movements with every drop of her enhanced power.

Because her role in the plan wasn't in attacking Chrysalis, but in allowing Twilight to do so.

"Magical Sign: Soul Counterpoint." Said unicorn declared.

The feeling of that spell was just as impressive as Fluttershy's, only instead of causing her to become one with the world, Twilight's spell seemed to cause it to vanish, leaving only two things in existence: Twilight and Chrysalis. In that single moment amidst nothingness, Twilight Changed.

It wasn't a visible change, as both her shape and color remained the same, but her atmosphere seemed to have changed, and if one compared her to just before, Twilight seemed to have become less lively and energetic, in favor of becoming more focused, her eyes fixed to her opponent and not moving at all, even to breathe.

That was the magic Twilight had been trying to develop for literal years, with only recently making some progress. It was not yet complete, being only a much simplified version of the real thing, but it was already a shockingly powerful bit of magic.

The unicorn took a step forward, and the space itself seemed to part in her way, allowing her to to reach Chrysalis in that one step. And then she punched, and her punch was implacable like a force of nature, tearing through Chrysalis's body like it was made of clay, while leaving Fluttershy's magic alone.

The Changeling Queen screamed louder than they thought possible, horribly injured by the attack. The Soul Counterpoint was similar to Fluttershy's Soul Emulate, except that instead of immitating the opponent, it worked by becoming their reverse. And it just happened that the reverse of Chrysalis' chaotic shapeshifting was order magic to turn one's body into an immutable and implacable existence.

All that had taken place during the brief period Chrysalis was vulnerable, but then she started to counter attack. Her first hit was already exceedingly vicious, as her mist shifted into a saw of mismatched weapons, all spinning at high speeds and directing their full energy to the edge, trying to cut through Fluttershy.

The pegasus endured, even as she started to feel the interior of her body squirming due to the pressure it was under. During that, Twilight kept punching her opponent, as if trying to tear her to pieces with her bare hooves. That made Chrysalis panic, and she unleashed her Banshee's Wail.

That had been the attack to take down Fluttershy on their previous fight, but the pegasus was now far stronger than before. She refused to let even a single strand of magic-empowered sound go through her barrier, enduring everything to allow Twilight to keep attacking... And when that second attack was over, Fluttershy was still holding on, weakened but not defeated.

And Twilight was still tearing through Chrysalis. And the changeling queen realized that she could actually lose that fight. And she refused to let that happen. With a screech that didn't resemble any creature under the sun, Chrysalis attacked for a third time, but instead of just using her mist, Chrysalis shifted her whole body, briefly losing any living parts as she explosively turned into a spiked ball.

That was, at last, too much for Fluttershy, as her magic was not just broken but annihilated, and her body was sent flying away, covered in injuries. And yet Twilight did not stop attacking. She knew that Fluttershy was going to be fine, and she knew that she had to make her efforts worth it.

Finally freed, Chrysalis teleported away on instinct, trying to get some distance, but Twilight simply stepped again to get back in range, and punched once more. The changeling queen counter-attacked, her body now half turned into mist (the left half), her eyes had regenerated at some point after Applejack's defeat, and the only eye she had at that point was glaring at Twilight with rage mixed with desperation.

Her attack was a thousand malformed blades driving down at her opponent, all of the mist she had focused on that effort. And Twilight received the blow as if it were a feather. Her body had been made indestructible by the magic, to the point where not even her skin was cut.

Thus began a bizarre parody of a slugfest, as one side (which only had half a body) attacked with massive storms of shapes and objects without causing any reaction on the other side, which in turn used only normal punches but managed to tear through the enemy's body without fail, requiring continuous healing on Chrysalis' part.

And yet, contrary to all appearances, after only a few seconds of that, the one to fall was actually Twilight, her magic pushed far beyond her limits to keep her invincibility in the face of the attacks of a far stronger opponent. With that, Chrysalis was finally allowed time to breathe, which she used to restore her body to normal, and then she looked around.

And saw that her target was back from wherever it was she had went. Venus was on the ground only a few hundred meters away. Chrysalis barely registered the other figures nearby, as she dove and accelerated towards the pegasus. But Venus had already been moving at that time, and it was more than enough for her to reach over and touch the unicorn next to her, who in a powerful burst of magic, created a shield.

It was a magical shield that grew far beyond what would be necessary to defend the two, but Chrysalis could not doubt its effectiveness, as it stopped her charge cold and endured her follow up massive attack with barely a ripple. And then the changeling queen realized the true purpose of the shield. It wasn't just to protect Venus and her companions, but to protect the entire constructed town, leaving no buildings uncovered.

And outside of that shield there was only Chrysalis... And Knight Sunset Shimmer.

By that point, the plan was obvious, preventing her from harming any civillians while the Knight took her down. And with the changeling queen hurt from the previous fight, she actually had a real shot at it. Well, that just wouldn't do, would it?

"Blood Sacrifice..." Chrysalis intoned.

+0+

Meanwhile the fight at ground level between the guards and the changelings was almost over. Most of the bug-ponies had been taken down, with only a few stragglers managing to hold on, mostly through hiding and guerilla tactics, but all in all the ponies had things well in hand.

However, it was still a shock when a few of the guards heard loud screeches of pain and followed them to find uncloaked changelings twitching on the ground in various places. An even bigger shock was reserved for the guards tasked with keeping an eye on the defeated and bound changelings, because they too began to screech and twitch in pain.

The guards didn't know what that meant, but they knew that it couldn't be anything good.

+0+

Chrysalis felt the love energy of her subjects flowing through her, restoring her injuries. She would have to reward them appropriately later, but once she had Venus is her grasp, that would not be difficult. She could tell that Sunset was attacking her, but that wasn't enough to stop her recovery.

It only took a few seconds for the changeling queen to be restored back to her peak.