CoCoBA Episode 15: Fight For Your Right

Coco's Bizarre Adventure, Episode 15: Fight for Your Right

Zesty stood with her people, most of them unicorns, staring out onto the barrier as it collapsed in on itself. She was at the fore, potentially the first to take some kind of damage, the most vulnerable of all her forces. This was as it had been for all of military history - the leaders worth remembering had been such masterful ponies that they could stand with their whole armies behind them and still have no fear.

Not that she really had any great love for history, or the adoration of its scrawlers and scribblers. Or that, as a mare of total culture, she was in any way unaware of the incredible magical power most of those leaders had, such that they were more like indestructible ornaments or walking storms than actual combatants. Her Stand offered her some measure of that omnipotent security, but she resisted the urge to summon it up.

The few assembled on the other side were definitely a motley crew, but they couldn't be underestimated. She looked for some hint of any of them activating their abilities, and found no sudden movements or flashes of glinting light. Their abilities were still sheathed, then.

Most were familiar to her from reports. One she had seen previously, a wrinkled green mare with years of extra weight to throw around, who peered back at her dimly. Zesty's mind centered on her, summoning up whatever she could recall of their encounter - but they had never fought directly.

She sighed, and wished that Twinkleshine had been suitable to join them. She was still running communications from inside of the tortoise, but her messages were largely pointless now. If things went south, she would keep a chronicle through her power of what they had all done this day.

Not yet…

Cheese tensed beside her at the moment the magic broke and fizzled. It happened in small sections and expanded outward, and he stood on the fronts of his hooves with unconcealed excitement. The pegasi, who had been patiently waiting for their opportunity, swept inside, keeping some distance and judging their angles of attack like circling hawks. A couple had already commandeered nearby clouds, hoping to wring a burst of lightning out.

Not yet...

Everything was oiled and behaving, a true managerial dream, and the enemy was still in shock when there was enough of an opening to pass through. It was the only luck she was going to have, more than she could have asked for in the mess of fluctuating morale trailing behind her.

Now.

"Straight ahead!" she shouted, with a voice unused to the volume, and in that moment her words were the only things that anyone heard at the Castle. "We enter those doors or we die! ｢Chop Suey｣!"

Her Stand appeared, ripping tufts of soft earth and chunks of hard pavement to sustain itself, circling in the air and capturing the attentions of the Jovians as they each readied their own abilities instinctively. They didn't bother to ask what her next move would be, only to wait for the ball of random matter to move.

Which is why she barreled ahead, with Cheese at her side.

The earth ponies and unicorns behind her, who had been waiting for some signal and nervously feinting towards their foes for several seconds now, leapt after them into the fray.

* * *

Coco was still held in the grip of the goddess, and this time ｢Something for Nothing｣ didn’t materialize beside her with some great rescuing impact. She hung there, snout to snout, having her soul stared into, and she began to wonder if passing through that portal wouldn’t have been a wiser strategy after all.

Despite the fact that her journey was based on undoing everything he’d wrought, Coco had never bothered thinking far enough ahead as to what her final encounter with Sombra would be like. She had heard stories about him, about his defeat by the establishing of the Crystal Heart at the center of the Empire, but had assumed she would be able to worry about it as it happened, if she really made it that far. Harmony was on her side now, but it wasn’t a match for an alicorn.

Even in this grip her thoughts drifted absurdly to Tartarus, to the Empire, and to the unfought battles which still lay ahead. She had hoped never to really meet her match until the very end, when she would have every possible advantage the quest could give her, all the experience she woud need. Here, there was no chance of victory, or stalemate.

Diamond was already making her way out of the room, and she wouldn’t be heading back to the throne room if she valued her life. Escape was the first priority, then.

While she was thinking this, Luna’s horn glowed, briefly, and Coco’s leg snapped.

She cried out with the pain involuntarily, feeling the break as cleanly as if she’d really made that fall back in Manehattan. It was her right back leg, and it consumed her for a moment, blotting out the world trying to translate itself into vision. Her cry was strangled, and it fell away into silence as some other bit of magic ripped it from her.

Luna let out a grunt of animal satisfaction, and the aura focused on one of Coco’s front hooves, waiting to make another wet wrench. It was true that the defenses had been breached, that the VP had been distracted, that she had in some sense been bested by the first enemy she’d come across, but she still had the pleasures of omnipotence. Coco looked on this time at that magical glow, helpless to stop it behind the pain-signals of her first injury.

“｢Misery Business｣!” the cry came from behind Luna, and she wheeled in time to see the oddly-pointed pink hoof reach her. The impact sent her flying across the throne room, but her magic remained untouched; Coco floated in the air where she’d been.

“Diamond?!” Coco gasped, as at least some of the magic drew away from her. “You have to get out of here, it’s not-”

Of course, Diamond saw exactly what Coco hadn’t wanted her to. “She broke your leg. I won’t stand for that.”

No sooner had she finished that sentence than Diamond was also surrounded by a blue field of magic and carried aloft into the air of the throne room. ｢Misery Business｣ swept her up in its front legs, trying to carry her away from the influence of the still downed Princess, but the field merely followed her, keeping her from descending toward the ground.

"It's not going to work!" Coco said, and then the magic threw her in a blur of cream, tumbling into the far wall. Diamond saw the impact, how it came fast enough that Coco didn't have time to conjure up a landing pad, and took real damage.

Her attention turned to the mock Princess, who was undamaged and righting herself. The magic drew the filly closer, and her Stand steered her with it, winding up for another strike.

"How can I defeat you?" she asked, and it hardly sounded like a question.

Luna spoke, her sense of silent vengeance slipping out of anger. "You cannot." A small pink child of a horse would not be interrogating her, that level of indignity was more than she'd endured even on Jupiter!

Diamond watched, and tried to perceive beyond the limits of her Stand, to the thoughts beneath thoughts that it might, in moments of utter desperation, plunge itself into. But nothing came, no words unspeakable, no thoughts that couldn't be shared. She didn't know if it was the alicorn's nature to be immune to her powers, but unlike Cheese she didn't feel the oppressive force of the mind itself pushing away her inspection.

No, it was as if the Princess simply had no hidden depths to be investigated. She didn't believe that sharing her plans would make any difference.

Diamond had always been afraid of Nightmare Moon, and had considered it strange how little discussion the return of the real Princess Luna had garnered. She stayed indoors on Nightmare Night, and was glad for it when she learned that the Princess herself had decided to harass the townsfolk for half of the evening. As if she cared enough about candy to risk her life!

But it was odd for her, to be moving towards this impression of the Princess so fearlessly. Distant compartments of her mind may have squirmed in squeamish dread at the threat, but their voices came far away across valleys and rivers of experience, and from the beginning she had been ready to take on the Princesses themselves to achieve her ambitions.

The filly swooped in with a burst of energy as she drew within range, letting her Stand separate from her as they came towards Luna on both sides. The scissor attack was as perfectly executed as a chess move - Luna would try to deflect the Stand from experience, assuming that a filly's kick would do no lasting harm, and then Diamond's kick would stagger her while her Stand merely feinted and came in while she was staggered!

Then a flash of light, and Coco appeared between ｢Misery Business｣ and Luna, hanging in the air with her head spinning. Diamond froze, both with her Stand and in mid-air as Luna stopped moving her. Coco met her eye and shook her head, and Diamond saw a motherly firmness to the mare's features, even as back hoof dangled out of the normal angle. Maybe Zesty would have some sort of healer.

Diamond recalled ｢Misery Business｣, and it swept back to her, pushing her away from Luna's influence. Again the magic lingered around her but didn't trip or pull her, like a slack rope tied around her soul. She hoped that the slack would keep up - there was something else she could do in this room, at least, and it was destroy the mirror-portal that was drawing all of these unsavory types to her universe.

Then another burst of magic, and she felt a rush around her whole body that threatened to make her sick, only for things to switch like slides in a projector and her to be back where she was. She felt the tingle of magic across herself, and realized that she'd just been teleported, herself.

In front of her Luna, who hadn't moved for any of this, drew her closer. Now the pull was back and tight, cinched around her heartbeat and knotted out of her own muscle. She couldn't have struggled against it even if she'd had the strength of her Stand in each leg - it was a feeling of utter oppression, the force of another's will cascading onto her like the weight of a mountain.

Behind the Princess, the ominous black mass of her Stand drew itself up, coming out of her aura like the cloak of a dark witch in some gruesomely oudated bedtime story. As it caped and covered her, Diamond recognized it, and felt it waiting to devour her with viperish anticipation.

Then, a crash! From the windows came the pegasi, tumbling as best as they could against showers of shattered glass and into the room. Diamond recognized all of them, though not many by name; she'd never had a reason to speak to weatherworkers, or them to her.

Some got their bearings faster than others, and when they saw the Princess each became an army of one. Some swooped towards her, while others approached Diamond and Coco, or hung back entirely, checking for some key piece of information they didn't feel themselves to have yet. Almost none of them were likely to have combat experience, and yet their mere presence rang out in the face of the filly's predicament!

Luna flexed her will, and the magical force stretched out, suspending all of the pegasi like the air had been replaced with some kind of gelatin. How had they come here so quickly after the fall of her first defenses? Surely most of the ponies might know the location of the throne room, but why did they expect her to be there with such fervor that they threw themselves through the windows?

Understanding this was the least of her worries at just that moment; as the aura of blue settled across the wide room, her magic became something shaky, and wavered. She could tell why just by listening to her own instincts: there were a couple of dozen targets now, and without the right sort of training she couldn't focus on all of them! Her mind was being stretched in too many directions, preparing for too much fine manipulation.

She grit her teeth as her magic retreated, slightly, and some of them dipped in the air before their wings began to flap again. She would have to end them quickly, to prevent any news being spread that she still needed to learn her abilities.

"Her magic's too weak to control all of you! She doesn't have enough control to use it on a lot of ponies yet!" Diamond shouted for all the room to hear, and for the annoyance Luna used some of her reserve to silence her. "Don't let the black shadow behind her t-!" The filly's mouth moved and made no noise.

Enough had gotten through, clearly. The pegasi who could move rallied themselves, and the goddess refocused her attention on her Stand.

* * *

Neon stumbled back as Moondancer approached, and then remembered himself. "D-don't come any closer! I still have the little one hostage!" It didn't sound as much like a threat as he'd been hoping; the words came out as if he were asking for help with a problem, and she continued moving as if she were determined to fix it for him.

What were his options? It was true that the shield had just come down, and that opened up the terrain, although he wouldn't be able to defend the Castle properly if he got too far away. The best he could do in that vein would be a long game of keep-away, hoping that the city would help him lose her so he could double-back. If Sunset knew that he was doing that, he had a feeling ｢Pepper｣ would drain him dry automatically.

Half of the centaurs had already quietly cantered to Colgate's body, sucking up what they could. He tried not to look, if just so he could anticipate some lunge from the wild-haired mare loping towards him.

The other option that came to mind was to cut his losses. The filly was what she was after, probably, and if he couldn't use her to get out alive, then he could sacrifice her. One less combatant, and maybe it would be a blow to his enemy's morale. Two birds.

He needed to calm down about being struck; for this moment he would be fine, even if the mare was still copying Colgate's Stand, because she'd never managed to touch him. But if the defenses were down, that meant ponies could be coming to help her right this instant, and that was worth preparing for. He gathered up all of the patches of his Stand that were still active enough in the night air to hold something, trying to give himself as large a protected area as possible with the fickle movements of his ability.

The filly appeared in front of him, and Moondancer changed her trajectory with the moment, turning to look him straight in the eye. She was worn out, he could tell, and whatever her power let her do, if she copied him it wouldn't help her very much. His thoughts almost turned to the offensive; if he could just find a way to strike her beneath that sweater...

"If you let her go right now, then I'll let you leave," she said, and her eyes bore through his soul. Even with a hoof resting above the skull of the sleeping filly, ready to punch downwards with all of gravity's cruelty, he could not feel an advantage. It was like seeking a handhold on a perfectly smooth cliff-face!

"Your Stand can't do anything to get to me!" he said. "If you try to get any closer, I'll just move those shards of glass underneath of her!" The thought hadn't existed in his mind until after he'd spoken it, but as it occurred to him he realized that he really could pull it off. And if he could coax her that little bit further into his range, he would be able to deal with both of them!

Moondancer looked almost bored, as if he were a disappointing dinner date, or he was forcing her to explain a joke. She stepped forwards without any provocation, entering the outermost layer of his ability! She probably didn't even notice that he'd extended it, just judging a safe distance in her head under the influence of her dizzy victory and her exhaustion!

"I warned you! ｢Jefferson Airplane｣!" he said, and the filly reappeared in the air chunk by chunk. The glass was easier to move, shards coming all at once from where the shield had stood. He automatically prepared where she would head if she ran forward, directly into the glass and facing away from him - the most disorienting position he could manage.

But Moondancer didn't rush forward as the filly fell. Instead, her horn lit up.

At Neon's hooves, the glass glowed for a moment and transformed into a small patch of balloons. The filly fell into them harmlessly, and they provided her cover as they hovered just over the grass.

He balked. They hadn't been warned that unicorns could do that.

Moondancer rushed forward, and the patch of ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ appeared behind her just as her hooves left the ground. But she wasn't anywhere near it a moment later, facing it as she ripped Scootaloo from the grass. The pool lingered, as if it were unsure of what direction to take.

But she was only a couple feet away now, and in the center of his ability! Apart from a few balloons, she had no defenses against him now, and she'd summoned up her own defeat! He changed the flow of his Stand, so that all directions she took would stumble her directly into that bubbling darkness, and waited for her to spin around and try to make some attack on him. If she stalled for time somehow, he could just drop both of them in one at a time!

Moondancer lowered her head, like she was gathering the energy to cast something truly nasty. Her energy focused in her horn, and Neon felt his job becoming even easier. He gathered his own strength, ready to dump her in as soon as she threatened to actually hurt him. It would take a while to use ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ again, but if it defeated her he could gather Colgate and get inside toward safe ground.

The mare thrusted her head up with her whole body, like jumping and stopping at the last second, sending her horn lancing upwards. A balloon popped, and in the same motion another behind it popped, and another. She spun and continued, as if her life depended on it. Neon stood there watching her, completely confused. Had she snapped the rest of the way now?

Then she spun, met his eyes, and in the same turn threw her hoof right for his face. It was a move too far towards desperation, and ｢Jefferson Airplane｣ carried it away with the rest of her into the abyss.

Or it should have.

As her hoof connected with him and shattered one lens of his sunshades, he realized what she’d done. The balloons had been conjured full of gas, and when she let it out it had created a safe pocket to move in.

He tried to move her now, but his effort had been expended. The centaurs were clearly finished with her, and now moved towards the current fray; he could see them as he stumbled backwards. Still, he reached out before she could make a second attack, and moved himself away from her range.

When he appeared he was flanking her again, which was good, and he had the Castle to his back so he didn’t need to worry about an attack from behind as much. The mare wasn’t moving, hadn’t even turned around to search for him - she just stared outward onto the city. He reached out with his power, ready to vanish away those pesky bubbles of air, when he felt something cold and wet around his hooves.

He’d forgotten, but just as he’d commanded, all directions had led to the pit.

Although he would never know it, Moondancer had, in fact, copied his ability. ｢Tragic But Magic｣ had made it possible to position those pockets of air around herself instead of letting them disperse, and it had given her an inkling of where each step would send her.

She didn’t turn until she felt it fade, and the hole had closed up, satisfied.

* * *

Smith had been waiting for a day like this for most of her lifetime without ever knowing it, and now it was here, she cackled into the wind. She’d always been a kindly sort, and age had put an end to her tussling, but her farm had been waiting for a good long while for the wrong sort of suit to show up and ask the wrong questions. It had been what she’d taught her son, and what he’d taught her grandchildren.

No, time hadn’t been kind to her. It had left her alone, renamed, and then swept away so many of Bismarck’s smarter investments. She’d had to turn a life of skills in the kitchen into something even humbler, and spend her days preparing food for brats in something so big it had no right to be called a school. Colleges were smaller, in her day.

So for her, when the time finally came that things ceased making sense altogether, it was no great surprise.

The ponies were charging, coming upon them in waves with something tall and thin yelling at the front. There was a great commotion above them, and Smith swerved her neck to make sure that they weren't being bombarded. Above, the winged critters were crashing into the upper windows, right next to a large banner.

Even with her eyes she could read it fine, blue words on vanilla linen: "JUPITER LUNA HERE NEED HELP". Someone's Stand, a faceless distant cream thing, vanished from one end. The sign was effective; the ones who could fly were all heading straight for it. Smith picked one at random and flung out ｢Strange Fruit｣.

The lasso sailed through the air from her side, stretching out further than anyone in her family had ever thrown it, but landing true around that bluish abdomen. Some of the two-tone mane got caught in the fibers, and it tightened nice and easy, yanking her straight out of the sky.

A few of the other winged ones had to put a hold on their plans and dip around, looking for some way to help her. Most of them didn't look like they could even see the rope! Smith chuckled at the expressions she could make out, the sudden worry and fear as she plucked one out of the flock. It was easier than wrangling back home had ever been, that was for sure.

Just then the other ponies were approaching, all ferocious eyes and stomping legs, a whole army without the soldiers. The flower girl was nearby, and she made eye contact with someone or other, shouting the name of her own bit of magic into the din of the battle. That athletic type who'd been kicking a soccer ball in the lunchroom one too many times did the same, and started to fight back herself. About time.

Beside Smith, Roseluck was having her own struggle, one with aiming her ability. The wealth of targets precluded any easy selection, and there was no one pony that it would make the most sense to go after besides the leader, who was already close to barreling through them all.

The florist dove sideways to get in her way, summoning up ｢November Rain｣ and waiting for eye contact, but the gaunt and deathly-looking quadruped didn't give her the time of day. Her companion, maybe some sort of frizzy-haired lieutenant, bounded alongside her as the coat flapped behind her like a set of leather wings.

A piece of debris detached itself from the rolling midair mass which Roseluck had torn her eyes from, and pelted straight for her. She scrabbled backwards on her hooves like she was backing into a wall, and a chunk of concrete missed her skull narrowly as another one swept downwards and arced into her side.

She lurched to one side, expecting a third strike, but the next piece went zipping for another one of her comrades - a friend, Cloud Kicker.

"Cloud!" Rose shouted over the movement and rabble, and made herself heard. Cloud turned in the direction of the noise, and their eyes caught one-another's, and then the world rippled around them and became looser.

｢November Rain｣ was good at stopping things from smashing into each other; it forced things to be one-on-one, and Roseluck enjoyed it for that. Although many might have snickered at the phrasing, she always considered her calling to be the creation of intimacy between people. The takeaway of this was that Cloud Kicker only flinched at the speeding piece of rock and wasn't clipped by it; if the leader of the rebellion had been paying attention to her targets, it would've seemed as if Cloud had simply disappeared.

Roseluck surveyed the battlefield, looking for some good opportunity of attack, some decent target that wouldn't be mobbed by someone stronger, and again her eyes rested on Cheerilee. It was surreal to see her here, in a world of talking horses and dragons, to see anything as blase as a Social Studies teacher in a land full of magic. The purple pony kept to the back of the mob, and she hadn't tried to pass through yet.

A unicorn came through, and phased through Rose unknowingly as she made her way toward the doors. She was mostly gray, with a mane streaked with white and purple and a look of hard-set determination, and the florist considered her for a moment.

"I'll handle her!" Cloud Kicker said, following the turn of Rose's head and already wingbeats away.

A nod, and the world shuffled back into existence around them, covering the recent pegasus with a full-body sensation of being immersed in fresh air. She dove after the graying mare as she galloped on, but her lunge came up short. Another, following after the bobbing tip of the mare's tail, and Cloud was able - just - to grab it in her teeth and hold on like a tin can on a wedding limousine.

Twilight didn't turn around, but overhead Blossomforth swept down and towards the wrinkly green mare who was somehow ripping her volunteers out of the sky. Smith saw her coming, and although Blossomforth couldn't see whatever she was doing, she made out the charades of spinning and throwing a lasso and ducked out of the way on instict.

｢Strange Fruit｣ kept traveling, snagging one of the ponies in the rearguard of the stampede, and caught him easily. Perfect Pace's hooves all wrenched at once against the ground as he felt the rope tighten around himself and looked down at it, feeling his body already starting, in some way he didn't have a reference for, to change. A couple of ponies stopped and turned back for him, and the rest moved on.

At the head of the pack Cheese and Zesty continued moving, leaving even the safe range of defense that ｢Chop Suey｣ normally offered. She chose consciously to put off recalling it, not wanting to diminish the chaos for a moment; if she could control every aspect of this battle, all of the commonfolk of Canterlot and Jupiter would still be fighting in this courtyard until the ending had been determined. It would be a sudden and evasive entrance without stealth!

Unfortunately, that easy victory, a win without fighting, was not in the cards for Zesty Gourmand.

The doors flung themselves open, and behind them stood a single pony, an orange unicorn with her jaw set grimly and her horn mightily ablaze.

Zesty met the unicorn's eye, and saw something there that Cheese didn’t. She charged ahead, gaining a half-second's lead before he adjusted automatically, and both of them saw dancing spots across their eyes from the intensity of whatever magic was about to be cast. Behind them, the raw and random matter of ｢Chop Suey｣ fell as a whole to the ground, the cohesion between every piece disappearing all at once.

Then the spell was cast, and the world became bright. For a moment Zesty thought she'd gone blind, and then she felt the heat from her cardinal direction: straight ahead. She forced her eyes to endure the pain and not to squint, waiting for some second spell that would roast her bones inside of her flesh or catapult her into the sun, and then she made out the shape of the flickering fire around her.

It was in columns, leading in an arc from the doorstep to a few hooves behind herself and - she had to turn to make sure he was still with her - yes, Cheese. He didn't seem to have any issue with sudden bright light, and Zesty tried to hold her eyes open even further out of spite, drawing in the full height of each thin, softly-spinning pillar of inferno - easily two stories of the castle. They were lucky not to have lost all of the tortoise volunteers in one fell swoop with that spell, but it was clearly defensive, not a direct attack.

Their entrance had been blocked off, completely.

She turned to Cheese.

* * *

The Vice-Principal targeted without paying attention, like some great machine of war cloaked in a hanging shroud of death itself. Many pegasi were zipping towards her, some even circumnavigating the room around her for a better advantage, but there was no chance of a surprise; she knew how many in the room were left to be vanquished, and there was no chance of someone sneaking in for another attack.

｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ moved with extreme prejudice, falling onto all it crossed like the night itself. There were only so many ponies it could handle at once, without them setting off some condition of hers, and changing it to "having wings" would only have littered the floor with abyssal holes.

In some ways, she enjoyed the logistics of this, partly out of a sense of duty. Once she understood her power fully it would be impossible for her to feel this way again; she would simply know the optimal route and travel it every time. Fighting would become a chore, and so she would ensure that none ever dared to challenge her.

For now, she simply caught any of her subjects which drew too near to her in her magic, trapping them or using them as projectiles while her Stand swooped and claimed each of their comrades one at a time. That, and she kept a good distance from the mirror, perhaps superstitiously.

Diamond looked at the brave faces of the pegasi as they ignored their fallen comrades, and regretted having ｢Misery Business｣ active. The physical body of her Stand swooped down for the nearest pegasus - maybe Raindrops, a big shopper at her father's establishment in another life - and cast her out of the path of the roving shadow. She sent it out to help another, mouthing its name, but then she was wrenched from the air and it left range, dissipating again.

Now that the chaos was dissolving, Luna drew the filly closer and pondered what to do with her. Libraries of spells were available, of course, the entire arsenal of magical culture laid bare in front of her, and yet nothing had been as satisfying this night as decisively and sharply breaking the leg of a pony who had managed to strike her.

Very well, then, the personal touch. Luna's horn glowed, and the magic concentrated itself on a foreleg this time, the left one.

A blur of motion. The pegasus Diamond had saved flew straight for Luna's head, ready to deliver some kick to the base of her horn. It was pointless, and all three could see it even before the magic caught up to her and arrested her momentum. The pegasi not trapped in the floor sinking silently beat their wings to join their ally, and Luna prepared another round of freezes.

And then something pulled, hard, on both of her back legs at once. She staggered backwards with them, and then the pink form of the filly's Stand appeared and jabbed her in the base of the horn, sending up a spark of pain. The lead pegasus began to flap her wings again, and by the fourth she was already latched onto the Princess' neck. The others followed, each striking her without retreating, lifting her as she tried to get her bearings and understand what was happening to her.

With her head sideways and her neck craned against her will, she could see the white and faceless Stand on its hindlegs, long trails of material leading to her own back legs. If that had been all, perhaps she would've been able to summon back ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ and removed them on instinct, to regain control of her magic as the filly's Stand now hammered at her horn. But something clouded her judgment for those crucial seconds!

Standing between ｢Something for Nothing｣ and the portal that would send Luna crashing back into her own reality, away from the godhead and everything that came with it, was the standing form of Coco Pommel.

* * *

Sunset had mixed feelings about returning to the form she'd spent most of her life in. The human world was hardly superior to this one, except in that in lacked any benevolent tyranny, but although both kinds of bodies had their ups and downs there was something like taking two steps back about returning herself to this one.

In her first days on Jupiter, she had figured that there were other portals there, too, and that if she merely sought them out, she'd be able to branch up and outwards into higher and higher existences. It hadn't worked out that way, but the fact that Sombra had been able to fix up the portal so that it worked continuously had automatically won her respect. She could sense something like temporal magic when she stepped through to return to Equestria, but she hadn't been able to sniff out any details in the time she'd been here.

Case in point, right now the courtyard of the castle was being overrun by some hare-brained revolution. She'd sealed off the main entrance, but there was still a side-entrance to worry about, and then the various cells of ｢Pepper｣ to consult before she launched some kind of a counterattack. Why the VP Luna wasn't bothering to take care of these ponies herself was mind-boggling, but perhaps the power was going to her head.

Sunset had no qualms admitting that her Stand was not meant for close combat with a number of ponies. She didn't much understand ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣, but with a bit of creativity she felt that she could've overcome most Stands with it. That was Luna's problem in the end - even taking on the mantle of the Princess of the Night and the most ancient and devastating of magics, she was still a school administrator.

The fire-pillars she'd cast out had been a gift from Sombra, and they worked like a charm, blazing brightly enough to turn the sky black again and hide the stars from view. She doubted that anypony would be stupid enough to run into them, but crazier things had happened. The short-term issue was to bolster the right ponies, and run out their enemies' resistance long enough to figure out where they were coming from.

If she remembered correctly, there was an entrance to the Archives, which she remembered she had meant to burn down earlier. The path towards it was a little difficult to remember, but there were only one or two true dead ends in the whole castle.

First, though, she cast her mind back for any magical defenses she could conjure up - the extreme locks she had put on her diary in the hopes that Celestia wouldn't be able to read it, or the ones associated with forbidden magic. The castle had some defenses, but too many had been tested and breached already, clearly. Not that it had been difficult to get in, back on her last trip through and her struggle with Twilight and her pet.

Oh. A thought came to her like a wrecking ball, and she immediately sent it away, toward the writhing intelligence of Sombra. It listened, and agreed with her.

Just then, there was a shadow, an inky spot difficult to see among the colonnades of fire except for its constant blown-about waviness. It moved like a piece of plastic caught in a light breeze, floating through air like water. One of Luna's guards, or a stray pegasus coming to investigate?

No, there were no wings, no attempt to move upwards, no change in direction; this was a falling object. Sunset aimed precisely and blasted it with a bolt of fire, suddenly dropping it out of the sky like some mindless pigeon.

It tumbled to the ground and somersaulted forward, still a puddle of darkness more than a living thing. Clearly it didn't take to the fire, and Sunset prepared another bolt of the same when the black shroud came off.

Zesty Gourmand stood and threw her coat off of herself with a hoof, careful even in her panic not to use magic. The material was thick, and she'd wrapped herself up in it as she'd fallen to prevent any distracting singes. Feeling solid ground under her hooves was a relief after Cheese Sandwich had fired her from some ghastly whimsical blue cannon like an everyday acrobat, but she didn't make any sudden moves.

First, flammability.

As the firebrand watched her, trying to work out what had just happened, Zesty tore off her shirt in a mess of buttons. Here, at least, the air was not uncomfortably cold, and against the canvas of fire she stood tall and stared down her enemy.

Then, she charged. Another bolt of fire met her immediately, and she flung the shirt into it, not allowing the wash and spray of heat to alter her path ahead. She had to get inside of that building, no matter what happened to her!

Sunset watched as the burning shirt was cast aside, and her mouth set in a line. There was still no way that this tall and spooky looking mare could use magic against her, but she moved with such confidence that it seemed like spontaneous combustion wasn't an issue for her. It wasn't worth the risk to find out why; she summoned ｢Pepper｣.

Zesty watched as a wave of small, odd creatures poured down from the door of the castle around the hooves of her opponent. Each was like a pony with a second upper body perpendicular to the first, something like that monster which had rampaged across Equestria and stolen the magic from everypony in it. Zesty herself had not met him directly, having hers drawn out from the side of the street, but from a distance she certainly hadn't wanted to.

These diminutive versions, all of which were marbled red and orange like frozen snapshots of fireplaces, filtered their way towards her in disheartening numbers. Stands typically came in one defeatable piece, or centered around a user, but to see an entire army of them...

She kept forward. "Whoever you think you are, you won't be keeping up this barrier for much longer. Your magic won't be able to stop me from entering that castle, or anypony else fighting for my city!"

｢Pepper｣ swept out, and individual members of the army fired a few pellet-sized bolts of magic at the food critic, most of which landed with brief, searing stings. She pressed ahead anyway, not even looking down at them.

"How many ponies have you brought here to die?" Sunset asked, approaching herself.

"More than your tawdry false court can handle, you pathetic outsider." The gaunt pony already looked weak naturally, but her gait was becoming slower now as ｢Pepper｣ gathered around and absorbed free calories from her. A small group would take a while, but this close to the user, Sunset's Stand could drain anyone dry.

"How did you bring down the barrier?" Sunset continued, not really expecting an answer.

Her interlocutor just chuckled, half in disbelief, and shook her head. Now the mare's pace was at a normal trot; soon she wouldn't be able to stand at all.

Sunset took a breath and stepped closer. "If you haven't noticed yet, my Stand is taking away your energy. It's not gone, don't worry, but I'm going to put it back into the people fighting away everypony you brought here today. Your forces will be taken down by your own power while I char-broil you, unless you tell me what I want to know."

In reply, the greyish unicorn looked up, eyes glazing, really beginning to feel the weight of ｢Pepper｣ all around her. Sunset suspected most ponies would've tried to bat away the little centaurs, to shoo them out or try some kind of escape, but none of these thoughts seemed to occur to the revolutionary.

"I've already told you what's going to happen here, if you'd been capable of listening through all of this flashy parlor-magic. I never speak falsely, I don't suffer fools willingly, and I don't give warnings twice!"

Then, in a surge of movement that shouldn't have been possible, the taller mare struck Sunset across the cheek. The leg wasn't strong, but it was bony, and Sunset flinched as she waited for another strike.

None came. There was only the first, which she realized only had enough strength behind it to make her take half of a step to the side. After that, the mare slumped, and Sunset stood over her, horn glowing again. None of the spells she'd cast had been too taxing up to now (after all, she'd been a student of Princess Celestia herself), but she could run her magic reserves dry completely and use her Stand to refill them if it came to that.

Here, it wouldn't. There was no frenzied final jolt upwards, no secondary source of strength, not even the usage of a Stand. This madpony had really wanted to fight one on one in plain hooficuffs.

"Once I set you on fire, I'm going to have my Stand take in all of the waste heat. Once you're completely gone, they'll give me enough power to find the rest of your operation and burn it to the ground," Sunset said, and her horn shone like the sun itself. "For each piece of information you can give me that I find useful, you can save one of them."

As the next few seconds crawled onward, the mare didn't reply. ｢Pepper｣ pushed a little more energy back into her, but it had no effect. She laid on the ground silently, and waited for it to be over.

Sunset hmphed. "If that's how you're going to be, then fine."

"You should've kept moving forward," Zesty said from the ground, almost mumbling.

Before Sunset could ask what she'd meant, a piece of burning turf was flung through the wall of fire, careening towards her horn like something possessed. Reinforcements?! A bolt of magic disintegrated it, but another followed, and three more behind it, some of them just chunks of fire without anything in the center.

They couldn't be doing this without magic! Had this been some tactic to keep her busy until they figured out some counter for ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣, or did they have some kind of double-agent among the courtyard? No, she shook her head as she retreated, neither of those were possible. It was some kind of a Stand, for certain.

Seven more projectiles lanced through the air, passing over the fallen form of Zesty, and now Sunset was working to dodge them. Unless there were living things putting out the heat, ｢Pepper｣ was useless, and even in a crunch Sunset could tell the difference between her own fire and elemental fire.

Whatever was happening, she needed to open a vantage and see what was going on outside. As she blasted half of the racing shots, she dodged around the rest, and called down the pillars of fire.

There were no ponies behind throwing things into the flames, no Stand user waiting for her, but something still burned in mid-air. She tried to cancel it, but it wasn't in her control; her fire had been commandeered.

The floating, angry mass continued tearing out bits of cobblestone and earth and flinging them, burning, always in a perfect arc. Sunset couldn't keep still enough to work out what was going on, and she dismissed ｢Pepper｣, calling up the energy it had gathered to keep herself from falling behind.

"It was decided the first time you deviated from the path, when you let me touch you. You won't be able to dodge ｢Chop Suey｣ any longer, no matter what you do," said the mare behind her. Sunset dodged again, and saw that the creature wasn't even looking at her, only tilting her neck slightly to cast a peripheral glance backwards.

On shaky legs she made for the entryway, and Sunset turned to stop her, frantic and angry at how badly this had all somehow turned out. But her body didn't obey her! Instead, her hooves skittered under her and brought her closer to the piece of rock hurtling towards her!

Behind her, along the wall of the castle which had been obscured by the flames, Cheese Sandwich stood patiently.

Sunset called out in her mind, pressing down on that psychic link for assistance. There were tricks here that she hadn't been ready for, and her emergency plan needed to be put into action immediately. It was already being taken care of.

Her body jumped into the path of a torch made of dirt, and she mustered her extra energy. Before the collision, she burst away in a blink of light, and ｢Chop Suey｣'s power went sailing away.

Inside the castle, on the second floor, she caught her breath from the teleport. It wasn't something she'd even considered in years, and it was definitely not her strong suit, but she didn't wretch. Her body still seemed not to be hers, but she added more energy to it, forcing her willpower along.

She had to find Luna.

* * *

The Princess stared at the leg she'd broken with burning intensity, and a kind of hatred, as if with a momentary glance she could cow it back into being broken. It hadn't been some sort of illusion, it couldn't have been - she was immune to those. And she refused to believe that she had been so incompetent at breaking bones that she had done no serious damage, the crack had been audible!

Diamond saw it too, but couldn't read any reason in Coco's subtitles, only her hope that they might all make their way through. Her Stand made another strike, and another, trying to find a weak point on the horn where it would snap and break away permanently. She didn't know if it was possible to do, and it would be a gruesome injury, but as long as she tried it didn't seem like any more magic could be thrown out into the room.

Even without her balance, this close to the mirror Luna began to fight back against the shoves moving against her from all angles. She couldn't be defeated this way!

Her wings opened up and prepared to beat great gusts of wind across the throne room, only to catch on something. Fabric sealed them against her sides again, and she called back ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ to befoul them - but one of the pegasi let go and fell against it in an act of sacrifice. The delay was too wide, the world still spinning, and Luna screamed in animal frustration as they dragged her to the bridge between the worlds.

She fought for purchase against the threshold, as the cream pony and her Stand passed under her and the work turned mostly to the pegasi. She wished for a form with claws, so that she could bury herself in the heart of this world and never let go for anything, for any reason! She couldn't be forced back through this way!

Just then, there came a rumbling from the other side of the portal, a sound of passage, of something living gasping its first great heaving breaths.

A muffled roar, a shout heard from the other end of a house.

Something came through, long and metallic and as big as Luna was, separated into spears but without a head, the rest of it still inside the bridge, the gap between. She realized, as it gripped onto the floor beneath her, that it was a claw.

Then a snout pushed its way through the portal on top of it, and got stuck. The pegasi had to wheel away with her in tow; there was just no room to push her through, now, as the rolling mouth of the creature protruding through a good portion of the room.

A crackle of unnatural energy, and the portal itself grew - not into a wider mirror, but irregularly like something inconstant and amoebic. Another claw appeared on the edge, and a dreadnaught of scaly flesh pulled itself into the room.

* * *

Below, in the courtyard, motion ceased. Moondancer stopped her approach with Scootaloo, Roseluck paused getting close to Cheerilee, Twilight Velvet turned away from Cloud Kicker, and Cheese Sandwich stopped from just inside of the building and stepped back out again to get an eyeful of whatever had just happened.

He saw great chunks of castle wall being shrugged off of something huge, and he ducked back inside only to be sealed in by them. He half-expected the rest of the building to come down around his ears at just that moment, but for the time being it held.

Against the sky, the long, silver body of a dragon uncoiled, and roared into the artificial nighttime. The upper layers of the castle laid around it like an eggshell, and it spread its wings as if to steal away all of the air in the world.

Scootaloo stirred, and Moondancer stared up mutely.

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA [Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢Strange Fruit｣
User: Granny Smith
Stats
Power: A
Speed: B
Range: A
Durability: B
Precision: C
Potential: E
Abilities: Manifests as a neverendingly long lasso. Anything caught within it once it’s tightened cannot move, and transforms gradually into a tree.

Stand Name: ｢November Rain｣
User: Roseluck
Stats
Power: D
Speed: C
Range: B
Durability: D
Precision: A
Potential: C
Abilities: Upon eye contact, the user can make themselves and a target invisible and incorporeal to any living thing except one another.

Stand Name: ｢Pepper｣
User: Sunset Shimmer
Stats
Power: C
Speed: C
Range: B
Durability: A
Precision: E
Potential: D
Abilities: Group Stand. Amplifies the natural life-force of anyone or anything in range according to the user’s will. Collects any energy spent by living things within range, and can use it to boost the user or attack opponents.