CoCoBA Episode 16: Here Comes the Hotstepper

Coco's Bizarre Adventure, Episode 16: Here Comes the Hotstepper

Coco took in the dragon as a series of shockwaves. The floor juddered under her with its first crash into reality, and then the world was filled with its girth like the air was turning to steel. When the ceiling came free a couple of seconds later, she was already racing towards Diamond, trying to focus just enough on her leg.

It was certainly true that the mare's leg was broken, by any medical definition. The bone had been snapped almost cleanly in half, and it would've taken surgery, or a very powerful magician, to convince it to become whole again. Even if it were splinted from the outside to allow motion, the nervous tissue inside would become intermingled with shards of bone, and the dressmaker's journey would end with her unable to walk. The Vice Principal's intentions had been brutal, and her magic followed suit.

But!

While she laid on the ground quietly, ｢Something for Nothing｣ was able to splint the injury from the inside! The bone had not been tied neatly back together, but bundles of gauzy fabric kept the ends from disturbing the rest of her leg. With that cushion compensating for her, and maintained by its contact with her, it was possible to walk with only a slight limp!

It was still painful, although she conjured up another band over her skin to constrict the blood flow. Diamond was picking herself up in the wake of everything that had just happened, and they were only a few hooves away from each other, and then the ceiling started to shake loose.

Large chunks of alabaster rock rained downward. One split into the royal throne like a pickaxe into a boulder, while others slammed into the floor and threatened to smash through. The integrity of the castle was magical, but it was mostly supported from the outside.

｢Misery Business｣ materialized over Coco’s head with its scissor-hooves already outstretched, pincering them around a pony-sized chunk of rock. She didn’t even notice as she galloped over to the filly, and the two of them, now joined, swiveled their heads around in search of an exit.

The way in had already been blocked, and the air was lousy with the whipping, shouting forms of pegasi traveling this way and that, trying to take in what had just happened to them. For the two heroes, even the Vice Principal had been lost in the confusion. Still, though, there was a route outside.

Without question or hesitation, they bolted for the windows. A light carpet rolled out over the shattered, multicolored glass as they approached the nearest, what had once been a picture of Celestia herself.

“They’re still here, somewhere,” Coco realized, and that note of understanding rang out over the din of confusion. If the portal was destroyed, then their only hope would be for Rarity and anypony else important to still be kept in the building somewhere.

Diamond couldn’t hear her, but she felt the sudden change of direction. There was no big warning of it, but suddenly her friend was facing the blocked-off door. The door was still open, and it was tall, but it was half taken-up by a single artificial boulder. Half of the pegasi had decided to either regroup or flee through it, but not all of them were able to.

｢Something for Nothing｣ flew ahead of both of them, striking the rock at the same time it arrived. Coco winced and faltered; wrong hoof. The next blows came easier, but were just as ineffective.

Diamond’s Stand wrenched at it, and even then it was an effort, but it finally came loose. She stopped momentarily to scan the room, hoping for any final, useful secret, but the mood of the room had been laid entirely bare.

Coco was already barreling out, and Diamond fell into line after her. The hallway beyond the door was much more spacious, mostly because the rubble had fallen toward the sides of its central path. A yellow pegasus flew out after them and then dove and tumbled straight through a stained glass window, leaving only a momentary racket and another wound in the walls.

It was then, turning in the direction of the sound and seeing only bloody wings swooping to the earth, that Coco realized the seat of Canterlot would not survive. The castle was as good as forfeit already, and although she had never once considered it in her days of making dresses and trotting amongst her city, though the castle had never even stood out among the Manehattan skyline from such a distance, she felt a sudden and deep mourning for it.

Diamond overtook her, then. "Come on! The controls were in one bedroom, Rarity might be in the other!"

Just then, somepony entered from the other end of the hallway, all oranges. Her mane was on the road to dishevelment, and her hooves gave way under her as she bumped into the doorway. There was a glint of determination in her eyes that made her seem almost to be staring into space, and it took several paces before she moved her eyes from her hooves and took in the destruction.

Coco stood up straighter and tried to gauge some kind of intention in the unicorn's face, whether she was a guardian of the castle or one of the fastest to get inside of it. The fact that Diamond was silent made her doubtful of charging in, but she hadn't seen the features anywhere Zesty had been.

Her horn glowed, and the unicorn shot out a ball of fire, sailing it through the air in an arc. ｢Something for Nothing｣ shot out on its own, ready to piledrive Coco and Diamond out of the way, and then the ball arced and flew out of the shattered window. A moment's wild glancing, anticipation, and she realized that it wasn't coming back.

The unicorn shut her eyes and concentrated, speaking between rapid breaths. "｢Pepper｣."

Her hooves steadied suddenly, no longer twitching and jerking this way and that as they were covered in fire. Then, like they were some archway into another world, living things began to pour out of them. Red, strange things, like ponies but deformed at the heads, like a minotaur had been glued to the barrel orthogonally. There didn't seem to be an end to them, and they rushed forward, never running into each other as they crossed the floor one gallop at a time.

｢Something for Nothing｣, still hovering in the air, flourished a long ribbon of white against the floor and swept the creatures back with a long whiplash. They tumbled en masse, bulwarking each other, and soon the swell was enough to stop the fabric moving at all. There were easily hundreds of these beasts, covering the fractured tile with undeterred scurrying!

｢Misery Business｣ had joined Coco's Stand, and Diamond ignored the oncoming wave to yell across the distance to the unicorn. "Where are they keeping the Element of Generosity?"

There was no answer, but Diamond saw something and nodded to herself, sharply. Before she could ask anything else, something flashed in the unicorn's eyes, and the gathered Stands glowed momentarily.

The ribbon caught fire supernaturally fast, its entire length burning out automatically. ｢Something for Nothing｣ dropped it on reflex from its front hooves, and retreated closer to its user as the ashes drifted for a moment in the air like oversized dust particles, and even they began to disintegrate.

｢Something for Nothing｣ ignored the miniature army and galloped a few hooves off of the ground straight for the enemy. If her Stand was so far-reaching and powerful, it probably wouldn't be able to defend her directly!

Scorching blasts of magic burst from the Stand creatures, and Coco felt her Stand take the brunt of several, like being tapped all over with hot pokers. Each one felt like a setback of its own, a drain on something difficult for her to put a hoof on in the heat of the moment. One grazed her bad leg, and she leaned closer to the ground on her front hooves as it tried to go limp under her again.

And yet, the threat came through. The unicorn shut her eyes again, and with a moment's teeth-gritting teleported out of the room. The casting seemed to evaporate a fifth of her Stand, but the rest remained behind, making no sign of knowing that their master was no longer commanding them. They marched forward relentlessly anyway, filling the floor in their hundreds.

"I was right, they're keeping her and the Princesses in Luna's bedchamber!" Diamond said, as if they were alone, "And she just went there herself!"

Coco nodded but didn't move her eyes from the Stand. It had started stampeding their way, although none of it was glowing now. She called back ｢Something for Nothing｣, trying to calculate the fastest path through, and at the same time felt herself being lifted bodily upwards.

Before she could get her bearings, her weight shifted in mid-air and ｢Misery Business｣ was already fastballing her over ｢Pepper｣. After a moment's flight a pillow waited for her at her impact point, and she sent out a line of fabric to pull Diamond after her. If they could get out before the things could properly turn around, they had a good chance of outrunning them, or at least escaping out of a wind-

Crack!

She smashed her shoulder directly on the floor, and it felt like the building itself had tackled her withers. Her body bounced with the pain, skipping like a stone on a lake, and she saw the pillow still many hooves away. A panicked burst of blue-tinged magic drew it closer to her, and she collapsed into it on her side, unable to turn off of her shoulder in time.

The texture was different now, lumpier and more poorly made. The second impact still came, hard enough to remind Coco of her own soreness, but as she laid there and breathed she realized the entire makeup of the thing felt... sloppy. It was hers, untampered and able to respond to her magic, but not all there.

｢Misery Business｣ dropped Diamond next to her, and she stood up again, already looking back at the threat - but ｢Pepper｣ was still moving towards where they had been. After a few more moments, the army had cleared the spots where they'd been standing and was heading for the throne room itself.

In the pit of her stomach, Coco realized that the two of them probably hadn't been the real targets.

"It's a few hallways away!" Diamond said, and then hurried out of the room. The dressmaker breathed in and followed after her, keeping ｢Something for Nothing｣ drawn and hovering over her.

* * *

Cheese Sandwich was, all things considered, having a very interesting afternoon. His internal clock was perfectly set, even with the sudden craziness in the sky - on the day that Discord had taken over Equestria, he'd been able to keep things smooth down in Trottingham by partifying the schedule, but there had been a lot more excitement there. It was like the world got hiccups.

Eternal night? Not so hot.

As soon as Zesty had escaped into the Castle, an entire for-serious dragon had sprouted from the top. He couldn't begin to guess where they'd been hiding it, but it was a big fella, and probably an intense threat to the entire city. There wasn't enough ｢Feel Good Inc｣ in him to give it a good injection, but there was still some hope with that one mare.

He could feel her some distance away, already jumping in space twice, and his Stand had been reduced within her somehow. He let it stay dormant for the moment, until he could figure out what trickery she was up to. The cast-off part of ｢Feel Good Inc｣ was still regenerating in him, but it would take a while longer, probably longer than they had to fix the whole dragon situation.

Still, do what you have with what you've got, y'know?

There were a number of smaller skirmishes, each of them revving up again as they tore their eyes away from the skyward form of the silver lizard. Nearly all of the faces were familiar to him from one place or another, a moment in a quiet corner away from coming to the surface, and it made it hard to tell who was on which side in half the pairings.

Zesty had told him to help secure the front entrance, so he headed away from the tangling ponies he couldn't recognize, sweeping his head for a good conflict to interrupt. No, not there, not that one...

A hoof came flying from the behind and struck him upside the head, hard enough that his hair bounced a little. A yelp of pain came from the same direction, and he swung his head around to investigate.

A pallid pegasus with a shock of fiery-orange hair was clutching a back hoof gingerly and trying to keep aloft in the air. Easy target.

Cheese quickly turned the rest of his body around and felt in his hair for what the guy had hit. The tentative start of a good rummage hit on something, and he pulled it free: a hoofheld grater with a big hoof-shaped dent knocked into it.

At this point the pegasus had just about recovered, but as he prepared some kind of second attack, Cheese threw the newly-useless metal right at him. It struck, and he tumbled the last few hooves to the grass.

"｢Feel Good Inc｣." Cheese intoned, and the pegasus wobbled back upwards. It was difficult getting righted while keeping the hurt hoof off of the ground, but that was no reason to turn down a challenge.

"Whoa-oa-oa!" The pegasus said, spreading his wings out like he was trying to scare off a bear, stumbling a little to regain himself or at least get away from his chosen target. Then ｢Feel Good Inc｣ sank in a little further, and he was back on three legs, swaying side to side with fear in his darting eyes.

"How's it hanging?" Cheese asked, smiling, and the stallion's eyes were drawn to him.

"Wh-what are you doing to me?" he asked, and then his hooves spun out from under him, and he pronked into the fray.

Twilight Velvet was neck deep in some kind of standoff with a pegasus of her own. Both of them had their eyes locked, the unicorn calmly disapproving and the pegasus heated and breathing heavily, wings half-outstretched.

"｢Chumbawumba｣!" she shouted, voice rising with each syllable, and then jumped higher and faster than should've been possible. Without a single flap of her wings, she was far above and descending onto the older mare, who merely raised her head a few degrees to follow the path.

The front fetlocks of ｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣ crossed over her head, and the pegasus nosedived towards the manifold bubbles. At the moment of collision Twilight felt her Stand straining, and then the attacker bounced off again, higher, with the wind and blood rushing in her ears like grinning madness.

The headbutt against her Stand had been much harder than Twilight had expected, worse in fact than should have been possible for any pony. The next strike was guaranteed to be harder just by the height of the drop, and the mare backed out of her vulnerable position.

It was no use. Although she moved with decision and paid little heed to the chaos around her, she couldn't dodge away from the angling of the pegasus, or her momentum. At best she could force a swooping at the end of the dive, which would cost almost none of the power built up using whatever ｢Chumbawumba｣ was.

The pegasus dove for her again, but before she could concentrate on a second shield, another pony twirled and jumped in between both of them. There was a blur of wings, and he snatched her inconvenience directly out of the air, swinging her around him like some deranged ballroom dancer.

"Don't hurt me, I'm not doing this!" he pleaded as she looked just as confused as Twilight felt, and then there was a ruffling of wings as she dizzily tried to free herself from the constant spinning of the two.

"Augh, my head!" she complained, her voice close to squeaking as he brought her wingtips up to her temples. Without the adrenaline and the wind, the noise started by ｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣ hitting her hair was starting to break into her consciousness.

"What a horrible night to have a curse." Cheese deadpanned, and Twilight realized abruptly that he was standing next to her.

Cheese smiled at the graying mare. She'd been present at a couple of his bashes, but she was a librarian and a mother - not exactly the type for his more in-depth portfolio.

Parents were good for getting young party ponies in training to parties, they were good at participating in parties themselves, but whenever you tried to mix the two it would snag somewhere. The mother dancing with her foal, the corner taken up with idle talk sinking the mood, the filly crying at the punchbowl - he hadn't been trained for these, and he'd been more than lucky to come out of them in one piece.

Twilight didn't recognize Cheese from any point before Sombra's takeover, although she could tell he was an odd bird, and his magical signature involved a lot more than any earth pony she'd seen up close before. Why he wasn't tripping the magical defenses they'd been warned about was beyond her, and she would've liked a great deal to interview him about his comings and goings, in another life.

The two swing-dancing pegasi, one moaning with her headache and the other shamefully twirling her, began drawing attention from elsewhere. Several of the other fights slowed, as their attention was drawn away.

One irritated female called out, "Kicker, Heath, what do you think you're doing?"

"It's not on purpose!" Heath yelled, and then dipped his partner low with one hoof. Cheese clapped his hooves together at the mastery of it, and the anger on Kicker's face inflated.

"Screw this! ｢Chumbawumba｣!" she shouted, wings flaring outwards. Her hooves exploded off of the ground with her fellow soldier still pressed against her, swooping laterally over the grass for Twilight and Cheese together.

Cheese prepared to activate the strain of ｢Feel Good Inc｣ inside of her, but Twilight stepped in front of him. He could see over her pretty easily, but one she pulled her Stand out in all its bubblebath glory he left the hoofball in her court.

True to her name, Kicker flew closer to the ground and kicked off of it with tremendous force, enough to make it shake a bit, and to send her higher up in the air. Gravity compressed her, stinging the eyes of her partner, bringing her clarity against the hair-tearing noise of the Stand she'd been struck with.

Twilight waited patiently for Kicker to get close enough, and then jumped to one side. Cheese was amazed she hadn't been waving a big red banner, but it didn't work; Kicker had too much time to adjust herself, she was already too good at flying! He tried to make her dance, to slow her down, but the sheer speed was enough to lock her muscles outside of his influence. With a single hairpin adjustment, she careened directly into ｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣!

When she bounced off again, it was with a great sound of popping, and Twilight felt something wet along her cheeks as she strained. She dabbed at it with a hoof and realized she'd cried blood.

Kicker and Twilight both knew that it wouldn't take more than a single attack to destroy the Stand completely. Yet the mare didn't signal to Cheese for help, or even look at him. He assumed that the ask was obvious, but there was nothing he could do to help with his Stand, not at that velocity; he rummaged anxiously in his shirt for a backup party cannon.

Then Kicker and Heath smashed into the Castle, hard enough to knock in stones from the second-floor wall, and he stopped. The mare hadn't been trying to dodge after all -she only wanted to line up the shot.

When the ｢Feel Good Inc｣ in the two pegasi didn't move, and then its presence started to fade, he breathed easier. His Stand was close to out, but he could still feel Zesty trudging up the castle, and the fiery-haired one jumping in all directions.

"They're conked out," he told Twilight, casually, and held out a handkerchief.

She nodded and took it, wiping her cheeks. Only afterwards did she notice that a dozen multicolored ones trailed after it back to his hoof.

Cheese coughed politely and disappeared the whole ensemble behind his back. Then he noticed, dawningly, that they were being watched from all sides. It was real trouble sensing that in his line of work.

He surveyed all of the faces staring back at him, and at each other. Some were wounded and cautious, just waiting for a first strike. Others were dumbfounded, trying to figure out what series of magic tricks had just come together and who by. He cleared his throat, straightened his shirt and stood up on his hind legs, hooves-on-hips.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Fight!" he waved his hooves frantically up and down in the air.

Some of the ponies shrugged, others blinked. Then, they got back to it.

* * *

The Vice Principal was devoting most of her energy to keeping the dragon from flying off in a random direction and destroying her infrastructure when the message came to her. It was wrapped up in fire-magic, flying like a lightning-bug with a vengeance up to her level.

She was still adjusting to the tactical change, deciding whether to attack the thing that had just burst out of the portal, and she took Sunset Shimmer's spell as a good sign that there was a point to this. They hadn't managed to overcome the castle walls and upset the portal in the same fell swoop.

The portal was broken now, which simplified things. It was a loss, but one she could deal with. Being thrown through still impressed itself on her mind, and it ran deep into her, her first experience of intermingling fear and omnipotence. With a secondary spell, she allowed the fire to relay its message.

In her voice, it said, "Report: I'm wounded but not critically. I advised our King to have a large dog sent through the portal as a distraction technique, clearly it worked. It should be at animal level intelligence if it's not utterly insane. Hoped to find you in the throne room, need help to recharge, will be up soon."

Then, after a second's silence, it fizzled out like the last embers of a campfire, and cold returned to the highest point of Canterlot.

Luna tried to flex her magic deeper into the mind of the dragon, entrenching her aura and gripping metaphysical reins in spectral hands. Leaving it to the magic, she looked out upon the stars, and then tore her eyes from the wheeling constellations to her squabbling subjects.

They were standing below, her soldiers and the natives, but she had no issue telling which was which. Many pegasi were escaping from the story they’d all been present on, and she contented herself with firing pinprick beams of black light at them, tearing into wings and watching them spiral and drop out of the air. She wasn’t able to get all of them, but each success eased the stresses on her mind. None of them magically cured themselves, either.

Now, then, what was the next order of business? Any position as high-paying as hers came with standard military training, so she knew the basic structure of resistances, if not the finer points. There was nearly always a point of weakness: a leader who could be removed, families to be threatened, some ultimate hope that could placed into jeopardy…

Hmmm. She threw out another spell, a speeding blueblack comet, and watched as it zipped into the city and became invisible among the buildings. It would take a little while to track, doubtlessly, so she returned her mind to the scaly forehead she now perched on top of. A thought, and the wings snapped outwards, nearly blowing her off with the sudden force of the wind.

She outstretched her own to break it and gripped her hooves in tighter. None of the ponies below were stupid enough to try attacking her in this position, even if there hadn’t been time for word to spread of her fearsomeness and invincibility. Some of those pegasi would survive their landings and share their stories, which was just another direction to attack from.

It would have been easy for her to attack each of these ponies directly in this moment, just by spraying enough spells beneath her. She could even convince the dragon to stomp them all out for her and accept the casualties of her own former wards. But that would breed resentment, hatred - she would be plotted against for the rest of time, and spend altogether too much of her reign stamping out upstart groups who believed she was the only dangerous part of her kingdom.

Better to let her soldiers prove themselves, and write the history books with as little of her involvement as possible. She sniped as minimally as possible, and waited for her spells to complete as her heart rate finally came to a resting normal.

* * *

Flash Sentry felt deeply unsuited for guard duty. He was a doer, the wings had proven it, and just because his ex-girlfriend had a more combat-based ability didn’t mean he needed to be the one keeping track of the bodies.

The Vice Principal Luna of this world was a fancy one, no doubt. Her bedroom was about as big as his house, and there was more than enough room on her bed for the three he was guarding.

Two of them were the original rulers of the land, Princesses instead of Principals. It was like a storybook version of the school in so many ways, and it had freaked him out when he first learned about it, but now he had a pretty fair grasp on the whole thing. They had chunks of black rock jutting out of their horns at uncomfortable angles, and the expressions of people sleeping badly.

He had worried that they were about to wake up, when he was first brought over. He didn’t dare touch them, although they hadn’t even shifted from their spots. It was a deep unconsciousness, he knew, and not one that even they would be able to escape. Sombra was their superior.

The third was completely foreign to him, unicorn, all white with a disheveled purple tail and a mane that covered most of her face. She wasn’t nearly so badly-off as the Princesses, and he’d considered using ｢American Pie｣ on her, but he decided not to risk it. She could be nearly as ancient as them, some court advisor or special unicorn for all he knew.

Sombra had wanted them all to keep an eye out for anything to do with a few ancient wizards, just in case they still had failsafes in place to muck things up for him, so Flash assumed that she was one of those and left well enough alone. That involved a lot of staring at walls and waiting for some kind of interruption. Which wasn’t likely, since they were deeply protected on top of whatever the two Princesses already had cooked up.

There had been a big crash earlier, all throughout the Castle, but nothing since. Something big must have been rolled out, probably whatever VP Luna’s Stand power was. He kind of wished he could be in the middle of things with her, watching all of these abilities working, just to get to the root of them. If they won too decisively, he might not have the chance to see what had happened.

Just then, in a burst of light that made him take a step back, Sunset appeared in front of him. She was wearing a big equine mask, which of course was really her true face, but behind it he could still see her the way she’d been. She’d fallen back into it just before they entered through the portal, part of the influence Sombra had on her, and it reminded him too much of what she’d been to him.

The frustrated cunning on her face sang out through memory, and then she took a deep breath, and put a hoof to his head. The contact was ginger, and for a moment he could see some delicate bit of pinched-in flesh underneath which he had no name for. Then, accepting the cue, ｢American Pie｣ activated.

Flash's eyes widened, and then his guardly demeanor returned to him. "That bad, huh?"

Her jaw was set, producing a grim look that was very nearly funny on a horse face. "Stay on the alert. I'm going-"

"You're going to recharge. That's smart, but make sure this dragon you've summoned doesn't destroy the whole city."

"Sombra can rebuild it down the road," she said, her horn starting to glow.

"You don't know that," he pointed out, but by the time he finished the sentence the glow had become a bright flash, and she was gone.

He sighed. She always was a firebrand, although now he could see how much of her was buried underneath of that, and how much of it had been lost to her over the years. It was the first time he'd used ｢American Pie｣, and it felt a lot safer than the overload he'd been experiencing, but bits of Sunset's history were drifting around his mind.

She really would let the whole place be reduced to rubble, which didn't make him feel terribly secure, but she did seem to still have some affection for him. She wouldn't have trusted just anyone with a Stand like his to use it on her, unless it was necessary.

He tried to figure out where the gaunt mare in the coat would be now. Probably three floors below right now, assuming she was still walking. If she managed to get around whatever bits of the Castle were collapsing, she would be upon him eventually, and probably with some new trick. Her Stand seemed to hurl items at people and force them not to dodge, but the range was limited, so he'd have to test out his wings or else put the Princesses in the way to stop the onslaught...

Just then, there was a burst of green light illuminating the room, casting his shadow on the wall in eerie technicolor. He turned, quickly, looking over his shoulder as he did and preparing to dodge, but there was nothing throwing projectiles from the window, and no fires had broken out. The room seemed undisturbed.

He took a cautious step further inside, checking for any intruders inside the doorway. If any of them had a power that concealed themselves, and whatever they were carrying, then they’d just have to get him out of the doorway to make an escape with any of the three ponies there.

But there was nothing. No sound from the hallway outside, none from within. He listened harder, but nothing came, except the creeping feeling that he wasn’t alone.

Then something poked out from beneath the royal bed, a great big greyish thing, like metal but not quite, not shiny. He thought for a moment that it was a living thing, and stepped back, and then he noticed the hole on the end, and red danced in his vision like an overbloated gnat.

There came a click, like a piece of plastic ker-chakking into place, and suddenly everything was dark.

* * *

As Scootaloo came to, she first noticed that she was deep in the thick of things. The noise was awful enough to wrench her out of the halfway point between waking and the dark, and she couldn't have closed her eyes and passed back out if she'd tried.

Which was good, in a sense, because Moondancer was standing over her, and she didn't look too good.

"｢Tragic But Magic｣. No... ｢Tragic But Magic｣..." the mare said, her hair sticking to her face as she spun on her hooves and took in the whole cacophony. "｢Tragic But Magic｣... there!"

Scootaloo pushed herself up, still a filly surrounding by warring islands of grown-ups. Normally that wouldn't have bothered her, but with all of the commotion she began to worry that somepony might stampede by and trample her.

Her mind reached for ｢Go Zone｣, and the Stand touched a hoof to it, tiredly. Not much of a charge there, but it would be back in the morning.

Ha. She looked up at the sky and couldn't tell if it was really night yet or not.

Then Moondancer spun around again and noticed that she was back in some position to talk. "Scootaloo! Are you feeling okay? Any breakages, internal damage?"

The filly fluffed out her wings to steady herself and shook her head, taking in the scene herself. There was very little tradeoff between the different ponies fighting, no crossing over from one fight to another. It was like a fight in a movie, where they came together one at a time so that things would be "fair".

She wondered for a moment if that's what Stands did, or the rules that worked underneath them. Having one made you a lot luckier at finding other ponies who had them, if "luckier" was even the word. Maybe they were like magnets, somehow.

Then she saw the dragon, and the little philosopher tucked away in her mind shut up shop. It was a thunderbolt to the flank, and with it, she was up.

"What are we doing about that?" she asked, dashing back to Moondancer.

"I'm working on it. The way inside is open, but nopony's gotten in yet."

Scootaloo followed her eyes to the entrance, across a courtyard of paired-up ponies doing the Jupiter tango. "What about Coco?"

"I don't know. She took down the wall somehow, but the dragon appeared from the same area of the castle we sent her up to."

To punctuate this, there was a bright twinkling of light next to the dragon's snout, which Moondance had observed in remarkable stillness for the last minutes. Even that didn't flinch it; the creature was exquisitely trained, and probably nonsentient, but where Sombra would have access to dragons in the Frozen North she couldn't guess.

"Scootaloo?!" came a worried voice, unfamiliar to Moondancer. It sounded closer to Celestia's than anything, but the pony it belonged to was staring dumbfounded halfway across the courtyard.

Scootaloo finally made her out against the crowd and cacophony, and the recognition in her eyes was overtaken with terror. "Miss Cheerilee?!"

Cheerilee bolted towards the filly, trying to close the gap as quickly as possible. Scootaloo's mind was still processing her on the field, trying to draw a line back from her going with Cloudchaser to being in ｢Mr. President｣ to coming here again, when the reunion was interrupted.

"｢November Rain｣!" a mare shouted, jumping out of a thickly-populated section of the battlefield like Pinkie throwing a surprise party. Then, in a flash, both of them were gone.

Scootaloo's hooves raced faster than her mind, bones begging for a good stretch before they were put through anything else. Moondancer called out behind her, but it was too difficult to hear with the wind in her face and the all-encompassing noise.

She reached the spot where they'd both just been, and didn't disappear herself. Whatever the power was, it wasn't affecting her at the moment, but it also didn't rely on touch - what then? Where could they have teleported to, the inside of the Castle?

Just then, the mare jumped back into reality on the ground a few hooves away, with Cheerilee straddling her barrel and landing interchanging blows to her muzzle. Now that Scootaloo could see clearly, she realized that it was one of the Flower Sisters, the ones who always freaked out over everything.

"｢November Rain｣," she coughed, and then Cheerilee fell through her. For a surreal moment they were both in the same place, like overlapping ghosts, and then the flower pony rolled over and stood up again.

｢Go Zone｣ immediately stamped a hoof on her head, holding her down on the ground while Scootaloo investigated what just happened. She wished for a moment that they hadn't split up after all; Diamond would've diagnosed this perfectly in a few seconds.

"Scootaloo! Scootaloo, don't hurt her, we need her awake!" Moondancer called from a few hooves behind, turning her head this way and that.

"What? Why?" she asked, but Moondancer didn't seem to notice her.

"What in the sweet name of Celestia is she doing here?" Cheerilee said, as scandalized as the filly had ever heard her, and she didn't even point.

"They can't see me," she realized.

Just then, the air shifted, and came down with enough force to knock the filly over and into the mare's side. Some braced themselves, and some fell over with enough of a vantage to see the dragon beating its wings.

With an incredible amount of force, it tore free of Canterlot Castle, trailing behind parapets and hallways like eggshell, and swept down for the courtyard, claws outstretched to stamp the whole warring ensemble into oblivion.

She looked to Cheerilee, to Moondancer, to what was left of the castle itself, and tried to muster up the power to move them, to just slide all of her friends to safety! There had to be an open route that would get them out of range, the shockwave would do half of the work for her!

But as she tried to remove the friction under her teacher and her friend, nothing happened. She tried a second time, but the two only stood staring at the descending weight of the monster.

And then it was upon them.

* * *

When Sunset appeared before her, Luna was still standing atop the dragon, trying to jostle it out of its stillness. She filled its mind with images of prinesses, war, gemstones and hoards of treasure - but there was no visceral reaction for any of them.

"Vice-Principal-"

"Your Highness." Luna corrected, seeing in the horizon that her spell was coming back around the buildings.

"Your Highness, my apolo-"

"It doesn't matter. This dragon you've summoned for me was tactically advantageous, but it won't respond to my control. Once I've reinforced some proper behavior, I'll be taking it to wherever this rebellion holds a compound and incinerating their hideaway turtle." Her magic sunk deeper, carving new grooves into the creature's mind, keeping it from giving any indication of whatever discomfort or pain the rewiring caused it.

Sunset's tones came clipped. "Sombra would prefer that you keep ｢Mr. President｣ intact. It is an important harmonic artifact at this point."

"And why should you be the one who decides what's best for the King?" Luna asked, suddenly raising her voice. It was only slight - with some effort she could make herself heard to the entire city - but it was enough to evoke a reaction. "Why is it that you believe you can perform all of these maneuvers and tactical decisions on my subjects without consulting me?"

The unicorn played apologetic. "I didn't mean to offend you, your Highness, but the King has given me a direct connection to his mind... I was under attack, and I panicked. If I'd had time, I would've come to ask for your say-so."

Luna didn't bother giving her an answer, and in the silence that followed the two stood between the night sky and the chaos below.

Then, Sunset added something. "Maybe it would be better for you not to think of this as a dragon."

Luna's face asked the question for her, but then she remembered what Sunset's message had said.

The mare repeated it herself, just in case it wasn't obvious enough. "The portal is only capable of changing something's outside. Twilight Sparkle's pet dragon became a dog on Jupiter, but I still saw him talk, and think, because he was still a dragon. And this dragon-"

"I understand," Luna sniffed, and then ignored her somewhat-underling. It took her a moment to muster up the right signal to send - she had never much liked dogs - but with a brief brainstorm it was done.

Her essence whispered to the dragon with desirability and purpose, of red meat and the retreating bumpers of cars. She couldn't know for sure what was being processed, what things the giant reptilian form saw in its world-encompassing eyes, only that it would be effective.

Her spell returned to her, and not as Sunset's had. The information integrated into her immediately with closeness, and she knew where they were hiding. The turtle was almost on the other side of the city, and guarded. Originally she would have sent someone after it, and stayed behind to make the revolution's defeat all the more crushing, but with the destruction of the castle she realized things were escalating out of her hands. Better to go, and now.

First, though, a test.

She aimed, and the creature underneath of her shifted like a collapsing building. Muscle and bone worked together on a scale that was disgusting to watch, but the overall feeling was rewarding, like learning to drive. A more solid command, and the wings flapped, throwing gulfstreams at those below. Sunset gave some warning, and Luna didn't hear it.

Then the dragon took off, and dove down, ready to crush all of them. It had been an impulse, perhaps an unwise one, but those who didn't get out of the way could have their crushed skeletons revived some way or another. Sombra was sure to have methods for exactly that sort of thing.

Luna tempered her thoughts. She was starting to sound like Sunset, blind to a ruler who had broken contact with her. It may be that he had a means to do anything, even determine her loyalty and ability to serve him in her rule, and take her throne from her if he deemed her unworthy.

She felt a twinge of fear then, and remembered the bands of cloth pulling at her, the portal itself crackling with energy as she came near it.

And then, just before its landing could quake the rest of the Castle into alabaster driftwood, the dragon disappeared underneath of her.

As she fell into the dragon-sized pocket of empty air it left in its wake, her legs kicked like she was doggie-paddling, and it took a gaping three seconds for her wings to snap open automatically and rescue her. Despite herself, she glanced farcically around, trying to see if she had somehow misplaced the monster, or if she had somehow overridden the mirror's enchantments and turned it back into dog.

The air equalized as Sunset fell behind her, screaming in dread surprise. She was hardly loyal, but her cleverness was still of use, and Luna's magic lowered her to the ground more gently. Opening the channels in her mind further, she tried to broadcast her thoughts in all direction, searching for wherever they had managed to transmigrate--

The world thundered, and ponies went flying like flapjacks, crying out. Others, already retreating, fell over and tumbled in heaps as the ground itself protested their fighting. Sunset fell the rest of the way to the ground, and landed with a grunt, holding onto it with all of her limbs. Luna's Castle shook, but stood.

Below, the enormous clawmarks of the dragon marked out the courtyard. They had made it invisible! She reached out her magic to it again, but it simply wasn't there; there was a Stand in play somewhere. She called ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ to her, preparing a new condition.

Before she could speak it, though, the dragon reappeared, crouching in those giant prints and regarding the ponies around it with some curiosity. Then, a second time, it flickered out again.

Interesting.

* * *

Coco's tailing of Diamond soon turned into a full-blown chase as the building grew more mazelike around them, a matter of fast turns around corners and blind charges through decorative archways. The epicenter of the damage had been the throne room, but rubble was omnipresent, pieces of ceiling and fixtures, overturned furniture. It looked as if the place had been lazily ransacked, somewhere between ruination and being put back together again.

The dressmaker, whose skill had never really been drawn to interior decoration no matter how much she'd been told it overlapped with her profession, tried to take that as a sign.

It was a breathless affair, and her Stand galloped faithfully at her side, never dissipating. It was much more normal to feel through it now, to know its full capabilities hanging only a few hooves away from her. It had manifested to help her save Rarity, and now here she was, about to do just that.

The orange mare hadn't shown up, which would've been the final sign that they were close, but with another hoofful of turns Diamond stopped, and they were there.

The first thing that paused Coco was the slumped-over pony dressed in guard regalia. She didn't remember any guards being in Zesty's army, but the thought that the people of Jupiter would knock out one of their own made no sense to her either.

The second was that he was lying unconscious in the doorway, which was as open as it could be, and his head was facing inwards. There was nothing very peaceful about the way he looked, but he was breathing. She traded glances with Diamond, who said nothing for fear of waking the stallion up.

They edged closer, making an effort to be quiet, and from the right angle they could see a large darkened room, and a bed, and three more slumbering figures on it.

Rarity slept with the royals and did not dream, and Coco's heart scrabbled to her throat. The Element of Generosity had not been treated with any great hospitality here, but there were no marks on her, nothing but the wear of time uncurling her mane and smudging her makeup against her eyelids. She lay still, like some elaborate sculpture of the disassembled mare carved from some great tusk older than the world.

Why wasn't there a way to wake her up?

Diamond whispered like a professional, and Coco's ears had to twitch before they picked up the words. "-Business｣ on him to find out where the exit is."

"..." Coco hesitated. It wasn't a very smart idea to go waking up a potential enemy already defeated...

Diamond quietly voiced the thought the mare was avoiding. "We can't just leave him here to have the whole thing fall on his head."

The filly was right. Maybe in some burst of desperation, she would have to be selfish, to fling a mare into her own firestorm, but... not so close to Rarity. She took a deep breath, nodded with a minimum of defeat, and approached.

Diamond watched vigilantly, eyes darting from either side of the hallway to the other doors to the sleeping form. She sensed no thoughts coming from it, nothing for her Stand to exploit; he wasn't a faker.

Gently, Coco outstretched a hoof and prodded the nearest part of him, a relaxed leg kicked out into the hallway proper.

As soon as she made contact, the stallion's eyes shot open, and he gasped like he'd been resuscitated from drowning, taking in a whole body's worth of air at once. He sat up violently, head reeling up and back into the doorframe as he righted himself, his breath coming in heaves and his face frozen like he was staring down a train.

In other words, he was harmless.

Coco did her best to smile and said, "Hello. We think you should probably head outside, this castle isn't a safe place to stay right now."

Then, in a single fluid motion, his fear dropped and solidified, like he was a completely different pony, somehow older. His face set, his head lowered, and then he flung himself at her.

Diamond didn't even have time to warn her.

｢Something for Nothing｣ flew in to intercept, but he flung out his wings and dived sideways without paying it any heed. The detour took him a couple hooves further away from her, and it bought her time - she rushed for the door before he could use whatever his ability was.

But he was naturally fast, a marathoner pegasus, or whatever the equivalent was on Jupiter. With only a well-timed wingflap he circumvented her Stand completely, and kicked out, his legs coming in unison for her broken leg.

They landed, and Coco fell in the doorway like a tree. ｢Misery Business｣ interposed too late, driving the pegasus away from the room but towards Diamond. The filly realized this and rolled out of the way of his next strike, knowing that he was trying with his entire being to activate his power on her.

"Your Stand won't help you, Diamond Tiara," he said, looking down at her, and a coldness washed over her. "There's nothing that I want to keep secret that would help you."

"H-how do you know my name?" Diamond asked. She'd never seen this stallion before, she was positive, and nopony else had noticed her! ｢Misery Business｣ tried to read him, but he hadn't been lying.

While she looked, he continued. "Moondancer, Scootaloo, Cheese and Zesty are also doomed to failure here. None of you are going to stop this eternal night, even with all the prophecies in Equestria behind you."

"Wh-" Diamond said, and couldn't formulate the question. She felt like she was suddenly on the receiving end of her own trick; he was reading her mind, somehow. Except he hadn't activated his Stand yet! Or... had he only read Coco's? Yes, it must have been something like that!

With no further explanation, he launched himself for her again.

Outside, the ground thundered, and the floor shook. Coco laid on the floor as her friend dodged, trying to knit herself back together again.

* * *

Zesty spoke thinly as she trudged, in a sotto voce tone nopony nearby would have been able to pluck words from. The stairs here were bastards, and gaudy in both directions with finery and desecration. The whole building was like a sugar-high schoolfilly's idea of dialectic, and its brute-force assault on her eyes more than made up for the lack of ambushing Stand-wielders.

She climbed for several floors as bits of ceiling continued to dislodge themselves, never encountering the mare who had run away from her. Let her run, then.

Shakes came, and for a while she had to hope it wasn’t just her. The coat had become a weight sagging gradually on her back, but she wasn’t about to relinquish it.

She rounded another corner, growing used to the ritual and the sheer lack of excitement it brought.

She had never been inside of the castle before, although she allowed ponies to believe whatever they liked about the higher circles she trotted in. The Princesses were skilled at keeping their subjects as a whole appeased, and so she never saw fit to bother whatever cooks worked for their senates and officials. In dire circumstances a pony could survive on trash, after all, and at the other end of the hallway a small brown figure darted quickly out of sight.

Zesty stopped.

Silence had taken on a new texture in this environment, with its juddering infrastructure, and her ears had not quite adjusted. They swiveled and flicked uncharacteristically as her eyes stared straight ahead. By the size it hadn't been the unicorn she'd just been fighting, although the thought of using foal soldiers sickened the critic more than usual.

A lifetime spent detecting the subtlest notes of sensation paid off, and she saw the barrel before the gun could fire. It brought a dot of red with it, consuming one tiny patch of where her coat had used to be, and then there came a great angry clacking, and it disappeared for a moment.

"｢Chop Suey｣," she said, with schoolmarm authority, and by the chunk of wall suddenly taken out she knew exactly how close her target was. Hugging the wall, she raced towards that corner, and the gun withdrew, only to fly back out alone and join the body of her Stand.

The colt came after it with a sudden cloudy-minded panic, entering the relative light of the hallway and observing what was forming in the center. He was young, maybe young enough not to have a cutie mark yet, and A piece of wall launched itself at him with enough force to crack bone, and he threw himself out of the way with his whole body. He'd seen battle.

Zesty moved herself, jumping back to the center of the hallway. It was a limp motion, intensified only by the flapping of the coat in the air behind her. ｢Chop Suey｣ targeted her, and she ignored the creaking pain as she sidestepped a couple pieces of random detritus. The colt realized that he wasn't in danger any longer for enough time to stop cowering, and then her Stand launched the device directly at her.

She caught it, distributing the impact along her shoulders, and the colt saw every second. He burst towards her in a moment of anger, and like a perfect gambit in chess, her Stand redirected itself towards him.

He dodged one clump of rock, a half of a torch-handle, a chunk of dislodged ceiling, each impact leaving impressions in the floor. The whole time his eyes stayed glued to the Stand. The demented hopscotch was tiring him out, and when the whirling dervish of random matter suddenly collapsed, he glanced around in all directions for some sneak attack.

There was none; ｢Chop Suey｣ had been dismissed. Instead, he came to realize, Zesty was staring down the sights of his weapon at him. The red dot flickered across his forehead; he'd lined himself up perfectly with the barrel.

"Rrrgh," he growled, unretreating, his eyes focused entirely on Zesty's hooves.

The weapon was more than a little small for them, but she held it with only slight trouble. "Where are the Princesses being held?"

His animalistic anger subsided, and his mouth set in a line as he acknowledged her eyes for the first time. "You don't know. You're not from the castle." The words were close to murmurs.

She hoisted the rifle closer to her eye, making it clear to all and sundry that she was the interrogator here. "Your forces are close to defeated already. Name the other Jupiterian patrols in this area and their abilities, and I'll let you live."

His expression grew serious. "They really have control of the entire royal castle? ...I was hoping I'd just been jumpy, shooting that guard."

Zesty arched an eyebrow. Nopony could expect such a shallow psychological ploy to work on the very organizer of the resistance, surely? Not even foals were so uncunning, unless they thought very little of their target. Probably there was somepony from Jupiter waiting nearby who would notice the colt's absence any minute.

"What about the fully-grown adult dragon popping up out of nowhere? We were all sure that was something big happening with Sombra. Are you just messing with one of the mirror portals?" he looked genuinely unsure, with a sincerity found mostly in the very young that Zesty had never much appreciated.

Her mind cast back to something. Coco Pommel and her band rolling through, trying to help things along. That mare's story had been unbelievable, some roving altruist in the midst of a total takeover of civilization, and yet it had been true! It was a disturbing precedent, something which flew in the face of everything Zesty knew about the world - about the tempests of falsity and braggadocio people would put before her along with their food, their correspondence, their invitations and well-wishes.

This was not that world any longer! She understood that instinctively since she had been first defeated, and helped back to her hooves afterwards, but only staring down a weapon at a foal did she realize the enormity of the change. Falls were not as shattering, incredulous tales were believable, and harmony was no longer instrumented by the Princesses! It was up to ponies themselves to create this world now, an interim kingdom which could struggle back into the light!

A few days ago, that very idea would have seemed impossible to her, it would have been proof that her work was entirely in vain. Now, though...! Now, she knew she had to give it a chance, because she'd seen how the alternative would twist her, how much strength would depend on others! To disbelieve and fire would be a betrayal of that ｢generosity of the soul｣ that Coco Pommel had bestowed on her! Zesty Gourmand!

Many emotions flickered dustily through Zesty's eyes, and her hooves pulled upward. The barrel lifted a few degrees upward, and the red light came unstuck from the colt's head. He looked relieved, and trotted forward.

She held out a hoof in his way, and he stopped. "Tell me how you came here," she said.

He breathed, nodded, and began to choose words.

* * *

Moondancer opened her eyes and focused, feeling ｢Tragic But Magic｣ extend out from her again like a limited ray. She'd landed on her hooves, many meters from where she'd been before, but already things were coalescing again. The pinkish mare who knew Scootaloo was dashing in her general direction in the aftermath, and there was no free mana in her system to fling her to safety.

Wherever Scootaloo was, she was hopefully subduing the cream mare. ｢November Rain｣ had been the only useful Stand here for dealing with this creature, and even its effects were limited. The unicorn's mind hydroplaned underneath of her as she stared down the dragon, and hoped it wouldn't notice she was as fleshy and corporeal as it was.

It didn't, at least for the moment. It seemed like a beast of burden, probably something Sombra had enslaved and brainwashed, so it made sense for it not to have an independent will. Stories from her foalhood flashed behind her eyes over and over, the knight who gets eaten by the dragon and cuts her way out of its stomach, the enchanted gemstone which explodes inside of it, all of them based on being eaten.

｢Tragic But Magic｣ wouldn't work with just one eye. She was out of time.

She blinked, and for a moment the monster was distracted by the shrieking terror of the other ponies. She breathed for a moment with her eyes closed, waiting for it to move again to maximize the confusion and keep her position a secret. As long as nopony was looking for a unicorn popping in and out of place over and over, she could keep this up long enough for Gourmand's forces to regroup!

"What just happened to Scootaloo?!" the mare called from a short distance away, the only thing on the battlefield moving closer to the dragon.

Moondancer looked up and opened her eyes, suppressing the Stand. The dragon regarded both of them, staring like a housewife checking a dust mote for spider-legs. It raised a claw, casting a shadow even in the low light, and Cheerilee froze in her tracks, staring upward at it.

"｢Tragic But--"

"｢Go Zone｣!" came the shout, almost out of nowhere, as Scootaloo jumped back into reality. Her captor appeared with her, crumpled on the ground and not long for the waking world.

Scootaloo's friend slipped off of all of her hooves at once, even though she hadn't been moving, and flew sideways along the grass like tumbling down a slide. The claw thundered against the earth after her, sending her flying, but achieving nothing.

The filly took off in the air after her, and then a dark shape came darting after both of them. It didn't fly so much as will itself to move forward, a blueblack arrow that was upon them both in an instant, the crest of its front sparking with constant magic.

Scootaloo turned in mid-air in time to see Luna coming after her, but not in time to do anything about it. Momentum had already decided her path, and there was no way she was going to let somepony she cared about take that fall.

Luna came into full resolution for only a moment, long enough for the crackling of magic to focus into a knife-edge. She sneered and threw it forward, feeling it tear furiously through the air and leave hot shimmering ozone in its wake.

Then, it passed straight through the pegasus, like she was some kind of ghost. Luna called it back and altered it, channeling more of her raw desire to land a hit, and then send another burst outwards which boiled the air blue-green.

Oblivious, Scootaloo's Stand grabbed Cheerilee from the air and slowed their fall, building up the air resistance gradually. One of her wings flapped uselessly in the air, only useful for forcing more air between her body and the outer edge of the courtyard. Her coat didn't even singe.

Luna stared at this, until she focused another spell on her perception. The effect of the Stand was obvious, and she traced it backwards, spinning with it to follow the path.

Huffing and working to stand up straight, a single unicorn was staring up at her with bleary eyes. The Stand wasn't very strong, more like an echo of a greater presence...

Ah, there.

The alicorn dropped out of the sky and headed for the mage. She was a clever type, for certain, but completely occupied. Luna stared her down and waited, silently, as if she were expecting some kind of speech.

"We're going to stop you!" Moondancer said, and the Princess looked at her with a bored bemusement. Then, as fast as she could, the unicorn blinked.

It wasn't fast enough. A thought, and a burst of magic lanced through the sky and struck Roseluck in the side. At the same time she reopened her eyes, Moondancer felt her Stand melting away like a snake losing its skin, and became aware of the supreme emptiness of the battlefield around her.

Luna stared down at her, and the alicorn's shadow rose up over the rest of her body like the hood of a cobra, a malevolent second skin of its own. She didn't turn away, or try to leap out of range - she wasn't sure she could, anyway.

For a moment, being stared down by the goddess, her thoughts went out to Diamond Tiara and Coco Pommel. She hoped they'd been lucky enough not to encounter her. If they could get Generosity to ｢Mr. President｣, they could still flee the city and make their roundabout path through to the Empire. With the Alicorn Amulet, and whatever the other points would give them, things could be different.

With a shuddering breath, she straightened her sweater, and then ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ was upon her.

Further off, Cheerilee was having a crisis of her own. The schoolteacher's life had been defined for the past week by nightmares, first on that terrible night of collapse and then every night since, and now they were coming true.

Above them, the dragon - the dragon! - pounded its way back to Princess Luna, forcing them to grip the ground with their hooves.

"Scootaloo!" she cried out, once the wind and her heartbeat subsided enough that she could hear herself, "What's happened to Ponyville? What are you doing here?!"

The filly seemed not to hear her, facing away to the giant lizard, until she spoke, "I-I got the one who was trying to hurt you, Miss Cheerilee. It was the DJ... We all did our best to keep everypony safe."

"I should never have agreed to go!" Cheerilee said, rushing closer to the filly.

At the same time, she looked around the courtyard and realized that most of the ponies had been thrown back to the perimeter or out into the city, or they'd fled. She had hoped that they would accomplish something, something that would make up for the nightly visions of her students in fear and pain, but they hadn't even entered the Castle itself.

Then, for a moment, she turned active again, pivoting from where she stood and sweeping the area. She made it through a third of a circle before she saw the edge of the courtyard, and her eyes lit up the way they always had when she finally understood the answer to a problem.

She nodded to Cheerilee. "Come on, we're getting out of here. Coco can handle herself until we regroup, and Moondancer'll come back after we finish off Luna." The way she said this was so matter-of-fact, nothing like the crazy schemes she would try to sneak past adult sensibilities. She spoke as if it were impossible for the side of harmony to fail, like she couldn't see the same world around her that the teacher did.

Despite this, Cheerilee's reply was, "Who's Coco?"

"I'll tell you after we make like trees. ｢Go Z-hrk!" Scootaloo stopped with her Stand half-materialized, and in the low light it took a moment for Cheerilee to see it too.

Around the filly's neck was a rope, tight and leading back far, far away to a indistinct figure in the middle distance.

"Scootaloo! Can you breathe?!" Cheerilee asked, stooping. Neither of them had slipped off in another direction, so the rope must have stopped her, but the filly nodded back to her.

"C-can't move," the filly said, opening her mouth only a smidgen. Then they both felt the thunderous footsteps as the dragon moved again across the remains of Canterlot's courtyard.

Cheerilee stared from her student to the rope to the creature, and then she let out a single sob in the night air and smacked her own cheek, hoping to wake up, wake up!

"Run, Cheer." Scootaloo murmured, weakly, as her coat began to fade. "Keep safe. It'll... work out." Then, out from under one of her wings - which looked absolutely mangled - a long branch of wood suddenly jutted into existence, adorned at the tip with three small leaves tasting the sunless breeze.

The schoolteacher screamed.

* * *

Flash Sentry was still processing all of the information as he dodged ｢Misery Business｣, flapping his wings up into the air and corkscrewing away. That was to say, his Stand had done all of the real processing for him, but the actual thinking it all through aspect was still up to him.

He thought back to everything recent that had happened in Coco Pommel's life, everything about the filly whose Stand was hovering after him, and kicked off of the ceiling hard enough to hit the ground again. It was slow, he could tell.

Coco was here for Rarity, of course. He could have guessed that just from touching her, it was like a big heart-shaped stain on a piece of her Stand's fabric. Whether any of the other ponies had managed to get into the Castle, though, she didn't know. Either way, it would be important to relocate...

Against his better judgment, he considered just giving her Rarity for a moment. Until he had her perspective, he hadn't realized that the unicorn on the bed was supposed to correspond to the fashionista who ran with Sunset. Maybe Sombra wouldn't like it, but it wasn't like she had some way to wake the mare up. What was more worrying was that they knew about the Amulet...

"You should just give Rarity to her," Diamond said, looking as threatening as a diminutive pink pony could look, "And what is it you want with the Alicorn Amulet?"

He grimaced, kicking himself mentally, and tried not to think.

She smirked. "So Sombra doesn't have all of the power he needs after all, does he?"
Then the Stand had descended on him again, and he kicked off again. He would have to go straight for her.

She hopped out of the way, and for a moment he wondered if his intention had been noticeable to her Stand or not. No, he'd just telegraphed the attack, that was it. After seeing her in action for so long, he understood in the moment how annoying it was to fight against her. What would Coco do here?

He realized, and leapt off of the ground. Sure enough, where his back ankles had just been were white trailing loops of fabric. He didn't even know that she still had the energy for that, and probably she didn't either.

His dodge broke the filly's concentration for a moment and made a small pool of doubt. He seized the advantage, swooping from the air to kick her. One of her Stand's pincer-arms stopped his hoof short, and it was his opportunity.

Once ｢Misery Business｣ struck out for him with its other hoof, missing him as he arced around it, the reaction time was too slow to stop him from flying past Diamond. His wing brushed her face before the next strike from her Stand hit the wall, and ｢American Pie｣ did the rest.

He hit the wall, holding out hooves against it to steady himself like a drunk person in an alleyway.

Diamond watched him do this, and realized too late that he'd been able to repeat whatever trick he'd used on Coco. She still hadn't been able to figure out what it was - even in terms of things he didn't want other ponies to know, there were some that came and went too fast to read, faster than ponies typically thought.

He turned to her, and she kept ｢Misery Business｣ close to her. It had put a hole in the wall, it would be able to deal with whatever psychic nonsense he had on hoof. So long as his Stand wasn't powering up with each person he touched...

A thought occurred to her. "What knocked you unconscious in the first place?"

For all the thoughts that were running through his mind, the stallion couldn't help betraying the answer to her.

She blinked. "That's... couldn't be..."

He wrenched his body around and came charging for her again. ｢Misery Business｣ waited until he was closer, and then struck out again, ready to pin him to the wall.

He dodged underneath of it, shouting, "Spoiled Rich gave up on you for being a spoiled brat who couldn't learn to control people the right way!"

Diamond froze, and the stallion headbutted her, big metal helmet and all. She reeled back from the blow, ｢Misery Business｣ already striking for him again. Thoughts flashed through his mind, some legible, but she didn't bother to read them. When the first hit missed, she hit again, and again, and again, but he was like water.

He landed with a huff on the other side of her flyswatting. She got back up to her hooves - and then the rubble of the wall collapsed on top of her.

While she cried out, he turned around and strode back over. ｢Misery Business｣ hovered over his side, flickered for a moment, and then struck for his armor.

The attack drove him a hoof to the right and into the wall, denting the armor and making him wince, but he stepped forward anyway. And before the second hit could come, he stomped on her skull, and her Stand flickered away again.

Flash pulled Diamond from the rubble. The weight was liveable, and he spent a moment adjusting her so that he could hold her in his front hooves and fly at the same time. What he really needed was to get in contact with a really high-quality pegasus.

On the ground, Coco tried to feel out her leg. She'd bundled up the bits of bone that had come loose, but against the flashes of pain she still had to set the bone itself properly again. While she tried, she knew that there was a big commotion behind her, but she couldn't send out ｢Something for Nothing｣ to handle it.

With one last gasping crack, which went on about twelve seconds too long and made her think she'd done something terribly wrong, she fixed her leg again. This time she felt lightheaded, and not at all in a position to stand up, but once the pain had cleared away from her vision, she could see the room ahead of her again.

The bed. Rarity. She pulled herself closer to it, trying to put some weight on her leg and wincing, doubling down on the wrapping inside. It had to work, she was so close...

Flash hefted the weight and trotted closer as he watched the mare crawling for the bed. She didn't have a plan now, and she probably didn't know that he was still nervous to touch the ponies that lying there. If the Princesses were really as old as he'd been told, his Stand might knock him unconscious!

No, he would have to get this filly away somewhere she could be interrogated or used as a hostage, and then get whoever wasn't whaling on Zesty Gourmand's army to help him carry the Princesses and Rarity to another location. And Coco, too. If there was anything to this Elements replacement thing, they might be as valuable alive as Rarity was.

And he wouldn't be able to get any of that done with her still making progress.

Coco inched closer to the bed. Lifting herself up onto it would be the hard part, but she managed to start that part of it, using her front hooves. The blanketing was exquisite, the kind of material a wonderful gown could've been made of, with all the rich color of one of the stained-glass windows.

She lifted herself further up, and then felt the bedroom falling away from her all at once, like she was falling out of her own body. It took her a moment to realize that someone was gripping her from behind and lifting her up, and she could feel the effort they had to put into it.

｢Something for Nothing｣ tied their hooves to her, but if they cared they didn't make any sign. She tried to do something else with it, to think of something else to do in the first place, but then they neared the ceiling and the world lurched and spun around her, and they dropped.

Flash held onto Coco and positioned her perfectly for the fall, sandwiching her between him and the momentarily rushing air. She didn't struggle, or even seem to appreciate what was happening to her, but a ribbon of fabric appeared underneath of her. It stole some of the momentum, but they tore through it, and hit the ground.

Flash stood over her for a moment, until the hasty binds on his hooves melted away into nothingness.

Coco watched in the corner of her swimming vision as he hoisted up Diamond's unconscious body, and trotted further into the room. He disappeared behind the bed, and a large double-window opened, and then her vision went dark.

｢To Be Continued｣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78yioWJhUJA

[Rush - Something for Nothing]

Stand Name: ｢American Pie｣
User: Flash Sentry
Stats
Power: N/A
Speed: N/A
Range: E
Durability: N/A
Precision: E
Potential: B
Abilities: The user gains perfect knowledge of the personal history of anyone they touch. This Stand cannot be deactivated.