CoCoBA Episode 17: Total Eclipse of the Heart

Coco’s Bizarre Adventure, Episode 17: Total Eclipse of the Heart

Beneath the Canterhorn Mountain, in the shadow of the seat of Equestria, there had stood a town by the name of Ponyville. It was abnormal in many ways, making it the center of many contests, invasions, social changes and magical events. In only a few short years it had become the seat of a power all its own, a six-sided throne of harmony still yet to be understood!

Into this town had come a fire! Not a physical one, laid by a madmare, but a fire of the spirit! Into the desperation and nightmare of this town under siege, a mare had come, and whoever she met gained the potential for great things! Her fire spread throughout the town, until it finally put an end to its greatest horror, the pony who had been tranforming their loved ones into musical discs! It was because of this that were now together, their families one step less fractured. There were more mouths to feed, more rabble to control, more space to be taken up and more ponies to suffer when things turned bleak.

But it had not been for nothing! At the head of this town were two indomitable souls, Sweetie Belle and Spike, touched by the same spark that caught inside of Coco Pommel! Each had fought in their own way to protect the Element of Generosity, and had learned the strength of their own abilities!

The constant nightmares, the ponies terrorized by the DJ before she was finally fought to a standstill, the shock of sending an Element of Harmony to the halls of Princess Celestia, the struggle to maintain the harmony of the ashes of Ponyville using only ｢Private Eyes｣... It was the undertaking of a lifetime, something on a level unknown even to the ponies of this unusual town!

But it was not for nothing!

“｢Electric Funeral｣!”

With a start, still laying on the floor of the regal bedroom, Coco Pommel woke up.

* * *

Cheerilee’s mind warred with her hooves, revulsion and compassion warring in her hooves. Scootaloo had come so far on her own, even seeming so small and fragile - but she’d been stopped here, at the exact moment their paths would intersect again.

Why would she ever have listened to one headstrong filly’s demand that she go be protected with the rest of the pegasi?!

The shame welled up in her, and compassion won out through guilt as she tore closer, teeth clamping down on the rope. She had much finer dexterity with her mouth than the average earth pony, from years of learning to write - not to mention that the chalk had eventually killed most of her sense of taste, so the rope gave her nothnig to complain about. She pulled at it as hard as she could, hoping to fray it somehow and end whatever curse was powering it.

Scootaloo couldn’t speak any longer, but her eyes spoke volumes. They were so soft, unpanicked, nothing that she’d have expected from any filly.

The pegasi had been perfectly kind to her, and accomodating enough to give her some solid pathways in their endlessly shifting citadels of clouds, but they also didn’t associate with her very much. She would be earning her keep with the few other earth ponies eventually, working the soil to keep them fed without risking their lives outside of ｢Mr. President｣. She hadn’t been looking forward to that, had thought of it as a great horizon in her life, a moment where she would have to prove herself!

And yet, in the midst of all of that, one of her own students, a filly without a cutie mark to her name, had been through life or death situations! Scootaloo’s strength had surpassed her when she hadn’t been looking, and now she’d become the protector of the two of them.

She pulled, straining cords of muscle in her neck, all to no avail. The rope was immovable, a fact of the world. Her eyes followed it away from Scootaloo to the pony down the line…

Granny Smith?!

That settled it, she had to be having a nightmare! They were always next-to-impossible to wake up from, but they came with as little logic and as much terror. What else but dream logic would have made her come this far from shelter? She looked at the rope again, the immutable reality of its existence which seemed to outdo even the castle-sized dragon standing nearby, and then her eyes drifted down it to the filly again.

Scootaloo’s body was covered in long wooden protrusions now, sticking out at odd angles. She was turning into some kind of plant, with sparse leaves and dappled bark that appeared in patches like some sort of rash. Half of her face had turned, now, twisting her mouth into a half-grimace.

“For her.” Cheerilee heard herself say, in a sentence that was more breath than noise.

Then, on the spot, she turned and charged down the length of the rope. It was a good distance, reaching from outside of the courtyard, but it moved in a straight line. She had no idea if breaking it would even reverse the effects, but the ground passed under her hooves too speedily for her to reconsider.

Smith saw her attacker coming from a mile away, and even faintly recognized her. There was no real love between the cooks and the teachers at Canterlot HIgh, but she was one of the young ones, always getting drooled over or with some rumor of being engaged. Her name didn’t come through, but her colors certainly did.

Frankly, she looked more nervous than angry. She probably hadn’t even passed the threshold that a person has to, to kill someone. Pretty city things like her could go their whole lives without throwing punches, especially if they got to be something like a teacher instead of going off and serving a few terms.

This world had a few more teeth than she’d been willing to give it credit for, though. The winged ones were the nastiest, and it was worse when her secret weapon was being used on someone else. ｢Strange Fruit｣ was certain death, but it was a helluva wait to get there.

As the purple one galloped closer, Smith made sure the rope was secure around her leg. It was. Then she stood firmly against the ground, shifting her weight a little bit. Her reaction time had been given back to her when she came over, but she’d been worried her bones wouldn’t follow the instructions anyway, just to be stubborn with her.

Cheerilee rushed for the (hopefully) other-world Granny Smith and leapt in the air, crashing into her with her whole body. Her goal wasn’t to attack, not directly - but if she could simply strain the rope from this end, then it would either fray or snap her leg! As she careened through the air, she closed her eyes, and then felt the collision without any of the resistance she’d been expecting.

It wasn’t like hitting a wall, like she’d always expected fights would behave. This was a living thing, with all of the same organs as her, and it reacted. The mare was old, and although her front hooves jabbed into the teacher’s underbelly painfully, they both fell backwards. Cheerilee was on top, catching her breath enough to put some force into the next hit, when three more jabs came, and then another four after that.

Smith used every limb she had available to shove the mare off of her. This one was halfway to meaning business, and that made her a threat. No one survived long in a skirmish being cocky, no matter what they’d earned or whose skull they could put on their mantle. She rolled to her side and got up, beating feet back to better cover towards the city.

When Cheerilee saw this, any sense of panic was muted by the sight of the rope. It continued to stretch out behind the mare as she ran towards the city, like some demented extra-large fishing line. She rushed over and stepped on it, hoping to get some reaction, but Granny wasn’t even tugged backwards. If her plan was just to keep away until it was too late, there might be no end to the rope she could create!

She gritted her teeth and gave chase, head reeling and looking for some weakness. Stands were so massively unfair, the way that they had to be interpreted from the tiniest of clues, and punished wrong answers with things worse than death. Her thoughts went back to the satisfying feeling of her hooves landing on other-world Roseluck’s face, when her power didn’t do anything to protect her.

Ahead of her, other-world Granny Smith paused for a moment. There was something in front of her, not easy to see in the dark, like it could’ve been some trick of haze and streetlight, or a complicated, distant sunspot on her vision. Cheerilee moved closer, on the off chance that it was something friendly and not a second pony from Jupiter waiting to trade off and finish the fight.

Smith stared at the boogeyman floating in front of her, something like the horse that had just been following her. It was like something a child would’ve drawn on a wall, if they were fifteen feet tall. It was an outline, clearly some kind of power, and her instincts took over as she juked sideways. It floated in the air silently, giving no chase.

Whatever it was, she was out of the courtyard in no time at all, leaving behind the general silence and strafing towards the nearest building. She didn’t look back, and she couldn’t feel it following her as she focused her mind entirely on turning corners.

Cheerilee, in the meantime, was staring at the stringy thing hanging in the air. It was three dimensional and easily the size of a pony, but mostly empty space, like some kind of avant-garde art-piece. It floated in front of her, dull and unresponsive, and yet she felt as if it was breathing, brimming with some kind of energy all its own. It transfixed her so completely that she didn’t even continue her chase!

She reached a hoof out to touch it, and felt the energy suddenly increase. No, more than that, it was boiling over, like steam burning her fetlock!

The anomaly burst forward, its front hooves slicing the air. She cried out, ducking underneath of it, and it passed over her completely.

The projection pounded at the air just above the ground, and she watched from the grass. It never turned, or even acknowledged her, and after a few moments something else appeared underneath of it, a white and red string outline of a pony holding its hooves up, trying to block the stomping punches.

Cheerilee stared at it, and felt something unlock inside of her. A force she had never felt before, like moving a leg after it had been in a cast for months on end. A force that could put her ｢beyond nightmares｣!

She almost had to sit down, to process the elation and the panic, to wonder if this was how it felt for a pony to have a Stand - but the rope still trailed off into the distance, and she couldn’t see Granny Smith any longer.

A glance back, hesitant, and she saw what was left of Scootaloo. Still attached to the rope, but now nothing like a filly in shape, a wing cracking into a dozen thick boughs and a body hanging loosely around a large trunk. Whatever had happened to her face, it wasn’t visible any longer.

Cheerilee darted down towards the city with renewed vigor, finding the streets deserted except for the rope ahead of her. She followed it relentlessly as it crossed one corner, and then another, and then headed down an alleyway. Without even raising her head, she barreled into it, and as the bricked-in darkness parted she could see Granny Smith standing patiently in the middle of the artificial hallway.

Then felt something tighten around her front hoof, yanking her forward hard enough to trip her up, and the front of her body slid against the hard stone as she tried to free herself.

It was useless. Smith smiled at her catch - a simple loop left in the rope had been easy enough to tie, and now she could pull it taut between herself and the edge of the alleyway. The teacher was lifted up into the air by her own hoof, dangling a few inches too high to stand on solid ground.

“I won’t let you do that to her… not after everything she’s been through!” the teacher said through gritted teeth and dirty hair, but didn’t struggle on the line. Smith could almost laugh at the thought of chit-chatting in the midst of a battle, but this was no battle at all - she was like a piece of linen hung up to dry!

“Too late for anythin’ like that, ‘mafraid. Soon as I call the name of my secret weapon again, it’ll reel back into me and the little ‘un’ll be plum outta luck,” Smith said, gauging the reaction. It was the truth - and she would have to wait until she’d done that to get this one properly rooted in place. The rope only worked one pony at a time, even if she could control it how she liked.

“Love is the seventh wave!” she shouted, like it meant something. National anthem?

Suddenly there was something between them, another one of those outlines. The rope passed straight through the center of it as it galloped in the air, striking for her.

She wasn’t used to seeing one of them move, and she backed away as quickly as she could. But then ｢Strange Fruit｣ lost slack, and the girl almost reached the ground, and as Smith fumbled to fix it the opponent was on top of her.

It hit her square in the jaw, but she didn’t move.

Another hit, and then another, and nothing happened. It was like having confetti thrown at her in a birthday party - the whole thing passed through her, delivering more useless kicks to the rest of her body. She stood still for a moment, waiting to see if she’d get a rash or something, but nothing in her body complained. In fact, the outline had even started unravelling around her as it struck!

Still, there was fire in the eyes of her enemy, and Smith couldn’t abide that. She was still getting the gist of it, probably, and there was no reason to give her more time to figure something out. Better to break her will in one blow of the hammer!

“｢Strange Fruit｣!” Smith called out, and the rope detached, starting to reel in to her. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it in some distant way, like prodding through a cloud of gas with a long iron pole to test for mines. There would be a minute’s wait as it curled up and came back to her, but there was nothing for that.

In the meantime, the teacher hung limp in the air, still staring at her grimly like a child who’d lost too many times in a board game. Sulkiness, that was all.

“I don’t know who you are, but you’re nothing like Granny Smith. And that’s why I’m not going to regret what I have to do to you,” she said. The gum-flapping wasn’t very impressive, but Smith glanced around to see if it was gonna get backed up with anything.

There! She caught it in time, the spitting image of that little one she’d just disconnected from, flapping through the air right for her. Smith didn’t give this one a chance to hit, twirling the rope up and into its path.

It exploded against the solid twine, stretching and melting around the edges towards her at the same speed, and then it was just hanging off of her like the last one, like those cans of string kids would ruin her property line with every time a new family moved to the orchard.

Then, they tightened. She felt her legs spreadeagle underneath of her, and her bones protested as she collapsed all at once. It wasn’t bad enough to break something, but she was halfway to a hogtie, and she couldn’t pull her legs free for anything.

It didn’t matter. Another half a minute and it would be over, this last resort would blow up and there would be time to regroup and deal with any stragglers.

She felt herself being pulled towards the teacher now, dragged against the roadway. It wasn’t pleasant, but she gritted her teeth and pushed against it as ｢Strange Fruit｣ went slack again and the teacher’s hooves met the pavement.

Smith looked up, still wriggling, as the teacher bridged the two feet between them and raised a hoof over the start of the rope.

“If you’re meaning to trample me, you should know the little ‘un can’t turn back without my help,” Smith said, and she couldn’t help the nasty smile cross her face. Just another few seconds, a moment of doubt, and it would be finished.

Cheerilee brought her hoof down without hesitation, snapping into the leg with the intention of doing as much damage as possible!

Smith cried out, more in shock than in pain - that had mostly become dull to her. “Hey, hey! Don’ you want to save her?”

“I will. You’re going to turn her back, once I break your leg!” Cheerilee said, and reared back, lifting both of her front hooves!

“It’s already said and done!” Smith snarled, and then hissed in pain through gritted teeth. “There’s - no way for me to do somethin’ about it without the rope touchin’ her!”

Cheerilee looked into her eyes, completely calm. “You will.”

She raised a hoof again, and this time Smith smiled. “Too late! ｢Strange Fruit｣!”

The rope came from behind Cheerilee, giving her no time to react. It just curled around her barrel and tightened, cinched automatically and chafing against her coat. If it had kept moving, it would’ve left scars.

Smith chuckled, and waited for the first bits of bark to pop out as all of this Stand hooey disappeared from around her.

Cheerilee brought down her hoof again, impossibly, and this time something cracked on the impact! Smith wheezed with pain and confusion, looking up at her. Why wasn’t she turned?!

Then Smith saw it. Attached to the end of the rope, there was a long line of brown cords trailing back out of the alleyway. They were retracing her path, keeping the end of her Stand connected to the filly!

“I won’t let you disfigure her and then leave her behind like that! And neither will ｢Love is the Seventh Wave｣!” Cheerilee shouted, and stomped her hoof down again. “Now bring her back!”

The bone gave, and suddenly Smith couldn’t feel that leg any more. As the shock and numbness traveled from her hoof to her eyes, the rope hung limp for a moment, and then, quietly, dissipated.

Down the line, it went, unbinding the schoolteacher, and then the cord that had been attached to it started to disintegrate. Cheerilee took a deep breath in and chased after it, leaving her enemy curled up in the alleyway with a broken hoof. She had to make sure!

She raced after the cord even after it picked up speed, never letting it out of her sight, until it brought her back to the courtyard.

On the other end, lying in the grass, was the unconscious form of Scootaloo, whole and herself.

* * *

｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣ swept out onto the mage as Luna watched, cold and disinterested. There was no grand attempt at escape, no thrashing or sudden dodge, not even any magical resistance; it simply swooped down upon her. She said something, too quiet to hear, and then she was blotted out by a curtain of darkness.

When it came away, nothing remained but a modest pool of darkness marring the ground.

Luna surveyed the rest of the battlefield. Someone was turning into a tree, and she considered smashing it for a sense of finality, but let the urge pass. She might have been present to fix the mistakes of her army, but she wouldn’t interfere with their successes.

Speaking of that, Flash Sentry was flying in from the distance, holding something. A small filly, pink and out like a light. A thought, and both of them were teleported to her immediately.

Flash looked completely dumbfounded when he appeared in front of her, but he recovered well enough to sweep into a bow. She regarded him coolly, awaiting some explanation of why he had left his post, and he seemed to take her meaning.

“Our security’s partly compromised,” he said. “They’re the two ponies who infiltrated your throne room, but I’ve incapacitated the other one. She’s unconscious, and she doesn’t have any plans in place in the event that she gets knocked out, but we need to relocate. Sunset can keep Diamond here under so we can use her later.”

Luna listened, and nodded simply. “Very well.” Then she reached out with her mind and teleported the other Princesses and the Element of Generosity to the courtyard with them. They fell onto the grass with their limbs splayed oddly, but she wasn’t trying to be aesthetic.

Flash was perturbed for a moment, but then he remembered who he was in the presence of. “A-alright. I’ll need some help moving them because of ｢American Pie｣, but I don’t think the resistance has much left to throw at us. There were only a few Stand users that they really put stock into, and most of the pegasi have already been dispersed.”

It was true. Around them the battles had been scattered to the edges of the courtyard, with the dragon dominating the center. They stood in its shadow as Luna kept its mind occupied, and she considered her next action.

“Our priority is to find and seize ｢Mr. President｣,” she said. It was true that she could simply destroy it from where she was standing, if she felt the need, but there was no telling what that would do the surrounding area or to the ponies inside. She wasn’t willing to massacre the capital of her empire without at least trying another method first.

“Oh, they left that with Twinkleshine-” Flash started.

“I know its exact location,” she cut him off. “I only need to make it a crushing victory, which means bringing the dragon. You’ll have to hold the fort until I return.”

He nodded, promptly. He wasn’t very intelligent, but she appreciated him as a soldier much more than someone crafty like Shimmer. And with that out of the way, she turned and approached the dragon. It was clear that ｢Mr. President｣ was being moved, in some kind of desperate attempt to escape the city with it, and with her imperfect range she couldn’t allow that to happen.

Flash said nothing to the retreating figure of the VP as he watched Rarity’s body sink silently into ｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣. Next went Princess Celestia, and finally the other Luna. He knew that there was a time for questioning tactics, and this wasn’t it.

Coco had really come close to denting that godly facade, and it wasn’t something he could put up with. The Amulet still needed to be taken care of, not to mention whatever was supposed to happen at those other points. Sombra hadn’t briefed them on Tartarus at all, but he’d have to get some kind of update on what use it could be to travel there.

There was a colossal trembling as the dragon lifted off, with Luna in tow. It was surreal to see it flapping upwards, taking up an impossible chunk of the sky...

Up there in the air, Luna had left even Sunset behind. With such tremendous wingbeats, it would be a matter of a minute before she’d descend upon her quarry, and the whole point of this resistance would be over permanently.

Just then, she became cognizant of someone else in the area, another pony “aboard” the dragon. She turned in time to see the mare climbing up over the edge of one wing, pulling her grey body up just shy of one of the wings.

Unicorn. Apparently tenacious. Luna could feel the Stand, too, which was just yet more trouble to go through. It appeared a moment later, over the mare’s head, a mess of solid soap bubbles. Luna probed it, and found only moderate strength behind it.

The mare caught her breath for a moment, gripping her hooves against the scales of the hide. “Well, then. It looks like the end of the road.”

Luna prepared a new spell, but stopped when she heard something over the whoosh of the air and the wings. Voices, the same voice in dozens of places, coming through the entirety of the dragon.

She couldn’t make out the words, but she wouldn’t have been able to if she were directly beside them. The words weren’t important; it was about making noise!

Her grip on the dragon loosened, and she had to fight to seize it again like gripping a wriggling fish. The wingbeats picked up speed, and there was a note of pain in the simple mind. Luna grimaced as she picked up the signal, trying to work out some way to handle it, and then her attention was split in two as she realized the mare was running for her.

She was upwind at the moment, so she had a simple advantage. With a single burst of magic, she lifted the mare in the air and tossed her to one side.

“｢Tales of Brave Ulysses｣!” The mare shouted over the air, and the bubble Stand appeared behind her, lifting her out of her fall and back towards the dragon. Luna gritted her teeth, and turned her mind back to the increasing thrashing of the creature.

She seized the reins more tightly and ran with the desire to lose control. With her hooves planted firmly to its back, she let it do a complete spin in the air, the leather of a wing smashing into the bubbles and exploding into further cacophony. As soon as the roll was finished, Luna let her horn light up, and focused her energy in two deep places.

Two eardrums, the size of small children, were suddenly awash with blue light. A moment of crushing force, and they both imploding, popping like blown-up plastic bags. The dragon lifted its head to the heavens and roared in pain, bringing claws up to its skull and twisting in the air completely free from her influence.

Then she doubled down, clamping the mind as firmly shut as she could. It deadened underneath of her, becoming dormant again, and she made sure to keep her hold tight as she turned her head, scanning for the mare again.

She was gone. Good. She reoriented herself, feeling out the distant signature of ｢Mr. President｣. It was traveling across the city at ground level, at roughly walking speed, towards the outskirts where the buildings started to thin down into individual houses. Easy pickings, low cover.

A burst of thought and the wings flapped, finally pushing her away from the courtyard.

And then, just as quickly, the entire dragon went limp underneath of her. She panicked for a moment, worrying that she’d starved the brain of oxygen or shut off something important, and when she felt it out she could tell that the creature was in distress of some kind.

...Nightmares?

The unconscious form of the dragon plummeting toward the edge of the courtyard, stretched out and doing nothing to protect itself from the impact. Its wings were outstretched still, hanging loosely in the air without fighting it, and its whole body spiraled clockwise as Luna felt the gravity and air rattle her teeth.

And then she saw them.

The three of them were on a square of fabric, a flying carpet shining with blue light. The cream-colored one, the lead revolutionary, and one she didn’t recognize at all, holding a long rifle in his hooves and aiming it directly for her.

It was the first gun she’d seen in Equestria, and the instincts of home took over for a moment as she teleported herself a few feet to the right. The dragon fell away beneath her now, alone, and she watched with quiet intensity as the carpet spun and the foal tried to get his aim back.

She’d tried to deal with these Stand users before, and she was getting more than sick of being blindsided by them. Right now, she needed information.

A burst of magic teleported Flash into the air, and she smacked him into the foal’s side before teleporting him beside her. As the three of them swayed and held onto the dipping fabric, she picked Flash’s brain for anything useful about what had just happened.

Ah, yes…

Luna had seen the truth, of the gift that Coco had left in her wake! With Sweetie Belle and Spike present to coordinate, and several agents of Jupiter being held as makeshift prisoners, it was possible for one of her own Stand users to be turned against her! ｢Private Eyes｣ had given them a view of the Castle even before the dragon was summoned, back when eternal night fell.

And in the same way that she now understood Rarity had been sent to her, the dragon had been able to use one of her soldiers to transform a pony into a disc and send it to the heart of that turmoil! Button Mash had been sent, alone, for his ability to instantly knock out and resurrect those around him!

Luna felt a wave of relief that the idea hadn’t occurred to any of them before she’d crossed over into Equestria. If it had, they would have had a perfect ambush on the throne room, and everything could’ve ended before it had even started.

With a whim she ripped the gun from his grip, and turned it on him in the air. It fired fast enough that he only had time to gasp, and then it dissipated as he fell unconscious. The carpet drove its way closer regardless, and another Stand activated.

Pieces of scale and grass and stone flew straight up towards them like reverse rain, and Luna strafed to the right, teleporting Flash back to the ground before he could say whatever made him look so panicked.

The random detritus hung in the air for a moment, and then it made some decision and careened for her in the air, moving with a mind all its own. She swept out of the way of the cloud and then watched it curve around and back towards her, more diffuse this time. More came from below, shards of the world slicing through the air for her.

Then she felt something on her back, a weight pulling her groundward on her wings. She tried to turn her head to get a better look, but it held onto her too tightly, kicking at her oustretched wings as it piggybacked against her. From the hooves around her neck, she knew it was the grey mare again.

With that distraction, she didn’t have enough time to get out of the way of the shards again - so she accepted that she’d be picking them out of her coat at some point and stopped trying. Instead, she twirled in the air so that her back was facing them and waited to hear the screams. Meanwhile, below her the dragon still wasn’t moving, and she tried to reach out for it.

It was a heavy sleeper, but part of that was something Sombra had done to dreams themselves. She wanted to feel slighted at not being given the responsibility of holding power over them, but she had never been very fond of dreams. If she could just jolt the damned thing awake without doing any more permanent damage to it…

Time passed, and the impact didn’t come. She probed her surroundings with her magic and found the flying carpet approaching her from the side now, trailing the shards like the tail of a comet. They suddenly dropped down out of the sky, losing twenty or thirty feet in a few seconds like an amusement park ride, and the mare on her back’s power materialized directly in front of her.

It was too close to dodge the punch. It came directly onto her ribcage, with enough force to kick her diagonally backwards in the air, and the cloud of debris turned back to her again. They’d stopped it from hitting her once to protect an ally, which meant there was a trick to it.

She felt for the Stand’s nature, and got back the right impression.

Then she teleported down to the carpet’s level, ten feet away, and lifted up the gaunt mare who stared at her so defiantly. She was practically the only passenger on it with a spark of consciousness, and she stared with infinite defiance even as she was pulled out and held still, aloft in the air.

The shards came down for her, and she was completely helpless. The cream one tried to do something, but Luna teleported her a safe distance away and off of her carpet, so she went falling through the air with little Button Mash. Hopefully she wouldn’t have the strength to switch to the defensive and they’d both just splatter on the ground already.

That was when a curtain of black covered her vision completely! A black tablecloth had drifted onto her head, covering her like she was about to disappear in a magician’s trick, or she was about to be bamboozled again, and she kicked sideways out from underneath of it.

The cream mare was still falling, but now she had a parachute, and she was holding the foal. She hadn’t done this recently - she’d dropped it from above in advance, when she saw what was going to happen!

Before Luna could realize that she’d moved in the wrong direction getting the curtain away, the cloud hit her. It was like being pelted by a dust storm in the middle of the desert, she found her sight overtaken and her body slammed in six dozen places. If she were mortal, the first strike alone would’ve hospitalized her.

But it wouldn’t work that way. She shook the mare she was holding to redirect them again, but this time they just dropped out of the sky like the dragon did. Then the older mare with the bubble Stand swooped in with her hair waving madly in the wind and snatched the diseased-looking one out of the air.

Not once, even in that moment of high-velocity rescue, did her expression change or her eyes leave the newly-minted god’s. Her heart was driven by a feeling of complete defiance, one that would take her to the death if need be!

Luna remembered to check, and realized that ｢Mr. President｣ was actually close to the edge of the city there. It would be outside by the time she could make it over, and then there was always the chance that whoever was carrying it could toss it off of the mountain and out of her range!

She cast a glance back below, and found the courtyard suddenly populated. Someone had used a Stand, but the place was suddenly lousy with pegasi and a few other ponies. At this point the magic had checked before she could ask, and she realized that it was…

｢Total Eclipse of the Heart｣?!

No, a weaker signature, not nearly as much magic. It was the copycat!

Although she didn’t have the chance to investigate completely, this was a correct deduction! Far below on the ground, Moondancer had used ｢Tragic But Magic｣ and saved herself from being swallowed up by Luna’s power by swallowing her own body in a pool of darkness! The innermost secrets of the Stand had been revealed to her with her power, and she had learned that all of the souls collected by it could be brought back by the user if there were ever a need!

Bolts and waves of fire raced below as Sunset tried to get a handle on the situation and Flash checked for an escape route, and then Sunset’s head started to shake like she was in pain, and her hooves came loose from the ground, and she started to dance.

Luna seethed. There wasn’t any more time for this, any of this! All of these setbacks could be put right in a matter of seconds, once she had enough peace of mind and her heart wasn’t split in two places at once!

Abandoning the dragon, she beat her wings against the air, kicking out a small shower of random hard matter, and swooped low towards the city, just above the buildings. The fastest route was a straight line, and she followed it relentlessly.

* * *

Coco was back in the air less than a minute after being cast out of it. There was no time - Luna had left, and they had to track her down as fast as possible. There wasn’t even time to communicate with the pegasi - they might not be fast enough.

Cheese noticed her as soon as she fell with Button, and he was beside her, smiling warmly and much, much too victoriously. “Getting some exercise?”

She nodded tiredly and looked around. “Where’s Diamond?”

She was in the hooves of the same guard who had taken her, surrounded by a ring of approaching pegasi. Once he made the orange mare start dancing in place, he pressed a hoof to Coco’s forehead and gave her the rest ｢Feel Good Inc｣.

It didn’t help her mental state very much, but she felt her Stand becoming more solid underneath of her. She’d only barely managed two long squares of fabric before, when getting to the false Princess and blocking her vision had been necessities, but now she could at least create a few more.

“I’m coming with you,” he said, and although he was smiling and personable, it wasn’t a question. “So’s she.”

Zesty was airdropped onto the ground by Twilight Velvet, looking as dour as ever. “We need to get moving, there’s no time. The Jupiter Princess may already be at her objective. Twilight here will perform crowd control and stop any stragglers.”

Coco nodded to the older mare, and pointed a hoof to the foal in the grass. “Look after Button.”

Then, on a longer length of fabric, the three of them were airborne. It wasn’t the team Coco would’ve chosen on her own, but both had enough confidence that she moved with them. Unfortunately her Stand wasn’t capable of extreme speeds, especially with three passengers. Even as they neared the edge of the courtyard she knew that they wouldn’t catch up in time.

Zesty wolf-whistled, loud enough to hear over the air, and several of the pegasi broke off from the confusion on the ground and flew upwards.

“Get in front of us. If we’re going to save the world, we need wingpower,” Zesty said, and the four looked at each other for a second before doing what she asked.

Coco could see what the point was before Zesty needed to explain it to her, and ｢Something for Nothing｣ wove harnesses around the four of them.

“Hi-yaaaa!” Zesty shouted, without a trace of irony, and after a moment’s takeoff the world was zipping past them.

Behind her, Cheese was talking into the wind. Coco couldn’t hear a word of it, even when she turned her head to ask him to repeat it, but he wasn’t even facing her.

Zesty manipulated the reins this way and that. “We have to hope that she’s made it outside of the city, to the drop point. If she’s failed us, there won’t be any way for us to know.”

With that cheery sentiment in tow, they raced on between the dark buildings and the black sky.

* * *

Luna could feel where the pony was before she saw her. Right outside of the walls, just barely past the city limits, and completely abandoned on open ground.

Twinkleshine huffed and puffed, trying to catch her breath as she twisted her head this way and that. She was so close, and she darted in what she hoped was the right direction in all of this wretched darkness.

Luna finally came close enough to see her, but not enough to safely hurt her. A bolt of magic might crack open ｢Mr. President｣, and that wouldn’t do at all. She swept closer as the mare bolted, oblivious, for the nearest hiding spot - a house on the outskirts.

She tried the lock, and it opened. Ponies were forgiving, in that sense. Luna let her, and then drifted down, taking her time to check for any tricks. She knew that the resistance would be coming after her if they were smart, just as quickly as their little wings would carry them, but she still had time before any of them could arrive.

Against her own godly nature, she felt tired. They had unraveled her in a dozen ways in the course of her fighting, always able to respond to her just in time. It was a tenacity that she neither respected or feared, but that her muscles acknowledged entirely on their own. She hadn’t believed that she would need to rest in her new body, but now she knew that it was possible to overexert herself.

The door had been shut too hastily, and it was still open a crack. She would’ve preferred to burn the house into cinders from outside, but it would’ve been too dangerous. Or maybe just unsatisfying; at this rate, she was considering just atomizing the turtle when she came upon it.

It was on the second floor now, and Luna teleported next to it. The pony clutching it to herself was backed into a little alcove, and she squeaked in fear. Ivory coat, pink mane, no one familiar, but the look on her muzzle said it all.

“That’s what wrong with you. All of you...” Luna said, hearing gravel in her voice as the mare stared at her bug-eyed. “You don’t care enough! If you had wanted to protect that Stand, you would have given your life for it! Every breath would have gone into its protection! You would have run for the edge of the mountain and jumped off to keep it from me!”

The mare blinked at that, and her face resolved into a scowl. A bolt of magic flew from her horn, and then hung suspended in mid-air a few inches from Luna’s face.

“Y-you aren’t taking Tank anywhere! Coco Pommel’s coming up to this house right now, and she’s going to take you out of the picture completely!” she shouted. There was no anger in her face or her words, only fear.

Luna matched the name to the memories she’d drawn from Flash, and then scoffed. “Let her! It’s useless!”

And it was! Even if Coco tied her wings together and threw her down the mountain, or buried her in fifteen tons of rubble, or knocked her unconscious for a few hours, she wouldn’t be able to hurt the source of Luna’s power! The nearest portal to Jupiter was still in the Crystal Empire, and without it to eject her from Equestria, no pony could hope to do anything against her but stall for time!

In spite of the setbacks and frustrations she’d faced, this was Luna’s belief, a statement that could be written on her heart: “I am invincible!”

“You don’t believe me, but my Stand ｢Star 69｣ lets me hear things no matter how far away they are! They’ve just landed outside! You’re finished!” the mare shouted, clutching the turtle to her sentimentally.

“Pah.” Luna spat, and the spell hanging in the air smashed into the mare at triple the original intensity, exploding against her face and knocking her unconscious immediately. She slumped against the wall still holding the turtle, and it struggled to free itself as Luna plucked it with her telekinesis.

The turtle wiggled it legs ineffectually, spinning a sort of propeller on its back, and Luna tightened her grip a little, squeezing it until it stopped moving. There would be no more resistance to her, now!

With it in her grasp, she was able to separate the Stand from the user. Of course the ability continued working while the animal was asleep, so she called up a spark of electricity in its brain and knocked it out, watching the small ineffectual legs hang limp in the air. She resisted the sudden, giddy desire to smash it against the wall, to see the despair in the eyes of whatever came out.

Downstairs, the door swung inward hard enough to slam into the wall, thundering through the house. It hadn’t been a bluff, then.

Fine.

Luna appeared on the first floor, where the gaunt mare stood, staring up at her witheringly. Behind her, Coco stepped in and shut the door behind her, sagging lower to the ground. Both of them were magnitudes more exhausted than her, and yet they were still trying to come to some final standoff.

She sighed, and stood taller, fighting her own increasing weakness.

“Attack,” she said. “I’ll give you one attack, and then I’ll end you. Go on.”

Both of them stared back at her, as she made no moves at all. Then, finally, the taller and paler of the two moved.

“｢Chop Suey｣!” she strained, and the turtle left Luna’s grip, pulled in between them. Then, just as quickly, her Stand’s influence stopped, and it went sailing through the air like a football directly for her hooves.

Then it stopped, as the magic reasserted itself, bungeeing it back to its rightful owner.

“Useless.” Luna said, and with a flicker of magic Zesty Gourmand slumped onto the floor, out cold.

Coco slumped lower, hardly able to meet the goddess’ eyes, breathing harder. Luna judged that she had one more use of her Stand left before she wouldn’t even need to be defeated.

“I get it, now...” Coco said, weakly. “You… don’t know where you are, do you?”

｢Something for Nothing｣ appeared, and loosed a single punch into Luna’s chest. She didn’t flinch, or move, and then it faded away, and Coco collapsed, face-down, into the floor.

“Useless. Useless! You were worse than useless!” Luna shouted at her. “Why even attack, if you would disgrace your entire world this plainly?!”

“Because… I don’t have to hurt you to defeat you...” Coco muttered inanely, in her last seconds of awareness, and then giggled to herself. “You still think this is a random house...”

Luna straightened herself again and felt out the house, ignoring the effort it took. Yes, there was something else here, something it was harder to get a hold of than a regular Stand, maybe because it was woven into the building itself…

Her magic sputtered, and she cast it again, slumping, trying to find what was happening to her, which of her infinite spells would counteract it. She didn’t feel like she could teleport across a long range right now, but there had to be something, something-

This was the moment of her defeat!

When her spell completed, and she gained the information she needed, her eyes widened. The Stand was one that ｢created parties｣, that took a pattern of behavior and forced it on everyone inside. They had let her defeat them, one at a time, first the mare who had led her inside, then the turtle, then the tall mare and then Coco, all four of them had been knocked out!

A slumber party!

She had to escape! A teleport, short range, or a hole blasted into the wall! She called on the magic, but nothing came to her that she could cast. After a moment, even the mental indexing faded.

She reared up, stumbling to one side, past the slumped over bodies. None of them would be able to awaken while they were inside of this house, but there had been a third pony outside, waiting for this to be over. If she could just force him to open the door…

She threw her weight against it, and as loose as it had seemed when she first entered, it didn’t budge! Again, and this time it creaked, but she slid against it to the floor, unable to stand again.

She had come from a world where the only escape from war had been to live her days out in a dark office and deal with the problems of teenagers. And now, as the house seemed to dim around her, and the dream of godhood lay crumpled at her hooves, she could barely keep herself conscious.

Her eyes leaked bitter tears as the force of the house forced them closed. “Useless….”

Useless.

* * *

Flash and Sunset were surrounded from an entire side, by an entire bonafide flock of pegasi. Thankfully she’d been able to send a wave of ｢Pepper｣ in between them as a defensive wall, but the sheer numbers didn’t bode well for them.

Plus, she was still shaking, jittering, her hooves moving in odd directions. She was wasting her own energy at this rate, and she was the only one of the two with any defensive power even if Flash weren’t busy holding a hostage with half of his hooves.

“The Stand affecting you will wear off if you fall unconscious,” Flash said, not loud enough for the enemy to hear him.

She nodded as they backed up. The courtyard was as ruined as the castle now, as the portal, as their invasion plans. They had mangled the world.

A few pegasi lunged forward at the sign of weakness, and one unicorn floating on some kind of collection of bubbles. ｢Pepper｣ multiplied underneath of them, and they dropped out of the sky, completely unconscious. Sunset tried to ignore her headache; it took intense strain to stop herself from two-stepping out of her own safe zone.

Then they hit the splayed-out tail of the dragon, and there was no further backwards to go. ｢Pepper｣ drew inwards, closer and tighter to them, and so did the pegasi.

Flash hooked one leg around her barrel, holding Diamond Tiara with the other one. His wings strained, and he lifted both of them upwards. Then the world went black around her, as she stopped struggling and flopping in his grip.

He completed his arc, flapping desperately and trying to keep aloft under the weight of three people. The pegasi took to the air, following him carefully like carrion-birds, waiting for some final slip-up.

Then, all of a sudden, the night sky wavered, and the bright blue reappeared.

The sun hit Flash’s eyes and he tottered, losing his balance and falling out of the air, onto the dragon’s back. The weight was too big for him to bear it up again and outrace any of the winged ponies, it was obvious to every onlooker. None of them knew what his ability did, only that he was important enough to have been inside of the Castle, and they wanted a few more moments to wait out some final sneak attack.

He couldn’t even see them, now, in the sudden glare of the sunlight. Everyone was shocked by it.

But it was enough time for ｢Pepper｣ to return to Sunset.

A few of the small centaurs had reached her, galloping faster than he’d flown. She’d used them to drain her own energy and render herself unconscious, and with that stored energy she could wake herself up again!

He watched as her eyes shot open, like a parody of someone hearing an alarm clock go off, and then the rest of her Stand was around her. She’d planned this, he knew from when he picked her up, but now was the moment of truth.

To the pegasi watching, it had seemed like he’d been trying to outfly them, or maybe to find cover in the city, but that was untrue! It was his intention to land on the back of this dragon from the moment he’d started moving!

“｢Pepper｣! ｢Pepper｣! ｢Pepper｣!” Sunset shouted, and then all of it was there with her. Her reserves were low, too low to use her powers on everyone she would have to face now, but she could focus all of her stored energy into one place, one entity!

With a sudden snuffle that drew everyone’s attention away from the two Jovians, the dragon woke up.

It roared with sudden pain and awareness, and she pumped more energy into it, pouring salt into the wound. There was something wrong with it, some damage she hadn’t witnessed earlier that would make it harder to reverse-engineer the Princess’ control, but all she needed right now was movement.

The dragon took off all at once, its wings flapping out of synch before finally settling into a rhythm. It swerved drunkenly, smashing the upper floors of a few buildings, before it finally achieved real altitude.

“The Vice Principal just lost,” she said, and it took Flash a moment to realize that she was speaking to him. She held out a hoof, and he took it.

｢American Pie｣ showed him the communication with Sombra, the moments where she was under. The VIce Principal, floating defeated in the dreamspace, suddenly limp and pathetic. The judging eyes that flashed with green and purple light…

Their mission was clear, even if Canterlot had been a failure. The Alicorn Amulet was ahead, they had a hostage on their side to prevent this prophecy from coming true, and there were still forces from the Crystal Empire sweeping across the land. In a few weeks’ time, there would be no Canterlot standing either way.

Deep in the Empire, the dark King seethed and gnashed his teeth, and focused his attention on the cream-colored mare who had stood so firmly against him.

｢To Be Continued｣

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

Stand: ｢Love is the Seventh Wave｣
User: Cheerilee
Stats
Power: D
Speed: C
Range: B
Durability: D
Precision: C
Potential: B
Abilities: Transforms memories and other psychic impressions left in the air into physical, multicolored networks of a tough yarn-like material. These impressions play out in the fashion of whatever left them.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/328442/17/

----

So we've finally reached the 100,000 word mark for this story - congratulations for reading this far, and thanks for the likes! I think it's high time we celebrate our progress with a brand new DECISION - since not everyone's current and this story's seemed dead for a while, you've got two weeks to make this one, so listen up!

Each member of the party represents one of the Elements of Harmony in some fashion. Cheese and Coco were keyholders necessary to unlock the Generosity and Laughter parts of the box left by the Tree of Harmony, Diamond's Stand and nature bring out Honesty in situations where it's most needed, and Scootaloo has a close tie to Loyalty. What we need next is a member of the party to bear Magic, and there's no better place to find it than the city of unicorns, but there are too many to take!

Moondancer, Twilight Velvet, Zesty Gourmand, or Cheerilee? Each one has a personal tie to this adventure, each one has a different relationship to friendship and magic, and each one represents a different dynamic for the group. Which one would most benefit the heroes on this journey? Think your choice through, and bear in mind that just like with Spike and Sweetie Belle remaining in Ponyville, who you leave behind can matter just as much as who you bring along.

Cast your votes at https://www.strawpoll.me/15587922 before May 12!