The Valhalla Cascade: The Arrival

I

“Princess Twilight!” A voice called, “Commander Shining!”  A bat-pony detached himself from the shadows of an alley way and rushed over to the two ponies.

Twilight was relieved to have found another friendly face. The Mane Six and her brother had been separated from the rest of their squad when a Collector had attacked. They had been working their way slowly towards the castle; Twilight, still desperate to reach the vaults had managed to weave through the hulking creatures legs whilst the others drew it off.

“I’ve was told you were somewhere in the area.” The bat-pony panted, sweat running off him like a river. “There’s good news and bad news.”

“Get the bad news over with first.” Shining Armour grunted, taking the relative safety to inspect a claw wound on his legs.

Twilight looked round to see Erwin skittering his way towards them. Despite having little facial expressions to speak off the Alien was giving off a distinct aura of unease and agitation. It kept turning its head to the east and hissing uneasily at some distant target.

“Bad news,” The Bat-pony continued, “A big, black stick-like creature penetrated the eastern defences. We’re assuming it’s...”

“Jack!” Twilight snarled, stomping a hoof in exasperation. The colour was draining from the Bat-pony’s face; Shining Armour recognized the battle-shock. He didn’t want to ask but...

“Casualties?”

“Commander Phalanx is dead.” The Bat-pony said numbly, the mental trauma catching up with him. “Jack tore through his armour like it was tissue paper. He carved through our lines before we knew what had hit us. Princes Celestia wants you and Luna to rendezvous with her in the Central Hall, no-one else is allowed in the castle.”

The group raced on through the now strangely deserted streets." set off. The streets seemed to be clearer know, and with an audible hum Twilight could feel her magic returning to her body. “What’s the good news?” She asked, levitating a pile of rubble from their path.

“Well the mutants are no-longer posing an issue.” The Bat-pony explained, “I didn’t really want to be the one to tell you this but Princess Cadence...” Shining Armour ground to a halt. “Well...ahhh....she’s wiped out a good chunk of the enemy forces but........ She’s not exactly herself......”

II

Nemesis raked over the roof tops like a blood- stained, avenging angel. She landed in front a platoon of Diamond Dogs, the impact shaking the ground. They gaped in shock at the Alicorn before them; the coat was blood red, streaked through with black lines, the mane astral like Celestia’s but was of fire blazing like the pits of hell.

Cadence was sick of it. Monster just kept coming and coming and coming, intent on threatening the ponies she cared for, sowing fear and disaster among the innocents. Nightmare Moon tried to plunge the world into darkness, Discord unleashed chaos that nearly tore the Elements of Harmony apart, and whilst they had been insane and eventually reformed there were others who had no excuse.

Queen Chrysalis had tried to take the Stallion she loved away from her, nearly destroyed his mind and invaded Canterlot on her wedding day. Sombra had kept an entire nation enslaved, and nearly killed her through exhaustion as more ponies risked their lives to stop him.

And as bad as that had been nobody had been killed.

But now...

Now...

Cadence was the Alicorn of love. But Jack and his army of mutants had gone too far.

As the Diamond Dogs dropped to the ground, brains fried from the psychically inflicted fear pulsed into their minds.

Nemesis smiled.

Revenge was sweet.

III

Jack was getting extremely frustrated with the barrier. He turned to grin sardonically at the three creatures facing him; Twilight, Celestia and Luna.

He’d encountered magic before and understood the underlying structure well. Spells like the barrier before him were weaved straight into the fabric of reality. Jack was an incredible resilient creature, both physically and mentally but if he tried to cross the barrier he would have been torn to shreds on the molecular level.

It was slightly irritating to be interrupted midway through dismantling such an impressive spell, after all it was akin to solving over a dozen 10th degree polynomial equations whilst trying not to trigger the mental equivalent of a hydrogen bomb.

However Jack had really been looking forward to this confrontation.

Twilight was unsettled by how confident Jack looked. He was facing down three opponents with God-level power.  She wouldn’t have wanted to have to fight anyone of them. Especially when they were this angry.

They wasted no time with threats or demands for surrender. Two massive fists, one of light and one of shadows, erupted from the floor and clamped onto Jack, holding him still. Twilights eyes turned to white as she channelled the power of the Elements of Harmony.

Outside in the courtyard the rest of the Mane six could only fidget nervously as the bolts of coloured light streamed out of their Elements.

“This sucks!” Rainbow Dash complained. “We should be in there helping them! Facing Jack face to face!”

“I dunno Dashie,” Pinkie Pie said, unusually subdued. “He personally tore apart over a dozen soldiers to get in there. I’m perfectly happy with Celestia’s plan! But let us not forget, the power of our friendship can overcome ANYTHING! We beat Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombre! Jack’s just another 2nd rate villain like the rest”

Pinkie’s exclamation perked the Mane Six up considerably. Seeing them smile as power continued to stream from them Pinkie Pie leapt atop a ruined fountain. “Right now Jack’s being petrified or disintegrated or.....” Suddenly Pinkie shuddered as her Pinkie-sense kicked in. “No, that’s impossible....”

Inside the castle Jack squirmed in the grasp of the two celestial fists. The Elements of Harmony were building up their familiar whirlwind around Jack. Twilight winced as she forced the awesome power of the Elements through her body into a beam so it could lock onto the otherworldly monster.

Suddenly Jack jerked and shrugged off the magical energy. Twilight baulked in horror as the Elements rebounded off his slick black skin and collapsed the two fists holding him in place. Jack strode towards them with his apparently normal sadistic grin pulled painfully wide.

“Nice try.” Jack smirked, “Conditional magic doesn’t work on me. My body is quantum locked against being altered like that. Of course I’m not immune to directed magic, so looks like we’ll have to settle this the old fashioned way.”  Jack dropped into a combat stance and extended one hand in an inviting gesture.

Luna glanced at her sister, “Was there a plan B?”

“The old fashioned way.”

“Old fashioned way it is then.”

Luna stamped her hooves into the ground.  Dozens of gravitational ripples shot out through the ground, tearing the marble as they thundered down the corridor. Celestia and Twilight staggered back Jack jumped and clung to the side of the wall like on oversized spider. A bolt of energy sparked in his hand and was thorn at Luna. The bolt hit Luna square in the chest and knocked her back. As the corridor stopped shaking Twilight and Celestia stepped into the fray. Dust and rock shards from the splintered floor started flying through the air, glowing white hot as they hurtled at Jack.

Jack squawked as whirlwind of debris enveloped the section of corridor. He tried to leap from the wall to get within striking distance but was thrown to the ground by the maelstrom. For another half second Twilight wondered if they’d found a weakness, but then Jack teleported a few feet towards them.

When he reappeared he was still within the red hot debris fields but away from the centre and now both forearms had blue, glowing, kinetic barriers extending from them. The segmented shields deflecting the majority of the projectiles away from his head and body. Jack moved like lightning. He raced toward them through the barrage even as the two Alicorns reformed the storm particles into a condensed blast, trying to push him back out of the range of his lethal arms.

Jack broke though the barrage and swung at the Alicorns, luckily he was still half blinded by the grit and only landed a glancing blow on Celestia with the flat of his shield, an not a concentrated point on his fist. Even so Celesta grimaced as ribs cracked her magic flickering out as her concentration broke.

Luna, recovered from the energy bolt, body slammed Jack before he could swing his arms again. Jack looked vaguely amused, the impact barely making him flinch .He brought up both hands again hands in a double strike.

Twilight realising that even Luna might not survive that lashed out with her magic and grabbed Jack’s arms telekinetically, holding them back as Luna squirmed free and threw Jack back down the corridor with a giant shadow fist.

Despite everything that had happened in the last few days, the sensation of directly holding Jack was deeply disturbing.

Ponies sometimes forgot that holding things telekinetically wasn’t like grabbing it with a pair of really long tongs. Jack felt deeply unnatural and somehow dead, like she was holding some ancient skeleton. Some part of her mind wondered briefly what insane world he could have been birthed on, even taking into considering the massive amount of augmentation present in his body.

Celestia was back on her feet and shot a laser like beam from her horn catching Jack in the chest. Luna and Twilight followed suite, pinning Jack down before he could spring away. The Kinetic shield on Jack’s arms began to turn red as they struggled to repel the awesome power of the Alicorns. The three Princesses began to walk forward, driving the immobile Jack backwards and closer to the lethal barrier surrounding the Vaults.

20 meters. Jack began to grunt, digging the tips of his feet onto the ground.

12 meters. Sweat was pouring off Twilights face as every gram of her being was thrown into the spell. Jack began swearing

in some alien language.

9 meters. A blood vessel burst in Luna’s nose, she winced but held.

5 meters. Twilight blinked through the sweat just in time to see Jack look up, staring straight at her through the blinding glare. She watched in puzzlement as he grinned again and started yelling something. “To easy.” Jack suddenly snapped his positioning, the energy beams slid off his body and into the barrier, which shattered like glass. Before the Princesses could react, Jack stepped back into the beam which split apart in a crazy refraction and ricocheted back down the corridor.

IV

Twilight was trying desperately trying to stay conscious. She was in pain unlike anything she had felt before; it was blurring the edges of her mind, pulling her into darkness. Dragging her eyes open she could just about make out that her wing was crushed under a chunk of masonry. She had to focus on that. Gritting her teeth, Twilight forced her mind onto her wing. pain stabbed through her as she felt the crushed bones, but it was pain she could comprehend, pain she could handle. It was like having a knife pulled across her brain but she was conscious again.

Able to see what was going on around her, twilight realised that the three Princesses had been driven into the wall by the explosion, she was pinned under rubble and worse the other two princesses were only just visible from under the pile.

Forcing her swollen neck round Twilight looked down at the Vaults. Jack was still visible, she didn’t know how long she’d been out but in that time Jack had cut nearly cut through the heavy reinforced doors. One of him hand glowing like an oxyacetylene torch. Somehow sensing she was awake Jack turned back to look at her.

“For the record,” He called back, “That was a pretty decent fight you put up. But I’m the best at what I do little Miss Twilight. Thanks for taking down the barrier for me.” Jack shook his head and gave Twilight another look before whispering, just loud enough for her to hear, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you, there a few more things I want to do to you first.”

“No you won’t.” a new voice growled with such pure, unbridled aggression that even Jack was taken aback. He looked up to see Nemesis standing in the middle of the wrecked corridor. Spear of ruby red light shot out of Nemesis’s horn, Jack barely managing to bring up his forearm shield to deflect it. Even so the impact picked Jack off his feet like a ragdoll and slammed him into the vault door. He jumped back to his feet and shot fire out of his hands like a flamethrower. Nemesis jumped though the blaze and smacked a hoof into Jacks head hard enough to dent the metal plate.

Nemesis let loose an onslaught a blows. The two combatants danced around in a deadly dance of punches and kicks, locks and counter-locks. Despite all her rage Nemesis was still outmatched and eventually found herself being bodily thrown the length of the corridor.

“Come now Cadence.” Jack snarled, brushing himself down. “Even in this freaked-out, PMS, rage state your no match for me.” Nemesis fired another red spear but Jack caught and snapped it. “Look at you! The Alicorn of Love trying to go all dark-side? Please, I beat the three other Princesses no problem, what makes you think you could beat me alone?”

“She’s not alone.” Discord dropped from the ceiling and clamped a hand round Jacks head; The Doctor was clinging to his back and also placed a hoof on Jacks head. Immediately Jack collapsed onto his knees, mind locked down by the awesome physic ability the two assailants. Psychic waves began to pulse out from Nemesis. Twilight shuddered as one brushed past her, they were pure fear.

“Your right, I couldn’t beat you in a fight.” Nemesis growled walking closer to Jack, the waves intensifying as they poured into Jacks head. “And your right, I’m no dark-side version of Cadence, I’M WORSE.” Jack was writhing in pain and began to howl. “I am Nemesis; vengeance and retribution and I exist only to end you, and when I do I’m going straight back into Cadences subconscious. Our magic may have little effect on you, but you can’t fight yourself Jack, what you feel now is your greatest fears all at once, being exponentially magnified. How do you like it Jack! FEAR ISN’T SO FUN WHEN YOU’RE ON THE RECEIVING END!”.

“You think you know fear?” Jack croaked, his body now ramrod straight. Nemesis sneered and walked closer and closer. A hum filled the air, steadily getting louder “Fear is being forced to fight from the moment your born. Fear is knowing you were born for others to sharpen their claws on.” Jack continued, his body twisting as his nervous system flooded. “Fear knows you mean nothing to your creator. Fear is looking into his eyes and showing that you won’t roll over and die for him.”

Jack laughed manically. Nemesis pressed forward, eager to finish Jack and stop his disturbing babble that had devolved into a mindless stream of as his neural patterns began to dissolve.

“You think you know fear?” Jack suddenly said clearly, head snapping to look at Nemesis despite Discords iron like grip. His arm shot out and clamped round Nemesis horn. “I. Am. Fear.” Nemesis juddered and convulsed like she was being electrocuted, the physic fear being folded back into her. Behind Jack Discord roared like a dragon and tried to break Jacks neck, But Jack moved impossibly fast and swung Nemesis onto him. The room flashed with red light and the deafening sound of breaking mirrors.

V

Jack got unsteadily to his feet as the dust settled around him. The Doctor was unconscious, Discord vanished and an incinerated looking Cadence hanging limply from his hand, body returned to normal. Jack checked the burnt out princess for life-signs then dropped her. “Woah,” he muttered to himself, “Kinetic barriers down, integrity field on red. That was an impressive fight. Another good hit and I’d be…” Jack spun on the spot and caught Twilights last ditch magic blast in his hand.

Twilight sagged, her body going cold as blood leaked from the crushed wing she’s ripped open pulling it from the rubble. That had been her last shot. There was nothing left in the tank. Behind her she could hear the voices of her friends in the distance; they’re loyalty having finally overridden their common sense as they raced towards the vaults. She wanted to scream at them to run, but nothing in her body would work.

The rest of the Mane six burst through the doors at the end of the corridor just in time to see Jack tear down the Vault door, severing the last of the containment spells.  Jack turned back to face them as behind him reality bent and warped as something moved in the darkness.