Monster of Justice

"SKREEEONNNGK!"

That haunting screech penetrated Twilight Sparkle's ears again, louder than before, as she and Rainbow Dash quickly reduced the space between them and the harbor. She had never flown as fast as she had at that time. The possible cause of Manehattan's destruction was just revealing itself to the world, and she wanted to see it firsthand.

Twilight coughed as she foolishly flew through a cloud of smoke billowing from the carcass of a skyscraper that Rainbow had flown around. She was actually quite surprised to see that so many skyscrapers had mostly survived the attack. Most of the damage had been to smaller buildings that weren't built to survive catastrophes of this caliber. Still, it was odd. The skyscrapers that did fall were some of the sturdiest buildings Twilight had ever seen. Why had some survived while others hadn't?

Then it came into view as she wiped the tears and soot from her face. She saw it and stopped in her tracks. Well, she saw its figure, at least. It was too dark to make out any features, but it was big. Oh, it was big. Bigger than some of the skyscrapers that had inhabited Manehattan. Bigger than any living thing should be. She could make out its basic shape. Large spines and spikes ran down its back. It had a tail almost as long as the rest of its body. It was hard to tell, but its body structure looked vaguely reptilian. Maybe it was some undiscovered species of dragon?

"We should find a place to land!" Twilight shouted to Rainbow Dash, who continued to fly towards the beast.

"What?!" Rainbow abruptly stopped and turned to Twilight. "Don't you want to get a good look at that thing?" The two approached each other.

"Well, yeah," Twilight admitted. "But we can't just go up to it! What if it's hostile?"

"What if it's not?" Rainbow blew her mane out of her face.

"Then we shouldn't risk provoking it. We can't just blast it with the Elements of Harmony."

Rainbow Dash sighed. "Alright," she said. "Let's go down." Just as quickly as she had stopped, Rainbow got back in motion. Before Twilight could even tell she was gone she was on the ground and waving for her friend to follow her, which Twilight did with much agency. The two touched down in the middle of a crowd that had come to see what was happening. From their new perspective, Twilight and Rainbow saw the monster's silhouette slowly shift its weight from side to side in front of the moon. Twilight hummed and brought her hoof to her chin. Was it waiting for something to happen? Before she could ask anyone that question, she lost her track of thought when a strange voice started in her head and began to... narrate?

And there it was before me. One third of the riddle: solved. Twilight looked around, trying to find the source of the narration. But two still remained. Where were they hiding? And where did they come from? Those questions would have to go unanswered for the moment, as I was being approached by Rainbow Dash and the recently crowned Princess Twilight Spa-

"How are you doing that?" Twilight asked the completely monochromatic Earth Pony.

"'What?" the pony asked and turned to the princess.

"That... that narrating thing you..." Twilight tried to explain it to him. How could he not know what she was talking about?

"I don't know what you're talkin' about." There was her answer. The pony took notice of Twilight's friend and grinned. "Hey, kid! Good to see you made it to your friends alright!"

"Grayscale!" Rainbow said and approached him. "Twilight, this is the guy Fluttershy and I were talking about. With the trench coat!"

"And a fedora," Twilight added. Grayscale nodded.

"Good to meetcha, Princess," he said. He removed his hat and bowed.

"Please," she motioned for him to get up. "Formalities aren't really my thing. Especially not now." Grayscale picked himself up and placed his fedora back on his head. They all had more important things to focus on than proper etiquette. Twilight started to open her mouth to further the conversation. At the same time, the beast opened its maw and let out another soul-shattering wail. All three of them covered their ears, hoping to protect their eardrums. They were only remotely successful. When all was roared and done, Twilight's ears were ringing.

"Boy, he's getting antsy," Grayscale remarked and turned to the monster. "Reminds me of my ex-wife."

"What does he want?" Twilight asked.

"Don't know, kid," Grayscale said.

"Maybe he's waiting for the other two to show up," Rainbow Dash suggested.

"If there actually are two more," Twilight said. On that note, four more young mares approached them, all of them having torn through the now large crowd and were visibly tired. Twilight turned to them. "Girls! You all made it!"

"Yeah, well," Applejack panted, "most of us did." She turned to the side. Lounging on her back was completely unconscious baby dragon. "He almost made it. Is that our gorilla-whale?" The monster let out another roar; the loudest one yet. Loud enough to shake the ground and reduce a small building nearby to rubble. Spike's eyes shot open and he nearly jumped out of his scales.

"Agh!" he shouted and covered his ear-holes. "Come on! Five more minutes, Twilight!"

"So what're we gonna do 'bout this?" Applejack asked as Spike dismounted.

"Go away and hope it does the same?" Fluttershy suggested as she got up from hiding under her own hooves. Twilight looked to her and then the monster. Maybe that would work. It didn't seem to be doing anything particularly dangerous. Until the scales running along its back began glowing blue

The monster raised its head to the sky and roared once more. With that roar, a beam of heat, bluer than ice, exploded from its mouth. Its heat could be felt from even the hundreds of meters they all stood from him. The light from the beam briefly revealed most of its face. Twilight was taken aback by how little it looked like an animal. The monster's face had a strange look of intelligence. Not intelligent like Twilight. No, this monster probably hadn't read a book in its life and only rarely wrote research papers for fun. Its intelligence seemed more similar to the likes of Rainbow Dash or Applejack. Not particularly well-read, but it could learn.

Twilight pulled her wings over her face and turned her head to her friends, who were reacting to the event in their own ways. Applejack cringed and held her hat in front of her eyes. Fluttershy hid herself under her hooves. Rarity pulled her ruined mane over her eyes. Spike hopped onto Twilight's back and shielded his eyes behind her wings. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash completely disregarded the blinding blue light and started in awe. Other ponies in the crowd started panicking around Twilight and her friends. Children cried, mares screamed, stallions yelled, and just about half the crowd had fled for their homes or tents. Twilight looked to Grayscale, whose only reaction to the blast of heat was to pull the brim of his hat over his eyes to block the blinding light. He was oddly stoic about everything regarding the monster.

The monster closed its mouth. What followed was half a minute of complete and utter silence. Nopony in the crowd said or did anything. The monster itself kept completely still. Neither its tail nor the water it stood in up to its knees moved. It wasn't a pleasant silence. It was a tense, eerie silence. A silence that Twilight broke with the two dumbest words she'd ever said, regardless of context. "Nice lighter..."

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie burst into cheer. "Woo!" Pinkie shouted as she applauded. "Do it again!"

"Yeah!" Rainbow cheered! "That was awesome!"

"We need to get rid of it," Twilight said stoically. Her statement was met by the looks of her friends, ranging from surprise to disappointment. Murmurs and whispers spread through the crowd. Twilight heard her name among the gossiping ponies several times.

"And just how are we going to accomplish that?" Rarity asked. "He doesn't look very willing to move."

"I know a spell," Twilight started. "It might be enough to kill it. But it's really draining."

"Twilight, don't you think you're going a little far?" Fluttershy spoke up. "Maybe we could relocate it peacefully."

"Yeah, kid, maybe you should hold your horses," Grayscale turned from watching the monster. "Maybe he's peaceful. You never know."

"Because a seven-hundred foot tall fire-breathing monster just screams 'peaceful',"

"It looked more like a laser to me," Pinkie Pie remarked. "Besides, I thought we learned the whole 'don't judge a book by its cover' thing back in season one." More murmurs spread and many members of the crowd exchanged confused looks.

"Monster or not, it's still a living thing." Fluttershy put her hoof down.

"Really, Twi, you're bein' a bit jumpy," Applejack tried to comfort her. "Maybe you should calm down and think this through like you always do."

"I dunno, Twilight," Spike leaned into her view. "That guy might be my cousin for all we know. Where's this coming from?"

"Nothing else we've faced has destroyed any major cities," Twilight argued. "And did you feel that heat? Even if it's peaceful, there's no doubt that it could cause some damage even by accident." She lifted Spike off of her back and onto the ground. Twilight spread her wings and took to the air. She flew upward for almost a full minute before stopping at eye level with the monster. Her horn glowed bright violet as it sapped energy from the rest of her body. She could feel herself getting weaker and hungrier. The monster growled and began to approach Twilight, whether out of curiosity or malevolence, she couldn't tell. After thirty seconds she began to doubt herself and her stance on this. What if it was peaceful? What would happen if she made it angry? What would happen if her spell only hurt it?

Back on the ground Spike's stomach started to audibly and visibly shake. A blast of green flames belched from the baby dragon's mouth and with it came a message from Princess Celestia. The scroll that carried the message was kept rolled up by three red strips of lace. This was an urgent message. Spike unrolled the scroll and read it. Among the typical words of a message was an image. A drawing of the monster that stood in the harbor.

"Dear Twilight Sparkle," Spike read aloud. "I saw the beam from the castle. He's called 'Godzilla.' He's peaceful. Do not provoke him or bring any harm to him or you *will** condemn every stallion, mare, and foal in Equestria to a horrible, fiery death!*" Spike rolled the scroll back up and looked up at the violet-glowing Alicorn Princess that was about to unwittingly doom all of Equestria. "We have to stop her!"

Twilight was now seriously regretting casting this spell. She had been too hotheaded. She should have gone with Fluttershy's idea. She couldn't stop the spell. She wanted to turn her head and miss. She wanted to, but she couldn't. The spell had drained her to the point that she couldn't even move her neck. She couldn't even see the monster anymore. While it was a very large target, she wasn't sure whether or not it had moved out of the way. She couldn't hear anything over the screeching wail the spell made as it drained her of all her energy. What was that noise?

The spell would have killed Twilight had she tried to cast it before she became a princess. It would have reduced her to skin and bones long before it could destroy any normal-sized monsters, let alone the leviathan that stood in the harbor. Now she couldn't die. It would still reduce her to skin and bones and would leave her in unbelievable pain, but it wouldn't kill her. She couldn't even flap her wings. The spell itself seemed to be the only thing keeping Twilight suspended in air. She felt the spell take every resource it could from her. She felt her wings and legs going numb. She felt her stomach shrink and her ribs protruding through her chest. She realized that her mouth was wide open before it could go numb. That wail wasn't coming from the spell. That wail was her screaming.

Only seconds remained. The spell had taken everything it could from her. The bright light that surrounded Twilight converged and formed a small, very bright ball of light in front of her horn. There was no stopping it. Just a split second before it fired off, Twilight felt a pair of hooves grab her head and shove it to the side, away from its target. A massive and loud beam of violet light, almost as wide and loud as the monster's breath. Already, she could feel some strength returning to her.

The first thing to come back was her sight. Here eyes cleared to see a pale blue Pegasus Pony pushing her away from the monster, which had stumbled backwards and fell into the harbor, startled, but unharmed. More buildings fell and gigantic waves took them to their final resting places. On Rainbow Dash's back was Spike, with Rainbow's mane in one claw and a scroll in the other. The next thing to come back was the feeling in her limbs, which burned with pain.

Then it was done. The spell had been cast and Twilight was reduced to nothing. Without the spell holding her up and lacking the energy needed to fly, Twilight's head slipped out of Rainbow's hooves as she fell to the ground. Rainbow Dash jumped into action and flew downward adjacent to her friend. She took Twilight's crippled form into her hooves and slowly came to a stop, being careful not to break her friend.

"Twilight!" Spike said as he climbed onto Rainbow's head. "Twilight, it's okay! He's peaceful!" He unrolled the scroll and showed it to her. Twilight very slowly scanned the message from her teacher. Even reading was painful. "Godzilla is peaceful!"

"Spike..." Twilight tried with all her might to lift her hoof to her assistant. She tried to apologize. "I'm... I'm s-... so-..." was all she could get out before everything went black.

"So Infant Island would be..." Princess Celestia paused as she scanned a large map of Equestria she had put up in her personal quarters. "Somewhere around here," she said as she pointed her hoof to the ocean southeast of Equestria, not far from Horseshoe Bay.

"Most likely, yes," the Shobijin nodded.

"And in the center of this island I'll find..." Celestia paused.

"The egg of Mothra," the fairies finished.

"And when it hatches I can ask Mothra whatever I need to know?"

"If she can answer it, she will." Finally, things were coming together. Princess Celestia had a basic idea of where Mothra and Infant Island would be and she had just sent a message to Twilight Sparkle informing her of Godzilla's peacefulness. All that was left shrouded in mystery was how they found themselves in Equestria. That, and the other two monsters Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy believed to have fought Godzilla. But first Celestia needed to retrieve Twilight Sparkle and her friends from Manehattan and prepare for the expedition to Infant Island.

Everything was going right, so, naturally, something had to go wrong. A great violet light shone from outside. Princess Celestia approached her window and peered outside. To her horror, she saw a wide beam of violet light fire into the air just above Mahehattan. That beam could only come from a spell that only an Alicorn Princess could cast without dying. She herself had used it at one point to defeat a colony of drakons that had infested Baltimare and she know how devastating the aftereffects were on its user.

Celestia opened her window and leaped out into the night. There was no time for doors or carriages. Twilight Sparkle needed her.