Arms of Arceus

Applejack had seen some strange things in her day, but this one took the cake. She looked over her shoulder as she ran, past the line of Zebstrika and Rapidash that she had led into battle. The monsters were still there, standing mid-stride as they charged toward the place where Applejack and her Pokémon had been minutes before. Beyond them stood the newly raised form of the diamond pillar, and its Diancie creator as she added the finishing touches. The princesses had explained only the basics of their plans to leave this universe, but they hadn’t mentioned anything like this. As Applejack approached her friends near the incursion site, she saw none of the concern that she felt.

“What’s wrong Applejack?” Rarity asked as her friend approached. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“There are ghosts all over the place,” Pinkie Pie said, as she pointed to a nearby Trevenant, who bowed respectfully to the ponies.

“You know what I meant,” Rarity said as she glowered at Pinkie.

“No, I don’t think ah’ve seen a ghost, exactly,” Applejack said as she looked around at the large gathering. “To be honest, I’m not sure what I saw, but I take it none ah yall’ve seen it. Have you?”

Her friends shook their heads as a Vaporeon walked up to them and bowed. She was dainty and slender, though she walked with a dangerous confidence. On her tail were pinned four glowing sapphires with images of Mew engraved on their surfaces. The ponies bowed their heads in return, and the Vaporeon smiled.

“Greetings, friends,” she said. “I am Lucy, Head of the House of Eevee and First Daughter of King Siebold.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t get all these different factions,” Rainbow Dash said apologetically. “I didn’t know the king had children.”

“Not by blood. The King adopted a group of Eevee long ago, to keep him company during his great vigil over the prison of Dark Arceus. We are the descendants of those Eevee, and so, we are his children, too. A branch of our household exists in every region of our world, allowing us to remain diverse and recruit strong Pokémon from outside of the city.”

“Lucy, have you noticed anythin’ strange with those pillars that Diancie is raisin’?” Applejack asked.

“My siblings and I have been busy preparing this ambush, I’m afraid. All I know of them is that they will use a strange magic to take us away from this place.”

“What are your plans for this attack?” Rarity asked, changing the subject to more pressing matters.

“The four great factions are gathered, as are several members of the High Council. If Joan’s prediction is accurate, we should see…”

“Excuse me,” said a Sylveon walking up behind Lucy.

“What’s the matter, Titania?”

“Yoko has seen a vision. She and Lady Joan are discussing it, and they seem to be rethinking the plan.”

“What has she seen?” Fluttershy asked as she forced her fearful eyes away from the growing shadows in the sky as the Tyranid hive ships slowly broke through the cloud barrier.

“She has seen the one that the daemons call master preparing his force of marines to surge into the streets of the city. They are aided by two bird-like daemons that posses powerful psychic sorcery. Our sister claims that the interaction between the two daemonic hosts is most… unusual. As if they don’t approve of each other, but a higher power compels them to work together.”

“One seeks our blood, the other seeks our power,” Pinkie Pie said as she began shaking uncontrollably. She stopped shaking after a moment, and began looking around in deep concern. “Wow, I’ve never felt a doozy like that one before. These things are evil, and I think there are going to be a lot more of them than we previously thought.”

A loud, Orkish cry echoed in the distance, signaling a new battle in the streets of God’s Breath. The warriors in the plaza tensed at the sounds, though Applejack looked back the way she had come, toward the diamond pillar. Soon, the calls of Tyranids and Pokémon mixed with the sound of bolter fire and the screams of daemons. Portals opened throughout the streets of the city, pouring forth fresh horrors. From the center of the shopping district, an enormous portal opened. A living nightmare stepped into the city, its footfalls shaking the ground as it left Cadia and entered God’s Breath. The Red Angel, Angron, blessed of Khorne and Daemon Primarch of the World Eater’s roared his unending fury to the sky as he charged the defenders of the city.

“W-was that supposed to happen?” Princess Twilight Sparkle said as she watched hundreds of portals opening throughout the city’s streets. Hordes of daemons charged through, gibbering madly as they attacked everything in sight. Some were tall, skull-faced monstrosities wielding swords and halberds. Some were deformed pink and purple masses that cast spells as they rampaged through the streets in manic excitement. Daemon engines and chaos space marines accompanied the daemonic host, screaming for blood as they beat recklessly at their foes.

“No, it wasn’t,” Mistress Cloe said from her place beside the young princess. “We are prepared, however. See?”

She pointed to one of the dozens of tunnel entrances that led to the underground. They had been blocked off, supported by their own protective shields and defended by groups of Gardevoir from the castle guard. The Gardevoir stood to attention around each set of steel doors, holding their Doublade aloft as the entrances opened. Out of each doorway marched thousands of legendary golems, their triple line formation perfectly ordered. As one, the children of Regigigas entered the fray. They clashed with the daemonic hordes, matching brutality with brutality. The Daemon Primarch, who had been tearing through the forces in the shopping district till now, suddenly fell sideways as the ground erupted beneath him.

“That’s the Regigigas known as Father,” Cadance said as she watched the massive golem stomp slowly toward Angron. “He may take a few minutes to get going, but we’ve been told that once he begins fighting seriously, there is little that can stop him.”

“What about Julia?” Twilight Sparkle asked. “She hasn’t finished placing the pillars, yet. Will she be able to do it in this mess?”

“She is well defended,” Luna said as she looked at the battle in the sky. “We cannot see her from here, but our Diancie friend is accompanied by two groups of legends; the Beasts of Johto and the Swords of Justice. I’ve already made a note to myself that I should form a regiment in the Royal Guard with the title of the latter group. It sounds most impressive, does it not?”

“Yes, it does,” Celestia said as she landed on the wall and joined her fellow princesses. “Julia is nearly finished. For now, we have our own task ahead of us. The Tyranids have come to feed, I’m afraid.”

The sky darkened as four shadows stretched across the whole of God’s Breath. Preoccupied with the wanton slaughter, the fighters in the streets gave no sign of notice. The Alicorns looked to the sky together, watching as Lorna led her legends back into the city and away from the long, gaping-mouthed tentacles that the bio-ships used to grasp at them. The Tyranids had expended massive amounts of resources to bring their ships this close to the surface, and countless Ork spacecraft continued to hammer away at their defenses from orbit. Still they came, intent on risking everything to gain the great advantage that the Hive Mind saw in the Pokémon of God’s Breath.

“So… how do fight that?” Twilight Sparkle said, her voice small and terrified.

“Focus your power,” Celestia said calmly as she directed her friend, and former student. “You see that ship to the north? I want you to focus on grabbing hold of it with your magic. Do it just like you did the time you moved the sun and moon.”

“But I did that with your power!” Twilight Sparkle yelled. “I had magic from all of you. I couldn’t have done it otherwise!”

“You have great strength within you, Twilight,” Luna said as she extended her reassuring words to both of her juniors. “Just as Cadance does. We know you can do it, if only you have confidence.”

“Now focus, my friends,” Celestia said. “Do you feel the enemy craft with your magic?”

Twilight and Cadance nervously voiced their affirmations. The bio-ships began glowing with magical light as the ponies took hold of them. Their long appendages flailed, their bodies convulsed, and the massive creatures let out screams of primal fear that shook the foundation of Octaria.

“What now?” Cadance asked, her voice tight and focused.

“Now, we pull them from the sky,” Luna said.

Mistress Cloe had fought for king and city for many years. She had seen thousands of battles, and had once been face to face with the partially sealed form of Dark Arceus itself when she thought she was alone. She had seen Machamp move mountains effortlessly, and she had seen Gardevoir create black holes out of nothing, only to contain and close them before they could bring harm. But those mountains seemed small compared to these bio-ships, and the black holes had barely been larger than she was. Battle raged throughout her precious city, more violent than she had ever seen. But all she could do was stare in awe as the screaming, flailing ships were dragged from the sky by the creatures she now called her ‘leaders’.

The ponies glowed brightly with a warm, steadfast light that made Cloe feel at ease. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced since before her king had predicted the time of his own death. The light was soft, but it radiated power that dwarfed anything Cloe had seen or felt in this universe. In the distance, the elder Delphox could make out the five Champions of Harmony fighting in the main plaza of the shopping district. The Daemon Prince kicked Father through the mall entrance as the Pokémon struggled to get going. As the Regigigas pulled himself from the rubble, Angron took the opportunity to swing his blood-soaked blade at the ponies that charged him.

The five champions were bruised and beaten. Using her mind’s eye to enhance her vison of the battle, Cloe could see them more clearly. Their shields were flickering in and out of existence, but their shields were not what protected them from the Primarch’s blade. They were glowing with the same light that shone from the princesses, burning away the Daemon Primarch’s bloody sword, then his arm, and finally his body as the champion’s light grew to encompass the entire plaza. The Primarch’s defeat was underscored by the ear splitting sound of the bio-ships crashing to earth in a square formation around the city’s walls.

Despite the defeat of their leader, the blood-crazed daemon host continued to charge through their portals. More opened, and great beasts rode forth to crash through defensive lines in an effort to completely eradicate the Pokémon. Stunned by the breadth and scope of their victory, Cloe couldn’t understand what drove these monsters now. In her mind, they should be fleeing for their pathetic lives in the face of a foe they clearly couldn’t defeat. As the thought of a greater force than the Daemon Prince occurred to her, she gasped. She had been so lost in observing the destruction of her enemies that she had failed to notice the raven-creature stepping out of the empty space behind her. He grabbed her throat in a large, gnarled talon as he smiled greedily at the princesses before him.

“Such beautiful, luscious power,” he said through heavy, rapturous breaths. “To slay a Daemon Primarch so effortlessly… Ah, I can only imagine what I will gain from it.”

“And what makes you think a beast like you could handle our might?” Princess Celestia said, her eyes narrowing in disdain as she addressed the daemon.

“All things can be corrupted for the purpose of Chaos,” the daemon cawed dangerously. “You are no exception. I will prove that!”

“Tell me, daemon,” Luna said as she walked slowly toward Destiny Slayer and his hostage. “Did you have anything to do with the heist of Dark Arceus? I had a dream about it early this morning…”

“Take another step and your precious ‘friend’ dies a most horrible death!” the Lord of Change shouted. Cloe could feel the fear and tension in his grip as he threatened the brightly glowing ponies. Luna stopped, but her eyes shone fiercely as she looked upon the wicked creature. “This invasion was orchestrated by Tzeentch and Khorne themselves! Even the gods take notice of you now! You have barely tapped into your endless well of power, and now they see it for what it is! With that power, I could become a god to rival the one who made me!”

“Oh? And what do you know of love and friendship?”

The hysterical daemon froze as he pondered the question, his face drooping at the foreign concepts. Cloe could feel the gears turning in his mind, but she knew he would find no answer that he truly understood.

“We know it can be turned to our advantage,” said two simultaneous voices from the air behind the princesses. Destiny Slayer smiled madly as he watched his cohort materialize before them.

“Not even ponies who understand this power have been able to turn it to evil for long,” Twilight Sparkle said as the glow around the princesses began to fade. “Even when my element was taken from me, my friends and I had more control over it than our enemy did!”

“I don’t even think corrupting this power would work in the way you intend,” Cadance said. “To corrupt love would be to turn it to hatred, but then it loses that which gave it strength in the first place. It seems to me that, if you tried to turn our magic, the love you corrupted would cease to exist and its power would be lost.”

“I…” Fateweaver’s heads said in unison as they stammered for an answer.

“They know nothing of what gives us our strength, there’s no chance for them to understand the process of turning it to their will,” Celestia said with a soft, pitying sigh. In the distance, a single breath of fire erupted into the sky, a signal from the Entei guarding Julia. “Besides, our diamond pillars have finally been raised and this conversation no longer matters.”

“How dare you speak…” the Lords of Change screamed together. Their sentence was stopped short as they froze in place. Cloe fell from the daemon’s grasp as its now translucent body no longer held form.

“It’s about time,” she said as she rubbed her throat.

“W-what…?” Twilight Sparkle stammered as she looked from one daemon to the other, then out at the battlefields to see that the enemies in the streets and at the wall had suffered the same fate. All around God’s Breath, the fighting had ceased. Every creature that belonged to this universe no longer moved. Their bodies were now silent, translucent shades that hung aimlessly in the air.

“Are they really holograms?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“No, they were quite real,” Celestia said with a tired laugh. “At least, they were somewhat real. To be honest, I’m not sure how to classify this event.”

“Whether these creatures were real or not, their effects on us were most certainly real,” Cloe said as she looked down at the battered Pokémon now slumping to the ground in exhausted relief. She looked out at the horizon to see that the Tyranid bio-ships had become translucent, as well. The swarms that had been crawling out of them were now frozen in space and time.

“Has this happened to the entire planet?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“I believe so, though I’m not one to adequately explain the situation. For a better lecture, let us go to the Slowking College. It was their realization that led us to this plan, afterall.”

“Alright, but we should go get the others. They’ll want an explanation, too.”

The rest of the group agreed and prepared to leave the wall. After bowing and asking permission, Mistress Cloe climbed atop Princess Celestia’s back and they flew to the shopping district to gather Twilight’s friends.