Episode 218: Shadow of the Sun

A young mare of the Solar Guard spat blood and mud from her mouth, her ears ringing so loudly that for a moment it was all she could do to even orient herself as the world gave a nauseating tilt. Guardsmare Sunflower sincerely regretted the day she’d enlisted, mostly out of a moment of whimsical belief her cutie mark a cup of coffee might translate into her being an alert and attentive guard as opposed to being a barista like her mother before her. Honestly only one in a dozen ponies in the Guard had cutie marks pertaining to any kind of military service, which was not wholly surprising given Equestria’s generally peaceful state. Pay was good, so a lot of ponies just enlisted for a year or two to build up funds for future civilian ventures. Sunflower mostly just did it because as much as she loved coffee, she wasn’t ready to settle down to a life of brewing up lattes for tourists passing through her mom’s Manehatten cafe.

Right now, dazed from a nearby explosion from a burst shield pylon, her face half coated in blood that wasn’t hers, as she fumbled about for her spear, Sunflower would’ve given anything to be huddling in that cafe with her mother.

The shrill ringing in her ears slowly gave way to the echoing shouts and cries of pain from nearby, where she gulped to see another pony, a unicorn stallion whose coat was either black, or just mostly burned from the explosion. She saw the wreckage of the pylon nearby, little more than twisted metal and sparking bits of magi-tech machinery. One of those terrible crimson beams had hit it, and Sunflower had barely thrown herself into the bottom of a trench in time to avoid being blasted to bits herself. From the smell of charred flesh, others hadn’t been so lucky.

She stumbled over to the crying unicorn and knelt by him, hooves scrambling for a medical pack from her field bag, only to find her bag had also come loose in the explosion and was now nowhere to be found. “Aah! Crap! Uh, h-hold on, I’ll find a medic!” she told the stallion, trying and failing to keep the panic out of her voice.

Still unarmed, she spun to begin looking around for another unicorn, hopefully a mage with medical spells, or at least a pony with an actual med-kit still around, only to come face to face with one of them.

This one hadn’t transformed yet, hadn’t become some hulking beast of bony protrusions of monstrous features, yet somehow Sunflower found the pale, flat face of the humanoid Arrancar even more disturbing as he stood on the lip of the trench. His lips curled in a disturbingly thin, hungry smile, a tongue licking out like a snake tasting the air. A long, straight blade in his hands dripped with blood.

“Hello there.”

The simple greeting had all of the cold weight of a cat greeting a mouse.

Sunflower’s heart rapped against her ribcage at a frantic pace. Like many of her fellow Solar Guard she’d taken a potion at the start of the battle to enhance her reflexes, but as the fight had worn on that effect had lessened until it was all but gone, and without her field bag she didn’t have any more potions to spare. Her hoof felt around for her spear, her eyes locked on the Arrancar as he hopped into the trench and stalked towards her, still smiling like a skull. Against all odds, her hoof found the haft of a spear, she wasn’t even sure if it was hers or somepony else’s. She all but tripped over herself trying to pick it up and aim its gleaming tip at the monster coming towards her.

Each spear, enchanted with potent magic, had a small rune engraved at a point just above the halfway mark of the shaft. Any pony, even an earth pony like her, that pressed down on that rune would activate the magic of the spear, causing a beam of focused magical fire to lash out in a beam. She’d seen these beams cut into these creatures, even if she was pretty sure she herself so far hadn’t landed a single hit in the desperate barrages she’d fired alongside her fellow Solar Guard.

Now she let out a shout, more of fear than anything else, as she squeezed the rune, thrusting the spear at the Arrancar. A flash of flame scorched the wall of the trench, but Sunflower blinked as the Arrancar all but vanished from view! If her potion was still working she’d have seen the movement, but now it was all she could do to throw herself to the side on instinct as a punishing kick hammered her side, breaking a rib. She hit the trench wall, gasping for breath as the Arrancar lowered his leg from the kick he’d delivered and advanced on her, blade now raising up to strike.

“Now, now morsel, the harder you fight, the more it’s gonna hurt. Was going to snap your neck clean, but now I’ve got to cut you, for making me work.”

She tried to raise her spear but in a flash he stamped on it, snapping the weapon in half. She threw the half in her hooves at him anyway, which he batted aside with his free hand with a look of mocking ‘sympathy’.

Sunflower scrambled back until her haunches were against the trench wall. She had nowhere to run, and if she tried to climb the wall, she’d just get cut down from behind. Her only option was to charge headlong, and go down swinging. With a heavy breath that brought a lance of pain from her busted rib, she gathered her courage and got ready to rush her foe. Just then, a blast of raw, blue colored magic impacted the Arrancar from the side, sending him sprawling in a smoking heap. Shocked, Sunflower looked to see the injured unicorn she’d been trying to save had pushed himself up, not quite standing, but rather holding himself partially upright on shaking forelegs, his horn sparking blue.

“Gugh...gu...go...” he told her, half of his face a burned mess with one eye seared shut.

She took one look at him, then one look at the stunned Arrancar that was stumbling back to his feet... and proceeded to charge the Arrancar. Still dazed from the unicorn’s magic blast, the Arrancar turned around just in time to get a full bodied tackle from Sunflower, who while not large for an earth pony, was still an earth pony. Which mean she could still hit like a wrecking ball as long as she got a proper gallop going. Now, she’d been trained for hoof-to-hoof combat when she’d joined the Solar Guard, but in truth at this moment, filled with terror, adrenaline, and a certain simmering rage that was now boiling over... Sunflower didn’t even have a glimmer of a thought about any training. She just started punching. And punching some more. And kicking. And biting. There may have been a head butt or two thrown in for good measure.

She felt her hooves ache with each impact. Hitting the Arrancar was like hitting a wall of fleshy steel. Yet hard as his body was, unnaturally as his durability was, she felt his bones grind and muscles bruise from her impacts. She certainly heard his own grunts of pain as she pummeled him for all she was worth.

Sadly it didn’t last more than a second or two before the Arrancar got his wits about him and she felt his fingers clamp around her neck like a collar of tightening iron. She felt herself hauled upward, held aloft by her neck as she kept trying to punch and kick him. He glared at her, then at the unicorn who shot him, eyes wild with malicious fury.

“Want me to snap her neck in front of you, or should I incinerate you while she watches? Not sure which will be more satisfying,” he said while raising his other hand to point at the unicorn stallion, the bloody pool of energy forming in his palm that Sunflower had seen wipe out whole squads in a single destructive beam.

She tried to speak, to get him to focus on her, but his fingers on her neck cut off her words, even as she slammed her hooves into the side of the Arrancar’s face. Maybe if she punched him enough he’d kill her first, buying the unicorn time to escape? Granted, she couldn’t even tell how the battle was going even among the trenches of this particular bastion. How many of her regiment were even still alive? She heard the sounds of battle all over, but it was impossible to tell proximity. For the moment, it was as if everything, the entire battle for the city, had narrowed down to just this one trench, and this one moment.

Then everything lit up in purest, sunfire white.

Sunflower felt heat searing nearby, so hot she felt for sure she must be getting scorched away to nothing. Yet there was no pain, and the light felt almost warm. The Arrancar, however, apparently didn’t feel the same way, as he was screaming at the top of his lungs. He dropped her as his whole body lit up in dancing swirls of roaring white fire, and for a second Sunflower saw the Arrancar’s body like a black, sooty silhouette against a corona of white. Then even that image melted away, and all that was left of the Arrancar was a black, smoking spot where not even a scrap of bone was left remaining.

The sky, still streaked with night’s stars, was lit by a beacon of sunlight that streaked overhead, bathing the trench and all nearby in a warm halo. Sunflower looked up in jaw dropped awe, and behind her the badly burned unicorn let out a sigh of relief, all but collapsing as he breathed out a sigh, “...It’s her... the Princess is here.”

The blinding beacon of sunfire descended, hammering into the ground with a radiant burst of white flames that spread out around in an all encompassing aura. Sunflower felt as if her body was being energized by the warming flames, while she heard howls of fear from beyond the trench. Risking to stretch up and peek above the rim of the trench, she saw dozens of the enemy, Arrancar both transformed and not, backing away from the beacon of boiling white flames. The light, blinding as it was, was fading just enough for Sunflower to now make out the form of the mare within.

Princess Celestia’s body dripped with an aura of purifying flame that clung to her every inch, flowing from her spread wings in a wall of fire that was cutting the Arrancar off from the ruined bastion and its beleaguered defenders. Sunflower saw the survivors of her regiment gathering up, awed, crying eyes looking upon their Princess as the Arrancar recoiled back. Floating by Celestia’s side were twin blades of condensed sunfire, and in a blazing motion she swept both forward, and from their tips exploded dual roaring waves of searing flame that threw back the Arrancar like scattering moths.

Celestia’s voice boomed out, the vaunted royal voice, reverberating to the sky.

“Begone, vile creatures! Flee while you still cling to your miserable existences! Every moment you remain in this realm is a moment I will hunt you and sear you from the surface of my kingdom! There is nowhere to hide from the Sun, Hollows!

It was beautiful, and terrifying, the wrath of Celestia. Sunflower would remember it for as long as she lived, telling her grandfoals about the horrific yet awe inspiring sight of Celestia crashing into the ranks of Arrancar, deflecting their Cero beams with cleaving slices of here sunblades as she pursued them with a storm of sunfire that billowed from her wings.

What she wouldn’t tell her future grand foals was that as she went back into the trench, going to the side of the unicorn stallion and tended to his wounds with a med-pack recovered from her discovered field bag, she was also shivering in fear. Even if the Princess's wrath was directed at their enemies, there was something in it that chilled Sunflower’s soul, almost as if the Princess she witnessed wasn’t quite the same Celestia Equestria knew...

Celestia had always been a mare slow to anger. Patience and empathy were the hallmarks of her reign, her approachable manner and caring demeanor the pillars upon which she’d stood while ruling her little ponies for a span of years few could really comprehend. It’s one thing to say you’ve lived more than a thousand years, let alone ruled for that long, but it was a wholly different matter to actually live through that timeframe. In all those years Celestia could count the number of times she’d truly, truly been taken by the spirit of wrath before she ran out of limbs to count with.

None of those instances were of public knowledge. Some might think her ancient conflict with Tirek or Discord might have counted, or perhaps the day Chrysalis had infiltrated Cadence’s wedding, but the truth was that conflicts like that were more... irritations to Celestia. The times she’d given in to true anger were incidents that wouldn’t be found in any history book, nor immortalized in any stained glass windows of Canterlot’s palace. Some, because they’d occurred before she’d become a Princess, whose name would be remarked by history. Others because she knew they were not things to take pride in, and best left unremembered save only for herself and those who had been there.

But there were traces. A cliff in the Dragon Lands that was partially glass, the remains of a vast, scorched black dragon skull lodged in it that no living dragon today remembered the name of. A lone hill in the southern jungle where a temple to some forgotten purpose once stood, now ashen ruin where the melted throne lay at the bottom of a charred chasm. Only Celestia knew the truth of the ash stained moments that left those traces. Even Luna only knew in passing, from Celestia’s own recounting. Luna herself had some few such incidents, but hers was an anger that left even fewer traces than Celestia’s, with only shadows to remember deeds done in darkness.

Not a lot made Celestia angry. But those that did saw a side of her she was not proud of. A shadow she’d long known she’d carried deep within, like the void hidden behind the brightness of the sun. Was it her’s alone, she had often wondered? Or was this an... inheritance, this wrath? Before she ever even heard the word ‘Relic’ and learned its meaning, had her soul carried this part of Eos into the future?

It was all she could do to not let the question overtake her mind as she felt her blood boiling in her veins, her swords of flame singing a roaring song of judgment as she assailed the Arrancar’s disorganized force. Her mind worked spells through her horn like an expert weaver spinning threads into a tapestry. The proud spire of her horn burned white hot with an ever flowing blaze of magic, her awareness extended beyond mere sight as she surveyed the battlefield even as she violently seared her swords in a twin cut that broke through crimson Cero beams to burn the Arrancar behind them.

The bastion behind her was cleared of foes, the Arrancar regrouping under her assault. She sensed the survivors of the bastion’s regiment like tiny flames in her mind’s eye, a force of two hundred Solar Guard reduced to nearly half that number by the time she’d arrived to grant them relief. Pain tore her heart in a ragged gouge. This was the trigger and source of her fury. She cherished her subjects. Each and every one of them. To threaten her people was to earn her ire. To harm them and disrupt their peaceful lives was to earn her disdain...

But to kill them? To actually kill her precious subjects?

Unnerved as they were, the Arrancar did rally against her. The force before her consisted of a solid four dozen or so; Celestia was not wholly counting, truth be told. The majority spread out, hammering Ceros and those swift little bullets of Bala, all of it destructive reishi in crimson or emerald colors that swept at Celestia in a constant deluge that filled the air around her. She swept much of it aside, although not all. She was not uninjured, nor wholly invincible against the Arrancar horde’s powers, yet the Arrancar lacked the skill to truly overwhelm her with their numbers. For every ten Ceros she splashed aside on shields of magic or her blades of flame, one may have gotten through to impact upon her magical aura itself. For every barrage of Bala, a few of the hardened spheres of reishi managed to strike her body. Yet the pain was irrelevant, the injury minimal... for the moment.

Amid those volley’s of energy, some dozen tried to engage her up close; all changed via the transformative power of their Zanpaktou. Resurreccion did vastly increase the potency of even these drones, giving them physical strength enough that glancing blows would cut even her hide. She was not inclined to give them the opening to do so, and with magic pulsing through her with enough enhancement spells to make her hide glow gold, Celestia was overmatching the foes foolish enough to think taking her head on was a good idea.

One that looked like a stark white bear with bone quills sprouting from her humanoid back, and carrying a ludicrously sized sword that emitted jets of red energy came flying upon Celestia from above. This one sliced her sword down in a meteoric slash that could have likely broken one of Manehatten’s office buildings into a pile of rubble. Celestia slipped one of her flame blades against the edge of that building busting blow and in a hail of sparks deflected the gigantic sword upward and traced the edge of her sun hot weapon across the middle of the Arrancar. There wasn’t even blood spray, just steam and cauterized spirit flesh as the flame blade cut through Hierro hardened hide and nearly bisected the Arrancar in a flash.

Tendrils like the snapping arms of a squid, pale white and covered in viscous spikes, tried to snatch around one of her wings. She turned her burning lit eyes of fire upon the offending Arrancar, who had conical shaped protrusions on his transformed back that sprouted the tendrils in their dozens. He tried to wrap up her other wing too, calling to a fellow Arrancar who resembled a spindly cross between an earwig and a skeleton, all long pincers and claws that came at her from behind with long slashing limbs. The speed of the assault was impressive.

Celestia moved with harsh abruptness. Flames crawled up the tendrils around her in a hungry instant, causing the Arrancar they were a part of to howl and flail backwards before the streak of consuming fire boiled over his body. The other Arrancar’s claws scraped over her hide, striking her back. Shards of bone flecked off of the claws in molten droplets as the heat burned them, even as they scored a quartet of shallow cuts. Before the clawed, insectile Arrancar could finish blinking in surprise, Celestia’s hind legs kicked with volcanic force, hooves impacted with a chest of boney armor that broke like cheap plaster under an impact louder than a sonic boom.

She didn’t even look at the two bodies, one burning, the other broken near in half, falling to the ground below. More were coming. A wave of destructive light came down upon her, multiple Cero beams converging together into a thunderous detonation. A shell of golden light flowing with arcane symbols encased her, absorbing the blow, and she responded to the attack with a flare of her horn. Magical circles bled into existence around her, spiraling sigils that formed pin-points of brilliant sunlight that then shot out in a thick swarm of thin beams. Arrancar flickered and fled, their high-speed maneuvers only saving some of them while others lost limbs or more to the severing beams of sunfire.

Hit them harder! Burn them until it rains ash! You have stronger magic still, so use it, and make these cretins pay!

Celestia’s jaw tightened, her body almost moving like on puppet strings as her wings blurred into a haze of flame light, propelling her forward into an oncoming cluster of transformed Arrancar. She summoned more thick blades of condensed flame, forming a spinning wheel of incineration around her. Hammering fists of bone, thick spikes, and seeking blades all tried to break through to her. Each Arrancar struck with blows that would sunder castle walls, with speed blurring past eyesight. Celestia met it all with howling flames and cutting fury that left ash and charred black bone in her wake. Injury meant nothing to her. What wounds she took she bore without thought, her own blood boiling away to steam before she even noticed she bled.

The Arrancar before her were stubborn, willfully eager for violence, but they were still bending before her like a tree swaying to the breaking point under a hurricane wind. She could see it on their faces. They’d come looking for prey. Animals on the hunt, hungry and willing to fight for their food. But what Celestia was offering them was more than they’d bargained for, and so with each one that fell their resolve wavered, burning away as surely as their bodies were.

The voice grinned in her mind, her voice, or another’s?

Run them down! Their will is breaking! Now is the time to shatter them completely, and burn them to the last, fleeing wretch!

The Arrancar before her were indeed starting to run, some throwing last ditch attacks via a few hastily fired Ceros as they started to retreat in blurs of motion. And Celestia nearly rushed to pursue them, her heart burning in her chest to unleash yet more of this boiling fury unto those who had dared bring murder and death to her realm. Yet a chain of rationality still managed to wrap a cooling cord around her mind and heart, whispering in her own clearer voice.

Stop. Don’t be blind. Look around you, and focus upon what matters.

She almost didn’t listen to herself, but for a second or two Celestia halted her pursuit and actually took stoke of her surroundings, and she shivered with realization as her mind started to process information beyond pure fury and judgment.

She was nowhere near the actual battle lines anymore. She’d pursued this one group of Arrancar nearly a mile across the sky, leaving burning hills and patches of forest beneath her in a long trail away from Manehatten and the bastions around it. Bastions that were still under attack, as Manehatten itself was. Yes, she’d broken the Arrancar assault force at one of the bastions, routed them completely, but that had been just one pack, and her city and soldiers remained locked in struggle against hundreds more. There were even flashes of detonations within Manehatten itself now, a few Arrancar entering through the barrier, where Celestia sensed Pinkie Pie and Rarity now fought.

Getting a grip on her mind, Celestia growled under her breath, “We are here to protect our ponies, not burn everything in our path. There is a difference.”

...Is there?

The thought was bitter, spiteful, and rose from the back of her thoughts with the crackling of flames, Dead enemies cannot do harm. Bring forth more magic, more power, and we can cleanse this battlefield in short order.

She could almost feel spells filling her mind, images of High Magic of vastly destructive power. All of it too much. She’d burn her own troops and risk Manehatten itself if she used spells of that potency, not to mention drain herself. She was powerful, but not inexhaustible. Her wrath had blinded her to both how much energy she was expended alongside the fact that, even if she wasn’t feeling them yet, she was accumulating a litany of minor injuries.

Celestia got a grip on herself, pushing the other voice down. Eos was not going to blind her this day, and Celestia was certainly not about to use any of her Relics as long as the mind of her past self remained so potently able to influence her. She could all but feel Eos coiling within her, a smoldering flame waiting for another chance to flare up and cast a shadow over everything Celestia believed she stood for.

Allowing the Arrancar of the group she’d routed to continue fleeing, Celestia turned around and on swift wings of flame she streaked back towards Manehatten, determined to keep her own mind and soul while driving back these foes. With any luck, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were managing to deal with the enemies that had gotten into the city itself.

Rarity ducked aside as a carriage painted in yellow and black checkered pattern of a taxi went flying past her head and crashed through the storefront of one of her favorite mane salons that was on 6th Timber Street.

“Oh you brute!” she scowled at the nine foot tall hulk that had thrown the taxi, “That was Majestic Mane’s! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a stylist who can actually do my mane within an acceptably punctual time frame!?”

Looking for all the world like an albino, humanoid lobster, the Arrancar raised a pincer to his head of off colored lime green hair and grunted, “Uh, no? I don’t? And really don’t care, either. Can you, like, die now please? Or at least stop talking?”

He leveled his other hand, which was also a lobster pincer, towards her, and she had barely enough time to leap aside as a melting swath of green flame billowed out of the pincer. Several more carriages parked along the side of the broad avenue were reduced to smoking husks as the Arrancar tried to follow Rarity’s fast gallop. She was trying to keep him from destroying more stores, so was angling her dash towards a more open parking lot. Of course she was also baiting him, inviting her foe to keep his eyes on her marvelously sprinting form.

As she slid behind a brick, chest high barrier along the edge of the parking lot, she smiled to herself as the glitter of metal sparkled above the Arrancar. Her chakrams flew downward, having been directed by Rarity to fly up and around to hang in the air until the Arrancar was distracted. She’d stayed ahead of the Hollow’s burning assault with expert grace, for she could have dodged faster and further, but she wanted to ensure his attention was raptly focused on her, like a dancer enticing a partner to the stage.

Of course it was for the purpose of pulling the rug out from under him, in the form of deadly circular blades that glinted at her beck and call. She’d intended to be generous and simply use the blue toxin chakram to freeze the Arrancar’s nervous system in a relatively painless fashion, but losing her favorite salon, not to mention the knowledge of how much property damage this brutish oaf was inflicting on her second favorite city had put Rarity in a poor mood indeed. The orange coated chakram struck first, a steel flash against the Arrancar’s shoulder that tore through his thick plates of white armored hide. The poison robbed him of his sight, his eyes going blank as he blinked in confusion. He spun, sensing the danger now, his form starting to flicker with that streak of high-speed known as Sonido. But Rarity’s chakrams were faster, already striking even as he tried to dodge. The green one tore past his hip, biting deep, and causing him to start retching in a vomitous response.

The blue struck as well, spinning around his legs and cutting into the weaker armored joints around the back of his knees. This toxin poured numbing, paralysis through his limbs, locking those legs in place even as he bent over to dry heave from the green poison’s sickness.

Rarity hopped over the barricade she’d been using for cover, approaching the Arrancar with fluid, swift steps while her chakram hovered around him like the heads of bobbing serpents. The red and purple chakram she kept back, prepared to use them, but preferring not to if she could help it. The former would boil the Arrancar’s blood and flesh, messy on the best of days, while the purple’s effect was too chaotic in nature for a fight in a populated area.

Even now Rarity could hear screams, shouts, the noise of thousands of frightened ponies. Part of this was just her enhanced senses with her Inheritor form allowing her to hear a lot further than normal, but the street was still plenty clustered with ponies who were still in the process of fleeing. The fight between Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and the invading Arrancar who’d gotten through the barrier had barely been going for a couple of minutes, so many of Manehattan’s citizens who’d been out on the street had barely time to register the danger, let alone start to flee. Rarity thought it lucky this attack was happening after sundown, but it wasn’t that late into the evening, and in a city like Manehattan that never truly slept, there was still plenty of activity. It was fortunate the salon had been closed, honestly.

Rarity had lost track of Pinkie Pie visually, but it was impossible not to hear her friend’s lute playing up a storm several blocks over. Pinkie in her usual, bombastic flair, had drawn the attention of more opponents, but Rarity had confidence that Pinkie could take the heat for a bit. Once she had this brute down for the count, she’d go and help, it was just a question of how? The black chakram was out of the question entirely. She didn’t even have it summoned. The horrific effects of that toxic disease was not something to risk unleashing in a populated area, and she still felt a little sick to her stomach with guilt that she’d risked using it against Charybdis back in the Abyss. No way she was using it here in Manehattan.

“Alright, you’ve made quite enough of a mess of things,” Rarity said, lowering her horn towards the Arrancar, who was still vomiting, “Do be a good fellow and fall asleep, would you?”

She was no master of magic like Twilight was, but the Relics and her memories as an alicorn changed matters for all of them. Rarity had knowledge from Zoismos’ life, dozens of spells she’d never imagined. He was a specialist in biology and alchemy, especially as applied to magical poisons, gasses, toxins, and conjured substances. His six chakrams bore his greatest inventions in those areas, but he knew of many spells to bring forth substances of every type. She made use of one such spell now as her horn drew a circle of pale blue light, pentagrams overlaying each other and morphing to form a snaking sigil.

A stream of faint gray gas emitted from the magic circle, flowing towards the Arrancar, which if inhaled would knock him out cold.

Rarity almost didn’t catch the green glow forming around his palm, planted on the street as he’d bent over retching. She swore under her breath and changed her spell, instantly weaving something new as the Arrancar, resilient despite the debilitating poisons in his system, fired an emerald Cero straight into the ground. The explosion tore the center of the street apart, windows from surrounding apartment buildings shattering from sonic impact.

In a bright blue flash Rarity appeared in the air, hovering. Ictu, the Blink spell. Twilight had drilled that one into all of them at this point during their training beneath the old Castle of the Two Sisters. A spell fast as thought that allowed a form of short range, hasted motion with a minor form of teleportation. Rarity admitted it was handy, giving Flash Sentry’s Flash Steps a run for their bits. It had gotten her clear of the Cero detonation with little more than a bit of scuffed marking on her war dress and the diamond-like scales on her chest and neck. She’d probably had survived the blast directly, but it would’ve hurt.

The stubbornly determined Arrancar, forcing his body to move awkwardly through sheer reiatsu resistance, flung himself into the air after her. His legs didn’t really work, and his eyes were blind, his ears deaf. He was operating purely on his spiritual senses, targeting the distortion in them that Rarity’s magic caused. Both pincers now flailed in the air, spewing green flame in sheets.

Anger and fear flared in Rarity. Not for herself, but for the fact that those flames were getting close to hitting the surrounding apartments, and she could see the faces of terrified ponies looking out their broken windows at the scene. One mare was cradling a baby foal, barely a year old, their faces illuminated by the emerald flames that were almost washing over their apartment building.

Necessity and cold calculation snapped through Rarity in an instant. She had wanted to do this cleanly, without blood on her hooves, but her options had grown thin. She cast out magic from her horn in multiple weaves. While she may never have matched Twilight in terms of raw power or spell knowledge, she actually outclassed her alicorn friend when it came to pure precision and focus for weaving multiple spells at once. She’d controlled dozens of individual telekinesis spells to work her wonders of fashion in her boutique. Weaving multiple shield spells in thick diamond patterns around the apartments, saving them from the flames, while simultaneously controlling her chakram to rush up and strike the Arrancar in a multi-colored blaze of motion was a simple affair for her.

This time she wove the red chakram’s dance among the others, and struck harder and deeper with their biting sambo of motion. Already with reduced senses, barely moving well due to previous poisoning, the Arrancar now had little chance to defend himself. One arm was severed, then the next, all toxins flooding his system in a searing flood. Rarity watched him fall, flesh boiling, retching, and convulsing into a paralyzed, frozen statue before hitting the street in a cracking impact.

She didn’t know if he was dead, but he certainly was no longer moving, and that was all she cared about in that moment. Feeling a spot of wetness on her pale white fur, she reached up a hoof to touch the splatter of blood she’d gotten on her face from one of his bleed stumps as he feel. She looked at the blood for a moment as if not quite sure what to think, then she heard an explosion rock the night from several blocks down, where she sensed Pinkie Pie still fighting.

With a deep, shuddering breath, she ignored the blood on her face and began to direct the levitation spell she was using to stay aloft to fly towards where Pinkie Pie was, or rather the flashes and booms of explosions and the orchestral echoes of her music could be heard. However she barely got moving before she felt the brush of air and a spark of danger in her mind, perhaps Zoismos’ own instincts of a thousand battles shouting warning to her. She twisted in the air as something white and fast flew by at hyper-sonic speed, ripping her cheek but not impaling her head, which was what the projectile would have done if she hadn’t moved.

She caught a brief sight of the offending object, a long spike of three foot bone, pointed to a needle end, creating a conical shock wave as it flew past her into the sky. Having only just registered the near miss, still feeling the heat of her own blood pooling down her cheek from the ragged cut there just opposite the blood splatter from her defeated foe, Rarity cast Ictu in a silver-quick flash. She blinked down upon a nearby roof, another of the spikes flying through where she’d just been floating.

Her eyes flicked left and right, scanning, her senses of magic searching for that mirror distortion that spiritual pressure caused. There! Four rooftops away, on an equal sized apartment complex to the one Rarity stood on, she saw a feminine and humanoid shape lean out from behind a set of air ducts. The Arrancar was a short woman, sporting a long green ponytail. She was transformed by Resurreccion, the entire transformation forming her right arm into a melded protrusion of white bone that took the form of a long barreled launcher with a slim groove down its center, and a set of nodule growths at its back that emitted steam. Her left arm was bare and normal, the rest of her body still human, skin pitch onyx. Then a white spike grew from her palm, which she loaded into her weaponized right arm, aiming at Rarity once more.

Steam flared from the gun-arms back as the spike was launched at ludicrous speeds, and even as Rarity dodged aside, the projectile’s passage tore a gap through the roof of the building she was standing on.

Sucking in a breath, Rarity called forth her chakrams, ready to take on this new opponent, and silently hoping Pinkie Pie could stand her ground on her own for a little while longer.

Pinkie Pie may as well have been made of rubber from the way she was bouncing about, cartwheeling from spot to spot like a cotton candy colored basketball. Every motion her hooves moved over the strings of her lute to create a fast paced orchestra of discordant music that seemed to push and pull at her opponents that continued to try and fail to box in the frustrating pony in front of them.

One was a brute of gnarled, crocodilian features, his transformation turning him into a swollen, bipedal mass of muscle and hard protrusions of sharp bone that culminated in two beefy fists whose knuckles sported hooked claws, while his face was covered in a long reptilian mask of bleached fangs. His whole front end was deadly, even his chest showing off pointed growths of bone. His tail was no joking matter either, thick as a garbage can but long as a telephone pole, and he used the thing like a whip with breakneck speed. Pinkie Pie’s darting, dancing form had left a trail of craters pockmarking the side walk where that tail had tried to strike her.

The other Arrancar was the female whose arms had grown urchin like shells coated in needle spikes, similar bone growths flowing over her back and chest and down her legs like coral reefs, showing off more sharp ends that gleamed over her every limb. Most of a poor, defenseless street front was left riddled with those needles, the female Arrancar capable of shooting them in thick clusters. Pinkie Pie’s music, infectious on a magical level, had helped throw off the Arrancar’s aim considerably, but something with that kind of spreading effect could still be dangerous even when aimed poorly. Not to mention the civilians.

Pinkie had led these two Arrancar away from a fairly crowded tavern scene, trying to draw them towards Manehattan’s central park. Granted, there might still be ponies there, too, but the park was open enough that the chances of collateral damage were a lot lower. Hence why she’d been “fighting” in a purely defensive manner thus far, shouting quips at the Arrancar to keep them riled and chasing her down the streets.

“So what is an Arrancar’s favorite breakfast? Holl-O’s! Which are better at golf, Soul Reapers, Quincy, or Hollows? Hollows! Because there’s a ‘hole in one’!”

“I’m gonna kill her slowly,” said the female Arrancar, groaning at the assault of jokes and swung the shell on her right arm in a wide arc, flinging a cloud of needles into the air that then arced down in a wider pattern, trying to prevent Pinkie Pie any avenue of escape.

“Really? Because I plan to kill her as fast as possible so she stops talking!” roared the crocodile shaped brute who kept at a distance to avoid his companions needle spray, but kept his huge, whipcord tail poised to strike. Pinkie Pie, even amid her joking, knew he was just waiting for her to try and slip away from the rain of needles so he could tag her with his tail when she dodged.

Man where these two seriously underestimating her, and she couldn’t help but giggle as she blurred her hooves over her lute, the music picking up to a riveting pace as electric notes filled the air.

“No need to feel so salty about a couple of jokes,” she teased as the musical notes reverberated into the air and took sonic shape, vibrating magical particles into solid form that looked a lot like bursting pink music notes. The physical force of these notes slammed into the bon needles hailing down, halting them and then dropping them harmlessly about. Pinkie was careful not to just fling them about, willy-nilly. Still too many ponies fleeing down the streets, not to mention the ones hiding in nearby buildings.

“Those aren’t jokes, they’re verbal crimes against good taste,” said the female Arrancar, “Now stop squirming around and let us eat you already!”

Pinkie Pie felt the concussive wind force of the male Arrnacar’s tail coming at her from behind, and with a swift, bouncing step she flipped over the attack. She saw his arm flex, gripping his own tail to snap it back and try to fling it around at her in mid-air, but Pinkie swung her lute around and down, letting magic alone vibrate through the strings as she launched a wave of pink sonic force in the shape of a giant boxing glove. It struck the reptilian Arrancar dead in the chest, knocking him back down the street as his clawed feet gouged deep into the concrete for purchase.

“Nah, I know I look delicious, but I’m just not into being nibbled on. If you’re hungry I can always take you both out for some Las Nachoes!”

“Ugh, how do you even know enough to make these bad puns?” asked the grumbling, deep voice of the crocodile Arrancar, “Last I checked none of you walking, talking gummies know jack about us.”

“Eh,” Pinkie Pie shrugged, bouncing and balancing on her tail like it was a pogo-stick while still strumming her lute to generate a wave of pink force that knocked aside another cloud of needles from the other Arrancar, “I read the TVTropes page.”

“The...huh?” said a very confused Arrancar, eyes swirling in bewilderment behind the crocodile skull mask.

“Just ignore her crazy talk and help me kill her already, she’s giving me the worst headache!” screamed the female Arrancar, vanishing from sight with a buzzing rush, appearing next to Pinkie Pie with both shell arms clashing together to try to grind the pony to pinky, bloody paste.

Pinkie Pie let herself drop, her tail sticking to the ground like gum as she tilted herself like a mare playing limbo, and the two spiked shells impacted right above her. Even with her lute held awkwardly over her head and behind her back at this angle, she still played, the music gaining a bone-deep vibration of intensity as she spun herself on the axis of her tail and slammed the lute into the female Arrancar’s side. Rather than knocking the Arrancar away, she used the magical vibrations of her music to keep the Arrancar pressed against the lute, pumping sonic energy through the Arrancar’s body while spinning herself around like an ever faster top.

Pinkie became a pink blur, the Arrancar momentarily pinned to her lute like a bullet in a sling. Pinkie then launched the Arrancar like a pitched fast ball, throwing her straight down the street towards the edge of the park, where she crashed through a street lamp and bounced up past the park’s entrance sign. Pinkie cringed a bit at the property damage, but it was better than keeping the fight near the city buildings. She began to bounce after the female Arrancar, while the male began to give chase.

Only a rather unfortunate complication arrived in the form of flashing lights of red and blue, magical headlamps on a carriage of black and white checkers that came bounding up, pulled by a pair of ponies in blue uniforms and caped hats, with another pair hopping out of the carriage. All carried crossbows in shaking hooves, Manehattan police, probably only somewhat briefed on the danger, and nowhere near as well equipped as the Solar Guard.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Pinkie shouted as she halted on the spot, “You guys gotta run away! It isn’t safe!”

It wasn’t clear of any of the officer ponies heard her, or if they did didn’t have a lot of time to react before the charging battering ram of flesh that was the crocodile Arrancar splinted right through their police carriage and sent two of the police flying like punted footballs. Pinkie felt her heart drop and her music instantly shifted as she flung herself into the air, born aloft on magic. It was still strange, having alicorn magic, not even channeling it through a horn, but still able to throw spells out. Pinkie, not exactly a conventional learner, didn’t really absorb any of Twilight’s attempts at teaching actual spells, but she sure had a knack for the magic her previous self, Malva, was fond of too. Flight was definitely a favorite of Malva’s, because who didn’t like to party in the sky?

Flying on sparks of pink energy, Pinkie’s lute gave off gentle but fast notes of protection, strands of swift and vibrant light flowing forth to catch the two police ponies who’d been thrown about. They were both injured, she could tell, and let those musical notes flow into a quick song of healing. Unfortunately just as she was putting the two down, she was a bit slow with her focus distracted between multiple tasks, and this time the male Arrancar’s long, thunderous tail cracked hard against her back and she felt a burst of pain as she was thrown headlong to the ground.

Eating dirt, she skidded a good ten yards on impact, left coughing as she yanked her head from the ground. She managed to spin and catch her lute in her hooves, swinging it like a battle axe to intercept the Arrancar’s follow-up attack as he zipped right towards her with Sonido. His hooked hand claws met with the aura of magic encasing her lute in a blast of force that crunched both Pinkie’s hind legs and the Arrancar’s feet into the ground as brute force met magical might.

“You know, if you just shut up for two seconds, you might be kinda tolerable,” the Arrancar said, “But seriously, turning your back on us to save strangers is a great way to get yourself killed. Maybe we ought to go after more civies, if that’ll make this easier on you.”

“Okie Dokie, don’t think I can keep making jokes about this if you’re all going to be this mean about things. And I reaaaaally don’t like hurting people, but even I can get serious when the time calls for it. It’s just a shame. You kinda look like my pet pal Gummy, but he’s an alligator, and you’re a crocodile, so I can’t make the obvious one-liner.”

“What one-liner?” he asked, once more easily confused, which Pinkie Pie simultaneously appreciated, and kinda felt bad for him. Didn’t seem like the poor guy had a lot going on upstairs, but it made it easy for her to get the drop on him, and considering the way he could easily pancake the police still trying to foolishly surround him, Pinkie wasn’t about to quibble.

Drawing deeper on the alicorn magic bubbling through her, Pinkie popped out of view in a pink flash, utilizing the Blink spell to slip around the Arrancar while running one hoof over the strings of her lute with a sizzling jolt of power. A loud metallic chord filled the air as sonic vibration mixed with neon pink electricity along her lute as she gripped it in both forehoove, planting her hind legs as she swung the lute around, under, then up in a baseball bat swing right between the Arrancar’s legs while bellowing, “See you later alligator! But it doesn’t work because you’re a crocodile, so I guess you’ll have to come back in a while. Oh, hey! That works!”

Whether the Arrancar had any appreciation for Pinkie’s words at all was somewhat lost amid the lightning impact of her strike catapulting him skyward like a bottle rocket, flipping end over end while clutching his crotch in a pained howl. Pinkie didn’t watch to see him drop, instead turning her attention to the two still conscious police ponies, who were trying to help their wounded companions stand.

“Hey, you cops gotta skedaddle, like, super-duper pronto! Go help other ponies stay clear of here, while I take care of this!”

One of them, an off purple mare with a bright orange mane pulled in a tight bun under her police cap, spun a frazzled look Pinkie’s way, “You seriously expect us to just keep our distance!? It’s our job to protect this city-”

“From normal criminals! This is like, superhero vs supervillain stuff going on right now! Gah, has nopony here watched Mane of Steel! Collateral damage is a serious issue and I’m not-” Pinkie Pie hadn’t even finished her rant before she felt her side get impacted, the female Arrancar with the sea urchin arms ramming into her like a super-sonic hoofball player. Pinkie felt her air get blasted from her lungs and the world tumble painfully as she was tackled through the dazed, gathered police, who were sent flying once again, while she was slammed straight into the corner of one of the buildings nearest the park. Brick and mortar exploded around her as she was left crunching into a dining table, inside the now wrecked remains of a dinner.

“Okay, real question,” said the female Arrancar, wiping blood from one of the police ponies off her face, “Why not just say ‘nobody’ or ‘someone’ or ‘people’? Do you have to replace everything with ‘pony’? Because honestly that’s just silly.”

“It’s...” Pinkie Pie stood up, coughing, holding a hoof out to her side in the air, “It’s an endearing quirk of colloquial language.”

“Well, whatever, I’ll respect local custom then and say I’m looking forward to killing everypony here, but you especially,” the Arrancar said as she brought the two half-spherical shells on her arms together to form one big spiked ball as she advanced on Pinkie Pie through the ruined dinner, kicking aside a table as she did so. She only paused briefly to tilt her head to the side at the sight of Pinkie Pie just sort of... standing there, one hoof outstretched.

“Are you trying to ask for a high five or something?”

“...Wait for it...” was all Pinkie said, “Comedy is all about timing.”

“Timing for wha- BONK!”

Like a flying missile, Pinkie Pie’s lute, which she’d dropped back in the park, now came rushing to Pinkie’s hoof. In the process it flew right into the back of the female Arrancar’s head with a resounding, gong-like impact that made the woman plank face down on the floor while the lute slowed down and floated gracefully to Pinkie’s hoof. Pinkie patted the lute lovingly, and skipped over the Arrancar’s unconscious body, flicking her tail at her in the process, before proceeding outside to check on the police.

Her good mood vanished, seeing the state of them. She galloped over to see blood splatter from several deep wounds, and several of the police had limbs twisted badly from the impact they’d endured. Without hesitation, Pinkie strummed up a new tune, soothing and soft, sending pink strands of light into the four police pony’s bodies. None of them were in good shape, and one of them was in critical enough condition that Pinkie wasn’t certain the encouraging healing properties of her musical magic was going to be enough.

And as if things couldn’t get any worse.

“Arrgh... cheap shot, going for the groin like that, but guess I had it coming for taking you lightly, pink stuff. Won’t be making that mistake twice.” said the crocodile Arrancar, stomping back down the street towards the park, limping a bit but otherwise still very much conscious. Pinkie kept playing her healing tune as she turned to him, her face a strangely unsettling mask forming a rictus smile of humor while her eyes were far more serious.

“You know, normally I’m a very friendly, open minded pony. I’m always up for a good time. Even when busting the heads of bad guys, I like to do it with a laugh and grin, and no real hard feelings. But I dunno, there’s something about the way you Hollows act that is bringing something else out of me.”

“The heck are you going on about?” the Arrancar asked, his clawed arms poised to strike as his long tail whipped and lashed behind him, but then he glanced around as Pinkie’s playing changed its tune. Healing strands still softly coiled around the downed police ponies, but now a darker tune lit the air as dark pink energy began to vibrate with sharp sonic chords. Suddenly one, two, four, a dozen, then even more literal buzz-saws of vibrating pink sound magic took shape around the Arrancar.

He blinked and broke out into a cold sweat from the sight as he visibly tried to count the saws, which made a high pitched buzzing sound that wove in with the frightening score of Pinkie’s lute brining things to a screeching, horror violin tempo as now over fifty spinning saws surrounded her opponent. Despite his eyes being mostly riveted to the magical blades now surrounding him at all angles, he did notice out of the corner of his eye that Pinkie Pie’s mane and tail had changed from their usual, perky poof, to being straight as razors. Even Pinkie’s voice had a sharper edge as she giggled at him.

“Now tell me, Mister Arrancar... what were you just saying about making mistakes?”

Under different circumstances Rarity might have enjoyed a game of cat and mouse, but certainly not with her life and the lives of countless innocent civilians on the line. The real problem wasn’t in evading her enemy’s attacks. The Arrancar’s powerful spike shots were fast, yes, but now that Rarity knew what to watch out for she could use Ictu more often than not to ‘Blink’ out of the way in time. The problem, two fold, was that this particular Arrancar was doing her damndest to not only ambush Rarity, but do so in a way that angled her shots towards Manehattan’s various skyscrapers and other buildings.

This was forcing Rarity to not dodge, but utilizing her chakrams and magical shields to try and deflect the shots, which she was managing to do for the moment, but each time the Arrancar would zip away out of view before Rarity could counterattack and make Rarity go on the alert, trying to find her, and more often than not walk into another ambush.

Thus far the rooftops of about half a dozen buildings had big gaping holes or chunks tore out of them from near misses, and Rarity was thanking her lucky stars so far nopony had been killed. She was flying or Blinking from building to building, trying to get closer to Manehatten central park. Not only was that where she sensed Pinkie Pie going, but if Rarity could lead this sniper Arrancar out there, then the forested park would offer fewer hiding places compared to the open rooftops of the city, and maybe let Rarity close the distance.

Problem was, the Arrancar clearly understood that this was Rarity’s plan, so as soon as Rarity tried to go in that direction, she felt her instincts scream in danger. A glint of motion from the corner of a taller skyscraper to her right was all the warning Rarity had before the tell-tale crack of a sonic boom as the sniper launched another attack.

Rarity glanced down behind her, seeing the glass and stone front of an office building. If she dodged, the spike would tear right through the building like it was wet toilet paper, and Rarity could see the shadows of ponies moving behind the windows of the building. With no choice, she launched her chakram in front of her, as she had done several times already. The fast moving blades struck the path of the oncoming spike, sparks flying as they were knocked aside one after another, but each impact slightly changed the trajectory of the spike and robbing it of speed, until finally Rarity could halt it dead with a diamond shaped magic barrier in front of her.

Only this time, unlike the others, Rarity saw a strange glow of red light inside the core of the spike, and gasped, using telekinesis to throw it away. Barely in time, the spike exploded in a thick ball of crimson energy, slamming into Rarity and her barrier. The barrier cracked and she felt herself thrown back into a skyscraper wall. Fortunately the impact wasn’t too bad, but it did distract her, and this time she had no choice... she had to use the Ictu spell to dodge as she heard the sonic boom of another shot coming her way. There just wasn’t time for anything else.

With the Blink, she appeared a hundred yards away on a higher rooftop, and saw the spike pierce through the building. It pierced at an upward angle, aimed for where Rarity had been after being thrown into the building’s wall. These upper floors were mostly empty, but as the building had a huge hole blown into it, glass and rock rubble flying out of both ends of the blasted hole, Rarity heard a scream, and saw a pony falling out of the hole in a flail of limbs.

Swearing, Rarity used the Blink spell again, flashing down to appear beneath the falling mare wearing office clothes. Rarity caught the mare in a gentle telekinetic grip and formed barriers around her. The mare was still screaming, of course, terrified beyond imagining. Rarity quickly teleported her to safety on the ground, and in the same instant teleported herself higher up, back to the previous roof she was on.

This couldn’t go on. She had to figure out a way to counter this sniper. The Arrancar had already hidden herself again, either too cowardly or too canny to try staying in the open, or even taunt Rarity. That was probably the worst difference with this Arrancar. The other one had liked to talk and taunt, but this one hadn't said a word and just kept moving and hiding, focused solely on taking Rarity out. It was unsettling to be facing a competent, focused enemy.

I’m letting her take all the initiative. I need to put her off balance. Do something unpredictable that will force her to react, instead of plan.

And, much as she hated it, Rarity believed she had the perfect idea.

Leaping off the building she was on, she let herself fall. Partially for dramatic effect, partially because she wanted to make the Arrancar that was no doubt watching her from some nearby hiding spot wonder just what Rarity was doing. Given no sniper shot came, Rarity imagined she was succeeding in getting her opponent to wonder. As she neared the ground, her eyes sought her target.

A sewer cover.

Taking a deep breath of the fresh air around her, Rarity sent one of her chakram flashing down to cut apart the covering of the sewer entrance, using a levitation spell to slow her descent just enough to allow a graceful swan dive down into the hole. Darkness surrounded her as she landed gracefully in the sewer below, ignoring the stench as she began to gallop down the tunnel.

Let’s see how well your sniping works down here, my clever foe. You either have to give up on coming after me, or chase me into narrow terrain that favors my weapons over yours.

Either way, whether her enemy followed her into the sewer or not, Rarity had enough familiarity with Manehattan’s street layout to still follow the sewer tunnels to the park, where Pinkie Pie was. So regardless, she had a destination, and a plan. And, by the sound of splashing echoing behind her, Rarity smiled, knowing her opponent had taken the bait.

She darted left and right, taking several branching pathways. Her hooves were wreathed in a mist cradle of light blue aura, allowing her to gallop like a floating ghost, moving over the sewage without sound. Weaving another of Zoismos’ spells that floated up into her memory, Rarity began to fill the tunnels behind her with a thick trail of milky blue gas that carried a toxin that would induce extreme mental dulling to those that breathed it. She had to be careful, for she wasn’t immune to this gas, but she moved fast enough to keep the trail of it behind her and not breathe any in.

She paused at a junction where a section of the sewer lowered into a deep shaft, encircled by walkways that dripped sewer water into the lower level below. Somewhere nearby she heard the splashing of her pursuer pause. Had the sniper Arrancar been affected by the gas? Rarity waited, listening to hear if there was any coughing, or the noise of the Arrancar stumbling about. Instead what she sensed was a build up of spiritual pressure, and Rarity frowned, leaping down into the drop off just in time to avoid the explosion of force that tore through multiple walls of the sewer system.

Pelted by rock chunks and splashed by sewer water, Rarity didn’t lose focus and used her magic to float up against the wall of the drop off as the Arrancar moved through the hole her spike shot just tore through several layers of sewer. The noise of falling sewer water hid the sound of the Arrancar’s steps, but Rarity could still feel the lingering spirit energy approaching before the Arrancar suppressed it. With a gentle push of her hooves, Rarity went further down the drop off, until she reached the sewage below. Much as it made her spine wriggle and her stomach twist, she forced herself to go down into the sewer water. She would have covered herself in a barrier of magic to keep the sewage off of her, but that magic would tip off the Arrancar to her position, so she suppressed her distaste and hid under the fetid water, waiting.

There was a bare flicker of motion above, Rarity’s eyes the only thing above water as she watched the sniper Arrancar silently pad across the encircling catwalk above. The female Arrancar was tense, eyes looking left and right as she aimed about with her massive rifle arm. But she didn’t glance down for more than a moment, almost dismissively, as if she couldn’t imagine Rarity actually choosing to hide in sewer water.

It was the best opening Rarity imagined she was going to get, so the moment the Arrancar’s attention swept towards another tunnel opening, her back almost fully turned to Rarity’s position in the hole, Rarity made her move. She exploded upwards, her chakrams flying up out of the water with her. The Arrancar spun faster than a bullet and fired, but some of the gas Rarity had conjured earlier must have affected her system, for the Arrancar stumbled slightly as she fired. The super-sonic bone spike flew past Rarity by inches, causing a massive geyser of sewage on impacting the water below. Rarity’s chakrams struck fast in a crisscrossing pattern, the red chakram slicing off the gun barrel in a gout of boiling blood and burning bone chunks. The green and blue cut the Arrancar across the chest, shallowly, the poison working into the woman’s system as she nearly pitched over while half choking back a cry of pain.

Not quite fully paralyzed, the sniper raised her left hand, a spike of bone jutting from her palm. Rather than try to load it into her ruined gun arm, she fiercely stabbed at Rarity’s chest as Rarity got close. Rarity used the ring of her orange coated chakram to wrap around and pull the spike aside as she game in and hammered the Arrancar’s sternum with the knee of her right hind leg. As air coughed from the Arrancar’s lungs, Rarity shoved her horn right up near the Arrancar’s face and poured forth the weave of a powerful sleep spell.

A moment later the Arrancar slumped to the ground, unconscious and bleeding, leaving Rarity floating there, breathing hard, and covered in sewage.

“Hah...hah...well... not my cleanest victory, but I’ll take it,” Rarity said, using magic to wash a wave of blue light over her body, cleaning it of sewer water and filth in short order.

Slinging the knocked cold Arrancar onto her back, Rarity took a deep breath, and began galloping down the tunnel that would take her to the park, and hopefully Pinkie Pie. Fortunately it wasn’t a great distance further to reach a tunnel with a ladder of metal rungs that led up to the parking lot area just outside the west end of the central park area. Floating up, Rarity easily moved the metal sewer cover and tossed the unconscious sniper Arrancar up, then flew up herself and looked around, expecting to find Pinkie Pie still locked in battle.

Instead what she found was an eerily quiet park.

Yes, there was still the distant booms and echoes of the battle taking place outside of the barrier surrounding Manehattan. Streaks of Celestia’s bright sunfire still flared in the sky, casting long shadows over the park’s trees and flickering street lamps. Rarity carefully slung the knocked out Arrancar onto her back again and began walking around around with slow, hesitant steps.

“Pinkie Pie...?” she risked calling out, frowning at just how still everything was.

She saw the broken wreckage of a police carriage, and found four police ponies all laying side by side as if they’d been gently laid down together, despite the terrible injuries on each of them. Rarity took a moment to check their condition, finding them breathing, albeit shallowly in one’s case, who probably needed more medical attention.

Casting a furtive look around, feeling the shadows somehow closing in more amid the darkness of the park, Rarity trotted deeper in. One of the lamps along the park walkway flickered, then flared out, making Rarity jump. She then felt a warm trickle of something drip on her head. She looked up in time to see the dark red droplet of blood splash her nose, and she realized the park lamp post was bent and splattered with blood. Whose? Her next step saw her hoof splash in a small puddle of red, and she saw a trial leading on deeper into the park.

“Pinkie...?”

Rarity swallowed, her heart beating faster than it had while fighting the Arrancar. Walking on, the park trail came to a pavilion with a bubbling fountain with a statue of a several pegasi fillies dancing, the fountain water stamping from their spread wings. There, Rarity halted, seeing even more blood tossed willy-nilly about as if a bunch of rambunctious foals had a painting spree with cans of red. There were odd gouges in the ground, dozens of them, and the melted trails of destruction leading off in different directions, as if an Arrancar was panic firing Ceros left and right.

Feeling a rush of air behind her, Rarity spun, and found a body crashing to the ground as if it had came running and tripping through the thicket of the park trees.

“H-help me! Get her away from me!”

It was a male Arrancar, with a vaguely crocodilian form to his big, muscly body. He was half crawling on the ground, his bulging, armored body now shredded with deep cuts and lacerations that leaked blood like a punctured balloon. Nothing but raw terror was in his eyes as he crawled towards Rarity, still babbling with a frothing mouth, “She keeps coming! I can’t kill her! I’ll surrender, just make her stop!”

While Rarity was still trying to mentally process this, she heard a squeaky, bouncing noise coming from the deep shadows of the park, and a tune like scratching ice chilling the air, followed by Pinkie’s high pitched, giggling voice singing jauntily.

“One, two, Pinkie’s coming for you... three, four, better run some more... five, six she’ll snap your bones like sticks...”

Like a flickering shade, Pinkie hopped from the shadows, lute in hoof, the chilling tune she was playing hiding the low buzz of dozens of magical constructs of vibrating sonic energy shaped like circular saws that floated along with her hops. Her eyes were nearly full white, eyes dilated, her mane and tail straight, blood decorating her like party streamers.

The Arrancar howled and all but curled into a ball at Rarity’s hooves, while Pinkie reached the trail and paused, now seeing Rarity. There was a frozen moment where Rarity felt like she was in a halted frame of a horror picture, but then Pinkie’s expression all but popped like a balloon with its frightening visage snapping back to normal. Her mane poofed out, her eyes flashed with confusion, and Pinkie slung her lute over her back and scratched her head.

“Oh, hey Rarity! Did you already beat your baddies, too? I kinda can’t really remember the past couple of minutes, but I think from the looks of this guy he’s pretty much done.”

She leaned forward, eyeing the trembling Arrancar, “Riiiiiiiight?”

“Yes, yes! I surrender! Totally! No more problems from me!”

“Nice! See, isn’t life much more swell when we all get along?” Pinkie Pie said with a smile, “I’mma leave this guy to you Rarity, because you know all the snazzy sleep spells and stuff. I need to go run those police ponies to the nearest hospital.”

Without another word, Pinkie Pie zipped off, leaving behind the blood and destruction as if nothing happened worth talking about. Rarity took one look at the still shivering Arrancar, by all accounts a hulking, clawed monster with supernatural strength and unnatural hunger, yet his eyes watched Pinkie Pie go as if a child watching the boogeypony go back into the closet.

“I... suddenly feel like I could use a drink,” Rarity said to herself, then proceeded to knock out the near catatonic Arrancar with another sleep spell. Now carrying two unconscious bodies along through a horror-show park, trailing after her friend who had never quite been the most mentally stable of ponies to begin with, Rarity had to wonder. If this was just the start of the battles that were coming to Equestria, just how long would the shadows grow over all of them before it was over?

Author's Note

The battle around Manehattan heats up, in some cases literally. Pinkie and Rarity have managed their opponents on the inside, albeit with some minimal collateral damage, but Celestia still needs to help her soldiers with the larger force outside without going wholesale nuke. And Pinkie is tapping into her inner slasher movie villain, and this is really just a power Pinkie has more than an Inheritor thing. She could be scary well before getting super powers. Poor Arrancar.

Anywhos, hope you folks enjoyed the chapter, and as always thank you for reading. I appreciate any and all comments, questions, or critiques. 'Till next time!