There was no way this was actually happening. In all the scary moments that I’d had up to this point, never once did I believe that Divinity would do something as extreme as causing the extinction of the entire planet! When I looked over at La Proxy, however, she seemed to have complete confidence in her leader, ready to stop us if any of us tried to somehow prevent the meteors from colliding into the earth.

“Divinity!” I called out in desperation. “Please, listen to Trixie!”

“You’ve already spoken enough, Great and Powerful Trixie,” La Proxy answered for her. “She has nothing else to hear from you.”

“Then let me talk to you,” Marrow intervened, causing La Proxy to look in her direction with a hesitant eyebrow raised. “I looked at your profile, Top Notch. Turns out you have a husband and a kid at home, now why would any respectable wife or mother--”

Before Marrow could even finish her sentence, however, La Proxy’s face contorted in anger, sending a portal towards Marrow that she barely dodged after her skeleton spat her out. “Hmm,” Marrow then said, getting back up to her feet. “A portal to a magnified gravity realm? That last comment must have made you really mad, and I didn’t even get to ask the follow-up question.” Then, in the next moment, her skeleton from before rematerialized onto her body, covering her again with its bony protection.

“Do NOT talk about my family, little girl.”

“I just think it’s interesting that you’re OK with them being both killed, especially with a new baby on the way. Shows what kind of mom you are.”

This time, La Proxy used both of her hands to send two portals racing towards her, leaving me to levitate the real Marrow away as her skeleton yet again got sucked into the other portal. The meteors were still probably a good minute away from touching down, but I still felt that whatever Marrow was planning, she needed to get to the point quick before we were all dead. Knowing Lulu, though, she was the type of person who would trash talk someone all the way up until her death, making me worry that I was making the wrong decision in trusting her rather than taking care of things myself. I knew that Divinity could be reasonable, but we didn’t have a whole lot of time to reason with her.

“As for you, Cross Stitch,” Marrow continued, making Divinity’s glare grow fiercer, “I find it funny that you’d pull something like this after what you said last night.”

“Choose your words carefully, magical girl,” Divinity responded with a violent tone in her voice.

“Why’s that? You’re just gonna kill me anyway, right? In fact, why don’t you just save yourself the trouble and kill me right now? You could make my heart explode if you wanted to. You could make my brain crumble to pieces, putting me in way more pain than any space rock could do, so won’t you do it?”

Divinity growled. “Because I want you to see the consequences of your actions. That is my divine judgement.”

“Ha! You can’t even keep me from talking. All you would have to do is snap my vocal cords, but for some reason, you’re not doing that. What’s wrong? I thought you were supposed to be all powerful.”

“ENOUGH!” La proxy shouted, creating another portal that sucked her in like a vacuum, but with Marrow’s skeleton digging itself into the ground, she wouldn’t be able to suck her in without pulling the ground out entirely. With her entire focus on keeping the portal open, however, Night Seam immediately pulled out her throwing knives, tossing them in La Proxy’s direction and causing her to break the portal to open a new one, pulling the knives in to keep herself safe. “You can fight us all you want, but your time on this earth is limited!”

“Now why would you try to kill me when Divinity over here says she wants me to see the world end in front of my eyes? Do you really want to go against your leader’s divine judgement?” As La Proxy struggled to find an answer, though, Marrow pointed her finger towards the girl in the multi-colored dress. “Palette! I’m going to need your anti-magic orb for this next one!”

Without hesitation, Palette pulled the orb out of her dress pocket and threw it in Marrow’s direction, making the other two girls gasp in fear. “La Proxy! Don’t let her have it!” Then, in the next moment, La Proxy opened up another portal in the exact direction where the orb was headed, but using whatever strength I had left, I pulled the orb towards me just before La Proxy was able to suck it into another dimension. Both pairs of eyes were now on me, and there was no way I would be able to get away from a portal like Marrow had.

“Paradox!” I screamed. “Make me invisible!”

“Y-you got it, G&PT!”

I wasn’t sure whether or not this spell would work on Divinity, but I knew for sure that La Proxy would be subjected to Paradox’s powers, making it to where I could at least limp my way towards Marrow. The other girls all tried to keep their eyes on La Proxy so that she wouldn’t be able to tell my location, which I hoped would last long enough for me to get to her in time. Once I looked up, though, I saw that we only had about a half minute before the meteors eventually killed us all, and with the rest of the strength I had left, I tossed the orb towards Marrow, making it pop out of the air in La Proxy’s vision. Just as she had summoned a portal to suck it in, however, Marrow leapt forward, grabbed the sphere and once again dug a bone into the ground to keep herself from falling in.

“GIRLS!” Marrow cried. “We’re not in Canterlot! This is a parallel dimension!”

“So how do we get out?” Mind Games asked nervously.

“Get your teleport gems ready! We’re going to Everfree City!”

“But is that going to work?” Cupid Symphony chimed in.

Marrow, however, chuckled quietly. “Only one way to find out, I suppose.”

With all of us nodding in agreement, we each grabbed hold of our teleport gems, and just as La Proxy was creating a portal to pull us all inside, we each disappeared, reappearing once again in what appeared to be an old peasant village. I was hoping I would never have to come back here again, but when the opponent is La Proxy, I guess I should have realized sooner that this would become my eventuality at some point.

“Is everyone here?” Marrow asked, looking around at the group.

“Not for long!”

Then, the very moment we arrived in the beautiful paradise I called Hell, we were greeted by the devil herself, her body turned black with blue flames burning from her body. If she was anything like Discord, she wouldn’t be able to kill us by herself, but once the other two showed up to fight, it would be just like fighting two Divinities at once.

“Now, girls! Let’s use our teleport gems to go back to Canter--”

In the middle of her command, though, our hearts quickly dropped, seeing that Marrow’s teleport gem had shattered into several fragments, dropping to the dirty ground by her feet. As soon as we saw what had happened to Marrow, we all immediately looked back at our own teleport gems, and surely enough, our crystals were also breaking into pieces and falling to our feet. Without those, there would be no way for us to get out, and unless Discord somehow pulled us out, there would be no escaping Everfree City. We were stuck here until the war was over.

Then, to add insult to injury, both La Proxy and Divinity appeared out of a portal that La Proxy made, which she immediately closed before we could escape, not that we would want to enter into a meteor minefield anyway. The battle was now back on, although with Night Seam and I unable to do more than simply using our magical abilities.

“Discoooord,” Dreamdrop mumbled nervously. “It would be a really big help if you could pop out and save us agaaaaain.”

“Don’t bother,” said Divinity. “I’ve placed a seal on this dimension that keeps Discord from being able to enter. You’ll have to battle without him.”

“Whoa,” Paradox gasped in awe. “A seal that even Discord couldn’t break?”

“Magical girls and guardian deities such as Discord and Autumn Blaze have much different laws associated with their magic. Even though Discord gave me the power to kill people, he can not kill people himself, similar to how I cannot kill guardian deity. I used a seal through the powers he gave me to create a barricade that he cannot pass through, similar to the seal he used to prevent me from ever entering Platinum City.”

“So that’s the trade off,” Night Seam added. “Discord can’t come in and Autumn Blaze can’t leave.”

“Not that any of that matters,” La Proxy said with her hands on her hips. “We have you exactly where we want you now.”

Marrow, however, rather than panic, seemed to smirk as if everything was going according to her own plan. “Mind Games! I need you to listen to my thoughts and do exactly what I tell you. Everyone else! Keep Divinity and Autumn Blaze busy until I give you the signal! Attack now!”

Suddenly, Everfree City turned into a battlefield.

Without Discord being able to save us any longer, La Proxy’s alternate realities became even scarier, starting out with a yellow continuum that flashed in several patterns, hissing out a loud, high-pitched frequency. Everyone standing even several feet away were suddenly pulled into it, leaving me to halt everyone in the air while Night Seam once again threw several knives into her direction, causing La Proxy to drop the portal. With her halos still spinning, however, the ground beneath us began to vanish, and just before we could get sucked in entirely, Marrow appeared behind her, ready to stab her with one of her bones. The portal, though, still hadn’t closed, leaving us to feel the bone-crushing gravity of the dimension beneath us, and just as Marrow was about to strike, Autumn Blaze sent a green beam of energy out of her horn, pushing Marrow away. My foot had now entered into the void, being crushed immediately as adrenaline flooded my veins, which I then channeled as much as I could to levitate everyone else away from the portal while sacrificing myself.

“Oh, no you don’t!” shouted Iron Maiden, throwing one of her steel plates in my direction, and with the adrenaline still allowing me to move through my heavily injured body, I was able to grab hold of the steel shoulder pad just as it was coming down and catapult myself forward beyond the gravitational pull of La Proxy’s dimension. With my body being safe for now, though, Divinity appeared right where I had landed, her hand glowing with electricity as it came down towards me. This time, though, my muscles had completely tensed up, making it to where I couldn’t even move, let alone dodge an attack from Divinity, but just as I was about to give up hope, her hand came crashing down inches from my head, making both of our eyes go wide in surprise.

That’s when I looked over and saw Paradox, moving her hands towards Divinity as if she were controlling what she could see while breathing a sigh of relief. Divinity then turned her finger towards Paradox, and with a ray of light shooting from her fingertip, she sliced right through a wooden house behind her, missing her completely.

“You should really work on that aim of yours,” Paradox said with a giggle, tilting her goggles, but just as soon as she spoke, her face changed demeanors. “Ohhhh, so that’s the plan!” Divinity and I both looked at her with confused expressions on our faces, but as she began to grin herself, she disappeared from view, making it to where apparently nobody could see her.

“Trixie!” Marrow shouted. “Keep distracting her!”

“R-right!”

I had no idea how I was supposed to distract her without being killed, especially when I couldn’t feel half of my body, but so long as I had my anti-magic orb, I would be better protected than the other girls. Nodding my head in agreement, I used my magic to grip her by the neck, making her momentarily twitch in fear, though in the next moment, she physically broke through my magic, glowing a blue aura as if her body had created a barrier that prevented all magic from affecting her. Then, she looked around the area, smiling sadistically as soon as she found whatever it was she was looking for.

“She’s right there, La Proxy! Open a portal there!”

La Proxy then looked back at Divinity with a nod, and pointing her hands towards the goddess magical girl, the halos around her wrists began to spin again, creating a new portal. Only, the portal, from what I could tell, was nowhere near where Paradox was supposed to be. Instead, the portal opened up right behind Divinity, revealing a beautiful utopia of luscious gardens, tall skyrises and bustling creeks, completely different from what we had expected. She had just opened a portal… to Platinum City?

“What are you doing?! You’re going to let them escape!”

“Sorry, she can’t hear you,” said a voice in my mind, apparently echoing through everyone else’s mental ears as well. “She’s under my control now, and with Paradox using her illusions, La Proxy thinks you’re telling her to send us all to Platinum City.”

That was Marrow’s plan! With Paradox and Mind Games working together, they were able to create a power similar to Trickster’s, making La Proxy both see and hear things that didn’t exist!

“La Proxy! Can’t you see it’s a trick?!”

“I’ll take care of this one,” Autumn Blaze then called out with her horn glowing, sending a green light zapping in the direction of seemingly nothing, but in the next second, Paradox appeared out of nowhere.

“Get to the portal!” Paradox shouted. “I’ll try to use my magic again, but you need to hurry!”

With Cupid Symphony using her rapier to clash with Autumn Blaze, creating as much a distraction as she could, she quickly yelled, “It’s no use! She can see through your magic!”

“Then we’ll have to use something besides magic!” Night Seam added, placing her hands to the floor and turning the entire environment around us as well as our bodies black. Even with our showy outfits and hairstyles, it was nearly impossible to tell which of us was which, especially now that the rest of our surroundings was the exact same color. The very contours of our bodies seemed to blend together, and the best part was, seeing as how the blackness was physical rather than magical, there would be no way for them so see through it in the same way.

“Good thinking, Night Seam!” Marrow exclaimed. “Now, everyone to the portal before it closes!”

Suddenly, Autumn Blaze released a large blast of magic, sending Cupid Symphony flying into the air while shouting, “I’ll take care of them, Divinity! You close the gate!” In the next moment, Autumn Blaze shot another green beam of light towards Cupid Symphony, but Iron Maiden quickly responded by jumping after her, using her steel shoulder pad as a shield against her magic. Meanwhile, the blue aura around Divinity disappeared, allowing her to turn towards the portal with her hand outstretched. Then, clenching her fist as if to seal the gate, another portal to Platinum City opened up by its side, making Divinity gasp in confusion. “Divinity! NO!”

Then, as soon as the angel girl turned around, we were all gone, vanished from her view. “What happened?!” she screamed, looking towards Autumn Blaze.

“You turned off your magic barrier! That Paradox girl made you think you were closing the gate, but you ended up opening another one! Quick! Close it before they escape!”

“It’s too late for that.”

Suddenly, once the three Everfree City girls turned their heads towards the portal to Platinum City, Discord appeared just behind the gate, cackling maniacally as the girls scowled back at him. By this point, though, we had all made it back to Platinum City, thanks in part to Dreamdrop and Palette helping me walk the rest of the way after my foot started to explode in even more pain. We were finally safe enough to catch our breaths, watching the Everfree City girls glare at us in fury as the portal closed in front of them. Just before it was sealed completely, however, I heard Divinity’s voice scream, “La Proxy! Go after them!” which meant that it would only be a matter of time before we were pulled back into Everfree City again.

“Goodness, girls! What happened to you?!”

We were all panting at this point, trying our best to pull air back into our lungs, but Night Seam and I were in an exceptional amount of pain, undoubtedly suffering the worst injuries. “Divinity almost killed me,” Night Seam said, turning our bodies back to their original colors. “She turned my skin into fire at one point, but she only managed to burn the outer layer before I was able to put it out.”

“Gracious! I need to fix you all quick!”

Then, in the very next second, my body returned to normal, with all of the scorches, scrapes and fractures disappearing instantly. Even air seemed to flow through my body more easily than before as my muscles gradually loosened to where I felt like I could move them with no problem. Plus, as I looked around at all the other girls in Platinum City, even the ones who hadn’t experienced any injuries seemed like they had been revitalized, making us all cheer with glee.

“Thanks, Discord!” Mind Games exclaimed. “You’re the best!”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Night Seam chimed in with a chuckle, “but I really do appreciate all you’ve done for us today.”

“Good! Because I won’t be helping you with this next part.”

All of us suddenly tilted our heads in confusion. “...Wait, what?”

Then, out of nowhere, a portal opened up above my head with a hand reaching out, grabbing me by the throat and throwing me down, but before it could even pull me to the ground, another portal opened up beneath me. Before I knew what was going on, La Proxy was sending me down through what could have easily been hundreds of portals, each one closing behind her as a new one opened up beneath me. Finally, I felt the ground crashing into my back, making my pain receptors skyrocket from the giant fall that I had undertaken. I had just barely been healed from my other injuries, but I felt like she may have just broken my spine, which--so long as she kept me separated from everyone else--would make it that much easier for her to kill me.

As I looked around at my surroundings, I was in what appeared to be a giant sandstorm of different colors and shapes of crystals flying through the air, swirling in a circle around us. Just outside the storm, however, were the shadows of giant creatures, tall enough to crush me without even noticing that I was there. The worst part about this place, though, was that as soon as the pain from my back somewhat subsided, I felt myself choking on the air, grabbing at my throat from the burning sensation in my throat. La Proxy was also beginning to choke, coughing up blood with her hand leaving my neck so that she could soothe her own burning windpipe.

“I can’t stay here long,” she wheezed, blood now trickling down her nose. “I just came to drop you off, but don’t worry! I’ll make sure I bring your friends to somewhere just as nice as this place. Actually, I may even bring them to an exact replica of this dimension, only you won’t be there to save them. You’ll be stuck in this world forever, and if the storm or the oxygen here doesn’t kill you, then the inhabitants will.”

At this point, there was no doubt that I would never make it home again. I would never be able to see Dreamdrop’s smiling face or the fateful return to my mother at the end of the hunt. I would never even get to see what happened to Divinity at the end of the war, to see whether she went through with killing everyone in Canterlot or if someone managed to stop her. There was one final thing I could do, though…

“L-La… *cough* La P-Proxy…!”

“Hmm? Something you wanted to say?”

I then grit my teeth in anger.

“You’re a bitch!”

And then I sent a punch directly into her jaw, making her stumble over into the ground beside me. Even through the pain in my spine, I was able to lift myself off of the ground and summon my spear, heaving heavily with blood trickling down my outfit. Then, with a look of shock on her face, she quickly lifted her hand, opening up a portal behind her before I was able to stab her, but before she managed to make it through the portal, I channeled all of my magic into her body, bringing it forward to I could punch her in the mouth again.

Suddenly, the gate closed, and La Proxy quickly jumped up to her feet, grabbing me by the throat and sending me back to the ground, throwing her own punches directly into my head. Then, using my magic again, I pushed her off of me just enough to grab her by the hair and sending my knuckle into her gut, which she countered be driving her elbow into the back of my neck, making us both fall over. La Proxy, however, was the first one to get up, sending a kick into my ribcage along with an even harder blow into my already aching back. It had been years since I had felt this kind of pain just from a kick, but unfortunately for her, even years later, I was still used to it.

In the next moment, I lifted her by the neck with my magic and summoned my spear by into my hand, and just as I was about to slit her throat, my spine twinged, causing me to wince in pain and drop her from my spell. As the diamonds began to cut through our skin, though, the air took an even greater toll on our bodies, making it to where we were both on the verge of suffocating. All I had to do was keep her in this dimension a little while longer and she wouldn’t be able to hurt my teammates again.

“THIS. IS. OVER!”

Finally, with the halos around her wrists spinning rapidly, she held out her hand again, opening up a portal behind me, sucking me into yet another high-gravity dimension. Without wasting any time, I stuck my spear into the ground, trying to hold on for dear life, but the sandy floor beneath me wasn’t nearly as solid as Everfree City or Canterlot. I could feel myself slipping, getting pulled back into the abyss with no one to save me any longer.

“I’ll see you in a minute, Genny… just as soon as I eliminate the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

Suddenly, I felt my spear pop out of the ground. I was now falling backwards into a portal that would crush me instantaneously. Then, with one final burst of magic, I grabbed hold of La Proxy, making her eyes grow wide in shock, and just before I was sucked in entirely, I pulled her body into the gate, hearing her scream in terror before the gravity of the dimension crushed her body. Blood flew and disappeared around the crunching sound of her bones and organs, causing the portal to disappear the split moment before I fell in. Everything happened so fast. In one moment, she was standing over me, but in the next, she was killed by her own magic.

The sound of her final scream seared through my brain, making the adrenaline in my blood cause me to shiver as I dropped my spear and held my knees to my chest. The image of her body being crushed into a two-dimensional object with her blood covering my leggings was far scarier than any of the creatures this world had to offer. Even through all the dust and diamonds cutting through my body, even with the air literally killing me from the inside out, I couldn’t help but bury my face and begin to cry, coughing up my own blood as I found myself coming closer to death.

“Helloooooo!” a voice called. “Is this the dimension where I could find the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

Was that Discord? Honestly, at this point, I didn’t really care anymore. I had already given up on living before I even killed La Proxy, but after seeing her death, I just didn’t know if I had the mental energy to keep on fighting. I just didn’t have the strength to do this anymore, especially when my next opponent would be Divinity. I couldn’t tear apart another girl from her family!

“Trixie, you know it’s rude to keep a draconequus waiting.”

“She was pregnant,” I sobbed, clutching onto my legs harder. “I killed them both!”

“Ugh. We can have your little sob story later, but first we need to get you back home before this sandstorm kills you.”

I didn’t want to face the other girls, though. Burying my face into my knees, I continued to sob, replaying the sight of her death over and over again in my mind until it was permanently scarred into my memory. Despite my best wishes, however, I felt the air around me clean up with actual oxygen returning to my lungs. The wind around me had also calmed down to where I was no longer being pelted by fragments of colorful diamonds. I wasn’t ready to be back in Platinum City just yet, but I also knew that if Discord had kept me there for much longer, I would never have made it out of there alive.

“Great and Powerful Trixie! What happened to you?!”

“Where’s La Proxy?! Is she still down there?”

“Trixie, thank goodness you’re alive!” Then, without even needing to release myself from my knees, Dreamdrop fell down to my level, wrapping her arms around me and crying just as hard as I was. “I was so scared when she pulled you down there. Please tell me you’re safe. Please tell me you got rid of her.”

“...Yes,” I finally mumbled, pulling my face just barely out of my legs. “Trixie finished her.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” she replied, wrapping me into another hug. Of course she was happy. She didn’t have to see someone’s body being torn apart right in front of her while she screamed in horror.

Finally, after the initial relief period had worn off, it was time to get back to business. We were still at war, after all, and Divinity wouldn’t be waiting for us to continue with her plans. “So!” Discord announced, slithering to my side. “Since you were the one to finish old portal-hands off, I guess that means you--”

“Storm Rose.”

“Right. You didn’t even need to think about that one, did you?”

I then shook my head, although I really had given it a lot of thought. Storm Rose was the only girl in Platinum City who had yet to be revived, but I wasn’t so sure about letting her come back to life. She was the one who killed Paradox, after all, which ended up instigating the death game that Discord had planned out, leading to the deaths of all the other girls who we had to bring back to life before her. Even with that being a factor, however, I had seen Marrow, Mind Games and Palette all change for the better, so there was at least still some hope for Storm Rose as well.

“Perfect!” Discord announced, and with a poof of magic, making everyone cough into their hands, a woman in a yellow outfit with blue frills and lightning bolts all over her dress appeared on the ground. She had deep black hair with blue highlights, and in her hand was a magical wand, the same wand I had used when I killed her in the first place. Finally, though, with all of us standing over her, she finally began to open her eyelids, opening her mouth while making confused groans.

“Yo, Storm Rose!” Iron Maiden said. “You alright?”

Storm Rose groaned again before pushing herself up, rubbing her head to soothe the painful feeling that must have come along with being revived. “Girls?” she said quizzically. “Paradox? But… I thought… Great and Powerful Trixie! I thought you--”

“Calm down, soldier,” Marrow intervened, allowing our final team member back onto her feet. “We’ve got a lot to debrief you on.”

“Everyone’s here… but I thought--”

“Maybe you should quit thinking, then,” Paradox said with a chuckle. “Oh, and by the way, you caught me when my back was turned. Next time, I’ll be ready for you.”

Storm Rose giggled awkwardly, shaking her head as she tried to make sense of the impossibly difficult situation, but before she could even ask what was going on, however, Discord quickly intervened.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, girls, but if you don’t get back to Canterlot quick, it really is going to be the end of the world this time.”

“But what are we supposed to do against Divinity?!” Mind Games exclaimed.

Marrow, though, folded her arms with a confident laugh. “That’s just it, girls. She has a weakness.” Then, turning towards us, she gave us what I could only perceive as a smile hidden smile behind her suit of armor. “I know exactly how to beat her.

Author's Note

Two more chapters left!