Rest in Peace

Luna had followed Violet, and the Element Bearers followed close behind. At first, there was only a gasp when they first saw a flower as tall as Violet sprout from the ground. It was only when the monster had fully emerged from the earth that she felt fear grip her once more.

"Wh-What in Tartarus...‽" Luna asked as even she subconsciously backed away.

"I-I know th-that profile anywhere," Fluttershy spoke up, her voice barely stable. "C-Carnivorous Mutae... The Pony-Eating Flower... If they feed well, they'll get big enough to eat even hydras... Normally it just waits for prey to get close... They don't move like this!"

The ponies all looked on in horror at the plant-monster, all of them feeling something wrong emanating from it. The way it moved, roots twitching as though in pain; the distorted and hollow sound of its roars; the black of its body and the umbral flames; all of it just felt wrong. This thing didn't belong here. Not even the Everfree could produce something as incomprehensibly inharmonious as this.

"Twilight, that thing is burning with the same magic as Violet's dreams. I fear she will fall to this monster if we do not assist," Luna said, even though her hooves refused to move. "We have to help!"

"Princess, I don't think we should..." Twilight murmured as she watched Violet draw new weapons, clearly strategizing with the Shape on how to take the plant-beast down. "We have to let her prove to Ponyville that she's friendly."

"Are... are you sure she can handle that?" Fluttershy asked. "She just got out of the hospital..."

"All we can do is hope..." Luna sighed.

Twilight remembered the feeling of Violet's magic, and looking at the monster before her, she understood its purpose. "She's got this."

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(Recommended Listening)

Luna drew her hand cannon, raising it against the Taken Mutae. With another deafening roar, the plant-beast swiped at her with a root with a low sweep. She jumped up into the air with her double jump, allowing the root to pass underneath her. As soon as she landed, she took off running, firing a few testing shots at the Mutae's main body. To no surprise, her shots did next to no damage at all. The same sinking fear that she'd experienced with heavier Taken foes made her mind start forging a strategy that would work.

Another root lashed out, the pointed tip aiming straight for her to skewer her. With a prompt dodge to the left, Luna gripped the Raze Lighter from her back and brought it around in a flaming uppercut, severing the root. Another three whipped forward from the tangled mass beneath the Mutae, one coming down in a vertical axe-chop, with the second two attempting to clap and crush her in the middle. Luna called upon her Light as she leapt up and to the side, only to be swatted out of the air as the roots flicked upwards before curling back towards the main body. She yelped in pain and tumbled a bit in the air, but regained her balance upon triple jumping. The moment she landed, she burst forward again, putting the sword away and reaching for her fusion rifle.

She reached onto her belt and plucked a sphere, tossing it out at the Mutae before immediately dodging right. A root slammed down where she just was, and swept towards her. The sphere landed just under the Mutae, bursting on contact and spewing purple fire in a line under the plant-beast. Luna leapt up once more, reaching out for her Light and hoping it would be enough to at least make it vulnerable.

In the palm of her hand, she gathered Void Light, condensing it as much as she could. Bit by bit she smashed and crushed it down into a package the size of a baseball. She added more, and the gravity crushed it down. She added more. The Light built into her hand, and she looked down at her target.

The Mutae lashed out with several of its roots, all swinging at random in an attempt to force her out of the air. From the top of the main body, spores burning with umbral flame erupted. Luna gripped her Light in her hand, pulling it back within her before pushing it back out from her palm. A dozen spheres of Void Light compressed to the density of black holes shot forth at the speed of sound, tearing through the spores like they were nothing, pulling them with their gravity. Each one slammed into the main body of the Mutae, exploding on impact and ripping holes in the plant-monster's flesh. As the final one hit, the Mutae roared again.

Not a roar of pain, but of anger. One by one, seven roots shot down into the dirt, and the wounds began to regenerate, burning into existence with Taken darkfire. Luna felt the atmosphere freeze over, and she pulled the trigger on her fusion rifle. By the time the shot had charged and fired, the Mutae had already regenerated, and the roots rose from the earth to block the bolts of fiery plasma.

The roots once more started lashing out, and Luna decided it best to return to using her sword. Each time a root got too close, she'd sever it with a flaming uppercut, leaving it to flail uselessly until it stopped moving.

"The roots aren't regenerating!" her Ghost pointed out. "Keep cutting them!"

"I'm gonna need you to synthesize some ammo for this thing," Luna replied. "The fire's getting weaker."

"No problem. Try to make it last though. Use Spectral Blades if you have to keep cutting," her Ghost said, getting to work, plucking an ammo synthesis crate from her ship. "We need to get rid of the roots before anything."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Luna growled.

Before she had a chance to collect herself, a root shot up from the ground, piercing her abdomen. Blood sprayed from both ends of the wound, and Luna's eyes went wide with shock. In the distance, she could hear the voices of Midnight and Sparkle, along with a few more screaming to her. As the root withdrew, she looked over to the voices.

All of them were there. Midnight, Sparkle, Shy, Apple, Rainbow, Diamond, and Pink. Rainbow looked on in anger, her friends struggling to hold her back from rushing at the beast. Pink's face was stained with horror. Shy fared no better.

Her Ghost healed the wound, the lost blood and flesh regenerating in seconds, the armor soon following. A root swung at her from her left, and she lashed out with her sword, expending the last of its ammo in a final uppercut, severing it. Unfortunately, another root was swinging from the right, and slammed into her back, sending her flying away and crashing into a tree. The Mutae roared and began to move towards the town. By the time she picked herself up and saw it moving, it had already trampled a small cottage, and it would be no time at all before the rest of town suffered the same fate. The ponies watched, frozen with fear as the Mutae tore past them towards the town.

If she couldn't stop the Mutae now, the town would be destroyed and its occupants would surely die. At its current speed, without a Sparrow, she couldn't catch up. But a bullet, or a rocket, could. Her mind tore through the images of what weapons she had on hand to pull from. A rocket launcher with a gilded tube and a white frame came to mind, as did a rifle with similar geometry to her current loadout. With the explosive power of the rocket and its cluster bombs, she could stop the Mutae and trigger its recovery. And with the rifle, the nanites hidden in the bullets would slowly start eating away at the Mutae enough to keep it from getting back up before she could call upon her Light again.

"Ghost, change of plans," Luna said. "Put Raze Lighter and the Remedy back. Pull Sins and Outbreak."

"Got it," he said, the weapons transmatting before her. "Ammo's generated for the Sins. You've got six shots, and it'll be five minutes until I can make more. Make them count."

Luna pulled up the rocket launcher, taking aim at the Mutae. She leapt up once, then again, then again with her triple jump. From her momentary vantage point, Luna pulled the trigger, sending the rocket screaming forth at her target. Seconds later, the Mutae was hit with the explosive payload, searing its flesh and dropping a few smaller explosives into the wound, opening it further when they too exploded. With that, the Mutae was forced to stop, sending down three roots into the ground.

The Hunter wasted no time, sprinting towards the enemy, rifle blazing as burst after burst of the weapon's fire plinked against the Mutae's body. Every few bursts, enough primed nanites would be close enough together to activate their single directive: consume.

Before the wound from the rocket could close, Outbreak Prime's nanites began to buzz like wasps. A red cloud of the tiny machines formed around the wound, eating away any of the new flesh the Mutae tried to regenerate. Unfortunately, the Mutae was regenerating slightly faster than the nanites could devour it. But that was enough. Luna slung the rifle pulling the rocket launcher over her shoulder again and loading a new shell into the tube. Without bothering to aim precisely, she pulled the trigger and sent the rocket on express delivery directly to the Mutae.

The second rocket hit close enough to the first to enlarge the original wound. Before the Mutae had a chance to regenerate, the cluster bombs that fell off from the blast went off, opening the wound even further. In that time, Luna had gotten close enough to now be just barely out of reach of its roots, and close enough to interfere should the Mutae abandon its recovery to go attack the town. Little by little, she could feel her Light building up. In only a few more seconds, she'd have enough to summon the Spectral Blades and slice the remaining roots fueling its recovery.

For now, though, Luna loosed burst after burst of nanite-laden bullets into the wound, the red cloud of buzzing machines chittering and getting to work eating the Mutae little by little. With the wound as big as it was, and with the available nanites, the wound would still be open when she could call upon her Light. She'd only have a few seconds after that to hit the roots responsible for recovery with any guarantee, so she'd have to close in the moment she felt it ready.

The Mutae screamed, and its body swelled up, slowing its attempt to recover in favor of getting the annoying pest away from it. The flower pulsed with dark, and spores shot up into the air once more. Each one burned with Taken darkfire, hanging in the air for a moment before slowly drifting down. Upon the first one hitting the ground, a new flower sprouted its petals twisting into the shape of a cannon, and aiming at Luna. One by one, the flower turrets grew, and began firing seeds charged with arc lightning. Each one of the rare few that hit her drained her armor's shielding.

"Ghost, it's time to do something stupid," Luna warned as she felt her Light hit the threshold. Her shielding shattered just afterwards.

She rushed forwards, spraying burst after burst from Outbreak Prime, just trying to keep enough nanites on the wound to maximize her window of opportunity and not die before she got there. As she approached, what few offensive roots remained attempted to swing at her, but Luna seemed to dodge straight through them, her body blurring like a shadow each time she rolled. The bullet-seeds too, began missing entirely, and her shields started to recover. She slung her rifle and reached out for her Light.

Two blades of Void Light formed in her hands, and shadows cloaked her immediately. In that moment, she could see the Mutae's weak point hiding within the main body, the wound just barely not deep enough to expose it. A root blindly slapped at her, and she sliced it with both blades, severing it without effort. She lunged from flower to flower, cutting them down on her mad dash towards the plant-monster. She then turned to the three roots in the ground and lunged for them. Upon slicing the first, the Mutae screamed in pain and anger, the flower writhing and twitching. As the second was cut, the Mutae tried to swat at her with everything it had, but it was too late already.

The third was severed, and the recovery ground to a halt. The shadows around her dissipated, and as her blades faded away, Luna became visible. The Mutae screamed and the roots began recklessly attacking, swatting and stabbing in her general direction, not really trying to hit but to force her away. Luna gave it the space it wanted so badly, and shouldered the Sins of the Past, loading one more rocket into the tube, pulling the trigger the moment it was aimed.

The effect was immediate, and the flesh of the Mutae splattered away in a fiery explosion, cluster bombs detonating shortly thereafter, exposing the heart of the Taken monstrosity. She loaded another rocket, and fired again, the explosives decimating the core of the Mutae and stopping it in its tracks. As the cluster bombs of that final rocket detonated, the Mutae ignited, and it burned away with one resounding roar. Luna slung the rocket launcher, and watched as the plant-beast burned, waiting for the adrenaline to be filtered out of her system. She stayed and made sure it was completely incinerated.

When the Mutae was gone, the ponies she had names for approached her. When she finally tore her eyes away from where the plant-beast had been, she noticed that dozens of ponies, some she recognized from the mob just a little while ago, were staring at her. She couldn't tell what kind of expressions they wore. Perhaps they only feared her more. That Taken creature would never have shown up were Luna not here. Their town would be in less danger if she was just gone. They could live in peace if she just left.

One by one, the ponies began to clap, tears falling from faces. A thunderous applause arose from the crowd, and cheering bloomed from it. Luna looked on over the crowd, and for a moment, she felt... appreciated. Even if the Taken Mutae would never had arisen if not for her, she'd successfully defended the town and the ponies from it. Just this once, she was able to prevent tragedy, instead of avenging it. Just this once, victory meant something.

She turned to Sparkle and Midnight and the ponies who'd visited her in the hospital. All of them were clapping as well, smiling up at her with what looked to be pride.

"~We go now?~" Luna asked.

Sparkle nodded. "~Yeah, we go now.~"

She turned to Shy, asking her to join them, blushing as she did. The others rolled their eyes and knowing smiles turned up on their lips. Shy blushed and hid her face, starting to stammer and stumble over her words. In a way, it reminded her of the poor shy Guardians who'd ask each other to be partners for Crimson Days. It was cute, and Luna felt as though there was chemistry there. Due to her inability to speak to the pegasus or to the winged-unicorn about said chemistry, she decided to play the seemingly-oblivious winglady who got her targets together through sheer ignorance. So, she approached Shy and picked her up, softly saying, "~You come too.~"