Harmony of Heroes: Ultimate Multiverse Explorers

Marth and the others learned one thing that day: Sweetie Void was scary. They already knew that she was powerful. She killed dragons(enhanced dragons) like they were ants and rained destroyed airships all over the battlefield, without forgetting how she made fighting these super robots look easy when the heroes had had to go seven to one to destroy one, and even then, the filly had helped them. Also, she destroyed Eggman’s flying city like it had been nothing.

And now, she destroyed this Death Egg so easily. It had been hard to judge the Death Egg’s size, but they had been able to understand that the space station had been VERY big. Certainly miles big. Like a small moon made of metal, certainly full of defenses and robots and whatever other horrors Eggman had prepared inside it.

And Sweetie Void destroyed it with just one beam.

And it didn’t even look like she had had to strain to fire this beam. When she landed, she looked like usual, as if she had fired a simple fire ball.

Terrifying.

But it also proved how much she was a precious ally, and that the chances of losing this war were close to zero with her at their side. Unless Eggman was able to create a weapon as powerful, but so far, those super robots seemed to be the limit.

Everyone was filled with hope. More than ever.

“What was that?” Marth asked once the filly was before him.

It was Past Tails who answered him. “The Death Egg. Eggman’s ultimate fortress. With it, he would have been able to send countless robots at us from the sky or fire at us with very powerful lasers. It would have meant the end of the war for us. I don’t know if we would have managed to find a way to go up there to destroy it ourselves.” His attention moved to Sweetie Void. “Good job destroying it.”

“Thank you for destroying that thing,” Marth said.

Sweetie Void grinned. “You’re welcome. I wish I could have seen Eggman’s face. With some luck, he will give up this war and flee to another world.”

“I doubt that. He is very stubborn,” Past Tails said.

Sweetie Void sighed.

Villains…

With that, the army rested in or around the city a bit, gathering provision and training while the Tails turned the roboticized back to normal.

Inside a local fortress a chunk of the army was resting in, a girl was walking with a stack of tomes at a quickened pace, the stack high enough she had a bit of difficulty looking ahead.

Which was what led her to slip and nearly fall with all the tomes falling on her.

“Woah there!”

Luckily for her, someone just happened to be here and prevented her fall even if some tomes still fell.

The girl looked upon the one that saved her apologetically, a long-haired blonde young man.

“Oh. Thank you for that, Arlen,” the girl said.

Arlen looked upon the purple short-haired girl and smiled. ”Think nothing of it, Katarina. Here, let me help you carry this.”

Arlen took the tomes that had fallen on the floor and a few of Katarina's own.

“Err, but… You really don't need to… I was the one that-" Katarina tried to say.

“Oh come now, nothing bad with a little help. We will arrive faster this way,” he insisted, making Katarina accept in the end with a sigh.

“...You know, there's no need to push yourself that hard all the time,” Arlen said eventually as the two walked, making Katarina pause.

“I… I just don't know. Even though I have been serving Marth for a time and even fought in this war, it still doesn't feel enough… What I did in the past, the people I hurt…” she said, looking down…

Arlen nodded. ”Yeah, I get it… I also did my fair share of stupid stuff in the past… But the reality is that there’s nothing one can do about that, so there’s no point in lamenting on it. I pushed others away for a major part of my life, almost ended a friend over jealousy, and who knows where I'd be now hadn’t my teacher finally talked some sense into me. I say we are lucky there’s still those that still care for us like that.”

Katarina became silent at that, and remembered when she first met Kris.

The good moments with him and the seventh platoon.

When she betrayed them during the assassination attempt on Marth.

The times Eremiya's forces put him and Marth’s army in tight spots.

And their final confrontation where Kris simply refused to give up on her, finally making her yield.

Returning to the present, she smiled. ”Mmm… Indeed, you’re right. Thanks, I… I really needed to hear that.”

Arlen chuckled a bit. ”Hey, us atoning reformed gotta stick with each other.”

With that they both fell silent until they arrived at their destination.

Pushing the door open with his body, Arlen, followed by Katarina, entered a studio where the most prominent mages in the army were residing.

"Ah! You have arrived, and with Arlen too!” Merric said happily. ”Good, I have just prepared everything. Have you brought it, Katarina?”

Katarina nodded, setting her own stack on a nearby table and pulling a tome from it. Arlen too put his own tomes down.

However, unlike most tomes, this one looked rather plain without a design and with a completely gray cover.

“Yes. As requested, a blank tome,” she said.

“Excellent! Everyone, feel free to take the other tomes. We are approaching Eggman’s main base with each passing day, and it wouldn't do to have worn out our tomes by then,” Merric said as he took the blank tome and went to work on it while the other magic users in the room approached the rest of the tomes.

A red-haired man with long hair made into a ponytail and dark-colored clothes, Etzel, approached the pile and inspected it, picking one up. ”Elfire… Yes, these will do…” he said, picking some different ones.

Another much younger mage and Prince of Grust, Jubelo, picked another. ”Umm, t-thank you…” he said, looking at Arlen and Katarina.

Arlen looked at him. ”...Aren't you gonna pick more?”

Jubelo started to fidget a bit. ”A-ah! Well I just, y-you know, don't want to t-take too many of them! Everyone needs them and I… You would use them better anyway-”

“Please, young Prince.” Arlen said, picking some Tomes himself and putting them in his hands. “Do not sell yourself so short. You’re young and still full of potential, yet already you can keep up for the most part. Why, with some practice you will make a fine wizard equal if not greater than us in a few more years.” Arlen said, and from where he was Merric couldn’t help but nod too.

Jubelo, flustered by the praise but grateful, smiled sheepishly. ”T-t-thanks Mister Arlen. I swear to try my Best!,” he said with some conviction entering his voice, and Arlen nodded approvingly.

A bright green light then illuminated the whole studio for a moment before it died out.

“Aha! There it is!” Merric shouted excitedly, turning toward everyone.

In his hands, the previously blank tome now sported a finely designed cover familiar to various present in the room.

“Excalibur…” Arlen breathed out.

“Indeed. My previous one was already nearly depleted so I needed a new one quickly,” Merric said, turning the tome to look at it.

“You know, we are all extremely lucky Sweetie Void and her allies arrived when they did, as Eggman had already learned enough from all other tomes to try and learn from me how to replicate something of the complexity and potency of Excalibur next. Then she arrived and his focus shifted completely on stopping her, then finally I was freed from his control.”

Etzel hummed. ”Mmm, quite lucky indeed. We certainly don't need that man with a battalion of mages with Excaliburs at his disposal.”

Jubelo shivered. ”N-not even the most magically s-sturdy falcon knight or Archbishop would survive long…”

Everyone agreed on not elaborating further into the scenario.

“Still, even if it’s our enemy, I have to admit this Eggman is quite the impressive foe,” Etzel said. ”These metal golems of his aren't like anything I've ever seen in my travels, and the fact they aren't even powered by any magic at all that I could detect…”

“Apparently they call them ‘robots’.” Katarina said. “And there’s also all that mysterious machinery that Eggman has been spreading all around, it’s so puzzling…”

Arlen crossed his arms. ”Puzzling AND dangerous. I've seen how many of these structures spew smoke that poisons the air and makes anyone that breathes it for too long ill, and viscous substances that dirty rivers and kill the fish, making them inedible.”

Merric looked visibly troubled at that. ”Oh my, that sounds completely awful!”

“Quite so, I agree,” Etzel said.

Katarina was about to say something more when she noticed that Jubelo looked like he wanted to speak, but was hesitant to say it.

“Everyone, wait,” she said and everyone turned towards her. “Jubelo… Is there something you desire to say?”

Everyone turned their attention towards him, in turn making him very nervous all of the sudden.

“Err, n-n-no I… I j-just.. Uhh…”

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, and looking at his side he saw Katarina smiling kindly at him. ”It's fine, take your time.”

Jubelo looked at her for a moment. ”...A-apologies. I swear I had gotten better at this since the last war… but I'm just so worried about my sister recently and… Ahem!” he cleared his throat.

“What I was gonna say is, although you are right that this strange… ’tech’ as those from other worlds call it is dangerous, it’s also n-not that b-bad? I-I mean! We all stand more of a chance because of tech too right!?”

At that, Merric started to think deeply. "Mmm… You raise a very good point there, young prince. There’s no denying that this new power can also be used for a great deal of good.”

“I suppose that being fair, magic is pretty much the same. That fiend Gharnef caused great suffering with his dark powers and robbed many lives,” Etzel said.

“Oh! A-and that warrior named Tails! He also fights with this t-tech alongside us! It’s definitely something that can be good too!” Jubelo said

“And I must say, there seems to be even good ‘robots’. That girl Susie is really pleasant to converse with,”Merric said.

“Hum, to be fair, she also seems a lot more… sentient than the others,” Arlen added.

Merric hummed and then nodded. He then looked at everyone. ”Well, it seems we all agree then! Yes, this tech’s potential for destruction is great… But so is its potential for good, like magic itself. Personally, I want to learn more about it. Who knows the kind of things that would be possible if we combine the two…”

Merrick's words opened a whole new can of worms the magical scholars were all too content to openly and extensively discuss, wondering of the possibilities. Even Jubelo eventually lost the shyness and conversed casually with everyone.

All the while, Katarina smiled contently for herself. All the worries and doubts about herself were forgotten for a while.

Arlen glanced at her, and he couldn't help but smirk.

The army was eventually ready and departed from the city to free the rest of Altea. It was a small country thankfully, so it didn’t take long to destroy the remaining robot bases. The army then had one last stop at the Altean metropolis before departing east to Gra, again traversing a bridge that was well guarded. Sweetie Void also left behind a double to guard the kingdom.

As the first people walked on the bridge while fighting the robots, Palla, who was flying beside the bridge, saw bombs placed under it and immediately warned everyone. Sweetie Void teleported everyone on it away from it, just in time before the bridge exploded.

With that, the army was stuck in the Altean side while a large number of robots remained in the Gran side.

Sweetie Void promptly built a new bridge with her magic. It wasn’t perfect. It was quite unstable. But she managed to keep it up long enough to allow the army to traverse while they defeated the robots.

With that, the army was able to enter Gra and start the process of freeing it. Gra was just as small as Altea, so it wasn’t long before they reached the capital, again transformed into a metropolis still being built, but slightly more advanced than the Altean metropolis.

By now, it was expected.

What was less expected was the amount of traps and obstacles placed all around the city. There were spikes regularly coming out of the ground, electric walls, spinning cannons spewing fire in four directions, and cannons loaded with missiles ready to be fired, and those were the obvious ones. Sweetie Void wouldn’t be surprised if there were pits with spikes at the bottom. It was a good classic after all.

It meant that the soldiers would have to watch out where they were stepping while fighting. Joy.

Thankfully, most of these traps and obstacles could be destroyed, so the filly went with her doubles to destroy some of them and make it easier for everyone. However, her priority remained the airships and the dragons, and their number only increased from battle to battle.

Surprisingly, she couldn’t feel the special energy of a super robot this time. However, a robot just as problematic quickly revealed itself.

The Egg Mole was like the name said: it was a mole. A giant mole. It didn’t have that special energy because it didn’t need it. It was digging underground, causing the ground to collapse with everyone on it. Then, it jumped out, sending several soldiers flying before it crashed on others, returned underground, and resumed digging.

And there were several of these moles digging around, spreading chaos. Some of the Sweeties went after them, chasing them underground.

Thankfully, Merric and the other mages acted quickly to destroy these robots. As the moles jumped out, the mages immediately fired their spells at them, causing huge damage. Archers also fired at them, but unless they managed to hit specific points like the head, they were less effective.

Alm managed to destroy one. When a mole jumped from under him, he managed to cling to its head as it crashed and resumed digging. Alm was then able to plant his sword repeatedly into the head, destroying important components that eventually made the robot stop for good. Sweetie Void then came and teleported Alm out so he wouldn’t remain stuck underground.

Once all the moles were destroyed, the most dangerous part of the battle was over. The soldiers did their best to avoid the traps, destroying some of them if they had the occasion. The airships were all destroyed. Lots of dragons remained however, but they didn’t last long against Sweetie Void and the most experienced members of the army.

In the city, they found an old ally: Marisha, a young girl with purple hair and a white dress, a bishop. As soon as she was given a staff, she joined the battle.

The soldiers were also joined by a thief: Rickard, another old ally. With a simple kitchen knife, he was able to slash from behind the robots at the joints in the blink of an eye. He was quickly given a sword, thankfully, so his effectiveness multiplied even if he wasn’t that strong.

The battle then continued for hours as they had to destroy the robots building by building until, eventually, all of them were gone, and it was over.