Curtain Call had whipped up as much of the debris from the fallen pillar as it could, swiping its cloth over each and every piece.

In the meantime, Leilani bent down and stretched a hand to the ground, spending Jellyfish’s tentacles out in a circle from her palm as Down Under, Forest Rangers and Soldier Poet King waited beside her for a moment to strike.

As the tentacles reached the closest pillar to the right, they suddenly curved around, like there was an invisible ball there.

“Shiho was right, if Jellyfish’s tentacles reach Cozy, they would just be redirected. That’s how we see her while she’s invisible,” Leilani slapped her left knee. “That’s how we’re going to keep an eye on her, but looking at where Jellyfish is being redirected.”

As she said this, the area where Jellyfish’s tentacles curved began to move, heading towards the other end of the arena circle, slowly, like Cozy was taking her time, toying with them.

“That’s our cue to move.” Josher nodded to the others. “If we can’t see her, she can’t see us.”

He sent out Down Under to the arena as Soldier Poet King followed behind. Cozy appeared for a second again, turning to face them as Down Under swung its anchor at her and her Stand, but in a flash, she was gone again and the anchor’s strike was curved around, crashing back into Soldier Poet King as it leapt into the air with its knuckles poised to strike. Calypso’s Stand was sent flying across the room, crashing into the room’s rock wall.

“Calypso, I’m sorry!” Josher helped support her as her legs crumpled beneath her.

“Your Stand surely packs a punch…” she wheezed from her wounded gut.

She would’ve stopped for a while, but Blue Hole had only reappeared because it released a cluster of bubbles again, which now swirled in the air in an orbit within the arena. They quickly got their Stands away from the bubbles as they expanded and swirled around, getting faster and faster with each orbit.

Cozy Glow reappeared again by one of the pillars, her arms folded as she leaned against it. “Did you think that’s all Blue Hole’s bubbles could do? With my redirection powers, I can send the bubbles far and wide. I won’t even need to see where they’re going. The longer they move, the larger they become and upon contact with anything, the blasts will be deadly!”

She snickered, then disappeared again as her Stand redirected light from her as a new swathe of bubbles emerged over her head. Two popped into the pillar immediately, shattering bits of it while the rest swirled around, already increasing in size the further they traveled.

“We need to deal with them before they get to us!” Calypso sent Soldier Poet King forward, switching to its poet head as she opened a book for it to turn the words into whips.

With a whip in each hand, Soldier Poet King began lashing out at the bubbles, popping what it could before they could travel too far, but then Cozy’s invisible space began moving again and she appeared in the center of the room, her Stand releasing more bubbles into the air.

“Jellyfish is still being redirected as she appears,” Leilani said. “That means she can redirect different things at different times.”

“How much longer, Shiho?” Calypso called out as Soldier Poet King brought up three of its king towers to protect them from the bubbles. As the bubbles slammed into them, they popped with enough force to shake the floor beneath their feet, but the towers remained undamaged.

“Not long more. Give me twenty seconds…” Shiho watched as Curtain Call began assembling the necessary parts for her plan; It had turned bits of debris into an assortment of metal parts.

All of a sudden, Jellyfish’s tentacles went completely straight everywhere. The team looked around, but they could no longer see where Cozy was.

“What? Where’d she go?” Ocellus turned to Leilani for answers.

All the native did was shake her head. “I can no longer sense her. She’s not touching the ground.”

Above them in the space where the light was shining down from, Cozy Glow reappeared, no longer bending the light around herself. She was floating in the air below her Stand, which released another wave of bubbles.

“I can also redirect gravity, and with gravity able to weigh me down, I can even gain the power of flight!” Cozy laughed to herself. “This world and your limited human bodies. I could do this without trouble back in Equestria. But I suppose I should be thankful that my magic here has manifested into power beyond my immaculate imagination. Because of Blue Hole, I have even surpassed the likes of Sombra and Tirek. I am immortal!”

Blue Hole raised its hands above its own head and more bubbles splashed out from a ring above it, descending fast like a swarm of flies. Plenty of them exploded against Soldier Poet King’s towers and Down Under threw its anchor through a bunch, but there were just too many to deal with. It was like Blue Hole could create an unlimited amount of bubbles.

Leilani whipped back Jellyfish’s tentacles into a ball around herself and her friends, but as the bubbles blew up against the tentacles, Leilani dropped to her knees and cradled her arms, bleeding all over as the damage began to show across her body.

“Shiho, hurry…!” she gasped as blood dripped from her head.

“You’ll never win! I’ll redirect everything!” Cozy laughed again and vanished as her Stand redirected light from her once more.

Shiho’s Stand slid one final gear into its machine and a light bulb on its body came to life, turning green. “It’s done! I need an opening.”

“It’ll be brief, and you’ll have one shot if we work together.” Josher had his Stand ready its anchor and nodded to Calypso. “Ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Shiho had Curtain Call pick up the device. It was about the size of a stereo, but silver and bumpy, with a mash of different parts consisting of its rectangular body.

Curtain Call held it atop one shoulder and placed one hand at the top, its index finger hovering over a white button.

“Drop it, Leilani, I’m going for it!”

Josher leapt out of Jellyfish’s tentacles just as they went down. Down Under collided into a beam of bubbles and threw its anchor in a circle around itself as it got thrown way across the room to the entrance they had come from. Josher did the same, but as he soared out of the way, Calypso took over and sent out two of Soldier Poet King’s king towers, before flicking them forward, bursting every bubble in front of herself for twelve meters. Her Stand switched to its poet face, weaving words into a whip long enough to clear out more bubbles in a fan shape, just enough to briefly glimpse at Cozy Glow through it all.

“Hands on your ears!”

With the immediate bubbles around them gone for that split second, Shiho stepped forward with her Stand at the ready and with the push of a button, the stereo device came to life and a shrill but powerful wave of sound blasted from the device, sending it back as it crumpled under the sonic wave’s force.

All the bubbles before them popped and the entire arena shook, sending parts of the mountain above them to collapse as Cozy appeared in the air, clutching at her ears as she screamed at the top of her voice. She dropped back to the concrete ground as she rolled to a stop.

Shiho placed a hand on her hip, then slid the other one into her coat pocket. “With light redirected away from you, there’s no way for you to see me getting this sonic machine ready. I had Curtain Call assemble this machine to release a powerful sonic beam. It was so strong that I could only use it once and it would affect everything in front of it. Without sight, there would be no way for you to redirect the sound until it hit you.”

There was no telling how much of what Shiho said got through to Cozy after the blast, but Subterra wasted no time in spreading Crafteon’s shadows around, blanketing Cozy in darkness before it reformed in front of her as a tall pink horse with curly blue hair similar to her.

“You pathetic little cretin!” The horse opened its mouth and spoke. “You disgrace of a daughter.”

Cozy looked up, her hands still on her ears. “M-Mom? How…? No, you can’t be alive.”

“I wanted to kill you. To remove you, but your father insisted we just leave you at the school.” Her mother shook her head and her eyes glowed a harsh red all of a sudden. “Well… I’M GOING TO KILL YOU NOW!”

“Nooo!” Cozy flipped herself on her back as fangs emerged from her mother’s mouth and she sank her teeth deep into her right shoulder, swinging her around like some kind of chew toy. “No, mom, no, let me go! Aaaaah! Let me go!”

“There’s no room for you in this world!” Her mother’s voice sounded as though she didn’t have anything in her mouth. “There’s no room for you in any world! You fail at all things and you failed now. Prepare to die!”

Subterra had had enough. With a nod to Shiho, she powered the shadows down and instead dragged her over with one lone tendril.

Cozy rolled to a stop before Shiho, who picked her up with Curtain Call around her collar.

“Y-You’ll let me go, rig-right?” Cozy mumbled, shaken to her core.

Shiho shrugged. “In a way. Curtain Call.”

Curtain Call threw the girl up into the air and as she was descending, it opened its mouth and began yelling as it burrowed fist after fist into her.

“Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaughhhhh!” Cozy shrieked as she was thrown clear through the arena’s rocky skylight, flying so far into the air that she disappeared in a little sparkle above.

“Phew… that’s that.” Calypso sat down on the ground and placed her arms on her knees. “Who knew that little girl would be so much trouble.”

“Trust me, you don’t know the half of it.” Ocellus folded her arms. “If only she had gone down a different path. Things could’ve been different… she didn’t need more power. I once considered her a friend. But she got too greedy. More was never enough for her. And she paid the price when she decided to ally with Tirek all those years ago.”

“And she’s really paid the price now, working for TWI…” Shiho helped Leilani up as Forest Rangers began attending to her wounds. “Did she really think she would have gained out of helping her?”

“They’re all just grabbing at anything they can to be free once again,” Ocellus sighed and sat down. “I know the feeling. That’s how it was like with my mother for ages. It wasn’t until Thorax stood up against her that we were allowed to be free from her tyranny.”

“How many more prisoners do you reckon we have to face?” Josher brushed a hand through his damp hair.

Ocellus held up a single finger. “Of Equestria’s worst criminals sealed in stone, only my mother remains. We’ll have to face her.”

Shiho grunted and took out her flask. “Good grief. What can we expect?”

A shiver ran through Ocellus’ body. She still remembered the powers her mother had demonstrated when they first arrived in this world. “I don’t know. But she makes you see things, things that inhabit your world, unknown to all.”

“Seeing things, huh?” Leilani rubbed an arm. “Perhaps the enemies of our Lord.”

Shiho planted a hand against her forehead and sighed. “We’ll have to deal with it when we get there. Subterra, how much longer till we get to TWI?”

Subterra pointed to the other end of the arena, shrouded in darkness. “There’s a path there, it leads to a junction that goes up to TWI’s headquarters and a mine that goes down into the earth on the other side.”

“A mine?” That caught Shiho’s attention. “That’s it. That must be why she picked this island over any other island out here. “That must be where she found her Stand geode. I remember the stories my mother told me about my grandmother’s adventure. If there was one geode down there…”

“There could very well be more.” Josher slapped his playing cards down into one hand. “If we could find some of these, perhaps we could beat TWI easily.”

“Or at least level the playing field enough for a fair fight if she decides to use the geode on her Stand.” Shiho nodded. “Subterra, lead the way.”

Subterra gulped and went along, bringing them across the arena. Indeed, if there were more geodes down in the mines, they would help with facing TWI, but TWI would’ve definitely known this too. There was no way she was going to just let them walk in there and search for geodes.

“No… I’m sure she has a plan up her sleeves…” Subterra fiddled with her fingers. “This isn’t going to be as easy as we think.”

TWI had found herself before Sunset Shimmer’s tank once again, gazing at her floating body within, following the light bob of her body in the coolant within.

She placed a hand against it and ran her fingers down about an inch. “Sunset, who does your granddaughter not understand what I mean to do for this world? Her and her friends. They don’t see that I mean well. They don’t see that by challenging me, they attempt to doom their world, to watch it collapse into oblivion. Why do they not see that what I have to do to the world is necessary?”

There was, of course, no response. But she hadn’t come here expecting one anyway.

TWI clenched her fingers together with her other hand. She still wasn’t strong enough to go out into the world to do what she needed. After eleven years, her body had not fully healed from Shiho’s blows and judging by how fast they were pushing through the island, TWI figured it was time to find alternatives.

She walked over to her bedside dresser and picked up the Stand arrow from inside the top drawer and held it high, beside her left eye. “I worked hard to find this geode. With it, I had created a small army to help me take this world. If I use this now, it will be consumed…”

She turned back to Sunset and nodded her head slowly. “You used it to defeat a great enemy in your day, Sunset. You needed to use it. Just like how I now need it to ensure your world survives into a new age. I have lost too much trying to restore this world. There’s no turning back for me. I will do what I must… But if I can get Subterra back, there’s still a chance plan A will see light.”

Her Stand, Strange World, formed from purple light before her. TWI held up the arrow, gripping it tightly.

“TWI, we can stop this.”

The princess lowered the arrow as Spike walked in from the balcony, stopping beside Sunset’s tank.

“Spike, I’m doing this for everyone in this world. I’m doing this for Equestria.” Then she looked at him with teary orange eyes. “I’m doing this for you. You died. If I were to stop now, you would’ve died for nothing.”

“You don’t have to do it this way. I’m sure Shiho and the others will find a way to save this world. The right way.”

“There is no right way. There is no way to save humanity but to save them from themselves. Humans need order brought to them. And only I can do it. But I need the power to do so, Spike.”

Raising the arrow again, TWI drove it into her Stand’s forehead. What followed was like the sound of glass splitting, then a rush of wind as her Stand was enveloped in pink light. TWI felt it, the refreshing of her body, the bulge of her muscles, magic unlike anything she’d felt before.

“This strange human world has brought itself ever closer towards extinction…” TWI said to herself as the contents of her room whipped around her, tossed up by the strong winds and magical energy crackling through the air. “But it is time for a new order to rise, one that will save it from the end and usher in a new era of peace and calm.”

From within the tank, though her eyes were closed and her body unable to speak or move, a tear dripped from Sunset’s left eye before merging with the rest of the coolant.

• To be Continued...-

Author's Note

We're getting there and as TWI gets desperate, things have taken an interesting turn...