Sprawling Light

Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Amy are still in Canterlot as they see Fluttershy come around the corner with a grim look on her face and her hooves covered in blood.

Rarity gasps, “By Celestia, Fluttershy, are you okay? What happened.”

“I’m fine but… Shining Armor said that the princesses were trapped in something called the ‘Scepter of Light’. That was the last thing he said. Then he-” she chokes on her words, “…s-stopped breathing. If I just healed him earlier. I wasted so much time. It’s my fault he’s-”

Applejack places a hoof on Fluttershy, “Hey none of that talk now, It ain’t your fault sugar-cube. it’s that evil bastard we got runnin’ around,”

Fluttershy trembles, tears trailing down her eyes, “What should I do Applejack? I- I don’t have a Super Form.”

“Don’t worry, sugar-cube, get on out of here and we’ll take care of the rest.”

Fluttershy sadly nods, sniffling as he flies off towards Canterlot Castle.

Rainbow Dash looks off into the distance, “Sure hope everypony who could, got outta here before all this happened.”

Twilight then appears in Canterlot with the three hedgehogs, she looks around and feels a pit in her stomach. “This place looks so much worse than I- Wait where’s Shining?” she sees her friends’ sullen eyes, none of them except AJ can make eye contact.

Applejack gives her friend a solemn expression, “Twilight… he’s gone.”

Twilight’s world comes to a halt her friends voices sound muffled as she wanders forward. She pushes past Applejack. Unable to hear her protests. Then she sees it.

Her heart shatters.

Shining Armor in a pool of blood, martyred by Mephilzo.

She stands in place for a moment, her tunnel vision locked on the crumpled body of Shining Armor. She trots closer. His blood staining her hooves as she walks through the crimson puddle. She looks down at her brother. Twilight leans down and nuzzles him, one last time.

A tear runs down her cheek.

“I’m sorry, Shining. I’m so sorry.” The dam behind her eyes breaks and she sobs, trying to stifle it, and she walks away from his body.

“Twilight…” Applejack’s voice softly, “We’ll get Shining outta here as soon as we can. I promise.”

Then.

The air runs cold.

The dark creature appears looking down at them from the top of a building.

Mephilzo looks down with a grin, “Twilight Sparkle. Did you like the gift Mephiles and Nazo left for you? To think, Fluttershy almost ruined the surprise.”

Everyone remains silent, as Twilight’s horn crackles. Her tears evaporate with the energy pouring off of her body now that she sees her primary target.

Shadow looks over, “Twilight. What’s your plan? he’s already here.”

For a moment, Twilight’s coat turns black, “I don’t have one.” her voice muffled as she talks through her teeth, she narrows her eyes at Mephilzo,

“My only plan is to kill that son of a bitch.” Her voice, full of vitriol.

Mephilzo grins, “Oh? Is that a fact?”

Before the speedsters could react, Twilight’s eyes gleam as she uses her Element Ability, almost instinctually. Her coat becomes pitch black, and her mane becomes a flowing aurora of purple and violet.

The Princess of Friendship vanishes from sight leaving only whisps of black static where she once stood.

Mephilzo looks to the left to see Dark Super Twilight rush him like a bull. She winds back her hoof, and bashes Mephilzo in the face with a haymaker. He gets sent flying but flips around and stabilizes himself.

As the beast stands in the street, he sees Twilight charging her horn.

Mephilzo starts to see small black circles start appearing on the ground and moving toward him.

As they get into position, Twilight reels up her horn and spikes made from hardened shadows erupt from the ground, Mephilzo jumps backwards, but more circles keep appearing. He ducks and weaves each spike, all of them aiming for his head from any angle.

Mephilzo grins and continues to deftly dodge the spikes.

Twilight tilts her head and flies in, horn-first. Her wings flap once and accelerate her a hundred-fold. She pierces Mephilzo through the eye and he screams out in pain. She uses her magic to extend her horn while it’s in his head to skewer him through his head.

Mephilzo stumbles back, then plants his foot firmly on the ground, “You made a good effort Twily. However,” he snaps his fingers, and Twilight’s horn retracts. Her pupilless eyes widen in surprise.

“You converted your Positive Chaos Energy into Negative Chaos Energy. My domain is Negative Chaos Energy, you blithering idiot.” Mephilzo winds his palm back and thrusts it forward, bashing her in the snout, he then grabs her hindleg and slams her into a wall, he grips her hindleg tighter, then throws her into the air.

He holds one hand out aimed at Twilight, his fingers in an ‘L’ shape, to gauge the distance. Underneath Twilight a blackened spot begins to open. She feels an intense heat beginning to build. Before she can pivot out of the way, Mephilzo slams his claws into the ground yelling “Gehenna!”

Black fire begins to erupt from the ground from underneath her. Twilight sees her light flash before her eyes.

Shadow reacts fast before the fire engulfs her and he focuses his energy on Twilight, then he snaps fingers. Chaos Beacon activates, and she is brought back to the ground. Shadow looks down at her, “Twilight. That was stupid and reckless, you need to-.” He stops when he notices her fur shift from black back to gold, and her eyes gleaming this time of her own cognition.

She mumbles, “I know it was, I’m sorry.”

Shadow grits his teeth and looks forward, “Don’t apologize. Just stay focused.”

Mephilzo steps onto a building, He then opens his arms, “Everypony,” a reverberation of darkness highlights his form as every emerald he’s stolen appears and starts orbiting around him with the two Master Emeralds at his feet.

“Today is a grand day. An emancipation. A day of true freedom.”

He raises a finger, “Before then, let me ask you a question. Why did I just summon the very artifacts that I want to destroy? Well, I cannot turn Chaos Emeralds into Super Emeralds. That is something only Sonic and Shadow have demonstrated.”

His grin widened, “Will I turn Hyper if I absorbed two sets of Chaos Emeralds? Let’s find out!””

The Chaos Emeralds and the Element Emeralds turn black as he transforms one last time.

As his body erupts with energy, the city starts to fall apart. The spire of black energy is so dense that light starts to bend around it. His whole body flashes with rainbow colors, which are swiftly turned pitch black.

His fur turns stark white, the jagged crystals on his quills fully enclose them, his clawed hands are also now made of black gemstone, but they are just as flexible as before. The black gemstones enclose his arms and legs, his shoes have now turned black and white. His eyes become brighter as he looks down.

He breathes out and dark clouds rise out of the corners of his mouth.

He glares at Shadow.

Mephilzo mutters, his voice low “39 Lashes”

Shadow gets battered and slashed repeatedly, his body convulses in every which way. Then the final slash makes a large gash down his chest, the force from the slash carves a canyon through Canterlot. barely missing Canterlot Castle with Fluttershy hiding inside.

As Shadow starts to bleed profusely from this wound, he grimaces.

Sonic yells out, “Shadow!”

Then Sonic gets grabbed by a white blur. Mephilzo warps Sonic high above the clouds, Sonic tries to land a kick, but it doesn’t do anything.

Mephilzo releases his grip and knees Sonic in the gut, making him double over. Then Mephilzo grabs him by the sides of the head and knees him in the face. Sonic tries to block, but Mephilzo knocks Sonic’s arms way and bashes him with a flurry of jabs to his chest. He ends the combo by grabbing Sonic’s neck.

The beast zooms downward burning through the air with black streaks, he winds back his arm and spikes Sonic at the ground as if he was a volleyball.

Sonic slams into the ground getting buried in a deep chasm of a crater. Mephilzo hovers above it as Sonic climbs out and vomits blood.

While trembling in pain, he points, “How- how the hell are you still fused? Fusion can’t last this long, especially in a Hyper form.”

Mephilzo wags his finger, “I’m calling this form Perfected Mephilzo, don’t throw your labels at me. And to answer your question, my halves are barely physical entities, when I’m born its indefinite. I could split at any time, but I prefer to remain myself.”

Sonic rises to his feet, “Then tell me why. Why are you doing this? Why hurt people on two different worlds, ruin families, What the hell did any of these people do to you!?”

Perfected Mephilzo’s pupils turn to slits, “The simple answer? Because I hate you. It is within my nature to detest every. Single. One of you. I want to be free to hate. I want others to feel my definition of true freedom. I even tried to educate a rather powerful creature here on Equestria in my philosophy, to join my cause, but he disappointed me. He’s elsewhere now.”

His eyes flick over to the ponies that were there, “As for you, ponies. I watched all of you. Robotnik recorded years of footage. From a thousand angles. I watched it on loop for what felt like eons. I learned everything about every one of you so I could make you all suffer.”

The beast leans forward. “Then I tortured that diluted old man into showing me how to build machines. These machines would defy order, take a soul from the Void and become truly alive. Metal made flesh. Beings I could make again and again and again!”

Mephilzo exhales, “I could have just reincarnated them for eternity. Win the game of attrition.” His grin expands, “But then I wouldn’t be having so much fun right now!”

Then Mephilzo gets on all fours and blasts off the building he’s standing on, blazing through the air towards the heroes.

He flies at Rarity first, he lands on the ground beside her. His claws are drenched in her blood as her throat explodes open. Rarity’s eyes turn fierce as her eyes start to glimmer at Mephilzo.

The beast’s confidences wanes as his own throat is slashed and bursts with black blood. Rarity’s neck heals though her incandescent coat is stained with blood.

Mephilzo scoffs and regenerates as Rarity makes a shield around herself preparing for his retaliation.

Amy zooms in from the side with her hammer, Mephilzo blocks it with his forearm, as Sonic comes from the right and lands a hard right hook to his face. At the same time Rainbow Dash flies at him from the front as Applejack comes up from behind, Applejack’s face gleams with Rainbow’s Cutie Mark.

As they swap places Mephilzo doesn’t have time to adjust before he takes a hard gut punch and a high-speed kick to his back.

As he slashes down with his claws, they all manage to Chaos Control out of the way, his eyes flick around wildly, not knowing who he should target first.

Then feels an immense amount of energy.

It had been building since he slashed Rarity’s throat.

He turns to see Super Twilight charging a ball of purple energy, accented by red, her eyes gleam as she charges it, and a vein pops out of her forehead.

“This is for Shining, monster.” She then screams out “Light Piercer!”

She swishes her horn around and aims her horn at Mephilzo. The ball compresses and turns into a thin purple beam that screeches forward. Mephilzo hold up his hands to intercept it but as it makes contact, the piercing purple light drills through his claws and his chest, Making wide holes.

Then he feels Silver grab him with telekinesis, while weakened momentarily, his body collapses in on itself from the pressure and the hole present in his chest. He falls to one knee. With a burst of black energy he regenerates, he stares daggers at Silver.

The beast aims his functioning hand at Silver, instead of open palm he aims all of his clawed fingers, and he yells out, “Decalogue!”

He then fires a volley of beams from the tips of his fingers at Silver he ducks and weaves between all of them. While missing their mark the beams still ruin whatever walls and buildings are left, shredding through stone like wet paper.

A pink ball smashes him in the face, it explodes with energy confetti, Pinkie only annoys the beast as it whips the beams around at any location Pinkie could be at. He rushes forward at Pinkie. In a flash Rarity, takes Pinkies place, and his claws bury themselves in her shield.

With a scowl, he pushes down and shatters the shield. As her eyes widen, Rarity swaps with a boulder, which gets atomized. Seeing how close that was, Rainbow Dash circles back around to circle Mephilzo, building up for a kick to the side of his head.

She feints a kick to his left, then spins and around and kicks him to the right from behind. It lands only tilting his head, the force from the kick breaks apart more of the ground.

While the ponies are rushing Mephilzo, Twilight pants from her release of energy.

Shadow, holds his chest, looking at Twilight, “Do you have a plan now, Twilight? I’d try to think but- urgh!” he winces, and his wound aches.

Twilight looks over with concern, “I’m thinking as fast as I can! Please hang in there, Shadow.”

She looks down and starts thinking rapidly, quieting everything outside of her mind.

She opens her eyes with a flash of inspiration, she eyes the thirteen emeralds and both corresponding Master Emeralds, completely unguarded. “If it’s possible for me to do, I want to recharge the Element Emeralds and the Chaos Emeralds.”

Shadow, pants, “Super Forms… Won’t be enough… turn the Element Emeralds into Super Emeralds. The Element Emeralds… were once connected to you, that’s going to be our only chance… We need to be Hyper.”

Rainbow Dash bounces backward and skids next to Twilight, “This guy is insanely tough!”

Rarity trots next to Twilight, “I have an idea myself. I could give somepony my chaos energy, make them ‘Hyper’ as it were. That is, if that would even work.”

Twilight nods her head, “You should try it, Rarity. We don’t a lot of options.”

Mephilzo’s eyes land on Twilight, Rarity, Shadow and Rainbow. In an instant he fires a city leveling attack at the group. As the black blast is launched, it hurtles toward them at asinine speed.

A golden blur zooms in front of it as Sonic takes the attack face first. As it detonates, the rush of air and dust is split right where Sonic is standing leaving everyone behind him, completely unharmed.

Rainbow yells out, “Sonic!”

The smoke clears around Sonic as his arms are in a guard. He has blood dripping down his face, body and legs as it all forms on the ground into a puddle, Sonic clenches his fists, “That won’t be enough to kill me!” rainbow colored static starts to travel up his body, “As long as I’m on my two feet you aren’t gonna hurt my friends. I’m gonna make Equestria safe, drag you back to the Void, and wipe both of you off the map!”

Sonic’s whole body shifts from gold to rainbow, as he yells out and focuses his energy. His fur flashes every color at once in a mesmerizing display, as It then shifts to white.

Hyper Sonic looks up at Mephilzo with a grin, “I’m gonna beat you senseless! I’ll show you what freedom actually means, you twisted bastard.” Sonic leans back then throws himself forward into a rapid spin dash.

In a blink, Sonic rockets off, Mephilzo takes the spin dash to the chest, but he grabs the spinning ball. Sonic stops spinning at the perfect moment to crack the dark hedgehog with a mean uppercut. Sonic then warps behind him. Firing a white Cross Slash at Mephilzo’s back, making him stumble.

Rarity acting on instinct looks at Rainbow Dash, “Dash, darling, I’m going to give you, my energy.”

Rainbow looks over at Rarity, “What? You should give it to Shadow, not me.”

“Dash trust me, Shadow will be fine. We trained with that hedgehog for an entire year last month. But Sonic needs backup now.” Rarity then powers down, donating her energy to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash then erupts into rainbow colors, her mane constantly shifting colors with the new energy, her hoofs are also shifting rainbow colored. Hyper Rainbow Dash looks over to Rarity and nods,

She aims herself right at Mephilzo’s back. And in a burst of insane speed, Rainbow shoulder checks the beast hard. Then Rainbow ricochets off of Mephilzo. He grits his teeth in pain. She then channels a build-up and static electricity, and blasts Mephilzo with a beam of rainbow lightning. “Take a Rainblast chump!”

Sonic and Rainbow Dash stand next to one each other as Mephilzo dusts himself off. He looks at the powered down pony, “So it was Rarity that allowed all of you to train for this so extensively. Very impressive. I’ve never seen or experienced techniques quite like these before.”

He grins but then it turns into a muted panic as Mephilzo notices that all the Emeralds are gone, his eyes widen then looks around and sees Silver, holding every stolen gem in a telekinetic grip.

Silver quickly launches all of them to Twilight, but as he does this Mephilzo flattens one hand, his claws joining together as a solid crystal blade. Sonic tries to intervene, but he gets kneed in the stomach and slammed to the ground. Rainbow almost lands a strike but the beast Super Chaos Controls behind Silver.

He slams his free hand on Silver’s shoulder then grips tightly, Mephilzo’s voice is full of rage, “I had to block the timestream in two universes because I didn’t want you running things afoul. Why didn’t I kill you?”

Mephilzo then pierces Silver’s chest with his bladed hand, then he horrifically tears it back out with a squelch. Silver’s eyes grow wide, then they dim, as his Super Form fades.

His body falls from where he was once floating and hits the ground with a thud. A massive amount of blood starts pooling around Silver as he fades in and out of consciousness and struggles to breathe.

Shadow sees Silver’s body as he pants from his own pain. Shadow grits his teeth, “No! Damn it!” he yells out. Shadow coughs up more blood as he rests an arm on Twilight, trying to stand up.

Rarity looks at Silver and tears up, “That-that fiend, Silver didn’t deserve this...”

Shadow’s energy flares up as he stands up straight, stumbling a little, blood in his teeth he yells up to Mephilzo, “You think you can play god? Take lives? Destroy whatever you want?”

Shadow’s gold fur starts to spark with rainbow static, “I made a promise a long time ago, to someone dear to me, that I would protect the world she loved so much. I’m adding this place to that promise! You won’t lay a goddamn finger on anyone else I care about!” His fur turns rainbow as he too becomes Hyper without the emeralds. “I’ll put my life on the line to put you down.” Though in his Hyper form his severe injuries are still there.

Mephilzo looks down at the three Hyper formed beings. “Oh, great they’re multiplying.”

In a burst of coordination, the three charge at Mephilzo, Sonic and Rainbow start flying around him making afterimages with their speed, as Mephilzo is distracted, he feels his torso get pierced by four chaos spears, he winces in pain as they all explode.

The holes are about to regenerate as Sonic continues a rush down, swinging punches and kicks to distract Mephilzo from healing then Rainbow Dash helps with Sonic’s high-speed blitz. Mephilzo dodges a few blows, but he still gets bashed around by high intensity jabs. Sonic hits him with a liver punch, then spin kicks Mephilzo, knocking him off his feet. as Shadow slips behind to flank, he starts punching the beast in the back. Mephilzo tries to react but gets kicked in the face by Rainbow.

Mephilzo rights himself, grabs Sonic by the neck and they start flying above the Equestrian landscape, Mephilzo starts slamming Sonic’s back into the ground, shredding it against the stone. Hyper Shadow, and Hyper Rainbow fly next to both of them.

Mephilzo grimaces and starts firing blasts of black energy, which fly off and explode elsewhere as Shadow and Rainbow dodge.

Then Rainbow shoulder slams into Mephilzo grinding him face first into the ground, Mephilzo spins around and his eyes glow, yelling “Revelations!” stunning the three of them with horrific imagery, though they still keep flying.

Mephilzo holds his hand up ready to fire a blast, until he hears, “Oh no you don’t!” from Applejack as he’s stopped in place, he sees Applejack, Pinkie and Amy blazing a trail to him.

He is a second from breaking free until seventeen spikes of light come down and pierce him, he yells out in agony and anger as they all explode, his upper torso and legs are nearly blown apart, until he forces them back together. He looks up angrily at Applejack, then raises a hand to the sky, then the darkness in the sky warbles as he yells out, “Gomorrah!” then he pulls his hands down as building sized spires of crystallized negative energy rain down from the dark sky, they pummel the ground localized entirely on Applejack; but she starts breaking each of them with a swipe from her hooves, before they can overwhelm her, Amy and Pinkie help shatter these massive spire of. The three hyper formed heroes surround Mephilzo again.

In Canterlot Twilight does her best to try to recharge the emeralds, but to no avail.

Rarity and Fluttershy try their best to provide Silver with first aid, but the wound is too severe, and he has but moments to live.

“Why isn’t this working? Positive emotions recharged them before! What is the problem here?” her brain moves at a million miles a second, until she comes to a rather bleak theory, “We’ve used them so often. For months upon months. They’re exhausted but Silver is going to die if I don’t do something.”

She then looks into the Equestrian Master Emerald, the bright white gemstone gleaming with energy. She feels a pull from within herself. A thought echoed from this emerald’s memory to his own mind. She hears a mantra repeat in her head in the voice of an old stallion from long ago.

‘The servers are the six elements.

Chaos is magic.

Magic enriched by the heart.

Friendship is the magic that unifies the chaos.’

Twilight focuses, she sees Shining, all of her friends, Spike and Celestia as her eyes turn white as her mane flares upward with power, then the Elements Emeralds grow in size and transform into Super Element Emeralds, brimming with new power. Twilight looks at the new emeralds in awe. Then she feels the clashes in the distance, and looks at Fluttershy, “Fluttershy, go Hyper and heal Silver quickly. I’m going out there to help. Join us when you can.”

Twilight then absorbs a portion of the energy from the emeralds, her body glows rainbow like the other Hyper forms and her coat also turns stark white but her mane, becomes her base color, but deeper, and it flows like the other Alicorns’ manes. She looks over at Silver, then off in the distance and whispers, “Rest well, big brother, I’ll be back for you.”

Then Hyper Twilight Sparkle teleports into the fray.