“GOT THE MUSIC IN OUR HEARTS
WE’RE HERE TO BLOW THIS THING APART
AND TOGETHER
WE WILL NEVER
BE AFRAID OF THE DARK”
Trying to get a grip on her confusion, anger, and growing fear as Sunset Shimmer and her friends suddenly mounted a counterattack, Sonata looked at Adagio and Aria, hoping one of them would have a plan. But all she saw on her sisters’ faces were the same feelings of powerlessness and frustration that she was experiencing.
How had this happened? They had been winning! They had finally gotten their full power back, and although those little wannabes in the Rainbooms had challenged them, it hadn’t been any real contest. With all of their powers back, Sonata and her sisters were the true Sirens once again, something they’d proven by summoning duplicates of their original bodies. Although those Rainboom losers had put up a fight, they’d ended up on the ropes.
But then Sunset Shimmer – the least popular girl in school! – had stepped in and started singing, and suddenly the tables had been turned! She’d rallied the others and they’d all started singing again too and then there’d been some big rainbow thingy that knocked the Sirens back and broken their control over the students and everything was going wrong!
“WE’RE HERE TO SING OUR SONG OUT LOUD
GET YOU DANCIN’ WITH THE CROWD
AS THE MUSIC OF OUR FRIENDSHIP
SURVIVES”
Sonata grit her teeth as the students, singing and dancing along to the Rainbooms’ song, ignored the Sirens completely. For beings that wanted to be adored more than anything, that was the ultimate insult. They couldn’t just let this go! They had to do something!
“SURVIVES!”
The sight of something glittering in the sky caused Sonata to glance up…and then flinch, open-mouthed in stupefied horror – and out of her periphery she could see that her sisters were the same way – at what she saw.
Standing on a cloud was an alicorn the size of a building. Its body was a glimmering, translucent white. Its mane and tail were shining rainbows. And its eyes were trained directly on them.
“SURVIVES!!!”
The gigantic alicorn reared up onto its hind legs, and the tip of its horn began to glow. As it came down from its sudden bucking, hooves placed firmly back on its cloud, the light on its horn suddenly shot out in a blast of energy. Sonata opened her mouth to scream, but it was too late. She, along with her sisters and even the copies of their original bodies that they’d created, were engulfed by the beam.
Sonata could feel it as those copies shattered, utterly overwhelmed by the superior force directed against them. She tried to resist, tried to endure the incredible pressure, but it was impossible, and a moment later she felt the gemstone on her chest – the source of her power – shatter into a thousand shards.
As it happened, a single thought went through Sonata’s mind. I can’t believe that they’re this strong…
“I can’t believe it,” whispered Sonata to herself in stunned awe. “Lex is that strong.”
In front of her eyes, facing down the green dragon that was now crouching in uncertainty at the new threat it faced, Lex had conjured up a gigantic pony just like the one that had defeated the Sirens.
Except, Sonata realized, it wasn’t exactly the same. That one had been an alicorn, but Lex’s had no wings, being a unicorn instead. Moreover, that one had glittered beautifully, as if it had been carved from crystal. By contrast, Lex’s creation was a dull grey, the color of smoky glass; even its mane and tail were like that, rather than the rainbows that the Rainbooms’ creation had.
But the single biggest change was that Lex himself was encapsulated within the construct that he’d summoned. Sonata could just make him out, a dark smudge inside its head, right at the base of the horn.
Sonata was snapped out of her reverie by a bright flash going off beside her. Blinking, she turned her head, and saw that Nosey had set her camera up and was already preparing to take another shot, a rapturous look on her face. “Story of the year,” Sonata heard her mutter under her breath.
Turning away from the besotted reporter, Sonata charged onto the open field. There was still a goodly amount of space between herself and where Lex was, and she had to let him know that he’d gotten it wrong about the dragon’s breath weapon! “Lex! It uses acid! Not fire!” She yelled as loud as she could, but if he’d heard her he gave no sign of it.
Her sudden rush towards the battlefield did catch someone else’s attention, however. Fireflower blinked in surprise, tearing his eyes away from where the monster that had killed his sister was facing off against the wizard that had twice tried to kill him. And the girl he’d fallen for was running directly toward them both.
“Sonata! Stop!” he yelled. But she continued forward, and Fireflower began to chase after her in a panic. “It’s too dangerous!” He had to stop her before she put herself in danger. He hadn’t been able to save Waterlily, or find the rest of his siblings. There was no way he was going to lose Sonata too!
Lex could taste blood in his mouth, his limbs felt like he’d run a mile flat-out, and his head was pounding, but none of that could diminish the sense of exhilaration flowing through him. He’d done it! The most difficult, most complicated piece of spell-work that he’d ever devised, and he’d pulled it off on his first attempt!
Using magic to create what he called “astral ponies” was a technique that Lex had utilized several times. The spell was designed to pull raw chunks of material from the Astral Plane, which was highly sensitive to magic, into the physical world while simultaneously shaping and programming them to do his bidding. By allocating more energy into the spell while encapsulating it in a thought-form, more astral matter could be conjured.
Lex typically preferred to use this spell to create a small squadron of normal-sized astral ponies. He’d used that technique when facing down a collection of gem gnolls on Everglow, and again when he’d needed cover to withdraw from Canterlot after his first meeting with Princess Celestia had ended so disastrously. But this time was different; this time he was facing a single foe of considerable power, and so Lex had changed his tactics in response, keeping all of the astral matter condensed into a single, huge form.
Doing so had pushed him to his limits. Just like with his disintegration spell, he’d needed to draw additional energy in through his body in order to fulfill the requisite energy, despite the pain it had caused him. But this time he hadn’t stopped there.
This time, he had kept gathering energy through his body and channeling it into the spell, as much as he possibly could. This titanic construct he’d created was the result, and was the focal point of Lex’s plan to defeat the dragon in front of him. That plan hinged on not only conjuring a creature of equal mass to fight it, but on the fact that having such a huge amount of astral matter gathered into a single form allowed for it to imbued with greater abilities.
And it was time to test those abilities right now.
Lex pointed a hoof at the dragon. “I want that creature destroyed,” he hissed softly. Swinging his hoof down to point at the terrified ponies by their hooves, still bound in place by the enchanted grass, Lex continued speaking. “And I don’t want any of them to be allowed to come to harm in the process.”
“Acknowledged.”
The voice that responded to his orders was a distorted version of his own, and Lex knew that it came from the astral pony itself, which made him grin viciously.
Astral matter was programmed at the time that it was shaped by magic. This programming was typically extremely simplistic, giving it the cognition so basic that it was barely worthy of the name. It was just enough to allow an astral pony to comprehend simple instructions from their creator and perform the basic motor functions necessary to carry them out. But this, too, had been enhanced by Lex when he’d formed this particular astral pony.
In his unending quest to figure out how everything around him worked, Lex had discovered that this programming was the result of the spellcaster’s thoughts being imprinted onto the astral substance as it was being shaped. Such imprinting was little more than a byproduct of the construction process, but it was enough to allow the astral ponies so created to understand who their creator was, what their words meant, and how to move their bodies so as to follow orders.
This huge astral pony, however, had been given a much larger mental imprint to work with. Rather than allowing it to happen as a side-effect of casting the spell, Lex had deliberately pushed his thoughts onto the astral matter as it formed. It was the psychic equivalent of pressing one’s face into plaster in order to create a mold. The result was that this astral pony, unlike all of the others he’d created, had sentient functions. It could not only understand orders, but be given task-oriented goals and figure out on its own how to accomplish them, adapting to new circumstances as it did.
Lex’s juggernaut strode forward in response to his command. The grass at its hooves, still enchanted to try and entangle anything that came near it, attempted to wrap around the astral pony’s legs, but it was a futile endeavor. Building up speed as it charged, the construct hurtled towards the dragon.
Roaring at the challenge, the dragon raised its claws to meet it.
The battle was joined.
Vilzeralixus, known to mortals as Moss, had no idea what had brought him to this world. Even when he had come here was uncertain, as he had slept for some time after gorging himself on a whale that had the misfortune to swim too close to the undersea cave where he’d made his lair. After that, he’d crawled atop his hoard to sleep while he digested his meal.
When he’d awoken, he’d found to his considerable surprise – and consternation, though he’d never admit it – that his undersea cave was now not only above the waterline, but tucked into a forest near an unfamiliar coast! There had been no sign of whatever had brought him there; no foreign scents or lingering traces of magic that he’d been able to determine. Even his hoard, which had somehow made the trip with him, was completely undisturbed, with every coin and bauble accounted for.
Eventually, Moss had decided that it had to have been the gods that had moved him to wherever this was. Nothing else, he felt certain, could have done so without his having detected them. Although he’d never cared much for the gods of dragonkind – he’d always found it vaguely insulting to consider that there could be beings of greater magnificence than his own – he was grateful for this boon that they’d seen fit to give him.
That gratitude came after a small group of vermin had somehow found their way into his cave when he was out getting the lay of the land. At first he’d been furious, certain that they were local mortals attempting to steal from him. He’d killed one of them outright, and the others had scattered in a panic. He’d caught all of them, save for one, and had been considering which of them to eat first when, in their terrified babbling, they’d let it slip that they were also foreign to this world. Unlike himself, however, they had come here through a magical accident, rather than what he was certain was an act of divine providence.
Still, the fact that they had magic had been enough to cause Moss to mentally change their label from “food” to “tools.” After that, it had been simple enough to take one of them hostage – shoving him into a small side-cave and sealing the entrance with a large boulder – and telling the others that if they ever wanted to see their broodmate again, they would serve him faithfully. Naturally, the pitiful beings had capitulated immediately, which had amused Moss to no end; only mortals would be so foolish as to care about another just because you shared parentage.
From there, it had been simplicity itself to make them scout the local area for him and report what they found. And what they’d found had been delightful news indeed.
Unlike in his old world, where the mortals were aware of how insignificant they were and so tried to protect themselves, however futilely – he knew that a few of them could amass considerable power, but surely that was nothing compared to a dragon – the mortals of this world were, according to the reports he’d received, universally weak. It had been enough to make Moss’s mouth water, literally. He’d been tiring of a seafood diet anyway.
But as much as he’d wanted to go and devour the inhabitants of the city that his pawns had found, Moss had restrained himself. Doing so would make his prey scatter, and why should he have to go to the effort of hunting them down in order to satisfy his hunger? Thus he’d used his genius intellect to concoct a scheme whereby the food would come to him. All it had taken was ordering his pawns to stage some attacks to frighten the populace, and then kidnap the city’s leader and bring her to him so that he could ensorcel her, filling her head with lies. Once that was done, he’d destroyed the only overland route out of the city, ensuring that they’d only be able to flee directly towards where he’d be lying in wait.
After that, it had just been a matter of patience.
When the report had come in that the first meal had arrived, Moss had set out eagerly…and then everything had gone wrong. One of the foodstuffs he’d been about to eat had turned out to be some sort of mage! Worse, the miserable creature had actually destroyed one of his wings!
Being injured so badly – by a mortal, no less! – was enough to enrage Moss. But the sudden appearance of a creature equal to his own size, clearly some sort of magical construct, was enough to blunt his fury in favor of caution. It was obvious to him now that his pawns had lied to him when they’d said that this world’s mortals were weak and defenseless, hoping to use this mage to turn Moss’s own trap back on him.
For that, and for the wing he’d lost, they were going to die, and die horribly.
As the construct charged towards him, Moss decided that the first part of their punishment would be to witness their champion torn to shreds right in front of them.