SotS: 154 - Journey, Part 6 (The Will of the Moment) · 12:08pm Apr 8th, 2020
Second to last part, see blog for the others.
154 – Journey
VI – The Will of the Moment
Onion stood on the temple balcony overlooking the City of the Moon.
She knew a lot of the fighting was happening on the surface of Nucleon or would be taken there very quickly, but right now, she could see the action. There, Heart was lashing out against Pinkie and Trixie. At the docks, Blood was keeping Vriska and Starbeat very occupied. The explosions of Corona and Eve attacking Doom in the sky were also visible, looking not unlike fireworks.
Beautiful, Onion thought. It’s all coming together.
“WHAT DID YOU DO, ONION!?”
Onion froze at the sound of Pringle’s voice.
“ANSWER ME!”
Onion didn’t turn around.
“ONION!”
“Pringle, stop,” Jang said. “Onion hasn’t done anything.”
How did I not hear them come up here?
“Are you serious!?” The anger sounded so alien coming out of Pringle’s mouth. “She was just talking about what we’d do when they come back! That was her! She knew this was coming, how can you not see it?”
“Because Onion isn’t a bad person.”
Jang, you’re right. You’re wrong that it’s bad to do this. This is what needs to happen. “Thank you, Jang.”
“I’m not fooled,” Pringle hissed. “I’m on to you, Onion!”
“How can you say that!?” Onion shouted, sure to play up her anger. “Me? Attack our city?” The moment they actually attack the citizens, I deactivate them. They know this. They have their targets. “How would I even do this?”
“These are the same robots in the legends.”
“Those legends I hate!”
“You know them better than any of us! You stew over them day in and day out! You… You hate what they stand for! And not even for some silly philosophical reason like Joanne, you just… hate them! I…” Tears appeared in her eyes. “I don’t understand why. But you do.”
Onion turned away. “Great. One of my best friends thinks I’m the villain. Brilliant. Some friend you are.”
“I could say the same!” Pringle hissed.
“Pringle, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Jang said, pushing her back. “But this is not how friends act.”
“I… Ergh… MMM…” Pringle threw her hooves up the air. “Fine! But when she turns out to be behind this, don’t come crying to ME!” She ran away, bawling.
Jang sighed. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Don’t be,” Onion told Jang. “She’s the one who made this mistake. I bet that ‘auntie Pinkie’ got into her head…”
“I’ll go talk to her.”
“You do that,” Onion breathed.
When he was gone, she entered the temple.
It was time to prepare for the second phase of the plan.
~~~
Nanoha teleported O’Neill and herself to the surface of Nucleon. All she had to do to block the incoming gust of wind was raise a hand.
O’Neill attempted—and failed—to take a cool, manly pose like Jotaro regularly did. He still summoned Crimson Sushi and scrambled the perceptions of the Breath machine.
“I am free of your confusion,” the robot declared, glowing a brighter blue. “I am free of everything. Isn’t Breath such an interesting power?”
O’Neill slapped it with Crimson Sushi. “You free of a fish to the face?”
The robot rubbed its chin. “If I saw it coming… yes. I am free of all. Free of your pathetic little war games! Free of the multiverse’s chains!” It readily dodged a series of magic missiles from Nanoha. “You really managed to nab a lovely prize, O’Neill. I might just have to take her for myself…”
Nanoha twitched. “You’re welcome to try.”
“I have every intention of doing so, my dear, but first… O’Neill! Is that a beard? I would suggest you were stealing my look, but that rat attached to your face is far too tangled to compare to mine.”
“You don’t even have a face, what are you talking about!?” O’Neill shouted.
“Confused? Good.” The breath robot surged forward, whirlwinds flying in all directions. “Die with that uncertainty.”
Nanoha encased it in telekinesis, ramming it into the ground. It, unfortunately, became nothing more than gusts of wind. “Breath is so difficult to combat,” Nanoha muttered.
“Can he just say he’s free from all damage?” O’Neill asked.
“I doubt it, but he can avoid anything if he puts his mind to it.” She lifted her scepter into the air. “Good thing he can’t really hurt us either. Breath is not a very offensive Aspect.”
The Breath robot twitched. “Not offensive? My dear… that’s overconfidence speaking.” He created a drill out of wind and drove it at Nanoha.
She snapped her fingers, canceling the wind to a dead calm.
“Not very offensive compared to me.” She lifted Raising Heart into the air. “And since we’re near that Temple… I don’t have to worry about running out of magic. Ka-structures are so helpful.”
“You’ve made a miscalculation, Broken Wind,” O’Neill added.
The robot pointed a finger at O’Neill. “You think you’re mighty cleve—”
“Million missiles!” Nanoha shouted, generating a million magic missiles around her. “Dodge all of these.”
The robot tensed in uncertainty.
“That’s what I like to see,” O’Neill chuckled.
~~~
The Heart machine grabbed Trixie’s soul. “Your life and all its experiences are dust in the wind…”
“I… didn’t… get… dusted!” Trixie threw a smoke bomb in the Heart machine’s face. This did absolutely nothing, since it could still see her soul through the smoke. It continued pulling, trying its hardest to end her life.
Unfortunately for it, Pinkie existed, and Pinkie had a hammer that could hit with the impact force of a small rocket. The air between the hammer’s face and the robot ignited into a plasma explosion, sending the robot into a distant wall, snapping one of its arms.
“I… think… it still has me…” Trixie breathed, clutching her chest. “I…”
Pinkie tapped into the Element of Laughter, shielding Trixie with her own positive energy. “Don’t worry, Trixie, it’ll be fine! She’s just another bad guy on a long list. And we’ll defeat her… with smiles on our faces!”
Trixie perked up slightly. “…What about that thing makes you think it’s a she?”
Pinkie winked. “Good guesses.”
The Heart machine rose to its full height, holding out a hand. Heart blades akin to Allure’s lashed out. Trixie couldn’t see them—but Pinkie could, and she dragged Trixie through them with a complex series of jumping maneuvers.
“What are the weaknesses of… Heart?” Trixie asked. “Allure had it, we’ve got to know something…”
“The opposite of Heart is Mind, the two could cancel. But we don’t have a Mind player. Or another Heart player.” She jumped over an invisible hatchet. “I do know laughter doesn’t hurt the Heart, it just makes it stronger, sooooo…”
“You’re also Space! Do something Spacey!”
Pinkie and Trixie were suddenly on top of the Force Temple. “Like this?”
“Yes, this’ll do.”
“She’ll catch up to us.”
“We can still look for some help! Or something!”
They saw Corona and Eve attack the Doom robot above, sending a massive explosion out in every direction.
“Okay, everyone’s a little busy. We’ve still got to have options.”
The Heart machine jumped into the air, flying at them so quickly the hands started burning, although even the damaged one remained solid.
“My suggestion is to run until one of the others can help us.” Pinkie grabbed Trixie and jumped off the temple. “WHEEEEEEE!”
“AAAAAAAAAAA!” Trixie screamed.
“AAAAAAAAAAGH∂ˆ´∂ˆ´∂ˆ´∂ˆ´!” The Heart machine roared, voice garbling unintelligibly.
~~~
Jenny punched the Life robot in the face. It punched her in the face. Both of them lost their heads and regrew them a moment later: Jenny through the act of reforming bone and tissue from the ground up, the machine by creating meat and plant material from nothing to forcibly re-attach the pearly head.
They both performed a roundhouse kick, hitting the other in the chest and falling back. They sprung back onto their feet and punched forward: Jenny charging with magical energy while the Life robot infused its fist with a biohazard. Both lost a good chunk of their sides and repaired them immediately afterward.
“Stop copying me!” they both shouted at the same time.
“No, you stop copying me!”
“Stop it!”
“I SAID STOP IT!”
They both punched each other in the mouth—or where the mouth should have been. Jenny was muted as hers regenerated, but the robot’s speaker still worked. “Hah. I’m superior!”
“You’re a synthetic knockoff.” Jenny teleported behind her and kicked. “You’re just Life, aren’t you? No extra magic…” She snapped her fingers, sending a series of magic missiles at the robot. “Just a dominion over life.”
“Like you’re better?”
“I can teleport to those planets in the sky up there! What can you do?”
The Life robot created a plant monster the size of a small skyscraper, face riddled with bloody teeth.
“Oh,” Jenny blinked. “That’s pretty cool, actually, how d—”
The plant moved faster than Jenny could see, eating her whole.
Inside the plant, Jenny cast explosion at the end of her fist, burning the plant to cinders.
“Congratulations, you escaped a plant’s stomach!” the robot chided.
“Congratulations, you have shown the capacity for sarcasm! So close to sapience.”
“Congratulations, you are a robot racist!”
“Thank you!” Jenny jumped the robot again. The robot raised a wall of wood that Jenny smashed her face into. “Ow…”
“Please, you can ignore all the pain you w—” Jenny cast an electric shock that knocked the robot back, jittering painfully.
“How’s that for pain?” Jenny snarked, grinning until she felt an uncomfortable sensation in her feet. They had grown mushrooms. She facepalmed. “This isn’t going to go anywhere for a while, is it?”
“Probably not, but I’m having fun,” the Life robot admitted.
“Eh. Good point.” Jenny punched the mushrooms off her feet and flipped into the air…
~~~
The power of Light is related to both fortune and knowledge. If there were ever a being that had access to both aspects at once in equal quantity, they would find an… interesting set of abilities open up to them.
This was the case for the Light robot, which focused itself on Flutterfree and Discord. It knew with exact certainty how likely it was to achieve outright victory, admittedly pretty low. But it also knew that it could adjust the probabilities of said victory with its powers, flopping the chances. But the Tower influenced the chances through ka, making this flipping inverted by a precise constant that the Light robot also knew.
It knew none of its courses of action guaranteed victory, but also none of its courses of action guaranteed failure. By standard metrics, the highest success chance was to increase its own “luck” to absurd levels so that they couldn’t touch it no matter what chaos magic Discord cooked up. However, taking into account ka, the highest hubris has the highest retaliation. Even in this era of lower ka, they were next to the temple, so it balanced out. Thus, the actual highest chance of victory was the middle.
Playing another round of you-would-know-that-I-would-know with the Tower, the Light robot chose a random course of action between the standard 60th and 80th percentile success rate and committed to it.
It was delighted to discover that this course of action involved a lot of smack talking.
It surrounded itself in a minor fortune field and increased its awareness of all events before belting out an insult. “Finally decided you weren’t too good for another person, Flutterfree?”
“…Do I know you?”
“Yes!” It jumped behind them, suddenly wielding a sword. “Naturally, this isn’t what I really look like, but at least I’m still me. Look at you, all happy and enslaved to each other. I thought you were Flutterfree?”
Discord raised a claw and encased the Light robot in gelatin. “Amazing. Every word of what you just said… was wrong.”
Flutterfree snickered. “That’s Burger’s job!”
“Little more than a mime,” the robot retorted. “Discord, lord of Chaos, relegated to what, a sad little snake? Forced into a religion?”
Discord grabbed it and snarled. “She didn’t force me.”
“Oh, I’m not saying by her, darling. I’m saying you forced yourself to twist your very core being just because you wanted something. Is that really goo—”
Flutterfree’s Rage activated, skewering the light robot in the chest. “Even if that was true when we started… it’s been over twenty years. We have both grown beyond the reach of your petty insults.”
Discord put a hat on the robot. “Toodeloo!”
“You secretly resent and doubt each other for what you started that day!”
“That’s not true,” Flutterfree said, pumping rage into the robot. “We don’t keep it secret from each other at all. We share our doubts and our concerns. You… You have so much inside you… you…” Her eyes opened in recognition as the Rage and Lolo revealed what was inside the light robot. “How…?”
“The same way as this!” It was in such close quarters she could hack Flutterfree’s head off with one fell swoop.
Flutterfree severed the robot’s head with a flash of speed from the Element of Kindness.
What…? the Light robot thought as its higher processes began to fail. Flutterfree… Flutterfree doesn’t have that in her… she’s not… a killer...
The Light showed it that, indeed, Flutterfree had that capacity. The robot had just failed to believe such an observation in its excitement.
The field of luck began to sew the robot back together, but Discord was not about to let that happen. An anvil the size of a house smashed into the machine of Light, disintegrating it completely.
~~~
Vriska, Starbeat, Ahsoka, Troi, and Tessa were busy taking on the Blood-controlled army of the Blood robot. This wasn’t too hard – all three of the Force-users knew how to lull the weaker-willed into a sleeping state, and since all of them were already zombified by the Blood robot, it was pathetically easy.
Vriska and Starbeat were on defense while the other three made people pass out left and right.
“This reminds me way too much of those zombie horde worlds,” Vriska muttered, draining the luck from several people so their lightsabers spontaneously stopped working. “Just an army of mindless munchkins…”
“Destroy the robot, stop the zombies,” Starbeat deduced. “…Wanna try it?”
“I can take over defense,” Tessa said, spreading her lightsabers out. “Go. We can handle this.”
Starbeat teleported herself and Vriska behind the Blood robot. Vriska rolled the infinite-sided die, getting a massive explosion.
The Blood robot remained unharmed, subsisting off the energy of those it had connected with.
Vriska shrugged. “Well, there goes that.” She activated her luck absorption. “Let’s see if I can cause a hard drive failure…”
It pointed a hand at both of them, and instantly they felt frozen. A physical bond formed between Starbeat and Vriska’s souls, drawing not on the friendship they now had, but the hatred that had once existed in the past. The immense pain tortured their very core, dropping them both to their knees.
“What… even…” Vriska growled, forcing herself to her feet. “You… fucking…”
The Blood robot punched her in the face. “A weakness was detected and exploited.” It kicked Starbeat in the horn, knocking her over. It lifted a fist, going right for the stomach.
It would have killed them both without prejudice, tricking Vriska into taking a hit for Starbeat to trigger a Heroic death.
Unfortunately for it, a trapdoor opened up in the floor, swallowing it, Vriska, and Starbeat.
The people stopped being zombies in an instant.
“Where… where did they go?” Ahsoka asked.
~~~
Roland and Monika stood back to back, lightsaber and revolver pointed directly ahead of them. They could see nothing, but Monika could sense the character of Void moving around. She didn’t waste time looking at any finer details—just location. Always location.
“One-twenty,” Monika called. Roland shot a bullet, grazing the Void and forcing it to appear once more. Monika attempted to lunge at it with her lightsaber, grabbing onto it with the force… but it slipped away into nothing once more.
Next, it tried to attack, but Monika twisted its arm with the Force before it could land a hit. It dissipated before any further damage could be done.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Roland said. “I request a duel to end this pointless game.”
“A duel?” the Void robot appeared a fair way in the distance, hands on its hips. “Why would I engage in the acts of you lower lifeforms?”
“You appear to be fighting us like we would,” Monika commented.
“It’s this infernal body that limits me! You know what I’m capable of… You’ve seen it. You’ve faced it.”
“Are we supposed to know you?” Monika cocked her head.
“You’re just… hopeless! I can’t stand this!” It vanished again.
“Sooo… back to a stalemate?”
“Looks like it,” Roland grunted.
“I don’t believe this Void machine understands the inherent problem with stalemates.”
Roland didn’t say anything, but Monika knew he was curious. “Nobody wins.”
~~~
Mlinx’s spear met the Hope machine’s scepter. Mlinx pushed with all his might, forcing the Hope’s footing to give way.
“You have grown stronger,” it said.
“Since when?” Mlinx twirled around, grabbing hold of the machine’s torso with his two free arms.
“It is not surprising you do not recognize me, but still disappointing.” It twisted its scepter around its back and hit Mlinx in the side of the arm. Mlinx held fast, pushing the machine to the ground. “Quite the grip, soft shell.”
Mlinx’s eyes widened. “How—”
The robot kicked Mlinx in the chest, tossing him to the side. “Letting a warrior get the upper hand through emotional manipulation. I heard you ended up the mayor of a large city. You think that would have been one thing you worked out of your system.”
Mlinx pointed his spear at the robot, trembling. “There’s… it’s impossible… I…”
“Terror is unbecoming of a warrior.”
“I’m not a warrior.”
“Clearly.” The robot lunged forward, cracking Mlinx’s shell in two places and drawing blue blood. “I’m not even using these delightful new Hope powers of mine. This is nothing but pure skill…”
“Strength… isn’t… everything…”
“Perhaps not… in other situations.” The robot smacked Mlinx across the face, knocking him down. “But in this one, it is all that matters.”
Mlinx grabbed the robot’s arm with all of his hands, pulling with all his might. To both of their surprise, the robot’s arm separated from the rest of its body. Mlinx didn’t let his surprise create an opening this time—he rushed forward, punching the robot with its own fist.
The robot chuckled. “That’s more like it, Mlinx! Remember your training!”
“I have worked my whole life to forget your training!”
The robot that was somehow also Siron laughed. “You finally learned. It’s almost a shame…” He jumped behind Mlinx, taking his feet out from under him. Mlinx grabbed for Siron’s legs, but this was part of the plan. Siron skidded a leg sideways and smacked Mlinx in the head with the scepter once more.
Mlinx went limp.
“She wants me to kill you,” Siron said, not knowing if Mlinx could hear. “But you have proven yourself as a warrior after all this time. I always knew you had the potential… you are the last demon. In this New World, I cannot think of one better to carry on our legacy. Aside from myself, of course…” Siron chuckled. “If only I weren’t an abomination.”
He walked away, looking for another worthy opponent. Pidge remained untouched, laying behind a piece of rubble.
~~~
“Joanne, run,” Rev said, taking up a position between her and the Rage robot.
Joanne didn’t run. She just smirked.
“Looks like she’s not going anywhere…” Burgerbelle sighed.
“She’s one of mine,” Jotaro said. “Can’t really expect her to.”
“You don’t own me,” Joanne hissed, refusing to look up from her phone.
“Four on one… the odds are in your favor.” The Rage robot clapped his hands together. “You would think that… but they are not. See, if you will, the truth of your situation.”
The Rage wafted off him, getting in all their heads instantly.
“Rage is a very nebulous and difficult power to master… the most direct forms are all attacks.” It formed a massive bear claw around one of his hands out of the purple substance, waving it in the air. “Others involve seeing truth or revelation… forcing understanding.” He pointed the claws at all of them, pulsating like a demon from beyond the grave as the fur covered his body. “I am Skarn the Shaper, born anew, and I believe it’s time for a rematch.” He appeared as a purple bear with the robot merely a skeleton.
Rev and Burgerbelle started shaking uncontrollably. The Joestars remained as they were.
“The truth is in your minds of how hopeless this situation is… and you stand strong. Your family is one of the most honorable and heroic the multiverse knew. Know this: I am only tasked with killing the three labeled ‘heroes’. The young girl will go free at the end. I give you my word.”
“Not very smart, bounding yourself by honor,” Joanne muttered.
“It is what keeps me from falling into the same folly as some of my… colleagues.” He spread his arms wide. “It gives me something more. An art to my life. Most ‘villains’ seek some goal or a physical, worldly object… I do not. I seek art. And I have come to understand my prior death as art in and of itself…” He pointed a claw at Jotaro. “And the beautiful frame of the Tower has provided an encore.”
“You want an encore?” Jotaro adjusted his hat and let out a sharp grunt. “You’ll be honor-bound the same way you were last time.”
“There will be no death until the final defeat,” Skarn agreed. “As before, and as always. I commit to the truth with my Rage.”
“Jotaro, no,” Rev said. “He… he can kill us all in an instant. Rage is the most deadly Aspect, not Doom. Doom has caveats, Doom has rules. Rage is just… brutal.”
“He makes his own rules,” Jotaro said. “This is his arena. We do not have a choice in the terms.”
“Smarter than you look,” Skarn grinned. “Amazing how I am weaker now… but this power makes you so, so much more afraid. Let us begin.”
Rev let out a breath, prepared to fight despite her fear.
“STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!”
“I pray the Lord my soul to keep…”
The next instant, Skarn, Rev, and Jotaro were all on the ground. There were several craters in the sidewalk, a burnt cross impression on a nearby building, and several lacerations over Jotaro’s body. Rev seemed unharmed, though she wasn't moving.
Skarn stood up, choosing to ignore the truth of his injury. He turned to Burgerbelle. “Living art… confined to a shell of pure mortality. This world, beautiful though it is, limits the tools we can put to our canvases.”
Burgerbelle smiled nervously. “Heheh…”
“What will you throw at me? An instant death meme? Some sort of cosmic joke to throw me? Something simple, but surprisingly effective?” He leaned in. “You know none of it will work.”
“No u,” Burgerbelle said, lifting up a reverse uno card.
Skarn grinned. “I haven’t attacked yet.”
He punched himself. Burgerbelle took the damage, flying into a nearby wall. Before she could move further, Skarn overwhelmed her with Rage, burning away much of her skin. Without Flat physiology, she succumbed to his assault.
“They have fallen,” Skarn said, turning to Joanne. “And what of you?”
Joanne put down her phone. Skarn felt the weight of this motion flow through his Rage. He lifted up shields.
Joanne folded her hands together and smiled sweetly. “Lightbulb Sun?” Her Stand listened to her call, appearing behind her as a massive lightbulb with nine electric wires hanging from the bottom. “You’ve seen enough of his power. Absorb it.”
Lightbulb Sun slapped Skarn across the face with a wire moving so quickly he didn’t even see it until after it hit him. Within an instant, he felt the Rage vanish from him completely. He became… a normal, spindly robot with no special Aspect powers.
“Just like last time…” he said, chuckling. “Brought low… by myself. Bravo.”
Joanne grabbed the base of Lightbulb Sun with her hands and pointed it at Skarn. “Release.”
“I welcome it, this time.”
A beam of solar energy shot out of the top of the Stand, vaporizing Skarn the machine entirely.
~~~
“You did this to ME!” the Doom robot shouted.
“How?” Eve asked. “Why? What did we do last time we were here?”
“Dense, dense, but me…” the robot activated the Doom of a nearby cloud, making it spontaneously implode and blast Corona and Eve with a shockwave. “You don’t deserve my head…”
“I feel like it needs help…” Eve said, frowning. “How can we…?”
Corona removed her glove. “Like this.”
“DON’T YOU DARE!” the Doom robot shouted. “You will regret it!”
“Possibly,” Corona admitted. “Don’t particularly care right now.”
She teleported behind the robot. Instead of trying to run away, it punched Corona in the hand, making the connection solid.
Corona was in the robot’s mind…
It was a terrible, terrible mind. Memories flashed by in disjointed, conflicting bits and pieces that gave her little more than colors and screamed voices. There was a lot of gunfire, death, and magic lasers.
The screams sounded a lot like her, but she wasn’t screaming. She was too confused to scream.
She’d been in insane, broken, even eldritch minds before—but this was something else. It was as if this mind was at war with itself in a way even split personality wasn’t. It…
“Do you see?” two voices spoke to her at once. Suddenly, she could see herself and Eve standing in front of her. But they were shells – their eyes were empty and led into a hollow interior. “Do you understand?”
“You’re… us?” Corona cocked her head. “How?”
“You are the villains of your own story.” The other Eve raised a hoof while the Corona raised a hand. “The Doom could not choose between you two. So it chose me.” Both shells’ faces twisted into anger. “Two opposing forces shoved into the same body with the hatred of the height of the war… just enough understanding not to kill ourselves. Just enough… too much. Too much.”
Suddenly, Corona was in complete darkness. She realized with some disdain that, while the robot certainly didn’t have her powers, it had her experience, and would probably be one of the hardest minds to deal with.
“Why did you fight?” the voices echoed.
“Because I had to!”
“LIES!” both shrieked. “YOU COULD HAVE BACKED OFF! YOU COULD HAVE ERASED YOUR MIND! YOU COULD HAVE DONE IT SECRETLY!”
“That wouldn’t have been right!”
“RIGHT? RIGHT?” Corona was grabbed by hands that were hers, but not. “Look what your right has done to us. Look what it did to you.”
“Eve and I are friends, good friends, again.” Corona turned and extended a hand to the shells. “We can be yours. We can teach you to live with yourself.”
“I am friendship and empathy, and I broke.” The shells looked like they were crying, though they didn’t have eyes. “It is impossible. We are not just you, we are also Doom. All Doom. We absorb it into ourselves…”
“An entity of pure Doom…?” Corona shook her head. “I… how was such a thing even possible?”
“Temporary by design. Time is short. Always is. Life is… funny.” The shells cocked their heads. “We must act in our time. I must act in our time. You are this pain… you must end so the suffering will cease.”
“Killing us won’t stop your suffering.”
“You won’t bring suffering to the world anymore.” The shells looked to the sky. “Onion is so broken.”
“Who?”
“She hates us. We are the worst of them. We are the heroes she wants to suffer. We…. I…” The rage returned to their faces. “You stall!”
“I want to understand you!” Corona called. “I want to help you!”
“Help me… and help no others ever again.”
Corona tensed. “I can’t do that.”
“You think I was giving you a choice!?”
Corona tried to leave. The part of her within the Doom forced her to stay. “No, we fight here. No fancy magic, no weird Doom-play. Your mind versus your mind! There is nothing else! It really is like our life.”
“What about Eve?” Corona asked. “She’s you too! What does she have to say to herself?”
“You think it is any different?” The husks seemed confused. “It is the same. She is as much to blame as you are.”
“I sent that message!”
“She let you send it. You decided together to bring about the end, one way or another. And I am the result.” The husks sneered. “You die first. Then h—”
Eve cut the robot in half. Corona screamed as part of her mind was lost within the folds of the robot.
“I—I’m sorry!” Eve shouted. “Neither of you were moving and I couldn’t get in mentally, h—”
“It’s… fine…” Corona said, holding her head. “…That thing was us. Both of us.”
“…I sensed it, while you were both stuck there. The worst of ourselves…”
“It shouldn’t have been like that. Even in the war, we were… agreeable. It… it hated itself.”
“We are next to the Temple…” Eve turned to look at the gray pyramid. “It may have used what our people saw us to be, just as it did all those years ago.”
“…We need to fix this.”
“I’d love to. What do we need to fix again?”
Corona frowned. “I don’t know. Something.”
~~~
Mattie, Minna, and the Everykid stood with both the robots of Space and Time before them.
“Aight,” Mattie said. “I’ve about had it with all the other fights at this point, I’ve seen enough of a pattern to deduce what’s going on.”
“Do tell…” the Time machine said, holding up a hand to keep the Space one from moving.
“Pretty clearly every one of you robots is a past villain or force of evil or something. Skarn, Siron, and a myriad of others I think I’m pretty good at guessing but I’m not wasting bloody minutes explaining my guesses for them. One for each arc in Songs of the Spheres, right? Makes me think that the mindless Space hunk is English.”
“Correct,” the Time robot said, hands behind its back. “The reconstruction of his mind picked up from his self at the end of his journey. A soulless husk of nothing. He only acts because compulsions are placed in his mind.”
“So the question remains… who are you?” Mattie scratched her chin. “I don’t think the last arc could be said to have a villain aside from the Tower itself, and you aren’t snarky enough to be the Emissary.”
“I am not surprised you don’t recognize me… but I am furious.” Time was suddenly next to Mattie and kicked her in the side.
Nobody remembered what happened, but Minna somehow tore Time’s arm off with her teeth and spat it on the ground.
“What…?” the Time robot seemed baffled.
“I have been living as an orphanage matron for over twenty years. I am out of practice…” She pressed her hands together and cracked her knuckles. “But I am still one of Brell’s freaky soldiers. You don’t know half the things I can do.”
“English, focus on her.”
English charged, teleporting behind her. She dodged his attack effortlessly and blanked his memory, tripping him and knocking him to the ground.
“English, enter frenzy mode. Do not stop until contact is made.”
It no longer mattered that Minna was clearing English’s memory, he would keep punching with a flurry of fists. She had to focus on dodging, which was a little difficult considering he could teleport everywhere and bend space itself to his whim. But he acted like a mindless robot—predictably. She managed to weave in and out with precision.
“Useless…” the Time robot seethed. “If you want something done…”
“Focus on your backside,” Mattie declared, unfurling a whip on the robot.
“You think pain whips will do anything to me!?”
“No, but it seems you’re really angry, so if I talk a bit to get you riled up, you might miss—“
The Everykid threw a bomb into the robot’s face.
“—that,” Mattie giggled.
The next thing Mattie knew, the Everykid was on the ground, bleeding. The Time robot had a fist poised to deliver the killing blow.
“HELL NO,” Mattie teleported herself in front of the Everykid and took the hit herself.
“…She means that much to you?” the robot asked as its fist embedded itself into Mattie’s shoulder.
“No, dear, I’m just a masochist, it’s always an experience to have a new fist rammed inside me.”
For some reason, this set the time robot off. It pulled its fist back and punched right onto Mattie’s horn, cracking it down the middle.
Mattie winced prior to letting out a pleased sigh. “Haven’t felt that one in a while…”
“You are a freak of nature! You… bitch! I can’t believe…” the Time robot got ahold of itself. “You know what, this isn’t the place.” It kicked Mattie in the back of the head, knocking her out. “We’re going to have a talk, you and I... about everything you’ve done…”
It was at this point Minna figured it out. “…It can’t be…”
“Great detective work, but you had an advantage,” the Time robot declared. “Of course, you’re the last one standing, now…” Both the Time robot and English jumped Minna. She was barely holding her own against English—she went down much like Mattie.
The Time robot dusted off its hands. “Now… where’s that kid. I don’t see any reason not to end her and her smug face right now…”
The Everykid was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t like that. Something’s gone wrong. English, be on the lookout for anything suspicious. Even if we blink through time, there’s no telling what tricks they have up their sleeve.”
~~~
Onion entered the core of the Force Temple with all her equipment, ready to begin work. The robots had already been through here, they would have taken care of any guards. Ever since she had activated the Rage robot for Skarn all those years ago, it had always been pathetically easy to move in and out of places. Onion was their master, and with time she had restored all twelve of them from the ground up. It had taken a lot of work analyzing the Force spark and finding people who signified the twelve Aspects, but she’d done it. And she controlled every last one of them absolutely.
So she was absolutely shocked when she saw the Mind robot standing at the central altar, looking right at the Force spark.
“What are you doing here!?” Onion demanded. “You should be out there, fighting them!”
“I’m not out there because I don’t believe in petty revenge.”
“Get out there before I deactivate you!”
“I disabled that.” It turned to Onion. “You do not control me, and I do not agree with your mission.”
“You’re the Collector!” Onion shrieked. “They destroyed what you had built! They killed you!”
“That was part of my plan,” the Collector said, refusing to look away from the Force spark. “I intended from the very beginning to set myself up as a villain so I could be defeated, and that the heroes I collected together would continue helping the multiverse long after I was gone. Such a shame the multiverse ended so shortly after…” he sighed. “I was never against the heroes. I wanted them to win until my own fragile humanity took over.”
“That’s… not how they tell the legend…”
“Legends are better told with clear-cut villains and epic defeats. If you had read Mind, perhaps you would have seen what I actually was… and seen this coming.” He pressed his hands together. “You cannot convince me to take part in this revenge. I was never with you. You may have been able to convince Nettle and the abomination that was Corona and Eve that it was the heroes’ fault they were like this, but I know better. It’s your fault. All of this… it is your fault.” He looked at her with that featureless face of his. “Considering what inhabits the Time robot, how could you have ever believed otherwise?”
Onion growled. “You cannot hurt me. You may be able to disable the self-destruct, but my spirit controls all of you.”
“You are correct. I cannot harm you with my own powers. Luckily, I am a mastermind that’s capable of covering every exit. I have been planning this for quite some time, Onion, and as anyone who has faced me will tell you, I’m good at plans.”
As if on cue, a trap door opened in the ceiling, depositing Vriska, Starbeat, and the Blood robot in the ground. Immediately, the Collector pointed a finger at the Blood robot and fried its mind. It was not dead, but it couldn’t consciously do anything anymore—allowing Vriska to lash out and smash it with her sword. “F-fuck…”
Onion took a few steps back. “No…”
“Your pale shadow of the Combine has fallen,” the Collector declared. “And now there are two people in this room who can hurt you.”
Starbeat blinked. “That… earth pony? She’s responsible for this? But… why? I’ve never seen her before in my life!”
“Oh, you have…” Onion growled.
“Before you face her… I have a question.” The Collector turned to Starbeat. “What happened to Lightning?”
Starbeat blinked, eyes widening in shock as her goggles picked up on what he was. “C-colle—”
“I am but a mental copy, though in a way I am him. I am your ally in this fight. Please, what happened to her?”
“She’s… she’s dead,” Starbeat breathed.
“Did she die a hero?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That’s all I needed to know.” He turned to face Onion. “You are nothing to them. Surrender, deactivate the other robots, end this pointless carnage.”
Vriska readied her fluorite octet and Starbeat lit her horn.
“Don’t do it, kid,” Vriska warned.
Onion’s scowl deepened. “I… It’s not fair… you can’t always win!”
“Kid, that’s what we do. That’s why we are what we are. We win.” Her face softened as she remembered an encounter with a mysterious Watchmaker. “…When it really matters.”
“I… why can’t you be shown your place!?” Onion rammed her hoof into the ground and shrieked. “I have a ka-temple! I should be able to…”
English and the Time robot jumped out from behind Onion, charging the Collector.
“Like I didn’t plan for this.” The Collector held out a hand, controlling English’s pathetic, empty mind. The Collector prepared to take a minor beating through the Time robot’s powers, but he was strong enough to withstand it.
He was not strong enough to withstand Onion’s lightsaber cutting him in half.
The Collector fell to the ground, shocked. “…How?”
“You’re not a Mary Sue anymore,” Onion spat. “You’re just my robot. Your plans aren’t automatically perfect.”
The Time robot crushed The Collector’s head under its foot. “And you betrayed that purpose…”
Vriska shrugged. “Not sad to see him go. Now… how about a troll and a unicorn versus Space, Time, and a poor lost filly?”
The Time robot lifted a hand. “Show them our prisoners.” English obeyed, using his powers to grow the previously-microscopic Minna and Mattie to normal size, dropping them on the ground. The Time robot placed a foot on Mattie and pushed. “Stand down or they die.”
“You’re not going to do it,” Starbeat declared, narrowing her eyes. “You want her to die, but you want to do something else first.”
“To be fair, that’s just because I’m not sure I can kill you without some kind of plot armor kicking in,” Onion said, trotting over to the central altar. “But with this… I definitely can. All I need to do is set it up…”
“What…?” Mattie opened her eyes. “I… wh… I could have sworn…”
“Hello,” Onion said, addressing Mattie with far more hatred and venom than she’d had at any other point. “Get up, slut.”
Mattie opened her eyes groggily. “…You look exactly like one of my daughters.”
Onion twitched. “I wonder why that would be, mother.”
Mattie shot bolt upright. “C-circlet!?”
“I will never use the name you gave me!” Onion spat. “I. Am. Onion. And I am going to make you suffer.”
Mattie sighed. “Good luck with that…”
“I am well aware of your… disgusting condition.” She walked to the altar and took out some of her tools. “So we’re going to do something else…”
~~~
“Stop running!” the Heart robot screeched, lashing out by punching into a nearby wall. “You drove yourself into my planet before, why are you running now!?”
“Lack of preparation!” Pinkie called back, still bouncing forward with Trixie in her hooves.
“It’s got a bee in its bonnet about something… what’s she on about?”
“I think she’s Majora,” Pinkie said, jumping off a trampoline and into the air, dodging another spirit blade.
“What?! Why aren’t we dead!?”
“It’s just her mind, or a copy of it, or something.” Pinkie jumped behind a pot and appeared behind Majora, smacking her on the head with a golf club. Trixie, to her credit, got off a magic laser, not that it did anything.
“You fools… I will devour your souls and use your flesh to fuel the fire of my rebirth!”
“Pretty sure you can’t be reborn in the New World,” Trixie commented with a smirk. “Hope you like being a robot!”
The Element of Laughter flashed, protecting them from another wave of spirit blades.
“Can we mock her more? Get more power?”
Pinkie grinned. “Oh, yes!”
“It won’t be enough.” The Hope robot appeared, scepter in his hand. “And now you won’t even be able to run.”
Pinkie’s smile didn’t falter. “Hi, Siron. I don’t suppose you’d consider reforming and help us now, would you?”
“I have never considered your idea of reformation anything more than a disgusting crime against nature.”
“Ah. It was worth a shot.”
Siron surrounded his body with the energy of Hope. He was the paladin now, the savior—how could he lose when he had all the drive in the world to succeed?
He and Majora lashed out. Pinkie tried to dodge—and failed. Majora’s attacks were useless, but the holy Hope of Siron cut her to the bone. Her vibrant blood sprayed out of her leg as she was sent flying, cracking a few ribs on a street light.
Trixie’s smile vanished instantly. “L-let’s talk about this…”
Siron twirled his scepter. “No.” He brought it down on her head.
Discord caught it with a giant spring. “No!” He laughed, turning the Hope scepter into a cockatoo. “How about you go for someone your own size?”
Flutterfree spread her wings, her Rage spreading to Siron. “You can’t fight us.”
Siron shook his head, using his Hope to ignore the truth of Discord’s power. “Who cares about the odds? I ha—”
Corona and Eve teleported to the location, ice and fire brimming off them. This made Majora freeze in her tracks—too many enemies.
“Siron,” Eve said, eyes narrow. “It doesn’t have to end here. Not again.”
Siron grabbed his scepter.
“I will not give you the warrior’s death again.”
He knew it was true. Not because of Flutterfree’s Rage—he was actively countering that—but through his inner being. She had given him what he wanted when they fought so long ago. Now? Now she was stronger, older, more experienced, and had the strength to take him out like the bug she thought he was.
And she was still offering him her hoof.
“Once you destroy the Tower, you’ll realize your weakness,” Siron spat. He tapped into his Hope, flashing like a flare gun. Everyone had to look away.
When the light cleared, he and Majora were gone.
“Did Siron just… FLEE?!” Trixie asked, holding tightly to Discord’s leg like he was her lifeline.
“He did…” Corona frowned. “And I’m going to find out where he went…”
~~~
Jenny threw the Life robot far into the distance. By sheer luck, it hit the Void robot in the side, knocking them over.
“AUGH!” the Void robot shouted. “How… HOW DID YOU HIT ME!?”
“I guess you qualify as Life…”
Roland fired a bullet through the Life robot and the Void robot. The Void robot toppled backward, sparking uncontrollably. “F-freaking… mortal… body!” It exploded.
The Life robot regenerated itself without issue. “…You just killed Nettle.”
“Nettle?” Jenny blinked. “That’s not Nettle! That’s some stupid robot!”
“The robots are images of our past foes,” Monika said, pointing her lightsaber at the Life robot. “If I had to guess… I’d say this one is you.”
“Really? Again with the evil twin thing!? …Though, that would explain a lot,” Jenny admitted.
“Hey, listen to that, I’m an idiot!” Jenny-bot laughed.
“What were you expecting?” Roland asked.
“HEY!” both Jennys shouted at once.
“Maybe you can answer some questions…” Monika lifted Jenny-bot off the ground with the Force, glaring at her. “What is your mission?”
“To punch you until you stop moving, duh.” Jenny-bot created a massive vine with thorns and attacked Monika, only for her to cut it in two with her lightsaber.
“Why?” Monika cocked her head. “Do be quick, we don’t have all day.”
“You’ll have to pry that out of my cold, dead hands. Or head, as the case may be.” Jenny-bot struggled. “Good luck killing me!”
The Breath robot fell out of the sky, smashing into Jenny-bot. She regenerated easily. The Breath robot did not, struggling to stand on its damaged legs. “I… am the wind…”
“You’re annoyingly impossible to keep down!” O’Neill shouted after he and Nanoha teleported to the surface.
“It’s tradition!” the Breath robot laughed.
“That’s it, I’m convinced.” O’Neill pointed a finger. “That’s Ba’al, somehow.”
Nanoha prepared another volley of a million missiles. “He won’t last long.”
She was right. Roland shot him. He had no idea it was coming—his inner circuitry flew out like brain matter, covering the ground around him.
“Huh,” Jenny-bot said. “I wonder if I’m the last one…”
O’Neill slapped her across the face with Crimson Sushi. “Let’s find out!”
“There’s no way you can kill me!”
“We don’t have to,” Roland said, lowering his gun. “…Imprison her.”
“That’s not going to be easy…”
Jenny laughed. “But it’ll be fun!”
“Frick.”
~~~
Siron and Majora ran into the core of the Temple.
“…I sense that there’s a problem,” Onion grunted as she attached a few wires to the central altar.
“They’re banding together in large groups,” Siron reported. “Too many for us to take.”
“Did either of you have any success?”
“I defeated Mlinx.”
Onion turned to Mattie, sneering. “Already one of your precious friends has fallen! H—”
“He’s not dead,” Mattie muttered. “I’d feel it. If I had to guess, I’d say Siron let him live out of respect.”
Onion’s sneer fell into a scowl. “…Unsurprising. But this...” She tapped the top of the console she’d attached to the altar. “This will give me what I need to do some real damage.”
“What happened to you?” Minna asked. “Why… why are you doing this to us?”
“Because my mother abandoned me at birth and the woman who raised me didn’t tell me who she was!” Onion pointed a hoof at Minna. “You could have, at any time, told me your story! Told me who you were! But no, I had to figure it out!”
“I’m sorry for not telling you, but you were so angry, even then!”
“You made it worse.” Onion pulled a lever, prompting the Force spark to flash a myriad of different colors. “That hellhole I grew up in…”
“I cared for you!” Minna shouted. “I gave you everything you needed, I helped you with your Force training, I—”
“You are a liar! You had too many children to watch out for, you couldn’t possibly be a mother to us all. But at least you were a better mother than… that masochistic marshmallow slut that probably has more kids than she knows how to count. Isn’t that right, Mattie!?”
“…It is…” Mattie admitted.
“I bet you only have kids because it gives you some kind of perverse pleasure, because you certainly don’t raise us. You had me here and just up and abandoned me. You did this.” She gestured at the Time robot—a robot with her own mind inside of it. “You made me into this.”
“My child is the villain again…” Mattie chuckled bitterly. “If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.”
“This… this has happened before!?” Onion’s jaw hung open. “What is wrong with you?”
“A lot of things. Shall we go down the li—”
Corona, Eve, Fluttershy, Discord, Pinkie, and Trixie charged through the door. Siron, Majora, English, and the Onion-bot were ready to face them.
“Stop this, now,” Corona demanded.
“No,” Onion said, pressing a button on the console.
The Force spark turned black, coalescing ka-energy into a single point. Discord let out a scream as it lifted him into the air, crushing him on all sides.
Onion hovered her hoof over another button. “A happy ending… I hate your happy endings. You just got to solve your relationship even after all that terror and… you all get to be happy while the rest of us wallow in our unimportant, meaningless lives! And that’s not going to change when the Tower’s gone. But while the Tower’s here… I can give you a taste of what we experience.”
She locked eyes with Discord.
“I am going to kill you. And there’s not a thing they can do about it. Your plot armor is gone.” She turned to Flutterfree. “And you are going to feel it.”
But are you free of your master's control?
Why do I have a bad feeling about this?
Ah. Final boss rush. I should've guessed.
Oh. Well. That makes one of my earlier comments very ironic, doesn't it?
The end approaches. I'm anticipating and dreading it in equal measure.