“Luna?”
Samus wasn’t really sure what she was expecting of the magical aberration. But like any echo she had felt or sensed thus far on the planet, Luna… if it even was supposed to be her, didn’t respond to her calls. Flickering between existence and lack thereof, she merely stood there—or rather, floated—in silence, regarding Samus placidly, like a statue would regard visitors.
While Samus lowered her weapon and began to amble tentatively back towards the glyph, Twilight offered up some words:
“I can sense her magical profile as clear as day: it’s an echo of her for sure, though she seems much younger here. Well… all echoes are of ponies when they were younger, but she’s really young here. I think it’s actually of her when she was going through the ascendance trials.”
Samus cocked an eyebrow.
“Wait. I thought the whole ‘magical echo’ concept was just for like, traumatic magical events… like the strife back in Canterlot?”
“Sort of,” Twilight corrected.
“It’s that, or really anything where there’s a substantial magical presence that’s been collected, accumulated, held, or that’s otherwise just remained stagnant. There just, well… tends to be just that in times of extraordinary crisis.”
She then suggested:
“Don’t worry about being subtle—echoes don’t respond to physical stimuli. Get closer and focus on it a little more. We might find some answers?”
Samus shrugged.
“Better than any other idea I had.”
As Samus drew closer, the magical echo of Luna suddenly appeared more skittish, turning on her blurry hooves and sparing unsure glances to either side of her. Samus only resumed following in her steps when ‘Luna’ then trot hurriedly towards the glyph that had already been activated. By the time she caught up with the apparition fully, she could clearly observe Luna going through her own motions to undoubtedly bring the glyph to life all that time ago.
To sate her own curiosity though, Samus then brushed her hand through Luna’s mane, and was unsurprised in how her armored fingers faded straight through her neck. If anything, her systems registered a modest drop in temperature, but as Twilight had led her to expect, the echo did not react in the slightest.
Even so, Samus couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to eventually meet her.
As the Hunter watched Luna line her horn up with the glyph, and gaze into history as she activated it herself, Samus had to again contend with the fact that she had been silently enjoying the physical connection with Twilight and the others…
…even if she had recoiled the first couple times Twilight invaded her personal space and hugged her. As things were now, they made the silences a little less oppressive.
Samus’ reverie was torn asunder as she noticed Luna stepping away from the glyph, only to then light her horn, and cast some unintelligible spell against the left adjacent wall. Samus took a step back and observed her, clear as day, as she then walked right through it.
“Whoa wait… what?” she asked aloud.
She then poured over the very wall, noting no imperfections in it, nor anything that would indicate that there was a hidden passage. Nothing of interest was apparent to her—not even simple cracks in the edifice that, themselves, were rather common through the entire Temple thus far. A quick flip back and forth through her OM-Visor, likewise, left her with no more answers than she had started with.
Twilight also had some words, though Samus could hear the gears turning in her head through her own intrigued response:
“IIIIInteresting…~”
“I’ll say. Just checked OM, too. No weird magical sensitivities or anything,” replied Samus.
She brushed the same wall with her hand, tracing various nooks and crannies with her armored digits and yet, nothing else was revealed to her.
Thinking out loud much more willingly now that there was more than her own monologue in her head in a literal sense, she then added:
“Welp. No obvious exits. Wall is way too-pristinely carved to have been the result of a cave-in, and based on everything I’ve seen so far with magic… I bet my next check from the Feds that Luna knew of some passage only accessible by a spell.”
“Wholeheartedly agreed,” said Twilight. “You got ahead of my thoughts on that, actually. I will say that I had a hunch there was some kind of hidden passage. It’d be another defense mechanism against non-magic intruders potentially mucking up or destroying sensitive parts of this place.”
“What do you recommend?”
“Guess there’s no time like the present to teach you a new spell! Heh, not like we really have much of a choice, anyway.”
Samus shrugged, dropping into a half-battle stance and raising her hand idly, ready to cast a spell. Neutrally, she asked:
“Mkay. What’cha got for me this time?”
“Something that’ll allow you to generate simple portals to phase through walls, barriers, and the like. It’s essentially like Flash Teleport, except much less intensive on magical ability since it’s temporary, very short distance, and doesn’t involve disintegrating yourself at the atomic level, however instantaneous.
Simply put, it’s called ‘Gateway.’”
“Sounds simple enough, I guess.”
“Mhmm! That’s kinda the idea,” Twilight affirmed. “Very short range for when you don’t need to invoke the full power of Rarity’s element. The good thing is that it also works to determine if a wall is even passable. After all, you can’t really phase through an entire cliffside…
“...or conversely, don’t really wanna fall to your death.”
It made perfect sense to Samus.
“Works for me. The usual state?” Samus asked, getting ready to do what she had been doing since she started off with magic.
Twilight mustered a tiny giggle.
“Definitely, but first there’s a couple things I want you to start off with. Swap to OM, if you would, please?”
Samus did just that, bathing her vision in the usual, familiar darkness that reigned over her magical sight, saved for a marked increase in the wisps and magic particles that floated and flew on by. Like she had noted previously, nothing vastly new had been revealed to her, save for a slightly warmer magical signature where Luna’s echo had disappeared through the wall right in front of her. All of this, Samus figured, were traces of the ‘echo of the echo’ of Luna.
“Now…” Twilight continued.
“Go ahead and place your palm against the wall right there—where Luna seemed to walk through it in the past. And once you do, keep that position and channel the usual state of mind. Filter out all distractions and just listen to my voice.”
Easy enough for her, and with a further honed practice, Samus expelled her breath through her lips in a soft sigh as she let her eyes fall shut.
Twilight’s voice echoed, hollowly and soothingly, off the corners of her mind:
“Now, this time, I want you to envision not the Temple wall in front of you… not the wall that you’re pressing your hand against… but what might be lurking behind it. Reach out, Samus, and see if there truly is another path forward. Manifest this as if you want to pass through a simple doorway.
“Considering you were able to perform a Flash Teleport without even your Suit to help you earlier… I think this should be a lot easier for you. Anyway, I’ll shut up now. Go ahead and give it a try.”
To Samus, it made perfect sense, much like the rest of Twilight’s simply-put lines of teaching. She somewhat remembered that the alicorn was the prized student of Celestia, and close confidant of Luna. She sure behaved the part when imparting knowledge in a way that was digestible for her.
It was probably the reason they had been getting along so well, all her eccentricities aside.
And through that same trance-like state, she followed Twilight’s words to a T: in the darkness of her mind, eyes still closed, and her breathing deep and controlled, Samus pictured the wall in front of her. She felt it.
She felt her armored palm pressing flat against it, pressing into the somewhat uneven grooves and stone aberrations that had been the persistent work of erosion and time. She could see the imperfections amongst the elegantly, meticulously carved wall. But from there, she peered past it. Pushed passed the mental block that told her flat out that she couldn’t simply imagine a reality that she couldn’t see.
Samus was immediately rewarded with a vivid sight—the existence of a parallel hall a couple feet beyond her current obstruction was now fully visible through her closed eyelids.
Seeing what literally lay ahead, Samus opened her eyes, finally catching a glimpse of their reflection as they flared with her magical prowess. She knew what she had to do—what came next, magically: creating the portal.
From the center of her palm, a flood of magenta hard-magic burst forth and coated the wall in front of her, emanating outward into a flat ovular threshold plane. Ripples began to form like she had dipped her hand in a pool of water, spreading outward as Samus channeled more and more of her magic into creating this ‘gateway.’ An optical illusion of a whirlpool, replete with perceptions of depth, twirled towards the center with ever increasing frequency.
Samus suddenly felt her magical ‘muscle’ stretch taut as the spell reached critical mass. Where once there was a literal wall, then a wall of hard-magic, the latter irised open like one of the innumerable shielded doors she had passed through since her first missions through the galaxy. In its wake, the hidden, parallel hall lay in wait for her first, confident steps. Much like her magical vision had foretold, it was a near-identically-architected hall to the point where she had to confirm there wasn’t some reflection trickery happening.
Through the combined gasps of the girls in her systems, Twilight squealed in excitement as Samus casually stepped through the threshold she just spawned. Once she made it through, the spell ceased, as did its occupancy of her magical center, closing behind her and sealing her off.
Whether she now wanted to or not, she was committed to her new path forward.
Even Samus couldn’t help but marvel with some small bit of pride, staring where the gateway had once been to the backdrop of the heaping praise she was receiving.
“AMAZING!!!” Twilight further squealed, beyond approvingly. “You nailed it, filly! And again on your first try! Gods you’re getting so good at this!!”
“Well done, Darling… as always~.”
“Heh, yeah! Good job, Samus!”
Samus, not wanting to get further behind schedule, strode ahead as her Suit’s systems added some extra context to her newfound, newly-taught ability:
[Gateway Acquired!]
[An offshoot of Flash Teleport, the ability to generate localized portal gateways has been conferred. Significantly less taxing and energetically inexpensive, you can now traverse through walls, barriers, shields, and blockages of hazardous materials.]
“Thanks, girls,” said Samus as she dismissed the new notifications. “Let’s get back on track, now.”
Twilight was more than happy to oblige.
“Roger that! I’ll continue monitoring the magical space. Just keep us moving forward…”
Hand back atop her cannon with her eyes flicking over her immediate front, Samus resumed vigilant watch for anyone, or anything, that might attempt to ambush her through her journey forward. Thankful for the silence to concentrate and lose herself in her work once more, not much was willing to stand before her aggressively… perhaps disappointingly so thus far on this leg of the journey.
Well, other than her mind of course.
She hadn’t even needed to use her Charge Beam nor Missiles to blow through any debris—the cave-ins of the halls she followed thusly hadn’t been total. The moss and vines that continued to dot and criss-cross her path respectively did little to hinder her meandering, winding trek forward.
Samus again noted the presence of a few Equis Crabs, with a few larger ones leading their respective, disciplined groups from shattered edifice to to shattered edifice.
And the literal straight-forward path culminated in yet another instantaneous drop-off. Samus stopped in her tracks to marvel at how suddenly the journey simply ended into a shaft with nowhere else to go—not even a grand cavern like just before the second glyph.
Just a drop, almost like construction abruptly ended.
As the Hunter stepped to the edge and took a gander down at the abyssal darkness that awaited her, as had been local custom for her, she recalled the arduous, decidedly uncomfortable journey upward to get to where she was presently in this whole Temple system.
Was this drop going to simply negate that whole effort in one fell swoop?
Her OM Visor again revealed little of surprising magical significance: the specks and currents of magic were back again, and continued to undulate and float around her like a river whose pull was much too weak than to just nudge her further along.
Right into the drop.
Samus wondered if she should be feeling insulted by now.
She then glanced side-to-side, as if Twilight and the girls were standing on either of her pauldrons, there to offer her any advice or thoughts as they normally would if they happened upon something interesting or relevant. No such preemptive advice was forthcoming, and with another wordless, if uneventful hop, Samus dropped into the awaiting darkness.
As she fell through the air through the void that had consumed her entirely, only fleeting flecks of light that had entered through some cracks in the edifice had graced her vision in scanning motions. Through it all, she braced herself as she estimated the distance she fell, prepared for her Suit to absorb the impact… but no such impact came.
Hmph…
Her steadiness waned somewhat as Samus knew for a fact she had been falling further than she expected to, while further accelerating in her descent. A shakiness and lack of stability took over as she noticed a light coming up at the literal end of the tunnel after seven seconds since her jump.
She braced for impact, and her Suit’s dampeners did the rest of the work as she finally impacted solid, stone ground.
Knelt down to further disperse said impact, Samus drew her cannon over her line of sight and back around, quickly checking her motion tracker as well as her direct surroundings with two sweeps back and forth. Nothing interesting was forthcoming, and her motion tracker lay barren of hostiles as did her new passageway surroundings.
Except for a couple paintings of what Samus would consider rudimentary ‘Pony Runes.’ None of them looked particularly noteworthy, nor did her Scan Visor contradict her assessment. Her magical sight continued to bathe her vision in a plethora of magical flecks that danced around on those same magical currents, beckoning her forward.
Just a whole lot of nothing.
As Samus stood up and continued her cannon-led stroll onward, she mentally made a note to, in the future, not complain internally so much when the combat was nonstop. Because as much as she enjoyed the ancient puzzles the Chozo and the Luminoth left behind for her, literally fighting for her life in the heat of battle was preferable to just a drab, monochrome hellscape of nothing to look at, as had been for a fair part of this leg of the journey.
Thankfully, this bout of monotony soon ended when she passed through one more archway threshold, in which the hall opened up into another circular, cylindrical room. Much unlike the Hall of Ascendance where this whole mission started, Samus noted how there was barely any space to maneuver versus the hall path she had just emerged from… and yet, the room, with another portrait of the full moon that spanned the floor, took on the appearance of a small lift.
In her mind, there was no way it wasn’t part of some elevator system.
Though more interesting than that, Samus came to a halt in the center when she realized that the final glyph was right in front of her: on the opposite wall, where the path her journey took her on terminated entirely.
Twilight exuded a profound relief as she sighed out her words:
“There it is…”
Samus wasn’t entirely impressed with its presentation. It was just… here? She had expected some other type of trap, or more use of her abilities as the Temple would increasingly play tricks on her to get the final glyph.
Not even the courtesy for an ambush of some kind by local, aggressive wildlife. It seemed almost too easy.
“Mm…” she hummed.
A flip through her magical sight showed nothing untoward, save for the glyph itself glowing white-hot with magic in the expected shape of a full moon—the final phase. So aggressive were the glowing and magical artifacts seemingly ejected from its surface, Samus had to wonder if there was some other force at play attempting to likewise aggressively hail its activation.
Having no need to stall the process, Samus got right underway in activating the final glyph when she spotted another similar bit of accompanying text, etched underneath. Much like with the third instance, this one proved little issue or wear on her mind, and after the appropriate light show accompanied by the single line of hard magic shooting straight up into the unseen ceiling above, Samus went right to scanning the text.
Curiously, the result was in no way as wordy as the Hunter had come to expect from the rather poetic style of retelling history of long past:
[Scanning…]
[Scan Complete.]
[New Pony Lore has been translated and recorded to your logbook.]
[Translation:
[By the grace of Fate, She has Ascended.]
Those words carried literal weight to them as a sudden bout of seismic activity shook the foundations of the room… and from how profoundly the vibrations entered her bones, seemingly the entire foundations of the Temple at large.
“Whoa!” yelped Twilight as Samus, ever stoic and glancing around the room, felt herself rising upward with the floor.
As the Hunter had suspected, the expansive mural of the moon beneath her boots was the floor of a lift, and carried them upward into the shaft above. The room which held the final glyph nestled in its watch had disappeared entirely in the coming darkness, only ever partially illuminated by some natural light that passed by in scanning motions.
Samus, this time, was the first to speak:
“Mkay. That should be everything.”
Twilight agreed.
“Yeah… should. But I guess we’re back to not knowing what happens. Hopefully it’s nothing too arduous.”
Samus decided to let her thoughts on the matter of ‘difficulty’ be known:
“Gotta say… all things considered, that wasn’t exactly the most difficult puzzle I’ve ever gone through. Unless there’s something else I’m missing… does that mean I’m a magical prodigy?” came her dry humored quip.
Through the combined giggles of Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy, Samus checked her systems and all their sensors—there was absolutely nothing she could see that changed as a result of the glyphs being activated. No environmental oddities nor any other seismic activity that her system didn’t even deign to inform her of.
“Well…” Twilight began with an air of dancing around the subject. Samus herself couldn’t help but huff, amused that Twilight even thought she was being serious with her last facetious question.
She giggled again, having seemingly detected Samus’ ribbing but further added:
“In all seriousness though, you’ve really been opening my eyes up to what’s possible with magic in such a short time. I know I’ve said it a lot… but beyond just the abilities you arrived with, you’re doing a fantastic job with magic. If you had a horn, I would’ve expected you to have been a hell of a spellcaster in some top university here!”
Samus smirked.
“Heh. I wasn’t being serious but… thanks, Twi.”
“Well, I am being serious, so…”
Samus added a huff to her smirk, but was more than content to let the remaining ambient sounds of the lift taking her upward fill the now-complete dearth of conversation. Like had been the norm when traversing the various systems in her previous travels, she was happy to silently ruminate and take in what sights were offered.
Often, it wasn’t much. Unlike the previous times, that same, thin stream of hard magic kept her company from the glyph below. Either way, she was happy to stand in silence.
A sudden lurch of the elevator platform drew Samus’ attention upwards, just as the ceiling irised open. She braced her legs as her ascent suddenly slowed, and then came to a complete stop with a metallic clang that reverberated through the Ascendance Hall… where Samus found herself standing atop the center of the now-brightly, magically illuminated Full Moon. The entire perimeter was lit up in that same, omnipresent teal-blue light that had guided her progress since the first glyph.
Again, she smirked. It was done.
And again, all ambient sound cut out entirely, and a ‘familiar,’ layered, echoey voice made itself known once more. Samus, used to the bit by now, sighed and closed her eyes as she listened to Prime’s voice, as if she were speaking authoritatively straight into her ear:
“So long as the ambrosia exists, so will I.
“So long as it feeds on all life, so will I.
“So long as it consumes you… gnaws at your very life, mind, and being…
“...so too, shall I.”
The natural world broke through the wall of unnatural silence once more as Prime’s latest diatribe faded away with the coastal winds that swirled through the Ascendance Hall.
Twilight prodded carefully:
“...Samus?”
“I’m here. She’s gone… for now,” confirmed Samus
“...she?”
Oh. Right.
“Another long story you might’ve gotten the high level on with reading my logbook. We’ll talk more when we get back.”
Twilight seemed more than happy to drop it for now.
“You got it, Samus. And speaking of ‘back…’ looks like we’re back where we started!”
The Hunter nodded, regarding her surroundings almost fondly, and more than that, appreciating access to a quick exit if things were to go to shit in the next few moments. She hung on those next few moments, steeling herself for the grand entrance of Murphy’s Law.
No such moments came that necessitated abandoning her position, and so Samus replied:
“Yeah… and like I said before, I’m a bit curious as to how easy that all was. That can’t really be it, right?”
“The glyphs themselves were likely only a part of the whole test. Also remember, there was nearly half a lifetime of training for Luna to go through in other areas, not just this ceremonial ritual. If anything, the little adventure we just went on through the Temple was more of a verification of magical ability versus an inherent test to become connected to the Moon.” Twilight explained.
“That…” The digital alicorn further added. “...comes later. And I can’t really tell you what lies ahead. The echo of Luna didn’t provide much future prediction, nor did the imprint we found go into any great amount of detail. So really… I’d bet it isn’t over at all.
“In fact, I’d be really surprised if nothing else waited for us,” the alicorn finished.
Samus huffed, and as if right on cue, another round of seismic activity grumbled and churned under her feet, seeming to shake the entire Ascendance Hall. She braced herself, and as she sought the source around her, she stood her guard down when she came face-to-face with the culprit: a stone pillar, hitherto hidden by an identical stone slab at the ‘head’ of the full moon. It rose from its resting place with a deep, aged, grinding mechanical sound of stone on stone, with the cacophony ceasing when it locked in place with a firm ‘clang.’
Samus lowered her cannon and stepped up to the new pillar, where she now recognized the telltale signs of three concave, dome-shaped slots facing her… each of which began to pulse a gorgeously pleasant, inviting blue.
Samus’ reaction, as silence again returned through the ever present whooshing of the coastal winds, was a rather succinct:
“Huh… I see.”
From here, she wasn’t entirely sure what to do. From her previous gallivanting on Aether, she could recognize a ‘magical’ lock anywhere. Even consulting her Scan Visor for a quick check confirmed through its own speculations that this was where to place some keys to complete some aetheric handshake. It likewise let her know that the magical potential nestled therein was immense, but beyond that, nothing that was immediately actionable.
But… what keys?
“Any ideas?” she asked.
Twilight answered:
“Hmmm… seems like it’s a—WHOA hold on there, that’s weird!”
Rarity immediately followed Twilight’s astonished, self-interjection with one of her own:
“By Celestia—what is that feeling?!”
Fluttershy was hot on their tails with her own thoughts, further clouding Samus’ headspace:
“Th-This is so weird, girls… what is that…?”
Samus practically stumbled over with the vocal overload from three foreign voices literally in her head. She squinted her eyes and planted her armored fingers against the side of her helmet, imploring:
“GIRLS! For fuck’s sake please organize your thoughts before you all burst out yelling like that. For my own sanity.
“One at a time—what’s happening?”
As Samus had come to expect, Twilight was first to speak up:
“I feel just like… a sudden tugging at my Element. My very being, really, which I guess is just an extension of my Element. It’s a super weird feeling that’s hard to explain but, somehow… I can feel that it’s not malicious in any way. It’s like any of my friends pulling me along for a walk.
“It’s welcoming.”
Fluttershy simply added:
“Yeah. It’s… gentle. Like one of the animals trying to nudge me to play. I’d feel safe.”
As did Rarity:
“I agree, dear… and if I had to rely on my intuition, I’d have to say what everyone is thinking: that it’s coming from that shining contraption that literally just appeared from the ground.”
Samus nodded, though from her point of view, that latter point was beyond obvious. But hearing what she did from all three of their figurative mouths was enough to let her know that she was on the right track with the thoughts brewing in her mind.
Twilight actually did one better when she confirmed that Samus had hit the nail on the head:
“Okay, I think I understand what’s happening now—it’s a cipher lock! Remember that first passage you scanned when we first got here? Actually, I think I can just search through your logbook archives myself, one second.
“And…
“A-ha!”
If she were in her physical form, Samus’ would’ve shot her a sideways glance.
She did that WAY too quickly. She’s getting too comfortable poking around in my systems.
“Here. Whoever wrote it mentioned that after Luna presented the ‘...remaining, unused three Elements of Harmony, she ascended into the Chamber above…’ That means that an Elemental Lock of sorts was called upon once you activated all the glyphs. So I think that means you need to ‘present’ us to the lock so it can do what it needs to do.”
Samus had pretty much figured out where this was going, and even through the gratuitous reassurance from all three of the girls that this magical ‘tug’ didn’t feel at all malicious, she still hesitated. Naturally more than a bit concerned at exposing all three of their Elements at once, she pursed her lips, fidgeted in her stance and softly, yet firmly asked with no hint of unease:
“You uhh… sure about this?”
Somehow—and Samus could not figure out how she knew this, but she could sense the three of them ‘looking’ between one another… sharing a sense of knowing like real life friends would agree silently amongst each other.
“Yes,” said Twilight.
“Absolutely,” added Rarity.
“I’m okay with it,” agreed Fluttershy.
Samus still had her reservations, of course, but that was all she needed to confidently proceed. Hand outstretched, she asked:
“Okay… what do you need from me?”
“You can magically generate our elements by manifesting them from your systems, much like you would cast any spell so far. That way, you’re not physically yoinking us from your suit and preventing causing whatever problems that would definitely happen after that,” Twilight instructed.
“That,” she concluded. “...should suffice as a magical handshake for the cipher.”
Samus nodded.
“Right.”
Hand still outstretched and having already channeled the usual magical state, she closed her eyes and fished within her body, isolating the three distinct, foreign energies within her. As Samus imagined the Elements floating before her, she used the abilities each one granted her—sensitivity, teleportation, and cloaking—as anchor points to manifest each respective one.
Through her blackened vision, she could now vividly see each of the elements one-by-one.
Then, she opened her eyes, again noting their glare from behind her visor.
First came Twilight’s star, which coalesced into a lifelike, blown-up projection of the real thing in a show of gorgeous, glinting colors. Samus knew it wasn’t the actual Element itself, but seeing the projection so life-like before her eyes, and peacefully rotating in place above her flared hand brought her distinctly back to the memories of the Dark Temple Keys on Dark Aether.
In another gentle show of magical beauty, then came Rarity’s diamond… and then Fluttershy’s butterfly in short order thereafter, both with their respective, aesthetically pleasing magical, coruscating wakes. Neither likewise lacked any twinkling sheen in the ambient light of the Temple.
Though she held her concentration, Samus asked:
“Still with me?”
The answers were immediate:
“Yup!”
“Right here, dear.”
“Mhmm!”
Silence again returned as the Hunter then gently beckoned the Elements forward with her hand. She watched as, through her magical will, the projections floated gracefully on an unfelt, silent breeze towards the cipher. Each one claimed their respective, pulsing ‘domes’ therein, seeming to fit perfectly into place with a resounding, ominously powerful ‘click!’
Just like a massive key.
The sound of the final ‘unlatching’ continued to echo off the far reaches of Samus’ mind, as each one carried literal weight to what came next. Suddenly, Samus felt on edge. Much like the danger she knew she would find in the Dark Aether Temples, something inside her screamed that she was walking into mortal danger.
She always was. She always did. And as such, she suppressed it, as always. What else could she do?
The Ascendance Hall suddenly, yet again, came alive on the heels of the unlocking with another round of seismic shifting. Much more potent and precise, it felt as if the entire cliffside wherein the Temple rested was experiencing an earthquake.
“Oh my…” Fluttershy timidly voiced.
Samus, however, remained unfazed. If the cliffside was actually collapsing, she figured they’d know soon enough. It was an entire possibility, given the age of the Temple itself… but likewise with the age, it soon became evident that this was entirely by design. Simultaneously, with their purpose fulfilled, all three Elemental manifestations phased out of existence, atomizing before Samus’ eyes.
Fluttershy, in a subversion of expectations, was the first to vocalize her thoughts from the experience:
“I can’t place why but… that felt nice.”
Twilight and Rarity were in adamant agreement:
“Hehe, yeah… not sure what that was, but if that’s what it takes to bring the Princesses back, then I’m all for it. Never really felt anything like that in all my magical studies. So foreign, and yet? So similar.”
“I can say much the same, though anything else is bordering on… inappropriate for a lady.”
Samus rolled her eyes.
“Alright, alright… I get it, girls. Back to more pressing matters now, please.”
All the while, she observed the happenings of the Ascendance Hall. She gently drew her cannon around as the entire platform on which she stood—the now-fully lit moon—seemed to glow even more intensely alight with a powerful magic. What once began as questioning the entire structural integrity of the Temple at large morphed gradually into the Full Moon platform rumbling to life.
And as Samus had long suspected since she first arrived here, the platform was part of a much larger lift system, as evident when it began to ascend her towards the domed ceiling above.
“Looks like we’ve got our way forward.”
Yet as the lift took her closer and closer to the point where she could scrutinize the smallest details of the night sky mural above, Samus’ instincts grew only mildly concerned for the integrity of her body… assuming the intent was to crush her between the ceiling and the platform. As she had seen many times through her travels and just the extent of her time here on this planet alone, rarely were things what they seemed.
“Okay…” Twilight sighed out, seemingly steeling herself for what was to come. “Here we go.”
Right where Samus would expect a normal, malfunctioning elevator to turn her into a fine mix of human mulch and machine against the apex of the ceiling, the visuals of the night sky seemed to whittle away. Instead, a thick haze of various blues, sparkling, magically charged fog, not too dissimilar to what she’d often see through her OM Vision, quickly enveloped her form and snuffed out her surroundings… as if she were passing through this veritable cloud layer.
She could feel her body still moving against gravity thanks to the lift, even as all other ambient noise died out entirely aside from a ‘magically electric,’ staticky sound that emanated from everywhere at once.
The most interesting aspect of this ‘magical elevator’ was the sudden appearance of light flashes, like a thunderstorm on a foggy night, and most peculiarly: fragments of visions no matter where she looked. Visions of what appeared to be familiar, partial figures of Luna and various other ponies, both familiar and unknown to Samus.
Just based on the reactions of the girls, these were likely not figments of her own mental state as it meshed with her magical center.
“Whoa! Luna,” observed Twilight.
“Is that… Celestia?” asked Rarity when they all took in the brief flash of a much younger Luna and a pink-maned pony. “I forgot her mane was pink when not energized by magic.”
“And… wait. That’s us! Nightmare Night!”
Twilight also had her theory:
“I think these are her memories.”
Which made Samus piggyback off of that with her own thoughts out loud:
“If these are memories, then they sure as shit didn’t exist back when she ascended. She’s gotta be close.”
No further words were spoken as the light show continued in earnest… at least until the elevator carrying them further into the unknown depths of the Temple lurched suddenly. Samus braced herself as the magical mist which had hung around her for the last half minute began to fade away right as the lift locked into place.
With the new environment, the Hunter went fully guarded, and drew her aim wherever her eyes would take her.
Fluttershy asked:
“Where are we?”
“Deeper, though higher, in the Temple I guess…” answered Twilight.
“No idea,” said Samus. “Workin’ on it.”
As her vision further cleared and her eyes adjusted, she could see that, wherever she was, she was in a much more massive, gargantuan chamber of sorts. All seemed to be made out of the same material as before: the cliffside rock itself. Her eyes traced the edges of jagged and uncarved, unrefined rock upon the edges of what counted for cavern walls.
And in further situational whiplash, Samus peered up at the ceiling and found really no ceiling to behold. So high was it that not even the fringes of the Temple’s natural lighting seemed to touch it, leaving nothing but literal space to stare into. The jaggedness of the walls continued upward nonetheless, and Samus could now discern some type of bioluminescent plant life and algae decorating and spider-webbing upward and beyond.
Samus blinked away any nascent tunnel vision and noted the oppressive, moisture-laden atmosphere that had supplanted the magical haze—a fog that seemed to hang halfway over the whole area and did well to keep her view beyond a few dozen feet in all directions obstructed.
The biggest change by far was the lack of any of the ambient, oceanic winds that battered and swirled through the interior of the Ascendance Hall. It was now way too quiet.
She stepped off the center of the now lifeless platform, drawing her aim around her as she mulled on where she might be. A quick check of her map only revealed the extent of this internal section of the temple, though curiously not highlighting an elevator pathway from the Ascendance Chamber to where she was now, designated the ‘Ascendance Chamber.’
“Well. Looks like we’re where we should be,” said Samus, having lowered her Arm Cannon. “Honestly would’ve expected it to be more ornate.”
She wasn’t sure what Twilight and the others were saying, as Samus became keenly aware of a foreign lightsource. Through more of the same, a distinct bit of dull, teal light broke through the wall of humidity. From her map’s help in orienting her through the literal fog of war, it seemed to be emanating from the far end of the chamber.
Still doing well to keep her thoughts centered, Samus reached out through magic, centering herself, and was surprised to feel an almost friendly connection reach back out from that very direction. Whatever this light was, it called to her in a way that felt most natural to her, and Samus had to wonder if this was what the girls were talking about with the cypher lock.
Because if it was, with the warmth she felt cradling the depths of her chest and core like she was being embraced by a close friend… she actually did understand, now.
Nevertheless, Samus advanced forward towards this unknown, glimmering light in a battle stance, cannon at the low ready as she stepped fully off the platform. As a further precaution owing to the threats she might face, she kept her armored hand ready, floating above her weapon to cast a sudden defensive spell if she needed it in a pinch.
She had been caught off guard magically too many times in her short campaign on this planet to feel comfortable letting it happen yet again.
“Okay, here we go,” she announced, which silenced whatever conversation the girls were having.
“Oh! Right… we’re so close. We have to be—I literally sense her magic in the air. It’s so familiar, like it’s her physical presence. It’s exactly the same as if she were just standing right next to me.”
Samus finally broke through the hazy veil, and she was greeted with a small set of stairs… stairs which were carved out of the same rock and into the shape of wings not dissimilar to Twilight’s own pair. She silently counted seven steps, and noted how they beckoned her to a single pillar with a single, hollow aperture that seemed to rise to the height of just under her chest. Its design called back fully to the cypher lock, save for one position instead of three.
This played vanguard to the pony-sized ball of swirling, coruscating, entropic ball of pure, pulsing teal magic just behind it.
Whatever this swirling ball of magic was, it was held encased by a frame of crystals that sprouted from the ground. These crystals, entirely magical in nature, also appeared to channel and feed the magic encased therein, in a manner akin to a fuel source or generator.
Harkening back to her most recent adventure before Equis, Samus drew an eerily familiar comparison to the portal devices between Light and Dark Aether with the deliberately intricate, crystalline structure surrounding the coalesced, aggressively swirling magic.
Getting a closer look as she forded the provided steps, Samus could see straight above the undulating ball of energy to find a veritable stream of magic. It seemed to spiral slowly but surely from all other parts of the chamber… collecting residual and freely flowing magic beyond and coalescing it to a singular point atop the highest crystal.
Samus internally labeled this contraption the ‘Ascendance Object,’ as her Scan Visor had no other input aside from some form of powerfully magical device.
“Is this it?” Twilight asked herself aloud.
Again, Samus shrugged.
“I guess…” she figured, and in doing another check through OM, Samus nearly stumbled back off the raised platform because of how bright the area was.
“Christ!”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Shitload of magic here. Fuck, it’s like looking at purple sun.”
Seeing what she could through her magical sight, the entire area might as well have been bathed in some radioactive, ‘steaming’ Phazon, as the residual magic coming off the walls was like gazing down a long, desert road and seeing all the heatwave distortions.
And then, she saw the silhouette.
Samus stiffened and bristled as the sea of bright magic through OM was disturbed by the sight of a dark, floating silhouette of her likeness amongst the distant, magical steam.
Samus stood there for a few seconds, boring into the apparition that, likewise, seemed to placidly float several dozen feet away. All the natural questions all came barging into her mind regarding if what she was seeing was real, or a figment of her mind and imagination all mixed together in a delightful cocktail of magical hallucinations, not to mention the lack of sleep from the previous night.
The very, barely-possible notion that Prime could be here, standing in front of her immediately sent her into high-alert and nigh unbridled rage, and Samus drew her cannon on the unknown intruder. The moment her cannon began to swell with a charged Power Beam round ignited a maelstrom of startled inquiries.
“WHOA, Filly! What’s going on??”
“Samus?!”
“What is it??”
The figure did not move, even with its center mass in her digital sights. Still, she hesitated… part of her wondering if she took the shot, that would be the first domino to fall. That she would be admitting that she was now not only hearing voices, but seeing magical manifestations.
Twilight managed to break through:
“Talk to me, Samus! What’re you seeing??”
She shook her head.
“Something’s not right. Radar doesn’t show shit. Something’s here. I can see it. Beyond the veil of the fog and magic. Straight ahead…
“Maybe I’m hallucinating. Could all the magic be affecting me?” she considered the second-worst case scenario.
Nervous, and now likewise on high alert with Samus’ curt words, managed a reply:
“M-Maybe? Maybe it’s some weird echo? I’m… don’t know for sure, but I don’t see what you’re seeing. Can’t even really sense much beyond the massive torrent of magic here, so I’m running a bit blind, myself. I’m sorry…”
Silence returned, aside from the static, consistent whirring of her charged shot hanging on at the edge of her cannon, ready to be fired off. Her target remained unchanged: a clear hallucination of her alter ego taunting her with the very existence of the idea that Prime was, somehow, alive. It quietly floated there, insulting her with its presence and wordlessly looked ripe to receive the first salvo of what would’ve been a messy fight, had Prime actually been floating where she was.
Samus sighed out, loosening her posture.
“Yeah,” she said, annoyed that she was forced into the highest of her alerts for pretty much nothing but smoke and mirrors.
“Probably nothing.”
She then unceremoniously fired off the charged shot into the foggy void, if only to get rid of it, sending it straight through the middle of the silhouette’s torso, which promptly dissipated with the flowing torrents of air that her shot had brought along. She then shook her head and turned around, ready to deal with the whole point of this gallivanting adventure through the Temple.
Samus froze again, hearing that her charged round did not impact any stone. It sounded distinctly like it struck a mixture of flesh and magic… a sound that she became completely in tune with in her previous battles with the Somnia the other day in Canterlot.
Twilight preempted Samus’ alarm.
“I heard that.”
“Something’s here.”
Samus turned fully, ready for combat, observing keenly that whatever she hit triggered something lying in wait beyond the foggy veil. Not a moment later, her motion tracker lit up with a massive red blotch while she felt a distinct tingling in her magical sensibilities: the presence of foreign, powerful magic.
“I think you were right about whatever you were seeing, Samus…”
“Yeah. How right, though?”
Samus noticed the first bit of movement towards her, and she jutted her cannon forward to track the sudden incursion of an incoherent mass… a mass that seemed to fluctuate between a moving, liquid puddle and a migrating cloud.
All at once, this condensed, dark cloud of seemingly pure magical essence per her OM-Visor cast aside the curtain of the foggy veil, and hummed along as it slithered towards Samus’ higher position by the Ascension Object. It glowed dimly an ominous, navy blue as it slowly slithered up the right-most adjacent rocky wall like a river carving through rock.
Though Samus still tracked her unknown enemy, relieved that it didn’t seem to behave in any conceivable way that would clue her in to Prime’s presence, she still knew they had a fight on their hands of some kind, and quickly leapt off the platform to scurry away. She again dropped into her combat stance, ready to start shooting the moment this lurker’s intentions were known now that she had put sufficient distance between the two of them.
Twilight nervously added:
“Do we have a fight on our hooves?”
The Hunter replied dryly, if matter-of-factly:
“Always.”
Samus attempted to do her usual intelligence gathering, but, infuriatingly so, it seemed she put too much distance between her and the intruder for her system’s to scan it properly.
“Fuck’s sake…”
She then made to advance so she could re-attempt, though she stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened in surprise, a backdrop to the horror that all three digitized mares in her head voiced as the blobby mass of magic surrounded the brilliantly entropic ball of magic within the Ascension Object.
“WHAT?!” Twilight bellowed. “We were SO CLOSE!”
Samus watched as their unknown foe enveloped the entire portal-like object, becoming more and more transparent with the magical light shining through it somewhat.
“Is…” Rarity dared to ask what everyone was thinking. “Is it feeding off the magic?”
No answer was forthcoming when their enemy quickly extricated itself and coalesced before the altar, Facing Samus from her erstwhile previous position atop the platform. Once an amorphous mass and cloud, all observed with rapt keenness and varying degrees of morbid curiosity as it flattened itself into a viscous puddle of navy-blue magic.
Slowly, like a figure rising out of water, the general, featureless form of a massive pony began taking shape… one that loosely mimicked the presence and poise of Princess Luna herself.
Samus cocked her head curiously, though Twilight’s reaction was markedly different after she gasped:
Pure, existential horror… a deathly low tone in her voice that cut deeply into Samus’ understanding that Twilight was truly afraid for her life.
“No… how…?”
It then reared up and delivered a guttural, mouthless roar that tingled all of Samus’ bones through her armor, while seemingly penetrating through the structural holds of the entire temple.
Fluttershy broke through shakily:
“Is that—”
“YES!” Twilight immediately answered.
Samus had finally closed enough of the range to gather intel:
[Scanning…]
[Scan Complete…]
[Creature: Tantabus]
[Also known as the Magnum Somnium or Night Terror, it is a dream entity created by Princess Luna herself in an act of self-flagellation for her past crimes as Nightmare Moon, born from her own pain and guilt. Like the Somnia, as Luna became incapacitated during the Crisis, it appeared to have escaped its reins and gained enough power through the nightmares of a dying Equestrian populace to break into the waking world.
The physical Tantabus will prey on its targets with various magical and kinetic attacks as well as psychological strikes over time meant to inflict the most crippling, terror-induced psychosis. Once its target is wholly incapacitated through fear, it subsumes its nightmare-like visions for nourishment and sustainment. Said visions strike at the heart of the victim’s mind, and those not prepared to face their deepest fears, regrets, and terrors may self-terminate.
Magic-amplified kinetic attacks will stun and enrage it. Only self-reflection and forgiveness will deal lethal damage to the Tantabus.]
Samus barely finished the scan before she was shaking her head at the incomprehensible brain cave-in with the sudden, massive question she now had:
“What the fuck does that even mean?! Twilight?? At least I could magically beat Somnia to death!”
Samus put her left hand forward with flared magic as she tactically, slowly gave ground to put more distance between her and the now-hulking Tantabus… which then began to dematerialize and slink its way down the altar towards her on a ghastly trail.
“I know what you need to do, Samus…” Twilight explained. “...but you’re not gonna like it at all. You probably won’t even believe me.”
Samus had yet to open fire, and opted to be cautious with the entrance of this powerful magical creature as it still snaked its way towards her like a serpentine shark honing in on its prey.
“I could really do without the cryptic shit right now, Twi!”
The alicorn blindsided her with:
“Do you trust me?”
It had only been a short time since they were forced to occupy the same headspace unwillingly. The entire time thus far, Samus had been fully convinced that Twilight has never led her astray. In the grips of legitimate danger, she didn’t think the alicorn would start doing anything differently.
With this half-second, yet nigh-instantaneous deliberation as she forced down the whiplash of such a question, Samus answered curtly:
“I do!”
Twilight then rapidfire vomited her words as the Tantabus slunk into striking range:
“Okay! First thing’s first: annoy the shit out of the Tantabus! Long enough that it stops trying to attack you physically and just attempts to end the fight by attacking your dreams directly!”
Samus had no time to mull what that last part meant, nor that Twilight started swearing so openly. All she heard was ‘annoy’ and in the presence of larger enemies passed, she knew exactly what to do.
The Tantabus instantly coalesced back into its hulking alicorn form, all while simultaneously lunging towards Samus with frightening speed in its opening attack: It thrust a hoof at Samus that nightmarishly deformed into a spear aimed straight at her heart.
The Hunter was much too agile for such a first strike, and she threw herself to her immediate left, going parallel to the ground for the briefest moment to exit into a roll and back onto stable feet. Eyes sharp behind her visor, she lined up her cannon and immediately returned fire at the seemingly bewildered dream creature with a Pulse Charge… which impacted the Tantabus directly in its side before it had any other time to react.
As Samus expected, some kinetic effect was had, but the real effect was depriving it of its magical ability for a few moments of key opportunity. The Hunter rushed her enemy in a literal strafing run, firing her Power Beam wildly as it bellowed another terrible torrent of infuriated screeches.
Being enfiladed by a one-woman firing line, it slunk away towards the nearest chamber wall as Samus closed in further, but in no way forfeited the fight.
Locked in her combat position, she kept her cannon aimed up at the amorphous puddle that lay suspended against the wall, shimmering in the light of the entropic sphere of magic at the other end of the chamber wall.
With just enough breathing room as the lightning attacks ended with a square-off, Samus followed up on Twilight’s previous instructions with more than a fair bit of disbelief in lacing her urgent words:
“Attack my dreams?? What the actual fuck are you talking about?” she asked.
Sheepish, Twilight replied:
“Yeah, that’s about the reaction I expected from you.”
Samus tersely followed up:
“I’m not hearing an explanation, Twi…”
Twilight rapid-fired:
“Okay! You said you trusted me… so when the Tantabus really lashes out, and you’ll know it when you see it, you’ll need to be really close to sleep or already in a dream state.”
The cloudy, magical puddle on the wall began aggressively shifting up and down the rockface.
“Fucking… why?”
“Because you need to be in control of the pace of the dream, Samus! If it attacks your mind directly when you’re fighting back alert and awake, and induces a coma against your will, you might not be able to come out of it.
“And if you lose that fight in your dreams…”
Samus huffed, acquiescing to the truth.
“Right.”
She understood completely, and it was clear that they had no choice in the matter with them now being engaged in the heat of battle. Once the Tantabus began slithering off the wall at inhuman speeds, it then re-assumed its equine-esque form, and seemed poised to lash out at her with its hooves again—Samus was ready to meet it.
She flared her magic while charging up her cannon to deliver another Pulse Charge straight to its ethereal face, and then follow up with a spell of her choosing.
Yet, whatever it had planned, it didn’t seem to fully commit to the attack.
Samus, however, did.
The moment Samus fired off her attack, it slammed into the Tantabus with a blast of lavender light, blunting its own tepid offensive as it then broke off the engagement again.
It started to slither around in what she assumed was an attempt to force another opening. Samus knew better than to let it out of her sight, and she counter-strafed in kind, letting the two of them dance at distance and at length.
“Here’s the thing…” Samus then added on.
“Missions and battles can tire me out but I’m not lucky enough to be able to just decide to go full lights out with this thing right in front of me.”
“That’s where I come in!” Twilight exclaimed. “I’m the controller of all magic that you can call on, and we’ve seen how I can manipulate some of your Suit functions. I can use some combo of magic and control over your systems to induce a peaceful sleep!”
Samus went wide-eyed as the Tantabus reverted to a puddle and lunged at her, like a blanket being thrown over her. She was much too quick on the dodge, and by honed reflex, threw herself into another roll while leaving the Tantabus a torrent of Power Beams for its attempt in her wake.
Twilight continued once Samus got to a proper kneeling position, cannon outstretched:
“Once you do whatever you need to do in your dreams, which I can monitor based on your brain and magical activity, I can rip you awake!”
Yet again, Samus was not at liberty to process Twilight’s plan once the Tantabus rose out from its puddle and charged her in a full, ghastly gallop. This time more than prepared for what to expect, Samus threw herself into another roll rearward, dashing straight into a retreat while leaving three Pulse Missiles to greet two outstretched spears for hooves from the Tantabus.
In the aftermath of the torrent of missiles, just as Samus took all of what Twilight was saying to heart juxtaposed to her scan data, she hardened her stance.
Heels dug into the ground beneath her, Samus charged her weapon and was ready to leap into a counter attack after acknowledging the tacit plan with a curt, shrill:
“Right!”
Though, no sooner did she commit to a counterattack than did the Tantabus change up its own tactics, literally. Samus halted mid-stride, eyes suddenly feral as the dream entity cracked its own neck ninety degrees… and then all of its limbs one after the other with sickening, haunting cruelty and an accompanying, human-like scream of mortal agony.
The end result was a near picture-perfect mimicry of Prime herself, down to the subtle details of her deep-hued Phazon Suit as she remembered it on Aether. Other than seeing this vile transformation with her own eyes, the only true difference was the color scheme matching that of the Tantabus’ navy aura rather than a lighter blue.
By now, Samus had been used to idle tactical chat, or just general gasps and wordless, yet audible expressions from the girls in her head. Pretty standard reactions as she got on with her work and bulldozed through whatever roadblocks and horrors had been in their path. This was the first time she could recall complete silence at the sight before them.
“...Huh?!” Twilight asked in complete disbelief.
The Hunter paid them no mind as the Tantabus went on the attack again, and Samus had to suddenly contend with the dream entity’s swift retaliation: it flung a flurry of magical, pseudo-power beam volleys in its first kinetic attack, shot straight from its rendition of Prime’s arm cannon.
Tunnel vision had taken over as her swelling fury honed in on the entity, mimic or not, that had caused her so much anguish and loss of sleep over the last three missions thus far. Now faced with a much more ‘traditional’ shooting and maneuvering battle, Samus expertly dodged all incoming fire while simultaneously throwing herself into a teleportation spell to quickly put more range between her and the Tantabus.
Rematerializing farther away afforded her little respite as Samus instinctually called upon her magical command to shield herself from even more incoming fire from an advancing Tantabus… an advance that Samus parried after sideways-somersaulting over another incoming salvo and sending a Pulse Charge straight at its chest.
Her counter tore a jagged, gory swathe through ‘Prime’s’ chest armor in what would appear to any outside observer as a killing blow with an even gnarlier exit wound.
A killing blow it was not, and Samus knew this upon landing on her feet while watching the Tantabus revert back into a puddle… a puddle which then melted into the cracks of the ground like draining water.
Out of sight but in no way out of mind, Samus dug her heels in and brought her cannon to bear, scouring her surroundings and flipping between her visors to ascertain where her enemy would strike next. Her breathing was steady and her eyes were laser-focused on any imperfections in the environment, having already experienced how even the mist could be used to play mind tricks on her.
With her usual tactical acumen brought another sudden, glaring realization: was the Tantabus responsible for the voices? And her dreams? Was this the Nightmare? Or something else entirely.
And if it could be wounded as a result of Twilight’s plan, it could be killed… and maybe then it would prove to be one less hassle to deal with in the already nigh-impossible task of saving this planet.
Twilight jostled Samus out of her thoughts by pinging her HUD towards a seemingly unassuming spot of ground, covered in tree roots, flowers, and rock.
“It’s coming back! Get ready!”
Just as Twilight had predicted, the Tantabus burst through that very stretch of ground, in the form of two separate, bulbous, deep-blue, slitted eyes at the end of tendrillic appendages that Samus could feel boring straight through her visor. They reminded her of significantly larger versions of the Inglets from her last mission, and much like the Inglets, she had already fired off a single missile against her left-most aggressor, exploding it in a hail of magical viscera before it could attempt anything nefarious.
She advanced forward and managed to get off four Power Beam rounds against the remaining one… only for three more of the eyes to burst up from the ground behind her, and tower entirely over her.
“WATCH IT!”
“SHIT!”
Samus turned to engage, but found her body unresponsive once all three of the eyes flared bright teal. All the while, another puddly mass formed before her, seeming to open up like the curtain to beckon her in. The telltale aura of magic held her firmly trapped, bound by the barely-seen force that had given her significant cause for concern since she first encountered the Storm Beasts. Adding further to the literal nightmare that was attempting to claim her into its orbit, Samus could hear veritable screams of the damned—personally familiar screams of agony and mortal pain that had haunted her dreams over the years…
…her trauma that echoed off the farthest reaches of her mind since she was a girl on K-2L amalgamated into the hero’s death that she felt likely awaited her if she were pulled into the puddle.
Despite her heels dug firmly into the ground, her armor chipped rock after rock as she was drawn further towards the void-like puddle via the ironclad grip the Tantabus’ magic held over her.
She knew better, now.
In a mirror of her adversary, Samus’ own eyes flared, glinting off the rear of her Visor whilst she re-fired her magic. With a little bit of hectic centering, the Hunter wrested enough control over the Tantabus’ tendrillic hold via Counter-Spell. The very moment the critical inflection point where her magic manifested more powerfully over herself than her enemy’s arrived, Samus tore through her bindings with a frustrated cry.
“RAAAAAHH!”
The Tantabus’ magical hold shredded, and the ear-searing shrillness of its wounded cries serving as her reward for evading death once more, Samus went on the offensive: six shots to the left eye, a missile immediately blasting apart the right in the hail of magical viscera, and then finally bounding off her feet to strike the center-eye straight through the pupil with a flared fist.
It evaporated around her fist as she fell back to the ground’s much more welcoming, neutral embrace via gravity.
By the time she had fully plummeted back to the earth , her spectral opponent was there to greet her return from behind. Samus led with her cannon, turning to find the Tantabus fully apparated into its equine shape.
She had expected another immediate attack in its seemingly more and more frustrated attempts to subsume her, especially with how fiercely she had been resisting thus far with barely a scratch to show for its efforts. Instead, Samus observed as the dream entity suddenly loomed massively over her as it literally projected itself the size befitting of a Temple Guardian, only to then bellow a feral, powerful roar that blew the surrounding fauna back with the wind generated from its attempt at intimidation.
Samus had seen fiercer, and like a mountain against the coastal winds, she didn’t even move a millimeter against the challenging display.
What did surprise her was when its chest and neck suddenly cracked and split apart, beginning to shred itself as if it were beckoning her forth with the most grotesque display of cordiality it could muster. The transformation was further completed as the perspective took the form of a massive cape, thrown open and ready to envelop her fully and wholly from all sides.
And this time, she was fully surrounded.
She didn’t recall hearing from Twilight to cease annoying the shit out of her attacker, and so she opted to simply shoot ceaselessly into its center.
Samus hardened her stance and her gaze, staring into the abyssal void of darkness… darkness which in no way was brightened with the muzzle flashes of her firing arm cannon. She knew there, within the Tantabus, she was about to get a whole host of questions answered pretty soon, and contemplated taking the leap of faith and throwing herself into its hostile embrace.
Much like Twilight had cautioned her, she now knew what she was seeing.
The alicorn further affirmed this:
“This is it! Are you ready?”
Samus continued to fire wildly into the continually-expanding darkness, ignoring her very biology to try and escape. She reserved only a couple seconds of internal deliberation, knowing that there wasn’t much else that could be done against an enemy that was clearly only annoyed with her rather than actually wounded despite the perceived pain she inflicted upon it thus far.
Whatever happened next, she’d make sure to kill it. She trusted Twilight completely and wholly to deliver her properly to do the job as the alicorn played the part of figurative logistician.
Her answer was curt. She hadn’t been more sure of anything so far as she furrowed her brows.
“Do it.”
Twilight’s confirming response was laced with uncharacteristically sardonic wit during the heat of battle:
“Sweet dreams, Samus…”
The Hunter was at an instant overwhelmed by a foreign sense of soothing warmth, as if she was being cradled in a calming magical aura. Just as the Tantabus seemed to fully consume her in its magical darkness, Samus also contended with her systems, one by one in quick succession, entering hibernation… all having coincided perfectly with how thoroughly exhausted she swiftly became.
And lastly, as her eyelids grew heavier than steel, she vaguely remembered how she felt her body crumple and fall limply. She never could recall feeling so tired, that embracing sleep in the throes of combat would be such a wonderful idea as it was right this moment.
She was out like a shattered lightbulb before she even hit the ground.