As The Rainbooms, Dazzlings, and alicorn princesses walked through the hunting grounds, they could see that the path only got bigger and bigger, until it eventually split into four different roads altogether.

"Great. There's a fork in the road..." Rainbow Dash facepalmed.

"Where do we go from here?" Twilight asked, looking down each separate trail carefully. Each one of them ended in a glowing portal that she presumed would take them to another area of Sour Sweet's hunting grounds.

"Well, since flying's out of the question, I guess we'll just have to take the paths as they come..." Sonata said nonchalantly as she headed towards the far left portal. "And if Malefics come out of it, then we'll just them into quarters."

"Are you sure about that?" Twilight tilted her head.

"If Sour Sweet created four separate roads to travel down, then it's pretty obvious that she wants to test our endurance before she challenges us for real," Adagio stood tall as she looked skyward for a brief moment. "Think, girls. Who leaves four separate paths, expecting the victims to travel down just one?"

"Obviously you've never heard of the spirit of adventure before..." Sour Sweet's voice echoed across the realm.

"Anyway, we'd better get going," Adagio walked the group towards the first portal on the left. "And don't let Sour Sweet get in your head. Just focus on fighting the Malefics."

As the group approached the portal, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata threw themselves into it, whilst The Rainbooms cautiously stepped through it one after another. As each one of them went through the portals, they were sent hurtling through a corridor of black energy with a purple light at the end of it.

As each of the girls made contact with the purple light, they came out of another portal that vanished once everyone had landed. And when they finally got up to their feet, they saw that the converging realms had been replaced with a single area.

The girls were all standing in the middle of a desert with winds blowing the sand beneath their feet. There were walls with target pictures filled with bullet holes behind them, and a number of booths with sandbags serving as the walls. There were twelve of these, and eleven more structures in different parts of the vicinity. Most of the other ranges were either mostly destroyed, or had walls as if to serve as cover for if soldiers were doing firing exercise where they had to move up after each wave of enemies was killed.

"Where are we?" Fluttershy asked as her heart rate increased.

"We seem to be in some kind of firing range..." Adagio observed each different part of the area as best as she could. "No doubt that Sour Sweet intends to take us through every different part of her world before she challenges us head-on..."

"Wow, you're really one to ruin the surprise, aren't you, Adagio?" Sour's voice returned as the winds blew more sand. "But yes, I do wish to bring you through every area of my humble abode before you all perish at my hands..." she let out another laugh before saying, "Malefics? Give these Lyricans a twenty-one gun salute, will you?"

As Sour Sweet finished, large Malefics appeared from the ground, leaving massive holes in their wake. There were Assaults from before, but they were also joined by a large heavily armoured Malefic carrying a minigun. The Assaults formed a defensive posture, whilst the big one with the minigun put itself at the front of the group and spun up the weapon to prepare for a fight. It let out a roar and held the gun up high before bringing it down and pulling the handle to fire.

Malefic Heavy
OPEN FIRE

The Open Fire began volleying round after round of bullets, one after the other in lightning-fast succession. However, the shakiness of the gun meant that it didn't fire perfectly, giving The Dazzlings, The Rainbooms, and the princesses small windows to dodge the bullets and take cover.

"Okay, that one is gonna keep firing to prevent us getting close to the others," Adagio looked up from her cover when the gun had stopped momentarily. "We need to split up if we're going to stand a chance of hitting that thing, as it can and will take us all out at once if we attack it as a joint unit..."

Everyone nodded, then spread out across the range as best as they could. Pinkie Pie and Twilight covered the Grenade Range, Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash went to the CQC Range, the princesses ducking underneath the booths, The Dazzlings and Sunset stayed where they were, and Fluttershy was left on the Sniper Range, hiding behind one of the covers as best as she could.

"Now's not a good time to play Hide-and-seek, ladies!" Sour Sweet's voice returned once more. "Go find and kill them, my soldiers!"

As the Malefics began patrolling the different areas, The Rainbooms and The Dazzlings were hiding and waiting to strike.

The first was Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack, who used the different rooms to their advantage. Every time an Assault came close to the rooms, the girls leapt from their spots, slashed at the Malefic's limbs, and eventually gouged out the eyes of their targets before they exploded into nothingness.

The death of one Malefic had attracted the attention of the other four Assaults and the one Open Fire. They ran towards the CQC Range, but by the time they got there, The Dazzlings, and the others were already making their move.

"Mellimgri Drinwra..." The Dazzlings whispered as they put their hands on the ground and summoned creatures that would ambush the Malefics.

As for The Rainbooms, they all went for all out attacks on the Assaults, narrowly dodging all kinds of firearm ammunition as they struck the massive beasts with their swords. Together, they finally knocked the beasts together, and performed a diving slash through all four of them at once, causing their other targets to die like the others.

After the Assaults fell, the Open Fire roared and spun up its gun once again. Pulling the handle, it fired a continuous stream of bullets at the seven girls that would have proved fatal if they came into contact with it.

"Listen, girls, these things are tougher than your average Malefic," Adagio informed the girls as they leapt over and under the gunfire. "The only weak spot on these Open Fires is the head. That's where you've gotta focus your attacks."

"What are you, a strategy guide?!" Sour Sweet sounded peeved as the Open Fire knocked Fluttershy away with the barrel of the weapon. "And besides, this is just a warm-up compared to what I've got planned for you..."

The Dazzlings were eventually faced with the Open Fire's endless stream of ammunition. However, they spun their swords to deflect the bullets away or cut them in half. They did this for a while until they saw the monster get knocked off of its feet and into the air by Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight, and Sunset all at once.

As it was thrown into the air, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata chased after it. Once they were next to the giant Malefic, they went over it and thrust their heels into the beast's face, sending it towards the ground just as quickly as it had been launched up.

All of a sudden, a massive red worm with an entire ring of teeth inside of its gaping maw erupted from the ground and caught the Open Fire in its mouth. Using the teeth, it gnashed and gnawed at the giant Malefic's armour, whilst The Dazzlings kicked the face of the monster in repeatedly to prevent its escape. Finally, the three Lyricans impaled the face of the Open Fire as the armour shattered into pieces.

As the Malefic screamed in agony, the four-pronged tongue of the massive worm pierced the chest and cut the monster into four pieces. All of which were caught, then swallowed whole.

As The Dazzlings landed, the worm let out a deafening roar before disappearing back to Dystopia. After it left, the entire group were consumed in a bright light, then arrived back at the crossroads.

"Beginner's luck is all," Sour Sweet flicked some of her hair away as her projection returned. As it did, one of the portals disappeared, along with the path it had. "You've still got three more roads to walk before you can face me. And if you're really that tough, then I guess I'll just need to amp up the difficulty..." she vanished once again.

"Well, if there's three more roads, we should finish this as quickly as possible," Twilight Sparkle ran towards another of the roads with the others in tow. "Come on, everyone!"

Without another word, everyone charged through the portal on the far right side, with the princesses and Dazzlings being the last through the gateway to another section of the realm. As before, they went through black corridors with a single purple light at the end of it. The journey was short, but their destination was entirely different from before.

After landing, everyone saw an overgrown forest which blotted out the sun, and any other sources of light in the sky. All that could be seen were the trees themselves, the vines that curled around them, and the roots that spread across the ground to make it uneven. There were other paths inside the forest, but they were so dark that it was impossible to see where they lead. The only reason the area was even lit at all was due to the lanterns that hung from the branches, and the torches that were spread out across the ground.

"Okay..." Sonata looked around. "I guess were deep in a forest now..."

"It's quite dark in here, don't you think?" Celestia used her horn to brighten the area a little, but she was quickly shot by an arrow, cutting off the spell as she winced in pain.

"Celestia!" Twilight ran over to the wounded princess, pulled the arrow out quickly, then applied pressure to the hole to stop the bleeding.

"And that's why you're going to fail at being a hunter, Princess Celestia," Sour Sweet spoke once more. "Eventually, the hunters become the hunted!"

"I'm okay, Twilight," Celestia groaned as the wound eventually stopped bleeding and was wrapped up with a bandage. Then, the alicorn noticed red eyes and a drawn back bow loaded with a barbed arrow. "Look out!"

Twilight noticed the arrow, and quickly drew her sword just at the last second. Her quick reaction cut the arrow in half, causing the two pieces to fly off in different directions, hitting the ground around her. "That was a close one..." she said as the arrows faded away entirely.

Keep watching the eyes, everyone..." Adagio looked closely at the trees, seeing more of the red eyes appearing as well. As the glares all surrounded the group, the sounds of at least thirty more bows being drawn could be heard. "We could be in for a ride here..."

The eyes shifted from treetop to treetop, still focused on The Rainbooms, the princesses, and The Dazzlings with their weapons ready to fire.

"Wait for it..." Adagio's swords followed the movements of the shifting eyes.

Suddenly, the eyes launched their arrows, and Adagio made her move. She nimbly batted each of the projectiles away from her, then watched as the eyes jumped from tree to tree in an attempt to throw her off-guard.

However, Adagio merely smirked and held her sword at her hips; as if she was ready to draw it and perform a powerful slash like a samurai would. She tightened her grip, took some deep breaths, then right as she heard all of the eyes land on the next trees, she opened her eyes wide, leaped upwards, and performed a wide side slash that cut all of the trees around her down in one swing.

As the trees all fell around the group, the eyes noticed this and fell to the ground helplessly. Only now that the light poured in from the felled trees, they were revealed to be slender Malefics with sharp claws and bows with little daggers attached. They had scars across their faces in the shape of wolf scratches, bore the Malefic insignia on their backs, and were dressed in leopard pelts had body paint that was the same colour as the forest. They all recuperated from their fall and picked their weapons back up for a fight with The Dazzlings, The Rainbooms, and the alicorn princesses.

Sour Sweet Malefics
HUNTERS

"Like them, girls?" Sour Sweet gloated as the Hunters leapt up and began repeatedly rapidly loading, shooting, and getting more arrows from their quivers in that order. "I made them myself with the new power Cataclysm's boys bestowed upon me."

"Decent, being able to hide in the shadows like that," Aria complimented before somersaulting through the air and slashing one in half. "But they're still pretty flimsy, if you ask me..."

"I know. I know," Sour Sweet agreed, "I asked for some armour upgrades, but Cataclysm just couldn't make it that way..."

"Aww, that's a real shame..." Aria cut another Hunter in half before aiding Luna and Twilight with another one. "I would have liked a challenge from a Malefic Shadowbolt's reinforcements..."

"If you want a challenge, just wait until you see Indigo's Malefics..." Sour Sweet smirked before vanishing for another time.

"Less talking, more fighting!" Sunset said as she dodged another rain of arrows before flying up and impaling one of the Hunters. "You can do all of the talking to her when we finally get to her!"

"You're right, Sunset," Adagio kicked another Hunter away, then charged through the Malefic, disappeared, and reappeared behind it. After standing back up, the Hunter fell to pieces and vanished in a black flash. "And besides, we'll be done before long..."

As the fight resumed, the Hunters were hopelessly outmatched by the Malefics, and could only watch as Adagio, Aria, Sonata, and The Rainbooms allowed Celestia, Luna, and Cadence to deal the finishing blow.

The three princesses flew up into the air and fired beams of gold, dark blue, and light blue beams down upon the last Malefics, causing them to inflate, then pop like balloons.

"You know, I've allowed you to hunt my Malefics for too long now," Sour Sweet said as the group were all teleported back to the crossroads once again. "These last two portals lead to places where terrestrial creatures roam. And there'll be a few more Malefics that blend in there just as well." she smiled, "So let's see how you handle something you can't survive..." Sour Sweet laughed before the second road and portal vanished, leaving the two middle ones.

"Can you at least tell us what we're getting into this time?!" Rainbow Dash's face flared as the vilified girl vanished once again. "Seriously! It feels like we're just taking random stabs in the dark..."

"Spoilers, Rainbow Dash," Sour Sweet spoke up once again. "If I told you, it would ruin the surprise now, wouldn't it?"

"Just ignore her, Rainbow Dash," Adagio said as she already got moving towards the path on the right. "The sooner we finish this, the quicker we can fix the damage and prepare for the next Malefic assault."

"Here we go again..." Celestia sighed as everyone followed Adagio's lead into the next portal.

Author's Notes:

By the way, I may not have said it before, so I'll say it anyways. In this short arc in this other world, I characterized Sour Sweet after Viridi, the Goddess of Nature in Kid Icarus Uprising. So if people are worried that she's OOC, I will let you know now that she is under the influence of the mask she wears, and that some shreds of her personality remain, but is overshadowed by the Malefic personality she inherited.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and... I think we just found Nighty...

Pit: What is it, little guy?

Me: I got a signaw on Nighty!

Peanut: Weawwy? Wat is it?

Me: Hewe! At da Cowtic (Coltic) Sea!

Luna: Well what are we waiting for?! *Spreads wings* Let's get my little foal back!