Sour Sweet sat in a forest covered with vines growing all around her. The light dripped down from the way back to Equestria; its sun shimmering down on the mind-controlled human. She carefully adjusted the mask on her face, opened up a black book with the Malefic insignia on the cover, and looked over what appeared to be a hunting guide.

"There are many ways in which prey can be brought down," she said to herself as she flipped to the page that showed The Dazzlings, Rainbooms, and alicorn princesses being materialized in sketch form; along with the best ways of how they could have been defeated. She looked at many different drawings; ranging from her opponents being impaled by hundreds of arrows, having their throats slit from figure in in the shadows, and even them having their limbs restrained as a colossal tree was falling on top of them. "But sometimes, we have to do things the old-fashioned way.

"Those Rainbooms, Dazzlings, and Equestrian maggots have plagued the Malefics for long enough," she said as she saw another humongous tree sprouting from the ground nearby. She climbed on and stuck a customized bow with swords on the side into the growing tree; using it as something to hold on to that elevated her towards higher ground. "When I'm through with them, I'll personally be barbecuing them and feeding them to the Malefics. The other Shadowbolts'll get first pick of the meat..."

All of a sudden, the group of females reappeared where they would have been before. However, due to the crossroads' destruction, they were now high above the ground with no land to stand on, and their wings still inactive. As the injured females from Equestria tumbled towards the ground with screams, The Dazzlings flew down and landed gracefully. They then looked up to see Celestia, Luna, and Cadence using their horns to levitate them towards the ground, so as not to hurt themselves any further.

"We're out of roads..." Applejack looked up to see where they had once been standing. She then looked around the forest to try and find the possessed girl. "Now, where the hay is Sour Sweet?"

"What follows blindly stumbling into a trap is nothing more than misery, regret, and pain for the victim..." Sour's voice echoed throughout the leaves. "A trap, once sprung, cannot be reversed, turned against the planter, or stopped..." the sound of a bow being drawn was heard again as the branches shook with a silhouette dashing across them. "Logically, there is only one road the ensnared victim must take...

"The pathway to death..." the arrow was shot from one of the trees. It hit the ground and exploded, sending the heroines all careening into the air. "Bullseye..." more arrows were shot, all of them striking each one of the girls and causing them to clench their teeth as the pain rushed into their bodies.

As Adagio crashed into the ground, she growled and looked into the trees above. Focusing her vision, she saw Sour Sweet dashing through them, ready for another attack. She slowly stood back up, drew her swords, then ran towards one of the trees. As she extended her wings, she ran up the giant trunk and waited for her target to attack.

Sour Sweet was about to line up another shot, but before she could make it, she was tackled by Adagio and thrown towards the ground. She let out noises of pain as she smashed into the ground, then quickly threw herself back onto her feet and grasped onto the front of her bow, turning into two swords.

"No more nonsense, Sour Sweet!" Aria drew her swords and circled the Shadowbolt. "What the fuck did you do to Equestria?!"

"I merely saved it from itself, that's all," she said nonchalantly as she leapt up, brought her swords down onto the ground, and created a number of bear traps out of thin air around the feet of the team of heroines. "Now, if I were you, I'd think carefully about where you step next, Aria Blaze and friends..."

"Don't let yourself sink too far, Sour Sweet!" Sunset pleaded as she carefully avoided the bear traps to get closer to her opponent. "You're putting yourself at the beck and call of the Malefics; surrendering your free will so that you can serve the forces of evil and destruction!"

"When it comes to Lyrican scourges like yourselves, who really is the true demon?" Sour Sweet asked as her swords turned back into her bow. "Why do you hate the darkness? And if so, why do you wish to keep it from spreading; letting the world become corrupted with too much light?"

"That's enough!" Adagio spread her wings, drew her swords, and set off multiple bear traps; narrowly avoiding their crushing mechanisms as her swords poked the release switches, then quickly retracted. "I will not stand for the treacherous desires of a mature woman, corrupted, manipulated, and tainted by Malefic energy!"

"Then if you must..." Sour Sweet suddenly levitated up, grew pony ears, extended hair, a horn, and black wings from the mask's pulsating energy. "You are the hunt I'm after. And what good is a hunted animal if it doesn't fight back?" she then raised her bow and prepared for a fight.

MALEFIC SOUR SWEET

The Hunter

The battle began with Sour Sweet firing a bunch of arrows into the air. As she did, her opponents scattered as the arrows suddenly dipped and fell towards the ground with black glows around them. As they approached the girls, the arrows all controlled themselves and tracked their targets aggressively; chasing after Adagio, Aria, Sonata, Twilight, and Sunset primarily.

Eventually, the arrows all struck their marks once more, causing the girls to tumble to a heap as the pain messed up their sprints. They all groaned as they all got back up slowly, just as Sour Sweet was about to unleash another volley of arrows.

"Wh-What are these things..." Twilight asked as one of the arrows vanished from her side. They came out of nowhere, were supposedly infinite with Sour Sweet's new powers, and now they were able to follow them all around and strike them flawlessly; no matter how they ran.

"Whatever The Blasters did to these girls, they definitely spared no expense in giving them power..." Sonata said as she cut an arrow in half, seeing as she couldn't dodge it or run from it. "I mean, no archer in the history of forever has managed to pull this off..."

Sour Sweet then retreated back behind some of the trees and moved even faster as she leapt from tree to tree. When she made it behind The Dazzlings, she drew back her bow one more time and released it just as quickly. The arrow sailed through the air, making a whistling noise until it slammed into the ground, causing it to explode.

Adagio saw the arrow straight away and jumped back in surprise with Aria and Sonata. She furiously looked around to see Sour Sweet leap to another tree, then another, and another, and another. She gritted her teeth and pursued the masked Shadowbolt.

But this time, as Adagio approached, Sour Sweet leapt back a tree and dealt a powerful kick to Adagio's face, knocking her to the ground before she drew another arrow right over the golden girl's head.

Twilight caught wind of Sour Sweet's approaching execution attack and threw her sword at the girl's heart. The weapon impaled the hunter and caused her to stumble backwards off of Adagio's head and curl her body downwards.

Sour pulled the sword out of her chest, then threw it back at Twilight before seeing the wound completely recover and vanish within mere seconds. "This fast-healing stuff is really gonna come in handy..."

"That's physically impossible..." Aria's pupils dilated as she watched Sour Sweet shrug off her recent agony as if it was nothing. "There's no way that a human, even one infused with Malefic energy would be able to survive an attack like that..."

"We're a special case, miss Blaze..." Sour Sweet teleported behind Aria and delivered a powerful kick to her back, followed by another sword slash to her back. "And I am only one of the six Shadowbolts of the Malefics..."

"Well, then we'd better defeat you, have you cough up the other Shadowbolts, and find ways to defeat them ourselves!" Adagio said as she and Sour Sweet traded kicks and slashes with each other.

"You know, for Lyricans, you're all pretty talkative, aren't you?" Sour Sweet said coyly as she leapt up and flapped her black wings rapidly. "Luckily for me, I've got something that'll shut your traps and open mine up!"

With one massive wingbeat, Sour Sweet sent a windstorm of bolas, nets, and spears at the group. Each of the weapons was coated in a black aura, just like the arrows from earlier; and just like before, they relentlessly pursued The Dazzlings, The Rainbooms, and the princesses with extreme prejudice.

As Adagio knocked the weapons away, she saw Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, and Sunset use their powers to defend themselves and their friends as well. The Lyrican leader was happy to see her group standing up for themselves, but grimaced as the shields began to crack under all of the attacks coming from Sour Sweet.

"Tell me, girls," Sour Sweet spoke as if she had won. "What's better than a trap?"

"Ooh! A trap covered with ice cream, drizzled with strawberry sauce with a cherry on top?" Pinkie asked.

"Nope! It's the post-trap-trap!" Sour Sweet pulled out a detonator and pushed the red button, causing a ring of explosions to occur around the trees, creating a massive sinkhole where everyone was standing. As she watched the equestrians fall down the hole, she gloated, "Happy landings!"

"Shit!" Adagio spread her wings and shot herself down the hole, with Aria and Sonata closely behind her. "I'm not about to lose the only friends we have from Equestria!"

"For fuck's sake! That's overdoing it!" Aria said as she watched the group fall down an endless chasm with a blue pool of unknown liquid at the bottom. From the liquid, a massive Malefic rose with a mouth so wide that it covered up the water entirely.

"We Shadowbolts are not one to fall in second place or any rank below it," Sour Sweet explained as Adagio, Aria, and Sonata fought off more Malefics to catch up to their plummeting allies. "You either make yourself the best, or you suffer like the rest. That was the way before the Malefics for us, and it is the way for us once again!"

Adagio growled as she retracted her wings to increase her velocity. "Murzak Grabdri!" she shouted, creating some winged humanoid demons to follow her descent. With her new squadron of winged Dystopians, they all made a wing formation and increased their speed once again.

As Sunset and Twilight fell, they noticed Adagio was finally catching up to them with the demons closely behind her. However, they then saw that Sour Sweet was now carrying a sniper rifle, and was loading a magazine into the feeder before pointing it directly at the golden Lyrican. They tried to warn her, but Aria and Sonata noticed the little twinkle radiate from the sun, onto the barrel, and into their eyes.

"A sniper rifle?!" Aria turned her neck and flew back up to confront the Shadowbolt. "Oh no, you don't!" she gritted her teeth and kicked Sour Sweet away just as she pulled the trigger, causing her shot to arc upwards and shoot up into the skies, barely missing Equestria's sun.

"I wished it didn't have to come to this, Sour Sweet," Sonata said as she and Aria created more and more Dystopian allies to fight for them. "We could have been friends, but you just had to be a bipolar Malefic..."

Meanwhile, Adagio and her team finally managed to catch up with the falling group and keep them from landing in the mouth of the giant Malefic down below. Now that she and her demons were alone, she sang her chorus alone and caressed the wings of each of the winged girls, restoring them to full health.

"You're no longer grounded," Adagio said as the demons vanished and everyone used their wings to fly. "Now let's go and have some fun with our little playmate..." she looked back up to the top of the pit.

"No need to waste your energy, Adagio," Celestia said as she lit up her horn alongside Cadence and Luna. "We'll take care of it now..." and in a bright multi-coloured flash, the whole group vanished from the sinkhole and made it back to the surface.

When they were back on the ground, they saw Aria and Sonata violently clashing with Sour Sweet once more. Since the two Lyricans were getting up close and personal, the Shadowbolt was restricted to just being able to use her swords. But even with the two blades, Sour Sweet stood her ground and fought against Aria and Sonata very well.

When Sour Sweet finally did her finishing move to knock Aria and Sonata away, that was when she let her guard down, and Adagio charged right past the hurtling bodies of her sisters to get up to the Malefic's face.

When Adagio finally arrived, she kicked the two swords out of Sour Sweet's hands, knocked her to the ground, and drove her two swords into the wings of the girl, causing her to lose them, along with her pony ears and tail. To add insult to injury, Adagio stomped on the back of the floored girl before picking her up and grabbing her by the neck.

"Talk! What are you planning?!" Adagio demanded with fire in her voice.

"You put on quite a show there, ladies..." Sour Sweet escaped Adagio's grip with a kick, then teleported away before the golden Lyrican could lay another finger on her. She then returned as a projection as her swords vanished. "But just like the Six Signs of the End, I'm merely a pawn for Overlord Cataclysm's master plan...

"But since you seem to be hankering for a fight, I will leave some names for you..." Sour Sweet smiled, "Now I want you to pay attention to these names, because you're only going to see and hear them once from me," six words, all paired with "The" appeared out of thin air. "The Hunter, The Truthsayer, The Freedom, The Hurricane, The Tactician, and The Prophet. Hmm... Now which of these is gonna strike next? And if so, then where?" she asked with a chuckle before fading away once again.

"No, wait!" Twilight reached out before Sour vanished.

"Forget it, Twilight," Adagio said to calm her down. Then, the realm around the girls became shrouded in twinkling lights before it began to crumble around them. "She's long gone, and we need to get out of here..."

"First The Blasters, now the Shadowbolts? We need to think of a plan..." Sunset said as the whole group exited the ruined realm via a portal back to Lyrican with the princesses close behind them.