~Rarity~

I stared at my new license with pride as I left the licensing agency. It was a “student license”, meaning it’s only the first step towards the goal I set to accomplish here. Still, it means that I can now find myself a capable teacher and legally start training under him. As I admired the license though, I found my interest caught by a lounging drake nearby. His green scaled body was covered mostly by a black trench coat, which seemed to give him a vigilant air that suggested he was subtly alert to most things going on around him, however distracted he looked.

“Oh, hello. You must be Rarity.” The drake greeted. “I think we met once, briefly before a battle with one Scarlet Devil.”

“Ah, yes, you must be the drake that fought her head on. You also found that one… ahem… pressure point…” I was reminded. We were both blushing at the mention of that.

“Yeah… Summer hasn’t been making fun of me for that, has she? I didn’t even know a pressure point like that could even exist.” he replied.

“Oh, she has. It’s deplorable, really, but I’m not about to step into a sibling’s rivalry.” I replied.

“It’s fine, it’s not like I need help getting back at… her, anyway. Could you take this to my… sister, please?” He asked, taking some kind of square object out of his trench coat. I looked curiously at it, and the few wires attached to it.

“What might this thing be?” I asked.

“It’s called a laptop. I’m not sure how it came here with me from my world, but… well, Summer will know what to do with it. And even better, I left something in it that'll get me some revenge for teasing her about that pressure point.” Derek explained.

“That doesn’t sound very nice.” I said, almost declining.

“Don’t worry, aside from the prank, she is going to love having it back. Just uh… don’t let her shut herself inside abusing what’s on that thing, alright? Seeing her active as she is, I’d hate for her to throw it away because of that… like she did her education.” he begged.

“Oh? Alright then. I’ll be sure to give it to her when I can.” I promised. I considered maybe holding onto it until next Hearth’s Warming, but it was too far and knowing Summer’s luck, she’d find it before then. I took the laptop in my magic as he stopped leaning against the wall.

“Thank you.” he replied with a smile. “I better get back to the castle. Secret Agent training’s gonna be brutal if I’m caught out here.” he excused himself. It reminded me that he supposedly came to possess one of Equestria’s agents. Before I could reply, however, he leaped into the air, wings launching him forth like a rocket. When I looked up to follow him with my eyes though, he was already gone.

“Well that was interesting…” I muttered as I began heading for the hotels to check out before going to the train station.

~Summer~

The girls and I were circling around Twilight as she finished her letter denying the tickets she had. I had, wisely, not spoken a word during the whole ordeal, other than to tell Twilight there was a lesson to be learned in response to her asking me if I was there to hassle her about tickets too. Thankfully, it mostly played out as it was supposed to… I think. I haven’t exactly seen the episode itself for some time, but Twilight did still learn the lesson in the end.

When Celestia sent the letter back though, I frowned at how spectacularly different it was. Rather than asking why she didn’t just say so, it said:

“Dear Twilight,

Good job on learning that lesson. But really, you could have just asked for more. Seriously, what’s wrong with speaking up? Worst thing I’d do is disagree or say no.

Your ever loving if sarcastic teacher,

Princess Celestia.”

Spike read out. But what raised my eyebrow further was Twilight’s reaction to that. She rolled her eyes.

“What a troll…” she muttered with a smile. It was at this moment that the doors to the library slowly opened with an almost ominous creaking. On the other side was standing Soul, he was still bandaged from the incident with Gilda, and he had the a face that just screamed bored and annoyed.

“Hey girls, heard about some chaos in town. Is there anything interesting going on?” He said with a voice dripping with exhaustion and boredom.

“Yeah, the whole town freaked out over Twilight’s spare Gala Ticket. Even Twilight’s friends got in on the bribing and freaking out.” I replied.

“Figures...” He muttered. With two flashes of light and sounds of teleportation, there were four new things floating next to Soul. One was a golden ticket, the other three were stacks of papers about his height. “I got mine earlier today… along with tons of paperwork...”

“Aw, that sucks… I wonder when Rarity’s gonna get back.” I idly thought.

“Soon, probably. It shouldn’t take her that much longer to go through the procedures. So, anywhere from five minutes ago to two days from now is about accurate guess.” Soul said. We all froze as we started hearing screaming and loud crashing coming from the train station.

“Another Nightmare?” Spike asked uncertainly with clear fear. I nodded.

“It certainly sounds like it.. Come on, girls. Looks like it’s time for more Harmony.” I said, leading the way. Soul followed too, after burning all the paperwork… which transformed it into a giant ash cloud which flew off in Canterlot’s direction. I filed it off into a “ask later” file and ignored it. When we got there, we found what looked like a double-mutated Tank from Left 4 Dead, with a shit ton more ugly added to it. It didn’t even resemble any race known on Equis, but… as I stared into its eyes, I recognized it. Gilda… Heh. Guess it was a good thing I left you alive. Maybe if I save you this time, I can farm you for Nightmares. I thought darkly. I caught myself though and hesitated… but I was shocked out of my thoughts by the Nightmare taking a swing at a cat. A cat I recognized…

“PEEKO!!” The utter rage, fear, and shock I felt from Shinkiro’s shout left me stunned, and incapable of thought for a few seconds. When I recovered I saw Soul standing on the other side of the Nightmare. Peeko was on the ground next to him and unharmed, but the same couldn’t be said about him. His coat was several shades darker, eyes slitted and he was bleeding from a large gash on his left side. I had to quickly review what I saw while I was out of it.

First came a pulse of darkness from behind us, next there was a dark blur shooting past us and towards the Nightmare. The blur grabbed Peeko but received strike to it’s side from Nightmare’s clawed appendage in her place, staggering and slowing it enough to reveal it to be Soul. Soul used his remaining momentum to slide away, his hooves just gliding along the ground like if he was sliding on ice. After stopping he put scared but unharmed Peeko on the ground next to him and turned to glare at Nightmare, bringing us to the current moment. AJ and Dash seemed a bit shocked at Soul, for whatever reason, and all I heard from them was a muttered “Batman...” but I was still too dazed to put it together.

The massive beast just stared with obvious and familiar hate at Soul, not even bothering with any preamble before lunging at him to tear him open. However, before it could do anything more than get its claws under his coat, Shin launched forth in a boiling rage, tackling it to the ground with the impact of a meteor. Soul used this opportunity to charge up a teleport spell and both he and Peeko disappeared in a flash, with him reappearing next to me a few moments after that. In concern, I took a look at his state to see just how badly that thing had injured him. The wound was quite deep and would require medical attention soon, however, it wasn’t bleeding nearly as much as something this size should have. Fluttershy was by Soul’s side in a rush, scanning it over.

“Oh dear, this is… very deep… How is it not b-bleeding faster?” she asked.

“Magical suppression, I’m cycling raw magic through my body, slowing the bleeding and dulling pain slightly.” Soul answered, not taking his eyes from the monstrosity. A loud series of explosions went off, drawing my attention to the fight. Shin was firing a massive stream of white hot exploding fireballs at the Nightmare, who was doing its best to block it with both of its arms as it tried to advance, its own murderous rage feeling just about as powerful as Shin’s. My eyes widened as I saw that, my courage quickly fleeing me. There was no way I could face that thing myself…

Holy shit, Shinkiro has a MASSIVE Fire Affinity. Eclipse commented. I had to duck as the Nightmare punched one of the fireballs our way, and I was further struck with fear. It was like watching a battle of titans… Shin gave up on the fireballs and started charging up close again. The Nightmare reacted in kind, making an attempt to slam Shin into the ground with its massive arms.

“I hope she will keep it occupied long enough.” Soul muttered and dashed slightly to the side, away from us, but not closer to the battle, and started doing… something. I don’t know what exactly he was doing, but I could feel his raw power started to rise. This was accompanied by shadows slowly forming into ribbons and whipping around him.

“What the-?! What’s going on?!” Twilight freaked out, visibly scared by the…demonic energy, is the only way I could describe it, surging forth into him.

Shin meanwhile had set herself on fire to counter being crushed, ensuring that though she was pinned, it hurt the Nightmare to keep her that way. Her scorpion tail lashed out, trying to get past its armor to inject poison. The Nightmare didn’t seem too phased by that though, and turned to us as it sensed Soul’s darkness growing. Then it spotted me, and grinned with satisfied malice.

“Not so cocky now, are you Summer?” it spoke with a mix between Gilda’s voice and a demon’s. More the demon’s voice, making it almost unrecognisable. “You can’t get us all so easily. This time… you and all your friends… WILL DIE!” Then it brought up one of its arms, aimed at me, with a massive spike of bone squishing its way out of it...followed by a dozen more.

Time slowed to a crawl as the spikes were fired at all of us. Girls immediately jumped away from where they were standing in an effort to dodge, I however was paralysed by fear and couldn’t move. The sound and sense of powerful magic at work partially brought me out of my daze and brought my attention to Soul. He was straining to keep all the magic he was building up in check while casting a powerful spell, which turned out to be a shield spell defending us from the spikes. He managed to block almost all of them when the strain proved to be too much and the shield broke and the whole thing backlashed against him, causing him to yelp in pain as his horn cracked and the magic fizzled out. The few remaining spikes were aimed a bit too high to hit any of us, except one, which was heading straight for me. I finally managed to regain control over myself and tried to move out of the way, but I was far too slow to manage it. I was almost accepting my fate when an object slammed into my side and barely pushed me out of the way. The sound of the spike impacting whatever that was that pushed me made my heart stop as I was dreading what I’m about to see if I take a look. When I saw Soul laying there on the ground next to me with a hole all the way through his chest, and the spike, covered in blood, was embedded in the ground behind him, I was stunned.

I took that next second, which felt like an eternity to process what just happened. Soul… he’d just sacrificed himself to save me. The Nightmare’s taunting laugh got my attention and I turned to find it still had Shin pinned down.

“Really now? Are you that weak that you have to let some hero save your ass? I thought you were better than that. I thought you wanted to be this big hero. You’re nothing but a pitiful little bug…” I clenched my teeth in anger as it taunted me.

“Soul… If that thing could beat him, and keep that other one pinned…” Rainbow muttered, clearly afraid.

“This could be it…” Twilight shuddered. The fear was almost overwhelming. But I stood firm. I knew one ability I had that could turn this around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fl27wKaGFw

“No. We can still win.” I said firmly. There was no way I was going to let anyone else die. I would not let fear control me! “NIGHTMARE! You’ve only seen how I deal with you when I’m worried about mercy. About saving the host. But you’ve made the terrible mistake of picking a host I have no mercy for! A monster like that has no place in Equestrian society.” I started walking towards it, starting up my magic. “Let me share with you a human term. An eye for an eye… A soul for a soul… You’ve taken the life of someone I’ve come to care for. So now…”

I finished the transformation in a flash, revealing the form of Raiden, wielding the Muramasa. I pointed the blade at the Nightmare. “I’m going to tear you out of a bleeding corpse!” As I let my bloodlust consume me, I noticed my slowly draining magic reserves suddenly fill up, and the number glitch between 100% and Infinity. I charged forth, leaving sparks of lightning in my wake as I threw forth bolts of my magic in plasma form. The barrage was strong enough to make the Nightmare flinch, and I kept it up until I got to it. When I got in range, it swiped at me, but was forced to release Shin when I dodged simply by jumping on top of its arm. When I jumped to its other arm to avoid the swipe from it, I drove my blade into its neck.

Memory Mimic: High Frequency Blade

The Nightmare screamed as the blade just sitting in its spine started to tear its neck off. When its head fell off though, it kept attacking. Right, necromorph. Needs to be dismembered. I remembered. I gladly got to work, making wide swings at its limbs in attempts to cut them apart, but to my surprise, the arms didn’t fall off on the first swing. The Nightmare hit me in my surprise, sending me flying into the train station’s ticket booth. I just laughed as I pulled myself out of it.

Memory Mimic: Ripper Mode

“Oh, this is gonna be FUN!” I shouted. I pulsed my magic, sending energy coursing through my veins, and my aura turned blood red. I dashed forth once again, Shin joining the fun as she meteor tackled the Nightmare again. With the Nightmare distracted, it couldn’t do much to stop me from swinging at its limbs, eventually dicing them. Shin burned away the other arm, having already damaged it severely while it had kept her pinned. Now left with nothing but a torso and horribly deformed legs, I was confident I could finish it off… at least until its missing limbs suddenly grew back.

“Hah! Thank you, Hydra genes!” The Nightmare laughed tauntingly. I laughed with it.

“Oh, but that just means I can tear you apart over and over and over again!” I shouted at it. That put a frown on its face, and it said nothing else. I once again attacked, but this time it knew what I was going to do. Rather than let me get close again, it started firing more bone spikes at me, these now launching like a Rail Gun.

Memory Mimic: Zandatsu

Slowing time, kinda, I just cut them apart before they could impale me. When the Nightmare saw what was happening, it stopped and charged at me, but Shin latched on then and started trying to tear through to the monster’s heart. That distracted it and allowed me to get close and start cutting again. But before I could dismember anything this time, it threw me off. I landed some distance away, and it started charging me again. This time, it didn’t ignore Shin, and backslapped her away.

Memory Mimic: Prototype Hammerfists

My fists grew in size and weight, but I had the strength to wield them. And wield them I did, stopping the Nightmare dead with a single punch. It was stunned after that due to blunt force trauma, so I did what naturally came next.

Memory Mimic: Prototype Blade Arm

I stabbed it, piercing right through to the other side and puncturing its heart. At that moment though, I noticed a new bar on my UI. It was flashing red and getting close to full, and I started feeling like my insides could burst into flames… but I ignored it. The satisfaction of a kill was almost upon me.

Memory Mimic: Consume

The Nightmare’s body began melting into my blade, each strand of flesh and bone being consumed by each cell in my arm. I grinned at the Nightmare’s look of utter fear as it saw me finishing it off.

“You’re mine now. DIE!” I shoved my blade further into it, accelerating the rate I consumed it. Soon there was nothing but me, Shin, and a bloody mess. Panting heavily as I released my new form and abilities, I now noticed a large black dome surrounding the battlefield. How long had that been there?

I suddenly felt very sick and started vomiting, some kind of dust or something coming out. As well, the glitched number on my magic started to go back to normal, leaving me at just 1%. The barrier fell then, just shattering. Finally, I felt somewhat normal after that, if seriously weak.

Level Up!

Hunter Form Unlocked!

Changeling & Dark Detect Unlocked!

Enhanced Healing (lvl3/10) Upgraded!

Magic Capacity Increased!

Shapeshifting: Weaponshifting Unlocked! Can now transform body parts into various weapons!

Special Circumstances no longer fulfilled: Memory Mimic Disabled.

Ally Update:

Eclipse: 27% Complete

Soulfire: Deceased

“Summer!” Twilight shouted as the barrier fell, rushing towards me with concern, quickly followed by the rest of the girls. Their concern for me started filling me back up, saving me from the 1% brink.

“I’ll be fine… I just need to feed for a bit.” I replied, hugging her when she got to me.

See you later Soul. Been nice seeing how utterly psychotic Summer can get. I heard Nightmare say in my head. Then after a moment, Oh wait, he’s already gone. Welp. I’m off to Summer’s mental reconstruction of Grillby’s. Well that explains the power I felt… and the burn I can still feel. It feels like my soul is on fire. I would have laughed at how it practically makes up Soul’s name, but… I still felt it. And it’s not pleasant.

“Oh sweet Celestia, you feel so hot and cold at the same time… You’re in bad shape, Summer.” Twilight said.

“Like I said, I just gotta feed. I’m at only 1% here, but your concern’s helping. What happened to Soul’s body?” I asked, getting up and walking in its direction. I spotted it, and nearly gasped at what I saw. It was grey now, almost white and it was cracking, breaking down into the same dust Nightmare did inside me.

“No…” Pinkie whimpered as she saw it. “I… I can’t believe he’s gone…”

“I’m glad I at least avenged him. I still feel like shit for putting him in that position in the first place though.” I muttered.

“He was the one that stood up to Nightmare Moon when Summer went down though… That was the Nightmare at full power, right? Why’d he fall to this lousy fragment?” Dash asked, wanting to deny that it had happened.

“Because this one has been consuming creatures in the Everfree to steal and absorb power. This one was a 10% fragment, with power and abilities it wouldn’t have without preparation. Nightmare Moon wasn’t at full power though, and I severely threw her off by playing with her emotions.” I replied. Shy started crying a bit then, just bursting into tears.

Soul’s body completely disintegrated into a pile of dust at this point. We all stood there, mostly in silence for a minute before movement caught our eyes. The pile started stirring a bit, as if something was moving under it.

“What the fuck?” I said, surprised. Shy had stopped crying for a moment after seeing it, and the others stared, dumbfounded. The dust pile was now full on wobbling and not a few seconds later a small grey hoof shot from the side, followed by a sputtering head… a very familiar head. It seemed that all of us had made the same observation, seeing as we all shouted the same thing at the same time.

“SPEC?!” Was what that joint shout was. I didn’t join in, I was merely surprised he was still alive.

“...Well then, I guess this isn’t the first time you’ve died.” I stated. Suddenly, Spec was hugged by a Changeling Queen turned Glomp Missile.

“THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!” Shin happily repeated at Pinkie level speeds.

“Ahh! I.. er.. no problem! Really, I’m glad I could help…. please put me down?” Spec nervously replied, turning to me with a begging expression and gesturing to Shin.

“My Queen, please. That pony is not a teddy bear.” I said to Shin. The girls all just looked super confused, except Pinkie. Shin let go of Spec, and turned to the girls, with a bit of a sheepish grin.

“So uh… what exactly is going on? And why did Summer call you her Queen?” Dash asked.

“To put it in a way you would understand, basically I'm the queen bee. Bit of a swarm mentality.” Shin said dismissively, though I noticed AJ looking between us in a bit of an uncomfortable realization.

“And as for what’s going on here, basically, I’ve pinned a few of Soul’s secrets here from the moment I met him, and this here proved I was right. Soul is… well, to put it simply, either not a pony at all, or just a very weird one. I find it weird how he’s taken this gender swap thing.” I said pointing my hoof at her. “But then again, it’s probably not the first time he’s died and done this.” That caused Spec to sigh.

“Admittedly, this wasn’t the way I wanted this to come out.” She said as she picked up a bit of the dust. “I told you about my name Summer, remember? If you think about it now, it takes on a whole different meaning.” She said as she slowly poured the dust back to the ground. “Spec of dust, fitting isn’t it?” I chuckled a bit.

“Spec? What are you…” Sweetie Belle’s voice called out.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me of the last thing I said when I saw you like this.” I said with a mischievous smirk. I then heard the soft whine of a pulse beam charging.

“Set to stun.” Sweetie’s command relieved me a bit, but then I felt pain surge through me.

“OW, SON OF A BITCH! THAT STILL HURTS!”