The portal behind Cryogen, the living fortress, sizzles out of existence as the floating structure passively unleashes its chilling wrath on Hometown. Snow and ice of magical properties begin to spread like an infection, easily overtaking the town’s architecture and those unlucky enough to have been caught while also spawning entities made of ice and snow.

The town’s residents flock to formulate plans as other individuals take the initiative to combat the ice, fire magic being favored, but with varying outcomes.

Flame Heart, a fiery red unicorn stallion with an ignited tail and mane, takes a deep breath before spewing a wave of flames on the ground, trying to push back Cryogen’s fabricated and growing Snow Biome.

Seeing his results, Flame notes that despite his flames having an effect----the ice melting along with the sounds of sizzling and evaporating water, the frost continued on despite his efforts. It was like trying to cut into a mass of tofu with a hot knife, only for the tofu to reform itself moments after.

“Colt!” Flame roars out. “This stuff is waaay different than your average snow and ice.”

“Go, Charizard!” A female voice calls out from nearby, causing Flame to look skyward as a red and white spherical-shaped object is tossed into the air by a terrarian teenage girl with black hair, red eyes, and pink skin hidden under casual white and red attire.

Flame had learned of such individuals ever since he and others who’d been displaced from the former Equus arrived here: a Pokemon Trainer----an art that was once lost but now is restored following the defeat of Nyarlathotep.

The sphere opens and reveals itself as a mechanism as what seems to be a bolt of red transparent energy is fired off and lands on the grounds nearby that have yet to fall to the frost.

It happened so quickly, and the energy formed the outline of an entity before it was revealed to be a five-foot-seven draconian-like being that unfurls its leathery wings and roars out while letting out a stream of fire from its maw.

“Charizard!” The girl called out. “Give that pony a helping claw and use Flamethrower!”

Charizard roars out before taking flight and relentlessly unleashes a fiery assault.

“Heya!” Flame Heart calls out to the trainer as the Charizard’s roars of conflict can be heard. “Thanks for that!”

“No problem!” The girl shoots him a thumbs up. “I saw you save my grandmother when Cryogen first appeared. So here’s my way of giving thanks. My Name’s Obsidian Red, by the way. But you can just call me Red, for short. Like my ancestor.”

“Flame Heart,” the unicorn responds, waving a forelimb as the duo hurriedly approach one another and bump a closed fist and forehoof.

“Well then, Flame Heart.” Both turn to the encroaching frost. “Let’s make this a tag-team effort and have ourselves a great battle!”

The unicorn grins, “Yeah!”

Red’s features harden as she looks upward at Cryogen, “Still, though…” She mutters. “The legends are true… Cryogen… After all this time.”

She then shakes those thoughts away as the terrarian and Flame charge forth together. Along the way, the Pokemon Trainer leaps into the air and lands on her Charizard’s shoulder, who dives in a passing maneuver as they take to the skies.

“Flame on!” Flame roars out, his body consumed in flames as he joins his allies in the air like a soaring comet.

Elsewhere on the town-wide battlefield, a group of crystal ponies and normal ponies, one of every type and donned in cobalt attire, fight off creatures that form from the snow and ice itself. The creatures varied in size and shape, from humanoids to equines and generally chaotic masses.

“Keep it up, everypony!” Flash Sentry declared, slashing away at a humanoid snow-being with a cobalt sword before backflipping into the air with a flap of his wings, hovering in place. “These things are strange, but we’ve dealt with worse!”

“Does anypony else feel like there’s something strangely familiar about that castle up there?” A crystal unicorn mare said after thrusting her naginata and plunging it through an ice-equine.

“I-I feel it, too!” A crystal earth pony stallion declared nearby, firing a crossbow forged from cobalt material at a monstrous mound of snow and ice. And although every crystal pony present felt the same way, non-crystal ponies, like Flash, were mildly confused by this.

“How could that thing feel familiar to you guys?” A non-crystal earth pony mare asked of her crystal counterparts. “I’m certain I’d remember a floating castle attacking the Crystal Empire.”

“It’s something that pre-dates the Crystal Empire!” A new male voice exclaimed, teetering on the line between deep and high-pitched, garnering confusion amongst the small force. Suddenly, several spires of ice erupt from the ground and surround the gathering of equines before encasing them in a prism-shaped, icey barrier.

“What’s going on here?!” Flash Sentry exclaimed, practically speaking the thoughts of everyone within.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” the mysterious voice said. “I’m a friend. My name is Arctic Ace, and I need your help. Permafrost needs our help.”

Following those words, Arctic’s white face, with visible signs of a moderate indigo mane, a light-purple scarf, and unfurled wings made of ice, presents himself on the inner walls of the protective casing, which creates multiple reflections all around the ponies.

The reflections abruptly merge together, and the ‘pegasus’ stallion’s complete form is visible on the ice’s review, almost like a mirror, in front of them.

Arctic starts to step out of his own reflection, practically phasing through the icy visage before physically standing before his fellow equines.

“I couldn’t help but overhear you crystal ponies feeling a sort of attachment to Cryogen.”

“Y-yeah,” the crystal unicorn mare, who once asked her allies an inquiry of such nature, said. “Do you know something about that.”

“I do,” the ice-winged stallion responds. “But we have to reach the Pylon of Heroes first.”

“Pylon of Heroes?” Flash Sentry asked. “Where- what is that?”

“Oh, it’s that purple crystal castle near the center of town. But I think I heard some people call it…the Castle of Friendship?”

A series of ‘Oh’s and ‘Right, the Castle of Friendship’ sound off.

“So…about that Cryogen thing,” the crystal mare from before asked. “What exactly do you know about this…strange sense of familiarity we crystal ponies have?”

Ace turns his gaze over to her. “It’s a long story, and we sadly don’t have the time right now for one of Permafrost or a Guide’s lectures. What I can say is this: you know that castle that makes up Cryogen’s ‘body’?”

The ponies nod in response to the ice-winged equine’s question, prompting him to continue.

“It’s the original Crystal Empire Castle.” He turns around as all eyes rest on Cryogen’s form beyond the transparentness of the icy prism around them, enemies and frost monsters attacking the barrier outside.

“You could also say that it’s the Crystal Empire that gave birth to your Crystal Empire. Back when Harmony left to create a new world at the end of the Time of the Ancients…

When Yharim threatened all life in this world, seeking vengeance on those who he felt wronged him.”

---

Conflict roars out from within the crystalline halls of the castle, just outside of the frozen and ice-encased throne room.

With a gesture of her right wing, Snowdrop causes a wall of ice to form all around Twilight, Tzana, Linn, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Mena, Zecora, and Terraria’s version of Cadence.

“Hey, call me crazy,” Rainbow began. “But is that pegasus staring at you, Tzana?”

“Y-yeah…” Linn drew in realization, Cadence alongside her.

As was appointed, all eyes could see Snowdrop’s fearsome gaze fixated on the light-brown earth pony, who tossed her dark-brown mane over her right shoulder with a shake of her head.

“What in the GrimDark did you do to her?” Mena asked, feeling a sense of deja vu----knowing a hateful stare when she saw it.

“I don’t even know that mare,” Tzana answered, raising an eyebrow and cocking her head.

Snowdrop stomps a forelimb, manipulating the ice and causing another wall to form within and alongside those trapped. But most notably, Tzana had been isolated from the rest of her party.

“Tzana!” Twilight called out in concern. “Watch out-”

“Go,” the earth pony answered with a forelimb outstretched back to them, keeping her gaze forward. “Try to break out of that ice and get out of here.” She sets her hoof down and trots closer to the wall before her.

“I’ll handle Frosty the Snowbitch.”

With an understanding nod, Twilight and everyone else sealed within the ice began to carve a path into the ice with a series of cobalt pickaxes, Mena summoning Skeletron’s arms to claw away at the ice and others conjuring forth a cobalt drill.

Now alone to face the icy pegasus, Tzana glares back at Snowdrop despite the wall of ice between them.

“So, you gonna remove this block of ice?” She asked playfully. “Or are we going to scream at one another through it?”

“Hmmph.” With a flap of her wing, Snowdrop causes the ice wall to recede and meld into the ice-covered floor, leaving a generous distance between them. “Now it’s just you and me…” Her eyes flash and are consumed by dark-blue energy, which leaks out of the edges of her eye sockets.

“Daughter of the Black Rose…” She growled. “I can smell her disgusting scent all over you!”

It was at that moment that Tzana’s ears twitched in response. “You know… I’m starting to feel the strangest sense of dej-” Her eyes widen in realization, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me…” She finished with a sigh, deadpanning.

“Seriously? Again?”

“Have you figured it out yet?” Snowdrop asked, maintaining her ferocity.

“Gonna go out on a limb here and say that you’ve got a raging hate boner for my mum?”

“Yes!” Snowdrop’s voice echoed from her dark-blue energy-filled throat. “My anger is great, and my hatred for your mother knows no bounds!”

“Thanks, Mom and Dad,” Tzana mutters exhaustively. “I just oh-so enjoy inheriting your enemies. Seriously, first Sheeraiah and now this chick?”

“What are you mumbling about over there?!” The pegasus grinned devilishly. “Chatting a little prayer before you die?”

“Yeah, let’s, uh, go with that.” Tzana strides forth calmly, manifesting her Old Lord Oathsword along the way, wielding it in her left forehoof and swiping sideways.

“You know, telling your friends to leave so that you can fight me alone is so…gutless,” Snowdrop mocked, smirking.

Tzana raises an eyebrow, stopping a small distance away from her opponent. “And how is that gutless…?”

“Because…” Snowdrop chuckles darkly. “Suicide is the coward’s way out.”

“Can we fight now?”

“Why, you little-” Snowdrop abruptly and frustratingly lunges and glides forth with a flap of her wings, “Yes!”

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them both, and as Tzana’s blade clashes with a piercing clod of ice that Snowdrop grew around her right forelimb, their clash echoing throughout the hallway, a third presence was watching them from beyond a scrying spell, and from the depths of the Brimstone Crags----one of the most dangerous quadrants of the hellish Underworld.

“Ohoho~ I don’t think so, missy,” Sheeraiah, sworn demoness enemy of Tzana’s father, laughed while staring at Snowdrop.

“If anyone’s claiming that pony’s head, it’s going to be me.”

“My my, what an interesting love triangle we have here.” A male’s voice chimed in with an eastern accent, causing the demoness to turn her gaze back to its source.

Sitting down on a nearby brimstone cliff and looking down at the demoness through an ominous mask was what looked like another demon but more terrarian in appearance than Sheeraiah herself. A blade of crimson energy was leaning against the wall next to him as shadow flames flickered off his right arm.

“Iryoku,” Sheeraiah comments. “What are you doing here?”

“Just watching you stare at them like a hentai, old friend.” Iryoku lifted himself up to his full stature, grabbed his blade, and leaped forward into a spin, falling down to the demoness’s level, sticking the landing acrobatically.

“That means ‘pervert,’ by the way. I honestly don’t understand why everyone associates it with tentacles, although I have been gone for quite some time.”

Iryoku strides over to Sheeraiah, who rolls her eyes with a disgusted scoff and looks back to her scrying spell.

“So,” Iryoku rests an elbow against the demoness's right shoulder to prop himself up, “What exactly am I looking at here?”

“That is Inigo’s living sperm,” Sheeraiah answered. “And some whore thinks she can take my prey from me.”

Iryoku nods his head. “Not what I meant, but yes, yes. I'm aware. That’s all fine and dandy, but your little bad romance is gonna have to wait for now.”

“And why is that?”

“Simple, my dear: our lady is greatly interested in that pony.”

“What?” Sheeraiah inquires, looking at her fellow resident of the Underworld, genuinely confused. “Why?”

Iryoku shifts his masked sights over to the scrying view, Tzana and Snowdrop’s conflict raging on. “That mare is the daughter of the Black Rose.”

“So what? What difference does that make?”

“The Black Rose is the former host of our lady, the Brimstone Elemental.”

Sheeraiah’s eyes widened, and she slowly shifted her gaze to the scrying view, where silence took hold, save for the sounds that escaped from the scrying spell.

Sheeraiah clicks her forked tongue.

“...Shit.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 113 - Boss Fight: Cryogen Pt: 2 Estimated time remaining: 23 Minutes