Truth be told, I knew I had approximately a 0% chance of beating Tirek. Still, I had to at least give it a shot, for if I didn't, Tirek would rule tyrannically over Equestria forever, and Princess Celestia, Luna and Cadance would be trapped in Tartarus for all eternity.
The gears in my brain started to roll and click as I struggled to think of a way to beat Tirek, since, when it came to raw magical power, the odds were definitely in Tirek’s favor. So if I just charged head on, I would get demolished. In my head, I mapped out all the ways I could go about this battle, coming up with solutions and immediately scratching them for sake of a better one that crossed my mind. Truth be told, none of them seemed promising, until I came up with a plan that would possibly allow me to succeed.
First order of business would be to place invisible runes all over the forest’s perimeter. If Tirek triggered one, the others would follow suit, resulting in massive explosions that was sure to make Tirek fall. Next, I would stop his fall with a magical trampoline, making sure to give it enough power to definitely send him flying. Afterwards, I would place more runes on the path of his trajectory and finally finish him off with a relentless onslaught of all the magic I’d have left in me, leaving just enough for an emergency teleport in case things went south. Actually setting up all those runes took a lot out of my magic reserves though, especially since I was planting the runes hastily. I also already set up the trampoline and cloaked it, since it was easy enough to predict which runes Tirek would step on first, and therefore where he would fall to. Running a few calculations through my mind quickly, I was able to predict his flight path and set up the remaining runes accordingly. At this point, my horn was starting to fizzle out magic, as my reserves were really starting to strain. My head was starting to hurt too. Unsurprising, considering how much thinking in how little time I just did, even by my standards.
After laying down all the traps, all that was left was to lure him into the trap. "Hey, Tirek! You huge weakling, I'm over here!"
Upon hearing my voice, Tirek snapped out of his power-induced high and turned around to see me flying at eye level with him. When he saw me, he started stomping in my direction, and his first hoof step met about a dozen magical mines, starting the chain reaction of explosions.
By the time the last mine had exploded, Tirek was completely engulfed in a huge cloud of smoke and purple fire. I heard him grunting when the explosions triggered, and the sound of trees being flattened, meaning the second part of the trap was successful. Tirek was flung high into the air, each explosion pushing him further in the direction of the next one. By the time the last bomb had hit, there was a gigantic trail of magic and smoke in the air.
It was now time for me to finish this. I had to, I needed to. For Equestria. For my friends. Mustering up almost every bit of magical energy I had left to spare, I sent a massive barrage hurling towards him, launching him even quicker into the ground. I unleashed half a dozen more attacks at Tirek, which made him crash at massively hypersonic speeds. I finished off the barrage with one last beam, the strongest beam I'd ever unleashed, leaving me with barely enough magic to use teleportation.
Purple flames and magic and thick, suffocating smoke completely surrounded Tirek, shielding him from view, but I was sure it had at least hurt him, if not knocked him out. But, once everything cleared up, I could only watch in shock. Watch as Tirek emerged almost unscathed. Watch as I realized that my offense had yielded no results.
Tirek smiled, and walked up to me. We simply looked at each other for a couple seconds, his gaze confident and smug, mine losing all hope. Finally, Tirek said, "Did you really think that trick would've worked? Sure, I'll admit it took me by surprise at first, but you don't even have half the strength that I do. If I had bothered to create a magical barrier around myself, it wouldn't have even put a single scratch on me, but I didn't even think it was worth it." I cursed myself for not thinking about my plan deeply enough to realize this, then sighed and made my decision.
I had to admit defeat, at least temporarily. Leaving now would give Tirek plenty of time to wreak havoc over Equestria, but continuing on was pointless. My plans had failed, my reserves were depleted.
"Well, Tirek, it seems I can't beat you...yet." Tirek seemed confused at my somewhat mysterious "yet," and looked like he was going to speak, but then, I once again fled the battle and I didn't hear what he was going to say.
Using up the small amount of magic I had left, I teleported to the village my friends were at, and then started walking down to find them.