“Necklace.”
“Necklace.”
“Necklace.”
“Necklace.”
“Necklace.”
“Aaand…big crown thingy!”
A wave of laughter echoed from the group as they finished equipping their jewelry. The gold-and-crystal decorations had appeared from nowhere when they had used the Elements of Harmony for the first time—to bring down the tyranny of Nightmare Moon. Now, it had come time for them to be used against another alicorn. After what would have been cruelty to say at the time, the party was refreshed by the reminder of their past victory over Discord.
Suddenly in much better spirits from the string of stray comments, the group quietly exited the library, awake and alert for any sign of their new enemy. The town was just beginning to stir, so not many ponies were awake and about to see them wearing the Elements. Of those that were, many of them simply wondered why they were dressed up looking so nice, and a particularly absentminded pair of colts complemented them on it. Only a select few had seen them wearing the ornate jewelry before and had enough sanity left to understand their power, and subsequently took a hint and went back inside.
One particular unicorn had actually not seen the Elements as they currently were, but he knew a great deal about them. And he also had knowledge, or at least an interest, about the time distortion field heading towards the town. In a flash, he generated a scale before himself, and placed several figures on it—one for each of the girls on one side, the Elements and the time-distortion field on the other. Naturally, the events outweighed the six ponies on the scale—and, unfortunately, this unicorn knew exactly who would balance it out. "Not him..."
Naturally, the girls were surprised to see a stallion running towards them. Why would he care where they had found the jewelry? "So, um, who are you?"
The gray unicorn stopped a short distance from the group, breathing heavily. "My name's not important," he gasped, "but both of our safety is. Klokwerk K. Millennia is headed towards Ponyville—you need to hide as well as you can. Maybe he'll content himself with just a few buildings..."
Twilight Sparkle, who was already standing at the front of the group, stepped forward to speak with him. "I'm afraid we can't do that. Princess Celestia has ordered us to protect this town, and that's what we're going to do."
The judge-like unicorn stared at them as if they had just related that they were killing themselves—and, in his opinion, they were. "Surely not even the princess would send you to protect us from him!" To emphasize his speech, he started using magic to draw images in the dirt—buildings crumbling apart, arrows seemingly frozen in midair, a pony trapped inside of an hourglass. "This monster doesn't just terrorize people, and this is far from the first city he's ever attacked. True, it has been a long time since he's come this way, but the point is he will destroy this town easily, like all the others. Many brave soldiers have tried to fight him, but all in vain—he never receives a scratch, even as he storms the town, making buildings collapse and imprisoning innocent lives in his destructive prisons."
It was only now that the gray unicorn looked up from his now incredibly detailed drawings. "Well," he said with an expression of despair on his face, "now do you think you should hide?"
The peculiar stallion's drawings struck varying degrees of fear into the hearts of the six friends—not to mention any civilians still standing about. Twilight herself was especially shocked by the pony in the hourglass—just what kind of prison was that? The odd stallion had said "destructive prisons," and that made her even more worried about her foe-to-be's powers than she was before.
Still...it was an order from the Princess, and Twilight couldn't let the Princess down. Swallowing her fear and regaining her typical demeanor, Twilight Sparkle raised her head from the drawings and into the eyes of the stallion. "I appreciate your concern, stranger, but we have no choice. Disobeying the Princess may bring about something even worse than the damages to this city—run if you like, but we're staying here. Besides, we'll have one thing those soldiers certainly didn't have—The Elements of Harmony!" To emphasize her words, her friends behind her tilted their heads up and leaned forward in unison, presenting their necklaces.
The stallion stared in confusion for a second, but quickly blinked into understanding. "What? Oh, so that's what those little jewelry pieces are. No wonder you're so confident," he said with a nervous laugh. "Well, I can't be certain how you'll do, but I wish you the best of luck. That monster has caused me a lot of frustration with his pointless, undeserved destruction—and, well, if he can be stopped, it will be by the Elements, and thus, by you. I'm afraid I'm a little less equipped, though, so...I'm going to go hide now." Another nervous laugh—apparently, this stallion wasn't much of a speaker. As he turned back towards his home in the town square, he said one last thing: "It's Balance, by the way. Perfect Balance. Assuming we both survive, we should talk."
As the galloping of the unicorn named Perfect Balance faded out, another sound came in to replace it. A loud, echoing bell chime, not unlike that found in the mightier of clocks. As the third chime waved through the town, Fluttershy squeaked. "I thought the clock tower was broken..."
"It is," Twilight replied, her face as stern as stone
A fourth, then a fifth chime. Suddenly, Fluttershy's nervousness spread, and the group anxiously looked around, hoping to identify the source of the sound. The sixth, the seventh, the eighth. There was no way the time was past seven o'clock this early in the morning. Nine. Ten. Still the bell rang, and Rainbow lost her patience and took to the air.
Finally, on the twelfth and final ring, the bell sounded much clearer—the sound seemed to be coming from directly above the group. As they raised their heads with varying degrees of speed and excitement to see what awaited them, a sudden rush of air accompanied a winged figure falling out of the sky at a breakneck pace. Dust scattered everywhere as it drove itself straight into the ground.
Most of the girls closed their eyes, and Fluttershy nearly ran on the spot, but Twilight stayed focused. After all, dust in her eyes couldn't possibly compare to being caught off guard. Thus, she continued to gaze into the cloud of dust, and she saw the outline of the figure. The horn, the wings, and the shape of the muzzle was all she needed to see to confirm her suspicion.
As if responding to being noticed, a huge pair of wings came out of the dust cloud—almost sharing the color of the dust themselves. With two powerful flaps, the dust cleared, and its color faded into the outline of Klokwerk Millennia. As he calmly folded up his old wings, he glanced around the city. Typical reactions; townsfolk gazing on in fear and confusion. Unfortunately, they don't seem as educated as my last victim. "Well, it looks like you have a nice town, here," Klokwerk said with his first step forward. As he strode around, he was beginning to spread his accursed destruction without even trying yet—flowers and grasses wilted next to his hooves, and the ground seemed to dry out wherever he walked. "Yes, I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun destroying it."
He was about to target town hall with his powerful time-bending magic when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw six girls watching him like hawks. That was odd—not many dared show bravery around him, even before he started destroying things. Yet, here they were. All glaring at him like it was their job to make him feel uncomfortable. With a quick jump from his front two hooves, he rotated himself to stare right back at them. "And what might you be? Some sort of welcome wagon?"
"Ooh!" came an unexpected outburst from Pinkie Pie. "I'm no welcome wagon, but I have one! I left it at my house; if you would let me go..." here, Pinkie trailed off. In a split second, she realized what she was saying, and resumed her glare—a facial expression that clashed greatly with her bright, happy demeanor. "...oh, I'm sorry; I guess I'm not supposed to welcome criminals. Sorry, Klokwerk!"
If Klokwerk was surprised at all, he didn't show it. In reality, he wasn't shocked by the pink pony's sudden tangent—it was often the crackpots that dared stand in his way. He was, however, rather taken aback by the fact that she knew his name. "Oh, you know me? Wonderful; I have a rough idea of who you are as well. Then we can skip introductions and go straight to the part where I kill you."
With a few brief nods to each other, the girls confirmed that they were all thinking the same thing. Surely, the Elements of Harmony would be enough to best their foe, and without having to spend time looking for them, using them would be easy. "That's what you think!" came a shout from Rainbow Dash, still maintaining her hovering state.
None of the girls could pin a way to describe just how the Elements of Harmony were activated, but they knew how. As they poured their energy into the gems of their jewelry, an ancient magic overtook them—a magic not even Celestia fully understood. No longer controlling themselves, the six floated high into the air, the other five clustered behind Twilight. All six opened their mouths at the same time, but each took her own turn speaking:
"I don't think you've been laughing enough, mister!" "That's the honest truth!" "Seems like you could use a loving, caring heart..." "...We'd even share ours!" "But for now, you need to be bound—by the bonds that hold our friendship together!"
"And magic makes it all complete," Twilight finished, a pleasant smile on her face. She closed her eyes, allowing the powerful magic of the Elements to flow throughout her, and when she opened them again, they were washed with white. She was no longer in control, but that didn't matter; the Elements had a mind of their own when it came to destroying evil. One by one, the other five shot rays of light matching their own color straight at her, and once all six of the Elements' power was hosted within her, the rainbow of purity sprang from her horn and shot itself like a bullet at Klokwerk.
The girls, now tired from the exertion, floated down to rest on the ground, thinking it was all over. Before she herself touched down, Rainbow shouted a victory cry, and pumped one of her front hooves into the air. "Aww, yeah—direct hit...!"
When she saw her friends staring off at where Klokwerk had been standing, she, too, turned off that way—and her mood and her body hit the ground at the same time. While their perspective in the air had shown them otherwise, Klokwerk had not been hit. Instead, he was enduring the blast with some bright, dusty shield that sparked with magic.
Klokwerk was unsurprised that the supposed welcome wagon had the Elements of Harmony, or that they would use them immediately. He had been irritated slightly by the sudden need to step up his magic and block the attack by slowing time near himself, but other than that, he was completely in control. The vibrant beam inched closer and closer to his face, but at this pace, it barely looked threatening. Klokwerk regarded it with a calm gaze, wondering just how long it might actually take for it to hit him.
Well, he wasn't going to sit around and find out. With a quick step to the left, he removed himself from the rainbow's path, and quietly released his spell. Without warning, the laser regained its full speed, and drove itself into the ground, intensely purifying a patch of grass about ten feet behind where Klokwerk had been standing. Flowers from all across the spectrum of color rose from the ground to mark the spot—flowers that would not wilt, regardless of Klokwerk's destructive power. Nopony there knew it, but the next living thing to be planted there would live for at least a thousand years.
For a brief moment, Klokwerk Millennia turned and regarded the spot with the same gaze he stared at the laser itself with. Then, he turned back to the six friends who were so confident that they could just blast him out of oblivion a few seconds ago. "Looks like you missed. Care to try that again?"