Drops dripped from the "A" that the Captain wore proudly on his head as he took his first steps into the city of Canterlot. The clouds had chosen that moment to unleash their drizzle upon the Captain, but his eyes pierced through the rain to see the city that had suffered from the tyranny of Tirek. Every building wore his face upon it, and dozens of statues littered the streets.
'But today it all comes to an end,' Rogers promised as he turned his eyes towards the solemn sky, asking silently for strength from above before he snapped his head back down and sprinted into the streets. He was grateful for the rain, since the rain acted like a second mask. It masked his scent, it masked his presence, and it masked his suit.
''Roadblock. Ten of them at most. All armed,' Captain America calculated as he reached back and took up his shield once more. The second that the enemy forces came into view the Captain was already hurling his shield into one of them. He heard the satisfying sound of vibranium striking bone and saw the outline of the shield slice through the rain on its arc.
"It's the Captain! Take him-" A boot to the head silenced the guard before he could get the rest of his statement out. Captain America then spun on his heel and drove his leg into the stomach of a second guard. He caught movement to his side and ducked to avoid a bolt of magic. Giving his foe no time to launch a counter-attack, America lunged at the armored horse and slammed a fist in-between his eyes.
Rogers then spun into the air and stuck out a leg, catching the edge of his shield and hurling it back into the crowd of guards with renewed force. The shield snapped one guard's head to the side before it hurtled into another that caught it in the gut. While the shield was dealing with the ponies out of his reach, Rogers wrapped his legs around the neck of the closest guard to him. With a twist of his midsection the Captain sent the stallion tumbling head over hooves into the street.
The remaining three shouted to each other as they began to fire at where the Captain had been standing, but another advantage of the rain was that it made the Captain hard to find and even harder to hit. A low sweep knocked one of the guards off of his hooves, and an axe kick to the back of the head kept him down. The second guard closest to the Captain also got a good look at the bottom of the Captain's boot, but the exposure caused him to collapse with a small groan.
The Captain then rose to his full height while the rain drops weaved down his suit, not turning his head towards the final guard when the pony took aim at him with a crossbow. Right before the pony could fire, Rogers heard the sound of vibranium meeting armor and held out his hand to catch the shield as the pony went down.
"Area secured. Moving up," Rogers briefly spoke into his own radio before racing ahead. Despite the rain and the focus on his mission, Rogers couldn't help but wonder what the city had been like before the fall of Harmony...before the deaths of the Ambassadors.
For despite Tirek doing everything in his power to stamp out the old ways, Rogers was still able to tell where areas had once been places of joy. As he crossed through a large square, his eyes chose to soften when he spied what remained of hopscotch marks. To his left there was an old comedy club that had fallen into ruin, with a sign next to it that was barely legible. What Rogers could make out though, told him that it was once a place of laughter.
'He'll pay for all of it. All the lives that he ruined. All the lives that he took. All the lives that never got to live.' Yet despite the rage and the desire to get to Tirek as fast as he could, Rogers was still unnervingly aware of the fact that the streets were devoid of the guards that should have been trying to kill him. 'There's no way that Tirek would only send ten guards to kill me. He's arrogant, but not a total idiot. Either someone else managed to deal with them, and I can't imagine who, or this is the clearest trap I've ever seen.'
Rogers then sprinted up a tiled slope to the entrance to the Castle of Midnight that had once belonged to the biggest protectors of freedom and harmony that had ever lived. Yet despite the Harmony having been long dead within the castle walls, Rogers raised an eyebrow to see that the castle gates were open welcomingly for the Captain. Two guards on either side of the gates motioned for the Captain to follow them into the castle.
'Looks like it's the trap then,' Rogers concluded after he knocked out the two guards for good measure. He took his first step onto the castle grounds and immediately felt a wave of magic wash over him. He had to raise his shield in the face of such pressure just to advance forward. 'Trying to intimidate me with a show of strength, Tirek? I've fought the Hulk. Your show of strength is just hot air.'
The magical assault eventually ended, leaving the Captain free to lower his shield while he walked past a pair of open doors. His eyes were narrowed and his shield was up as he stalked through the corridors that were devoid of any life, ready for the first sign of a trap or ambush. Yet there was only the emptiness, the emptiness and the few portraits that Tirek had bothered to keep hanging.
While Rogers did wish to reach Tirek as fast as he could, he couldn't help but stop to look at a portrait that somehow was older than him, according to the date at the bottom. It was of an alicorn with a massive, white beard and crimson wings while a pitch black alicorn with hair as silver as the moon sat beside him. At their hooves played two fillies, one who was the same snow color as her father and the other who was more of a midnight blue.
'So you two were Celestia and Luna,' Rogers deduced while he gazed at the two foals, before looking up at their parents. Both of whom had the word "FAILURE" painted over them. 'And that was your family. I'm so sorry that all of this happened. But rest easy. For today, your home and city will be avenged.'
"Hurry, Captain America!" a voice that could only be equated to cannon fire, roared through the hallways that only held memories. "I know that you are out there! I grow tired of waiting for you to face your end! Find me in the party room! For tonight there will be a party that Equestria shall never forget...no matter how much it will wish to!"
Rogers followed the sound of the booming voice down hallways and across bridges, finally reaching a massive pair of doors as black as the master of the castle's heart. Rogers reached up with his hand and gently pushed against the doors, which were then ripped from their hinges by the massive centaur that had been waiting on the other side.
"Finally!" Tirek barked as he reached down and crushed the Captain within his grasp. Rogers snarled in pain before chucking his shield into the titan's eye. Tirek howled with pain as he released his grip, allowing Rogers to fall to the floor and reclaim his shield while he sprinted to the other side of the room.
But as Rogers took a chance to glance at the room around him, he nearly dropped his shield as the realization of where he was came crashing down on him. Held aloft in cages that swung from the ceiling, almost like a collection of trophies for a monster, hung the ponies of the Crusade. Every single one of them looked drained of their wills, for the eyes he gazed into were devoid of even the spark of hope, even at the sight of him.
"So you will not let me kill you and be done with it? Good. I have been looking forward to this ever since you destroyed the Starfall," Tirek said delightedly as a smile crossed his face, a smile that took pleasure in what was to come. "And I see that you have already seen what has become of your allies. Do not worry Captain, for you will not be joining them. The fate I have in store for you is more...permanent."
"You monster...what did you do to them?!" Rogers demanded from the beast, who once more let a knowing smile spread across his lips.
"Why, I stole their magic. And their power. And their will to fight," Tirek gleamed before pointing a finger behind the Captain. Rogers made sure his shield was directly in front of him before daring to take his eyes off of his foe, slightly turning his head to see what Tirek wished for him to see. In the center of the room, towering over everything else, stood a machine that seemed to suck in the very magic around them. "And that is what I plan to do to the rest of the world, after I am done with you."
"See, that is what I would have normally done had Sombra not suggested otherwise. It was at his insistence that I did not syphon the magic out of every pony the moment we came into power. Something about keeping some leftover, just in case, showing that we could be merciful. I did not care." Tirek then began to take steps towards the Captain, steps that made the castle shake as if it was afraid of what was to come. "But now the time for restraint is over. For now that I have the Crusade, I have no more reason to hold back my desire. For once you are dead, no other force in this land will be able to oppose me...and I shall finally be an all powerful god!"
Tirek threw his head back and began to unleash a bellow of laughter that made the ponies within their cages shake with terror. That was until a vibranium shield smacked him right in the throat. "Getting a little ahead of yourself there, aren't you?" Rogers asked the centaur as the creature gagged while holding a hand to his throat. Rogers lifted his hand and snatched his shield from the air. "Because this whole plan of yours requires you killing me. And last I checked, I'm still alive."
"For now, Captain. And that's only because I wish for you to be." A vortex of black magic then began to swirl between the monster's horns, which he then unleashed into the wall next to the Captain. Rogers braced behind his shield in case it was an attack, but instead of attacking the Captain the vortex instead showed a city with thousands of ponies within. Tirek repeated the process five more times, with each of his vortexes showing towns or cities within them.
"Because just killing you won't be enough. No, if I do that then there is the chance these fools will make a martyr out of you...remember you as a hero they believed you to be, not the soon to be six feet under failure that you actually are," Tirek informed the Captain before he then held his arms out to take in all of the vortexes. "So that is why our fight will have an audience! So the world sees what it means to cross Lord Tirek! Now face me, Captain, face me while millions watch their hero's final moments."
"You just don't get it Tirek," Rogers finally said after looking around at all of the vortexes, before casting a quick glance at the ceiling to see a white mare slipping in through one of the small windows above. "None of you villains do. You think that this revolution, this desire to get rid of you, is all because of me; that whether or not your rule is absolute depends on whether I live or die. But what you fail to grasp is that I'm only a man, a well-trained man who has dealt with hundreds of beings like you."
"But the cold truth, Tirek, is that as long as evil like you is in power; as long as injustice and cruelty reign over this land, there will always be those who will oppose you. Even if you manage to kill me, you will never know peace...never know absolute tyranny. Because Liberty's Bell will never be silenced," Rogers promised as he began to walk towards Tirek, who narrowed his eyes with deadly intent while his horns began to glow. "Because these ponies wish to be free. And so long as the desire to be free burns within the hearts of those you oppress, then the fight for justice will never-"
Tirek, who had had enough of the Captain's speech, screamed with fury as he unleashed all of his ungodly power into the Captain. A black beam of magical might that crackled with the power of the alicorns and all the ponies in the land obliterated the area where the Captain had been standing, before turning the back wall of the room to dust as it continued its destruction. The beam finally came to a stop when in struck the top of the mountain upon which Canterlot had been created, blasting the hundreds of tons of stone to nothing in one, giant explosion.
All that was left after the beam of darkness had died was silence, and the smoke that had been generated by the attack that could fell gods. As Tirek slowly raised his head, he took a moment to gaze around at not only the faces in the portals, but also the faces of the Crusade that had been there live, to witness the death of their hero. And a smile filled with victory spread across his lips as he spied the same emotion in the ponies before him as he did the ones in the portal--absolute despair.
"Do you fools finally see?" he asked all of the ponies--both there and across the nation--his laughter filling up the room as the broken souls around him looked at the smoke where their greatest hero had been standing a moment before. "This is what happens when you choose to fight against an absolute power such as myself! Captain America, the first hero that was able to harm us, is now dead, and all it took me was a single blast! Now you see my true power! Now you see what I could do to any of you if I so wished it! Now you see that my rule is-"
"As I was saying." Only the dead were quieter than every being in the room and across the land. Every eye that watched, be it pony, centaur or anything else, turned to look at the smoke where the voice that was supposed to be dead had spoken. Yet as the smoke began to clear, the faintest outline of something still standing amongst the ruins could be seen. The smoke decided to end the charade and faded a little more, revealing a single, white star.
"It...cannot be," Tirek whispered in a voice that only the dead could have heard while the smoke cleared away further, revealing the form of the Captain still standing tall while braced behind his shield. "That...that kind of power could have killed Celestia and Luna with a single blow. It could have destroyed the moon! How...?" Nopony knew what to say as the Captain slowly raised his head out from behind his shield, the fires of freedom still burning bright in his heart as he took up a fighting stance.
"You are powerful, Tirek. That attack told me that much," Captain America stated as he began to walk towards the centaur, revealing that the area that had been behind the Captain was as undamaged as he was. "You are definitely more powerful than me, that much is also clear. In fact, I don't know if I can win this fight. But I know I'm going to try."
"Nothing could have withstood that attack. That attack was filled with the magic of the strongest beings in this land, as well as millions of ponies...how are you alive...WHAT ARE YOU?!" Tirek demanded, his shouts shaking the very castle once more. Yet all the Captain did in response was smile at the titan, which seemed to anger him far more than any of his words.
"What am I, Tirek? I am nothing but a man. A man that was called upon to save the lives of those who are in danger," Captain America replied before his eyes steeled and he pointed his shield at the centaur. And with everypony across Equestria watching, the Captain then said his oath that would be remembered by all who heard it. "But I am also the only one that these ponies can depend on; the only one who stands between you and their lives. So as God is my witness, I promise you now that if you want these ponies and their magic...then you better make damned sure to kill me. Or else I won't stop fighting until all are free."
Rogers then let loose a cry that shook all who watched to their cores as he lunged towards Tirek, who had recovered enough of his nerve to bellow in reply before galloping towards the Captain with both fists raised high. He slammed the fists down as the Captain leapt up to meet him, beginning the battle that would decide the fate of the Crusade...and all the world.
...Go get him.
Wow cliff hanger.
And so begins the Final Battle.
And the end of the Three Tyrants.
Once and for all.
I wonder how old Tirek would have handled having Thor show up? Now Cap will show why he is the number one hero on Earth and why evil falls to his freedoms call!
onomonopia can you have the cap tell him that the power needed to break hes shield is the same as that is needed to destroy a universe
6673992 little mistake in your comment here. Sure Captain here is one of the top ten heroes of the world but he's not THE best, as of yet, that title belongs to Superman, he's not even the best of Marvel Universe as this title belong to Spider-man. Just check it if you don't believe.
I believe the thought Tirek is having right now is 'shitting bricks'. I would be.
6673981 Uh, you forgot Sombra. Azuhiotyl I can understand, but Sombra? That guy is for all intents and purposes, Sauron.
Oh, I am not hanging on a cliff. I am hanging on a thread here because of how intense this is!
Beat him until he barfs out the magic of the ponies, Captain!!
Also, this story is now heating the featured box.
Go Captain! Show him what for!
Relevant:
The difference between V and Cap at this point? Cap's in the more ridiculous outfit.
6674051
I will give you Spider-Man but Batman is my number one for DC. He does not need new powers as plot demands or a stupid de powering to make him relatable. Just the greatest mind on Earth and a big enough checkbook to cover the rest!
6674152 Thank you, but it's not what I meant. What I meant to say is that some time ago IGN (I think as I'm not sure) have made an oficial ranking of superheroes.
Ps. My favorites for your info are respectfully Flash for DC and Hulk for Marvel.
Oh buck it, Crusade Assemble.
6674107 Sombra will not fight Caps. If what happened is what i´m imagining, Sombra is waiting the right moment.
6674041 Cap : Simple Tirek, I'm a human.
Tirek : So?
Cap : We're the one race you can't keep down no matter what happens then.
Tirek : Uggg...
Cap : Because we just keep on a coming.
As strong as Cap is, and as resistant as his shield is... shouldn't have been at least pushed out of the building? I mean... I get bigger than life, and all that, and he's been known to survive really crazy things but to take the brunt and not move an inch?
6674538
Honestly, it depends on the writer. Some write it that the as long as the Captain braces himself, he's essentially immovable if his foes hit the shield. Others write him getting sent flying if the force is great enough. I'm trying for a middle ground.
6674107 I believe that what I said was that the Final Battle had begun. Tirek will be only the first of the Tyrants to fall.
And Cap's already faced Ahuizotl, so he pretty much already knows what to expect from him.
And yeah, Sombra's the wild card here, but I doubt that at this point, Cap will underestimate him.
But please also remember that Sweetie Belle is part of this rather explosive mix, too. So anything could happen before this is all over.
As to this:
Yeah, that's true.
But! we all know what happened to Sauron at the end of Return of the King.
So my earlier comments still stand.
6674498 cap : and chuck norris says you die so you die bye bye tirek your skull will go to the skull throne and blood to the blood god
BLOOD BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!! SKULLS SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!
6674582 True, but Sauron never got to actually fight, did he?
6674670 True.
But he was destroyed, nonetheless.
And I have every confidence that Sombra will be, too.
6674152 Whoa hang on. Both superman and batman are awesome characters. But don't pretend Batman doesn't fall under that definition either. Bat credit card anyone? Bat shark repellent? Anyway I'm not looking to argue. Just making things fair.
Ps. My favorites for your info are respectfully Superman for DC and Spider-Man for Marvel.
Funny, I just watched The Avengers earlier. Keep envisioning the Hulk dropping in and throwing Tirek around like he did with Loki
what happen azoul was he deafted hen captain knocke dhisnteeht out or?
Great update as the final battle is upon us, but how can Captain America beat a being full of magic without a magical back up of his own?
Even with the loss of her horn Belle is still a fighter to the end, but they need a miracle to save all of Equestria.
Please do keep u the good work upon such a great tale like this one.
6674538 Maybe he went Super Saiyan?
Well the thing about getting Cap pushed around, that requires there to be kinetic energy to be used. Or for what ever energy that hits him to be converted into kinetic energy.
There is a good chance that beam doesn't push just vaporizes things by making atoms split or the like. Either way I'm comparing the magical beam to a laser, and well lasers don't push in and of themselves. Well not unless you are in an zero gravity environment I guess.
Anyway I hope that when Captain wins, that baboon face ends up dying. Tired of the guy constantly coming back, and only being locked up when he generally is a world destroying threat with no remorse.
Holy hells, how powerful was that blast? Even though Steve survived, that's must've at least been the equivalent of a A-bomb!
6680190 Dude, is there even Adamantium or Vibranium in Equestria?
7593054
I'm not quite sure, but wasn't his shield made of material from a dead star?
8360391
you are thinking of thors hammer. the shield was made from Vibranium, steel, and an unknown third component.
8363546
Actually it was stated in a few comics that it was made of vibranium and adimantium
EPIC!!!