I flew swiftly across the devastated landscape, using my enhanced magic beam to demolish the large rocks Tirek had raised. As soon as I had blasted my way through the last of them, I gathered all the magic sealed within me, accumulating it in one gigantic beam, while Tirek did the same. We released our attacks almost simultaneously, and our blasts of pure magical energy collided, a massive explosion following soon after and shattering the ground beneath us, wild magical currents running rampage across the entire battlefield for a brief moment. When the dust settled, I saw Tirek emerging from below a pile of debris and I walked up to him. He brushed the rocks off of himself and we glared intensely at each other for a few seconds.
Piercing the silence, Tirek spoke. "It appears we are at an impasse. How about a trade, Princess Twilight?" he snapped his fingers and my five best friends as well as Discord and Spike appeared out of thin air, all of them trapped within a magic bubble. "Their release, for all the alicorn magic in Equestria!" I gasped in shock as I looked up at my friends, their expressions miserable.
They all yelled at me, trying to convince me not to follow through with Tirek's offer. All but Discord, who sat silently with his eyes shut.
"What's it going to be, Princess?" Tirek asked, bearing a smug grin. I just continued to stare, horrified at my captured friends.
"Don't do it, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash yelled from her bubble.
"We aren't worth it," squeaked Fluttershy.
"Oh, but you are, Fluttershy," Discord said, his tone solemn. "You're the pony who taught me that friendship is magic. I had magic and friendship, and now, I don't have either."
"Enough!!" yelled Tirek as he slammed his massive hooves against the ground, causing slight tremors. "I want an answer, and I want it now!"
I looked to each of my friends and a sudden realization hit me. I could pretend I was giving up my magic, when really I would just teleport away the moment he released my friends. Although it was slightly risky, it did seem like the best option.
"I will give you my magic, in exchange for my friends." Everyone gasped as they looked at me with both horror and surprise.
"As you wish," Tirek said while smiling maliciously. He snapped his fingers and the bubbles my friends were trapped in popped, with the exception of the one containing Discord. He just continued to stay silent as Fluttershy looked up at him.
"ALL of my friends," I said while looking up at Discord.
"After the way he has betrayed you, you still call him a friend?" Tirek asked in disbelief, Discord looking shameful as Tirek pointed at him.
"Release him!" I commanded, my gaze unwavering.
"If that's what you want," Tirek snapped his fingers once again and Discord dropped down from his magic bubble.
"Thank you, Twilight," said Discord. He looked at Fluttershy, then said, "I'm sorry."
"I know," Fluttershy responded. She looked at the ground, her eyes starting to tear up.
"Your turn," Tirek said as black energy started to crawl along his two horns and an orb of fiery like magic grew between them. It was a good thing Tirek had released everyone by then, because I couldn't suppress my smile any longer. Confusion made itself very clearly visible on his face. Why would I smile in such a dire situation? Making use of the delay caused by my unexpected grin, I teleported myself behind him. He turned around, finally able to snap out of his confusion, but it was too late. All I heard was a loud “STO-,” before I teleported me and my friends out of harm’s way.
We emerged into a barren wasteland filled with nothing but sand, rocks, and a few trees. Under the cliff we stood on was a collection of houses that looked identical to each other, with the exception of one building on the far right. It was hard to see, but it looked like some ponies with somewhat suspicious looking smiles were trotting about.
"All of you, go to that village and hide until I defeat Tirek, you'll be safe there," I told my friends.
Pinkie Pie jumped out from the group and exclaimed, "Twilight, if you're going, then I'm coming with you! I can use my physics and fourth wall breaking power to help you!"
I looked at her for a few seconds with great confusion. Fourth wall? Just what in Equestria was that mare on about? I shook my head. It didn’t matter, there was no time for her nonsense, so I reminded her, "But...Tirek stole all your magic, so you won't be able to use any of that, right?" Pinkie Pie stared at me a while, and then started to laugh.
I was even more puzzled than before, until Pinkie said, "Oh, Twilight, Tirek can't just steal that power whenever he wants to, he may have stolen my regular magic, but no one can take my full hidden power away unless I tell them about it, and honestly, why would I ever do that?"
If I was honest with her, I would've told Pinkie I understood about 50% of what she just said, if not less. But I kind of got the gist of it- I thought -so I just said, "Ooookay then. Well, the rest of you, go hide in that small village, while Pinkie and I go back to fight, and hopefully defeat Tirek." Normally my friends would protest such a proposition. Something about us all being in this together, however, they all knew the immense gravity of this situation and decided to trust my judgement. After they turned to head for the village, Pinkie and me got enveloped in an aura of purple magic, and I proceeded to teleport us back to Tirek.
Once the bright energy from the teleportation had fizzled away into the warm, evening air, I turned to face Tirek and, hearing the sound of me and Pinkie arriving, he turned around to see where it had come from.
His eyes widened at seeing me, and after a second, his expression turned from confused, to surprised, to downright furious. He growled in anger and shouted, "PRINCESS TWILIGHT!!! YOU DECEPTIVE TRICKSTER!!!" the moment he finished speaking, the ground rumbled from Tirek's power, a bright yellow, orange and red aura surrounded his body and a huge ball of energy formed in between his horns, continuously growing in size.
I hesitated for a split second, the shock from his immense power temporarily stunning me into silence. The hesitation was only brief though, and soon I started to charge up the most powerful magical cannon blast I could. I pounded more and more magical energy into the compressed ball, and an aura of magic began to envelop me too.
Right when I was about to fire, Pinkie suddenly held her hoof out in front of me and said, "There's no need for any epic Dragon Ball Z beam struggles right now, I'll handle it."
I stared at her, dumbfounded at her bold statement (as well as her nonsense about ‘Dragon Ball Z’) and then replied, "Pinkie...I know you can do a lot of crazy things, but I don't think even you can handle Tirek's full power blast."
Pinkie shook her head and sighed. "You really underestimate my abilities, Twilight. Watch me." Although I was nervous about it, desperate times call for desperate measures, so I decided to let Pinkie handle it alone. I highly doubted she would succeed, but somehow, as Tirek shot out his intense magic beam, Pinkie managed to grab a glowing blue shield out of nowhere, and I mean literally out of nowhere, and blocked his attack with it. When the blast faded away into thin air, not even a dent was made on the magical shield, and Tirek, as well as me, looked at Pinkie in complete shock. "H-how did you do that?" Tirek stuttered.
Pinkie shrugged and answered, "Eh, I just wanted a defense strong enough to block your attack, so I got one." Tirek was not satisfied at all by this answer, but there was no use in dwelling on it.
"Even with your...interesting abilities, you won't be able to defeat me!" Tirek declared, then galloped towards me and Pinkie at a neck breaking speed.