//------------------------------// // Equestria Adventures: Final Battle // Story: The Sparkle in his Eye // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// Tirek slowly marched towards Ponyville, determined to achieve his goal. Admittedly, at his size 'slowly' was a relative statement, as he'd managed to successfully drain enough magic to now tower over most buildings after stumbling across a unicorn horn fragment that provided him with enough stolen dark power to put him over the top for his growth, to the point the magic of lesser ponies would no longer increase his size. If he came across any alicorns, he could drain them utterly now and they'd be helpless to stop them...and he knew exactly where to find them. He had felt the concentration of alicorn magic in that small village and seen four alicorns there, though he had been unable to act then as his power wasn't enough to match one alicorn, let alone four. As he towered over Ponyville, he saw numerous ponies racing around in terror at his appearance. Taking a deep breath, he drained them all of their magic in a single stroke before moving to leave the small village behind. While he had no need to steal more magic at this point, this endeavor had never been about need to begin with. He wanted all the magic of Equestria, and he would have it! "Halt, evildoer!" Hearing that voice, Tirek paused. He was genuinely surprised any resident of this pathetic settlement had the strength to stand after having their magic drained. Turning, he looked towards the source of the voice...and what he saw gave him pause. Two legs, two arms, bipedal, in an obvious superhero costume... "A human?" he murmured softly, shocked. "You bring terror to this settlement that is under my protection!" the human proclaimed dramatically. "You have trespassed on this land I call my home! This will not be tolerated, and I shall bring down the swift hammer of justice upon your head with pain most exhumating, or my name isn't...Captain Qwark!" As he proclaimed the last, he thrust one hand into the air with a single finger extended while his other fist was cocked at his hip in an almost cliche superhero pose. Much to the surprise of all Ponyville residents witness to the display...Tirek took a fearful step back. "A human...armed with imagination?" Tirek murmured, his voice somewhat fearful. What even the Princesses didn't know was that this was Tirek's third attempt at claiming Equestria's power for his own, and the first had actually been in a previous life. Those events, however, were part of Equestrian history that officially didn't happen, and predated the land even being known as Equestria, or even the founding of three distinct tribes! In that time, the land had been populated almost entirely by ponies, with few other races of beings...but there had also been that most dangerous of races to magical beings present...humans. While adult humans posed little threat unless they possessed magic - in which case they were generally evil - the real danger was young humans. They were armed with a most dangerous power to have in a world of magic, a power called imagination. This power could reshape the magic of the land, weaponizing it in ways the natives could not do on their own. The imagination of human children had created and powered a weapon called the Rainbow of Light, which had defeated him time and time again until the power of his last life was permanently broken. Said Rainbow was now sealed away in the Tree of Harmony, hopefully to never be released again. Tirek was no fool. When he had figured out what power those children had wielded that had destroyed him, he sought out sages in the spirit lands to explain how such power could be countered. He had learned of a strategy that would work...but also a warning for if it didn't. However, based on the bad vocabulary, this was surely just a human child with an overactive imagination, having crafted a magical battle form for themselves with which to 'protect' the ponies. Reaching into his satchel, Tirek drew forth the weapon he had prepared to counter such a thing...a Walter PPK handgun. "Stay out of this if you know what's good for you," he growled dangerously, knowing that the intrusion of such 'real world' threats would break a child's ability to use their 'imagination' in this world they considered not-quite-real. Qwark puffed up his chest and laughed derisively. "You fool! Mere bullets cannot harm the mighty CAPTAIN QWARK!" Sauntering forward, Qwark braced himself with the barrel of the gun right between his eyes. "Go ahead...make my day." Tirek's eyes widened in abject terror. This human was not armed with imagination...his imagination had escaped the bounds of sanity, and entered the uncontrollable realm of delusion. A human armed with such in a land of magic was truly invincible, for the normal rules of magical reality would hold no sway over them so long as their conviction never faltered. Tirek did the only thing he could think of to survive this situation. Dropping the gun, he raised his hands to the sky. "I surrender!" Captain Qwark let out a proud belly laugh. "Behold! Yet another villain vanquished without a single punch thrown! Yet again the day is saved by the silver tongue of...CAPTAIN QWARK!" "Oh, come on!" an upset voice echoed across the landscape. "BBBFF, I just got the Harm-RYNony mecha operational!" Turning towards the voice, Tirek's jaw dropped. Marching towards him out of the Everfree was a massive robotic construct thrumming with the energies of the Rainbow of Light. "...Mommy..." he whimpered softly, tears in his eyes. "Well, we still need to get him to release the stolen magic," Qwark pointed out. "Fire away, LSBFF and co!" "I wanna go home..." Tirek whimpered as the massive blaster was leveled at him. A single power chord later, and everything was rainbows and light. As the power left the joined RYNO protosuits, they defused and landed apart. "What a rush!" Rainbow cried out happily as a wizened - and whimpering - Tirek was carted back to Tartarus. "Can we do that again?" Twilight rubbed a hoof against her chin as she and her other friends clambered out of the Protosuits. "Well..." The protosuits suddenly blazed with light, sucked back into the Box. In the middle of the Everfree, the box blazed with light before shooting into the sky some half a mile above the Golden Oaks library. It spun rapidly there...and then began to unfold. The box unfolded over and over and over again as it became bigger and bigger, slowly expanding. Towers shot up out of it as it spread to a flat surface, and crystal stalactites extended out from the bottom like pylons. Within moments, what had been a tiny box was now a massive flying crystal castle, hovering in the air and humming with magic and Zoni energy. As all of Equestria stared up at the impossible construction, one voice was raised above others...Twilight's. "WANT!" Achievement Unlocked: SCARY! Make Tirek surrender.