//------------------------------// // Crusaders and Spike // Story: Knights of the Realm // by Kinni //------------------------------// Celestia looked over the trio of fillies that she was about to send into the battlefield and couldn't help but remember ten years before, when she had accepted three filly unicorns as apprentices. The circumstances were different this time, but the memory remained. "Crusaders, are you ready for your first mission? Ready for the chance to become Knights?" She asked the three. They looked at each other, perhaps searching for something, then turned their gazes back on Celestia and nodded. "We're ready." Applebloom spoke for the three of them. "In that case..." Celestia's voice adopted a more serious tone "The situation is as follows: Of the eight Knights I have sent in this mission, seven of them have already been disabled, at least according to the amulets that track their states. The only one who is still fighting is Spike." She sighed before continuing "I am currently unable to establish a connection for communication with any of them, including Spike. But the special message delivering system still works, and Applejack used it to ask for you. Specifically, her message was the word 'Crusaders'. I wouldn't usually send you into such an uncertain situation without backup, but I trust the judgement of my Knights." "Understood." Scootaloo saluted "So we need to go there and fight alongside Spike to deal with whatever problem it is?" "Exactly." Celestia nodded. -0- Starlight Glimmer was feeling an emotion that she enjoyed very much. That emotion was satisfaction. Her apprentices had all lost, despite how much the battles were stacked in their favor, and how powerful their artifacts were, but that barely qualified as an inconvenience in her opinion. They had been useful to exhaust the Knights to allow her to steal their cutie marks more easily. They had served their function, as that was all Starlight really cared about. However, it wasn't to say that everything had gone absolutely flawless. Knight Twilight Sparkle hadn't appeared, so there was one loose end she still had to tie up. But most importantly, both Knights Sunset and Trixie had detected the traps, and instead of trying to break out (an almost foolish endeavour, the fact that Knight Applejack proved capable of it was pretty much a miracle) they instead counter-attacked, and Starlight Glimmer didn't have many preparations for such a scenario. The incredible amount of power she was capable of harnessing due to both her artifact having so many cutie marks and her connection with the dragon lines via magical formation meant that any ordinary attacks would be unable to even scratch her, but of course, the Knights had done the complete opposite of using ordinary attacks. The spells they used were downright vicious, and pretty much impossible to dodge because they created a connection based on the very cutie mark stealing spell Starlight was using on them, creating a path straight to her. With that, and because she had used a lot of power to make her own spell undodgeable and unblockable, Starlight couldn't really deal with their spells easily. And even though she knew Trixie could do something like that (because Sunset did it before it was Trixie's turn) the Knight's spell was tricky enough to get through the hasty counter measures she had thought of. The only option Starlight had was using massive amounts of power to conceptually "freeze" the spells in place. After everything was done, she would be able to slowly break them over time, but for now they would be a constant bother. She was thinking that she would only have to wait for the magical formation to deal with the dragon before she could go and pick up her disciples to leave. But those plans were derailed pretty much immediately. Starlight got shocked when she felt a terrifying magic shockwave sweep through the entire area. The magical formation she was connected to was completely destroyed, and the magical backlash felt like her organs were being scrambled. "That... That dragon destroyed my formation...?" She spoke incredulously. And the magical backlash wasn't the only problem Starlight had to deal with. With one less source of power, it was suddenly a lot harder for her to keep "frozen" the spells of the Knights. She focused on making the necessary adjustments to handle the new magical strain, but inwardly she was also declaring revenge on the dragon Knight. -0- Spike forced himself to remain calm and analyze the situation. Apparently, the source of power of all those artifacts was these ponies. These ponies that were currently cutie markless. That meant Spike couldn't simply "destroy the power source". Perhaps it would be possible to prevent the enemies from receiving that energy, but that would require the help of the other Knights, because he wasn't really specialized for that kind of thing. And that was as far as Spike's thoughts went, because he suddenly felt the distinctive space shifting of a teleportation spell near him, and turned to face whoever was coming. This was proven to be a wise decision when the arrival, a unicorn who had stopped in the air via levitation, immediately shot an overpowered spell shaped like an energy drill at Spike. He crossed his arms in defense, and the ridiculously powerful attack pushed him back hundreds of meters before he finally managed to deflect it. At that point, he saw a rain of spells coming towards him, so Spike flew straight to the unicorn, charging his own magic for an attack. The rain of spells fused together and sped up right towards the dragon, so he mixed offense and defense by infusing his charged power into his draconic aura, making it twist and rage, almost like a dragon-shaped storm. His speed increased dramatically, but it still wasn't enough to avoid the terrifying fused spell, which reached him and exploded with amazing power. Of course, avoiding it had never been Spike's intention. From the depths of the explosion, Spike came shooting out. He didn't have his aura anymore, and his scales were full of deep scratches, but his eyes were clear and he was very much still in the fight. And before Starlight Glimmer could react to his sudden appearance, Spike was already attacking. "Dragon Slash!" He shouted, swiping his right hand and releasing a line of powerful cutting magic... straight at the artifact. It cut through the air with a booming sound, and broke through a barrier that appeared to protect the globe. Three more barriers appeared in succession and were also broken through, but the fifth and last barrier managed to block the attack. Spike had come remarkably close to succeeding. Starlight snarled and prepared her next attack, but Spike was already moving, having decided his course of action previously. 'I must be faster than that.' He thought, and cast another magic "Draconic Self: Sonic Wyrm!" It was the same transformation he had used in his fight together with Moondancer. Spike dove towards the ground, accelerating himself with wind currents, and reached it before the enemy unicorn had finished casting her next spell. The next few seconds of the battle were wild and difficult to follow. Starlight kept releasing a multitude of arrow-type spells and tried to bracket her opponent with them in order to hit, while Spike was moving at extreme speeds but also stopping on a dime and changing directions before reaccelerating explosively, his movements too unpredictable for Starlight to be able to hit him. And of course, Spike wasn't going to limit himself to only evading, since his Knight training had made pretty clear that such was a losing proposition, but he did wait long enough for the unicorn to start believing he was being cornered, just to make his counter attack more of a surprise. And the first rock Spike threw at super speed almost put Starlight's eye out, having pierced through the unicorn's regular defenses thanks to his dragon magic, with only her aura managing to protect her. And seeing that the surprise attack didn't work, Spike started giving Starlight a taste of her own medicine, using the speed of his current form as an advantage to release his own multitude of rocky projectiles straight at his opponent. And thus the fight came to another stalemate. Starlight was forced to use more of her power to protect herself, allowing Spike an easier time in dodging her attacks, but her defenses were too strong to be pierced easily by his rocks. And before one of them choose to change tactics in order to break the stalemate, something else happened. A rotating disk of power suddenly hit Starlight from behind, cutting through her defensive spells in an instant, and forcing Starlight's automatic escape spell to trigger in order to save her. The fight stopped for a moment as both combatants (Starlight from a different position, both higher and more horizontally distant) looked at the newcomers, three fillies, one of each pony tribe, the Crusaders. The three of them were standing in a triangular formation on a floating wheel of light, with Applebloom being in front. Then a point of light surged above the three, resolving itself into something like a cutie mark, one depicting the silhouette of a horned insect. And the wheel of light turned into an eagle, flying straight at Starlight. Spike understood the situation quickly. If Princess Celestia had sent the Crusaders to help, that probably meant that the other Knights were disabled. So, the dragon Knight would have to work together with the fillies in order to defeat the enemy. He jumped straight into Starlight from the other side, joining the Crusaders in a pincer maneuver. "Destroy the artifact!" He shouted, as the battle entered its next stage. -0- The wheel of light was now an eagle, and Scootaloo, who was the one responsible for moving around, couldn't be happier at an opportunity to fly so freely, even if the stakes of the situation were too high to allow her to enjoy it completely. She could feel the other two via her bond magic: Applebloom was steadfast, keeping control of the defenses and watching for any sudden changes in the situation. Sweetie Belle was driven, focusing entirely on the opponent and attacking any perceived weak points. It was their second real fight, and the first even since they had been trained. Just like the first one, they had help from another fighter. But apart from that, the situations were very different, and the current fight, despite their higher control of their powers, was definitely tougher. Starlight seemed to have an endless variety of spells. She teleported around, set up mines, shot homing blasts and manipulated the elements. In response, Spike was using his remarkable speed to attack her from all directions, keeping the enemy's focus away from the trio of Squires. Because of that, their own defenses (mostly hexagonal shields created from the surrounding air) and attacks (mostly lasers fired from the eyes of the eagle) were able to work, specially in combination with Scootaloo's precise control of their flight. This triad technique was something they had developed with Luna's help. To reduce as much as possible the strain to their bodies, the trio channeled their magic through an external focus (the wheel of light), which allowed them to show the true worth of their bond and destiny magic combination: Borrow Destiny. They could imitate the powers of those they had a close bond with, and that included those they had helped get their cutie marks, which wouldn't be that impressive, but it also worked on the powers of King Thorax, since they had helped him achieve his destiny. And it was exactly his shapeshifting powers that they were using to create the eagle, which meant they could shapechange just as freely as the changeling monarch. And it came in handy. Starlight teleported away to charge a spell and shot off an immensely powerful homing beam at the trio. Normal defenses wouldn't work, so they turned the eagle into a floating turtle, using its shell to block the attack. Then Spike took advantage by rushing to Starlight before she could recover to try and destroy the artifact. But she was smart, and had previously cast a spell to deal with that possibility. Centered on the artifact, an omnidirectional magic blast was released, hitting both Starlight and Spike. But the unicorn had designed the spell to reduce its power in response to her barriers, while Spike's current form was relatively fragile, so the dragon definitely came off worse in that exchange. Starlight pressed her advantage, quickly casting a powerful blast at the dragon. But Spike wasn't that easy to defeat. "Diamond Scale!" He shouted, and changed at the last moment. The unicorn's hasty attack couldn't penetrate such a defensive form, and Spike counter attacked at the same time as he was hit, shooting off a dozen sharp scales at his opponent. She managed to block them, but was surprised when the Crusaders appeared in a teleport right next to her. They were once again flying in a wheel of light and the cutie mark floating above them was now Sunset's. "Magic Enhance!" Sweetie Belle proclaimed, casting a spell "Homing Missile!" Scootaloo and Applebloom shouted together. A purple magic projectile grew in the air and shot straight at the artifact, forcing Starlight to blindly teleport sideways, to give herself time to cast another spell to intercept the missile that homed in on her. Not wanting to remain on the backstep, she immediately counter attacked with a series of small spells launched at the fillies... that passed right through them. It was only an illusion, explained when the Crusaders appeared from a teleport behind Starlight, with their floating cutie mark having changed to Trixie's. It changed again to Rarity's, and the trio used her telekinesis to attack Starlight's artifact with a huge number of flying rocks. Starlight teleported again, but was roughly thrown out of her teleportation as Spike had assumed his Mana Twister form and disturbed her magic. She was forced to create a layered shield spell to block when the Crusaders brought the stones back around, but it was also broken by Spike's magic disturbance, which meant that Starlight had to quickly change spells to keep up her defense. The Knight and Squires were attacking without rest. They knew that it would be impossible to outlast Starlight given that she had such a powerful source of magic under her disposal, so they didn't spare any effort. Yet, it wouldn't be easy to deal with the enemy. She decided to change tactics and conjured an immense rock that she then shot towards Spike. The Crusaders changed to Rainbow Dash's cutie mark and flew at high speed by conjuring wings of air before using a mini-tornado to deflect the rock. Then, they changed to Fluttershy's cutie mark, activating Soul Mirror with great speed. That may have seemed like an odd choice, but the Crusaders had pretty much ran out of Knight cutie marks they could use reliably. Pinkie and Twilight's chaos magic was too uncontrollable, while Applejack's Eyes of Truth were simply too complicated. They still had other options, but trying to use Fluttershy's abilities was what popped on their heads. And it turned out to be exactly what was needed. Because with their connection, they felt the power that Starlight was forcing herself to restrain. The power of the counter-attack of two of the Knights. And, acting completely on instinct, they reached their magic towards the restrained spells and undid the restraints. Starlight was unable to stop them. She was unable to react to such an unexpected maneuver, and she looked above herself with unmitigated surprise showing in her eyes, as the spells cast by Sunset and Trixie came back into normal existence. One was a fiery energy sphere surrounded by rings of rock, the other was an arrow of light covered in sigils that hurt the eye just to look. They flew at Starlight Glimmer with the inevitability of a river. "AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" She screamed, her body exploding with power, along with her Artifact. And the latter glowed so brightly that it completely concealed the unicorn. Spike and the Crusaders couldn't see what happened, but they felt a tremendous pulse of magic power just before the spells exploded. Then they had to brace themselves as the shockwave rippled through the entire area. And while the shockwave lost power quickly as it traveled, the power that it started with was immense, to the point that deep furrows were carved on the earth near the epicenter of the event. Finally, they were able to see Starlight... And she was still standing. She had lost her left eye, her entire body was covered in injuries and her Artifact was full of cracks, but she was still standing. And that wasn't even the worst part. Inky black strands of noxious power were floating around her body, entering and leaving it with a painful cadence, her colors slowly darkened, and the power seemed to solidify into a dark aura that was unmistakable. It was a good thing the Crusaders had lost control of the Soul Mirror beforehand, because otherwise, the connection of souls would have harmed them, as Starlight Glimmer was using Dark Magic. And just as they realized that, Starlight Glimmer acted. With a snarl, she released a multitude of magical projectiles, using far more power than she had been able to during the fight. The barrage of attacks would have overwhelmed the hasty defenses the Crusaders managed to erect, but at that moment, Spike changed forms again. "Mana Twister!" He shouted, and changed. Spike spun his arms and twisted all the magic pathways around him, and the magical projectiles were forcefully redirected away from the heroes... But they didn't stop. Starlight Glimmer was attacking relentlessly, having abandoned any thought of trickery in exchange for attempting to overwhelm her opponents with pure power. This was probably due to the effect of the Dark Magic on her mind. Spike's situation worsened quickly, as the effort needed to protect himself and the Crusaders continually started to strain his already tired and injured body, and the scratches on his scales started to multiply. And to make things worse, Starlight's control of her new dark powers was improving quickly, making it harder and harder for him to keep deflecting the spell. And yet, he did not stop. Because one of the biggest lessons for a Knight was trusting in their companions, and when he was blocking the attacks, the Crusaders were completely free to act. And yet, they did not attack immediately. The power Starlight Glimmer was currently demonstrating wasn't the sort of thing that could be broken by a hasty move. So the Crusaders used every single second Spike was able to buy them to the utmost, until Sweetie Belle had an idea. It was a crazy idea, but it was always said that doing crazy things was the job of a Knight. The mental discussion of the three was short but heated, and then their decision was made. Sweetie Belle whispered "Sorry, Princess Luna." and then the cutie mark above them changed to that of the alicorn of the night. "AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Sweetie Belle screamed as an aura of dark power covered her body and colored the wheel of light with black. She had no idea how other mages could use Dark Magic freely as she had heard about. Just producing that energy, by focusing on the emotion of loneliness, was enough to make it impossible for her to focus on anything else. But she wasn't alone. Applebloom was connected to Sweetie Belle via their magic, and she used her own focus to prevent the mind warping effects of the magic from spreading further than her unicorn partner. And that left Scootaloo free to use the power of the dark magic freely. The Crusaders teleported above Starlight and cast a powerful moon beam spell at her. But even such a surprise attack wasn't quite enough to take her out. She redirected the raging power of her spells to block the beam, and then the fight entered its final stage. Using the power of dark magic and princess Luna's spells (which they couldn't use normally), the trio was actually able to achieve the feat of managing to match Starlight in direct combat. The spells of the opponent were brutal attacks: Lasers, missiles, arrows... Every single type of magic oriented towards destruction was used, and the battle sounded more like a war between armies than a fight involving only four mages. The Crusaders were more subtle, as Scootaloo didn't need to deal with any mental influences, so she was free to use the extra power in any way she wanted. She conjured wings of air to give maneuverability to the trio, she used multiple teleports to move to advantageous positions, she set up multiple shields and barriers, along with using attacks on the ground to destroy the opponent's footing. But even with all of that, the combination of the artifact and dark magic simply gave Starlight too much power, and the more time passed, the better she got at controlling her powers, and the Crusaders were losing ground. So they decided on an all-or-nothing gamble. Teleporting to an extreme height to gain time, they proceeded to gather massive amounts of power, preparing the most powerful spell they were capable of. Starlight instantly detected the rising energy, and she accepted the unspoken challenge, beginning to gather her energy for one massive attack as well. Both sides charged for ten entire seconds, and then they fired. The Crusaders were shooting a building sized beam of moonlight tainted with noxious darkness that revolved chaotically. Starlight's attack was also a beam, one made of fire so hot in had turned the air into plasma, and covered with dark energy that seemed to be able to summon death itself. The two beams of power collided with each other, creating a shockwave that scattered all of the surrounding clouds. And the struggle started. Both sides fed every single drop of magic they could spare into their spells, both sides refusing to give up, and their spells utterly rejecting each other in their attempt to establish dominance. But at the end, Starlight simply had too much power to spare, and she was slowly winning over the enemy attack... "Dragon Slash!" Like lightning from a clear sky, it was completely unexpected. By the time Starlight realized what was happening, her artifact was already split in half... courtesy of Spike, back in his Sonic Wyrm form. The artifact could not resist the massive damage, and exploded, releasing all of the cutie marks to go back to their rightful owners. -0- Seven Knights teleported to the area of the battle, and from the destruction that had been wrought and by the sheer amount of wild uncontrolled power in the air, they could understand just how terrifying of a battle had happened. In the middle of that destruction, the Crusaders were sitting on the ground, with Scootaloo and Applebloom trying to comfort Sweetie Belle. Beside them, Spike was lying down on the ground with his limbs spread. The four of them showed all signs of having gone through a battle, specially Spike, since the deep scratches on his scales were plainly visible even from a distance. Except for Applejack, they were all surprised to see the Crusaders there, but they understood more or less what the situation should be. "Spike! Are you okay?!" Fluttershy shouted and ran to the dragon's side. "It's not as bad as it looks." Spike said, but Fluttershy ignored him and started to fuss over his injuries. And she wasn't the only one to do something like that. "Sweetie Belle, what's wrong?!" Rarity ran to her sister's side. The other two Crusaders opened space for Rarity to reach Sweetie Belle "Sis... I... I..." The filly tried to talk but Rarity enveloped her in a hug and shushed her. Rainbow Dash then landed next to Scootaloo "It seems like there was an awesome battle around here, could you tell me about it?" Scootaloo grinned "Only if you tell me about your awesome battle." "Okay." Rainbow Dash answered, and launched into a detailed narrative that had Trixie nodding in satisfaction. Applejack walked over to Applebloom and smiled "So, Applebloom, can you tell me what happened here?" The filly sighed and nodded, before doing a short explanation: "We teamed up with Spike to fight that unicorn (her name is Starlight Glimmer, by the way), we managed to get her to be hit by Trixie and Sunset's attacks, but then she started using dark magic. So we had to use dark magic as well to keep up, with Sweetie Belle being the one who channeled it. And we managed to create an opportunity for Spike to destroy her artifact." Then she sighed again "But as soon as that happened, Starlight ran away with a teleportation spell, so we could not subdue her." Applejack blinked. She had realized that something like that had happened as soon as she saw Sweetie Belle, but it was still unexpected. "Well, you'll have more chances to catch her later." Applejack said "And besides, you three have something important to look forward to." "Really? What?" Applebloom was confused. "Your proclamation as Knights, of course." Mission Trip/Starlight Glimmer Arc End Next: Sombra's Return Arc Rookie Knights Saga End Next: ****** ******* Saga