//------------------------------// // 27 - Face Off // Story: Queen of Equestria // by BlackWater //------------------------------// Mom!” Spike cried out, knocking all manner of items from the desk he was at as he jolted upwards. Pain. He felt it wash over to him through the hivemind relay. Rarity cried out as well from across the room, clutching her head while in tears. He had no time to make a move, though. To go to Rarity. To run out of the castle. To go to Baltimare. He could do nothing because the next moment was already taken by an explosion. BOOM! The side of the study room blasted apart in flame and shards of crystals. Only the position of a shelf flying away from the blast saved Rarity, since the wood absorbed the sharp fragments that otherwise would have stricken her. The mare was still sent tumbling across the floor, though. Spike shook the disorientation from himself as quickly as he could and pushed himself off the desk he had been flung over. Just in time to see a red dragon a half size larger than him leap through the thick smoke. The wall that had been blasted out faced the castle exterior, which meant that side was now open to the air some ten stories up from the ground. The red dragon’s wings had just finished a flapping beat. He had flown in. Again Spike was left without time to react because, during the same second that the large dragon had flown in, he also reached for the fallen Rarity. In one move, he yanked the pony back over his shoulder by her tail. The pony’s scream of terror was accompanied by her shouting Spike’s name as she fell out of the castle and plummeted to the ground below. “RARITY!” Spike cried in horror as he tried leaping past the red dragon. The attacker, Red Fang, wouldn’t have it. His long sharp-toothed snout curled in a smirk as he shifted to block the other dragon and swiped at him with razor-sharp claws. The only thing that saved Spike was his own diamond-hard scales, which made a horrendously loud screeching noise with the contact. “NO!” Spike remained wide-eyed, desperately trying to climb past the attacker. He didn’t care in the slightest for whatever damage he might receive. He just had to save Rarity before she- BAM! The attacker shoved Spike’s head into the closest in-tact wall. It was hard enough for Spike to see stars, but only for a second. Something came to him in the hivemind. A reassurance. His focus shifted then with all fury released at this ruthless killer. Red Fang was so smug and certain of his superiority against the smaller purple drake that he didn’t have a guard up when Spike whirled on him. Being a dragon was likely the only reason neither choked on the smoke as Spike launched onto him and they both fell back into the thicker haze that was hanging low in the room. The back of Red Fang’s head hit the crystal floor just shy of the jagged edge. He was less fazed by it than Spike, though, in spite of his surprise that the smaller dragon had enough muscle to topple him. The smoke this close to the edge was beginning to dissipate as the frigid high-altitude air current swept it away almost leisurely. In that moment, Red Fang saw the green fire in Spike’s eyes. And a crackle of lightning that snapped within. For the first time in his life, Red Fang had a doubt. Sweeping it away, Red Fang narrowed his eyes and retaliated, jabbing at Spike’s side to try toppling him off. In spite of the scales protecting both Spike’s body and Red Fang’s fist, the blow should have been at least enough to rid him of Spike’s pinning weight. Instead, Red Fang’s fist slammed into a purple shield that materialized at the impact point, bouncing off the attempted blow with throbbing pain in his fist. “What?!” Red Fang shouted out. He hadn’t planned to utter so much as a word to his targets. It wasn’t his style. But this was nothing he had ever seen before, and he had seen a lot. No dragon had magic like this. None! There was no satisfaction on Spike’s face, though, merely hooves away from Red Fang’s pointed and snarling snout. “Surrender yourself and I won’t get rough!” he commanded with an anger as hot as the tendrils of green flame licking from his mouth. Red Fang’s only response was to use his powerful wings to spring them both up, flinging Spike off. The smaller dragon landed on his rear claws, scraping to get traction on the now cold floor. Grooves were made by the talons in the process. Red Fang followed it up with a deep blast of golden fire from his lungs, pushing as much heat as he could as quickly as he could. Another dragon might not be killed by such a blast, but it would give him an opening to follow up on. Except that Spike leaped straight through the fire, flames splashing out across his purple muzzle. A short snarl came out of his mouth as his muscles tensed and delivered an upward swing with his right forearm. The blow smacked Red Fang’s mouth up even as the last of the fire breath was still leaving. The remaining flames shot onto the ceiling uselessly. “Ugh,” Red Fang gurgled and stepped back as his center of balance was disrupted. He played off the unintended move, though, years of assassin work coming through. His body began to twirl. The two sharp blades protruding from his slender tail whipped at Spike, catching him by surprise. BAM! Again Spike was bashed into the wall as the force of the impact pushed him into it. His scales held up against the tail blades but still stung badly. If he had time to check, he would see two of the scales bent inwards and with grooves scored in by the attack. “Agh!” Spike shouted at the pain. Red Fang was back in control, so he left no time for his target’s recovery. His claws grabbed Spike’s tail and at the same time he braced his back legs against a pack of rubble beside him. His muscles tensed all together as he swung the smaller but still heavy dragon away and out of the blast opening. Most dragons had wings, but this sorry runt had none. It would be his fatal weakness. Except Spike didn’t fly out as planned. With a growl, Spike grabbed a thick rug that had been half-shredded by the blast. It was just as his rear half was flinging out into the sky above the Empire. But it was enough. The rug was pinned securely by a half ton of rubble – chunks of broken crystal and smoldering furniture. He used the momentum he still had before it was stopped with a pull against the rug. Spike swung around and back inwards by curling his tail and tucking his legs to direct his momentum. He had some of his own experience with athletic moves but the hivemind connections only made him all the more affective. Direway was still alive and his experience integrated with Spike’s. The magic dragon added his own non-pony characteristics to bolster the effectiveness. Red Fang saw the move in motion and side stepped so he could grab Spike’s rear legs as they shot inwards. But he grabbed air. Spike wasn’t aiming straight for him. He landed farther to the side and immediately struck the floor with all of his weight as he flipped over from his rear legs to his forearms. The crystal floor beneath Red Fang gave away and the assassin began to fall. Where he side stepped had been too close to the edge and a large crack had already formed from the earlier blast. It only took Spike’s weight in a direct attack to break it away. Still, it was a useless move. Red Fang flapped his wings only a few times and perched back onto the new edge, which was more sturdy. Spike was charging at him again, but he remained collected. This magic dragon may have been resilient and persistent but there was nothing he could do to defeat a professional dragon assassin. Even if neither made progress and it turned into a battle of sheer stamina, Red Fang would win. Rarity was falling. Her immediate reaction was absolute terror. This high up from the ground, the impact would kill her. It wasn’t the first time Rarity had dropped through the air to her death but it just never got any easier. The only instinct she had after screaming for Spike was to get a spell from Twilight over the hivemind to save herself. But Twilight’s mind was inaccessible now. The ground! VOOM! The white unicorn blinked once. Then twice. The ground was no longer coming up to kill her. It was speeding by in a sideways direction beneath her. And two pink hooves held her with warmth. Blue eyes bright even behind the green visor of the mare’s changeling-hybrid flight equipment. “Hiya, Rarity~!” Pinkie Pie greeted with her usual cheer. “Gee, that was a close one, huh? Have I been getting use out of my Party Jets or what?! I’m sure glad I saw this coming in the last story and got started making these things. You might have been a goner!” “Uh...wha-?” Rarity, still short of breath, began to question and then remembered this was Pinkie. She switched to “Thank you, Pinkie” instead. “Just doing my duty, ma’am,” Pinkie replied in a mock military deadness. “Now let’s steer back. We have a dragon to save!” “Spike!” Rarity finally had the chance to turn her attention back to her love. He was still alive. She easily knew that over their connection but he was still in danger as well. The Hive Power he had gotten was still new to him and his use of extended magic was limited. There was no telling how the loss of Twilight and the others in the hivemind might weaken it either. An idea came to Rarity, however. As Pinkie sped them back to a roof close to the castle’s blast opening, the Element of Generosity recalled a certain kind of magic. She had used it back during a certain other-worldly adventure that Spike himself had gotten them into. A green bolt danced in her blue eyes. Her Hive Power was still there. She knew it would work. It had to. Red Fang was pushed back by Spike again after a series of attempts to grab his neck. This time, however, Red Fang’s rear ankle caught a scrap of wood on the floor and he stumbled back a few more steps. He was at the blast opening again but that just gave him an idea. He began to spread his wings so he could- A cyan-colored rope of magic suddenly materialized around his middle and snapped tightly around him so fast that he felt the magical aura practically bite him as the pressure was transmitted through the scales. He was fast enough to keep his legs from being bound but failed to realize that wasn’t the goal of the binding. He glanced back to who had done it. Spike’s aura had been purple. He had dealt with enough unicorn targets to be familiar with magic. Someone else did this. His sharp eyes and instincts made out the pony down below. She was standing up on a rooftop closest to the castle, eyes piercing with an anger equal to Spike’s. Rarity?! How did she surv- BAM! Spike barreled right into him with all of his strength and body weight, thick rear leg muscles bulging as he catapulted them off the edge and into the icy air. So this was why he had been tied. His wings were bound too tight to his back to be used. He was no frail pony, though. The snow below should be enough to pad his fall and he could still make a controlled landing. He would survive, but something else concerned him. As they fell, Red Fang’s eyes widened. Spike was growing mid-air! Already, he matched his own size and was in position to crush him into the ground that was quickly coming to meet them both. First magic and now controlling size at will?! The doubt from before grew to a real fear. Red Fang had never met a match or equal until today. This was the first time since his hatchling days that he actually feared losing. But he was a professional. Spike or him. One of them was going to die. His eyes shifted to the ground. The snow made a loud poof and splashed everywhere as the large killer plummeted into it. He angled himself so he could pull himself sideways as soon as his claws could grip. It was difficult to do in the thick snow bank but he wasn’t new to such environments. In spite of the padded but still bone-rattling stop, his golden fire sprayed from his mouth as he landed. It melted the snow behind him so Spike’s landing would hurt more. Spike did not, however, land brutally on his rear legs as he had been positioned to. A cyan shield of magic materialized beneath his feet, angled so the purple dragon rebounded off the melted snow heap. Since the melting hadn’t watered the pile beneath the top few hooves, Spike’s shield was effectively a sled that bounced over Red Fang. Icy water sprayed in the wake, the droplets reflecting the glow of Rarity’s magic. Once he was twice his own size in distance from Red Fang, Spike hopped off the shield, which dissipated into nothing. The snow crunched beneath the heavier dragon and a strong confidence washed over Spike’s face as he turned to the assassin. “You failed!” Spike shouted, his voice deeper and rougher as it came from his bulkier snout. Two fangs poked out just a bit even when his mouth was closed and his longer jagged back spines glowed a more intense green. Lightning of the same hue snapped between them. “It’s over! Unlike you, I don’t want to hurt anyone. Surrender and you will live.” Red Fang snarled and again broke his style of silence. “I’m going to enjoy making you suffer!” Spike furrowed his brows. This dragon was insane. He was clearly outclassed with no hope of accomplishing his mission. With Rarity fighting along with Spike and their Hive Power activating along with his raw physical size and strength, whatever hope this attacker had to actually harm him was gone. Red Fang leaped up with his wings and shot forward. Spike stopped the attacker again, claw-to-claw. He held the other dragon’s wrists back from making it to his face. In the struggle, he saw something strange in the assassin’s left claw. It was some sort of small orb with lines running through it and pulsing in a red hue. Something bothered him about it and he had a feeling he had to keep that from getting any closer. If this assassin wanted to use it then it was likely a lethal weapon. Spike bent one knee to cause Red Fang’s forward momentum to be used against him, tossing him across the snowbank. A single cyan dart from Rarity shot Red Fang’s left claw after he got back up. It didn’t cause much damage but it did knock the small device away from him. Apparently, whatever that thing was, it was something the assassin now believed was critical to his mission. He didn’t have a second one on the thin tool strap wrapped across his right bicep, so he dived for the dropped device. “Oof,” Red Fang breathed out when Spike collided with him. The purple dragon wasn’t going to stand by and let him just pick something up. He locked claws with him again and this time had nothing to distract him from unleashing the power built up along his spine. Golden flame shot from Red Fang’s mouth again to try ridding him of the locked position, but Spike stood firm and released the massive energy charge. Both large dragons lit in a blinding green-white light. Deafening snaps of thunder roared as the flurry of bolts connected the two, electrifying Red Fang. One second, two seconds, three seconds, six seconds. “AAAAARGH!” Spike shouted in barely-controlled focus, on the knife’s edge of being cooked by his own magical storm of raw energy. Red Fang shouted out too, but it was in a pain so overwhelming that his mind failed to determine which part of him should even hurt. Smoke started to pour from Red Fang’s very scales and his knees buckled. That was when Spike stopped. The blinding light disappeared in an instant, as if it was completely spent. The smoking red dragon swayed and nearly fell over, his eyes wandering in an attempt to regain his focus. It was in that wandering that he saw the bent scales from his earlier attack on Spike. They hadn’t recovered from the dragon’s growth. “I told you,” Spike panted from the exertion. “I don’t want to kill you. You’re defeated. Give up.” Red Fang glared, focus regathered. “You think...you...” he panted as well. “You think I’m... finished?!” “I’ve drained yo-” Spike began to respond with narrowed eyes. But then they widened in shock. He had faked exhaustion. In a smooth thrust so fast that Spike had no time to react, Red Fang struck him where his scales had bent. He had never been pierced beneath the cover of his diamond-hard outer skin. The pain was so intense that Spike only gurgled out a wordless cry before falling backwards. “SPIKE!” Rarity shouted in renewed terror. She thought the attacker was finished but now the pain she felt from Spike was strong enough to be fatal. She ignited her Hive Power, attempting to blast Red Fang away with an offensive shield. The assassin dove around the side as it tried to hit him and then launched himself towards her with his large wings. His sharp claws were stretched out to pierce her. Rarity refocused her magic to reform the shield between them but he had launched so quickly and the distance between them was too small. The sharp talons were two hooves from striking her throat when Red Fang was pummeled to the snow by a black blur. “Agh!” Queen Flux groaned upon getting back up from the crater of snow caused by her ramming into the dragon from the sky. “I said drop me off, not drop me on him,” she sneered at the pink pony flying by on black and green jets above. Flux didn’t waste time, though, before transforming into a black dragon matching twice Red Fang’s size. “I’ll kill all of you!” Red Fang shouted, having lost all patience from the interference. His attempt to get up was instantly denied, though. Flux used her massive dragon form to punch him back into the snow and the cobblestone below. He stubbornly survived the powerful blow and launched himself back up on his wings, eyes turning to the device some distance away that he had tried to use before. His flight was cut short even before Flux could react again. Hissing. A hundred changelings were hissing in his ears all at once. The sky darkened from the swarm as they poured in from every imaginable direction. Their jagged hole-ridden hooves grabbed at every part of his body. His wings were pulled and forced to fold. He breathed fire once, twice, three times. It didn’t matter. Every changeling that fell away from the flame was replaced by five more. He fell into the snow bank again in a black ball of clawing changelings. Green stuff was starting to cover him. He would have sliced them with his talons or cut with his tail blades but all of his limbs were held tight. He couldn’t move. SPLAT! His eyes were covered in a green slime. He began to shout out from it but his snout was covered next and cemented shut. The green slime continued to cover more and more of his body until little more than his nostrils were left open to breath. The substance hardened and the swarm began carrying off his motionless encased form. “Prisoner secure. Transferring to stasis pod, my queen,” Cell Weaver reported to Flux. The giant black dragon flashed in an enormous green flame. In less than a second, Flux was returned to her natural form. She stumbled down into the cold snow, face a mixture of exhaustion and pain. A whimper of pain accompanied the fall. “My que-!” Queen Flux pushed him back. “I’m fine!” Clearly she wasn’t. The small changeling queen had never fully recovered from her dealings with Sombra. She ignored her pain, though. “My queen!” “Go!” Flux barked the command. “See to Spike. Don’t let him die! The hive needs him!” With a simple nod of obedience, Cell Weaver followed orders. Queen Flux clutched her ribs. The pain was deep, revisiting from the exertion. She had gone farther than it was safe to in her state. But it was necessary. She had finally come to terms with it. The hive needed this dragon and these ponies to survive. Hope had finally returned for the hive, but she was a broken queen and her power was waning. The only thing that mattered now was her changelings and the life they could finally have. She had faced him first because she didn’t want them getting hurt. Something had changed in her at last. They were her children.