The Tin Man

by Onomonopia


Young Minds

With careful precision, Tony took a small chunk of the crystal and placed it atop his right arm, in front of a small laser. He grabbed a small crystal fuser, something Twilight had given him, and used its light to attach the crystal to the metal. He let out a sigh as the crystal shimmered slightly before going dim, telling him that it wouldn’t explode. This time.

“Okay, the crystal seems to have bonded to the metal. Now to see if it works,” Tony said. He rose to his feet and turned from Twilight’s workbench. He glanced over to see Twilight and Spike taking cover behind a crystal table, both wearing goggles and Twilight holding a clipboard. They were being smart, considering both of Starks previous attempts had caused him to blow up.

“Taking aim and preparing to fire new, magic killing crystal laser,” Stark announced. His faceplate slammed down as he lifted his arm, taking in a deep breath before counting down. “Three…two…on-“

BOOM!

The crystal exploded in a flash of light and ripped Tony’s arm back. Tony snarled as pain flared through his arm, fairly certain that if he hadn’t been wearing his suit his arm would be gone. Twilight leapt out from behind her cover and raced over to Tony, conjuring water with her horn to douse the flames that covered the Iron Man armor.

“Tony, are you okay?” Twilight asked.

“Urg, progress. We’ve made some progress,” Tony said, gritting his teeth. “We’ve learned that these crystals explode if they aren’t attached properly, explode if you drop them, and explode if amplified light is channeled through them. That’s a lot of ways to make a crystal explode.”

“Tony, I’m not sure if this is the best idea,” Twilight said. “I’m all for testing these crystals, but constantly blowing yourself up with them doesn’t seem like the best way to weaponize them.”

“Nonsense. If worse comes to worse, I can just hurl them at Doom and have them blow up on him. Or me be Hulk and hit Doom hard with rock,” Tony joked, before gritting his teeth again as the pain came back.

“Isn’t this too dangerous?”

“Twilight, this isn’t anything close to the most dangerous I’ve ever done. Doom is dangerous. He’s incredibly dangerous. Have neither of you notice that Discord hasn’t come back yet?” Tony asked. Twilight and Spike shared a horrified look between the two of them, telling him that they had not. “Yeah, if I had to guess, Discord is either dead or dying. Or stripped of his power, Doom likes to do that. Point his, he’s one of the most dangerous foes I’ve ever fought. Even if I have to blow off all of my limbs to find a way to beat him, it would all be worth it.”

“Spike, send a letter to Celestia and Luna to tell them to find Discord,” Twilight quickly said to Spike, before turning back to Tony. “Okay, there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your obsession with Doom. He’s been your biggest focus since getting here. Yes, he’s dangerous, but wouldn’t it be smarter to return to your own dimension and gather your allies to come back to face him? You should be going to the jungle that Celestia mentioned, focusing on how to go home. But you’re staying to fight him. Why?”

“…he killed Peter,” Tony said in a whisper. Twilight motioned for him to continue and he did so after a sigh. “Peter…Spider-Man as he was better known as, is one…was one of our greatest heroes. Both Cap, another hero and close friend, and I both agreed that Spider-Man was the future of superheroes. He would be the guy who could unite the different heroes and factions and bring them together to become the greatest defenders of life across the cosmos. Maybe he could even bring an end to the discrimination against mutants or get the kree and skrull to truly ally with us. He always had a way of making friends and bring the world together. Even when the Avengers, X-men and others were at each other’s throats, Peter could bring us together, almost as well as Cap could.”

“And now he’s gone. He was killed by Doom, because Doom thought only he could be the worlds savior. And so he took the knowledge in Peter’s mind and the process killed him. A noble sacrifice, as Doom put it. Noble. Nothing noble about. Another pointless death in a world full of them. Another good kid gone. Another friend’s death on my soul.”

Twilight looked at Tony as he said this, seeing him in a different light. His body seemed weary, his armor had lost it’s luster and for a moment she realized she wasn’t looking at a billionaire, playboy, philanthropist who also happened to be a wisecracking hero. She was looking at a man pushing sixty who had been fighting a never-ending war for a long time. Then Tony turned to look at her and the old man was gone, replaced by one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

“So to answer your question Twilight, I’m here to do what I do when I can’t save someone. I avenge them,” Tony said. He then stood up again and walked over to the workbench, grabbing a full crystal this time and staring at it for a moment. “Alright, let’s try this again. Might want to get behind-“

“Hey ya’ll! What ya doing?!”

Tony and Twilight turned to see Applebloom running down the stairs, carrying a small basket filled with vials and potions.

“Hey Applebloom, you’re here early,” Twilight said to the young mare. Applebloom smiled up at her before looking over at Tony, her eyes widening as she saw his scorched arm and the ash marks along the ground, one that was Iron Man shaped.

“Aw come on, if ya were going to be blowing stuff up, ya should have called me over sooner!” Applebloom pouted.

“Sorry Bloom, but we are in a bit of a rush,” Tony said as he placed the crystal on his left arm, next to another laser, and stared to attach it. Before he could, Bloom dashed over and snatched the crystal from him. “Hey! Give it. I need that to stop a genocidal villain from destroying everything and man do I say that sentence often.”

“Yer using it the wrong way,” Applebloom replied.

“What do you mean?” Tony asked, crouching down next to her.

“Well, it’s pretty simple. Yer trying to use this crystal to do something that it can’t do. Yer trying to focus a light through it like a regular crystal, but this ain’t a regular crystal. This crystal is used to absorb, to to…give off? Ah can’t remember the other word.”

“No no, I get what you’re saying,” Tony replied, taking the crystal from Applebloom, who had started to look a little pale. “I can’t get it to shoot magic nullifying lasers or anything like that because it is meant to absorb energy or magic, not expel it.”

“That’s the word.”

“So I can’t use it as a focal point for my lasers. So I’ve got to get creative and figure out a new way to get them to work. Hmm, this is going to take some time.”

“Well, while you’re doing that, I’m going to take Bloom here and give her a lesson,” Twilight said. Applebloom hopped over to Twilight and followed her up the stairs, leaving Irong Man alone in her basement. For a moment Stark stared at the crystal, racking his brain with how to weaponize it, before he let out a sigh and followed after the pair, figuring that he would try again later. He needed a break and he was curious to see how Applebloom was going to do. The crystals could wait for now.

Doom wasn’t going anywhere.


“Sister, we have just received a letter from Twilight,” Luna said.

She and Celestia were in a very old castle, far from Canterlot and even further from the castle in the forest near Ponyville. This castle had been home to their grandfather, Lord Terra, who had been one of the first rulers of the world. He kept an extensive library, but, much to the disappointment of Celestia and Luna, there was not much in regard to information about before his time. Out of all of his books, only a few made references to the time before his reign and even then, it was passing mentions.

Celestia was going through the books with a precise focus, while Luna had tried for a bit, grown bored and had started trying on different pieces of ancient armor when a letter appeared before her. She had read it quickly and with an even faster speed gave it to her sister.

“Can this be true?” Celestia asked once she had read the letter. “Could Discord have truly fallen to Doom? Discords power is unimaginable. To think that he might fall to a mere man…”

“According to Twilight, Tony thinks Doom may have outsmarted Discord and stolen his magic. While that may sound unlikely, it has happened before with Tirek,” Luna reminded Celestia.

“You are right. Discord often is beaten by being outsmarted and if Doom can outsmart Tony, then it is believable that he can outsmart Discord,” Celestia agreed. “Faust, we also have Tirek to deal with as well and we have made no progress with this either. How did things come to this?”

“A new day, a new threat to our world. Things never change, eh sis?” Luna asked. Celestia smirked at her sister before closing her eyes and causing her horn to glow.

“Nothing. I cannot sense Discord anywhere on this planet. That may not mean much, he travels between dimensions all the time, but as he just went after Doom I am worried.”

“Should we go and confront Doom, sister? It should not be too hard to find a being with an ego that large,” Luna suggested.

“No. Tony says that he is a very dangerous being who is skilled with magic. As he is Tony’s foe and Tony has more knowledge about him, I will trust his words that we would be at a disadvantage. If we must fight him, we will do so together.”

“Agreed, sister. So, what should we do now?” Luna asked, looking around the room. “We have found plenty of information about our world and our past, but there is not much info about before our grandfathers time. What now?”

“Now you fall to me!”

Celestia and Luna turned just in time to take a massive blast of magic, which tore them from their hooves and hurled them both outside of the castle. Luna and Celestia rose back up to their hooves just in time to see a massive centaur land in front of them, a wicked smile on his face as he glared them down.

“Tirek. I was wondering when you would reveal yourself,” Celestia spat.

“You are a fool, Celestia, leaving the safety of your home and your precious protectors to come all the way out here. You have led you and your sister to your demise,” Tirek laughed.

“Nice try, Tirek, but you are the one to have blundered,” Luna smirked. “You are nowhere near as powerful as you were the last time you ran rampant. We know that you have not taken Cadence or Shining’s magic, so even with all of the ponies magic that you have stolen you are nowhere near our level.”

Celestia and Luna then both fired beams of magic towards Tirek, but to their surprise Tirek shifted into a black cloud of magic, swirling around them as he laughed.

“Maybe not, but I have absorbed the magic of every being in Tartarus, including all of the foes that you two barely managed to defeat over the years!” Tirek bellowed, before the clouds consumed the princess. “So now I wield the power of every villain you have faced in one body. And nopony, not even Twilight and her friends, can match me!”