Knights of the Realm

by Kinni

Tirek, the Battle Begins

Days passed, and there were more and more cases of ponies being drained off their magic all over Equestria. The Knights recovered from the ritual and kept working on their preparations, knowing that Tirek would only allow himself to be confronted once he was sure he had enough power to fight them.

Still, he was quite greedy and would be hard-pressed to resist the temptation that the magic of a group of Knights represented, so with that in mind the Knights moved to a special base that was located in a very remote region of Equestria while making no effort at all to hide their presence.

They knew that if Tirek had the opportunity to go after them without any other hindrances in the way, he would definitely lack the patience to shore up his power to the limit. He was quite prideful, and would certainly believe he would be able to win even without perfect preparations.

Of course, the problem was that he was strong enough that he could very well be right about that. Still, getting just that little bit of extra advantage could be the deciding factor that would allow the Knights to emerge victorious in the battle.

What followed were tense days, where the Knights prepared themselves for the inevitable battle ahead both mentally and in terms of their spells and skills.

And then, as inevitably had to happen, the day came.

"We've got an alarm." Were the words that resounded (magically enhanced to everypony could hear clearly) around the base in Rarity's voice.

They had set up schedules so that there was always one of the Knights monitoring the passive alarm system. There were so many distinct detection spells, and they were all so fragmented that even Tirek would not be able to simply sneak past them, and they could even detect him on their own, but having a Knight on watch meant earlier detection, and thus more time to react.

It took less than four seconds for the rest of the Knights to gather at the monitoring room, having teleported, chaos warped or simply moved there at ultra-speed. Rainbow Dash was still chewing something, having apparently been called while in the middle of eating.

"What's the situation?" Trixie asked.

"Tirek is currently three hundred and thirty meters north-northeast of here and is approaching at a walking pace. He's also spreading his magical power into the environment, so it seems like situation Beta." Rarity replied.

She received a nod in response. The Knights had predicted what sort of approaches Tirek would take in his attack, based on his past behavior, and it boiled down to three distinct styles, which were names Alpha, Beta and Gamma. The Beta approach consisted of setting up the battlefield for his maximum advantage and fighting mostly within that area. Him spreading his magical power would make it much harder to surprise him with any sort of traps or pre-prepared spells, and it would also give him an extra advantage in direct combat.

"Then let's use the formation we planned on, while being ready to shift positions in case it becomes necessary." Sunset said, and the others nodded.

Since they had predicted that possibility, the Knights had also discussed what their initial response would be. Their fight was destined to not be a short one, but having an overall plan and getting an advantage at the start would raise their chances of victory.

The eight Knights then left the base and headed in the direction of the enemy.

+0+

Their interception point was two hundred and ten meters north-northeast of the base. They reached there before Tirek could get close, because if they had time to spare, it would be a waste to not use it.

"In the Realms of the Unreal, Reality and Illusion... Are the Same."

"This is... The Essence of my Heart."

Both Sunset and Trixie unleashed their practiced battle modes (the first then proceeding to declare all her viewpoints as soon as she managed it), and their fellow sister did things just a little bit different:

"Magical Time: Battlefield!" Was Twilight's declaration.

Twilight had been in an awkward position. Her newest ultimate magic relied on an understanding of the opponent, and Tirek was perhaps the worst possible target for such magic. Not only was his magic unknown and difficult to understand, but he specifically aimed for keeping it that way, as any who started to learn about it would immediately cause it to fall in power.

Even the legendary Eyes of Magic, a user of the Eyes of Truth who specialized in the understanding of magic still took quite a while to see through Tirek, and it was only possible due to the support of her fellow Knights. Twilight's situation was, of course, much worse.

However, any understanding of magic could be applied in many different ways, and it was the same case for what she had learned in the battle against the Sealing Entity. So Twilight combined it with her understanding of Fluttershy's World's Harmony skill, as well as her own chaotic magic nature in order to create a new technique that would be useful in this battle.

The core of this new magic was a power that reflected the state of the battlefield. It was an extremely unstable power that would go through myriad changes in terms of both power and nature based on the ever-shifting battle situation. It was a kind of technique even most Knights would be unable to use, but Twilight was a chaos mage, so she could handle a shifting power and even benefit from it.

The other knights didn't have such direct game changers, but they also cast whatever preparatory spells they thought could help as they moved into their planned positions. A few moments later they spotted Tirek's figure coming over a hill in the distance. He was walking towards them, seemingly casually, but his speed was actually pretty high, so that figure came closer much faster than one would expect.

The Knights still waited, as attacking while too far away would just be a waste of power. They took in the feeling of his magic as it spread around the environment and used it to gauge how strong he actually was, and thus how close they had to be to make their spells effective. Sunset had taken the most advanced position, and thus she also watched out in case Tirek decided to attack first.

That also meant that, when he came within what she considered to be "effective range", she was the first to launch an attack, sounding the start of the actual fight:

"Core Essence: Grand Ray Sol!" Sunset declared.

A huge amount of power gathered in front of Sunset before coalescing into an orange sphere of pure solar energy, which then shot out a beam at Tirek.

She had chosen her moment well. It was close enough that he couldn't dodge and had to use some of his power into strengthening his defenses. He blocked while moving sideways to escape the path of the beam as fast as possible. Sunset adjusted the spell to follow his movement, but after a singular second Tirek managed to get out of the line of fire.

He did not do that by moving too fast for Sunset to track, but instead he had warped the space around himself just enough for the beam to curve away at the last moment. The Knight ended her spell, deciding it wouldn't do any more good.

Tirek did not have time to catch his breath, however, as the next Knight was already attacking. It was Twilight, immediately demonstrating what her current technique could bring to the table, as she took advantage of Tirek's space manipulation to warp right in front of him and punch.

"Refract." She declared, and when her punch reached Tirek, it was as if he had been punched a hundred times in the same place, at the same time.

The immensely powerful hit succeeded in pushing the centaur a few feet back, but he quickly rallied and swung his arm upwards, the result of that simple action being essentially the creation of a hurricane that disappeared in less than one second, but was powerful enough to force both Sunset and Twilight into the defensive at the same time.

He would have followed it up with a more dangerous offensive spell, but had to abort it to block a lightning-enhanced, faster than sound punch from a ballistic blue pegasus. He erected a purple mandala barrier that managed to easily take the blow, but that was because Rainbow Dash's attack was more of a feint, the Knight flowing around to Tirek's side in a spin that launched a few strands of razor sharp wind that hit the centaur to small effect.

Tirek obviously would let such an attack go unanswered, but before he could pergorm a counter attack, the pegasus had already vanished, escaping from engagement range just as fast as she had entered it.

And then Tirek had to block downwards as lightning sprouted from near his hooves. The culprits were a few feathers Rainbow Dash had shed. Those were the true attack. A small sacrifice, but one that couldn't be repeated too much without harming her ability to fly, so its power reflected that: It was powerful enough that Tirek's hasty defense couldn't properly block it.

He grunted as a couple of black lines scarred his left arm. They were burn marks, and it was the first time in the battle Tirek had actually been injured.

And it didn't end with that, as Sunset perfectly followed up on the opening her student had provided. With a cry of "Core Essence: Severing Charge!" she created a blade of flame bigger than herself and charged into Tirek to stab him with it.

Realizing the power of said attack but still being off balance from the lightning, Tirek had no choice but to wave his right hand, distorting space to try and force the Knight to miss. Sunset pushed forward regardless, using the power of her attack to overwhelm the distortion.

Their techniques clashed (if that is even the right word to use for that situation) and in the end... It was a tie. Sunset managed to break the distortion, but it still messed up her aim just enough that the blade scored a cut along the side of Tirek's arm instead of piercing into his torso.

At that point, the centaur recovered enough to properly counter-attack. A blue sphere appeared in between his horns and shot a beam of incredible cold at Sunset. She blocked with her fire blade, but the cold energy simply spread in a circle around Tirek as it started freezing everything that wasn't directly next to the flame, which was most of Sunset's body and the air itself.

It also froze Twilight, who had just arrived behind Tirek for her own attack but didn't manage to release it in time. All of that happened in less than half a second, but by that point Sunset did her own counter.

"Variation Essence: Flame Vortex." Sunset declared in a level voice.

The flame blade broke apart into a dozen streams of fiery wind that revolved around the Knight and broke the ice magic trapping her. On the other side of Tirek, Twilight shifted the form of her battlefield reflecting magic in order to mirror Sunset's own powers. Flaming snakes emerged from her body and broke the spell on that side too.

Without any words, the two Knights proved how in tune they were by almost immediately following up by directing their magic to attack the remaining core points of Tirek's ice magic, breaking it fully. Once again, that all happened within a very short time period, but it was still enough for Tirek to muster a follow-up attack and keep them on the defensive.

If they had been fighting alone.

"Tartarus Chains!" Trixie roared, and huge dark steel chains emerged from what looked to be empty space.

In truth, Trixie had gotten close enough for her Realms of the Unreal to affect the fight. The chains lunged at Tirek like the world's fastest snake and bound themselves to the side of his body. He had been slow to react due to the shock of feeling the bindings of Tartarus appearing in the outside world.

Because that was the concept Trixie had infused into the chains, the same bindings that so often trapped him were certainly effective against the centaur, even if she couldn't fully imitate their power.

And it wasn't like Tirek was inside Trixie's realm. Instead it had stretched like rubber as the chains moved, thus allowing the Knight to affect things outside her magic, though there were of course limits to that.

Tirek's shock only lasted long enough for the chains to bind him, and he replied with a stomp of his forehooves that unleashed a shockwave that turned the chains into dust.

Without a proper banishing spell to strip him of his stolen power, even the real Tartarus chains would be unable to hold him, let alone those ones.

Still, that interruption was enough for him to miss the timing for attacking the nearby Knights, and for the next fighter to enter the battle.

"Immolation Slash: Searing Flames!" Was Rarity's shout as she dropped down towards Tirek, doing an overhead strike with her Flame Ruler Sword that now looked more like a volcanic eruption in the shape of a sword.

Tirek clapped his hands together, and it was like the world's biggest bomb had exploded. A massively powerful shockwave spread out from the point of impact, and had it been an actual explosion, it was likely that the shockwave itself would have wreak havoc across a significant portion of Equestria, causing horrifying long term effects.

Thankfully, it wasn't an actual explosion, and the shockwave only spread a short distance around Tirek's body. However, it was still a powerful move, which had not only bounced back Rarity without her attack being able to do anything (and forcing Rainbow Dash to grab and pull her out of range at superspeed to prevent major injury) but also forced Twilight into a quick retreat.

Sunset, on the other hand, stood her ground.

"Core Essence: Bunker Blast!" She declared, then punched Tirek, her hoof unleashing a directed explosion.

The attack pushed Tirek back a bit and left a hoof-sized mark on his front, but it wasn't as effective as it could have been since Sunset had spent a lot of energy enduring Tirek's move. And it didn't actually need to be effective, as the Knight's true aim had been delaying Tirek's response to the next attacker.

"World Chaos: Grand Crash." Pinkie Pie declared as she ran into Tirek at near Rainbow Dash speed, her body covered in a corona of power that was like flaming lightning.

The use of ambient magic was one of the oldest lessons she had learned from Twilight, so Pinkie's attack had actually taken in traces of the magic of both Sunset and Rainbow Dash as a seed to realize its power.

No one could argue that their spells were the best among the Knights in terms of pure destructive power.

Pinkie crashed into the centaur like a comet, instantly unleashing all the power contained in her corona into his body.

"Gah!" Tirek screamed as he had several bones broken, had a hole burned into his side and had tremendous amounts of lightning poured into the hole.

The group had managed to seriously wound him. That was the result of a seamless cooperation between the Knights. It started with Rarity attacking him with enough power to force the centaur to overcommit his energy to defend against it, something she had only been able to do with the help of one of her new horseshoe Artefacts.

It was called Burst Drive, and it could power up its user in a fashion that could be likened to that of a very small overdrive, one that only lasted for a single spell. It also took some time for it to become usable again, so Rarity couldn't simply repeatedly attack with that power. It was still a great tool that the Knight had used to its full potential.

Then there was Sunset, who refused to give ground to Tirek's powerful defense and provided the last little bit of time needed to set up the perfect attack. Of course, Pinkie's contribution was obvious, but the last pony involved was one of the two who hadn't shown up in the battle up to that point.

It was Applejack who identified the perfect moment to strike and indicated it to Pinkie Pie, thus allowing the pegasus to use her full power on the offensive instead of being mindful of a possible counter attack by Tirek.

And yet, not one of the Knights thought they had the upper hand. They would not dare underestimate Tirek even slightly, and it was a good thing too, since the centaur decided it was time to begin actually declaring spells.

"Abyss

What happened next could be described as an inverted explosion. Instead of something breaking apart and releasing a shockwave outwards, it was a shockwave that advanced inwards in Tirek's direction from a large distance away and put something together.

For the Knights, it was a terrifying threat. The shockwave itself was already extremely powerful, capable of breaking apart solid rock even in the area farthest from the center (and the closer it got to the center, the more powerful it became), but that wasn't the true danger, the main focus of the attack was instead the "putting something together" part.

Because, as an inverted explosion with no true origin, that part involved essentially hardening space itself. And a big area around Tirek thus experienced extreme pressure, the sort that would usually only be found at the bottom of the deepest oceans. The earth was crushed into powder, the air was heated a few degrees, and the Knights had to use their own magic to escape major injury.

Applejack had it the easiest, both from being the one furthest away and from her particular skills. Her Eyes had identified the danger of Tirek's attack slightly before he cast, and she managed to sidestep the shockwave with a precise application of her Myriad Steps.

Second to her was Trixie, who was also away from the true epicenter and enveloped in her Realms of the Unreal. It trembled a bit from the pressure, but endured and protected Trixie from it. And then Rainbow Dash and Rarity, who used the Wind Ruler Sword along with the pegasus' own wind manipulation abilities to counter the pressure.

There was also Twilight, who was quite close to Tirek and was thus forced into diving a significant depth through the ground, swimming through it in a way that was more like she was being propelled by a rocket engine. And Sunset, the closest of all, was finally forced to back off from punching range, understanding that even her powerful defenses would be unable to endure being in the true epicenter.

As for Pinkie Pie, who had just spent a lot of energy on an attack? She still hadn't had enough time to recover, so Fluttershy flew over her, clad in her strongest, trance-powered, harmony-imbued form, and forcefully expanded her aura to encompass the earth pony for protection.

All of them managed to successfully defend, but Tirek had gotten what he wanted: A respite from the continuous attacks of the Knights, which he used to its fullest potential. His right hand glowed white as he pressed it against his injury, causing it to heal at an accelerated pace.

The one to cut that healing short was Applejack, who took a few Steps forward and punched the air, taking advantage of the recent hardening of the space in order to create a ranged attack, which was essentially a long distance punch. Tirek stopped his healing as he used his other hand to block, but he had already fixed most of the damage dealt.

However, it wasn't completely like he had returned to a fresh state. Healing with magic was not perfect, and even Rarity's Perfect Restoration was no exception to that rule, the very energy of the recovery magic coursing through the body affected it in subtle ways, making the flesh more sensitive to the channeling of energy.

In the same way as an Overdrive would harm the body due to the excess of magic power, even doing normal magic would eventually result in injury due to the healing making the affected parts of the body more fragile. It still wasn't a big problem most of the time, as the body would recover its natural resilience with time, and even repeated healing would take a while to get to such a noxious level.

That, and their sheer skill, was what allowed some of the great self-healing specialists like Knight White Marble to achieve the feats they were known for, but even they had their limits.

What all of that meant was that Tirek wouldn't be able to restore himself forever. If they kept hurting him, then the constant healing would take a toll, specially considering the extreme amount of energy he used for his big spells. They would eventually wear him down.

It had been done before. But that didn't mean such a thing was easy.

Regardless, the fight would continue, as Trixie acted again, bringing her Realm closer to the enemy for her next attack.

"World of Frost!" Was her declaration, and it resulted in the entirety of her Realm becoming exceedingly cold, but without harming her due to Trixie's manipulation of its laws.

Simple thermodynamics meant the cold would spread outside (or rather, the heat outside would be absorbed), and Trixie simply used an additional spell to guide the cold in the direction of the enemy. That was another way she could use her realm in the fight.

That spell was different from her previous contribution, instead of being a binding it was purely offensive, the cold aggressively rushing at Tirek's body, leaving frozen ground in its wake. It was too close for the centaur to have time to avoid it, so most of the left side of his body got frozen before, with a gesture, he hijacked Trixie's control over the cold spread and redirected it towards Sunset, who was still the Knight closest to him.

Trixie immediately switched from cold to heat, taking away most of the potential power of the attack, thus Sunset weathered it easily. Twilight then appeared from behind, violent energy condensing into a whirling sphere at the tip of her horn.

"Unleash Chaos!" She declared, causing the sphere to break apart into a stream of chaotic energy that randomly changed through a myriad of different forms as it struck Tirek.

The centaur turned around way faster than one would expect given his size and backhanded the chaotic energy away, though he still got several light wounds for his trouble. Rainbow Dash used that chance to divebomb him with her own spell.

"Sky Crash!" With a punch, Dash unleashed the payload she had carried with her while flying, hundreds of tons of air, condensed into a small space by extreme pressure.

The hit was truly like the sky was falling, or at least it would feel like that for the target, as they were hit by a mass of air compressed enough it acted like a solid, and briefly experienced thousands of atmospheres of pressure.

Tirek was held in place for almost half a second, before he unleashed his power and broke apart the magic. Following that, he waved his hand, causing Rainbow Dash to feel like her wings had been bound and her wind control had been restrained. She fell like a rock, struggling against the bindings but unable to free herself from them immediately.

Rarity immediately jumped in, Fire Ruler Sword at the ready to protect the pegasus from a follow-up attack. but said attack never came, Tirek instead demonstrating his ability with space magic once again by taking a long step that allowed him to go a big distance away from the agglomeration of ponies, but still well within sight range.

Then he pulled his right arm back and cast:

"Force

He punched forward, a terrifying amount of magical power concentrated in his fist.

"Return!" Twilight shouted, unleashing her own magic.

Tirek's hand seemed to go backwards, or rather, its position was set back to what it had been at the beginning, courtesy of spatial magic.

Twilight had actually grabbed onto one of Tirek's legs as he warped away, borrowing his magic to be dragged along, before using it as such. Her spell was only capable of delaying his attack for a second, but it was plenty.

"Trance Barrier!" Fluttershy shouted, flying in front of everypony else (Twilight, having been behind Tirek when he started, wasn't in any danger) and focusing her power into the strongest defense she could muster, the light of her soul forming a shield around the Knight which was at once physical and conceptual.

Tirek completed his punch, the energy unleashed into a vicious whirlwind that rent the very air itself, and reached the Knights so incredibly fast only Rainbow Dash could have possibly been able to dodge it (had she not been unable to move).

Even with her powerful protection, Fluttershy was still forced backwards by the attack. It felt like she was trying to hold back a mountain, the destructive wave also drilling into her very being. Then Rarity used her Wind Ruler Sword to disperse part of the force, thus allowing the pegasus to fully defend.

Once it was done, Fluttershy dropped her barrier with a heavy breath, allowing the others to see that several places in her body had been injured and were leaking blood, but thankfully didn't seem to be serious wounds.

Rainbow Dash finally broke through her restraints. She broke through the sound barrier barely an instant after that, and then she was just suddenly unleashing a barrage of punches on a barrier hastily erected by Tirek.

"Collapse Slash: Ground Quake!" And right afterwards came Rarity, who didn't attack the centaur directly, but the ground he was standing on.

She had been able to move so fast due to another one of her artifacts, the Speed Step, which allowed for the acceleration of her movement. She had been constantly using it at a low level, but forcing that tool to its limits like that meant that it would also take some time to be usable again.

Regardless, her maneuver was successful, forcing Tirek into making footholds with magic. Twilight did not miss the brief opening, so she borrowed upon Rarity's own magic for her next move.

"Mountain Stream!" she declared, and a river-sized stream of mud crashed into Tirek, who was forced into an unwilling trip back to the area where the other Knights were waiting, Dash's constant attacks keeping him too busy to escape.

They didn't have it all their own way, though. Tirek charged energy in between his horns and sent it to the air, resulting in a series of lightning bolts striking furiously at Rarity. She blocked them with a combination of earth barriers and bleeding off some of the charge via wind magic, but it was clearly not a perfect defense.

Regardless, Tirek could not avoid returning to his previous position, and the Knights certainly weren't planning on giving him enough leeway to do something like that again.

"Halt Essence: Deep Space!" Sunset took the first shot.

And she was being tricky again. Instead of a powerful offensive magic, that was a restraining spell intended to set up for the others to attack. It caused the area Tirek was in to feel like the depths of the ocean. But there was no crushing pressure, instead all of the energy was simply focused on making it harder to move.

"Chaotic Essence: Shadow Burst!" Pinkie was the first to take advantage.

Her shadow grew in size and length, quickly enveloping the whole area around Tirek. Then the shadow, for lack of a better term, erupted. It exploded itself into the material world, hitting the centaur with great strength.

And at the same time as Pinkie was doing her attack, Rainbow Dash did so as well.

"Infernal Winds: Calamity Hurricane!"

She grabbed onto the air itself with both forehooves, then pulled it into two distinct sides with an enourmous magical effort, and also flapped her wings to force both air fronts to collide against each other at extreme speeds. The end result of all that being the creation of a hurricane of such violent winds it could tear solid rock into dust, and was also hot enough to instantly evaporate an entire lake.

It hit Tirek as well, and for an entire second the villain was being bombarded by two greatly powerful attacks, unable to defend himself due to Sunset's magic.

And then he clenched his right fist and broke the spatial binding. And suddenly his whole body was bursting with such tremendous power none of the knights had ever seen before.

"Trinity

He waved his right arm, and the attacks that had been assailing him simply vanished. He waved his left arm and a ring of fire came into being around him, forcing the knights into the defensive with its great power and heat. And he raised his head, a bolt of power shooting from between his horns up to the sky.

And in response, the sky sent back an absolute barrage of lightning that bombarded the entire battlefield. Tirek wasn't spared either, but he was more than resilient enough, and his opponents were pushed to their very brink trying to resist the nonstop offense.

It only lasted three seconds, but most of the Knights in the area were exhausted by the time it ended. Then there was a singular moment of peace before the sky unleashed an apocalyptically immense lightning strike.

"Halt Essence: Entropy Break!" Sunset shouted, flying into the lightning while enveloped in a magical curtain of entropy, dispersing a good part of the energy. Enough for Fluttershy to use Trance Barrier once again and block it.

Tirek's right arm shone, and the attacks on him that had previously vanished appeared once again. But this time their target was Applejack.

That was the true finishing move.

"Illusion Ritual: Sever Existence!" Trixie shouted.

Within her Realms of the Unreal, a huge and complex magical circle came into being, several strange items placed in very specific locations on top of it. The items burned, and a tremendous magic phenomenon was called into being: An horizontal tear into the very fabric of existence that swept through the area above Applejack, disrupting the magic of both the attacks.

And that was the final way Trixie had found to fight without bringing Tirek inside her Realm. Ritual magic would usually take quite a bit of time and resources, but thanks to her absolute control over that domain, the illusionist could set it up instantly. It was both not as strong as normal rituals and it couldn't be used repeatedly, but even with those limitations, instant rituals were not something to be underestimated.

However, even though they had successfully managed to defend against that attack, it also highlighted the sheer danger of fighting against the villain. The battle was like walking a tightrope. There was very little room for error, and all of the Knights had to constantly be at the top of their game because otherwise, they would probably lose in seconds.

The knights covered each other, bombarded Tirek with attacks to keep him off balance and pulled out their tricks one by one whenever it became necessary, but even all of that was barely enough to keep the fight in balance. Each and everyone of Tirek's main attacks could have easily resulted in one of them being disabled, which would shatter that delicate balance and force the knights to pull out their last resorts just to avoid being taken out in quick succession.

Thankfully, by that point Sunset had finally finished charging.

"Rally Essence: Star Drive!" And she unleashed her true power.

Sunset's body morphed. She retained her shape, but almost everything else had changed. Her body was now composed of molten fire and magic, a coating of pure will keeping the unimaginable heat contained. Her eyes had become two jewels of the most indestructible mineral, shining with an inner light that surpassed even the radiance of the rest of her body. The light in the whole area seemed to congregate around her, turning the surroundings just a little bit darker.

This was going even beyond Essence Heart. Sunset was no longer simply channeling the power of a star, now she was a star in and of herself.

Sunset had been restraining herself the whole battle, slowly building up power to finally be able to achieve this form. It had been touch and go, but thankfully the bet had paid off, and the Knights had all managed to endure Tirek's attacks for long enough.

Her first action in this new form was to unleash a total of sixteen beams of solar fire at Tirek from all around him. And in that moment Applejack decided this was the best opportunity they were going to get. She did a Step, and then another one, and finally a third one, and then she was right beside Tirek.

She had reached there so soon after Sunset's attack finished that the air was still hot enough to cause second degree burns on any normal ponies (but the Knights weren't normal ponies, so it was alright).

"True Strike: Heartseeker!"

And she unleashed a buck into the side of his trunk that carried every single drop of strength she could muster, its force directed by the power of Truth into the most critical parts of Tirek's body.

Several things broke at once, including Applejack's rear hooves, but Tirek had it much worse. And that was just the beginning, as the other Knights followed up knowing that if the farm pony had attacked, that meant it was time to press the advantage. And Applejack still had two good hooves, so she quickly Stepped away from the blast radius.

"Gather, Fire of the Stars!" Twilight shouted, riding on the ambient magic left behind by Sunset to create a rapidly expanding ball of powerful heat and magical energy above and slightly away from Tirek's positon. And when it was the size of a house, Pinkie jumped up to it, left forehoove raised.

"Chaos Spike!" She brought it down, hitting the spell and sending it down into Tirek, charging it with chaos power to create what were essentially thousands of mini nuclear reactions, and accelerating it to such speed that it reached the enemy and exploded in the blink of an eye.

And that attack wasn't even finished before the next one came. Rainbow Dash shed even more feathers than she had earlier, but instead of simply allowing them to fall to the ground, she gathered them in a mini-whirlwind that soon became enveloped in pure lightning.

"Sacrificial Feather: Ultra Charge!" She declared, and the lightning rapidly grew in power and intensity.

Behind her, Rarity had brought her Water and Wind Ruler Swords to bear.

"Combination Art: Lightning Barrage!" She declared, and mixed her own magic together with Rainbow's to turn the whirlwind of power into a mini-storm of its own, lightning power feeding magic that forced electrodynamic interactions between thousands of minuscule drops of water and the wind around them, those in turn feeding back into the storm itself, building up power quickly.

It was essentially the creation of a separate weather system that condensed into a small area enough power to create a storm that could devastate an entire region. It could theoretically build up power forever, but even with two Knights working together to maintain control of the magic, it took only a few seconds for the energy to reach the limits of what they could possibly hope to direct.

So they collapsed the system, forcefully turning all of that energy into a series of violent lightning strikes aimed at Tirek's position, a barrage that didn't lose out in the slightest to his own earlier lightning attack. And even then, it was not over, because Trixie had moved herself close enough that Tirek could possibly touch the boundary of her Realm by just reaching out with a hand.

That was for the sake of bringing to bear all the power she could possibly muster for her own spell.

"Concept of Destruction: Downfall Blade!" She cast, and the edge of her Realm expanded again, a tendril of unreal space reaching out into the air above Tirek and manifesting a gleaming blade the size of a pony.

And it was no ordinary blade, as one could see from the fact that even the very space of Trixie's Realm that had brought it into existence began to frail and crack, such was the noxious nature of the destruction concept that lay behind it.

The blade fell upon Tirek's position, which was obscured by the continuous explosions of the previous attacks, but when Trixie's move finished, it was like everything else had to come to a stop. The attacks of the other Knights came to an end, the wind seemed to cease blowing and every single sound faded away.

The moment passed. The area around Tirek cleared up revealing the results of those attacks. The centaur was bleeding from a multitude of cuts, burn marks and outright cracks could be seen all over his body, he had lost a finger on his right hand and two on his left, and the entire front side of his body was split in half by a deep cut that was wide enough one could see into the darkness inside of his body.

So, in these circumstances, it was probably no surprise Tirek decided that it was time to pull out all the stops.

On the next moment, his power instantly vanished. But it didn't feel like he had gotten weaker, but instead like all of that energy had been consumed at once.

"Dragon's

And before the Knight's eyes, two intact copies of Tirek appeared beside him. And in an instant the feeling of power returned as all three of them began to cast spells at the same time.

The first one to finish was the copy to the left of the original. It raised both hands to the sky and declared its spell:

"Bane

Light enveloped the copy's body as the magic went into effect. The figure of Tirek deconstructed itself into countless magical sparks which then came together into something that resembled a phoenix made out of fire. It flapped its wings and launched into a skywards flight, and at the same time started launching magical beams at all of the ponies.

"Condense, Fire of the Stars!" Sunset quickly cast a spell of her own.

And at that moment, if any of the combatants were to look up, they would see a reasonable facsimile of the night sky, as countless spheres of flame condensed themselves out of the air above the battlefield. And with a thought from the Knight, they started shooting towards the beams released by the enemy to counter them.

The Knight also took off into flight, chasing after the phoenix figure for a high-altitude battle.

Back on the ground, the second copy also finished preparing its spell. It spread its arms on opposite directions, the right hand pointed at the original Tirek while the other pointed in the direction Applejack had gone.

"Distorted

In the middle of the right hand a hole opened that brought forth a powerful vortex that seemed to want to suck in everything. However, what it sucked in wasn't matter or energy, but somehow Tirek's injuries.

The physical condition of the original centaur started quickly recovering. The Knights would of course not simply allow that to happen, but the copy's spell had another side to it: As Tirek recovered, the left hand of the copy opened up with a hole of its own, behind it a light too bright to make out whatever was inside.

And the true nature of the spell made itself known, as the second hole started spewing out at the same rate as the first one sucked up. But what was it spewing out? A great amount of varied projectiles, some were like small flying half sickle blades tinged black, others were slow-moving laser-like lines of red light, while others still were barely visible transparent drops that could be mistaken for a trick of the light.

Fluttershy, who hadn't attacked beforehand specifically to help deal with such counter-attacks (same as Sunset) flew into the path of those projectiles to protect Applejack. She braced herself and defended as the attacks fell upon her like rain, her defenses attacked in so many different ways at once that it was impossible to tell what exactly each attack was.

But while she could block most of them, some seemed to simply ignore her existence, passing through without interacting with her aura at all. Applejack was forced into an intense effort as she countered those projectiles with hits from her Myriad Blows. And being the one with the Eyes of Truth, she had realized that they were actually all the same thing.

The spell was somehow shooting embodied distortion at them, the different projectiles merely being different manners said distortion could express itself upon the world. Not even the farm pony could fully understand what the magic was actually doing, but at least she managed to protect herself.

Those two were both occupied and so was Sunset, who still had to counter the "phoenix's" attempts at bombarding the battlefield and chase it down to try to stop it, but there were other Knights available. The next one to try and interrupt Tirek's healing was Trixie, who still hadn't recovered enough of her energy to cast a declared spell after her previous attack, and so was forced to simply unleash her power in the form of an avalanche of rocks that extended her Realm as they fell upon the real Tirek.

However, even though he was in the middle of preparing his own magic, Tirek was still able to raise his hands and form a barrier that blocked Trixie's move. And when Rainbow Dash came next, flying towards the copy that was doing the actual healing and unleashing a punch that contained the might of a tornado, the centaur still had enough leeway to use another spell at the same time, generating a whirlwind that pushed the pegasus back before she could strike, even her flying skill being unable to quickly deal with the complicated currents that seemed almost actively malicious given how difficult it was to navigate them.

Seeing that, Pinkie decided to aim her own attack at Tirek himself once more. And different from the others, she had actually recovered enough to do a spell declaration:

"Chaotic Essence: Shadow Devouring!" She shouted, and her shadow stretched out towards its target.

When it reached close enough, the shadow expanded to both sides before emerging into the physical world as a dark mass that sprouted so many sharp teeth all over itself and pounced at the centaur like the most terrifying predator one could imagine. And even though Trixie's attack had already finished at that point, thus allowing Tirek to redirect his barrier to the other side and block Pinkie's spell, it was strong enough that he was clearly struggling to maintain the defense.

That was an opportunity the Knights couldn't miss.

"Earth and Fire Slash: Unreasonable Eruption!" Rarity declared.

She wasn't that close to the copy, but when her swords slashed upwards, the ground beneath it grew intensely hot before exploding into lava, and that was too much for the pseudo-Tirek to bear. It vanished.

That spell was actually stronger than what Rarity should have been able to use so soon after her last attack, but that was made possible by the third of Rarity's horseshoe Artefacts. That one was known as Refresh Pattern, and it allowed the user to quickly recover from big expenditures of power, at the cost of putting a big burden on their flesh.

Regardless, it had been a success, and even though Tirek had recovered a lot, the spell was broken early enough that he still had quite a few injuries remaining. But it was also then that the original finally finished preparing the spell he had been working on.

"Parasite

Tirek shoved his right hand into Trixie's Realm, and then raised his left arm and slashed it down, cutting off his own right hand.

Before anyone could react to that, the cut-off hand started to bubble and then expand like bread in the oven, except it quickly grew beyond the size of any normal oven, and like a horrible parody of a healing spell the place that should have been a stump in the hand accumulated more and more mass that began to reconstruct the original body.

It all happened far too fast for even the Knights to interrupt, and then there was just another Tirek inside Trixie's Realm, but that one felt far more real than the previous copies, even to Applejack's Eyes of Truth.

And the farm pony wasn't the one most surprised by what happened, Trixie was. The Realms of the Unreal were an incredibly complicated spell that afforded her an amazing level of control and awareness in an area, but whatever Tirek had done was essentially hijacking the very nature of her magic to create a self-aware pseudo-existence. Trixie had been prepared for Tirek to be able to break her magic if he got a chance, but she wasn't prepared for that sort of counter.

Even worse, despite it being an unreal existence like everything she created, and thus ultimately beholden to the magic, Trixie was unable to erase it or manipulate it in any way. It was exactly like the name said, a parasite that had infected her Realm at such a deep level she could not remove it at the source.

Trixie's astonishment did not cause her to slow down and give the enemy time to take advantage. She quickly blasted the illusory Tirek with a wave of the sharpest cold she could conjure on short notice, followed by the most extreme heat. She did her best to put pressure on the enemy at the same time as she retreated, realizing that allowing the two Tirek's to cooperate would be a terrible mistake.

Being an unreal existence, the pseudo-Tirek had to move along with Trixie's Realm as she pulled away, but it still waved both of its hands and created a huge wave of wind that it sent towards the main battlefield. Said wave of wind was powerful enough to tear houses from their foundations, but that still wouldn't be enough to really threaten the Knights.

That was because the wave of wind was just the set up.

"Calamity

Tirek cast as he slammed down with his remaining hand. The huge wave of wind was instantly trapped and compressed into the area of the battlefield, its huge mass and energy colliding against itself countless times in an instant, building up a tremendous wave of pressure that crushed down onto the battlefield.

"World's Harmony: Still Air!" Fluttershy hastily declared, and unleashed more of her power than she had ever done before.

Her magic spread through the air and forcefully calmed it down, essentially negating all the energy of Tirek's attack. Fluttershy was left almost unable to breathe from the effort, and with a feeling like her insides had been burned, but she did manage to prevent any injury on the other Knights.

While that was happening, Trixie continued her tactical repositioning. Soon she started accelerating and it didn't take long before the entire Realm of the Unreal was too far from Tirek for the copy to be able to aid him. She did not stop even when the parasite unleashed a burst of fire at her, simply blocking with a conjured triangular barrier.

But she would start counter-attacking as soon as she felt the distance to be enough.

Meanwhile, given that Tirek's latest attack had been negated, it seemed to be the perfect time to restart the offensive against him.

"Break: Unleash Zero!" Twilight cast.

She was suddenly right beside Tirek again, both of her forehooves nearly touching him. And in between them, a sphere formed, but actually it didn't. It felt completely like Twilight had condensed an extreme amount of energy together at that point, but somehow it remained empty. That state of uncertainty persisted for a moment.

And then all of the air in the area of the battlefield was there, leaving the rest in a vacuum. There wasn't any sort of transitional state, the air didn't move there, but its existence shifted such that it changed position seemingly without regard for the laws of cause and effect.

Then it exploded right onto Tirek.

"Gaahh!" He screamed as he was blasted backwards.

Twilight had essentially undone Fluttershy's magic, breaking the state of harmony not by altering it directly, but by forcefully shifting the effect of her spell, turning it from negating power into a forced stillness, like she had simply held back the energy of Tirek's attack. Then she broke said stillness, allowing the power to be unleashed, but controlling it such that the centaur would be the only target.

And Twilight had positioned herself such that she was in between Tirek and Trixie, so he ended up being thrown even further away from his copy. And there was yet another strategic element to her move: It gave an opportunity for Rarity.

"Perfect Restoration!" The unicorn cast, and manifested strings of magical power that stretched towards the other Knights (except Trixie, who was too far away), with most of them going for Fluttershy.

The Knights allowed the spell to go into them, and the pegasus quickly started feeling better, recovering from the side-effects of her earlier effort. The injuries of the others, mostly from the strain of the battle itself, were even easier to heal.

The importance of keeping Fluttershy in her best possible condition was obvious, given how often she had been protecting them from big injuries, and so Twilight took the first opportunity to delay Tirek and give Rarity time to heal her. The others were a bonus, just improving their condition a bit would give a small advantage, and Rarity could do it all with one spell.

They needed every advantage they could get, given that two of their heaviest hitters had been pulled away into separate battlefields.

+0+

Once she decided they were far enough away, Trixie shifted her focus into offensive. First she unleashed lightning, which the copy managed to deflect away, then she enveloped it in freezing cold, succeeding in trapping the parasite in ice, but it still managed to use its magic to summon forth a cloud of metal dust above her that fell upon the Knight.

Trixie blew it away with a quick whirlwind, but it was still enough time for the copy to break out and turn the ice shards into sharp crystals that flew at her, which Trixie avoided by teleporting very close to her opponent, which was followed up with a spout of materialized dragon flame.

The parasite endured it forcefully and retaliated with a slash from a huge conjured blade, but Trixie made the metal as soft and light as a feather before it could hit her and had the ground open up to swallow the copy, but it made a wind updraft push him up to avoid falling before pointing a finger at the Knight and shooting a laser beam from it, which Trixie refracted away by conjuring mist into a mirage in front of herself.

She turned the mist into acid and threw it at the copy, who teleported himself behind her and punched with a fist that was purple with poison, but Trixie bound his arm in conjured chains to stop the attack and teleported just to turn herself around in as instant before conjuring a house-sized hammer and smashing down with it, but before she could hit, the laser that had been deflected before came back at her with even more power focused into it.

Trixie ignored the laser and finished her attack, which the parasite received with a barrier braced by both its hands. The laser hit the Knight... And bounced off, Trixie having polished the surface of her armor into a mirror sheen with a thought. And that was the chance she needed.

"Knight Charge!" She declared for the first time since leaving the main battlefield.

It created a jousting lance made of light that rammed itself at the Tirek copy in a piercing attack, breaking it into pieces.

A moment later, the pieces reassembled themselves into her opponent.

Trixie sighed on the inside 'I knew it couldn't be that easy...'

+0+

It wasn't like Tirek would simply let the Knights hold the advantage forever, though. He quickly rallied with a new spell:

"Tsunami

He waved his remaining hand, summoning forth a big mass of water. He did not turn it towards Twilight, despite her being the closest, as the unicorn was the only pony on his east side, while he wanted to get as many of his opponents with the attack as possible, not to mention that he knew Twilight would be unable to use any major magic for the moment after doing such a large scale spell (and trying to attack her while she was vulnerable would only expose his back to attacks from the other Knights).

Instead, he swept the wave towards the west, and while it wasn't that big (only house-sized), it quickly proved to have quite a lot of water compressed into it, as it crashed into the ground and shot off in the direction of the Knights like the world's biggest water cannon. And it was even tall enough to threaten Rainbow Dash, who was currently flying at about two and a half stories from the ground.

And being the one closest to Tirek on the horizontal plane, Dash was the first to face the attack. She flapped both wings and channeled her magic, summoning the biggest tailwind she could on short notice and also reinforcing her body, effectively 'bracing herself' against the coming blow.

And it was a blow. The force of the water felt like a gigantic waterfall, almost breaking both Dash's physical reinforcement and her layer of magical aura, and forcing her back quite a bit in a single second. But thankfully enough, there was more than one pegasus ready to meet Tirek's spell.

"World's Harmony: Wave Current!" Fluttershy declared from her position a bit behind Dash but on the ground.

This time she used a much less forceful spell, meeting the wave like a cliffside and trying to exploit the natural tendency of water to flow along the easiest path to deflect the impact to the sides. Only she had to struggle against the nature of Tirek's magic, which tried to keep the wave focused for maximum damage.

She started being pushed back, but yet another Knight joined the defense.

"Pure Sadness."

Pinkie entered an Emotion Charge state for the first time in the fight. She was a bit north of Fluttershy, so she focused on the northenmost portion of the attack as she manipulated space to deflect part of the water away. That reduced the pressure on the pegasus, but she was still being pushed back.

So Rarity acted.

"Ruler of Water: Reverse Rain!" She declared, channeling magic through her Water Sword.

At that point, Tirek's magic had been weakened enough that the unicorn was able to use her artifact-aided water manipulation to briefly wrestle control of it.

So she redirected all of the spell's force towards the sky. It was truly like a storm going backwards, as that immense amount of water shot upwards at high speeds, instantly breaking the pressure on the other Knights.

Except that in the middle of it all, some of the water didn't go up, but instead turned into a jet that suddenly shot towards her at supersonic speeds. A hidden blow hidden within the powerful spell, aiming at Rarity while she was vulnerable after having just cast her own magic.

But said water jet was intercepted by a long distance hoof strike from Applejack, who was the closest to the unicorn.

"Myriad Blows." She declared dully, then winced a bit as she placed her hoof back on the ground.

Once more, the Knights' careful strategy had won out, as Applejack had been free to defend against any sudden moves from the opponent, having not participated in the defense. The tightrope act continued.

At that point Twilight, as if annoyed at being basically ignored, decided to remind Tirek of her existence.

"Triad Flame." She declared, causing a trio of flames to manifest in a triangle in front of her.

Twilight then tackled Tirek with it, the centaur having to split his attention to create a barrier behind him. But as soon as the attack hit, Tirek realized it had been far too weak to actually hurt him in the first place. It was only intended as a distraction.

But even though he managed to figure it out so quickly, the distraction still worked, as they only needed a moment for their fastest member to do her job. And said job wasn`t actually an immediate direct attack on Tirek, but instead flying upwards to reach the water of his previous spell and take full control of it before the water faded away along with the magic.

Because one thing Sunset had said to Rainbow Dash before was "If our enemy is kind enough to provide us a weapon to attack him with, it would be impolite not to make use of it."

Twilight's attack had distracted Tirek for a crucial moment, preventing him from realizing Dash's aim in time to forcefully end the spell. That immense amount of water was now kept in existence by the pegasus' magic (and preserving the existence of something took a lot less power than creating it yourself), so he would have to spend a lot more effort to make it vanish. Not like the Knight would give him the chance.

"Oceanic Storm: Tornado Drill!" She cast, and the water quickly started spinning in circles and accelerating, carried along by wind powerful enough to be likened to a natural disaster.

It formed a funnel and then started descending back towards the battlefield, the tip of the tornado pointed right at Tirek. It quickly gained speed, propelled by both Rainbow's powers, and gravity itself. The centaur looked at it and decided against trying to simply dodge the magic. He could tell the tornado could shift its trajectory faster and more precisely than one would expect of such a large and heavy thing, and combined with how the other Knights would definitely act to hinder his escape, it didn't seem very likely he'd succeed.

Instead, while keeping an eye on the Knights at ground level, he cast a spell of his own:

"Rising

The ground around Tirek rose up with extreme violence, thousands of tons of earth erupting towards the sky, aimed at the approaching attack. The area affected grew wider by the second, but the speed of their ascent did not lower but rose instead. Twilight was forced to back away further and further, as just the set up for his move had already turned Tirek's close range into a death zone.

And instead of simply shooting forth to meet Rainbow's attack as they were, the clumps of earth started crashing into each other at a point above Tirek, their violent collisions compressing and hardening the material into a hyperdense cone that grew enough to completely hide the centaur from view.

All of that takes some time to describe, but it actually happened in only a little less than five seconds, as Rainbow's attack was too fast for any slow defense to be able to form. And then the tip of the tornado met with the top of the mountain, and it was not like a meteor crashing into the earth, but instead like two spears of imense power crashing against each other head-on in a struggle for dominance.

One second passed, then two, and finally the inevitable resulted, both spells breaking apart at the exact same time, the very structure of the magic unable to endure the effects of such extreme use. The water of the tornado blowing away in all directions, while the mountain crumbled into pieces, exposing Tirek inside it.

Neither of the two seemed willing to just leave it at that, though. Rainbow, though incapable of another big magic working so soon, still managed to forcefully exert control of the impromptu rain and send all the drops towards Tirek at extreme speeds, like a focused bombardment. Tirek, for his part, stomped the ground with both forelegs and caused the pieces of earth to launch towards the sky as if shot by a thousand cannons.

Yet, the result was the same as before, both attacks apparently equal in power, fully cancelling each other out.

That was not a good outcome for Tirek, who still had to be prepared for the follow-up attacks of the other Knights. But before any other moves could happen, the attention of all in the battlefield was drawn to something: A light falling from the sky, seemingly headed right for the centaur.

+0+

The fire phoenix flew quite a ways up before turning its efforts towards attacking Sunset. That was actually part of the spell's standard programming, intended on taking pursuers into such heights the lack of oxygen would cripple their efforts, and even pegasus' struggled to fly on such thin air.

Sunset, however, did not have those problems. She knew spells to provide air for herself, and her flying spell did not depend on wind manipulation. Seeing the enemy stop, she was only glad the chase was finally over. The enemy's opening attack was to fire six energy blasts, each one from a different party of its body, corresponding with the cardinal directions.

The trajectory of each blast was slightly different, meaning they would all hit Sunset at different times, from different directions. If they hit her at all, that is.

Accelerating with a slight dive before ascending, Sunset started to release sparks in all directions, and those sparks managed to force the blasts to explode away from the Knight, vastly weakening the effect of the attack.

Still, simply defending wasn't her style, so as soon as the blasts were done, Sunset generated a ball of incandescent fire above her head, which quickly increased to about half the Knight's own size before shooting at the phoenix.

The enemy focused energy before releasing a piercing arrow of power that drilled into Sunset's attack before exploding, taking out the spell as well. However, that created a brief smokescreen, which had been the actual intent of the Knight with that attack, the spreading magic actually also interfering with magical sensing.

That was because Sunset was more than willing to exploit the weaknesses of such automatic spells, so in that brief time the phoenix couldn't tell what she was doing, the Knight charged her magic and shot an extremely fast laser of white energy that aimed right for the center of the enemy.

That almost ended the fight by itself, but the phoenix managed to react by creating an explosion to its side to forcefully shift position. Even with the speed of the laser, all it managed to do was pierce through one of the wings. But that was plenty.

The sheer power of Sunset's attack reverberated through the very structure of the spell, causing the phoenix to begin quickly losing altitude. The Knight dove after it, intending on finishing the job, but the enemy then unleashed a terrifying barrage of fiery blasts and rays.

Sunset did not care. Hardening her defenses, she dove through the many attacks, forcing her way and refusing to slow down despite the sheer firepower that hit her. A second later, she was through, and with no major injuries.

The distance to the phoenix was now only a matter of seconds. So the automatic spell was finally forced into its last resort. It started to glow, giving off a low hum that was simply the sound of the absolutely massive amount of energy being gathered inside it. Next, the phoenix seemed to vibrate, and the edges of its body began to disappear into dust. It was about to self-destruct.

"Star Saber!" Sunset called with urgency, creating a massive sword of fire and then swinging it.

She was just barely in time, cutting through the core of the magic and forcefully stopping the self-destruct. The energy began to disperse harmlessly as the form of the phoenix fell apart.

And yet, Sunset had a terribly bad feeling.

A moment later, the spell completely collapsed, but something was left behind: A small cube of light that the Knight felt was familiar for some reason.

Then the cube fell so fast Sunset briefly lost track of it. It was moving back towards the battlefield at such great speeds it had to be using some sort of space manipulation to achieve.

The Knight blasted after it, accelerating via every method she could think of, yet she was barely able to avoid losing ground, let alone reach closer to it.

And even as Sunset forced herself to chase the cube, she was hoping her bad feeling wouldn't prove accurate.

+0+

A few moments after spotting the light, the Knights saw the unmistakable form of Sunset pursuing it from quite a ways away. They could also tell that while the light was heading towards Tirek at a very shallow angle, it still moved at very great speeds.

Tirek then started moving towards it at ground level, flashing forward over and over. The light was coming from the north, so he quickly moved away from the Knights to his east and west (and Rainbow, who was above). Applejack seemed to notice something, so she shouted:

"Stop it!" And started moving after the centaur with her own abilities.

The other got the message, and the first to act was unsurprisingly Rainbow Dash. She boosted herself towards him, quickly overtaking Tirek and diving to intercept him with a series of powerful Wind-assisted blows. He waved his hand several times, deflecting the attacks to the sides, before wrapping his hand in fire and thrusting it at the pegasus, resulting in the air all around her catching fire, which formed a cage more solid than any normal fire, Rainbow Dash unable to break through it quickly.

Still, she had delayed him enough for the next Knight to arrive. Fluttershy, who rammed into Tirek's side, forcing him away with sheer strength. He responded with a devastating overhand blow that embedded Fluttershy partially into the ground and dazed her for a moment, which was also some sort of gravity spell, as she was unable to follow when he resumed his path.

Rarity appeared soon after, having used her Speed Step once again to accelerate. She swung her Earth Ruler Sword and the Earth swept up at the centauro, forming manacles and turning the ground beneath his hooves into mud. But even that could not delay him for long, as he managed to free himself with an explosion of power, which he followed up with a backhand strike that Rarity dodged, but was unable to avoid the follow-up whirlwind spell that violently threw her into the sky.

The centaur moved again, using another spell to increase his speed even further, just before Pinkie and Twilight did their own move.

"Chaos Field..." Pinkie declared, releasing a ton of chaotic energy into the area right next to Tirek.

"... Great Prison!" Twilight finished the declaration to trigger their combination spell.

And the chaos turned into a multitude of manifested objects, ropes, chains, quicksand... Everything one could think about it when the idea of "restraint" came into the picture, all of them advancing onto Tirek like an avalanche.

However, his spell had been just too well-timed. Without it, he would have been caught in the middle of the prison, where the sheer mass and diversity of binds would have ensured he wouldn't be able to escape for a few seconds. But instead, he was at the edge of it when it activated, so while many of the restraints managed to grab onto him, it was not enough to prevent the centaur from breaking through with pure power.

Finally, only Applejack was left, and instead of delaying him, she had overtook Tirek, aiming at stopping the cube.

"Myriad Blow- Ghh!" She was unable to complete her magic as the enemy once more accelerated and rammed into her like a runaway train, sending Applejack flying. She had unfortunately allowed her focus to narrow too much due to her concern with that particular piece of magic, and so there was no one who could stop it from activating.

The cube sunk into Tirek's forehead, causing his face to reveal a horrifying grin before he opened his mouth:

"Star

The centaur's form exploded into flames, obscuring him and making the image of his smile even scarier, as the wavering flames distorted the light and made it seem like his mouth was contorting and shifting monstrously. And his eyes seemed like two circles of yellow void, shining with devastating power.

Then the flames vanished, revealing Tirek's altered form. It looked like a parody of Sunset's own version. His body was now rock-like, and colored an incandescent red. His horns had become much sharper, and taken on the appearance of yellow diamond, same with his hooves. His eyes seemed to have been replaced by pure fire, and small flames ceaselessly emanated from one spot or another in his body.

He was still missing his right arm, however.

Tirek's first action after taking said form was to point upwards, resulting in the appearance of a blood red sun over the battlefield.

"Negate!" Sunset, who had finally arrived, immediately unleashed an extreme amount of power to release a powerful light.

Considering her own skill with such magic, the Knight had immeidately realized what Tirek was trying to do. The sun he created was about to battle the battlefield in radiation, and it not any normal type, but a noxious kind that had more in common with a curse. It would quickly decay the auras of the Knights, along with any defensive magic they used. Fluttershy could possibly block it for a time, but she would be hard-pressed to prevent all of it, or to keep her defense for long.

Radiation was an aspect of light magic that had never matched with Sunset's own skills, but she knew enough to be able to forcefully purify the light of Tirek's corrupt sun before it could reach the other Knights.

"Khh..." The effort was a lot, even for her current power, but this first blow of Tirek's powered up form was successfully stopped.

Seemingly amused, Tirek then waved his arm, resulting in a tsunami of lava manifesting and rushing at most of the Knights. Sunset was still in the air, Applejack had been blown away to the opposite direction from where Tirek was firing, and Rarity was still quite a ways in the air, but all the others were in danger.

Twilight was the one to rush forward to meet it.

"Retribution of Flames: Magma Breaker!" She put both forehooves together in front, ready to block.

The tsunami of lava hit Twilight's defenses with all the power that name implied. She pulled forth all the power she could, took advantage of all the fire magic used on the battlefield to power up her ability, and she used the control of flames said ability afforded to target directly the weak points in the attack with magic deployed specifically to break it.

Even with all of that, were it not for the fact Tirek did not have perfect control of the powers of his copied form, Twilight would have been unable to succeed. As it was, her magic managed to slow down the attack even as she was forced backwards by the sheer mass of what she was trying to affect, though her current fire-aligned nature prevented her from suffering injuries due to the heat.

The effort pushed the unicorn to the limit, and it lasted for a little over two seconds before the magic she sent inside the tsunami to reach the core and break the spell. Twilight was left almost unable to stand, and due to the way the retribution magic worked, she wouldn't be able to use it to affect fire magic for a while.

It wasn't like the Knights would be content with just defending, however.

"Pure Hope!" Pinkie shouted, her blue avatar forming around her as she jumped towards the centaur.

She unleashed a punch using all the power her hope construct could muster, targetting Tirek head on, said construct also protecting her from the sheer heat he was emitting. But just before she could reach him, he stomped the ground, causing the whole area to explode in a violent eruption that hit both of them with a powerful shockwave, a destructive heat and a huge amount of high velocity rock shards, in that order.

But Tirek was prepared, and also adjusted the magic so he could avoid the worst of it, not to mention his current form giving him resistance. Pinkie, on the other hand, was unable to complete her attack, as she was sent flying, numberless shards spreading around her construct, it only barely managing not to break.

And then Rarity descended from the heavens, having used her wind sword to force herself down faster.

"Ruler of Water: Meteoric Waterfall Strike!" She once more used the power of Burst Drive to make the most powerful attack she could.

Instantly, all the air in the surrounding area, up to several miles away, dried up completely as Rarity's colossal spell pulled the water onto her Water Ruler Sword, and more water continued to accumulate as she fed her own power to it in order to manifest enough water to equal the mass of an actual meteor. All of the water together made the sword look more like a spire.

It was so incredibly heavy Rarity would be utterly unable to lift it, but she didn't need to do so. She was already falling at terminal velocity along with all the water, so all the unicorn had to do was swing it down at the final moment, aided by the power of gravity.

Such a devastating attack was not something Tirek could casually block, even with his current power, as proven by the action he took in response: He grabbed his left horn with his hand and broke it off before thrusting his hand in Rarity's direction while still holding the horn.

The waterfall fell and contacted with Tirek's horn slightly before hitting his hand. The horn exploded into dust, releasing such a tremendous amount of magic power it very briefly formed a micro-blackhole.

The result was like Tirek had countered Rarity's strike by swinging a mountain at it, two colossal forces striking one another. They made contact and pushed against each other, struggling to break through.

But that was something no one in the battlefield was ever aware of, as said state of affairs only lasted for an instant that was too brief for them to be able to detect, a moment hidden in time. And that moment ended when the two forces became unable to maintain their integrity due to the absurd recoil they both experienced, breaking apart with the release of a massive shockwave and drops of water flying in every direction at near the speed of sound.

Tirek was shoved backwards a long distance, thankfully not in Pinkie's direction, the glow of his power seeming to have diminished somewhat. While Rarity... Did not break most of the bones in her body.

She would have, but...

"Sanctuary!" Fluttershy had called out a spell of her own, just before the collision happened.

A magical field originating from her spread over the entire battlefield, and when Rarity was about to get hurt, all of the energy affecting her was negated, or rather, it was redirected at the one who cast the spell, only Fluttershy had all of her defenses in place, so she could bear it. She could even bear as the shockwave and water drops hit not only Rarity herself but also Twilight, who had no power to spare to resist attacks at the moment.

That was a spell Fluttershy had always wanted to develop, but it was only when pushed to the very limit in the battle against Tirek that she actually managed to cast it.

And the centaur still wasn't in the clear even after having stopped such a powerful attack.

"Rally Essence... Gathering Light!" Tirek's red sun had vanished when he took the hit, so Sunset was able to act again.

She seemed to have taken Rarity's previous spell as inspiration, for her magic drained all of the light in the area, shrouding the battlefield in darkness except for the pyramid of light she made. However, this was different due to the fact that it was actually a set up move. As soon as the pyramid was formed, it released a beam of light that quickly spent everything the construct was, and the target of that beam was actually... Rainbow Dash.

The pegasus drank the light, in all of its incredible power, without showing any outward signs of it. Dash's ability in the manipulation of different types of energy had been proven time and time again, and so this combination attack between master and apprentice had been born. Because in the end the nature of a rainbow was light.

The Knight flapped her wings once and a circle of light manifested itself in front of her, she flapped them again and the circle grew, and then she flapped for the third time.

"Prismatic... Barrage!" Dash shouted, and then the circle erupted with countless beams of rainbow light, all of them targetting Tirek.

Upon facing that attack, the centaur was once more forced into desperate measures. He forced his hand into his own chest and began manually pumping his own heart.

His flagging energy seemed to be revived, the fire of his form burning brighter than ever. What he had just done was called "The Forbidden Art of Spirit Burst", but the only one in the world who would know that was Tirek himself. He then pulled out his hand and held it in front.

"Lotus

Two rings made of silver geometrical shapes arranged in formation manifested themselves in front of Tirek, they had different sizes, the smaller one being slightly in front while the larger one was closer to the centaur.

The barrage of rainbow light arrived, and even though the ring formation seemed loose and full of holes, every attack seemed drawn to them by some mysterious effect, as if every trajectory that would bypass them had been denied. The multiple blasts sunk into the silver shapes and started circling around within the ring shapes.

However, as more and more of them were sucked into the formation, the silver shapes started to show obvious signs of strain, vibrating in place and being pushed slowly backwards, Tirek himself also struggling to hold the spell.

Yet, it ended up being enough. The combination attack of the Knights ran its course before Tirek's defense broke. It was a close thing, though, as proven by the fact that the centaur did not even grin as he spoke:

"Return."

The defense rings broke and the rainbow blasts were shot back at the two Knights with incredible violence. They fortified their defenses as much as they could, they used their understanding of that type of magic to weaken the effects of the attack and they had Fluttershy's Sanctuary as a final defense.

However, Tirek's magic seemed to have powered up the magic in addition to merely reflecting it, as Sunset and Rainbow Dash were still overwhelmed, forced back into the ground and with their auras reduced to almost nothing.

Then Applejack Stepped close to Tirek and hit him with a powerful blow.

He waved his arm to cast a spell, but midway through the motion Applejack hit him again, in a very specific spot in his body that caused the flow of his magical power to stop for just long enough to prevent the spell from being cast. That was just the beginning, as the earth pony quickly stepped all around the centaur, attacking him such he was unable to use any kind of magic to stop her.

Tirek's use of a mimicked power had caused disturbances to his flow of magic that Applejack could see, and his use of Spirit Burst had magnified those disturbances to the point they became flaws she could See and exploit. Finally, due to having exhausted his power with that defense Tirek could not simply break out of her barrage with pure strength.

Though it wasn't like Applejack had it all her own way. She needed to use every bit of her concentration to perform her precise blows, so she didn't have the leeway to protect herself from the heat of Tirek's current form in more than the most basic way, so her hooves were getting more and more burnt with every blow.

But she had to keep going. It was the only option.

Her blows kept raining down, but she didn't plan on simply hitting him into defeat. That wouldn't be possible as he would soon regain enough energy to force his way out of the lock. Applejack had limited time, so she pushed both her Eyes and her body as much as she could, her blows slowly building up to something greater.

And then Tirek's aura weakened in just the right way and Applejack stopped for a single moment, rearing back for a final blow.

"Truth-Upholding Blow: Imagine Breaker!" She unleashed every scrap of power she could muster for her strike.

The hit fell upon Tirek, pushing him back a little... And shattering his copied Star Drive, sending him back to base form and exposing the many injuries that had been inflicted upon him during those last rounds of intense fighting.

Applejack, utterly spent from that last blow, was barely able to remain standing, and neither was she able to move away when Tirek's hand reached forward to grab her.

"Magic Drain." He spoke in a low voice. And Applejack's power began to be taken away.

The other Knights could not help. All of them were still trying to recover from their heroic efforts in managing to endure Tirek's attacks after he changed form and even counterattack enough to allow the earth pony to break him out of said form. Even Fluttershy had gotten pushed to her limit in keeping everyone in one piece using her Sanctuary.

But Applejack had been forced to do it. It was the only way.

She had Seen it. The Knights had been pushed close to the breaking point, and if Tirek had been allowed to maintain his increased power for any longer, at least three of them would have been taken out of commission in short order. That could not be allowed to happen, and Applejack failed to See a way to both break Tirek's mimicked form and avoid getting drained in the process.

And at the last moment before she lost consciousness, Applejack Saw something else. Something that terrified her.

Hidden deep within the centaur's body was a pre-prepared spell, one which would trigger on its own under certain conditions. Seeing that, Applejack wished for nothing more than being able to warn her fellow Knights of it, but she was unable to do that. All she could do was hope that they could handle it.

And somehow, things had not ceased getting worse, as the first thing Tirek did after draining Applejack was to call out a new spell.

"Eternity

For a moment afterwards, Tirek's form seemed to flicker, and then he disappeared completely, such that none of the Knights were able to keep track of him. But it soon became clear that he had actually moved too fast for their perceptions to catch, as his form reappeared right beside Sunset Shimmer.

"Magic Drain." He reached for her with that same insane speed, and thus Knight Sunset Shimmer, the Heart of Power, was taken out of commision without being able to do anything to prevent it.

At that moment, Tirek's spell seemed to fade away, him returning to ordinary speed, but the damage had already been done.

The Knights grit their teeth and kept their calm despite the terrible situation. They could not afford to lose their cool, for the bitter second phase of the battle was about to start.