***Monday, Day 30, around 2 hours past midnight***
Thirty.
No less than thirty blue balls of fire levitate above and around the mountain of metal that is Lieutenant Torchlight. While the rest of the room is lit by normal means, the area around our foe is tinted a flickering blue, illuminating the surprise in his eyes at our defiance.
His voice betrays both his shock and amusement as Atom works his way to his hooves behind us, “You’re kidding.”
He simply stares at all of us as we prepare. Blue adjusts the wing guards he had pilfered from the warehouse fight and stretches his wings. Atom redeploys his wind blade and shakes off the fuzziness from his recent beat down. Hydro cracks his neck and huffs. I gather my magic to aid Hydro while keeping an eye on Torchlight. Finally, I feel Volt gather his magic for something, though I’m not sure what.
Suddenly, as if somepony blew a whistle, the three non-unicorns charge into battle. Blue and Atom take wing almost immediately as I support Hydro by increasing his speed with Res to essentially make him an angry battering ram. Torchlight sends clouds of fireballs at each of the three immediate threats to him, the clouds making Blue and Atom veer off their intended collision courses. Hydro however, simply grits his teeth and pushes himself faster as he dodges underneath the balls, their explosions framing his form as he hits the metal-clad pony with the kind of thump a train would be proud of.
The impact forces the officer back only a few hooflengths as he focuses again on his fireballs, which had reignited in the air, and begins pounding them into the back of the red earth pony. My eyes fill with worry for my friend, even with Iroh’s enchantment shielding us from most of the damage, I still smell burnt hair from what was still getting through. Through the muffled sounds of the fireballs hitting my friend, a sharp clang is heard as a familiar blue blur cruises next to our foe, landing a solid blow on the back of his armored head with one of the wing guards, a few of the incendiary projectiles hitting their master as they attempt to follow the pegasus. A surge of magic from my right attracts my attention for a moment as Volt releases the energy he built up into a lightning bolt he shoots at our foe, only to have it come closer to hitting Blue, who had to turn sharply to avoid it.
Blue glares at Volt, shaking a hoof as he continues to dodge fire, “Watch it!”
The jarring voice of Hydro makes me focus again, as my mind had become spread out as I tried to keep an eye on everything, “Rhino, brace!”
I make the switch from lessening friction to help his speed, to increasing it to improve his footing as I see Hydro and Torchlight now locked hoof in hoof, each trying to overpower the other. It seems to be even for a moment before the lieutenant begins to gain the upper hoof and force Hydro to the ground with narrowed eyes and widening grin.
“Hey!”
Torchlight’s head flicks towards the source of the shout, a certain black pegasus flying full speed towards him, blade outstretched. Locked into combat with the earth pony, the enemy unicorn has no room to dodge as Atom scores a direct hit on one of his side plates, gauging a deep hole across it and making Torchlight howl with pain. In the moment after he howls, the armored pony draws back a hoof, and forces it straight into the jaw of Hydro, tossing the earth pony back half way across the room and onto his side.
As I rush to my friend, the others fall back for a quick breath as torchlight reignites his spent fireballs.
Wait.
Twenty seven.
Torchlight isn’t winded like we are, and yet my count shows that some of his fireballs didn’t come back. My eyes widen as I realize what Iroh meant when he said Torchlight had removed his weaknesses with the armor.
I turn to the others, “Guys! The armor doesn’t just make him stronger; it makes his magic stronger too! It’s got to be enchanted on the inside. The more of it you remove, the weaker he gets!”
Volt begins powering up his magic again, “Well, let’s try this then!”
An aura matching the one around Volt’s horn surrounds Torchlight’s boots as he immediately starts trying to lift them, but fails.
Volt smiles at his success, “Magnetize.”
The others take the opportunity of our immobile enemy to charge once again, this time with purpose. Seeing the others coming towards him, the foe starts working his way out of the field of magic immobilizing him. With his spell failing to contain Torchlight for long, Volt’s horn glows again and the field barrows down to only encompass a single boot which is now stuck fast. Our friends almost upon him, the armored pony avoids the charge for a moment by jumping out of the way, leaving his boot stuck to the floor.
Twenty four.
Volt cancels his magic and Hydro kicks the boot off to the side of the room while Blue and Atom double team Torchlight. The enemy seems focused on avoiding the sword-wielding pony more than anything else, and as such leaves himself open to multiple hoofs to the snout from our hoof-to-hoof pegasus. As I continue assisting Hydro with his speed to both dodge fireballs and make the occasional charge at our foe, I feel Volt charging up another shot next to me. A moment later, another lightning bolt shoots out, but its aim proves to be just as volatile as the first as it sail less than a few inches from Hydro’s face.
Both Hydro and Torchlight shout out in anger, “Alright, that is it!”
As Hydro heads towards Volt, Torchlight takes all of his two dozen remaining fireballs and aims them at each of us, myself included. As the blue flames start to fill my vision, I quickly Blink myself off to the side in order to avoid them. A second later I find myself on my side as a few had lagged behind the others and thus had enough time to turn, lock onto my new position, and give me a few new singe marks on my fur.
I need to get my reflexes up, I get blindsided far too often… perhaps…. Wait no, ponder and theorize new technique later, fight for my life now.
I get myself up to see Hydro standing up on his hindlegs with Volt tucked under the crook of one of his forelegs. Hydro aims Volt’s horn at the armored pony regenerating his fireballs while Blue and Atom stir against the now scorched walls with a small amount of smoke coming from them. Hydro lines up Volt with Torchlight before suddenly punching the electric unicorn in the gut, causing the pony in question to yelp and fire a bolt of electricity. The force fired bolt hits true on one of our foe’s shoulder guards. The enemy unicorn flinches from the shock and impact as the piece of armor sparks electricity and falls off.
Twenty one.
Volt looks up at his wielder, disgruntled, “What the hay! You just dropped me down to half magic!”
Hydro is already lining up another shot as he responds, “So how many shots left?”
Volt looks worried as he responds, “Like, four before I go comatose.”
“So four then.”
Hydro quickly unloads three more shots into our foe, taking out the armor on both his hindlegs and getting a shot on his chest plate, but the chest plate proves to be sturdier than the other pieces as only the leg armor falls off.
Fifteen.
“Insignificant whelps!” Torchlight screams as he bucks a piece of armor into the face of Atom, who was once again attempting to slash the now only half armored pony, and another piece into Hydro’s face. Both armor segments meet their marks with resounding clangs and groans of pain. Blue meanwhile, recovered enough from his light toasting to find himself next to the discarded boot from earlier. A thoughtful look crosses the blue pony’s face before he takes the boot and puts it on one of his forehooves charges towards torchlight and pulls it back for a punch.
I hear a loud intake of wind from Blue’s direction before an absolutely massive burst of wind shoots out of the boot, propelling its wearer into the wall behind him, its target into the opposing wall with a crunch, and everypony else in the room onto their respective rumps from the sheer force of the blast. Hydro, Volt, and I end up in a pile, due to me having tried to ensure they were okay after Volt’s drastic magic depletion and Hydro’s metal to the face. As I extract myself from the pile to see two new craters in the surprisingly thick walls, I see Torchlight already making his way out of his own crater, his armor on his back crushed and sliding off. I mutter to Volt to distract the pyromaniac so I can tend to Blue.
Twelve.
As I rush over to help our friend out of his crater, I hear Volt taunting Torchlight to keep him busy, “Hey Matchstick!” I look and see Volt levitating multiple books, “Think fast!” The books fly straight towards Torchlights face before bursting into ashes as he intercepts them with some of his remaining fireballs. As the pyro pony makes his way towards our lightning one, Volt draws one of his conductor rods from his saddle bag and levitates it in between himself and the incoming foe. Volt smiles as he takes a few practice swings, “Finally, a range I can’t fail at!” As Volt’s horn brightens to charge the rod with electricity, a fizzle suddenly comes from the rod… just before it explodes as it overloads. Volt stares at the broken rod in his magical grip, “Well, buck.”
I turn back and help Blue to his hooves before hearing a sickening thud and turning to see Torchlight pinning Volt up against a wall with his remaining armored leg in his throat.
“I’m going to do the world a favor and pop that annoying little head right off your body!”
Volt coughs, “Well, y-”
The pyro pony punches the electric one before he can complete whatever he is about to say. As Torchlight pushes into Volt’s throat the rest of us try to reach them, but our foe’s focus seems to have skyrocketed as he is able to fend us off with his reaming fireballs so we cannot approach them.
As Volt’s gurgles get weaker, Torchlight asks, “Any last words?”
Volt smirks weakly, “System… shock.”
The electric unicorn’s eyes roll back in his head as his horn and body glow for a moment before arcs of electricity appear all over him and travel quickly down the metal of the hoof crushing his windpipe. The resulting sizzling sound is quickly drowned out by the screams of the unicorn of the pair that was not used to high intensity electricity. The armor on the leg pinning Volt let’s off a small explosion as it blasts itself off its user, leaving the fire unicorn in the center of the room breathing heavily with only a chest plate and helmet left of his armor.
Nine.
The electric unicorn lies with his eyes closed, still on the ground where he slid down after his assailant was thrown off him. Torchlight approaches the helpless unicorn, muttering, “Still breathing? Let’s fix that.”
As the Lieutenant raises his hoof to crush my friend, I realize that I have been too held back in this fight, and decide that I would not stand on the sidelines while my friends got hurt any longer. I quickly Blink in between the two other unicorns and unleash a massive portion of my magical energy at once, all of it directed into a telekinetic force aimed in an uppercut directly to Torchlight’s cracked chest plate. The massive force launches the pyro into the air in a slow flip as the other began their assaults. Blue, having recovered enough from his crash, flies upwards towards the ceiling, spinning like a corkscrew, and flips over to slam into the flying unicorn and launch him straight back down. Before he impacts the ground, Torchlight chest is met by the force of Hydro’s strongest buck as he now gets launched across the room. Finally, Atom stands waiting with his sword at the ready as Torchlight flies towards him, stunned. The fallen knight readies his weapon, pulling back for one last strike. As his foe comes within range, Atom performs a single powerful downward slash on the now fully cracked chest plate. Torchlight’s armor shatters as his body flies over Atom and into the closed door we originally entered in.
Three.
The rest of us walk over, myself with Volt unconscious on my back, and stand at Atom’s side as we look at the beaten and broken stallion that caused so much trouble. Torchlight struggles to rise, muttering to himself and getting progressively louder as he rants, “I cannot be defeated… the Forgemaster said this armor would make me able to defeat anypony… it was all going so well… you were supposed to die! All the others who we replaced before you were simply done away with one way or another, but you… you had to come here… you had to ruin all of my work! Heheh, at least I still have my helmet… I can still kill you all and go through with my plan… and those stupid princesses will never know…”
“Oh won’t we?” growls a particular Princess of the Night who had slowly opened the door behind Torchlight after he had thumped into it. She lowers her horn and shoots a dark blue beam at the helmet on the unicorn’s head, shattering it.
Zero.
With the final piece of his armor gone, the now obviously small stallion begins muttering crazily to himself as he backs away from everypony in the room, “No, no… this is all a dream, there’s no way a group of pathetic stallions and a weak excuse for a princess could ever defeat me… not after all I went through… heheh, I wake up any minute now… send somepony else after Vortex, will have to kill all those in the dungeon too…”
All of us look at the unicorn in disgust as Atom turns to Luna with a small amount of anger in his voice, “Princess, can I please beat him some more?”
The princess shakes her head, “Nay, it would be most unlawful of us to allow you to fight under our watch.” Suddenly the princess jerks her head up and walks over to a book that remained in one piece but had fallen off one of the shelves, “Oh, we have not read this tome. We are afraid we might be distracted for a few moments and will be unable to react to anything that might be happening while our back is turned.”
Atom grins evilly at Torchlight, who gulps.