//------------------------------// // Shining Armor has Equestria's strongest protections.... // Story: Apple Scratch : Onward to the Equestria Games! // by Mariacheat-Brony //------------------------------// The rest of the competition wasn't really hard for Vinyl. Blasting Graphite's protective gear which was supposed to be extremely resilient to magic onslaught to pieces had scared quite a few of her potential opponents. Despite the fact that many of them had seen her weak spot, namely her back, her opponents didn't seem pretty eager to aim at that part of her body. All of them were thinking that hitting her on that particular spot was the trigger for her to unleash her magical spheres. Vinyl had made it to the final of the tournament. She was happy to have come this far, although she was a bit bitter about her semifinal match. Her opponent, a very talented fillydelphian magic user who had a powerful spell that could manipulate rocks and the ground at will, had pathetically given up in a whimper as soon as Vinyl decided to step up her game and summoned her applebucking sphere. At the moment, Vinyl was observing the other semifinal with a great attention. She was certain about one thing, whatever the outcome of this match, the final would be incredibly interesting. Shining Armor being who he was, that is the Captain of the Royal Guard, would be a formidable opponent and this Trixie character would be interesting to duel with as well. The only problem was that the winner was pretty evident for the moment. The match turned out completely one sided when Shining Armor conjured his purple shield spell around him, thus blocking all the spells Trixie casted at him. Despite her spells being ineffective against Shining's protection, Trixie's will to fight didn't falter and kept on trying to pierce the magical shield. While it was very admirable, Trixie's pool of magic power wasn't infinite and, unlike Shining's, it was running low. "The Great and Powerful Trixie demands you to break!" Trixie shouted at the shield more than anything or anyone else, conjuring a volley of pink magic doves from her sorcerer hat. The flock of pink translucent birds flew at full speed toward Shining Armor, only to crash against his protective barrier with small detonations and pink explosions. Much to Trixie's frustration, the explosions left the barrier undamaged. Shining had crossed his arms and was watching his opponent with a great calm. "Listen, you should just stop." Shining said softly. "It's over." "Trixie is the one that says when it's over!" Trixie snapped before casting pink lightning bolts at him. Again, the shield blocked all the spell without any difficulties. "CK, is there a way to pass around that shield?" Vinyl asked slowly as Trixie tried a different spell to break Shining's shield. "Not that I know about." Cloud Kicker answered shaking her head. "It's not for nothing he's the Captain. Rumors has it that the Princesses have to get a bit serious to break his strongest barrier." "You mean that's not the only one?" Vinyl asked, pointing at the purple shield around Shining. "That's the simplest he can conjure." Cloud Kicker said slowly. "Damn!" Vinyl muttered. "That's going to be tough." "Ya think yer gonna be ok?" Applejack asked with concern. "Don't know." Vinyl let out with a sigh. "If I can put him out of commission before he casts his shield up, maybe I have a chance." "He has seen what you can do with your magic, Vi." Cloud Kicker stated slowly. "I'm not only talking about the previous matches, there's also the Chrysalis Incident in Canterlot." Cloud Kicker explained. "He won't do the same mistake as she did by underestimating you." "Hmmm." Vinyl pondered while scratching her chin with her right hand. "I might have an idea...." "That lasted more than enough." Shining Armor said before casting a purple beam at Trixie. Trixie created a small puff of smoke in which she disappeared. The beam passed through it before impacting her with a feminine groan of pain. When the smoke died down, Trixie was lying on the ground, curled up in a fetal position. Shining dispelled his barrier before walking to her in order to check on her. "Finally! Trixie was wondering when you'd come out of that shield!" The voice of Trixie said triumphantly from his left. He only got the time to turn his face around before a flock of pinkish doves impacted him head-on. While a hit from one of the conjured volatiles didn't do any serious damage, having to put with an assault of a flock of fifteen birds was quite taxing. Shining Armor grunted in pain before eyeing at his left. He blinked in confusion when he saw an other Trixie standing a few meters away from him, smiling cockily. Shining looked again at the wounded Trixie, only to see that she had disappeared. "An illusion...." He let out in realization. "Indeed!" Trixie nodded. "The Great and Powerful Trixie's the greatest illusionist that has ever lived. People come to Neigh Orleans from all Equestria to watch her shows." She noticed Shining frowning at her bragging. "You have no idea about when the illusion replaced Trixie, have you?" "...I won't make the same mistake." Shining said, casting his barrier again. "You won't be able to win if you don't get another hit at me." "Trixie admits it's true." Trixie said slowly, not without a frustrated groan as she saw the purple shield again. "But, the same goes for you." She said with a cocky grin, before she disappeared in a huge flash of pink light. When the light stopped blinding him, Shining gasped when he saw five Trixies standing in a line in front of him. "If you want to win against The Great and Powerful Trixie, you're going to have to find her first!" The five Trixies shouted in unison. Shining Armor blinked before grinning slowly. "Clever girl...." He whispered to himself. "AJ!" Vinyl said slowly. "What is it, Sis?" "The next time you go to Neigh Orleans for your bottle of wines, do you mind taking AppleBloom to see one of Trixie's shows?" Vinyl asked slowly. "Something tells me she'd like it." "Ah reckon Ah can do that." Applejack nodded. "Ah actually think Ah'm gonna like the show as well." "Maybe, we could all go." Vinyl suggested. "Like a family trip or something." "Shouldn't you be focussing on the match instead of planning your next family trip, Vinyl?" Turner asked playfully, yet with a hint of reproach. "Why Doctor, I'm a woman. I'm supposed to be able to do two things at the same time." Vinyl chuckled. "That there is just the best way to badly do both things." Applejack interjected. "You're just saying that because you're just a man trapped in a woman's body." Cloud Kicker joked, causing the her teammates and coaches to start laughing softly. "Hey!" Applejack said with a growing blush. "Ah wont accept that comment from ya!" "Why's that, AJ?" Cloud Kicker asked with interest. "Because, out all of us, yer the one who thinks more with yar little head than with yar brain." Applejack said with smirk. "Ain't that just like men?" Everyone started laughing at Applejack's comment, Cloud Kicker being the loudest. "Good one, AJ!" Cloud Kicker said, trying to hold back her tears as she kept laughing before bumping fist with Applejack. "Ah, looks like Shining found a way around Trixie's illusions." Vinyl commented. The real Trixie got hit by a purple beam of magic. It wasn't the first time since she casted her illusions as Shining got lucky shots at her when he tried to figure out the real one out of the fakes by attacking all of them at once. Her magic clones could take a hit just like her and voicing their hurt the same as she did. But, she couldn't help but notice that the offensive spell casted by Shining Armor were slowly beginning to aim at her repeatedly, ignoring her clones despite some of them being in a more easy shot than her. Shining, still covered by his shield, extended his two hands forward casting six bolts of purple magic that homed in straight at the real Trixie, much to the concerned party's surprise. She tried to protect herself by covering her head with her arms. The bolts knocked her on the ground as a loud pained grunt escaped her lips. Her illusions of herself vanished into thin air when the illusionist hit the ground. "How did you...." Trixie slowly looked up at her opponent with a wince of pain as she tried to sit up, one of the bolts had hit her ribs with force. Shining Armor broke the shield spell and when he did, Trixie knew how he had found her between her clones. Without the purple aura of the shield around him, she could see the blue eyes were glowing in a deep purple hue. "Tsss, the magic sight spell." Trixie groaned. "Sorry, that's basic formation for any Titanian in the Guard." Shining explained softly. "Trixie supposes there's no other way helping it." Trixie sighed in defeat. "Trix..... I admit my defeat." She added softly, realizing it was one of those times where she had to be humble. "It was good match." Shining said slowly, helping Trixie to get up. "Good luck with the small final." "Thank you." Trixie said quietly before slowly making her way toward her team's nurse. "That's my Shining!" Cadence nearly shouted with pride. "Yep, that's him." Twilight nodded softly. "I think Vinyl's going to be stuck at the second place of the podium." She pondered before quickly facing Octavia. "No offense, Octavia!" She added defensively. "None taken, Twilight." Octavia shrugged. "You're favoring your brother, that's quite understandable." Twilight sighed in relief. "But, MY Vinyl's going to, pardon me for the crude language I'm about to display your Highnesses, kick your brother's sorry butt into the second place where he belongs while she'll enjoy her spot on the highest step of the podium." She playfully warned earning a raise of eyebrows from Twilight and Cadence while Celestia and Luna chuckled happily at Octavia's comment. "You seem awfully confident about Ms Apple's victory, my dear Octavia." Celestia said with a smile. "What makes you think that?" She asked with curiosity. "I've seen her against those timberwolves and Chrysalis' soldiers." Octavia explained. "She can hold her ground against Shining, I'm sure about it." She added with conviction. "Sorry to break your daydreams, but that's not gonna happen." Cadence said. "No magic, apart from a spell from the High Princesses, can break Shining's shield." Cadence stated fervently. "No magic was supposed to break the competitors' protective gear as well." Luna interjected slowly. "Yet, Ms Apple's spell completely ripped apart Mr Coal's protections. I think it's better to just watch the match and see what happens." "A very wise choice, Luna." Celestia nodded. "Are our two finalists ready?" Pinkie Pie said happily from her flying contraption she had finally named the "Pink Zep". An odd choice of name considering that the ballon that kept it in the air was dark purple. "They look ready to me. Don't you agree?" She asked to the crowd while Shining and Vinyl were both rolling their shoulders, wrists or neck as a preparation rite, a dozen meters away from each other. "Ready, Ms Apple?" Shining Armor asked. "Readier then ever, Mr Armor....or is it Sparkle? I never really got it right." She said sheepishly. "Don't worry about it." Shining said sympathetically. "My first surname was Sparkle, but it's a tradition in our family to take the name Armor when one decide to join the guard." He explained calmly. "Just a silly family tradition." "Well, you can be glad about it." Vinyl started with a small chuckle. "Because otherwise you'd be Shining Sparkle, Captain of the Royal Guard. It doesn't really have the same panache as your actual name." "Haha! You're right." Shining snorted a small laugh before focusing magic in his hands and turning a bit more serious. "Anyway, let's do this." "Agreed!" Vinyl nodded, her hands shining in her magic blue aura. "Oh, wait! Have this, first." She added before levitating something he grabbed with one hand when it was close enough. "Earplugs?" He asked softly. "Just to be sure." Vinyl nodded. "I'd rather not have to face Twilight or your wife in case you got deafened by my spells." "Well, thanks!" He put the earplugs in his pocket. "I'll let you draw your spell first because of that." "Your gallantry will be your fall, Shining." Vinyl said with a smirk. "Begin!" Pinkie shouted happily. "Let's see who....WAAAAHAAAA." Pinkie let out as she was startled by the sounds of the fight. An incredibly loud and powerful explosion of blue light occurred where Shining stood at the second Pinkie gave the signal to start. Shining managed to put his shield up a hundredth of second before taking the explosion head on. Vinyl conjured two spheres of her magic before casting them both simultaneously at Shining Armor. The flickering of the strings composing the spheres was so intense it looked like they were made of bright white magic instead of electric blue. A millimeter before impacting the shield, Vinyl made the spheres explode. "MAYDAY! MAYDAY! Pink Zep calling Control Tower." Pinkie shouted in panic as her contraption was shaken by the explosions caused by Vinyl. "I'm flying through a zone of incredibly nasty turbulences. Request authorization for emergency landing. I repeat. Request authorization for emergency landing. Come in, Control Tower! Over!" 'Boy, I never should have left her the first draw.' Shining thought with a wince as he was maintaining his barrier up with more effort than he ever had to in the previous matches. 'She's right, my gallantry will be my doom!'. He spotted Vinyl grinning at him with four flickering spheres around her this time. 'You've got to be kidding me....' He thought with wide eyes as the four spells from the Ponyvillian flew toward him at top speed. "Oh, my..." Fluttershy let out before squealing in fear at the sound of the double explosion. "Vinyl seems decided to go all out." Rarity commented as the gush of wind from the explosion flew past her. "Urrgh! It's going to ruin my hair, tough." She commented sourly, noticing the wind's effect on her coiffure. "How can she do that?" Twilight asked in a soft and low voice that wouldn't have been out of place coming from Fluttershy, her eyes glowing in a light purple hue. "I've watched this spell, there's no way explosions that violent can be created with so little magic power in use." "I thought that someone as intelligent as you would have understood it by now, my dear Twilight." Celestia said softly. "Hold on, there's another one coming." The Sun Princess commented casually as four loud explosions occurred simultaneously. "Oww! That hurts!" Cadence winced after the explosions stopped, uncovering her ears. "Anyway, that's still not enough to break Shining's ...." CRACK "You were saying, Cadence?" Octavia commented with a triumphant grin while Twilight and Cadence's jaws dropped, attempting to touch the floor. The quadruple explosion had managed to shatter Shining's barrier much to everyone's surprise, including Vinyl's. But the Apple recovered from her surprise quickly, quicker than Shining did. "Aww yeah!" Vinyl shouted before casting two beams of blue magic at Shining Armor. "Drat!" Shining mutterred, focusing his magic in his hands as the beams came dangerously close to him. "You won't be able to dodge this." "Who said anything about dodging?" Shining answered with a cocky grin. "What?" Vinyl asked in confusion. The beams' course got stopped as Shining hands intercepted them. His hands weren't glowing in a typical spell casting aura. It was the same color, deep purple, but it looked way more consistent than usual. When the light from her beams died down with them, Vinyl saw why. Shining had conjured another protection spell. He was now standing tall, in clad with a ghostly purple full body plate armor with a sort of romane helmet. Vinyl decided to take her shades off, the purple lenses being not the most practical choice for seeing the magical armored knight in front of her. "Tsss, you really are a knight in shining armor!" She muttered in a mix of laugh and anger. "Guilty." Shining let out a small chuckle. "That won't stop me!" Vinyl conjured once again four of her applebucking spells and casted them at her opponent. Shining simply crossed his arms when the sphere came close to him. He took the explosions head on before disappearing in blue flashes of light. Vinyl gasped when he came back into view. He hadn't moved an inch and his magic armor was perfectly intact. "If you must know, that armor spell is way more resilient than the shield you've seen before." Shining explained when he noticed her with her mouth wide open. "Figured that much already." Vinyl muttered. "I guess that now it's my turn to attack." Shining said before casting five bolts of magic from his fingertips. Vinyl reacted by assembling a net with her magic tendrils, said net flickered intensely and caused a loud buzzing sound when Shining's purple missiles got caught in it. The aforementioned missiles shattered after a couple of seconds of contact with the Vinyl's net. With one push of her hand, the net flew and captured Shining Armor before he could move from his spot. Vinyl tightened her grip causing the net to tighten his hold on Shining Armor, thus restricting all his movements. "Let's fire the grill, I got a big catch." Vinyl chuckled playfully. "What? I can't hear you!" Shining shouted, not hearing Vinyl's voice as it was covered by the loud buzzing provoked by the contact of the net with his magic armor. 'Damn! I got to get the hell out of this net. I'm making a fool of myself!' He thought angrily, as he poured more magic in his armor, hoping to make it grow larger and thus breaking the net. 'I can't even hear me thinking with that sound. What the...' His eyes widened. His armor's expansion was happening but not fast enough to counter the actions of the net. As the buzzing grew louder and in a higher tone, the net was ravaging his way through his armor, leaving cracks wherever the armor was in contact with the net's tendrils. He had to get out. In a blink of an eye, he cancelled his armor spell, causing the net to go suddenly loose before teleporting himself out of it. He reappeared crouched in front of Vinyl, he conjured back the gauntlets of his armor before punching her in the stomach with two fists. Shining's armor spell didn't only protect him, it also strengthened his hand-to-hand combat skills by making his strikes way more heavy than what they were supposed to. Vinyl was sent rolling on the ground with a pained grunt. Vinyl coughed loudly a couple of times before slowly standing up and facing Shining with determination. She wiped off the small trail of blood that came from the corner of her mouth. She enrolled her fists with her magic tendrils, creating two drill like gauntlets of flickering blue magic before she dashed at Shining Armor, her right fist ready to strike. Shining stood up and made a move to punch his opponent. The two magically reinforced fists met. The combined strength of both punches added to the magic effect of their respective gauntlet; an incredible rending force for Vinyl and an out of the norm resilience for Shining, caused a very sharp and high-pitched sound, similar to nails on a blackboard, to resonate through the entire stadium. The spectators all covered their ears in wincing and frowning in pain or reproach. The crowd was pretty relieved when they saw Vinyl and Shining's gauntlets shatter at the same time with a loud bang, only to cover their ears again when the two opponents bumped their left fists together. When their left gauntlets got shattered as well in another deafening bang, they re-conjured their right ones and started all over again. The fight was captivating for the crowd, despite it being incredibly loud due to Vinyl's sound-based magic, as it was a pure battle of will that kept both competitors running. Not one of them was willing to give an inch of advantage to the other. The young magical musician from the apple orchard was fighting equally a national hero of the last great war. It was a battle that would be talked about for a long time in the history of the Games, no matter the outcome. But, unbeknownst to the entire audience and Pinkie Pie who was trying to determine who was at the advantage by randomly shouting Vinyl or Shining's name every few seconds, an other clash of will was occurring in the Coliseum. In the Princesses' private box to be specific. "RAAAA! I'm sick of all that noise!" Cadence complained as. "That's your girlfriend's fault, Octavia!" She pointed an accusatory finger at the cellist who didn't appreciate the attention. BANG "Hey! There are two people fighting down there!" Octavia snapped. "And one of them is your husband!" BANG "Yes, but that's your girlfriend's magic that causes all that noise!" Cadence explained in anger. "Go down there and make her stop all that ruckus!" BANG "Why don't you go down there and ask your husband to stop fighting back?" Octavia asked ferociously. "So that my lover can savor her more than deserved victory." "Octavia, Cadence. Please calm down, both of you." Twilight pleaded as she was hugging Fluttershy who was slightly panicking at the sounds of the fight, her hands firmly pressed on her ears. BANG "Deserved victory? Don't make me laugh. Shining's still standing and he'll defeat Vinyl, that's for sure!" "Vinyl has proven herself by breaking not one but two of Shining's protection spells." Octavia snapped vigorously. "Sorry to break it up to you, Cadence, but your husband is far from being invincible." BANG "Mhmmm! That's some excellent tea." Celestia commented casually after taking a sip from her cup of tea. The Sun Monarch was completely unfazed by the sounds of the fight or Octavia and Cadence at each other's throat. "Don't you agree, Luna?" "Mhm?" Luna turned her gaze away from the duel for the first time. "Did you ask me something, Sister?" BANG "You take that back, right now!" Cadence said after gasping at Octavia's comment. "Make me!" Octavia shouted before realizing something. "Hang on..." The Coliseum was incredibly and abnormally quiet. Cadence, Octavia and Twilight, who had reassured Fluttershy after the quiet came back, rushed at the edge of the box with their binoculars to see what was going on in the center of the arena. Vinyl and Shining were standing a dozen of meters apart from each other, both panting loudly and heavily. Vinyl had long bloody scratches on her forearms and hands as some of her flickering tendrils of magic back-drafted on her during her struggles against Shining. As she watched her opponent's armor reforming itself completely, she realized that another long exchange of blows wasn't going to resolve anything. If she wanted to win, she'd have to get Shining out of commission along with breaking his armor spell in one hit. 'Looks like I'm going to have to use it...' Vinyl thought slowly. 'Good thing I finally get it right this morning.' Vinyl took a deep breath and exhale softly as she conjured a great amount of her musicals strings and assembled them in the biggest resonance sphere she had ever done. A huge blue sphere of magic tendrils formed itself in front of an awestruck crowd of spectators. Even the High Princesses' jaws dropped a bit. The sphere had a radius of at least five meters and the strings composing its surface were so packed together that it look smooth instead of full of irregularities like her smaller spheres. A chirping sound started to be heard when some of the strings started to flicker. The sound got louder and higher and the ground around Vinyl's spell started to shake slowly as the number of flickering strings grew. Vinyl pushed her hands closer to each other and when she did, the sphere compacted on itself continuously. The sphere shrank and, as it did, the strings got brighter and the sound got so loud and high-pitched that Vinyl winced at it, despite having shown the greatest tolerance to the noise before. The sphere attained the size of a football before Vinyl decided to stop it from compacting. She let the sphere fly in front of her, the sphere looked incredibly unstable and it looked like it was struggling to keep its form. "Shining..... Now might be a good time for you to put those earplugs..." Vinyl said softly but still loud enough for Shining to hear her, putting her shades back on with her right hand surrounded by a her magic. "....What's that?" Shining asked with an evident worry, visibly ignoring her advice. "Nothing special... Just a new variation of my magic." Vinyl explained softly. "Here goes...." Vinyl pushed her right hand forward, making contact with her sphere. Said sphere distorted itself as it absorbed the magic around her hand. The extremity of the sphere at the opposite of Vinyl's hand started to bulge, the strings composing it tensed at their very limits, ready to snap at any moment. Shining could've escaped but he didn't notice the danger until it was too late. "...MY BASS CANNON!" Vinyl bellowed as the strings snapped. An extremely powerful sonic blast occurred, making the previous explosions look like carnival firecrackers, as well as a huge beam of blue light that flew toward the Captain of the Royal Guard causing a small earthquake in passing. Shining Armor could've teleported himself away, but that was the last thing in his mind. Instead of teleporting away, he casted his strongest barrier between him and the beam that was coming at him extremely fast. His newly casted barrier wasn't transparent like his basic one, this one was completely opaque. It was the barrier that his soldiers had nicknamed the Adamant Wall, a barrier so strong that only the Princesses had succeeded in breaking it. The beam met the barrier and got stopped for a moment. Shining was safe and the barrier was holding fast. But, something happened. The barrier started to wobble under the pressure of Vinyl's Cannon beam. The barrier's shakes were growing larger and some cracks started to appeared on its surface. Inevitably, the Adamant Wall was finally shattered by Vinyl's Bass Cannon, Shining just got time to curl his body in a ball before being engulfed by the beam of bright blue light.