//------------------------------// // 25: Action Lero by SpinelStride // Story: Xenophilia: Shotglass Oneshots // by TheQuietMan //------------------------------// Action Lero by SpinelStride ************************ Rainbow Dash's hooves skidded against the smooth stones of the palace courtyard. "She's coming!" she gasped out, wings still flared at her side, still backwinging to slow herself. "She'll be here any minute!" Twilight let out a long, slow breath. "Okay. You can do this. We can do this. Are you ready?" Princess Luna nodded her head, once. Princess Cadance swallowed, then nodded as well. Lero bit his lower lip, but nodded his assent as well. Everything that needed to be said had been. Anything more would just distract Twilight. The purple alicorn lowered her head and closed her eyes. When they opened again, white light burst forth, and her horn glowed lavender, then overlaid itself a paler purple, then a third ring paler still, and then a fourth of purest white. Her body shone, and the bright power spread itself across the other two Princesses. More slowly it crept across Lero's form, as though having to trudge through his skin. "Against the day, on threat of war, we yield us up our rightful forms. Let our power be absorbed, as we surrender wings and horns," Twilight incanted. Lero could feel the power thrumming through him, feel *something* accept the offering of the spell. "Blade of Night," stated Luna, and Lero felt a cool hilt against his right palm, a crescent blade gleaming blackness and twinkling with stars in his grip. He felt the moon waiting patiently to rise, the vast emptiness it bathed in. "Shield of Love," Cadance declared, and a gentle weight tugged at Lero's left arm, a pink, heart-shaped shield rimmed in steel hanging there. He felt Rainbow's still-burning love for him, Twilight's deep care, the warm glows of ponies across Equestria. "Armor of Magic," Twilight announced, and the light was gone, Lero's body encased in a perfect suit of armor, a star across the breastplate. He felt a circlet against his head, a gem against his forehead, and for the first time understood what magic really felt like in a way even Twilight's mind-sharing spells could never properly convey. Rainbow stared at Lero. The light hadn't moved to her. She inhaled. "You... look good, Lero. She'll be here. Shining Armor and the entire Guard will be trying to keep a shield around the courtyard to keep the... side damage down, but it won't hold her if she attacks it. You have to beat her. Nopony else can. She knows ponies too well. She knows how ponies fight. She can't... pull those tricks on you." She flung her forelegs around Lero's waist and squeezed him, and then leapt away. Light blazed across the stone. A burning fury descended, four hooves melting the ground beneath her. A purple force field surrounded the courtyard. She said not a word, only blasted flames from her raging mane at Lero. He lifted his shield and the fires scattered to his sides. Her eyes flashed, and Lero felt magic wash across him, only to shatter against the armor, felt Twilight's presence holding him in her altered state. He didn't have anything to say either. Of course he had to defeat the maddened Celestia. The Changeling poison would make her attack relentlessly until she was stopped. No pony could fight her. Even the other three Princesses couldn't stand against her on their own. It was so logical he didn't have to think about it, just know it, like he knew he had to sink his blade into her, had to drive Luna's vast empty spaces into the heart of the flaming beast before him to let her power absorb and dissipate the poison. Lero advanced. Celestia's head dipped a fraction of an inch, and then her hoof lashed forward, striking to the side, exactly where a dodging pony would step. Lero wasn't there. He did not avoid the feinted strike; he swung the Blade of Night to meet it. Since Celestia had moved to make her real attack, her horn was out of place to block. The sword slashed across her cheek, and curls of plasma boiled from the cut, and a wild scream of raw outrage poured from the crazed alicorn's throat. Her horn meet his sword on the next swing, the horn she had so pointedly noted to him on that first meeting, told him it could spear through him if he proved a menace to her little ponies. The Blade of Night turned it aside and left Lero unscathed. Her hooves left trails of fire behind them as they moved, the hooves she had threatened to grind his skull to fertilizer with if he was some monster's emissary, come to HER lands to hurt HER herd. The Shield of Love met them and held them back. Hissing words of incineration poured from her lips, the spell she had promised to use if he was some trick of the outsiders, to turn his bones to fire inside him. The Armor of Magic caught her power and disassembled it into nothingness. Her eyes flashed again, and Lero felt the gem against his forehead grow warm as he scattered her teleportation spell, keeping his feet on Equestrian soil, not banished to the emptiness halfway between the sun and the world. The Blade sunk deep into her chest, and pulled out of Lero's hand. The flaming creature screamed, and screamed. Oily blackness leaked from its eyes and mouth and nose, and the heat died away. He stood, watching, watching the mane and tail of fire slowing, cooling, for a single moment etherial before fading into wavy pink hairs. The glowing white barrel faded, still white, then off-white, then distinctly pink. The Blade drew back on its own from her chest as she shrank and cooled before Lero. He felt the Shield slip from his arm, the armor fall from his back. The three Princesses stood at his sides as he stayed there. Celestia lay on her side, eyes closed, breathing slowly. She was smaller, pink hair unmoving and a single solid color. Her chest showed no sign of the wound he had so clearly inflicted. Luna knelt and draped a wing across Celestia's side. Lero noticed absently that Luna had grown taller, her chest broader, her wings fuller. "It's all right, Tia," she said softly. "I forgive you." The purple field fell away, and a blue bolt slammed against Lero's chest. He caught her and held her close, and reached out to draw Twilight against him. She too had grown. Lero couldn't pull his eyes away from the fallen alicorn. For the first time, he felt no fear at the sight of her. *** Luna opened her eyes, then squeaked and jerked backward. Celestia's eyes were boring right into hers, her muzzle close enough to feel her sister's breath. "Was that entirely necessary?" the Princess of the Day inquired placidly. Luna shrank down against her couch, the divan where she rested her body while pursuing her self-appointed nocturnal duties as guardian of dreams. Then she twitched and pushed herself back up, then stood, making Celestia step back. "Of course it was. Were thou... were *you* watching?" Celestia laughed, and her body relaxed. "Watching? Luna, you pulled me in. You had to push so hard to get into his dream that it drew in everyone else who was involved. His resistance to magic is amazing." Luna flushed, heat on dark blue cheek mostly hidden by fur. "I had not intended for the matter to become public. He still fears you, sister." Celestia sighed softly, disappointment dripping in her voice. "I know, Luna. I misjudged his responses when I first saw him, mistook his terror for defiance. I don't know how I can win his acceptance at this point." Luna shook her head. "Sister, even now, dozens of ponies dream every night of Nightmare Moon, and I accept this as my due. You may have to learn to accept having one strange biped among our subjects who places you in that role. And for him to face his fear, to face you and stand as a hero in his dreams, is certainly theraputic." Celestia nodded her head slightly, and turned to go back to her rapidly-vacated bedchambers. Still, Luna caught her words. "For who?"