"'So if you could bail me out, that would be really great, thanks.' That's the letter you send to me from jail?!" Twilight yelled at Lucien from behind a set of cast-iron bars. She threw the paper to the ground in anger.
"How was I supposed to know the police would show up so quickly?! That was record time by Earth standards! And all I did was respond to the invite, they're the ones that overreacted!" Lucien shot back from inside the cell.
"They overreacted?! What about how you acted after getting that note?! You looked ready to level a building, when all he did was invite you to meet him at Skyline!"
"You don't know how these people operate, Princess," Lucien hissed through clenched teeth. "They're all the same. Big, benevolent businessmen on the outside, cunning, ruthless, scheming on the inside. All Ironwing wants to do is toy with me, and I'm not giving him that opportunity." Lucien's eyes blazed.
Twilight tried to keep a neutral face, but several muscles around her lips failed her. "You can't be sure that he's bad. I know what the Princesses said, but there's no evidence that he's involved in all this yet. All we have on him is some minor misconducts in the past and the word of Bronze Gear, who tried to kill me." Twilight attempted to maintain eye contact, but couldn't return Lucien's furious glare.
"You're not listening! All the signs are there; I even talked to Bronze myself! I know he's up to something and we can't let him go through with it! Remember the magic neutralizing bomb?" Twilight's face paled. "That could have been so much worse if Bronze didn't rush to confront us the way she did. If we don't get to Ironwing quickly, what he's coming up with can potentially be even more destructive!"
Twilight took a step back. He didn't like the look she was giving him suddenly. "You... you need to calm down. This isn't like you to be so... so angry."
"How can I calm down when this thing has every chance of blowing up on us and you're too short-sighted to even see it!" Lucien roared. As he let out his anger, he felt a sharp smattering of metal shards on his face. Confused, he looked down to see that the magic inhibitor on his wrist had exploded, overloaded by the amount of magic his emotions were letting out. Shock overtook his features, and he looked up to Twilight.
Fear and distrust were present in her eyes. She had taken another step away from the bars of the cell, one foreleg positioned over the other in a classic fight or flight stance. Lucien's anger left him immediately. "Twilight... I..." He reached a hand out gently.
"...I can't believe how this has changed you. So quickly, too. What happened to you to make you this way?" she asked softly, looking away. Lucien opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off. "Don't. I just- I can't be around you right now." She looked down the hallway, then ran off, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Wait, Twilight!" Lucien called out futilely. She was gone.
He sighed and let his gaze fall to the floor. He looked at the shattered pieces of the magic inhibitor and, with a quick spell, gathered them all back together in their original form around his wrist. It wouldn't function, but it would at least look like it did. He fully intended to wait out his time in custody instead of escaping. In his experience being on the side of the law was always better than not.
The creature's massive rocky hand crashed down to the earth, instantly forming a gigantic crater and stirring up dust that would blind anyone nearby. The Stone Titan bellowed, a low, reverberating sound that shook the ground and stirred the bones of the six people engaged in combat with it.
As its maw was closing, a huge fireball found its way in and exploded in a fiery burst. When the smoke cleared, there was naught but a new scorch mark across its earthen features. Several golden bolts of lightning flashed and struck the creature's torso and arms. It let out another rage-filled roar, but was otherwise unharmed.
"Ian and Anthony are down! We're not doing anything to this thing!" Eric shouted to Lucien. He had his Grimoire open and floating in front of him. Pure magic flashed wildly around his form, and spells of all elemental types would lash out every few seconds at the gargantuan enemy before them.
"Just keep shooting, we need to get it's weak spot open for a shot, just like we planned!" Lucien shouted back. His arms hadn't stopped moving for the whole fight, constantly in motion forming and casting spells. His concentration had so far been unwavering, but he when the last teammate of his went down he almost lost it.
More spells impacted the beast's chest and head, yet none seemed to leave a mark more severe than some light burns. He watched as the Stone Titan launched his arm downward for another attack, this time aimed at him. Acting quickly, he slashed the air in a pattern several times with his dagger, then held it horizontally up in the air.
A slightly reflective dome made up of hexagons shimmered into existence around him just as the Titan's arm hit home. He grunted with the effort of holding the shield, but it held. As soon as the pressure began to lessen, the shield shattered outward, doing slight damage to the Titan's rocky hand. Lucien saw his opportunity.
He gathered up the residual magic energy from when his shield exploded and used it to propel him upward in a higher jump. He grabbed on to the Stone Titan's arm and held tight. "Keep firing!" he yelled to Eric, who was trying to direct the other mages they had brought, Kelsey and Emily. Eric looked up at him for a moment, and his face fell slack.
"Be careful!" Emily shouted up to him while trying to direct her bolts of lightning away from his form.
Lucien thought fast. He cast a spell to anchor him to the Titan's body, then, while still climbing, removed his backpack. He reached in and quickly retrieved a set of stone tablets and a roll of duct tape. Each tablet had an identical set of runes etched perfectly into its surface.
The Stone Titan was ignoring him. It just continued to attack his teammates down below. The arm he was magically attached to suddenly slammed into the ground, and he looked up for a moment to see Kelsey get ejected to the side, flung by the force of the monster's arm hitting the ground. Her compound bow shattered into pieces across the ground. He heard Emily call out her name, but shut it out quickly. He had to stay focused.
He levitated the tablets and duct tape around him and rapidly manipulated them. He began running up the Titan's arm, moving quickly towards the head. As he went up, he taped the tablets to the creature's rocky surface. As he passed each one, he would tap on its surface quickly, causing the runes on it to glow a deep red.
He eventually made it all the way up, stopping for a moment to rest and check his progress on the Titan's shoulder. The monster's right arm had at least six of his tablets hastily duct taped on in different places. In his arms were four more tablets.
A scream from below attracted his attention. He looked down just in time to see Eric's body get flung off into the distance. His Grimoire was tossed into the air, where it hovered for a moment before disintegrating in a flash of purple light. Lucien quickly taped the final four tablets on the Titan's head, his mind devoid of all thought and emotion.
He activated his tablets; they all were now glowing red. His face neutral, he raised his hand up in the air. It pulsed red twice rapidly. The stones he taped onto the Titan's surface mimicked the pattern. Then they exploded.
The Stone Titan's arm was destroyed first, disappearing in a brilliant ball of red, magical flame. The explosion began down by its hand, each tablet blowing in the order that he activated them. They detonated like shaped charges, their force shattering the Titan's stone surface and destroying everything all the way through it's arm's center.
As the explosions reached its shoulder, Lucien leapt off, then teleported to the ground. He escaped just as the first one went off, cutting a crater in the side of its head. The other side detonated next, making an identical crater opposite to the first one. The final explosion decimated what was left, that one containing two of Lucien's tablets. The blast dug down to the Stone Titan's center, obliterating any matter inside and reaching through it.
The body, or what was left of it, crumbled to pieces, many boulders scorched and stained a deep red from the magic. With his job done, Lucien looked back at the destruction. The mountainside where their battle had taken place was now just a giant crater. Smaller craters were littered around here and there, each letting off a trail of sulfurous smoke.
The sound of crying reached his ears. He looked up from what he had caused and over at the prone form of Emily. She was clutching the arm of someone, but he couldn't make it out. His mind substituted 'Kelsey,' but he couldn't let the thought affect him. He couldn't face her now. Not now.
He pulled a small bone out of his backpack and lowered himself to one knee. Before he left, he saw Emile crane her head around to look at him with her tear-stained face. He saw nothing but betrayal.
The next night, he returned to the battlefield, the site long since cooled off. He opened up his backpack, removed some objects, then placed them on the ground. He departed shortly after.
Days later, locals found nothing at the crater but stone objects. A bow, a book, a sledgehammer, and a bell. Several troubled adults couldn't help but feel like it was some sort of memorial. They left it alone.
Tha-bonk.
Tha-bonk.
Tha-bonk.
After the two-hundred and seventh throw Lucien heard motion outside his cell. The tennis ball dissolved in a flash of dull green and put his hands on his knees, closing his eyes. Appearing to meditate sometimes works just as well as actually meditating.
He heard a rapping on his cell's bars. He paid it no mind and kept his breath even. "Hey, you. Dude. You got a visitor," he heard a gruff voice say.
He heard someone fumble with some keys, followed by the sound of tumblers turning. The door to his cell clanked open, then shut a moment after. Padded steps made their way towards his sitting position near the back of his somewhat-spacious cell.
That last sound made him curious. He didn't know of any ponies that wore some form of horseshoes, much less padded ones. Taking a chance, he opened up his mind to sense the presence that had stopped in front of him.
His eyes opened to the murky sea of magic that swirled around him, then nearly shut them again. Sitting before him was a gargantuan presence, burning bright orange with intensity. It was akin to sitting next to a miniature sun, he couldn't keep looking at it directly for too long. His small, densely compacted green aura was dwarfed by whatever was currently across from him.
Shutting off his senses, he drew up conclusions rapidly. The foremost one being that whomever sat across from him wasn't accustomed to using magic, otherwise they would have taken greater precautions in concealing their aura. The second being that whomever it was, they knew what they wanted. That intensity could only belong to someone that was passionate enough about what they did that they would not let anything get in their way.
He got the peculiar feeling that he was it their way.
He opened his eyes, ready to face whatever sat before him. What he saw confused him.
It was a griffon. A somewhat graying griffin. Lucien took note of the bronze goggles on his head and the tan flying jacket. His face was severe, his eyebrows gouging into his forehead and hanging low over his eyes. If he had to guess, he would say there were permanently narrowed. His beak gave no sign of a smile or a frown, a fine poker face. He was sitting down, his claws folded and tapping impatiently.
"Ooooooh shit."
Lucien recognized him as none other than Ironwing, CEO of Skyline Incorporated.