//------------------------------// // Grappling with Time // Story: The Revenge of Tirek // by Matthew Stone //------------------------------// Fluttershy’s clone was a vicious monster. More than that, she’s a immortal creature who wishes Fluttershy dead. The clone is more than a brute, it and she all together is a beast! As of now, Fluttershy’s clone is the last one to be defeated with the rest of the main sixes’. Yet, Blade and Skull both have trouble thinking of a way to defeat their opponent. The clone then flaps at Fluttershy, giving a head hit to her chest, and slapping her hard on the cheek. Fluttershy stands down, not knowing how else to fight. She staggers and weeps, hoping she’ll hurry to end this so she can save Discord. Blade then tries to interfere, but the clone strikes him on the forehead to knock him down to his knees. The hard landing than breaks one of his legs, having him call out a roar of pain. “Awww, did I put you down?” the clone mocks. The cloned killer than pulls out her own weapon. Another gun. She then points it at his head with no mercy. Skull stands still, looking at his friend in dire need of help. He then weeps at Fluttershy’s moans and struggles. He thinks long and hard of how to defeat the enemy. “If I were you, I’d surrender!” the clone yells at Skull, keeping her weapon in place, “What’s your choice?” Skull than observes Fluttershy. He can see her mannerisms, her shaking. She asks questions to herself like “How could this happen?” and “Why am I so weak against her?” It’s like she’s confused… What if… The clone has the same mannerisms like Fluttershy? Maybe he can try and confuse her… “You win…” Skull sighs. The clone smirks in pleasure. “I thought I reason with you…” she snickers. She then has chains appear with her magic, as it heads over to Fluttershy and Blade to bind them. “As for you…” the clone sneers at Skull, “I’ll let you off the hook since you surrender.” FLASH! Skull went as fast as an assassin as he whooshes pat the clone. He slowly pulls out his hidden dagger from his cloak. “Bad choice.” Skull whispered into her ear, “SHADOW SWORD STRIKE!” He then has his good, black magic throw up with his arm movement. In an instant, his magic dagger creates a dark sword trap underneath the clone, having one slash her left hoof to have her trip down. Then, all at once, the rest of the blade fly up to impale the clone! “WHAT?” the clone shrieks, while coughing out slime. Before the clone says or reacts to anything else, the kill was good enough to have it incinerate into ash. The remains then flow with the wind, as Skull jumps down and sighs in relief. Fluttershy then gets up to check on Blade, and tend to his leg. “OW!” Blade yelps, “Don’t touch it too much please…” “Shh… It’s okay…” Fluttershy cooed, “We’ll find a way to fix that leg.” Blade then looks at Skull and smiles. “Nice trick.” Blade compliments. “You really thought through this quickly…” Fluttershy adds. “Thanks.” Skull says, “But I should find Twilight and the others. We have to get them over to help you. They’ll know what to do next just so we can find Discord.” “Fluttershy!” A voice calls from above. Fluttershy looks up to see Rainbow Dash and Fireblaze swooping down from the sky to come meet them. Rainbow Dash then comes by the yellow pegasi to see how Blade is doing. “Luckily for you, I’m also a medic.” Fireblaze says, pulling out some medical gear from his small bag. The dragon pony than goes over to tend on Blade’s leg with the equipment he has. “Twilight is coming out of the castle with their friends, I can sense it.” Fireblaze tells the two pegasi ponies, “You should go. Skull and I will look after Blade.” “Right.” Rainbow Dash nods. Fluttershy and Rainbow then fly up to go to the entrance gate of Canterlot. It was a fast trip too. However, when they think of all the traumatic things that happened, it all seemed so slow to them. They came all this way already, just to save their loving, true friend. If they would have been less hard on Discord, this would never have happened. But… how could they know. There was no time to put fault on anything though. They make their turn to see that Twilight is outside with the others, tending to the dragon soldiers who fought alongside with them. The Canterlot guards then go through and around the castle to search for any suspicious activity. “TWILIGHT!” Rainbow Dash yells, landing with Fluttershy. “Rainbow!” Twilight said, “Where were you?” “Saving a friend!” Rainbow Dash sums up, crossing her hooves. “Me too.” Fluttershy joins in. “Great!” Pinkie cheers, “Everypony saving everypony!” “And…” William grins, “We have the ultimate cure for Discord right here!” The worm hold up the potion. FWWWA! A sudden flash goes around the cylinder potion, as floats away from William’s grip. “HEY! WHAT THE…” the worm yelps. Twilight then gasps in anger and terror as she sees who’s stealing their only hope in front of them. TIREK! “I won’t have you urchins win so easily…” Tirek laughs. “YOU… what are YOU DOING HERE?” Fluttershy screams. “Just to show you all how things are going…” Tirek says, snapping his fingers. He then has Cadence poof real close to him for security, as shadow demons surround the brainwashed slave princess. Cadence’s eyes glow with pure evil, as she holds Celestia prisoner with her strong grip. Tirek then opens his mouth to suck all the magic out of Princess Celestia. The princess screams in pain as the heartwarming aura leaves her body. Celestia then slumps down in weakness, feeling cold and sad. Tirek then laughs hard at her demise. “SISTER!” Luna screams. “NO!” Twilight yells. “HOLY SHIT!” William gasps. “Wait until V hears about this.” Tirek laughs, wiping a humor tear from his eye. “Um… he’d dead.” William said bluntly. “All thanks to me…” Tails said in an even tone. Tirek stops laughing right away after hearing that. Instead, his eyes grow blacker, as if a sickening rage plague took toll of his personality. “How does it feel…” Twilight sneers, “To lose someone you love?” “URCHINS! WORTHLESS GARBAGE!” Tirek screams, “HOW DARE YOU KILL MY SON! CADENCE!” The brainwashed princess looks up at her master. “Destroy your sister in law!” Tirek scowls, “I’ll be dealing with her friends and the foxes!” “Yes master…” Cadence moans in obedience. She then picks up Celestia and SLAMS her hard to the castle wall. She then speed towards Twilight to give a horn attack, which Twilight flies up to dodge. “CADENCE! STOP! I’m your best friend!” Twilight cries. “Master Tirek wants me to destroy you…” Cadence groans. Applejack can’t help but think of Babs when she hears Cadence say that. She still prays for the cure to change her cousin back. “Oh Babs…” Applejack whimpers. Twilight stands still, refusing to fight her friends despite every strike she receives. As Rainbow Dash rushes in to defend Twilight, Cadence makes her move to make one final blow to the purple alicorn. CLANG! A sound of a shield is quickly made as Shining Armor and Mokuba came in front if Twilight to protect her. Twilight was never that happy to see them. Right before Mokuba and Shining Armor came back to Canterlot on time, they had their trap ready to pour on top of the charging brainwashed ponies. After the dragons released them from their guarding circle, they directed them to go towards the city of Manehattan. Mokuba and Shining Armor then signaled to the guards to have a hidden sprinkler gadget turn on to spray the potio non the skins of all the victims. They laid them out by random place everywhere so the miracle liquid can over all of them in the distance. Once the potion touched and collided with the ponies, their eyes shrink back to normal. They then mutter in confusion, hugging each other and wondered what happened. Mokuba even hugged his father in relief that the potion had worked. Kaiba then came up to them telling them that he senses Tirek heading toward Canterlot, having the father and son rush toward the castle to get there on time. Now here they are. While the guards and dragons in Manehattan care for the victims, Mokuba and Shining Armor are confronting Cadence to protect Twilight. “MOM! SNAP OUT OF IT!” Mokuba cries. “TIREK! SO HELP ME, I’M GOING TO TAKE MY REVENGE ON YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO MY WIFE!” Shining Armor yells. “Looks like the gang is all here.” Tirek snickers, “The guillotine threat might not work after all for Discord. Oh, speaking of him… let me bring him out for you…” He then snaps his fingers, as Discord appears by him, holding a gun to his head. It was a chaos gun, with bullets deadly and pure enough to kill anything. Discord continues to weep in sadness, as everypony looks in fear and depression at him. “Discord… no…” Twilight cries. “Oh… Discord…” Fluttershy weeps. “We’ll do a simple game. A battle type one.” Tirek smiles, “I’ll put thirty minutes on the clock.” He then has a floating clock appear over his head. “If you’ll beat me in a fight for thirty minutes, Discord can go free. But, if you fail… DISCORD WILL DIE!” “YOU’RE A SICK MONSTER!” Twilight yells. “What will it be?” Tirek sneers. Twilight is fear. It’s a strong, unfair decision to make. It’s obvious he’ll cheat to win, and he’s gone this far to take over Canterlot now, along with all of Equestria. She never knew Tirek will go into extreme measures. She looks at Discord, dripping out tears of sadness. She has to win, for him… Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Luna, Tails, TJ, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack then come to stand by Twilight. The nine of them then look up at Tirek in defiance. “We’ll take the challenge.” Twilight said, “And we WILL win, for Discord…” Flames start to arise in the hall as Storm keeps fighting Prince Everest. Storm refuses to give in, as he dodges the punch throws towards his arms. Then, Everest gives a surprise kick hard and badly to Storm, then hitting him into the wall. “GIVE IT UP! YOU’LL NEVER BEAT ME!” Everest yells. “I WILL!” Storm screams. Suddenly, Storm’s eyes glow yellow with energy. His wristband sword is not the only weapon that increases power. His body glows as well. A cloud then grows and rumbles above the griffon in such raging power. “WHAT’S THIS?” Everest gasps. “Do you know why my name is Storm?” the good griffon asks. “I don’t care…” Everest stammers. “This weapon made by my father… has more power put into it…” Everest moans, “Now… with the special power he saved for me…” Storm then darts his fearing eyes straight into Everest’s. “LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT MAKES ME SPECIAL!” Then, Storm has lighting bolts attack Everest from his sword, shocking him. “ARRRRGGHH! HOW…” Everest yells. “YOU’LL CAUSE PAIN… NO MORE!” Storm shrieks. He then uses his wind attacks, as he sends Prince Everest into the walls, then down on the ground. “YAAAAAA!” Everest wails. “YOUR END IS NOW! YOU WERE NEVER ANY JUSTICE TO THE GRIFFON KINGDOM!” Storm screams, “HERE’S MY TORNADO!” Then it went dark, as a big tornado came to strike Prince Everest into the heart of his chest. He screams, and the attack began to kill him. The prince screams louder as the stabbing of the wind sinks deeper into his heart. Some blood spurts out, as Everest eventually quits his wails. With that, he’s dead. Once it’s over, Gilda wakes up. Her eyes then turn back to normal, for she’s no longer in control of V or Everest. Then, she saw her cousin, panting in exhaustion. “STORM!” Gilda cries in joy. She then runs over to hug him. “I see you snapped out of it.” Storm smiles. “Thank you…” Gilda weeps happily.