//------------------------------// // It's Over? // Story: Blooming Talent // by Griffin Productions //------------------------------// Sapphic dodged and weaved through the onslaught of needles and thread that threatened to stitch him into a voodoo doll; he had narrowly avoided several attempts at strangulation, and had, in a fit, blasted apart the boutique itself; this did not stop the admittedly gorgeous white unicorn with the dark purple mane from trying to make him a marionette. For a pony who looked so fragile, this mare was incredibly precise with her magic; every attack, every distraction, and every counter she pulled off flawlessly except for actually hitting her mark. Her control was incredible. Killing her would definitely boost his abilities quite a bit. He didn't notice, however, that as Rarity had been assailing him with sewing materials, Twilight Sparkle had been charging something powerful. Above her horn, her eyes a glow with her near boundless magical might, hovered a massive energy sphere, purple in color, that she herself had named the Black Matter Bomb. Absorbing all the negative emotions from the battlefield along with the negative energies in the air, the power of the massive attack caught Sapphic's attention at last. Twilight grunted as she saw he had finally noticed; the bomb wasn't fully formed yet. Sapphic tossed several ki blasts directly at the alicorn, and Twilight shut her eyesfor the pain about to hit. Before any of the strikes made contact, Pinkie Pie jumped up into the air and kicked away each one, sending them flying off in different directions before dropping back to the ground. The wayward attacks killed a few more changelings, and one destroyed a few housings along the side of the plaza they were fighting in. "Pinkie!" Twilight called. "Are you ok?" The party pony looked up and waved an affirmative. Her hooves were burnt, but not to an excessive degree. "You think I'm gonna let you hit me with that?" The changeling prince bellowed. "You'll never get the cha--" His words were cut off by a sharp pain in his shoulder, followed by a pulling sensation. He had forgotten about Rarity when he'd seen the Black Matter Bomb in the sky, and she had threaded his shoulder; green globs of blood oozing from the point of exit and all over the thread. Several more needles punctured his arms and legs; an intricate design of binding string and wire now becoming part of his body. He struggled, but each movement he made caused him further pain, and the strings would only cut into his muscles more. Rarity did no smile as she did this however. She did not enjoy causing pain, and torturing others like this. But she knew it had to be done; this monster of a creature was powerful indeed, but if he couldn't move, he would be helpless, and Twilight would finish him off, and once again save Equestria. A few changeling drones came flying in to attack the unicorn, but when one would get even close to Rarity, Pinkie Pie was always right there. Rarity had no idea how Pinkie did all that warping around, but was thankful nonetheless. She strung the self-proclaimed king up like he was going to be crucified; the strings that now were part of his arms yanking them up in a 'T' fashion as they were attached to a few nearby buildings. Desecrated as they were, they would hold long enough for this. His legs were sewn together tightly, unable to even move away from each other and dangled about four feet from the dirt. Sapphic cried out in pain at the unusual restraint, and tried to move his now patchwork body, but there was nohope of it; he was stuck. Damn these blasted ponies, he thought. "Everyone get back!" Twilight called out, her voice ringing over the entire battlefield. She whipped her head back and then forward as the Black Matter Bob was launched down at it's target. The thing was huge; at least eight times the size of Sapphic's whole body. If this hit him, he knew it would be over, but he wasn't able to move. He could call for his siblings, but they would be little help now. He had one last option, but it would be both risky and painful; it would leave him vulnerable to lesser attacks, and his muscles would be torn near to shreds, but that was better than dying her in this cesspit. His jaw seemed to unhinge as he looked straight up into the sky, the Black Matter Bomb just feet away, already dragging into the ground with thunderous shaking which cause a few of the pony and changeling combatants to turn and look in shock and confusion. A glowing cyan mass started to erupt from his maw, but before the ponies could see what it was, the bomb exploded, bathing everything in a blinding white light; it's rapturous booming deafening to every pair of ears in the whole of Ponyville. When the light cleared, all that remained was a large crater in the center of town, with the tattered white robe that Sapphic had adorned laying empty at the center of it; pieces of his exoskeleton scattered about. * * * Piccolo, Trunks, and Buu all looked up into the sky in shock. For a split second, an unbelievably massive power level exploded, and then vanished. It was a power none of them were familiar with at all, but it was enough to cause them a bit of worry. "What was that...?" The namekian mused, not sensing anything even remotely close to it now. * * * Goku watched as Apple Bloom and Goten meditated facing each other in their next exercise; he figured if the two shared energy between each other, it would speed the process of them being able to draw their power along. Goku suddenly felt a large ping of a power level, and then it vanished in less than a second. It looked like Goten and Apple Bloom hadn't sensed it; probably because they were too lost in each other's energy to notice this one. That was fine, but he now found himself wondering just what the heck that had been...it had been a massive power spike, and the signature was no one he knew...strange. * * * Celestia gasped as she sensed the massive energy surge, and her focus shifted to Ponyville, as did Luna's. "You felt that, yes?" The princess of the night questioned, a worried expression on her face. "Indeed. It's Twilight's Black Matter Bomb...she just detonated it..." The princess of the sun replied. "Perhaps thy student hath destroyed the would-be king?" Celestia sensed around the area for moment, her expression turned shocked. "I--can't believe it...." * * * Shining Armor trotted over to where his sister and her friends stood at the edge of the crater, looking into it with weary eyes. It had been a almost a full minute, and not anyone from either the changelings or the ponies had moved but him. There had been no movement from the impact zone of the Black Matter Bomb, and Twilight seemed to finally relax a little bit. It seemed that Sapphic had finally met his end. Some of the changelings started to click and buzz in anxiousness, worried that their leader had once again been slain as the ponies' faces began to light up a bit at the prospectof the violence possibly ending here. Rainbow Dash, carrying Fluttershy on her back as best she could without hurting her wing stubs, slowly approached the edge. "It---looks like you did it, Twilight." She said, giving a weak little laugh in there. "You beat Sapphic." "Yes...it appears that we did, Rainbow." She said, starting to smile a bit. The five mares began to giggle a little; their laughter starting to put everyone but the remaining changelings at ease. Shining Armor wasn't so sure it was over, though. The commander-in-chief of the Crystal Empire looked at the tattered and ripped white robe in the crater's impact area. A slight windwas now blowing, and the robe was starting to get picked up by it. As he watched it, he noticed something underneath, but couldn't make it out. Then the robe was blown off by a quick gust, and Shining gasped as he saw a small hole where the robe had been; it was deep, and could only mean one thing. He suddenly felt the rumbling in the dirt below his hooves. "He's underground!" Everypony turned tense and worried once his voice reached their ears; Sapphic was tunneling beneath the ground, and as Shining felt for him though his hooves, his pupils shrank as he figured out where he was going to emerge. He started to gallop towards his younger sister, panic suddenly taking over all sense. "Twily!" He shouted out, and rammed into her hard, causing her to fall sideways away from where she had been standing, and where Shining now was as a quick, and powerful, glowing cyan arm shot up from underneath him. The sharp fingers tore at the stallion's flesh, ripping his chest open horribly, and breaking his sternum in the same, crushing blow. In less than an instant, Sapphic stood there; glowing muscles and sinew totally exposed to the open air and full of bloody tears and holes from Rarity's threads as he held Shining Armor's still rapidly beating heart in his palm as the paralyzed unicorn was shishkabobbed on his arm. Twilight gasped seeing her big brother barely clinging to life and at the complete mercy of this hideous monster. Sapphic raised his head a slowly; the long strands of his dark green hair sticking to his wet muscles like plastic over wet metal. "Here's Sapphy!" He cackled with a malicious grin.