Any scream Star would have made was suppressed in Bearicorn's massive chest. Everybody instinctively dove out of the way, letting her hit the ground with the entire force of the monster's tackle. A second later, before either could get up, Marco kicked Bearicorn off Star's body and offered her his hand.
"You alright?" Marco asked.
"Yeah," Star replied, taking his hand and pulling herself back up.
"What in tarnation was that?" Applejack blurted out.
"Oh, just Ludo's army of monsters," she said like it was no big deal - which it more or less wasn't.
Just as the exchange was finished, two spiked balls attached to arms grabbed the sides of the portal, forcefully expanding it. Spikeballs stepped into the lab with a loud thud, and took another step to completely make his way through. He took a glance at the surroundings until he located Star. Despite his intimidating bulk and massive arms, his eyes seemed rather passive. Star met his gaze with an unrelenting glare, which didn't seem to affect him.
After an awkward second of silence, she raised her wand and fired, "Narwhal Blast!"
Out of her wand came a puff of energy followed by a group of three rapid flying miniature narwhals, which collided with Spikeballs, the first two bouncing off but the third one embedding its horn into his chest. Despite the diminutive size of the creatures, they hit with enough force to knock Spikeballs off balance. Star fired again and knocked him down. His body fell on a very unfortunate Three-eyed Potato Baby who happened to just cross the portal.
"A little help please?" Marco asked everypony.
Most of the ponies seemed reluctant or confused, staring around at each other before seeming to get a sense of direction. On the contrary, Rainbow Dash cheered and pumped her hooves.
Through the portal, a monster with light blue skin, deer shaped antlers, and a beard stepped out of the portal. He stared at his surroundings with a scowl that never seemed to fade, and as he took note of his surroundings it didn't seem to get any better. As he started heading towards Star, Pinkie Pie appeared behind him and tapped his shoulder.
He turned around, throwing a punch as he did so - which happened to connect with Spikeballs as he tried to get up. As he realized what he had done, Star casted an offensive spell.
"Cupcake Blast!"
Several cupcakes shot out of Star's wand in a rapid burst, connecting and splattering against Deer Beard's back as quickly as they had been summoned into existence. While it had enough force to make him recoil slightly, he still managed to maintain his balance. He turned back around, his scowl deeper than ever. He charged forward at Star, arms overstretched, fingers contorted. Star smiled, and opened her mouth to cast another spell.
A magenta flash of energy flashed forward to intercept him, hitting him squarely in the stomach - singing through his shirt like it didn't exist. The force of the blast killed most of the momentum he had gathered and left him to writhe on the ground with his fresh new third degree burn.
Twilight winked at Star, and received a smile in return.
"Alright," Marco said, "we just need to watch this portal, and pick them off one by one until they stop coming."
There had been a sudden flurry of activity when a dimensional portal had opened in the Diaz household's yard. Bearicorn happened to be heading into the house and instinctively moved towards it but thought better of it. After he turned around to inform Ludo, they had all lined up before it, and Bearicorn charged in. Spikeballs and Deer Beard followed, and after about two dozen seconds Spikeballs fell out of the portal head first.
"We're just getting picked off one by one," Spikeballs told Ludo, his body half through the portal.
"Then do something about it!" Ludo shouted back.
The monsters stared at the portal, wondering about what exactly they could do about it.
"We could wait for her to try to come through," Buff Frog suggested.
"No!" Ludo shot back, "I will have that wand now! I'll rule the universe, and I won't wait!"
A grey monster behind Ludo, Emmitt thoughtfully scratched his chin. After a few seconds, he approached the portal, gesturing for everybody to give him some room.
Before anybody could verbally acknowledge his statement, two large grey hands, grabbed the portal, and pulled it open even wider. The two hands grabbed the edge of the portal and propelled their body forward. There stood, Emmitt, a grey, cattle like demon with two bull horns and his face carried a stoic expression. Out of the two other sides, came Lobster Claws the giant lobster, Buff Frog, and Ludo.
"What are you doing?" Ludo shouted at his downed minions, "Get up! You're embarrassing yourselves!"
As they stood up, all three of the downed monsters growled, teeth bared. Marco's plan was useless, they would be able to come through the portal in larger numbers and now, the only thing they could do was stand and fight. However, neither seemed particularly daunting to Star or Marco, as the occurrence wasn't all that off from what they did on a regular basis.
"Get them!" Ludo ordered.
All six of them charged straight at Star and Marco as if the ponies might as well as not have existed. Although most of the ponies instinctively recoiled a little, Star and Marco stood their ground.
"Dagger Crystal Heart Attack!" she shouted when she decided they had gone close enough.
A pink, sparkling, expanding beam of energy flew out of her wand. Dozens of hearts with razor sharp tips and edges flew out in a constant, unrelenting stream. No monster bar Ludo was able to avoid getting hit. Although the attack significantly deterred them, it didn't quite put them out of the fight, as they were able to continue onwards after a few insults from Ludo.
Marco kicked Lobster Claws backwards as he took a swing, and Rainbow Dash tackled him, carrying both of them towards a table. The impact pushed the table over, the two of them spilling over the ground as a mess of colors, pincers, and shattered beakers. Star fired off another Narwhal Blast to stop Deer Beard in his tracks and knocked him down with a swing from her wand. Rainbow Dash - who was untouched by the destruction of her previous tackle - used his body as a landing pad as she flew back into the fray, and cracked her non-existent knuckles.
Eventually, the monsters had started to account the ponies as a credible threat, and stopped aiming for only Star. Twilight continued taking potshots, Rarity was able to create slightly less powerful blasts of magic to help suppress the monsters as well. Pinkie Pie distracted monsters by popping out of places that she physically shouldn't have been able to access in so little time. Applejack stood guard at the portal, giving monsters that poured out of it a nice, hard buck before they joined the center of the fight. Spike's dragon fire wasn't powerful enough to significantly injure but he was able to find some napalm among the shelves to block off areas.
The situation seemed to be under control, the monsters began to react less quickly to Ludo's insults as they were knocked down again and again, nobody seemed to be letting up to Ludo's army. His monsters appeared less intimidating and more frightening in their injuries, each with razor sharp hearts sticking out of them, second to third degree burns, bruises, and narwhals stuck to them.
Ludo groaned and shouted, "Ignore the ponies, just get me that wand!"
They made a beeline for Star, most of them getting knocked back down by spells or physical hits before they made it there. However, Emmitt had snuck behind Star, jumping over napalm and tables to get there. As she fired off another Narwhal Blast, he kicked her arm, knocking her down and sending her wand flying. It hit the ground, bounced, rolled, and slid right in front of Ludo.
"No!" Star shouted, arm overstretched.
"Yes!" Ludo exclaimed, his arm reaching for his ticket to ruling the universe.
As he swiped his talons at the it, a butter yellow hoof stomped down on the wand. Ludo grabbed the handle anyways, trying to pull it away, but it didn't budge. He looked up, dumbfounded, and found the most unnerving gaze he ever had the displeasure of meeting. Every muscle in his body began to feel numb, most of his muscles wouldn't budge - not even his eyes could look away. Everybody seemed to notice, although most of them were too shocked to do anything. None of that was relevant to Ludo - all he could concentrate on were those eyes.
"Fluttershy!" Star desperately called, "Please, kick me the wand!"
She did exactly as she was told, her gaze never wavering from Ludo as she did so. She grabbed the wand and breathed a massive sigh of relief.
"Twilight," Star said, "would your magic be able to generate a shield strong enough to survive a non-lethal nuclear blast?"
"Well," Twilight said, "I have no idea what that is, but I guess so since it's non-lethal."
"Get everybody behind one, no questions, you'll see," she ordered, with a hint of excited glee in the last two words.
As told, she teleported everybody - including Marco and Spike, into an unoccupied section of the room. With a flash of her horn, a bolt of magic flew up, stopped, and generated a bubble shield. Ludo, no longer under the influence of 'The Stare', shook his head, and pointed at Star.
"Get her!"
Every member of his army shook off the shock, and charged. She smiled sadistically, and raised her wand, energy already beginning to gather on it. Ludo's minions realized what was coming and hesitated - a few of them downright turning around and running.
"Turbo Nuclear Butterfly Blast!" she shouted with a smile.
As the energy consolidated into a white form resembling a butterfly, every monster in the room stopped and cringed, holding their arms in front of them in a useless attempt to weaken the impending blast. The energy reached a climax. Morphing into a ball, it imploded, and then exploded with an enormous bang.
While in an outdoors environment, the explosion would have created a far larger blast, the shockwave still was felt for miles around. The compression of the relatively blast-proof room only worsened the effect, containing the explosion. First, a beam of rainbow colored energy engulfed Star and shot up, deflecting off the floor and ceiling and into the unfortunate faces of Ludo's monsters. Then, the beam expanded and covered the entire room in the blink of an eye. As the dust cleared, it was apparent that none of the monsters were in any condition to continue fighting, the door was launched clear off its hinges, and butterflies were perched up on any object available. No windows were spared, and even the ground near the area of the blast showed some signs of being singed. Tables had been toppled over, drawers spilled their contents on the ground, shattered beakers lined the ground, and the explosion had closed the portal.
Twilight deactivated the shield, her eyes still squinting from the blast, and said, "That shield took quite a bit of energy to maintain, and it'll take a while to clean up this mess."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Star said as she inspected her wand.
"I guess I still have more explaining to do to Princess Celestia," Twilight said, "Spike!"
Spike got up from his attempts to suppress the napalm by drowning it of oxygen with his own body and produced a sheet of parchment paper from a toppled drawer. Twilight and Spike then began the long tried and true process of her reading out exactly what she wanted on paper and Spike writing it down.
"Should we help you clean up?" Marco asked.
"Oh, that's on me, don't worry about it," Twilight said and thought, "After all, you're the one who's with a princess of which's dimension we still need to learn a lot more about."
Ludo's monsters began to groan, prompting a response from him.
"Get up!" he yelled, kicking Spikeballs, "Get up!"
Despite their internal bleeding, third degree burns, and arteries punctured by hearts and narwhals, they did as they were told. Ludo pulled out his dimensional scissors, opened them, and threw them up in the air. They easily sliced open a portal back to his dimension in their ascent, and dropped back in to Ludo's hand - by the blade. He gritted his teeth, refusing to give his adversaries the satisfaction of him yelping in pain and unceremoniously clipped them shut. His monsters trailed him, limping and groaning.
"I guess that saves me the trouble of having to evict them," Twilight said.
Afterwards, an awkward silence followed. Everypony was helping to put the lab back in order - most likely feeling obligated to do so, and Spike was putting the last finishing touches to his letter.
"I suppose we'll leave now," Star blurted out, "I'll come back soon!"
"Bye!" everypony collectively shouted, waving them off.
Star grabbed her scissors by the blades, deftly threw them up, and caught them on the handles. With a single slash, she sliced open a reasonably large opening which expanded further with a little help from her arms. Together, Star and Marco both stepped into the portal, ready for some well-earned rest.