//------------------------------// // Six VS One! // Story: My Little Pirates: Luffy's Adventures in Equestria // by Fullmetal Pony //------------------------------// “No!” Dash screamed watching Tirek’s attack consume Fluttershy. Everypony else could only watch in horror while Tirek continued sending out a blast of pure magic where Fluttershy had been. With a roar, he suddenly swung his head, directing his spell at the rest of the ponies. Dash swiped Twilight off the ground while Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie scrambled out of the way. Tirek carved a swath of molten stone through the battlefield until a convulsion rocked his body. His torso twitched while he let out a fit of coughing. While Tirek writhed on the ground, everypony else got back onto their hooves. The recovery was cut short when Tirek flailed an arm into the floor and pushed himself off the cracked and melting stone. With a swipe of his arm, he dispelled the dust and smoke around him and loomed over the battlefield. He looked over at his crippled beasts and snorted. “You damn brats,” he huffed. “To think a pegasus would hit me hard enough to disrupt my magic to this degree. By the time this is over, you’ll be wishing I’d taken you out as swiftly as her.” A hiss made Tirek tense up a moment before pitch black fangs tore into his neck. Bloodshot eyes glared down to see that Fluttershy had clamped down on him. Smoke still curled up from around her chest and her fur was singed, but everything above her stomach glistened like sculpted obsidian. Her mane in particular had taken on an angular shape, aided by the fact that its lower half had been burnt off giving it a helmet-like appearance. Tirek grabbed her with reckless abandon and pulled with all his might. She flew off of him and slammed into the ground, but left a sizeable gash in her place. “You’re like flies!” Tirek screamed. A fit of coughing racked his body and he went down onto his knees. “Dammit!” Nearby, everypony raced over to where Fluttershy had landed. Dash reached her first and stuck out a hoof to check her, but snapped it back when fangs almost chomped down on her leg. The creature before her more resembled a mash between a changeling and massive bat than the pegasus they all knew. Even Fluttershy’s cutie mark had morphed from a trio of pink butterflies to a group of ruby bats. The animalistic fire in Fluttershy’s crimson eyes sent a chill up Dash’s spine. Suddenly, the arment faded away. With a grunt, Fluttershy got onto her hooves, but only stood on three of them. Her right hind leg was slightly bent to the side and marked with a sizeable bruise. She let out a hiss feeling something press into her, offering support. Applejack pulled back her hoof, but remained beside Fluttershy as did the rest of her friends. With a growl, she lowered her head. “You…” Fluttershy paused, shocked at how husky her voice sounded. “You need to get away.” She growled again and shook her head. Her Element pulsated, forcing a shiver out of her. “I… I want to fight more. N-no, I want to stop this.” Her slitted pupils narrowed at Tirek. Quick dodges from Rarity and Pinkie saved them from getting whacked by Fluttershy’s wings when she unfolded them. She crouched low, ready to attack, but a cyan hoof blocked her. “Move,” Fluttershy hissed at Dash. “No way,” Dash replied. She brought her head closer to Fluttershy’s and stared deep into her scarlet eyes. “Fluttershy, this isn’t you.” “I…” A thin rim of aquamarine appeared around Fluttershy’s irises. “I know, but he has to be stopped.” An orange hoof stomped down next to one of Fluttershy’s. Applejack readjusted her hat, showing off the fiery determination on her face. “You’re not in this alone, sugarcube. Not gonna be worth beating Tirek if it takes you out too.” “And we have a much cleaner way of taking care of ruffians like that,” Rarity gave her Element a tap. “It’s still super cool that you can actually kick so much flank though!” Pinkie chirped. Everypony else glared her into silence. Finally, Twilight put a hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Fluttershy, I’m not sure what happened, but we’re not gonna let you tear yourself apart. If we’re gonna beat Tirek, we’re gonna do it together.” “That’s right!” the other girls said, causing their Elements to sparkle. “You’ll get nothing!” Tirek roared. They all spun around to see that Tirek was back on his hooves. The wounds across his torso were rapidly shrinking and the ones marring his face had already completely vanished. Still, his bulging eyes and frothy mouth spoke of the state he was in. Above his enraged face, his horns blazed with magic. In the middle of them was a sphere of gold the size of an adult pony. Black spots continuously sprouted up on it, but faded just as quickly. With each passing second, the sphere grew in size. Nearby, Tirek’s beasts writhed on the ground, crimson branches connecting them to the sphere. “I’ll turn you and the rest of this island to ash and go from there! Celestia be damned if I take her out too!” “Twilight, Element magic now!” Dash screeched. “I know!” The crown atop Twilight’s head lit up. The rest of the Elements followed suit. All six ponies were encased in a pure white aura that floated Twilight into the middle of the group. Tirek snorted at the display and pulled more energy out of his beasts, causing the sphere above him to balloon outwards. It was now almost as big as he was. The glow around Twilight and her friends was nearly blinding. Floating at level with Tirek’s chest, Twilight slowly opened her eyes, revealing them to be fully white now. The rest of the girls wore similar expressions as the aura around them began to shrink down and gain an array of colors. With a roar, Tirek launched the titanic sphere at them. At the same time, a primatic blast exploded out of the girls, forming a thick rainbow wave that crashed down on Tirek. The two attacks clashed in the middle of the air and whipped it into an intense whirlwind. Down in Canterlot, many ponies had observed the events at the castle in horror, but were unable to linger on the battle for long. Instead, they turned their attention to sifting through the wreckage of the earthquake that had torn through the city a few minutes earlier. The fire brigade and the royal guard rushed through the streets, pulling ponies from destroyed buildings and trying to douse the flames that had sprouted up across the city. Everypony came to a stop when what looked like a second sun appeared over what was left of the castle. Even the odd explosion from a few days prior was dwarfed by the terrifying sight all in Canterlot were beholden too. Gasps raced through the city at the sight of an equally massive ray of rainbow slamming into the miniature sun. Jaws dropped watching the two titanic events collided until ponies spotted a rippling shockwave sending a wave of dust at them. Abandoning the attempt at freeing anypony still trapped, the guard and fire brigade hastily began casting shield spells. Tirek gnashed his teeth when his attack drifted back towards him. Screaming like an enraged animal, he thrust his arms up and pushed them into the sphere, ignoring the flames that consumed his hands. On the other side of the struggle, the aura surrounding Twilight and her friends was rapidly dwindling away from them and flowing up into the attack. In a flash, the aura suddenly vanished and they all fell to the ground. With a groan, Twilight looked up to see that the rainbow ray was still pushing against Tirek. The color drained from her body when Tirek suddenly shoved his way forward, forcing back the Elements’ might. Gaining more ground, a maddened grin filled his face. He began to cackle when suddenly he heaved forward. One hand raced away from the sphere and clenched part of his stomach. The area had seized up and was erratically convulsing. All Tirek could manage was gasping for air. “T-that foal!” he sputtered. His pupils shrank when his sphere consumed extended arm. “Noooo!” he screamed before a blinding explosion of flames and color flooded over the castle. ~~~ The sun shone brightly above what remained of the castle. Almost the entire left wing of the structure was rubble now. The right wing favored far better but a decent portion of its inner wall had collapsed and all its windows were smashed. The only part of the castle that appeared completely untouched was the tiny centerpoint of the statue garden, its alabaster figures and finely trimmed greenery now a sharp contrast to the blackened plants and ash around it. Save for the soft crackling of a few errant flames and the tink of pebbles tumbling off of the toppled and crushed structures, there was silence over the castle. Slowly, a few guards and staff poked their head out and surveyed the damage. All eyes went to the center of the battlefield where six ponies lay. A slight breeze brushed Fluttershy’s mane against her muzzle, eliciting her eyes to slowly open. With a start, she jolted upright and looked around. Her heart beat faster as she took in the damage. The harsh silence of the scene sent a chill up her spine. “O-oh my,” she quivered. The tips of her mane brushed against the bottom of her jaw forcing her eyes down. Staring at her burnt and shortened hair, all she could mutter was another, “Oh my.” “Fluttershy!” Before Fluttershy could even turn to see who had yelled her name, she found herself wrapped tight in Rainbow Dash’s hooves. “You’re normal again!” Dash cried. Suddenly she broke off the embrace and looked Fluttershy up and down. “I mean, you are normal again, right?” Fluttershy glanced back. Her wings had regained their feathers while her cutie marks had returned to their normal shape. Rolling her tongue around, she found her teeth were flat again as well. With a deep sigh, she almost fell back to the ground, but Dash kept her up. “Oh, Rainbow Dash, that was awful.” Fluttershy lowered her head while tears bubbled up around the edge of her eyes. “I… I just wanted to hurt Tirek so badly and… and I could.” Dash stroked a hoof through Fluttershy’s mane and held her close with another leg. “It’s over now… still gotta give you credit for showing that jerk not to mess with you.” “I’ll say,” said Pinkie. Fluttershy and Dash turned to see Pinkie sipping some coffee out of a mug decorated by paintings of can of pink paint and a steaming slice of pie. Pinkie shrugged at them. “What? I get cranky if I don’t have victory coffee after defeating a threat to Equestria.” “Since when?” Dash asked. “I don’t really care when that became a thing,” Applejack huffed as she picked herself off the ground. “A nice cup of jo sounds pretty darn good right now.” Twilight was the next to get up. Nursing a slight headache by pressing a hoof to her head, she looked over her friends. “I think it’s asking too much for Donut Joe’s to be open.” “You can count me out, I want some much deserved beauty sleep.” Everypony looked down to see Rarity still curled up on the ground forcing her eyes shut. Applejack chuckled. “You should at least be in a bed, Rari—” Dash suddenly took off and raced over to a nearby collection of rubble. Applejack went into a gallop after her while the Rarity and Pinkie struggled to move at more than a snail’s pace. Their legs felt like lead and the rest of their bodies were racked with aches and injuries from the fight. They soon came to a complete stop when they saw that neither Twilight nor Fluttershy were trailing behind them. Aside from feeling a little woozy, Twilight was managing standing fine, but rather than focus on where Dash had flown off to, her eyes were down on the massive bruise on one of Fluttershy’s leg. Lighting up her horn, she enveloped Fluttershy in a spell and floated her onto her back. Twilight’s knees bent under the new weight, but she was able to keep her balance. “It doesn’t look too bad, but we should keep weight off that leg until we can get a doctor to actually look at it,” she said while marching over to where Rarity and Pinkie. The group slowly made their way over to where Dash was. Rounding what remained of a toppled wall, they found Dash in the midst of trying to hoist an unconscious griffon onto her back. “Little help here?” Dash huffed when the griffon began to slide back to the ground. “On it!” Pinkie skipped over to Dash, raising a few eyebrows along the way. Sensing the stares on her, she flashed a smile. “What? Takes a bit for the coffee to take effect.” Pinkie then turned back to Dash and helped get the griffon onto Dash’s back. Up close, Pinkie narrowed her eyes at the griffon before clicking a hoof against the ground. “Hey,” she said. “This is your friend from flight school isn’t it?” Fluttershy tucked her head behind Twilight’s. “G-gilda.” “Yeah.” Dash glanced back at Gilda and frowned. “Tirek must have gotten to her too. I’ll have a bit to talk with her about when she gets up. Stuff maybe I should’ve said earlier.” “Can’t say I’ll have much to say to these two.” Everypony turned to see Applejack lumbering over to them. Two lanky stallions were piled onto her back like sacks of flour. One stallion’s thick cherry-red mustache threatened to flop into the other stallion’s ear. Save for the facial hair, a pony would be hard pressed to tell the cream colored stallions apart. “I tried to get the other one, but I can barely keep these two beanpoles up.” Applejack glanced at where she’d come from. “She’s a few paces away from where these two varmints were lying.” “Pinkie?” Rarity asked. “Could you be a dear and help me out. I don’t know what other poor pony Tirek dragged into this, but they certainly didn’t deserve this.” “Oki-doki!” While Pinkie and Rarity went off to gather the other pony, Applejack turned to Twilight and Fluttershy. “Well, we’ve got Trixie, Gilda, and the Flim Flam brothers… willing to take bets this other pony had a problem with us too but search me if I know what it was.” Twilight tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?” “Well, can’t say I’ve ever seen her before and Dash can’t either.” “Yup,” Dash said with a nod. “Suri?!” Rarity screeched from behind some rubble. Everypony fliched at the sound, but quickly recovered. A few moments later, Pinkie and Rarity returned with an pale orchid pony sporting a light purple mane draped over Pinkie’s back. “Sound like you’ve got an idea who our mystery mare is,” said Dash. “I do but…” Rarity glanced at the unconscious mare. “This doesn’t make sense. I mean, I can understand Tirek using these other ruffians— not too much offense to Gilda, Dash— but Suri was such a nice pony.” “And you never did anything that might have ticked her off?” Applejack asked. “Why no such thing,” Rarity gasped. “We merely met at a knitting competition some years back. I mean, I won and got a bit of good PR over it, but that was certainly not serious enough to get entangled in this mess.” “You’d be surprised what can set a pony off and how long a sting can fester.” A red hand burst out of the air and smacked Rarity into a pile of rubble. Everypony turned white as the schism in the air widened and Tirek marched out of it. While still towering over the battlefield, his stature was only half of what it had been. There was a slight hunch to his back now and his fur was graying in places. A few wrinkles bespeckled his face and his once flowing beard now clung tightly to his jawline. Even his horns had shrunken down so now they barely stretched beyond his his forehead. His eyes still burned with a sadistic gleam. With surprising speed, he fell upon Applejack and Pinkie. His front legs kicked out and bucked them across the wreckage. Dash dropped Gilda to the side and flew at Tirek with one wing hardened and extended like a broadsword. Tirke caught her midair and slammed her into the ground. Dash let out a guttural groan and then went limp. Twilight’s hooves shook as she took a trembling step back. She could feel Fluttershy shaking like a leaf on her back. “H-how?” Twilight managed to choke out. “T-the Elements…” “Can only weaken me!” Tirek smirked. “And, as I learned from dear old dad, you’ve been using them quite a lot lately. I’ll give you credit on that, in Celestia’s hooves they’d probably be worthless rocks again at this point.” Tirek lunged at them, but Twilight teleported away at the last second. When she reappeared a few yards away, her horn pounded against her skull and sweat poured down her face. Tirek spun around and began slowly walking towards her and Fluttershy. “You’ve done quite a bit of damage to my magic as well.” Tirek slashed at the air and opened up another portal. “It’s now a pain just to make these!” He jabbed an arm into the portal. Another rift tore open beside Twilight and pounded her into the ground before ripping Fluttershy off of her. Tirek’s smile widened as he pulled his arm back and glared down at Fluttershy. He tightened his grip, forcing a pained cry out of Fluttershy. “Ah, that is satisfaction.” While keeping his hold on Fluttershy, Tirek shifted his gaze over to Twilight. “It’ll take a little longer with just my hands and hooves, but I’ll have more than enough time to get you all ready for Celestia and recover my magic.” Gritting her teeth, Twilight wobbled up to her hooves and glared at Tirek. She lit up her horn even while it felt like the base of it was drilling deeper into her skull. Tirek cackled at the display. “You think you have even a sliver of a chance beating me? Pathetic. Your magic is spent, your friends are beaten, and I still have more than enough strength to decimate everything around here! Without the Elements, you’re just another weak pony for me to crush.” Tirek glared at Fluttershy again. “I’ll give this foal that at least, even if my magic gave her a nudge, I can only enhance what’s already there to a degree.” Tirek threw Fluttershy to the ground, knocking her unconscious. Leering at Twilight again, he raised up one hoof right over Fluttershy’s head. “She’s the only one of you that’s earned a quick death!” Tirek roared as he brought his hoof down. “No!” Twilight screamed. A torrent of magic exploded out of Twilight’s horn. Rather than its usual violet hue, the thick beam burned bright white with trails of neon purple and magenta spiraling around it. The blast smashed into Tirek’s chest. The combination of the spell’s force and his raised leg tilted him backward and sent him crashing to the ground. Shaking in rage once again, he bared his fangs at Twilight. She met him with an intense glare of her own. Tiny arcs of magic sparked around her eyes. “I know I’m not the strongest pony,” Twilight said, her voice now carrying a slight echo to it that shook the pebbles near her hooves. “Even with my magic I could barely escape from your monster. If my friends hadn’t stopped it, you’d probably have won right then and there.” The glow from Twilight’s horn intensified and the star at the center of her tiara glistened as well. Fluttershy’s head lifted slightly off the ground while her Element tugged against her neck. With a snap, the necklace freed itself and zoomed over to Twilight. The other Elements sprung up from across the battlefield as well and aligned themselves around Twilight. “Now I’ve got to protect them,” Twilight said, voice growing louder while the air started swirling around her. “I won’t let you hurt them!” “From one to another, another to one,” she chanted, magic and wind violently whirling around her. “A mark of one’s destiny singled out alone, fulfilled!” A bright flash force Tirek to raise an arm. All around him, the wind rippled like a tornado had touched down around him. Bursts of multicolored lightning shot through the air. An ashen star appeared wherever they struck. When Tirek’s eyes readjusted, he felt a chill. Magic crackled around Twilight, sending out bolts that scorched the surrounding ground. The Elements, now dulled and gray, were spread out around her hooves. Only her tiara remained intact, its star now split into six different colors. A prismatic aura enveloped her body, shining bright enough to sting Tirek’s eyes. Yet, its glow was second to the concentrated magic that extended out of Twilight’s horn and back. Translucent wings, larger and sleeker than any pegasus’s, jutted out from her spine while the magic around her horn gave the impression that it had lengthened and sharpened. Tirek glimpsed Twilight for only a fleeting moment. In the next instant, for the second time in both his life and this day, Tirek was slammed in his gut and launched high into the air. Whereas Fluttershy had torn the air asunder when she had brutalized Tirek, Twilight sent out roaring vortexes of wind and magic with each flap of her wings. Rolling her head back, she collected magic around her horn before sending it out in a surge that sent Tirek careening into a nearby mountain. “You!” Tirek roared as he clawed himself out of the mountain. Twilight landed nearby and glared at him with glistening white eyes. “You little sneak!” Tirek screamed. “You think imitating an alicorn will save you?!” Twilight vanished. The air beside Tirek squealed a second before two purple hooves slammed into his right side and sent him flying across the rocky terrain. The ground tore up underneath him until it formed a sizable enough pile to bring him to a stop. “You keep going on about wanting to fight Celestia...” Twilight muttered. Her magic flared around her. With a kick that shattered the rock beneath her, she took to the air. “Try me first!”