"This doesn't feel right, not having Pinkie or Fluttershy with us." Applejack said, glancing around warily at the surrounding trees. Around her the other ponies took up a defensive position, one worked out by Twilight in some of their numerous training simulations.
"I know, but we'll have to make the best of it. We'll stick with strategy 25, be ready to adapt as necessary." Twilight replied, mentally running through an assortment of possibilities. The terrible noises were drawing closer, crashing through the woods with thunderous roars and monstrous shrieks. The Diamond Dogs all burrowed underground, ready to ambush at any moment, and every creature in the clearing tensed for battle.
A single leaf fell to the floor, and the first enemy darted from the undergrowth. It was humanoid, vaguely, its body a warped and twisted mass of muscles. With a bellowing roar it charged forwards, running with the aid of two long arms. It's face was warped, a large nose and two slobber covered tusks adorning its face, and its hair wild and scraggly.
Kakashi was the first to overcome the shock value, intercepting what was quite likely one of Orochimaru's old Cursed Seal ninjas, and striking it several times with his skilled taijutsu. The monstrosity lost momentum, but barely seemed fazed by the assault, merely turning its rage upon the cyclopean ninja.
Before any of the summons could lend their assistance, two more creatures rushed forwards. The first seemed more at place by the seaside, with long, flowing limbs complete with suckers, as well as spines along the back like a sea urchin. The second was coated with a fine fur, in variations of stripes and spots, and struck with catlike grace and fluidity.
Applejack quickly lashed out with her lasso, wrapping the worn rope around the sea monster with dexterous tail movements. The foe slowed, but laughed mockingly, flexing its warped muscles as it attempted to break the rope. Surprisingly the rope held, and the orange earth pony tipped her Stetson forward. "Earth pony grown fibers." She commented, flowing even more of her natural Yang chakra into the rope. Much of her training, after learning to mix mental energy into her 'earth pony magic' was spent learning how to augment her natural earth pony talents.
With a heave of her tail she yanked the ninja off its feet, pulling it in to a powerful buck from her hind legs. Launched airborne from the bone crushing kick, the cursed ninja was unable to catch its bearings before being tossed about again. Grunting, Applejack augmented her natural strength and was able to slam the monstrosity around the clearing, cratering the ground and cracking trees from the impacts.
The cat-like creature seemed to shimmer forward, closing the gap to the three unoccupied ponies with speeds they could barely follow. Rarity backpedaled, barely saving her hair from a series of swiped from the clawed hands. Twilight gave a quick shove with her magic, halting the onslaught by pushing the creature back a few steps. Rainbow Dash capitalized on the momentary vulnerability and swooping in to try her hoof at a melee fight.
While Naruto was quite talented at her fighting style, in the body of an athletic pony it became a thing of art. Rearing back on her hind legs she struck with swift jabs and strikes, making use of her hard hooves and powerful kicks. Her opponent quickly regained his footing, surprisingly able to keep up with the cyan pegasus's speed, and nearly landed a swipe across her face. With a flap of her powerful wings she took to the air, freeing all four legs for offensive purposes, and darting back whenever the audible sharpness of the claws signaled their approach.
As the two began to fight to a draw, more monstrosities burst from the underbrush. There were three, a scraggly looking weasel man, a hunched porcupine-like creature, and what seemed to be some sort of Owl type monstrosity. Twilight opened up with a volley of pure magic, frowning as the approaching attackers dodged around the crushing shots. Her horn visibly glowed as she called upon more of her power, centralizing her magic, infusing it with physical energy as well, and weaving it into an overpowered variant of a rather basic spell.
'Force!' She mentally yelled, letting a wave ripple out from her horn. Caught in a sudden wave of magic the trio of cursed ninja found their momentums suddenly altered, and were swept away in the unnatural pull.
Talks with Celestia revealed that her magical talent, while prodigious, was nowhere near Alicorn level. In the past it had taken upwards of one hundred well trained unicorns to raise the sun or moon, which Celestia and Luna did each day and night. Twilight's power was comparable to 25 of those unicorns, so she was about a quarter of the way to moving the moon, a little more if she converted some of her magic into Chakra.
Compared to her magical reserves, her chakra reserves weren't much greater than her friends. Chakra was a combination of physical and mental energies, and her previous lifestyle left her lacking in the physical component. A rather tight training regiment had helped correct that over the past few years. Using chakra in place of her spells gave her more power, but slightly harmed her control.
Still, as horrific as these ninja were, they were certainly not the moon, and not even comparable to an Ursa Minor. It actually brought a smile to her face seeing them rag-doll around the clearing rather comically at her mental command. Cutting the flow of power to her horn she let the spell fade, and the ninja stumbled to their feet.
"Raaaaaaah!" The weasel man rasped, staggering upright and baring crooked yellowed teeth. He took two steps forward before his tail caught on something. Glancing down in confusion he noticed a paw-like hand reaching from the dirt, gripping onto the middle of his tail. Before he could react the paw retracted, yanking the appendage roughly into the ground and pulling the monstrosity off of his feet.
"Waaaaaaagh!" Trundle yelled, shooting up from the dirt and nailing the rodent-like creature with an uppercut to the jaw. "Huh," the Rottweiler said, scratching his head as his enemy slumped to the ground. "Thought that'd be more epic."
He was spared becoming a pin-cushion when another paw darted from the ground and pulled him back down. A volley of quills from the porcupine-like monstrosity sailed passed and embedded themselves to the base in a tree. The three dogs continued ambushing the attacking ninja in a similar manner, pulling them down into pit falls and traps, and striking with rather effective martial arts against their crippled foes.
The owl-like beast had somehow managed to slip passed the ambushes, and made a beeline for Twilight, who continued to shout orders to the group of ponies, and occasionally throw blasts of magic to support them. Before it could attack the unsuspecting unicorn, Rarity leapt in front of it. Drawing power into her horn she centered her magic on the oncoming beast, 'Lotus Eater Technique'. Her horn flashed once, and then there was darkness.
O~O~O~O~O
"You're awake!" A voice stirred him into awareness, he seemed to be laying on a bed, looking up at a white ceiling. A beautiful woman in a nurses outfit stepped into view, her hair reminding him of that odd dream he had just experienced. "I'll go let the doctor know, try not to move."
She disappeared from his line of sight, and he tried to sit up. It was no good, aside from his fingers and toes he couldn't seem to make his body respond. A few moments later the nurse returned, accompanied by a familiar looking silver haired man with one eye, wearing a surgeon's mask. "I see you've woken up finally. Can you speak?"
"What happened?" he winced a bit at how rough his voice sounded, probably from dehydration.
"You were brought in by one of the militia patrols, they found you being transported in a cage, along with several other ninja." the doctor said, "Do you remember your name?"
"I... everything is... fuzzy..." He muttered, glancing around at what he could see.
"What is the last thing you remember?" The nurse asked, her tone patient and comforting.
"I was attacking a group of ninja... no... one ninja and some ponies?" He said, glancing around the room once more. There were drawings on the far wall, colorful ponies drawn in crayons, they looked familiar.
"Some amnesia is to be expected, you suffered a pretty bad head and spine injury, but you should make a full recovery in a few weeks." the doctor said, giving him a small smile with his visible eye.
"I don't have amnesia, I remember everything!" he insisted, looking for support from the nurse. "There was a ninja, who looked like that doctor! And ponies, one of them looked a lot like you!"
"Often, when we lose our memories, our minds try to fill in the blanks with whatever is available." The nurse said, laying a comforting hand in his. "It could be that your mind is using the things in this room as projections."
"I... That can't be right." He said, looking between the calm doctor and the comforting nurse.
"Try going through your memories backwards. Let's see if we can find where the real ones end, maybe we can find your family?" The nurse said, settling down on his bed. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then began to tell her what he remembered.
O~O~O~O~O
The monstrous ninja stopped in his tracks, caught immediately in Rarity's illusion. It had been a bit of a struggle at first, but after the initial few seconds there had been no attempts to break free. From the beast's perspective, where he was now was preferable. It was now a simple matter to alter the projected 'reality' to cater to the ninja's responses.
The howls from the forest continued, and for every ninja struck down more flooded into the clearing. Slowly the combatants were forced towards the middle, covering for each other as more and more enemies ganged up on them. Kakashi had already brought down seven ninja, the Diamond dogs combined had done the same.
Applejack finished throwing down her third ninja, and, reaching into her saddle bag, withdrew three apples. A light kick bounced the spherical red fruit onto the downed enemy's chests, and with a surge of Yang chakra they began to grow. Within seconds full apple trees shot up from the ground, their thick roots surrounding the ninja, driving down into the earth and pinning them there.
Rainbow Dash darted about the clearing, dodging ranged attacks from those attacking her, while swooping down to sneak attack those that weren't. Rarity caught another two ninja in her illusions, her mind rapidly adapting to the strain of maintaining several interactive ones simultaneously. Some of these ninja, she learned, were bloodthirsty monsters long before the seal was placed on them.
"Hold them off, I think I can do a mass dispel to force their seals closed!" Twilight called, falling into the middle of their new ring, drawing on a tremendous amount of power.
"Buck this! I'm giving them the new and improved 'Blazing Buccaneer'!" Rainbow Dash called, shooting up into the air.
Rainbow Dash was an interesting case, even among pegasi. Most had difficulties using chakra, given their rather symbiotic relationship with raw natural energy. Fluttershy was the exception, she had real talent manipulating chakra, which wasn't surprising given her rather unusual behavior compared to other pegasi.
Their instinctive use of the energy gave them their weather control, augmented their strength to levels just below earth ponies, and made them damage resistant. Rainbow Dash took that to new levels, having a figurative well of natural energy within her at any given moment. It was her natural weather manipulation and near invulnerability that allowed her to punch the sound barrier without becoming a crumpled heap.
This also meant that in order to use chakra she'd need to push her mental and physical energies to enormous levels, all in order to achieve balance. Physically she had been working hard, running along with Applejack, rather than flying relying on her pegasi magic. Her naps were becoming more and more infrequent over the past few years. Mental exercises were a bit more of a challenge for the mare, but she had eventually taken interest in books on weather manipulation, after a certain Wonderbolt captain casually informed her about some of the 'cooler' things a pegasi could accomplish.
Pulling up to a decent height the rainbow colored pegasi began to work on picking up speed. Reaching into her natural energy well she felt the air move around her, pulling inwards on all of the oxygen of the environment. She continued flying, quickly compressing an aerodynamic cone in front of her, and dragging along a growing bubble of pure oxygen behind her. No longer was she a single pegasi, flying through the air. Instead she was a missile, a large shell of compressed air soaring through the air.
Coming into a dive she aimed downwards into the clearing, where dozens of misshapen humanoids rushed in towards her friends. The capsule dove with her, rushing towards the ground as she felt the familiar tug of brushing up against the sound barrier. Squinting through the tears in her eyes the cyan pegasus grinned, preparing for the final step of her technique.
"Kakashi! Shoot a fire technique into the air!" Twilight yelled, channeling the buildup of energy into a shield spell instead of her intended mass dispel, mentally cursing the pegasi's recklessness. The masked ninja responded by firing a Grand Fireball over the heads of the encroaching horde.
Seeing the flare ahead of her Rainbow Dash spun into a barrel roll, forcing all of the air around her body away, creating a vacuum around her body. With only her momentum to carry her she hit the fireball, the lack of air preventing the fire from reaching her body. To those outside the fireball appeared to become a ring that the pegasi shot through, before pulling back up into a steep climb. A split second later the mass of oxygen that tailed her hit the flame and went up with a teeth rattling kaboom.
The heat of the blast was felt even through several layers of Twilight's shield spell, which faded moments later. All around the group were burnt and singed ninja, gradually reverting to their normal human forms. "Looks like most of them are passed out, that fire must have sucked most of the oxygen out of the air." Kakashi commented, glancing around at the surroundings.
"Well duh! I aimed it overhead for a reason!" Rainbow Dash yelled, landing in front of the group. "A move that awesome is far too dangerous to be used directly on somepony."
"Your tail's on fire." Applejack commented, immediately deflating her friend's ego. The group chuckled as the pegasus franticly tried to put it out, before turning to put out the small fires that littered the area. Along the way Rainbow Dash explained the basics of her technique to Kakashi.
"So you draw in a lot of oxygen, and then use it to fan a preexisting flame?" He summarized. "Couldn't you just swoop over the enemies, and suck all the oxygen away from them?"
"We do that sometimes to stop forest fires when there isn't enough moisture on hand to make it rain. I suppose I should give that a try." She replied, already trying to work out the mechanics behind it.
Their conversation was interrupted as a trio of Diamond Dogs rose up from the earth. "Nice job wingly. Next time warn us." Grumbled Crinkle, his fur looking noticeably singed.
"We've got about a dozen of them under ground. You ninja aren't that good at fighting in dark confined spaces huh?" Laddie added, glancing smugly at his companion.
"Some of us are better than others. I'll admit your strategy is effective." Kakashi said, watching as the dogs opened up a hole and began hauling unconscious ninja out.
"I wish Pinkie were here, I'm certain she has seals to imprison ninja with." Twilight said, stacking the unconscious ninja together near the middle of the clearing, occasionally one would groan and Applejack would silence him with a quick kick.
Kakashi, who'd honestly been prepared to execute the lot of their opponents, stopped to consider things. It seemed that despite their abilities, the ponies were still relatively pacifistic in nature, focusing their attacks on subduing their opponents. Unwilling to break them of their innocence, he instead removed the entire tag of seals assigned to all Jounin for taking captives. They were expensive, and supposed to be used only for important missing ninja, but he was certain the Hokage would understand.
Soon enough they had about thirty ninja secured to several study trees, all paralyzed and with their chakra sealed. Content with a job well done they were about to sit back to wait for the Suna reinforcements to arrive, when a sudden explosion in the distance caught their attention. Thin black spires began to stretch up over the tree line, like some sort of warped reflection of a weed.
Kakashi's sharingan caught a glimpse of a large white bird flying up passed the towering mass, with several smaller flying figures in pursuit. "Those Suna ninja had better show up soon." Kakashi said, and the ponies nodded in agreement.