//------------------------------//
// Final: "The Great Battle" / "The Destroyer of Worlds" 
// Story: Harmonic Retribution ~HERO~ 
// by Lux Klonoa 
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Just a few minutes ago, this was a place full of tranquility and peacefulness, with a blue sky, tall-standing mountains, and an open grassy landscape with scattered trees all over. Now, it was nothing but a wasteland of destruction. An orange-red color had overtaken the once-blue sky, the mountains had crumbled down from their mighty stature, and the landscape had been torn apart with cracks and chasms throughout.

At the center of all the destruction, there stood its cause. The gigantic, 500-foot-tall, hulking centaur, Tirek, stood there, looking down at the only thing that was in his way: the Flame of Harmony herself.

The centaur smiled and chuckled at her, who floated at the same height as his neck and was in a fighting stance.

“Just when I thought that I took everything you little ponies hold dearly. Every single ounce of magic that was once yours,” he said. “Well… it turns out that I’ve missed some.”

Dash floated there, saying nothing in response with a determined frown on her face.

“So you call yourself Super Dash, huh? Well, Super or not, you are still a tiny little pegasus who is about to get utterly crushed by this mighty hand of mine,” Tirek said, bringing up his right hand and clenching it. “The hand of a true ruler who has absorbed the magic of every single earth pony, pegasus, unicorn, and now alicorn as well. You may have defeated the legendary Discord, but with this magic, I aim to surpass his legend!”

With his clenched fist, he turned it upside down and pulled it all the way back, intending to hit her with it.

“And what better way to do this than to destroy his vanquisher?! You, who holds the last ounce of pegasus magic that I need!”

The centaur swung his gigantic fist at Dash. Seeing it coming, she swung her hoof right at the incoming fist. Heading towards each other, both the hoof and the fist clashed on impact, creating a fierce shockwave that quickly spread outward to their surroundings. The already-crumbled mountains moved a bit, the chasms cracked further apart to a slight degree, and the particles of Dash’s aura moved away from her, with the aura resuming its upward direction a second after.

“…What?!”

Seeing that the pegasus’ own punch had stopped his, Tirek became surprised. His fist felt like it had hit a very small, but very tough rock that somehow stopped his hand’s gigantic size.

“I don’t think you know what really powers me here, Tirek,” Dash said, not showing a sign of flinching. “It’s not pegasus magic at all. Ever hear of the Elements of Harmony?”

“Elements of Harmony…?”

“Yeah. They are Equestria’s most powerful magic. Way more powerful than alicorn magic, as you’re seeing right now. There are six of these Elements, and when all of their energy is combined at once, they form the Soul of Harmony. And as I’ve discovered myself…”

Dash gritted her teeth.

“…I hold it right here inside of me. I am the Soul of Harmony!”

With her hoof still on the centaur’s fist, Dash quickly let go and flapped her wings down, boosting her upward. Immediately, she flapped her wings back, boosting her towards Tirek’s face. Nearing his face with her right hoof pulled back, she then swung it at him, launching a huge, forceful punch that knocked his head to the side and caused his entire body to be thrown backward. Tirek grunted loudly as he was thrown back in the air, flying several feet back. Then, a second later, all of his hooves landed on the ground, skidding backwards and creating trenches on the ground as he tried to halt himself with his head looking down.

The centaur soon came to a halt. A second later, he slowly stood up straight and lifted his head up, frowning as he then touched his left cheek, feeling a lot of throbbing pain there.

“…Well… How surprising,” he said, caressing his painful cheek. “To think that there is magic that matches the power of all those I’ve absorbed. Magic that still gives me pain despite my towering size.”

Lowering his hand, Tirek then smiled wickedly at Dash.

“Well, it should give me a rather great feeling once I’ve stolen it from you, Rainbow Dash. The Flame and Soul of Harmony, if that is your full title there.”

“It is. Come on, then!” exclaimed Dash, entering her fighting stance again. “I can guarantee you won’t steal it from me!”

Tirek chuckled. “We shall see about that!”

With his smile fading the second after, the centaur then began to run off towards her, with a step taken every single second. With each wide and massive step he took, the ground and the area quaked constantly as he ran. Nearing her, Tirek pulled his right fist back again and swung it at Dash. Flapping her wings to her right, she dodged the fist as it went past her right. Seeing the miss, Tirek then swung his left fist at her quickly afterward, only for Dash to dodge it by flapping her wings to her left.

The centaur continued to swing his fists at the white pegasus, grunting as he did. But no matter how long he continued, he couldn’t hit her at all due to her constant dodging. As she dodged and dodged, Dash soon noticed something about him.

“Gee, seems like you’re a little too slow to hit me here,” she said, dodging another fist. “I wonder if it has anything to do with, I dunno… your huge size, maybe?”

Tirek grunted frustratingly in response. To Dash and her increased reflexes and perception, it seemed like the centaur was moving at a snail’s pace here.

“Stop dodging, you little…!” exclaimed Tirek, gritting his teeth in annoyance.

After some more dodges and attempted hits, Dash stopped in one place and allowed his fist to come at her. She swung her hoof at it, stopping it again and creating another environmental shockwave upon the clash.

Surprising him again, Tirek pulled his fist back. Quickly putting both of his hands together, he then raised them up high and swung it down right on top of Dash like a hammer. Noticing it, she simply raised her hoof above her. Again, both the hoof and the combined fists clashed upon each other, making yet another shockwave that shook their surroundings.

Struggling a lot, the centaur growled at this, frustrated and annoyed that he couldn’t simply just swat the pony away like a fly. With her hoof still holding his hands up, Dash calmly remained there with a firm look on her face.

“Even if I don’t dodge, it looks like I’m still strong enough to block your attacks,” she said. “You think you’re all powerful with the magic you’ve stolen from us, huh? Well, I think you need a wake-up call!”

Tossing the combined fist upward, the pegasus then flapped her wings back, blasting her off towards Tirek’s torso and letting his hands drop. Upon reaching his torso, she began a flurry of hard, but fast-hitting punches and kicks at the midpoint of it, appearing as if she had an army of hooves attacking him. With each hard hit literally digging into his gut and spreading massive pain all over, Tirek’s face almost looked like he was trying to blow a whistle, with his black sclera eyes bulging outward.

She finished her flurry with a hard, heavy punch, knocking Tirek’s massive body away. Before the centaur could even regain himself, Dash quickly blasted off, flying to his left. She spun around and kicked him, knocking him to his right. Still, she wasn’t done yet, as she flew to underneath him, flipped herself upward, and did a vertical spin kick, launching him upward to the sky and causing his backside to face the ground.

Following him up and stopping above him, Dash then went to the centaur’s gut and launched another flurry of fast forceful hits with her upper hooves alone, dealing the gigantic tyrant another round of excruciating pain. She closed the flurry with another huge punch, knocking the centaur back down to the ground.

Tirek landed roughly on his back, causing a quake that was stronger in magnitude than his earlier foot stomp. Massive amounts of earth and dust rushed upward on impact, surrounding Tirek in their wake. More and more cracks appeared across the land, breaking it apart into several islands of varying height and width. The mountains around them now cracked apart, crumbling even further until they were nearly nothing.

Soon, the massive quakes ceased. A huge cloud of dust remained, concealing the land entirely until the dust began to fade away. A massive crater then appeared, with the downed Tirek lying in the dead center of it.

“…Oh man,” Dash said, looking a bit worried, seeing the destruction that happened as a result of battling her giant foe. “Wish I’d gotten to him sooner before he absorbed the alicorn magic and grew into this gigantic freak.”

After looking around, Dash then resumed her look of determination towards Tirek.

“Hm, no use in worrying about it. If Harmony can restore Discord’s crazy checkered hills and stuff, then it can restore this place as well. Just gotta defeat this guy first.”

Groaning, Tirek began to get back up, sitting up from the crater and holding the side of his head with his left. Pain coursed throughout his body, most notably the spots where Dash attacked him. He shook his head to ward off the pain, looking at the white pegasus with an angry, teeth-gritting look on his face.

“Ugh… It appears I’ve underestimated your power there, as I thought it matched mine,” he said. “Not only are you nimble, but you have brute strength that far surpasses mine. And yet you are just a tiny little pony that houses all of that. Is the power of Harmony really that versatile, able to fit a small body such as yours?”

“I guess,” Dash replied. “What? You think growing into a giant size has made you invincible? Well, guess what? Size isn’t exactly everything, Tirek.”

“So it seems. Perhaps I’ve overestimated my own physical abilities… But…”

The centaur began to smile and chuckle.

“…while it seems that this is the case, perhaps I cannot say the same for directly using the magic energy I wield…”

Suddenly, Tirek’s body began to glow the yellow outline from before, with dark electricity crackling around his horns. The great ball of swirling orange and yellow energy then appeared between his horns.

“…against you!”

Moving his arms up and swiftly down, looking like he was flexing his great muscles, the centaur’s giant ball of energy then shot out a huge energy beam right at Dash above, having the same size and colors as the ball it came from. The beam was coming toward her at a speed that caught her off guard.

“What the--- Aaaaagh!!”

The beam hit and exploded on her, knocking her way back and up toward the sky with smoke reeling off her body. She stopped herself and regained her position in the air, with her eyes shut tight and her teeth clenched as she felt burning pain all over her.

Groaning, she then opened her eyes, looking angrily at the wickedly-grinning Tirek.

“That was surprising! So you can wield unicorn magic as well, huh? I thought absorbing it only made your strength increase.”

“Of course, I can. And it was thanks to this magic that I was able to defeat your friend Twilight,” said Tirek, proceeding to stand up from the crater. “She was a formidable foe, by the way, using all of the princesses’ magic against me. At first I thought we were at an impasse, with neither of us showing signs of defeat. But then, my pure determination to rule these lands had pushed me further, and thus, I was able to defeat her and absorb her before you showed up.

‘From your earlier screams of rage when you broke out of the underground like that, it seems that you are very much filled with the same amount of determination as me,” continued the centaur, standing there now. “Well… let us find out whose determination is stronger, then, shall we?”

“Oh, I’m very much filled with it, alright. I’m determined to save the world from you! And guess what, Tirek? You’re not the only one who can directly wield magic energy like that.”

Dash pulled her right hoof back.

“Hm…?” Tirek’s grin faded away as he heard her and saw her hoof.

“You’ll learn that I can, too! Eat thiiiis!!!”

With that yell, Dash threw her hoof forward at the centaur. A sudden burst of rainbow-gradient energy shot out of it, letting loose a rainbow energy beam that was the size of the centaur’s own face.

“What?!”

In the second before the beam reached him, Tirek quickly shielded himself with his own muscular arms, forming an “X” in front of him. The beam hit and exploded on him, knocking him back and causing him to slide out of the crater and create a long trench line as he went back. As he stopped to a halt and with the smoke reeling away from his arms, he looked ahead with an angry expression as the pegasus descended from the sky and stopped straight ahead of him.

“So you can as well, I see,” said Tirek. “Very well. Let us continue, then!”

Throwing his head back and then swiftly forth, Tirek shot out another energy beam at her. Seeing it coming this time, Dash flapped her wings to the left, dodging the beam by nearly an inch. Unlike the centaur’s punches earlier, she noticed, his energy beams seem to be way faster, nearly matching with her own speed. Gotta be faster than that, she thought to herself.

In the second after she dodged the beam, the pegasus pulled her hoof back again. But before she could fire her counterattack, Tirek immediately fired another beam at her without warning.

“Whoa!”

She flapped her wings to the right, trying to dodge the beam again. In the middle of her movement, however, the beam caught half of her right wing and engulfed it for a quick second, damaging it before it exited the beam and causing her to feel a sudden rush of great burning pain.

“Aaaagh!”

With a teeth-gritting, painful look on her face again, Dash floated there and winced at her right wing, holding the top of it with her left hoof. Smoke trails were emitting upward from her wing as she continued to feel the pain.

Tirek chuckled. “Seems like I’ve matched your speed at last. Oh, what’s the matter? Did I hurt your little wing?”

Dash growled, gazing angrily at Tirek. “It’s gonna take you more than that to bring me down!!”

Swiftly throwing her hoof back and then forward, Dash quickly shot out another energy beam at a greater speed than before.

“Ngh…?!”

Surprised at the rainbow beam’s faster speed this time, Tirek tried to shield himself with his arms again. But it was too late, as the beam quickly reached his face and exploded, knocking the centaur back and down. He fell to the ground while flying back, sliding once again on the ground and creating more trench lines with the back side of his body.

Lying there for a second, the centaur then opened his eyes. He shook his head a few times, warding off the burning pain that was just inflicted on his face. He then growled, proceeding to sit and stand up from the ground.

“If you think I’m gonna let you fire another beam at me, you thought wrong!” exclaimed Dash, turning both of her hooves upward and forming a pair of rainbow energy balls above them. “’Cause I won’t let yoooou!!!”

The pegasus began to throw the balls at the centaur. Immediately afterward, she formed another pair and quickly threw them as well. She continued on throwing more and more energy balls at an increasingly faster pace. Faster and faster she threw, until it looked like she had multiple hooves throwing an armada of these balls, with the rate of fire being that of a machine gun.

Hearing her yell and seeing the balls coming, Tirek once again shielded himself as quickly as he could. The armada of balls began to hit him, exploding on his arms and creating a cloud of smoke that increased as they continued to hit him.

With Dash yelping constantly as she continued to fire, her barrage continued on, not showing a sign of letting up. Tirek began to slide back again at a slow pace as this went on, with the cloud of smoke becoming bigger and bigger with each passing second.

Soon, he felt his own arms weakening due to the constant barrage, realizing that if he continued his guard up like this, he would be openly exposed to the attacks. Growing frustrated, Tirek began to growl, glowing the yellow outline around him once more.

“ENNNOOOOOOOOOOUGH!!!!”

Quickly moving his arms away, the centaur fired another energy beam from his horns in an instant, this time in a much larger size than before and at a speed that was faster. The beam quickly negated Dash’s energy balls as it then came straight at her.


“Huh--- Aaaaaagh!!!”

Before she could even think of dodging it, the huge beam swiftly came for and hit her, causing a major explosion that knocked her far back. Farther than when she was hit before.

“If you can be relentless like that against me,” said Tirek, still glowing yellow. “Then so can I!”

As Dash began to fall downward, Tirek threw his head back and then forward, unleashing his own armada of energy balls from the big one in his horns and firing them at the same machine gun-like speed.

Falling downward a bit and then quickly flipping herself over to regain in the air, the pegasus then saw the incoming volley of energy balls.

“Oh snap!”

As the volley reached her, she began to flap her wings right, up, left, and down, trying to dodge as fast as she could. She continued to dodge the balls with some of them nearly hitting her, until she suffered an explosion that knocked her slightly back. With her guard almost down, she quickly put it back up by shielding herself with her hooves, allowing the balls to hit and explode on her.

With Dash now guarding herself, Tirek continued to fire upon her with smoke building up on her. Several seconds later, however, Tirek noticed that she was seemingly putting up a longer-lasting defense than he did, with no sign of weakening anytime soon.

This one’s body is tougher than mine, it seems, Tirek thought. Ah, wait a minute here….

As he looked upon the smoke building around Dash, the centaur then suddenly got an idea, causing him to smirk.
He continued to fire upon the pegasus until the smoke cloud around her was thick enough. He ceased his fire, and with him tensing up all of his legs, he then began to jump high up and into the air.

Dash noticed that the firing had stopped. She moved her hooves away and looked onward as the smoke around her dissipated.

“Huh?! Where in the hay did he go?!’

She looked around, only to notice a giant shadow looming over her from above, causing her to gasp.

Almost immediately without having a chance to guard against it, she was met with a double-fisted, downward pound attack from the centaur above, who descended and swung the double fist down on her. Unlike the last time he tried this attack, this time, it came through, forcing Dash down as the double fist then impacted the already cracked ground. Dust and debris blew upward as the ground was further destroyed, with a sudden, even bigger quake rumbling across the land from the point of the impact.

As the quake and dust ceased, Tirek stood there in a bent-over position, with his hands deep into the crater that had been formed underneath. He grinned, knowing that he finally had the pony subdued with his own strength.

He stood up and lifted his hands, now looking downward at the seemingly unconscious pegasus. Her flames had died down, back to her spiked mane, and her aura was gone.

Tirek chuckled. “Well, it seems that the rest of your body isn’t quite as strong as your hooves there. You were merely keeping your guard up when I tried to hit you several times earlier… You are wrong, Rainbow Dash. It seems that size is everything after all!”

Raising his upper left hoof and moving it above Dash, the centaur then swung it down, stomping on the little pegasus with the weight of his hoof. Grinning wickedly, he stomped and stomped and stomped on her, digging deeper into the earth and expanding the crater’s size. After one last stomp, glowing the yellow outline with the large ball of energy between his horns again, he aimed his hand at Dash, whose body appeared to be heavily bruised now.

Using telekinesis with the pegasus glowing the same yellow outline around her, Tirek levitated her upward and close to his face, bringing his hand with her as well.

“Guarantee that I won’t steal it from you. Ha! What a pointless bluff,” said Tirek, smiling at the floating unconscious pony whose head and hooves were all drooping downward. “I must admit, though. You gave me a much harder time than Twilight ever did. If I hadn’t stolen her magic, then you would have, indeed, finished me off in a short time. Now, it is time I drain you of the last pegasus magic in this world, as well as the Harmonic energy that powers your form here. With it, I should really become unstoppable this time!”

Closing his eyes, he slowly opened his mouth, expecting to absorb Dash’s energy into him. But after a few seconds, nothing came.

Opening his right eye to look, he noticed that Dash was still there, drooping downward. His draining spell was active, he felt. So why wasn’t he draining her yet? He thought.

Closing his eye, he then tried harder, opening his mouth to its widest. But after a few more seconds, nothing still came out of her yet, despite him strengthening his draining spell.

After waiting a bit longer, Tirek opened his eyes and formed an angry, gritted-teeth expression.

“Grr…! What is going on? Why isn’t your energy going out of you yet?!”

“…ha ha ha ha ha…”

“What…?!” Tirek heard her chuckling.

Moving her head up to look at him, Dash was smiling with her left eye closed.

“Seems like you can’t drain my energy after all,” she said. “When I said that I have the Soul of Harmony, what I really meant was that the energy of Harmony has merged with my own soul. And having a soul means you’re alive. Without it, I may as well be dead. Or alive, but without the ability to feel anything, as I’ve learned from my friend, Twilight. Either one… 

“So it looks like you can’t drain my energy because it’s locked there inside of me with my own soul,” she continued. “If you really want my energy that badly, you’re gonna have to kill me. And even then, that isn’t a surefire guarantee because a soul goes away once someone dies. So tough luck for you, Tirek.”

The centaur growled again. “So that’s how it is, huh? And it seems like I have only knocked you out temporarily, despite making sure that you stayed unconscious.”

“Yeah, you did get the jump on me, alright. But no matter what you did, it wasn’t enough to keep me knocked out,” Dash said, chuckling again.

“…Ergh… So be it. I’m no longer interested in your energy… I just want you dead now!”

With his yellow outline and ball of energy still active, Tirek moved his hand away, taking Dash along, and threw it forward, throwing the pegasus away.

Dash flew back until she stopped and did a complete backflip in the air, regaining herself. She looked ahead and smiled.

“You said you wanted to see whose determination is stronger, right?” she asked. “Well, what you just saw a minute or two ago wasn’t really me at my best.”

“Huh? You mean…?”

“Yep! I have been holding back this entire time! And now, seeing what you can do with those energy attacks against me, hurting me with them and all, well…”

Dash brought both of her hooves up and faced them upward, with her smile turning into a frown.

“…I’d be an idiot if I didn’t use more of my power here to win!”

With that exclamation, Dash swiftly crossed her hooves in front of her, forming the letter, “X,” again. A second later, her body exploded with her white particle aura resuming around her again, and her spiked rainbow mane and tail resumed their flaming forms. Whilst powering up, she began to growl for a few seconds, growling louder and louder as her power continued to increase. Her hooves began to feel stronger and harder, and her overall body became lighter.

“You’re about to find out what I’m really like, Tirek!” she exclaimed with a growling tone, her aura speeding up at a faster rate. “This is me when I’m really serious! This is me when I’m pushed far enough!”

Tirek watched on with a curious look, wondering what her full might was going to be.

Still growling ever louder, Dash’s entire body began to shake wildly, quaking with her power coursing through her. Reaching the point where her power was at a high level, Dash then moved her hooves swiftly downward and away, creating a bigger explosion of her white particle energy. With the explosion, both of her aura and rainbow flames became even larger than before.

“And you won’t like me when I’m being pushed too faaaaaaaaar!!!” she yelled at the same time as her explosion, her yell echoing across the broken landscape.

At the instant she flapped her wings back, Dash blasted off towards the centaur at a greater speed than before, leaving an explosion of white particles behind as she took off.

“Nggh…!!” grunted Tirek, looking very surprised with wide eyes at the pegasus’ sudden increased speed.

It took only one second for Dash to reach Tirek from where she was. Reaching him, she quickly launched a massive punch at his face, knocking him back farther and faster than what her earlier attacks did before. Regaining himself and sliding back on the ground again, Tirek looked ahead and saw her coming again. Trying as fast as he could, he formed the ball of energy between his horns and fired a large energy beam at her.

As the beam neared her, Dash flapped her wings left, shooting her to the far right and taking a wide dodge from the beam this time.

“What?! Ooof!”

The pegasus wasted no time in reaching the centaur, swinging her hoof and making another massive punch on his face again. In the middle of his knockback, Dash blasted off again and went straight for his torso. Reaching it, she launched a six-second volley of fast moving punches and kicks on his gut, yelping constantly and again looking like she had multiple hooves that were all attacking the target.

At the end of her volley, she pulled her hoof back and screamed loudly, with her expression being full of rage. Swinging her hoof, she launched her strongest punch yet at the centaur’s gut, digging into it and causing some massive pain to the gigantic tyrant. With his eyes and his cheeks bulging out, Tirek was quickly launched back, flying the farthest he had been yet.

Still flying back, the centaur was nearing a large mountain that hadn’t been crumbled yet and was nearly his size. He reached and crashed into it, cracking and destroying the mountain into pieces. Along with the damage to his back, the crash slowed him down, and he fell and crashed on his back on the ground along with the mountain debris.

Dash looked onward as Tirek crashed to the ground, seeing the huge smoke and dust emit upward from the ground and the destroyed mountain. The dust and smoke soon faded, and after a few seconds, she heard a low, but loud growl coming from the fallen centaur.

As pain radiated all over his body, Tirek quickly sat up, angrily gritting his teeth at Dash ahead.

“How dare you hold back on purpose, making me think I had the upper hand here? Grrr…!”

The centaur pushed himself up to stand. As he stood there, a sudden rush of pain came over him, making him wince and grunt.

“...Ugh, no matter. I will be the victor here! And if it means using up all of my power here…”

Once again, the yellow glowing outline appeared around him again, and he summoned his ball of energy once more.

“…then so be iiiiiiiit!!!”

Throwing his head back and forth, Tirek fired the fastest energy beam he could muster, with its speed twice the previous beam.

“Hmph!” Dash frowned at the fast-approaching beam coming at her.

Before the beam even reached the halfway point, the pegasus flapped her wings down, jumping up high and allowed the beam to go underneath her.

“Since I’m powered up now, let’s see if you can even hit me this time!” she exclaimed.

Hearing her, the centaur fired another one immediately after the first beam went past her. Quickly seeing it coming, Dash dodged it by moving widely to her right, only to see another beam firing at her immediately afterward.

With every half-second that passed, Dash continued to dodge each and every beam that Tirek had fired at her. Down, left, right, and up, she went, annoying the centaur to the point of frustration as he continued to fire.

“Grrr, I will get you, you little---“

“Haaa!”

Suddenly, Dash decided to stop in one place and decided to allow one of the beams to come at her. As the beam reached her, she swung her left hoof from right to left, hitting the beam itself and knocking it away to her left.

“Wh-WHAT?!” yelled Tirek, surprised at her suddenly deflecting the beam away.

“Huh… Guess I’m strong enough to deflect your beams now,” said Dash. “I thought it wouldn’t work, but it did anyway.”

Hearing her and seeing what just happened, the centaur was stunned. His magic attacks were nearly the only things that had worked against her, save for his surprise physical attack. Now, none of his attacks seemed to be working.

As much as he realized it, though, he refused to accept it.

“…No…! I will not lose… I cannot lose!! Grrrraaaaaaaagh!!!”

Suddenly, the centaur resumed his beam firing, with his head being thrown back and forth at a constant rate. But for every beam he fired, Dash deflected it away. She deflected every single one of them away, and she continued to do so as long as her power was still as high as it was.

“…Are you gonna keep this up forever, Tirek? Because I see you sweating a bit there!”

Indeed, as he continued to fire, a few sweat beads were appearing on Tirek’s head. His own strength and endurance were being pushed to their max, causing him to feel a bit tiring and weak.

Soon, Tirek’s rate of fire began to slow down, firing his beams with increasing time between each. The power of the beams themselves began to weaken as well, Dash noticed, as their size and speed decreased with each firing. The pegasus soon found herself deflecting smaller and smaller beams away, knocking them as if they were mere tennis balls.

At his final beam firing, the centaur quickly stumbled and collapsed downward to the ground with his hand touching it, holding himself up. As the sphere between his horns and his glowing outline faded away, he began to breathe at a heavy rate, with a ton of sweat beads appearing all over him now.

“…How…?” he asked. “How can this be? I… stole nearly all of Equestria’s magic. Yet I still… tire… It doesn’t make sense! I should be unstoppable…!”

“Everything has a limit, Tirek,” said Dash. “Even you… and me. It’s just that it looks like you’ve reached yours already.”

Bringing them up, she looked at her front hooves.

“Me? I’m not even there yet. I still feel like I could push myself even more with this power. I just haven’t tried it because I feel that being at this level is enough to defeat you. If I had to give out a percentage, I would say that this is me at 70% of my total power here.”

“…Seventy… percent…?”

“Yep.” Dash lowered her hooves and resumed her frown at the centaur. “But even at 70%, even when I’m doing nothing here, it’s still sapping my energy for as long as I remain at this level. I still have a lot of energy left, though. So…”

She took a “step” back in the air and entered into her ready stance.

“…it’s time to take back what you’ve stolen, Tirek. Time for a massive beatdown that you deserve for hurting everypony!”

With that exclamation, Dash flapped her wings back and blasted off towards the centaur once again. As Tirek lifted his head up to see her coming, the pegasus swung her hoof upward and made a huge uppercut on the centaur’s chin, knocking him into the sky. As he flew upward and stopped there, Dash then blasted up with him and went straight for his torso again. She launched a long volley of punches and kicks on his gut again, doing more damage to him. She attacked and attacked and attacked, until she stopped, flew to his left side, spun around, and kicked his massive body away.

As Tirek went flying helplessly and slowed down to descend, Dash flew to his back and did another long volley of only upward punches, dealing damage to his back and keeping him up in the air. Finishing up her volley, she then flipped herself upward and flip-kicked him, catapulting him up toward the sky.

As he was still going up, the pegasus quickly went to the centaur’s right and spin-kicked him away to his lefy. Then, she went to his left and kicked him away again. For a while, Dash was treating Tirek like a pinball, continuously knocking him all over the place and never allowing him to fight back, despite him having used up all of his energy already.

At the end of her juggling, as Tirek was catapulted to the sky and headed to where she was up there, Dash pulled her hoof back and summoned as much as strength as she could, gritting her teeth. As he was within her reach, she screamed at her absolute loudest and swung her strongest hoof yet, doing the massive punch to his gut and catapulting him down towards the ruined area below.

Tirek crashed furiously into the ground, causing him to scream in great agony as his entire backside dug deep into the ground. Massive amounts of dirt and smoke exploded upward as he crashed, with the dirt and smoke quickly spreading far into their surroundings. The ground quaked at its absolute maximum, reaching for miles and taking down whatever was left standing in this battle-scarred arena.

Soon, it all ceased. The dirt and smoke dissipated and the ground stopped quaking. Tirek now laid his back on the epicenter of a massive crater, with himself taking up a third of the crater’s size. Still floating up high in the air, Dash looked onward to the downed centaur with a frown on her face, breathing a bit and with her rainbow flames and white aura still active around her.

“…er… errrgh…”

Groaning with his eyes closed, Tirek tried to push himself up. He struggled, only to fall back down due to his entire body being heavily injured with bruises all over it.

“…Unbelievable,” he said, breathing heavily. “To think I’ve been bested by a mere pony in battle… Now I see why Discord, the legend that he is, couldn’t defeat you. I wonder if he, too, tried his best in stopping your incredible might?”

“He definitely tried, as he went into his true form for our battle. He even tried to get me to join him, only for me to decline ‘cause I knew that he’d just brainwash me into being his lackey,” said Dash. “So if you’re thinking of making the same offer to me, it won’t work here.”

Tirek chuckled. “Of course it won’t. Why would I need to, anyway, when every single pony is helpless, regardless? With your magic stolen and you are your helpless selves, I doubt brainwashing you would make things better. That is, though…”

He frowned.

“…if I won here.”

“Right. And I’m glad you didn’t.”

The centaur groaned and sighed. “So… since you are the victor here, I wonder what will you do now, Super Rainbow Dash? As far as I know, you ponies don’t kill. At least not in this current era of yours. Though I may have tired myself, I still have your precious pony magic inside of me. So, as I see it…”

He grinned.

“…you are going to have to kill me if you want it back,” he said, chuckling.

Dash stared at him for a bit. Then, she closed her eyes.

“No, I won’t kill you for it. But I do have another way to get it back...”

Opening her eyes, she then stretched her front hooves all the way out, pointing them at Tirek below. She arranged her hooves into a vertical position, putting them together with her left at the bottom and her right at the top. 

“…and to send you back to Tartarus as well!” she exclaimed, pulling both of her hooves back into her right side, with both of them cupped together.

“Ngh…?” Tirek’s grin faded away as he heard that.

With her hooves cupped together, Dash made a loud and long grunt. Both her aura and her rainbow flames exploded again, becoming even more larger than before. She proceeded to grunt at a constant rate, trying to summon as much of her power as she could. After a few seconds, gritting her teeth, she let loose another loud grunt, exploding once more with the white particles of her aura going out of her and into the surroundings. With this explosion, her aura changed into a colorful rainbow one, and the red irises of her eyes changed into that of a swirling rainbow.

“…What is this? Have you powered up even further?” asked Tirek, looking a bit surprised.

“No. This is me when I’m using my power to restore everything,” she replied. “Take everything that you destroyed and bring it back to the way it was before you came along. And that also means sending you bad guys back to where you belong!”

In the middle of her cupped hooves, a ball of rainbow energy appeared. Tirek noticed it, and he soon knew what she was going to do with it.

“…No. No…! You are not sending me back to that infernal place!” exclaimed the centaur, with his eyes wide and full of shock. “You are not!”

“Too late to say please, Tirek! And I hope you don’t ever break out of Tartarus again. Otherwise, I’ll be here to stop you again!”

Soon, the energy ball in her hooves began to emit sparkles upward from it, and her hooves themselves began to shake wildly.

“This is it! Say goodbye!”

“W-wait, no, s-stop! STOOOP!” yelled Tirek, with his hand reaching out to her and his face fully engulfed in total fear.

With her power being high enough and with the ball in her hooves, Dash then grew wide-eyed with rage and yelled at her absolute loudest.

“HARMONIC STOOOOOOOORM!!!!”

And with that yell, the pegasus swiftly threw her cupped hooves forward at Tirek below and fired a massive, gigantic, rainbow-colored energy beam from the ball that was there. The beam was the biggest thing she had ever fired out of her own hooves, and it was heading straight for the downed centaur below with the radiating colorful light of it coming over him.

“Ah, aah, aaah, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!”

Tirek screamed in fear and agony as the beam came straight at him and engulfed his entire body. Feeling the most extreme pain that he had ever known, he let loose another scream as he then felt that the pony magic inside of him was quickly being sapped out of him. He could feel himself shrinking and weakening as the magic was continuously being forced out of him by the engulfing beam, shrinking until he was the small, feeble-looking, hornless centaur that he was before.

With the pony magic gone, a bright white light then began to swallow him in whole, and he faded away from Equestria as he was transported back to Tartarus.

The gigantic rainbow beam had not only engulfed Tirek, but it also hit the crater, causing a gigantic rainbow explosion that slowly spread outward for miles, swallowing even Dash herself. It spread as far as the destruction went, and the gigantic, miles-wide, rainbow sphere stayed there for a while.

Soon, the sphere dimmed. As if everything went back in time, in an instant, the entire environment was back to normal. The mountains, hills, grass, and trees were all back to their normal state like nothing had ever happened, and not even a single crack or two were there. The red clouds were gone, allowing the sun to shine its light on the world once more.

Dash still floated in the same spot where she had fired the beam, with her hooves still stretched out. Breathing a bit heavily, her mane and tail went back to their initial spiked shape, her aura was gone, her wings had shrunk, and the irises of her eyes went back to red. She was back in the low-powered state of her Super form.

With Tirek defeated and gone, she looked at her surroundings and floated into an upright bipedal position in the air, resuming her normal breathing.

“Huh, looks like I restored everything with that move… But of course I did. I used the power of Harmony… Huh?”

Looking down at where Tirek and the huge crater were before, she noticed something large floating above the grass there. She took a closer look, seeing a large sphere of multicolored energy that resembled her own Soul of Harmony.

“That must be…!”

Dash moved and flew down to it, floating in front of it. The sphere was constantly swirling with the colors of the rainbow, with what looked like swirling shapes of hooves, unicorn horns, and wings in it as she noticed.

“Everypony’s magic,” she said. She smiled. “Guess it’s time to give back what was stolen.”


The white pegasus put her hooves at the sides of the sphere and grabbed it. She flew upward with it, taking it to the sky.

Flying high enough in the air and stopping miles above the ground, she then looked down at the massive landscape below, smiling as she looked here, there, and then at the sphere she held.

“Welp, hope this works.”

Looking at the sphere, Dash then brought it closer to her, moving it until it shrunk and entered into her entire body. Closing her eyes and feeling a great surge of power in her, she moved and crossed her hooves into the “X” position in front of her face again. It wasn’t till long that her body began to shake wildly again.

She shook, shook, and shook, until finally, she swiftly moved her hooves away and thrust her body forward. At that instant, a massive circular explosion of swirling rainbow colors blew out of her and into the surroundings, growing in size as it continued to spread. As the Sonic Rainboom continued to spread, not stopping until it had reached all of Equestria, the entire population of ponies throughout had felt their magic energy entering back into them as the Rainboom reached their areas. Their eyes were no longer faded and their cutie marks were visible again.

Opening her eyes and seeing her Rainboom spread all over the land, Dash flew back down to the grassy area and stopped there, floating above the ground and watching her massive rainbow ring enter into the far distances.

“There, that should do it,” she said. She chuckled. “Yep, looks like I saved the world again.”

“…You still think Equestria is an entire world… Oh, how naïve you ponies truly are.”

Hearing a very familiar voice coming from behind her, Dash swiftly turned around to find the mysterious beige-green sphere floating a few feet from her.

“…You!” she exclaimed. She growled, looking angry with her teeth clenched. “You nearly shocked me to death when I was still in my normal state!”

“Indeed, I did. Killing you was not my intent, however. Surely you remembered what I said before you drifted into darkness temporarily?”

“Yeah, I still remember. You said you wanted to test me… You wanted to test me against Tirek with all of the pony magic inside of him, you mean. Was that it?”

“Yes. That was the test. And you have passed it. Now I see what you are truly capable of, Flame of Harmony. And it seems that you are like him in more ways than I thought.”

“’…Him?’ Who is this person you keep speaking of? Actually, never mind that. What I wanna know is… Who in the hay are you, really?!”

The sphere chuckled slowly. “Very well. I suppose you have earned the right to learn my identity.”

Suddenly, the sphere began to grow into a size that was ten times the size of Dash herself, causing her to float back a bit. As it grew and grew, the contents of the sphere began to change into a black color. It stopped its growth, and all she saw was nothing but total darkness within the sphere.

All except for a pair of slit eyes, like that of a preying animal, above the center.

“…Eh? All I see are a pair of creepy eyes,” said Dash, looking puzzled. “Huh?”

Soon, everything seemed to be brightening up, washing the total darkness away. What she saw, then, was utterly foreign.

“What…?”

In the center of the sphere, there was a giant beige-green creature of sorts, with blue sclera behind its thin, slit eyes. It looked humanoid to her, with arms, but no legs at the bottom. Instead, the bottom of the body was shaped like a cone, having been inserted into a round, disc-shaped hole in the floor that was surrounded by a black-dotted, light-tan, disc-shaped floor. The humanoid creature itself looked completely alien; nothing like it had ever been documented in Equestria before.

The creature’s arms and hands appeared to be fisting each other and positioned close to its chest. It soon moved the arms away, with the arms themselves wearing armguards of the same beige-green color. It opened its hands, which had three long-nailed fingers and with a hole in their palms. The upper portion of the arms, where the guards ended, resembled a dragon’s underbelly scales, and its shoulders were wearing grey pads of a sort.

With its arms moved away, the creature’s body looked to be masculine in general, with breast guards and an almost triangular grey orb as its midsection. Below his slit eyes was a mouth that had the same scales of his upper arms, and on both sides of his face were tubes that protruded from his cheeks to the spots near his shoulders. His head had elongated sides, pointing left and right and looking like some sort of a hat, and in his forehead was a third normal eye that was bigger than his two slit eyes. In the middle of his large head, on the top of it and above his third eye, was a large, flattened, oval-shaped grey orb. And at the back of his head were small horns and two arms that looked like a bat’s, with their bat hands holding onto two large tubes that were connected to his head.

The two large tubes weren’t the only ones, though. His entire body was connected by a total of six tubes, and their other ends were connected to his surroundings. He was in a large area that looked like a shell, with hardened walls and the round area that he was positioned in.

Lowering his arms, the creature smiled wickedly, using his scaled mouth to smile.

“What… are you? I’ve never, ever seen anything like you before,” Dash said, with a strange look.

The creature chuckled.

“I… am Lavos,” he said, speaking with his scaled mouth in a beak-like manner. “And indeed, I am not from this planet. I come from a faraway world. One that had been harvested and destroyed by the father that I was spawned from. We are parasites. We only seek to harvest a planet’s life system as well as those living on it for one purpose: to pass what we harvested onto our children, adding on to our already vast collection of energies and genetic materials. By continuing this cycle, we hope to reach what we are destined to do: to achieve ultimate perfection in ourselves, where no lower lifeforms will be able to surpass us.

“Though Lavos may be my name, it is not my true name,” Lavos continued. “Our true name was lost to us long ago. I chose this name because that is what the warriors had called my father when they attempted to end him, only for them to meet their own end, instead… And that is what will transpire to this planet when I eventually rise.”

Still staring at the creature’s alien appearance, Dash then formed a firm look at him.

“…Lavos, huh? Sounds like lava if you ask… Huh?”

Suddenly, a feeling of great darkness, of bleakness and hopelessness, mysteriously came over her, making her glance down.

“Why am I suddenly feeling--- unh!”

Then, she was suddenly reminded of the vision she saw of the future, flashing back to the sky-high view of Equestria being utterly ruined and condemned to the eternal howling snowstorm. Seeing the vision in her head, she then realized that Tirek was not the cause of the future destruction.

“It… it’s you, isn’t it?” she asked, glancing back up at Lavos with a shocked look. She then formed an angry expression at him, gritting her teeth and pointing her hoof at him. “You! You are the darkness that I was warned about!”

The creature continued to smile. “Heh, so you were warned about me. Interesting… Yes… as I have said, once I am done feeding on your planet, I will rise from the earth and destroy everything that you have ever known. It is necessary for me to annihilate everything so that I can use the ruins of your planet as the breeding grounds for my own children. Just as my predecessors had done before me.

“All of the armies on this world… All of your defenses… They are nothing compared to the power gained from numerous harvested worlds!” Lavos exclaimed, glancing at his own hands and clenching them. “All of them have the strength of an ant to me. All of them… except for two living lifeforms.”

His eyes glanced toward Dash again.

“And you are one of them. You see, that is why I freed Tirek from his prison and manipulated events, so that you could fight him at his full strength. To see how powerful you were in comparison to me. Now I know what to expect when the day will arrive.”

“Hmph. So you were watching us the whole time, huh?” Dash said, frowning.

“Indeed...” 

Lavos began to chuckle again as his eyes shifted right and he opened his clenched hands. 

“What a fool Tirek was, thinking that I allowed him to rule Equestria as his own, not ever knowing that I would destroy him as well. No, the only true ruler of this planet shall be me alone.”

Dash growled. “This sphere here really isn’t you, isn’t it? You’re just using it to talk to me and watch what was going on. Where are you, you creep?! Why don’t you come out here and face me, instead of staying there with all those weird-looking tubes being stuck to you?!”

Hearing her, he looked at her again with a sly smiling look.

“…You really think you are looking at me in my entirety…? Oh, how really naïve you are!”

The sphere’s view suddenly began to move and zoom out, leaving Lavos where he was. The “camera” was traversing backwards in a large, slimy green area, with a bunch of mountain cliffs on each side of the long path that led to Lavos ahead. While still going backwards, the “camera” then took an upward turn for a few seconds, then it resumed going backwards horizontally. It then “exited” the place and zoomed out way further back, revealing the exterior of where the creature was.

Dash gasped. “What the…?!”

What she now saw was a gigantic porcupine-like creature, sitting in a glowing, swirling blue area. The porcupine had massive, long, greenish-grey spikes all over the top of it, with a hard, rocky, greenish-grey material that the spikes were protruding from with red burning streaks all over it. In the bottom-middle of the porcupine, there appeared to be a closed mouth with three, dark brown, bird-like beaks that were arranged in a triangular formation. Next to the mouth on both sides and touching the blue area itself were three feet that looked like giant brown eagle claws.

The three beaks opened, revealing a light purple membrane of sorts with a glowing purple orb in the center. As the mouth was opened, a long, loud, demonic-sounding sigh was heard.

“This is the face of destruction. The face this planet will see when the day arrives,” said Lavos, with a demonic, double-voice effect and using the beaks to speak. “The day where they will hear the scream of the apocalypse… You think Equestria is the planet itself. How unfortunate of you to neglect that you were under an illusion this entire time!”

Still shocked by Lavos’ exterior appearance, Dash then noticed that the sphere itself was glowing bright beige-green. Suddenly, the sphere shot out a thin green beam right at the sky above, fading away after a second. Nothing seemed to happen for the next few seconds.

Then, as if it was glass, the blue sky began to crack apart, with cracks spreading all over the sky. Even the sun itself was beginning to crack.

“…What… did you just do…?” Dash asked, confused by what was happening.

As if it was a sudden explosion, both the sky and the sun had suddenly shattered into pieces, revealing nothing but bright white light. Like a train hitting her out of nowhere, the pegasus then quickly felt a massive windstorm was blowing against her entire being, causing her to fly backwards and upward at a rapidly uncontrollable fast pace. It wasn’t until long that she was suddenly catapulted to the white sky itself, screaming as she went.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh…!!!”

In the midst of the massive windstorm tearing the land apart, uprooting the trees and sending everything flying to the light above, the sphere was still there, with Lavos continuing to watch it all.

“…With the spell undone, Equestria is no longer hidden to the rest of Earth,” he said. “Now, no one will be left behind when the final day arrives. All of them will feel my might… even to the only two that may have a chance against me. The Flame of Harmony… and the Dreamer of Light.”

After a few seconds, the sphere began to fade away into nothing as the storm continued to ravage the land.

“I shall be waiting, then. It is only a matter of time now.”

---

An hour had passed.

On the shores of a beach in an unknown location, with the waters rushing to the sands and the ever-calm sounds of the ocean itself, there laid Rainbow Dash, lying unconscious and with her form back to her normal blue state. The waters were rushing up to her every five seconds, making her mane and tail move up and down as she laid there on her front with her eyes closed.

A minute had passed. A couple of footsteps were heard, walking closer and closer to the blue pegasus. Soon, a shadow came over her as the footsteps had then stopped.

A shadow with the silhouette of someone with very long ears, a hat, two spiked hair bangs, gloves on the hands, and with shoes on the feet…