The War of Champions

by Onomonopia

The Victims of War

Billy smiled down at the blue tint that was now covering his clothing while he walked underneath of the sapphire moon that rested overhead. He was a bit tired from his trek down to the bottom floor of the resistance base. Upon reaching the bottom floor, he had found that it was where most of the resistance took inventory and trained to fight, which were pretty much the only two things that any of the ponies were doing as he walked along.

He greeted some of them and gave a friendly wave with a smile, but most of the ponies simply ignored him or gave him a very curt nod in response. Billy sighed to himself as he looked around at all the serious faces, and all the dead looks in the eyes of the ponies, one or two of whom he recognized from his Equestria. Thinking about his Equestria made his heart hurt a bit, and he placed a hand into his back pocket and wrapped his fingers around what he was looking for, before his eyes went wide at what...or rather whom, he saw.

"Applebloom? Sweetie Belle? Scootaloo?" he asked while he rushed over to the three fillies, well, mares who were all working hard to move a crate filled with weaponry and armor for the resistance. The three of them looked up with confusion as Billy slowed his rush to a jog, coming to a stop in front of them with a huge smile.

"Can we help ya?" Applebloom asked in a harsh tone, rubbing the back of her hoof across her forehead to move her short mane out of her face. Billy spent a moment observing them all, surprised at how different they looked from the friends he remembered. Applebloom was built even bigger than her sister and had a cold glare in her eyes that made Billy back away from her a bit. Sweetie Belle looked grimy and tired, while Scootaloo had cut her mane incredibly short and had a tattoo on her back that read "Reach your limit, then push to be 20% Stronger."

"Alright enough gawking, what the hell do you want?"

"Oh um...I was just wondering if you three needed any help?" The three shared a quick look before turning back to Billy.

"Thanks for offering, but we've got it," Scootaloo said while she and Sweetie pushed against the back of the crate, slowly pushing it forward a few inches at a time.

"You sure that you don't want help? I'm stronger than I look," Billy offered once again.

"No thank you. We've got it," Sweetie Belle snarled as she and her friend pushed themselves against the crate with all of their might, while AB pulled from the front. Billy stayed quiet for another moment as they struggled before he stepped forward in front of them again with a smile on his face.

"I haven't had the chance to introduce myself yet. I'm Billy Batson and I'm--" Applebloom dropped the rope with which she was pulling the crate and turned to face Billy, the fire in her eyes blazing with rage and pain that shut him up immediately.

"Ah know who you are. Ah know why yer here. Yer one of the champions, one of the six who are supposed to end this war," she explained with such a tone of loathing in her voice that Billy didn't dare speak. "But ah don't care if yer supposed to be a savior or angel. If yer supposedly such a great champion, where were ya five years ago when Black Adam killed our sisters. Where were ya a few weeks after that when mah grandma died of a broken heart? Where were ya when Black Adam's goons caused a cave-in over our heads and mah brother had to give his life to get me out? Where was our mighty angel then?"

Silence was all Billy had for an answer, Applebloom glaring at him for a moment before she spat into the dirt next to him. "Ya might be a great hero in yer world, but here you haven't done anything worth praising yer name about. As far as ah'm concerned, all y'are is in ahr way. Move." Dejected, Billy stepped to the side and looked down at the floor without another sound. The three then pushed past him without so much as a second glance, leaving the teen alone by himself in the silence of the room.

He then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet that Twilight had made for him, flipping it open to reveal a picture of one of his happiest days. In the photo, he and the CMC were sitting next to each other with huge smiles on their faces, with Spike and Twilight sitting behind them. Applebloom and Billy both had a hoof and arm wrapped around each other and both had smiles on their faces, but AB's face was also home to a black eye. Sweetie and Scootaloo were both laughing at something off photo while Twilight tried to help Applebloom with her eye, with Spike in the back rolling his eyes.

'I wish I could talk to you Bloom. I...don't know how to handle this.'

-====_====-

"This has certainly been an interesting day," Trixie groaned as she lay down on one of the beds and gently placed her saddle bag on the ground beside her, groaning while she placed a hoof over her head. "Ugh, it feels so good to lay down again." She had been planning on falling asleep then and there, but Batmare rested a hoof next to her head with a smile that told Trixie she wasn't getting out that easily.

"Nearly five years, Trixie, with no letters and no visits. Once again you drop off the face of Equis and leave all of your friends to wonder if you're alive or dead, with only the stories of your exploits to give us a hint of where you've been," Batmare said with a large and evil grin. "You aren't getting any rest until the two of us have caught up." Trixie sighed in acceptance and sat up again, giving Batmare a look.

"Fine. What do you want to know?" Trixie asked as Batmare removed her cowl, letting her purple mane fall to her shoulders while she took in a deep breath.

"Woo, feels great to finally take that off. What do I want to talk about? How about for starters, you tell me how long you and Sombra have been married?" Batmare smiled at the look of utter bafflement on Trixie's face, the Mare of the Night deliberately taking as much time as she could placing her cowl on the floor and turning to face Trixie. "It's obvious Trixie. There's a mark on you horn where the ring would sit and I can see some strands of his mane in yours. That and your face told me the rest."

"I keep forgetting that you were trained by one of the greatest detectives of all time," Trixie said with a shake of her head before smiling a the beaming face of Scootaloo. "Alright, if you must know, it's been over three years now. There, are you happy?" Trixie asked before Scootaloo pulled her into a tight hug.

"I wish you would have told me, I would have loved to have been a bridesmaid!" Scootaloo exclaimed with a large smile as she released Trixie from her grip. "Can I see the ring?" Trixie nodded and levitated her bag up, opening it and pulling out a ring that shined with a number of different crystals, causing Scootaloo's jaw to hit the floor while Trixie showed it to her.

"Like it? Sombra crafted it himself out of a number of rare crystals that he had acquired over his long life," Trixie said as Scootaloo went to touch it, but Trixie pulled it away from her grasp. "Whoa there, be careful. There's a very powerful spell imbued within this ring. If somepony other than my family tries to hold it, it'll release a blast of magic that brought down a giant. It's how Sombra knows I'm safe."

"I am just so happy for you," Batmare said with a large smile before laughing slightly. "Still, I can't believe that it took Sombra nearly a year and a half after we saved the world for him to propose to you."

"Are we talking about the same Sombra? That fool would rather take on a hundred undead krakens before he would have the courage to propose to me. I'm the one who did it," Trixie said with a laugh as she created a magical image of what his face had looked like. Scootaloo fell to the floor she was laughing so hard. "And of course he said yes, when he found the will to speak again. But enough about my life, what's new with you. Heard you mention something about Nighthawk."

"Yeah, my sidekick. Emphasis on kick, that griffon is a monster in a fight," Scootaloo said with a small chuckle before sighing. "Nothing else new besides that, really. Fighting crime, stopping criminals; same old, same old. If anything, you got the more adventurous life of the two of us."

"Maybe, but I don't have Batman and his league of gods to come aid me at my beck and call," Trixie said as she slipped her ring back into her bag and lay down on the bed, though she shot up a second later with ears alert. "Sorry, thought I heard some foals crying." She shrugged as she lay down again, closing her eyes, and she quickly fell asleep. Scootaloo smiled as she grabbed her cowl and walked away from her friend, after pulling up the covers for her.

"I guess you really do need your sleep. Those bags under your eyes are terrible."

-====_====-

The weird looks were nothing new to Mr. Bubbles, but he had forgotten for a long time that ponies would give him weird looks. He was so used to being accepted by the ponies in his town that he had almost forgotten that he was a monster. Almost. Most of the ponies may have been sleeping and the few that were awake roamed the cavern, but Bubbles did not feel like sleeping. Bubbles needed to find something. The faintest sounds of foals crying echoed off of the caverns walls. The sounds drew him to them like a moth to a flame.

He didn't stop walking until he found the room from which the crying was coming, the door cracked slightly so that he could see inside. The foals were all crying in their single bed, with a single nurse trying to sing the four of them to sleep to no avail. The foals all seemed to be young, and as his eight eyes scanned the room he not only found that this was where they slept, but it was also where they lived. They were all orphans.

"W-what the hell are you?" the nurse asked with fear as she saw Bubbles push open the door and enter the room, backing away from him in terror despite having been told about him. The foals all turned towards him when they heard his massive boots hit the ground, silencing them as total fear overtook them. Bubbles came to a stop in front of the foals' bed, looking down at them with his green eyes before they turned a crimson red.

"Rrrrrr. Rrr. Rrrrrrrrrrr," he began to moan, confusing the foals for a moment before his eyes changed to yellow, the yellow light growing brighter and softer in tune with the tone of his moans. He then changed his eyes to green for a moment before they flashed back to red, the moans becoming more like a song that, along with the changing color of the eyes, slowly began to lower the eyelids of the foals. A couple of moments later three of them were asleep, while a defiant one refused to close its eyes all the way.

"Rrrr," Bubbles moaned before gently cradling the foal in his left arm, turning his eyes a gentle shade of yellow as he continued to hum, rocking his body slowly side-to-side all the while. The foal let out one last yawn of defiance before she closed her eyes and began to snore. Bubbles then gently placed the foal back with the others and pulled the covers up over them before turning and heading back to the door. He then turned back to look at the nurse, placing his index finger in front of his helmet before turning and leaving the room in silence.

-====_====-

Despite all of the torches and the giant sapphire that cast its glow upon the cavern below it, Ryan was still able to find a place that was devoid of nearly all light, making him feel right at home while he slipped into the shadows beneath one of the walkways and leaned against the wall. He waited for a moment to make sure that he had not been followed before he flipped his hood over his eyes and sighed.

"Mare? You there?"

'Yes, I can hear you,' a voice said in the back of his mind a few moments later. 'I have been keeping tabs on what has happened as best as I could. How was it, fighting alongside such beings for the first time?'

"First off, Hulk and Billy did all the fighting, I sat on my ass under a shield," Ryan said before focusing on the problem again. "And I'm worried. I have no doubt that they'd be able to take down Black Adam, if forced, seeing as one of them alone matches his power, but it's this whole...lying to them that I'm not liking."

'You really care that much about them that you're willing to tell them everything?' the mare asked with trepidation in her voice. 'If they know the truth...'

"Again, you're wrong. I don't care for any of them and I'm fairly certain I already despise two of them, but that's not the problem," Ryan snarled before lowering his tone. "This is another entire race at the hooves...oh god, I'm doing it now...at the HANDS of destruction and you want me to keep secrets from the five that were chosen to be here. This is stupid, even for me...I'm going to tell them the truth."

'All of it?' the mare asked, Ryan lowering his head in thought before sighing.

"Eventually. For now, we'll just start with the fact I'm not supposed to be here and go from there," Ryan replied as he slid down the wall and collapsed to the ground. "...how are you holding up? You nearly had another episode in front of the entire team, and if they had seen that they would have lost what little trust the already have for you."

'I am recovering as best I can, but my time grows shorter each day,' the mare eventually replied, hiding the concern in her voice as best she could. 'I hope that we can figure out where this sphere of destruction is and stop it before the...force within it is released. Because if it is...'

"I already know, without all six of the Elements we wouldn't even have a chance to fight back," Ryan sighed as he stood up again. "You find a replacement for Freeze yet?"

'Nopony concrete yet.'

"Keep looking. Luna said something about our first mission tomorrow, so I assume that we're going to do something stupid. Maybe I'll get to solo Black Adam," Ryan smirked. "Later." He felt the mare's consciousness vanish from the back of his mind, almost letting the other voices in before he quelled them. With a shake of his head, Ryan headed back to the room that Luna had loaned them, finding most of the team asleep except for Banner, who sat on his bed reading something in a small booklet.

"Well, weren't you out late," he observed as Ryan walked by to one of the two beds that hadn't been taken, since Bubbles was too big for a bed. "Care to tell me what you were doing out there when we should all be resting up for tomorrow."

"God dad, stay out of my life," Ryan snarked with a small laugh as he took off his backpack and lowered his head. "Seriously, mind your own business." Ryan had just pressed his hand against the bed when he felt the air in the room change and he looked behind him at Banner, who had put the book down and was now looking at Ryan over the rims of his glasses.

"There are thousands of ponies here, who are willing to fight to the death against a force they cannot hope to win against. A god with an army of soldiers in future armor threatens to tear this world apart with war. Then, there's that monster of destruction you told us about that we have little information on. We are the only ones who stand between them and death, yet there is something else, something you know that you're not telling me," Banner said in such a quiet, emotionless tone that Ryan slowly began to inch his hand towards his baton. "This is my business. I will respect your privacy for now and assume that you simply took a walk, but if this secret of yours puts us in danger or costs any innocent lives...I will get angry."

And with those words, Banner turned and lay down on his bed, leaving Ryan to continue to watch him for ten minutes after they were done speaking. Ryan eventually lay down on his bed, but he continued to stare up through the darkness at the ceiling. 'Tomorrow. I tell them tomorrow. If it were any of the others I might blow them off, but him...I do not want to mess with either of them.'

-====_====-

The night breeze felt cool and nice as its fingers gently ran themselves over her face, but in her heart all she felt was pain as another night passed without her sister by her side. The pain of betrayal and rage, that her sister would lead so many to their deaths, all in an attempt to show her that her champion was evil. Her red and orange mane blew in the wind as she looked up at the moon, barely hearing a figure land beside her.

"You have been gone for hours," Queen Celestia said as she turned to face the man behind her, a soft smile spreading on her face when she saw the familiar golden lightning bolt upon a black suit. "I was worried that the six might have defeated you and brought you down."

"Do you really think that little of me, that you believe six of her champions would be enough to defeat me?" Black Adam asked as he stood beside her on the balcony, overlooking the landscape with his enhanced vision.

"Well, as soon as I had that thought, the next one was that the planet had not been cracked in half by the battle that would have been, so I assumed I was wrong," Celestia said with a small laugh, her words getting the thinnest of smiles to cross Adam's face before he frowned again.

"I was unable to find them. I do not know what cursed magic they use to hide themselves from me, but it is something that I have not encountered. There is also...more bad news." Celestia turned her full attention to Black Adam, who sighed before continuing. "According to what the Judges described of the six champions, it seems that one of them is my old foe, Captain Marvel." Celestia's eyes went wide at this, but she said nothing when Adam spoke again. "Yes, another who possesses all of my powers and strength. Out of all of them, he is the greatest threat to me."

"But...can you not defeat him? You have the power of the wizard on top of your already great powers," Celestia reminded him. Adam solemnly nodded in response.

"Yes, but he is enchanted with the same magic as I am. I do not know what would happen if I used the wizard's powers against his chosen champion. So to be safe, I will only use it as a last resort," Adam decided. "Another one of them is the Hulk, whose power is so legendary that I have heard of him, despite his being from another reality. The other two champions they could not describe and the ponies with them were hidden, so we have little on them."

"And these are the six she has gathered to kill us?" Celestia asked.

"Yes. It seems that they shall be our foes," Black Adam said with a sigh before turning to look at Celestia. "Have there been any signs of where the silver mare may have vanished to?" Celestia shook her head and Adam frowned again. "It has been five years since she appeared in our world, five years since Radiance destroyed the silver sphere. Do you believe there to be a connection?"

"It is entirely possible. My father did believe that the sphere of creation whispered to him at times, almost as if it were trying to aid him in trying times," Celestia said, recalling what her father had once told her. "It might have chosen her to fight against us."

"But why would creation fight against us?"

"I know not."

"If it wasn't for this accursed war, I would devote my time to finding the mare and bringing her down for what she has done," Black Adam said with a shake of his head while he folded his arms and took to the skies, floating just over Celestia. "I am going back out. As long as those six are out there no pony in all of Equestria is safe. And I will be damned to eternity in the underworld if I allow any more to die under my watch."

"Do not work yourself too hard, Teth. I still do enjoy spending time with you," Celestia said while she gently brushed her mane out of her eyes as she looked up at him. Adam gave her a small bow before he shot off into the night, out of sight within seconds. 'And do not worry, Teth, for you shall not have to fight this battle by yourself for much longer,' Celestia thought as she let her mane burn with power, her horn crackling at her thoughts while her eyes turned red. 'I will soon be far more powerful than my sister, and I will be able to aid you in the battle with those champions. I will not allow myself to be weak.'

Celestia then turned and walked back inside to her room, taking a vial of a strange liquid out from beneath her pillow and opening it. She then proceeded to drink half of the bottle, her whole body shaking as the liquid burned through her like fire. But despite the burning pain, Celestia felt power course into her very veins, causing her to chuckle in a twisted version of her voice. 'Yes, I will not be weak. I will be the strongest alicorn in the history of Equestria. And my sister has shown that she will not be reasoned with, so there is only one course of action left.'

'Battle. And unlike last time sister, I will crush you with my own strength.'

Comments

[Battle154]

Uh oh

[Starlight Nova]

Why does this have a gore tag, but not a dark tag?

[Onomonopia]

5650065
Reason is any blood or severe wounds count as "gore" such as when the Hulk break somepony's bones and I have to categorize it as such.

[The Hat Mann]

cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/24907317.jpg

[DarthRevan]

For starters I'm glad I was right about Sombra and Trixie. Next, character development with our champions and the CMC. Finally, Teth is as disillusioned as ever. I mean come on.

"But why would creation fight against us?"

"I know not."

Plus, thinking Captain Marvel is here to kill anyone is pretty dumb. (Understandable due to Teths hatred of him, I guess.)
With Celestia taking mysterious liquid, guessing it's Venom or something, I'm starting to think SHE may be this force of destruction. At the very least possessing her due to her rage and power-lust.
Either way, shit's going down and I can't wait to watch.

[Dubya]

I should be routing for the six champions, but i'm actually routing for the evil unicorns that have the Sphere of destruction because i want that solar bitch and her fuck buddy to die horribly. so yeah GO BAD GUY'S!!!

[Krazyfan1]

5651040
what about have them have a MASSIVE "reason you suck speech" leaving them as sobbing whimpering wrecks?

[Krazyfan1]

5651885
Yeah, I know it's douchey and it's essentially rubbing their faces in it, but both Teth and Celestia deserve getting humiliated and their noses rubbed into it.
nah, its perfectly ok for them to do that.
.... i wonder if there is some way to give the m the penance stare?

[FleetlordAvatar]

This is not going to end well...

[Marvelsoldier]

Now I want Billy to show the CMC the picture. Plus it would be awesome if Batmare met this version of Scootaloo.

[Josh1988]

I am confused....why is Celestia evil?