Twilight's Kingdom - part 2
“Valiant, you’re a princess?” said Fluttershy.
I glared at her and she burst into flames.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed in sudden regret. I tackled her and we both went over the side of the ship into the sea. Coming up for air and spitting some water out, I said, “Sorry Fluttershy. I have to get used to this new power.”
“It’s okay, it’s not the first time I’ve been on fire.”
I pulled some mane out of my eyes to check on her. The hair was a lot longer than usual – some serious Fabio shit going on. I hadn’t expected that, but then I’d never been an alicorn before.
Fluttershy seemed to be okay, just marginally singed. Sunset helped me out of the water and I pulled up Fluttershy. I stood on the deck dripping wet. I got stared at by everyone again.
“You took away Twilight’s alicornhood,” said Celestia slowly.
“Well, it’s not like she wanted or needed it. She said so herself.”
“I guess,” Twilight reluctantly agreed, “but did you have to take it on yourself? That strikes me as being very selfish.”
“I’m sorry, but didn’t you guys just ask me to save the world? That’s about the least selfish thing I can think of. Speaking of…”
I turned to Sunset, who hadn’t taken her eyes off me since the spell. “It’s time to get this show on the road. Tirek needs his ass kicked.”
“On your six,” she replied cheerfully. She followed me to the edge of the deck.
I leaned over the railing and shouted, “Yo, seaponies!”
Sunset leaned over the railing as well, putting a hoof around my shoulders for balance. Below us in the water, seaponies started poking their heads up.
“Are you finally ready?” one of them asked.
“Yeah, yeah, just had to take care of some things,” I said. “I think what’s more important, are you ready?”
“Hey bro, you’re the one that called upon the seaponies.”
I shrugged. “I’ll take that for a yes.”
“Then simply signal SOS!”
I turned to Sunset. “You know Morse Code, right?”
She explained, “SOS is a distress signal, but I think they just used that phrase to rhyme and inject some levity.”
I shook my head. “As long as they don’t start singing. Anyway, we’re getting ready to go. I’ll need you on the bridge. Someone has to drive.”
Sunset nodded. With her foreleg around me, her face was pretty close to mine. “I’ll do anything you want, Valiant.”
“Thanks.”
Sunset hesitated for a moment longer and then moved forward, lips puckering. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t make it, though, because our horns got in the way and she ended up being all adorkable.
Just then, the ship gave a lurch as the water beneath it began to bubble. I pushed Sunset towards the bridge. “It’s starting.”
Her face turned red, but she hurried away. I glanced over the side again, seeing the seaponies hard at work, raising the ship.
“Can you lighten the load any?” demanded one. “This isn’t the tonnage we agreed on!”
“What are you talking about?” I shot back. “It’s exactly the same ship I said that I would have!”
“But there’s so much extra!” he protested. “That magic equipment you brought on board, the ponies that are hanging out on deck with you, and that flying machine! You have to get rid of something or this will never work!”
Shit.
“Really?” I asked.
“Hey buddy, if you could bend this much water you’d be doing it. Get rid of some weight.”
I turned my eyes to the group. “Well, looks like I have to do this alone. Nice knowing you all.”
“Hang on,” protested Twilight. “I thought you needed all the help you could get? Why don’t you get rid of something else, like your flying machine?”
I looked at Monstrosity parked on the aft deck. “But I don’t wanna…”
“Valiant, I don’t know what sort of ill-advised plan you’re about to enact, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made,” said Luna.
“I just made one,” I pointed out, indicating the burned ring where Rainbow Catcher had been quite literally sacrificed. “Do you want to be next?”
Her face blanched as she realized her error. “I meant to say that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.”
Oh, okay. I already wanted to stab her, so that meant I had to do something else. I looked at my aircraft again and sighed.
With more strength than I remembered having, I pushed Monstrosity over the side. It would suck not having it for combat, but I was comforted by the fact that being submerged in water probably wouldn’t hurt it very much. It had been through worse.
Turning to face the rest of the group that stood with me on the deck, I felt like I had to give a speech or something.
“None of you are strangers to combat,” I began. “That’s good – we’ll need all the help we can get. Rainbow is a dragon right now, but I’ll need all of you to be in top form today, especially if Tirek can take away magic.”
Everyone began looking for suitable replacements for magic. Celestia and Luna both wore their heavy jewelry, which might be used as armor. Applejack had her rope. Rarity had a few sharp sewing supplies. Pinkie pulled out her battleaxe, the same one that had been used to execute Post Haste. I saw Sweetie Belle unsheathe her ninja sword. Trixie focused for a moment, growing into her eight-legged fighting form and pulling her M60 out from under her cloak. Daring carried Trixie’s spare ammo belts. Twilight watched Spike test his fireballs. Fluttershy unpacked her first aid kit. Guinness shifted the strap of the bass guitar he was still carrying and looked despondent. Sir Win was there.
I put on my sunglasses and nodded. Everyone looked ready. “Let’s go kick some ass.”
“All right, we’re good to go!” called one of the seaponies. He and his mates thrust the ship into the air on a column of frothy seawater. We slipped sideways, landing on shore and still supported by a cushion of water. Milwaukee was now a land boat.
I heard the diesels and the turbines spin up as Sunset started them. She punched the throttle and we zoomed away at fifty knots over the ground.
The seaponies were kind of useless on dry land, but if they brought moisture with them then they were good to go. They kept the bubble of water around the ship’s hull and responded quickly to changes in propulsion.
Pleasant breeze whipping my mane out and drying the water from my coat, I headed forward to examine the autocannon. It had been partially modified with Sunset’s matter-to-magic converter. The converter had come a long way since we’d used it to get an extra charge to send me home. Now it could convert regular matter to magic, and if we, say, fitted it to the end of a gun barrel, suddenly we had magic bullets. Magic 57-millimeter autocannon bullets fired at 220 rounds per minute. Aw yeah.
As we surfed along, I saw quite a few ponies come out to see us. It wasn’t every day that a nearly 400-foot ship cruised by on land. They stared, dumbstruck.
It probably helped that a large rainbow-colored dragon was flying in formation with the ship. Rainbow apparently got her fill of exploring her new self and landed on the aft deck. “Hey, while I was flying I noticed some strange clouds a ways out there.”
I grabbed my spyglass and looked where she indicated, noticing dark clouds. Nodding in agreement, I said, “Aye, it be a shitstorm on the horizon.”
“Like…literally?” Rainbow asked, looking worried.
“God, I hope not. I’m guessing that what we’re seeing is just the Crystal Empire burning. We’re headed in that direction, so I guess we’ll find out soon.”
“Wait, how can the Crystal Empire burn?” asked Twilight, butting in. “It’s made of crystal!”
I spread my forehooves. “Magic, of course.”
Twilight stared at me. “And how are you shrugging like that, with both front hooves off the ground yet still standing perfectly as if you were still on four and not falling forwards?”
“Same answer.” I grinned. You haven’t trolled until you’ve alicorn trolled.
Unfortunately, as we got closer to the Crystal Empire, I had to quit my messing with Twilight and put on my serious face for serious business.
Continuing further north, the salt water the seaponies pulled from the ocean didn’t have a problem with freezing in the snow. Up ahead I could see the bubble of better weather that surrounded the Empire. Through my spyglass I could see that the city was in fact on fire. Nobody was fighting it. Now that I noticed, there didn’t seem to be anybody around at all.
Milwaukee slid into the streets, cruising between buildings and just barely fitting. I glanced around, still not seeing any sign of the local citizens.
The stadium was also deserted. The banners outside read “Equestria Games – rescheduled” with today’s date. Sunset brought the throttles back and the ship came to a halt.
“Why are we stopping?” asked Twilight.
“Well, the Games are today,” I pointed out. “While we’re here we might as well compete.”
“Why not solving the mystery of where all the crystal ponies are?” she suggested.
“Won’t take long,” I explained. “There are only two teams here.” I pointed at myself, Rainbow, and Guinness.
And it didn’t. I won gold for the glory of Milwaukee. All of the gold. The Ponyville team got silver – all of them.
“You cheated!” accused Rainbow.
“There’s nothing in the rulebook that says an alicorn with mechanical sports enhancement equipment can’t compete,” I said. “Besides, you’re a dragon. You couldn’t even fit through the hoops in the aerial obstacle course.”
“It doesn’t mean very much,” Guinness observed, looking at his medals. “Silver is nice, but when nobody’s getting bronze…”
“Anyway,” I said, the shiny gold bling of dozens of medals jangling around my neck, “back to the problem of where all the crystal ponies went.”
“And more importantly, Cadance and Shining Armor,” Celestia added. The way she used the phrase more importantly reminded me that nobody really cared about crystal ponies. Not only had I recently had a discussion with Shining about that very subject, but Celestia’s last brush with the common Crystal Empire residents had happened while we were gunship rescuing the Element Bearers and the universe development team from Post Haste. I remembered that Post had been mind controlling or whatever the crystal ponies and Celestia and Luna had seemed to have no qualms about blasting the sparkly zombielike hoards. I suppose it’s not every day you get a good excuse for target practice on your loyal citizens.
We got back aboard the ship. Sunset, who had watched the Games from her duty station on the bridge and cheered at my every victory, got the ship moving again at my order. She didn’t miss firing some burst shells over the stadium for a nice little fireworks fanfare as we departed. The cannon thundered quite pleasantly.
We cruised over to the castle, which showed less damage than the surrounding city. Stretching out my wings I flew up towards the top of the palace. It was lucky that I’d had so much practice flying. From my aircraft to the Equestria Games to that one time Twilight had given me butterfly wings, I was no stranger to the air.
I found Cadance sitting alone in the top room of the palace. She was watching the smoke and looking sad about something.
“Hey,” I called, “what happened to everyone?”
She blinked, staring at me. After a moment she said, “Gone.”
“No shit. Where?”
“I think they followed Tirek.”
That question answered, I flew back down to the ship and gathered everyone. “Tirek has an army now.”
There were a few gasps. Twilight said, “How are we supposed to fight an army?”
“Well, at least they won’t be very strong. They’re just crystal ponies. The meth might make them crazier and more pain-tolerant, though.”
“But…we can’t just fight them! They’re fellow ponies!” Rarity protested.
“Rarity, would you slap a bitch, or even an asshole, to protect someone who deserved it?”
She looked away. “I suppose yes.”
“Can we reform the crystal ponies or something?” asked Applejack.
I shrugged. “Got to give them a reason first. That might include defeating them in battle first.”
“Will there be fighting?” Fluttershy asked.
“Probably. Tirek strikes me as the kind of guy who will send canon fodder out first before we can get to him. At the very least he might surround himself with children so we’ll hesitate to attack.”
“But why would the crystal ponies be helping a meanie like him?” Pinkie asked.
“I’m guessing he has them under a spell of either meth or magic. Regardless, we need to be prepared. We need to discuss some strategy. We’ve got all the fire support we could want right here on this ship, but we might have to engage tactically.”
None of them, except for perhaps Sunset and Trixie, had any idea what I was talking about. Twilight asked, “Wait, how can we be discussing strategy when you just said something about tactically? Those don’t mean the same things.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do what I say when I say and that’s tactics. Me telling all of you to do things is strategy because it’s part of a larger picture. You guys are using tactics to get results for me strategically.”
Twilight started to say “That doesn’t—” but I cut her off and went on.
“Celestia, Luna, you’re packing some serious magic and I remember how you shot up the population the last time we had to do an op against crystal ponies. Find a place on deck and get ready.”
I gestured to Guinness, Rarity, Applejack, and Spike. “You guys get the M2 fifty caliber machine guns that I found in the ship’s armory set up. There are mounting points fore and aft.”
I turned to Sir Win and handed him my spyglass. “Spot targets for the heavy weapons to take out.” I also indicated Twilight. “You help Sunset with the trajectories and magic calculations from the matter converter.”
Trixie and Daring stepped forward. I said, “You two are roving with the M60 and ammo. Go where you’re needed.”
Pointing to Pinkie and Sweetie, I ordered “You two are on boarder detail. If anyone gets on the ship, cut ‘em.”
Pinkie saluted. “Aye, aye, cap’n!”
With that, we headed out to find Tirek.
He was surprisingly difficult to locate, even being a big centaur with a crystal pony army. I mean, Equestria isn’t that big, but it’s bigger than, say, Wisconsin. We had a little while to kill before any action happened.
I spotted some rocks and practiced my boulder breaking as we drove by. Pinkie’s sister Maud had been nice enough to teach me and alicorn power made it easier than ever.
Twilight interrupted me and started grilling me about Tiny Vamp Atoll. “What does it mean, Valiant? At this point I don’t even care that you purposely invented a ponyfeathers riddle that probably doesn’t have an answer just to give me headaches. Just tell me what it means!”
I pulled out my keytar. “Well, the first step was leaving this for you to find. If you’ll recall, the note on it indicated that they were related.”
Twilight nodded.
I kept talking as I plugged the instrument into the ship’s intercom. “So the next step was upgrades in the form of the pony thallium vat I got at the trader’s exchange, among other things.”
“Wait, what other things?” Twilight asked.
Ignoring the new question, I kept answering her first one. “So finally, that brings us here to my hot naval tulip, on this fine day in the Equestrian countryside.”
I riffed off a sweet keytar solo and finished with a flourish. Twilight was still staring at me. “And how does that tie together?”
I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they were going to start spinning like Derpy. “‘Uh, Tiny Vamp Atoll,’ ‘pony thallium vat,’ and ‘my hot naval tulip’ are all anagrams for ‘Plymouth Valiant.’ And I thought you were good at puzzles.”
Twilight blinked. “Valiant, that is…so you.” Her body began to tremble. “I mean, literally in name, but also so incredibly self-centered, and…” Her eyes were twitching and some smoke had started to come out of her mane.
“And you couldn’t figure it out,” I prodded.
Twilight went full apeshit. “VALIANT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I HATE YOU!?”
“There,” I said. “Just like that. Hold it.” Twilight had burst into flames, she was so angry. I gave her a little shot of magic to preserve her burning self. She was currently even more of an inferno than Sir Win.
“What did you do?” she demanded.
“I spent so much time setting up this riddle with the anagrams to piss you off because I knew this final battle was coming. I figured you would fight better angry. I need you to kick ass.”
Twilight paused and looked at herself. She was still on fire, even if her expression had cooled somewhat. “Seriously?”
I nodded, and said through the intercom, “Hey Sunset, what does the scouter say about her power level?”
“It’s over nine thousand!” Sunset replied.
“Perfect.”
“Valiant,” Twilight said, “let me get this straight. You spent so long inventing a riddle just to make me angry just so that when you became an alicorn you could cast a spell to keep me on fire so that I would be able to fight Tirek more effectively? You planned that far ahead?”
“Yep.”
“WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL US?” she screamed. “IF WE KNEW ABOUT THIS WE COULD HAVE PREVENTED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!”
I grinned. “Who says this is the endgame?”
Twilight froze. “This…this is still all part of your plan?”
I booped her on the nose. Alicorn powers and all, I didn’t get burned. “Just hang around and I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
“Tirek ho!” interrupted Rainbow, who had been scouting ahead of the ship.
“Who’s his pimp?” I asked, walking away from Twilight. She grumbled, not under her breath, but went off to do her assigned task of calculating trajectories.
Rainbow frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“As much as you hang out with Pinkie, you don’t know that?” I shook my head. “Whatever. Let’s do this.”
We had ended up near Ponyville. Of course. Final showdowns always happened there.
I stood on the bow, watching as we approached. Guinness, manning one of the machine guns to my side, said, “I don’t remember that guy Tirek from when we went to Tartarus.”
His mood seemed to have improved slightly since that whole Valiant-killed-your-baby incident. I said, “Yeah, neither do I, but I’m sure he was there. There was a lot going on and maybe we just didn’t see him. Tartarus is a big place.”
“I wonder who sells the real estate,” he said, attempting a little bit of humor.
“Who wants to buy property there?” I asked. “Or worse than that, trying to sell time shares in Hell.”
Guinness frowned. “Kentucky?”
“No, Michigan. Freaking Tartarus, where do you think? I use ‘Tartarus’ and ‘Hell’ interchangeably.”
Guinness shifted the strap of the bass he was still carrying to the other shoulder. “They aren’t really. See, Tartarus is Greek, and-”
He kept talking, but I was thinking about something else. Like that big fireball coming our way.
It smacked the deck just behind us. Jerking in surprise, Guinness dropped the bass.
I turned around and scanned the horizon. The fireball was no match for the steel deck and soon petered out. I was a little more concerned with where it came from.
“Spotted,” called Sir Win.
“Counter-battery fire authorized,” I ordered.
“Calculated,” said Twilight.
“Ready,” announced Sunset.
“What are we-” Guinness started to say, but caught sight of the forward gun turning and elevating. He dove to the deck, covering his ears.
BOOM
Having magic alicorn hearing protection was a plus, but Guinness had definitely made the right decision for a regular pony. Spike, who had been on the machine gun mount opposite of Guinness, said, “Wow, that was kind of loud. Good thing dragons don’t have external ears.”
I watched as a streak of red magic arced from the muzzle of the cannon to the distant horizon. From up top, with the spyglass, Sir Win reported, “Hit! We just killed a whole bunch of crystal ponies and their fireball catapult.”
I shrugged. “Well, that settles it. They’re working with Tirek. Guess that means it’s open season on crystal ponies.”
I saw a gleam in the Princesses’ eyes. Twilight looked more than a little aghast.
On the field of battle outside Ponyville, we met the adversary. Thousands of crystal ponies stood in our way. From up close, they didn’t look quite like the demagicked zombies I expected.
“Hmm, interesting,” I commented.
“Like I told you at the original date for the Equestria Games, you can’t take away a pony’s magic completely or horrible things could happen,” said Twilight.
“Well, Tirek’s been taking magic regardless of what you think. But maybe these ponies have been inspired by the magicless efforts up until recently of yours truly and won’t just keel over.”
“That seems very unlikely,” Twilight said.
I shrugged. “Then it’s probably the meth.”
Behind the army of drug zombies was Tirek. He sure was getting big. I could even see him without the spyglass.
I pulled out my sword. I hadn’t needed it for a long time, and probably did not need it now. It sure looked cool, though. I belted it on right next to my Desert Eagle. I hadn’t needed the pistol for a long time, either. In fact, the last time it had been fired was when Twilight had shot that guy in the head. Interestingly enough, that was also the last time she’d been dealicornified.
I looked out at the battlefield again. I couldn’t hear Tirek’s voice in the distance, but he made a gesture and his army started forward.
I pulled my sword and thrust it into the air. “Charge!”
Sunset hit the throttles and the ship surged forward. I checked my stash and found a couple of the old magic communicator earmuffs Twilight had enchanted. I passed them out among the crew because things were about to get loud.
Let’s see…an autocannon at the front, a pair of chain guns at the back, point defense missiles, torpedoes, a total of five machine guns, and two Princesses eager to kill their subjects. Admittedly, the torpedoes might be useless on land, but that was still firepower out the wazoo. And with any luck, we’d be putting it in Tirek’s wazoo. I’ve heard that’s unpleasant.
The ship sliced into the thick of crystal ponies. Copying Celestia and Luna, I took a few potshots with my horn. Hey, this was fun. Maybe they were onto something.
Deciding to make things more interesting, I grabbed a bear whistle from my stash. I’d found it at the trader’s exchange and it worked pretty well. Even over the sound of gunfire, it brought loads of bears out of the Everfree Forest to maul crystal ponies.
Rainbow was overhead trying out her sparkly magic fire. Apparently thinking that it wouldn’t burn things because it didn’t feel hot to her, she was spitting it all over the crystal ponies. Being Rainbow, she wasn’t looking back to see them actually writhing in pain and burning to death.
We continued to lay waste to Tirek’s army. Along the way I had a thought. Based on the empty Crystal Empire we’d seen, Tirek might have recruited the whole population. If that was true, and we won the battle as handily as I was expecting us to, there might not be any crystal ponies left anywhere. Hmm. Maybe the Princesses would just write this off as a failed treason of a citystate and that’s why they were so eager to take care of business. Plus, since I'd never seen a crystal pony foal before, they would probably never repopulate. I love the drama of high-stakes politics.
A small party of crystal ponies used the fallen bodies of their comrades to cover behind, climbing up the pile to leap on deck. My wings gave me extra maneuverability as I engaged, spinning and twisting through the group. Some got shot, some got cut. For an awesome special move, I stabbed one guy with my horn. I was just turning to flow into attacking the last guy when a ball of energy sizzled over my head and slammed into the superstructure so hard the entire ship rattled.
“Combo breaker!” I spat, turning to face the direction the blast had come from while pointing my gun behind my back and shooting the last pony in the face. At least I got the no scope bonus on that one.
It was Tirek who had thrown the magic at us. I glanced at the ship, seeing an area of buckled metal and blackened paint a few feet in diameter. It wasn’t severe damage, but the fact that he was able to do anything from such a range was troubling.
Celestia appeared next to me. “We have to take down Tirek. His desire is magic, and that includes alicorns! If we don’t defeat him, then we’ve brought three right to him.”
I nodded and called, “Shift fire - all available weapons on Tirek.”
He knew what we were doing and threw up a shield. It was a hell of a spell. Anything that can withstand a barrage of magic propelled cannon rounds would be. In fact, it took so much power that Tirek had to hunker down and could do little except protect himself.
I grinned and shot a few more crystal ponies. With Tirek suppressed, this would be easy. We’d just drive over and kill him up close and personal.
Of course, Discord appeared just then and ruined things just like Discord always did. With a snap of his claws, I got yanked. Off my hooves, off the ship, into the air, over to where Discord was standing near Tirek.
“You’re such a dick,” I accused Discord. “You say you want to be friends and then do shit like this. Seriously bro, we’ve had this conversation before.”
He shrugged. “Surely you saw this coming. It’s in my nature.”
“Yeah, asshole, but you’ve forgotten something. Humans like me are the best at screwing with nature.”
Discord looked nervous, although that could have been because of the 57-millimeter magic cannon shells hammering on Tirek’s shield just a few feet away.
Seeing me so close to where steel was raining, Sunset ceased fire. The ship screeched to a halt, everyone onboard facing down Tirek and Discord with me unavoidably hanging out in front of them as an unwilling shield.
“What are you doing?” I shouted. It was a little bit louder than normal and I figured this was me growing into the alicorn royal voice.
“I can’t let you get hurt!” shouted Sunset over the ship’s external PA system.
“I’m pretty confident in the fire control systems to be precise enough to miss me,” I said. “But just in case…”
I turned my head to Discord, who was still holding me hovering out front of he and Tirek. “Position me so that it’s like I’m strung up on a cross as a sacrificial messiah.”
“Messiah? Messiah?” shouted Twilight. “Valiant, does your arrogance know no bounds?”
“This is a little more important than me,” I reminded her. “I thought we all agreed that there was going to be some dying today.”
“No!” shouted Sunset.
“Discord,” said Tirek quietly. “While they’re arguing about how that orange unicorn loves that orange alicorn, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Sure,” said Discord. "What's on your mind?"
“Wait,” I interrupted. “Sunset loves me?”
Tirek gave me a look. “Even I can see it.”
“Ohhhh,” I said. “That explains so much!”
“You didn’t know?” Discord asked incredulously.
“It never came up in conversation,” I admitted.
Discord shook his head and turned back to Tirek. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“Well, I was going to distract you and then steal your magic, but while we were talking I already did it.”
I tumbled to the ground as Discord realized his power was gone. Discord himself tumbled over and fell on the ground beside me. Tirek, now even larger, towered over us. He leered down at Discord and me and a fireball of magic began to form between his horns.
“H-hold me?” Discord squeaked, eyes begging me for solace.
So I held him. To the ground. With a tent stake through where I guessed his heart was.
“Seriously?” he croaked. Even if his crazy body didn’t have the organs arranged logically, he could at least bleed to death.
“Surely you saw this coming, asshole.”
Discord died. Hopefully this time forever.
Tirek chuckled as he stared down at me. “How does it feel knowing every unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, and alicorn will bow to me?”
Still lying on my back, I glared at him and thought of a way out of this. I mumbled under my breath.
“What was that?” said Tirek. He stepped closer.
“I said mumble mumble mumble…”
He approached until his massive forelegs were on either side of me and leaned down. “Speak up!”
Instead, I kicked him in the junk. I mean, he had a handy arrow right there in his fur pointing to his crotch.
Tirek sucked in a breath and his knees went wobbly. I followed up my alicorn dick kick with an extendo boxing glove to the face. Sproing!
Tirek stumbled backwards just enough so that I managed to get up and face him. He took a few deep breaths and seemed to work through the pain. Apparently he was a gelding centaur as quickly as he recovered. Makes sense; he did spend a lot of time in Tartarus prison.
Everybody apparently wanting a piece of dat ass aside, when he was able, Tirek’s eyes went back to me. “That was impressive.”
I had expected him to launch into a murderous rampage or something. Tirek went on. “You’re certainly the most interesting being I’ve ever encountered. Not like these ponies who can’t even help themselves or Discord who is so predictable. I see a lot of similarities in how we do business, Valiant. You’re not afraid of anything. You know what you want and how to get it. You plan so far ahead, outsmarting everyone.”
“Less teeth, more tongue.”
Tirek frowned as if he’d misheard. “What was that?”
“I gave you an order, bitch. I like to be in control when someone’s sucking my dick.”
“Oh no he didn’t!” I heard Pinkie faintly exclaim.
I kept talking. “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to flatter me. And why is that? Why are you suddenly interested in talking?” I grinned, all teeth and putting extra effort into crazy eyes. “I think it’s because you’re afraid of me.”
Tirek roared, “I have captured the magic of ponies everywhere from Canterlot to the Crystal Empire! I have the magic of Discord himself! I am the most powerful being in the universe! I don’t fear anypony!”
I grinned. “You mad?”
“He mad,” I heard Sunset agree cheerfully.
I glanced back at the ship. Sunset was practically pressed against the bridge glass, trying to reach me. She had done so much for me. Just today alone she’d commanded the guns that had slaughtered Tirek’s army. All for me. I think I was in love. And I had the perfect thing to show that I cared.
I turned back to Tirek and stared him down. He really was mad.
“So you claim to be in charge of this universe?” I said. I held up a hoof and gestured him forward. “Then come at me, bro.”
The magic Tirek had been holding ready surged brighter and hotter – straight at my face. I met it with a spell of my own, but all I succeeded in doing was deflecting it. I was still figuring out this alicorn thing and now I was going up against somebody with at least two cities’ and a draconequus worth of magic plus thousands of years of experience.
In other words, one false move and Tirek would flatten me. Ganking him wasn’t going to be so easy. Sure I’d planned everything up until now, including unlocking Twilight’s battle form, but Tirek was a problem. I couldn’t plot the weaknesses of someone unless I’d actually had a chance to study them.
So, I was locked in combat with the deadliest thing I’d ever faced, too close to him for Sunset to chance a shot, and nobody else was equipped to do much more than piss him off. Shit.
Worse, he got in a lucky hit almost immediately. I threw up a shield but the raw volume of energy in his attack knocked me over on my back again.
Tirek loomed over me, although not quite as close this time. “Now I will take your magic!”
He opened his mouth to suck it in and I promptly spit tequila in his face.
Not only did it get in his eyes, but since he was inhaling it also went into his lungs. Choking and in pain, he stumbled away.
Sunset immediately resumed the fusillade. I ducked under the flying cannon shells and leaped back aboard the ship. Turning to look over my shoulder, I could see Tirek was staggered, but eventually he would work himself out and attack us again. Right now, his shield was managing to deal with the firepower we were putting out while he recovered.
Sunset met me on the deck with a tight hug and a kiss on the lips. “I was so worried about you!”
“That means a lot, thank you.” I hesitated. “I’m sorry if I ignored you.”
I was about to say more, but Tirek managed to get off a weak shot of magic that hit me. It was enough to knock me across the deck and slam into the main gun hard enough to disable it.
While I was mostly unhurt, the impact was so severe that my stash had gone everywhere-small trinkets, camping gear, spaghetti-had spilled out of my pockets. There was also a limp rainbow among the detritus.
Twilight picked it up. “Valiant, what is this?”
“I got it from the harmony box. I guess I kept it too long and it got stale.”
“You had a pocket full of rainbow this whole time and didn’t tell anyone?” Luna asked.
“Why, is it important?”
Twilight shook out the rainbow a little and it suddenly exploded into a shower of light that covered the Element Bearers. It looked like a particularly gay acid trip. There was rainbow everywhere – some really crazy technicolor magical girl shit.
“This is pretty gay, right?” I said.
“It is,” confirmed Sir Win.
Luckily, the ponies working on the fifty cals hadn’t let up and Tirek was still just barely pinned down. We had to do something fast.
I got up and shook out the aches. “Okay, we’ve seen that magic attacks haven’t worked well against Tirek. That’s okay because we’ve been planning to kinetic kill him all along. However, if this rainbow power thing can strip his shield off it’ll be that much easier.”
“What can we do?” Sunset asked. “The main gun is down.”
“I’ve got something bigger in mind.” I took a look around the ship’s decks and sighed. “Everyone off. Abandon ship.”
The Element Bearers jumped down and started doing their thing, which involved more rainbows. I turned to the Princesses. “I’m going to need help with some heavy lifting."
Celestia and Luna nodded. I gestured to Sunset. “Grab the anchor chain and tie it to me.”
With her magic, Sunset made a neat little knot of chain around my waist. She then climbed on my back and buckled my magic alicorn seatbelts. With a nod to the Princesses, I flapped my wings and got airborne.
Lifting a ship, even when you’re an alicorn and with two alicorns to push from the bottom, is incredibly difficult. Sunset clung close to my neck, breathing words of encouragement in my ears. I don’t think I could have done it without her.
I heard a shout from the ground. Tirek’s shield was down. I hadn’t managed to fly very high, only a few hundred yards. Still, it would have to do.
“Now!” I called. Celestia and Luna ceased their support. Sunset jerked the anchor chain loose and Milwaukee started to fall like a rock. The acceleration of gravity can be a real bitch.
I grabbed the ship with my magic to point the bow downwards to make it more aerodynamic. A burst of blue flashed past my ear as Sunset added her own efforts. With our magic pushing, the ship went even faster, streaking towards the target like the world’s biggest lawn dart.
Tirek had been distracted by the ponies near him and only looked up when they began to. That was just in time for him to catch a ship in the face.
He was crushed beneath three thousand tons of American steel moving at more than one hundred miles per hour. Milwaukee went down with her flag flying.
Then the magazines detonated to add further overkill. The shields that had been stripped from Tirek made handy dying prevention devices to those standing nearby.
The fireworks from exploding shells, flames from burning fuel, and little rainbow sparkles where shrapnel hit the magic shields were spectacular. They should be - it cost several hundred million taxpayer dollars.
Sunset and I landed. She stepped off my back and kissed me. I let it go on for a while. Long enough that everyone else started to get uncomfortable.
Sunset came up for air when Celestia cleared her throat. “Valiant, your methods are extreme as always, but I thank you for saving the day.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome. Now let’s discuss payment.”
“Payment?” asked Luna.
I gestured to the rainbowfied Element Bearers, Discord’s body, my alicorn self, and the smoking crater in the ground. “All this don’t come cheap. Valiant gots to get paid.”
“What do you want?” Celestia asked carefully.
I thought for a moment. “How about…the moon?”
They all stared at me. Luna said, “Absolutely not.”
“Come on, it’ll give me a place to go. You want me gone, right?”
“No. I mean, yes, we’d like you leave us in peace, but no, we’re not giving you the entire moon.”
“How about just the dark side, then? I’ll even promise not to mess with your tides or deface the place.”
Luna and Celestia glanced at each other. Luna sighed. “On one condition. You leave right now.”
I nodded. “Done. Hey Sunset, do you want to go to the moon with me?”
She smiled. “I’d love to.”
She mounted up again. I activated my horn and began to rise from the ground. Getting to space would take a lot of effort, but I knew I could manage. I slowly drifted upwards.
“Valiant, you can’t ascend to the heavens!” shouted Twilight. “There are still six mares chained in the library basement!”
With magic, I created a middle finger and pointed it over my shoulder at her. Sunset nuzzled my neck. I smiled as the sky began to darken. A personal air bubble I created around us kept everything comfortable as we left the atmosphere and headed for the moon.
Creating our super awesome lunar space castle fortress of solitude took up the rest of the day. Sunset happily gave me a helping bit of magic now and again as we bounced across the lunar surface.
That evening, or as much of an evening as you can have when you’re already on the moon, I was inspecting the inside of our new home. It had really turned out great. I was just in the middle of some cosmetic touches when Sunset came into the room.
She was wearing a low cut black dress that she’d conjured. Her mane was down and she was smiling. We kissed. Several times.
She pulled back for a moment, still wearing that smile. “I was hoping you could come help me say goodnight.”
I nodded and smiled. The two of us walked to the bedroom door. She stepped in, turning to look at me.
“Goodnight,” I said cheerfully, and shut the door in her face.
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Ha! He never changes.
iambrony.dget.cc/mlp/gif/1329054948876.gif
Holy Mother of Valiant.
I swear I almost had an orgasm reading this beautiful piece of wonderfulness.
Till next season then?
Also, the ending. The ending!
Perfect.
RIP Milwaukee... You were a fine ship.
Oh, and RIP everything else that died. I'd hate to be the janitor that cleans up THAT mess.
4630178
Well he's boning a pony now, so that's different.
I'm sorry, this is just too much. i must've spent like 10 minutes just sitting here reading that, laughing my butt off, then rereading it!
Also Literary Sins count: ∞
Sentence: Twilight's Basement. (FOREVER!!
)
hellsing abridged reference?
Stat increases:Valiant
+2 to intelligence score
+15 to telekinetics
Perk unlocked: "Let Love In"
"If only you decided to let love in"
You gain a +10 bonus to diplomacy checks made against Sunset Shimmer. Additionally, she gains a 15% damage bonus while you can see her because of her attempts to impress you.
Is every season going to end with Twilight being de-alicornified now? Because I find that acceptably entertaining.
And why did Valient have to ditch Monstrosity? Couldn't he have had someone else fly it into battle? Or does he not trust anyone else to fly it or something?
And has Rainbow Dash found out what happened to Rainbow Catcher yet? If not, leaving Equestria so soon might have been a really good idea.
4631468 meh Rainbow couldn't do anything to Valiant even if she tried
Remember when this was a simple show re-write?
Neither do I!
4630331 Poor Scruffy...
*Snerk* Awesome as always dude.
4631468
The seaponies are definitely going to salvage that thing. The Hunt for Red Monstrosity: Coming to a bonus chapter near you.
Oh this was beautiful. I have never found a pony more attractive than Sunset Shimmer. That was the perfect ending. So Valiant. I can't wait for the next season just so we can see what's up with his moon base. Maybe we'll even learn more about what he did in creating the universe in his image.
Poor Sunset, now she has to find rope strong enough to hold down an alicorn.
Anytime you drop a warship on your enemy is a good day.
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Its so stupid it dealthy hilarious, its 1:30 am and there are about 20 people in the house, and i almost woke every single one of them up by laughing
Recently i was questioning why Valiant went with a simple destroyer and not, say, the Iowa class Battleship still hanging around from WW2, but then i realized that if he did, he would of never had the chance to use the ship as a improvised missile. Just a random thought from re-reading this story..
Also, the broadside would be too OP for Tirek.
Goodness, that must have been one heck of an explosion! I think Valiant planned a maneuver, that with the help of the Princesses and Sunset, he was able to send off the USS MILWAUKEE in a truely appropriate manner! In a blazing glory that I imagine General Patton would think was marvelous! It only would have been better if that explosion had been used to kil, a bunch of those goddless communist Changelings!
Murica!Frick yeah!
I love you now.
I mean, so do I, but don't you think genocide is a little excessive?
Why am I annoyed? I should have expected that.
Heh, that was awesome.
I knew it