The Power Ponies: The Power Inside

by Matthew Stone

The Clone Wars (or, 'The Only Good Fox is a Pelt')

Inside the mind of Mistress Marvelous is where Bellcord starts. He looks around at the red aura in the atmosphere, biting his lip at the eerie clouds covering up the innocent setting. He then turns to see something really horrible. Mistress Marvelous in her true form and spirit is tied up with her own lasso. She struggles to get free, as another demonic creature blocks Bellcord’s path. It’s the dark version of her, who had her double come inside to face Bellcord personally.

“So, I see you’re going to try and release her the same way Firestorm released Zapp.” the dark clone snarls, “But I’m tougher than you think!”

She then throws a lasso to try and grip Bellcord, but the chaos hero magically makes how own spear to have the rope tangled onto it. He then tugs the lasso away from her grip, and tears it up into pieces the moment the looped cord reached his hands. The clone and Bellcord snarl at one another, as Mistress Marvelous looks up at his bravery.

“I won’t let you control one of my friends!” Bellcord snarls.

Bellcord was able to have Gladiator participate, as he magically helped him transport in the mind of Matter-Horn’s. It’s going to be tough, but Gladiator can handle it with his gadgets. When inside, the robot griffon can she her sprit is in a strong cage made of iron and ice, having her feel cold and too weak to get out. The evil cloned spirit of her then pops in front of the griffon.

“LET HER GO!” Gladiator shouts at the evil spirit.

“Well, I assumed Sava would be there. But no matter, killing you will do just nicely! Try and beat me if you can!” she laughs.

The fight in her mind than ensues, as the spirit fires an ice ray at the robot griffon. But he dodges it in time, then running at her to push her down. He then has a spark bolt shot at her, sending her dragged backward before she rushes at him again.

Back in reality, Hummer can see that Radiance is starting to wake. He knows that Mistress Marvelous and Matter-Horn still have a long ways to go when Bellcord and Gladiator are inside their heads, but the dragon can see that somehow… outside… Radiance is pulling through.

“GUYS! I think she’s coming back!” Hummer tells his friends.

Pouter, Mote, Sava, and JT all sigh in relief.

BAM!

A sudden shaking suddenly erupts around Radiance. Hummer is confused, but can then see a reflecting mirage of… ANOTHER RADIANCE. Almost one soul of herself is being split in half, like the real is going against the fake. The shaking then stops, as Radiance awakes to be back to normal. Unfortunately…

She turns around to look at… HER EVIL CLONE!

It managed to tear out of her body so it can try to attack her when she’s alive! She screams in horror at this event, as does Hummer and Pouter. The appearance on the evil clone, it’s too ugly for Radiance to bear viewing.

“LEAVE! LEAVE!” Radiance tries to command.

“Why should I? I came here just to kill you!” the evil clone giggles.

“NO YOU WON’T!” Hummer screams.

He then picks up a sword that was tossed on the ground during a fight. He then charges at the clone, swinging his sword to only have her jump up and kick Hummer on the back. He grunts when falling back, looking up at the clone rushing again with her gem weapon in place.

“Well, the hero wants to save her love?” the evil clone scoffs, “Let’s see if you can protect Radiance!”

As Radiance stands by Hummer to aid him, more rumbling is heard. They turn to see that a couple more clones are ripping of the Fili-Second and Saddle Ranger’s bodies through their heads. They turn out like holograms at first, but then an aura flashes around them to make their bodies filled with flesh and rotten bone.

JT looks at the evil clone of Fili-Second, as he sees that the real one lays unconscious on the ground. He can also see that Saddle Ranger is under some type of coma, as her clone kicks the still body. After JT sees this, he was distracted enough to miss the dark blur go past him, hitting him hard by the neck. The dark clone was successful at striking him painfully, but even if he’s abused harshly, he gets back up. It disgusted him even more when he sees the evil clone smiling at his pain.

“So, you’ll wake Fili-Second up? HA! I won’t let you!” the clone huffs.

“I’ll beat you!” JT growls.

As JT starts to fight the clone, Sava, Pouter, and Mote look at the clone of Saddle Ranger stomping over to them. Her muscles are expanded and hard as metal, as she makes holes in the concrete floor. Pouter hides behind Sava, feeling his two tails while hugging them.

“That’s one hell of a monster that lurked inside the real Saddle Ranger.” Pouter sums up.

Sava pulls out his swords and grips hardly to them. Mote then stomps his hoof on the floor, and drags it back and forth. The clone smiles menacingly.

“You want to protect Saddle Ranger and wake her up?” the clone asks, “TOO BAD! BECAUSE I’LL SMASH YOU TO PIECES BEFORE YOU EVEN DO!”

The monster clone then tears out a slab of concrete from the floor, throwing it at the gang that jump back to miss in time. The clone then roars, tearing and lifting more slabs to heave at them. Mote even uses his aura blots to destroy the slabs into rubble as they aim at him.

“ONCE WE DEFEAT YOU, WE’LL FREE SADDLE RANGER!” Mote promises.

Back at the Arena, Firestorm keeps his fight up with both Bakura and Mordum. They go fast, and Firestorm is quickly punched hard at the base of his skull. The punch then slams him into the wall of the gooey arena barrier. He still floats himself back upward, as Mordum runs up to punch him again. Firestorm flashes by him, having Mordum miss and punch a hole in the icky wall hard and good. Bakura wonders what’s going on, but Firestorm the appears behind him, kicking him hard in the torso. Mordum turns to see this, and blasts a red ray at Firestorm. The dragon pony then dodges the attack and does a Dragon Fire Upper Hit! the combo move has him scuttling through the ground to go under Mordum fast and easy, clashing into his face! The mighty hit sends the evil villain to the ground, as Firestorm turns back to Bakura.

“Had enough?” Firestorm asks.

“No. More please!” Bakura snickers, “I haven’t had this much fun in ages!”

Firestorm then rushes back at him to spin and aim at his chest with his head. Bakura hops back, reaching up his hands to claw Firestorm at his skin The clawing attack grinds and tears against his body, having the heating blood fly past and over Firestorm’s cheek.

Firestorm then wobbles down to his feet, looking back up at the villain as he bleeds. There HAS to be a breaking point somewhere inside Bakura, like the heart. One thing he can do first off… is destroy the barrier, the arena.

Firestorm then extends his wings to fly up and make a sonic boom. The rumble irritates the liquid walls of the arena a tad bit, having Bakura a little suspicious. The villain then floats up himself, flying over to punch Firestorm’s stomach from underneath. The move failed, as Firestorm then breathes heavily to aim his fury breath at the wall once more. The fire was bigger from what Bakura expected, and…

FLAM!

The arena barrier starts to melt!

Isaac swifts his tail back and forth as he stands at the very tope of a business skyscraper, seeing the commotion at the long perspective. It’s all happening on the national bridge, where Bakura’s damned assistants are clawing at the police and SWAT teams guarding the bridge, while more soldiers get the other human citizens to safety. Blood and guts tear from the officers, as the demons pinch through and emerge further inside Corvine. Isaac kinks his jeans, wishing he would be wearing better sexy clothing for the fight. When he sighs, he sees that Zapp flashes by him in surprise.

“Do you know how it looks?” she asks him, standing at his side.

“It will get worse.” the wolf mumbles, “Half of the police are already taken down at the bridge.”

“And the citizens?” Zapp asks.

“Escaping into the city with the rest of the officers.” he tells her.

“Where should we start?” she asks.

“I recommend we go somewhere near the shoreline that connects the bridge to the island holding this city.” Isaac suggests, “Then we’ll split in two, having one of us fight half the demon bastards while one takes the other.”

“You really think you can manage?” Zapp asks.

“I’m a mage.” Isaac assures, holding his staff up, “I can do this.”

“All right.” Zapp sighs, “Let’s go.”

“With pleasure!” Isaac grins.

The wolf then hops off the building and floats down to the ground with his magic, as Zapp zooms down with her super speed to go towards the city shoreline.

Radiance and Hummer build up their combination powers as she has Hummer breathe through the gems to shoot fire rays at the evil clone of… the other Radiance. The clone dodges and reflects the attack over her with one of her gem capes. She then has the ray hit one section of the ceiling, having the slabs come crashing down towards Radiance and Hummer. Both of them scream in shock, and jump aside to miss the attack just in time before the graveling collision erupts. Radiance coughs out dust, as she growls at the clone coming back at them.

JT, Sava, and Mote go against the muscular punches of Saddle Ranger’s clone, as Pouter clings onto Sava’s tail movements to hide. Sava has his swords make cuts against Saddle’s suit, having her bleed out some dark magical ooze. The beast growls, as she slaps the fox aside, only to deal with the other fox. JT uses his Kung-Fu defense strategies to sneak under her waist, and have her trip over when she tries to bend over and attack him. JT then raises up stomp on one of her legs to crack and break it.

The clone screeches, and gets up with her other leg to smack JT aside. She then feels a back punch coming from Mote, as he then uses his blade to try and cut her again. The best he got was her tail as the clone twirls apart from him, having her rattle in disoriented madness.

Pouter mutters to himself as he feels Sava’s injured weight lay upon him.

“Find a happy place….” Pouter wishes to himself.

Sava eventually gets back up, raising his swords again for the duel.

Matter-Horn’s body continues to wince, as Gladiator fights her dark clone inside her foggy mind. Purple rays dash and clink all over the area, as the robot griffon flaps over them to avoid getting struck. He then flashes downward and diagonally, to punch her at the top of her skull. The attack thrashes the clone to the ground like she’s a crater, as Gladiator comes towards the real Matter-Horn in her cage. He has his technology wristband open up to pick the lock.

SNAP!

The lock breaks open as the real Mater-Horn breaks out of her cell.

Then, a rumbling goes around the atmosphere.

“WHAT? WHAT’S HAPPENING?” the clone demands.

“Don’t you know?” Gladiator smirks at the evil being, “Once the true soul is free, she kicks out the demon inside her.”

“NOOOOOOO!” the clone shrieks, as she disappears.

The white flash enlarges, as Gladiator and Matter-Horn are going with it.

Bellcord can already sense that Gladiator done his part of the job. Now that Matter-Horn is free, there is yet Saddle Ranger, Radiance, Mistress Marvelous, and Fili-Second’s clones to defeat. Right now however, Bellcord is getting close to Mistress Marvelous in bondage as he wrestles against her clone.

“DIE! DIE! DIE YOU FUCKING FREAK!” the evil clone hisses.

Bellcord can feel sweat pouring down his forehead as he pushes the clone off from her stomach. He then punches her non-stop with his lion paw until black ooze pours out from her toothless mouth. Mistress Marvelous then gropes together with the ropes holding her suit sleeves and hooves. She squirms and squirms until… she wriggles… FREE! She then picks up her bondage rope to use it for something good.

She goes behind her clone, knowing how deadly the turning monster is. Marvelous then makes a tight loop around the clone’s throat, choking her mercilessly and violently. The clone gags and cackles, having her eyes turn black and pure blank. The tongue of it then explodes into dust, as it’s final breath… has it turn… into… fog…

Mistress Marvelous huffs and puffs as the clone turns into lifeless smoke. She then comes up to Bellcord to hug him, as he hugs back. A rumble is then heard, as a white light consumes them.

Matter-Horn and Mistress Marvelous then wake up with their saviors, as they hug tightly to them in relief. Matter-Horn smiles, nuzzling at Gladiator for his job well done. As Mistress Marvelous finally accepts Bellcord as her friend, a sudden slap takes them both by surprise. The instant punch came from Fili-Second’s clone, as she smirks in front of them. Bellcord realizes that Fili-Second, Saddle Ranger, and Radiance’s clones are the only ones left to go. As for Pouter, he’s standing by Fili-Second right now, protecting the real one under shock. Mistress Marvelous then starts the fight with the clone, pulling out her lasso.