Tirek's Final Obstacle...

Tirek had won. That Twilight Sparkle hadn't had the guts to call his bluff, believed that he would actually kill her friends if she didn't comply, and gave him every alicorn's magic for the lives of her friends. See, that was the problem with Equestrians: it's a built-in handicap, friendship. It always made them put emotion ahead of good, old-fashioned common sense.

Tirek abruptly noticed something strange while he was walking. Haven't I passed this exact bush three times already? he asked himself.

The centaur slowed his march, and Tirek turned his head to stare ar the bush as he walked. It was a simple looking bit of topiary, a ball of emerald leaves and twigs sitting innocently by the side of the road. A little too innocently...

Tirek shook his head in disgust, and began walking away from the bush. “All the power in Equestria, and I'm getting paranoid of a plant.”

In retrospect, though, he had every reason to be paranoid. Nightmare Moon, from what he heard, had overestimated herself and was exorcised by the Elements of Harmony. Chrysalis had underestimated the power of the alicorn of Love and was blasted to parts unknown which, in addition to making Tirek place his face firmly in his palm, made him consider Cadance a viable threat.

Hell, Sombra, the greatest dark mage in two millenia, had met his end by the claws of that tiny dragonling of all creatures. If the formula held true for every threat to Equestria's status quo, it was only a matter of time before one of Chekhov's Guns went off.

Tirek's gaze lowered in his absentmindedness, and he stopped cold. The same bush was sitting there, not a leaf out of place from before.

Tirek knelt down for a moment, intensely staring at the bush. Turning his head behind him, he looked over to the last place he had seen the bush. Confirming his suspicions, the ground the bush had been was bare.

Tirek looked back at the bush, inspecting it even more warily. There was no pony magic emanating from it, so it wasn't just an outclassed foal inside a false bush. However...Tirek could feel something was distinctly wrong with this bush.

“Listen here...bush...” he began, already feeling like a moron. “If you know what is best for you, stop following me. I have taken the magic of every pony in Equestria, including Discord's magic. I know not what power you possess, but you must stop following me.”

The bush sat there in silence.

Tirek rose to his hooves, sighing deeply. “Waste of my time...” he muttered.

As Tirek began to move forwards, he heard a rustling sound from behind him. “Hm?” Tirek turned, and the bush was nowhere to be seen. The centaur stared at the empty ground for a moment, then shrugged slightly and turned back around.

The bush was in front of him, sitting as if it had always been there.

Tirek's brow furrowed. “What are you?” he asked quietly.

The bush rustled of its own accord, as if to say 'I'm a bush. Don't you see that much?'

Tirek tilted his head, and opened his mouth. Before he could begin the process of stealing magic, the bush ceased to sit in front of him.

Tirek's head whipped around, and a fireball began to manifest between his horns. “I tire of your trickery, bush!” Never thought I'd say that, Tirek thought, but audibly he continued, “Show yourself or begone!”

A rustle from behind Tirek, and he whirled around to see the bush...

...releasing a spell towards him.

In a move some would claim too nimble for his size, Tirek leaped out of the spell's path in time to see a globe of darkness erupt where he had been standing. It expanded in place for a moment, and suddenly imploded in itself. Tirek still felt magic from the point the globe had appeared, and stepped further back to avoid whatever was about to happen.

A wise move in retrospect, as the point of condensed darkness exploded, leaving a crater in the earth several yards in diameter. Tirek noted that the ground left in the crater hadn't been compressed, as it would have to be if it experienced the shockwave of an explosion. Rather, it was as if the dirt above it had simply been deleted from existence.

Tirek looked at the bush, which seemed to be rustling in defiance...well, if bushes could express such complex emotions through a rustle. Tirek curiously launched a fireball at the bush, and the bush made no effort to dodge. It caught aflame easily, and smoke began rising into the air.

Tirek stared at the burning bush for a moment, and a pink flash came from inside of the flames. Tirek braced himself for a counter-attack – again, something he never expected to do when encountering a shrubbery – but was surprised to hear a feminine voice cry out: “Desu!”

Tirek looked at the bush in utter bafflement, as it was now cloaked in a pink aura and pony lingerie. Somehow, this eliminated the flames on the bush, and it returned to an uninjured state.

“What is this sorcery?” Tirek wondered aloud. Whatever it was, Tirek couldn't quite reach the magic behind it, which was worrying in itself.

The bush then alighted with another strange aura, and the sky went red. Tirek looked around warily, scanning the battlefield with careful eyes as the phrase 'Catastrophe' manifested in his mind. A glimmer from above, and he craned his head back to look directly overhead.

A heavily armored, bipedal was flying over his head on wings somewhere between a bat's and that of a pegasus. What caught Tirek's attention was the fact that it was surrounded by a variety of weapons aimed at the centaur's head.

Tirek immediately launched a salvo of fireballs upwards, intending to hit the figure out of the sky, but it disappeared as the weapons began falling towards him. Tirek's durability had increased immensely to the point where normal weapons wouldn't have an effect on him, but the white glow surrounding the falling weapons was not a good sign. Tirek re-adjusted his aim to knock the weapons off course, and succeeded in diverting all but one of them.

Unfortunately for Tirek, it happened to be a massive claymore headed for his face.

Tirek attempted to dodge the massive blade, but it sliced off his arm and part of his back before it stopped its descent. Tirek let out a roar of pain, blood flowing freely from the wounds. Snarling in wounded wrath, Tirek used some of his stolen magic to restore the cleaved muscle to his bones. Since he had the magic of a nation at his disposal, it was child's play to restore the otherwise debilitating injuries, but it was still heavily infuriating.

After this was done Tirek lifted the sword, which was massive even by his standards, and stared at it for a second. He had suffered countless mortal-killing injuries during his fight with Twilight, but none of them actually pierced his flesh, let alone this deeply. The sword disappeared in a flash of white light, and Tirek looked back up at his opponent, that damnable green bush.

The bush had been skewered in several places by the diverted weapons, but it remained relatively intact.

“It appears that you have great power, bush,” the centaur said with honeyed respect. Tirek held out a hand to the shrubbery. “What say you to an alliance? We could rule this world together, crush our opposition to dust with out combined might.”

There was a silence between the two, one that lasted for a good five minutes.

In the end, the bush broke the silence with a rustle and a flash of white light. For some reason, the phrase 'Ion Cannon' rang through Tirek's mind.

Tirek charged up anther salvo of fireballs, then held them longer to form a beam of murderous energy. Before he could fire, he noticed something off about the sky above him once more. Then there was the feeling that accompanied a magical beam heading towards him, and on instinct he fired the blast in its direction.

A beam of red, gold, and black energy collided with a pillar of white and blue, and the air crackled dangerously with power as the two energies collided. Tirek, to his horror, had to strain against this energy being hurled at him, but ultimately lost out and was engulfed in the attack.

Burned evenly around his body, smoking from every patch of flesh, and obviously in great pain, Tirek searched madly for another source of magic. There was nothing around him for a mile – no ponies, no zebras, no minotaurs, not even a Diamond Dog. All that was there was that bush, and it was giving him a better fight that Twilight had!

Tirek didn't know whether to laugh or scream at the absurdity of the situation.

The green bush flashed white once more, and then the word 'Genesis' flashed through Tirek's mind.

Tirek launched a stream of fire from between his horns, trying to interrupt the attack before it could be launched. While the green bush caught aflame once more, a ethereal, golden cross with white wings appeared between them. As quickly as it disappeared, the ground directly beneath it cracked, and Tirek forced himself not to look upwards as he fired shot after shot of magic at this bush – no, this THING – in an attempt to destroy it before it destroyed him.

The world flashed white for a moment, and feathers began to fall from the sky. Tirek kept desperately blasting at the bush, but eventually his gaze turned skywards.

In his horror, Tirek saw the winged cross had grown larger than the planet, and its base ran directly through the battlefield. A golden tsunami of light crashed down upon them both, and Tirek's vision failed him due to the monstrous pain wracking his body into a quivering mess.

As Tirek's vision began to fade, he saw that green bush sitting in front of him, glistening with health and rustling in triumph.

“...how...” Tirek managed to choke out. “...what in Tartarus are you...”

For the first and last time, the bush spoke to Tirek.

“I was once a human, and before I changed into this I was powerless. But now? I am the Green Bush.”

Tirek's world was swallowed by darkness, every sensation fleeing his battered body.

“̢̼̳͕͖̱̀A͙̠͇͔n̵͎͓͈͖̪̟͘d̡̮̩̩̕͘ ̳̦̭̲̫̳͞͞t͏̠̯̀h̢̡͚̬̘̫͉̀i̴̛̥̮̹̹͚̠̺ś̞̮̲̖̦̟͢ ̰̳̗w̬͓̺̟͟o̪̺͠r̵̘̩l̨̩͢d̤̰̭̭̟͈̟͔̕ ̧҉̝̲̳̲͚̳͔̲i̪s̺ͅ ̸̣̬̩̺̙̞͚ͅM͎̪͎̠͇͘ͅḬN̦͔͚̲̱̭͍̼̕͡É͖̦̰̳͙.̘̼̳͙̕͞”̴̢̖͖͎͍͎͖̩̯͞

330 views