• Published 14th Sep 2017
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A Rather Large Adventure - BradyBunch



The Mane Six are joined by three others in a quest to use the Elements of Harmony one last time, as a brewing war between Tartarus and the free creatures of the world threatens to destroy Equestria forever.

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Chapter Sixty-nine: Fire From the Sky

K'ra was getting impatient. When was the prince getting back? It had already been fifteen minutes. The Noxxa couldn't wait forever. It had to reach a point sooner or later when the Noxxa had to invade, with or without the prince.

"Are we gonna go out there or what?" one demand shouted above the din in the dark. "Why shouldn't we watch Blueblood chop off that dragon's head?"

'It was his request," K'ra refuted him. "Honor the prince for this long at least. Once he gets everything he wants, then we'll take it all away and rip him limb from limb. It'll be more satisfying that way."

"Why did we even have to kiss up to him in the first place?" asked the same Nox. "He's such a prick and a coward that he can't even keep an erection for a mare!"

There was a collection of laughter at that.

"He had information that was vital to the war effort in Canterlot. Once he was rooted out, he had to flee to the middle of nowhere!" He indicated Black Fang Redoubt. "I always hated him! I want him to die as much as you do! He's worthless as a pony and as a rat! Now that his usefulness is at an end, we'll destroy him!"

"Oh yeah?" challenged one. "When?"

K'ra made the decision in that instant. "The instant he'll walk through those doors again, I'll put my arm around his shoulder and plunge my claw into his chest!"

The crowd grew interested, dying down to hear his words.

"And then I'll throw Rarity to you, and you can shove your spiny, worthless hooeys into her, for all you're worth. Then we'll eat them both from the hooves up so they'll know the pain of being eaten alive!"

The crowd roared.

And then three bangs on the door resonated above them all.

K'ra jumped off from the building and skittered over to the doors. "Act natural!" he bellowed.

The crowd died down.

K'ra used the levers to slowly open the iron doors of the camp. His mouth was anticipating the taste of blood as the doors creaked apart like tortured souls.

But when the doors were halfway open, his heart faltered. There was a pony at the doorway, but it wasn't Blueblood.

Twilight Sparkle, with her legs and wings apart, was waiting for him.

Alone.

And her eyes and horn were burning with hellish rage.

She didn't waste any time with a preamble or speech. Rapidly gathering magic into her violet lance of a horn, she actually began to float in the air from how much power she was drawing. Electricity buzzed all around her. The air itself became distorted and hot.

Then she fountained it out in a rage-induced burst of pink plasma.

It tore through the air right above K'ra's head, blasted apart the ground on impact, and ripped more than thirty Noxxa to bits in an instant. No armor could withstand her onslaught. Keeping it up, she swerved her head, and the laser leveled two entire barracks into firewood and smoke in one second.

The bugs scattered as Twilight shot more magic bursts from her burning violet horn and exploded on every side. K'ra was part of the crowd, running for his life, heart pounding out of his head. Somewhere, anywhere, away from here.

Then, when he was around the center of the entire enclosure, a whooshing sound came above him, and he looked up. There flew, directly over the camp, a pegasus carrying a hard-looking mare in his arms. She leaped out of his grip and landed on the roof of the nearest building in front of the horde.

Tempest let out a brutal snarl as she made eye contact with the suddenly-wary Noxxa.

Her broken horn sparked and sizzled, and a similar fountain of pure electric power erupted from her and struck everything in its path. It leaped from target to target as it disintegrated enemy after enemy. The lightning blew holes in the earth and threw up dirt and rock in every direction, disorienting the Noxxa and forcing them to run back.

Back to Twilight.

Twilight had pried the slate and wooden beams from the barracks and sheds in the redoubt, floating beside her in purple auras. Rising higher into the air, the debris swirled around her like a whirlwind, with her at the epicenter.

She fired from her horn again, and the powerful spiraling beam carved through the ground right in front of the scattering Noxxa. By the time she had finished, she had created a tremendous crater right where the street was. The route to the doors was blocked off, and it was the only way in or out of the redoubt.

At that point, most of the Noxxa in the camp didn't have much of a choice except to run in one direction to the left.

But the pegasus dropped out of the sky and flapped just above the ground. The pegasus, to the Noxxa's shock and horror, was on fire! His eyes burned blinding white as well, and his hooves were building up a fireball on each end.

He bellowed, and the sheer volume sent the Noxxa screaming in terror. But then he pointed his hooves at them and fired twin streams of flame into their ranks, and the Noxxa promptly scattered. He was like a deathly apparition, screaming and flaming and shooting death into every corner as the fire on his body pulsed brighter and hotter.

Firestorm had been unleashed.

The Noxxa had then decided it was every bug for himself. They split and ran in every direction, down every side alley, every street except where Twilight was.

But Tempest Shadow, that force of nature, was already on it. She was taking her position on the southern side, and with her electricity jumping everywhere, she prevented any Noxxa from escaping to the ramparts on that side. Lightning flew out and blew holes in buildings and incinerated Noxxa in an instant. Flames appeared all over the redoubt in no time at all.

However, she wasn't perfect. The sheer numbers of the Noxxa getting past her one position were simply too much for any one pony to handle.

Except, of course, for Firestorm.

Going at a respectable fraction of the speed of sound, Firestorm was flying in circles above the entire circumference of the camp. He shot directly above the dry wooden buildings, and flame caught quickly and spread quickly from roof to roof, trapping doomed Noxxa between alleys and setting some bugs ablaze directly.

K'ra was looking around wildly, not knowing where to focus. The hordes running past him in every direction? The electricity spewing like a hose from the broken horn of Tempest Shadow? The fiery comet shooting like a jet right above the rooftops? Or even the alicorn that was absolutely soaked with magical power, hovering high in the sky and firing blasts of pink energy into the camp seemingly at random?

Incredibly, even though he was a seasoned warrior, K'ra wanted nothing more than to lie on the ground, curl up, and sob. Everything was out of his control.

The flaming whirlwind encircling them all was constricting closer and closer like a python, forcing the Noxxa who hadn't died in a fiery inferno to congregate once more in the center street in one frightened, huddled mass. Burning buildings surrounded every escape. Tempest was on one side of them. Twilight was hovering on the other side.

Firestorm, incredibly, hovered in the air on a third side. But what would cover the fourth?

Twilight's horn pulsed once more, and with a pink flash, an upright pony appeared on the fourth side, holding a long yellow staff in one hoof and sprouting three long yellow claws from the other.

He didn't have his cowl on. This allowed everyone, by the bright light of the flames, to see the white ellipse in the center of his forehead and the scowl he wore on his lips.

The Noxxa felt a collective thrill of terror run through them all.

"Solaris help us," K'ra whispered. It was him! Freedom Fighter, the Unforgiven! And others around him were whispering similar things. It's a nightmare, wake me up. Don't make eye contact with him. He'll kill me, he'll kill me, please don't let him kill me!

"Silence!" boomed a thunderous sound that could have only been the Royal Canterlot Voice. It came from the fiery-eyed alicorn hovering twenty feet off the ground.

The Noxxa stopped abruptly. Twilight couldn't have been so forceful, could she?

"If anyone tries to leave this circle, they shall die!" Twilight announced, which clung to the Noxxa's imaginations like glue. How would they die? The worst manners of death possible ran through their heads. At least, it was running through K'ra's. But he knew it was happening to everyone else as well.

Twilight pointed to the blazing-hot orange pegasus. "Go to the cave where they keep the prisoners and smoke out the bugs!"

Firestorm shot off to the cave in the corner of the camp.

The instant his side was absent, twelve daring souls sprinted, desperately at the opening. But Tempest Shadow was already running along the rooftops, her horn sparking and sizzling. Most of it traveled into her clinking armored hooves, and they crackled with lightning as she jumped off the last roof directly into the path of the fleeing Noxxa.

The electrified explosion as she punched the dirt flung soil and Noxxa ash in every direction. A shallow crater appeared in the ground instead. And as she walked out of the clouds that had appeared, her eyes seemed to glow as well as her horn.

Twilight's magic horn pulsed brighter. Translucent magical spikes erupted from the ground and shot into the air for more than seven feet. The spikes caged the rest of the Noxxa in.

"I dare you to run!" Twilight bellowed, making many Noxxa cringe like abased dogs in their spiked pen. "Do it!" Firing a blast of energy at the edge of the circle of frightened Noxxa, she pointed a defiant hoof at them. "If any of you run, I'll slaughter you all!"


Firestorm came to the entrance of the cave where Noble had obviously been kept. He hovered in the air, burning like a bonire, as he listened to the sounds coming inside.

"Come on! I'm telling you, I heard voices outside!"

"What could it be? I'm losing my sleep for this."

"Is it the ponies? Tell you what, we'll kill them and then we can get back to sleep."

Firestorm slammed his elbow into the roof of the cave. Almost instantly, rocks tumbled down and piled at the front. He kept on pounding the roof down at the mouth until, just as the Noxxa appeared, the last rocks fell down and trapped them inside.

"What the-? Hey! Help me get these rocks out of the way!"

"Help!" cried another Nox. "Get us out of here!"

Firestorm wiggled his flaming hooves into the holes in the rocks, ignoring their cries. Scowling, he focused the power within him into his hooves and released the fire.

Instantly, flame rushed into the small cave and sank its hot fangs into the bugs.

"Aaahhhh!" came the screams of them all as they burned alive. "Aaah! Heeelp!"

Firestorm shook his head, not betraying the hardened anguish inside him. "No."

And he pulsed his hooves brighter, and even more powerful flame rushed in, coating the inside of the cave with orange. Cooking alive like an oven, the feeble screeches of the demons slowly died down.


Twilight settled to the roofs high above the cowering warriors, hellishly illuminated from behind by the fires in the campsite.

"Please don't kill us!" the Noxxa were crying in separate pleas.

"I'm not the one you should be begging to," Twilight boomed, pointing at Freedom Fighter.

"Cower before me!" Freedom Fighter roared, swinging his staff into the ground all of a sudden, throwing up burnt clumps of dirt from the small explosion.

The Noxxa retreated a step simultaneously.

"I am the Unforgiven!" he continued, pointing the staff like a spear at the hundreds of bugs. "The destined one to destroy the Noxxa forever! I season my breakfast with your forsaken ashes! My wake is black with your cold sand!"

A particularly burly Nox, already in armor and painted an unholy shade of white over his ebony chitin, elbowed his way to the front to spit at the ground in front of Freedom Fighter. He heaved and panted in rage.

"Ah, I remember you," Freedom Fighter said in mild realization. "You were the one that spat at me and I threw a knife at when I first came to this charming backwater. Tell me, can you actually speak?"

The Nox didn't answer. Instead, he kept his distance while staring defiantly.

"If you want to challenge me, then take your weapon!" he cried. He quickly took off half of his staff and tossed it to the surprised Nox, who fumbled the burning yellow staff until he grasped it in his claws. Smoke rose from his sharp grip, and, making the choice quickly, charged at the Unforgiven.

Freedom Fighter could have killed him on the spot.

Instead, he slashed him across the back with a quick-drawn knife as he came near. The Nox, enraged, bellowed and began to violently hack at the pony. Three or four furious strikes of the blazing weapon landed on his armored shoulder or stabbed into his stomach or slashed deep into his face, disfiguring his appearance.

Freedom Fighter, parrying the rest, sliced off the arm holding his flowing weapon with its partner staff. Catching the flying weapon in midair, he then took off the rest of his limbs one by one before stabbing the Nox dead in the chest.

Before he died, though, he also stabbed him in the head with the other staff. Then he ripped them out of his body sideways, and dust and ashes rose from his broken frame until there was no more.

He addressed the crowd. Steam was rising from his face and chest as the Element of Sacrifice healed him. "Do any of you doubt I could destroy you all?" he bellowed at the rest of the Noxxa.

No! came the reply.

"Then stay in your pen like the animals you are!" he shot back. "Your death comes quickly!"

"No!" K'ra pleaded, looking wildly from the Unforgiven to the Child of Light. "I-If you kill us all here, that'll go against your code of mercy! Right? What would Celestia think of you?"

Twilight was still, but the flames behind her were as wild as ever.

K'ra, sensing he had found a weak spot, pressed his advantage. "L-look, all we have to do is take an oath to never come against you again. A-and the Noxxa know honor more than anyone."

Freedom Fighter snapped his staff into a bow and pointed it at K'ra's head. "Speak another word," he hissed. "I swear to Faust I will do it."

"Listen, we know how much honor means to you because it's so precious! Why else would we take such joy in taking it away? We Noxxa honor ourselves miles above you! And so, when a Nox makes a promise to someone--anyone!--we keep it. How else will we distinguish ourselves? And especially if we lower ourselves to make a promise to ponies, of all creatures. If found that we made a promise to you, we are obligated to keep it."

The other bugs around him were whispering. Has he gone mad? No, K'ra thought. I'm buying you a way out. It doesn't matter if I'm not speaking a word of truth. Your miserable lives will be spared, and gullible Twilight slips up once again.

"I can see it in you, princess. You've killed before. Will you stop at one? Or will you slaughter us all like an untamed animal? And if you do, what will you become? Will you become a hero? Or will you become like us?"

Twilight stiffened. Freedom Fighter dared not move. Neither did Tempest, though it looked like she was ready to pounce.

"Can we not have peace like we did before?" he continued. "We shall return to our lands and not come again. I swear it by-" He paused; here he was getting into dangerous territory. "-by our lord, King Solaris."

The Noxxa gasped and scuttled, rubbed their legs together with nervous fright. K'ra didn't care. Deceit was bred into them all.

"I'll stop you right there," Freedom Fighter said over the crackling flames on every side. "Don't make a promise we all know you won't keep. Rather foolish, don't you think?"

"We shall have peace," Twilight decided.

K'ra inwardly smiled, and Freedom Fighter made a surprised sound. So did the Noxxa, to be honest. The day was just an up-and-down event, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Twilight continued. She jumped down to the flame-scorched earth. "We shall have peace… when the lives you've taken in Saddle Arabia, Griffonstone, and Manehattan are atoned for twenty times over!"

K'ra froze. What was this?

"We shall have peace when the humans in the mirror dimension are avenged of their innocent blood, which still cries from the blood-soaked earth!"

K'ra felt a deathly chill run across him. That was impossible; he was surrounded by fire! Twilight was marching into their ranks between the magical purple spikes, and as she walked, fire and violet magic swirled in streams up her body from the air all around her.

"When you feel the agony of the Unforgiven," said the alicorn, covered in streaks of swirling flame at her hooves and across her entire frame, "and of Noble Blade, and the countless mares and stallions you've defiled, we shall have peace!"

The hundreds of Noxxa recoiled at her tone. Except for K'ra. He instead felt rooted to the spot.

"When Marshal Malice's head is on the tallest spike in Canterlot," she whispered to him, eyes and mouth glowing, "then we shall have peace."

Firestorm came rocketing back to the burning enclosure, glowing in the the air like an ethereal, unearthly angel.

Twilight gave a simple nod to him.

Firestorm grinned devilishly. He paused for only a moment to stick up both middle feathers in his wings and wave them around furiously at the Noxxa before spreading them and shooting into the air.

"And when you burn," she whispered, grabbing him and pulling him to her chest, and he could see nothing but the rage in her eyes.

Freedom Fighter had entirely lowered his weapon by now and was gaping in shock. Tempest Shadow was stunned as well.

"When the rest of your defiling, evil, corrupt, filthy race disappears," she continued. The words boomed in K'ra's ears. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to disappear and die.

The glowing orange form that was Firestorm was now no more than a speck, thousands of feet above Black Fang Redoubt.

"Then," she finished. "We shall have peace."

Her horn glowed, and all of a sudden, she, Tempest, and the Unforgiven vanished.

The Noxxa, confused at first, dared to look up. Far above them, a bright comet with a long tail was blazing down like a meteor. Even from the ground, they could hear a faint whistle as the miniscule Firestorm plowed through the atmosphere.

Then the whistle turned into a roar, and a shield of fire was enveloping him as he came closer and closer.

The Noxxa, finally realizing what he was about to do, panicked. Without the ponies there to keep them trapped, they could now run in any direction they pleased, but K'ra knew differently.

It was all over. No matter how much they ran, they were all about to die.

So he knelt on the ground instead, and lifted his head. Firestorm was getting closer and closer. The Noxxa were still running and trying to escape through the labyrinth of fire that was Black Fang Redoubt, but strangely, they became silent to him.

At least before he died, he might have a moment of beauty.

Because fire was beautiful to him, the way the color looked on pony skin, the way it swirled in trees or in houses, and the sounds of it snapping and crackling over the screams of the tortured.

But instead of beauty when fire consumed him at last, all he felt was anguish.


Twilight, Freedom Fighter, and Tempest reappeared on a rock shelf two miles away from the dark prison camp. After adjusting themselves from the instantaneous trip, all three ponies' eyes were drawn to the apocalyptic streak of orange light directly above the camp.

All three of them held their breaths. All three ponies felt something twisting in their gut. And all three ponies were waiting without any kind of emotion for what was about to happen.

Just above the roofs of the camp, Firestorm broke the sound barrier.

A tremendous explosion rocked the very earth, and a flash of light sent everyone blinking and recoiling. A shockwave of pure fire eminated from the eruption and covered Black Fang Redoubt in an instant. In fact, the sheer force itself leveled the camp in puffs of smoke, and the flame disintegrated what remained.

When the flash of light died down, Tempest Shadow blinked to clear her vision and gaped in amazement.

There was nothing now except a miniature mushroom cloud, coiling high in the air and gathering into a bulbous sun-colored formation.

To Tempest, it looked like a skull.

She didn't know how long she kept staring. It was both beautiful and horrifying; mezmerizing in some sickly way.

When a fiery streak flew out of the distant mushroom cloud and flew right over to where they were, however, Tempest found an excuse to avert her eyes. Firestorm shot above her head and hovered in the air, gazing at the destruction he had wrought. At first, the momentary thrill of excitement was upon him. After a little bit, though, reality sunk in. His giddy face sunk into one of shock. No longer did he seem happy or angry. Now he just looked stunned.

No words were spoken for a long time. The four of them simply looked at the fiery skull that had completely consumed Black Fang Redoubt.

Finally, Firestorm dropped to the earth. His orange aura had cut off, and instead of triumphant or defiant, Firestorm looked sick to his stomach. Tempest felt the same way he looked, and with a glance to Twillight, she knew the princess felt the same way. Twilight's earlier fury had dissipated now that the threat was gone, and it had left her with nothing but regret of her actions.

It was strange. Tempest ordinarily had no qualms with mass murder and annihilation. But this felt different, somehow. Why was it so uncomfortable for her to keep gazing upon the evil that Firestorm had created?

"Twilight," Firestorm whispered. "Don't tell me to do that again."

"It had to be done," Freedom Fighter sagely replied.

"I wish it didn't," was his answer.

"You had no problem with killing Noxxa before," Freedom Fighter pointed out.

"I never let myself loose like that… or created a mushroom cloud before, either," Firestorm muttered. He turned around. Tempest could see a deep-seated dark look behind his eyes. He shoved Tempest out of the way and stomped past. "Move. I need some time alone."

"Not yet. You need to help carry us back to Appleoosa," Twilight called to him.

Firestorm paused, bowed his head, and let out a long sigh of frustration. After a long moment he jabbed at Freedom Fighter without looking back. "Get on, then. And make it quick. I'm pissed."

Freedom Fighter adjusted himself on Firestorm's back, who then shot off at an alarming speed, leaving Tempest and Twilight on the ledge, with the mushroom cloud dissipating into a column of smoke in the distance.

Tempest trotted over and laid on the squattting Twilight's back, and adjusted for takeoff.

"That wasn't as fulfilling as I thought it was going to be," Twilight commented. "I thought I'd feel better afterwards, but instead, I feel… empty."

"They were dirty bugs, Twilight," Tempest whispered in her usual soft tone. "They were devils. They deserved to die."

"So did you," Twilight retorted hotly.

Tempest could think of nothing more to say. Twilight Sparkle was an enigma of the highest order. Gone was the weak, impressionable, airheaded princess she had expected. In her place was a layered, complicated, and startling character who had seen and done dark, horrible things.

Perhaps they were more alike than Tempest cared to admit.

Who was she? What pony could mercilessly condemn an entire species, but feel a twist in her stomach while doing so? What kind of pony could kill Captain Celeano, legendary among the Storm King's armies, with a flick of her head, but turn into a frightened little girl afterward? What pony could be both an angel and a devil, brimming with power that could scare even Tempest? Wreathed in flame and magic, pronouncing doom upon the devils of this world, Tempest could do nothing but watch in awe and count herself lucky that it wasn't her that was being condemned instead.

Twilight spread her wings and flew off, with Tempest holding on tight. Nothing but the past was behind them. Nothing but the future ahead.

The final Element of Harmony was close at hand.

But unbeknownst to her, so also were their worst enemies.

Author's Note:

Think about it. This was the right way for the ponies to act after they destroyed the redoubt. I mean, what if the ponies had acted in the opposite way? "Yeheheeeeah! Nice job, Firestorm! You totally destroyed them all! Nice!" "Eh. I'm just awesome that way. They deserved it. Stupid beasts. I feel no remorse at all from my actions. I have no feelings except for pride and defiance. It's not as though it was a heat-of-the-moment feeling. I always feel this way."

Which one would you prefer?

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