Terror in Equestria 10: The Return of Tirek

by StormLuna

Standing their Ground

After what was a filling breakfast for all of them, they all felt a bit less stressed but still knew that the foes they were about to face would be a huge challenge. For those who had been taking part in wars since the very first confrontation against Twilight, they knew this would likely push them to their limits. For Ruby and White Magick though, they felt that defeating their foes was likely given the relics they had, it was Colgate's plans for them that brought out more concern.

After letting their food sit for a few minutes Colgate pointed towards the exit and ordered, "Alright, let's go out and wait." She pointed towards her hoof soldiers and added, "While your stomachs are still full, I want to get you duplicated."

Colgate headed towards the exit and was immediately followed by the others. Once they were a decent distance from the castle she pointed towards an empty area and ordered, "Troops, gather over there so I may duplicate you."

Her hoof soldiers did as ordered and Colgate lit up her horn, pointed it in the direction of her soldiers and recited,

"From one to two,
two to four and so much more.
When one is simple mere,
more and more shall appear."

Like it had been in the past, for each soldier she had, there were now two. She continued to cast the spell until she had 500 of each type. She gave her much larger army a smile and then turned to her allies. Given that only during her corruption had Twilight ever duplicated troops, she looked at the larger army in shock. She asked, "Colgate, how were you able to do that? How could you just make more of them?"

Colgate knew that she simply couldn't bring up her past regarding duplicating them nor did she want to go into too much detail in the event she was to remember what happened and transform back into a dark goddess so she replied, "It is just a spell to assist armies in taking down evil."

She then took to the sky and cast her gaze to the west and realized that it would not be much longer. She returned to the ground and said, "Alright everypony, they are likely ten miles away so clear your minds and prepare for their arrival."

Everypony began to calm themselves down but that would not last for long as dark clouds began to roll in from the north, lightning began to flash and thunder began to boom around them. Once a freezing rain began to fall, memories of Tambelon began return to them. For some of them, memories of being enslaved returned to them, for Twilight memories of being tortured and tied up in the elements came back to her and for Colgate and Ruby, memories of their confrontation with Grogar returned. These memories would only get worse when they heard the laughter of Grogar accompanying the storm.

Ruby had a look of pure terror on her face. She wrapped her hooves around Colgate and asked, "It's him, isn't it? His spirit is causing this storm, isn't it?"

Colgate replied, "Yes, he is." She saw that everypony else was looking unnerved and continued, "Fight the fear everypony! His spirit can't hurt you, he is trying to aid our enemies by scaring us!"

For her allies, this was difficult, very difficult. The only other ones that were not affected by it psychologically were her generals. After a few minutes they finally saw their enemies approaching town. She yelled, "Ruby, use the Rainbow on the beasts, use the Rainbow on the beasts."

The first of their enemies to enter town were the beasts. They were hungry and immediately began to go after them. Colgate screamed, "Into the sky, get into the sky!"

Everypony became airborne and Ruby pointed the locket towards the beasts and for the first time since before the fall of Ponyland, it was opened but nothing came out. Ruby screamed, "It's not working Colgate, its not working!"

Colgate ordered, "Hold it in your aura, maybe that will work!"

Ruby did as ordered and the Rainbow shot out of the relic and as it struck each beast, they returned to being ponies. Some had their cutie marks and some did not. Once every beast had been transformed back into a pony, some of them returned to the ground to take them on while Colgate, Scootaloo and Ruby remained airborne.

The first centaur to arrive in town was Tirac and he was not one bit pleased that his beasts had been returned to their natural form. He unleashed his Rainbow of Darkness on the ones who had not escaped town and once again, they were beasts but this time, they were more aggressive and immediately went for the allies that were on the ground. Galaxia was the first one that would get attacked.

As it sank its teeth into one of her hind legs, she began screaming in pain and calling out for help. Despite knowing that in reality she would be killing a pony, Colgate fired a powerful bolt of energy at the beast and killed it. She realized that perhaps the best option when it came to the beasts was not to return them to being ponies but simply to kill them. She flew over to Ruby and suggested, "The ones that he transformed back, let me handle them. You save the power of that thing for a battle against the Rainbow of Darkness."

While Galaxia was able to get airborne and out of reach of the beasts, some of the other allies were in a panic. The one who was in the biggest panic was Twilight. She began to run away from the beasts that hunted her but was soon backed up against her castle. Despite Colgate hating Twilight, she fired bolts of energy at the three beasts that had her trapped and blew them to bits. Twilight was so grateful for her saving her that she took to the sky and hugged Colgate, "Thank you Colgate, thank you so much!"

Colgate broke the embrace and ordered, "You're welcome but we must stay focused. Try taking down those beasts or attack Tirac." Suddenly a much larger centaur entered town and Colgate continued, "Or worry about him! Up here in the sky we are not safe from him."

Twilight nodded and began to fire energy at Tirek, as did many of the other allies. Colgate pointed at her changelings and yelled, "Cover them in ooze, immobilize them!"

Her changelings did as ordered, they began to swarm the two and cover them in ooze but something was different about them. No matter how much ooze they got covered in, it was not even affecting either one of them. For Tirek, they were just a minor inconvenience so he fired a ball of fire at them and killed many of them instantly. Colgate realized that changelings were no match against the two so she ordered them to retreat.

Tirek soon though would find himself being burned by the energy of the dark Alicorns, many, many dark Alicorns. The bolts of energy he had been struck with by the normal Alicorns was not harming him but something was different about them, their energy was darker and began to burn him. Colgate ordered them to circle him and burn him continuously and that is what they did.

While Tirek was being burned by dark Alicorn energy, Tirac saw what Ruby had around her neck and readied himself to unleash his Rainbow of Darkness. He shouted, "That thing may have defeated me in the past but not this time! This time I'm destroying it!"

Colgate shouted, "Ruby, use the Rainbow on Tirac, use the Rainbow!"

Ruby grabbed the locket in her aura and swung it open at the same time Tirac opened his pouch and unleashed his Rainbow upon her. The two Rainbows met in the middle and the two began an epic struggle. For Ruby it was taking a lot of her energy just to keep up the fight while Tirac was having no problems keeping his Rainbow going. Ruby began to grimace in pain and shouted, "Colgate, I don't know how much longer I can do this. His power is too strong."

As soon as she said this, the power of the Rainbow of Darkness overwhelmed her Rainbow and sent her flying. As the battle raged on, Colgate's focus shifted from the two centaurs and to her friend Ruby. Seeing her go flying brought back so many bad memories, bad memories of that fateful day in Tambelon. She landed by her and noticed that she was still alive but that the Rainbow had been shattered, the locket was broken.

Ruby looked down at the broken relic and began to cry, "What are we going to do? We'll all be beasts in the end!"

Colgate replied, "Not if I have anything to say about it."

Colgate took to the sky and returned to the battle and saw that some of Twilight's friends had turned to beasts and were going after the others. Colgate ordered, "Head to the skies, don't let them get you."

When they returned to the skies, Colgate saw that Pinkie, Rainbow and Rarity had all been turned to beasts. She knew that with the Rainbow of Light having been destroyed, that they could not be returned to their normal form. Something crossed her mind though, she thought that perhaps if she destroyed the relic that turned them into beasts, that they may return to normal because she was not about to kill them unless she had no other choice.

When Ruby finally returned to the battle, it did not take Tirac long to notice. He laughed, "Without that relic, you are nothing you BEAST!"

He opened his pouch and the Rainbow of Darkness began to speed towards Ruby but it would not reach her. Colgate fired up her horn, the bells on her collar began to glow and a powerful bolt of energy fired out of her horn. Like it was with Ruby and the Rainbow of Light, their beams met in the middle but Colgate had one advantage, the relic she had had become part of her.

Despite the struggle not bringing any discomfort to Colgate, she knew that this had to end sooner rather than later, she knew that more energy would be needed to do this. While Colgate's dark Alicorns continued to burn Tirek and the others were firing energy at him, Colgate began to glow. Soon she appeared as though she was a bright blue sun in the sky which brought the entire battle to a stop.

Her energy began to push the Rainbow of Darkness back into its pouch and finally, Colgate's eyes shot blue beams out of them as she unleashed the final surge of power that caused not only the Rainbow of Darkness to be shoved back in, but for it to break entirely, causing the Rainbow to strike one final victim, Twilight Sparkle. The raw energy of the Rainbow sent her flying and while they couldn't be sure, it looked like it actually seeped into Twilight. This caused Colgate to get a bad feeling but she couldn't worry about that at the moment, she had two centaurs to take down.

She began to analyze the stunned Tirac who was feeling around his neck, trying to find the pouch. When he discovered it was not there, he screamed, "Noooooo! It's gone, noooooo! Curse you ponies, curse you"

Colgate decided the time had come to kill her enemy. She again lit her horn up and her bells began to glow. She fired a bolt of energy at him which quickly began to burn him. His screams turned into cries of agony and again Colgate began to glow blue as she fired a much more powerful bolt of energy, the bolt of energy that would blow him apart.

When he blew apart, a powerful surge of magic that spread skywards, causing the clouds to turn brown and the rain to become painful. With the exception of her army and Tirek, the rain had begun to sting them. Colgate knew that this couldn't last but when she noticed that the other centaur had begun grabbing her dark Alicorn soldiers and slamming them into the ground, she knew she had to finish him off before she could try and clear out the skies.

As Colgate headed towards him, she would be shocked when she saw Tirek steal the magic from everypony except Twilight. Tirek grew tenfold and suddenly Colgate looked like a bug compared to him. She would not be thrilled when Tirek laughed, "Surrender now you weak minded Equine and I might let you live!"

Despite how huge he was and realizing that her chances of defeating him were slim, she would not back down. She countered, "You may think you have won but you have not. You have seen my powers, you saw what I did to your cohort and if you do not wish to suffer the same fate, you will surrender, now!"

Tirek laughed, "Ha, you kill me! You're no bigger than a bug, how are you going to kill me?"

Colgate mocked, "Oooh, you're no bigger than a bug, how are you going to kill big bad Tirek?" She then fired up her horn and yelled, "Like this!"

She fired a powerful bolt of energy at him that struck him right in the eye. He was shocked that such a tiny opponent could inflict pain upon him but it would not take long for his eyesight to return. He swung his fist at Colgate and yelled, "Alright little bug, your magic is mine!"

A ball formed between Tirek's horns and he opened his mouth, readying himself to steal her magic. When she saw this, she took skyward and got out of his line of sight. She knew that she was at a huge disadvantage given how big he was although being small would make it harder for him to steal her magic.

She continued to fly well above him but would not be thrilled when she saw him begin to launch balls of fire at the buildings in town. She knew that he was dead set on burning Ponyville to the ground. Despite her not having lived there in many millennia, she still felt a connection to the town. She thought to herself, "How am I going to do this, how am I going to bring him down?" She then remembered the life draining spell that she was originally going to use on Grogar and said to herself, "I've got it, I'll drain his very life from him! I'll just have to fix it to where it would be for a centaur and not a goat."

She remembered how it was difficult enough to alter the spell for a goat but do it for a centaur may not be as difficult if she altered the one for the goat inside of the one for a pony. She looked down in disgust as he continued to set the town ablaze. She knew the time had come to end this had arrived as she did not want him to find Twilight and take her magic as well.

Given that she was so small, she was able to land on the top of his head without noticing. She leaned her head down to where her horn was making contact with his scalp and she recited,

"The centaur is full of life
Yet he has caused a lot of strife,
He thinks he is invincible
But that kind of thought is not sensible,
His powers must become a thing of the past
For it is his tyranny that can not last,
Now his energy must go to the grave
And his death will come at the hooves of the brave."

As she began to drain his energy, he began to shrink in size and he had no idea how it was happening. There was nopony present with the Elements to be doing this like it was with Celestia and Luna. He saw nopony around with magic until he had shrank down to his scrawny form and the same blue Alicorn that had mocked him before was now in front of his face, larger than him.

The ball of energy that contained much of his life and all the magic he had stolen was floating above Colgate's head. He gave Colgate a snarl and ordered, "Give me back what is rightfully mine, weak minded equine!"

Colgate cast a spell to break the ball of energy, causing not only the magic he stole from ponies to be returned to them, but his life force spread into the sky and exploded, clearing out the skies. All that remained was a powerless Tirek defiantly standing up to the much larger Alicorn.

He continued to throw insults at Colgate until she eventually tired of it. While there were many ways she could have killed him using magic, she decided to do it the way an earth pony would. She grabbed him by the neck, bent it in a way that it should not be bent until she heard it snap and then his body went limp.

Colgate placed her hoof on his neck to feel for a pulse but none was to be found. Colgate noticed that the others, including those who had been turned into beasts, were coming to and that they all seemed to be ok. The first to run to her was Ruby, "You did it Colgate, you did it! You killed them, you saved the world!"

Colgate corrected, "You mean we saved the world. This was a team effort."

When she said this, everypony began to cheer loudly and like her soldiers would in the old days, they all began to chant her name, "Colgate, Colgate, Colgate!"

Colgate looked around and noticed that many of her dark Alicorn and changeling hoof soldiers had perished. Dark Night and Lightning Storm approached her with solemn looks on her faces. She commented, "This is always the worst part of every battle, the loss of life."

Her generals and everypony else agreed. They all stood around Colgate with smiles on their faces. For the first time in an extremely long time, Colgate felt like they were all on the same page. She thought to herself, "Good, right now they're with me and perhaps now I can take what I should have after Twilight was banished to the sun." She then began to snicker, "And perhaps I'll take little Twily's heart while I'm at it."