Friendship Force!

by Chrome Masquerade

Of Fire and Ice

The two opposing groups stared each other down, all in different positions of battle-readiness.

Then, as if a silent cue was sounded, they rushed at each other in unison.
Each of the half-pony heroes chose a few targets, and since all of their opponents were fairly similar, they were about equal in difficulty, they figured.

However, when attempting to strike their targets, they found a problem.

"How can you hit something you can't touch?" Lightning Dust queried, apeaking for everypony.

Archmage came up with the solution. "Simple." she said as she gave one target a solid smack as it tried to hit her, "Wait for them to attack you."(1)

And thusly instructed, the heroes stood a MUCH better chance.

Winter Breeze, naturally, had the most trouble with the frost spirits. So instead of using her powers, she focused on not focusing at all, letting her magic use her instead. Not only did this prove rather effective, but it was allowing her to attune to her magic more fully.

Summer Breeze had the easiest time of it. With her flame-based magic, she was able to send the windigoes packing, screeching in pain.

Groundskeeper was not having as easy a time as you might think. Although her elemental nature left her much more resilient to the windigoes' water based magic, being on frozen water still left her at a disadvantage. Try as she might to summon the magical blades she had used just the previous mission, she was unable to focus her energy properly.

Archmage was fairly trouncing her picks. Being able to use fiery spells as well made her job easy.

Spring Breeze and Autumn Breeze were literally dancing circles around their opponents. In short order they left those dazed and confused, before simply knocking them over.

Lightning Dust was shattering her targets' defenses with electrical energy, a thrill of excitement running through her. She almost felt like singing, but held it down.

At length, Frozen Heart got tired of his fellows being so easily dispatched.

"ENOUGH of this!" he said, before he summoned some magic, which set the ice under them a'cracking.

The heroes tried their best to escape from the impromptu trap. into the water they went anyway.

Having been frozen over, the water was bitterly cold. As the others struggled to return to the surface, Summer Breeze was feeling increasingly uneasy while in the freezing cold water. It made her start to panic, starting to make her lose control of her magic.

The first clue the rest of the team had to this was that the water was heating up. A quick look proved that Summer was going through a mana flare, heating the water immediately around her to boiling temperatures, which had the result of the others paddling faster.

Winter Breeze had a different issue. Having entered the cold water, when she opened her eyes, she felt oddly different. A quick look at herself showed that she had become what looked like a cross between a sea horse and a medium-sized sea lion.

'So I'm... also some kind of a Selkie?'(2) she queried to herself. 'This just keeps getting weirder.' Fanning her new tail, she zoomed toward the surface.

Up above, Frozen Heart's palace was feeling the burn as well. With the dramatically heated water, his constructions were coming apart at what qualified for their seams.

"Curse these wretched heroes! My brothers! Retreat! We will fight another day!" he ordered, following his own instruction shortly thereafter.

Next, thawed people started to fall into the water, only to be saved by the already wet heroes, left with no memory of what had transpired or why they were even angry to begin with.

Groundskeeper, having taken a good lung-full of air, swam back underwater. She jetted toward Summer Breeze, who was still surrounded by her unleashed energy. At great pain to herself, Groundskeeper swam close enough to embrace the potentially perilously panicked pony-girl, pulsing the two of them for the surface.

"It's okay, Summer. Ah've gotcha." Groundskeeper soothed her ally, who shortly thereafter fell asleep, all out of energy.

However, those people who were closest to the two of them had been transformed into half-ponies themselves, not likely to change back anytime soon...

That didn't stop everyone -and everypony- from enjoying the temporary natural jacuzzi.

The heroes left for their base, their work here done.

Author's Note:

(1)Shoutout to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fast Forward.
(2)I got this idea from a certain book by Anne McCaffrey . See if you can guess which one.

Comments

[Paulon]

Petaybee.

[Chrome Masquerade]

9081743
Really warm, but that's the series (and the planet), not the book.