The Last One

by computerneek

Mark

She steps slowly, dramatically, out into the street. Head down, perpendicular to her enemy’s course. He is so slow that surprise does not matter; she is fast enough she can deal the same damage to him whether he expects her attack or not. Advantageous positions also do not matter; she can change positions so fast he can’t even blink before she’s ready for another blow.

But the fight has not yet begun.

Seven bubbles float in the air behind him. She recognizes the contents: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Discord… and Twilight Sparkle. She’d hoped the final Element Bearer had a plan when she had surrendered her magic to the monster- and so, she had. However, she had gone ahead and yelled about it in the presence of the same monster, so of course he’d foiled it.

So she had promptly went hunting through the woods for the chest the purple Alicorn had mentioned, and found it. She had retrieved the medallion Discord had given Twilight, after it had been again discarded by the monster, this time after that gifting. She’d taken it to the chest, and successfully turned it into the final key. None of them seemed to work, though- so she’d checked for watchers and taken a quick thaumic peek at it with her horn. Flitter had told her to keep it hidden, never use it where somepony else might see.

The chest would only open, even now with all the keys installed, to the six Element Bearers- and then, only with all present.

So she had returned to the town, intending to hide with her sisters until he put them down and was vanquished.

Only, when she got back, she found that the monster had found her sisters, and drained them of their magic as well. Their horns remained hidden; her spell was not disrupted. However…

As much as Flitter had begged her to hide, to save herself, she could not. As much as Flutter had warned her of the danger, she could not flee.

No. She refused to flee. To back down, to hide. Like a coward.

She never had.

She never would.

She would fight.

And she would win.

She doesn’t have her cutie mark yet. She’s using that as a deceptive measure against the monster; he thinks she’s already been drained of her magic. She’s acting like she has been, stepping out to make one last defiant move. He’s laughing at her.

She’s three steps away from the center of the road, directly in front of him. Electricity crackles invisibly through her feathers, exciting the air. The light of Princess Celestia’s sun begins to fade.

She’s two steps away from the center. She begins driving her earth pony magic into the soil, causing the ground to rumble, the dust to splash, with every hoofstep.

She’s one step away. She adds her unicorn magic to the mix, playing the DJ’s tables and the celloist’s cello to build for some dramatic music.

She stops dead center in the street. Darkness has fallen; the rain has begun to fall. The monster is confused.

She turns sharply to face him, at exactly the same moment as the downpour hits the ground- and twin lightning bolts strike on either side of her, kicking off the bass of her song, which echoes from all around.

“You hurt my friends,” she states calmly, head still hanging down, eyes still closed.

He doesn’t say anything, just raising an eyebrow interestedly. He’s starting to catch on.

She opens her eyes, glaring up through her eyelashes at him while she funnels her unicorn magic through them, making them glow sharply. “I will hurt you.” Her voice thunders across the short space, magnified and deepened by her spell.

“What-!?” Rainbow demands from her bubble, whirling to face.

“Last One!?” Twilight asks. “Run!”

She doesn’t. She spreads her wings sharply, exactly as several lightning bolts come down to meet the edges, shrouding her in blinding plasma.

He doesn’t flee. He lets out a chuckle, and starts his binding spell- the one he used to keep ponies from moving while he took their magic.

She doesn’t let him finish. Even as she shatters his spell matrix with one of her own, her wings blast backwards- and she does an instant Rainboom directly towards him. She detours upwards at the last second, smashing him sharply upside the jaw. His jaw slams shut while he himself is lifted- no, thrown- into the air, cartwheeling over backwards as he goes.

All seven bubbles pop, their occupants falling towards the ground.

She moves. She snatches them out of the air, setting them down safely outside the combat zone.

“Go,” she orders, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Open the chest. I’ll hold him.”

“Got it,” Twilight states immediately- and, after helping her friends stand back up, takes off galloping for the chest.

She leaps back into the air, shattering the sound barrier again- and comes down for a solid smash to the monster’s face, right as he lands on the ground, on his back. The road shatters away from the impact site, even though the wardings he hasn’t lowered protected him from damage.

She garnishes a fresh Rainboom from the rebound off that attack, rocketing back upwards- and detouring almost instantly to the side, where she dodges between his forelegs and seizes one of his hind hooves, pouring all of her pegasus magic into a mighty pull. She swings him over her head, slamming him face-first into the roadway on her other side even before the road finishes buckling from her first blow. She immediately yanks him right back, using the rebound to amplify her next strike against the still buckling pavement.

She lets go before he hits, though, and flashes to the pavement herself, driving her earth pony magic into the soil.

The roadway splits open for her, opening a massive jaw wide enough to eat the monster whole. She smashes it back shut on him as soon as he enters it, crushing him between layers of rock- then seizes that hind hoof, the only part of him still exposed, and rips him bodily out of the ground, flinging him skywards- where thunderbolt after thunderbolt blaze into him, tearing away at his wardings.

He hasn’t finished going up yet when she’s already there, seizing one of his horns and heaving violently on it, twisting him back on himself. She draws on the pegasus magic flowing through his horns, not just her own, in creating a massive plank of Cloudsteel and filling it with lightning before she smashes him bodily through it. And ripping him right back through a different part of it, before flinging him back at the ground- where a veritable cloud of lightning has been building up, waiting for him. As he smashes into it at roughly eighteen point three seven times the speed of sound, she unleashes the attack spell she’s been building up with her Unicorn magic ever since her opening move.

She’s caught him between a rock and a hard place. Figuratively.

Her spellwork and thunderbolts successfully strip him of his wardings- so she descends on him once again.

She has not yet defeated him.

She kicks him in the belly, smashing him into the ground once again, before rocketing back up to his hind hoof and repeating her earlier trick. She smashes him bodilly against the ground- face first, back first, then smashed in the jaws of the Earth on his way back to face first, only to be yanked back out by the hoof and flung into the air, where the clouds assault him once again. As they do, she flies up, seizes one of his horns, and swings him around in circles, building speed, finally unleashing him back at the ground at something like a hundred times the speed of sound.

But she’d noticed something in the end of that swing; that horn flexed, and strained. And she remembers, the Unicorn Horn is quite dangerous to remove.

So she flashes back down after him, catching the same horn and bracing herself on his skull while she pours all her strength and earth pony magic into a massive pull, even before he hits the ground.

She successfully breaks it off, unleashing a massive shockwave as his stolen magic begins returning to its rightful owners- and snaps off the other one like a twig as she passes. She detours off to the side next, landing in a solid, two-legged stance right back where she had started, horns held like daggers in her forehooves, at the same time as he smashes into the ground.

She has defeated him.

The entire battle lasted hardly one point three six seconds, discounting the initial blow and the time taken to get the Element Bearers on their way.

A pony screams somewhere behind her.

“She’s… She’s the last one, all right,” somepony says behind her- that cream one. Bonbon.

She stabs the two broken horns unceremoniously into the roadway in front of her and turns, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” the green unicorn that seems to accompany the earth pony everywhere. “The last one anything’s gonna see coming.”

Bonbon snorts. “Or see at all.”

She tilts her head. “What?”

Flitter explodes from the building that had been her hiding place, nearly rainbooming herself in her mad dash. “You’re alive!” she yells, gathering her up in a hug. “I thought I’d lost you!”

“Hey, it’s not like I’d let myself lose,” she states.

Flutter laughs as she reaches her sisters, not having galloped quite as fast. “You say that like it was a forgone conclusion,” she states.

“Well it was,” she answers. “He didn’t have anywhere close to the speed necessary to keep up with me.” She doesn’t mention that she knows she never had a significant mobility advantage before; she figures that’s probably because she knows she’s never been nearly that mobile, and she knows her mobility increased significantly with the power increase of her ascension, then further as she practiced with her new power levels.

“Yeah,” Flutter chuckles. “He didn’t stand a chance. Oh, and you got your cutie mark, too.”

“Wait, what?” Flitter asks, blinking as she pulls back far enough to look for it.

She nods. “I noticed,” she states, glancing back at it. A long, thin, pipe-like thing spewing a bolt of light, crossed with a burning sword overtop a quill and a thick book.

Comments

[kitkataddel]

...wow. That's... something. Overpowered much?
It's a funny image though. Just this foal swinging around a fourty foot tall centaur.

[computerneek]

9618277
Yeah, overpowered.

Probably going to terrify Flitter, though, once she realizes what she just saw- and when considering what Last One really is (Bolo), and Flitter's unknowing status (her Commander)... Yeah.

Aside from that, my focus on this fic isn't the combat, but more her growth, development, and self-discovery.

[Zapper Frost]

Yay, Violence!

[Starlight Nova]

If the main OCs in this story were voiced, what would they sound like?

[computerneek]

9621377
main OCs- Last One, Flitter, and Flutter?

... I don't know how to describe it. If I were any good at voice acting, I'd simply voice them, record that, post it unlisted on Youtube, and link it...

But alas.

Maybe I'll start doing readings of my own stories... I'll have to experiment with my mic, see if it's up to the task.

[LostArchivist]

I can't tell if I should be asking for a sandwich with that ham, or applauding. It was perhaps slightly much, but probably reasonable at the same time. This is mildly confusing.

I suddenly have to wonder if you were inspired by The Highlander at any point in writing this. :D

Certain agents of SMILE are surely going to be keeping a very close eye on someone who managed to do a reasonable impression of a rock concert with Tirek as the guitar! But there will be mass confusion of the government, so it's all good.

Is anyone going to figure out anything about her unicorn magic (or Earth Pony, for that matter) from this? I can't see that all being easily explained.

[LostArchivist]

9621377
Isn't there only one OC, technically? Flitter and Flutter are both canon, I believe, but are essentially in the background for most of it.

[computerneek]

9662792
Er...

Flitter and Flutter are both OCs. I am aware there may be a canon 'Flitter', sister to 'Cloudchaser'- but no, regardless of the existence of those, these are both OCs.

[tsaukpaetra]

Whelp, no hiding that!