1) Soul Eater
Note: This is my partly Soul Eater fusion, partly my rant at my annoyance of the unicorns getting all the fun.
Celestia started a school for higher learning, and a school for special tactics. Instead of solely unicorns, it was mixed. Everyone had magic, after all, and every should get a chance to unlock their natural born skills. This was “Celestia’s School for Advanced Magical Training.”
There was also a different school, started by a small group of students in a university researching magic types. They knew what Unicorns could do, there were plenty of books on combat spells and what not. Pegasi were a little more limited, but they could still do aerial bombardment with lightning or tornadoes.
Earth Ponies had earth magic, but it was damned difficult to get their mana to do much of anything besides local phenomenon. Their first attempt involved mana sharing. A breakthrough in magic training was born from this research, detailing how little they knew about Earth Pony magic. Hundreds of papers were written soon after, detailing differences between the different magic systems.
A few years down the line, researchers discovered a spell to link the unicorns much more closely to their Earthly brethrens: The Weapons Transformation Spell.
Soon after this discovery, “Celestia’s School for Advanced Weapon/Meister Tactics” was added to certain sectors of military training. Over the centuries, six mares rose through the ranks to become one of the most powerful Weapon Meister teams ever produced by the school.
The school’s worth would soon be tested by the arrival of a certain imprisoned goddess.
One year after Luna’s return.
The Dark Alicorn glared at the nonchalant orange Earth Pony standing next to the door to her throne, her ancient castle. “Are you testing my patience, child?” she snarled.
“I don’t know,” the orange pony said, casually leaning against the door. “Are you impatient?”
“What is your purpose here! Move or you would be no more than a memory!” Nightmare’s horn glowed.
“Sucks, don’t it? I’m afraid we have a conflict o’ interests.” The hatted pony took a step. “You see, Applejack was tasked with a bit o’ stalling.”
She paused for a beat. “And I’m Applejack.”
The Nightmare’s horn glowed. A blade popped up in between them and diverted her magic, shattering both blades.
The cowpony showed a small grin. “I’m pretty good at what I do.” She bucked her rear legs, sending the flaps of her saddlebags open and shaking out nearly fifty blades into the sky, which all landed impaled at the ground. “Now, I would like to know whether we can -”
AJ stomped a hoof, blocking a bolt with the now disintegrating blade, and sighed. “Guess not.”
The Nightmare shot off another mana blast, but the Earth Pony was long gone. There was a blast of sparks coming off her side. She looked, and snarled at her opponent. Only her reflexes managed to protect her, summoning a short curved blade by her side that blocked the blade the Earth pony held in her jaws.
More sparks flew as the Nightmare shoved Applejack off, leaving her rolling to a stop. Nightmare went for the door, but was stopped by a pair of blades shooting across her vision. Behind her, Applejack lowered her legs. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” The Earth pony sprinted across the gap, picking up blades as she went and alternating between throwing the swords or deflecting the flying blade the Dark Alicorn controlled. They once agains met in a clash, the orange pony blocking the floating blade with a reverse grip on the sword in her hoof.
“You fight well for an Earth Pony,” the Nightmare growled, “but Unicorn magic always beat those of Earth.” A second blade flashed into being, and Applejack barely managed to roll away from it. She stopped in front of the door, gasping slightly for breath. “In fact, why am I wasting time here?”
She shot upwards towards the roof, intending to blast through the ceiling of the fortress, but was completely surprised by a massive weight plowing into her side. She bounced off the floor once, knocking over several swords. When she stood up, she saw a few blades crossed with each other, still vibrating after the Earth Pony had springboarded off it. “Do you really think a lone Earth Pony can stop me?” the Nightmare yelled.
Applejack made a thoughtful expression. “Maybe not.” Her head lowered. When it rose again, it was marked with a fierce grin. “But all I needed to do was stall.”
The Nightmare’s eyes widened, but didn’t have time to do anything before a blast of Rainbow light smashed in between them. The smoke cleared quickly, revealing a straight blade, rolling with energy and glowing with all of the colors of the sun. It had a smooth, metal handle, with red, blue, and green streamers wavering in the air.
A high pitched voice echoed from the large hole in the ceiling. “Woo Hoo!” A pink blur shot down and rolled beside Applejack.
“Took you long enough Pinkie. I almost got tired, here.”
The titular pink pony was crouching on her rear legs, wielding a saber with purple highlights and purple streamers that wrapped around her left hoof and a lavender tinted long sword with two pairs of spikes pointing above and below the horizontal as the hoof guard. On her back was a dull yellow crossbow with a pink scope and drawstring. Saddle bags bounced on her back.
“Sorry Jackie! Had to make sure all our topside friends were okay. Plus, do you know how hard it is to find where you are under several feet of rock?”
Applejack tapped her friend’s shoulder. “Jus’ kiddin’ with ya. You were right on time.” The pony smiled.
In front of them, the glowing blade’s streamers wrapped together and inflated, like a rainbow tail. The energized blade expanded, bulging. When it dissipated, a smirking blue pegasus crouched in front of the Nightmare, the pegasus’s wings still sparking. “Rainbow Dash is in the house!” She snorted at the Alicorn’s surprised expression. “Never seen an Autonomous Weapon before?”
“Don’ think she’s seen Weapons at all. Ever paid attention in Histo- woah nelly!”
“Yikes!” Rainbow squeaked, blocking two of the magic blades with glowing forearms. “Hey, that’s like, totally rude ya know."
Uh, huh, a certain saber muttered.
“I am the Goddess of the Night!” the Goddess of the Night shouted. “No amount of you little ponies would be enough to defeat me!”
“Individually maybe,” Applejack admitted. A glow surrounded Pinkie’s right hoof. A lavender unicorn walked around her and stood besides Pinkie. “But there’s me, Twilight...”
A flash appeared to her left, and Rarity hopped down to the floor. “Nice to know that form doesn’t do much to my appearance...”
A butter yellow pegasus poked up behind Pinkie. “Um. Hi.”
Rainbow Dash flew back and hovered above them. “And the fastest pegasus, ever!”
Applejack nodded to them. “I think we have a decent chance. Let’s go, girls.” Rarity nodded and turned into a saber, wrapping around Pinkie’s hoof. Pinkie reached into her bags and held a wide barreled flare gun. Rainbow Dash grabbed Fluttershy, who “eeped” and turned into a yellow crossbow.
Nightmare roared and flung several conjured spinning blades at the ponies. Twilight quickly stepped forwards and summoned a shield, though sweat started dribbling down her head as her concentration was battered by the intensity by the attack. An orange hoof poked into the corner of her vision. A quick glance revealed Applejack’s fierce grin. “Let’s do this, partner.”
The pair clasped hooves, the shield still being maintained as the unicorn morphed into a longsword. “Hi-YAH!” the cowpony shouted, slamming the sword into the ground. A blast of orange energy reinforced the shield, and also increased in size, slamming into Nightmare’s face.
“Resonace the pair said, energy swirling around them. Purple and orange sparks danced along the edge of Twilight’s sword.
This was the secret to the immense success of the Weapon program. Preliminary research showed that Earth ponies actually had a vast amount of mana they were able to draw from: the Earth itself. Unicorns had to rely on their own stored reserves, and are prone to running out. But when combined with the reserves of an Earth Pony, they become more powerful than their individual sums. This was also the reason Earth ponies had to take unicorn magic classes if they want to be a good Meister.
Pegasi were in between. They were generally extremely agile, and able to strike quickly before their targets can react. Therefore, they are often either paired with another pegasus, or go solo, known as Autonomous.
Applejack exhaled. She opened her eyes, and became a blur. The wall of blades the Nightmare held in front of her spat sparks as she barely blocked the pony’s blow. Another pink blur flew towards her, and was also quickly blocked. A moment later, the Nightmare decided that sidestepping or summoning a shield would’ve been a better idea for dealing with a cupcake. The pink pony who fired it simply grinned, blowing a bit of smoke out of the flare gun, and bounced around to the side.
A white glow flashed from her saber, and the pink pony teleported above her, spinning and slicing away at her shield and levitated blades.
Rainbow Dash simply used her tremendous speed to her advantage, alternating between speeding by with a lightning coated hoof raised or firing Fluttershy’s darts at her from behind.
For the first time in the fight, the Nightmare grew worried. Alone, individually, they would be easy to take out. But, these new techniques were pushing her back. Their strength had been multiplied greatly, and she knew that a war of attrition was one she would be bound to lose.
Applejack blasted a beam of energy into the distracted Alicorn, knocking several of the blades off course, and dashed up to her, ripping chunks of stone out of the floor. Twilight’s blade screeched against the hastily made barrier, shoving the Nightmare back a few feet. “I know this don’t look like it, but we would prefer not to cause undue harm. Can you please stop? It’s getting embarrassing.”
“No!” she shouted. “I will not be beaten like this!” She backed up towards a wall, forcing the six mares to stay roughly in front of her. A crackle of energy built up in her horn as she stood behind a shield. Her eyes opened, glowing with power, and then she sent out a storm of lightning ripping the room apart.
Applejack quickly held Twilight upwards, casting a purple, orange tinted shield in front of her friends. “RRAAGGGHH!” the Nightmare shouted, unrelenting.
Pinkie crouched beside Applejack, frowning, Rarity held in a guard position. “That was terribly disappointing,” Rarity sighed. “I thought a Princess wouldn’t be so uncouth.”
“Yeah, sorry missy. Insanity doesn’t transfer easily ta’ manners,” A trickle of sweat trickled down AJ’s head. “Dang, she’s pretty angry. Twilight, I think we need you, before one of us burns out and dies. I don’ think the Princess would like that.”
A murmur of assent echoed from the sword as the six fighters huddled together under the onslaught of the Alicorn’s wrath.
“...50000 thaums, 3 degrees, 0.05 pulses per second. It appears to be somewhat stable. Get ready, Fluttershy.”
“Ok,” the meek crossbow said as the pegasus carrying her landed on the ground.
“On my mark,” the longsword said. “...tick...tick.........tick ....tick .....tick....FIRE!”
Pinkie twirled once and lashed out with Rarity, sending a whirling shockwave crackling through Applejack’s shield.
Rainbow Dash threw herself over the meek crossbow, and with a flash turned into a glowing multi-colored blade. The crossbow sprouted a pair of legs, catching the handle of Rainbow’s handle with her drawstring and shot her, sending a contrail screaming through the pulsing electrical storm the Nightmare was blindly, wildly tossing out, ripping stone and air alike. There was a pattern, however. In the brief moment between the pulses, a blazing sword shot through the air, sliding right between the arcs of lightning, accelerated through the brief tunnel of calm summoned by Rarity..
Midflight, Rainbow Dash dispelled her sword form, a lightning charged hoof held over her head. She let out a war cry and hooked her elbow over the Nightmare’s neck, the blast of force slamming them towards the wall. “TASTE THE RAINBOW!”
The room exploded in a blast of light.