Who Let You Have That Title, Anyway?
"As usual, I'd like to formally request your surrender, Lord Sombra."
The white-robed wizard's only response was a chilling, echoing laugh in the gloomy throne room. She shrugged. "Well, the punishment for your crimes is almost certainly death, so I don't really see the point of surrender either. We may begin at your leisure."
"Are you certain, wizard?" The patently evil voice boomed, exuding malice. "There is still time. You could lend your power to the winning side, but that would be so... unlike you. Now, much more your style, you could flee. You could see just how far you might get before the darkness catches you. How many nights you can cower under my sky. With your abilities, you might even die of natural causes, shivering in fear at your old age. You cannot kill me! For now, I am a GOD OF THE MAGICS! ALL WILL FEAR MY GAZE! MY REIGN WILL BE AS GREAT IS IT WILL BE TERRIBLE!"
The white wizard stood, calmly smiling, as red lightning crackled through the gathering tower of smoke in front of her, wreathing the demonic figure within. Almost hesitant, she blinked twice.
"Is... is that all?"
"What? Whatever do you mean?"
"Well, that was rather short compared to last time. And you didn't even punctuate it with a solid Necromantic Flechette like you normally do. I had my ward ready and everything." She remarked, wiping a speck of dust off of her humble maple staff.
"I thought I'd shake things up a bit." Lord Sombra snarked, letting the crackles of red light subside in his personal tornado of shadow. "To the death?"
"Yes, thank you."
The wizard rapped her staff on the floor and obliterated the entire throne room.
Lord Sombra staggered from the blast, roared in anger at the magma from his volcano began pouring in around them. His crystalline greatsword shimmered as the Elements coursed within. Cooly, his opponent surrounded herself with the same energies, staff twirling.
For minutes on end, the space between them was a maelstrom of the highest order. Flame met stone, ice met necromancy, and beams of hellish energy ricocheted off of shields as lashes of lightning whipped between them only to be carried away by geysers of water. The few meters between them was subsequently melted, frozen, warped and formed into statues displaying rude gestures, and disintegrated only to be melted and chilled back to smooth stone again. Wounds were healed as quickly as they were caused, spells countered before they could be cast as neither side gave any sign of mercy.
The wizard ducked as her own beam of energy bounced back at her, reflecting off of a barrier. She hesitated, straightening as no counterattack came and letting the spell on the end of her staff peter out. Lord Sombra stood still, head bowed, in the center of a crimson bubble-shield. "Need a breather already? You normal have such good stamina. No, no, of course, you're planning something."
"Ah, always so flippant, even in the face of Death itself." Lord Sombra chuckled, runes of energy beginning to fly around him.
"Oh, hush, always so dramatic." She rubbed at a scorch mark on her robe with a sleeve, only succeeding in smearing it, before looking up at Sombra sharply. "Unless you're actually summoning Death, then it's not quite as dramatic. You're not summoning Death, are you?"
Lord Sombra only cackled, the runes flashing brighter.
"Well, I never. Contingency plan it is, then."
The wizard swept her staff in a full circle around her head, flinging motes of light into a dome over them. She spoke a single word, and in an instant their surrounding began flickering between light and dark faster than the eye could track.
"What...?" Lord Sombra glanced around, not willing to disturb his delicate summoning. It would be complete in seconds, anyway.
"I don't even know if I have time to properly explain." The white wizard swept back her hood, letting her volumes of aurora-like hair spill out. "I've accelerated us through the flow of time by a little less than a factor of a hundred million for our next sixty seconds. In peasant terms, one minute in here, five hundred thousand years out there. Plenty of time for my sister to find me, come up with a counterspell and devise something unpleasant and unfair for you. Sloppy, but effective. I am a little surprised we're still here."
Lord Sombra's face fell tragically. All his plans, all his armies, all his subjects... already dust in the past. He summed it up by going back to the classics.
"CURSE YOU, CEL-"
Sweetie Belle, Magical Girl!
Sweetie Bell loved the back-right corner of the apothecary.
She liked the little shop in general, but the back-left corner was special. It had a shelf of all the books on magic the humble store had, and a pair of surprisingly comfy straw-stuffed chairs tucked away. She would come every once in a while with Applebloom, when she could be convinced to try something a little more sedate. It was cozy, the lantern was in just the right spot, and the cobbled brick absorbed most every sound from the outside world. So it was, then, late one Tuesday night, Sweetie Belle never noticed the fact that a barbarian raid was tearing its way through the town until somebody was thrown through the shutters in front of the shop.
Leaping to her feet and tossing aside a book on the exploits of the great wizard Celestia, she ran to see what the commotion was.
Roseluck scrambled to her feet, screaming bloody murder, and pushed past her further into the back of the shop. Sweetie Belle leaned out of the way, more interested in the fiery scene outside and the pair of hulking, hide-clad goblins crawling through the shop front.
"Umm... Excuse me? The door was unlocked. You could have just walked in."
The bigger of the two, the bald one, looked around for the source of the voice, and finally found it by looking down. "Eh? Y'eh 'ear that, Iggie? She sez we culda jus' walked in?"
"Blimey, she did, Oggie. I dinne' know dinkum's that small could talk!" The shorter one said, adjusting his bear-skull helmet. "She looks full 'o shiny's, tho. Better taker'."
Sweetie Belle blinked. Her sister had always told her to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but these goblins where really filling every stereotype she could think of. Still, she had better make sure. "Are... are you kidnapping me?"
"Uuh, yeh?" Oggie nodded, looking confused. He turned to his friend. "Ain't she supposed to be screamin'?"
Iggie bobbed his head. "Aye, teh usual'y do. Whay ain't you screamin,' dinky?"
"Well, I'm allowed to fight back, right?" Sweetie Belle asked, looking back at the shopkeeper, who was still standing there with his mouth open. "Right? Can I borrow this?"
She picked up one of the three staves the apothecary had for sale, and everyone nodded in agreement. Sweetie Belle beamed. "Ok, goodie! I've always wanted to fight off goblins! Lightning!"
Iggie scratched his head with the haft of his axe. "Wait, wha-AAA-GRR-GLL-EEE-AAA-BBB-BLAH-ptush!"
A ribbon of crackling electricity leapt off of the staff as Sweetie Belle thrust it into the air, arcing to the metal of the axe-blade, and then following the path of least resistance to the ground. Of course, this went directly through Iggie, who empty skull made an excellent impromptu pressure cooker and exploded. Oggie screamed. The shopkeeper screamed. Sweetie Belle cackled.
***
Laughing maniacally, Sweetie Belle charged outside, laying about left and right with the one potentially dangerous element she knew. Unfortunately, it was a startling dangerous element, and made no differentiation between targets except for conductivity. Slightly put out, Sweetie reigned in her bloodlust after a stray blast was attracted to Apple Bloom's shield.
"YIIIIIPE! Watch yer... lightnin', I guess!"
"Sorry! Life!"
At her prompting, a beam of emerald healing energy illuminated over her friend, washing away the blood and burn marks. Some of it did not wash away, however, not belonging to Apple Bloom. Sweetie Belle smiled. "Hey! You got one!"
Apple Bloom snorted, adjusting her grip on her sword. "'Course Ah did. Ah'm an Apple. Greatest warriors in Manhîme, a'member?"
Scootaloo dropped off of a nearby roof, tucking and rolling before dumping a bundle of "rescued" valuables with a clatter. "You realize that Manhîme has a population of, like, fifty, right? Where'd you get the staff, Sweetie? I thought Rarity didn't like you practicing magic without supervision?"
"Borrowed it." Sweetie Belle shrugged.
"'Borrowed it,' like, the way I borrow things, or borrowed it like you actually plan to take it back?"
Sweetie Belle pouted. "I'm not a thief, Scoots, that's your gig. Now what about the village being on fire?"
Apple Bloom shrugged. "Well, if Ah'm right, the wizards should be showing up any minuite."
"NO!" Sweetie Belle grabbed them both by the wrists. "WE'LL MISS THE SLAUGHTER!"
One pell-mell sprint through a burning village later with, only marginal charring and one arrow-wound, they arrived at the town gate. A hulk of a goblin, wearing a large headdress, leather greaves, and what looked like a bird for a loincloth stood on the roof, laughing at the carnage.
"Right here, this oughta be good." Sweetie directed them to a low stone wall, slightly out of the way with a good view.
Scootaloo winced. "Sweetie Belle, I have an arrow in my thigh, can you-"
"Sussh!" Sweetie Belle jabbed her borrowed staff at the thief without looking, and a ray of green light popped the arrow out and mended the hole.
"Thank-"
"Eeeee~! The wizards are here!"
Sweetie's shout was a little louder than intended, and made the goblin chieftain look around for the now-announced wizards. Indeed the two cloaked, hooded and staff-bearing figures jogging up the road fit the bill of Unika wizards, and stopped as the chieftain bellowed for his minions.
"Oi, y'ear that! Tha wizards are 'ear!" The chieftain waved his spear. "Git ready! A'member, we need one alive, and me alive! Everything else can die!"
The wizard in the lime robe bent double as they slowed to a stop in front of the village gate, gasping for breath. Her sky-blue clad partner waited, eyeing the massing group of goblins.
"Hoo... Hoo... Haa... Just one... just one second. Gotta... gotta catch my breath. That's... Whew!" The green wizard straightened, wiping under her hood with a sleeve. "Jeez, Shining! Way to accommodate my pace!"
Shining shrugged. "You need to get out more, Lady Heartstrings. Exercise is goof for you."
"Call me 'Lady Surname' one more time and we'll see how much good all those push-ups do you. It's Lyra. Lie-rah." Lyra insisted, giving her staff a shake and conjuring a trio of Elements: red, violet and black. From where Sweetie Belle was kneeling, she could practically feel Shining roll his eyes as he drew a sword in his left hand and summoned his own Elements: gold and blue.
"Whatever. Shall we?" Shining gestured with his sword. "After you."
"With pleasure, Looord Armor." Lyra raised her staff. "Flame! Lightning! Death! Destruction Beam!"
The goblin chief danced in anger atop the gate as Lyra glowed with dark energies. "Now! Chargem, yeh ninnies! Aak!"
Lyra's well-aimed bolt of crackling black energy hit him dead center, causing him to detonate almost instantly. Sweetie Belle applauded the display as the remaining goblins followed the last order they heard and charged.
"Ward! Aqua! Tidal Barrier!" Shining Armor slammed his staff down, and jets of water burst from the ground in front of the goblins, knocking the front row back over and soaking the entire group. He lifted his staff and flicked it forward as more Elements gathered. "Earth! Frost! Rhime Bomb!"
A small projectile arced out as the wall of water faded, detonating over the goblins and freezing the soaked creatures solid. Shining, however, was not done. He drew his staff along the length of his sword. "Earth! Twin Death! Shatterslice... WAVE!"
With a black flash, every goblin shattered and crumbled as the beam from the sword passed through them. Shining sheathed his blade with a flourish.
"WHOOO HOO! YEAH!" Sweetie Belle cheered, leaping up. "That was awesome! Can I have your autograph?"
