Episode One: Lightning Gathers
Azure Ace Starburst took one last look at herself in the mirror of her personal dressing room, racks of outfits on the purple wall behind her, the ceiling a bright blue, the floor a purple and black tigerskin carpet taken from specially-bred alchemically-altered tigers from a large private enclosure in Africolt she owned. "This is gonna be awesome." She said to herself, an excited grin on her navy blue face, a sparkle of life in her deep purple orbs that were a little darker than Twilight's, locks of uncombed aurburn falling wildly around her face as if she'd just gotten out of bed. Her tall, curvy and lightly-muscled body was clad in her usual darker-blue evening gown, a masterpiece that accentuated her body while still looking respectable and being comfortable, complete with a leg seam that let it over her legs and bare hooves while she was still, yet it wouldn't get in the way if she needed to run. This gave her complete control over exactly how much leg she wanted to show, depending on how she was feeling, and allowed her to fight at full strength if need be, though she supposed her awesome blue plate armour would be more practical for more serious fights.
She slowly and carefully removed her blue evening gown from her body with her magic, splitting the fabric and smiling knowingly at herself in the mirror, revealing her black sports bra and matching silk undies. She threw her dress to the side, and then turned around and started looking through the part of her outfit collection that was on display. Shirts, trousers, scarves, ties, chokers, chains, and leather, mail, cloth and plate armour. Outfits that were respectable and outfits that were less so. Military outfits, dresses of assorted hues of colours that matched or contrasted with her own colours, outfits for specific characters from books she liked and books she would never admit to reading, scarves, hats, and other accessories. The rest of her very large collection of other articles of clothing and equally large and impressive collection of weaponry were kept in her personal Armoury, a part of the pocket dimension she used for reliable storage. This Armoury could only be accessed via her magic or a magic cupboard in her Casino Vault only she could touch or open, everypony else would assume the cupboard was simply an illusion the interior decorator placed there to make the room look better. If she died, it and everything else she owned would go to her kids, the loose cash split equally while everything else would be shared.
She picked up two sets of white bandages- no, handwraps, and put them on her professional-level make-up desk. She never actually used make-up, though. Skincare and furcare products that actually worked? Sure, she'd use those, but never makeup. It and the desk just came free with the attached mirrors.
She then a pair of loose and baggy amber boxer shorts that somewhat hid her flanks from view, yet highlighted her long and powerful legs and allowed her tail to swish freely thanks to a very tiny hidden hole in the back her tail would expertly thread through. She put them on, and then put on a sleeveless stretchy black shirt that seemed tailor-made to snugly fit her torso, emphasising her chest, shoulders, and the smooth muscles on her arms.
Her horn glowed with a magnificent azure light as she summoned a low, wide bucket of water onto the mirror's desk, dipped her head back into it as if it was a salon's hair-sink-thing as her hair floated out, and she cast another spell. The soft fur on her body turned from navy blue to a striking butter yellow, the gradient spreading out from top to bottom before colouring her entire form. And then her mane seemed to come alive, locks of quickly-greying hair linking up into a puffy cloudlike hairstyle, becoming the dark grey of a storm cloud. When the spells were complete, she appeared to be a completely different pony, except for how she was the exact same shape, and had the exact same eye colour, and only had a differently-coloured coat and mane and outfit. She got up and looked into the mirror, her magic extracting the water from her hair and drying it out so her mane would stay like that until she chose otherwise, and she had the water pour back into the bowl she'd summoned. She dismissed the bowl, which disappeared in a burst of azure sparks.
She looked at herself in the mirror, admiring her new body. She then cast another spell, a design of two large jagged lightning bolts appearing on her black shirt, crossing down from her shoulders and over her chest. The grey of her mane and the midnight-black of her shirt drew more attention to that eye-catchingly bright shade of yellow, and brought to mind a thundercloud striking down a bolt of lightning. Rolling with it, (Heh heh, 'Rolling thunder'), she cast another spell, this one was an illusion. The spells power made her deep purple eyes change to a bright gold, finishing off the look. It was one thing to use a basic alchemical transmutation to change the pigment of the fur coating your body, but when it came to the eyes, it was best to not mess around. Those things were important.
She stood up, and admired her new body in the mirror, turning her chest and hips to the left and right, admiring her new body from every angle. Satisfied, she began carefully wrapping the white bandages around her right hand, bandaging them up to the middle of her forearm and doing the same with the left, casting another quick spell to turn them jet-black. Those handwraps were good for supporting the wrist and keeping the hands safe, and more importantly, they looked cool. Horn aglow, she pulled more bandages into her hands, and slowly bent over, giving the mirrors quite a view as she slid her hands down her leg before carefully bandaging the bend in her legs, not that they really needed to be bandaged. But hey, it looked cool, especially when she chose to leave two long sections of bandage unwrapped at the top. Now, they just flopped down, but when she started running, they'd trail behind her, like streamers, but cooler! And if any opponents tried to grab her by them and swing her around, they'd rip off in their hands, and she'd punish her foe for trying.
She finished off the yellow, black and grey ensemble with a hooded long-sleeved black cloak that would hide her entire body from view when she put the hood up, enchanted to cast a real and illusionary shadow over the wearer so dark that even somepony wearing a Ring of True Sight would have trouble seeing who she was. The cloak was bound by a single loop around the neck that strengthened and weakened at will, so it couldn't be grabbed and used to swing her around or choke her. The sleeves would also make it even harder for analytical foes to track her movements and predict her next attacks.
Putting her hands on her hips and admiring her body in the mirror again, she remembered her tail. A quick spell caused her now-grey locks of hair to intertwine and sharpen into a lightning bolt-shaped tail, and finally, made her azure magical glow turn thunder-yellow.
As Azure Ace Starburst left her dressing room in her new costume, she decided she needed a name for this new fake identity. She had fifty-five already, but this was number fifty-six. It needed a name... Thunder... Lightning... Sky... Yellow... Thunder Strike? Storm? Barrage?
Lightning Barrage, she decided with a nod. It sounded foreign, which was good, because Ace was not. Now nopony would ever suspect it was her! She inhaled and spoke, her voice changing gradually, shifting in octaves and accent intensity before settling on something perfect. "Mah name eez Lightniing Barrage, and- Ai em heea foa zee- breeleeahnt faiiteeeng tohnamehhhnt- 'osted by ze magnifique and intellégent and totallé 'ot Azure 'Ace' Starburst. She rehleh gets mah thunder rolling, if you get vhat ai em sayiing, no? On hawn hawn hawn haww!"
A devious smirk came upon her face. "Oh, oui, ai do believe ai 'ave zis voice down. Everyzhing is set and raring to go, non?" She grinned, and spread her arms wide as she strode down those blue-gray halls. "Let ze fireworks begin!"
It was not uncommon for businesses to set up shop inside a casino of sufficient size. While they'd often demand a cut of profits, the incredible raise in potential clients and consumers with money to burn was more than enough to cover it. It also reduced the risk that those who entered a Casino would leave with more money than what they came in with, and generally added towards your profits.
But at the Aces High, they went beyond that. It wasn't enough that they had three Casino floors on different levels, a fourth and fifth floor that had only poker tables as far as the eye could see, a whole network of locations all over the city's Underground tied to the teleporting elevators that included secret gambling tables and secret card rooms for those games between absurdly rich nobles for whom ten million bits was mere pocket change, and sixty floors of hotel with over 2400 rooms up above, each with ten-star accommodation and levels of room service that differed depending on not who you were, but how much you paid. That was far more fair than the way businesses would typically fawn over Nobles and Princes and Princesses and Dukes like crazed teenaged fans at a Jousting Blitzer concert, she HATED that. And unlike her rivals, she didn't rig the Casinos to give her an unfairly big house edge, just enough to make things a challenge. In her glorious temple of chance, her magnificent celebration of the beauty that was gaming, only two things mattered: Skill, and luck.
She had shows. Theatres. Yes, everypony knew about her show, where three nights a week, she would use her magic and lift up an entire orchestra of instruments and play them all herself, taking requests when the mood suited her, though nopony knew she had a few Plants in the audience instructed to request the best songs she knew. Everypony knew about the comedians, singers, magicians, and other acts that went on in her Casino's five theatres, each theatre having a different general theme, though somepony staying for a week could see most of the best acts her Casino had to offer, though there was always something epic to see or do.
But despite all its glamour and shine, and all the spectacular excess that temple dedicated to fun and reckless abandon had to offer, there was something in there, something not that many knew about. Something underground.
Literally, underground. The room was made in what was the Casino's basement, and the old basement was moved further underground. And the secret basement and secret bunker and secret armoury and secret secret-defenses control room and secret portal to the Ace Dimension in which the legendary House Of Aces resided were moved even further down.
Ace, or rather, 'Lightning Barrage', made it to an elevator, the muted red metal standing out against the pale blue-grey. She pressed the nearby call button and waited, not that the wait time was very long, only a few seconds. The magic aural scanner recognised that she was still its boss, and it sped up its ascension to her before opening itself to her with a pleasant and cheerful ding, inviting her inside. She strode in, turned to see the controls and the screen above it that informed her she was on floor ten, and her horn glowed as her magic pressed the numbers 2, 8, 4, and 5, in that order.
The elevator descended, and the helpful and advanced screen above the buttons informed her of what floor they were on and when. The screen was a complex system of liquids with crystals inside, each one glowing with a different colour depending on how much magic charge was running through it. Floor ten, floor seven, floor three, first floor, basement...
Basement minus one.
Finally... She was here.
The doors opened up, revealing...
A thick steel wall with a lot of kinda-small writing overhead, and a revolving door below designed to ensure that you didn't see anything unless you went in. If she stopped to read that wall, she'd see a warning that warned anypony who entered the floor that they were about to enter an area with violence and fighting and gambling over that fighting, and that if they couldn't handle that, they should turn tail right there and run back into the elevator, and go to another floor. Maybe something closer to their speed.
Ace/Barrage wasn't the one who wrote that warning, but on the first day, she smiled and said it was hilarious. Now, it was just another thing on a wall she'd read too many times for the joke to remain funny, though she wasn't sick of it or anything. She walked through the revolving door, and stopped and smiled as she took in the sight.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of ponies with around one hundred and fifty Griffons interspersed between them stood, flew or sat in one wide room with benches in a staircase pattern all crowded around one thirty-foot-squared blue and orange wrestling arena that had a cage with one magically-locked cage door, with magically-reinforced bars that could contain a supernova without harming the viewers slammed down onto it, everyone excitedly waiting for the match to begin.
Marianne had really outdone herself this time, Ace/Barrage noted with pride.
Marianne, a brown Unicorn mare with a long grey mane and tail like thin steel wire was lowered from the ceiling by actual steel wire, arms spread out and up like a puppet, legs falling beneath her as she landed on the stage, wires connecting her to the ceiling disintegrating into what looked like sparkling grey and white diamond dust before fading away. The crowd's cheering intensified as she raised her hand to the sky, pulling a wired microphone down into her hands. "Fffffillies aaaand Gentlllllecoooolllts!" She shouted with glee, watching how she was working the crowd and eating it up. "Are you ready for something you can't see anywhere else? ...Legally? Are you ready for a FIGHT?!"
The crowd cheered in the affirmative, roaring and cheering and whooping with delight.
"Have we got a show tonight?!" Marianne asked as she began walking around to different sides of the cage, focusing her skill on different section of the audience to get them all as whipped up and ready as possible. "Buck yeah, we do!" She declared, four illusionary crimson explosions detonating on each corner of the cage, casting a silhouette of her onto every wall. "We've got a tournament with no less than sixty four, count 'em, sixty four entrants, all gathered to fight for the right to truly be called the greatest, AND to gain the trophy, the Azure Spire!"
An oversized 1:12 scale replica of the Azure Spire appeared in the center of the cage, a single azure sphere held aloft by a twisted frame of gold and steel. It cost around 80 bits to make, and the materials cost around 20 bits, since Ace owned many small gem mines across Equestria and the most expensive material used in this trophy's creation was actually steel. Ace could have used her magic to shape the materials into whatever was needed, but no, Marianne insisted on paying some fancy Canterlot pony to do exactly what she would have done, but at a much higher cost. Still, the actual trophy was now worth millions of bits, simply because it was the trophy for this tournament. Regardless, each of the tournament's entrants paid 30 bits to get in, every single pony watching the tournament had paid 40 per ticket to each match or a 200 bit Tournament Ticket, and the betting stalls in the corner took 10% of every bet won and kept every bet lost. All in all, it was one of the most profitable establishments in the Casino, and best of all... It was completely aboveground (Metaphorically speaking) and completely legal.
"It's the Ace of Aces Tournament, and it's starting now! In today's block of matches, we've got some EPIC shows coming up! But first... Coming in all the way from Vanhoofer, we've got... She's a lumberjack and she's okay, she fights all night and she works all day... Mist Logger!"
There was a loud cheer as riverdance-ish music began to play, and a large brown Pegasus mare with muscles that'd make a man jealous and a wingspan that'd make young Alicorns jealous appeared in the room in a burst of smoke and swirl of leaves. She has legs like tree trunks coated in tight blue jeans held up by an unnecessary brown belt, her jeans even tighter around the flanks, a red plaid shirt with buttons and her sleeves rolled up to her biceps, and a green mane brushed up and to the side like a leaf at the end of a tree branch. Her B-cup chest barely made a dent in her loose plaid shirt, not that she really needed to worry about that, considering her flanks. She entered the arena, posed and flexed her muscles for a solid two minutes, and then her time was up, and she stood on one side of the arena, arms folded, waiting for her opponent to show.
"And from even further away... I think," Marianne said, pausing as the crowd laughed. "Weighing in at an unknown number of pounds, all the way from Prance, we have... Hotter than a bolt of lightning and even faster... Lightning Barrage!"
Unbelievably fast violin music played from hidden speakers set up around the room as Ace/Lightning Barrage smiled as she stepped up into the ring, her movements elegant and graceful despite the size of her chest, occasionally tossing in a cartwheel or somersault just because she could. When she got into the arena, she slowly bent down and sensually showed her rear and tail at her fans, and then turned around to moon her opponent, much to the amusement of her new fans. Hey, if Lightning Barrage was supposed to be different from Azure Ace Starburst, she decided she might as well play the even-more-fun mare for as long as she could, and do all the stuff she wished she could get away with without gossipy hens talking and whining and writing all kinds of crap about her in the tabloid press.
"Ready?" Marionette called, steel cables lowering from the ceiling and wrapping themselves around her body in a way that made more than a few in the audience blush, quickly rising up to the ceiling. "Begin!"
Logger sprinted forwards and started flying, flipping over in midair and kicking at Lightning again and again, wings propelling her forwards for each straight leg thrust. Lightning blocked with circular motions, putting her forarms on the legs and guiding the strikes away rather than blocking them outright, it was easier and gave her slightly more of a window of opportunity she could take, if her opponent weren't so dang fast. Lightning stepped back in time as her opponent kept flying closer to her until her back was almost against the cage. Logger reared back and flapped her wings hard, extending her right leg for a hard kick aimed at her opponent's head. Lightning Barrage leaned to the right, letting the Pegasus's outstretched limb collide against the cage wall, push back off the wall like a champion swimmer, and flip back several times in the air as she rode the momentum back to the center of the stage, her fans cheering at the acrobatic display.
Lightning's horn glowed with a fierce golden light, blasting a thick golden laser at her opponent. She flapped to the side and dodged as it struck the cage wall, exploding with enough force to blast the light Pegasus over to her, right into Lightning Barrage's outstretched fist.
Logger flared out her wings in panic and slowed down, the air almost screeching from the strain it put on her wings, stopping just a single millimetre in front of Lightning's fist and flapping back, rising higher into the air to get some distance.
Wrong move.
Horn glowing again, she created a ball of raw energy the size of a basketball at the tip of her horn before throwing it with a swing of her head. Logger easily dodged, and it struck the cage's bars behind her hard enough to detonate, launching her down head over heels, sprawling wildly in the air before colliding chest-first with Lightning Barrage's fist as it was thrust forwards, slamming her back towards the arena wall as her wings flapped frantically and uselessly, a golden energy beam leaving Lightning's horn and striking her along the way, causing her to scream as the laser shoved her harder towards the cage wall.
Her back struck the wall and the energy beam detonated in a golden blast of power, and it was a hurt and shaky Mist Logger that got back up, rushing across the arena at Lightning Barrage and jumping up, extending her right leg and spinning again and again in the air as she sailed towards her, wings flapping to add in even more spin speed and striking power.
Lightning Barrage's brilliant mind had analyzed the technique her opponent was using and copied it instantly, discovering its weak points and rapidly deciding upon the perfect technique to neutralize and counter it. She rushed forwards to meet her foe, arms bent, hands straight like a champion sprinter.
Mist Logger sailed towards Lightning Barrage like a rotating saw of death, and Lightning ducked just before she was about to take that spinning leg to the face, then she clasped her hands together, two fingers of both hands extended, the other two fingers and thumb interlocked. "Hidden Prench Lightning Temple Secret Finger Art: A Thousand All-Piercing Thunderbolts!" Lightning Barrage shouted, rising up and striking her opponent so hard she was launched over into the far arena wall, all momentum of the spinning serving to only make the attack hurt more, screaming in agony as he was launched in the opposite direction, hitting the arena head-first hard enough to chip one of her teeth as the female members of the audience gave an "Oooh" of sympathetic pain and the males laughed in amused disbelief, and Logger was barely able to move her legs for a few moments. Lightning charged a ball of magic above her head the size of a giant boulder, and threw it at the downed Logger.
Logger quickly dodged to the side, wings flapping frantically even as her legs and the rest of her body was slowly recovering from her new least-favourite attack ever, but the giant spellblast suddenly turned to follow her and struck her in the flanks, detonating in a bright flash of lightning magic.
When the light died down, Logger tried to get up, struggling onto one knee, only to stumble and fall.
"Are you going to zurrender?" Lightning Barrage asked, feeling a little sorry for her opponent. "I would not want you to fail too hard in front of your fans."
Mist Logger growled and quickly reached down the front of her own shirt, took out a hidden thin brown rope necklace with a tiny cylindrical piece of brown wood upon it, and she crushed it in her hand.
Nature Magic welled up around her, spinning quickly as the life force of every tree she'd ever felled was summoned forth from the enchanted necklace that had held it inside. Her power level shot through the roof, and one pony in the audience who was wearing enchanted reading glasses that could scan power levels gasped as the enchantment was permanently burnt out with a tiny magic explosion and the reading glass turned opaque. He took off his suddenly-ruined glasses and held them in one hand, looking up at the incredibly powerful Pegasus mare with tears forming in his eyes. "Her power level..." He said softly, and then he crushed the glasses in his hands. "IT'S OVER NINE THOOOUSAAAND!"
Mist Logger's body floated up, legs straight and arms extended out and back, her body recovering and getting stronger, muscles building up and pulsing outwards until she reminded Ace of a certain absurdly musclebound red-eyed tiny-winged white Pegasus that had once entered a different tournament she'd watched elsewhere. Thick wooden plate armour began growing around her body, and thicker armour covering her head until she resembled a wild and dangerous Wood Golem, her jagged hollow eyes glowing with a bright green light, leaves growing on the top of her head and forming a similar manestyle to what she had before, except now, it truly was made of leaves.
The monster that was once Mist Logger roared, tree sap flying from her mouth like spit from a wild, rabid animal, Lightning Barrage teleporting away in a yellow flash of magic to avoid said spit.
Lightning reappeared above the Wood Golem's head as it looked around in animalistic confusion, somersaulting no less than five times in the air to pick up as much speed as possible before slamming down a hoof onto its head, kicking the wooden beast right between the eyes, her hoof driving through its entire forehead, cracking its face in two. Not bothered in the slightest, the wooden golem reached up a hand to grab Lightning Barrage, only for her to teleport and appear beside the wooden monster, delivering a harsh kick into her right knee, cracking both the hard wood and the leg of the mare inside, Logger's nature magic repairing her body but doing nothing for the pain.
The wood golem swiped a hand down, wooden claws forming on his fingers, but Lightning Barrage evaded with not her magic this time, but raw speed, sidestepping the downwards swipe and punching an arm out to the side, looking straight ahead as her fist slammed through the wooden being's arm and elbow, splinters of wood flying away.
The wooden golem swiped to the side with its other arm as Logger started to regain some control of it, its strong wooden arm faster than the average eye could see, and Lightning hopped up, landed on its wrist at exactly the right moment, and leapt towards its head. Time seemed to slow down, and the Wood Golem's arm was forced down, its head and body coming down with it, so Lightning Barrage could deliver a vicious kick right into its wooden face that drilled straight through and hit the mare within hard enough to send her flying back into the arena wall, hitting it hard enough to form large cracks along the Golem's wooden form.
The golem healed and got up, and charged towards Lightning Barrage, loud wooden footfalls making the arena floor shake, the Unicorn's horn beginning to glow. She began to summon weapons from the Lightning section of her Armoury, a colossal serrated seven-foot zweihander shaped like a lightning bolt zooming towards it and cleaving its face-mask in two as two matching ordinarily-sized twinned yellow katanas made of solid Thunderstone flew towards the wooden golem in perfect synchronicity, slicing off both arms at the elbows, and then the shoulders. At the same time, a heavy yellow and blue warhammer was summoned, shattering its left leg into splinters as a gigantic six-foot yellow windmill shuriken, or demon wind shuriken or fuuma shuriken as some would call it, spun like a rotating disk of death as it sliced the Wood Golem's right leg into four pieces. The weapons then floated around Lightning Barrage, ready for another simultaneous strike, and the limbless torso of the Wood Golem fell to the ground, face-first, the head regenerating first. Lightning wasn't even winded. As strong and fast as she was, her specialty was magic, especially multi-weapon fighting. Back in Canterlot, she used to duel four, five, sometimes even twelve stallions at the same time whenever she wanted a challenge, and telling them to bring all their friends and family members for a one against fifty or two hundred match just made it even sweeter when she won. One of those One VS Many matches was part of what got her kicked out of Canterlot all those years ago, but it was mostly due to the fact that her father had his own head so far up his flanks he could roll down a bowling alley and get a perfect strike.
Lightning's warhammer rose up into the air in a wide arc before being slammed downwards towards the Wood Golem's body, a mach cone forming around the warhammer's tip and bursting into flames, but a colossal oak tree rose up from the Wood Golem's back to meet the warhammer. Lightning's Warhammer cleaved right through the tree and struck the Wood Golem, shattering its torso into pieces, but by that point, it had focused its regeneration and grown back its legs, which stood up and grew back the rest of the Wood Golem, which roared with fury. The mare inside it had become one with the wood and the nature magic lowering it, Lightning realized, and it'd take some serious firepower before she could wear away the magic and destroy it. Or she could trap it within an anti-magic sphere, set it and the mare suddenly within it ablaze, and keep the fires burning until either Mist Logger died or Lightning was declared the winner. But, of course, that wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun.
The Wood Golem, fully regenerated, paused to flex its muscles as its wooden armour grew tougher, crimson plates of hard redwood forming on its wooden body, and it charged straight at Lightning Barrage, intent on finishing this match.
Seven golden spears tipped with sharp points and a serrated meat hook upon each one appeared in the air above Lightning, turning to face her foe and flying forwards, piercing her foe and the arena's floor, keeping the Wood Golem pinned to the ground, keeping it still.
Lightning Barrage, or rather, Azure Ace Starburst, summoned one of the strongest weapons she had in her S-3 shelf (If she got anything from a higher shelf than that, like the S-9 shelf or worse, the X-4 shelf, there wouldn't be an arena left... or even a Las Haygas or Equestria left once she'd used it), something that would fit this new disguise of hers perfectly. In a flash of golden light, it appeared in the air above her head, horizontal. At a first glance, it would appear to be a remarkably high-quality lance, a bronze-looking metal pole five feet in length tipped with a very sharp seven-foot golden blade that wouldn't look of place upon a broadsword. But... there was something about this sword, a missing piece of the tip, as if someone had drawn a long and jagged thunderbolt upon most of the blade and removed that part from the metal sword, leaving it in the state it was in now, causing it to resemble a tuning fork, albeit a very sharp and deadly one.
It fell down into Lightning Barrage's outstretched hands, and she caught it easily and gracefully in both hands, its somewhat heavy weight meaning absolutely nothing to her. A faint echoed sound began to fill the air before slowly growing louder, the sound of air hitting her weaponized tuning fork. The cheering crowd gradually went quiet, something hypnotic and stunning and awe-inspiring about the oddly pure noise it was making.
"A lone thunderclap, louder than the cry of any beast..." She said ominously as the sound gradually grew louder.
She slowly and gently spun the weapon and tilted it back just a little, allowing the lance's tip to gently tap against the ground behind her. As soon as it struck something, yellow lightning began crackling into existence along the blade and pole as the twin tips of the sword turned the purest thunder yellow. "Proud and unfettered, a challenging roar to all of existence..."
"And then, forever SILENCED!" She declared, and in a rapid movement, she had spun the blade around so it faced her foe and created the sound of a thunderclap, a yellow crescent forming in the air at its tip that quickly grew much larger and sharper as it stretched from where it once was to where her enemy now stood, somewhat like the trail a sparkler left in the air when it moved, the blade formed not of magic, but of the pure molecular vibration that was sound.
Lightning Barrage dismissed what would now be this disguise's signature weapon in a flash of yellow light, and the yellow beam of solid sound made visible and boosted by lightning magic slowly faded from base to tip as the sound of thunder and the humming sound faded away into nothingness.
With almost comical slowness, the entire upper half of the wood golem slid to the side, and hit the ground with a dull thud.
The silence was shattered into a thousand pieces as her fans cheered and screamed and roared and applauded, chants of "Lightning Barrage! Lightning Barrage! Lightning Barrage!" Starting up. Lightning beamed with glee and beckoned for more applause, and the upper half of the severed Wood Golem tilted forwards as it gradually regrew its lower body and legs, thin wood thickening and growing until it could stand once again, roaring with hatred.
"Tough little merde, aren't you?" Lightning asked coldly, her horn beginning to glow brightly. "No matter... Nozhing can survive this combo. And ze bigger you are... ze bigger a target you become. But it wouldn't matter if you were ze smallest target in existance. Because..." She grinned, like a Tiger about to pounce on its prey. "Lightning never misses."
Lightning Barrage channelled lightning magic into her horn and hands, extending her right arm before swinging it around dramatically and snapping her fingers, sending a colossal lightning bolt down onto the Wood Golem again, ignoring how the creature screamed, the nature magic no longer able to maintain the fusion between Logger and her wooden Golem, her battered body appearing within her wooden shell, her armoured tombstone. Lightning snapped again, and again, sending bolt after bolt down onto the screaming wooden beast as her fans continued to cheer, the lightning superheating the tree sap and hurting the poor sap inside with heat and thunder, Logger's own nature magic keeping her alive and mostly healthy despite the pain. Oh, the incredible, awful, unbelievable, all-consuming PAIN!
Lightning snapped again and again, thunder starting to blast away bigger and bigger pieces of wood with each strike, until finally, she crossed her arms and raised her ready-to-snap hands like they were crossed swords, and then she unfolded her arms and swung her arms out to the sides as she snapped both at the same time, leaving golden trails behind in the air.
An absolutely immense lightning bolt came down, hiding the wood creature from view completely, her screams and the screams of the golem growing louder and louder until the armour finally shattered outwards, wood falling to the ground as Logger was blasted back against the wall, the last remnants of nature magic the only reason why she could even still barely stand after that.
That pendant was supposed to give Logger enough power to fight whole armies and come out on top...
And it did...
But it didn't give her enough power to fight Ace, no matter what forms either of them had taken. Clothes singed and hair burned, wings bent and broken, every nerve ending burning with pain, Mist Logger screamed in fury as she flapped her broken wings and charged forwards for the attacks that would end it all, one way or another.
Logger swung two wild haymakers followed by a wing-assisted uppercut, her bent wings barely giving her any air despite the force she flapped them with. Lightning Barrage leaned the opposite way to dodge both, and then hopped back for a moment to dodge the uppercut, and then she pressed off the ground with her legs to throw more power into the heavy haymaker she aimed at her opponent's gut.
Her attack struck true, knocking the wind out of the airborne pony and folding her around her fist, and she kept going with the punch, slamming her onto the ground, fist still buried into her gut. Lightning pulled her hand back, and delivered a heavy right hook into the Pegasus's face before sending another into her stomach, and then a chop across her throat that collapsed it completely. She finally picked up the mare, raising her above her head with both hands. "Do you vant to see ze finisher?!" She called out, her Prench accent as strong as ever.
"Finisher! Finisher!" About 64% of the crowd called out eagerly. The rest just cheered, getting into the spirit of things.
Marianne would have normally stopped the match by now, but she was curious as to what her finisher was, and finishing moves were the best way to make a fight end on a high note. Besides, the High Aces Casino had the best on-site medics standing by in the country, they could heal anything short of death, and even that wasn't too hard to heal as long as they got to the body in time. Also... there was something familiar about Lightning's fighting style, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. It wasn't exactly the same as Ace's style, nowhere near as refined or swift or deadly, but it was somewhat similar. Had this pony trained with Ace, long ago?
Horn aglow with a bright golden aura, Lightning Barrage tossed the Pegasus into the air and held her still, bound her hands and legs and wings with magical rope, a plastic gag appearing in her mouth and forcing her to open wide, the large golden-looking ball keeping her mouth blocked. Lightning gripped her midsection with both arms so her rear was on her chest and her bound legs dangled off them, her magic rope sapping the captured mare's strength, and she leapt into the air, flipping over as a golden portal opened up in the ground behind her. She flew into the portal head-first, and a second golden portal appeared twelve feet above it, dropping her upside-down body and victim back into the portal, where she fell through the top one and into the bottom again and again, building up momentum until they both reached terminal velocity, their forms a rapid blur.
Suddenly, Lightning's golden aura spread out to cover her body, and she let go of her opponent, letting her keep falling as she slowed to a gradual stop in midair and flipped upright, the bound Pegasus still falling again and again.
She suddenly tilted the top portal, launching the Pegasus onto the arena's ground head-first with a loud slam, striking the ground at an angle so it wouldn't crush her spine completely and compound-fracture it into nothingness. The plastic ball gag in her mouth shattered from the force of the blow, the audience winced and recoiled, and her body lied there limply on the ground as Lightning Barrage closed her golden portals and hopped down to the mat, landing gracefully despite the S-2 Rank finishing move she'd just used.
Silence reigned in the audience for a moment, as everyone took in the sight of the beaten and crushed enemy.
"Get zis mare ze care she needs." Lightning Barrage said to the announcer, her magic carefully picking up the Pegasus's body without moving any limbs or parts, and gently setting it down on a stretcher the Casino's medical Unicorns were getting ready to pick up and carry her in.
She then turned to the crowd and grinned, spreading out her arms. "I have won ze battle!" She announced happily. "And... I'm not shocked at all!"
The crowd laughed and cheered, and Marianne stared for a moment, pausing as she tried to think of something. "Such caring! Such non-evilness!" She shouted excitedly, trying to get the audience in the mood once again and succeeding quickly. "What an amazing first round! And it's ONLY gonna get better from here!"
Lightning Barrage left the arena in a flash of golden magic, returning to her elevator and THEN her dressing room, just in case there were any Tracers in the audience. Fortunately, or rather, thanks to her foresight and awesomeness, the elevators were Traceproof to anypony besides Staff that had worked there for four years or more.
"Nice one, Lightning." Ace/Barrage said to herself in the mirror in her usual voice.
"Many zhanks." Lightning Barrage said to herself. She was SO creating a Star Clone of herself in this look when this tournament was over, so Lightning Barrage would live on after this. Maybe as a travelling warrior searching for tournaments to win, she didn't have as many Star Clones wandering the world as regular fighters as she'd like. She had tons of merchants, couriers, adventurers, and many of the less unsavoury professional heist teams had one or two disguised Star Clones in them, especially when the scores were typically rare and powerful magic tomes or magic weapons, and most of those that had "Gone missing" were actually proudly displayed in the Vault of her Pocket Dimension, the place she put things when she wanted only herself or a member of her family to be able to get at it. And when she said her family, she meant herself and her kids. Wherever her parents were right now, they could suck it.
Azure/Lightning stared at herself uncertainly in the mirror for a moment, wondering if it was right to crash a tournament ran by her own subordinate and held under her own roof. Then she remembered that by hiding her identity, she wasn't getting any special treatment, or perks, or bonuses, and if anything, this was one of the most honest tests of her abilities possible. Nothing but her own skill, mind, and power, that was how she liked it. Her look of uncertainty changed to her usual confident smile, and she felt a lot better.
Her horn then began to glow as she searched out with her magic to find her son and daughter, wondering why she couldn't smell their scents with her finely-honed pony senses. She located them in the audience far underground, watching the tournament she'd just left, under an illusion spell that was very high-levelled for their age. It was an illusion that made them both appear to be completely different ponies from who they actually were, and appear to be of age, while also making the illusion extremely difficult to see through and even hiding and masking their scents. Her son, Solaris Ace Starburst, was leaning forwards with a box of sweet popcorn in his hands, gleefully enjoying the epic fights going on for his entertainment, and her daughter, Sapphire Ace Starburst, was scoffing popcorn, just as into the fights as her brother was, if not more.
She smirked. They really were her kids. And she couldn't get them out of there without exposing the fact that her kids just got into a +16-rated area of her Casino, which could risk the whole lower area of her Casino getting closed down. Those brilliant kids of hers had to be allowed to watch the whole thing unhindered before getting punished for it... And even then, no punishment could make sour the fact that tonight, they'd seen their mother in top flankkicking form, and they'd be bragging about this to their friends for weeks, or least until she did something even more awesome, most likely the latter. Even if they hadn't figured out who she was, which was unlikely considering that they were her kids, the knowledge that there truly was a pony out there almost as powerful as Ace and they may fight some day would be enough to give them excited dreams so epic that all the explosions would blow out Princess Luna's eardrums. They'd grow back in a few seconds, but still.
Azure/Lightning sighed with a pleased smile on her face. Yes, those were definitely her kids.
And if they were watching this tournament, they were in for quite a show.
