The Rise

The whole agency was in a frenzy. Once again, papers were all over the floor, people were running around, half the computers were blown up, and the place was starting to smell from all the stress. Chow and starlight were together briefing the field agents for the battle against behemoth. They listened in as chow gave a brief description of behemoth.

"In human form, he is 6' 8' he is burgundy and has messy hair that looks forever wet. He's basically a tall emo, so he should be easy to spot. His alien form on the other hand is different. His species are called minotaurs." Chow said, popping a picture of a Minotaur into existence. He pointed at the body parts illustrated with a ruler.

"You might recognize they are very similar to the ones you read about in your childhood. You know, the one with the maze?" Chow said, getting no response from any of them.

"Alright, he's basically the same colors, except he's got brown fur on the entire bottom half of his body. His legs are bent backwards, so he's easier to trip if you trap him. Any questions?" Chow asked the group of agents. None of them raised their hands and only seemed determined in killing him.

"He may not be human, but he's still as smart as one. Expect traps and all sorts of things. He has the ability to steal the power of his victims, so don't be a hero and get close to him. He'll kill you and make himself stronger. Got it!" Chow said, yelling that last one.

"Yes, sir!" They shouted in unison.

"Dismissed." He said, floating away. He levitated upwards to see Starlight looking down on the crowd, leaning on the grey railing. He looked at her sad expression and moved closer.

"I didn't let Ronin join them, if it makes you feel better." He said. Starlight turned and thanked him.

"Thank you. I don't know what I would do if something happened to him." She said, sighing in relief.

"You really care for the kid." He inquired, sipping on chocolate milk.

"He's my son." She said, causing Chow to spit out his drink.

"What?" He exclaimed. He froze the milk in place and flew it back into his cup. Starlight smiled and laughed a little.

"How old are you?" He asked out of curiosity.

"43." She said, matter of factly. Chow put that in his memory.

"How old are you?" She said back to him.

"A couple thousand universes old." Chow answered, Starlight didn't react in any way towards his answer and shrugged it off as fact. Chow faced the crowd and saw Ronin walking through the chaos that was tech division. He could see the resemblance now that he saw them in the same space. Chow was aware that Starlight would eventually have children in the future, but he didn't expect her to have any now. Maybe he did change things in his world. The thought only made him smile as he sipped his chocolate milk.

"So, is Ronin the only child?"

"No, he's got a little brother and sister." She smiled, thinking about her family. She missed them and was waiting to see them again after this was over.

"Want a drink?" Chow offered, receiving a look from starlight. Chow handed her the cup and created a straw for her. She eyed the cup and tried to guess what it was.

"There's nothing in this is there?" She checked. Chow laughed and told her it was chocolate milk. She looked at it and took a sip on the straw chow summoned for her.

"You act like you're pregnant or something." Chow said, mentally kicking himself at what he just said. He looked at Starlight who was giving him a look that he knew what it meant.

"Oh, come on." Chow said, Starlight laughed.

"So do you have any kids?" Starlight jokingly asked, not expecting an actual answer.

"2 billion." He said, truthfully. It was Starlights turn to spit out her drink as her eyes bulged. Chow smiled and started laughing. Starlight hoped that meant it was a joke and started laughing also. They continued their chat as the agency slowly calmed down. Meanwhile Norman was talking with the girls and Adagio. They sat in a room with a large supply of weapons hanging on the wall. An unlikely place to be, but Bonbon was getting ready for the battle and wanted to be part of the conversation. They all sat on a couple of silver chairs, with a silver table in the middle.

"So you were a secret agent this whole time?" Sunset asked, looking significantly better than she did before after chow fixed her clothes with a snap of his finger.

"Was a secret agent. Now I'm a history teacher." He said.

"But still why didn't you tell us?"

"And risk one of you telling others? Not a chance. It's bad enough you girls make zero effort to hide your magic." Norman said, shaking his head. His last sentence confused the girls and they wandered what he meant. He saw there faces and asked them all a question.

Didn't it ever occur to you that a student could've easily recorded everything they saw on their phones and uploaded it on the internet? Now imagine if you all went viral. How do you think the world would react to flying teens with magic?" Norman asked, they all thought about it and realized he was right. They did make no effort to hide their abilities. They wondered how many times the school had been under a magic related event and had caused a huge ruckus. They imagined the reaction the world would have to them and their interpretations were not pretty.

"And don't me started on how we covered up the rainbow beam and giant horse you created in the sky." Norman warned, not wanting to remember the stupid reason the agency made for the public. Bonbon laughed as she remembered the experimental water effect and giant horse shaped weather balloon coverup. The last one amazed her for actually working.

"Alright, we get it." Sunset replied. Bonbon walked over to the group, carrying gloves on her hands. She signaled to Norman to pack up, and walked over to him. Norman complied and got up from his seat, walking over to the armory. The girls all looked at Bonbon in silent awe. She was carrying two gun holsters on a belt fit for Batman. She wore an all black leather suit that was a favorite in the agency for being the most toughest armor. It was also fashionable which made Rarity squee. Rainbow Dash could see a knife strapped onto her leg. She thought it was super awesome. Over all, she looked ready to take on an army. All she needed was the sunglasses.

Bonbon looked at them and smirked. They’re eyes were fixated on her weaponry.

"My eyes are up here." She joked, causing them to snap out of it. They all turned their heads in embarrassment.

"Got any questions you'd like to ask?" She said, hoping for a funny story.

"Are you more like Bond or Bourne?" Rainbow asked, hiding her excitement. She thought she looked really cool and wanted to know what it was like.

"Ethan." She answered, solemnly.

"What's it like to be here?" Twilight asked. From what she had seen of the place she was interested in what it had to offer.

"It's boring to be here. If you're not tech division, you're either busting the local drug dealer or shooting the neighboring dictator of a island." She answered, honestly. Receiving a few awkward stares.

"It's true."

"Thankfully, you guys showed up and made things interesting here. Even Norman joined in the fun."

"I wouldn't exactly call grading test scores and teaching teenagers about history, fun." He said across the room. Snatching a pistol off the rack. Bonbon looked to Sunset and looked to her with concern. She caught her limping on the way to the chairs and was worried.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better, but I'm still bruised."

"What did that monster do to you?"

"He showed me things. He looked into my head and saw my memories. And I saw his." She said, frowning at the gore filled memories. Norman stopped what he was doing and walked over to Sunset. He put a hand on her shoulder and got down to one knee.

"I know how you feel. Chow showed me my memories of the future in my dreams. It was hard seeing the same thing every night. Sometimes I wouldn't sleep for hours, not wanting to see them again. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to." Norman spoke to her with compassion.

"I saw people I knew die in ways I never imagined. It was horrifying, knowing they were real. I saw myself get killed In numerous ways. I even saw the girls." She said, tears falling down her eyes. The girls all shed their own tears. Fluttershy and Pinkie had tears streaming down their faces. Rarity's eyes were turning red and she pulled out a tissue to blow her nose.

Norman sighed and looked down at the ground. Norman was familiar with death, being in a agency that responded to crimes and natural disasters. He remembered the earthquake that hit the islands in 09'. Driving by on boat through a flooded neighborhood. He winced at the sight of the bodybags.

"It's best not to think about it." He said, getting up to finish getting ready. The girls leaned forward and gave sunset a hug again. Bonbon smiled at the tender moment. She knew how strong their friendship was and could relate. She loved Norman like a brother and he loved her like a sister.

The sadness died down and the questions resumed. Bonbon happily answered them all, even the bizarre ones from Pinkie.

Norman finished up and walked over to the group. He was wearing the male variant of the same black suit that Bonbon wore, but was wearing a jacket that looked like it went through tons of stress. He had the same belt only carrying a pistol and had a shotgun strapped to his back. He put on the sunglasses and pulled off the bounty hunter look. Bonbon raised her eyebrow and removed her glasses at the sight of that jacket.

"You are not wearing that jacket." She said, shaking her head.

"It's my lucky jacket." He smiled, zipping it up.

"You've had that jacket since with we were teenagers."

"Come on, it'll just be like old times again." Norman said.

"Alright, let's get going." Norman said, walking to the door. The girls all stood up, walking towards the door. Norman closed the door and looked at them in confusion.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"We're going to help." Sunset said.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no." He replied, shaking his head in defiance. He knew what they could do, but he doubted they would do anything to him.

"I'm not gonna get you kids hurt."

"Behemoth killed my friends! I'm not going to stand around and let him ruin other people's lives.!" She shouted. The girls all nodded in agreement. Norman was starting to have conflicting thoughts. He couldn't let them help. Not with the agents and Dodge already out there. But he knew how powerful they were. Even if they didn't look the part they were still the most capable teenagers. He wished they were born into the agency. He sighed and gave up fighting.

"Alright, fine. But you listen to me and Bonbon, okay?" He said. The girls smiled and nodded their heads. He opened the door and shook his head. The agency was starting to get back to normal and he could see the group of agents heading out. He and the girls followed him all the way to the elevator. Chow saw them leave, but said nothing. He smiled and wished them luck.

"Good luck, Norman. Keep them safe" He whispered to Norman. Norman heard it as he entered the elevator and turned his head to see Chow smiling. He nodded and pressed the button on the elevator. He was breaking a lot of rules bringing civilians to a fight. Even with Chow's praise, he hoped he was doing the right thing.

Satellite travelled through the power grid. Entering buildings and cameras just to find Behemoth. He let nothing stop him, breaking past firewalls and encrypted data. He groaned in frustration at his failure to find Behemoth anywhere. He exited out the power grid and flowed out a light post on the roof of a building. He shifted out of the light and shaped into his human form. The light popped and died out as he left. Too frustrated to care, he floated over to the ledge and sat down.

He looked out at the skyscrapers in front of him and looked at them. The city was quiet, with only the wind making noise. The city lights lit up the dark sky nicely. The sight of it all made him calm down a little. He always did like to stare at the city.

He frowned as he thought about everything that had happened today. He wished things were different. If he had done nothing, maybe none of this would've happened. He remembered the bodies inside the warehouse, flinching as the gored bodies flashed through his head. He should've known something was wrong then, but he ignored all the evidence. He quietly sulked, looking down at the street below in sadness.

Then he heard an explosion in the distance. Car alarms turning on from the bang. He looked and saw the smoke from the top of the Gold Tower. Dodge knew that his boss in the gang lived there.

'Behemoth must've wanted revenge.' He thought, looking at the smoke. He got up and clenched his fists. He needed to stop Behemoth before he could kill people that don't deserve to die. Without a second to lose. He floated off the building and flew towards the building with incredible speed. He flew so fast that he broke the sound barrier, getting there in just a minute.

He flew straight through a window and abruptly stopped when he reached the building. He looked through the smoke and flames shooting out from everywhere and looked for bodies. It didn't take long to find them, coming up to a group of bodies that were engulfed in flames. He inspected the bodies and saw that their charred figures had twisted necks and bones sticking out of some of them. He felt disgusted at the sight of them and wanted to vomit. He heard a piece of glass break behind him and turned around in a flash, narrowing his eyes. His eyes widened in terror from the sight of the 13ft Minotaur staring down at him through the flames.

He locked up and tried to block his fear. He put on a brave act and glared at Behemoth in anger. He clenched his fists in preparation for a fight.

"You can cut the act. I know who you are now." He growled, narrowing his eyes. Behemoth snorted and laughed.

"What am I, Dodge?" Behemoth asked, smirking. Dodge grew more angry and tightened his fists. Dodge stepped forward and yelled.

"That you tricked me. Made me believe I was helping you save the world!"

"So you're smarter than I gave you credit for." Behemoth admitted, raising Dodge's temper. Dodge continued his rant.

"You're a killer. A monster. What you did to those people! Why?" Dodge yelled. Behemoth smiled and shook his head.

"Look at you. Trying desperately to hide your fear. Putting on this act just to kill me. You're as weak as the others."

"Then why choose me?"

"In all the universes I've been in you've always been a successful businessman. Yet here, you're nothing but a low life criminal working for another criminal."

"So, you just felt sorry for me?"

"No, I thought I could change you. Put you down a dark path that you could never escape. To see things like me. To become all powerful..." Behemoth explained. He held in his anger and asked him a question.

"And if I didn't?" He asked, as the fire started to engulf everything in the room.

"Ask the dead." He answered solemnly. Dodge couldn't hold his anger in any longer and lunged toward Behemoth. He yelled the whole way, preparing his fist to punch behemoth in the face. Behemoth reacted in time and smacked Dodge away. Flicking him to the side into a stove. The impact set off the gas and exploded immediately. Behemoth stood his ground as the blast passed by him. He covered his eyes with his arm and waited for Dodge.

He waited for a moment and nothing happened. He assumed Dodge had died in the blast and smiled. He flared his nostrils and turned to walk away. Then he heard a yell and turned back around. He was too slow and was grabbed by Dodge who flew him straight through the wall. They flew upwards breaking the wall and concrete all the way to the helipad. He flinched in pain, taking the full force of the impact. He felt goosebumps on his fur from Dodge's static electricity.

There was rubble and small fires on the helipad. Their fight was captured by three news chopper who sped to the scene of the fire. The reporters all focused on Dodge, rather than Behemoth. They pointed their headlights towards Dodge, who was covering his eyes from the blinding light. Behemoth took the time to charge his magic. Dodge grunted and blindly lunged forward. Behemoth grabbed him and pushed him down into the concrete. Dodge screamed in pain, trying to break free from Behemoths hold.

Behemoth didn't let go and pushed him harder into the concrete. The concrete started to crack and weaken under them. Dodge tried to come up with something before it would crack. He thought about everything he knew about his powers, but couldn't come up with anything. Then a flash of light appeared and lightning struck a tower a couple blocks away. Then dodge came up with an idea. He concentrated as hard as he could and hoped his plan would work.

As the concrete began to crack and break down behemoth laughed. His laugh getting cut off by the sharp pain that hit his body. The lightning had struck behemoth from behind and burned his skin. He let go of dodge and roared in pain. He felt tears fall from his eyes and flared his nostrils in anger. Dodge recovered and he felt strengthened by the lightning. Causing him too release a large shockwave that covered a two block radius. He charged at behemoth and started punching him. Cameras on the news choppers glitched up and sparked, cutting off the live feed. The lights in the surrounding radius blacked out from the electric pulse. All the helicopters were outside the blast, except one chopper.

The pulse fried the engine and disabled its flying capabilities. The pilot backed his hands away as the electricity fried his dashboard. Everything in the helicopter shut off and the blades swirled to a stop. The pilot flicked every button and switch in the chopper in a desperate attempt to fly again, but to no avail. The pilot warned the reporter to hold on as the chopper started to quickly fall to the ground. Dodge fought behemoth, hitting him with everything he had.

He was so preoccupied with punching him, he didn't notice the chopper falling until he heard a woman's scream inside the chopper. He stopped his punches and looked up, just seeing the chopper fall under the tower.

"No!" He shouted, pushing behemoth aside. He ran to the edge of the tower and jumped off the building in a mad dash to get to the chopper. He boosted his speed and broke the sound barrier, catching up to the chopper in seconds. He could hear the woman and camera guy screaming in fear. Holding on to the helicopter with all the strength they had.

Dodge thought of ideas and decided on catching the helicopter. Dodge flew under the bottom and looked up at the metal surface. He hoped this would work and followed through with his plan. He took a deep breath and grabbed the helicopter with his hands. He tried to slow the choppers fall by slowing himself down but it was no use. He groaned, trying to slow the helicopters. He could see the ground getting clearer and clearer. He took note of a possible landing sight and saw a space between the police cars and fire trucks. He could start to hear their sirens wailing.

He tried to slow the helicopter down as fast as he could. He was making progress but it was still falling down too fast. If he continued this he would be on the ground in a fiery explosion. He thought of another idea and remembered the blades. He concentrated and turned his head only into his electrical form. He pulled his head all the way up to the blades and went inside its wiring. He hotwired it and the blades slowly started to move. He pulled his head back and ignored the weird feeling he got from doing that. The blades helped slow the chopper down, but was still coming too fast. With every ounce of his strength he held on to the chopper and made one final push in stopping it. The blades heated up and broke too pieces, but kept its speed.

Dodge felt like his head was exploding from all the stress. He couldn't hold it for much longer, yet by some miracle the chopper became easier to handle and slowed it down. He felt himself stop moving and opened his eyes to see the ground five stories away. He looked up and saw he was floating with the helicopter in his arms. He had done it and stopped the chopper from falling. He sighed in relief and floated down to the ground. He was exhausted from all the strain he put to stopping the chopper and landed on the ground with a thud.

Officers and firefighters all stopped what they were doing and stared at him in awe. They had saw the whole thing and were looking at him in disbelief. He dropped the helicopter and watch the pilot and news crew all run out the chopper. They all stared at the ground in happiness. They got down on there knees and nearly kissed the ground. Dodge walked infront of the chopper in his electrical form. He watched as his color changed from purple to the normal blue. He had exhausted himself to the point of losing his newly gained strength. He looked up a the crowd he had formed. They looked at him in awe, not knowing how to react to him. They stayed in place and just stared at him.

Dodge remembered behemoth was still up there and floated up. The cops instinctually pulled their guns out and stared at him, saying nothing. Dodge turned his head and faced them.

"There's somebody up there." He told them. They simply nodded and said nothing. Dodge looked back down up at the burning tower and flew up, gaining speed along the way.

He reached the top and looked around the damaged helipad. He didn't see behemoth and instead saw a hole where he tried to kill him. He floated down the hole and looked for behemoth in the burning building. In he middle of the room was a black stain on the floor. Dodge groaned in defeat. Behemoth had teleported away. With his reason for being here gone, he flew out the building and went up, breaking the sound barrier. The people on the ground saw the blue outline fly out the building and fly into the thunder storm above. They all stared in amazement, wondering who he was.