A Glimmer of Hope: Reborn

The four girls had just gotten into position, Twilight and Starlight ready to fire up their magic, and Pinkie and Ivy ready to do their part, when the beast stopped facing towards them and did a complete 180.

“What is it doing?” Starlight asked her teacher, who watched the lumbering giant run off towards some unseen target.

“I-I don’t know,” Twilight answered, changing her vision to the two females on the ground and holding up a cross with her forehooves to indicate the plan wasn’t working. “Whatever it is, we gotta catch up to it and bring it back to the trap.”

The two flew off to chase after the monster, leaving Pinkie and Ivy to wonder what to do.

“Think the monster found a nice treat?” Pinkie asked her companion, laying on her cannon, absentmindedly rubbing it.

“Something caught its attention, but I can’t sense any heat signatures coming from that location,” the lamia mused, trying to figure out how well she could place the shot. It was a rather big target, it’s head about the size of a car, with the eye being one of the tires. She, like Matt, had a wide variety of gadgets, although most of hers were built into her new body. She had Twilight, the one from her world to thank for the more physical ones. One of her favorite ones were the magically enhanced homing arrows, which were surprisingly easy to make if she had a unicorn present. One arrow was the tracker, to which she just had to shoot into her target and no matter where she was as long as she was within range of 200 feet or so, the specially made arrows would lock onto their target.

“Let’s keep our distance Pinkie but follow Twilight and Starlight to provide backup.”

“Okie dokie loki!” the pink pony chimed, climbing onto Ivy and holding the rope to her canon.

Making sure they were both set, the lamia took off after their companions.

“What in tarnation are they doing?” Applejack asked the group, getting their attention to what the cyclops was doing. Instead of it being provoked onto Twilight and Starlight, it was running away. Had they actually managed to wound it?

“I dunno, but the traps are almost done,” Matt grunted, tightening a rope for one of the spring traps. “Ya know, being surrounded by this many mares would be nice in another situation, but thanks for the help girls,” he gave them all a wink which was received with some moans and groans.

“Well now that we have this taken care of, I should go in and help,” Applejack snorted, grabbing her lasso in her mouth.

“Darling, do you see how fast that brute is moving?” Rarity tugged on her friend’s tail with her magic. “Even if you were to get in close enough, it’d catch you quicker than you could say ‘horseapples’. Besides we’re supposed to stay in our pairs and unfortunately poor Fluttershy isn’t fast enough to evade him either. If only we had Rainbow Dash here…”

“You don’t think they-” Fluttershy began to speak before squeezing her eyes shut in pain at the thought.

Her friends went over to her and gave her a reassuring hug.

“Rainbow is one of the strongest, most stubborn ponies ah know,” Applejack smiled to Fluttershy. “And we know Tempest is just as strong too, They’re probably just trying to get out of that hole.”

“Applejack is right dear. What we need to focus on is how to help Twilight get that beast’s attention.”

“Well, I do have this little baby,” Matt reached into his bag and pulled out what seemed to be a rather sizable black box, about as big as his forearm. Seeing the girls tilt their heads in confusion, he proceeded to demonstrate by pressing a button on the side. As he did, the box began to vibrate a bit before the top split in two opening up to show what looked like mechanical parts and some metal spikes.

“What is that?” Fluttershy peered over Matt’s shoulder.

“Something that came with me from home,” the human grinned, and started to assemble the device. Taking the cylinder he screwed it onto a box with what looked to have a telescope and trigger. Onto the opposite side of the trigger he attached a triangular looking piece, with the flat end being parallel to the box. “My own handcrafted sniper rifle.”

“Sniper what now?” Applejack stared at the gadget trying to understand its purpose. “It looks like an oversized popper that they use for races and such.”

“Let’s just say it’s a more portable, deadlier Pinkie canon,” Matt chuckled to himself, rubbing the casing affectionately. “This baby got me far in my quest, and taken down foes just like that cyclops. There was a pony, I don’t know if they’re in this world, that enchanted the bullets,” he held up one of the spikes. “They explode with magic to deal some extra damage.”

“If you had something this powerful,” Rarity warily eyed the deadly device. “Why did we even need to build the trap and put my friends in danger?”

“Well my dear Rarity, since gunpowder, the stuff that makes these babies fly faster than even Rainbow Dash, hasn’t been invented here yet and your fireworks only work off magic, I need some way to shoot them. So it was actually the Pinkie from my world that helped me, by making a small device similar to that in her cannon, except to make it even stronger, it needed to be bigger. With a bit of my own tinkering, I made it double as a trap that creates a smoke screen. Now you may ask how can I see with smoke in the way? Well that’s what my scope does, allows me to get a reading on all my targets.”

With the explanation more than satisfactory, and a bit of a brain twister, Rarity had no further questions.

“Can that thing see us??” Nick yelled to Tempest, as they both had changed direction upon seeing their foe was chasing them.

“It appears so, but why? We’re technically dead and imperceptible to the others.”

“In any case, they seem to have a plan. With that other human having set up a trap and the snake woman and Pinkie following with their stuff. Let’s split up. You rendezvous with the others and I’ll try to see if I can lead him to the trap.”

“But… it’s gaining on us. How can you possibly outrun it?”

“I have magic, remember? I’ll figure out something, now go!”

Tempest didn’t have any time to object as Nick did a complete 180 and started charging the giant.

“Nick!”

The wolf paid her cries no attention and continued to run head on towards the foe. Immediately he thought back to the hydra, one of the largest monsters he faced. He had tried his duplicating magic and it hadn’t worked while he was with Chrysalis so he’d have to rely on his teleportation abilities. If he could time it right, he’d land on the giant and use its size against it. His theory on who the target of the beast was confirmed as he saw the cyclops reach down to grab him. As the shadow of its hands blocked the sun, Nick closed his eyes and prayed to Celestia this would work.

“Now it’s bending down to grab something,” Starlight commented to Twilight, the oddity of what was happening making it hard to focus on the task at hoof.

“Well whatever it’s doing, let’s try to take it out now!” Twilight’s horn flared to life. But just as she cast the spell, she felt a particularly strong wind gust broadside her from her left and knock her away as her magic harmlessly bounced off the cyclops and reflected back towards where she originally had been.

“TWILIGHT!” Starlight cried out, rushing to her friend’s side to help steady her. Dazed but not completely unconscious, Twilight shook the fogginess off and looked to the mare.

“It-It reflected my magic. Had the wind not blown me out of the way…”

“I think we need to regroup with the others and change our plans,” Starlight suggested, to which the princess nodded.

As they fled, they noticed that the cyclops was clawing at its back.

Seeing their leads fleeing along with how easily Twilight’s magic was reflected off the cyclops, Ivy and Pinkie decided it would be best to retreat as well. Matt flagged them down to a safe location away from the traps, next to the setup he had.

“Twilight, what happened to your magic?” the human asked, “It was like watching a fly divebomb a horse.”

Ignoring the crude analogy, the princess shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. There are special shields that can absorb magic but to completely reflect it back at it’s attacker… it seems to be a defensive adaptation the cyclops must have evolved. But the big problem is, something seems to be distracting it, causing any attack plans we have to be useless. Without magic, we’d have to get in close distance and seeing its speed, I don’t know how we can fight it.”

“Matt, are them spikes of yours made out of magic, or do they just need magic to fly?” Applejack asked the human, remembering some part of his explanation of his weapon.

“They’re just pure iron. And they shouldn’t fling off the cyclops since the magic doesn’t stay with them after they leave the barrel.”

“So it’s a more deadlier canon!” Pinkie squeaked in excitement of Mr. Boom having a friend.

“Way deadlier Pinks. The only problem is, with the giant so far away I doubt it’d have as much impact. The closer we can get it, the better, plus it moves too fast. What is it attacking anyway?”

“We… don’t know,” Starlight answered, looking at Twilight. “We were planning on getting its attention when suddenly it just started running away. Then it looked like it was trying to grab something and when Twilight blasted it with her magic, the wind picked up and knocked her out of the way.”

“The thing is, now that I think of it, my ribs sure doesn’t feel like I was hit by a wind current, rather like some object,” the princess rubbed her side that had been impacted. “Something is strange about all of this, but for now we need a new plan.”

“Well somehow we need to get that thing coming this way. I have enough traps in between to slow it down in order for me to make swiss cheese out of it, probably would be best if it was blinded so that it can’t dodge any attacks.”

“I could do it,” Ivy chimed in, her bow tensely held in her hands. “If it would just face us, I could easily blind it, but my guided arrows won’t work since they are magically enhanced, so if it could get snagged, that would be best. How do we lure it back here though?”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that darling,” Rarity spoke up, causing the group to look towards the cyclops. Somehow it had been scratched up, and appeared to be picking up whatever it found towards its mouth.