All had fallen before him...and it was good. The mighty Tirek carved a wide swath of destruction as far as the eye could see. The only souls marking the power demon’s progress were a handful of brave ponies (and a draconequus) clustered in a group who watched from a safe distance. They watched with apprehensive fear for their entire world’s way of life. Turning to each other and their leader, Twilight Sparkle, they discussed their options, limited though they felt they were. In doing so, they missed the events soon to be unrecorded by time.
“You’re a very greedy creature,” came a female voice from somewhere close to the rampaging creature’s ears.
“What?” Drunk with stolen power, it took Tirek a moment to clear the euphoric fog from his brain, honing in on something he thought he had drained their world of. The alluring, unmistakable tingle of - magic.
He would have missed the judgment upon him and the small figure standing very close by on a cliff, level with the demon’s shoulder, but the voice had been amplified and focused directly at him.
Locating its source, he bent down slightly to speak with her. “The power of pony magic is my wine,” he replied without guilt for the destruction he was causing.
She considered this. “Yes, well that is good to hear in my case.” The black mare casually lifted a hoof, her eyes lit with a blue, inner fire that immediately caught the towering demon’s attention. It even made him dizzy, like the even-sweeter wine of alicorn magic - the most powerful magic in their land. He staggered a tiny step that, while small, because of his size was translated into a small tremor that shook the ledge the mysterious pony stood upon.
Yes, pony magic was sweet, alicorn magic even sweeter, but this - this was on a whole different level of sensation that, while attracting, was underlined with something else he had never encountered and could not at the moment put a name to.
Smiling at the subtle glow in his eyes in reaction to her magic, the mare bared small, pointed canines. If the centaur had been more aware and less drunk on power, it would have been the first of many warning signs to come to tread lightly with this creature before him.
“How can this be?” he whispered lightly. “How is it that I, Lord Tirek, has missed such a tantalizing meal?” His glowing eyes focused on hers, further fascinated by their endless black depths with no whites, no color, no pupil and behind them, he sensed, no pity.
The mare looked away, seemed to ignore him, something Tirek, for all his clear advantage here, did not take lightly. He was lord of everything and everywhere now and acknowledgement and honor were due him. “I would know your name, mare,” he said levelly, carefully keeping the annoyance he felt at her impudence under control.
“What’s in a name, beast?” she counseled. “If you must know, I am called Nyx and you missed me because I only just arrived - and that is the secret of this.” Casting a single flame of magic upon her hoof, the cloaked unicorn waved it tantalizingly in front of him, slowly, back and forth. Her smile grew, seeing how greedy this titan of a demon was, how quickly his feelings of slight shifted to greed and hunger as long as she kept him hypnotized with its promise of more power. It was then it was confirmed to her that this creature who prided himself a such a clever thief of magic would himself be easy to trick in turn.
Perhaps that is why I find this lumbering fool a challenge, Nyx thought to herself. He had, after all, tricked that buffoon Discord and the alicorn princesses who had defeated her lover. Her heart caught with pain thinking about King Sombra.
Fighting back the agonized memories of her Shadow King’s defeats, she swallowed unshed tears, refocusing on the threat before her. Umbrum were often too cocky, caught up in their own hubris until it was too late. He had been so guilty of that in both his ends - one past and one to come in her timeline. Biting her lip, the TimeWitch resolved she would not lose by that self-same fault to this stupid, overgrown beast!
More was the pity then that all that registered with the centaur watching her at the moment was the flickering, light of the most seductive power source he had ever encountered. And it was there for his taking, dancing upon the hoof of one very brave - or very stupid female pony. This would be so easy...
“Then I ask you, Nyx, what is this?” he asked softly, curiously. His senses were telling him - no warning him to beware, but he was so drunk with the power he had stolen from every pony and alicorn in the land, the warning was drowned in the buzz and hum of the white-hot glow infused with runic symbols visible to his demon eyes. “Fascinating!” The strong warning voice drowned out by his own greed, Tirek reached forth slowly, entranced by the best magical feast he had ever come across.
And it was all for his taking!
“Tsk, tsk, tsk...beast,” warned Nyx. “I bear this as a warning to all such as you, that there is power enough to humble the foolish - and greedy who seek to have it all. All the power you have stolen will not stop the flow of time, nay, this - this is too much - even for your - appetite,” she finished, looking over his gargantuan bulk with thinly-veiled distaste. The TimeWitch withdrew the tempting snack. He watched it disappear as she made a show of reabsorbing it not into her horn, but into her very body.
Her bold display was too much to take. All caution thrown to the proverbial winds, Tirek simply had to have this unnamed power begging to be taken from her!
Reaching out for it with his Breath of Thievery, Tirek inhaled, fully expecting the orb and its power to come to him.
Nothing happened. It stayed where it was, the unicorn mare before him had barely moved except to grow strangely transparent at the moment Tirek had begun his spell of capture.
Her mildly annoying chiding from earlier now turned to an exaggerated eye-roll of contempt. “Stupid creature. Do you not listen?” Her eyes roved over his form again. “Such an over sized, dumb brute thee are.”
Despite his anger at not being able to snatch the power from such a tiny creature, Tirek paused. There was something wrong here. He could feel it. It was not just that he couldn’t take a force of power that blazed hotter than even Celestia’s sun. But what was it? What was inflaming his now jangling nerves, heightening them to…
...to...what?
He reared back in a shocking realization...was...was this...fear?!?
“What?” Nyx asked again, her form growing solid once more. “Art thou scared?”
The strength of his fear returned his wits to him. It was then he realized something important he had almost missed. “You speak in the old tongue,” he said warily. “How can this be?”
“Oh...twenty questions. I like this game!” Nyx said smugly, picking a rock to sit on as if they were old friends - children even - playing ‘I spy with my little eye.’. “By all means, proceed. I will answer your questions - and perhaps I will give you what you seek.”
Ego bruised by frustration, Tirek suddenly straightened, raising his mighty arms, roaring in anger. It was met by another eye roll from the infuriating mare before him.
When he was done, Nyx sighed, then “Oh, plueez!” she added a huff. “No wonder you lose this battle - “ she stopped, cringing. “Oopsie,” she added, bringing a hoof to her mouth.
Suddenly the hellish glare of rage fueled by his stolen powers faded from his eyes. “Old tongue...foreknowledge...” he stroked his small white goatee thoughtfully. “Though I doubt I lose - what with no one else left to oppose me - “
“Such thy arrogant asshole,” Nyx muttered loud enough for Tirek to hear.
If the term was meant to further irritate him, the demon would no longer be taunted by words. He was too clever for that, immediately seeing her game of taunt and destroy for what it was.
Large fingers attached to an even larger palm reached impossibly quickly towards Nyx. Despite her cockiness, she flinched at their proximity, doing what she always naturally, magically did to defend herself. As she grew transparent and his massive paw passed through the space she seemed to still occupy, the fire of understanding returned to his eyes.
“Here in appearance yet insubstantial...ah yes...shifting in time to avoid my grasp,” he breathed excitedly. “You possess the power of time!”
“Very good - beast,” she confessed, regaining her composure. “My King would be proud. You are almost as clever as he - almost.” Again the fanged smile meant to taunt him.
“King? Ah, of course,” Tirek nodded, now swiftly putting the pieces together. “Your attire, its color and design...curious, even your horn is similar to King Sombra’s, though why - “
“Guilty as charged!” she made a ridiculous display of bowing before Tirek. He knew this, but now that he also knew what her power was…
...wait…
“I have heard of you,” Tirek straightened. He was relaxed now, satisfied he had all the pieces figured out. “The grand lieutenants of King Sombra condemned with me in Tartarus entertained me with their tales of a ‘TimeWitch’. One who was of the defeated Marazon armies that fell before the King of Shadows in the lands West of Canterlot.” His massive hand reached out, gesturing in a wide, sweeping way as he told the tale. His tone turned softly mocking. “Does the simple female that succumbed to her obsessive love for an Umbrum demon think herself more powerful than I? That she could take - “
“ - on the mighty Tirek,” Nyx said at the same time, in turn mocking the centaur. “You may think yourself clever, power demon, you may have all the power of alicorns born in your pathetic tiny march of days, but it will not save you from the judgment of Chronaria herself,” the black mare snarled, invoking the First Alicorn of Time.
Tirek took a cautious step backwards. His antagonist was much more powerful than he had anticipated, and angered, her fury was like a cobra rising before him, slowly flaring its hood in warning. “Your days have been marked and limited. I have seen it! It has ALREADY PLAYED OUT BEFORE ME!” The fire of time magicks returned, blazing hotter within Nyx, radiating outwards with black, clawed shadow hands edged with the blue of time runes flaring hotly within their dangerous glow. Tirek involuntarily gulped in rising fear as the hands surrounded Nyx framed her protectively, like the aforementioned hood of the deadliest of snakes...
“You will not endanger the return of my lover by altering time with your lust for power,” her voice echoed everywhere, vibrating the cells in his very body with her rage. “I face you down, Lord Tirek, Lord of the greed that threatens to destroy the now and future of this world, this dimension! You WILL NOT stay the return of King Sombra, my consort, the King of Shadows! My lover and - “
“- my father!” came a voice from behind her as another figure stepped from behind Nyx, seemingly out of nowhere.
As quickly as the power demon’s fear had risen at Nyx’s magic-fueled display of anger, it was quashed in an instant at the interruption of another’s arrival. Nyx too, seemed to lose control of the building power within her as it abruptly disappeared at the sound of the new male voice.
There was an almost awkward silence, then Tirek raised an eyebrow. “Father? King Sombra has an heir?”
Nyx returned to the ancient etiquette of her foalhood and accorded a formal gesture of respect towards Tirek by gesturing to her dark grey child. “Lord Tirek, the King of Shadows and mine child, Heir to the Crystal Empire and Umbrual Shadow Dimension. Meet Time Shadow.”
“Really?” the demon said liltingly, fascinated. “I have never heard of Umbrum breeding in the flesh!” he breathed, delighted to have encountered something he never had before seen.
The newcomer, a tall, sturdily-built stallion as tall as a Shire-bred horse, nevertheless took a step back away from the over sized power demon as he loomed closer, leering at him. This unicorn had the fearlessness of his mother, though, unflinching at the proximity of the massive creature harassing Nyx.
Watching the exchange, Nyx shot out a hoof between them in a gesture of maternal shielding. This tiny gesture set against Tirek’s great size and power was so hilarious the demon forgot his fear of a moment ago at Nyx’s powers. He nearly cracked a smile and would have laughed out loud if not for the fact this new arrival had power not just of a stronger radiance than his mother Nyx, but on an entirely different level of -
Tirek did finally gasp in shock at the realization of what the child of Nyx was at the same time the black unicorn unfurled a set of massive, delicately sculpted wings…
2. The Jokes on You, Tirek
“What is this?!?” Tirek demanded, staring agape at the male alicorn being protected by his unicorn mother. “How can there be yet another alicorn???”
Ignoring the power demon’s ranting, the TimeWitch turned to Shadow. “I trust your lesson in pinpointing exact points in alternate universe dimensional time travel went well, my darling colt?”
The stallion’s wings folded down slowly, the lacy, rune-encrusted edges shifting the arcane, current and futuristic time-travel symbolism in soft, fluttering patterns that came and went like the ethereal sparkle in a princess’s mane and tail. “Obviously, mother,” he said with a strange, aloof touch of gentle sarcasm.
The two ponies casual discussion helped the power demon refocus his thoughts until the shock and confusion banished in the light of revelation. “An Alicorn of Time!” he said softly, causing Nyx and her son Shadow to look up at him. The massive horned head loomed down again, peering hard at the dark ponies. “How is this possible when the father and mother are mere unicorns?”
Shadow took this objective observation as an insult. He stepped forward, placing himself slightly ahead of Nyx as if shielding her from the evil Tirek. “‘Mere unicorns? My father is an Umbrum...their King!” he snapped.
“Hrumph, King in absentia,” Tirek was not impressed by Shadow’s bluster. “But you maychance be correct about one thing, young one. When he filled your mother’s womb, the shadow-powered seed he left, combined with her time travel capability was indeed a most powerful mix!” His expression turned and neither dark pony liked its implication, but before either could do anything, Tirek’s magic unexpectedly shot out and ensnared Nyx, modulating its frequencies so the TimeWitch could not slip out of their reality to escape him.
Carried aloft in Tirek’s bubble-shaped magical grip, she was brought up close to his face. He leered at her. “I have never been one for courtship, but I will eventually consider leaving an heir to my desolate kingdom - and what better power to bestow upon him than the power of time?”
Tirek could easily see her distaste in the implication in his threat. Her black, normally expressionless eyes again glowed with magic, taking on a sudden blaze of intense hatred worthy of an Umbrum demon. She spit at him even though she could not hope to penetrate the magical bubble surrounding her. “I would never consent to lying with such as you!”
Tirek’s leer grew amused, making Nyx’s hide crawl. “Who said anything about consenting to it, TimeWitch?” His expression changed as a blur of white hot energy shot up from the ground, then a bolt of magic impacted the side of his face. Forgetting his captor for the moment, Tirek’s hand went to the impact point on his cheek, his eyes focusing on the alicorn that hovered above the ground in front of his mother. Shadow’s eyes were filled with pure hatred for the demon, as well as a steadily glowing furnace of light and time-fueled magic. The Umbrum hybrid stood upon a magically-infused circle of time runes glowing white-hot red, looking as if they were powered by pure lava from the very heart of Equus itself.
“Is this meant to impress me, child?” he admonished. “Your blast had less impact of a fly upon my - ” Tirek’s gloating died off as Shadow’s horn lit and a single rune made of ice cold blue fire shot forth, landing upon the demon’s cheek.
“You forget my child’s mastery over time,” Nyx muttered, baring her fangs in a wicked grin.
“AhhhARGHHH!!!!” Tirek screamed as the Rune of Future dug into his flesh, igniting the impact point of Shadow’s horn’s blast. His body’s very cells aged centuries in seconds, withering skin, then flesh, digging their way to the bone, spreading until a horrid, gaping wound spread like a flesh-eating plague.
Tirek dropped the spell holding Nyx captive. The mare screamed in surprise as she dropped towards the ground a hundred feet below. Time Shadow was already diving after her seconds before she began falling and soon had her draped safely across his back. Recasting the rune circle before them, he landed upon it rather hard, tumbling them both.
“Sorry, mother,” her grown colt apologized as he found his hooves again, standing.
“Yes, you do need to work on your landings, darling,” Nyx groaned, her legs flailing out, nearly kicking him as she struggled to right herself enough to regain her footing. Once she was safely up, Shadow teleported them back to the cliff overlooking the agonized power demon’s writhing body. He was dangerously close to crashing into their perch, making them both tense up and prepare to flee, just in case.
The mare watched the screaming Tirek a moment, then glanced down to read the time streams as if the sight before her was of no concern. She frowned. “A point of nexus, child. I would have thought it a foregone - “ Nyx looked up at her son, raising an eyebrow in surprise.
The expression upon the alicorn’s face concerned her. Her own dispassion at the sadist way the creature was dying was to be expected, however, she cocked her head in puzzlement, having never seen this side of her colt’s temperament before.
“Shadow, that’s enough,” Nyx said evenly, cutting through her son’s pleasure in seeing Tirek in agony. “His death will do worse damage to the time streams, my foal.”
Just as quickly as it had appeared, Shadow came down quickly from his mirth. As if coming back to reality, he judged the red beast had suffered enough for the threat to his beloved mother. Concentrating, his magic reached out and pulled the time worms from Tirek’s flesh, taking a last satisfaction from the fact the demon screamed at their extrication as badly as he had at their feasting upon his flesh.
After a moment of recovering, Tirek focused on his twin tormentors with newly borne hatred. “You will pay for that, whelp!” he raged at Shadow and grabbed Nyx yet again in retaliation. He acted swiftly, opening his maw as if to eat the mare held helpless before him.
Shadow ascended yet again, hovering eye level with the creature. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to refocus the worms into Tirek’s heart this time...
A large sharp-nailed finger waved at him. “Ah ah, young one. Do that again and I suck the very breath from your mother’s body, along with her powers.”
Shadow’s rage subsided. He and Nyx traded looks, but instead of fear or anger, they merely waited for the inevitable. Of course the demon would suck power from the TimeWitch whether the alicorn attacked or not - they both knew that as a foregone conclusion. And they knew exactly what would happen if he did.
They both looked forward to it, in fact.
True to his duplicitous nature, Tirek activated his power-stealing breath, focusing it not on the TimeWitch, but upon her alicorn son, planning on stealing his power so quickly he would not have time to defend himself. The irony of such a strategy from the time-bound beast was not lost on either of his victims and both smirked as soon as their attacker made his intentions clear to them.
Something was wrong - he knew it instantly as their combined, hungered-after powers entered his body. The incoming force of time magic was nothing like had Tirek expected. There was no thought of trying to cut off the spell, because time had ceased to move in a linear, straight line for him. It existed all at once and nowhere at once. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t move, yet its force froze every cell of his body and tore it to atoms at the same time repeatedly. It aged him to dust and rebirthed him in an endless cycle of physical agony untempered by Nyx’s lifetime of learned disciplines over the temporal arts and Shadow’s natural-born mastery.
Shadow made certain to be by his mother’s side as the suspension bubble collapsed this time, carrying her safely out of the temporal field their combined, stolen powers had trapped the power demon within. The two watched silently as Tirek’s gigantic body aged to dust and rebirthed continuously.
The TimeWitch watched the creature burn in the fires of her power’s time-curse and her son’s more advanced, natural-borne gifts. The energies Tirek had consumed from her body had been the match to a flamethrower of chronoparticles in Shadow’s alicorn magic and were thusly unstoppable by her even at her strongest, most controlled magicks. Her lip twitched, finally sneering in annoyance. “Well, now the dumb brute has done it. I cannot stop this,” she announced. When there was no reply, she glanced at her stallion-child. He was watching the hideous impending death with a cold, expressionless dispassion she once again found oddly distasteful on the face of her otherwise handsome child.
A gentle hoof on his withers broke his concentration from the never-ending death taking place again and again and again before them. “Shadow? Shadow, my foal. We were merely to slow him down so time could resynch back into its proper place. This cannot happen.”
“I know mother,” he said levelly, without a hint of revulsion or remorse. “I don’t care.”
Nyx smiled, ignoring the hideously graphic scene before them and leaned in to kiss Shadow’s cheek. “I remember your father saying those words to me over and over until I convinced him one day he did care.” She softly nuzzled her colt under the chin. “You are so like him!” her breath blew into his dark coat, nickering softly, warm and maternal.
He leaned in to his mother’s neck in turn, even laughing when she blew raspberries against his fur as she had done when he was a foal. Her affectionate gestures broke Shadow out of his trance of detached malice. Blinking, he slowly nodded ascent, reaching through the temporal bubble, reversing time around the trapped creature so the field safely collapsed and he was freed.
The demon cantered backwards through all the motions in his interaction with himself and Nyx, trapped in a new field of reversed time. They watched him as destructive magic was sucked back into his horn as he stomped over the land backwards to a point before Nyx had appeared to him on the cliff side. Shadow looked to his mother, who nodded, then leaned in to whisper something to him. The alicorn nodded and ceased the flow of reverse time, waiting a few extra seconds as the rest of the world around them resumed life and breath. Only then did the time alicorn banish the bubble and teleport him and his mother away as Tirek resumed forward motion. The beast carved a path of destruction through the land of Equestria as if nothing had happened - which now with the flow of time back on its proper course, he carved a wide swath of destruction for as far as the eye could see and in the end saw that it was good.
