Rider on the Storm

“So how’re ya’ holdin’ up there, champ?” you ask the slightly shivering King with a derisive grin. “’Cause from where I’m standin’, it’s looking like you might need a fresh pair’a britches.”

Fresh anger ignites in his eyes and expression at your words, but it only hides the symptoms of panic he’s experiencing. And not very well, at that.

“Aww, what’s wrong? You really got nothin’ to say?” you jeer. “Boy, that would be a welcome first!”

“How?” he whispers at first, soon turning into his familiar shouting. “How in the world did you hide being a powerful cypher from me?!”

“What, from you?” you snort. “You make it sound like hiding this from you was some kinda challenge.”

Reflexively, he points the staff your way with malicious intent and pours some charge into it, only to stop as he remembers that blasting you would be worse than useless. Still, he keeps it at the ready with grit teeth, as if it could possibly pose a threat to you at this point.

“Put it away, junior,” you snicker, flicking your eyes down on purpose. “Nobody’s impressed.”

He does no such thing, which was surprisingly smart of him to do. Instead, he starts backing up and away from you to maintain some distance, glaring at you all the while and regaining at least some of his composure.

“I’ll admit, you’ve caught me by surprise, in spite of my advance knowledge of your betrayal,” he says, putting on his intimidating voice as if it ever even worked on you. “But it is of no consequence to me. I know that your powers are every bit an ailment as well, and I know exactly how to exploit them!”

“Can’t wait to see this,” you laugh, not taking the idiot seriously in any capacity.

With a quick flourish, he tasks the staff with summoning forth some more streams of lightning, carving out a large platform of stone around his feet and levitating it up into the air, enabling him to fly away to what he mistakenly believes is a safe distance from you. With a few more swipes of the overpowered instrument of doom, the ground rumbles beneath your feet for a beat before a haphazard series of metal bars, pipes, and other random metal objects burst out of the ground all around you, each piece connected to another in a long series of conductive material that would inevitably lead to the ground.

“Of course!” Twilight gasps as the metal objects begin jabbing against you from every angle, hope laced throughout her voice. “Cyphers necessarily break the rules of magic in order to steal it from others! But if you use Clover The Clever’s Magical Equilibrium spell--!”

“--Clover The Clever’s Magical Equilibrium spell,” you interrupt with a knowing smirk and a dark intonation, “Combined with a direct connection to the ground through either bare earth or metal, you can forcibly bleed a cypher of their stolen magical charge, depriving them of their power and leaving them weakened and vulnerable.”

When you slowly turn your head towards Twilight, you’re met with the most perfect deer-in-headlights look spread across her face, her jaw flapping a few times as she’s caught between admiring your textbook repetition of advanced magical theory, and being absolutely terrified of your textbook repetition of advanced magical theory.

“Don’tcha just love that bit of irony?” you hum, “Needing to use magic to strike at one of the biggest weaknesses a guy like me has? I’ve had some know-it-all unicorns use the spell against me before y’know, and lemmie tell you, it hurts! Like a nasty static shock on your everything!”

“Less talking, more dying!” the Storm King very rudely bellows, letting loose that aforementioned spell.

You don’t turn around to dignify his exceeding fucking rudeness with a response, so you only hear him splutter and gasp in shock as the magic he successfully bleeds out of you doesn’t seem to faze you in the slightest, in spite of the big, healthy arcs of green power it’s forcing out of your body. That, and you preferred Twilight’s look of abject shock instead. Ponies were just better to look at in general.

“Of course,” you titter, “You do run into a slight problem with the spell once you hit a certain limit.”

“What is this?!” the King half-hollers and half-begs, “What have you done this time?!”

“Your magical pathways...” Twilight murmurs, her little academic hamster wheel sent a’spinnin’. “That’s impossible. There’s no way you have so few of them...!”

“C’mon princess,” you coo, jabbing a thumb back at the Storm King, who was busy recasting the spell multiple times and expecting a different result. “Explain it for the dumb ones in the back.”

“M-Magical Equilibrium wasn’t made to counter cyphers,” she stammers, responding reflexively and almost on autopilot. “I-it was made to heal ponies from problems caused by foreign magic. A-and because it’s a healing spell, i-it...”

“Yes?”

“It only returns magic to the environment as quickly as the target’s magical pathways will safely allow,” she finishes.

“That’s a textbook answer, your highness!” you clap. “Top marks!”

“But you barely have any pathways to return the magic through!” she shouts, more exasperated than afraid at this point. “Where in the hay are you from?! Even a creature from the most magically desolate places on Equus would still have more pathways than this!”

“Wow, bold of you to assume I’m even from Equus in the first place,” you scoff, feigning offence. “Anthropocentric bag of dicks...”

Of course, cypher powers bypass the whole pathway system to begin with, so even a shrimpy magicless wimp born as one could theoretically challenge an alicorn given enough stolen magic. Still, your magically challenged body hardly meant that the spell was useless against you; it just took a minute or two to suck out all of your juice in normal circumstances, and it fucking hurt. But under these circumstances? It’d probably take them days to bleed out your power, and you barely feel a thing!

With a mighty yawn and a good stretching of your limbs, you daintily pluck one of the metal bars from it’s strong magical welding point as easily as you’d pluck the petals from a flower. And after briefly admiring what was in fact a copper water pipe, you turn back towards the Storm King and casually toss it towards his floating platform, the piece shooting out like a shot from an anti-tank rifle and destroying a big chunk of it with pure kinetic force alone, drawing a startled, incredibly masculine shriek from him as dust and debris rained down above and around him.

“I hope for your sake that this ain’t all you got, chief,” you laugh up at him, casually brushing yourself off and breaking contact with all of the annoying metal. “I came here for mustard, so I expect mustard!”

“Fine!” he bellows, apparently driven to the peak of anger. “Let’s see how you like this!”

The staff lasers huge chunks of the ceiling and some nearby pillars into huge pieces, grasping them in it’s telekinetic grip and making them orbit the King’s platform. Then, with a thrust of the staff in your direction, the pieces all converge with the speed and force of a diesel train.

Pretty sure you heard Tempest calling your name out just before they hit.

SMASH

Too bad that wasn’t nearly enough to hurt you in any significant way. When the dust cleared, all parties gasped in shock when they saw you not only still standing, but casually dusting yourself off as if nothing had even happened. Your skin, normally toughened up by stolen magic anyways, was currently at “dragon scales” level of toughness on account of the ludicrous amount of power you still had coursing through your body.

“Ahh, physical violence,” you sigh, totally unbothered and tone carefree. “Not exactly a weakness, per se, but rather the universal fallback solution for all problems. After all, there’s only one way to absorb an ass-kicking, isn’t there?”

You fold your arms as you look back up towards the King. “That’s two weaknesses you’ve tried and failed to exploit so far, champ.”

Two jets of green, unstable magic - somewhere between fire and raw, electrified-looking magic in appearance - began firing out from the bottom of your feet, melting the ground you were standing on as they lazily jet-propelled you up to eye level with the King.

“So is there anything new and exciting on your usual agenda of failure, or do I have to give you a demonstration on what a real ass-beating looks like?”

You give your knuckles a good crack-a-lackin’ as a fresh grin splits across your face. Poor guy looks really indecisive right now. You’d better decide for him then, otherwise this’ll take way too long!

A contented little sigh is all the warning he gets before you make your move.

WHOOSH

You lunge towards him and seize him by the throat, hoisting him up into the air in classical evil villain style. Panicking, and without any air to talk shit with, he thrashes and punches against you, his hands doing no better than his flying debris did.

“Welp, your free trial of easy mode’s over, champ,” you chuckle, waiting for the debris platform to fall to the ground with a loud SMASH before continuing, a feral grin spreading across your face. “Hope you’re ready for hard-mode.”

WHOOSH
CLANG

You launch him towards the throne room’s double-doors like an air-to-air missile, hitting the seam dead-centre. The impact craters the doors and pulls them out of the wall by their hinges, kicking up a huge plume of dust and debris as they fall and sandwiching the dumb son of a bitch right between them. Fortunately, being the kind and helpful soul that you are, you zoom right on over Iron Man style to lend a hand, flinging one of the doors pinning him down off to the side with enough force to bury it halfway into the side wall.

“D’aww, I’m sorry, did’ja fall over, old man?” you coo, pulling him up by his arm. “Here, lemmie help you up!”

WHOOSH
CRASH

You send the big ugly idiot sailing right back into the throne room, this time hitting the wall at the opposite end that connects to the balcony. The impact creates a huge spiderweb crack in it’s surface, somehow falling just short of completely caving in the wall even as the King falls out of his little crater with a dazed, painful groan. You catch him before he can hit the ground, holding him in the bridal position with a dark, toothy grin that works to snap him back to reality.

“You know, I’ve waited a long time for this moment.”

SMASH

The wall collapses proper once you use the King’s dazed body as a bludgeon to finish it off, Twilight squeaking and taking cover on account of how close she still was. He dangles limply in your grasp, held up by his leg and barely aware of his surroundings anymore.

“And I’ve gotta say,” you laugh, “The wait was so worth it!”

WHOOSH

And with that, you send him flying far away into the cityscape somewhere, staff and all, with the exact location he went unknown on account of the still-lingering dust cloud. He didn’t even have the wherewithal to scream as he went flying off into the cityscape, that’s how bad you fucked his day up! With just a few solid hits!

Job done for the moment, you descend back onto solid ground atop the balcony and give your hands a good dusting, cackling a bit with an ear-to-ear grin as you waited for the dust to clear and the cityscape to come into view. No idea where he flew off to, but you know he’ll be back. And knowing him, he’ll play right into your hands with his next move. As predictable as a house tour, and as easy as taking candy from a baby.

The sound of hooves clopping on stone draws your attention away from surveying your new domain, and you turn around to get a load of the two mares of the hour. Princess Purple, still looking shell-shocked from everything that just went down. And Tempest, well...

SLAP

Apparently getting juiced up like a certain Democratic senator was no deterrent to her.

“You unbelievable bastard!” she shouts, voice strained and eyes wet.

“In the flesh, crackin’ eggs, and smackin’ heads.”

SLAP

Don’t even care. Tradition reigns supreme.

Well, that two-for-two slapfest seems to have calmed her, but only somewhat. Her voice still had that tremble to it, the kind you get when you’re about to start crying for real.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were planning this?!” she yells.

“’Cause you’d have tried to stop me?” you deadpan, raised eyebrow and all.

She splutters for a bit, trying to find a comeback to that. She doesn’t find one, of course. So, forgoing words in favour of action, she rears up and goes for smack number three, only to freeze mid-motion, eyes screwing shut and her teeth gritting together. And then, just as the tears were starting to prick the corners of her eyes, she planted her slapping hoof onto your shoulder, hoisting herself up and giving you a monster hug, face buried into your chest and everything.

“Aww, Tempie! Were you worried about me?” you ask with plenty of bemusement, grinning for a very different reason.

She answers with a slight sniffle and a sock to the gut, skin solidity be damned.

“Yeah, you were worried about me,” you laugh, patting her neck.

“It’s not funny,” she half-mumbles, not quite ready to look up at you yet. “I thought you were going to die.”

“Babe, there was never a point where he came close to being a threat to me,” you quip back.

She says nothing, continuing to squeeze you with precisely zero concern for who saw it. Sadly, that only meant Twilight. And apparently adorable displays like this work like smelling salts or something to ponykind, because the purple royal was rapidly kicking her shocked little stupor to the curb the longer she looked at the scene. Especially when a free hand started idly itching at one of Tempest’s ears.

Thankfully, she didn’t get a chance to speak before Tempest did.

“So she was right, wasn’t she?” she sighs after a few moments, raising her head and meeting your gaze. “You really did plan this all out.”

“You bet your ass I did,” you wink. “And it’s all panning out to a perfect, serifed T.”

“I mean, it’s not like I didn’t suspect anything,” she continues, flicking her eyes away for a moment. “You did hint at some funny business going on before we hit Klugetown. I just wasn’t expecting this!”

“What can I say?” you shrug. “I’ve always been a ‘go big or go home’ kinda cat.”

She snorts, but doesn’t say anything in response, content to just keep holding onto you.

KA-CRACK

Oop, hold that thought, King’s back.

Tempest quickly lets go and backs away from you, allowing you to turn around and face him. Sure enough, there he was, up on top of a nearby building and loosing some lightning from the staff in a skyward direction in a very similar fashion to how Storm Island’s main tower did, the already-dark clouds overhead roiling and thickening as they become even darker. The wind was already starting to whip up something fierce, loose papers and dust stirred up all around and occasionally swirling around in little vortices. Keeping the rain at bay in favour of just the strong winds, he finishes his storm-stirring and leaps down to the plaza.

“Soldiers!” he bellows with a wave of his staff. “To me!”

Okay, nevermind. He’s not doing the obvious stupid thing. He’s doing the less obvious stupid thing. From all around, your troops form up behind him in an orderly platoon, crossbows at the ready. Two of three best boys, still in their elite guard cosplay, form up next to the King, still wearing those gauntlets that the King gave ‘em. And from the way Cid was surreptitiously gesturing at you from up on high, it was pretty clear what use he wanted to put them to. Grinning down at the King, one of your hands stealthily gesture back to your boy down there: ‘on my mark’. Cid nods his acknowledgement, nods to Biggs and another beast behind him in turn, and the two ‘elites’ form up closer to the King in preparation.

Ah, well. You’d have liked to go all Dragonball on him, but you guess there’ll be plenty of that later once the Elements show up. Besides, the boys need some glory, too! What better way than with a good old fashioned coup d'état?

“Pawning off responsibility again, huh?” you laugh down at him, idly letting some green lightning Jacob’s Ladder it’s way up along your fingers. “Even with ultimate power? Wish I could say I was surprised!”

For once, he doesn’t actually answer. Instead, he jabs the staff into the air for a moment, lightning leaping from it’s tip into the weapons of your troops, supercharging them. So he has read at least some of the staff’s manual! That’s surprisingly forward-thinking of him.

“Crossbows at the ready!” he commands, smiling up at you when he hears them comply. “Aim!”

He’s so focused on watching your reaction that he doesn’t notice the crossbows all pointed towards him instead of you, not to mention your two elites firing up the gauntlets. You signal Cid with the usual staggered blink, smiling even wider.

“Fire!”

Not a single beast follows that order, but Cid and Biggs take that cue to do their thing. The King yells in surprise before screaming in pain as the gauntlets kick in and start tazing him something fierce, the electric chains and restraints already forming from the lightning and locking into place. From behind, the storm beast Cid nodded to before leapt out with a slightly nervous countenance that could only belong to Wedge, and he swiftly grabbed hold of the staff and managed to wrest it from the King’s grasp, the big idiot too overloaded with pain to even realize he’d let go of it.

The troops stow their weapons and gather around, and they can’t help but cheer for Wedge as he holds the staff aloft for all to see, happy-dancing in place as he does so. The King tried at one point to use some storm magic to escape, but a quick karate-chop to the back of the dome from Cid killed that attempt before it could get any kind of steam. Noticing that, Wedge blows a raspberry right into the King’s face with his finger and thumb in the shape of an L on his forehead, something that draws a hearty laugh out of both Biggs and most other beasts in attendance.

“Di molto! Bravissimo! Très magnifique!“ you applaud, clapping loudly and proudly. “Christ, I am so fucking proud of you guys, you know that?”

Beyond cheering loudly, some of them start squealing like fangirls at the praise. Biggs very much included.

“All right, all right,” you wave down to them, “Give the lads some space so they can bring our ‘glorious leader’ up for a chat, aight?”

“Traitors!” the King screams, flailing and thrashing against his captors. “You’re all dead! Do you hear me?! Dead!”

“Actually,” you grin, hand held up in the universal ‘hold up’ position. “On second thoughts, soften him up a bit first.”

The troops have never been happier to follow an order before in their lives. Right away, they form lines and start taking turns punching, smacking, slapping, or otherwise abusing the King, all while drowning the sounds of his pain out in their whoops, cheers, and laughter. And while that’s a fantastic sight to behold, the much better sight remains Tempest, who you crane your head around to look at. She’d gotten up to the railing at some point to observe the attempt at carnage, her mane whipping about in the stiff wind as her jaw hung open in utter shock at what she’d just witnessed.

“You turned all of the storm beasts to your side,” she murmurs, still gaping at the ongoing hazing ritual down below.

“Naturally,” you reply with a smile. “They’re a real smart bunch, you know! Couldn’t have done all this without ‘em!”

“Anon?” she asks somewhat nervously, finally turning away to look at you with a newfound fear and respect of you in those big eyes of hers. “Just how long were you planning this?”

You give a little shrug before answering. “Thinking about it? Since I first got hired on. Planning it? A couple’a weeks after. Executing it? A few months ago. Completing it? Well,” You chuckle, eyes flicking to the scene below. “Just a few things left to wrap up now.”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “You know, you scare me sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” you gasp, hand over heart. “Y’know, that hurts my feelings!”

You hear Twilight give a little gasp of her own from behind, prompting you to look over and see her also looking down the railing, her own locks tossing and turning in the wind as she observes the hostile takeover with a look of horror.

“That’s horrible,” she murmurs more to herself than you.

“Well what did you think was gonna happen to the big idiot?” you deadpan, getting her to pay full attention to you. “All slaves turn on their masters eventually, honey. Even I know that.”

A specific pattern of flares fire up from within the crowd - green, red, green, yellow, green - no doubt the work of Cid. You knew what it meant, of course: it was the signal that you’d successfully wrested control of the kingdom. And like the Beacons of Gondor, the same flare pattern was repeated by your other loyal forces all across the land, spreading from the tall towers and docked airships to the far-flung airships terrorizing the townships across Equestria.

You love it when a plan comes together. Even if it’s only partway!

You pull away from the balcony, giving your juiced-up limbs yet another stretching. “Anyways, now that that annoyance is done and dusted, it’s high time I get down to business. And get outta this damn wind. You comin’, babe?”

Said babe starts for a second, but quickly recovers and starts following behind. Approaching behind one of the big thrones, you fire a small laser beam from your fingertip that scythes through it’s base, allowing you to pick the whole thing up with one hand and carry it with you towards the middle of the room with the other statuesque princesses. You’d have preferred to make your own throne with your magic, but alas, that’s another cypher drawback to add to the pile: the power you can sling around is destructive, and only destructive. Using magic in more creative ways was gonna require the staff.

Well, in any case, time to get the awkward part outta the way. Plopping your fancy seat down with a loud CRASH, you summarily use it for it’s intended purpose, locking eyes with a surprisingly calm Tempest.

“So,” she opens.

“So,” you echo.

“Since you’ve totally betrayed him, where does that leave us?”

“Guess that depends on whether you’re leanin’ towards ‘join me’ or ‘stop me’, don’t it?”

“I guess so,” she nods.

She doesn’t say anything for a bit, continuing to hold your gaze as she thought about what to say. But the conflicted look in her eye told you all you needed to know about her train of thought. And, sure enough, she goes on to vocalize it:

“L-listen, Nonny,” she begins, eyes darting away all guilty-like. “I really don’t want to fight you. And not just because of your new powers.”

Just because you don’t interrupt her, doesn’t mean you can’t smile at her trying to get the words out.

“Damn it,” she sighs, half-flustered and half-guilty, “I like you. Way more than him. And I really wouldn’t mind just joining you. But you know the reason why I’m here. The only reason.”

“The horn,” you state.

“The horn,” she echoes with a sigh after a beat, shutting her eyes and nodding. “I’m not giving up on it. I can’t. Not even for you.”

“Then I’ll be honest with ‘ya, Tempie.” you reply evenly, somewhat serious for a change. “Part’a my planning for this was reading all the material about the staff. Both the history and the instruction manuals. And believe you-me, it’s been used by a bunch of crazy mofos, and it’s got some real fancy features to show for it.”

She continues to avoid your eyes, chewing her lip and visibly nervous about where you’re going with this.

“On top of stealin’ the talents of whoever it sucks the magic out of, it’s got lots of nicely documented spells of it’s own. And a big ol’ list of things it absolutely can’t do.”

Her ears wilt and her eyes screw shut.

“In relation to what you’re asking for,” you continue, speaking slowly and carefully, “The staff--”

“It can’t,” she whimpers, erroneously finishing your sentence.

Without another word, you stand up and start walking towards her, the poor gal already starting to tremble as tears start leaking down her face.

“I should’ve known,” she quietly cries to herself, “It was stupid of me to think this was going to work. I--”

Her eyes shoot open with a small gasp when she feels you press a finger under her chin, but she doesn’t resist as you gently turn her towards your smiling face.

“You didn’t let me finish my sentence,” you say to her with a mirthful tone. “There’s no spell to fix you, that’s true. But there’s also no rule about it being impossible, either.”

Aha, there’s the glimmer of hope you were waiting for!

“And all that means,” you continue, “Is that nobody’s ever tried before. Nobody, that is, until now.”

“Y-you mean that you’ll...?!” she gasps.

“I’ll tell you exactly what I’m gonna do, babe,” you smile, leaning in close until your noses touch, holding her gaze the entire time. “First, I’m gonna take the staff and put it through it’s paces, get a feel for how the girl operates.” Another finger comes up, tracing around the base of her horn. “And once I get a good feel for her, first thing I’m gonna do,” - your finger taps it’s jagged tip - “Is give growin’ this back the ole college try.”

To say that she’s happy to hear those words would be the understatement of the year.

“You promise that you’ll fix it?” she sniffles.

“I promise that I’ll try.”

Reiterating that key point seems to have sobered her up a bit, prompting her to take a breath to calm herself down. Doesn’t wipe the big, watery smile off her face, though.

“That’s good enough for me,” she all but whispers.

And then she once again seizes upon you with another big ol’ bear hug, one that would probably be bone-crushing if you weren’t juiced out of your mind right now. It goes on for a while, and the only thing that interrupts it for you is seeing Twilight inching over from the side, determined to get some kind of word in edgewise. Which you instantly stop by channelling your inner Yoshikage Kira, giving her a simple, smile-laden glare that draws a muffled ‘eep’ out of her, the uppity lass taking a step away as her ears fold back.

The only thing that properly interrupts the hugging experience is you hearing the King’s familiar yet oh-so-delightful shouts and curses getting closer as he’s brought into the building, though with noticeably less energy and much more huffing and puffing this time around. Tempest hears it first, naturally, prompting her to briefly tighten up her hold on you until you heard it yourself, at which point she finally lets go and allows you to return to your seat, where you assume the Jarl pose in anticipation of the King’s arrival. Tempest leaning against one side of your throne with a foreleg up on the empty armrest doesn’t escape your notice, and you can’t help but grin wider at that.

Wait, why do pony thrones have armrests?

Oh right, you don’t give a shit.

Leading the pack was Cid and Biggs, quite literally dragging a very rough looking and bruised-up Storm King into the throne room. Just behind them was Wedge, staff pointed at the King’s back like a loaded carbine. If there’s anyone who knew how to operate that thing, even a little bit, it’d definitely be him. As for the King himself, it’s honestly impressive how angry he still was, even if his energy levels were a lot lower than before. Though that immediately changed upon seeing you, as he magically found the energy to begin struggling again.

He also got noticeably more angry at seeing Tempest chilling out next to you.

“Tempest,” he half-hisses, half-wheezes. “You surprise me. I thought you valued your little horn more than this, nevermind your life.”

“Funny,” she replies evenly, with no indication at all that she’d been an emotional mess only a minute or so before, “I thought you valued that more, too. But here we are.”

“What are you--” he tries, breaking into a small coughing fit. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me,” she continues, punctuating her angry tone with a fresh horn fizzle. “You weren’t going to fix me in the first place, were you? Did you even know how to?”

Man, he should not have recoiled like that. On both questions, no less. Guess getting beaten up by your own minions has a way of making you a shitty liar, huh?

“Tch. You’ll get what’s coming to you soon enough.” The power in her horn recedes as she looks over at you next, her angry tone lessened yet still present. “And you. You always knew he wasn’t going to fix me, didn’t you?”

“Sure did,” you chirp.

“Care to explain why you didn’t tell me?”

“Would you have believed me if I’d told you?”

She opens her mouth to argue, but closes it after a moment, trading some of her anger in for melancholy as she sighs and looks away.

“No,” she admits. “But I’m still mad at you.”

“Yeah, I imagine you are,” you smile. “Would roughing this clown up make it better?”

“No,” she half-smiles back, “But it’s a start.”

After giving her a little waggle of your eyebrows - and noting how Twilight was still in the background, angling for a chance to interject - you turn back to the Storm King, tapping your chin a few times for effect.

“Now then,” you chuckle, “You nice and calm now? No more piss and vinegar in your system?”

“I’ll be calm once you’re dead,” he hisses.

“Awesome!” you cheer, clapping your hands together. “‘Cause you’ll need a clear mind once we start talkin’ terms!”

“Terms?”

“Yeah, terms. Of your surrender.”

“My surrender?!”

You raise an eyebrow. “Well what other terms would I be talking about, sunshine? The terms of service?”

“Don’t you dare think for even a second that you’ve come close to winning this, you damnable traitor!” he snarls, struggling anew. “Mark my words, I will--”

You cut him off with a snap of your fingers. “Kneel.”

The two boys on manhandling duty force his compliance, dropping him to both knees with a pained grunt and a fresh new look of hatred.

“Sorry, I misspoke,” you grin, waving Wedge over. “When I said ‘terms of surrender’, what I meant was ‘terms of humiliation’, seeing how you’re already my little bottom bitch boy now.”

You let loose a derisive little evil cackle, then slowly stand up to your full measure.

“Seriously, do you have any idea what special kinda stupid you’ve gotta be to fuck things up this bad? And after obtaining ultimate power? Like holy shit-a-mole, your propensity for failure is like a fucking talent!”

Wedge goes to kneel and offer you the staff all traditional-like, but you wave him off for now, unwilling to slow your roll right this second.

“I mean really, you could’ve at least kept your biggest asset on your side,” - you point back to Tempest with your thumb - “If you’d only just given her what she’d asked for. Y’know, instead of stabbing her in the back. Then again, you are still a predictable man-bear-whatever-the-shit-you-are, so I’m not really shocked by that.”

Being called predictable again renewed his struggling, the big idiot determined to take some of that hatred out on you. Of course, this ain’t Undertale, so his determination is worth Jack and Shit, and they’re both busy snowbirding away in the Philippines.

“Of course,” you intone with a much darker grin. “This’d be far from the first time you’ve screwed the pooch this bad. After all, your conquests were pretty hit-and-miss before I came into the picture. That was a fun little fact to learn from the troops, truth be told; finding out that you failed a few invasions before now! Want me to go down the list? Actually, don’t answer that, I’m doing it anyways. Fuck you.”

Oh, he’s seething. Soon to be coping, if you’ve got anything to say about it.

“Your own home country? Fucked that up royally. The minotaurs? You weren’t even a challenge for them. And oh, how could I possibly forget about the disaster that was Zebrica? You know, when the Four Princes pushed your fucking shit in?”

“How was I supposed to know that they were all cyphers?!” he protests, his anger masking the weakness.

You reach down and grab him by the collar, bringing him face-to-face with you. “By doing the bare minimum of research? That’d be a good start!” He gets especially agitated once you start knocking on his head. “Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Think, dipshit! A little thought can do wonders, you should try it sometime!”

You drop him back down and walk a couple of paces away, the boys already forcing him back to a kneeling position by the time you turned back to him.

“And you know, I’m still in awe that you were somehow losing the fight against Abyssinia, even after the blitzkrieg went so well! Their king would’ve taken you to the goddamn cleaners if I hadn’t stolen the juice from his gear before you faced him.”

That line causes him to freeze, his breath catching.

“Oh, did I forget to mention that part?” you titter. “How you only won that fight because I went outta my way to gimp him beforehand? It’s a good thing you broke open the jail and recruited me first, otherwise that’d be another fat L for ‘ya to carry.”

You think the enormity of his fuckup is starting to sink in, if the look on his face is anything to go by.

“Hm? Whaddya look so surprised for?”

“Are you saying that...?” he begins, forgetting something by the end and looking over towards Twilight. “Er, who are you supposed to be, again?”

“The princess of friendship,” she answers with a frown.
“The princess of friendship,” you answer with a smile.

“That, yes!” he says, snapping back to you. “You mean this stupid, disgustingly cute little pony was right? You really did plan this out from the beginning?”

Twilight’s snoot wrinkles in offence, but you barely even notice it.

This was it. You’d finally arrived at this moment. The moment you get to reveal your power level to him. With your inner Liquid Snake bubbling up deep down inside, you allow yourself to get an early start on the deep, rumbling evil laugh.

At long last, after ten thousand years, you’re free! It’s time for the evil monologue!

“Well slap my ass and call me a bitch,” you laugh, expression and tone that of penultimate smug. “Jimmy Neutron here actually got something right for a change! You’re right, I did plan all of this. From the very moment you brought me into the fold.”

You shrug. “Well, kinda. Y’see, before I upgraded to world domination, my original plan was only to use you to help me subjugate Abyssinia. Now I’ll man up and admit that part’a that plan was because I wanted revenge; being treated like a second-class citizen by fucking furries is an insult you aren’t remotely equipped to fathom.

“The other part, though?” You flash him a dark grin. “Oh, that’s easy. I’ve always been a dirty, rotten evil bastard in my heart of hearts. Bad to the fuckin’ bone. And it’s my Satan-given duty to smack those furry bastards around, just like the nurse smacked my mama upside the head when I was born!

“I’d planned a lot of it out, you know, learning where the nobility kept their magic weapons and stuff. But I’ll admit, I slipped up. House Dapperpaws caught me red-handed doing my cypher thing to their collection, and they booted my sorry ass into supermax for it. Plus, they had their unicorn court wizard Equilibrium my ass to prevent any escape. So you can imagine that I was starting to get, well, a little worried.

“And then one day, who else breaks in but you?” you laugh, jabbing his forehead with your middle finger. “The dipshit king himself. From the moment I laid eyes on you, I could tell that you were a moron: a moron hittin’ the wall of just how far havin’ more balls than brains can take you in life. And knowing that, it was mighty easy to get you to ‘employ’ me. Though I’m amazed you never even asked why I was there in the first place! You might’ve caught my dirty fuckery earlier if ‘ya had!

“I used the chaos of your attack as the cover I needed to get my plans into motion. Break into the nobles’ mansions again, slurp up all of their magic, and move on to my next target. You sure made things go fast there, I’ll give you that! Man, I was hoppin’ with power by the time we got to the throne room. Damn near solo’d the whole place too, as I’m sure you remember. But, of course, I made sure to leave their king to you. Appearances are everything, after all!

“Now like I said, the original plan was to stick around to get in better shape for a campaign or two, then take some of my new loyal boys, head back to Abyssinia, and live out my Sauron fantasies all over those dirty felid son’sa bitches. But then something funny happened as I travelled the big, wide world. I got introduced to - and trained the everloving shit out of - those lovely hunks of muscle you call storm beasts. I got to see - and experience - the beautiful races n’ places this wide, wacky world’s got on offer. And most of all, I got to see how the anthropomorphic cancer encompassed far more than just my little corner of kittyland.”

You seize his chin and force him to look at you, a slightly manic glint in your eye. “And that’s when it hit me, like a Scud rocket to the gooch! There’s no way I can just stop at Abyssinia! There’s a whole world out there that needs chemotherapy! And by that, I mean total conquest! Sure, I’d always known it was an option, but I'd also always felt it was too much work to really bother with! But at that moment, I realized it was my goddamn manifest destiny to lay claim to the whole world, the kinda destiny you can’t just brush off because you’re lazy! And do ‘ya know who opened my eyes to that path forward? Who lit the fire under my ass and gave me the means and the resources to start raping and vaping all over planet Equus? That’s right. You.

“And just like that, my new plan was born. I’d take your whole kingdom,” - you spit the word out like a rotten egg - “right out from under your nose. And the first phase - turnin’ your troops to the darker side - was an instant success! Tell me, did’ja ever notice how you never failed another invasion after I came on board? That wasn’t a coincidence. You succeeded in takin’ Mt. Aris because you never took it; I took Mt. Aris, using my troops. And this entire incursion into Equestria went so well because me and my troops did all of the work.”

His mouth starts doing it’s best goldfish impression, and the sight makes you so damn happy you could sing!

“What’s the look for?” you laugh. “You didn’t really think you made it this far by yourself, did you? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you did. Just like I knew you would.”

You gingerly cup his chin, rubbing your thumb along his cheek as you fix him an incredibly condescending smirk. “And you played your role perfectly, you know. You fell for all the tricks, all the misdirection, all the diversions, like clockwork. You even ‘caught’ the storm beast trying to recruit some’a the few beasties still loyal to you!”

Your smirk becomes more pronounced upon seeing his surprise. “Did’ja like the contracts he had? Honestly, they were old revisions I needed an excuse to get rid of. The newest ones also cover both optometry benefits and paternity leave!”

“Buh-but...” he splutters, thoroughly floored.

“Why, you ask?” you chuckle, successfully predicting his next word. “To make sure you paid attention to me, and only me. After all, why would I disabuse you of the notion that the troops were stupid, when it kept you in the dark so damn well? That’s probably one of your bigger mistakes, honestly; thinking they were simple and stupid critters. But I’ve always known better. They’re smart, devious, and rotten to the core. Perfect qualities to have in an evil fighting force! All I had to do was treat ‘em with respect, hire ‘em instead of enslave ‘em, and of course, prove I was a badder motherfucker than you. And wouldn’t you know it, they fell head over heels to join me!”

You about-face back towards Wedge and start to slowly walk your way over to him, the big guy dropping back into the offering pose once he realized you were eyeing up the staff.

“Of course, every conqueror of the world needs the power to do the conquerin’ with. You never hid the fact that you were looking for a way to power this little baby up, so I made sure to jiu-jitsu your plans to my ends. Even took the liberty of reading up on it as much as I could! And judging from how basic your technique with it has been, I’d say that I’ve got a much better understanding of it than you do.”

You take a short breath - through the nose and out the mouth - as you come to a stop before Wedge, hand extending out and slowly hovering over the offered Staff of Sacanas. Even without touching it yet, the sheer volume of raw power it radiated was unreal, practically buzzing through your body in a steady cadence, almost like a second heartbeat.

“Of course, there’s really only one way to know for sure, isn’t there?”

Twilight’s hopeful smirk from off behind Tempest did not escape your notice for even a femtosecond, the mare as well-apprised of this particular weakness as you were.

In truth, this was the scariest part of your entire plan, entirely because of one of the biggest, most major weaknesses of being a cypher: your drain powers had no off switch. Once you touched magic, it was getting sucked dry whether you liked it or not, and trying to stop was like trying to stop taking a piss once you’d started. And unlike pissing, you had zero control over how fast or slow you drained magic: your body would continue draining at full tilt until either the source was empty, or you hit your upper limit on magic capacity.

Hitting that limit had extremely explosive and agonizing consequences, and was something you’d prefer to never experience again, thank you very much. Hell, you don’t even want to know how apocalyptic that might be in your current state. But like a muscle, your upper limit could be increased through training. Which is precisely what you did, putting yourself through a monstrous regimen just about every time you left Storm Island for “work”, training like crazy until you could safely handle alicorn-tier magic. And then training even more past that. Helps that you managed to pick up a few extra tricks during those sessions that let you fight even smarter!

One of those tricks was the extra ability to remotely drain magic spells and enchantments from a distance, similar to how a centaur could. And that, you could fully control. That ability meshed super well with your magic-resisting armour: you took full advantage of it’s properties to create your own off switch, making it so that draining magic via touch required you to ‘remotely drain’ it from around three or so yards away. It’s hard to express how useful that was, efficiency penalties be damned.

With all that in mind, you wouldn’t normally ever dare touch something as powerful as the staff, much less allow the King to power it up to it’s current state in the first place. But all the reading you’d done on the staff paid dividends here, revealing certain properties about not only the staff, but about Sacanas herself. And it was those properties that all but assured you that it was safe for even a guy like you to handle.

A shower of small arcs jumps between your hand and the staff, and it leaps into your grasp as if magnetized. The full brunt of it’s barely contained power hits you like an oil tanker in that moment, easily eclipsing the comparatively paltry amount you’d stolen from it. But the sheer volume is prevented from entering you by a razor-thin layer of an all-too-familiar possessive force from deep within the staff, jealously holding the power all to itself.. Said familiar force was also trying to claw it’s ill-gotten magical gains back from it’s even more ill-gotten holder, using the same exact means you did. And getting the same exact result in turn.

You can’t help but throw your head back and laugh: half in relief, half in malicious glee.

“What is going on here? Am I in crazy-town?!” Twilight stress-screams, drawing all attention to her as she squeezes her temples, bits of her mane poking out all crazy-like. “Why isn’t anything happening to you?! You should be draining the staff and hitting critical saturation by now!”

“I get where you’re coming from,” you chuckle, admiring the staff’s construction up close. “This would normally bring me to saturation. Complete saturation of the global variety, you could even say!”

You laugh again as you spin back around with a flourish to apprise the increasingly fearful looking Storm King, swinging the staff around as you go like it was Mohg’s trident.

“But tell me somethin’, princess,” you continue, “How much do you know about my girl Sacanas?”

“S-Sacanas?” she stammers, trying to smooth her mane back together. “Well, I, uh...”

“I thought not,” you sigh, unsurprised by her ignorance. “Kinda sad that she’s not talked about more, honestly. I mean, you’d think people would want to document the shit out of one’a Grogar’s more powerful apprentices!”

“Grogar?!” Twilight squeaks.
“Grogar?!” the King yells.

“Okay, you,” you frown, jabbing a finger in his direction, “Have zero excuse not knowing that. At least Twiggles McGee back there has revisionist history to blame! Those old unicorns really didn’t want to give a cypher like Sacanas any kind of recognition for her work, y’know!”

“Cypher?!” Twilight cries.
“Cypher?!” the King hollers.

“That’s what I said. Cypher. And a damn good one, at that! Thing is, she wanted a way to use magic like any other race out there, especially like her evil sensei! So she went and made this beauty!”

You give the staff a good twirl, letting the magical force keep it magnetized to the palm of your hand as it fidget-spun away. All the while, you take that opportunity to “feel” the strings of control within it. Having never operated a magic item before, you can confirm that it is indeed a very bizarre experience: like trying to play a hurdy-gurdy with one hand being your soul and the other hand being the Force. And even that description is probably wrong on several levels!

Doesn’t help that the thing was feeling you back. Despite your advance knowledge that it was gonna do that, it was still an exceptionally fucking weird sensation: not at all like getting felt up!

“It’s kind of genius how she made it work for her, actually! She made the staff into an artificial cypher!” You turn back towards Twilight, who immediately realized the implications of that statement. “And you know what that means, don’tcha?”

“Cyphers can’t steal each other’s magic!” she gasps.

“Bingo!” you cheer with a snap of your fingers, waiting for her to catch the obvious issue with that line of reasoning.

“Hey, wait a minute!” she frowns. “If that’s true, how could you have taken power from it?”

“Because Sacanas was a very talented malefactor who knew what she was doing?” you deadpan for a moment before sniggering. “I mean c’mon, the clue’s in the name ‘artificial’! Of course it’s not gonna be a one-to-one match to the real thing! It just keeps you from slurping it out on touch, not from slurping it outta it’s casts! How else could she use it herself?”

That wasn’t true in the slightest, but was believable enough that she bought the excuse all the same, ignorant of the intricacies of magical vampires as she was. Like hell you were gonna tell her the real reason that Sacanas’s staff let you take the juice from it’s attacks, especially not when you knew you were gonna have a Dragonball fight with her any moment now. Better to set her up with bad info now and take full advantage later on!

Besides, it’s not your problem that she forgot about your bare-handed deflection of the staff’s laser beam beforehand. Y’know, something that should be impossible for you to do?

“Of course,” you laugh, moving swiftly on before she can put two and two together, “Because it’s artificial, she built all kinds’a cool features into it, like turning it’s magic drain on and off whenever ‘ya want! And she built in some centaur-style drain as well! In fact, that’s how the staff stole all your juice in the first place!”

Despite appearances, centaurs and cyphers were different, though similar enough that the ‘can’t steal each other’s magic’ rule applied to them as well. They had far better control, could use normal magic, had no capacity limits, and could drain whatever and whenever they wanted. Plus, Equilibrium didn’t work on ‘em! But their powers were tied-up very tightly with their physical bodies; they needed to drain like they needed to eat and drink, otherwise they’ll shrivel up and starve to death. Contrast that to cyphers, where despite how limited and uncontrolled their powers were by comparison, it was more or less totally optional to use them.

“The best part? Grogar was so inspired by our girl’s tinker toy of death that after she bit the big one, he went on to make the Bewitching Bell, based off’a her designs! Really wish I could’ve dug up that beauty, but your girl Gusty hid it too well! But that’s fine, I’ll have plenty’a time to hunt for it later. And then nothin’ will stop me!”

The staff, still spinning around, finally snaps to a stop with a shower of sparks, your fingers gripping it nice and tight. You think you’ve got a good handle on the controls now, but there’s only one way to find out.

“Oh, but listen to me,” you titter, spinning back towards a now very fearful-looking Storm King. “I went and got so carried away with the magical minutia, I almost forgot about your denouement! Let’s take care’a that now, shall we?”

The boys, already knowing what to do, start dragging the King over towards the balcony for phase two of the humiliation ritual. He struggles and thrashes once again, but for a very different reason this time around: he was as scared shitless as he should’ve been from the word ‘go’. Leaving the slack-jawed ponies behind for the moment, you join the group up at the balcony, stopping to give the King a well-deserved noogie before approaching the railing and activating the staff.

ksssshhh

Thrusting it skyward, you fire a bolt of storm magic up on high that lingers for a second, and then sweep the staff in a wide arc in front of you. A huge wall of wind flies out from where you’d swept with a deafening WHOOSH, buffeting everything before you and clearing the obnoxious overhead storm cloud like a snow plow, leaving the slightly twilit skyscape clear, windless, and drop-dead beautiful. The move also drew the attention of every storm beast in attendance, every single one of them dropping what they were doing to form up in the plaza and give you their undivided attention. Even the airships idling around shifted position, forming up into a military parade formation.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” you bellow down to your audience, arms outstretched. “How’re my motherfuckin’ Monstars doin’ today?”

There’s your uproar of applause, cheers, and whistles, right on cue!

“I can’t hear you!”

They answer your call for more noise with no hesitation.

“Lovely! Almost as lovely as the weather we’re havin’ today, wouldn’tcha say?”

You’re fairly certain that there’s the occasional squee intermixed with the applause.

“Though if I’m bein’ honest,” you continue, holding a hand up to quiet down the audience. “It is kinda nippy out t’night, ain’t it?”

Some of the beasts in the audience, knowing what’s coming next, start to laugh, ranging the spectrum from impish cackling to deep rumbling. And they get especially loud when you lean forward and rest an arm on the railing, twirling the staff around as you grin like a hyena.

“So whaddy’all say we get ourselves a little fire started to keep the cold at bay?”

The ones in on this part of the plan cheer the loudest, the rest just following along. But once word starts to spread about what’s coming up, the joy spreads through the crowd like a disease. Without any further prompting, the beasts clear a big space in the middle of the plaza and get straight to work building up a bonfire.

The King gave a shrill gasp once he realized what they were building the bonfire with.

“No!” he yelps, struggling anew. “Not my merchandise!”

“Yes,” you smirk, slowly craning your head around to show him said smirk. “Yes, your merchandise.”

And not just his gay merch, either; his posters, his uniforms, even the manifestos - just about anything flammable with his logo on it, in fact - were all unceremoniously tossed into the rapidly growing landfill in the middle of the plaza. Many of the airships were in a big lineup above the pile as well, lowering down and dumping their entire cargo bay worth of worthless tat right on top of it. The select few airships that weren’t dumping their toxic waste had landed nearby, both sets of loading ramps flung open with big line-ups of storm beasts going in one ramp and out the other, emerging with their replacement digs that bore the logo of your new empire.

Replacing the twin electric-blue lightning bolts was a single electric-green question mark, the bottom stroke lacking the dot and reusing one of the bolts the logo was replacing. Honestly, the old logo was kinda neat in it’s own right, but it just had too much of the big dipshit’s baggage strapped onto it for you to just flip the colour palette and call it a day. And the beasties all seemed to agree, too. Already, there were crews on the ground hard at work covering over the old iconography for the objects that couldn’t be burned and replaced, whether it was due to size or flammability.

The pile’s growth effectively finished before long, the sky starting to turn orangey-yellow as the sun began to set. One of the airships flew by to add their final contribution to the pile: an open cask of airship fuel poured out on top of the pile, the sight drawing some cheers from the audience. Once that impromptu addition was done, a ring of storm beasts carrying lit torches emerged from the thick crowd, awaiting your say-so to get this party started.

“Don’t do this,” the King whimpers - actually whimpers - at you. “I spent so much time and money on that stuff, you can’t--!”

“Shhhhh,” you whisper, punctuating the onomatopoeia with a finger pressed to his lips. “Shh-shh-shh, it’s okay. Just let it happen.”

Ignoring his renewed struggle the second you drew away from him, you once again step forward to address the crowd, powering the staff up a hefty amount for your next supervillain party trick.

“Before we get started,” you announce, “I’ve gotta set up the mood lighting.”

Grasping the staff with both hands, you jab it towards the sun, yanking it away from it’s escape attempt towards the horizon and flicking it into it’s midday position. With that done, you twist the staff in the opposite direction with a slow sweep, the tip fizzling and sparking with energy as you begun in earnest. The ground reverberated and an increasingly loud and high-pitched whine emanated from the staff as you worked, slowly angling the tip up towards the horizon. As the tip crested said horizon, the moon followed along with it, unwillingly tracking the staff like a laser pointer and visibly trembling as it moved. And as you move it closer and closer to it’s final destination, the unnatural vibration in the ground intensifies to the point that it begins to crack the remaining glass panes, the whine growing louder and oscillating more wildly in lockstep as small pebbles and dust particles began to float up into the air from all around you.

A wall of darkness sweeps across the land like a curtain being drawn as the moon begins to crest in front of the sun, swiftly blanketing everything in sight from the mountains to the smouldering towns in the distance. Until, at last, the moon obscured the sun in a total lunar eclipse. The land all around was plunged into near-total darkness, the stars already starting to twinkle in the not-night sky as everything on terra firma was cast in an unnatural, barely-visible orange hue courtesy of the corona surrounding the eclipsed sun.

And with that final little motion, the staff’s audiovisual emanations come to an abrupt halt with a small exhale on your part.

“Man, this thing fucking rules,” you laugh, giving said staff a fashionable twirl.

Indeed, it rules almost as much as the control you now had over it. Just moving the sun and moon was easy enough, but going out of your way to upset the natural order like this was much, much harder to pull off. Really, what better way to put this gal through her paces?

And on the first try, no less?

God, it’s hard being so good sometimes.

“All right, whaddya say, boys?” you cackle down to your audience. “How about we try and light this darkness up?”

The beasts, eyes faintly shining like blue chips of ice to reflect their superior night vision, respond to your proclamation by cheering and applauding as the inner circle of torchbearing beasts, in unison, toss their sizable firestarters onto the pile. The flame catches quickly, aided by the addition of the airship fuel, and soon enough you can hear the hearty crackling of the flame along with the scent of cheap fabrics burning as the pyre bathes the area in a harsh, orange glow. Gazing upon it with satisfaction and a nice deep breath or two, you turn back towards the wet-eyed King, who doesn’t even realize you’d moved over towards him until your arm throws itself around his shoulder, breaking his stupor and replacing it with fresh fear.

“You know what your biggest problem was?” you sigh, tone like that of a disappointed parent. “You just weren’t evil enough. You never did all of your pillaging for it’s own sake. Hell, you didn’t even pillage for a good cause, like oppressing those two-legged furry bastards! No, you were in it just to be recognized. All you ever talked about, all you ever cared about, was your brand.”

You gingerly pet his head like you’d pet a dog, feeling the rage building up in his trembling body. “But the world doesn’t need the narc kinda evil, dog. Let alone the Hasbro exec kinda evil. What it needs, more than anything, is the classical kind of evil. The kind only a real, dyed-in-the-wool supervillain can give it. The kind only I can give it.”

“Now,” you continue, pulling away from him and returning to the forefront of the railing, arms extended nice and wide to drink in the warmth of the blaze, “Take in the sight as long as you need to, hombre. ‘Cause the ashes of all this trash is gonna be fantastic fertilizer for my shiny new empire.”

“I will end you for this,” he hisses after a moment’s pause, glaring at you anew. “So long as I draw breath, I will not rest until I see you destroyed. I promise you that, Anonymous.”

Smirking, you jab the staff in his direction, lifting the idiot up with a yelp and startling the boys while you were at it. He dangles helplessly in the magical grasp of the staff, hovering above the pyre down below.

“Now, now,” you chide, waggling a finger. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

His eyes widen when he sees you fish an Obsidian Sphere from your still-attached belt pouch, idly tossing it up and down like a Pokéball as you give him a small, sideways smirk.

“Especially not promises I don’t plan on ever letting you keep,” you close with a dark chuckle.

plink

Blinking, your hand catches nothing but air, the Sphere you were just juggling punted from the zenith of it’s toss by a familiar armoured foreleg and launched towards the King with pinpoint accuracy. He screams and thrashes as it shatters against him, struggling in vain against being stoned as Tempest brushes past your empty juggling hand to glare at the King’s rapidly solidifying form.

“That was for stringing me along,” she glowers.

Cursing you with his last breath, his final statuesque form has him reaching out at you, his face frozen mid-holler. With a few peals of laughter directed to your co-op partner, you release your hold on the King’s statue and let it plummet into the pyre, a big plume of flame shooting up as it impacts and drawing a round of wild applause from the beasts at your very stylish method of garbage disposal. Of course, you only watch that for a little bit before turning back towards a slightly panting Tempest, still glaring down at the flames where he’d met his very unseemly yet entirely deserved end.

“Nicely done!” you applaud. “¡Me gusta mucho!”

“I said he would get what was coming to him,” she states, continuing to look down at the fire.

“That’cha did!” you laugh. “Man, wish I brought some marshmallows for this!”

“If you don’t mind,” she continues, finally looking up at you, “I’d prefer to be restored now rather than later.”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” you smile. “Let’s take this inside--”

You freeze, eyes immediately snapping towards the faintly glowing green object that just lit up in your peripheral vision. Whatever it was, it was entering through the city gates, and was just too far away to make out from this distance, even with godmode enabled.

“Boys,” you order, complete with a finger snap. “Scope. Now.”

Without looking back to them, you wait for a spyglass to be placed into your waiting hand, and once it is, you waste no time getting a look at the source of the mystery light.

“What is it this time?!” Tempest fumes.

“Ahh,” you smile, “I was wondering when they’d get here.”

“What?”

Flicking the staff towards the still-angling Twilight, you Force Pull her towards you, a small yelp escaping her as she flies forth. Timing it perfectly, you toss the staff to Tempest for a beat - who quickly catches it with her mouth - and in the same arm motion catch Twilight mid-air, arm wrapped around her barrel.

“I’ve got some great news for you, princess!” you smile, holding the spyglass up to her cute little peeper and getting a shocked gasp a moment later when she realizes what was downrange. “That’s right!”

“They came back for me,” she murmurs.

“What in the fuck do you mean, ‘they came back for you’?” you snort. “Of course your friends came back for you! How is that even surprising, Little Miss Friendship?”

Gotta say, didn’t expect them to use a Trojan cake to get into the city, but they should’ve known better than to use Spike as the fire-breathing ornament up top in this unnatural darkness, even if it does look pretty sick. Though the rest of the ponies not even bothering with a disguise as they pulled the cart it was on was arguably even worse.

“They what?” Tempest exclaims, having shouldered the staff at some point. “How?!”

“Heroic fortitude, babe,” you wink. “That or they hopped that Pinkie Pie up on ten tons of Monster and cocaine and rode her here, either-or.”

“Hey!” Twilight exclaims, downright offended. “Pinkie Pie does not use--”

“Bull-fucking-shit,” you interrupt with a boop to her snootle. “A gal that energetic is definitely on something. But y’know what, that’s neither here nor there.”

Wedging the spyglass into your waistband for the moment, you twist around and quickly pluck the staff from Tempest’s back, pointing it up at the moon and “releasing” it from it’s position with a quick flick. The action causes the satellite to rubber-band across the sky and spin around the world like a roulette wheel as it returns to it’s normal position, strobing the sunlight as it revolved. With that done, you set the staff down onto her back again and turn back to the distant cake, princess still in hand.

“You know what you should do, princess?” you smile, ruffling her mane. “You should go apologize to ‘em. Let ‘em know you’re still besties. Y’know what I mean?”

“I should,” she murmurs, before realizing the implication of your statement. “Wait, does that mean you’re letting me go?

“Yeah, why not?” you shrug. “You’re not really useful to me anymore, so it’s no skin off my back.”

That, and you’d rather not give their party more i-frames during their trek to save her. You know damn well how that game is played. Plus, it’d give you some extra time to get Tempest sorted out.

“In fact,” you chuckle all evil-like, Twilight’s ears wilting at the display, “I don’t want you gals kept apart for any longer, so I’m gonna do you a solid and give you the express route back.”

She gasps with fright and clings to your arm as you hold her up like a volleyball, now very aware of what you were planning to do.

“Wuh-w-wait a minute!” she squeaks, “You don’t have to--!”

And then you pull your arm back to throw, a psychotic grin spread across your face.

“--Muda muda muda muda muda muda--”
“--No please you really don’t have to do that--”
“--muda muda muda muda muda muda--”
“--I can walk down there just fine so you can--”
“--muda muda muda muda muda muda--”
“--just put me down please I don’t wanna go--”
“--muda muda muda muda muda muda--”
“--flying without my pegasus magic to keep me--”
“--mudaaaaaah!”
“--saaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe!”

WHOOSH

Twilight corkscrews through the air as she’s launched with the force of a tomahawk missile, and your spyglass comes up just in time to catch Spike and the others screaming right back at her as she impacts the giant cake dead-centre, causing the oversized confection to detonate and splatter it’s sugary goodness all over the place, the blast radius a good four or five yards by your count.

“Bahahahahaaaah!” you cackle. “Man, I always wanted to do that! Don’t even care if it sounds lame when I say it--”

And then, in an instant, your manic laughter comes to a dead stop once you see more than just Elements of Harmony crawling out of the big chunks of cake detritus: she’d brought along not only Celaeno and her band, but that fucking cat from Klugetown and, of all things, Princess Skystar!

“Ohh, no, oh-ho-ho no!” you hiss, actually mad for a change. “You wanna bring the gutter trash furries to my city, do ‘ya? Oh, you are on death row now, shitboots!”

Railing crumbling underhand as you grasp it, you look down at your incredibly confused audience and give them the order.

“We have a 314 in progress!” you holler, finger jabbed straight at the Elements and their revolting backup. “Assholes and elbows, ladies! I want ‘em spayed and neutered, and I want it done yesterday!”

The response was immediate, the troops almost as pissed as you were for having the celebrations interrupted. The airships in particular scramble right away, closing in on the still-assembling friendship squad while the troops brandish their weapons and charge towards the group, pouring in like the tidal wave of highly trained muscular death they always were.

No, come on Anon, deep breath. Get a grip. You knew the Elements would show up, and you should’ve anticipated them bringing those things with ‘em as backup. Don’t get mad. Get sadistic.

Ahh yeah, see? All the malevolent thoughts of cramming the furry menace into gulags is already starting to calm you down! See kids? Positive thinking really does work!

“I can’t believe this!” Tempest growls down at the heroes, the staff on her back sparking up in sync with her horn.

“Don’t worry about them for now,” you smile, patting her withers. “The boys’ll keep ‘em busy for the next few minutes.”

“What do you mean, the next few--?” She cuts herself off, eyes widening a bit. “Wait. They’re going to...?”

“Power up and go rainbow-Saiyan?” you smirk. “Glad someone was payin’ attention to my dossier!”

“Then we have to get down there and stop them, now!” she yells, a twinge of desperation in her voice. “Before they can stop you from restoring me!”

“Alternatively,” you chuckle, holding a hand out and letting the staff magnetically latch to your hand again. “I could restore you now, before they power up.”

Her mouth hangs open for a bit as she gives a small gasp at your offer. “W-will you have time?”

“I’d rather take my chances now instead of hoping for an opening later,” you reply, knowing full well that no such opening will be present.

“A-all right,” she concedes, knowing better by now than to argue with you about stuff like this.

“Let’s get indoors, quick,” you press, head gesturing towards the half-ruined throne room.

She needs no further prompting, taking off with you not far behind. On your way over, Cid ‘high-fives’ you, your hand grasping tightly around the spiky not-yet-magical object he’d passed to you - an absolutely critical component of Plan B - and stuffing it down into your somehow still intact pants as you pass into the damaged structure. You and Tempest skid to a stop atop the room’s big central dais, where the princess statues still sat.

Taking a small breath as you gather power into the staff, you take that moment to ponder your success rate at repairing her horn. But no matter how you sliced it, and in spite of all that just happened, your original predictions had actually gotten worse since your post-makeout evaluation of the situation. With the staff more or less ‘felt out’ at this point, you could indeed confirm that most of it’s functionality was geared towards destruction, like the faux-cypher it was. It definitely had constructive properties, owing to it’s inbuilt centaur proclivities, but they were very much not the main purpose of the device.

Sure, it’s definitely possible for it to restore the physical shape of the horn, but there was zero guarantee that it’d be able to restore it’s functionality on top of that. At best, it’d be like some kinda high-end magic prosthetic, and at worst, it would be absolutely fucking worthless and purely decorative. And you knew damn well that she wasn’t going to want anything less than full functionality. And honestly, neither do you. You still want her as backup during the upcoming fight, and having her at peak magical performance would be a massive boon.

In the end, it looks like this is another job for Lady Luck to handle. And more often than not, she prefers to fuck you over instead. Long, hard, and using lemon juice as lube.

“Alright, fair warning,” you sigh, tone serious for a change. “I can’t guarantee that this won’t hurt like a motherfucker.”

“I can take it,” she nods solemnly, closing her eyes as she bows her head and presents her broken horn.

Suppressing another sigh, you point the fully-charged staff straight at said horn.

“Here goes nothin’.”

FZZZZZZZZZZZZT

A triple-helix of focused and precise blue lightning fires forth from the staff, each leg of the helix contacting the base of her horn and encircling it as an additional central beam of power shot forth and hit the horn dead-centre, the helical lightning working more to focus the central beam than anything else. Tempest gave a strangled cry of pain at first, more out of surprise than anything else, but she did a fantastic job of gritting and bearing it in relative silence afterwards.

She begins to float a few inches above the ground as the central beam sweeps across the appendage like a 3D printer. At first, it ‘built’ the core of the horn up first, the matter it created looking kinda reddish and making Tempest wince. Then the beam widened up enough to engulf the freshly crafted ‘core’, the reddish matter it had built up before turning bright red as it slowly ‘solidified’ from the tip down to the base. This part also hurt the most for her, tears streaming down her face as she groaned in pain, refusing to cry any more than that.

It was around the time when the beam was two-thirds down that you saw a flash of bright rainbow light out of the corner of your eye, serving as fair warning that you were running out of time. The sounds of absolute chaos in the streets are heard from all the way here by the time the beam finishes working on the horn’s core. It then widens to the whole diameter of the helix, power pooling at the horn’s base in the form of a bright ‘disc’ that slowly dragged itself up towards the tip, with fresh, glowing-hot horn matter following in it’s wake.

The disc clears the horn’s tip and the beam dissipates in a small nova of power just in time for the Elements of Harmony to make their presence known, and Tempest falls to the ground with a small cry, clutching her head.

You allow yourself to sigh. Though you stop just short of hoping that it worked.