Infamous

Trixie was annoyed. The mud was really, REALLY annoying. It annoyed her so much, the brat of a unicorn who drove her out of town was like an extra leaf in her sandwich annoyed. With a frustrated growl, she shot a blast of heat magic at the ground to dry the water out of the mud. The blast hit, and was absorbed. Nothing happened.

Suddenly, a bubble of air coalesced, right where the blast had hit. *Pop*. Nothing. Nothing. At. All. Trixie scowled and kept trudging forwards, almost at the edge. She muttered under her breath about the "cursed mud" and the "brat of a suck-up" and... she didn't notice the curled head rise up behind her. And rose another, and a third. The center one looked down on the mumbling, bumbling pony, and laughed a silent, cold-hearted laugh of a predator in front of helpless prey. Well, mostly silent. A snicker passed out of it's throat, and into the ears of the unicorn.

Trixie froze. Snicker. That meant... oh Celestia. She turned her head, slowly, to look behind her. As her eyes met those of the creature, she gasped. "Oh Sweet Celestia's pure white FLANK!" She took off, pumping her weary legs as fast as she could, her horn's magic parting the mud like the waters of a river. Of course the best spells come NOW...

She sneaked a glance behind her, and saw the weird... creature right behind her. She cast a firework spell behind herself, and kept running.

The creature behind her's left head followed the firework to the left, but it was pulled back by the center, and the chase slightly interrupted by the insignificant distraction. Trixie had gained a few yards, but that may not be enough. She looked back ahead, and saw a slope in the ground, the edge of the bog. She pushed forwards as hard as she could, and broke past the edge moments before her pursuer.

She finally worked up the mindset to do the only thing a mare would do when being chased by a monster. She screamed.

Cole woke with a start, a scream filling his head. He felt fine. More than fine, actually. He felt rejuvenated and even powerful. As he opened his eyes, he woke up to Fluttershy and Zecora standing over him, heads cocked towards what he believed to be the source of the noise. He hopped up to his feet, and followed their fear-stricken eyes. And he froze. Some sort of armored green three-headed lizard thing was chasing after a light blue horned-mare with a wizard hat. If it wasn't real, he would've laughed, but, sadly, it was real.

He had options... as per every situation. He could grab the unicorn and run away with the other two, not having to fight an unknown enemy, and get help from the others. This may just cause it to chase them into town and more ponies. He could also just run away with the others and hope the thing would stop, but that wouldn't really work, as with the previous. He also could let the thing take the unicorn as bait, giving him time to effectively end it, at the potential cost of the unicorn's life, depending on her skill. This may also make the two next to him attack, ruining the plan, or draw their enmity...

And that left one good plan, a win for all the "civilians".

He hurled a freezing ball of ionized gas at the monster thing, and threw a lightning tether at the unicorn.

"Get out of here, NOW!" He shouted at the two shocked (God dammit. PUNS. Frozen, shocked... I'm a failure...) mares. "I'll take it from here, just get away a little!"

The blue mare had been pulled to him and the other, just as the monster was hit by the freezing rocket. It was shocked for a moment, and as the ice encrusted parts of it's body and one of it's heads, the three mares began scurrying away.

Cole took advantage of the lapse in momentum of the creature, and tossed a ball of condensed energy in an arc over his head. As the ball impacted, it froze more over the partly-moving beast, and covered it's middle and left heads in a layer of ice. It roared in pain as the ice dug into it's flesh and super-cooled it, and began straining the two of it's frozen heads against the ice, chipping away at it with the third. Cole didn't let it have the opportunity. Closing in rapidly, he brought his amp down on the unfrozen head, bashing it aside. He placed both hands on the stunned head, and calling old powers to bear, arched bands of electricity around it, restraining it. He flipped backwards, off the thing, and back to the ground.

The monster was trembling with rage. With a roar, it shattered the ice around it's center head, and glared at Cole. It's eyes filled with burning hatred, it charged, moving it's bulk at a surprisingly high speed. Cole twirled out of the way of the attack, slapping it once more with his amp, and turned to face it again. It learned it's lesson, and, with the aid of it's center head, shattered the ice on it's left. It's right head hung limply, tethered to the body, and it's entire body was covered in cryo burns. It began advancing, slowly, wary of Cole's next move.

Cole lowered himself into a ready stance and opened his mind's eye to the world around him. He saw the pulsing of the creatures' brain waves, and, strangely enough, it had a major, nearly sentient-looking brain in it's center head, while the other two simply had a large nerve cluster, more akin to beasts than men. He saw the leylines of the world bending around him and the other creature, and he noticed one more thing. Similar to how when one touches a plasma globe, the lines attract to the fingers, the strange lines in the ground seemed to be attracted to the feet of both combatants. Cole had an idea. He had enough energy for three more rockets or five more grenades, or, as he planned, two rockets and two grenades, then one more attack...

Cole looked towards the monster, now only fifteen feet away. Perfect. He hurled one frost grenade at it, moving as he threw it. As expected, the three-headed creature strafed to the side, avoiding the scalding ice. Cole had anticipated that. The ground underneath the creature froze with a burst, another frost grenade ready for it. Cole quickly unleashed his remaining energy, in the form of freezing balls of ionized gas. They impacted the creature, and, freezing quickly in two layers, held it restrained once again. Now for the finale.

Cole reached his influence of energy back towards the ground. He pulled up at the lines connecting the creature to the ground, and to his pleasure, they shifted to do his bidding. He bunched them up at the surface, and then tried to move them upwards. Nothing.

The creature cracked through the first layer of ice, it's left head breaking through, roaring in anger. Cole strained harder, pulling the lines like a horse pulling a cart (heh). With a final tug, he felt a portion of his energy drained from him, and another replaced. In his shocked eyes, the 'magical' energy burst forth from the ground. To him, they flared a bright blue, a very, very familiar blue, and wrapped themselves onto the creature, pulling it downwards against the earth. Cole manipulated the current of energy like a musician tuning his strings. The coils of energy flattened out, thickening and spreading, into a prison of ice. The energy didn't stop there, though. It seemed to coalesce even more, building upon itself, and intertwining with the air lines. The Lines of the Earth flowed freely through it, showing the real power of this icy prison, and the Lines of the Sky seemed to contain it. With a flash and expulsion of extra energy, the Lines seemed to stabilize, or at least as much as volatile energy lines waiting to be tapped into can.

To the naked eye, it was a frozen monster. To Cole, it was a glowing masterpiece of magical energy, bioelectric cryogenics, and the near-literal fabric of the universe. And then Cole blacked out.

A/N : Sorry for the wait, but TOTAL WAR WEEKEND, BL2, LOADOUT! but I just had an idea. Cole can't use GUNS, but I have a very clever way of making one he can... (Gauss gun incoming, maybe)