"You can't change my mind, Spike."

"Come on, you know he would beat Ironman."

"Death Battle would beg to differ."

"What?"

"What?"

Spike shook his head before holding up the comic book in his hands.

"Salem, Batman totally fits your whole deal. Why do you like some rich guy in a metal suit?" Spike asked to which Salem laughed, smiling at his fellow comic compatriot.

"Counterpoint; why would I like a rich guy in a bat-themed suit with a knack for recruiting orphans to fight against his war against crime," Salem pointed out before lifting back up his own comic, "But I will admit that I love the hellbat armor's design."

"I could have guessed," Spike laughed slightly while Malo stuck her tongue at the dragon and returned to look back over Salem's shoulder. "But what about Warmachine?" Spike continued.

"Which one?" Salem with clear amusement.

"There's more than one?" Spike gawked as Salem simply nodded.

"Buck me," Spike stared at his comic when he thought of a question before looking up to Salem. "Do you have-?"

Before Spike could finish, Salem held out a Warmachine comic book. "Wait till you get to the volume when Punisher becomes Warmachine."

The dragon stared at him wide-eyed, "And you have that entire series?"

Salem simply nodded to which Spike could only laugh.

"How big is that backpack?"

"A magician never tells his secrets."

"Heh, you sound like Trixie."

"Who?"

"Right. You haven't met her yet. You might like her, she's a lot more fun to be around than she was before."

"Before?"

"It’s a long story," Spike replied while flipping the page of his comic.

Choosing to end the conversation, the three decided to read their comics in silence, occasionally discussing the various superheroes, villains or concepts. This bliss continued for an hour or two until Salem suddenly stood up, catching the other two’s attention. Every instinct in the neo-human screamed that something was wrong, to which both Spike and Malo picked up from his startled expression.

"What is it?" asked Spike worriedly as he and Malo slowly stood up from their seats.

Salem was unable to answer him as a loud “Bang!!” shook the room, almost knocking them from their feet. The explosion was felt all over the castle, echoing across the halls and shattering several windows. Not needing to look at each other and almost in sync, the three dropped their comics, bolted out the door and into the hallway. Malo tossed Salem his helmet which he caught and placed on his head as they kept running.

"It sounded like that blast came from within the throne room," Salem told Spike as his helmet finished sealing itself.

"How do you know?" panted the dragon.

Pulling his plasma thrower from his pack, Salem set the impossible weapon to its lowest setting. "I have really sharp hearing," Salem turned to Spike, assuring the worried dragon, "Stay behind me, alright?"

Rushing forward, Salem's vision switched to advanced thermal topics, spotting multiple heat signatures within the throne room. Already his mind raced with different plans of attack while recalling the entire layout of the throne room to the smallest detail. Shoulder-tackling a door, Salem led the charge with Spike close behind him into the ruined royal chamber.

(Moments ago)

"Discord, out of all the things you have ever done; which is A LOT mind you!" Luna hissed, throwing her hand out at the draconequus, "THIS has to be the worst one yet!"

The disempowered god of chaos gave a light-hearted chuckle while tapping his two mismatched fore-fingers together.

"Well Princess, you need to understand that my intentions were well intentioned. After all, what better way to get Twilight ready for-?"

"ENOUGH!" Luna roared in the famous royal canterlot voice causing Discord to hold his tail out of fear.

"Dang. I know that I've been gone for a while but I never heard Luna use the voice like that before," Sunset whispered to Rainbow Dash.

"Same here," the daredevil pegasus nodded in agreement before her eyes looked down at Sunset's cast, "How bad is it?"

"It's not as bad as you would think,” Sunset shrugged, “but I have to say I missed healing magic." She held her free hand over her cast-covered arm while Luna continued chewing out Discord.

"And not to mention the fact you masked yourself as Grogar, of all ponies!"

"Actually, he's a goat," Discord hesitantly corrected.

Before Luna could continue her tirade against Discord, Celestia stopped her before offering the draconequus her own scolding, "Discord you might have believed your intentions as “well intentioned”, but you have made a grave mistake in uniting those three together! Who knows the destruction if Sombra were to join them."

Discord gave a small carefree smile, "Well, I guess we'll never know since Twilight and her friends have already beaten dear Sombra."

"We… didn't," Rarity corrected.

This caused Discord to turn towards the white-coated unicorn, "Pardon?"

"Yeah, this big guy named Salem beat him… er, her, after turning Sombra into a mare," Rainbow Dash informed the powerless chaos god, who was currently trying to process this new information.

"Wait, Salem? Did I miss something big and chaotic here?"

Before Discord could have his answer, the large stained glass window above the two thrones was blasted apart by a magical energy explosion, causing the group to duck for cover. Slowly recovering from the shock of the blast, the group could only watch in complete horror as three familiar faces dropped into the trashed throne room.

"Oh, it's good to be back!" Tirek laughed.

Twilight was the first to act and summon a massive domed shield around her and her friends, to which Queen Chrysalis laughed at the youngest princess's futile resistance.

"You think your pathetic shield could stop us?" Chrysalis mocked while Cozy Glow and Tirek flanked her sides as Grogar's Bell hovered above them, "The Pillars are defeated. Your school is abandoned. Face it Twilight, you've already lost!"

Standing ready to hold her ground, Twilight was about to retort against the former changeling queen when the Throne Room’s side doors burst open, revealing two figures rushing forward. Discord recognized his O&O companion Spike but was unfamiliar with the taller, dark and heavily armored figure standing next to the little dragon.

"Friends of yours?" the dark figure asked Spike, pointing at the trio of villains to which the dragon shook his head.

"Not really, no."

The figure nodded in acknowledgment. "Get behind something,” he (Discord assumes it’s a male due to his voice) order’s Spike as he readies what Discord assumes to be a weapon, “This could get messy."

Turning back to the three threats in front of him, Salem watched his HUD begin to scan the three standing in front of him before the advanced systems within his helmet zoomed in on the floating bell behind them.

'Fuck me, these readings are insane! What is that?'

"Well well, who is this? A new friend of yours Twilight?" Tirek smirked, raising his fist before popping his knuckles, "And your pet dragon too? This should be fun."

Raising his plasma thrower, Salem takes aim at the trio. "Stand down, Big Red. You will not like the alternative," threatened Salem.

Tirek laughed mockingly, "Oh, I like this one."

"The more the merrier!" Chrysalis chuckled before sending a toxic green wave that shattered Twilight's shield.

Salem grabbed Spike, using his own body to shield the dragon from the attack. Dazed and still recovering from Chrysalis’ magic wave, Salem was grabbed by the head by Tirek and slammed him into the closest pillars, further disorienting the Chimera even as he raised his weapon. Unamused, the giant centaur decided to end his misery, grabbed Salem by his chest armor and tossed him out a broken window.

"SALEM!" Pinkie Pie cried, unable to move while she and the others watched as the chimera fell from their sight.

Just as they thought that they lost their new friend as he tumbled out the window, Salem in his quick reflex grabbed a ledge, narrowly missing. Slightly dazed at what had happened, Salem silently cursed at having let his guard down but placed his weapon back onto his pack before looking up at Malo who was standing on the window frame. Reaching out to him, Salem took her hand before being pulled back up through the shattered stained glass window.

As he carefully crept back into the Throne Room Salem noticed the three villains close by, thankfully preoccupied in their monologue to notice him. He noticed Spike who was peeking out from behind a pillar. The little dragon saw him from his hiding spot and waved to him to which Salem lowered his hand down in an attempt to have him stay out of sight. Silently, Salem crawled over the window frame and onto some rubble below to soften his landing, carefully shimming his way down.

"Pity, I was actually wondering if he was worth a challenge. Guess this only proves my point; friendship can only do so much, Twilight. There is one thing far more powerful than your precious friendship," Chrysalis smiled while grabbing the paralyzing pony by the neck, "Care to know what it is? FEAR!"

As they laughed, none took notice of Salem who dropped down behind them. Quickly, he moved forward leaping up into the air and drop-kicked Chrysalis in the face with the heels of his boots. As the changeling dropped Twilight, Salem quickly caught the purple pony before turning back to the trio. Spike rushed over by Salem's side with his fists raised.

"What's the plan?" Spike asked to which Salem gently placed the paralyzed alicorn into the dragon's arms.

"Protect the others, we got this."

"We?"

Salem held a finger to his mouth to which Spike blinked before realizing what he meant and grinned. All the while Chrysalis pushed herself off the ground holding her cheek.

"YOU DARE STRIKE ME!"

"Hey, you kinda had it coming. Assaulting the leading body of this government as well as several recognized officials. I mean, seriously? I don’t even know what these Elements of whatever is and even I’m not stupid enough to do this shit you’re trying to pull," Salem pointed out, aiming his plasma-based weapon at the three.

"Ohhhhhh, this is going to be fun," Cozy glow smiled with malicious intent in her eyes.

"No, he's mine!" Chrysalis hissed and fired a burst of poison magic but was repelled by Salem’s advanced armor.

Going for his own attack, he took aim and pulled the trigger, releasing red plasma 'flame'. Even at its lowest setting the flames still melted the stone floor in seconds. The queen summoned a shield before her while Cozy took cover behind Tirek who ripped up a large piece of the floor to protect himself.

While the plasma-based impossibility disbursed, Salem swung forward, his fist clenched and easily shattering the magical shield the changeling had protecting her. Hitting her on the other cheek this time he sent her flying into the ruined solar throne, in the same instant the Chimera rushed to Tirek's makeshift shield.

Using said shield as a ramp, the chimera flipped over it before throwing three small ball-shaped devices at the two behind the stone cover. Before they hit the ground the orbs exploded into a thick yellow foam, enveloping the small filly and centaur before quickly hardening. Landing on his feet and taking advantage of the reprieve, Salem activated the cooling system on his weapon. As his gun vented off the temporary containment foam did not hold Tirek for long as he broke free with a roar, throwing his massive fist at Salem. Spotting this, Salem jumped, narrowly dodging the attack before grabbing the horn of the beast and pointing his weapon at the ancient's face.

"You wouldn't dare," snarled Tirek.

Without saying another word, Salem fired a burst of plasma point-blank at the giant's face, causing Tirek to roar in pain as he backhanded him. This time expecting the hit, Salem braced himself to a controlled landing as the chimera's boots threw sparks as it scraped against the stone floor. Cozy Glow, having finally broken free, fired a hail of red spike spells at Salem who weaved through each spike, throwing another foam bomb at the kid to which the rose pink colored pony gingerly dodged.

"HA, you missed!" Cozy laughed, pointing at him.

Salem clenched his hand to a remote, activating the capture device as it detonated behind her, covering the alicorn with the foam leaving only her face exposed. Sliding across the floor, Cozy stopped at Salem's feet, staring up at his red eyed faceplate, worried he was going to hurt her.

Salem lightly set his foot on top of Cozy's foam-covered head, growled, "Stay out of this kid," and kicked the foam-covered filly backwards, sliding to a corner to deal with later.

Turning his attention to Tirek, Salem watched the large centaur’s heavily burnt face glare furiously at him as his wounds regenerated due to his magic.

"I'm going to melt you inside your armor!" Tirek roared, summoning his dark magic, focusing it between his horns and firing a beam of concentrated energy at him.

Salem ran across the throne room, holstering the energy weapon in his pack as his mind went into overdrive, thinking of any way to beat this giant. He could use his freeze ray like he did in the Crystal Empire but energy weapons didn't seem to have a real lasting effect when he fought Sombra, so he had to think outside the box.

'Screw it.'

Closing in on Tirek, Salem threw him a mean right hook followed by another from his left, completely stunning Tirek as he proceeded to use a mixed style of martial arts to overwhelm the giant. Tirek couldn't see how fast he was being punched, not realizing that most of the hits weren't from Salem; rather it seemed there was a second pair of fists hitting him.

Attacking in perfect sync, Malo and Salem finished Tirek with one final combined uppercut, sending him flying at least twenty feet into the air before the giant's body came crashing down. Chuckling, Salem held out his fist while Malo gave him a side-by fistbump; resembling something from an anime.

"Wahoo! Go Salem!" Spike cheered while the others began to feel the effects of Chrysalis's magic slowly fade away.

Salem turned to them with a thumbs up, unknowingly dropping his guard down which allowed Chrysalis to teleport and pick the chimera up by the neck. Before he could reach for his weapon, his wrist was grabbed by a now recovered Tirek while Cozy Glow readied another spell, aiming right at Salem's head.

"I don't know about you two but this one is getting on my nerves!" Chrysalis hissed while Tirek nodded.

"Finally we agree on something!"

"Here-here!"

Salem stared down at them, noticing Malo slowly began to creep up on Chrysalis, drawing a knife, attempting to free her partner with a few well-placed strikes. The former human however stops her with a small hand signal. Realizing a brewing plan, the impossible lady moved back slightly with a 'smile' on her bone-like face.

"I couldn't help but overhear you guys say something about fear being more powerful than friendship... Did I hear that right?" Salem asked while still being restrained causing Chrysalis to smile at him.

"That's right. Salem was it, are you afraid right now?" the queen mocked with a sneer.

"Not really, no. But coming from a guy who’s lived with fear for the past few years there’s something you gotta know," Salem choked slightly while he began to feel the queen's grip grow tighter on his throat.

"Oh, and what's that?" Chrysalis asked.

"Two can play that game… And I can play it better."

Before the trio could react, Salem flicked his wrist where a device from his armored sleeve gave off a blinding white flash.

(01100101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110010!!!)

"AHHH MY EYES!" Tirek hissed gently stroking his eyelids trying to soothe the pain in his eyes.

"Damn another dirty trick!" Chrysalis opened her eyes with a clawed hand. She readied to strike Salem but froze upon noticing that he wasn't there, "What?"

"Hey, where are we?" Cozy glow asked, finally being able to see, causing Chrysalis and Tirek to notice they were no longer in the Throne room.

"What is this?" Tirek snarled, turning to the concrete walls of the room they seemingly were teleported into.

"Wait! Where the bell!" Cozy cried, noticing that their only trump card was missing causing the three to look around the room.

The giant of the three turned to a metal door across the room and punched it before roaring out.

"You think this place can hold us, boy! We may not have the bell but we still have the magic of Grogar coursing through our veins!" To his shock, his massive fists didn't even dent the strange metal door. "What the-?"

The other two noticed this and were just as hooked as Tirek looking at the metal door before something grabbed their attention.

Crying.

Someone was crying right behind them.

Turning around the three saw it, huddled in the corner across from them sat some creature crying.

Both the creature and the crying were unnerving.

The crying sounded like that of a grown stallion having something so terrible happen to him that he broke down into a mess. And yet the appearance of this creature unsettled the trio as a chill ran down their spines. Pale gray skin covered the extremely malnourished body of the creature with long limbs that had to be three times too big for its torso.

They stared at it for a moment before Tirek chuckled at it, turning into a full-on boast of laughter.

"I understand now!" Tirek laughed, "We are to be afraid of what? This creature? This pathetic thing is nothing more than a broken mess!"

Tirek walked over to the creature and grabbed the pale shoulder of the thing before pulling it back to get a better look at it.

The creature's face looked up at him; its face… It was just as unnerving as the rest of it, but Tirek felt something as he stared into the pale eyes of that freak. At that moment as he laid eyes to the creature's face, the monster jerked forward before grabbing its face, attempting to conceal it. Tirek stepped back as the thing slowly rose up on its unnatural legs. The trio watched helplessly as the creature stood on its full height, towering higher than even Tirek. Suddenly, it began to shake its head, still holding its face while it slowly curled open its mouth and let out a horrible noise.

Backing against the door, the three stared at the creature while the noise grew and grew.

The creature's head shook more violently while the noise kept growing louder and faster. Realizing the terrifying predicament they found themselves in, the three rushed for the door, pounding and pleading for anyone to open it.

"For the love of the gods open this door!" Tirek screamed, his voice booming over the others.

All was in vain as the creature suddenly stopped before giving an ungodly scream and rushed at them with its bloodstained claws wide open and jaw entirely unhinged.

Then silence...

(Meanwhile)

Salem stood over the trio who was now shaking in pure terror while their eyes darted wildly with their minds currently experiencing the effects of a foundation interrogation device. Looking at the small 'neuralyzer' like device, Salem shivered at the memory of the device when he accidentally used it on himself and was given the 'plague doctor' experience. He was half tempted to use the same plague doctor on them, but seeing how one of them was a child he decided just to scare the shit out of them with the shy guy.

"Damn dude, what was that?" Spike asked, walking over with the Solar Guard finally able to find a way into the Throne room.

"I don't have Scarecrow's fear toxin but I did give them a taste of their own medicine," Salem answered.

"What do you- Ohhhhhhhh!"

"Don't worry, it won't last long. Probably ten minutes tops. But for them, it will only be a few seconds," The chimera stated, then pointing to the strange bell from before. "What's this thing?"

Noticing the chimera attempting to reach for the relic, Luna struggled towards him as she cried out, "Salem don't!"

Luna expected the worst to happen to the former human; agony, pain, cosmic insanity, something of the like. Which was why it came as a surprise to watch Salem pick the dark relic completely unfazed and unharmed from its defensive curse to suck the living magic from those it wasn't bound to.

"What?" Looking at him confused, the group watched while Salem raised up the bell tapping it with his armored finger while inspecting the dark relic.

Luna sat down, her body still slightly numb from Chrysalis's spell.

"That is strange," Luna looked down in thought while Discord tried to stumble his way toward Salem.

"Hello, there my boy. Can I ask for a quick favor if you would," Discord spoke, trying to get the dark-armored savior's attention.

"Discord, sit down! You're going to hurt yourself!" Spike warned rushing over to the chaos god.

"Nonsense I'm just finnnnneeee- That's funny, I taste gold for some reason," the chaos being slurred before passing out in front of the two.

Spike panicked for his friend's well-being compelling Salem to rush over to help.

"Sister?" Celestia noticed the look on Luna; she had seen such a look many times on her younger sibling before, "Lulu, what is it?"

"Tia, is it possible that-" Luna shook her head. "No, forget it,"

"Luna, what is it?"

"It's nothing. Perhaps Salem's armor protected him from the bell's curse," Taking wind of her reaction Celestia nodded before looking at Luna.

"That could be so. What was the other thought you had?"

"Nothing Tia, I'm just overthinking things from the adrenaline rush," Luna answered.

Celestia nodded, leaving the night princess to wonder.

Author's Note

(Update-Chapter rework 1/01/2023)

This chapter felt a bit weird beforehand and I did mess around with it but my buddy Rikithemonk sent me some writing advice. To which I decided 'well since I'm fixing these grammar errors might as well fix some story errors as well'.

So yeah reworked. Also forgot to reference an SCP.

WHOA BIG BOSS FIGHT HERE!

I did say there was going to be action and here you go 3,300+ words!

Some of you may be wondering why Salem's advanced weapons didn't really do any damage against Tirek. Well, Salem developed the Plasma thrower to completely destroy the flesh from SCP-001 also it was on it's lowest setting but it's extremely dangerous if used on it's highest or even medium setting!
-Also the freeze ray is just a freeze ray my headcanon is that it's the most common thing the foundation finds and just has a bucket of them laying around.

Think similar to the plasma weapons from Warhammer 40k.

He does have more than his plasma thrower and freeze ray, his backpack is holding a lot of other equipment. As Salem said before you either 'die or you adapt' so he might be switching weapons a bit.

Plus the SCP-verse allows me to use a bunch of SciFi tech from stuff like HG Wells and other stuff.

Before I forgot, SCPs in this chapter:
SCP-096 (Note: it wasn't really him but just a simulation for the interrogation device)
SCP-2501

(03/04/2023)

Another special thanks to my awesome editor Joe Toon!