All intellectual property (c) their owners. The author does not own Disney, Marvel, or Hasbro.
Except maybe a little bit as stock in part of a 401(K) or some other investment plan. He'd have to check.
It's probably complicated.
Twilight fired bolt after bolt of destructive magic at the hulking, armored figure. It was scored in spots by her assault, but it wasn't stopping. Her heart sank as she realized that she'd be exhausted long before she could disable it.
“What's this thing called?” she asked the other armored being, this “Iron Man” who had showed up just after their new foes.
“Iron Monger,” Stark replied. “The guy inside, Stane, is an old friend from my Earth, but it looks like he’s gotten some new help from AIM.”
“AIM?” she asked as she and Iron Man continued to retreat before Iron Monger's onslaught.
“Advanced Idea... The people who made that portal from my Earth to your ‘Everfree Forest.’ You know, Princess, that's probably not that important right now. What's more important is it's got upgrades, seems especially resistant to magic attacks -- clearly Stane did his homework about what he’d run into here, and we...”
Another round from Iron Monger landed between them, the ensuing explosion knocking them both off their feet. Twilight's head rang despite the shield she brought up at the last moment, and she groggily tried to get back to her hooves.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The angry roar of a motorcycle as the Ghost Rider pulled up in front of her cottage was enough to drive Fluttershy into hiding. He didn’t know much about the portal he’d found, the one that led him into this world, but he knew that evil from his world had come through it. Before he went after them though, he wanted to know what form evil took in this odd little world. The solution that came first to his mind was, typically, very much the direct approach. Find someone and make them feel the pain they’ve caused others. This was simply the closest house to the forest and, therefore, the portal.
The door opened and Fluttershy saw the stuff of nightmares stalk into her house: a tall, bipedal figure with a flaming skull where any reasonable thing would keep its head. She whimpered and scrambled up the stairs, hearing the horrible thing ascend swiftly behind her. At the end of a hall she flung open a window and dove out of it, only to feel a chain as cold as the grave itself wrap tightly around her and pull her back in. Her hooves dug into the wooden floor until their pads bled. Her own terrified screams rang in her ears amid the tumult of her frantic wings. All futile, as she was dragged inexorably back to the laughing monster. As she felt his bony hand on her, she collapsed helplessly into shivering, gasping heap.
“Please-please-please-don't-hurt-me-please...” she blubbered, her only answer his hideous grin. The skeletal hand grabbed her muzzle and held it while he stared into her eyes, his “penance gaze” brutally driving itself into her very soul.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Rarity ran out of her boutique as it shook to the rumble of distant explosions, only to skid to a halt as she saw the being in front of her. What this being was was simultaneously obvious – a giant head, in a chair floating several yards above the ground, with little arms and legs dangling limply from it –and almost completely mysterious. It looked vaguely like Lyra's description of her mythological humans.
Lyra is going to be sooo disappointed. “Excuse me sir,” she said, reminding herself that this was not the best time to collapse onto a couch, “But a gentleman should always introduce himself to a lady.”
He – or it – answered in a bizarre, raspy, high-pitched voice. “You face MODOK. You are the one who finds gems. Surrender and you will not be harmed.”
Rarity glowered at the strange creature, her horn glowing as she levitated nearby rocks at it. None of it did any good, she saw, as they were simply deflected away before even reaching him.
MODOK made an even creepier sound this time – laughter. “Pitiful. Kinetic attacks are useless against my shield. There is nothing you can throw at me that I cannot deflect! The circuitry within my Doomsday Chair lies far beyond your measly comprehension.” His eyes met hers, trying to ensure her understanding. “You are like an ant before the fruits of my intellectual prowess.”
He paused as Rarity's horn flared again, with the same eldritch light leaking out between the panels from within his chair. Rarity cast random pulls and pokes within the complex machinery before his hovering Doomsday Chair became, just a normal, distinctly non-hovering chair, temporarily several feet off the ground.
Very temporarily. After gravity took over and forcefully introduced MODOK’s face to the ground, Rarity trotted past him, observing, “There's a lesson my sister taught me when she was two years old and got into my first sewing machine: it turns out one don't have to quite understand something in order to break it. Not to mention that I've always had a talent for detail work.
“And another thing? Those colors? You are so not an autumn.”
As she put the odd creature out of sight and largely out of mind, he used his not-quite-useless hands to open one of the panels in his chair, and began to work furiously.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Pinkie Pie rushed through the outskirts of Ponyville toward the sound of explosions, assuming (not without cause) that if there was something this dangerous happening near her town, at least one of her friends was probably in the middle of it. Her headlong dash was interrupted when a tall, slender man dressed in armor and a cloak appeared right before her, seemingly out of thin air. “Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie! I don't recognize you, and that means you're new here, and that means a party – but not right now. I'm sorry, but some of my friends could be in trouble.”
“Indeed, some of them probably are,” the figure agreed nonchalantly. “However that can wait. My name is Loki, but I won't stand on formalities. You can simply call me your new lord and master. And I'll let you in on a helpful hint – now would be a good time for you to bow.” He spoke while smiling as if this was all somehow his private little joke.
“Okee dokee, Loki!” she agreed, wincing briefly as she felt a grave disturbance, as though a thousand voices moaned out, and rolled their eyes. She bowed quickly and then tried to go around him. “That was easy! Now, if you'll excuse me...”
Another image of the same man appeared in her path, leaving the original image where it stood. “I'm afraid you don't quite understand. We're taking over,” he explained as if to someone a little slow. “We rule. You obey. Do you understand?”
She shrugged bubblely, something he would not have thought possible. Then again, he had known to expect talking, multicolor ponies. “Well, you'll have to speak to the mayor about that,” she responded. “I don't get caught up in politics. It gets weird. But I'll be sure to invite her to the party and you two can talk over punch. And now I really must go and help my friends....”
She trotted past him, only to bump into yet another identical image, this one with a sword. “I'm awfully sorry,” Loki said, and he almost genuinely looked it. “My power is nigh infinite, but my patience doesn't quite match. I've had enough of trying to get through to you, and I've decided that the best way you can serve me, I'm afraid, is as an example.” Pinkie's eyes grew wide as Loki raised the sword above his head...
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
“Feel the pain of your sins as they burn your soul,” the Ghost Rider rasped. “The agony of what you have inflicted on others. The...” He trailed off. “That day and a half you were very rude,” he finished, a little lamely. He let go of her, disappointed at the pure spirit he'd found. What fun is there in being the scourge of evil if the evil here is so weak? What about... No, she was under mind control then.
He laughed again, nastily, but a little ruefully this time. “Pitiful. I'll be going now.”
Yet, oddly enough, he couldn't seem to turn away.
“No,“ she countered quietly as she felt the Stare coming upon him. Her voice was quiet, but not it’s normal, unassuming quiet. This was an even quieter quiet, one left low in volume so as to leave room for all kinds of dire things left just barely unspoken. “No, I don't think you'll be going just quite yet.”
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
“I'm out of ammo,” Iron Man told Twilight.
“That's bad, right?”
“Ammo, Princess! Ammunition! I've got nothing else to fire, launch, or zap, and we're going to be folded, spindled, and probably mutilated.” He turned toward Twilight. “Run. Just run. I'll hold him here as long as I...” Stark froze as Twilight, without a word, ran.
“I didn't think you'd actually...” Tony began as he stared after her, before Iron Monger's armored fist collided with the back of Tony's armored head.
Twilight, seeing that Tony had somehow missed seeing Stane's charge, strained and magicked Iron Man out of Iron Monger's reach. “What do we do now?”
“Well, I think he's out of ammo too, but we can't stop him from just clobbering anyone. Frankly, at this point I usually just shoot my mouth off a lot.”
“I thought was what you were doing before.”
Tony gave her a look that somehow conveyed itself clearly through an inch and a half of titanium-gold alloy.
“All right,” Twilight said. “I have an idea. Just hold him for a bit.” Iron Man sighed, nodded, lit his jets, and tackled Iron Monger with every bit the confidence of a chihuahua trying to wrestle down a Clydesdale. Twilight's horn glowed again as she summoned the last of her strength on a desperate gamble.
“What are you doing?” Tony cried. “He's getting stronger!”
“It's my come-to-life spell!”
“And it makes him stronger? That was your idea, Princess?”
“Will you please stop calling me that?” Twilight, spent, half-collapsed as Iron Monger threw Iron Man to one side before walking toward her.
“Thank you,” Stane's amplified, mocking, laughter spilled from his armor. “Remind me to keep some of you little unicorns around. I'll save a fortune in batteries.” The powerful figure continued to stride toward her. “But not you, I think. You've already been enough trouble.”
Twilight got raggedly back to her hooves, and stepped aside as Iron Monger continued on past her at high speed, Stane's mocking voice suddenly gained a note of irritation, and then, swiftly, panic. “What... What have you done?”
Twilight smiled weakly. “As I said, my come-to-life spell. One of the few spells I've never mastered. It tends to leave whatever I cast it on running a little bit, well...” Iron Monger charged on uncontrollably into the distance, probably out of hearing range, but Twilight turned toward Iron Man as he walked up to her.
“...A little out of control,” Twilight finished, for Tony's sake. “You said he was shielded against destructive magic. Strictly speaking, this is just a utility spell.”
“Princess,” Stark responded, “I take back half the nasty things I thought about you.”
“Thanks. I think.”
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Rarity was approaching her boutique to retrieve a stash of first-aid supplies she kept on-hand, when she stopped short again. This time it was the lack of MODOK where she'd left him that halted her. An absence that unfortunately rectified itself as he floated around the building.
“Where was I?” MODOK asked. “Oh yes. I was about to demonstrate why you, my little pony, are like an ant before me.”
“Because you can't get rid of me very easily?” Rarity's horn glowed again, then flickered out as a look of astonishment came across her face.
MODOK grinned, a truly gruesome sight. “Because my mind can do what no one else can. Simply by observing you in action I was able to reconfigure my force-field to protect against magic instead of kinetic attack. Inconvenient, but worth it in this arcane kingdom. In case your limited mind can't quite keep up, that means you can no longer reach into my Doomsday Chair and yank out my wires, pitiful fool.”
Rarity backed up, hunkered down, and poured more power into a levitation spell than she ever had before. MODOK simply laughed at her. “Still trying the same old trick? I have to tell you, I expected better. I may have expected too much. Are you going to keep trying that until your brain squeezes out of your ears? I hope you don't break something. The only reason I need to keep you in one piece is that your gem-finding talent will make me a fortune.”
A thin dribble of blood did indeed start trickling from Rarity's nose, an ugly stain on her alabaster muzzle. “Not... quite..” she grunted out. “I'm actually calling an old boyfriend of mine for help.”
MODOK laughed again, “Yes? And who is this hero coming to your rescue?” He then noticed, belatedly, a shadow approaching him.
Rarity grinned even as the continued effort drove her to her knees. “Oh, you'll like him,” she wheezed. “A solid gentleman. A real rock.
“His name is Tom.”
MODOK looked up, his eyes growing enormously just before the boulder come down on his over-sized head, driving him and his chair to the ground again.
Rarity shakily trotted up to four little limbs splayed out from under a very big rock. “You give up for good this time, right?”
“Nnnngle...”
“Close enough,” she decided, before collapsing.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Loki paused before bringing down his sword. His soon-so-be-victim was staring wide-eyed over his shoulder. In almost anyone else this might have been a trick, and an old one at that, but he'd already gathered that Pinkie was anything but that predictable. He felt safe enough to follow her gaze to where a distant, azure pegasus was bearing down on him. “Excuse me,” he told Pinkie. “Your execution will have to be postponed for a bit. I do apologize for the inconvenience, but it looks like someone else has volunteered to be an example first.”
Several more images of Loki appeared around them, then they all spoke in one voice, audible even at Rainbow Dash's distance. “Let's make your last moments alive a little more fun, shall we? Well, my brave little pegasus, which is me, and which are the distractions?”
Rainbow Dash wasn't famed for being an intellectual, but, traveling at the speeds she loved, she knew well how to stay a few moves ahead in the game. She dove down, leaving her trademark multihued trail behind her as she zig-zagged from Loki to Loki, never quite making contact until she suddenly grabbed one in mouth and forehooves and, straining, shot upward with her astonished passenger. The other images of Loki swiftly faded.
“Your dopplegangers didn't flinch,” she explained around her teeth's grip on his cloak’s neckstrap. “You did.”
All of his false congeniality fled Loki as he raged at her. “Then that was the stupidest smart move you've ever made. You're merely an athletic little pony, and you face a god.” He was still holding his sword, which he aimed at her belly. “Feel free to beg, you miserable worm,” he seethed.
Her unexpected response was to grin at him. “Can you fly?” Her grin was a front at first, for she didn't really know that he couldn't, but then Loki put two and two together and looked down, then blanched at the clouds already below them and receding quickly.
“Um...”
She spit out the cloak, coasting upwards with only her forehooves supporting him. “I'm going to take that as a no. Now explain again what you're going to do to me?”
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
“Did they really think they could take over the world with just a few people?” Twilight asked from where she was resting.
“From what I could gather in their lab on my Earth, it was nothing so ambitious. They just wanted to carve out a territory for a few weeks, and then try again somewhere else. This world is so lousy with gems that a few weeks mining here would make them richer than some countries back...” Tony trailed off as Twilight got to her feet again. “Where do you think you're going?”
“Rarity! She's my friend and if they’re after gems she could be in great danger. I have to...”
“You're exhausted, and you're no good to anyone now. Tell me where she is, and I'll take care of her.”
Twilight eyed him knowingly. “Whatever you look like under all that armor, I think you're as tired as I am.”
Their argument was interrupted as Fluttershy fly down to her, but Twilight gasped as an over-the-top-SCARY being pulled up behind her on some sort of cycle.
Twilight dove between them. “Get out of here, Fluttershy! I've got this!” Somehow.
“Oh, it's OK, Twilight,” she reassured her friend softly. Fluttershy turned to the Ghost Rider. “See to the safety of all citizens. Use only as much force as required.” She looked him in the eye-sockets. “Understood?”
“Clearly, ma’am,” he answered as he avoided her gaze, before he gunned the engine and rode toward the town.
Tony stared wordlessly at Fluttershy, then Twilight, and asked her the most intelligent thing a genius could under the circumstances. “Huh?”
Twilight shook her head. “I'd ask, but I'm afraid she might explain it to me.”
“It looks like everything's taken care of but some mop-up work to ensure we’ve got them all, Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “I think we can let my new friend take care of that while we see to medical aid. I didn't see anypony seriously hurt, but we have to check for anypony injured and hiding.
“Or, you know, whatever you think is best.”
“Fluttershy, I found out that Rarity could be in terrible danger!”
“Oh, Rarity's fine. We passed by the boutique on our way through town. She's as exhausted as you are – I mean, no offence. You look fine. But Rarity's OK.”
“Then I think I'd better go chasing after Stane,” Iron Man said after he digested this. “He's liable to run into a lake, and I don't think Iron Monger's immersible.” He took off in the general direction their opponent had disappeared into.
Twilight nodded, then crouched and spun about around as a winged shadow ran past her. Seeing it was only Derpy Hooves, she exhaled slowly and tried to calm herself. “Hi, Derpy. You missed all the fun.”
“Sorry,” Derpy answered contritely. “Galactus took longer to deal with than I thought.”
Twilight was distracted from further inquiry by hearing a distant holler of fear, growing louder, but was in turn distracted from that when Pinkie bounced up, “Hi, everypony! Twilight, could you step a few feet to the right, my tail's twitching something awful.”
Twilight did so, expecting another mysterious flower pot, but instead the cry of fear climaxed as a man dressed in armor and a cloak belly-flopped into the ground where she'd been. Taken aback, she approached him tentatively, barely noticing as a very sheepish Rainbow Dash landed on the other side of the downed figure.
“He kind of slipped...” Dash explained. Twilight stared at her, eyes wide with horror. Dash winced at the look. “Well, he's heavy!”
“Oh, don't worry, Dashie! He'll be OK. A rogue Asgardian ice giant falling to his demise would be a totally different twitch.”
The figure in question groaned slightly, bringing an audible sigh of relief from those around him.
“Is that a human?” Twilight asked.
“Nope! Asgardian ice giant, silly – I just said. Humans are mythical creatures.”
“Lyra is going to be sooo disappointed,” Rainbow Dash noted as Rarity slowly trotted up. “She said that if anything alien came to Equestria, it’d definitely be a human.”
“Be that as it may, girls,” Twilight said, standing proudly with her head held high. “I think this all goes to show that no foe, no matter how powerful or determined, is a match for...”
“Being dropped from 30,000 feet?”
“Innocent confusion?”
“Preternatural gazes that subsume one’s very will?”
“A rock?” When the others looked at Rarity, wearing her most innocent expression she clarified “It was a big rock.”
Twilight shrugged. “...Not quite what I was going for, but those work too.”
Apple Jack cantered up and poked at Loki’s crumpled figure, eliciting another groan from him. “What’d I miss?”
Author's Note
Proofreading and helpful suggestions by VunderGuy. All mistakes are my own.
Constructive criticism is very welcome.
