“That’s far enough, Batros!”

The cowled figure – who up until that point had been greedily filling a gigantic sack full of the most precious books in the Eternian Library – turned and scowled. “He-Man!” Batros hissed, his fangs breaking into a snarl and his leathery bat-wings spreading before him as he readied for a fight. “You cannot stop my plan to steal all the library books in the world and thus deprive Eternia of knowledge!”

He-Man, Mightiest Hero In The Universe™ stood legs apart and hands on hips, the light reflecting off his manly physique. He-Man was bold and He-Man was brave, which was useful as he was clad only in furry underwear and chest armour that resembled a belt more than anything that was functional. “An enemy of books is an enemy of freedom!” he boomed, pointing a finger at the foul fiend. “But real knowledge comes from in here!” He thudded his fist against his chest proudly. “From the heart, Batros! From truth and friendship!”

Batros threw his bag of books to the ground, talons emerging from his fists. “If it’s a fight you want, hero, it’s a fight you’ll get!”

“A fight should only ever be the last option!” He-Man admonished, drawing his mighty sword and hurling it through the air. It flew in a perfect arc, slicing through the library’s chandelier and causing the huge circular object to tumble from the ceiling and into Batros, trapping him perfectly within it.

“Curses! Foiled again!” Batros snarled. “I’ll get you next time, He-Man!”

“Not so fast, Batros!” He-Man approached his fallen enemy, looking down at him with suspicion. “Let’s see who you really are!” He reached down, gripping the side of Batros’s face.

Batros blanched in panic. “Wait, what? No!” he yelped, but it was too late. He-Man tugged hard, ripping away Batros’s leathery skin.

“Skeletor!” He-Man gasped in surprise as a skull was revealed beneath Batros’s face. “I knew it!”

“AAAARGH!” Batros screamed. “AAAAARGH!”

“That’s enough from you, Skeletor!” He-Man folded his arms and looked down at his work with a smile on his face. “I think this case has been solved by the book!”

“AAAAARGH!” Batros added.

Suddenly, a mighty crash rocked the library to its foundations. This was followed by even more aftershocks, nearly causing He-Man to lose his footing and fall. From outside the walls of the library a great boom filled the air, followed by the sound of rocks and other debris striking the earth.

Running outside, He-Man stopped in his tracks and slapped a hand to his forehead. “By the Ancients, a giant hole!”

It was, indeed, a giant hole that had appeared from seemingly nowhere before the Universe’s Mightiest Hero. Smoke billowed from its open mouth, the source of which could only belong to another world entirely, or a lava pit, but hopefully it was another world.

He-Man held a finger to his temple and closed his eyes. “I can sense a great disturbance. Like something that was once cherished is now lost!” He-Man opened his eyes and returned his mighty blade onto his back, preparing to dive within the unknown depths of the perilous hole. “I must discover this disturbance and right the wrongs it has caused!”

And with that, He-Man performed a perfectly executed swan dive into the conveniently created hole that had sprung out of seemingly nowhere, his bravery unparalleled in the field of jumping into random holes in the ground without first seeing how deep they are, whether they in fact hold lava, or whether he should bring a rope or not. Because he is He-Man, the most Powerful Man in the Universe!

***

The surface of Equestria shook with the force of a thousand exploding suns as Tirek, Dark Overlord of Evil, continued his rampage of destruction. All that stood in his way had fallen, from the mightiest alicorn princess to the humblest library-tree. Ponies lay scattered on the ground, their intrinsic pony-power lost to the monster.

“Now it ends!” he roared, licking his lips as he looked up at the sun, imagining what a tasty morsel it would be. His massive centaur hooves crushed houses and trees as he crashed over the ruins of Ponyville. “Everlasting darkness! And not even foolish Twilight Sparkle could stop me!”

Unbeknownst to Tirek, deep in the Everfree Forest, that very same foolish Twilight Sparkle stood with baited breath in front of the Tree of Harmony. She looked down at the amulet in her hooves. “The last key!” she breathed, turning to her friends (and Applejack). “This is it, girls, the last key that will open the box and show us how to defeat Tirek!”

The six friends took out their keys and slowly inserted them into the mysterious box that had intrigued them for twenty-four half hour slots previously. It began to glow with magic, a soft ethereal blue light emanating from within.

“What is it? What is it?” Twilight gasped, shielding her eyes from the light. “I… I….”

The light faded and the box cracked open. Twilight eagerly threw it open and looked inside. “Oh.” Her face fell.

Inside was a cobweb and a dead spider.

“Yes, well,” Discord nodded from the side of the room. “That’s more common than you’d think.”

Twilight threw herself to the ground and wailed. “No!” she choked out. “No! This was our last chance! How can we possibly defeat Tirek now?”

“I believe I can help!” boomed a voice as into view stepped a muscle-bound stranger that appeared from a conveniently placed hole nearby on the ground. “My name is He-Man, Mightiest Man in the Universe!” No longer wearing only furry pants, he was now in a gorgeous pink ensemble as his alter-ego, Prince Adam. Whenever travelling through a mysterious portal into an unknown, dangerous world, He-Man was careful to always depower himself so he could be incognito. Nine times out of ten this ended horribly.

“Oh wow!” Twilight gasped, and then her expression dropped. “Wait a minute, are you actually He-Man, or just someone who was dressed up as He-Man and fell through a portal to Equestria?”

“Can some wanna-be, preteen, dressed up He-Man be able to do this?” He-Man withdrew his power-sword and held it by the handle above his head. “By the power of Grayskull!” he shouted, lightning striking the blade and covering him in a blinding light. The light soon died out, revealing a barely naked He-Man with the skimpiest loincloth one could ever imagine. Holding the sword by the blade – the sword apparently in need for a good sharpening and probably rather dull if he was able to do that – he cried out, “I have the power!”

“Amazing! Only a truly mighty hero has a transformation sequence that takes up to twenty seconds to properly complete!” Twilight said.

“Not to mention the lack of properly functional clothing,” Discord remarked, him along with the rest of the ponies looking away from He-Man’s rather manly and uncovered physique.

“And with my power, I shall help you ponies defeat this Tirek and save Equestria!” He-Man stood, his mighty sword at his side still glowing with power. “Oh!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Usually I will also use this to turn my cowardly cat into a mighty steed, but I don’t know what I will do without him – ” He waved the sword in the general direction of Fluttershy. There was a mighty flash, and Fluttershy was surrounded by bolts of lightning.

When the light faded, Fluttershy was wearing a saddle and a ridiculously large red lion helmet. “I don’t like this!” she squeaked. “I was expecting Rainbow Power! Ribbons and glitter!”

He-Man looked around at the small clearing, adjusting to his battle stance. “Now, where is this perilous foe I am to battle against?”

“Right over there!” Twilight pointed through the ruins into the distance, where a hundred foot tall devil-centaur was striding across the land, firing deadly energy bolts from its horns. “That’s Tirek! He escaped from Tartarus, exiling Princess Celestia there in his place, drained all the ponies of their powers, and destroyed my library!”

“He destroyed a library?” He-Man’s grip on his sword tightened. “I can think of no greater crime! Learning is important, stay in school!” He ran towards Fluttershy and leapt onto her back. “Let’s go, Battle Cat… Pony!”

***

Tirek surveyed the chaos and destruction in front of him, and he found it good. He breathed in the heavy smoke and ash of the land and gained satisfaction at every dwelling his mighty hooves crushed in their wake.

“I am the mightiest being who has ever lived!” he roared, punching both arms into the air. “None can stand against me! None dare! The time of Tirek is now and forever!”

“Not so fast, Tirek! Play-time’s over!” A yellow and pink blur streaked through the air as Fluttershy barrelled out of the Everfree Forest, her heroic cargo on her back. He-Man held tightly onto the saddle with one hand, waving his power sword in the other. “Get me close enough to him, Battle Pony! We’ll show that big bully that burning books doesn’t pay!”

“My name is Fluttershy!”

“We can’t afford to change the name of the merchandise that much, so Battle Pony it is!” He-Man waved his sword forward, Fluttershy flying alongside the towering body that was Tirek.

Tirek laughed, his voice carrying about it a sinister force that sent even the strongest of heroes weak to their knees in fear. However, He-Man was no mere hero, and feared nothing!

“So, this is what the ponies have to offer to contest against me?” Tirek asked, eyes tracking the buzzing annoyance that whizzed around him. “A puny, pribbling pony and some hairless monkey that looks like he dressed himself while blindfolded?”

“Hear me, destroyer of knowledge, burner of books, instigator of terror against all things wordy and text-based! Your time has come, and you shall be judged harshly for your crimes!” He-Man boomed, standing upright in his saddle with his sword pointed accusingly at Tirek. “For I am He-Man, the Mightiest Hero in the Universe, and defender of libraries everywhere!”

“Oh dear Celestia, I don’t want to die this way!” Fluttershy screamed.

Tirek leaned forward, a blast of hot air from his nostrils nearly whirling He-Man and Fluttershy away. “Okay, Puny-Man, how exactly are you gonna stop me?” Tirek smiled, his fangs bigger than He-Man and Fluttershy combined. “I have just consumed all the magic from every pony in Equestria, along with the princesses and Discord as well! There’s nothing that can possibly stop me now!”

“Power is nothing without friendship!” He-Man exclaimed, tugging on Fluttershy’s mane. “Fly, Battle Pony, fly!”

“I don’t know where!” Fluttershy’s helmet fell over her eyes and she soared away from Tirek as fast as she could, He-Man waving his sword as she flew. “No, seriously, help!” she cried in sheer terror. “It can’t end like this!”

“You cannot escape my wrath!” Tirek began to pursue, each step covering half a mile. “Black night descends upon you, and Tirek is its name!”

Tirek’s fists of fury rained down upon the pair like a lightning storm, nearly knocking He-Man off his trusty steed once or twice. And even when Tirek used his magic to create a beam of pure, destroying energy to pulverize the duo, He-Man’s steering along with Fluttershy’s sporadic and altogether random flight pattern saved their hides many a time. However, they couldn’t pull off this game forever, since Fluttershy was growing tired and Tirek closer with each attack he delivered.

“There!” He-Man pointed to the centre of Ponyville, and the smouldering remains of the library. “Fly there, Battle-Pony! At the scene of this foul beast’s greatest crime, that is where we shall make our final stand!”

Fluttershy didn’t hear him, she was too busy crying. Thankfully (for He-Man, at least) she crash-landed directly into the centre of the blackened stump that was once the Ponyville public library, known to some (but not many, as that wasn’t actually its name) as Golden Oak Library.

“Pathetic!” Tirek snorted, looking down disdainfully as He-Man emerged from the rubble. The centaur of terror stood like a mountain compared to the molehill that was He-Man, hands on his hips as a dark magic grew in an orb of power thrice He-Man’s size between Tirek’s horns. “Are you going to try and make me feel guilty? Read a book at me, maybe?”

“No!” He-Man cried. “I’m going to hit you with this!”

That said, He-Man gripped the ruined shell of the library, ripping it out of the ground and swinging it like a club directly at Tirek. Tirek’s magical ball of total annihilation went haywire, firing in the air and probably causing property damage somewhere in Equestria when it landed. Tirek screamed in fury as the mighty blow knocked him into the sky, flying in a perfect parabola into the distance. His screams ended just as he hit the earth over the horizon, earthquakes and shaking tearing the land in two.

“You’ll rue the day you ever messed with me, He-Man!” Tirek screamed as he fell into a seemingly bottomless abyss. “Rue it, I say! Ruuuuuuuuuuu—ow! My back! I think I broke my back! Dear god, I can’t feel my legs, my leeeeeeeeeeegs!”

“There!” He-Man dusted his hands. “I threw him straight back into Tartarus! Now his evil is at an end and his magic undone!”

“What?”

Twilight and her friends emerged into the light. Fluttershy threw herself in the direction of Rainbow Dash, sobbing something about finding god.

Twilight shook her head. “No, sorry, what? Are you kidding me? Is that it?

“Well, kinda, yeah,” He-Man admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “I usually only have twenty minutes to pull this off, and I already used most it before the last commercial break, so I was in a bit of a rush. Besides, the evil was vanquished, the day was saved, and most importantly, the lesson was taught!”

“And what lesson would that be?” Twilight asked, tilting her head.

He-Man picked up a half-burned book from the ground and blew some ash off of it. Handing it to Twilight, He-Man winked and said, “The importance of books and learning, and how those who blaze libraries to the ground never win in the end.”

“This seems like the type of lesson only an anarchist or deeply disturbed person would understand,” Twilight mumbled, He-Man wisely ignoring her.

“Well, my work here is done!” He-Man placed his hands on his manly, well-toned hips and laughed. “It seems everything is back to norm - ” He was cut off as a mighty rumble coursed through Ponyville. “Wha - Tirek?” he cried, looking about in confusion.

“No, it’s…” Twilight gasped, eyes widening in shock. Before the assembled ponies (and He-Man) rose a mighty crystal tree-castle from the ground. Turrets sprouted from branches, and flags unfurled like leafs, proudly displaying a six-starred emblem.

“Wow… who lives there?” Twilight stepped forwards in wonderment.

“Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful pupil!” From the sky descended Princess Celestia, restored to power now that Tirek had been defeated. “You have overcome great obstacles as I knew you would, and now you shall get your reward!”

“Oh. Well.” Twilight frowned. “Actually He-Man defeated Tirek.”

He-Man waved at Celestia. “Hello, fair maiden! I am He-Man! Don’t do drugs!”

Celestia looked at Twilight, then at He-Man. “Well…” She paused. “This is awkward. I was expecting Twilight to beat Tirek.”

“Nope, he totally trounced me!” Twilight shrugged. “So He-Man did it instead.”

“In that case…” Celestia gestured towards the castle. “Ta-da! Welcome to your new castle, He-Man!”

“Thank you!” He-Man placed his hands on his hips again, rocking back and forth with jolly laughter. “I shall make it a castle of justice for all! And books, because learning is important!”

“What about me, Princess!” Twilight looked up at Celestia expectantly. “My home got destroyed by Tirek, what do I get?”

Celestia thought about this for a moment. “...Princess He-Man!” she continued, eventually, waving a hoof. Twilight gave a gasp of surprise as her wings vanished, reappearing on He-Man’s back. “He-Man, you are now the Princess of Friendship!”

He-Man wrapped an arm around Celestia’s neck. “You know, Princess, I think we’re going to be the best of friends.”

Everyone laughed.

Apart from Twilight.

And Fluttershy.

And Tirek.

***

He-Man sat back on his crystal throne, a goblet of wine in his hand. In the background, Twilight fussed about, sweeping the floor and making various grumbling noises. “Hello!” He-Man announced, turning to the reader. “In today’s story, Tirek thought that he was better than everyone else because he was more powerful. Imposing your will on others doesn’t make you a good person, it just makes you a bully!” He took a sip from his glass and held it out to Twilight to refill. “Real strength comes from learning and friendship!”

Twilight put down the bottle of wine with a scowl. “And I learnt that you shouldn’t get others to do your job for you, or you’ll end up in the service profession.”

He-Man slapped Twilight’s back merrily, giving a thumbs up. “Until next time!”

Author's Notes:

This story was a collaboration with the wonderful RainbowBob. Go read his stories.

He is handsome.

But not as handsome as He-Man.