“Tirek!” Twilight announced to the giant centaur, catching his attention.

“Hm?” Tirek said. “Oh, it’s you six. Here to seal me away in Tartarus again?”

Twilight didn’t bother to answer him. “Girls, Rainbow Power! Since he hasn’t drained our magic this time, it should be even stronger than before!”

“Right!” Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity said together, activating their parts of the Rainbow Power along with Twilight. As before, they changed forms, mostly in the gaining of more color, more mane, and more tail, but still a form change nonetheless. A sphere of pure magic appeared around them and lifted them up, higher than Tirek, then they fired a giant rainbow beam at him, each band of color ten feet wide and very bright.

Tirek felt no concern as the beam approached him. Instead, he lit his horns with a black glow, absorbing the Rainbow Power beam and becoming even bigger. “You really thought the same trick would work on me twice?”

“What? How?” Twilight said.

“Forget how, Twi” Rainbow said. “We just have to defeat him with something else.” The sky blue pegasus flew up and began circling Tirek’s upper half at high speed.

“Rainbow’s right this time, dear” Rarity said as she used her magic to pick up and sharpen over a hundred rocks. “I’m afraid we have to use a less than clean method today.” The rocks were sent at Tirek’s lower body, attacking him in various patterns.

“Leave his legs for me, Rarity” Applejack said as she charged in, ready to kick Tirek like he was a group of moving oversized apple trees.

“I’ll see if I can find a nerve to disable him” Fluttershy said as she flew onto Tirek’s back, Rarity minding the pegasus and stones’ movements.

“And I’ll do whatever it is I do!” Pinkie called out as she pulled aside a fake rock wall and got in the party tank behind it. “Twilight, get in! I’ll drive.”

After looking over all her friends and what they were doing, Twilight joined Pinkie in the tank. “When did you get this here?”

“I finished it yesterday during my lunch break. I have a few more outside Ponyville.”

Twilight didn’t bother with any further questions. She had learned not to do that years ago. As the tank slowly rumbled forward, she read the spring powered turret’s 3 page long operation guide (written in the finest of lightish red crayons) and looked over the various stale pony-sized cakes that could be loaded into it.

“Pinkie, are you sure this will work?” Twilight asked as she loaded and fired a cake at one of Tirek’s front legs.

“I have no idea, but it certainly seems fun, right?” Pinkie answered.

“I suppose so” Twilight said as the cake hit its target, surprising the centaur and getting a chuckle out of Twilight. “Why do you have a sword up here?”

“To hit bad guys with. Shall I drive you closer?”

“Not now.” Twilight loaded and fired another cake. It missed.

Tirek, now under attack by wing, hoof, stone, and overly stale cake, staggered a bit. He was not expecting such a barrage from the ponies, and their offense surprised him.

And that was all it did. Thanks to the magic he’d already absorbed, he was able to almost immediately heal after each attack, considering how little damage they did to him. For a minute, he just stood there, taking all the attacks. For a minute, Twilight and her friends attacked. For a minute, they had hope. Then Tirek drained Rainbow’s magic, sending her plummeting towards the ground at high speed.

“Rainbow!” Rarity called out, dropping her attack so she could use her magic to catch the falling pegasus. Right as she successfully saved Rainbow, her magic got drained as well.

Pinkie drove her party tank up between her drained friends and Tirek. “Twilight, how many cakes do we have left?”

“Just one, it’s kind of soggy, and it stinks” Twilight reported. “I already put it in a bag for disposal.”

“Dispose of it in Tirek’s face! I put a little surprise in it that he won’t like.”

While Twilight loaded up the bag, an awkward task even with her magic, Tirek drained Applejack’s magic and kicked her away with a massive tap from his forehoof. Fluttershy saw this and flew out to catch her. Her magic was drained while she was flying, but her momentum carried her forward to let her catch Applejack.

The two made a rough landing with Rainbow and Rarity, the slightly rough ground giving them minor scratches. The speed of their impact was not as nice though and they could feel it in their bones, though none were broken. They would certainly be bruised under their fur for a bit.

Twilight fired the soggy cake at Tirek’s face. Before it could hit him, he vaporized it. He didn’t even smell it.

“So much for the durian special” Pinkie remarked. “Those things are expensive, too. That one fruit cost me 50 bits for Celestia’s sake!”

A moment later, a beam from Tirek hit the tank, destroying it. Twilight and Pinkie were sent back by the blast. Just before Tirek drained her magic, Twilight used a bit of it to enchant and fling the sword at Tirek. When it hit his chest, the sword exploded into three smaller swords that also exploded, dealing a bit more damage to him.

All six mares wound up in a pile together, drained of their magic and hurt from the fight. Before they could even get up, Tirek caught all of them in a single magic bubble and brought them up to his face while recovering from the swordsplosion. “You six can stay in there and watch as I drain your whole town’s magic.”

“No!” all of them said at the same time.

Tirek looked like he was in thought for a moment. “Alright. I’ll tell you little mares a little story while I drain your town.” To make sure they heard him, Tirek cast a spell that prevented any sound from being made within the bubble. He started his trek towards Ponyville and began talking. “A few days ago, I was in my cell in Tartarus, minding what little business I had. I don’t know why it happened or how, but luck was on my side. An iron ball fell down from above and rolled into my cell.” Tirek conjured the ball, causing Twilight’s eyes to widen in shock at the revelation. “So you recognize the ball? Interesting.

“I picked it up with what little strength I had and started beating on a bar with it until the bar bent and I was able to drain some of the reinforcement and barrier charms from within it. From there, it only got easier to bend and break my cell. Once I was free, I went around freeing other prisoners in Tartarus before draining their magic and throwing them back in.

“Cerberus was easy enough to get past. Drained his magic, used a bit of brute force, and he let me past. After that, I went around draining magic, and here we are now.”

Nopony took that well. All six mares had come to love the giant three-headed dog in their own way. To hear he had been beaten up did not sit well with them.

“Now, behold as I drain your town of its magic.” Tirek started towards Ponyville, but was stopped by a fairly large meteor crashing into his head. Focus lost, he could no longer hold up Twilight and her friends, who started falling to the ground, screaming and with no way to stop themselves.

The falling mares were saved by a golden levitation field. “Celestia! Luna!” Twilight called out.

“How did he escape this time?” Celestia asked. “Did you use the Rainbow Power?”

“That was the first thing we did, he absorbed it, and he got bigger” Rainbow said. “We tried other methods, but they didn’t work.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Tirek got up, enraged by the rock Luna had thrown at him, and wasted no time in draining Celestia and Luna’s magic, which both healed and calmed him down a bit. He gathered all eight ponies in a bubble and brought them up to his face. “I’m almost sad to have captured you all. Now everything’s going to be too easy. In fact, I think I’ll bring all the ponies of your town here after I drain them from here.”

While his captives shouted in defiance, which was all they were able to do, Tirek’s horns gave off their black glow and soon, a wide variety of magics were pulled into the space between his horns. After the last of the magic was absorbed, a number of bubbles were sent out.

A few minutes later, what looked like everyone in Ponyville was trapped in bubbles and floating around Tirek. Some bubbles had only one pony while others had more than one.

“Twilight” Rarity whispered.

“Yes?” Twilight whispered back.

“I see Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, but Sweetie Belle’s not with them.”

Twilight looked around at the assembled populace, and didn’t see Sweetie Belle anywhere. “If she’s not here, then she wasn’t captured, which means we still have a chance to get out of this."

“Do you really expect her to stop Tirek and save everypony?”

“No. All I can hope for is that she can get Yang to save us.”

Rarity was quiet for a moment. “You do realize how crazy that sounds, right?”

“She saved us from the diamond dogs last week, and we were able to help her get back to normal. If she needs help again, we can provide it.” Unbeknownst to them, Celestia was now listening in on their whispered conversation.

“True. Maybe we could force her into a spa trip?”

“If that’s what it takes. If we need to, I could write it off as a medical expense of the crown.”

Finding Tirek was no problem. He towered over everything and had lots of bubbles around him. They looked like they had ponies in them as well. I hoped that they only looked like that and didn’t actually have any ponies in them. That would not be good.

Making my way to Tirek was no problem. Traffic was unusually light in town for this time of day, but then again, there was nobody out here to count as traffic. I had the roads and paths all to myself.

The only problem I really had was that I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I didn’t want to fight this giant centaur, and not just because he’s a giant centaur, but because I didn’t want to fight at all.

Maybe it was this internal battle that kept me at a brisk walk rather than a full on run.

I came to a stop at the edge of the Everfree forest. The shortest way to Tirek was just to go straight through this really dangerous area. I did not want to go through it, but my body would not let me turn back either, so that meant I could only go forward.

“Band-aid method, Yang” I said to myself. “Just get through as soon as possible, and then maybe you’ll be able to run back to the boutique. That sounds good. You can run a 3 minute mile, you can be back there in half an hour. Hopefully.” I remembered Sweetie Belle, weak in her room and unable to do anything. I could not let her stay like that.

After a deep breath, I charged into the forest. Almost immediately, the underbrush started slowing me down. I decided to take a higher route along the tree branches, at least as soon as I could find an opening.

I eventually did find an opening and jumped up while running, but I misjudged something somewhere and tripped on a slightly lower branch, causing me to fall forward. I reached out to catch myself on another branch, but my fingers just barely brushed against it. I wound up falling to the forest floor face first with all the grace of a drunk brick.

As I got up, I decided that I wasn’t ready to branch out to the treetops for getting through the forest quite yet. However, since I’d lost my momentum and taken a facedive, I wasn’t quite sure which way to go. I had to get some height to find out which way to go, so I jumped up to the treetops, found Tirek, and started running again in his direction.

In a matter of minutes, I came to a clearing. It was filled with sleeping manticores, so I did not stop running. Fortunately, they didn’t wake up as I ran through. I think. I didn’t stop to check. I didn’t have time to stop anyways.

After jumping over a river and making it through some thinner and more peaceful woods, I left the forest behind. I decided a break was in order, so I turned back a little bit and quickly found a branch up in a tree that looked perfect. One jump later and I was resting on it.

After what was probably only a ten minute nap, I was ready to resume running, but since Tirek was in sight, I could probably just walk the rest of the way and save some energy, just in case I had to fight.

I jumped down and a few seconds later, I heard some growls and the sound of wood on wood. I stopped and looked around. Behind me were some literal timberwolves, and as soon as they saw that I saw them, they pounced at me. I had no intention of becoming food, so I ran from them as fast as I could.

I didn’t think, I just ran. As long as I heard them behind me, and they were keeping up with me, I kept running.

The wolves soon stopped chasing me on account of them getting blasted apart by some powerful magic blasts from above. I stopped after the barrage ended to briefly catch my breath. “Thanks for zapping those, whoever you are” I said. I looked up. And up. And up some more. I saw a massive red and black centaur surrounded by numerous bubbles, each certainly containing one or more ponies. I saw Spike and Discord as well.

I think I found Tirek.

He looked down at me. “What are you?” he asked.

“Human. Are you Tirek?” I had to shout to make sure he could hear me.

“I am. Are you here to try and save everyone?”

“Yeah. Could you let them go and return their magic?” Maybe he would be nice enough to do that.

“No, but let me make you an offer.” He had my attention. “You have an interesting magic about you.” I did? “You let me have that and I’ll let everyone go.”

“Okay. Just set everyone down gently, okay?” A moment later, I heard Twilight’s too late cry to not accept the offer. I mean, if he saw some kind of magic around me, and I hadn’t used it ever, then I could go on without it.

Tirek fulfilled his end of the bargain, gently setting everyone down away from us, dissipating the bubbles. “There’s that. Now for you.” His horns glowed black and I felt a pulling sensation on both my aura and myself. A moment later, I found myself flying upwards at an incredible speed before coming to a stop floating between Tirek’s horns. “How are you doing that?”

“How am I doing what?” I wasn’t doing anything.

“Resisting my draining spell!”

“I dunno. You’re the one with the magic, so you tell me.” I think he saw my aura. Or my semblance. Maybe both?

Tirek was quiet for a bit, presumably in thought. “I don’t know, but however you’re doing that, I don’t like it. I’m going to keep you right there so you can’t do anything.”

“Eh, alright.” A second later, something tiny, gold, silver, and a smidge lavender hit my face.

I saw Tirek leaving everyone from Ponyville in place and walk over to a city on a mountain topped with a castle that gravity seems to have mostly left alone. I saw him walk through the city, destroying everything and draining magic from all kinds of ponies that were just going about their lives. I didn’t have much choice in what I saw since I was still stuck between his horns.

“no” I said. I didn’t like what I was seeing. “No” I repeated. Various armored ponies fell before him. “No.” A huge museum got blown up. Ponies all around, many now hurt, were trying to run away. “No!” Tirek fired a beam at the gravity defying castle, and it no longer defied gravity. It crashed down on the city below, starting a landslide of rubble that Tirek stood still in.

The mountainous city was gone, and I did nothing to stop it.

“NO!!!!” I was back over the forest, still between Tirek’s horns, still able to see Ponyville’s ponies. I could tell that my hair was on fire, but that didn’t matter. I think Tirek was caught by surprise because he let go of me, and I landed in his hair. I felt incredibly powerful, like I’d taken a ton of hits and my semblance got activated, but my aura was fully intact.

I don’t know what it was that I just saw, but I didn’t like it. I had to stop Tirek, and force was the only option I saw. After I got up from landing on him, my hair not on fire, I extended the Ember Celica to their gauntlet forms, opened them up, and loaded the yellow shells. I had to do something about the mass of white hair that tangled around me as I landed in it.

I found myself still able to move despite the tangling. I crouched down, landed a punch with the incendiary round to Tirek’s scalp, and watched the fire start. His hair was coarse, unkempt, and nowhere near as fabulous as mine. I couldn’t help but think for a moment that Rarity’s been rubbing off on me.

I tried to make my way out of Tirek’s hair, but soon got more tangled. “Get out of there!” Tirek shouted before grabbing and pulling on me. His hair was keeping him from getting me out, so I decided to help both of us. I got an arm free from his grasp and punched a few times towards the hair that was holding me down. It burned just like the other part of his hair, and soon, I was freed, though promptly thrown up into the air. I saw Tirek patting his hair to try and put out the fires as I went up in the atmosphere.

While I was going up in the air, I punched downwards to spread more fire to Tirek’s body. Unfortunately, the shots lost their burn before they could reach him. I had to think fast now. I could keep the fire shots in for when I got close to him, but that would allow him time to strike back. I still needed to be able to hit him hard though.

I opened the Ember Celica and pulled out the yellow bands, none of which looked like they had been fired, and switched them for the purple ones. I finished the reload at the end of my ascent and started punching downwards, firing slugs at the giant centaur beneath me. Most of the slugs did nothing or landed around him, but it looked like a few did something based on the reactions I saw. I kept punching in his general direction as I fell.

My descent was stopped not by the ground, but by Tirek catching me with a punch and knocking me into a cliff face. I left an imprint, but at least it was my back that took the blow and not my front. That would not have felt nice.

“Now stay right there and don’t leave” Tirek ordered.

I didn’t feel like following that order. “I can’t let you do any more damage than you’ve done.” I could feel some hair getting pulled out as I extracted myself from the rock wall and went to the ground. I also felt my eyes change from their wonderful violet to a bright red color.

It may have been the rock wall that damaged my hair, but I will blame Tirek since he put me there. With a short battle cry and hair reignition after landing, I dashed forwards and landed a punch on one of his massive forehooves. Cracks radiated out from where I hit and a hole was made where the slug went in. I found an odd and somewhat sick satisfaction from Tirek’s pained cry and the sound of his hoof cracking, so I punched the hoof a few more times. What stopped me was him picking up the hoof and hitting me with the back of it into a rear hoof, which he then used to kick me towards the population of Ponyville.

It was not a nice landing.

“Yang, are you alright?” Twilight asked after I landed near her.

“Yeah” I answered. “Just taking a little rest.” The hits I’d taken had knocked out a good chunk of my aura, and I was feeling it. I was also feeling the massive strength boost from my semblance. I had to use it fast before I could give up the fight.

After inspecting his forehoof, Tirek’s horns glowed and the damage was soon healing. “See if you can break his horns. If my theory is correct, that should release the magic he’s absorbed.”

“Hm?” It did make a bit of sense. That was where I got pulled to when he used his draining spell on me, and them glowing was followed by something happening. “Alright, I’ll try. I just have to get there first.” I got up and ran back in, switching the violet shells for the red ones. Once I was sure I was far enough away to be safe, I punched downwards as I jumped, the explosion sending me flying in Tirek’s general direction. I also lost a bit of aura with the explosive move.

After using a few more explosions to fly, I wound up landing right where Tirek’s back made the change from vertical to horizontal. Soon, he finished his healing spell and began looking for me, walking around and putting an end to my brief idea of climbing up his back.

“I can’t get to his horns like this. Maybe I should bring his horns down to me?” I remembered a paraplegic I met in high school once. He said that it was a deep wound that cut through his lower spine that rendered his legs useless. He had my sympathy for the loss of his legs. “That could work.”

I braced myself as I lined up my punch. I had explosive rounds loaded, and I was about to punch out the spine of a giant centaur. There would probably be blood from the attack and dirt from the landing on me at the end, but at least he would go down. Hopefully.

I closed my eyes as I threw the punch. It was a good thing I did, as the explosion did indeed send out chunks of Tirek, covering me in sticky blood and bits of flesh. Under my feet, I could feel him faltering, but he was still standing and moving.

“One more punch” I quietly said. I put action to the words and threw another punch, this one going straight into the wound and knocking more gore towards me, but he still wasn’t down. I kept repeating “One more punch” and kept punching the one spot. More chunks of him came out with each punch as well.

As Tirek eventually fell sideways, I fell with him. The wind from the fall blew some of the chunks off of me and dried some of the blood that had built up. I wasn’t able to focus on the fall, so my landing was rough. It hurt a bit, but it also knocked of more of Tirek’s gore off of me. Of what didn’t come off, most of it accumulated some dirt. I could also feel my hair’s fire die down a bit, though it still burned.

I heard a massive groan coming from Tirek, and that reminded me that I had to stand up. I had to break Tirek’s horns. I had to save everyone. I found the energy to stand, wipe the mess from my eyelids, and move. I could only walk over to Tirek’s head, rather than run. I was running out of energy, so I had to end this quickly. Fortunately, he didn’t seem inclined to try anything. His injury and fall seem to have done a number on him.

Once I got to his head, I decided to destroy the horn furthest from the ground for whatever reason. With a few launched explosive shots at the inside of the curve closest to his head, the horn broke and fell to the ground. Judging by the sound it made on impact, its weight had to be at least in the triple digits. A few small colored clouds came out of the wound and flew off into the crowd of citizens.

Seems Twilight was right. With a last ditch effort, I put all my remaining strength into a single punch, hitting the same spot on the remaining horn, causing a huge mass of the colored clouds to come out and fly off to their rightful owners.

“No!” Tirek called out after I broke his horns. “How could you do this to me?”

“Because you. . . Well, I can’t brain right now” I got out before falling on my back, the fire now gone from my hair and my eyes returning to violet. I don’t think Tirek said anything else, but even if he did, I wasn’t paying attention.

After a minute, I got back up and started making my way towards the citizens. About halfway there, a whirring sound from behind caught my attention. I turned around and saw something that looked like a distorted and slightly twisted golden yellow triangle floating out of Tirek’s body. After a moment in the air, it shattered like glass and dissolved into nothingness. Somehow, with that, I knew Tirek wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

I turned back to the crowd of mostly ponies, and to my surprise, they were already up and moving about and forming neat, orderly rows, as if to hear a speech or something. Twilight, Luna, and a white alicorn bigger than either of them came up beside me. The white one’s horn glowed with gold colored magic and I felt slightly rejuvenated. Then, she spoke. “Citizens of Ponyville, I will keep this brief: today, Yang Xiao Long has saved not just us, but the world from the return of Tirek.” She continued speaking, but I wasn’t paying attention. Instead, I looked around, not sure what to do aside from just stand there.

I looked at the big white alicorn and wondered what her cutie mark was. All ponies had them, and since she was a pony, she should have one too. I looked down at her flank and saw a sun there with eight flares coming off of it. The flare that would be North on a compass was a bit different: unlike the other seven, it wasn’t making contact with the dark orange ring around the middle. In fact, the flare looked like the shape that had come out of Tirek.

Huh.

“Yang?” the white alicorn said, catching my attention.

“Huh?” I asked. Despite whatever rejuvenated me, I was still feeling rather tired.

“I said that as a reward for saving the world from Tirek, you can have anything you desire, courtesy of the Crown.”

“Anything?”

“Name it, and it shall be yours.”

I got the worn out gears of my mind to start working. After what felt like a minute to me, I gave my answer. “I want a spa trip, my clothes cleaned, and the Pierce the Heavens fountain from Olive Branch.”

The white alicorn seemed mildly surprised, like she wasn’t expecting that kind of answer. “Are you sure? You could set yourself up to live in luxury and power for life in Canterlot if you wanted.”

I felt a pang of frustration, sighed, and acted upon it, grabbing the alicorn’s horn and pulling her head down so my face was in hers. “Listen: I’m tired, I’m filthy, I just defeated a giant magic vampire centaur, and all I want right now is to get cleaned up and sleep for a couple days. The cost of what I want is almost nothing for you, so please just give me those three things.”

She was quiet for a moment. Everyone and everything was quiet. Then she loosened my grip, raised her head (revealing the dirt and blood I left on her horn. Oops), and spoke again. “Very well. Twilight, I want you to take care of the expense report for Yang’s wishes. The spa and cafe must be appropriately compensated for their services. I also leave Yang in your capable hooves.

“Luna, let’s help everypony get back to Ponyville. Tame though these woods may be, there are still dangerous creatures in and near it.”

“Aloe, Lotus, can you two come over here?” Twilight called out. Soon, the two ponies from the spa came over. “I’ll teleport you two to the spa so you can prepare everything you need to for Yang’s arrival, alright? I believe the works should do for her.”

“Sounds good to me” one of them, I’m not sure which, said. The other one agreed and Twilight teleported them away.

“Why don’t we just teleport, Twilight?” I asked.

“Because the Ember Celica would not teleport with us, and I assure you that nopony would want to pick them up by mouth” she answered. It made sense now that she reminded me. “Besides, the spa sisters need time to get prepared for your arrival.” Oh yeah. I must be really tired if I forgot a detail like that already. A moment later, Twilight and I began our walk through the woods back to Ponyville.

Author's Notes:

Upgrade 1 unlocked: The will to fight.

The next fight of big importance will have a different tune to it.