I awkwardly turned a corner on a catwalk, thanks to it being just barely big enough to pull Bumblebee alongside me and generally too twisty to ride her. After the corner, Brain Storm’s voice came over the intercom. “Ah, so you finally approach the testing field. How brave of you.”

“You gave me directions,” I pointed out. “Also, this thing’s really big.”

“Hm, fair enough. I’ll go ahead and open the gate for you.” The sounds of hydraulics opening a heavy door came from straight ahead of me. “I’ll wait for you.” Just as I got on and was about to start Bumblebee up, he spoke again. “It just occurred to me that I don’t know your name. Would you enlighten me?”

“Yang.” Without another word, I started Bumblebee up and took off towards the open door. As I got closer, I saw a shallow valley and a white wall. “Is it. . . building the valley? Well, if it’s a testing field, that makes sense, but it’s still cool.”

I drove through the valley and came to a wide open, flat crater-like area. In the middle of the area was a dark gray pegasus stallion, standing upright and clad in mismatched armor. His right side had a yellow wing, blue arm, and red leg, while his left had a green wing, orange arm, and white leg. The arms ended in mechanical hands while the legs had enough support at the base to look like there was a human foot underneath. His body was clad in a dark silver armor that looked both simple in its design and fairly durable. His helmet left his face exposed and also made him look like an alicorn with the horn on top. “I take it you’re impressed by the armor?” He asked as I came to a stop near him. “I made it myself.”

“Eh, I’ve seen better,” I casually responded. “Brain Storm, I presume?”

“The BRILLIANT PEGASUS himself. Now then-” the horn on his helmet let off an even blue glow and something that looked like a large gold framed eye with a red lever on one side and a red button on the other floated out from behind him. “-Let’s fight.”

“Before we do that!” My short proclamation made him pause just as he put it on his waist, a golden belt forming to hold it in place. “Could you tell me what you’re doing? Aside from the incredibly toxic sludge.”

Brain Storm chuckled at my question. “You really want to know? Very well, I’ll give you the abridged version: I am getting revenge. Revenge on a world that ignored me. Ignored my brilliance, my abilities, my presence. I was the greatest, the smartest pegasus of my time, and they left me all alone. So I took the machine over, had everypony evacuate, and made it rain sludge on them as they flew away. Then, I figured, why stop there? I kept going until Celestia and Luna showed up and blasted me into the ground.”

“And you started your return by making more sludge?”

“Until it caught fire and made the production area explode. I need to make a less flammable version of it now. But enough of that. WE’RE FIGHTING!”

“So much for peaceful negotiations.” I launched a small salvo of fireballs at him, making him leap back as he used the lever on his belt, followed by two presses of the button.

“WEATHER KING! FIRE ICE LIGHTNING WIND CLOUDS LIGHT, AT MY COMMAND!” Spectral armaments briefly flew around him before attaching to his armor and solidifying, giving him a variety of mounted weapons, a sword, a mask with large, purple insectoid eyes, and some extra body armor as well.

After the armor and armaments attached to him, I revved Bumblebee up and drove straight at him. Just before I would have hit him, he jumped up and kicked my face with enough force to send me flying backwards off Bumblebee and along the ground for a few seconds.

"Okay, that was not cool," I thought as I got up, took the backpack off, and loaded the buckshot shells into the Ember Celica. "Alright, we're definitely fighting."

As I charged forward, Brain Storm pressed the lever twice and hit the button again. "CYCLONE GALE!" the belt announced before his left wing armor started glowing, and a trio of propellers on it started spinning. A moment later, I was blown back by high winds, nearly to the wall of the crater. My backpack went a bit further, into the valley I'd come in from.

"Okay, the belt announces things." I fired a round of the buckshot into the wind. A moment later, I felt it hit me. "That's some strong wind," I said to myself.

He hit the lever a few times before pushing the button again, his left leg armor glowing. "FROST GATLING!" Just as I started running to the side, I felt the cold of whatever he was firing past my back, and it did not feel good.

I was able to stay ahead for a few seconds before a barrage of icicles slammed into me from the side, stunning me with their cold more than their impact and sending me stumbling, falling and shivering as they chilled the air around me.

"Hm, that worked well," Brain Storm idly noted as he walked up to me. "I thought you would have put up a bit more of a fight than this."

"I-I-I won't. . . go down. . . now. . ." I worked up some fire magic to make a small heatwave, quickly melting the icicle fragments and getting rid of the cold. With the chill gone, I got back to my feet and lit myself on fire.

"Hm. A fire barrier." Brain Storm did not sound impressed as he hit the lever four times, followed by the button.

"ELECTRIC STORM!" The sword started arcing with electricity as he charged at me, blade raised and ready to strike.

I held the Ember Celica up in defense, only realizing a moment too late that it was a terrible idea when the electricity from the blocked blade went through them and into me. As I recovered from the electricity's effect, Brain Storm swung at me again, sending me flying back into the wall. “If I can just break those weapons, it shouldn’t be too tough to take him down.”

“There is nothing you can do to stop me, Yang." His horn lit up, and I was soon floating over to him, stopping just within range of my grasp. "I have had lots of time, sealed away in this machine, to build the perfect armor, and what you face is the result of all that time and effort. There is nothing you can throw at me, no trick you can use, no tactic that can stop me. I am prepared for anything!"

"Yeah, that fake horn's going first." I quickly reached out and grabbed the glowing horn with a tight grip. "Really?"

"Even that." He threw me upwards, but I didn't go far, thanks to the grip I had on the horn. It also hit my aura, so I was able to tighten my grip even further. "Hmm. . ." The glow on the horn and around me intensified until it was almost white, and a moment later, I got thrown up into the air again, a small explosion following afterwords.

When I landed, I looked at the artificial horn in my hand. Wires and bits of advanced things I couldn't make sense of dangled from the broken base. I glanced towards Brain Storm and saw him getting back up, the top of his helmet cracked and scorched where the horn was. "Looking for this?" I waved the horn at him.

He caught sight of the horn as he sat up, and quickly reached up to feel where it was. "You. . ." He growled at me. "You dare ruin my perfect armor?!"

"I dared. And I did." I focused fire and heat into the horn, soon melting it into a hot puddle. While Brain Storm was distracted by what I'd done, I punched a few rounds of buckshot at him, lightly damaging his armor and cracking some of the lights on his right wing.

After he recovered and got out of the line of fire, he hit the lever and button. "CLOUD COVER!" A heavy white fog quickly came out of the turbines on his left arm, and I soon had trouble seeing anything.

Just as I started running in one direction, I heard another announcement from the belt. "SOLAR GLARE!" The white fog soon became blindingly bright. Even with my eyes closed and arms raised, the bright light still hurt.

"FROST GATLING!" was all the warning I had before I heard the guns firing from above, and I quickly set up an intense fire shield around me. A few icicles crashed against my aura, but once I had the fire hot enough, the rest simply melted before they could get to me.

"It's only a matter of time before you go down!" Brain Storm shouted over the gunfire. "I can fire this for a week straight before it needs to recharge, and I doubt you'll last that long!"

"He's right about that. This can't last forever. I just have to stop him." Without dropping the barrier, I closed my eyes and listened to the gunfire to try and get his location. "Right. . . About. . . There!" I charged up a large fireball with both hands and, after double checking my auditory aim, fired it.

"No!" Brain Storm shouted after the fireball made impact and the gunfire died down. I dispersed the fire shield with an explosion, clearing the fog as well, and I saw a result I wasn't expecting: the guns had iced over. "How can this be?"

With him distracted, I decided to try diplomacy again, also letting my magic recharge a bit at the same time. "Brain Storm, I'm still willing to give you a chance to try peace! You don't have to spread bad weather and pollution everywhere!"

Brain Storm looked back at me. Even with his face hidden, I could feel him glaring at me. "And what do you know about being forgotten? Exiled among your peers? Ignored by everyone? Locked away for so, so long? I am making my mark on this world again, whether you like it or not!"

"Then do it without mass death and destruction! You have the technology here to revolutionize the world. You could be famous for that!"

"The technology would be famous instead of me! Nopony ever paid attention to me, and nopony ever will if I do that! Now get out of my way and get crispy!"

The belt announced "INFERNO WAVE!" and the weapon on his right leg lit up before a wave of intense heat hit me.

"If I could have just that part of the armor, I could mount it outside so I can open and run the grill during winter," I idly mused as the heat did nothing to me.

"Why aren't you. . .? Ah, I see." Brain Storm powered down the heat blaster when he realized it wasn't affecting me. As he flew down, he hit the lever a few times, then the button. "ELECTRIC STORM!" I jumped back just as he landed, and I felt some static electricity from the sword as the blade tip passed mere inches in front of my face. "Then we'll do it this way!"

I kept backpedalling and dodging Brain Storm's wild swings, switching out the shells at the same time. I was no sword user, but I could tell that he had no real technique aside from just swinging the electrified blade around. With him focused solely on me, I was able to lead him around to my advantage.

Finally, after a swing that left him wide open, I threw a powerful right hook at his helmeted muzzle, paired with an explosive round. The combination did exactly what I wanted it to, and he flew into the wall. Bits of his helmet lay on the ground near me, and other bits of his armor littered the ground near him.

“Alright, time to end this,” I said as I approached his dazed form. The first thing I did was set my hands ablaze and tear off the ice miniguns before tossing them away. The sword was trickier to take care of, since I had to fight the urge to let it go from the electricity in the grip, but once I managed that, I started precisely melting it with my free hand. Once the blade was off, the electricity stopped flowing. “Odd place for a battery.”

After tossing the broken sword parts aside, I decided to go for the wing with lights on it. Just as I touched it, I got a huge static shock and the armor on the wing blew up in my face, sending me back onto the ground, groaning in pain.

It was also enough to get Brain Storm back in low gear, and he got himself out of the rocks, his right wing hanging limp. The propeller blades on his left wing were either damaged or missing, and, to my mild dismay, the heat blaster fell off after he took a few steps and fell open on the ground. “You. . .” he growled out, part of his face, including an eye, easily visible through the hole in the helmet where I’d punched him. “I will not take this any more.” He grabbed the core section of the belt, twisted it, and threw it away. Underneath was another belt, which unfolded to its full size in about a second. It was mostly red, and prominently featured numerous blue and gold decorations on it, including a hand crank and slotted wheel.

I got to my feet as he pulled out something about the size of a soda can, and it looked like it was made to fit in the large opening on the belt. “What are you doing?”

“Ending this!” He tapped a button on the device, and the whole thing lit up, showing what looked like liquid rainbow in it. “FINAL MEASURE!” He practically slammed the item into the belt, and it called out “BERSERKER!”

“That doesn’t sound good.” As he rapidly turned the crank, a series of thin, clear tubes came out of the belt and quickly formed arcs over his limbs, even accounting for the limp wing’s position. Not far behind the forming tubes was the liquid rainbow. The arcs gained sharp points after the tubes were filled, pointed inwards towards him. “That doesn’t look good.”

“INJECTION!” The points all simultaneously extended straight into him and the liquid rainbow started flowing again, straight into him. “THE RAINBOW FUELED RAMPAGE! FINAL BRAIN STORM!”

What was left of his armor started cracking, a prismatic radiance leaking through. His visible iris went from purple to a full spectrum as he shouted with the injection. The armor soon couldn’t handle the strain and fell apart, including his hands and feet, leaving Brain Storm wearing a form fitting black bodysuit with erratic trails of a glowing rainbow all over it, centered on the belt. His wings weren’t covered, but still showed the rainbow trails, and seemed to be growing larger, the limp one even healing as it did so. “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU AND BRING YOU BACK SO I CAN EXPERIMENT ON YOU!” His voice had changed, now sporting an echo.

Before I could move, Brain Storm dashed right up to me and threw a punch at my face, sending me flying across the open area. While I was still flying, I felt him punch me again, making me fly even faster and land in the wall. “Oww. . .”

“OVER AND OVER AGAIN!” I barely moved my head out of the way of a flying kick that left a spider web of cracks in the wall. "FOR SCIENCE!"

"No!" I threw a punch at Brain Storm, but he zipped out of the way before the attack would have connected. The explosive round landed next to him, and for a moment, I saw something like a rainbow field shimmer on him. "Aura? I'll need to break that. At least mine feels okay."

Brain Storm grinned. "NOTHING THAT WEAK WILL HURT ME!" A moment later, he was zipping around the field again, the occasional prismatic blur being all I could make out.

"I'll just have to use something stronger." After removing the explosive rounds and before I could put in a new band of shells, a flurry of hoof strikes hit me from multiple directions, and my aura started to feel weaker and weaker. Finally, one stronger hit sent me flying towards the middle of the open area, and I landed right by Bumblebee. Brain Storm stopped some distance in front of me and started laughing maniacally. While he was busy with that, I quickly put the rainnuke shells in the Ember Celica.

As I stood up, I could feel the music start up, trumpets and violins spurring me on, and I knew that the end of the fight was close at hand. It would be either Brain Storm or me losing the fight, and I had no intention of going down.

Brain Storm came to a stop some distance in front of me. “WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!”

“I don’t know much about this piece,” I admitted with a hint of a fancy accent as I walked towards him, the music picking up. “I do know that it’s the finale, though.”

“BUT WHAT IS IT CALLED?!”

“It is Tchaikovsky’s most famous piece: The 1812 Overture.” I cracked my knuckles as I approached him.

“HA! IT WON’T HELP YOU!” Brain Storm took off again, speeding around the crater with impunity.

“We’ll see about that.” As the music reached a climax, I looked for signs of him. I saw only bits of rainbow and dust occasionally, which didn’t help. “Screw precision.” I cocked an arm back and threw a rainnuke. Then another. And another. A fourth. Finally, a fifth.

The field around me was broken, some of it exposing freshly damaged circuitry and mechanisms. Water was flowing, oil was leaking, wires were sparking, and dirt was raining down. Brain Storm tripped and started tumbling around the blasted terrain like a pinball, slowing down in time with the music. I found it kind of funny, especially with his rainbow aura flashing with each hit.

I finally approached him as he came to a stop in one of the new holes. “WHAT WAS THAT?!” There was a hint of fear in his voice now that I’d managed to actually hurt him a bit.

“That, my friend, is what made the 1812 famous,” I answered from the edge. “Cannons.”

“THE EXPLOSIONS!”

“Oh. Rainbow nukes. I have a friend who made them on accident.”

Brain Storm growled in anger as he got back up. “AND HOW DID YOUR FRIEND DO IT?”

I shrugged. “Honestly? She broke the sound barrier under her own wingpower.”

“THAT-! THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!” With another rage filled roar, Brain Storm punched the ground. As the artificial ground shook, the church bells in the 1812 came on, along with numerous alarms. “WE’RE BOTH GOING DOWN, THEN!”

“Just you.” Cymbals emphasized the determined point.

Brain Storm started getting out of the crater just as the alarms intensified and red lights began flashing. “BOTH OF US!”

I stepped back, mindful of the broken terrain. “No, I’m going to live.” My determination was followed by more cymbals and alarms. “I’ve got people counting on me.” We started circling each other when he was out of the hole. “I have better things to do than die.”

“YOU WILL DIE FIRST!”

We kept circling each other, my hair lighting up and eyes going red as the music picked back up. Brain Storm tilted his head at that, curious for a bit. “No damaged hair yet. He will never know what happens.” A slam of cymbals gave us both a brief startle before we went back to circling.

The alarms continued, distant explosions lightly shook the ground, and neither of us said anything.

I focused solely on Brain Storm, waiting for him to make a move to attack me.

Brain Storm’s wings twitched as he watched me, the rainbow in them a little bit faded.

We made eye contact, and tried to stare each other down. I didn’t yield until the music picked up and Brain Storm lashed out at a more normal speed.

I stayed light on my feet, each backwards jump accented with a cymbal. Brain Storm kept up as I avoided his punches. Changing directions helped keep him on me in the damaged area, which kept him slowed down.

Finally, I came to a stop and counterattacked with a punch that missed his head and destroyed more ground.

He stopped, I punched, and missed him.

The third did not connect.

More mechanisms got blown up.

Two quick punches did the same.

Another came close.

More things got wrecked.

He took one to the face.

Another rainnuke sent us up.

The last one shot him down through the machine and raised even more alarms.

I took only a moment to bask in the glory of the triumphant music before finding Bumblebee, getting on, and starting to search for my loot filled backpack. The alarms died down and everything started tilting. Amidst the falling machinery, I saw the backpack, and I managed to grab it.

After quickly getting it on right, I drove around to the hole I’d made and saw it was big enough to drive through. There was desert down below, which looked a lot better than being inside. As the music started to wrap up, I did just that, and I was soon falling out of the old machine. A south pointed sunflare came up in my sight, and was only there for a moment before exploding.

“Well, that’s done. And this is not going to feel good.”

Author's Notes:

My original plan was to use the WHOLE 1812 Overture for the fight, but then I decided against it and just used the finale for the end. And let me tell you, it is not easy at all to write a scene set to music without lyrics. You have to describe the music and the action at the same time, and that takes a bit away from both. Lyrics can just be passively followed while reading.

I was also originally going to have the machine by itself be the threat, then I started talking with my good buddy and he came up with Brain Storm, so kudos to him for that. There was also the idea to make it Scare Force One, but that got scrapped.