A cooling wind blew through the sparse trees as the three figures stood motionless, like rocks with puppet strings. Spike had his forearms crossed on one another, claws fully extended and eyes locked on Quicksilver with a burning fury behind them. “Waiting for you...” He taunted the older fighter who didn’t move from his position, wing still extended from his attempt on Zecora.

Quicksilver smirked at the comment, heat emanating from his white hot wings caused the entire area to raise in temperature. “Don’t worry-“ He burst forward and his closed talon impacted Spike’s forearms. “I didn’t want you to wait much longer.” At that moment Mist released another torrent of water from her mouth and doused Spike and Quicksilver who was visibly distressed by the event to the point where he jumped as far away as he could and flared his wings to get any and all water off of himself.

“What the hell was that?” Mist thought only to hear

“I don’t know... it looks like he doesn’t like water- HIS WINGS!” The pair snapped their attention to the metallic wings of their enemy and saw that the water cooled them down greatly, even his talons were temporarily rinsed of their poison. Both looked at each other and nodded their heads before changing the script and lunging at Quicksilver with chakra rods in hand, clashing with his orange tipped wings. Both dodged swipes from the slowly heating wings and had their weapons grabbed by the corrosive talons.

“So you both got some courage to approach? Doesn’t matter!” He pulled the rods away and broke them both against his left wing. “I’m guessing you two are the more experienced in fighting, so after I beat you the other one will be an easy takedown.” He ran at them this time, talons ready to rend flesh. Spike jumped to the left and barely evaded a swipe from the talons and ducked under a wing swipe. “Hah!” Spike looked back and saw that Mist’s arm was pierced by a feather. A large lion paw ended up in Spike’s chest. “Don’t take your eyes off of me.”

Spike was pushed back hard and sent barreling through the air, but landed on his feet before putting a hand out. “Universal pull!” The griffin was pulled towards the drake forcefully but whatever Spike had planned...

*Slash*

Did not go however he wanted it to as evidenced by the nails in his stomach, leaving their venomous trail behind and a painful burning sensation that caused Spike’s eyes to return to a slitted green state and he fell to the ground in pain with his own voice being back to normal. “Aaagh! What happened to me?!” The drake thrashed on the ground as the venom coursed through his body bringing even more pained cries.

“It looks like that eye boost that you had wore off and now you’re just a vulnerable child.” Quicksilver approached the injured drake as he writhed in agony until he blew an oncoming ball of water away and knocked Mist to the ground with scorched air.

“Leave him alonnneeee-“ Mist passed out right as her eyes returned to their rose red coloration, leaving Spike at the mercy of the griffin.

“AAAAAAGH!” He cried aloud but there wasn’t anything around to help him.

“Well I guess I was right, I’d be the one who barely survived. Finishing the Zebra off should be pretty easy from here.” He plucked one of his feathers, not harming his claws in the slightest and prepared to stab Spike

*Squish*

The feather fell to the ground with little to no force behind it, an envenomed talon following it. Quicksilver didn’t even register that it was his own limb that fell but once he did he brought his wing closer to cauterize the wound. “W-Who did that?!” A scythe with a chain was embedded in the ground nearby and pulled back to its owner. “Y-You’re...” Quicksilver was shocked

“H-Help me...” Spike said with tears in his eyes.

The two managed the word together and had an equal amount of surprise. “ZEKO!” The teenager stood there with his fan and chained blade in separate hands but for some reason his hair wasn’t its usual crimson... it was as white as Celestia’s fur and nearly radiated light that bounced off of it.

“Might as well let you see the real me, even though I’ve been called a rabbit like this. Spike!” Zeko crossed the fingers on his hands and made a shadow clone then flung his scythe at Quicksilver as a distraction.

The shadow clone ran to Spike and scooped him up in the diversion, and slung him over his shoulder before picking up Mist bridal style and running away with the two. “So you’re the one I’ve wanted to meet, I can’t say I’m in the best condition but if your friends are anything to go by I just need one feather to hit you-“

“They’re all alive.” Quicksilver stopped entirely once he heard the words entirely. “You heard me right, they’re all ok. I’m not quite sure you understand but let me try to break it up for you... I’ve been using my Rinnegan, so that I could know what’s going on.” In time with his words he activated his eyes to the recognition of his enemy.

“So you cast the spell on them too?” Quicksilver clutched his stump and looked at his dissolving bodypart, the rune going into a higher effect now that the limb wasn’t attached and was being taken over by its own ability.

“The power I hold isn’t some weak spell cause it’s something you can’t quell. The powers I hold thanks to my eye will aid in how your guilds will die.” Zeko pulled his scythe back and twirled it in the air to his side. The two stood facing each other until Zeko slowly began to approach with his weapons in his grasp. “It’d be useless for you to try and fight back, even right now you can’t stand against me you hack.”

Now the words may have been in a taunting lyrical style but there was a serious tone to them that told Quicksilver if he fought back it’d only make things harder for him. “I’ll be the first step to the rising of-“

*Thud*

https://youtu.be/tLyRpGKWXRs

Quicksilver looked down and saw his wing on the ground, setting ablaze with his own rage, overtaken by the heat he used to fight. “W-Wha-“ the sound of chains and another swift slash took the other talon away from the flabbergasted griffin. “H-HAAGH!” He quickly cauterized the wound but his vision started to blur and he saw double of his white haired foe. The talon bubbled away in a fizz of green like the last one

“I told you it was pointless, that fight earlier was me testing a technique that showed me everything you had.” Quicksilver fell to his knees as his vision started turning dark. Zeko retrieved and rewrapped his scythe onto the handle of his fan and approached. “I played you from the start, but you did much more to them than I expected so that’s the first and last time I use living bodies for that approach.”

“Y-You...” He muttered

Zeko was ten feet back but mockingly leaned closer to hear his beaten opponent. “I what now? Didn’t catch the last part.”

“Y-You... YOU AREN’T DOING ANYTHING ANYMORE!” In a fit of adrenaline infused anger he flung all of his white hot feathers at Zeko and fell back to the ground. “Saving everything for a last attack, at least Culina can take it from here.” The sound of wind made Quicksilver look up and see all of his feathers be swatted away like flies by a gust of wind.

“As much as I loved Samehada you can’t beat a classic weapon.” Zeko crouched down to meet Quicksilver’s face and placed his fan onto his back. “So you were fourth strongest, and considering the trouble you were without any knowledge it’d be useful to have some on the next target. So who do you know as a leader?” Zeko reaches his hand out to an unresponsive griffin and back with it came a soul. “At least I know what to expect this time, but I’m gonna go it on my own this time. The energy I need to put in to make sure they live is pretty high...” He grabbed the runes off of his enemy’s corpse and put them into his gourd before kicking the husk in the ribs. “That’s for making me disable my transformation jutsu! Saving that little bit of chakra means nothing if I get laughed at for my hair!”

==============================

Spike awoke in a cold sweat in his bed with Twilight asleep in hers beside him. “What?! What happened?!” He looked around frantically, feeling as if he just recovered from near suffocation. The librarian awoke from his frantic voice.

“Spike... it’s the middle of the night...” She pointed out. “Don’t you remember? You spent time training today and got stung by something in the Everfree, Zecora healed you up and Zeko brought you back out cold.” The drake looked at himself feeling phantom aches but looked perfectly normal entirely, not being being able to find any strange issues with his body.

“Oh, I guess I just had a really bad dream. I’ll tell you about it in the morning Twilight...” He rolled over to go back to sleep but couldn’t shake the strange feeling he had about that dream.

============================

Mist snapped out of her drowsy state and fell to the floor in a failed attempt to stand suddenly. “Wha- Huh?! What happened?” Celona quickly picked her up and put her back into her wheelchair. “Wait didn’t you-“

“It was a dream, I had the same one. Princess Luna must be getting lazy if we had the exact same nightmare.” Celona pushed Mist outside to see that it was early in the morning as opposed to late afternoon as the dream suggested.

“Oh you two are awake, you were thrashing so much in your sleep I wanted to wake you up.” Mist and Celona both froze once they saw Zeko but it wasn’t his words as much as his appearance that shocked them.

“Z-Zeko... What happened to your hair?” Mist questioned fearfully while Celona was more so confused at the change in appearance.

“Hm? Oh I decided to stop wasting my chakra gradually with a transformation jutsu. I’ve got big fish to handle so I need everything I can spare, if you’re shocked at the color then you should know my hair is naturally-“

“White? I actually think it’s a really nice color for you, why isn’t it what you have all the time?” Celona questioned

“That’s a story for another time, I need to go see if Zecora managed to grow some plants I gave her... that was a really interesting day.” He bounded off towards the hut leaving a confused Mist to babble to herself.

Once the white haired teen arrived at the hut he opened the door to reveal Jenki sitting across from Zecora drinking tea. “Oh hey Ze...ko? Going back to your white hair? Nice.” The green haired boy said with his usual mirth.

“Good to see you too Jenki. Zecora are you feeling ok? Yesterday wasn’t too strenuous was it?” Zeko questioned as Jenki walked over to him

“I’ve recovered from yesterday’s skirmish, but my body still suffers from some soreness.” She rolled her shoulder as she made her statement.

“Zeko I have something for you, Kotetsu told me you had big things going on so I brought you something. The Hokage wanted me and Nouka in the Anbu and he even gave me an extra set of the clothes, so here.” Jenki handed over a black scroll that Zeko took, along with some vials with his name on them.

“Thanks Zecora!” Zeko ran out the door with the scroll and bottles in hand but a missive dropped from a passing bird told another story. “Of course. The Princesses need me for something, can’t get a break can I?”

==================================
(Canterlot Castle)
(An hour later)

Zeko entered through the grand doors once again and saw the massive figure in front of him. “So what’s the threat to this place that you needed to call on me for? The Minotaurs? Dragons? Red Claw? Or maybe some thousand year old prince of darkness that’s preparing to return and bring back an entire lost empire?”

Celestia and froze at those words. “That isn’t what we requested, but that’s a situation that has some relevance to a historical event... how did you manage to guess that?” Celestia leaned in closer to question Zeko about his knowledge but he shrugged his shoulders. “Well in any case we need you to return to Ponyville and help Pinkie Pie deliver something as per my request.”

“What is it? Some ancient artifact that gives you the power of an Alicorn?”

“How are you aware of these things?!” She asked comically, eyes widened and only received another shrug from Zeko. “The delivery is a treasure in its own, the Marzipan Mascarpone Merengue Madness.”

Zeko was completely confused to say the least and only managed to mouth a single sentence. “The hell is that?” It was crude but told his feelings in a direct way.

“I believe Pinkie Pie would be able to explain in a better light, go back to Ponyville and find her so that you can aid in its delivery.”

Zeko turned to exit the grand doors but decided to turn to the right and crash out a window. “No doors for a real ninja!”

Celestia and the two guards in the room were dumbfounded by the sudden act. “I’m not sure if he is a blessing or a curse anymore.”

=======

Author's Notes:

He’s late but better than nobody getting to see me at all, that’s right I have white hair... classic protagonist deal. Not sure why Giorno is Polpo but the song worked... and no I couldn’t ever beat GER saying that now. We’ll see you next week