Chapter 9: The Battle Begins
"Is anypony here worried about the fight? I mean, we don't do this alot," said Fluttershy.
Rainbow Dash looked down at her, which was surprising considering it was nearly pitch black outside, not even the moon's light could brighten things up for us. "Fluttershy, you don't ever fight. Remember that battle at Cadance's wedding? You ducked for cover when they were about to strike."
"Well I'm sorry, but I'm not a fighter. I don't believe in hitting other ponies, it's just wrong."
"Right, and you left us to do all the fighting..."
"Rainbow, cut it out!" I snapped, "Fluttershy was scared then, so you can't blame her. But she's gained more confidence since then, especially from our training, so I'm sure she'll do fine tonight."
Fluttershy nodded happily to that. She then turned her ears towards the hills, "She's getting closer with every second."
"Then we got to be ready, now listen up everypony!" Twilight shouted, and all the ponies walked up to Twilight with their complete attention, "We all know how dangerous Starlight is, so remember to keep your distance from her unless you have to hit her, and don't stay still too long, or else she'll get you." She then turned her attention to my friends and I, "she'll be expecting us, but not you, so remember, stay hidden out of sight until you are given the signal."
"Ma'am yes ma'am," Emily smiled and saluted Twilight like a soldier would.
"Emily, you don't need to do that," I sighed. "Now, I want you and Ryan to hide in my first garage, Patrick you got my tool shed, but don't turn on the light or she'll see you. I'll be hiding behind the second garage."
"Good, and please be careful."
"We will Twilight."
And with that, the four of us went to our hiding places. The mane 6 meanwhile stood in the middle of my big driveway. All of them tried to put on determined faces, but one could see just how worried they actually were.
Clouds moved in, blocking out the moon, the wind slowly picked up, making some of us shiver and in the distance, we could hear the sounds of helicopters. Fifteen minutes later, a unicorn pony came walking into view. She turned down my driveway and stopped a foot or so away from the Mane 6. Starlight smirked as the Mane 6 stood their ground.
"Now this is more like it, a world where no pony can help you fools," Starlight snickered. "These miserable humans couldn't even hurt a fly, and once I'm done with you, I'll make them my new slaves."
"No you won't Starlight!" Twilight said firmly, "we're not going to let you harm these innocent humans."
"Yeah, we'd sooner kick your flank before letting that happen!" Now you would expect Applejack or Rainbow Dash to say that, but to all of our amazement, it was Fluttershy that said it.
"You go Girl," I whispered. I moved a little bit so I could get a good shot at Starlight.
"Besides, the humans are not as weak as you might think," added Rainbow Dash. "They will surprise you."
Starlight just laughed at them, "oh sure they will, with their little toys. It's quite pathetic if you ask me, but don't worry, I'll test out your theory, after I've dealt with you six once and for all."
Starlight's horn lit up. It was time for the training to go into affect. With my paintball gun loaded, I got into postion and aimed.
"Call us weak will you? Bite this," I whispered and pulled on the trigger. The first paintball left my gun. Starlight heard and turned to it's source, but ended up with a paintball on the right side of her face. Before she could strike back, Twilight focused her magic and fired an energy blast, which hit Starlight and made her fly a couple feet in the air before she landed at the front of my driveway.
"Nice shot partner!" called Applejack.
I smiled and ran to join my pony friends, while the rest of my friends remained hidden. Starlight got up and glared down crossly at us, "So you six have enlisted the help of a human huh? How dumb can you get?"
"That's right, we asked humans for help, and there's a simple reason why, they are not weak!" snapped Rarity. "They can pretty tough when they need to be."
"And that's just what you're going to see tonight Starlight Glimmer," I said and pointed my gun at her.
Instead of looking scared, Starlight just smirked, "so, you've heard of me huh?"
"Indeed I have, and I know the kind of trouble you cause. Now if I were you, I'd surrender now before you get taught a lesson you won't forget." I pulled on the trigger and three paintballs went flying towards Starlight, but she stopped them with her magic.
"Is that really the best you can do?"
"Guess we're going to find out, aren't we?"
The other ponies nodded, and together, we charged in at Starlight Glimmer. I fired at her, causing her to focus most of her attention on me. This left the others a chance to fight back, smacking her with either magic or their hooves. Starlight though is one tough unicorn and she fired an energy blast at me. I dodged and hit the ground hard.
"Useless human, you will not be part of my new world order!"
Her horn glowed and she pointed it at me. That was Patrick's cue, he ran out of my tool shed and fired more paintballs at her. She focused her attention on him, but before she could get him, she was attacked again by Rainbow Dash and Applejack, who bucked and punched her hard.
"Yee-Haw, now that's how we do it back in Equestria!" Applejack cheered.
Starlight Glimmer got back to her hooves and aimed her horn at the two ponies, but she ended up getting attacked from behind by Ryan and Emily, who came out of hiding. Again, she turned to face them, but ended being smacked by Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie of all ponies. Rainbow Dash then swoped down and smacked her hard, making her skid across the driveway.
"Wow, I can't believe that actually worked," she remarked.
"Yeah well it won't happen again that easily," I said. "The element of surprise is gone, now we're going to need to be creative."
Twilight nodded and fired an energy blast at Starlight, but was blocked by the magic of Starlight's horn. I was about ready to strike Starlight, when I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was coming from Fluttershy.
"I don't mean to interupte you Matthew, but I think we have another problem." She then pointed towards the road.
I looked back and slapped my forehead, for there were police officers and news reporters, armed with cameras. The officers had just pulled up and now were pointing their weapons at us.
"Drop your weapons and get down on the ground now!"
"These are paintball guns!" I shouted.
"I don't care what they are, get down on the ground now!"
I groaned and yelled back, "Officers, you need to back off, Starlight's far too dangerous for you to handle!" As if she wanted to prove I was right, Starlight deflected Twilight's attack away, and started firing at the officers, camera crews and us. I ran for shelter at a different corner of my house, Twilight ran over towards me. "First Starlight, and now this, I can't see how this can..." But I stopped.
"Can what?"
"Never mind, cause whenever you say that pharse, something always goes wrong. Your first slumber party is good enough prove of that!"
Officers now were firing at Starlight Glimmer, but again, she used her shield on them, blocking each of their pepper bullets and bean bags. There was no way we could stop her with the officers in the way.
"Patrick, give me your cell phone!" I shouted.
Patrick nodded, ran over to where we were and handed me his cell phone.
"Kinda bad timing to be making a phone call Matthew," he said.
"No, it's a perfect time." I called the chief of the New Liskeard police force. "Listen Chief, I know your job is to serve and protect, but this is one fight you're going have to stay out of."
"Not until that threat is taken down," he replied.
I groaned and slapped my forehead. Twilight then spoke into the phone, "Officer, I am Twilight Sparkle from Equestria, and while I commend you on your brave efforts, you don't know anything about us ponies and the magic we can use."
"You're a pony? Now I've heard everything, this must be some kind of joke."
"I assure you Chief, it's not a joke. Twilight Sparkle and her friends, along with that thing called Starlight Glimmer, are real." I lowered the phone, got out my paintball gun and fired several shots, some hitting Starlight in the face. Officers then fired bean bags at me, but missed, "please Chief, just call off the officers."
"Please Sir, for your own safety," added Twilight.
There was silence from the chief, then we could hear his voice over the officer's radios, "attention officers, stand down. I repeat stand down and let the ponies and their human friends take care of the one called Starlight Glimmer." The officers nodded and backed off. The chief then spoke to us, "alright, I'll leave this in your hands, or hooves in some cases, but if she gets out of control, I'll order my officers to get back into the battle."
"We understand Chief, and thank you," I smiled before hanging up. I then called to my friends, "guys, hit Starlight with everything you've got!" Our friends nodded and went back to fighting. The ponies of course, keeping their distance from Starlight as she could steal their cutie marks and they'd have no way of fighting back.
"Uh Matt, what about the cameras? They're filming everything that's going on." Patrick excepted his phone and pulled up a breaking news video on the internet.
"Never mind the cameras, we have to focus here. Now, are you two ready?"
"We're ready," Twilight and Patrick said in unison.
We charged in, Twilight's horn glowing and paintballs shooting out of our guns. Starlight blocked most of them, but she couldn't stop all of them and we made contact. Rainbow Dash then swoped in again and smacked her, making her go flying towards Rarity, who bucked her hard. Applejack was impressed.
"You're definetly a good bucker Sugarcube," she commented.
"Thanks Darling, but stay focused!"
As the fight raged on, some foolish reporters walked onto the property and tried to get answers from us, "who is that fighting? Why are you fighting? Are they actually ponies?"
"I have no comment at this time, now get off the property!" I shouted.
In the end, Twilight had to push them back with a magical shield before returning to the fight. Thankfully, before they could try to get back onto the property, the police officers blocked them off. "Sorry, but someone could get seriously hurt, so please stand back!"
"Well that takes care of them, now...let's beat the snot out of Starlight," shouted Rainbow Dash.
"Ew, that's gross," groaned Pinkie Pie.
"It's a figure of speech Pinkie, which means let's take her down."
We all nodded to that and charged in again. I fired my gun off first, which was of course blocked, but Applejack's kick from behind got Starlight. Rarity fired an energy blast, distracting her from Emily's own paintball gun. Then when Starlight tried to attack Emily, she was smacked again by Rainbow Dash. Twilight attacked next and while she was being blocked, Patrick fired off more paintballs and Pinkie Pie kicked her from behind. Fluttershy picked up a rock and threw it at Starlight, missing her and getting her angry, but of course Ryan fired off some paintballs right at her, hitting her in the head.
Starlight groaned as she felt the back of her head.
"Give up now Starlight, you don't stand a chance!" Twilight said firmly.
Starlight laughed, "lucky shots, but look at you all now, you're wearing out while I still have strength to spare. Before the day is threw, you'll all be down on the ground while I take over the world."
"Our world has had enough monsters, it doesn't need you!" I snapped. I lifted my weapon up and pointed it between her eyes, "Now give it up, you can't win!"
"Let's put that theory to the test," she smirked and lit her horn again.
"Here we go again," groaned Rainbow Dash.
Here we go again was right, we charged in for another fight and got the same results as last time, but still she just wouldn't go down. In the midst of the fight, my human friends and I gathered by my front garage, "this isn't working guys, we need to try something else."
"Like what? We don't have magic like Twilight or Rarity," said Patrick.
"Perhaps, but maybe it's time we took a page out of Dashie's book and hit her hard." I turned and ran towards Starlight Glimmer, who was struggling to protect herself from Rarity. At that point and time, I felt this monster had to be stopped, so with my gun in both my hands, I swung it hard and smacked Starlight hard in the face, knocking her down.
She struggled to get herself up. She then lifted her left hoof and wiped the left side of her mouth, she could just see blood.
"Alright you dumb human, you don't want to be ruled, that's fine, I'll just wipe you out!" She unleashed a powerful energy beam at me, but thankfully Twilight had used her magic and protected me.
"Thanks Twilight!" I called to her.
"Anytime Matthew!"
My friends grabbed hold of some wood and charged in, but they were stopped by Starlight's magic and thrown onto my front lawn, where they landed on the ground hard. I growled when I saw this.
"Alright Starlight, you wanted to see what we humans can do, allow me to show you."
I pointed my gun at her and fired as many paintballs as I could. She blocked them with a magical shield, but I just would not give up. Finally, I saw a crack in the shield, she had used too much energy.
"Rainbow Dash, that's your cue!" called Twilight.
Rainbow Dash nodded and charged right at Starlight. She smashed threw the shield, making Starlight groan in pain, and not noticing me. Once again, using the brunt of my weapon, I smacked her hard and making her fall to the ground.
"That was awesome," cheered Rainbow Dash.
The other ponies started cheering, thinking we had just beaten Starlight, but Twilight wasn't cheering. She was staring at Starlight and gasped, "everypony, get back, she's going to..."
Starlight opened her eyes, and launched a powerful blast of energy that made us fly and hitting the ground hard. My friends stood back in complete shock. Patrick was so angry that he picked up a two by four, "nobody hurts my pal Matthew, not even a pony."
Ryan nodded and within moments, they charged in to fight Starlight, swinging their wood at her, but missing her everytime.
I groaned as I got up and noticed how injuried my pony friends were. Some had bloody noses and Twilight had scratch marks on her. Now I was really mad.
"That pony is going down," I growled.
I picked up my gun and charged in once more. Starlight had only just defended herself from my friends and saw me coming. Using her magic, she stopped me from running and lifted me into the air.
"You claim to know me, but tell me human, what is the one thing you don't know about me?" she asked with a sinister grin. "It's quite simple, when I say something, I mean it, so farewell!"
She then threw me across the yard and made me crash aganist a hard tree trunk.
"No! Matthew!" cried Twilight. She got to her hooves and ran over towards me. All my friends ran over to me while Rarity protected us with a shield. "Are you alright?"
I groaned, "I think so, but I can't move."
Patrick looked down and noticed my right leg was out of place. Worst still, there was the horrible pain in my back, I wasn't going anywhere.
Twilight in pure anger, turned her attention at Starlight. She ran out of the safety of Rarity's shield bubble with horn aglow. Starlight laughed and lit her horn.
"Oh sorry, did I just get you mad? I can't see why, humans are insects that need to squashed," she chuckled.
Twilight growled, "how dare you hurt my friend, you monster!" She unleashed a powerful attack, which bashed threw another one of Starlight's shields and hit her hard. The blast hit her so hard that she went flying over my second garage and over to my neighbour's field. Twilight ran after her, "I'll show you what happens when you mess with my friends!"
She was soon out of sight, but we could still hear explosions as magic powers clashed with each other.
"We have to..." I began as I tried to get up, but I ended up falling back. A single tear fell from my right eye, I wanted to protect Twilight and her friends, and now I've let her down.
"Rarity, do you know any spells that could help Matthew?" Emily asked.
"I'm sorry Darling, but with the injuries he has, none of my spells can help him. Only the magic of Princess Celestia can help him now."
No sooner had she said that, then another bright flash of light appeared, right where Twilight had been standing. Threw the bright beam of light, we could see three objects coming our way. Right away, I knew who one of them was.