Ponyville, Everfree Outskirts - 22nd of Midsummer ‘15 EoH - Afternoon
Searing white light blazed with untold wrath, sweeping over the impromptu arena in a wave converging upon Sacred in a detonation which made the earth tremble. Earth flew outwards from the epicenter, and the guards atop the walls began to cheer. Sending praises towards their princess even before the light had vanished completely.
Twilight, on the other hoof, braced herself.
The light cleared away, a pale almost invisible red globe engulfing Sacred as he remained floating, untouched by the massive concussive blast. The cheering died out.
“You opened with a concussive shockwave?” Sacred asked, his voice betraying the amused smile behind his blacker-than-black helm.
“To be fair, I’ve crushed boulders with that,” Twilight rebutted, eyes flicking over Sacred’s shield, analyzing it with every neuron in her analytical mind.
It was an unusual shield. The shield spells Twilight was familiar with maintained a consistent color and seemed uniformly thick, like a globe of stained glass. This shield was practically invisible, only perceptible as a pale red circle upon it’s very edges.
Sacred nodded. “That’s fair,” he began, voice harshening as he suddenly bellowed. “Lapidem, et devorabit ex inimicos!”
The yellow glow of his armor flared as pale red light poured up from the ground around Twilight in a shattered glass pattern! The dirt melted into flowing magma, stone fangs erupting in a circle around the perimeter, snapping shut in an instant with the sound of an avalanche!
A wave of gasps from the wall top morphed into cheers as in that heartbeat Twilight teleported appearing mid air, hovering over the snapping fanged maw of earth and magma uneasily. Twilight was a scholar, not a warrior, and she had no idea what sort of spells her opponent was using.
“Soo… Mnemonic incantations?” She asked, again keeping focus on her opponent.
“You don’t use them to help remember complex spells?” Sacred asked casually.
Twilight dipped her head, horn glowing fiercely as she hurled a ray of lavender light. The ray was a pale, sickly, thing. A first year student could do better, but it wasn’t meant to harm… The ray struck Sacred’s shield, and split into two halves, sliding off the shield’s face and slicing small furrows into the ground behind him.
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. Deflection rather than absorption. Unconventional, but clearly effective.
Satisfied with her probing ray’s success Twilight snapped her wings backwards, surging forwards in a dive as she let loose a barrage of intense spellbolts, nearly filling the air with a solid pillar of searing light!
Sacred dipped to the left, moving out of the way with a sharp crack as he forced the air aside, the pillar of death boring a hole three ponies deep a fraction of a second after his short flight finished!
“No homing charm added to those?” He asked tracking Twilight as she pulled out of her dive, sweeping back upwards into the sky as she almost brushed the ground. The armored stallion sounded almost disappointed.
The magma-like lines in Sacred’s armor pulsed as Sacred uncrossed his forelegs, reached upwards, and seemingly pulled a spear made from dull red light out of thin air. The stallion took aim at Twilight as she climbed for more altitude, and gave the spear a short lazy toss, allowing it to float towards Twilight at a lazy pace, the tip realigning to keep pointed straight for her as it moved.
Sensing the spell, Twilight glanced back, and couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you expect to hit me with something that slow?”
“Infinitum potentia vello!” Sacred barked, other hoof thrusting out in a single swift motion.
A cone of light emanating from his outstretched hoof dimmed, the dimmed light raced upwards, engulfing Twilight as she turned to come around for another attack. Twilight yelped as she felt herself dragged backwards, suddenly racing towards the spearpoint belly first!
Twilight bucked, kicked, flapped her wings with all her might, but only barely managed to change her orientation as she was dragged downwards! Gritting her teeth, she twisted, turning her face towards the energy-spear, and sending a crackling ball of unstable energy slamming down into it!
The energy-spear exploded in a shower of sparks! Sacred, reached upwards to draw another, his outstretched hoof maintaining the spell pulling Twilight towards him at an ever increasing speed!
Thinking quickly, Twilight closed her eyes, focused on her wards and made a few quick alterations. She jerked to a halt in mid air, sparks crackling around her as the lesser layers of her defenses collapsed under the strain of resisting the pull, but resist it she did.
A joyful cheer rang out from the wall tops once more as the massed Equestrian forces celebrated Twilight’s outwitting of her opponent! A cheer which Sacred shared.
“Yes!” He exclaimed happily. “Nopony has ever negated that spell! If I defeat you in the end without killing you, would you enjoy being my sparring partner?”
Twilight glowered down from above, ignoring his question entirely. “That wasn’t telekinesis! What was that?”
“Y-you negated it without knowing what it is?” Sacred mused, clearly impressed. “No matter… You have a more important question to ask.”
Twilight flew to the left, circling around Sacred in search of an opening as he simply rotated in place to keep her in view. “Like how many more high level spells you can use before you’re done?” She asked.
“Where did those photons go?” Sacred asked.
Twilight’s pupils contracted slightly, the mare realizing exactly what Sacred had just done. “Oh-”
Sacred vanished with a odd distortion of air! Twilight flinched as a wave of heat flashed over her from behind, turning in time to see Sacred dip his horn slightly.
“Lumen, veni foras!” Sacred barked.
Twilight arced up, narrowly avoiding the screeching beam of blue-white light which split the air where she had been instants before! Pitching as far as she could, Twilight gathered her energy, rolled above Sacred, and fired a concussive blast with the sound of a thunderclap!
Sacred shot downwards, shield's edges crackling! The stallion twisted, stopping the fall after a few meters, looking up in time to see Twilight flick her head downwards, the massive ball of eldritch power around her horn erupting into a four pony thick white-blue-and lavender beam of destruction!
“Deflect this!” Twilight snapped, still quite angry towards the stallion for his use of what she now knew to be a horrific way to kill.
The ground below heaved, buckling as all the moisture in the soil flashed to steam, throwing a cloud of earth into the heavens as the spell drilled a lake-deep hole beneath Sacred’s former position!
The light cleared. The armored mage was nowhere to be seen.
The wall top erupted into a mass of cheers! For the first time, the Legion also moved, dipping their heads and pulling their right forelegs to their barrels in a warrior’s salute. Twilight kept frowning, eyes trying to pierce the pale gray smoke and orange glow of molten rock for any sign of her opponent.
A minute passed. A minute of nothing. Twilight nodded, satisfied to herself that the battle was over, and quickly landed at the edge of the crater, taking a deep breath to gather the energy to repair the hole she had made.
A blacker than night armored hoof rose over the edge of the crater! Grabbing the rim, Sacred vaulted out, landing on all four hooves, ready for battle! His armor remained intact the edges still glowing like magma, but his cloak had been charred into a scrap of cloth that vaguely resembled a hood!
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to sew when you are a colt!?” The stallion growled lividly. “I grew up without a blanket to have a green cloak!”
Twilight’s ears drooped, feeling a little bad for Sacred, despite the fact that they remained locked in combat.
“Well then maybe you shouldn’t have worn it into battle!” Twilight exclaimed as she jumped backwards, resuming a fighting stance.
“Wait, that was made from a blanket?” Rarity called from the base of the wall.
“Yes!” Sacred snapped, head turning in her direction.
“It looked lovely, considering its origins,” Rarity called again.
Twilight frowned, confused as to Rarity’s sudden interruption but smiled when she noticed Rarity’s slight motion with one hoof. Realizing what her friend was doing, Twilight shifted her stance slightly, and closed her eyes.
“I know!” Sacred growled. “I very worked hard on-”
Twilight’s spell went off, a wall of white-light smashing into Sacred and throwing the stallion head over hooves into the gaping hole within the earth with an audible crunch!
Refusing to believe her foe dead a second time, Twilight snapped her wings open and jumped, gliding to the edge of the pit to continue the fight. A moment later, Sacred shot upwards in a blaze of red light, hovering at ground level over the center of the pit.
“I will beat you into submission and make you sew me a new cloak!” Sacred raged, too angry to use whatever trick had previously masked his aura from view!
Twilight flinched as the stallion’s aura seemed to collapse into a chaotic mess of dull red lightning! Immediately going on the defense, Twilight quickly began to layer shields one on top of the other, believing after the coming storm she would have the opportunity tend this once and for all.
“Ollud ungula de mei niteo apud, magna vis!” Sacred intoned, smoke pouring off his armor as plates began to slide back from one another, the dull magma-like glow brightening to a brilliant gold which shone brightly enough to entirely eclipse the blackness of his armor!
The gold light slid down to each hoof, forming dense balls of energy around arcane markings which could only be seen thanks to the gold light’s temporary banishment of the vantablack.
Twilight’s eyes widened, realizing in that instant the stallion’s armor was composed of arcanite, and not for storing power, or absorbing spells that struck it. No, it was configured in a way she had thought only theoretical. It was a focusing lens.
“Suus ardens postulat, me vinco vos!” Sacred continued, extending both hooves up slamming them together, a crackling blade of golden lightning manifesting from the unified golden auras a mere heartbeat before Sacred savagely smashed it down into Twilight’s layer’s shields!
Lightning crackled! Shields shattered! Motes of arcane light flew from the shields like sparks from a fire!
The lightning blade sliced through all but Twilight’s final three shields, carving into the earth below her, and out into the open area of the hole in front of her! Quickly flapping her wings, Twilight managed to keep from falling into the hole.
The glow from Sacred’s armor dimmed as Twilight looked up, dreading a second strike from the arcane blade. Her fears evaporated as the opened plates in Sacred’s armor quickly retracted, the black color returning to the armor, and the glow reduced to the original magma-colored radiance around each plate’s edge. But more importantly, the air around Sacred rippled and shimmered visible, like desert air on a hot day…
“Careful there, you’ll cook yourself,” Twilight taunted, hoping to keep her opponent angry and also reveal she knew he wouldn’t be unleashing anything like that for a good while.
“You are formidable,” Sacred growled. “I like that. But you still ruined my cloak!”
“Oh my Celestia!” Twilight groaned. “If you loved it so much why didn’t you enchant it to fix itself!”
“ I’m a warrior, not a scholar, damnit!” Sacred retorted. “I wasn’t allowed to study such magics! I wasn’t even allowed to learn to sew. I had to teach myself!”
The enraged stallion’s red aura returned as he drifted upwards, trying to move to a cooler area to let the heat built up within his armor escape more quickly.
“Well then you should have taken it off!” Twilight objected, giving Sacred a glare before she vanished in a burst of lavender light, teleporting behind the stallion, and firing another concussive burst, throwing him down into the bottom of the pit.
Sacred groaned as he slammed into the solid stone, but pushed himself upright quickly none the less. As he moved to take to the air, Twilight came crashing down, slamming her rear hooves into his helmet, driving the stallion firmly into the earth!
Twilight slapped the air with her wings, pushing herself up and away from Sacred as he retaliated with a burst of ball lightning. Pulling himself back to his hooves as the lightning exploded Sacred growled. “It’s not fair… The one thing of my own, destroyed!”
Twilight facehooved. “Seriously? You’re still hung up on that? It wasn’t even that nice of a cloak!”
“Cremito haereticus!” Sacred snapped eyes glowing as red as his vision behind his helmet.
Brilliant red flames erupting from the earth and engulfing Twilight to the point where the mare vanished completely within the inferno! Twilight screamed in terror as the flames pealed her shields away like the layers of an onion! Dropping into a sprint, Twilight raced out of the immolating fire just as her last shield collapsed, the tip of her tail singing under the heat of the flames!
“There!” Sacred grumbled. “I burnt your tail. We’re even!”
The stallion turned around, and began to levitate up the side of the hole, leaving Twilight behind him.
Twilight skidded to a stop, giving Sacred a flabbergasted look of complete shock as he retreated. “I, wha- We’re in a duel for the fate of my city! This is a serious fight you challenged me to, and now you’re just leaving!?” Twilight sputtered.
Sacred stopped ascending and turned around, air shimmering pale red as he put his shield spell back up.
“Right! I forgot,” the armored mage apologized. “You see, I was only a little bit absolutely livid. Tends to make me forget things I happen to have been doing before the fact. Now then, where were we?”
“I believe I had just planted my hooves firmly into your face,” Twilight said, eyes narrowing in determination.
“An admirable feat for a warrior with absolutely no refinement to her battle magic,” Sacred said sincerely, a dull red glow surrounding his horn as he began to charge a spell.
Twilight’s horn flared violet as she hurled a line of spellbolts into Sacred’s shield! Each bolt smashed the mage aside, the shield crackling under the stress, the bolts doing what her earlier ones could not.
“I’m not a warrior, I’m a scholar, damnit!” Twilight cried. “And I’m a quick study!”
“You’re a scholar?” Sacred asked in a shocked surprise, his conjured nest of crimson energy-spears streaking out and slamming into Twilight’s shields, but rather than chip away at her shields, the spears skipped off, sputtered, and crackled before dissipating in a shower of sparks.
“Don’t you have spies?” Twilight called as she turned, ascending to leave the pit, unable to get any distance between her and Sacred within its narrow confines.
“You took down Lord Tirek! We all believed you simply liked to read,” Sacred called, vanishing with a sharp crack and appearing over Twilight’s head, slamming both hooves in a hammer blow against her shields.
A shower of lavender sparks erupted around Sacred’ gauntlets as the arcanite drained the energy from the barrier before the blow sent Twilight tumbling a few meters down, where she managed to land on the crater rim.
“Frankly, I think you’re lying to me about your occupation,” Sacred said, sounding oddly upset. “I have no tolerance for liars.”
“I didn’t defeat Tirek alone, my friends helped, and we used an artifact to do it,” Twilight exclaimed. “Your spies must be terrible if they couldn’t tell you that!”
“I don’t mean how you banished him,” Sacred objected. “You fought him to a standstill and forced him to use a non-violent means of getting what he wanted from you. Clearly, you are a warrior!”
As sacred finished his shout, he threw one hoof out in an arc, a blade of dull red energy scything outwards and slicing a deep gouge into the earth on either side of Twilight’s shield, the rest splattering harmlessly against the lavender bubble.
“Though… You do seem to know warding magic very well,” Sacred admitted. “Did that even scratch your shield?”
The armored mage’s dismissal of her scholarly status burned angrily in Twilight’s heart, filling her with the need to correct his errored assumptions.
“Your energy constructs are negatively charged, I worked that out after seeing your shield collapse. I’m also guessing your armor is letting you use negative instead of the normal positive. So I modified my shield spells to attract ambient negative thaumaturgic current, giving them a negatively charged outer layer, meaning your constructs are repelled by my shields and therefore can’t penetrate them without containing enough energy to overcome the ambient natural currents!” Twilight exclaimed in a lecturing tone.
“Interesting…” Sacred mused.
“Still think I’m not a scholar!?” Twilight asked, staring up at her opponent.
“No. You have reversed my opinion…” Sacred said slowly. “Why is Equestria’s champion a scholar, rather than a warrior? Would you not be of more use to Celestia-”
“I don’t normally fight things! I’ma diplomat. I resolve disputes peacefully. Yes, I can fight, but that’s not what I do, it’s not my purpose. I try to make everypony’s lives better, even those who disagree with me,” Twilight declared.
“I see…” Sacred mused. “Then, if you are a scholar, and your society is composed of unique individuals, and Celestia’s champion is primarily focused on the welfare of others…”
The armored mage growled angrily. “He lied… To all of us.”
Twilight’s ears perked, recognizing her foe was in the process of spurning the dogma which led him to attack Equestria. That was her means to defeat him, and in a way she would prefer.
“He definitely did,” Twilight agreed. “Equestria does have it’s problems… And many other nations simply don’t understand why we have certain socioeconomic policies, while others dislike how our power dwarfs their nations. But all any Equestrian wants is to help others live a happy life, our kindness is legendary. We are not violent or oppressive against anypony. We accept everyone willing to live peacefully.
“Your leader has been misleading you for long enough. You can stop this. You can surrender right now and turn your back on him. I’ll pardon you of your crimes if you renounce your loyalty to your master and end this before anypony is hurt!”
“I would gladly accept your terms,” Sacred said bitterly as he floated down to Twilight’s eye level, “however, I will not make myself a liar or oathbreaker. Father has lied to me about the world, rendering my oath to him void.
“But I agreed to fight you of my own free will, and we established terms. The two of us made a deal and it did not involve him or his will. If I surrender before I am unable to fight further, then I break my oath to you, and become an oathbreaker. As it stands now… All I have is my word.”
Twilight frowned, and slowly nodded. “I understand… I think. I do not agree that you would be staining your honor by surrendering. But I’m not going to be able to convince you of that, am I?”
Sacred shook his head. “No. We must continue to fight.”
“Alright… But here me out,” Twilight asked. “You wanted to know which of us is stronger so you could decide which ideology to follow. We don’t need to fight for hours for that. How about you stand on that side of the pit, I stand on this side, you throw your most powerful spell, I try and defend against it.
“If I can’t protect myself, then that’s it, you know you’re stronger. If I block it, then I throw my most powerful attack at you. At which point we will know if we are evenly matched, or if I am stronger than you.”
Sacred shook his head firmly. “If I were to cast my most powerful spell here, I would destroy Ponyville, and thus forfeit our duel.”
Twilight blinked, managing to not recoil or show her fear as she wondered if the only reason she was still alive was this stallion’s promise. “Er, what is it?” She asked curiously.
“A Second Thaumaturgic War Era spell designed to slay elder dragons,” Sacred informed with casual honesty.
“What the flying buck were you being trained to fight!?” Twilight exclaim-demanded, jaw dropping.
“Everything,” Sacred said simply, and honestly. “Which I do admit is why I have been able to hold out against you this long. You have more raw power than I do, but your combat spells hold no edge at all. It’s like you are fighting with a blunted sword and glass armor…
“I suppose… We could go up a few miles. That should be safe.”
Twilight bit her lip in thought, mind racing as she sought to find a solution to countering the seven spells she knew of which Sacred could be using. Her eyes light up as she found one, prompting Twilight to nod.
“Alright, let’s go up,” she agreed.
“At any rate, our conversation has given my armor time to cool. Should we be evenly matched, I can and will resume a normal battle,” Sacred warned as the two began to climb into the cloudy skies.
“That’s fair,” Twilight agreed.
The two quickly gained altitude, vanishing from sight to those on the ground far before they arrived at what Sacred claimed would be a safe altitude. The two opponents square off, stopping a few dozen meters apart from one another in the sea of clouds.
“Go ahead. Let’s finish this,” Twilight said, waving a hoof to prompt her opponent to action.
Sacred nodded and uncrossed his arms, armor clicking as the plates ratcheted open, allowing the bright golden light of raw mana to shine once more. This time, he pulled his hooves in against his chest, holding one atop the other in a vertical stack. The golden light contracted, moving away from everything aside from the backs of his hooves, his horn, and his heart, where the light formed shimmering globes bright enough to be seen from the ground below.
“Deus e tenebris qui omnia saecula, ego invoco ut vos, da mihi omnis potestas tua!” Sacred intoned, the lights simply vanishing as he finished his mnemonic recitation.
Twilight tilted her head curiously, having sensed the magic truly having discharged. “Er, did you flop it?”
“No,” Sacred informed. “That was part one.”
The armored mage took a deep breath and held one hoof up to face the sky, beginning a long chant. “Tenebrae extra crepusculum, ruber extra sanguinem, fluentem, sepultus intro aevum | ubi est tua potestatem crescit,” Sacred chanted, bringing both hooves down and holding them apart like an Earth Pony standing up to hold a bowl.
Twilight winced. Having worked out roughly how much information per word of Old Equish Sacred had trained himself to recall, this would be a doozy…
“Polliceor hostes vincere omnes qui quia statis | ante quod fortis donum | dedit in mea manu indignum.” Sacred continued, motes of red light forming around him and leaching from the surrounding air to condense into a deep red ball between his hooves.
Twilight flapped her wings, instinctively moving back from the massive collection of power massing in the one tiny spot. Her honed arcane scenes showing her the massive amount of power from before had opened conduits through which Sacred was now essentially commanding all ambient magical energy for several kilometers, and compressing it into one ball!
“Et insipientibus qui resistat vultui meo perdidit: | per potestatem et ego possideo,” Sacred finished, the shimmering black-red ball of magic sparking between his hooves for a brief moment before he threw it forward violently with a cry of, “Draco Interficio!”
The spell shot forward too fast for the eye to track. Speeding directly for Twilight’s heart.
“Reflect!” Twilight shouted, employing a mnemonic device of her own.
“Oh buck!” Sacred yelped as his spell bounced off a shimmering blue barrier.
The orb streaked back, it’s speed preventing even the thought of dodging before slamming squarely into Sacred’s barrel. The orb detonated in a flash of white light with a thunderous boom that shook the ground below. The searing hot wall of flames, compressed plasma, and decaying mana ballooned outwards, shining brighter than the sun for several seconds, and leaving a patch of sky cloud free for miles when it finally vanished.
At the blast’s epicenter, Twilight reappeared in a flash of violet, having teleported to the ground in anticipation of the explosion.
“Heh…” Sacred said weekly, armor quite intact, but the glowing edges were no more, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air around him. “Nice one, scholar...”
Sacred’s flight spell failed, and the stallion fell from the sky.
Acting quickly, Twilight tucked in her wings and entered into a steep dive. As she reached her falling fallen foe, Twilight grabbed him with her hooves, knowing that his armor would make a telekinetic grip too weak to lift him thanks to it’s magic conducting properties. As her forelimbs tightly gripped his waist she flared her wings, straining under the additional weight for several long moments before finally entering a controlled glide and spiraling to the ground.
Touching down next to the massive hole in the earth Twilight let go of Sacred’s unconscious form, took a deep breath, turned her head towards the wall and called. “He’s down! Medic please!”
The wall top erupted into one final cheer, the legion solemnly lit their banners on fire. Victory was at hoof!
Sky: "BOOOO... Less talking, more energy beams!"
7139608 Ayna: " 'S okay big bro. I've got the Thor targeted. if they keep yapping we make them team up to stop the rod rain."
7139612 Sky turns and hugs the best sister a pone could ask for!
To quote something Saphroneth said on spacebattles:
'Oh buck' indeed....there is no more appropriate response to having your magical nuke marked with 'Return to Sender'.
This was great fun to read, Meep. Beautifully done! A lot of character fleshed out for Sacred, and a very well done mage's duel. And while Twilight may have, at least initially, had a good bit of hostility, she had calmed down a lot by the end of it. Throughout, it was clear that there was respect there, from the almost casual conversation between spells, to the point of almost bickering. But one line summed up there entirety of the fight as a whole:
7139678 Quite bucking true. When Equestria's go to defense for a real problem is "These six mares god beam you into a moral person and auto-negate your plans." You realy shouldn't poke at them, ESPECIALLY not if you can get past their big gun which seems suspiciously kind...
Father was really incompetent in his job as a cult leader if his strongest subjects can be persuaded to ditch him and his philosophies with basic retorics. In real life, brainwashed fanatics tend to simply ignore anything that contradicts what the Great Leader says... even reality itself.
7139688 After ~6000 years of doing things and staying hidden, you'd start to let little mistakes pile up too. Becides, litches are not known for maintaining sanity for long, they generally devolve into a blind rage state.
Laught a lot at the battle...
7139722 I meant it to be a bit funny, and over all just good fun. May I ask what got you to laugh?
7139723 Their attitude and especially the whole cloak part. The scholar/warrior part, too.
7139740 I thought that was a good bit too.
Very nice battle, had a bit of S5 finally feel to it, though I'm supersized such a powerful spell could so easily be reflected.
I wonder what Celestia's reaction will be when she gets back, the battle is over and the enemy has been beaten, not much for her to do now.
Keep Up the great work!
7139766
It's the warrior vs scholar thing at play. Sacred's good, and he has a realy potent spell in his arsenal, but... It's about 10k years old. Twilight is a history nerd, and familiar with Starswirls's work, a mage from the same general time period. It stands to reason she knows the workings of those sorts of spells, at least in their general mechanics. Given just that, over time, she could likely work out a means to redirect a spell of that sort.
However, this is Twilight motehrbucking Sparkle. She's got the power and 'bandwith' to just brute force that son of a bitch.
7139766 Ironically not surprised the spell could be reflected. As for easy maybe not tehy were working mnemonics letting them use a word or two to rapidly trigger much more complex spells sort of like starting a program on a computer by tapping an icon, quickly which would be necessary in battle
7139612 Nice chapter Twilight was handled nicely. They might regret it but she was being gracious in victory there is nothing that says she had to stop her enemy from cratering the ground. Well there is maybe repair of the ground or if Scared's armor might of ad a nasty surprise impacting with the ground
But here me out,” Twilight asked. Maybe hear instead
7139783
So something like this?
orig04.deviantart.net/2431/f/2015/124/9/a/sith_twilight_redux_by_ncmares-d8s6z2i.jpg
(Twilight an't having your shit)
I didn't check the language or even check for a translation. But did Sacred seriously just cast Dragon Slave? In what appears to be Latin?
7139795 Yes. Yes he did. And also the Magic Amplification charm. And yes, that's as close as Latin can get to the exact wording. At least as far as Google Translate will do. I'm surprised you noticed that anime reference, but not the other one...
7139790 That's quite true, Twilight worked out what his spells actualy did via listening to his incantations, giving her a head start on what to do to counter them. That's the drawback of using mnemonics, they are pretty literal, and if your opponent knows the language your using...
7139792 Basically yes. All she wanted to do was reverse the trajectory of an inbound spell. She had more than enough power to just give it the telekinetic push necessary to do that.
7139804
Not surprising to me. For the most part Gundam has never held any interest to me. Far too many emo boys in Giant robots. ...The Giant robot bit is fine it's the emo characters the drove me off.
7139808 ... Yeah there's been a lot of poor entries in the series. Fortunately each series is pretty much standalone.
7139684
Equestria can be summed up with the tropes of Bewere the Nice Ones and Good is Not Soft and by this quote.
"You might call them soft, because they're very reluctant to kill, and they might agree with you, but they're soft the way the ocean is soft, and, well; ask any sea captain how harmless and puny the ocean can be."
Not sure the chapter title fits.. You have the warrior enhanced by generations of experimentation facing the element of magic. Brute force throw away soldier facing a life long scholar
Nice chapter! But critic before compliments:
Waaaay to many exclamation marks. It was like reading a Japanese light novel. Shounen style narrative honestly doesn't look good when put exclusively on text form. I'd recommend trimming that down... A lot. Characters using it in both thought and speech is OK, but on plain narrative? Only sparingly, like on the paragraph:
That one was short and a good moment to actually use them. The rest, not so much.
That's my opinion, on the other hand. So YMMV.
Now, on the goodies!
LOVED the cloak banter. It gave quite the human side to Sacred. As did the sparring part, the scholar debate... He felt like a character, an honored warrior mislead that has been shown the light... But kept his honor no matter what.
And his cloak!!! He sewn it himself, self learnt for he could not study it! Such dedication to fashion should NEVER be unrewarded!!! that's why Rarity would most likely insist in not only giving him a worthy wardrobe AND sewing lessons, for he must be FABULOUS!!!!!
It would be only fair, after all. He grew without a blanket!
Moar when?
"Oh buck" does seem to be the appropriate response to that, yes.
7139945 Oh you think thats bad? Do you have any idea how many times I have to remove ellipses?
Spoiler alert: A lot...
The ending reminded me of this;
7139858 oooh, a Culture quote.
7139858 Especially if it's an ocean on Titan.
7139916 Peers can also be used in the terms of "equivilents".
7139945
It's even worse when you know he wasn't issued sewing supplies. So he had to make his own needles, and thread. Horse hair is fortunately very good thread. But yes, Rarity just might fix it. I can't see her not knowing a fabric restoration/repair spell.
7140089 Quite.
7140469 Oh come now! I don't use that many... do I? ... No. ... I'm certain I do not!
Twi missed a golden opportunity to go, "Um... if I repair your cloak, will you surrender?" (not that he would've, but worth a try!)
Glad to see Twilight still abusing combat teleportation. Wish she'd do that a bit more in the show!
7140796 Meep's Equestria is very Culture-ish. I could definitely see them running with the whole 'gravitas' joke.
I guess you could say that Coat was "Sacred." Man that one spell he had seemed to Drag-on any longer and they would have aged into elder status. Not gonna lie i'm really hoping to see sacred and the group have a semi happy ending for them. You picked a fight with a Scholar and she Twi-lighted up you up. I hope during his medical coma he has time to "Reflect" on his choices. who knows maybe he will bounce back just like his spell.also that last part Twilight do you even lift? Also I really do feel bad about what happen to his stuff but imagine rarity trying to fix it up with him and she keeps trying to add all this random stuff to it and he's like Coat you stop with that. Also I wonder if they do have a happy end for that lot where do they go? I mean celestia has the royal guard,luna the night guard. So is twilight gonna have the trixie guard?
Just me making a giant block of puns and wanting to say nice chapter.
Such an AWESOME battle scene/chapter! And just to think, with Twilight this powerful at her young age, if/when Celestia passes the torch to her and/or Cadence, by that time she might even be stronger than Celestia at her strongest! That is some crazy power. Loved the chapter, keep up the good work! :D
7141922
"There's a spell for that!?"
"Yes."
"... Ye- No."
7142046
That's not a bad idea actually. I didn't even think of that one... Which is wierd because she's lacking her own guard... Ponyville has only cops and Twi's been borrowing a guard detachment from Luna. Thanks!
7142070 Sounds like you had as much fun writing it as I had reading it! ... Wait... Scratch that, reverse it.
This is actually the first time a mage duel went how I've imagined them being, surprisingly. and I loved it!
and I want a vantablack cloak, that stuff is awesome!
7142336 It might be able to be put on a fabric... but it's not currently for sale. Mostly because manufacturing it in large amounts is a bitch.
7142351 I know, but it's really cool
7142122
hehe yep pretty much! :D
7142046 And I agree with Mr. Zel, giving Twilight the Trixie guard would be pretty awesome. Don't ya love when fans give you cool ideas? Props to you Mr. Zel!
7142122 Twilight the princess of friendship having a guard of super soldiers who need to learn about the world and make their own individuality.also imagine how fast ponyville would have monsters sent packing then lily could finally go on a date and not worry. On a side note since they now have them does that mean they might have any knowledge about the backers who supported them? like you know a certain father who is a supremacist and lit his son on fire. (I think you mentioned it in one chapter he was a backer to their cause of sorts I can't remember atm) I also really don't think anyone in the country would be too happy about a supremacist being a noble.
Favorite chapter so far, twi and Sacred interactions are priceless
7142530
Lily is not a native Equestrian, and Germany is an independent nation from Equestria. Sadly, not much will happen to him as a result of his backing the Ashes. Backers within Equestria... Well, some of them will refuse to renounce loyalty to that cause and be executed (Intentionally assisting a faction dedicated to destroying the Crown is treason after all...), others will be given prison sentences, all of their assets will be repossessed for charity... Tia is a kind and permissive ruler, but there are things she will hit like iron on an anvil. Causing the disruption of Equestrian Harmony with the intent to better one's own position in life is one of them.
The Trixies and Sacred are legally in the clear. They never had any choice in the matter, and while Equestrian law docent cover clones, it does specify that slaves and conscripts are not liable for their actions while acting under their master's orders. (Which while it's slipped the Princess's mind as having not been legally relevant for thousands of years, will come back when it's legally relevant.) That's mostly a legal thing dating back to Equestria's days of active imperialism, and was how Celestia granted various slaves amnesty so as to have many of them join her Solar Guard out of thanks and the desire for revenge against their various masters... But enough ancient history.
7142513 At this rate, I'ma haveta use his/her idea. It's orders of magnitude better than mine.
7142598 I'm glad you liked it! Is there any particular moment that stands out for you?
7142681
Aw I'm sure yours was great!
But either way I am sure it will be good. ^.^
7142840 Just because I had a good idea docent mean someone else's isn't even better :P
Just found this for Twilight battle. Not really fitting for the scene but it does fit with the atmostphere.
7143092 Huh... No tbad! Similar in feel to what I wrote the chapter to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXJ_EuwO4sQ
7143104 Cool...Though, again, it feels off for the battle.
Here's another.
I'm really starting to like this tree loving, sewing enthusiastic, little wacko.
And then comes the mega-spell-of-asskicking-plus-one!
what does Twilight do?
Nice work, keep it up.
7142681
Well there is the
"I'm a scholar, celestia damn it"
"I don't appreciate dishonesty great warrior of celestia"
Paraphrasing of course
7142884
True true, and Mr. Zel's idea was pretty awesome!
Well written duel, this is very interesting.
Hah, turns out I was wrong, the difference of philosophy is actually what matters here. Warrior versus scholar, and finding out that detail kinda sorta resolved the overall conflict.
Whoops, except they apparently have to finish the fight.
Yeah, that does seem excessive.
Nice. And in the end, the scholar wins on account of having knowledge of the right counterspell.
I hope if Sacred survives all of this, he really will become Twilight's sparing partner and will help her sharpen that blunted sword and toughen up that glass armor.