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After nearly being mugged Twilight turns her considerable talent with magic towards self defense. When a fight with Luna goes farther that either of them wants it to, Twilight will need to find redemption in her new position as Luna's bodyguard and stop a conspiracy that wants to bring back a force more dangerous than either of them.
This chapter brought to you by:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbwoIX_1rbQ
Ha ha it does help when I give the GitP folks the sneak preview before it goes up. Glad you enjoyed it.
I really gotta get back to reading Clockwork, I'm like 4 chapters behind
"The two mares stared at him for a long moment, long enough for Reinolds to consider just how far out of line he had stepped by implying that the princess hadn’t taught Twilight to protect herself property and had put her in danger."
Property should be properly. Other than that, good story. I want to see where this goes.
EDIT: first!
Maybe it wasn't a typo. Maybe the second chapter is going to reveal that Celestia is actually a reincarnated Ayn Rand in Equestria and society breaks down forcing Twilight "Galt" Sparkle to take drastic measures to protect her rights from other, less worthy ponies. 
Or maybe "t" and "l" just looked a little too much alike when I typed this up. That's probably more likely. Fixed now.
It doesn't have anything to do with the story and it isn't meant as any sort of political statement, although I am American. I'm not planning to change it, though.
Done! Alright, sorry everyone else, the current story is cancelled until I can finish an epic "Atlas Shrugged with ponies" crossover. Send all thanks to cammerhammer over there.
I'm pretty sure self defense training here on Earth would be real different if a third of the population had combination swiss army knives/rocket launchers permanently attached to our foreheads.
The Firefly reference wasn't intended when I came up with the name, but I certainly noticed it a few pages later and decided not to change it. And reference or not my story could only be improved by Nathan Fillion (Fillyon?
) voice work.
Nice book title. And from earlier, I'm not the only one imagining Nathan Fillion voicing the good captain. Or providing said book to Twilight. (Either him or Guybrush Threepwood.)
Also makes me curious about pony martial arts; they do exist in the show. Rainbow seems to favour pragmatic fighting, while Rarity might be more of a graceful stylist (comparing headbutt versus left cross from the wedding brawl). And what might happen if Twilight were to pick up on either.
And Pinkie tag? Anyone got some duct tape for the space-time continuum? We're gonna need it 
I've seen this mistake a couple of times (in general, not just in this fic):
They were always happy to see her, of course, and Rainbow Dash especially seemed impressed by the training regiment she was undergoing.
It's actually regimen. Regiment is a military unit.
Other than that, keep it up. I'm interested.
EAKIN'S GUIDE TO WRITING LUNA:
-Take personality from Luna Eclipsed.
-Add 2 parts self-entitlement with a dash of sociopathy.
-Mix inside author with a bottle of cheap wine.
-Type wildly until passing out
-Recover from hangover
-Edit result for clarity (optional) and serve cold
OK, that may not be EXACTLY how it happened, but I know Luna probably doesn't come across as especially lovable here. Stay tuned for some exciting action next chapter, when Luna takes Twilight up on her offer to play chess and delays my having to write an action scene for another 5000 words!
Nah, don't worry. It. Is. On! 
The next chapter is probably a few days out, and I may take another pass at this one as I'm sure I made some mistakes with all the thee/thy/thou stuff in Luna's dialogue.
Thanks, should be fixed now
EDIT:
Holy crap dude, are some kind of posting ninja? How did you read all that and still beat me to the comments?
Guess you'll have to wait for the next chapter to find out... 
EDIT THE SECOND:
Holy crap I'm in the featured box. I'm blown away, thanks for all your support guys
Family is arriving literally any minute, I'm posting this now because I won't be on the site or have a chance to start the next chapter until at least Sunday, plus I need to edit Writing is Hard for submission to EQD (Me + Quotation Marks + Punctuation = 
I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG!. so I would guess late next week
There is only one .gif appropriate for this situation.
Brawler Luna is best Pony
I'll keep an eye on this on how it develops, even though both Combatants are clearly not in the same leaque.
A bit of Slice of Life never hurt or maybe in this case it will hurt Twilight 
any Chance you have other Fights planned?
I would pay all my Bits to have a Luna vs Celestia Match although Equestria might not be in one piece after that
Luna's disregarding The Code and Equestria runs on narratavium (Pratchectt Refeferences are Go!). Twilight Sparkle is a Hero and an Underdog against an opponent who has shown signs of Contempt (Luna waving off the safety talisman). The only way Luna could have asked more to get her tail kicked in is to say something like "I am Invincible."
>>754894 Just because Luna is considered to be a demi-god, does not mean that Twilight cannot match and/or surpass her in magical ability. Celestia did not tell Twilight she was the most powerful Unicorn Celestia has ever seen in thousands of years for nothing, you know.
Just Like in her fight against Nightmare Moon, Twilight is going to show Luna how much combat styles and modern fighting had actually evolved in 1000 years, so is no wonder if Twilight is going to beat the manure out of Luna if we considered that some combat techniques she may possess are either outdated, over disected to the point to counter them may be considered basic training, or demned completely useless in comparation to the new combat tactics, techniques, styles and even modern warfare, yea sure there's going to be some actually some awesomely epic legendary combat tecniques that Luna(And Celestia) may now be the sole or last practitioners and masters alive, in a way they're going to finish up that fight they've got a few years ago when Luna returned from her vanishment as Nighmare Moon.
Ladies and gentlemen, please remember that Twilight doesn't have to win to be impressive. After all, a good showing in a loss can go pretty far. For those who don't understand, there's a couple of films from Sylvester Stallone I'd like to refer you to.
I am, of course, looking forward to either a good long slobberknocker of a match, or Luna looking at a crater and admiring Twilight's ability to not die from having Pluto swing by to say hello to her. (And Twilight mumbling things about dwarf planets versus actual planets in regards to personal combat use.)
It's true. At this point Narrative Causality has kicked in and there's no hope for Luna. There is, however, one way that she might be able to break herself out of the chain. Twilight may be the Hero and the Underdog, but Luna is playing the Socially Awkward Authority Figure card here. It's possible that she'll beat Twilight, because any time a ruler/goddess in her position stumbles onto a situation like this and then challenges their only friend to a fight in order to make everyone else like them, they inevitably crush said friend mercilessly and then wonder why everyone else hates them for it.
>even though both Combatants are clearly not in the same leaque.
I'm not sure how good Twi's offensive magic has gotten in this story, but we know that even before training, her defensive magic was good enough to stop Discord.
At the very least, Twi on full defensive mode should be able to last long enough to get a draw, and that's assuming Luna doesn't do anything silly...
Mooooooaaarrtarrrr FIREEEE
GIVE ME MOAARRR
Finally, we get to the heart of this thing.
This ran so long I considered breaking it up into two chapters. Heck, it's longer than the rest of the story so far put together. But I ultimately decided it would flow better as one. Plus I would have had to made you guys sit through a cliffhanger somewhere in there, who wants that? Writing action scenes isn't something I've tried my hand at before, but I enjoyed pushing my boundaries and hopefully I ended up with something worth reading.
I really enjoyed reading all the predictions in the comments from the last chapter. Some of you might need to spend a little less time on TVTropes, though (It Will Ruin Your Life). Overall I was surprised how many of you guys expected Twilight to walk all over Luna. I hope that you don't think either pony got shortchanged the way it ended up developing.
One thing that surprised me as I wrote this was how dark it started to get, especially the bit with the shadow which was never a part of the original plan. The prospect of writing another page of shoot/dodge/shoot/dodge repeat inspired me to come up with something more interesting. Luna goes from funny and adorable to pretty terrifying surprisingly easily.
Anyway, this will get one more chapter to wrap the whole thing up in a (hopefully) satisfying manner. I'll try to get it up this weekend.
What got into Twilight? I can see her stubbornly refusing to quit and all but Luna's a friend. Twilight will sleep off her aches and pains in a week or two but the things she said could well hurt Luna for a whole lot longer. Neither of them looked too good morally speaking.
>Luna challenges Twilight to a friendly match
>Twilight rapes and humiliates Luna with words
You're not a very nice pony, Twilight.
But hoo boy, you write action scenes like a motherfucker. Not a lot of people have a knack for writing magical duels, but that was so amazing I might have bonered a little. I'm serious. My body reacts in strange and fanciful ways. I am really, really happy right now that I decided to track this story. Looking forward to that next chapter, and the fallout of that little stunt. There is indeed no more fearsome a weapon than the truth. Bruises heal; but words remain forever.
Awesome! I really really enjoyed this chapter. Simply magnificent. Its kind of too bad that your only going to add one more chapter before it is completed; I would LOVE to see where the rest of this could go.
And I never expected Twi to walk all over Luna... I was just annoyed how others seemed to think Luna would curb stomp Twilight JUST BECAUSE Luna is a Goddess. With a little more training, it might even be possible for Twilight to beat someone as powerful as Luna. Who knows? Being a Goddess does not automatically make one all powerful and all knowing.
Anyway. excellent chapter, and I find it quite hard to believe you've never really wrote action scenes before. And the last lines? Completely gold! That takes a special kind of soldier to remain aware after taking a beating like that from Luna.
Yeah, I knew that may not go down so well. Part of it was that the story is better if the stakes are raised, and a life or death struggle is certainly higher stakes than a friendly sparring match. But that isn't a valid in-character reason. Twilight just really really didn't like being humiliated like that, and in anger she lashed out at the things Luna was sensitive about. Bear with me through to the end though, karma's a bitch and Twilight's not getting off scott-free for what she did.
Although immediately before the teleport-zap bit Luna had tried to straight up murder her. Really they all broke the rules so many times, I just had to give Reinolds that line about the ref being fired to lampshade/explain it
Well, I'm not completely ruling out the possibility of a sequel...
Nope, never wrote any action stuff before. That's one of the reason I kept pushing myself back into this story when it was stalling out late in chapter 2, no excuses for not challenging myself when I've got an idea that sounded like this much fun.
It's certainly a mess. Luna's probably a little TOO ingrained in the old ways, where maybe a thousand years ago killing an opponent in the ring was an honorable thing to do. Or, she was just really, really angry, enough to kill or grievously harm. I would be too.
That was one of the best magical duels I've read in a long long looooooong time. Simply amazing in execution. Most of what I'd have said has already been said, that Twilight and Luna are going to have to have a chat to try to begin healing the wounds they both caused with that fight. Both have a lot of blame to rest on their shoulders, which is just another example of how well done this fight is.
Take all these moustaches!
I don't like this story anymore. 
The development went somewhere that makes no sense. Twilight said things that cannot be unsaid, luna attempted murder. It can no longer be an interesting story about twilight and magic fights, it's now a story about how twilight cruelly let the worst of her out and how this proves that luna is a fucking dangerous lunatic.
Hmm, first, brilliant battle scene. Very well executed, inventive, and riveting. I almost through Twilight might win there for a minute. Almost.
The characterizations... hmmm. The scenario does seem a little overboard, but honestly it's not enough to break suspension of disbelief for me. First of all, Twilight is clearly a borderline manic over-achiever, and seems to have almost zero filter regarding appropriate and inappropriate responses to a situation. (IE "lesson zero", and "it's about time") So her insulting Luna as a battle tactic, without thought for how that's going to backfire? Believable.
Luna's reaction, that's a tougher one. It's plausible, but plausible in a manner that befits a much darker fic. Normally, after a spaz-out like this, I'd expect the rest of the fic to detail her battle with social isolation and lingering madness. Really, a second nightmare moon or a suicide attempt seem like the only reasonable routes for her.
You just don't brush over that degree of responsibility fail.
All I can say is "wow." Actually, I can say more than that.
This was an incredibly enjoyable chapter, and free of cliffhangers too. If the story ended here, it would still be worth my time. Very inspiring, thought provoking, and probably the coolest action scene I've read.
I agree with what you're saying. It DID get dark in a hurry. I would have expected Twilight to start wishing she could run away again when Luna became murderous, so because of that the characters did feel unusual.
I am favorably impressed with how it all ended up. Luna was OP, but Twilight just kept coming back for more. It's very much like Twilight to just know her situation, know her options, and keep at it, but with your interpretation of alicorns being immensely powerful, Luna was going to win her out eventually. Heck, it took a military-grade net to finally subdue Twilight. Twilight lost, but her effort was monumental.
Very nice. 
An moronic and proud goddess to short circuited genius, in same ring, oh well, I expected it would end so well.
If Luna is really a goddess and - princess and ruler - she should have known to behave better then just right up challenging random pony and playing around them - I mean, Luna expressed in this story until now felt like Nightmare Moon S1E2 then Luna appeared in S2E4 Nightmare Night. Actually, I think Nightmare Moon was somewhat more careful.
For Twilight, I know be toyed is fastest way to be provoked in the match, she did loose her senses too fast. Near S2E3 Lesson Zero speed. Maybe this was expected. Thinking how she acted in Royal Wedding (While it wasn't wrong...) But her choice of word seemed unnaturally cruel - Maybe you should tried in a level of how she acted in S1E1 instead of that reaction - while it would be effective -
Luna and Twilight seems to know how to make her life harder in this story. Oh well.
Guess two have lots of scorn and lecture to hear from Celestia, I believe.
You're very good at action scenes, but I feel that Twi and possibly Luna were both pretty ooc in terms of the whole 'attempted murder' thing. Still, nice job. Also:
Neither you nor we can cast magic at the other through that netting. In your case, that handicap reduces you to a sniveling whelp who cannot even beg for her life. But us? We remain a goddess.
Could have sworn I've read this somewhere before.
Edit: I remember where now. Oh dear, I hope Twi doesn't go all Familicide on us.
It's one of those things, I had always assumed that Twilight in full overdrive state was probably pretty close to one of the alicorns. Combined with her extensive experience and whatnot, but then you go and up the ante with Luna probably being in excess of 15000 years old, with power a whole scale above.
Unfortunately, both are at fault here... Luna pushed Twilight and Twi pushed back. Unfortunately, Luna looses her cool pretty quickly and seemed more than willing to take the matter to a close. I won't say that Twilight's taunting was wise, but I can understand her perspective, try and get Luna to be pissed and make a mistake. That Luna was ready to kill was more than a bit uncalled for though.
In reality the duel should probably have ended the moment Luna got blasted out of the ring, if not a bit later than that... yep, ref needs to get fired.
Oh, right, I forgot to mention thatI The Order of the Stick's forum has a great brony community, and the comic itself is fantastic. I wanted to give them a little shout out. Luna is best Ancient Black Dragon.
For reference, it's from this strip:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0627.html
"I wonder what color you will turn?" made me laugh as I wrote it, and then immediately feel bad for laughing. All my writing seems to have a humorous thread running through it, even non-comedy stories have a few jokes scattered through them. It's probably because I used to write sketch comedy for my college theater group.
I...might have to agree with you on that. I mean...there is just absolutely no way in hell I can see either of these characters acting like this at all. It's just...no. It's completely separated from their characters. They wouldn't do this. Period. This would not happen like this.
I'm sorry. I usually don't take de-faving a story lightly. But you committed a serious error that a lot of authors do.
You took yourself too seriously.
And you paid the price for it.
You tried to make it more "serious", more "edgy" and "dangerous" and tried to increase the stakes from being just a simple ring match to a life-or-death situation. But in doing so, you sacrificed proper characterisation and tone, and it SHOWS.
This chapter is just bad. Bad in terms of tone with the rest of the story, bad in terms of characterization, bad in terms of pacing, honestly...it's bad.
Again, I'm sorry. But you really dropped the ball.
I will certainly agree that the tone of this chapter was darker than the last three. However, I set out when writing this story to build it around a no-holds-barred out and out magical brawl, and I think the title and story description reflect that. The whole story was never going to be jokes about how socially awkward Luna can be with the occasional Monkey Island reference. Those have their place, but a real fight isn't it.
I certainly see the concerns you and others have about characterization. If your complaint is that Twilight is too aggressive and should have backed down, I would point out that this is a character who, in her confrontation with Nightmare Moon,
1. Leaped into a magical tornado when NMM tried to take the elements away
2. Then proceeded to charge her and use a trick that's fairly analogous to the one she used in this story
3. Monologues about the importance of friendship before unleashing a devastating magical blast
Other than Boast Busters, where she was afraid of what her friends would think of her using her power to show up Trixie, when has Twilight ever backed down from a fight because her opponent could beat her? Admittedly, it's not really that kind of show , but I can't think of when she willingly backed down from any challenge. If anything, she refuses to back down or ask for help when she should (Lesson Zero / It's About Time / Feeling Pinkie Keen)
Was she too cruel? Maybe.Again, I'll address the aftermath of that in the next/final chapter, but it won't be in a "ha ha, laugh it off" sort of way. I've written at least one entirely comedic fic, and even my more serious ones tend to end up with a little humor scattered through them. But even if this is a little more serious I don't think there's anything here that's deserving of slapping a [Dark] tag on the whole shebang.
I will completely disagree that taking Luna to a darker place is OOC. Before this she tried to blot out the sun, and I think if you review Pre-Fight Jitters you'll see a sort of casual sociopathy that in a real person would be highly disturbing. And I think Luna Eclipsed backs that up; The girl was willing to cancel a national holiday because she felt a little slighted, has enough power to summon a gigantic lightning storm for mood lighting, and clearly has a few hot-button issues. What do you think she would do if something REALLY provoked her?
Finally, if you feel there are pacing problems, please please PLEASE be more specific about what you're objecting to. I wasn't kidding when I said this was my first time writing an action scene, and I absolutely CRAVE that sort of "this, precisely, is what you did wrong" feedback
Since I responded to the response to your post, it only seems fair to address what you said originally as well. Twilight will indeed pay the price for what she did and, almost more importantly, what she said. It may not be the price she expects, but there will be a toll. However, the "magic fights" part of the story is over. Really serious fights don't, in my opinion, end with both sides magically befriending one another because one combatant proved they were a worthy opponent for the other. The last chapter will indeed be more concerned with the collateral damage and the other ponies that the Twilight/Luna throw down ended up hurting than setting up a consequence-free round 2.
Well, I see your points, but still, I don't think Twilight would ever go so far as to mock her for the whole Nightmare Moon thing, or claim that Celestia is better than her. Unlike you, I just can't buy Twilight doing that, and without that, Luna being darker simply falls apart.
As for pacing...well, that's harder to specify. It just seemed that sometimes it moved too fast, and other times it was just taking its damn time to get to the next part. It seemed...uneven, I'd have to say. I don't think that's really something you can specifically fix, though, since I don't think you want to watch me go through the whole chapter and pointing out where it could have been better paced, and I don't really want to read it again, to be honest. It's not something that can be objectively measured or defined, it's just that I felt it was uneven.
As for the OOC parts of it...well, I say we just agree to disagree on that. There's no sense arguing when there's pretty much no chance that we'll convince each other.
Trust me, it's nothing against you. It's just that I'm not comfortable with stories that take characters to places and situations THAT I FEEL they don't belong in. I was doubtful at first, but gave you the benefit, but...I'm afraid I'll have to pass. I'm sorry.
However, I will give your other stories a look, so hopefully I'll find something more to my tastes. Until then...I guess this is goodbye.
Oh trust me, I don't take your critiques as personal attacks in the least. Honestly, I find negative feedback VASTLY more helpful than the positive sort. Part of it is just my personality, I instinctively assume that compliments are hollow and meaningless or at least not especially useful, unless they're specific about the elements that they liked. If you change your mind or your curiosity gets the better of you, the last chapter should hopefully be up by the end of the day Sunday.
Glad you liked "Writing is Hard." Don't tell anypony, but I think it's stronger than this story too.
That was a very good Fight Scene.
I was unsure on the first Chapter alone if I would like this but now I can say I am looking forward to the conclusion for all the Parties involved.
While the Characters maybe appear OoC, a bit to serious in a general Setting. I also say for this Story they work, if what you want to portrait is a good Fight Scene what i presume.
I was a bit surprised on how quick the 'friendly Spar' degenerated into a full Fight. Then again Twilight used the one thing that really hurt Luna her Berserk Button so to speak if I may use TVTrope there for a second addressing her in Inferiority Complex in regards to Celestia + the NMM thing really pushed her over the Edge,
But that also makes Luna such an interesting Character, this Emotional Instability, being quick to Anger and very forceful with all the Power on her Command as an Alicorn.
keep up the excellent work
electric atacks and fire? sure!!!
BUT!
try air and fire... the air pumped in to the fire making it more intens and making it so hot it becomes a blue flame...
fire and earth... magma
fire and ice heat the ground and chill the air above and you got your self a hell of a tornado!!!
a earth armor, a heat protection spell and make it a magma armor
air and water... compress the air and let it blow trough water making a water jet able to cut trough steel
THE COMBENATIONS ARE END LESS!!! and that are only the element magics O.<
how you did it was very good... luna is still a goddes and twiligh a unicorn power difrence are not in question...
the fact that twiligh used the verbal atacks was what she had been drilled in the training is proving to work againt luna... and that she know some weak spots in lunas metal barier is proving ot be more evective...
beening a unicorn herself knowing the base of the hron is highly sensitive is only nature... twi should ask what the weak spod are for a pegasus to rainbow dash to get a winning ege over luna about 2/3 of her beeing, unicorn and pegasus down only last earth pony huh?
that would be the last of the shields???
Though I wouldn't say Twilight was without fault, I think Luna is definitely the aggressor here. From the very beginning she was simply toying with Twilight, playing with her, arrogant as only a goddess can be. Condescending and insulting, challenging Twilight who really didn't want to be there in the first place.
Of course, Luna's smacked down hard for her arrogance but she then straight up ordered Twi to surrender or Luna promised to make an example out of her. Twilight, probably ill-advised but decides to bring up the history and really... 'truth' of the previous encounters and previous incidents. She's a bit cruel no doubt but since when has Taunting not been a completely valid strategy? Get them mad so they make mistakes. Plus she had just proven that she could knock Luna down if she was careless, as history had proven before.
From then the fight obviously gets a bit more desperate from Twilight's perspective, and Luna's so enraged that I'm not sure if she'd of let off even if Twilight would have surrendered or been rendered KOed. The shadow choke and subsequent teleport into a mind-blasting brain pulse was more for survival than anything. The bucking is what cause the gouge but it seems like that was a fairly minor issue.
Of course, Luna's still completely lost it and Twilight's still rather... well, I'd probably of run away at that point, but who knows if that would have helped...
Really, sure, she poked a mental-emotional wound, but Twilight really didn't start the fight in the first place. I'd of assumed taunting would have been a completely valid tactic, though with Luna's less than stable mental state... probably a stupid one. After that, it was really nothing but survival. I can't find Twilight completely, or even mostly at fault for all of this.
Yes, Twilight had to fight dirty to have any chance and that's the direction I envisioned her training taking. If you get into a real fight, end it as quickly and decisively as possible with minimal risk to yourself rather than fighting "fair." As for your other points, I'm honestly trying to put as few rules and restrictions around what magic can actually do and how it works, or what might be possible as I can. That way I have the maximum possible amount of room to pull out surprises while still giving my readers that there IS a defined structure and the CHARACTERS are aware of what it is, so the reader doesn't need to understand it completely as long as they understand the cliff-notes version of what they can expect it to do in a given situation. While this does increase the risk that I'm pulling magic plot devices out of my ass when needed, I think that readers of this story would have accepted that these are two powerful magic users. Why can Luna suddenly manipulate her shadow? Well, she's a princess of darkness and the night so it seems like it falls within her wheelhouse. As long as there's a fairly ready excuse for readers to rationalize why it should work, it isn't immersion breaking.
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this is too epic to wait for, but i dont want spoilers, they just kill the point of reading more 
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