Chapter 4-Proving the Right to Bear
The frighting thing wasn't the fact that I was falling to the ground with no way to stop. The frighting thing was that the shadowy figure was actually Nightmare Moon! She caught up to me and grabbed my shoulders, continuing to shove me toward the ground.
“Aww, what's wrong, little prince?” she said in a teasing voice.
“I'm NOT a prince!” I yelled. My horn necklace flashed and in a burst of light, Nightmare was sent flying.
Rainbow caught up to me and yelled, “Was that Nightmare Moon?!”
“Yes!” I yelled. “Any ideas?!”
“Uhhh, Yeah!” Rainbow positioned herself behind me as we fell and started to rub my back between my wings. “Does this help?”
I flapped my wings and said, “Yeah!” I looked up and saw that Nightmare Moon was coming back. “Rainbow, fly and get Twilight and the others! Tell them to get the ummm, Elements of Harmony!” Rainbow nodded and flew off.
I levitated my self with my wings and landed on the ground. Nightmare landed infront of me. I involuntarily summoned Stormtide and narrowed my eyes.
“Finally,” Nightmare said, “Now we can talk.”
“Because the middle of Ponyville is totally the place to sit and have a chat!” I seethed.
“You have no idea do you?” the evil alicorn said. “Let me spell it out for you. You are supposed to be the prince of Equestria. But that isn't going to happen.” She gave me an evil smile. “You are meant to be mine!”
I didn't move. “Yeah...that is not going to happen. You want me? Come and get me!”
Nightmare rose in the air and flew toward me. I ducked under her and slashed upward, nicking her stomach. She yelled and shot a dark blast of magic at me, hitting me in the chest. I flew backwards and slammed into the Cake's house. “Sorry!” I yelled. Nightmare smiled and shot at me again. I deflected the bolt with my sword, slamming it back into her.
I could tell she wasn’t happy when she yelled and created a flaming black sword out of nothing. It started slashing at me. I parried and fought back, blocking the sword.
“Just join me Starlight!” She said. “Give in to your inner darkness and we can rule Equestria together!”
“If I'm supposed to rule it anyway,” I said, still fighting the sword. “I don't need your help!” I gave a vicious slash and broke the magic sword. I yelled, “Applejack!” and in a burst of light, my shirt turned light orange, like the color of her mane. My pants turned a darker orange, like her fur.
Nightmare smiled and said, “Your friends can't help you now!” She launched another magic blast at me in the shape of a beach ball. I grew a giant pumpkin right in front of me. The blast hit the pumpkin and blew it up. As the pumpkin cloud cleared, I lunged at her with a big carrot in my hand. I swung it at her and slammed Nightmare in the head with it. She rolled on the ground as I hit the ground. I turned and took another bolt of dark magic to the chest.
“Do you really want to continue this petty fight?” Nightmare asked with a smug look on her face.
I picked myself up and resummoned Stormtide. “Nah, let me end this now!” I dashed at her and cut a major gash in her side. I then leapt in the air and flutter kicked her in the side. She hit the ground and glared at me. Bleeding from her side, she hissed. “Don't think this is over,Starlight!”
She stood up and a bright light flashed from her horn. Suddenly, my clothes turned back to normal and I fell to my knees, dropping my sword. “Wha..?” I said.
She walked up to me. “I told you, you were mine. She then knelt down to touch her horn to mine......
Suddenly a bright rainbow came out of nowhere and slammed into Nightmare. She was sent flying into the air. I turned around and saw Twilight and the others wearing the Elements of Harmony.
“Starlight!” we all heard a voice. I looked up and saw Nightmare. “Enjoy the time you have left! I will be back for you!” In a flash of darkness, she disappeared.
Tired, I looked down, then when I looked back up I saw two strange alicorns standing in front of me. One was dark blue, but lighter then Nightmare Moon, the other one was white with a flowing rainbow mane and tail. “So.” I said. “Sky looks nice today.” I then calmly fell asleep out of exhaustion.
Let's Review: The Legend of Starlight! Pt 4: Not Another Fight Scene
This is probably going to be shorter than the usual offering. Something tells me this chapter is going to be slim pickings.
Oh, look, Nightmare Moon. How unexpected. It's not like she just appears out of nowhere or anything, with startling regularity I might add. She always manages to make that 'join me' speech sound oh so tempting, as well. Ya know, at least Vader had the whole 'we shall rule the galaxy as father and son' thing going for him. She's not really offering anything. He might make a decent mook, actually... emotionless, faceless, robotic for clean and PG rated dismemberment, speshul powaz. Yup, he's got it all.
Rainbow delivers a midair backrub in time to save the day of course. I don't really know what to say to that, besides the fact that I laughed for half a minute straight at the words 'midair backrub'. <-- So very much.
So Rainbow flies off to find the EoH, which totally doesn't take a day or so of searching a dingy ruin in the Everfree. Then again, this whole story seems quite sketchy on the overall timeline of the canon at the point where Star drops in. Maybe they've already found the elements? Then again, Luna is implied to be present at the end of the chapter, so who the hell is Nightmare Moon? Shreds of her power brought back into a pale mockery of her former self, ala Past Sins? Some other pony with a symbolic link to the moon, also corrupted by jealousy and hate? A shared hallucination? Luna, living a double life like a villainous version of batman? Hee, Woona plus bat-utility belt... fun times. Off topic now, sorry. Back to the underdeveloped fight scene.
It's less static than some fight scenes, but your descriptions are lacking. It feels like a child's description of a fight. I'm sorry to say that, really. The kind of 'and then she hit me, so I hit her' kind of description. The magic is pretty much used only to fire force at each other, or make swords, when we know pony magic is many times more versatile than that. Pretty much anything goes, yet the best you could come up with was 'I cast magic missile'?
Also, I don't know why, but 'sent flying' as a term for getting blasted into the air never sat right with me. It feels like a very childish and lackluster way to describe the effect of an equine getting hurled bodily by a blast of magic.
Twilight and the others manage to get the Elements and return in what is realistically between thirty seconds and a minute of fighting. Easy to do, if you're The Flash. They beat back NM, who makes overtones of 'I'll be back' at Star, and then the princesses arrive in the confusion, just in time for Star to dramatically pass out in front of them. He doesn't have any thoughts on the matter, of course... probably too busy receiving his orders from the borg hivemind.