A Certain Magical Friendship – Context_SHIFT

by Sora2455


Round up the stragglers - RESURGENCE_part_two

Both Twilight and Nightmare Moon stared (Twilight in slight confusion, Nightmare Moon with disinterest) as the Japanese teen continued to yell down in his native tongue. Twilight, who didn’t speak a word of Japanese, was forced to guess his intent from tone and expression.

<I mean, whether you blew a hole in my wall on purpose or on accident, that’s still really bad! Don’t move. I’m going to come down and give you a proper lecture!>

The boy – who looked like he was in his late teens – looked really mad. Which made sense, Twilight thought detachedly. His apartment had just had a hole blown in the side, in a fight that had nothing to do with him. That said, Twilight was glad to see him pull his head back from the wall. From what she could see, it was probably to call the police or something.

In all likelihood, she and Nightmare Moon would be well and truly gone by the time anyone else showed up, which was good. Defeating Nightmare Moon would be difficult enough without having to worry about bystanders.

Speaking of which.

Twilight saw the Nightmare Mist zooming towards her out of the corner of her eye. (Careless! Never take your eyes off the enemy magician!) Quick as a flash, she raised her arms and erected a forcefield, silently grateful that her brother had drilled this into her until it was instinctual. The Nightmare Mist pressed forcefully against her magical shield, but it didn’t make it through.

Nightmare Moon flicked her fingers, and the Nightmare Mist slammed into the forcefield again, shattering it. However, it used up its momentum doing so, allowing Twilight precious seconds to run forward to another parked car on the street.

Come to life!

The car’s wheels slipped against the road as the engine opened up full throttle, the newborn spirit inside the car filled with its only instruction: attack the opponent. Riding out the wheel-spin, the car spun around and charged toward Nightmare Moon. The Nightmare Mist froze in mid-air, seemingly hesitating between the car and Twilight. But as the car raced forward, the mist made up its mind and spread out like a pane of glass, blocking the car’s advance completely.

Yes! Twilight’s gamble had paid off. The Nightmare Mist was an automatic defence. It was still intercepting cars because Nightmare Moon hadn’t told it not to!

Aiming her right arm up at the floating form of Nightmare Moon, she fired off a beam spell. If the Nightmare Mist was busy blocking the car, it wouldn’t be able to block her spell.

Unfortunately, she had underestimated how quickly the mist could move. It flattened out, extending upward and completely enclosing Nightmare Moon in a quarter-dome of mist.

Twilight’s momentary surge of triumph melted away. Despite what she’d declared to the other girls, she was still having no luck so much as touching Nightmare Moon.

If she couldn’t sneak around the mist, and she couldn’t force Nightmare Moon to drop it… Nothing in her repertoire of spells leapt out at her as being able to bypass the Nightmare Mist. Even if she did get past it, Nightmare Moon could turn her own body into vapour, repairing any damage and escaping any bonds. Until she understood exactly what symbolism it was based on, she couldn’t destroy the spell behind that defence.

She needed some kind of trump card.

<Alright, that it! You two stop right now! We need to discuss who’s going to pay for my wall!>

Twilight’s head turned around, a look of horror across her face, just enough to see the boy from the apartment stomp out of the ground-level doors and right toward the two magicians.

He was wearing a white collared shirt with dark coloured pants. For some reason, his undershirt was bright orange. It looked like he had thrown his clothes on in a hurry, which made sense, all things considered. Not that Twilight really had the time to be worrying about his clothes.

Nightmare Moon’s eyes barely flickered in his direction. With a subtle movement of her hand, the Nightmare Mist suddenly bunched up like a piece of fabric hit from behind. The mist zoomed toward Twilight even faster than the cars Twilight had been sending the other way. She had less than five seconds to react.

A sudden raising of her arms, a rushed flow of mana down and out her fingertips, and a shimmering purple forcefield stood in the way of the deadly attack of mist. The mist slammed into her shield hard, this time breaking through without stopping. But while the forcefield did not block the attack outright, it did slow it down. The extra second or so meant that Twilight had enough time to finish the dive to the ground she had begun in tandem with her forcefield. The Nightmare Mist -whooshed- over her head, missing by a finger-width.

Only, it went both over her head and off to one side.

Twilight managed to frantically pull her head up from the ground, just in time to catch a glimpse of what was happening.

Nightmare Moon had two targets in mind – Twilight and the boy. So, she had divided her mist in two, one for each target. Twilight had ducked. The boy was still standing, not having been expecting an attack and therefore being unprepared to dodge it. And now the Nightmare Mist was going to end his life.

Twilight opened her mouth to scream. She didn’t have time to scream. She needed a spell. She couldn’t think of a spell. Surely she knew a spell that would stop this – she was certain of it. But which spell was it? She needed to organise the spells in her head. She needed to go through them, one at a time, until she had found the spell that would stop this boy from dying.

A forcefield. No – Nightmare Moon would just break through it. A beam spell, to shoot down the deadly projectile – useless, you can’t shoot down mist. Want It Need It – tried that already, it didn’t work. What about –

She was out of time.

The projectile of magically-animated mist slammed into the boy’s body with the sound of shattering glass.


Nightmare Mist lashed out, impacting the concrete wall around the roof of the building. It seeped in, and the wall broke apart so fast it looked like it exploded.

“Missed me!” Pinkie Pie giggled.

The skin around Nightmare Moon’s eyes tightened.

-Crunch-, -crack- and a sharp, sudden -snap-!

The concrete wall around the top of the building made those noises as Nightmare Mist surged out against Pinkie. But the cloud missed every time, as Pinkie jumped, spun and bounced around each of the attacks like a cheerleader on a sugar high. A particularly well-timed cartwheel saw her airborne at the crucial moment the Nightmare Mist swiped across at ankle-height.

“Hold still, cockroach.” The first hints of an angry scowl were beginning to appear on the face of Nightmare Moon.

“No!” Pinkie refused. “My leg said you would be my friend, and my leg has never lied to me!”

“There’s a last time for everything.” Nightmare Moon boomed, her mist surging forwards as a solid mass. Pinkie dived forwards into a roll, and the mist destroyed an entire section of the waist-high wall large enough to drive a car through. In a stunning display of (a lack of) grace, Pinkie Pie finished her roll with her face pressed into the ground, legs in the air.

Pinkie lifted her face off the concrete, confused. “Uh, don’t you mean ‘there’s a first time - ‘”

“No.” Nightmare Moon growled. “I don’t.”

The Nightmare Mist separated into six parts, and each part moved around around Pinkie so that so was surrounded. Pinkie’s head swivelled around, trying to view all 360 degrees of her surroundings at once, eyes wide. She moved so that she was sitting up instead of lying down.

Abruptly, one of her shoulders jerked upwards so suddenly it actually knocked Pinkie over. Because of this, the cloud of Nightmare Mist that had been flying at her from behind missed.

Each part of the mist zoomed towards Pinkie in turn, in no particular order. Each time a part of her anatomy would suddenly and vigorously move on its own, and Pinkie would move in an undignified but successful manner to dodge the attacking Nightmare Mist. Rolls, jumps, and general amateur gymnastics were being used to counter Nightmare Moon’s mainstay attacks.

After about a half-minute of this, Nightmare Moon recalled her mist, face still almost-scowling.

“You can see my attacks coming.” She said. It was obvious to anyone even remotely observant – even if the Shadowbolt pretending to be Nightmare Moon didn’t have second-hand memories of what had happened in the park, several of the attacks just now had been in the girl’s blind spots. The Nightmare Mist was silent and odourless, so she could not be using her five senses to locate the clouds of mist. The girl had to be using something else.

“Oh gee, you noticed?” Pinkie said, without a hint of sarcasm.

“But you are not a magician.” Nightmare Moon continued. She would be able to sense the magic if she was. There were ways to hide your mana from others, but a magician of that level would be able to do more than blindly dodge her attacks.

“Nope!” Pinkie happily confirmed, taking the opportunity to fully stand up. She stretched her arms out behind her, sticking her chest out as she did so.

“A Gemstone, then.” Nightmare Moon concluded.

“Well, that’s what most people call us.” Pinkie bounced on the balls of her feet. “Rarity thinks it’s confusing when she’s all like ‘Hey girls, come look at this new gemstone.’ and I’m like ‘Oh yay, a new friend!’, and she’s like ‘What? No, Pinkie dear, I mean gemstone as in the mineral.‘ and I get really sad because I’m not getting a new friend, and –”

The gigantic run-on sentence had to be aborted as Pinkie suddenly jumped to one side. Only slightly after she started to move, Nightmare Mist surged through the air like a guillotine blade, in a path that would have bisected her if she had stayed still.

Espers acquired power from their ‘Personal Realities’, a self-made delusion that allowed them to override the world around them with quantum principles.

But to reach this kind of delusion – that the world worked the way they wanted it to work – required a very specific kind of brain damage. In Academy City, they achieved this by injecting their students with drugs and sticking electrodes in their brain.

But, theoretically, wasn’t it possible for this kind of damaged thinking to occur naturally? Even if it was a one in a hundred million chance, there were six billion people on the planet, so you would get a reasonable number of naturally occurring espers.

These natural espers were ‘diamonds in the rough’ – they were Gemstones.

(Though, being naturally occurring, Gemstones came first, so it was more accurate to say that espers were artificial Gemstones.)

“Your power must relate to the senses.” Nightmare Moon idly commented, directing her mist to attack in motions reminiscent of a cat lazily swiping its paw.

“Well, –” Pinkie jumped over one attack. “– it has a really fancy name –” She cartwheeled past another. “– but I can never remember it –” She twisted so that the next two vertical slashes passed by her on either side. “– so I just call it my Pinkie Sense.”

“But, –” Nightmare Moon said firmly, ignoring Pinkie’s babble. “– freaks of nature such as yourself only posses one such ability.”

Pinkie put her hands on her hips. “You are not a nice lady. We’re really going to have to work on the whole friendship deal before I can throw you a proper ‘Yay new friend’ party.”

Which means –” Nightmare Moon pressed on. “– that all I have to do is use an attack that you cannot dodge, even if you know it is coming.”

“Is it an attack of pure friendship?” Pinkie asked eagerly.

“No.” Nightmare Mist swirled out like a twister, blowing fiercely in a circle around the rooftop so that it completely enclosed it. “It is not.”

Pinkie looked around. “Um.” The Nightmare Mist completely surrounded her, with no gaps of any kind. Above her head, the mist extended out to form a dome, cutting off that unlikely direction of escape. “Er…”

Nightmare Moon stood inside this dome of mist, completely unconcerned even as the hemisphere began to collapse inward.

“But…” Pinkie looked down at her left leg. “But my new friend…”

“Like I said.” Nightmare Moon floated up off the ground, her half-scowl starting to become a subtle grin. “Death has never refused the company of another.”

Pinkie started to take a step forward, but stopped. She glanced left and right, no longer sure of herself.

Then she took a deep breath, and began to run full pelt at Nightmare Moon.


The boy was unhurt.

Twilight felt quite safe in openly gawking at the sight, because she could see Nightmare Moon doing the same out of the corner of her eye.

The Nightmare Mist had slammed into him at full speed. Twilight had not thought of a way to stop it in time. It had not been blocked, deflected, dodged or otherwise prevented from reaching him. With all of the power of someone who had made the sun disappear with the snap of her fingers, the mist had hit the boy with intent to kill.

He had held up both hands in front of his face, his right slightly in front of his left. It didn’t look like a graceful, planned movement or anything – just something he had done, mostly in reflex.

That should not have been enough. He should be dead, his body… well, Twilight didn’t want to imagine what his body would look like, but the long and short of it would be that he should be dead.

But when the Nightmare Mist had reached his right hand, it had made a sound like breaking glass, and had vanished.

Huh?

“My mist...” Nightmare Moon said, in a tone of voice Twilight couldn’t quite decipher. “Boy! What did you do?!” Near the end of her sentence, the heat of anger had filled her speech, overriding whatever emotion had been there before.

The boy’s mouth opened as though to speak, then closed. He looked sheepish, and rubbed the back of his head. <Um, could you say that in Japanese, please?>

Nightmare Moon frowned. “What?”

<What?>

The two stared at each other for a moment.

Then Nightmare Moon scowled.

The boy had only destroyed half her mist – the other half having gone after Twilight. That half had survived just fine, and had ended up behind the boy after missing its target. By moving her hands like she was tearing an invisible object in half, Nightmare Moon divided her mist in half once again. The two halves moved to flank him, one half on his left and the other on his right.

Twilight yelled out a warning, getting up and running towards him in a rush. Without thinking, she cast a forcefield around him.

The boy noticed Twilight’s yell, and he definitely noticed the purple energy dome that sprung up around him. He spun around, panic in his face. <Wait, what? You’re seriously attacking me just because I yelled at you? What kind of response is that? That’s clearly an overreaction no matter how you look at it!>

He seemed to have already forgotten that he had just obliterated the Nightmare Mist like it was nothing.

The mist had still been moving while this had been happening. One of the groups of mist hit Twilight’s forcefield at a shallow angle and, lacking the force needed to go through, deflected harmlessly off its surface. The other had a better angle and broke through. But, as Twilight had discovered just before, it took the mist a second or so to penetrate the magical shield, allowing the boy to turn and hold his right hand up in time to block the mist. Once again, when the mist touched his hand there was a sound like that of breaking glass and the mist disappeared, looking like it had burst from the inside.

Nightmare Moon’s scowl deepened, and the remaining piece of mist flew back to her side. “So, it was no freak accident.”

<What’s with that look in your eyes?! I’m not important, I’m just a Level 0 nobody! Don’t look at me with that kind of hostility!> Twilight couldn’t understand the boy’s words, but his tone was frantic, his arms gesturing wildly.

Whoever this boy was, he was afraid. Of course he was afraid. Twilight was afraid too. They’d have to be stupid not to be afraid. They were facing an opponent who used lethal force as a matter of course. Even though this boy hadn’t come with the intent of joining the battle, there was a real chance that he wouldn’t walk away from this alive.

...but.

Somehow, that boy had neutralised the Nightmare Mist.

Twilight was smart. That wasn’t ego talking, she knew objectively that she was smart. More than that, she was a talented magician. Magical theory was her bread and butter.

She had no idea how this boy had done what he just did.

The Railgun girl from earlier had turned the mist to steam with microwaves, destroying its magical identity. Rainbow Dash had used the fact that her magic allowed her to grip weather phenomenon to grab hold of the deadly attack. But when that right hand had touched the Nightmare Mist, it had simply vanished without a trace.

She had no idea how he had done that. It made no sense from what she knew of science or magic.

But he could still do it.

I’m the only one who can stop her now. Her own words rang in her ears.

She had left the others because she had believed that they would be of no help against Nightmare Moon. But that did not somehow give her the ability to take her down on her own.

It was completely contrary to what she had said in the park, but she needed the help of this boy.

Twilight dashed forward, quickly covering the remaining distance between her and the boy. The forcefield she had put up had vanished immediently upon being broken, so there was nothing stopping her from reaching forward and grabbing his (left) hand.

“Listen.” She said. “Please, if you have some way of destroying her mist, you have to help me! She needs to be stopped or we will all die!” She pointed desperately at Nightmare Moon.

<I um… I don’t speak… I think that’s English?> The boy replied, rather unhelpfully.

Twilight grimaced. “She –” She jabbed her finger at Nightmare Moon again. “– bad.” Lacking any other idea, she bared her teeth and curled her fingers like claws. “We –” She gestured at him and at herself. “– attack.” She mimed throwing a punch.

The boy looked over at Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon looked back at him with a cold, yet contemplative expression.

He didn’t know what was going on here. He didn’t know who either of these two people were, or why they were fighting. He didn’t know where they stood in relation to himself.

But he did know one thing. When he had come down to the street to yell at them, one had tried to end his life without thinking, and the other had tried to save it.

This allowed him to place two very important labels on the two girls.

‘Good’ and ‘evil’.

<Okay.> The boy said. <I’ll help you out.>

If life was an RPG, this would be when the text “’Kamijou Touma’ has joined your party!” would appear on screen.


Twilight was a genius of a magician. Rainbow was a human stunt plane. Fluttershy and Rarity were both magicians in their own right. Pinkie Pie was Pinkie Pie.

Applejack had a strong back and a childhood spent on a farm. Nothing else.

Well, right now she was holding a rope tied around a rock like an improvised flail, but given her opponent she might as well have been trying to take down a tank with a spit-wad.

Nightmare Moon flicked her wrist, and the Nightmare Mist rushed forward, rapidly becoming larger and larger in Applejack’s view. The nearest tree was too far away. Applejack wasn’t particularly confident in her ability to dodge.

Which was why, as she had been talking with Nightmare Moon, she had been worming her right foot under the soft topsoil.

As the Nightmare Mist zoomed towards her, she kicked up hard, sending a spray of earth right at the magical mist. The two collided.

And where the dirt touched the mist, the mist ceased to exist.

The now-damp soil fell back to the earth with a soft -plop-! The mist that had missed the earth zoomed past Applejack, a large hole dug through its middle. The gap was big enough that Applejack barely needed to bend over to avoid the mist’s deadly touch.

Nightmare Moon opened her mouth, paused for a second, then said a word in the flattest tone Applejack had ever heard, even flatter than when she had said this word earlier tonight.

“What.”

“This here soil is good stuff. Real loamy.” Applejack took a moment to appreciate the Science Side’s gardening techniques. “Retains water a treat.”

“You…” The fires of anger were growing in Nightmare Moon’s eyes. “You counter my mist with dirt?”

“Jus’ ‘cause ah’m a farmgirl don’t mean ah can’t pay attention.” Applejack snapped. “That lightnin’ gal got rid of ya mist by turning it to steam, right? So ah thought ah’d give a try turnin’ it to mud.”

It was actually a better idea than Applejack knew. In the Chinese system of classical elements, the Wu Xing, earth overcome water because it absorbed it. Because it was such an old and well-known system, that notion had more-or-less become a law of modern magic.

Nightmare Moon recalled her remaining mist with a snap of her fingers, an expression of fury on her face. “You disrespectful –”

“Sure, ah’m ‘just’ a farmgirl.” Applejack interrupted. “But we’re standing in a garden righ’ now.”

She glared at Nightmare Moon. “This here is mah turf, missy.”

Nightmare Moon glared right back. “Very well then. If you wish to die as you lived, writhing around in the mud, then I will gladly oblige you!”

Applejack dug her right foot back under the soil, not caring in the slightest about the soil being smeared into her boot. These were her working boots, and by golly she wanted nothing more right now than to plant one firmly into Nightmare Moon’s patootie.

Nightmare Moon clenched her fist. Applejack tensed her body, preparing to move at an instant’s notice.

But, unexpectedly, Nightmare Moon swung her fist to the side. The Nightmare Mist, following it, flew off to the side of where Applejack was standing.

What in tarnation? There ain’t nothin’ over there ‘cept some more trees… Wait…!

The mist collided with the thick trunk of an old, tall tree – Applejack didn’t have the time or the lighting to try and guess species – and the living wood made a great -crunch- noise as uncountable -crack- noises blurred into one. The tree began to tilt, a great chunk of its base having been turned into splinters. Before it could hit the ground, Nightmare Mist wrapped around it, lifting it into the air and snapping what wood still connected it to its stump.

Using the mist to hold the tree, Nightmare Moon swung it around to point at Applejack, that mass of splintered wood in front like the tip of a spear.

The corners of Applejack’s mouth turned down in a dismissive frown, but her eyes still widened in fear. “Now that’s jus’ plain cheatin’.”

Nightmare Moon’s eyes held no sympathy for her plight.

The Nightmare Mist rushed forwards once more, but this time kicking dirt at it wasn’t going to cut it. Applejack stuck her left foot out, turning her body and shifting her weight so as to bound off in that direction. In the same action, she pulled her other foot out of the ground. The heavy rock at the end of her trademark rope was swung up and around on an intercept course with the tree.

The rock hit the end of the tree dead on. It wasn’t a very large rock, and it was a very large tree, but the extra nudge turned the tree just enough that Applejack’s leap to the left cleared the jagged edges of wood.

The branches on the tree, however, she did not clear.

-Crash-!

With a tremendous noise, the thrown tree collided with one of its brethren, still standing at the edge of the clearing.

The two great plants had a bizarre form of fusion as one was forcefully smashed into the other, the thrown tree embedding itself into the trunk of the standing tree. The force of the impact caused the standing tree to rock backward as its roots failed to keep their hold on the world underneath. It shuddered and creaked, huge cracks running through its surface, even as the thrown tree fell to the ground with another almighty -crash-!

Nightmare Moon stared toward the destruction with cold eyes. She saw the standing tree tilt further and further backwards, it’s roots becoming fully exposed as the tree fell backwards with it’s own -crash-! She watched the branches on both trees shake with the impacts, leaves breaking off from their stems in a flurry. She observed the wild energy of the crash drain and fade, as the silence of the night returned, the trees that once stood proudly now lying shattered on the ground.

The girl she had been aiming to hit, however, she could not see.

Nightmare Moon sighed, rolling her eyes.

She stepped forward lightly, pushing off against the ground to lightly float in the air. She moved swiftly around the trunk she had hurled, scanning for signs of her target. With the raising of her fist, the Nightmare Mist released its grasp on the tree to return to her side.

There was a rustling noise near the base of the thrown tree. Nightmare Moon’s eyes narrowed, and she moved closer, her mist forming into a shape resembling a javelin. Torn and broken foliage formed a natural screen, preventing her from seeing the source of the noise.

The rustling came again, and Nightmare Moon swung her arm down, ‘throwing’ her mist-spear down into the leaves, impacting with a solid -thunk-. The rustling immediently stopped. Nightmare Moon leaned over and parted the leaves with her hands.

Lying there on the ground, with the Nightmare Mist speared through its core, was the rock Applejack had tied to her rope earlier.

There was a sudden -crack- from behind her, and Nightmare Moon whirled around.

Applejack was standing behind the unearthed roots of the other tree. In one hand, she was still clutching her rope. The other was pressed firmly into the roots of the tree, pushing with all her might.

When she saw that she had been seen, Applejack smiled, her lips curling upwards as if to say ‘gotcha’! She tugged on her rope, and the rock moved, producing the rustling that Nightmare Moon had been hearing earlier.

Nightmare Moon involuntarily drew in a sharp breath.

The roots of the formerly-standing tree were caked with the same earth that had devoured her Nightmare Mist earlier.

Slamming one tree into another had almost-completely broken the wood connecting the roots to the rest of the tree.

The remaining wood had been weakened to the point where one strong push might cause the roots to detach and fall flat.

She was standing right where the roots would fall.

Twilight, Rarity, Rainbow and Fluttershy had magic. Pinkie, Kuroko and Misaka had psychic powers. Applejack had a rope, a rock, and a strong back.

Like ah need anythin’ else!

The roots fell!


Nightmare Mist rushed in from all directions. There was no escape. All avenues of retreat had been cut off. But still, Pinkie Pie ran towards Nightmare Moon like her life depended on it.

Nightmare Moon couldn’t seen why. It wasn’t like moving near her would make Pinkie any less dead.

Still, a flying tackle from a dead girl was not the dignified end to the fight that she wanted. Nightmare Moon gave the mental command to have her body turn insubstantial. She would stand here and watch unaffected as the girl suffered a messy demise.

Pinkie Pie was only a step away from her now, and she pushed off the ground to turn her run into a jump, arms in front like she was trying to grab Nightmare Moon.

The mist was just behind Nightmare Moon now, and she could feel it lightly brush the edges of her gaseous form as it engulfed her. She didn’t let it do more than that, though. It discomforted her to have her body mix with the mist.

Wait. What was that thought that had just passed through her head?

The critical moment came; and for the first time in the entire encounter, Nightmare Moon fully showed an emotion – shock.

There was one way to pass out of the dome of Nightmare Mist without touching it. After all, for this one instant, there was a ‘Nightmare Moon’-shaped hole in it.

Pinkie Pie’s hands reached out for her, but, failing to meet anything solid, they passed right through her. The Nightmare Mist was in exactly the wrong position – it wasn’t close enough to have moved in front of her, but it was too close to cover her from behind. And because she hadn’t let it mix with her body, Pinkie could pass through her to the outside of the dome of mist.

Wait, I can use my own body to crush her!

Too late.

By the time she’d had that thought, Pinkie had already finished her dive and faceplanted into the concrete once again, legs in the air.

“You…” Nightmare Moon growled, reforming into a solid person once again and turning to face Pinkie. “You saw that escape before it formed? You could aim for an opening that only existed for a fraction of a second?!”

“What are you talking about?”

Pinkie pushed herself upright. Her face showed no silliness, nor any hint of fear. Instead, it showed a small, almost sad smile. “If I was going to die, I wanted to give you a hug before I left.”

Nightmare Moon’s face twitched.

She had avoided her attack because of that… the most stupid of reasons…

Pinkie’s back arched involuntarily as the biggest spasm of the night wracked her body. Her arms and legs stretched out and flailed about, before ceasing as abruptly as it had come.

“Wow, this will be a real doozy… does this mean we can be friends now?” Pinkie panted happily.

Nightmare Moon closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The sheer naivety...

“We shall try this again.”

Nightmare Moon snapped her fingers, and the Nightmare Moon formed a dome once again. But this time, Nightmare Moon was on the outside of the barrier. Pinkie Pie was like an insect trapped under a cup. Only, this ‘cup’ could rip apart stone and concrete faster than a jackhammer.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you dodge.” Nightmare Moon spat. “I only have to hit you once.

And that was that. Without delaying or continuing to speak, Nightmare Moon clenched her fist. The Nightmare Mist closed inward, an inescapable wall of death.

Pinkie Pie’s lips pulled up into a great big smile. A light giggle passed her lips.

You had to look closely to see that she was shaking in fear.

Then, something completely inexplicable happened.

<AWWWWSOOOOME PUNNNNNNCH!!!>

A projectile travelling far faster than the speed of sound smashed into the dome of mist, out the other side, and finally into Nightmare Moon’s face, blowing her clear off the roof and into the side of another building across the gap.

However, this wasn’t one of Misaka’s railguns.

It was the fist of a high-school boy.

The boy attached to this fist was wearing a white jacket over his shoulders like a cape. Underneath it was a T-shirt with the Rising Sun flag on it. A white headband helped keep his black, windswept hair in check.

<What kind of gutless encounter is this? This has gone beyond the point of a gutsy fight! People aren’t bugs you can just squash whenever you like!>

Have I been cursed?” A cloud of smoke flowed out of the freshly-made crater to form back into a furious-looking Nightmare Moon, standing several strides away from both Pinkie and the boy. “There seems to be no end to the vermin crawling out of the woodwork tonight!”

The boy pointed an accusing finger at Nightmare Moon. <You have no guts!>

“Quit speaking gibberish, you punch-happy barbarian!”

“Don’t listen to her!”

Nightmare Moon’s attention switched back to Pinkie for a moment, and her facial twitch from just before returned with a vengeance. “What are you…? Why were you wearing that?!”

Pinkie Pie had thrown off her shirt and skirt to reveal that underneath… well, Nightmare Moon didn’t know what the outfit was, but the long and short of it was that it was a cheerleader outfit.

Pinkie placed her hands on her hips. She was holding a pair of pom-poms that she had pulled from… somewhere. “In case of cheerleading emergencies! Duh!

<Can you feel them?> The boy demanded. <The overflowing guts of this girl?>

“Both of you stop not making sense!”

<Awesome punch!>

Despite being well out of reach of the boy’s fist, some invisible force traversed the distance between them and blasted Nightmare Moon off the roof once more.

An ominous rumbling came from off the rooftop, but the boy ignored it and turned around to face Pinkie. <It’s kind of rude to steal the show right before the big finale, but let me help out just this once, okay?>

“What are you… oh, I get it!” Pinkie’s face slowly lit up like a million watt bulb. “You’re my new friend!”

She raised a pom-pom high. “Go get her!”

Thunder rumbled as Nightmare Moon’s cloud form rose up over the lip of the concrete once more. The entirety of her Nightmare Mist was spread out behind her. Glowing motes of light took the place of her eyes, shining an ominous red on an otherwise black background. “I’m done playing around!”

<Super-duper ultra-amazing hyper-wind-up…> The boy took a step forward, pulling his fist all the way back.

Nightmare Mist rushed into towards him, but the boy either didn’t notice or he didn’t care, continuing to yell out.

<…awesome PUUUUNNNNCH!> He screamed, and sudden explosions of red, blue and yellow smoke rocketed him forward into the cloud of smoke that was his enemy. His fist came forward like a piston and slammed into the gas.

Logic dictated that action was useless. That punch ignored what logic said. Logic had no guts.

The fist smashed into the cloud, and the cloud rippled as something spread out from the point of impact. A deep, echoing -BOOM- sounded the gasses that made up both the Nightmare Mist and the Shadowbolt that had been masquerading as Nightmare Moon exploded, each individual particle flying in a different direction at high speed.

In contrast, the boy landed on the edge of the roof as lightly as a feather. <Get some guts before you come back.>

His attempt to look cool standing on the edge of the roof was completely ruined as he was tackled by a pink-haired girl in a cheerleading outfit.

“That. Was. So. Cool!” Pinkie Pie had honest-to-goodness stars in her eyes. “She was all like ‘roar’, and you were like, ‘bam!’.”

<Well, of course.> The boy stood up, Pinkie still clinging to him. <I had more guts than she did.>

“I really need to throw you a ‘Brand new awesome friend’ party! …oh, wait. I kinda need to go save the world first.”

<Think nothing of it; it was your amazing supply of guts that called me here!>

“Do you want to come? It’ll be super-awesome fun if you’re there!”

<Remember to trust in your guts! That is all that matters!>

“You don’t want to? Okay. Here’s an IOU for ‘one Pinkie Pie Party’. Don’t forget to redeem it!”

With that, the two ridiculous characters parted ways.

Neither one of them had understood a single word the other had said.


<I know I just said I’d help, but there’s a big problem.> Touma pointed up at Nightmare Moon, still floating well above the ground. <I can’t punch someone if they’re flying.>

“If you can get us close, I’ll… think of something.” Twilight grimaced. When this whole thing was over, she was going to ask the princess what spells you were supposed to use to seal someone away. Right now, she didn’t think she knew any. Just smashing her to bits wouldn’t stop Nightmare Moon, and hoping that whatever the boy did would work on her body was more optimistic than realistic.

<I feel like we’re not actually communicating here.> Touma crossed his arms, looking sideways at Twilight.

Twilight bit her lip. “You –” She pointed at him. “– cover us.” She spread her hands out, tracing an invisible pane of glass.

<She – > Touma pointed at Nightmare Moon. < – is flying.> He waved his hands up and down like tiny wings.

“You two –” Nightmare Moon interrupted. “– die!

Twilight had twice tonight animated a car in her fight against Nightmare Moon. The destroyed remains of both of those cars was sitting roughly underneath the target they had failed to reach. Nightmare Moon raised up her right arm and motioned with her hand like she was grasping an invisible object. The remainder of her Nightmare Mist moved down to one of the wrecks, wrapping around it like a star-scape blanket.

The mist raised up into the air, taking the car with it. It hung there for only a moment before the mist swung forward and released; throwing the car at the two teens.

Touma’s arms wrapped around Twilight as he crash tackled her into the mouth of a nearby alleyway. The screech of metal and shattering of what little glass remained unbroken told Twilight just how close to being hit they had just come.

“I said cover us!” Twilight snapped, glaring up at the boy on top of her.

Touma wasn’t paying any attention to Twilight, instead looking back the way they came. <Whew, that was close! Who set the difficulty level on this thing? Bosses shouldn’t be able to just go for your weaknesses like that!>

Nightmare Moon floated back into view at the mouth of the ally, the second car held in a magical grip.

Touma let out a panicked yelp. He stoop up, pulling Twilight to her feet. <Come on, we need to get out of here!> He started to run, grabbing Twilight’s left hand with his right and dragging her behind him.

Whatever Twilight’s response to that would have been to that was immediently drowned out by an unbelievably loud -screech- noise. The instant Touma’s right hand touched Twilight, the air was filled with the sound of nails being scraped across a chalkboard. Touma kept running, but turning his head back to stare in surprise at the racket his hand was producing.

Nightmare Moon threw the car. On its side, so as to fit in the narrow alleyway. Touma was dragging Twilight though the alley as fast as he could, but it was clearly not going to be enough.

Fortunately, it seemed that Nightmare Moon had misjudged the size of the car. With the sound of metal scraping on concrete, the car became wedged into the walls of the adjacent buildings well before reaching the two teens.

Touma didn’t stop to look – he kept on running until the two were completely clear of the ally and onto the street on the other side. Twilight took the opportunity to wrench her hand from his grasp. The awful sound instantly stopped.

“What was that?!” She demanded.

Touma held up his right hand, staring at it like he expected to see something else at the end of his wrist. <Imagine Breaker’s never done that before…>

-BAM-

The alley they had come through was formed by two buildings built next to each other. The ground-level walls that made up that alley had exploded, becoming rubble strewn across the ground. Nightmare Mist floated out of the crushed derbies, returning to the side of its mistress. Nightmare Moon, her figure obscured slightly by the cement dust, gestured forward. The Nightmare Mist picked up and threw the car once more through the suddenly much wider alleyway.

Twilight raised her own arms, and a forcefield formed in front of her and Touma. The car slammed into it hard, but it lacked the penetration power that Nightmare Moon had been putting into her mist, so it didn’t break through.

Nightmare Mist raced out of the concrete dust to slam into the forcefield, destroying it, but Touma stepped forwards with his right hand extended. Rather than lose the last part of her mist, Nightmare Moon gestured back towards herself, and the mist zoomed back towards her. It picked up the car again, but Twilight immediently responded by creating another forcefield.

It was a standoff. Touma could destroy the Nightmare Mist if it got close, and Twilight could defend against other attacks at range.

At the same time, Twilight couldn’t attack Nightmare Moon while her namesake mist protected her, and Touma couldn’t reach her in the air.

The battle would be decided by who made a mistake first.

Then Nightmare Moon decided to raise the stakes.

Rather than attack with her mist directly, or use it to throw an object, Nightmare Moon split her mist in half once again, sending the two halves into the buildings Twilight and Touma had run between just before.

-BOOM-

Enormous spider webs of cracks formed around the closest corners of the two building. The two teens blinked up as the two skyscrapers began to creak and slowly tilt in their direction.

Twilight let out a sound that resembled a strangled squeak. Touma just groaned. <Seriously? This is ridiculous, even for my luck.>

The slow tilting became a rapid fall. Twilight suddenly inhaled as she realised they had seconds to react. Not nearly enough time to get clear.

She bit her bottom lip, but inhaled deeply. The familiar rush of mana through her body was a badly needed comfort at this point.

Though cracked, the buildings were still mostly intact. Twilight changed that with a hasty pair of purple beams right into the two falling structures. The spells stabbed though the concrete, stressing it beyond what it had been designed to take. The two buildings began to break apart into rubble even as they fell.

Twilight’s job was only half done.

She raised her arms to the sky, widened her stance, and concentrated. Her largest forcefield that night formed overhead as a roof of shimmering purple energy. This is going to suck!

-CRASH-!

Several hundred tonnes of building fell on top of Twilight’s hasty shield. Glass fragments showered down on it. Even the destroyed remains of furniture could be spotted in the deluge. But the biggest threat was the sheer weight of the buildings pressing down. Holding them up would be a feat worthy of Hercules himself.

Touma cautiously opened one of the eyes he that had closed as he flinched away from the incoming wave of concrete.

<Er… not that I'm complaining or anything, but why aren't we dead?>

Sweat rolled off Twilight's forehead, down her nose, and onto her big, triumphant grin. “There was too much rubble.” She explained rather pointlessly.

Touma (who still had not obtained the ability to speak English) looked up. It would be completely dark except for the one nearby streetlight and the softly glowing forcefield. Twilight’s shield was completely covered in debris, forming a ceiling out of the destroyed walls. Twilight’s forcefields were spherical, so that ‘ceiling’ was domed.

<Oh, I get it.> Touma only had the intellect of a below-average high-school boy to work with, but he still managed to spot the trick that had saved their lives. <It’s packed in so tight it’s holding up its own weight!>

Domes worked like arches in that every part of them helped to hold up every other part. All Twilight had to do was withstand enough of the initial shock to get the shape started.

Touma grinned. <Heh. Good thinking!>

“Yes, yes.” The slightly muffled voice of Nightmare Moon sounded out from the other side of the dome of rubble. “The two of you have managed to survive like the cockroaches that you are…”

Twilight’s forcefield disappeared.

The teens it had been protecting felt their hearts skip a beat as the forcefield that had withstood the impact of two skyscrapers falling on it suddenly vanished. The rubble-dome shifted alarmingly. Twilight could see the what looked like stars twinkling in the sudden darkness. Nightmare Mist!

Nightmare Moon had sent her main weapon in through the cracks in the rubble. It had broken Twilight’s forcefield just like it had the other times tonight. And with that protection gone, the rubble was once again a deadly threat.

“But consider this: how are you going to dodge, now that you have nowhere to go?”


Applejack cautiously moved forward. The roots had fallen straight onto Nightmare Moon, who hadn’t even tried to dodge.

As she stepped down from the trunk of the tree that had been knocked over by Nightmare Moon’s oversized spear, she grimaced, holding a hand to her side. She was a tough girl, and the blow being distributed through the smaller, more supple branches had reduced the impact on her. However, she had still been hit by a flying tree, so it was only natural that she hurt all over.

The caked earth on the roots gave it a roughly flat surface on the bottom, meaning Nightmare Moon would have been squashed flat. If she had turned to mist, then the earth would have eaten her up the way it did the other Nightmare Mist.

Applejack pulled on her rope, and the rock tied to it came loose from under the fallen roots and rolled to a rest by her feet. She looked away from the scene, pulling her hat down over her eyes.

“Sorry.” Even as she said it, the word felt completely inadequate.

She turned to leave.

There was a sickeningly wet -crunch- noise, and Applejack’s screams suddenly tore though the night.

Did you think you could bury me in the ground like I was some corpse?!

A hole had been blasted open in the dirt around the roots. Through it, a dark cloud had emerged and wrapped itself around Applejack’s legs. Without mercy, the cloud had constricted, and crushed her limbs like empty soda cans.

The dark cloud relaxed its grip on her legs, and Applejack’s body toppled to the ground. The impact knocked the breath out of her, stopping her screams for a moment as she gasped for breath. Her senses were distorted, drowned out by the unending torrents of pain flowing out from her legs. She was barely aware of the world around her.

“You have no understanding of your place in the world.” The cloud said, moving upwards and forming roughly into the shape of a human again, though it did not become solid just yet. It had shed its false identity as Nightmare Moon, and returned to merely being a Shadowbolt. “If I were real, that might have actually killed me!”

It leaned down, stage-whispering in Applejack’s ear. “Unfortunately for you, I’m a filthy fake.”

How had she survived? Simple. Applejack had counted on the earth to absorb her if she turned into mist. But Shadowbolts didn’t turn into mist. They turned into smoke.

Applejack’s vision was swimming in and out. Sounds were dampened, and echoed like she was underwater.

The Shadowbolt straightened up. “Normally I would allow you a quick, clean death, but your performance just now was completely unacceptable. Even if I am but a shadow of the original, you came far too close to victory.”

Applejack’s breath continued to come in shuddering gasps. No coherent thought could form in her head – her entire world was pain. Pain was all she could see. All she could hear. All she could smell and taste.

But.

Just for a moment, between one gasp and the next, her vision cleared. Right in front of her nose was one of the small metal pipes that fed the garden irrigators, connected to an electronic value. The valve was connected to another, larger pipe.

Applejack noticed that she was clutching the rock tied to her rope. She didn’t remember grabbing it. It’s cool, rough surface in her fingers felt real in a way that the rest of the world didn’t right then.

With no conscious thought behind it, Applejack lifted the rock up off the ground and smashed it into the value before her. Doing so caused her legs to burn anew with pain, and her vision was blocked with white spots. A fresh pain in her mouth made Applejack realise she was clenching her teeth so hard her it was hurting her jaw.

But the pain ebbed a little, and Applejack was able to see that the valve was dented but intact. She raised the rock again, ignoring the fire in her arms.

The Shadowbolt laughed as it watched Applejack hammer away at the valve. “Have you lost your mind? I’m behind you. Not that a mere rock could hurt me.” The fuzzy outline of a face moved in a way that would make an observer think it was smirking. “You got your hopes up for nothing. A mere serf should not even dream of attacking their monarch. Keep your dreams in the dirt where they belong.”

Applejack gave one more mighty blow, and the valve broke off completely. The high-pressure water from the main pipe sprayed out of the hole like a geyser, going over Applejack’s head and engulfing the Shadowbolt behind her.

Suddenly, the Shadowbolt was the one who was screaming.

Uncountable water droplets tore through the Shadowbolt, each one taking away a little bit of the smoke that comprised its body. As a whole, that deadly cloud could exert enough force to crush a person’s legs. But each droplet of water ate away a few particles of smoke with every drop. The same process that carved mountains into valleys was washing the Shadowbolt away.

The Shadowbolt staggered to the side, trying to escape the deluge. It was no use. Too much of it had been eroded away too quickly. Its screams faded away as the cloud became smaller and smaller.

Then, they faded to nothing. The Shadowbolt was gone.

The rock slipped from Applejack’s fingers, her hands having lost all grip. A weak chuckle escaped her lips. Her breathing was slowing down, but her vision was going dark.

She couldn’t feel the pain in her legs anymore.

She couldn’t feel anything anymore…

“...jack! No… …with me…!”

Was someone there? For some reason, the voice sounded like yellow and pink… and smelled of red? It was was fading in and out like a bad phone connection.

“No time… …quickly… …an angel…”

This voice was white and gold…

Applejack exhaled, and then knew no more.


Once again, Kuroko was using teleportation to zoom through the night. This time, Rarity was her passenger.

“Kuroko, was it? Listen, I know it’s dreadfully rude of me, but my curiosity is simply eating me alive.” Rarity spoke loudly so she could be heard over the rushing wind. “Does your sister always behave like that?”

Kuroko nearly teleported the two of them into a skyscraper as she suddenly coughed and spluttered. “Blugh?! Sissy isn’t my sister!”

“She isn’t?” A confused expression came over Rarity’s face (not that Kuroko could see it, carrying Rarity under one arm). “Then, why do you call her ‘Sissy’?”

“Because there isn’t an English word for Onee-sama!”

“Which means…?”

“It is a title we Japanese reserve for only the greatest paragons of history.”

Rarity tried to lean away awkwardly from the dreamy-eyed Kuroko, but that wasn’t really possible considering that Kuroko was the one carrying her through the sky.

(Incidentally, to the rest of the world ‘Onee-sama’ just meant ’Highly respected older sister figure’.)

“So…” Rarity tried to think of something to steer the conversation away from… whatever obsession it was that Kuroko had with her friend.

“So Sissy is elegant and refined and kind and caring and basically the greatest person in the world ever.” There were tones and inflictions Kuroko was using in her speech that indicated to Rarity that she was trying to talk like a high-class lady, but her young age was working against her there.

“Is that what passes for elegant and refined around here?” Rarity muttered under her breath, remembering Misaka’s behaviour back at the park.

“Do you want me to drop you?”

As they were about level with the tops of skyscrapers at this point, Rarity shut up.

For a minute, the only sound was the roaring of the wind. As the seconds passed and the silence continued, the strange fervour that had come over Kuroko faded slightly.

“Sissy is a good person.” Kuroko was staring ahead, eyes watching were she was going. “Everyone has good days and bad days, right? Dealing with events like these certainly counts as extreme circumstances.”

“Darling, she stole your phone and left you lying on the sidewalk in your underwear.”

Kuroko’s response must have gotten lodged in her throat, because she started coughing and spluttering again. It took her a moment to clear her throat. “W-well, like I said, you just caught her in one of her tsun moments.”

“Hang on, dear.” Rarity squirmed in Kuroko’s grip for a moment, then pointed off to the right of where they were currently headed. “She’s changed directions again.”

Kuroko adjusted the course of her teleports. Having a tracking-type esper was proving to be very convenient. Maybe she should check if she had any tracking-type schoolmates who would be willing to join up with Judgement…

“And I don’t really see how she could be having a ‘soon’ moment, dear. Is that some sort of Japanese term?” Rarity added.

“Huh? What do you – no, tsun, as in tsundere.” Kuroko pronounced the word carefully – tsun, as in the first syllable of tsunami, then deh-reh.

“I don’t know what that means either, dear.”

“Well, you know how some people will be mean to you and push you away, but it’s because actually, deep down, they love you?”

“You mean that those sorts of people are real?”


The destroyed remains of two skyscrapers were hanging precariously over head. The forcefield that had been holding them in that dome shape had been broken by the Nightmare Mist, so now only that shape was supporting it.

But this wasn’t a properly-engineered structure. It would fall under its weight any moment. If Twilight put up another shield, the mist would break it.

Touma could destroy the mist if he could reach it, but the mist didn’t need to be anywhere near him to prevent the formation of a life-saving shield.

Still, Twilight was a magician. Escaping from a ‘locked room’ like this was nothing. She grabbed Touma’s arm.

“Hang on.” She warned him, hoping that her tone would tell him what her words would not. She gathered her mana, wrapped it around the two of the them, concentrated…

…and went absolutely nowhere, because her spell failed with a shattering noise.

Touma gave a confused wince. <Sorry?>

They were stuck.

Apparently sick of waiting, the Nightmare Mist slammed into the base of the debris-dome and knocked out the base of the structure. Twilight put up another field, a smaller one, but the mist immediently rushed over and broke it. With the two teens unprotected, the rubble began to fall once again.

Then…

“F A W A B T F R.” Form a wall and block the falling rocks.

The Nightmare Mist froze in mid-air for a moment, before racing ahead of the avalanche of falling rubble it itself had started. It squashed out into a flat plane, and the chunks of concrete slammed into it. The avalanche stopped, the structure holding once again.

“What?!” Nightmare Moon’s angry voice boomed from the other side of the wall.

“You threw me off at the park with your outdated magic style, but I’ve gotten the pattern down now.” Another, younger voice spoke from outside the dome.

“What did you –”

“Have you ever tried to count while someone read numbers out loud?” The other person interrupted Nightmare Moon’s demand. “It becomes difficult to distinguish between the information in your head and the information being fed to you. This works the same way.”

By reverse-calculating the magical formulae going through your opponent’s mind, you could work out the weakest mental point in their spell. Combined with an ancient speed-reading technique, you could insert your own commands into the enemy’s magic.

This was a technique called Spell Intercept.

But Twilight didn’t know any of this. She couldn’t see a thing, trapped under the rubble as she was.

They needed to get outside. The Nightmare Mist was holding up the debris for now, so Twilight felt safe blowing a hole in the side of the dome. Holding up a hand, she charged and cast a purple beam spell that blasted clean through the building remains. This made a hole big enough to crawl through, so she did, Touma right behind her.

Outside, Nightmare Moon was focusing her attention on a new arrival. Her appearance fit the voice from just before – that of a young girl. She was wearing clothes that might have been a nun’s habit if they weren’t covered in fresh blood.

Behind her – Twilight did a double take. It was difficult to recognise her under her own fresh layer of blood, but that was definitely Fluttershy. And… was that Applejack she was carrying on her back? So much blood… what had the others been up to?! They hadn’t gone after Nightmare Moon on their own, had they?!

“Why is it –” Nightmare Moon ground her teeth. “– that whenever I am about to finish off one of you, some other bug comes along and interferes?”

“You picked a fight with the whole world.” The bloodstained nun said. “Don’t be so surprised that the world decided to fight back.”

Nightmare Moon scowled. “You say you have met me already?” She snapped her fingers. “Then ‘I’ have some explaining to do!”

The meaning of that confusing sentence was made more clear when seconds later a sudden gust of wind blew in, carrying along with it a dark cloud of smoke. That smoke solidified into another ‘Nightmare Moon’ behind Fluttershy, startling Touma and causing the nun to blink in surprise.

“Yes, me?” The newly arrived Nightmare Moon derided. “Could you not handle these by your… you. Didn’t I kill you already?”

That tore it. “Fluttershy, what is she talking about?” Twilight asked, slightly panicked.

Fluttershy mumbled something inaudible.

“Fluttershy! Why does she think you should be dead? Why were you even fighting?!” Just because Twilight had ditched them as useless didn’t mean she wanted them hurt!

One of them came back to the portal.” Fluttershy said softly.

...oh.

Twilight hadn’t thought of that. She’d missed altogether the possibility that Nightmare Moon would want a second look at the portal she’d chased them through.

Meanwhile, Touma was complaining. <Doesn’t anybody speak Japanese here?>

The nun looked over at him. <I do.>

<Oh.> Touma blinked, not really having expected anyone to reply. <Er, hi. I’m Touma. Kamijou Touma.>

<Index Librorum Prohibitorum.> Index introduced herself.

Touma’s eyebrows drew together as he tried to remember what order English names went in. <Wait, so is Index your family name or your – >

He halted, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Turing his head to look, Touma could see both Nightmare Moons giving death glares to the ones ignoring them.

<Sorry.> He mumbled.

“Regardless.” The second Nightmare Moon stated, moving her attention to Index. “You could at least have the courtesy to die when killed.”


Fluttershy stood off to the side, eyes flickering between the two Nightmare Moons.

On her back, Applejack made a pained noise. Fluttershy didn’t think she was awake. She hoped she wasn’t. The sight of Applejack – strong, stubborn Applejack – lying on the ground, two bloody pulps where her legs should have been… she would have thrown up, had there been anything left in her stomach.

Fluttershy had panicked. Index hadn’t.

Index had glanced up at the stars, and said things that Fluttershy didn’t understand. She drew a boundary in the dirt with her foot, and told Fluttershy to stand in a specific spot.

She had said that, as she couldn’t cast magic, Fluttershy would have to be the one to heal Applejack.

It didn’t feel like she had cast anything. Index had taken charge. Index had set everything up. Index had firmly told her everything she needed to do. It had felt more like Index had been the one casting the spell, and Fluttershy was just another ingredient in the ritual.

But, she had done as Index had told her, and like a miracle, Applejack’s legs had stopped bleeding. The misshapen flesh had… had un-crushed itself back into a recognisable shape.

When they were done, Index had looked up and told her that they needed to keep moving, because her friends were still out fighting, and not even she knew how to perform a resurrection.

It was a completely different world to her life in Humansville. She had known there was danger in the world, that there were many out there who would think nothing of crushing a cabal like theirs underfoot. But she had taken comfort in the thought that even if something like that did happen, the princess would be able to handle it.

Nightmare Moon had defeated the princess within seconds of her arrival. With that, the bottom had fallen out of Fluttershy’s safe, cosy little world.

Rainbow Dash had stood up to Nightmare Moon, and had been casually swatted aside. Twilight, the greatest magician they had, could do no more than block her attacks somewhat. Saten’s friend, the third strongest esper in the world, had danced to her tune like a snake before a snake charmer.

Index had done so much for her tonight, but deep in her heart Fluttershy was terrified that she would be blown away like the others had been.


Two identical sorceresses stood at both ends of the road. Between them stood Index, Twilight, and Touma.

Fluttershy had cautiously moved to the side of the road. The Nightmare Moons had not reacted, likely not deeming her a threat. Applejack was still draped across her back. Despite having been magically healed, the farmgirl was not yet awake.

Index looked intently at Twilight, her eyes tracing over the other girl’s form like she had done with Nightmare Moon earlier. She tilted her head in slight confusion, but turned around to face the second Nightmare Moon on the scene, her back to Twilight and Touma. She seemed to have decided that they could be trusted to have her back, now that she knew she was friends with Fluttershy. It also helped that she still didn’t seem to have been recognised yet.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the borderline-snobbish attitude from Index, but turned her attention to the Nightmare Moon she had arrived to fight.

Touma had no clue what was going on. The purple-and-pink girl wanted help fighting the purple-and-black woman, but then there was this white-and-gold-and-red girl, and there were two of the purple-and-black women now, and they were all fighting? Huh? Could somebody take a moment to explain to this poor high-school student what exactly was going on?

From underneath Index’s hood, a small kitten meowed nervously.

That was the signal that ended the standoff.

The second Nightmare Moon grinned ferociously, Nightmare Mist forming behind her like a curtain.

The first Nightmare Moon was more guarded, focusing on Twilight and Touma with laser-like focus. She clenched her teeth, and pulled an invisible object towards herself with what looked like great effort. The Nightmare Mist that Index had hacked returned to its master, causing the dome of rubble to collapse loudly as its support left. Her considerably smaller share of Nightmare Mist floated around her body, sticking tightly to her outline like armour.

Even as the second Nightmare Moon commanded her mist forwards, Index was already chanting. “F P T A O.” Forget previous target, attack owner.

That Nightmare Moon, flushed with overconfidence, let out a strangled yelp as her own mist enveloped her instead of Index. Quickly reduced into smoke, the cloud that was Nightmare Moon was invaded by her own mist, the two churning together like they were inside an invisible blender.


More guarded than her twin, the other Nightmare Moon strode forwards aggressively. Twilight fired a pair of beam attacks at her, but the Nightmare Mist swirling around her form shifted into position and blocked the attack just before it reached her.

That was fine. Twilight had only been probing her defences anyway. She held her hands out, palms down, and focused. The ground under Nightmare Moon’s feet glowed purple, causing the sorceresses to halt mid-step. Twilight didn’t giver her a chance to react.

The purple shimmer was revealed to be a forcefield when Twilight clapped her hands together. It folded down the middle like a piece of paper, aiming to crush Nightmare Moon in-between the two halves. Nightmare Moon held out her arms as if to catch the two planes of magic, but before that happened the Nightmare Mist extended out and blocked them for her.

That was when Touma unexpectedly ran in from the side. He swung his fist into Twilight’s forcefield, shattering it like glass. He swung that same fist again, hitting the Nightmare Mist. It also shattered like glass. Touma aimed his fist for her chest…

…and Nightmare Moon’s leg connected with a meaty -thud- between his legs, impacting so hard Touma was actually lifted off the ground. He collapsed awkwardly to the ground, tears leaking out of his eyes. Nightmare Moon raised a foot, ready to stomp on him, but a beam of magic from Twilight blasted her off her feet.


On the other end of the street, the other Nightmare Moon had regained control over her own Nightmare Mist, separating out from it and returning to solid form, seething.

Index’s eyes narrowed. Her parameters don’t match those of a homunculus… more like a golem or a shikigami. A spirit bound into a specially-made body. That would explain how 'she' could be in more than one place at once, and how her body can be made of unliving material.

There were literally dozens of spells Index could think of off hand that would instantly defeat an opponent like this… and she couldn’t cast a single one of them. She risked a glace at Fluttershy. Still cowering on the sidewalk. The courage she had mustered earlier had evaporated upon being thrown back onto the battlefield.

The other magician, the one who appeared to be Fluttershy’s friend… she could use Index’s knowledge very well. Too well. If Index gave her the keys to winning the battle, she would want to know how Index had known such things, and she would have to run again.

Lost in her own considerations, Index nearly missed the mana flare that meant her opponent was taking action. Index’s Nightmare Moon seemed to have realised that using the Nightmare Mist wasn’t going to work, because she extended her arm and cast a different spell. Index felt the magic flow out of Nightmare Moons arm and into… Index blinked.

Index had a photographic memory – that was how she had been able to memorise 103,000 grimoires in the first place – but that did not mean she was aware of everything around her at the time it was happening.

For example, she had failed to notice that they were fighting right next to a toy store.

Nightmare Moon’s corruptive magic flowed out of her and into a plush spider toy in the window. The spider-toy’s many arms suddenly twitched, and in the blink of an eye the toy grew to the size of a bear, shattering the window outwards.

“The minions can summon more minions?” Index said, surprised. If they could do that, then why not swamp them under unending tides of cannon fodder? No, wait… looking, Index could already tell that this was a much weaker spell than the one responsible for ‘Nightmare Moon’. It probably would fall apart in minutes.

Still, that didn’t really help when the giant spider was charging her right now.


The Nightmare Moon Twilight was fighting was out of Nightmare Mist. She shouldn’t have been a threat anymore. But Twilight had forgotten that that Nightmare Moon still had something she could attack with – herself.

Her beam spell blasted Nightmare Moon back, sure, but she just turned insubstantial again and started flying back towards Twilight. Twilight summoned another forcefield around the incoming sorceress, but she slammed into it, cracking and shattering it. It took her a couple of seconds to do, so she wasn’t as good at it as the Nightmare Mist was, but that still meant that forcefields weren’t the solution Twilight was looking for.

However, she could slow her down. As soon as Nightmare Moon broke through her forcefield, Twilight was already casting another one. Nightmare was still advancing, and this would burn through her mana like nothing else, but it would buy her time to think.

Cloud, cloud, cloud, how did you kill a cloud? Was there any legend about a hero killing a cloud-monster? Probably, but none were coming to mind. She still didn’t know how the cloud spell worked, so she couldn’t unravel it. Wait! Clouds went away naturally when they used up all their water raining… did she know any spells to make it rain?

Nightmare Moon broke another of her forcefields. At her current rate, she would reach Twilight after breaking another three.

There was rain dancing, but Twilight didn’t know how to rain dance.

Nightmare Moon broke another forcefield.

The Science Side had a trick called cloud seeding, but that wasn’t guaranteed to work on a magical cloud. Also, she didn’t have the time.

Nightmare Moon broke another forcefield.

Come on, think! She was Twilight Sparkle 000 and she would not end like –

Nightmare Moon broke the final forcefield. It was too late, she was in striking distance now. The formless cloud rushed to envelope her –

But before it could, it shattered like glass. Behind it, Touma stood, reaching forward with his right hand, clutching his groin with his left.

“Oh.” Twilight blinked. “Um. Thanks?”

<That was for my balls, you sadist.> Touma spat at the space Nightmare Moon had formerly existed in.

The furious look on his face faded to confusion as that space remained empty. <Er, wait. I didn’t just kill someone, did I?>


The kitten under her hood hissed in fear at the approaching monster spider, but Index didn’t move. She stared in mild disinterest as the creature many times her size scuttled towards her.

The giant spider legs reached out to knock her down…

…and bounced off her habit as though they had encountered a brick wall.

Nightmare Moon snarled, floating up off the ground. “What is this? That boy just destroyed ‘me’ with a simple touch, and you stand unaffected when you should be dead? What manner of freaks are you!?”

“Have you really never seen a Walking Church before?” Index tilted her head. “If you can’t even breach one of these, then how did you ever delude yourself into thinking you could fight off the entire world?”

A Walking Church was a magical garment that was designed as a fabric version of a church building. That allowed it to have the same defensive enchantments placed on it as a church did. Even the weakest Walking Church was worth the same protection as thick stone walls. Index’s was an accurate reproduction of the Shroud of Turin, a pope-class barrier.

Basically, it was the sort of thing Rarity would go gaga over.

“I won’t have this…” Nightmare Moon snarled. “I won’t allow any hint of defiance!”

Bouncing off the Walking Church, the giant spider tripped over its many legs and fell backwards, ending up near Fluttershy. Index expected the older girl to scream and panic, but instead Fluttershy’s arms wrapped around it as she… hugged it and cooed into its ear?

Apparently, that girl just plain hugged everything.

Twilight and Touma moved up behind Index, standing with her to face the one remaining Nightmare Moon. Twilight looked determined, but Touma looked a bit hesitant.

“Oh yeah?” Twilight challenged. “And how exactly are you going to stop us?”

“Like this.” Nightmare Moon snapped her fingers.

A familiar gust of wind suddenly blew in, bringing with it a familiar dark cloud. That cloud changed shape and compressed into a familiar-looking form.

Another Nightmare Moon?” Twilight said, exasperated.

“You better have good reason for calling me here.” The new Nightmare Moon said to the old, in a tone that contained not a speck of respect. “What is it that you were too weak to handle?”

The old Nightmare Moon pointed at Index. “That one can control the spells of others, and has a barrier that turns aside all attack.” She pointed at Touma. “And that one destroys all spells he touches!”

The new Nightmare Moon looked at the old one with a look of utter contempt. “And the solution to this was not obvious? You really are useless.”

She gestured harshly towards the other, and the old Nightmare Moon’s face twisted in pain, her body dissolving into thinner and thinner smoke until she vanished entirely.

<What just happened?> Touma asked Index.

<Apparently, helmet-hair here is a union’s worst nightmare.> Index answered him. <…wait, what was that part about you destroying all spells you touch?>

<She said I do what?>

“Look out, dears!”

Four heads (Touma, Twilight, Index and Fluttershy) swivelled up to look at the lip of one of the lower skyscrapers.

“R-rarity?” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Take care!” Rarity yelled down from the rooftop. “That one’s the original!

“Wait, you mean those other ones were fake?!” Twilight’s eyes widened.

“Wait, you mean you knew where the original one was the whole time?” The unexpected voice of Kuroko sounded out, the girl herself striding into view with a frustrated scowl.

Suddenly, Touma was lifted into the air. A woman’s hand had grabbed the back of his belt and pulled him up off the ground.

There was a moment of shock as all those watching tried to figure out when Nightmare Moon had moved.

Without a word, face still contemptuous, Nightmare Moon swung her arm with impressive force, throwing Touma at Index.

Time slowed.

Why do that? Was the first thought that flashed across Index’s mind. She knows I’m protected from attack –

“And that one destroys all spells he touches!”

Index had perfect recall, so for her reviewing the night so far was like looking though a photo album. Taking a split-second to do so, she realised that she actually didn’t know how Twilight and Touma had cancelled the spells of the fake Nightmare Moon they had been fighting.

Index broke down every spell cast that fight into its basic components.

The magic didn’t match up.

Index didn’t know how the spells were destroyed.

And if she didn’t know how they had been destroyed, that meant she didn’t know if the same trick would work on her Walking Church.

Touma’s involuntary flight had crossed half the distance to Index. He was pin-wheeling his arms through the air madly, as if that would somehow help.

Index couldn’t move out of his path in time. Even if she madly pushed herself to the side, his right hand would collide with her hood.

She couldn’t afford to loose her Walking Church. Without it, she was defenceless: fodder for any magician to capture. There had to be some way to keep him from touching her clothes! Come on, think!

The moment of truth came. Touma’s hand flew through the air at Index’s head…

…and Index opened her mouth wide and chomped down on it.

That moment seemed to stretch on even longer, as if reality itself was confused at what had just happened.

The moment finally passed, and time resumed normal flow. The two collided fully, both tumbling to the ground.

Twilight, suddenly finding herself almost in arms reach of Nightmare Moon, brought her arm up in a panic and fired off a beam spell. Nightmare Moon gave her a flat look as the Nightmare Mist blocked the attack once again, then turned her attention back to the Index and Touma, dismissing Twilight completely.

<Ugh, gross.> Touma groaned. His right hand had effectively been shoved down Index’s throat by his own momentum, but that had also pushed Index back and to the side. The upshot of that was that the two and ended up on the ground side-by-side, his elbow in the air and well clear of Index. Their only point of contact was his hand.

Index didn’t answer, probably because she was too busy gagging on his hand. The kitten under her hood had dug its claws into her hair in fear, but it was also protected by the Walking Church, so it was fine.

Touma’s voice sounded pained, but he pulled himself off the ground. <I think my hand touched the back of your throat. What was the point of doing that?> He gingerly pulled his hand out of Index’s mouth.

The sound of breaking glass rang out.

<…wait, did I just negate some- >

Index’s eyes turned red.

In the next instant, a sudden shockwave blasted Touma though the air, sending him on his second trip through the air in under a minute.

If anyone had had the proper angle to see, they would have witnessed magical circles form inside Index’s suddenly soulless eyes.