//------------------------------// // Origins part 3 // Story: The League of Harmony // by Kinni //------------------------------// Applejack was feeling doubt. This was the first time she had went out as the Ponyville Crusader and she didn't know what to expect. Even the great power she could feel just ready to be harnessed by her didn't help Applejack's doubts. If anything, it only made them worse. She didn't feel worthy of this power, and she felt like she was going to disappoint all her ancestor who harnessed it before her. Still, she felt the need to go forward. And when she and the other heroines appeared in some kind of underground cavern, Applejack decided that there was at least one thing she could do. She took the lead and moved in front of the others, certain that she was more resilient than any of them. She also tried to focus her senses to the maximum, in order to try and figure out what was the deal with that place. And the first thing she noticed was the fact that they weren't in a physical space, but some sort of magical location. And the location they were in should still be anchored in the Everfree Forest, so if they had no choice, Applejack could destroy this subspace and allow them to be ejected back into safety. However, she decided this would be only a last ditch option, because doing so would prevent them from reaching the end, where they had to go. While she was thinking that, her senses suddenly noticed something concerning, and she shouted “Careful!” before abandoning the focus on her senses in favor of strengthening her energy form as much as she could. Her choice was revealed to be right when the ground in front of them trembled and monstrous forms started to dig their way out of it. They were monsters made of stone that had varied forms, some of which were even similar to that of a pony, while others had all sorts of limb combinations and body shapes. The only things all of them had in common was first the fact that they were all pretty big, around five times the size of a pony, and they had eyes had appeared to be blue rocks. The stone monsters didn't roar, for they didn't have mouths, but the sound of their “legs” hitting the ground as they rushed over to the group was already a terrifying substitute. Dozens of those monsters attacked, and the Ponyville Crusader stood in front of them as the first line. Turning, she delivered a monumentally powerful buck, utterly disintegrating the first monster, but that was a mistake. She put too much of her strength into the buck and couldn't recover in time when the two monsters to the right and left of her target moved to attack her. She didn't need to worry about it, though. She had two experienced heroines supporting her. Dragon Mage shot a ball of energy that blew one of the enemies backwards, causing several cracks to appear in his body. Mare Do Well jumped to the head of the other one, she use a hoof to hit him directly in the eyes in an attack that didn't seem very strong, but caused the rock monster to collapse in pieces. “Their eyes are weak points!” The caped heroine announced, before jumping forward to the middle of the crowd of monsters and dodging around their attacks seemingly effortlessly, attacking the eyes of some of them in the process and forcing the others to use some of their limbs to protect their faces. Sonic Rainbow was the first of the others to move, she flew over the group of monsters at insane speeds, then started attacking their rear with ramming attacks, splitting their concentration. Many of the monsters seemed to realize that they were facing strong opponents, and decided to change tactics. They dug into the ground and grabbed masses of earth before throwing them at the heroines in front. Both Crusader and Dragon Mage prepared to receive them, but Gemstone showed her powers by using a phenomenal amount of telekinesis to shift the trajectories of the heavy chunks of earth, making them fall harmlessly to the sides. Gaia Knight then charged into the fray, flying on steel dragon wings that were somehow channeling real magic (according to Crusader's senses), she opened hatches on her chest that released guided spear-like missiles, that pierced into the faces of the monsters and destroyed their eyes, making their remains fall down inert. Crusader was inspired by the attack of the monsters and dug onto the earth herself, grabbing a chunk of ground she then threw into another monster's face, destroying it a lot more easily than she had done with a buck. After that, the situation became chaotic. Even Crusader's special senses were hard-pressed to keep up with everything that was going on. Sonic Rainbow was attacking everywhere, flying from place to place so fast it was like she was teleporting. Mare Do Well was attracting the attention of many opponents at once, making them hit each other with their attacks and even taking some of them out herself when they revealed any flaws. Dragon Mage was using quick and reserved blasts of magic with the smell of a dragon to efficiently take care of any enemies that tried to group together. Gemstone was switching between squeezing the eyes of the monsters directly with telekinesis and somehow creating (without magic) very dense globes of water that she accelerated with telekinesis to act as heavy projectiles. And Gaia Knight, beside the missiles, was also releasing blasts of energy that seemed partially magic from the mouth of the lion head. And the situation kept changing. Soon more monsters were generated from the back of the group, trying to attack while they were occupied in their fight. Dragon Mage called for them to move forward while fighting, and Crusader used her strength to bull rush through the middle of the enemy formation, creating a hole that was widened by the quick efforts of Gemstone, Dragon Mage and Sonic Rainbow, who used their respective abilities to attack any enemies that tried to close the path while they were going. The group passed through the enemy zone and Mare Do Well suddenly warned: “Traps on the walls!” Without stopping her rush, Crusader turned to the right wall and prepared herself. It was just in time, as a crushing wall trap was revealed, and she managed to stop the crusher in its tracks. Behind her, Gemstone had done the same with the other wall, and the two heroines briefly struggled before Dragon Mage cast a spell on each of the walls that somehow made them stop moving. The monsters were right behind them, so the group immediately went back on the move. Mare Do Well kept announcing traps before they showed up, from crushing ceilings and hidden pitfalls, to monsters coming out of the ceiling and projectiles being fired from hidden cannons. Dragon Mage, with her varied spells, and Ponyville Crusader, with her incredible physical abilities did most of the work on dealing with these news threats, but Gemstone's telekinesis, Sonic Rainbow's speed and Gaia Knight's ranged attacks also helped a lot. And eventually, they got to the end of the cavern, crossing another portal at full speed. -0- Fluttershy had a moment of panic once the ground suddenly disappeared and she started to fall, but even in that condition she managed to reactivate the flight systems and stop in the air. She looked to the others: Rainbow Dash had already been flying once she went through the portal, and her ability ignored traditional flight notions, so she didn't even waver in the air. Dragon Mage activated a dragon wings spell that almost got the pegasus to stop concentrating on the situation and start thinking about the mechanics of it. Gemstone used her abnormally powerful telekinesis (potentially ability-enhanced?) to float. The last two were the most curious: The Ponyville Crusader seemed to kick off the air itself (probably some sort of energy manipulation) to reach a wall of the empty cylinder-like structure they were inside off and grab onto it. The Mysterious Mare Do Well had a grappling hook shot off from inside her costume (coming out of a very cleverly concealed slit) that caught on the wall and pulled her towards it. Then, the caped heroine proceeded to run up the wall like it was ground, which was when Fluttershy noticed that their next destination was somewhere towards the top of that tower. Crusader noticed that too and started to jump from wall to wall to get higher up. The other four, who could fly, also started to go up to their target. But of course things couldn't be that easy. From windows on the walls of the tower, monsters started to appear. They were flying gargoyle-like reptiles, with sharp claws and teeth and bladed wings. Dash was the fastest, and so she was the first to reach the monsters. They tried to tear her to pieces but her abilities made her too fast to catch and too resilient to injure even if she was caught. She started ramming the backs of the monsters to break their wings and make them fall. Crusader was even more resilient, and so she simply crashed into the flying monsters while jumping from wall to wall, making the creatures that had the bad luck to be in her path turn into paste. Fluttershy saw that they were organic and decided that this was a good chance to test the Cockatrice Gaze. She took a moment to reflect on the situation. She was once again facing scary monsters in a strange place filled with traps, and yet she wasn't afraid. It should be due to her neural connection with the Chimera Armor. She truly felt like she was a powerful creature of magical technology that could not be defeated by mere monsters or traps. This was why she felt the leisure to think about testing things. Seeing the effectiveness of her inventions made her strangely happy, and both the Stinger Missiles and the Focused Blast had turned out to be worthy of their development time. So, she got close to one of the monsters and activated the mechanism in the left eye of the elephant head, gazing at the eyes of the creature. It started to turn to stone, and two seconds later enough of it had changed that the monster couldn't keep itself in the air and started to fall. It appeared that the principles Fluttershy had derived from her research on cockatrices were applicable to combat. After that, she saw through her sensors Dragon Mage start to hit the monsters with spells that killed them instantly and Gemstone return to using her previous strategy of creating a dense sphere of water with her power and accelerating it into a dangerous projectile with her telekinesis. But the most surprising part was Mare Do Well, who was actually using the monsters as platforms to get higher easier, easily evading their attacks and tapping the heads of those she landed on to kill them. From closer, Fluttershy managed to discover her secret, she was using retractable climbing spokes on her hooves, which she was enhancing with earth pony magic to turn into deadly sharp and quick weapons. She was definitely also using them as ordinary climbing spokes to go up the wall earlier. The group kept going up, and Gaia Knight managed to also test and approve of the efficiency of her razor wings system. But then the tower did the same as their previous location and also upped the challenge, starting with dropping huge rocks on them from above. Most of the heroines choose to avoid them, but Crusader simply broke through everyone of them that got in her way, seemingly wanting to create a safe place for the others to follow. Gaia Knight refused in favor of activating the Star Aura system (created based on research of the bodies of Ursa Minor and Major) and rammed through a huge stone of her own, feeling like that kind of system that included both attack and defense was a particularly great accomplishment. But she couldn't bask on it, as things started to get even more intense. The windows started to discharge blasts of fire that wouldn't lose out to real dragon fire breathing, walls started breaking as huge shadowy hands came from them to try and smash the heroines, and even the parts below them became a problem, as thousands of arrows were shot from there somehow and tried to skewer the group from behind. Things were very bad, but the group actually found it easier than the first stage. The reason for that was because they were getting more and more used to working together, and understood each others' abilities enough to be able to trust in their skills and focus more on their own problems. Mare Do Well kicked Dragon Mage out of the path of a particularly fast arrow, Crusader called for Gemstone to use her as a shield with her telekinesis, Sonic Rainbow understood perfectly when Gaia Knight shot a missile at her, dodging at the last moment to hit a hand that came out of the wall with amazing suddenness. Those kinds of maneuvers got more and more frequent as they went up, until the group passed through the new portal. -0- Rainbow Dash quickly looked around when the group got to a new place. It was a beach right next to a dense forest. She was hearing a strange sound coming from the forest but she couldn't understand what it was. Thanks to her ability, Rainbow Dash was able to see all around herself like she had eyes everywhere, but all her other senses were normal, as such her first indication that something dangerous was happening was with Mare Do Well's alert. She jumped on Ponyville Crusader's back (this was a scene that countless children in Ponyville replicated with their toys, because every time the two teamed up like that, it led to amazing things) and pointed to the distance in the side of the ocean, while shouting: “RUN!” There was no reason for Crusader to refuse, and she ran on top of the water at high speed. The other heroes were only a moment behind, flying in the same direction as the two, a direction which they could now sense was the same direction they had to go to get closer to their destination. Rainbow even quickly surpassed the two. The reason for Mare Do Well's urgency was revealed soon, along with the source of the strange noise Rainbow Dash had been hearing, as a gigantic wave coming from the forest appeared to consume the entire horizon, and soon overtake the beach where they had stood. Looking back, Rainbow Dash noticed that, while they were keeping their distance comfortably in the beginning, the wave started to accelerate more and more. Her powers made it so that flight wasn't a problem for Rainbow (even as the wave surpassed 300 Km/h, this was child's play to a pony who could move beyond the speed of sound), and Crusader was simply increasing her speed like this didn't take any effort. But the others weren't having such luck. Gemstone was the first to show problems, as she started to use a weird ability to briefly manipulate the space around her to give herself a burst of speed, but even repeating that over and over, she was falling behind. Rainbow thought of helping her, but Mare Do Well threw her grappling hook at the unicorn, who grabbed onto it via telekinesis and simply held on while Do Well kept her hold on the Crusader. When they passed 400 Km/h, the flying abilities of Fluttershy's armor didn't prove up to the task of keeping pace (and she was still having difficulty believing that Fluttershy was actually wearing one of her armors and fighting), so this time Rainbow dropped back a bit and started pushing her forward. When they passed 600 Km/h, Dragon Mage was forced to use a spell that created a blue aura around herself and increased her speed. It wasn't really unexpected, even most pegasi wouldn't be able to fly at that speed for long. The wave finally stopped accelerating at around 700 Km/h, but their trial was still not over. Mare Do Well started calling “Left!” and “Right!” at certain moments to make Crusader dodge small but powerful geysers of water that started coming out of the ocean, and then it was huge, carnivorous fish that started appearing and attacking the group. Dragon Mage and Gaia Knight's ranged attacks were the only thing that prevented their attacks. And then it started to hail. Big hailstones were falling from the sky, to the point where even strong pegasi wouldn't want to be flying. Mare Do Well had changed spots and protected herself by hanging on the underside of Crusader. Gaia Knight was using that same aura she used on the previous place to break through the rocks, Dragon Mage had created a bunch of magical barriers, Gemstone had created a weird, two-layered barrier (with the inner layer seemingly solid while the outer layer was somehow hazy like fog), while Sonic Rainbow was protected by her Rainbow Coating. She quickly realized that this would make it a lot harder for the others to attack the fish, and she wasn't sure if Ponyville Crusader would be able to run and fight at the same time while also keeping Mare Do Well from getting hurt, so Sonic Rainbow accelerated, pushing Gaia Knight to the side of Crusader, shouting “Grab onto her!” and moving forward herself to intercept the fishes with repeated ramming attacks. This went on for a few more seconds, until the six suddenly passed through another portal. -0- Rarity felt like she had done a good job at selecting which gems to weave into her costume to get the most useful powers. With Aquamarine, she could create a dense sphere of water and propel it forward, it wasn't very fast but it could be accelerated with her telekinesis to great effect. She could also use the abilities of the Corundum gems, Ruby and Sapphire, to change the temperature of objects nearby, she had chosen them to change the sphere of water into steam or ice for special occasion, but it could also help with other things. For defense, she had a sunstone, a chromite and a malachite. The first hardened her body like a gem, increasing her defense, the second created a physical barrier similar to a shield spell, and the third created a kind of “energy-denial” field, which sapped part of the energy of everything that went through it, objects slowed down, heat didn't transfer properly and etc. None of them were great defenses on their own, but all together the way she did made for a protection she could definitely rely on. Jadeite was perhaps the gem with the weirdest abilities among what she was using. It could shift space itself for a brief moment. Rarity was sure there were lots of things she could do with it, but so far, she had only managed to work out a way to shorten the space between herself and her destination to get to places quicker. And with Jacinth, she could quickly shape earth into objects, and she used it as soon as she got to the next destination, a kind of slide tunnel going underground. She shaped a board and rode it, wanting to take advantage of whatever she could to get to the end quicker instead of simply flying. Sonic Rainbow didn't share her idea, but she was so fast it probably wouldn't matter anyway. Ponyville Crusader was so tough she didn't have to worry about her legs, and simply slid using them. Mare Do Well had jumped from her back and was using her grappling hook to swing on the ceiling of the tunnel repeatedly, accelerating madly. Dragon Mage imitated her by simply using an earth-shaping spell with greater speed and ease than pretty much any unicorn that didn't have some kind of earth-based cutie mark or a gift related to the earth. Gaia Knight was doing the same as the Crusader. And of course, simply sliding down wouldn't be nearly enough to act as a trial, and Rarity had figured out the six of them were going through some kind of trial before being allowed to reach their destination, whatever it was. There were monsters, like always. This time creatures that seemed like Diamond Dogs made of steel. Only they were a lot smarter than any previous monsters. This could be seen by the fact that they were using boards as well, and wielding varied weapons. They came from several auxiliary tunnels, some of them were carrying long spears, some were carrying bow and arrows, some were carrying magical staves, and a group of them was even carrying a cannon in a kind of group board. And they weren't simply cannon fodder. One of them managed to fend off a quick strike from Sonic Rainbow with his spear, and another one managed to intercept one of Dragon Mage's spells with a quick arrow. However, they didn't seem to be prepared for more unusual attack options. Gemstone used the Aquamarine + Ruby + Telekinesis combo to blast one of them with high pressure steam, which made him fall off his board, and Mare Do Well managed to drop another one by jumping into his board and breaking it before returning to the air. By this point, all six of them were sliding backwards to be able to face the enemies, and the battle started in earnest. Arrows flew through the air with deadly accuracy and extreme piercing power. Staff-wielding dogs used magic to throw rock spikes from the walls at them. Dogs wielding spears showed strength that even Ponyville Crusader couldn't ignore. The cannon fired several times, causing general havoc and destruction on the tunnel. But the heroines weren't discouraged. Mare Do Well went to the middle of the enemy formation and dodged every single attack aimed in her direction, distracting a lot of the enemies. Sonic Rainbow accelerated even further and went back past the dogs to attack them from the rear, when the steam was blocked by a quickly-casted magical rock barrier, Rarity instead used her Jacinth again to create a ramp that made several dogs fly, exposing the blind spots in their underside and allowing Dragon Mage to break their boards. Ponyville Crusader was batting away every cannonball, acting as an impenetrable defense. Dragon Mage countered the magic and arrows of the opponents with fast and furious spells. Gaia Knight kept them off-balance with several missiles and blasts attacking nearly invisible weak spots in their formations. And then Mare Do Well jumped on top of Sonic Rainbow and yelled “ACCELERATE!” Hearing the sheer urgency in her voice, Rarity again pushed her telekinesis to the limit to increase her speed while also activating her Jadeite ability. She saw the others accelerating in their own ways, and they managed to get some distance from the enemies. It was just in time. A wall broke with a flow of magma coming through it, a flow that came dangerously close to frying them, and Rarity, who wasn't even that far back in relation to the others, still felt incredibly hot, almost to the point she had to use her defenses. The six screamed forward, trying to put as much distance between them and the fire as possible. But things couldn't be that easy, and a group of “Steel Dogs” appeared in front of them, just as heavily armed and sliding backwards, apparently wanting to delay their enemies as much as possible and positively daring the six to plow through their formation. So they did. Ponyville Crusader advanced in front like the tip of an arrow, drawing most of the attacks and enduring through them. Dragon Mage roared as she charged her magic and shot a sphere of immense concentrated energy that caused an explosion on their left flank. Sonic Rainbow shot through the right flank faster than they could react, hitting an entire line of enemies. Gaia Knight opened hatches all over and shot an absolutely ridiculous amount of missiles at the more distant opponents. Mare Do Well landed on the Crusader and shot off her grappling hook before waving it like a scythe, hitting the boards of the enemies and making them stumble. While Gemstone was splitting her focus among as many enemies as possible, focusing her extreme telekinesis on their arms to make it harder to retaliate. It was a screaming nexus of pure violence and impact, but in a second they were through, and the “Steel Dogs” had been left behind, and the magma was too far to matter. And with that, they reached the final portal. -0- As soon as they went through, Dragon Mage realized that they weren't inside sub-realities anymore, and instead were back in the real world. She had time to notice that they seemed to be inside of a castle that was in ruins before a figure caught her eye. Her brain barely registered that the figure had a staff floating by its side when the appearance of the figure hit her mind like a train. A black coat, while both eyes and regalia were blue. Horn and wings and an aura of darkness. The cutie mark of a crescent moon, while her mane and tail seemed to be made of the dark parts of space. “NIGHTMARE MOON?!” She shouted. But she is supposed to be dead! Dragon Mage screamed in her mind before focusing back. She started to charge a spell to attack, knowing that she couldn't hesitate at all... “Bow.” Nightmare Moon ordered. And suddenly her spell fizzled, as Dragon Mage found herself with her face to the ground. “How... ? I can't control myself...” She forced the words out, while trying desperately to charge magic again unsuccessfully and seeing figures around her in the same situation from the corner of her eye. The being of power and corruption laughed and deigned to explain “This is the Staff of Gift Control. The most powerful artifact in existence. None who are Gifted can resist the will of the one who bears the Staff.” “You...! Ah won't...” Ponyville Crusader tried to resist, forcing all her will power to try to stand. “It's useless.” Nightmare Moon spoke with a coldly amused voice “You five who have passed the trials shall become the first step in my path for the conquest of Equestria. Submit!” “GAAAAAH!” Dragon Mage screamed. In fact, they all screamed. She felt like there was a darkness that was trying to forcefully pierce inside her head, she felt like something was trying to snuff out her thoughts and destroy her sense of self. She tried to resist but the pressure felt overwhelming and she couldn't put up any resistance. Still. One thought remained in her mind that caused a bolt of hope to flash through her heart. Five...? Crack! And the pressure suddenly disappeared. Dragon Mage opened her eyes to see a sight that would remain with her until her last days. It was the Mysterious Mare Do Well, kicking Nightmare Moon in the jaw and taking away the staff in a single, fluid motion. She dropped to the ground, still holding the staff in her left fore hoof. Nightmare Moon snarled and shot a blast of magic at her, but Mare Do Well jumped to the side before the shot had even left her horn, and evaded the attack completely. She tried again, and the heroine reversed her movement and jumped back to evade again. That was when Dragon Mage recovered. She shot her fastest blast at the alicorn, managing to force her to block. Then Ponyville Crusader shouted in anger and rushed at Nightmare Moon. The opponent teleported away to the air, but Crusader was beyond caring, she followed through the teleport and spiked Nightmare Moon with a hoof in an attack that caused her to create a crater when she hit the ground. Sonic Rainbow rammed into her at high speed, but Nightmare Moon managed to put up a barrier in time and avoid the damage. Gemstone squeezed her horn with a tremendous force of telekinesis, causing Nightmare Moon to grunt in pain, but then she shot a blast in the direction of the unicorn, forcing her to cancel her attack to dodge. Gaia Knight reached to attack with a clawed paw, which was blocked with another shield, but that was just a feint, and she turned to attack with her tail, which hit and discharged a huge amount of electricity into Nightmare Moon. Ponyville Crusader fell back down and tried to hit her again, but Nightmare Moon flapped her wings to create a hugely powerful wind and send her flying. Dragon Mage had used those few seconds to prepare her next attack, drawing deep from the draconic power she had access via her link with Spike, creating a sphere of power that crackled with energy and aggression. She shot it forward just as Sonic Rainbow pushed Gaia Knight away from Nightmare Moon. BOOOOOM! The explosion was tremendous, and it raised a huge cloud of dust. Dragon Mage immediately cast a wind spell to remove the dust, knowing that she couldn't give Nightmare Moon even the slightest chance to recover... But even doing everything right, things didn't work out. Nightmare Moon teleported immediately to Ponyville Crusader's side and used an immense amount of telekinetic power to throw her far into the sky. Then she flapped her wings again and immediately released a wave of cold that froze everything in range. Dragon Mage defended with her shield spells, but that was too passive and she knew it. Nightmare Moon's next act was to send a blast of power at Sonic Rainbow and Gaia Knight. The mechanical apparatus stepped in front of the other heroine and activated her aura in defense, but the sound of tearing metal told Dragon Mage it hadn't been quite enough. The dragon-linked unicorn shouted, releasing a burst of power with the best fire signature she could make on short notice, dumping dragon power freely to wipe out the cold and allow the others to move. Then she saw a ball of energy coming towards her and remade her defenses, seeing that Gemstone was in the same situation... Then Mare Do Well came out of nowhere and kicked Nightmare Moon again, this time in the horn. -0- Mare Do Well had done the most important thing, and now the Staff of Gift Control was out of the control of Nightmare Moon. With this, she returned to the battlefield. Despite being an incredibly powerful creature, Nightmare Moon still worked the same way as a natural being, and as such, there were weak points that could not be avoided. One was the horn, since it had to channel magic in a delicate process. Another one was... In the brief moment of stun from the kick in the horn, Mare Do Well reached with a hoof and channeled a bit of earth pony magic to pop the climbing spikes of that hoof and strengthen them for a moment, and slashed at the eyes of the alicorn. The eyes. Nightmare Moon screamed, blinded, and Mare Do Well knew her attack had done a good bit of damage and blinded her for a few moments before she could focus and use magic to recover. (Hoof swing in front) Came the alert of the Pinkie Sense, and she dodged to the side before punching at Nightmare Moon's jaw. (Magical burst 180 degrees) Came another alert, and she jumped over the head before the place where she had been got destroyed by magic. She landed on the neck with a stomp which included her spikes. (Area damage spell, centered on Nightmare Moon) came another alert, and she spun and wrapped Nightmare Moon's horn with her cape, before channeling a bit of earth pony magic through it and making the spell fizzle. Then she channeled a lot more magic and ripped her cape away from the horn, causing the same effect as a slash of magic. Nightmare Moon screamed again. (Upwards burst of magic) She jumped out from the back to avoid the new threat. Nightmare Moon forcefully fixed her eyes with direct magic and used telekinesis to grab Mare Do Well's cape. But the heroine was a veteran. She had dealt with that weak point long ago. The bit of cape that was grabbed unwove itself thanks to a pulse of magic from Do Well, and then rewove itself. Nightmare Moon reached to grab her leg instead, but Mare Do Well used her earth pony magic to throw a metal disc through the slit in her costume at the horn of her opponent, canceling the magic due to the surprise. But that was pretty much the limit. Mare Do Well had managed to keep Nightmare Moon occupied for a while, but she couldn't defeat her, and she was barely managing to protect herself. That was because she was buying time. A rainbow-coated pegasus rammed into Nightmare Moon and hit her dozens of times in a second before a burst of magic threw her away. Ponyville Crusader landed right on top of the alicorn with a powerful punch, having used the air to jump down and force herself back faster. Another burst of magic threw Crusader a few meters away. But Mare Do Well knew Nightmare Moon should be getting close to her limits. That was the vibe she had felt from the desperate attacks she was doing. It appeared that Dragon Mage's attack had really hurt. Seeing the others preparing their own attacks, Mare Do Well pretty much just watched the show. The next to come was Gemstone, who used her space manipulation to appear floating right next to Nightmare Moon and putting both fore hooves on her horn to use her telekinesis on it directly with a shout, releasing such a great amount of power that it made the horn of the alicorn actually crack. Nightmare Moon shifted into a mist-like form, trying to get some time to breathe. Mare Do Well started to bring out her special tool for this situation... but stopped when Dragon Mage hit the enemy with a spell that forced her back into corporeal form. Then Gaia Knight's own attack became ready. Part of the armor had been ripped away but she was still quite functional, and released three blasts from the mouths that came together into a powerful explosion that caused cracks to start appearing on the very body of Nightmare Moon. Then Ponyville Crusader was back, and she turned back and hit the alicorn with a tremendous buck, that sent her to the air and caused the cracks to widen. And then Dragon Mage connected with the five energy spheres she had created and shot beams of magic from each of them and her horn, and they fused into a devastating energy beam that completely engulfed Nightmare Moon. When it was over, half her body had vanished, and the rest was completely covered in cracks. Still, she spoke a single word. “Escape.” And a hidden magical circle activated and released a pulse of magic that hit Nightmare Moon and made her vanish. There was a moment where the others maintained their guard, just in case that was a trick. Then they relaxed. They looked around for a moment without seeming to know what to do. Then Dragon Mage looked at Mare Do Well. “What did you do with the Staff?” She asked. Mare Do Well used a pulse of magic to recover the staff from the same place she kept her grappling hook and other tools, the interior of her mane. And made it come out via the same hidden slit in her costume. “This thing is too dangerous. I don't know where she found it, but I don't feel that hiding it someplace is quite enough.” She looked at the Crusader “If you would...?” Mare Do Well handed the staff to Ponyville Crusader, who took it in her mouth and forcefully bit down. And for a few seconds, it seemed like it wouldn't be enough, but then the Staff started to crack and it finally snapped in two. A pulse of magic was released from the Staff, and it seemed to expand to encompass the entire world. Mare Do Well could tell that the others had felt something, but her Pinkie Sense was telling her that this act would have big repercussions. -0- The heroines have their first victory, but what was the deal with Nightmare Moon? And what could be the consequences of destroying such a powerful Artifact? All shall be revealed in the final chapter of the first arc of the League of Harmony: Origins part 4! See you there!