//------------------------------// // Act 1, Chapter 9 - Tirek Flashbacks // Story: Hoof and Claw Versus the World // by Chythar //------------------------------// Over the past couple of nights, Nightmare Moon had given me magic and trained me in its use. I was facing my final task: battle the dark mare, and presumably defeat her. NO PROBLEM! I admit, I expected to lose. Nightmare Moon was too skilled, too powerful, and had WAY too many years of experience for me to have any chance of defeating her. But that didn't mean I was just going to give up. I intended to use my new skills as best I could, and last as long as possible. My plan was to play defense, and see how long I could survive. It didn't take me long to see a pattern in Nightmare Moon's attacks. She would fly directly at me, bombarded me with various magical attacks, then zoom past me and swing around for another pass. Nothing she threw at me was worse than I got during training, so I knew how to handle them. For my part, I did my best to break her shield every time she swung past. But either her defenses were really good, or my magical attacks were too weak. Probably both. Each time the Night Mare flew by, I hit her shield as hard as I could. But it was never enough; she never got hurt and would always laugh at me. I mixed up my attacks as I did to the Shadowbolt, but each spell slid off her shield like water on rocks. I tried to fly away, hoping to catch her off guard, but the Moon Mare was always prepared. I flew above AND below her, but she somehow second-guessed every movement. More than once I would complete a series of twists and turns in the air, only to find myself facing down the Night Incarnate summoning up a magic attack with no time to dodge. It was as if she could read my mind! Am I relying too much on the memories she gave me? Strangely enough, her attacks were strong but never seemed to breach my shields. It was plainly obvious she could finish me off at any time, and I wondered why she didn't just do it. Distracted yet again by the Mare in the Moon, I was able to withstand her attacks but my return shots glanced off her stronger shield. Argh! As she flew around and prepared another assault upon me, I finally realized what the dark mare was doing. I mentally slapped myself for being so stupid. Of COURSE she's not finishing me off! She's measuring me, testing me, seeing how I act under fire! Stupid Moon Butt's DELIBERATELY not giving me enough time to think! I only get a few moments when she flies around for another pass! Still seething, I struggled to refocus that anger into a more productive direction. Fine, fine. Let's go over what I know. My attacks seem to do nothing to her, but I'm just throwing them at her front. I quickly turned over in my head what I had already tried, and realized my fatal flaw. I had been relying solely on Nightmare Moon's memories to attack. That had to stop. I gotta change up my attacks, do something she wouldn't expect. I wonder, can I attack her from behind while she's facing me? Just as the Night Mare finished her turn and began summoning her latest attack, I focused my attention on a point in space behind her. Reaching out with magic, I 'touched' that spot and let loose a bombardment of lightning from BEHIND the Mare in the Moon. Success! My glee at inventing remote magic attacks turned to disappointment, as the spell did not breach her shield. However, it did have an effect: it caught her by surprise. As soon as the lightning struck the dark mare's shield, she whipped her head around to look at the new threat. It also looked like she lost control of her attack spell. The bolt of force she was summoning fired off early, and it missed me by several yards. Wow! That was her first miss tonight! Still flying in my direction, the Night Incarnate flew past me at her usual speed. Hoping to capitalize on her distraction, I summoned up a number of large boulders directly in front of her. They did nothing. She didn't even dodge them but barreled through them instead. She knocked the boulders away like a cue ball does to billiard balls on a pool table. Dammit! I was hoping she'd be too distracted by the lightning. As she circled around yet again, I puzzled over what I had just witnessed. Was distracting her the solution? There was only one way to find out. Again. I imagined a point behind the dark mare. Just as she was about to fire on me, I let loose with a flurry of icicles. And again, her shot went wild when she turned to look at the surprise attack. This exchange repeated several times: me attacking from an unexpected angle, and Nightmare Moon falling for it. I hoped to find a weakness in the Moon Mare's defenses, or cause her to make a fatal mistake. Sadly, I did neither. I tried attacks from her top, bottom, and even tried both sides at once. All had the same effect: Nightmare Moon's attacks missed me every time, but her shield still held strong. Out of frustration, I summoned multiple attacks from all around the accursed mare. Fire, lighting, snow, water, rocks, absolutely everything I has learned. If I knew how to summon a kitchen sink, I would have thrown that at her. Again, her shield held fast. Argh! What would it take to crack that thing?! The constant barrage did have an unexpected side effect. The Night Incarnate stopped flying around and just hovered in place instead. Maybe it was an instinctual response, 'don't fly when you can't see'. But she gave me an opening, and I took it. I'm really not sure what I was thinking. I probably wasn't thinking, merely reacting. I had done everything but physically hit her myself, so perhaps I thought that would work. While I did my best to maintain the magical bombardment, I slowly glided down to the desert floor. Once my feet were on the ground, I looked up into the sky to make sure that Nightmare Moon hadn't flown away. I then took a few moments to line myself up under that accursed mare. I found it was taking all my concentration to just stand there. The focus needed to attack from a distance was immense. The headache that was building in my skull was making my eyes water. I blinked the tears away, then took a deep breath to steady myself. Then shot up from the ground like a rocket. Every time I blinked moisture away, my target grew in size. First, her glowing shield appeared to be no larger than a tiny ball bearing. A blink later and it was as big as a marble. Then the size of a baseball, then a bowling ball, a beach ball, a final glimpse of four silver horseshoes! SLAM! The sudden stop was catastrophic. I found myself plastered against the bottom of her shield, like a bug squashed against a car windshield. Everything hurt, even my fur; though I wasn't sure if the pain was from the impact or the shock from my shield shattering. Strangely enough, nothing felt broken. I was just in a lot of pain. Of course, all my magical attacks had stopped upon my impact with her shield. Prying my eyes open, I took in the sight of Nightmare Moon looking at my crumpled form all squished cartoon-style against the bottom of her shield. Peals of laughter met my ears as the Mare in the Moon reveled in my unfortunate predicament. "Oh hohohoho! Didst thou see your muzzle as it was crushed against my shield? Wahahaha!" Clutching a hoof to her chest, she began to hyperventilate. Anger flared up within me. No one likes being laughed at of course, but my frustration was at its limits. I had done everything I knew of, cast every spell and used every trick I could think of, and they did NOTHING. What did it take to defeat this mare?! My pains suddenly gone, I pushed off of her shield as violently as I could and snapped my shield up immediately. It was obvious to me that I wasn't strong enough to defeat her. All I had managed to do was distract her. If only I could increase my magic strength somehow, like gathering ki in DragonBall Z... Wait a minute! It's so crazy...it just might work! I know I don't have the strength for a Super Kamehameha, but what if I FAKED one? If I can get her to panic and shift around her magic shunts, like I did when I was training, I might be able to breach her shield with a physical attack! It better work, 'cause it's all I got left! For my plan to work, I needed to put some good distance between the mare and myself. With a thought, my wings beat furiously and quickly brought me to a spot some five hundred feet above the still-chortling Nightmare Moon. While I hovered in place, I mentally went over the magical construct I had in mind. Once I was ready, I shifted that mental focus to my hands and placed them about a foot or so apart. I concentrated on that magical construct and pushed some magic into it. A moment later, a small softball-sized fireball popped into existence between my palms. The fireball looked to be perfectly round, nearly white with a tinge of yellow to it. It appeared to have tiny little flames surging over its surface, almost like little spikes undulating up and down. The surface itself rippled and shimmered, as if covered in a thin sheen of oil. Despite appearances, the flame was not real; merely illusion magic. The illusion hid only air, but air held under pressure by a thin magical balloon skin of sorts. Why air? Pure illusions don't have a magical feel to them, so while the fireball would look real it would be magically dead. I wanted something behind the illusion to give that magical feel, and used the illusion magic to make the air balloon look and feel like a fireball instead. Besides, it was the first thing I thought of and I had little time to plan. Deciding the balloon analogy worked, I pushed a bit more magic into the fire-balloon and suddenly the fireball felt real. Just as real as if it was fire all the way through, instead of empty air. The deception was necessary; my plan required that Nightmare Moon believed that the fireball was very real, and very dangerous. I needed the energy for the next step of my plan, so I dropped my shield and re-absorbed what magic from it that I could. Next, I cupped the fire-balloon in my hands and lifted my arms above my head. Then I pushed more magic into it. The fire-balloon increased dramatically in size, to about as big as your average SUV. A quick magical check revealed that the fire-balloon still felt like a real fireball of that size. Another hard push of magic, and the fire-balloon doubled its dimensions; effectively becoming EIGHT times larger in volume. Gathering most of my remaining magic, I pushed it into the fake fireball and it doubled its dimensions YET AGAIN. One more time, I went over my handiwork. To my delight, the fireball still felt real. Well, mostly. Something was off about its magical signature, but exactly what I could not tell. Almost like it was stretched a bit too thin, like butter spread over too much bread. I needed that 'real' feeling to stay, so I knew the fire-balloon was as big as it was going to get. Its magical signature would have to do. My ears twitched as they picked up the unmistakable, smoky voice of my dark mistress. From the tone of her voice, she was yelling or screaming at something. It was a fair guess she had seen my big ball o' magic, and was reacting in her own way. To be honest, I was too far away to hear her clearly. But it didn't really matter what she was saying. It was time to toss this baby and pray the mare was too freaked out to dodge. I stretched my arms behind my head to gather a bit of momentum, then tossed the fireball at the Night Mare as hard as I could. Bombs away! A minute earlier, Nightmare Moon was still laughing her flank off at her student's antics. Without warning, her magical senses popped an alert: someone nearby was gathering magical energy. The Moon Mistress wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes with a fetlock, and did her best to calm herself. She presumed that her student was attempting some last futile act of desperation, so she took her time composing herself. Still sporting a wide grin, the ebony mare slowly looked towards the magical surge she had sensed. Once her eyes focused on the giant orb of fire, and how BIG this fireball was, any remaining mirth vanished and left cold chills in their wake. "B-but HOW? You do not...cannot have this much POWER! Even I cannot create something so powerful! I must stop..." Eyes wide, the Mare in the Moon hesitated when she saw her student throw this impossibly large fireball directly at her. Experience told her that she could not withstand this attack and she must flee! The next moment, she realized that she was too late. She could not escape fast enough to avoid the impact, or the resulting explosion. The impossibly-large fireball had already filled her vision completely. In the few moments she had left, the Moon Mistress did the only thing she could do: strengthen her shield. Praying to her moon for hope and survival, the Night Incarnate instantly summoned several magical and elemental shunts and placed them on her shield. Her last desperate act was to change all her physical shunts into elemental ones, then she braced for impact. As I released the fire-balloon and watched it fly towards its intended target, I quickly focused my magic at a point behind the Mare in the Moon. At that point, I summoned several beach ball-sized rocks and left them to hover there. My magic then compressed the rocks as tightly as it could. In the process, the rocks shrunk to about the size of marbles. Very dense rocks: check. The final step required perfect timing. The implanted memories from earlier told me how to sense the distance between two magical objects. As I cast this simple spell, I realized I was almost too late - the fireball was about to impact Nightmare Moon's shield! I flung the marbles at her shield as hard as I could, and watched in rapt attention. I wondered to myself, would this work? The dense rocks hitting her shield should... Nightmare Moon's shield shattered just as the fireball touched it. The Moon Mistress screamed in abject terror, absolutely convinced that she was about to burn to death. It was time for the last stage of my plan! I focused yet again on a spot behind the Night Mare, and fired a single shot of paralyzing lightning at her. I didn't bother to wait to see if the shot connected, there was no time. If my plan worked, my Mistress would not be able to fly anymore and would need me to catch her. Gathering what strength I had left, I flew downwards as fast as I could and angled under the fire-balloon. A split-second later, the fire-balloon consumed the Night Mare...then popped with a loud bang which sounded just like a bursting balloon. The compressed air inside of the fire-balloon rushed out in all directions, quickly dispelling the fire illusion, and Nightmare Moon fell limply through the remains of the spell. The wind rippled through my fur as I flew downwards as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I had taken too long to act as the dark mare was still beneath me AND falling to the ground fast. Fortunately, the Moon Mare was falling under gravity and not under her own power. With a burst of energy, I was able to pass under her and catch her before she met her final end on the ground. Oof! She's a lot heavier than she looks! Good thing my new body had a lot of magic, or there's no way I could have caught her. Using pegasus magic to lighten her heavier-than-expected weight, I slowed my descent and looked for a good place to land. I quickly found one nearby, and landed on the desert floor with the limp form of Nightmare Moon in my arms. As soon as my feet touched down. I dropped to my knees and gently placed the mare on her side in the cleanest patch of dirt I could see. I would have preferred to set her down on something soft, or at least clean. But all I saw was dirt, so dirt would have to do. The dark mare was panting heavily, almost hyperventilating, and eyes as wide as I had seen them. Still freaked out from the fireball, I supposed. Or could it be from the fall? Shrugging internally, I decided it didn't really matter. I sat down on my haunches near the Moon Mare's head, and patiently waited until she calmed down. Nearly a minute later, when her breathing finally slowed to a more reasonable pace, I spoke. "How are you feeling, Mistress?" "I am lying prone in the dirt and unable to move. Pray tell, inform me how I should be feeling?" Ah, there's that scathing sarcasm I admire. I shall return the favor. "So, cheery and chipper it is." A sharp intake of breath followed by a drawn out sigh was the Night Mare's only response. "Prithee, tell me now what was the purpose of this exercise?" "What, you mean all that..." I waved a hand up in the air, indicating the battle we just completed. "That stuff?" "Yes, that near-successful attempt on my life. As you say, 'that stuff.'" While I was waiting for Nightmare Moon to relax, I had carefully thought out how I wanted to say this. "Remember that fireball you threw at me, when I was first learning to shield?" The Mare in the Moon ignored me while she tried to move something, anything, even the flick of a tail. She made several amazing faces while she tried. Eventually, her face fell slack in defeat. "Yes, I believe I remember. What of it?" "Consider us even now." The Night Mare sputtered, then snapped out her retort. "What?! This was all some sort of petty revenge?! I was teaching you!" "You scared the shit out of me! I was convinced I was going to die! Burned alive! And afterwards, you just laughed at me!" Nightmare Moon scrunched up her muzzle several times in a row. "One moment, my nose itches." I sighed in frustration, then reached over and rubbed a knuckle over her nose pad. "Better?" "Yes, thank you. You were saying...?" Her interruption seemed to calm us both down. "I was upset at your literal 'trial by fire'. That type of lesson is not something I'm likely to forget." "And killing me would have salved your injured pride?" "You were never in any danger." "A fireball of that size might have killed me!" I pondered the idea - that she hadn't yet caught on to my ruse - but I wasn't sure yet. To let the facts speak for themselves, I made my rebuttal slow and smooth. "And yet, you are unhurt. The paralyzing spell you taught me only keeps you from moving, not from feeling. If that fireball was as powerful as you said, shouldn't you be in a lot of pain right now?" Doubt and confusion flitted across her eyes. "Er...you must have healed me." A smug smile crept across my face, it was clear to me that she had no idea what I had done. I was going to have FUN with this! "Nope, you haven't taught me those spells yet. Here, it's probably easier to show you." I recalled my earlier spell, and summoned up a small fire-balloon about the size of a softball. The construct hovered just above my left index finger, waiting for me to use it. This fire-balloon was just like its larger relative: perfectly round, nearly white and shimmered as if covered in oil. "Does this look familiar, Mistress?" Eyes wide, her voice held a slight waver of uncertainty. "Y-yes." She was all too aware that she was completely at my mercy. "In your opinion, what would this fireball do to you if it hit you?" "A-at best, burn me badly. At worst, sear me to the bone and cripple me." "Iiiiinteresting. Shall we find out?" I flicked the small fire-balloon directly at her muzzle. Nightmare Moon barely had time to close her eyes and flinch (well, more like scrunch up her face - she WAS still paralyzed) before the fireball impacted her flesh. As before, the fireball made an audible pop and dispersed without causing any damage. A moment later, the Mare in the Moon snapped her eyes open. Looking all around her in alarm, she tried and failed to figure out what just happened. "What?! I barely felt that!" The ebony mare stopped her frantic movements to glare at me. If her stare could actually bore into my flesh, I'd be a swiss cheese kitty cat by now. "What...what did you DO?!" "All the fireball's energy was put into holding its shape, and in making it as big as possible. There was no energy held in its heat or flame. If you could hold it in your hand - er, hoof - you would not feel any heat at all." "Impossible! The fireball spell I taught you cannot do that!" I shrugged, the process seemed obvious to me. "Not sure what to tell you. It's basically a bubble of pressurized air, surrounded by a illusion spell. The illusion makes the air look and feel like flames, and the air gives it substance. When the bubble pops, the air held within rushes out and the touch of the air dispels the illusion. A simple combination of an illusion spell and high-school physics." Despite not fully understanding my explanation, realization slowly dawned on the Night Mare. "But...how...you tricked me!" The pleasure from my skullduggery shone through the grin on my face. "Yup! The fireball was merely a distraction." Abruptly, the Night Mare sighed in frustration. "Speaking of distractions, now my cutie mark itches." Man, buzzkill. I wiggled a step or two backwards until her cutie mark was within reach. Then I stretched out both hands and dug deeply into her dark flesh. Scratching vigorously all over the area brought Nightmare Moon instant relief. Several seconds later, the look of bliss splattered all over her muzzle told me the itch had finally passed. "Aaahhhh, that was wonderful. Thank you." The paralyzed mare paused to enjoy her afterglow. Though she only waited a few moments before she picked up our discussion again. "Now, if the fireball was a distraction how then did you bring down my shield?" I inched back over to her head so she could see me once again. A touch of magic allowed me to hover a few small rocks off of the ground. "Rocks, compressed as densely as I could make them. You were so focused on the elemental energy of the fireball, that concentrated physical impacts were able to breach your shield. I timed it right so you thought it was the fireball that did it." "Hrm. And the paralysis?" "A quick shot of paralyzing lightning as soon as your shield failed. You were too busy to dodge." Nightmare Moon stayed silent a short time, while she mulled over what I had done. "I see. A clever combination of the spells I taught you. You have learned your lessons well, my student." Huh, praise. Felt surprisingly nice. Maybe I'll give her a little of it back, but only a bit. "I have a wonderful teacher, though she can be a harsh bitch at times." "Hah! Harsh I may be, but I get results." I smiled and patted her withers affectionately. "That you do." Each innocent touch of my hand on the ebony mare caused her muscles to twitch. "It seems the spell I cast on you is wearing off." "Yes, let us see if I can dispel it." With a quick flash of her horn, the remnants of the paralysis spell were removed and Nightmare Moon quickly got to her hooves. Another quick flash of her horn to repel the dirt covering her coat and armor, and she gleamed brightly in the moonlight. One long reproving glance at me later, she eventually beckoned me to follow her with a wave of her head. "Come. The lessons for tonight are over." We trudged along in silence; the only noise came from the dirt crunched under our feet and hooves. Not too surprisingly, my bare feet-paws were much quieter then her armored hooves. I was curious why we didn't just fly back to our cave, but I had a feeling my Mistress wasn't in the mood for questions. The awkward silence stretched on and on as we walked. I wondered if she was mad, or merely contemplating our next lessons. At last, she spoke. "I must know, my student. How did you know that...trick of yours would defeat me? I have thousands of years of experience in battle under my wings. And yet a mere novice, a mewling babe who has only wielded magic for a hoofful of days, managed to defeat me where countless others had failed. How did you do it?" I did not answer for several moments, while I put my thoughts in order. "From our lessons, and again while we sparred, I could see you favored a direct, powerful approach. Attack hard, attack fast. Do not let the enemy think, only react." "Yes, it has served me well. None can withstand it." "Your strategy only works well when your opponent has little time to think. Make them react, force them to make mistakes, and take them down. You could have clearly defeated me any time, for it's obvious you are much, much more powerful than me. However, defeating me so soundly would also defeat the purpose of the lesson. So you toyed with me instead. "But by toying with me, you gave me time to think. Frontal assaults did nothing, so what about attacks from the sides? The rear? They did not hurt you, but they distracted you. Your attacks went wide while I pummeled your shield from different angles. That's why I ran into you from below - I was trying to take advantage of your distraction." Nightmare Moon chuckled softly. "That plan did not work well, did it?" "It didn't affect your shield, but that was the closest I had gotten to you yet. And you didn't even know I was there until I hit your shield, did you?" A quick frown wiped away her smile at my failure. "True." "Laughing at your enemy is a good plan, it tends to get them angry and encourage mistakes. But sometimes it backfires, and makes them more determined. And that's what happened to me. “I admit, I got lucky. My anger reminded me of a story I had read, in which there was a magical fight somewhat like ours. One of the fighters made a gigantic fireball much like the one I made. But in his case, the warrior had the power to make it real. I did not." "Then why make the fireball in the first place, my student? When you knew it would fail?" "Yeah, I knew it would fail as a direct attack. But as a distraction? It worked really well. If the fireball fooled you, made you think it was real, I figured you would put all your efforts into strengthening your elemental shunts and ignore your physical ones. If I was really lucky, you would change your physical shunts into elemental ones. Then, while you were distracted by the fireball, a physical attack might bring down your shield. And it did." The Night Mare thought for a moment. "I see. You led me to make a mistake, and a critical one at that. I had altered my physical shunts into elemental ones as you presumed." "Had you not removed those shunts Mistress, my plan probably would have failed." She of the Night had a thoughtful expression on her muzzle. "I see that now. And the paralyzing lightning cleanly disabled my magic and any defense I could make. A clean kill...of sorts. Commendable." "Thank you, Mistress." Quietly, almost too quiet for even my new ears to hear, the Night Mare muttered to herself. "Perhaps the effort was worthwhile after all." Analyze the target, find its weaknesses, and take advantage of them. Who knew all those strategy games and video games would pay off one day?