//------------------------------// // 542 - Timing It Right // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// Twilight immediately began casting another dispelling spell, knowing that she needed to get Behemiel out of that ice as soon as possible. But she’d barely gotten the first few syllables out of her mouth, waving a hoof through the requisite gestures, when an array of black crystals shot up from the ground. It was only because Starlight Glimmer had warned her about this trick that Twilight was able to react in time to avoid several deep lacerations, and even then she wasn’t entirely successful, one of the ebon spikes slicing along the inside of her outstretched foreleg. Stumbling back with a yelp of pain, Twilight felt her spell fizzle, its casting interrupted, and although Lex had no visible expression in his shadow-form, she could almost feel his malicious smile. Cradling her injured foreleg, Twilight tried to collect herself. She’d been in worse situations than this before and gotten through them. But knowing that didn’t slow the rapid pounding of her heart, nor calm the tension in her muscles, as a single thought forced its way to the forefront of her mind despite her efforts to push it away: Not again! Twilight had been confident in her prediction that Lex had lost the use of his thaumaturgical spellcasting. It had been the only plausible explanation she’d been able to think of for why he hadn’t used it during his confrontation with Starlight Glimmer, where not only his life but the lives of other ponies were in jeopardy. Even if she could only speculate as to why that was the case, the conclusion had seemed sound, particularly in light of how it had held true during Rainbow Dash’s attack as well. Except now, Lex had used thaumaturgical spellcasting to imprison Behemiel in a cocoon of ice, one that Twilight knew wasn’t just arresting the hound archon’s movements, but was sapping the heat from his body with unnatural speed. Worse, her attempt to undo Lex’s magic with her own had failed! She’d been able to feel her spell struggle against his, and although she knew hers had only lost by a thin margin, the result was that Behemiel was still frozen solid. It’s just like when the lhaksharut attacked! I made a mistake, and now another one of my friends is paying for it! Intellectually, Twilight knew that this wasn’t like what had happened during the lhaksharut’s attack on Canterlot. Behemiel wasn’t in any real danger; the type of summoning magic that Willow had been teaching her was based around conjuring the spirits of planar denizens, rather than bringing forth their entire selves. Creatures that were summoned that way had a physical presence, not because their actual bodies had made the trip along with the rest of them, but because a large portion of the spell’s energy was spent on incarnating their spirits in a facsimile of their bodies (in a process that Willow had deemed to be “similar to astral projecting,” without expounding on exactly what that was). That meant that whatever damage they sustained wasn’t truly harming them; the worst-case scenario was that, if their ersatz forms took what would normally be fatal damage, they would simply break down and allow their spirits to return where they’d come from without them being any worse for wear. But being aware of that fact did little to change how Twilight felt at that moment. No matter that she’d be able to summon Behemiel again later; right now he was trapped, in pain, and facing the functional equivalent of death! All because she’d underestimated what Lex was capable of! The guilt that washed over Twilight then was overwhelming, and it pushed her thoughts in a direction she normally never would have entertained. If I forfeit the match, will Lex let Behemiel out of there? That would mean giving up on making him restore Luna, but Luna wouldn’t want to be changed back at the cost of someone else’s suffering, would she? Besides, the remaining crystal ponies were already on their way back to the Crystal Empire; surely once they arrived, the Crystal Heart would be able to break her curse. So maybe…maybe it was better just to stand down now, before- “TWILIGHT! DON’T GIVE UP!” Spike’s voice, yelled at the top of his lungs, broke through her rising depression, making her turn to look at where the tiny dragon had clamored on top of Soft Mane, raising a tiny first in the air as he stood on her shoulders. “Don’t give up!” he yelled again. “You can do this! I believe in you!” “No she can’t!” retorted an angry-looking colt with an eagle on one outstretched foreleg, flapping his wings as he rose up to where he could look over everypony’s heads, glaring at Twilight directly. “No you can’t!” “Yes you can, darling!” came Rarity’s voice immediately. “You’ve never let your friends down before, and you won’t now!” “That’s right!” whooped Rainbow Dash. “Bust that whatever-it-is loose and then bust up Lex!” “You won’t be able to!” booed a pegasus mare with a cutie mark of a stylized gust of wind. “You’re gonna fail!” “Nuh-uh!” cheered Pinkie Pie. “Just pretend like you’re meeting new people at a party and break the ice!” “You got this, sugarcube!” Applejack’s reassurance came with a confident nod. “Don’cha go thinkin’ otherwise!” “Lex won’t lose!” shot back a unicorn mare with a white picket fence cutie mark, glowering at Applejack and then at Twilight. “Not to you! Not to anypony!” “T-Twilight won’t lose either!” gulped Fluttershy, swallowing her nervousness with visible effort. “She definitely won’t!” “You can do it, Twilight!” Thrusting a first in the air to match Spike’s, Soft Mane added her voice to the chorus. “Give it everything you’ve got!” By that point, the rest of the crowd was yelling as well, trying to drown out her friends with shouts of discouragement and negativity. But Twilight wasn’t able to hear any of that, momentarily overwhelmed by the sudden warmth spreading through her. They still trust me, she realized. Even after what happened before…even after they got hurt because of me…they still believe in me! In that moment Twilight knew that the only one who’d blamed her for what had happened with the lhaksharut was herself. Blinking back tears of gratitude, she turned her attention back to the problem at hoof. Her friends had faith that she’d do her best to overcome Lex and rescue Behemiel. And while she still wasn’t sure if she could do it, to give up without even trying would mean that she didn’t have that same faith in them. That wasn’t worthy of the Princess of Friendship. With her resolve restored, Twilight started working on a plan. Despite Lex’s initial jubilation over Twilight’s wandering back into the area he’d cursed, he knew he wasn’t ready to spring his trap yet. While there was no physical demarcation of the malediction he’d laid down, the area he’d cursed was only about forty feet in diameter. That wasn’t small, but it was restricted enough that Twilight could easily move out of it without even trying, as evidenced by how she was right on the edge of it now. Therefore, the first thing he needed to do was seal her ability to move easily. That meant disabling her wings, since they gave her the greatest degree of mobility. Unfortunately, his first attempt to do so had failed. While he’d been prepared to disrupt her second attempt at casting a spell – since she’d so foolishly landed after her first one had failed – by attacking her with black crystal stalagmites, he’d aimed at both of her wings along with her outstretched hoof. Only the latter had connected, however, with Twilight somehow managing to avoid his attempt to ground her. Worse, the injury she’d taken had caused her to stumble back, moving just outside of where he needed her to be! Resisting the urge to scream in frustration, Lex instead took the few moments where Twilight’s idiot friends were shouting their hackneyed attempts at encouragement to come up with an alternate strategy. She’s desperate to free that monster she summoned before my spell finishes it off, he knew. And her attempt to negate my magic directly has failed twice now, which makes it highly likely that she’ll take a different approach. Which meant… She’s going to attempt to shatter it. That was a viable option. The ice he’d conjured up was supernaturally cold as well as quite thick, but it was still just ice. A dedicated assault would be able to break it down without undue difficulty. The question now was how she’d go about it; he’d need to come up with a counterattack that would not only foil whatever she tried, but let him disable her wings in the process. If I just knew what spells she had at her disposal… But there was no time to bemoan his lack of information as Twilight flapped her wings and took to the air again, not stopping until she was nearly thirty feet above the battlefield. The sight made Lex tense, despite having no muscles, as he hurriedly worked through the probabilities of various scenarios. Would she summon another monster and let it try to batter the icy prison open while she engaged him directly? Unlikely; if she could have summoned more aid she would have done it by now. Another lightning bolt? Also unlikely; the initial impact of the lightning would damage the ice somewhat, but frozen water was a poor conductor compared to its liquid form, which would impede the overall effectiveness of the attack. Some sort of fire spell? That would be the ideal choice, especially if she had one with a wide area, similar to Aria’s fireball, but assuming that the hound archon didn’t have the same resistance to fire that it did to electricity, that ran the risk of damaging it in the process of- His thoughts were cut off as Twilight began to move. But not toward him, and not toward Behemiel. Instead, she began circling, maintaining her altitude as she flew in a ring, staying parallel to the ground the entire time. Wings beating hard, Lex watched as she increased her speed, whirling in a horizontal loop again and again, faster each time. Soon enough a light wind had settled over the entire area, causing manes and tails to wave in the breeze formed by Twilight’s passage. Lex wasn’t able to feel the wind, but he was acutely aware of the sudden rush of apprehension he felt, not because he knew what Twilight was up to, but because he didn’t. Was she trying to create a hurricane on her own? Was she trying to make it difficult for him to identify a spell she was about to cast? Was she just trying to make him dizzy from watching her? None of those possibilities seemed the least bit plausible. The only thing that did make sense was that she was building up momentum for some reason. But her trajectory was entirely wrong for that; any course-correction she made now would bleed off a large amount the speed she’d built up. If she was intending some sort of brute physical attack, her target would need to place itself directly in front of her. The only way that would happen would be if she tried to telekinetically levitate Behemiel’s frozen form up toward her – and Lex was certain that she knew he’d counter her with his own telekinesis before she could bring that thing anywhere close to her – or if she… Lex’s eyes widened as he suddenly knew exactly what Twilight was up to. But he didn’t get a chance to act on that knowledge, a bright flash of light engulfing Twilight as she suddenly vanished. Immediately, a loud crash came from behind him, and out of his peripheral vision Lex could see chips of ice go flying. And although he immediately turned around, Lex knew that the sight that would greet him would only confirm what he already knew. He’d thought that Twilight would use her magic to try and free her summoned monster, and she had. But not the thaumaturgical spellcasting she’d learned on Everglow. Instead, she’d simply drawn on the magic she had naturally as an alicorn, combining the talents of all three tribes of ponies. Pegasus magic to raise her velocity and brace herself for a high-speed impact. Earth pony magic to strike with maximum force. Unicorn magic to use short-range teleportation, the kind that relied only on her horn and not gesturing or chanting. But while Twilight’s gamble had paid off – leaving Behemiel sprawled out on the ground, groaning and shivering but alive, free of his cold confinement – it had also left her vulnerable, lying in the dirt several feet away from her summoned creature. This time, Lex didn’t miss his opportunity.