//------------------------------// // Drift // Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot // by Equimorto //------------------------------// Twilight looked at Nightmare Moon a moment longer, aware of how everyone else's attention was split between looking at her to see what she would do and nervous glances around the darkness. She did not wait too long, though. Nightmare Moon herself wouldn't wait forever, after all. She only waited a few seconds, enough to commit the alicorn's expression to memory. Then she stood straight, her wings slightly spread, her horn shimmering. Her mane and tail floated slightly by themselves, a few sparkles visible in them. Light spread out from beneath her hooves like a wave of fire burning away the darkness and shadows. It spread over the whole Empire in a matter of seconds, leaving only the blackness beneath Nightmare Moon herself as a trace of the unnatural inky mantle that had covered the city moments before. The Sun suddenly shone again in the sky, consuming the black moon that had obscured it, and the dark heavens shattered to reveal the same light blue skies as before. The Moon still hung in the sky, opposite the Sun, but daylight shone clear over the Empire. Nightmare Moon looked curiously at Twilight, then at Celestia still pinned under her hoof. Then back at Twilight. Her grin had lost most of its amusement, but hadn't left her face entirely. It was not out of the question that that was merely the way her expression had permanently warped though, the corners of her mouth ripped and deepened and all. "Clever," she said, her voice back to normal but loud enough for Twilight to hear. "Very clever." A second later she'd left Celestia behind, vanishing in a flash of magic to appear in front of Twilight. It wasn't Twilight's horn that she ended up clashing against, though. Just a little before her target, Luna had intercepted her, and locked her there with her own shimmering horn against hers. Not for long, not for longer than fractions of a second. Long enough for a bolt of lightning to fall from the sky over Nightmare Moon's body, and for Twilight's horn to fire a stream of golden magic that coupled with Luna's blast sent Nightmare Moon crashing into a building. Before she'd even come to a halt, a long pointed piece of silver that would have looked excessive as the bolt on a ballista pierced through her and nailed her to the crumbled wall, passing through one of her shoulders. Another lightning came down, but merely crackled against a dark blue shield of energy around the alicorn, while the second would-be arrow from Luna's bow disintegrated against it and Twilight's next blast just bounced off. Nightmare Moon pulled herself forward until the silver bolt slid out all the way through the wound. Her shoulder and chest were matted a deep, sickly black, something that looked more like oil than blood. Her shoulder popped back in, and though it was hard to actually see it was easy to understand the wound had been closed. As Luna kept firing with her bow, aided valiantly if most likely to little actual benefit by a few guards with crossbows, she turned her head slightly towards Twilight, who was holding a steady beam of golden magic against Nightmare Moon's shield and was likely the only real source of her momentary stasis. Knowing it would only be moments before Nightmare Moon moved again, she spoke. "I can hold her for now. Do what you have to."