//------------------------------//
// Chapter 705 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

Nightmare Moon turned towards the direction the projectile had come from, only to see a second one shooting towards her. Faster than she could react, it embedded itself in her torso.
On the opposite end of the crystal chunk's trajectory, Starshine grinned to herself, and readied another shot. A roughly conical piece of clear, smooth pink crystal manifested itself floating in front of her horn in just fractions of a second, and she carefully aimed it towards the larger alicorn's body. A small burst between her horn and the base of the crystal, like a bubble of air expanding, and her projectile shot forward one more time.



Starshine reappeared, along with the ponies she'd fetched. "Here you go," she said with a smile, though it was unclear whether she was talking to them or to Sunburst and the others there.
"Who's that?" Sunburst asked, nodding towards the enemy soldier.
"We caught him along the way," Applejack explained, "didn't really get a chance to leave him behind."
"Can we keep him?" Starshine asked fluttering her wings, before her eyes snapped towards the scene taking place closer to the centre of town. Immediately she teleported away again, leaving the rest of the ponies there.



"How does it look out there?"
"Surprisingly, not too bad. I think Princess Twilight just cut off one of Nightmare Moon's wings."
"And what about Princess Luna?"
"Uh... Oh..."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, about her, uh..."
"What about her? Is she alright?"
"Oh... No?"
"What do you mean no?"
"I'm not sure?"
"What do you mean you're not sure?"
"I can't see that much of her, okay?"
"What can you see?"
"Celestia is there. I think she's hugging Luna."
"And?"
"Blood. Like, a lot of blood. I'm pretty sure it's Luna's blood."
"Is she alive?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? Is she dead?"



Twilight got there in time to see the sphere as it cracked. She saw it burst open, she saw the column of light as it shot towards the sky, and most importantly she felt the amount of energy that had been poured into that one spell. That alone made her fear for Luna. She had little doubt that so much as attempting to cast something like that would have hurt the alicorn, however she'd actually managed to do it it was clear that the blast would have hit her too. What she actually saw as the pillar faded turned out to be even worse.



"We should be out there," Shining said, looking out the window of the building he was in.
"There's not much we could do," Cadence said, stepping up to his side and placing a wing over his back. Both were still clearly drained from their previous efforts, fatigue evident in their motions. Neither would have had much to offer if they'd tried to use their magic right then. "We did our part. Now we need to trust in Twilight and her friends."
Shining exhaled slowly and swallowed. "I suppose I can do that. I hope she'll be alright."