//------------------------------//
// To Borrow 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

The black box got close enough to Twilight for her to grab it in her magic. From there she dodged to the side to avoid a thin black crystal spear hurled towards her from Nightmare Moon's body. She traced it with her eyes for a bit after it passed her, to make sure it wouldn't hit anything else in its path, then she focused back on Nightmare Moon.
The alicorn still hadn't moved from the middle of the crater, and Twilight dreaded the moment she would. The damage she'd caused just by standing still was already more than they'd been prepared to deal with, and she knew it was only the beginning of what she would do.
It was close to one of the worst case scenarios she'd thought could happen, and yet the way they'd gotten there was entirely unexpected. Her plans for dealing with Nightmare Moon always hinged on the assumption that she wouldn't be able to simply defeat her in a straight fight, though they also all accounted for that fight happening as a means to gain time and therefore allowed for the small chance of actually defeating her that way. Instead, Twilight had seemingly successfully done just that, until she hadn't. Until suddenly things had been different.
The Nightmare Moon she was facing was completely different from the one she'd faced just a little before, and the gap between the two was startling. The way things had happened made little sense to her, though she obviously didn't have time to sit down and think them through logically. One moment she'd been outright pushing Nightmare Moon back, the next she couldn't even harm her. One moment Nightmare Moon had struggled to keep up with her, the next she was affecting the whole city with her magic.
It made no sense. She never would have wanted to let herself be harmed that much if she'd been able to do what she was doing then from the start. And at the same time, though Twilight in her haste hadn't questioned it, she'd seemed far weaker than she should have been during their confrontation. Even with Celestia's powers combined with her own, Twilight was still an inexperienced fighter. And Nightmare Moon hadn't grown complacent during her time as ruler, the opposite in fact from everything Twilight had seen. When her aura on its own had been enough to make her pass out during a previous encounter, when it was both logical and seemingly confirmed that she had amassed power during her reign in any way she'd found, it made no sense for her to have been defeated so easily. At the same time, it made no sense for her to be so powerful after she'd been defeated so easily.
Twilight had her hypotheses as to what exactly had happened, but she had no time to dwell on trying to verify them. What she had to do was clear. With two of the Elements incapacitated and her own magic completely outmatched, the first backup plan she'd devised was her only logical approach. Hopefully, it would work.