//------------------------------// // A Place in Time // Story: Bred for War // by LupoMikti //------------------------------// Bred for War By LupoMikti Chapter 5: A Place in Time Time. The passing of time was all I focused on in the moments leading up to what I knew was my last battle, my last breath more likely. There I stood in the foothills of a mountain range far and away from any populated land. Storm clouds brewed overhead, blocking off the summits of such majestic pillars of rock. Directly to my south was a large forest, thick with pine and having a fierce river run through it. A warrior always takes note of his surroundings. They are vital to his survival and can be used for many things in battle. I was going to need to use the playing field to my advantage if I was to last even a single minute against my coming foes. I took one last moment to go over my arsenal. With me I had an ice bow and twenty ice arrows strapped to my back. I procured these from a Griffon outpost a few days ago. I had my short sword, enchanted to be resistant to weather, elemental magic, and large amounts of force that would otherwise break or dent it. The sheath was similarly enchanted as well. I still had my armor that blocked fatigue and provided extra resistance to magic. Most importantly, I had a crystal from the famed Crystal Empire. Before I had revealed myself to the Princesses at the peace meeting, I took a little trip north to see if the legends about the crystals there being able to absorb and store magic for future use were true. Once I had confirmed this, I spent the better part of the next month constantly pouring magic energy into the crystal. This way, I could use my magic a bit more freely in battle. The crystal was, of course, strapped around my neck where I could feel its power coursing through me, pulsating as it continued to contain enough magic to rival a fully realized alicorn. You could still make it out of this alive, you know. "I gave them my word as a warrior that I would not back down from this fight. Running away now would accomplish nothing." It was true that it would be easy to escape the country and travel to some part of the world where my sins would not be known and I could live out the rest of my life. But I wasn't interested. You keep using that word. It's like your crutch. Warrior this and warrior that... Do you even know how to be a warrior? You are young, and the majority of your battle experience comes from an unusually intense training from foalhood to adolescence. "No. I don't know how to be a warrior or even what it truly means to carry that title. But I know what I feel like that word represents and it is everything I wanted to be, everything I strived for. Was it not you who convinced me that I was a warrior? Was it not you who used that word against me to get us where we are now?" Tsk, tsk. Have you already forgotten? I am you. By extension, you convinced yourself of that. You have only yourself to blame for this mess. "That's a coward's argument and you know it." He was right though. Who else could I blame? I chose to listen and follow directions. But it was precisely this reason that drove me to seek out such a fitting end. Nonetheless, I do respect the choices you've made. You are a fine warrior indeed. Now, I believe our guests have arrived. Remember, the time has come to show your pride; solidify your place in time by showing them the heart of a warrior. Do not hide now, do not show them the weakness you have harbored since your escape. Play the role you chose in all this. "Of course. There's no going back now." I cast my vision toward the heavens above me to find a speck in the distance that could only be the emissaries of my demise. I stood in silence, gazing back at the ground for a moment before closing my eyes and keeping my head hung. I needed to empty my mind of all unnecessary thoughts. This was something I was taught to do not just to bolster my own strength and focus in battle, but to cut off my mind from any and all horrors I would be committing in the war. In this situation, it would only help in the case of the former. The Princesses and King arrived not long after I had finished this little ritual of mine. They landed about fifty trots away and made their way toward me. I opened my eyes to observe exactly what I would be up against. Surely, they would come prepared themselves? The first thing I noticed was the Griffon King. He wore a tarnished silver set of armor that fully covered the upper half of his body, leaving his hind legs and back to be covered by lighter, more flexible pieces. At his side sat an elegant looking sword, hand-and-a-half hilt, dagger pommel, intricate crossguard and a blazing blue sheath that looked as if it were made of crushed sapphire. It seemed to be double-edged as well. To be honest, I expected a bit more, but I quickly remembered why he was still King and just how old and experienced he must have been. Silly things like a gleaming set of armor that would blind opponents with opulence would do him little good, nor did it seem like he would care for them anyway. The way he was now was as fitting attire as any could wear into battle. But I was sure that it was no ordinary set of armor. Much like my own, I had a feeling it would be enchanted to give him an edge in battle. After taking note of him, I moved on to the Princesses. I had seen their armor before and was still just as impressed now as I was then. Celestia’s was as golden as the sun she raised and covering most of her body for maximum protection. It confirmed my hunch that she was a defensive heavy that would take the hits I threw and wait for the perfect moment to unleash a massive amount of power that couldn't be easily blocked. No more needed to be said about it, as any design the imagination could come up with would still pale in comparison to the indescribable beauty before me. Much the same could be said of Luna’s armor. However, there was a key difference. She had much less of it. All I could think was that her armor was designed for maneuverability, especially in flight, as it consisted of a light breastplate that led into a covering for her forelegs that was accompanied by a light-looking helm. Once it got to her wings, much like the King, the armor was broken apart into pieces that would cover vital spots, but that maximized flexibility. And all of this shone in a brilliant midnight blue that somehow gleamed with what seemed to be moonlight. As for their weapons, they further bespoke of the preferred fighting style each sister employed. Celestia had with her a large two-handed sword of fine make and an Eastern style staff sporting a dangerous looking blade at one end. Luna had but two single-handed swords, probably meant for dual-wielding, and a traditional long bow, with quiver at her side, strapped to her back. I was definitely in for the battle of my life. With observations over, and my enemies now twenty paces away, we all waited for the first move to be made. The time that passed could not be measured, nor would it have mattered anyway. I was not about to do anything but react to their actions. At last, Celestia stepped forward and said, “We art getting nowhere simply standing around. We hath decided to offer thee one last chance to surrender for thy crimes. What say thee?” “I have no intentions of backing down from this, Princess Celestia. I made my choices and I will see them through. Many lives were lost, yes, but the outcome was as I wanted. Peace is once again in these lands, and my only hope is that it shall remain that way for many more moons.” Luna spoke up this time, saying, “Thou canst not have any hope of winning such a battle. Thou faceth not one, but two alicorns, and an immortal Griffon King highly skilled in combat. There shall be no happy endings here.” “I did not say that I hoped to win, Princess Luna. I simply want to die a warrior’s death…” “Then you shall have it,” the King chimed in, standing on his hind legs and drawing his sword as he said so. “No more words. It’s time to fight.” With a powerful thrust of his wings, the King rushed forward, sword held firmly in his claws and poised to slash under my helm, a notable vulnerability. Waiting for the moment just before he was fully upon me, I then teleported to safety some hundred meters behind me. With this maneuver, though, I had made a crucial and novice mistake. I stopped focusing on all of my opponents to dodge the one in front of me. I couldn't believe I had fallen for such a simple feint. I quickly searched for where the next attack would be coming from and just in time noticed Luna speeding toward me from above. She held both of her swords in her magic, so I drew mine in response only having enough time to prepare to block the slashes. When she was within but a few feet of impact, though, she twisted her body in the air, angling her wings to provide enough downforce to slow herself enough to get me to falter. With this motion came the repeated slashes of her swords from different directions, each of which proved more difficult than the last to parry or withstand. It was immediately clear that the longer I engaged in sword-to-sword combat with her, the faster I was going to lose the battle. Before I could do anything to get myself out of such a one-sided situation, I noticed Celestia positioning herself for something and the King about to rush in once more to add pressure to the onslaught I was facing. And just when things couldn't look much more bleak, Luna used my distracted state to put more force into her next attack. With speed that I could barely keep up with, her swords flew toward my side intent on bashing in my armor and breaking more than a few ribs. Had I been a fraction of a second later in raising my blade to block the attack, the two lunar weapons would surely have hit their mark. Though I was able to block the attack and prevent bodily harm, the force was still great enough that I was sent flying through the air at an albeit uncomfortable speed. As Luna quickly sped further away from me, I finally realized why Celestia was positioning herself so far away. With what strength I could muster, I turned my body just enough to see where I was flying to, and as sure as the day was bright, she was there, waiting with her staff ready to impale me wherever it may collide with my form. Time was quickly running out and I had to do what came instinctively: teleport. I gathered the magic and prepared to teleport, knowing full well that objects in motion stay in motion, even when instantaneously moving from one point in space to another. I couldn't just teleport anywhere, so I chose to teleport to the one place none of my opponents would expect: the sky. Now above the clouds, I was rushing to the ground under only the influence of gravity. I had less than a minute to get of my new predicament, but I had planned for this anyway. Using the energy stored in the crystal, I began to weave one of the most complicated spells I was taught in my training: how to create artificial pegasus wings made of pure magical energy. The spell was almost entirely theoretical and was said to have only been successfully implemented for more than a few minutes under his own power by Starswirl the Bearded. What Starswirl didn’t have however, was a magic storing crystal filled with enough energy to rival an alicorn. The spell began to take shape, that being the easy part. Once I had the shape of the wings created I needed to begin the admittedly painful process of connecting my nervous system to them so that I could control them like normal wings. When I started this, I had just fallen through the cloud layer. Naturally, if my opponents were as cunning as they are powerful, which they are, they would eventually look to the skies for my whereabouts. So it came as little surprise when Celestia began firing bolts of magic at me almost immediately and Luna and the King begin to fly toward me. The spell completed itself, myself having avoided harm from the projectile magic. Spreading my new wings, and reveling in the shock that momentarily appeared on my combatants’ faces, I turned toward the mountains in the distance, flying only coming naturally through my intense training. Oh yes, we unicorns were taught to fly as well as any moderately competent pegasus and some of us even took to it better than that. Granted, we did not use a wing-creation spell as complicated as this one, but I needed speed and nimbleness in aerobatics, hence the wings I was using at the moment. All three of my enemies were now giving chase. This was phase two of my battle strategy. I actually didn't think I would last long enough to implement any phase past one. Phase two was short and simple: fly to the mountains; get above the clouds before they did; find a ledge to stand on; ready my bow and arrows to strike as they surfaced above the clouds. I knew I couldn't waste shots and so decided to aim for their exposed wings. Removing their ability to fly was integral to the battle. Almost everything had been going according to plan. I flew above the clouds before they did, but before they left my sight, I noticed Celestia flying toward the ground while the other two continued to follow. I wouldn't be able to do anything to her if she didn’t come along as well. After I found a place to land, I quickly drew my bow, nocked an arrow and waited for signs of my pursuers. With missing a beat, they surfaced right when I expected them to, and I fired the first arrow at the Griffon King. He was surprised, I could say that for sure, but he was prepared and dodged the arrow by retracting his wing and going into a roll, unfurling it once he was righted again. I continued to fire arrows, but I was only succeeding in delaying their advance toward me. When I was down to five arrows, though, I noticed a side effect to my tactics I honestly should have seen coming. A large chunk of the cloud cover was now a gigantic iceberg in the sky and was quickly falling to the ground below. And who should be directly under it other than Princess Celestia? She didn't look the least bit worried. On the contrary, if I were closer to her I'd wager a guess that she was smiling. And why shouldn't she as the vassal of the sun? With what must have been the least amount of effort possible, Celestia shot an enormous, but stunning, stream of blue fire from her horn, engulfing the entire ice block rushing at her. It must have been fire that was a measurable portion of the heat of the sun as well, because it took only half a minute for it to not just melt, but evaporate. The resultant steam spread in all directions and covered each combatant from each other’s views. I knew I didn't have any time to waste. I spread my wings and took off as fast as I could toward the forest in the distance. "It’s time to implement Phase three," I thought as I turned to look behind me to, as expected, see my two pursuers gaining ground, or in this case, air. What wasn't expected was the decision of a certain white alicorn to teleport to the edge of the forest and begin opening portals to who knows where in my flight path. Each one that popped up was a different color, signifying a different, horrible end to my life with every one that I passed. I had only a few kilometers left to go, but they were appearing in faster succession at more random intervals. I dodged two more, barely scraping by through basic aerial maneuvers. I may have known how to fly, but that did not translate to 'fly as well as a trained pegasus squadron in the heat of battle.' The distance to the forest was trickling down with each second, but unfortunately, so was the distance between myself and my pursuers, and at a much faster rate. It was going to be a close call, but I was confident I could make it to where I needed to be. At that moment, noticed Celestia’s assault had abruptly ended. I began to think as fast as I could as to a reason why this would be, but the answer came faster than my mind could figure it out. With nothing but a few hundred meters left to go, a portal the same distance in diameter opened up in front of me, ensuring that I had no room or time to dodge. Once again, I had to react instinctively, and without seeing exactly where I was going, I gambled on a teleportation behind the deadly obstacle. It was much closer than I would have liked, but I managed to get past it. However, teleporting while flying isn't as simple as one would think, and not because of the magic. The actual teleportation was very easy. It’s just that going from flying through a substance such as air to moving in an airless void protected by a sphere of magic energy unable to move the slightest bit and returning to substance tends to ruin your chances of regaining control when back in the air. Such was the fate I suffered on the other side of that large portal to nowhere. My artificial wings were instantly whipped around in ways that would crush or otherwise internally and structurally destroy a normal pegasus’s wings. The result was a shattering of the solidified magic and the continued spiralling and falling motion I was currently undergoing. I needed to think fast. What spells did I currently know were designed for slowing one’s velocity? None. Plan B: use the magic from the crystal to lift and telekinetically control the water from the nearby river to rise up and engulf my body in way that could slow it down so I don’t hit such an incompressible substance as if it were the ground. I had about ten seconds to do this, therefore I needed a full twelfth of the crystal’s energy to accomplish it. I had no time to observe the reactions of my opponents, but considering that I wasn't being attacked while performing this move, I’d like to assume they were deeply shocked. Once on the ground, or in the river rather, I teleported once more to hide myself in the forest and performed the spells I knew for going undetected. Phase three was now in motion. Celestia, Luna and the King, whom I had just realized I didn't know the actual name of, landed in a nearby clearing after searching for me by air. Unfortunately for them, it was one of the several that I had set a trap in before the battle began. I remained in the shadows, melding with them and drawing my bow while preparing an arrow. Celestia had taken the silence as an opportunity to try and coax a response out of me through taunting by saying, “I hath little problem with the idea of burning this entire forest to the ground if it meant getting rid of thee, Nova. I doth suggest thou cease with this cowardice and face–” Firing an arrow at her most vulnerable spot, and really I cannot fathom why the base of her horn was unprotected, I promptly silenced the little speech she was about to give before it could really begin. The arrow did not pierce anything—I suspect she had wards in place that prevented piercing or impalement from sources with little force behind them—but it did what I set out to accomplish by aiming for that spot anyway. A unicorn’s greatest strength is his or her horn. And so it is reasonable to assume that it is also the unicorn’s greatest weakness. There are many ways to disable one’s ability to perform magic. The difficulty depends on how long you want to stop this. In this case, hitting the base of the horn would normally equal five minutes. Freezing it would equal ten minutes, for a combined fifteen minutes of magic incapability. As for an alicorn. though, I estimated that I had less than three, if that at all. Celestia seemed to take note of this as her expression changed from one of her normally calm demeanor to one of agitation, though still not in the realm of anger as had been Luna’s default expression for the duration of this battle. Celestia attempted to speak once again, getting only a few words out, but I couldn't waste the opportunity I now had. It was time to activate my trap. A magic circle the size of the clearing each of them stood in appeared beneath them. From the look on Luna’s face, she immediately knew what it did and that she didn't have time to react and nullify it. This particular circle was meant to do one thing, and one thing only: make flight for those that were caught in it impossible and to slow down their movements in general as long as I had magic energy left through gravity magic. I suspected that because they were alicorns, the effects wouldn't last that long to begin with. They did have the option of overpowering the spell, but since I was using the crystal to power it, doing so would likely drain them of everything they had left. The light from the circle’s activation quickly faded and they all lifted their heads and opened their eyes after shielding them. It was Luna that explained what had just happened by saying, “It would seem that we are no longer capable of flight or quick movements. That was a gravity well circle, very complicated and time consuming to set up properly. Nova hath prepared for this battle well.” She turned to her sister with a slight smirk and said, “Might I suggest thee cease talking for a while lest anything else unfortunate happen? It seems nothing good comes of thine outbursts.” “Now is not the time, Luna,” Celestia said with a hint of frustration in her voice. You know, the kind you often hear between siblings when they patronize each other. I would have chuckled to myself in that moment were it not for the weight of the situation. “I must admit, things are going much more smoothly than I thought they were,” I thought, taking some time to gather myself for the next stage of battle. All the while I was continually keeping watch on the three, ready to react to their next move. “It’s disappointing, almost, how easy this is compared to what I was expecting. That is to say there weren’t any close calls—there certainly were—but I thought they would put up more of fight considering how upset they are with my previous actions.” I needed to get them more angry than what they were displaying. After, this battle was to be my death wish. I was not supposed to win. Doing so would not be what anyone needed at this point. But as I said, I would not be holding back. That would be no different than taking my own life. I needed this battle to become more intense, and I knew what I needed to say to do so. “This battle’s gone on long enough,” I whispered aloud. “It’s time to up the ante.” “My thoughts, exactly!” I whipped around having heard Luna’s retort come from behind me. to my utter surprise she was poised to strike with her swords and all I had to defend myself was a bow made of magic ice. It was before I was hit that I realized she must have created an afterimage or clone to take her place while she did a more thorough search for me. I braced for impact expecting to be flung into a nearby tree. What happened instead only confirmed my thoughts that they were holding back earlier. I was not only sent flying into a nearby tree, but through it and the dozens of others behind it all the way to the selfsame river I had used to stop my fall. I landed and came to a stop after a few nasty bounces next to the water, my head mere hooves away. I drew on the crystal to create an automatic healing spell, a simple one that would heal flesh wounds, mend broken or fractured bones and stop minor internal bleeding. I let that go to work, but could not move immediately. When I turned my head and opened my eyes, Luna was there, standing over me, her swords pointed at my neck. Celestia and the King quickly caught up thanks a teleportation. It was the former of these two that next spoke. “Nova, this battle is over. Surrender thyself for a public trial and execution. There is no point to continuing this.” I looked around at my present company, settling my eyes on Luna last. Noticing this, she said, “Any last words, vermin?” I thought about my options, and they were limited. Would this be the end? Was this all I was capable of doing? I closed my eyes and readied my answer. This battle was not over yet.