//------------------------------// // 24 Duel of Peers // Story: Lifegiver // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// Ponyville, Everfree Outskirts - 22nd of Midsummer ‘15 EoH - Afternoon Searing white light blazed with untold wrath, sweeping over the impromptu arena in a wave converging upon Sacred in a detonation which made the earth tremble. Earth flew outwards from the epicenter, and the guards atop the walls began to cheer. Sending praises towards their princess even before the light had vanished completely. Twilight, on the other hoof, braced herself. The light cleared away, a pale almost invisible red globe engulfing Sacred as he remained floating, untouched by the massive concussive blast. The cheering died out. “You opened with a concussive shockwave?” Sacred asked, his voice betraying the amused smile behind his blacker-than-black helm. “To be fair, I’ve crushed boulders with that,” Twilight rebutted, eyes flicking over Sacred’s shield, analyzing it with every neuron in her analytical mind. It was an unusual shield. The shield spells Twilight was familiar with maintained a consistent color and seemed uniformly thick, like a globe of stained glass. This shield was practically invisible, only perceptible as a pale red circle upon it’s very edges. Sacred nodded. “That’s fair,” he began, voice harshening as he suddenly bellowed. “Lapidem, et devorabit ex inimicos!” The yellow glow of his armor flared as pale red light poured up from the ground around Twilight in a shattered glass pattern! The dirt melted into flowing magma, stone fangs erupting in a circle around the perimeter, snapping shut in an instant with the sound of an avalanche! A wave of gasps from the wall top morphed into cheers as in that heartbeat Twilight teleported appearing mid air, hovering over the snapping fanged maw of earth and magma uneasily. Twilight was a scholar, not a warrior, and she had no idea what sort of spells her opponent was using. “Soo… Mnemonic incantations?” She asked, again keeping focus on her opponent. “You don’t use them to help remember complex spells?” Sacred asked casually. Twilight dipped her head, horn glowing fiercely as she hurled a ray of lavender light. The ray was a pale, sickly, thing. A first year student could do better, but it wasn’t meant to harm… The ray struck Sacred’s shield, and split into two halves, sliding off the shield’s face and slicing small furrows into the ground behind him. Twilight’s eyes narrowed. Deflection rather than absorption. Unconventional, but clearly effective. Satisfied with her probing ray’s success Twilight snapped her wings backwards, surging forwards in a dive as she let loose a barrage of intense spellbolts, nearly filling the air with a solid pillar of searing light! Sacred dipped to the left, moving out of the way with a sharp crack as he forced the air aside, the pillar of death boring a hole three ponies deep a fraction of a second after his short flight finished! “No homing charm added to those?” He asked tracking Twilight as she pulled out of her dive, sweeping back upwards into the sky as she almost brushed the ground. The armored stallion sounded almost disappointed. The magma-like lines in Sacred’s armor pulsed as Sacred uncrossed his forelegs, reached upwards, and seemingly pulled a spear made from dull red light out of thin air. The stallion took aim at Twilight as she climbed for more altitude, and gave the spear a short lazy toss, allowing it to float towards Twilight at a lazy pace, the tip realigning to keep pointed straight for her as it moved. Sensing the spell, Twilight glanced back, and couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you expect to hit me with something that slow?” “Infinitum potentia vello!” Sacred barked, other hoof thrusting out in a single swift motion. A cone of light emanating from his outstretched hoof dimmed, the dimmed light raced upwards, engulfing Twilight as she turned to come around for another attack. Twilight yelped as she felt herself dragged backwards, suddenly racing towards the spearpoint belly first! Twilight bucked, kicked, flapped her wings with all her might, but only barely managed to change her orientation as she was dragged downwards! Gritting her teeth, she twisted, turning her face towards the energy-spear, and sending a crackling ball of unstable energy slamming down into it! The energy-spear exploded in a shower of sparks! Sacred, reached upwards to draw another, his outstretched hoof maintaining the spell pulling Twilight towards him at an ever increasing speed! Thinking quickly, Twilight closed her eyes, focused on her wards and made a few quick alterations. She jerked to a halt in mid air, sparks crackling around her as the lesser layers of her defenses collapsed under the strain of resisting the pull, but resist it she did. A joyful cheer rang out from the wall tops once more as the massed Equestrian forces celebrated Twilight’s outwitting of her opponent! A cheer which Sacred shared. “Yes!” He exclaimed happily. “Nopony has ever negated that spell! If I defeat you in the end without killing you, would you enjoy being my sparring partner?” Twilight glowered down from above, ignoring his question entirely. “That wasn’t telekinesis! What was that?” “Y-you negated it without knowing what it is?” Sacred mused, clearly impressed. “No matter… You have a more important question to ask.” Twilight flew to the left, circling around Sacred in search of an opening as he simply rotated in place to keep her in view. “Like how many more high level spells you can use before you’re done?” She asked. “Where did those photons go?” Sacred asked. Twilight’s pupils contracted slightly, the mare realizing exactly what Sacred had just done. “Oh-” Sacred vanished with a odd distortion of air! Twilight flinched as a wave of heat flashed over her from behind, turning in time to see Sacred dip his horn slightly. “Lumen, veni foras!” Sacred barked. Twilight arced up, narrowly avoiding the screeching beam of blue-white light which split the air where she had been instants before! Pitching as far as she could, Twilight gathered her energy, rolled above Sacred, and fired a concussive blast with the sound of a thunderclap! Sacred shot downwards, shield's edges crackling! The stallion twisted, stopping the fall after a few meters, looking up in time to see Twilight flick her head downwards, the massive ball of eldritch power around her horn erupting into a four pony thick white-blue-and lavender beam of destruction! “Deflect this!” Twilight snapped, still quite angry towards the stallion for his use of what she now knew to be a horrific way to kill. The ground below heaved, buckling as all the moisture in the soil flashed to steam, throwing a cloud of earth into the heavens as the spell drilled a lake-deep hole beneath Sacred’s former position! The light cleared. The armored mage was nowhere to be seen. The wall top erupted into a mass of cheers! For the first time, the Legion also moved, dipping their heads and pulling their right forelegs to their barrels in a warrior’s salute. Twilight kept frowning, eyes trying to pierce the pale gray smoke and orange glow of molten rock for any sign of her opponent. A minute passed. A minute of nothing. Twilight nodded, satisfied to herself that the battle was over, and quickly landed at the edge of the crater, taking a deep breath to gather the energy to repair the hole she had made. A blacker than night armored hoof rose over the edge of the crater! Grabbing the rim, Sacred vaulted out, landing on all four hooves, ready for battle! His armor remained intact the edges still glowing like magma, but his cloak had been charred into a scrap of cloth that vaguely resembled a hood! “Do you have any idea how hard it is to sew when you are a colt!?” The stallion growled lividly. “I grew up without a blanket to have a green cloak!” Twilight’s ears drooped, feeling a little bad for Sacred, despite the fact that they remained locked in combat. “Well then maybe you shouldn’t have worn it into battle!” Twilight exclaimed as she jumped backwards, resuming a fighting stance. “Wait, that was made from a blanket?” Rarity called from the base of the wall. “Yes!” Sacred snapped, head turning in her direction. “It looked lovely, considering its origins,” Rarity called again. Twilight frowned, confused as to Rarity’s sudden interruption but smiled when she noticed Rarity’s slight motion with one hoof. Realizing what her friend was doing, Twilight shifted her stance slightly, and closed her eyes. “I know!” Sacred growled. “I very worked hard on-” Twilight’s spell went off, a wall of white-light smashing into Sacred and throwing the stallion head over hooves into the gaping hole within the earth with an audible crunch! Refusing to believe her foe dead a second time, Twilight snapped her wings open and jumped, gliding to the edge of the pit to continue the fight. A moment later, Sacred shot upwards in a blaze of red light, hovering at ground level over the center of the pit. “I will beat you into submission and make you sew me a new cloak!” Sacred raged, too angry to use whatever trick had previously masked his aura from view! Twilight flinched as the stallion’s aura seemed to collapse into a chaotic mess of dull red lightning! Immediately going on the defense, Twilight quickly began to layer shields one on top of the other, believing after the coming storm she would have the opportunity tend this once and for all. “Ollud ungula de mei niteo apud, magna vis!” Sacred intoned, smoke pouring off his armor as plates began to slide back from one another, the dull magma-like glow brightening to a brilliant gold which shone brightly enough to entirely eclipse the blackness of his armor! The gold light slid down to each hoof, forming dense balls of energy around arcane markings which could only be seen thanks to the gold light’s temporary banishment of the vantablack. Twilight’s eyes widened, realizing in that instant the stallion’s armor was composed of arcanite, and not for storing power, or absorbing spells that struck it. No, it was configured in a way she had thought only theoretical. It was a focusing lens. “Suus ardens postulat, me vinco vos!” Sacred continued, extending both hooves up slamming them together, a crackling blade of golden lightning manifesting from the unified golden auras a mere heartbeat before Sacred savagely smashed it down into Twilight’s layer’s shields! Lightning crackled! Shields shattered! Motes of arcane light flew from the shields like sparks from a fire! The lightning blade sliced through all but Twilight’s final three shields, carving into the earth below her, and out into the open area of the hole in front of her! Quickly flapping her wings, Twilight managed to keep from falling into the hole. The glow from Sacred’s armor dimmed as Twilight looked up, dreading a second strike from the arcane blade. Her fears evaporated as the opened plates in Sacred’s armor quickly retracted, the black color returning to the armor, and the glow reduced to the original magma-colored radiance around each plate’s edge. But more importantly, the air around Sacred rippled and shimmered visible, like desert air on a hot day… “Careful there, you’ll cook yourself,” Twilight taunted, hoping to keep her opponent angry and also reveal she knew he wouldn’t be unleashing anything like that for a good while. “You are formidable,” Sacred growled. “I like that. But you still ruined my cloak!” “Oh my Celestia!” Twilight groaned. “If you loved it so much why didn’t you enchant it to fix itself!” “ I’m a warrior, not a scholar, damnit!” Sacred retorted. “I wasn’t allowed to study such magics! I wasn’t even allowed to learn to sew. I had to teach myself!” The enraged stallion’s red aura returned as he drifted upwards, trying to move to a cooler area to let the heat built up within his armor escape more quickly. “Well then you should have taken it off!” Twilight objected, giving Sacred a glare before she vanished in a burst of lavender light, teleporting behind the stallion, and firing another concussive burst, throwing him down into the bottom of the pit. Sacred groaned as he slammed into the solid stone, but pushed himself upright quickly none the less. As he moved to take to the air, Twilight came crashing down, slamming her rear hooves into his helmet, driving the stallion firmly into the earth! Twilight slapped the air with her wings, pushing herself up and away from Sacred as he retaliated with a burst of ball lightning. Pulling himself back to his hooves as the lightning exploded Sacred growled. “It’s not fair… The one thing of my own, destroyed!” Twilight facehooved. “Seriously? You’re still hung up on that? It wasn’t even that nice of a cloak!” “Cremito haereticus!” Sacred snapped eyes glowing as red as his vision behind his helmet. Brilliant red flames erupting from the earth and engulfing Twilight to the point where the mare vanished completely within the inferno! Twilight screamed in terror as the flames pealed her shields away like the layers of an onion! Dropping into a sprint, Twilight raced out of the immolating fire just as her last shield collapsed, the tip of her tail singing under the heat of the flames! “There!” Sacred grumbled. “I burnt your tail. We’re even!” The stallion turned around, and began to levitate up the side of the hole, leaving Twilight behind him. Twilight skidded to a stop, giving Sacred a flabbergasted look of complete shock as he retreated. “I, wha- We’re in a duel for the fate of my city! This is a serious fight you challenged me to, and now you’re just leaving!?” Twilight sputtered. Sacred stopped ascending and turned around, air shimmering pale red as he put his shield spell back up. “Right! I forgot,” the armored mage apologized. “You see, I was only a little bit absolutely livid. Tends to make me forget things I happen to have been doing before the fact. Now then, where were we?” “I believe I had just planted my hooves firmly into your face,” Twilight said, eyes narrowing in determination. “An admirable feat for a warrior with absolutely no refinement to her battle magic,” Sacred said sincerely, a dull red glow surrounding his horn as he began to charge a spell. Twilight’s horn flared violet as she hurled a line of spellbolts into Sacred’s shield! Each bolt smashed the mage aside, the shield crackling under the stress, the bolts doing what her earlier ones could not. “I’m not a warrior, I’m a scholar, damnit!” Twilight cried. “And I’m a quick study!” “You’re a scholar?” Sacred asked in a shocked surprise, his conjured nest of crimson energy-spears streaking out and slamming into Twilight’s shields, but rather than chip away at her shields, the spears skipped off, sputtered, and crackled before dissipating in a shower of sparks. “Don’t you have spies?” Twilight called as she turned, ascending to leave the pit, unable to get any distance between her and Sacred within its narrow confines. “You took down Lord Tirek! We all believed you simply liked to read,” Sacred called, vanishing with a sharp crack and appearing over Twilight’s head, slamming both hooves in a hammer blow against her shields. A shower of lavender sparks erupted around Sacred’ gauntlets as the arcanite drained the energy from the barrier before the blow sent Twilight tumbling a few meters down, where she managed to land on the crater rim. “Frankly, I think you’re lying to me about your occupation,” Sacred said, sounding oddly upset. “I have no tolerance for liars.” “I didn’t defeat Tirek alone, my friends helped, and we used an artifact to do it,” Twilight exclaimed. “Your spies must be terrible if they couldn’t tell you that!” “I don’t mean how you banished him,” Sacred objected. “You fought him to a standstill and forced him to use a non-violent means of getting what he wanted from you. Clearly, you are a warrior!” As sacred finished his shout, he threw one hoof out in an arc, a blade of dull red energy scything outwards and slicing a deep gouge into the earth on either side of Twilight’s shield, the rest splattering harmlessly against the lavender bubble. “Though… You do seem to know warding magic very well,” Sacred admitted. “Did that even scratch your shield?” The armored mage’s dismissal of her scholarly status burned angrily in Twilight’s heart, filling her with the need to correct his errored assumptions. “Your energy constructs are negatively charged, I worked that out after seeing your shield collapse. I’m also guessing your armor is letting you use negative instead of the normal positive. So I modified my shield spells to attract ambient negative thaumaturgic current, giving them a negatively charged outer layer, meaning your constructs are repelled by my shields and therefore can’t penetrate them without containing enough energy to overcome the ambient natural currents!” Twilight exclaimed in a lecturing tone. “Interesting…” Sacred mused. “Still think I’m not a scholar!?” Twilight asked, staring up at her opponent. “No. You have reversed my opinion…” Sacred said slowly. “Why is Equestria’s champion a scholar, rather than a warrior? Would you not be of more use to Celestia-” “I don’t normally fight things! I’ma diplomat. I resolve disputes peacefully. Yes, I can fight, but that’s not what I do, it’s not my purpose. I try to make everypony’s lives better, even those who disagree with me,” Twilight declared. “I see…” Sacred mused. “Then, if you are a scholar, and your society is composed of unique individuals, and Celestia’s champion is primarily focused on the welfare of others…” The armored mage growled angrily. “He lied… To all of us.” Twilight’s ears perked, recognizing her foe was in the process of spurning the dogma which led him to attack Equestria. That was her means to defeat him, and in a way she would prefer. “He definitely did,” Twilight agreed. “Equestria does have it’s problems… And many other nations simply don’t understand why we have certain socioeconomic policies, while others dislike how our power dwarfs their nations. But all any Equestrian wants is to help others live a happy life, our kindness is legendary. We are not violent or oppressive against anypony. We accept everyone willing to live peacefully. “Your leader has been misleading you for long enough. You can stop this. You can surrender right now and turn your back on him. I’ll pardon you of your crimes if you renounce your loyalty to your master and end this before anypony is hurt!” “I would gladly accept your terms,” Sacred said bitterly as he floated down to Twilight’s eye level, “however, I will not make myself a liar or oathbreaker. Father has lied to me about the world, rendering my oath to him void. “But I agreed to fight you of my own free will, and we established terms. The two of us made a deal and it did not involve him or his will. If I surrender before I am unable to fight further, then I break my oath to you, and become an oathbreaker. As it stands now… All I have is my word.” Twilight frowned, and slowly nodded. “I understand… I think. I do not agree that you would be staining your honor by surrendering. But I’m not going to be able to convince you of that, am I?” Sacred shook his head. “No. We must continue to fight.” “Alright… But here me out,” Twilight asked. “You wanted to know which of us is stronger so you could decide which ideology to follow. We don’t need to fight for hours for that. How about you stand on that side of the pit, I stand on this side, you throw your most powerful spell, I try and defend against it. “If I can’t protect myself, then that’s it, you know you’re stronger. If I block it, then I throw my most powerful attack at you. At which point we will know if we are evenly matched, or if I am stronger than you.” Sacred shook his head firmly. “If I were to cast my most powerful spell here, I would destroy Ponyville, and thus forfeit our duel.” Twilight blinked, managing to not recoil or show her fear as she wondered if the only reason she was still alive was this stallion’s promise. “Er, what is it?” She asked curiously. “A Second Thaumaturgic War Era spell designed to slay elder dragons,” Sacred informed with casual honesty. “What the flying buck were you being trained to fight!?” Twilight exclaim-demanded, jaw dropping. “Everything,” Sacred said simply, and honestly. “Which I do admit is why I have been able to hold out against you this long. You have more raw power than I do, but your combat spells hold no edge at all. It’s like you are fighting with a blunted sword and glass armor… “I suppose… We could go up a few miles. That should be safe.” Twilight bit her lip in thought, mind racing as she sought to find a solution to countering the seven spells she knew of which Sacred could be using. Her eyes light up as she found one, prompting Twilight to nod. “Alright, let’s go up,” she agreed. “At any rate, our conversation has given my armor time to cool. Should we be evenly matched, I can and will resume a normal battle,” Sacred warned as the two began to climb into the cloudy skies. “That’s fair,” Twilight agreed. The two quickly gained altitude, vanishing from sight to those on the ground far before they arrived at what Sacred claimed would be a safe altitude. The two opponents square off, stopping a few dozen meters apart from one another in the sea of clouds. “Go ahead. Let’s finish this,” Twilight said, waving a hoof to prompt her opponent to action. Sacred nodded and uncrossed his arms, armor clicking as the plates ratcheted open, allowing the bright golden light of raw mana to shine once more. This time, he pulled his hooves in against his chest, holding one atop the other in a vertical stack. The golden light contracted, moving away from everything aside from the backs of his hooves, his horn, and his heart, where the light formed shimmering globes bright enough to be seen from the ground below. “Deus e tenebris qui omnia saecula, ego invoco ut vos, da mihi omnis potestas tua!” Sacred intoned, the lights simply vanishing as he finished his mnemonic recitation. Twilight tilted her head curiously, having sensed the magic truly having discharged. “Er, did you flop it?” “No,” Sacred informed. “That was part one.” The armored mage took a deep breath and held one hoof up to face the sky, beginning a long chant. “Tenebrae extra crepusculum, ruber extra sanguinem, fluentem, sepultus intro aevum | ubi est tua potestatem crescit,” Sacred chanted, bringing both hooves down and holding them apart like an Earth Pony standing up to hold a bowl. Twilight winced. Having worked out roughly how much information per word of Old Equish Sacred had trained himself to recall, this would be a doozy… “Polliceor hostes vincere omnes qui quia statis | ante quod fortis donum | dedit in mea manu indignum.” Sacred continued, motes of red light forming around him and leaching from the surrounding air to condense into a deep red ball between his hooves. Twilight flapped her wings, instinctively moving back from the massive collection of power massing in the one tiny spot. Her honed arcane scenes showing her the massive amount of power from before had opened conduits through which Sacred was now essentially commanding all ambient magical energy for several kilometers, and compressing it into one ball! “Et insipientibus qui resistat vultui meo perdidit: | per potestatem et ego possideo,” Sacred finished, the shimmering black-red ball of magic sparking between his hooves for a brief moment before he threw it forward violently with a cry of, “Draco Interficio!” The spell shot forward too fast for the eye to track. Speeding directly for Twilight’s heart. “Reflect!” Twilight shouted, employing a mnemonic device of her own. “Oh buck!” Sacred yelped as his spell bounced off a shimmering blue barrier. The orb streaked back, it’s speed preventing even the thought of dodging before slamming squarely into Sacred’s barrel. The orb detonated in a flash of white light with a thunderous boom that shook the ground below. The searing hot wall of flames, compressed plasma, and decaying mana ballooned outwards, shining brighter than the sun for several seconds, and leaving a patch of sky cloud free for miles when it finally vanished. At the blast’s epicenter, Twilight reappeared in a flash of violet, having teleported to the ground in anticipation of the explosion. “Heh…” Sacred said weekly, armor quite intact, but the glowing edges were no more, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air around him. “Nice one, scholar...” Sacred’s flight spell failed, and the stallion fell from the sky. Acting quickly, Twilight tucked in her wings and entered into a steep dive. As she reached her falling fallen foe, Twilight grabbed him with her hooves, knowing that his armor would make a telekinetic grip too weak to lift him thanks to it’s magic conducting properties. As her forelimbs tightly gripped his waist she flared her wings, straining under the additional weight for several long moments before finally entering a controlled glide and spiraling to the ground. Touching down next to the massive hole in the earth Twilight let go of Sacred’s unconscious form, took a deep breath, turned her head towards the wall and called. “He’s down! Medic please!” The wall top erupted into one final cheer, the legion solemnly lit their banners on fire. Victory was at hoof!