“Do you even have a claim to the throne?” the Voice of the Sun asked of the High Mage of Zaldia.
Ispelu Magikoa glanced up from his inspections of the twelve artifacts assembled before him, before directing his gaze back down. He picked one up, eyes glowing a bright silver as he examined its potency, confirming that it was real. “Testy, aren’t you?” he asked. They were sticking to Equestrian, as Kindle didn’t know Zaldian. “I suppose that makes sense. Pegasi were not meant to be cooped up underground.”
Kindle fought back the urge to snort in anger, instead wondering what had happened to the panicking, paranoid, micro-managing pony of just this morning. Probably, now that Kindle and his salamanders had done all the hoof work in acquiring the Armory of Zaldia, Magikoa thought that the remaining tasks before him would be so much easier. He probably wasn’t wrong.
“To answer your question,” Magikoa continued, “a claim can always be found somewhere in my family tree. The dangers of monarchy and an entrenched nobility, I suppose. There are one or two ponies with stronger claims that I know of.” He set down the artifact he had been examining, a chanfron with a hole in it to admit a unicorn’s horn, and then glanced back to Kindle. “They will be dealt with.”
Kindle resisted the urge to roll his eyes only with great effort. Before he had sought out his True Queen and been rewarded with a position at her side, he had been a stage actor. It wasn’t even that Magikoa was attempting to be dramatic that bothered Kindle, it was that he was being so obvious about it. He supposed that it made sense that a master of divination magic wasn’t very skilled at obfuscating his true intentions, though it did make Kindle wonder how Magikoa had managed to maintain his conspiracy in the first place.
The older unicorn – his apprentice, Kristal Zati, simply stood still, though occasionally checking a pocket watch kept in his cloak as though waiting for something – finished his examinations of all the artifacts, and seemed satisfied. He looked to Kindle, using telekinesis to heft one of the artifacts, the smallest – a ring, intended for the horn of a unicorn. “The Ring of Serena,” he said. “I hope that Celestia will greatly enjoy the ability to duplicate as much gold or swords as she wants, or…whatever she was planning on doing with this.” He let Kindle take it from the air. “I have honestly never understood why that was kept with the rest of these. It is an amusing trinket, nothing more. Celestia is welcome to it.”
Kindle did not know what his Queen wanted with the Ring, and didn’t care to question – she would tell him when the time was right, or not, as she willed it. But he was certain that she had a plan, and he trusted in it implicitly. If Magikoa couldn’t see the plan, well, so much the better, as it was doubtful he would have surrendered the Ring so easily if he could see Queen Celestia’s true desires for it. Kindle instead simply took the Ring of Serena from Magikoa’s telekinetic grasp, and tucked it safely into his armor.
“Then with that, our business is done,” Kindle said simply, turning around and doing his best to resist the urge to fly full-tilt towards the exit that his salamanders had bored through the other end of this cavern to create. He wanted to see the sky again almost as much as he wanted to be once more by his Queen’s side. Before he left, however, he looked over his shoulder at Magioka. “When you sit upon the Platinum Throne, do not forget that it was only with Celestia’s aid that you gained it.”
Magikoa smiled a transparently rueful smile. “Of course not, Voice of the Sun.”
Kindle turned back around, nodding to his salamanders, who turned themselves and started for the exit. They looked longingly at the remaining artifacts, no doubt wanting them for themselves – their leader, Jaculus, had even obliquely suggested simply taking all the artifacts once they had them. But that was not the will of the True Queen. For this successful mission, the serpent folk would at least be compensated by Celestia, though the knowledge of her satisfaction would be enough for Kindle –
There was suddenly an ear-splitting thrum, and a solid, almost visible wall of sound passed over Kindle’s head, causing him to drop to his stomach and clutch at his ears as he did. The sound reverberated through the chambers, picking up force from the echoes, before colliding with the roof of the chamber overhead and shattering a section of it, a huge piece of crystal that fell down before the exit that the salamanders had bored.
Kindle’s eyes widened and his wings snapped open at the sight, mouth going dry. He turned around just as another cacophony cut through the chamber, colliding with and sealing in its only other exit. The pegasus realized quite suddenly that he was trapped underground, hundreds of feet of rock and earth and crystal between him and the open air…
Two mares made their presence known then, hopping on top of a large crystal protrusion. Kindle recognized them both – Lyra Heartstrings and Trixie Lulamoon, Elements of Loyalty and Magic respectively. Lyra had a look of determination on her face, while Trixie wore the same cocky grin that she seemed to have been born with.
“Ispelu Magikoa!” Trixie proclaimed loudly, jabbing a hoof at the unicorn, whose own horn and eyes lit up with platinum light. “In the name of your King, we’re gonna – ”
Magikoa’s horn pulsed twice, firing two magical beams at each unicorn mare faster than they could react – but the two only burst apart into blue-tinted smoke. The beginnings of a mocking laugh were heard, but Magikoa only closed his eyes, a bored expression on his face as he let loose another spell that washed over the cavern. Suddenly, there was another puff of blue smoke from near the first one – and Trixie and Lyra were revealed, both of them looking like foals with their hooves caught in a cookie jar as they had been trying to sneak closer to the artifacts stolen from the Armería.
“Trixie Lulamoon,” Magikoa observed. “You are quite the illusionist, I’ve heard. How sad that you’ve wasted your life on what is by far the most useless school of magic.” He tapped his eyes. “One single spell and I can see through anything you could care to cast – ”
The two mares didn’t wait for Magikoa to finish his sentence, instead turning around and diving behind nearby crystalline protrusions. The High Mage of Zaldia snorted in annoyance, glancing to his apprentice, his calm façade dropping. “Those two are supposed to be locked up in a Guarsai oubliette somewhere,” he noted.
“Sorry, master,” Kristal Zati responded, bowing slightly. “Though when the Guarsai are as easy to subvert as we’ve found them to be, I suppose it’s only natural that they’re not as competent as we’d like.”
Magikoa snorted again. “True enough – ”
Trixie dived out from behind the crystals, throwing a few rocks she had found at the pair of unicorns. Magikoa and Zati caught them in the air easily enough, but Trixie had only served as the distraction for Lyra, who emerged and lashed out with musically-augmented telekinesis of her own, reaching beyond the Zaldians and grabbing hold of the artifacts on the ground.
“No!” Magikoa exclaimed, eyes going wide in panic and grabbing for them himself. The two telekinetic fields overlapped, shuddered, and then burst apart, scattering ancient relics of power across the chamber.
Kindle considered for a moment, but decided that the two Element bearers were, at the moment, not his problem. He turned around, pointing a hoof at the salamanders. “Dig us out of here!” he commanded.
---
Lyra looked to Trixie quickly. Without a word, Trixie nodded her head at the salamanders currently at work melting the crystal barrier Lyra had collapsed over the cavern’s exit, as well as Kindle, whom Trixie and Lyra knew still had one of the artifacts – he couldn’t be allowed to escape with it. Lyra nodded herself, turned, and ran back behind a crystalline outcropping, out of sight of Magikoa and Zati and circling around, approaching Kindle and his salamanders from the side. Behind her, she heard the shimming sound of spells, and knew that Trixie had begun her fight with the High Mage of Zaldia. She could only hope that she was up to the task – once she’d grabbed the ring from Kindle, she’d come back to help her.
“Hey Kindle!” Lyra exclaimed as she leaped over one crystal outcropping, landing on her hind hooves and steadying herself as she stood on just them, forehooves playing across her lyre. “This is for Raindrops!”
Kindle turned and looked just in time to be smacked in the face with telekinetic force. The pegasus was thrown into the air, and almost hit the roof of the cavern before his frantically beating wings stopped his ascent. The Voice of the Sun’s eyes were wide. “Traitor!” he exclaimed as he dived at Lyra.
“That’s my line!” Lyra retorted, nimbly stepping out of the way, making sure to keep an eye on the salamanders.
Several of them broke away and headed towards her, but when Kindle noticed he pointed a hoof at them. “No! Keep digging! Get me out of here!” the former actor cried before turning his attentions back to Lyra. He beat his wings several times, sending sparks and cinders at Lyra courtesy of the Tyrant Sun’s enchantments. Lyra avoided most of them, though she felt herself being singed in several places.
Lyra did her best to ignore the pain, horn glowing gold as she wrapped magic around her hooves, granting them speed. Her lyre’s strings thrummed at a breakneck pace as she dove forward at Kindle. He leaped into the air, wings beating, but Lyra expected that dropping onto her back and sliding across the smooth crystalline ground, lashing out with sound when she was directly beneath him. He shot up to the roof of the cavern, colliding with it. The pegasus got his wings under him quickly, however, turning swiftly and kicking off from the ceiling and soaring down at Lyra, finally connecting solidly just as she was standing back up. She cried out in pain at both the force of the impact and the burning heat of Kindle’s enchanted armor, and rolled off of him, one side of her barrel far more singed than it had been from the cinders. Her coat had protected her flesh somewhat, but she could still smell burnt pelt.
Kindle landed with all four hooves on a crystal outcropping and kicked off again, but Lyra was prepared this time, leaping over the pegasus and stomping down with one hooftip. The pegasus let out a gasp as he fell to the ground, Lyra landing on top of his back, though she quickly hopped off before the heat of his enchanted armor could burn the sensitive frogs of her hooves. She left with a parting buck from one hind leg, however, which clipped Kindle’s wing. He cried out in pain at that, too, though given that he took to the air again a moment later he didn’t seem too hurt.
Lyra grimaced. So far she didn't think she was doing too bad – but if she didn’t defeat Kindle fast, or if he decided he needed the help, he had eight salamanders to draw on. What could she do about them…?
---
Trixie avoided a magical blast from Magikoa, rather deftly if she said so herself, diving behind a pillar of crystal. She glanced out from behind it and saw Magikoa focused not on her, but instead on retrieving the various artifacts and gathering them back to himself. She noted, however, that he didn’t put any on or try to use them.
Something something magical binding ritual required, she supposed – not something that could be done in a hurry, in any event, else there was no reason for him not to use them here. Glancing around her, she saw one that he’d missed near to her: a peytral, chest-armor for a pony. She smiled and grabbed it, slinging it around her neck and fastening it into place.
“So, hey,” she asked, stepping out from behind the crystal. “What does this – ”
Magikoa’s eyes widened. “Give that back,” he demanded.
“Hey, you stole it, you don’t get to be mad about somepony else stealing it,” Trixie responded, horn glowing blue and conjuring an illusion of herself even as she worked her simplest invisibility spell over herself – conserving magical energy. Her illusory self, meanwhile, charged forward.
Magikoa rolled his eyes, dispelling Trixie’s glamor, then casting his invisibility-dispelling spell again. Trixie puffed into being, having run a few feet away, and did her best to look surprised. “I told you,” Magikoa said, starting forward, “I can see through your every spell.”
Trixie allowed herself a nervous grin. “Technically you aren’t seeing through my invisibility, only dispelling it since you – ”
Magikoa grabbed Trixie telekinetically and threw her to the side. She braced herself, but it still hurt when she collided with a solid wall of crystal, knocking air from her lungs. She got to her hooves, glaring at Magikoa.
Magikoa glared back, then glanced behind him, at Zati, who was standing nearby. “Watch and observe, my student,” he said, as Trixie’s horn glowed. She once again conjured simple illusions of herself, a half-dozen two-dimensional images of them in a wall before her, and then made to sneak away behind them – even as she wove magic of her own into her eyes, her magic sight cantrip. She watched Magikoa closely, though, and noted that he cast his glamor-destroying spell individually each time.
Trixie was revealed, and Magikoa grabbed her telekinetically again. “The dangers of specializing in illusion,” Magikoa pointed out to Zati with a grin. “She depends utterly on it.” He tapped his eyes. “But of course, with the simplest of spells each of her glamors are highlighted to me.”
“But you can’t see through them!” Trixie objected, horn glowing. What looked like a solid rock was suddenly dropping towards Magikoa. She put a little actual effort into this illusion, to make herself seem desperate.
Magikoa shrugged. “An illusion isn’t useful if I know it’s an illusion,” he noted, not avoiding the ’rock’ at all. It was harmless, of course, and he dispelled it once it should have ‘crushed’ him. Trixie took note of that as well as she felt herself being hefted into the air by Magikoa’s telekinesis
“Why are you doing this?” Trixie demanded, playing for time as she stared intently into Magikoa’s eyes. She conjured a simple illusion of her escaping his grasp, but he dispelled that too, giving Trixie more information.
Magikoa smirked, as his magic wrapped around Trixie’s neck and retrieved the peytral. The Equestrian mare made an attempt at grabbing for it, but he drew it away without much effort. The older unicorn then shrugged once more. “I have disagreements with the King,” he said. “Amusingly I think that were you not personally involved in all of this, you would support me. I find Zaldia’s suppression of our earth ponies distasteful. No doubt it is what drove so many of our pegasi south into Cavallia over the years. Oh, and of course the ongoing feud with Cavallia. Pointless waste.” He shook his head. “There are more reasons. Shall we sit here all night and talk about them? I think not.” He looked to Zati once more. “The illusionist, once she realizes her spells are without merit, will often try and buy time as Trixie here has, to try and come up with a plan. None of them will work, of course.”
Trixie let a look of panic overcome her features, but inwardly, she grinned, as she’d finished examining the spell that let Magikoa notice her illusions. “Want to bet?” she demanded, conjuring up an illusion of a stone held in her telekinesis and throwing it at Magikoa. He didn’t dodge, only shook his head at what seemed like a pitiful display. She did it a second time, and again, he didn’t react.
“Pitiful – ” Magikoa cried out in pain and dropped Trixie when a third stone came at him and actually hit him right at the base of his horn – because it hadn’t been an illusion. Trixie landed on her four hooves evenly, as Zati stared at her in shock. Magikoa had a similar look in his face, one hoof at his horn. The Equestrian unicorn, meanwhile, bowed, then rose with a cape flourish and a dramatic stamp of her hoof.
“How – ” Magikoa demanded.
Trixie put a hoof to her lips. “Trade secret,” she said, allowing her own still-enchanted eyes to flash blue – she’d spent the past few minutes studying his spell and figuring out what glamors would look like to him with her own magic sight spell. She looked at Zati. “Hey, as long as this is a magic lesson, here’s one for you: never depend on a single spell to overcome an entire school of magic.” She hefted a series of rocks and conjured illusions of several more, ‘painting’ all of them in the glow that would tell Magikoa that they were all glamors, and then hurled them forward.
Magikoa ducked under them – rather gracelessly – and rose with a look of fury on his face. His horn glowed bright silver, and he cast forward a bolt of energy at Trixie. She yelped, diving out of the way, but Magikoa was ready and lashed out with another, catching Trixie in the side and sending her flying. She landed with a thud behind a small wall of crystal, and took a moment to catch her breath.
Maybe nettling one of the most powerful spellcasters in Cissanthema hadn’t been a good idea…
---
As a pegasus, Kindle’s natural instincts were for hit-and-run tactics, but the former actor had seemed to realize that his best bet against Lyra was to get close and keep the pressure on her, not giving her time to do anything with her magic other than summon up simple shield spells or telekinetically block hoof or wing strikes – or the heat from his flaming tail, she had learned when he had spun and swept it at her once, burning her cheek slightly.
Fortunately, aside from all the training that Cheerilee had insisted they all go through, Lyra was a very flexible pony, and a more than adept dancer, if she did say so herself – although the same seemed to apply to Kindle, probably a result of his stage training. From the outside the melee that the two had going on probably looked more like ballet than a brawl.
But it was a brawl, and Lyra emphasized this point when she saw an opening in Kindle’s defenses and took advantage of it, falling onto her back at a haymaker buck from Kindle and lashing upwards with her hooves at his barrel, protected not by golden metal but instead by simple, if magically heat resistant, cloth and padding. Lyra was pretty certain she heard a rib snap, and Kindle cried out in pain as his wings beat rapidly, dragging him backwards and away from Lyra, saving him more pain – but also giving Lyra the space she needed.
The unicorn spun around and got back on her hooves, then strummed out a long, low note on her lyre, hoof leaving the strings behind as magic swirled off her lyre and seemed to collect into a javelin of pure sound. She threw the javelin at Kindle, but he avoided it and flew over Lyra, stomping his hind hooves several times on what looked like a loose piece of crystal. Lyra let out a gasp and dove out of the way as a chunk of ceiling bigger than she was started falling, smashing apart into a million shards that cut her up more than a little when it landed.
Lyra stood, glaring up at Kindle, but then she heard a hiss of triumph. Glancing away, she saw the salamanders, each of them glowing white-hot, had at last melted a hole through the crystal chunks she had collapsed over the exit, and were now using the claws to make the hole wider, pulling it apart. Kindle let out a cry of triumph at the sight, tucking his wings against his body and diving straight towards the hole. The salamanders let out cries of surprise at that and pulled away. For a moment Lyra hoped that the hole wasn’t large enough for Kindle and he’d get stuck, but the pegasus managed to make it through, his armor protecting him from the heat.
The unicorn couldn’t stop herself from swearing as she charged forward, but the salamanders were already pouring into the hole themselves, slipping through like their bodies were well-oiled. By the time Lyra reached the still-searing hole, they’d all gone through – she arrived just in time to see a salamander place a glowing-hot rock in front of the hole they’d made. Lyra started to think of ways she might be able to get around the heat and the barrier, but none of them would be fast – and then she heard Trixie cry out in pain behind her
---
Trixie picked herself up after having taken another blast, panting a little and glancing at Magikoa. The High Mage’s horn was glowing bright silver again. She dove out of the way of this next blast, or tried to, but at the last second Magikoa corrected his angles, and the beam struck her straight-on, just like each of the previous ones had. She went flying again.
Fortunately the beams just seemed to be kinetic force, not something like fire or some other exotic form of energy that could have done real harm to her. Though her body could only take so much abuse…Magikoa was either a really good shot to have not missed her once or, more likely, he was using some kind of Divination magic to augment his aim. Given that he probably couldn’t miss her even if he tried, then, she didn’t attempt to dodge the next blast, instead conjuring up her trusty shield spell and bracing herself. The magical force collided with it like a ton of bricks and sent enough pain down her horn to make her cry out, but it did its job of stopping the next blast.
Once the light from it cleared, Trixie conjured up some illusory doppelgängers of herself again, scattering them even as she ran herself. Magikoa harrumphed and shot out his illusion-dispelling beams at each of them until he hit Trixie herself. The beam didn’t hurt, but it did cancel out her remaining doppelgängers. Before Magikoa could blast her again, however, she used telekinesis to heft a large, broken shard of crystal in front of her, ducking down as she did. The kinetic beam broke the shard in two and sent slivers of it flying, but Trixie managed to avoid taking too much damage.
Trixie stood back up, looking at Magikoa. The mage had some serious raw power behind him, and even if he couldn’t see through Trixie’s illusions effectively anymore, he could still dispel them. And yet, as Trixie looked at him, she saw him struggling not to pant. One of his advancing steps missed slightly – he faltered.
Trixie put on what was by far her most condescending grin. “Oh, come on, High Mage!” she called out. “You can’t be tired from all this spellcasting already!”
Magikoa roared, letting loose another kinetic blast. Trixie threw up her shield spell again, but the blast shattered the spell and some of its energy still passed through and hit Trixie, staggering her. She grimaced in pain…but really, now that she thought about it, this wasn’t really nearly as bad as Tambelon. That had involved a lot of running, hadn’t it? As well as trying to do most of it while her magical reserves had been severely depleted by Corona, albeit restored by Corona as well later.
The memory of Corona’s infusing her with some of the alicorn’s own magic made Trixie smile a little bit as she cast forward illusory fireworks, dancing lights and ghost sounds going off in front of Magikoa’s face. He yelled in annoyance, dispelling them, but then had to avoid an incoming rock. He needn’t have bothered, though, it was just an illusion – and a good distraction, as it let Trixie reach out with her telekinesis and grab Magikoa by one hoof, pulling it out from under him and causing him to fall.
Trixie started to grin again. “I am good at this – hrk!”
The last came as telekinesis wrapped around Trixie’s throat and hoisted her into the air. Magikoa rose from where he’d fallen, murder in his eyes. “Isildu,” he hissed, dragging Trixie closer. “Isildu! Shut up! Shut up, you annoying – ”
Trixie wasn’t sure why, having grabbed her by the throat and telekinetically strangling her from twenty or so feet away, Magikoa had decided to drag her closer to him. Probably something to do with wanting to make his point face-to-face, or watch her die, or something dramatic. It was a bad idea regardless, because as soon as Magikoa was close enough, Trixie bucked out with her hind hooves, catching Magikoa right in the jaw. It wasn’t a particularly strong hit, but the pain did disrupt his concentration, and his grip on Trixie dropped.
Trixie sucked in air, mostly to make sure that her throat still worked – it did, he hadn’t crushed anything – and then threw herself as Magikoa bodily. The Zaldian’s eyes widened as Trixie’s forehoof lashed out and caught him across the jaw again. Trixie ducked under a clumsy, panicked counter-swing from Magikoa, then threw herself forward, body-checking him and making him stumble away and fall to the ground, cape going over his head. He scrambled away and got back up after a few moments, tearing his cape from his eyes and seeing Trixie charge. With a shout, he shot another telekinetic blast at her – only to have it pass straight through the illusion.
Trixie instead came at Magikoa from the side, quick invisibility spell falling as she body-checked him again, sending him sailing – she augmented his flight with a little telekinesis as well. Afterwards she stopped, getting her breathing under control, taking stock of her injuries – mostly bruises, maybe a somewhat-twisted hoof that she could ignore but wasn't doing her any favors – and centering herself like she’d learned from both Cheerilee and Raindrops, letting adrenaline do its job of keeping her up and fighting but not letting it dictate her actions.
Magikoa did no such thing himself, scrambling to his hooves with a roar and immediately lashing out with magic. His aiming-spell must have been disrupted at some point, however, as Trixie found it fairly easy to avoid his first two blasts, while the third only clipped her and sent her sliding, but not stumbling or falling – and more to the point, the blast didn’t really seem to have the same force behind it anymore. Magikoa was breathing in great heaving gasps now, and Trixie thought she saw a stutter in his horn’s silvery glow…
And then the blue light of Trixie’s own horn glow was joined by another color, a golden effervescence that mixed to bathe the area in a coriander light that seemed to overwhelm the silver aura of Ispelu Magikoa. Trixie glanced to her side, and saw Lyra standing there. She had patches of burnt fur and what looked like the beginnings of a welt under one eye, but otherwise seemed like she was still in fighting condition.
“Hey,” Lyra said, horn glowing a little brighter and golden magic washing over Trixie’s form. Almost immediately, the pain of Trixie’s bruises and small cuts was lessened – it didn’t go away, but it definitely felt better. Lyra offered an apologetic smile. “Kindle got away,” she informed Trixie morosely.
“Zut,” Trixie responded, but shrugged. “Well, Magikoa can’t.” She stomped a hoof on the ground, glaring at the High Mage. “So…we still fighting, or are you gonna surrender now?”
Magikoa roared, horn glowing bright silver – and then brighter still as his eyes snapped shut. Lyra let out a cry of exasperation at what was coming, trying to turn away herself, but Trixie saw it coming this time and acted quickly, conjuring magical darkness around both her and Lyra’s heads.
The flare-spell went off with a magical whine that swiftly passed, and Trixie discarded the darkness, smiling at Lyra with one raised eyebrow even as she noticed Magikoa fleeing. Lyra returned the grin as the two set off after Magikoa, Trixie breaking off after a moment to come at him from the side while Lyra kept right on him, sending out a blast of magical energy not at him, but at where he was about to be. The ground beneath him burst open, and he skidded to a halt with a whinny of fright. That was when Trixie struck, appearing beside him in a puff of smoke and grabbing him telekinetically, hurling him backwards towards Lyra. The mint unicorn stopped her own gallop and lashed out with telekinetic magic, sending Magikoa flying into a crystalline pillar. He managed to pick himself up quickly, however, diving for cover behind the pillar from a rock hurled by Trixie. She hurled another one, and a third, as Lyra charged forward, leaping around the pillar and sending Magikoa flying with another telekinetic burst.
“This isn’t even fair!” Trixie cried out as she charged at Magikoa. “I love it!”
She skidded to a halt, though, as Magikoa stood – and appearing right beside him, stepping out from behind another pillar, was Kristal Zati, carrying in his telekinetic aura the eleven remaining pieces of the Armory of Zaldia. Somehow, the other unicorn had completely slipped Trixie’s mind. Magikoa grinned at the sight of his apprentice, knowing that now the odds had been evened.
Trixie began to call to Lyra to watch out, that Magikoa had some back-up of his own now – but all of a sudden Zati leaped at Magikoa, horn glowing bright green. A pair of manacles appeared and quickly bound up Magikoa’s legs, while a ring appeared and was swiftly slipped around his horn. Magikoa cried out in surprise and shock, eyes wide.
Then there came the sound of an explosion. Trixie turned to look, and saw the crystalline wall blocking one of the exits to the chamber – the one that lead back to Magikoa’s estate – had burst apart. A dozen green-clad unicorns, members of the Guarsai all, came pouring in, horns glowing bright and shouting in Zaldian, advancing on Trixie, Lyra, and Zati and Magikoa all.
Zut alors, Trixie thought, throwing her hooves up before her, horn glowing bright blue defensively. Think, think, think, think…
Two Guarsai advanced on her, and Trixie opened her mouth to begin protesting her innocence and explaining everything – but then Kristal Zati was there again, standing between the Guarsai and Trixie, speaking Zaldian rapidly as he showed them something that he had concealed in his cape – and hoofed over the bundle of artifacts that he had in his magical aura. The two Guarsai ponies nodded, spared Trixie only a single other glance, and then turned their attention to Ispelu Magikoa, who was looking at Kristal Zati in shock.
Trixie was as well, as was Lyra as she was allowed to make her way over to Trixie, the Guarsai not impeding her at all. “What?” Trixie asked.
Zati looked to her. “I explained to them,” he said, indicating the Guarsai, “that you were not part of all this and did not need to be arrested.”
“What?” Trixie and Lyra said at the same time.
“Which reminds me,” Zati continued, turning around and trotting over to Ispelu Magikoa, the other Guarsai making room for him as he did. Zati looked down at Ispelu Magikoa in disgust. “Ispelu Magikoa. I am Officer Kristal Zati of the Guardia Saila. For colluding with the enemies of the Platinum Throne, for subverting and corrupting the Sorginkeria Behatzailea and leading them in rebellion against the Platinum Throne, for attempting to dangerously destabilize the foreign relations of the Platinum Throne, and for committing acts of conspiracy and treason against your Liege the King of Zaldia, I am in his name placing you under arrest.”
He began speaking again, probably repeating himself in Zaldian. There was only one thing Trixie could say in response to that.
“WHAT?!”
Also, yes.
Okay,..... Did Trixie successfully go one on one against an Archmage?
7334343
Is not that surprising, considering all the training and experience Trixie got after fighting so many enemies far more powerful than her in life-or-death situations. Magikoa, as your stereotypical old sedentary wizard, couldn´t simply cope against her inventive and stamina.
Entertaining, but honestly the Archmage should've won that fight from the way it played out.
Multiple hits from his spells and two instances of throat grabbing telekinesis, any one of which could've and should've been fatal if he has even a tenth of the power that is implied. It's not like he had a reason to keep her alive from the beginning, and certainly when the fight began to turn against him at the end he should've used something more serious.
7334343 Never underestimate a good master of illusions.
7334343
7334464
An archmage who's speciality is divination, not necessarily the best magic to use in a fight and obviously an older pony maybe past his prime. Still Trixie is good, Lyra's better though.
I wonder if that things going to get teamed up with the mirror pool?
I guess the Guardia Sala's speciality is deep cover agents then? Presumably she'd been in that role for a decade or longer keeping an eye on a possible threat to the crown.
So, Zati was doing a sting op? Was he keeping the archmage from using his true power? I hope that ring wasn't important. Will things improve in the country in the future? Keep it up!
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
*eyebrow raise*
Fascinating.
7334343 He's a dude who spends all his time studying divination magic who underestimated her senses and adaptibility. She's been in quite a few scraps by now. It was an uphill fight but once she figured out how to paint real targets like glamours it was over. She'd flipped the game in her favor, making him doubt his senses once again, which is like the most powerful weapon an illusionist can bring to a fight.
7334767 They have Hostile's head... and could also give an army of Terrorwings their own armors...
7334961
Gracias.
7334871
Oh, probably not.
Mwuahahahahahahahaha!
7334343 7334440
Basically.
In a Canterlot-rules duel (what we saw in "Magic Duel", where basically one pony casts a spell, the other counters it and responds with one of her own, etc.), Magikoa would probably trounce Trixie. But this was more of a straight-up brawl, and Trixie's got more experience at those. She's learned at least a little martial arts, learned to study her opponent or catch her wind rather than simply keep attacking, and on the magical side of things has learned to conserve her magic rather than go all out from the get-go.
7334464
Well, the first instance was just grabbing the peytral off of her - the equivalent of using your hand to grab a necklace. He wasn't going for a kill there, particularly not since he thought he had the upper hoof at that point.
Also, unicorn telekinesis isn't mind bullets (we kind of have a meme about that in the Lunaverse). In particular most unicorns don't have very precise control, and telekinetic ability rarely exceeds the limits of pony physical strength - i.e., getting hit by a telekinetic blast (as Trixie was several times) is the same thing as being punched or kicked. Depending on the pony it might be a very strong punch or kick, but it's still basically just bludgeoning force. If I got punched by Anthony Joshua or Brian Shaw a few times, it would hurt like Hell but probably wouldn't kill me, and I'm a noodly-armed overweight nerd, not someone who's been in and trained for actual combat situations the way Trixie has and so has learned how to take a punch or deal with pain. Similarly Magikoa could grab Trixie's throat and start strangling her, but he doesn't have the sheer power needed to simply instantly pop her head off or something any more than even Joshua or Shaw would be able to just pop off my head if they were strangling me.
It's possible, I suppose, that a unicorn could learn to precisely apply force with telekinesis to basically have mind bullets that would have actual penetrating power, but Magikoa isn't one of those ponies - and besides, as pointed out, the Lunaverse doesn't have mind bullets.
More to the point, while the Lunaverse doesn't work on outright cartoon physics, I do think of it as running on comic book or action movie physics - i.e., Our Heroes (and villains...) can deal with blows that would fell a real-world person, because it makes for more dramatic fights.
7334767
7335472
Among other things...
7335533
Interesting, usually unicorns are OP in fanfic settings. This is the first one I've seen where they are pretty underpowered. I mean yeah Twilight's got magic to spare, but we've still seen her lift multiple tons in the show. With the amount of magic that the Archmage is implied to have only being able to deliver as much force as the average pony is pretty weak sauce. Though, even that amount of force should have been able to tear her throat out or snap her neck with a head twist.
Also, if either Shaw or Joshua went in bare-knuckles with the intention to kill they definitely could murder someone in a few punches. There's a reason people wear so much padding in martial arts and contact sports. All it takes is the correct application of surprisingly little force to seriously mess someone up.
That would make more sense if Lyra hadn't snapped a rib through Kindle's padding with a single blow. The Heroes are definitely gaining the advantage of the action movie physics, though.
Sorry, if I'm being overly critical. It just bugs me when a fight doesn't seem to make sense with what we're told about the fighters.
7335658
Twilight is specifically a prodigy - using her to judge what the average unicorn is like would be kind of like establishing Leonardo da Vinci or Charles Atlas as the average human. On the contrary, I actually use Rarity to more or less judge what an "average" unicorn is capable of, with the caveat that Rarity is probably more capable of fine manipulation than is normal due to her line of work. Pre-apotheosis Twilight then represents the bleeding far edge of what a unicorn is capable of. Keeping that in mind, Ispelu Magikoa approaches, but doesn't quite reach, Season 3 unicorn Twilight in terms of raw power, if not application of that power.
Sure, if they were all headshots, but not if most of their blows landed in the gut, chest, arm, or leg - and again, Trixie isn't some noodly-armed nerd the way I am. The comparison is probably better to imagine Magikoa as a scholar who also spends an hour lifting weights every day but who's never been in a real fight, verses Trixie as a performance artist/civil servant with a basic daily exercise routine to keep her in shape and who's gone through actual combat training and been in live-fire actual combat situations.
Well, it was quite a bit more than that - Trixie was described as being sent flying several times, and even Little Ponies probably weigh around 200-300 pounds or more on average, based on the weights of similarly-sized real world ponies. However, as mentioned, the Lunaverse works on comic book/action movie physics and tolerances.
(Kindle's not a fighter at all, Lyra specifically hit a weak spot in the armor, and rule of drama supersede real-world physics when I think the former is more fun).
Magikoa is also limited by his area of specialization. Unicorns can't generally learn and cast every spell they come across - they're limited by their cutie marks, and also tend to be just limited in their total number of spells known: Twilight in Season 1's "Boast Busters" was considered singularly talented for knowing just twenty-five individual spells (Spike described it as "a ton" which he contrasted to most unicorns only knowing "a little", which suggests to me that the average unicorn probably only knows maybe ten at most).
More generally, Magikoa's blasts are meant to be directly analogous to the blasts that Twilight occasionally uses herself in the show, which pack kinetic force but don't seem to have the power to actually kill anypony, even from a few repeated hits.
7335658 Being able to lift multiple tons doesn't necessarily imply being able to apply multiple tons of force, especially with something like magical levitation. I can't even think of a defined magic system where those are the same thing.
Also, Twilight sort of made everypony's jaw drop when she did that. It's not a normal thing.
7335737
Actually it should, Twilight's generating enough pure force to keep that thing levitating. There is no reason that force couldn't be exerted upon an object in another manner. Normal weight-lifting vs punching you might have a point as the attacker's fist would have to contend with greater resistance and possible damage than merely the producing the equivalent force to lift a weight. However, Twilight have not have to contend with using a physical medium that can be damaged to deliver her force, she can do it directly.
7335724
Why would anyone aiming for a kill exclusively strike non-lethal areas like that? Look up the number of fatalities they used to get in Muay Thai fights before boxing gloves became standard. And that's between two experts. Between an expert and the non-athletic person you describe, it wouldn't even be a fight. Open with blow to the solar plexus, wind and shock the opponent. Put the free hand behind the head, speeding downward to the rising knee. Strike the underside of the nose with the knee using the hand behind the head to add extra force, driving those facial bones through the soft underside of the skull and into the brain. Death in two blows.
Shrug, it's your story and your rules/physics inside it so I can't argue there, but I'd suggest reading more about fighting before bringing real world examples into it.
7335800 No. No she isn't. Or at least, there's no reason to think that she is. Magic doesn't generally lift things with 'pure force' -- that would be really hard and insanely dangerous. She doesn't attach a magical thruster to the bottom of the ursa and balance it carefully while directing it against the force of gravity. She just levitates it. It's its own thing.
It's part of the 'sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' that people always get wrong -- if you can identify the mechanism by which something is working, then the technology is *not sufficiently advanced*.
7335800
Right, because I'm going to stand perfectly still and let the guy wail on my head without making any effort to defend myself.
The only source for average number of deaths of Muay Thai that I can find actually states that deaths are relatively rare in the sport as compared to other contact martial arts and especially Western boxing. This is because Muay Thai focuses on a variety of strikes, such as to the knee or stomach, whereas boxing is all about getting in those headshots and hitting "below the belt" is actually forbidden. Wikipedia also states that gloves became standard after a (singular) death in the ring (presumably a well-publicized one), not a whole ton of them - which is not to say that no one had ever died before, of course, but more that the death rate must have been relatively tolerable.
If you want to do the legwork of looking up the precise number of matches verses number of fatalities, be my guest. But I do know that since, say, 1900, there have been hundreds of thousands of professional boxing matches, yet less than a thousand deaths in the ring. So there's a fatality rate of significantly less than 1%. And Muay Thai is, again, noted as being less dangerous than Western boxing.
EDIT
According to this site, in a "bad" year there's about 14 deaths per 1,000 Muay Thai fights, or 1.4% of fights. So it would seem that my belief that Muay Thai isn't especially deadly would hold true, particularly since the following posts on that site call bullshit and believe that number to be far too high, with a number more like 14 per 10,000, or even far higher, to be more realistic.
Looks like someone has watched too many movies, since among other things the great majority of the nose is made up of cartilage, not bone, which is soft and spongy. The small amount of bone in the nose, meanwhile, might break but it won't fracture - and even if it did the small amount of bone that might get driven backwards into the brain probably won't be enough to to kill or even disable a person. It'll hurt like Hell, don't get me wrong, but if you're looking for ways to kill a guy, punching his nose in isn't it.
Even if it did kill a guy it would be from blunt force trauma injuring the brain, not bone fragments. But punching the nose is unlikely to do that because, again, most of the nose is soft cartilage, which acts as a cushion and lessons the trauma to the brain, and the bone that is there is, anatomically speaking, some of the thickest bone on the skull, further mitigating the actual damage to the brain. If you want to kill someone with a headshot you need to aim for the forehead, side of the head, or back of the head, not the nose.
It's difficult to remember sometimes since we live in a world of lions and tigers and bears (oh my), but human beings are tough. Pound for pound human bone is actually stronger and tougher than concrete. It's relatively difficult to bludgeon someone to death with just your bare hands quickly, and the fastest way to kill a guy in an unarmed brawl is to strangle him, cutting off blood flow to the brain, not simply wailing on him and hoping blunt force trauma will do the trick, because while it might cause internal injuries it's unlikely to take the guy down in the heat of battle with adrenaline flowing. That's why martial arts focus on disabling blows like breaking elbows or knees, not "kill" blows - because there's no such thing.
(Also don't even get me started on the idea of grabbing someone's head and snapping their neck. That is insanely difficult to do in real life, since the human body's natural reaction to someone trying to do that is to move with the twist, thereby preventing a break. To actually break someone's neck you'd have to grapple them, pin them down, and prevent them from moving, all the while trying to twist their neck, even as they're presumably struggling against you - by that point, if you have them pinned, it's just easier to strangle them)
Generally people only die of blunt force trauma to the head or chest from being punched if they had existing medical problems, which granted might develop after a lifetime of fighting, such as with boxing. Joe Schmoe on the street, however, is more likely to just get pissed off.
Hmm... definitely some interesting and surprising things happening this chapter, not the least of which would be Kristal Zati's dramatic turn around at the end. Although I find myself curious if it really was a sting all along, or if Zati is just a double traitor who was legitimately betraying the government in favor supporting Magikoa until he realized it was a lost cause and reverted to save his own hide.
Certainly it seemed last chapter as if he was giving it his all in the fight against Lyra and Trixie, but conversely he doesn't ever seem to make any attempts this chapter to warn his supposed master of that confrontation, although maybe he was just hoping to avoid losing face.
7335800
Funny thing about boxing gloves, their primary purpose isn't protecting the opponent's head, but rather the users own fists. As RDD mentions the human skull is an incredibly resilient thing, and much more solidly constructed than the comparatively delicate bones in our hands. In a bare knuckles street brawl head shots are actually bad idea most of the time, because you'd be more likely to break your own hand than your opponents head.
The more significant danger of getting punched in the head, isn't skull fractures, but rather concussion, something padded gloves arguably exacerbate since they allow the user to throw much harder punches with relative impunity.
On another note...
And yet we also see her struggle to lift maybe around a dozen or so squirrels and bunnies. Point being the presentation of magic on the show is far from consistent... or if we want to try over analyzing, realizing that extreme examples are probably not the best base line. I mean, even in the real world, ordinary people have been known to lift cars during adrenalin filled emergencies.
Nice! I wonder if Zati will apologize for being a jerk to Trixie, or if that was actually not an act.
And I'd like to weigh in in RDD's support on the fight issue. Ispelu is a master diviner, not a master evoker. His kinetic blast is almost certainly just a telekinetic trick (one I suspect any unicorn could learn), and so probably isn't any stronger than normal unicorn TK. Also, remember that Trixie is actually in decent shape, and has some basic combat training so she knows how to roll with blows. He could doubtless have killed her by hitting her with it enough times, but it's no stronger than a good punch or kick, and apparently his aiming spell isn't precise enough to allow him to hit the really critical spots.
That was a great fight. So glad Magikoa went down to Trixie. :D