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Woosh1,901 words
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Not the same1,587 words
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A mountain of shadows1,351 words
Stronger than a titan1,606 words

Stronger than a titan

"What is that?!" Crescent shouted.

Venethix stepped forward and spoke to her like a jumpy, excited young filly. "That is theh Yuhis! Theh brainger off theh shadows and theh annoouncer off theh new lunair cycle."

"We need to get out of here!"

"What for? This wehll be fun!"

"What are you talking about? I need to find the foal. Mathews? MATHEWS?!"

Crescent started to gallop around while the Nebwezar all returned to their homes to grab their weapons and armor, as indicated by the large amount of them coming back out with ancient-styled weapons and armor. With each movement, the world shook under the immense weight of the Yuhis, and with each step it took, the world reeled in fear as darkness started to devour its light. Both of these couldn't be ignored by Crescent who fell and tumbled with every quake.

"I have to find him as quickly as possible and get out of here! These creatures are simply insane! It's not safe! I'll find a way back to Canterlot through another path."

The mare was caught in her gallop by metallic hands and forced to sit down. Angry, she looked up to see Querthix looking a her with his emotionless stare.

"We air not crazeh like yeh think. This is aye celebration announcing theh nehw cycle off theh moons."

"Then what does that gigantic abomination have to do with anything?"

"Not much. It's jest comes bey when theh new cycle stehrts."

"And where's Mathews?! He was with you!"

"Theh teiny pony? He's right thehre." The blacksmith pointed to something next to the alicorn's left.

To Crescent's joy, it was Mathews covered in breezies. He was getting the hang of walking but was still pretty slow in his pacing. The alicorn was quite surprised, and his evolution was giving her much needed relief in these times of turmoil and even made her briefly forget what she was worried about.

"Mathews, you can walk! How is this possible?!" Crescent looked around to see the itty bitty breezies staring at her with their big, beady eyes. The cuteness was overwhelming. "Huh. I guess these fae aren't despicable horrors as the others. Still, we need to leave!"

Crescent wanted to pick up Mathews with her right foreleg, stress preventing her from thinking about her magic, but another loud thud shook the land much more violently, causing Crescent to fall forward and accidentally toss the tiny foal out of her foreleg. Looking over her shoulder, Crescent had a better view of what was causing the tremors.

"What...The sheer size of it...Almost three hundred and fifty meters? It couldn't be. A hecatonchires class?!" Crescent screamed at the top of her lungs.

The Yuhis was now in full view, and it simply towered over anything in the area, even what was left of the mountain tips. Its body was simply pure black and surrounded by what appeared to be a mist of darkness swirling around it like rings of flies. It possessed two long, bony arms that reached all the way to the ground, and at their ends extended three, quadruple-segmented claws serving as fingers. The head itself was very narrow and resembled a three-sided pyramid placed on its side. The two lower edges extended slightly backwards with the upper one extending further than the neck and bending towards the left. Halfway through the edge, the head smoothed and the side of the 'pyramid' became a rounded, stretched surface. Three bright, white eyes could barely be seen on its face as they were almost completely closed. Unlike many creatures in this world, this gigantic beast was a tripod with a bizarre anatomy. The front leg was the shortest of the needle-like structures, the two in the back about the length of its body and pushing it along. Due to its strange leg structure, its upper body was forced forward into a hunching position, shortening its possible, maximum height. Because of all these physical impairments, it was extremely slow and did not seem to enjoy this aspect of its existence.

Nevertheless, the Nebwezar were all covered in armors made of thin sheets of metal while others just wore a leather cap. They were all dressed differently and equipped with too many weapons for Crescent to count, but she did notice several types of weapons she had never seen before, and instead of running towards and attacking the Yuhis, they were standing around and looking at it, as though waiting for something. A vicious sense of dread overwhelmed Crescent and even the breezies, but Mathews was still unaffected by whatever this world had. With some effort, he managed to hoist himself back onto his forelegs without the aid of the breezies and smiled. He was proud of his accomplishment. Looking up, he noticed that the swirling vortex of darkness started to break apart in tiny bits and pieces after another shockwave rammed the ground. The darkness slowly came closer and closer until it was clear they were projectiles intent on destroying the landscape like meteors falling from the sky.

Houses were crushed, trees were broken in half, and one of them was coming directly towards the ponies. Crescent didn't have time to think of a proper spell but focused her mind nonetheless, and her armor became much brighter. In an instant, a strange blanket of darkness flowed off of her body and caught the black ball before crushing it between its massive claws and receding back into the armor. The pony just stared agape at what had happened and looked down at the smoldering mess.

"I just created an astral projection with my mind without any effort. These enchantments are surreal. This is...this is amazing!"

A roar attracted every pony's attention to the left where they saw a bipedal beast with reverse-knee legs and a completely black body step out of the ruins of one of the houses. Its arms were quite long and bulky as were its three claws, but it had no facial features, strangely. It got sight of the alicorn, pointed at her, then screamed. It couldn't even make a step forward that one of the Nebwezar rammed into it and continued charging across a lengthy amount of time through the village grounds and what was left of the building. Another shadow creature, this time a tripod with similar arms, jumped off a cliff overlooking the village with an intent on slamming onto one of the infants firing at the beasts with crossbows. Unfortunately, it got impaled on a pike raised by a protective parent. Instead of growling in anger, the parent just howled in joy and victory.

Even the lunar alicorn started to feel something well up inside her. A joy she never felt before. A thirst for combat? Two more of the bipedal creatures ran towards her after throwing a gigantic nebwezar far across the landscape. They were the same height yet had no difficulty throwing such immense giants far away. What chance did Crescent have? Well, she had magic, for one, and she intended to use it.

Gathering up her energy, the lunar alicorn only intended to blast the creatures away with a ball of energy she would build above her and use as a trap. Once again, her intentions changed due to the armor. A shower of white, lunar energy crashed down upon the creatures, crushing them and burning the path several times. Even a tripod tried to mangle the alicorn when it attempted to tackle her from the side, but she jumped, twisted her body over it, and projected energy through her hooves, effectively launching the creature through a hill like a rail cannon shot.

The alicorn was having so much fun with her new powers and armor that Mathews didn't want to interrupt her. She had been the happiest he had ever seen her. It's a shame it was with violence, but she always showed that kind of preference even the day she crashed in front of him and ruined his drink. Good times.

"I'm concerned. Wasn't she trying to avoid all of this...this violence? I thought she wanted to avoid this sort of thing as much as possible. I'm worried she might regress to whatever it is she used to be."

Mathews' thoughts were cut short by a quad-winged piece with a very narrow head and sharp beak squawking at him from above. It had sneaked in behind his protector and planned on...eating him whole? These creatures were still unknown, so the two ponies knew not what they wanted. Being heroic, the breezies charged in front of Mathews and blocked the beast, but it only bellowed a screeching tone, knocking the tiny fae unconscious and onto the floor where they did naught but twitch and drool. Alerted by the sound, Crescent turned to witness her adoptive father helplessly under the gaze of a starved beast, and she couldn't reach him in time. She tried to cast a spell, but she couldn't muster up enough energy. She didn't know how to use the armor yet and it cost her all her magic. She tried to gallop towards Mathews to jump up and punch out the beast, but she was too slow and too far. She felt as if the whole world moved in slow motion as she watched, helplessly, as the bird dove towards the small foal with its beak opening while said foal protected his face with his left foreleg and lift his right towards the creature in a desperate attempt to keep it away with distance he no longer possessed.

Crescent cried out, tears of fear welling up in her eyes. "MATHEEEEEEEEWS!"

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