• Published 2nd Nov 2015
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Lateral Movement - Alzrius



Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.

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31 - Ebb and Flow

Lex felt a sudden rush of exhilaration as his creation, carrying him within it, barreled towards the dragon ahead of them. The sensation was an alien one; he’d been in fights – even fights where losing meant death – before, but those had always evoked little emotion in him beyond controlled anxiety. The idea of actually enjoying a fight, as he’d heard some ponies on Everglow talk about, had always struck him as incomprehensible.

But now, as his astral pony closed the distance between them and the dragon – a huge creature with fangs and claws, with scales like armor and breath like flames; a creature that could, compared to a pony, rightly be called death incarnate – Lex found himself awash in a rush so heady that it dispelled all of the misery he’d felt for the last few days.

It was a rush that was undiminished as the dragon lashed out, its claw connecting with the neck of the astral pony in a blow that, had it been a living creature, would have opened up a fatal gash. But instead, the creature’s talons found little purchase on the construct, leaving only a quartet of shallow lines without inflicting any real damage.

Another vicious grin crossed Lex’s face. This was the reason he had formed this particular astral pony with himself as the nucleus, rather than making it separate from himself. Because by wrapping it around himself, all of the defensive spells that he’d placed upon himself – both his recently-cast panoply as well as those that he’d long since permanently woven into his own flesh – would resonate through the astral matter, affecting his construct as well.

I’ll tear you apart! The thought was filled with hateful glee, exulting at the prospect of defeating such a strong opponent, rather than being defeated or forced to withdraw the way Lex felt he always had to before. I’ll crush you and show you what happens to those who mess with me!

Lex’s thought was punctuated by his astral pony, its charge undiminished by the light blow it had taken, colliding with the dragon. At the last moment, it lowered its head so that its horn was pointing forward, attempting to gore the dragon. It almost succeeded; the creature realized what was being attempted at the last moment and threw itself to the side, but not before the construct’s horn tore across its side, leaving a deep laceration.

Nor did it stop there. Rather than turning to face the dragon as it moved, it instead turned in the opposite direction, facing away from it. Glancing back as it leaned forward, the astral pony lashed out with both hind legs at once in a powerful buck that caught the dragon directly across the snout, knocking its head back with an audible crack.

Placing both legs back on the ground, it kicked out again, trying to land a second blow, but the dragon was ready for that move now, and only a single hoof managed to land a glancing hit on one of its forelegs.

It was at that moment that Lex finished the spell he’d been casting, letting the magic channel through the astral pony’s horn and go racing towards the dragon. Although it had no visible effect, the spell was designed to create an area of impeded time around the dragon, slowing its movements and preventing it from mounting an effective counterattack. Although the battle was still in its opening exchanges, Lex felt entirely confident that if this worked, then victory would be all but assured. His grin widened at the thought…

And then the smirk was wiped off his face as he felt his spell collapse in on itself as it made contact with the creature.

Lex was caught completely off-guard. What had happened? It hadn’t been that it had shaken the effect off; he knew that intuitively. Rather, it was as though it had somehow negated it entirely before it had ever had a chance to take effect.

Without regard for Lex’s momentary confusion, the dragon launched itself at him. Again claws tore at the astral construct that he’d conjured around himself, but they struggled to find purchase, dealing little more than cosmetic damage. When the jaws closed around the astral pony’s neck a moment later, defeating its attempt to dodge the incoming strike, they had the same meager effect; the dragon’s fangs, despite their wicked sharpness, simply refused to penetrate. Frantically, it even tried to batter the construct with its tail and single remaining wing, but had no more success.

The price for this failure came a moment later, as its insufficient strikes left it with little in the way of a defensive posture. Wrenching its neck free from the creature’s jaws, Lex’s astral pony reared up again, on its hind legs this time, and lashed out with its forehooves.

The first blow connected just below the creature’s sternum, landing with such force that it lifted the dragon off of its forelegs and into an upright posture. The next hit connected in the same area, and Lex could feel the vibrations of bones fracturing under the blow. The dragon staggered back, but the astral pony refused to let it escape, moving with it as it landed a third and then a fourth shot on the creature’s abdomen, causing it to double over and vomit blood onto the ground.

At the same time, Lex cast another spell, one designed to suppress part of the target’s life force, injuring it while bypassing its physical hardiness entirely. This time a black ray flowed from his outstretched hoof to be released from his astral pony’s horn, striking the dragon directly…but again it failed to take effect, winking out just as it touched the creature. Narrowing his eyes, Lex tried to figure out what was going on. Insofar as he was aware, dragons shouldn’t have any sort of special resistance to magic, at least no more than any other being.

His thoughts were interrupted as the dragon regained control of itself from the pounding it had taken. It leapt back, barely managing to duck under another hoof to the face as it did so. Its desperate retreat caused Lex to regain his earlier smirk. So the creature had some sort of unknown ability to overcome magic; so what? It was rapidly becoming clear that it was no match for his astral pony in direct combat, and with its wings clipped it had no chance of retreating. The battle was, as far as he could see, as good as decided.

That was fortunate, considering that his astral construct wouldn’t last much longer.

The nature of the Astral Plane was, by definition, nonphysical. Lex’s magic was able to drag pieces of it into the physical realm and shape it to his liking, but once in the material world the substance would quickly dissipate. When that happened, Lex knew that the situation would immediately reverse itself, since without his astral pony to even the odds the dragon would be the one to enjoy physical supremacy.

Had Lex been able to keep this construct in its current form for an hour, that would have been a purely academic problem. Even a ten-minute duration would have been more than enough time to destroy the enemy in front of him at his leisure. But Lex knew that he didn’t have an hour, nor even ten minutes.

Rather, this construct that he’d expended so much energy to form would only last for a little over sixty seconds. And by his calculation, almost a third of that time had already passed. He would need to finish this quickly, but he was certain that he’d be able to finish it.

Across from him, the dragon seemed to have come to the same conclusion. Its glare was no less hateful, but the caution that had tempered that expression was now replaced with worry. With blood trickling down its side from where the construct’s horn had sliced it earlier, and visible dents in its chest from the beating it had received, it clearly had no intention of repeating its previous strategy.

Instead, it began to inhale deeply.

Realizing its strategy, Lex scoffed. Go ahead, he thought sneeringly, bathe me in flames. See how much it avails you.

“Two entities approaching. Southeast bearing zero-declination mark one-two-seven-point-six.”

“Hm?” At the warning from his creation, Lex glanced behind him in the indicated direction…

…and stopped dead, his eyes widening.

Sonata.

Barely noticing Fireflower running behind her, Lex’s entire world came to a halt as he saw her, charging towards him as fast as she could. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind, all of them trying to answer a single question: what was she doing here?

She was yelling something, but between the din that the battle had raised, the continued yelling of the captured ponies, and her distance from him, it was almost impossible to make out. Straining, he tried to listen as she yelled again, looking closely at her lips as she formed the words, cognizant of the look of alarm on her face.

“Acid! Not fire!”

For a split-second he was confused as to what she was trying to tell him. Then her meaning dawned on him, and Lex felt his blood turn to ice water in his veins. The spell that he’d cast to resist fire could be set to resist corrosion instead, but that determination had to be made when the spell was enacted, and once done so could not be changed. The only alternative was to make use of another casting of that spell, or one like it, to impede acid damage.

But Lex had prepared no other such spells.

“Dodge!” he screamed, turning his full attention back to the dragon. The astral pony moved to obey, but it was already too late. Thrusting its head forward, the creature exhaled sharply, and a billowing cloud of roiling green vapors spilled out to engulf them.


Fireflower had no idea what he was doing, but knew that he had to do it anyway. Sonata was charging into danger, and although he didn’t know what he could do to protect her, he knew that he had to at least try. Her and all of those other ponies who were also in danger from that scaled monster, including those three huddled off to the side.

Frowning as a thought made itself known, Fireflower looked at the unusual trio again. There was some sort of shimmering bubble around them, but that wasn’t what had caught his eye. Rather, it was because they looked just like…like…

Stopping in amazement, all thoughts of Sonata fleeing his mind, Fireflower stared in shock as he realized that the ponies he was looking at were the siblings that he’d been searching for. For a moment he could only stop and stare, completely nonplussed at suddenly seeing them all again. Then he was running towards them as fast as he could. “Guys!” The words exploded from his lips. “You guys!”

“Fireflower!” Hearing his name called, as well as recognizing the familiar voice of Breezyleaf, dispelled any lingering doubts he may have had. Although he hadn’t seen much of his siblings’ pony forms since they had arrived in this world, this was undoubtedly them.

“Are you alright? Where’s Brightrose?” He could make out Shadowvine and Rockwood in there with Breezyleaf, but their other brother was nowhere to be found that Fireflower could see. “What is this?” He reared up on his hind legs and pressed his forehooves against the bubble. It felt as solid as stone.

“Brightrose is being held in the dragon’s cave.” Other than the audible tension in his voice, Rockwood was as unflappable as ever. “We were sealed in this force field by that wizard that’s fighting the dragon right now.”

“Lex put you in here? Why?”

“Who cares why?! Get us out of here!” yelled Shadowvine in frustration. “This is our chance to get away and rescue our brother while they’re killing each other!”

“I…alright, hang on.” For a moment, Fireflower faltered. Using this as an opportunity to escape would mean abandoning Sonata. But he pushed that to the side for the moment. First things first; he had to get his family out of there.

Rattling off a quick chant, Fireflower gestured at the force field, shooting it with the same beam of heat that had melted the door lock on city hall. But whereas the lock had melted immediately, the force field received the attack without so much as a scorch mark to show for it.

Biting his lip, Fireflower tried to think of what to try next. That had been one of his strongest attack spells. With its failure, he was extremely low on options. “I don’t think we can break it. But maybe if we try digging under it-”

“I tried that,” interrupted Rockwood. “This thing goes underground. We’re completely encapsulated.”

“Then maybe…maybe if we all attack it at the same time!”

“Okay!” nodded Shadowvine. “On my mark! Ready? One, two, three, go!”

A moment later all four of the aranea siblings hit the force field with attack magic. Elemental magic collided with the force field, and for a moment Fireflower was sure that it was going to work. But when their barrage was expended, the force field looked no different than it had before.

Fireflower sagged in defeat. What was he supposed to do now?

“You have to leave us,” Rockwood spoke, as though he’d heard his little brother’s thoughts. “Go back to the dragon’s cave and get Brightrose out of there now, while it’s distracted.”

“Wh-what? No!” Fireflower’s ears folded back. “I’m not leaving you! Besides, I don’t even remember where that cave is!”

“Rockwood’s right.” Breezyleaf looked like she wanted to cry, but her eyes were steady as she looked at Fireflower. “If you run back into the forest, head west-southwest for a mile. There’s a stream there. If you follow it, you should eventually come to the entrance. That’s where I always sent my reports to it on the wind.”

“I…” Fireflower looked from his siblings over to Sonata, who had just screamed another warning to Lex. His eyes widened as he saw that her warning had been received too late, the dragon’s breath weapon enveloping the gigantic pony-thing that Lex had summoned around him, obscuring it from view.

The sight only reinforced Fireflower’s resolve. He didn’t know if Lex had survived that or not, but if not – or maybe even if he had – Sonata was going to be in imminent danger. Brightrose wasn’t.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t. I’ve got to go.” Not trusting himself to remain steadfast in the face of the recrimination he was sure was coming, he turned around and galloped away.

The last time he’d faced a dragon, he’d thought only of running away so that he could save himself. Now, as he ran towards where it was, the only thing he could think about was what he could do to save someone else.

Author's Note:

Lex's magic gives him a seemingly overwhelming advantage against the dragon. But the gap in his knowledge allows it to strike back. Have the tables suddenly been turned?

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