Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

487 - Like a Ton of Bricks

“Oops,” drawled Fruit Crunch, his voice thick with sarcasm. “I broke your magic staff.”

Starlight could only stare at him, struggling to process just how big of a setback this was, the gasps and cries of dismay from the ponies she’d brought with her ringing in her ears. Although the staff had never possessed any actual power, it had been a vital part of her plans, serving as a convenient excuse for why she could wield more magic than most ponies despite her supposedly having given up her cutie mark. With her prop gone, she’d need to find some other way of fooling everypony…but she couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would be. As gullible as the ponies in her village were, even they would be skeptical if she conveniently found some other “magic item” that just so happened to function identically to the Staff of Sameness.

Her teeth clenched, Starlight struggled to retain her composure. I can fix this! All I have to do is repair the staff! Simple reparative spells weren’t that hard, so long as all the pieces of whatever was broken were present and intact. I already told everypony that the staff granted residual power even after it was put down, she reminded herself, her horn already lighting up as she grabbed the broken halves of it. I can just say that I used that to put it back togeth-

“Oh no you don’t!” Diving forward, Fruit Crunch grabbed the forked end of the staff in his teeth before she’d been able to move it more than a few inches.

“Give me that!” screeched Starlight, tugging harder.

But Fruit Crunch didn’t let go, grunting as he dug his hooves into the ground. Starlight pulled harder, knowing that the longer it took her to repair the staff, the less believable her “residual power” excuse would beco- “AAH!”

Yelping, Starlight’s telekinetic aura flickered out as a sharp pain shot through her left hind leg. A quick glance back showed why, as the snake that had been clinging to Cleansweep was currently extracting its fangs from just above her ankle, rearing back to strike again. The sight made Starlight hop to the side, avoiding the animal’s second bite, but she could feel her back leg already becoming sluggish…

The same as her right foreleg.

Just like Cleansweep, the snake had poisoned her.

Barely able to keep her balance now, Starlight couldn’t contain a cry of anger as she pointed her horn at the serpent – already slithering toward her again with its fangs bared – and poured her frustration into a blast of magic. The spell sent a sharp headache through her, a sign that while Cleansweep’s healing had closed a lot of her injuries, it had done very little for how badly she’d taxed herself up until now. But at the moment Starlight couldn’t have cared less, instead basking in the spiteful pleasure of watching the serpent vanish within the blast of light, vaporized in an instant. With the nuisance gone, Starlight turned back toward Fruit Crunch…

…just in time to watch him chomp down on one of the wooden prongs on the forked end of the broken staff.

Starlight could only stare, disbelieving, as the colt chewed heavily on the wood, audibly grinding it down to a pulp before swallowing. It wasn’t some sort of sleight-of-hoof; the kid had really eaten it, like how she’d heard some earth pony rock farmers did with the stones they dug up. Even so, the sight was so unexpected that it took her a moment to realize that he’d done the same thing to the other prong already, leaving that end of the staff completely bare.

Catching her eye, Fruit Crunch flashed her a condescending smirk. “In comic books, when the heroes destroy the villains’ magic talismans, the bad guys will sometimes try to recover and repair them. That’s not going to happen this time.”

Starlight felt something snap inside her then. Comic books? That miserable little brat had just shattered her dream, quite possibly beyond repair, and he was talking about comic books?!

All of a sudden Starlight didn’t care about finding a way to continue deceiving everypony. She didn’t care about the numbness in her legs. She didn’t care about conserving power before Lex Legis arrived.

All she cared about at that moment was wiping the smirk off of that punk kid’s face.

Focusing all of her rage into her horn, Starlight threw everything she could into her telekinesis. The agony that flashed through her as she did was so excruciating that for a moment it made her nauseous, but she pushed through it. Her blood pounded in her ears, and her horn felt like it was on fire, but she didn’t let up. The only thing that mattered now was punishing that self-absorbed earth colt who had treated her life’s work as though it was one of his games of make-believe!

Screaming in fury, Starlight tossed her head back, raising her horn up high.

An instant later, the mass of rubble that had once been Vanhoover’s train station rose up into the air.

Every piece of broken wood, shattered stone, and tangled metal had a telekinetic aura around it now, matching the bright glow surrounding Starlight’s horn. And as Fruit Crunch watched, his eyes wide, the accumulated debris slowly began to move, the chunks whirling around each other in a chaotic pattern even as they drifted over, moving away from the building’s foundation. It took them only a second to reach their destination.

Right over his head.

But the thrill of fear that ran through him then wasn’t only for himself.

“STARLIGHT, STOP!” Frantically, Fruit Crunch swept a hoof out to indicate where his friends were still scattered around the battlefield, one staring at nothing and the other three lying unconscious. The fact that Aria and that other lady were far enough away that they were out of danger was only a small comfort. “YOU’LL HIT THEM TOO!”

“Oh, don’t worry!” The words were hissed, her voice twisted with naked viciousness. “The only one I’m going to hit is YOU!!!”

Then the rubble began to fall.

---

Fruit Crunch threw himself backward, his knees wobbling with effort even as a chunk of rock as big as he was slammed into the ground where he’d been just a second ago. But he couldn’t stop to appreciate the close call, immediately diving left, barely managing to avoid a pair of splintered two by fours that lanced into the ground an instant later. Even then he didn’t stop moving, grabbing the boards and using them as a fulcrum to immediately reverse direction, slipping between them as a tangled metal mass that might have been a bench once missed him by inches.

He had been dodging for his life like this for the last thirty seconds, and Fruit Crunch knew that he didn’t have much time left.

Starlight hadn’t released all of the accumulated debris at once. Instead she was letting go of one or two pieces at a time, positioning them directly over his head before removing her telekinesis and letting gravity do the rest. Meanwhile, she kept the rest of the huge mass churning overhead, the remaining fragments whirling in a confusing swirl that left him with almost no time to react when each new piece fell from the sky.

The good news was that Starlight had, true to her word, only targeted him so far, ignoring the rest of his friends. The bad news was that between the wall of the ruined building on his left side, and the rest of the Knights spread out behind and to the right of him, that left Fruit Crunch with very little room to maneuver. And the even worse news was that he knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer, his muscles burning even through the numbing agent that Venin had used on him.

But at least that means I know what to do now! After all, something like this had happened in the “Fish in a Barrel” story in last year’s Power Ponies Annual, when Marksmare had lured Fili-Second into a dead-end tunnel to try and prevent her from dodging attacks from her magic slingshot. But even without the rest of her team, Fili-Second had beaten the bad guy, quipping one simple rule in her thought balloons as she’d done so. If you can’t dodge and you can’t retreat, then the only way to go is right through your enemy!

A second later Fruit Crunch did just that, skidding past the fractured remains of a desk, twisting around a mangled chair, and dodging a heavy section of a wall as he doggedly made his way toward Starlight. Just a little further! A piece of a pipe came down close enough that it shaved a few hairs from his mane. A little further! A portion of the roof whizzed by him, sending shingles flying as it hit the ground. Panting for breath, his lungs burning, Fruit Crunch leaped forward as he kept closing the distance between himself and Starlight.

Just thirty more feet. No problem at all!

Twenty more feet. A quick glance upward showed that the debris cloud was following him, and wasn’t over any of his friends now.

Ten more feet. It was with a sense of wicked satisfaction that Fruit Crunch saw Starlight try to back away, only for her to nearly stumble as she did. With two legs numbed, it was all she could do to keep her balance now, which meant that with how hard she had to be concentrating to keep so much stuff in the air, she wouldn’t be able to dodge the pounding he was about to give her.

Just five more feet…!

It was pure instinct that made Fruit Crunch stop his charge at the last possible second, hooves digging into the dirt as the upper edge of his vision caught sight of a massive pile of wreckage – composed of several fragments of the ruined building, rather than just one – plummeting from the sky, barely keeping out of their way as they crashed directly between himself and Starlight, cutting him off from her.

But with pure adrenaline flowing through him, Fruit Crunch didn’t hesitate. I can’t see her, but she can’t see me now either! And if she can barely move with her legs like that, then she won’t be able to dodge THIS! The last part of that thought came just as he whirled around, glancing back at the weakest-looking part of the tangled wall – the top half of what looked like a wooden wardrobe – and kicked his back legs out, bucking it as hard as he could.

The broken piece of furniture went flying, and a half-second later Fruit Crunch was rewarded with the sound of a heavy impact followed instantly by a grunt of pain from Starlight.

Not wanting to give her even an instant to recover, Fruit Crunch hurried to follow his makeshift missile, vaulting through the hole he’d made in Starlight’s defense and advancing on her. Sure enough, she was lying on her back next to the busted wardrobe, groaning softly as she reached up to rub her head. She blinked as she did, and the white light began to fade from her eyes, the blue irises starting to reappear.

Unwilling to give her a chance to recover, Fruit Crunch galloped across the last few feet separating them, raising a hoof threateningly as he moved to stand over her. “It’s over, Starlight.”

“No!” Her moan of defiance was accompanied by her biting her lip, visibly concentrating. A second later her eyes started to glow once again, the white light blotting everything else out.

…until Fruit Crunch brought his hoof down sharply on her stomach. It didn’t have quite enough force to be called a punch, but it was heavy enough to make Starlight’s breath immediately escape her lungs, her eyes returning to normal instantly as the aura around her horn guttered out. “I said it’s over!” repeated Fruit Crunch. “You’re beaten! So now-”

“YOU IDIOT!” wailed Starlight, looking up at him. But it was fear, not anger, that crossed her features as she started to wriggle under him frantically. “GET OFF ME!”

For just a moment Fruit Crunch was confused. But then he realized that she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking past him, up at the sky, and Fruit Crunch didn’t have to follow her gaze to realize that he’d just made a critical error: he’d been so focused on reaching Starlight and taking her down that he hadn’t thought about what would happen after he did.

And now it was too late.

Above the two of them, the entire collection of wreckage began to fall.

Author's Note:

Starlight and Fruit Crunch both push past their limits as they struggle to overcome each other!

But despite Fruit Crunch seeming to break through Starlight's assault, will his victory also prove to be his undoing?

Comments

[WARGAMES]

Insanity, is so fun

[Not so New Brony]

So in a way, Starlight defeats herself, with some help from the leader of the Night Mare's Knights and one of their animal companions of course. Still, despite the apparent outcome of their fight, Fruit Crunch showed a surprising amount of ability despite facing a superior opponent in his condition.

Granted, Starlight wasn't at a hundred percent either but given her abilities and the fact she was going through this much trouble from a bunch of kids, the NMK's efforts are nothing to sneeze at.

Also, I now realize that Fruit Crunch's original name in your draft(Crunch a Bunch I believe it was) would be fitting for what he did to the 'Staff of Sameness' though now I have to wonder if the kid will start thinking that he'd have similar powers after eating it later on.

At the very least, he's got plenty of fibres to last him a while.

[Booster Spice]

Timberwolves must have really toxic sap, otherwise theyd be terrified of being food for ponies?

But Gramma, should we run, or should we hide?

We shall Fight.

Book of Nomes. The way of Jakob.

Well, either Starlights going to just about make a one pony shield dome, fortunatly Fruit is small, or Fruit could try and and kick upwards? Except for numbed legs? Or Lex is going to arrive in time and assist in some way?

[Fireza]

So are you planning on eventually redeeming Starlight, kind of like how you did for Aria?

[Fireza]

10291156
In which case, if there is an ultimate battle between Celestia and her forces and Lex and his forces, if Lex probably wins then could the punishment be to take the princesses cutie marks?

[Fireza]

10291160
Also are the spirit of harmony or The spirit of disharmony going to directly talk to any of Lex’s friends, or even Lex himself?

[Alzrius]

10290230 Starlight isn't exactly unstable, but when she gets mad, she has a tendency to become violent. Not always, but in The Cutie Map - Part 2 (season five, episode two) she tried to blast the ponies she'd deceived (being stopped only by a quick shield from Twilight). She rather forcefully banished Discord from the School of Friendship in A Matter of Principals (season eight, episode fourteen). And of course, altering history in the fifth season finale, very nearly wreaking incredible havoc on all of Equestria.

So yeah, that she'd flip out here is kind of understandable, I'd say.

[Alzrius]

10290287 Fruit Crunch really does seem to be bringing his A-game here, doesn't he? Part of the reason for this is in-character in nature, in that he's had some recent experience with fighting (i.e. against Silhouette and then again with the other Royal Guards). Starlight, by contrast, is powerful but unused to having to push herself so hard. The show has never given us any indication that Starlight has faced any serious opposition prior to her meeting Twilight and friends, so you have to figure that she's very much in unfamiliar territory.

There's also the meta-game aspect to the fact that Starlight, despite having several levels on Fruit Crunch, is a fairly traditional spellcaster. Most of her build has gone toward having an extremely broad base in terms of what she can accomplish with her magic. Fruit Crunch, by contrast, has stats that lend themselves much more toward being a brawler. He's not exactly a powerhouse in that regard, but even his cutie mark is based around "stomp things hard (to squish fruit into juice)."

As for him eating the staff, I hesitated to use that at first, since I knew it might come across as awkward. But given how we see Pinkie's family eating rocks in Hearthbreakers (season five, episode twenty), I figured I could get away with that here...though I still threw in a reference to that just to be safe.

Also, I now realize that Fruit Crunch's original name in your draft(Crunch a Bunch I believe it was) would be fitting for what he did to the 'Staff of Sameness' though now I have to wonder if the kid will start thinking that he'd have similar powers after eating it later on.

I'd forgotten I let that tidbit about his original name slip!

[Alzrius]

10290590 Well, only earth ponies have the fortitude to subsist on rocks and sticks like that. But honestly, timberwolves should have been afraid of Spike in Spike at Your Service (season three, episode nine) anyway. I mean, they're made of wood, and he breathes fire! So how was it that he was the one afraid of them?

As for the imminent "rocks fall, everyone dies" scenario...we'll just have to wait and see.

[Alzrius]

10291156 Well, that would be a bit of a spoiler, but at the same time I don't really want to just brush your question off either. So I'll be a little bit more forthcoming than usual and say that I haven't quite made up my mind yet.

If that sounds evasive, it isn't meant to be. The thing is, while I haven't written an outline for this story, I'm not just making it up as I go along either. Rather, I'm taking something of a mixed approach, figuring out the broad arcs (and some specific developments) that I want to happen, and filling in the blanks between them as needed. The result is that I sometimes stumble onto a particular idea only a little while before a given chapter is written, and quite often that leads to things heading in a direction that I hadn't previously planned for.

For example, Prince Blueblood came into this story as a surprise at the end of Chapter 464 - On a Roll. But that was a last-minute change. While I'd always planned to have River stumble onto an unexpected meeting with a socialite of unusual influence, I had originally planned for it to be an original character: a rather suave stallion who was famous for being multi-aptitudinal (e.g. he'd spent some time as a Royal Guard, had dated and sung with Sapphire Shores, was an Equestria Games gold medalist, etc.). I even had a name picked out for him (which I won't mention here, since I might want to recycle it for another character later on down the line).

But as I got closer to his introduction, I realized that the character wasn't working. The "being accomplished" angle was already somewhat taken with Tryout (Feather Duster's husband and Cleansweep's father). Moreover, having a brand new character being the high-order social influencer would have required an info-dump once he made his appearance about how everyone knew who he was despite his never having been seen or mentioned before, which is something I'm not a fan of (and why I rolled my eyes when Twilight went on and on about both her brother and her favorite foalsitter during the second season finale, even though she'd never once mentioned either of them prior to then). Finally, I couldn't figure out what his dynamic with Lex would be; he'd obviously serve as a foil for Lex thanks to his social acumen, but Sonata already did that as a friendly figure, and Celestia already did that as an unfriendly one. So either way was redundant. (Though his being male would have put a spin on that, but ultimately not enough of one to be interesting, to my mind.)

Fortunately, I somehow remembered Prince Blueblood shortly before that chapter was due to be posted, and everything fell into place. While he only had one real appearance in the show (notwithstanding background shots), Blueblood's character is firmly established. Moreover, it gave me the chance to advance some elements of the story (like where royalty gets their money from in this fic). And it opens up some interesting new opportunities going forward...

Ahem, all of which is to say that while I have a particular idea about what will become of Starlight, I'm not married to it, and it's possible that I'l change my mind before posting. So even if I gave a spoiler, I can't guarantee that it would be an accurate one.

[Alzrius]

10291160 That's possible, but unlikely. Lex views cutie marks as intrinsic elements of what makes a pony a pony. While he's willing to suppress the abilities of those he deems criminals, removing a cutie mark might tread too close to his "do not mutilate ponies" prohibition.

[Alzrius]

10291162 I'm not entirely sure who you mean by "the Spirit of Harmony" and "the Spirit of Disharmony." If by the latter you mean Discord, then it's hard to say, but I suspect that neither of them would like each other much at all, since Lex is super-lawful and Discord is all about Chaos.

As for the Spirit of Harmony...would that be the "astral Twilight" created by the Tree of Harmony in What Lies Beneath (season eight, episode twenty-two) and Uprooted (season nine, episode three)? Because if so, that might be a bit hard to do. This fic has just barely hit the beginning of season five, and the Tree alludes to only having recently figured out how to create an avatar (for lack of a better term) in the former episode. But I can't necessarily rule it out altogether...

[Maxemilien]

Laws of Gravity;
A very harse master.

To escape this brutal power
You must be much faster...

[Alzrius]

10291598 Heh, which is hard to do when you're already exhausted.

[WARGAMES]

10291544

It feels like an advertisement

Ever tried to kill a child when they ate your magic stick?
Then buy jokename Alcohol!

[Maxemilien]

10291602
Reality is a cruel, and twisted mistress.

Who loves to create endless lots of distress.

[smile444]

excuse me, can you help me ? I'm trying to build some kind of monk with eclipse who can use acunpuncture points to paralyse the ennemy. mechanically I'm trying to find a way to add ability damage to attacks using ki or something but i can't find a clear way to do ability damage in the book. Did i miss something or is there no way to do that ?

[Alzrius]

10293286 I'm quite happy to help!

In fact, the co-author of Eclipse once posted a ridiculously powerful character on his blog who can do exactly what you're asking (among many, many other things; his spell list alone required a separate post). In this case, you can simply lift the necessary details to make what you're looking for, since point-buy character construction lends itself to that sort of modularity. Specifically, he used the following:

• For "pressure point mastery," take Witchcraft (6 CP), choosing the Elfshot power (page 110), specialized and corrupted for increased effect/as per “Bestow Curse”, requires a successful melee attack check, does not work on creatures that lack a normal life force to disrupt or who’s anatomy is utterly strange (most aberrations, slimes and oozes, etc). It costs 1 power for a few days, 2 for weeks, and 3 for permanency (well, until fixed anyway).
• To be able to use this as part of your normal attacks (instead of having to make the above as a standard action on its own), take Opportunist (page 39), specialized and corrupted for reduced cost (making this cost only 2 CP)/may activate a Witchcraft power as part of an attack action, but only for "pressure point mastery."

Of course, that will only be able to be performed so long as you have enough Power to use it. You'll get a small amount just for buying Witchcraft once (see page 109), but there are ways to purchase more if you want. Likewise, opponents will get a saving throw (DC 13 + your Charisma modifier). There are also ways to increase that, but as with buying more power, they'll cost you CP.

Now, that's just one way to do what you're looking for. One of the greatest strengths to using Eclipse is that its flexibility allows for the same overall effect to be built different ways (and usually for different costs). That might sound odd, but it's important to remember that the book wasn't written with the presumption that everything in it would be allowed in a game (hence the checklist on page 197), so having different ways to perform the same effect allows for maximum flexibility, since it means that GMs and players have options for how expensive it should be to have certain effects be possible depending on the limits of a particular campaign.

So what other ways could you inflict ability damage via melee attacks? Well...

• Buy the Serpent Strike occult martial art technique (page 82).
• Use the Trick ability (page 55), corrupted so as to just inflict a certain amount of ability damage. Note that you'll still need to pick some particular circumstance under which it can be used, or settle for a 3/day limitation.
• Buy Augment Attack with the Crippling modifier (page 50). That will only inflict 1 point of ability damage, and only when using your sneak attack (if you don't want the extra sneak attack damage, just specialize that for reduced cost, lowering that to 1 CP). Now, 1 point of ability damage isn't very much, particularly since you'll need to specify what situation you can use it in (the default is whenever you can use a sneak attack), but if you can specialize the Crippling ability (say, by having it only apply to a particular creature type, such as Humanoids), then you can inflict 2 points per hit, which is more reasonable, particularly if you can use multiple attacks in a round. Even better, this doesn't require a saving throw.

Those are just a few possibilities, but hopefully those will help make the character you want!