Chapter 8
Anger sparked through Twilight’s eyes like flashes of lightning. In each hand she held a swirling violet-black ball of pure energy coalesced from the surrounding ambient magic, absorbing itself into her skin, rejuvenating her with each passing second. The pains in her aching muscles eased, giving way for white-hot crackles between her extended fingers as her hair frizzled in an unnaturally creepy way. Her irises a deep ocean blue-violet now, she stepped out onto the starboard bridgewing, where her skin accepted the more abundant magic from the sea and darkened to a rich arabian night.
Matt backed into the bridge, unnerved by the princess’s behavior. He was none too soon, as Twilight spread her wings and took to the sky in a whirl of wind. As soon as she disappeared, he, Sandra, and Courtney hurried out to watch.
“Did you know she could do that?” Matt asked Sandra, quiet wonder creeping into his voice.
“No,” she replied with a similar tone.
The outside was becoming a sight to behold. A rain squall had bore down on the cluster of ships, but without the crashing waves and heaving seas. The sky was considerably darker than before, roiling in protest against the storm Twilight summoned. It created a spiral that fed energy into its center, which swelled and bulged from the clouds like an enormous water balloon.
Twilight grew grim as the sky buzzed with magic. Her hair stood on end, her wings barely flapped, and her arms moved to continue the uniform counterclockwise spin she’d started. She saw it, heard it, felt it. She could almost taste the sheer amount of raw magic in the air. Then, in the back of her mind, she heard it: Nightmare Moon’s voice.
“Yes. Feel the magic. It is a force through all space and time, a force that can be molded to fit the world it resides in--or it can mold that same world. As it gathers, it becomes noticeable by those not attuned to it, eventually attaining a level where those who have never known magic existed for their entire lives can feel it in their very bones. Now, destroy that ship.”
Twilight raised her hand in preparation. Aboard the “Indiaman,” the lizard crew panicked, some diving overboard to join their already-dead comrades from other ships. Some climbed the masts, ripping the rigging, or hung for dear life on the bowsprit. Most simply dropped to the deck, so completely frozen in fear to control their balance. That wasn’t consistent with the lizards who’d fled the cat-monkey ship, but those hadn’t been threatened by magic.
“The lizards feel it. They know not what it is, only that it is, and they fear it. Predators that they are, they must be attacking to be winning, but this is different. There is no attacking. There will be no hope for winning. The lizards are so pitifully frozen in abject terror that they cannot even move. Destroy them.”
Twilight raised her other hand.
“Do it,” the voice hissed.
She closed her eyes in hesitation.”
“Do it.”
She stared down at the lizard ship, then at Walker. Her human rescuers--her friends--watched her, mouths agape and eyes wide. Courtney was scribbling notes as fast as his shaking hand would let him write. Sandra had cevered her mouth with her hand. Matt’s shortly cropped Navy-style hair bristled in the wind. The sea was beginning to get up now, and the small destroyer started to corkscrew as waves hit it diagonally.
“Destroy them all.”
She brought her hands down. In milliseconds, the largest bolt of ambient magic anyone had ever seen slammed down into and through the lizard ship, lighting the water below and vaporizing it all the way to the floor. The mainmast crumpled aft over the flaming, gaping hole in the ship even as the bolt continued its destruction. The mizzen toppled over the side, taking what was left of the rigging with it. The bowsprit fractured with a deafening crack and floated alongside, its last remaining line tangled in the anchor chain. Then the stores of whatever fueled the lizard firebombs ignited, morphing the ship into an inferno of unrealistic proportions. In seconds, the entire vessel had slipped beneath the mounting waves amid a mushroom of billowing steam.
“Now the destroyer.”
“I can’t. They saved me.”
“Do it.”
“I can’t.”
“Feel the power flow through you. You are the most powerful being on the entire planet. They should grovel and worship you in your presence.”
Twilight sighed, her resolve slowly cracking against the unprecedented mental pressure. She turned to face the small iron ship, its barely-scorched number bobbing in the waves, its flush deck riding the seas like a buoy.
“Do it. Show them your magnificence.”
She raised her hand, facing her palm outward at Walker.
Down on the bridgewing, Matt stared back at her, Courtney and Sandra at his side. All three, not to mention almost the entire crew, couldn’t pull out of their shock. Silva, having moved to the machine guns, waved up to her.
“Hey, Twilight! That was awesome!” Then he realized what she was doing. “Ahh… Don’t do it to me!”
“If you traveled to Equestria, where the ambience is more tangible than even here, you could defeat Celestia.”
Her eyes immediately returned to normal. “You want me to do WHAT?!”
Nightmare Moon retreated from her mind and materialized a few feet away as a human, her grand bat wings allowing her to soar on a pocket of heat like a vulture. “Must I dumb down everything I say? We can defeat Celestia and return to glory. Where we should be, you and I, the most powerful ponies in existence.”
“No,” Twilight coldly replied, her voice dropping to a dangerously volatile tone. “I will never betray Celestia.” She slowly pulled her straining hand back to her side, the lightning between her fingers dissipating. “I will never betray my friends. You have no power over me.”
Nightmare Moon hissed, her fangs dripping with magic. Her eye slits narrowed further, if that was even possible, and she became so furious that her armor darkened to match her skin tone. “Never in a million years has someone dared speak to me that way!”
“Maybe a thousand, Nightmare Moon,” Twilight corrected, her wits returning to her, “but not a million.”
“RRAAHHHH!” The Mare in the Moon darted across the short distance separating them and rammed Twilight. Caught off guard, she barely had time to dodge, and Nightmare Moon folded her faltering wings with magic. Twilight plummeted towards the ocean surface, which was calming now that she’d stopped with the lightning.
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“Captain Reddy, we simply must help her!” Courtney practically shrieked.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to, Mr. Bradford, she’s falling fifty feet off the starboard quarter!” Matt yelled back. “We wouldn’t stop and reverse in time to catch her. We’d be too late if we turned, too.”
Sandra’s gaze rapidly switched between the two men. This time, she sided with Matt, but understood Courtney’s case. Her own argument, however, was completely moot, so she stayed quiet.
Up the ladder, Silva aimed his machine gun at the figure who'd so recklessly knocked Twilight out of the sky. “I can hit her, Mr. Garrett,” he said calmly.
“No, don’t.” Garrett was eyeing the princess, watching how she twisted in her efforts to unbind her wings. “It won’t turn out well.” In the corner of his eye, he saw Gray direct a hose detail to fight the fires threatening the cat-monkey ship.
Twilight eventually ripped the magic bonds apart and spread her wings like a hawk. With too much strain in too little time, they folded by themselves, but this time in a painful arch behind her. She screamed in agony, her mind racing to find the best high-level spell for her situation: a flight spell. Without a second thought, she cast it and her wings immediately responded gracefully. She extended them to their full span--a mind-boggling six feet long--and flew to fight her adversary.
“Not the book-minded welp I faced in the Everfree Forest, I see. You’ve grown, but it will not save you.”
“You haven’t changed at all, Nightmare Moon. You employ new tactics, new spells, but you still cannot comprehend the true power of-”
“Spare me your speeches, Twilight Sparkle. You will need them for Cerberus when you pay him a visit in Tartarus!” With that, Nightmare Moon cast a sizzling beam spell from her hands that raised the hairs on the back of everyone’s neck.
Twilight replied with a spell she’d read in the Canterlot Archives once: one similar to Nightmare Moon’s cast, but different enough to prevent a disastrous backfire. It fired the air around it and baked the sea, evaporating a gaping hole underneath her. Small forks of lightning cracked from both beams, each spitting electric defiance at the other. Nightmare Moon split her beam in two, the second aimed at Walker, but Twilight quickly checked it. With a loud groan and straining hand, she used a mirror spell to channel Nightmare Moon’s magic through her own and out the other side, countering her original beam with her own magic. The Mare’s eyes widened when she realized what was happening, but it was too late: the magic had already surged back into her like a circuit, frying her spell-casting abilities and temporarily freezing her mind.
Just before she hit the water, Nightmare Moon regained her wits and spread her wings, making the same mistake Twilight had earlier, and refolded them to ease the pain. She teleported away in a flash of mystic blue light, disappearing from the area without a trace.
Twilight glided down to the destroyer, her shoulders sagging with exhaustion when she hit the deck. Instead of the expected instant walk to the wardroom, however, she was greeted by an ecstatic Dennis Silva and amazed crew.
“You just fought a f...lipperin’ demon head-on and won, Purple! How did you do that?”
“I just cast spells. Honestly, if you all could use magic, I’d teach you how.”
“You countered a beam of magic with your own, then used it against your opponent,” Matt said. “That’s pretty amazing.”
“Well, I--”
“Do you think we could actually shoot that with our four-inch-fifties?” Garrett asked.
“I’m sure we could if we put enough research into the subject, but I don’t see how it’d be useful.”
“You could burn through a battleship’s amidships armor with that. Captain, this changes everything.”
“You forget, Mr. Garrett,” Courtney interrupted before Matt could reply, “that there are no battleships in this world that we know of.”
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Keje-Fris-Ar’s chest heaved with exhaustion. The People had won a great victory, but it would’ve been impossible had the Tail-less Ones not come in a most timely arrival and used their magic. As their ship initially came alongside Salissa, it seemed that their magic was not selective enough. Then a great bam-bam-bam was heard, and the Grik began dying in droves--and only the Grik! A panic ensued in the Grik that had never been seen before. They leaped over the side and fled to their sinking ships, filling the bellies of the flasher-fish that frothed the waves even now. One ship escaped, and the Tail-less Ones started to sprint after it, but they turned around and sprayed water of all things onto Salissa’s flaming decks.
Even as they saved the People, one of them flew--flew--to the sky and summoned what had to be yet more magic and utterly destroyed an entire grik ship with a single hit. Physical, tangible magic that could actually be seen! A quick glance at the Tail-less Ones told Keje that this was strange even to them. If what they had was magic, what could that be? The power of the Heavens themselves? The strength of the ancestors who guided them from the stars above?
He held out the Sign of the Empty Hand, watching who had to be the Tail-less Ones’ leader. Across the water, he actually waved back! Keje leaned into his daughter Selass, and closed his eyes. Today, the sun set on a day when the Grik could be driven away, and the People had very powerful friends.
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Goddamn that was something.
Its season four all over again MLP meets DBZ. Also keep up the great work
Will crew members start to exhibit magical ability? Also I am curious how a 6 ft wingspan is mind-boggling.
8925976
The idea was that they didn't think such a skinny purple princess could even have a six-foot wingspan. As for the crew, I'm not planning on them having magical abilities.
8924695
I will.
Out in the Med, the League collectively sneezes.
Twilight is made of awesome
8935014
Amagi technically counts as well, she by virtue of having been rebuilt as likely a fast battleship with admittedly wimpy guns.
8945544
Nope, she's a battlecrusier, never went through the conversions. And her 10"/45 arent anything to sneeze at.
8945554
Armor is on par with the Kongos and those were Fast Battleships. Then again how will Twilight react to seeing Amagi for the first time?
8945605
Still a battlecrusier, and remember the Kongou sisters were BCs before becoming BBs
8945637
Regardless, Amagi is huge and immensely powerful, short of something like Bismarck with the League she is right now when one goes by displacement alone, the heaviest ship afloat on this world and is only a little smaller than the immense Lemurian Homes in terms of size. Even if she isn’t the most powerful warship afloat, her monstrous 10-inchers will demolish just about anything short of a League Battleship effortlessly as demonstrated when the Lemurian Home Neccerra packed with refugees was shelled into a sinking inferno by Amagi from long-range. Regardless, Twilight’s reaction will be something.
8945654
8945637
Her reaction will be something, I can assure you. I think it'll happen when Nerracca is sunk. But that's still a long way off, and there's other things to deal with, as we all know...
8946434
Of course here’s the thing about the sinking of the Neccerra that’s probably going to surprise the hell out of Twilight is that while it was morally wrong, Kurokawa was entirely within his right to sink her. For the “Rules of War” as they are state that any ship carrying refugees must be marked with Red Crosses, must be unarmed, and can’t be in company with any warships.
8946489
Despite that maritime right, I think Kurokawa would've done it anyway, even if Nerracca wasn't in Walker's company and had those symbols and be unarmed (which there was no real way of knowing from that distance because of her gunports). It's in his mental character.
8946489
8946555
Technically Japan wasn't signatories to the conventions, so he would have less of an issue with it.
Lol.https://youtu.be/D-PGkn9rWec