Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Onyx

The two streams of magic clashed against each other. One deep purple and black, the other gold and lavender, both literal rivers of magic pouring out of their respective sources. The point where the two touched shone high enough to be visible across the whole town, and even the beams themselves were rather evident for anyone close by. Unfortunately for Twilight, it made her the easy target of spells from all around the area, shot directly or angled so their trajectory would have her position as its endpoint. Forced as she was to hold her position against all of it, with the cannon having ceased its motion to focus its fire on her, she valiantly held with her shield, but barely managed to push back against the main stream. She held it, stalled it, halted its path, but no more, and though she had considerable reserves she feared her energies would dry before the machine's did.

Ponies actually coming towards her to physically attack her shield only complicated matters. Especially so the three mutated soldiers ramming what had been their hooves against it, or breaking off chunks of buildings to smash onto it. Despite all of it, still she held. She knew Rainbow, hidden by her spell, had seen her conditions, and she knew help would be coming in some form soon enough. So long as she held her position, so long as she stopped the weapon from destroying the centre of town by itself, the plan could still continue and everything could still work out properly.

On the other end of the beam struggle, other ponies much less frantically studied the situation. "It won't hold for much longer," the unicorn operating the weapon said. "Perhaps a few minutes, but we will need to cool down soon."

"That is already being taken care of." A pegasus, his voice deep beneath his helmet, his composure making it evident how much he despised the lighting conditions they were forced to work in by the way he constantly threw half-glances at the sunny sky, used his wings to direct a group of other unicorns to use their magic on the barrel of the cannon and on the place it connected with the main sphere. "Your only concern should be the power supply."

The unicorn nodded mechanically, and studied the crystals before him. "It will last longer than that, but not much longer. Twice as long, at most."

The pegasus nodded too, more naturally, and motioned with his wings again to another group of ponies. "I will have-"

He never finished that sentence. All everyone else heard was the sound of his head hitting the ground, followed a moment later by the body it had previously been attached to.

The unicorn got to see that, but found himself with a hole in his head before he had a chance to actually react to that sight. Everyone around them began to panic, as much as some of them could in their mentally altered conditions, looking frantically around to spot the source of their sudden losses.

They found it quickly. Twilight Sparkle, or what at least unmistakably looked like her, was standing next to the weapon, a cold expression on her face. Just as quickly as they'd spotted her, then, somehow, they all lost sight of her.

Then another head hit the ground.

Comments

[Speckle]

...I never expected Stella of all ponies to pull a Big Damn Heroes, but I guess it makes sense since 1) she still wants to kill Twilight herself and 2) it's her world too. So, for now, YAY?

[Saix]

Yeah, okay, this is pretty cool. Props to Stella.