Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Shimmer

Seeing both ponies coming towards him, both ready to strike at him, Sombra growled but prudently stepped backwards and shielded himself somewhat similarly to what Shining did. Not as efficiently or as well, shield spells were not where his talents lay, but he was still powerful, skilled, and knowledgeable enough do defend himself more than sufficiently well.

Seeing him on the defensive, both Shining and Cadence did fire towards him, though their spells were not particularly powerful. They were there simply to keep him from moving elsewhere or attempting something else, while they got closer. Once each of them was on a different side of him, they'd start attacking him more heavily while he'd be forced to choose which of them to focus on.

Perhaps sensing or realising what the two were planning, Sombra beat his hooves against the ground. As Shining was rushing closer, a line of black crystals sprouted from the side of Sombra he was going for and headed towards him. They rose towards the sky high as a building, tightly packed together to form a wall, and as Shining preemptively moved out of their way, going in the direction he was already angled towards, their trajectory curved the other way as their line extended to first block the path of his magic and then cut him off completely as he moved farther. With the two separated and his crystals still spreading in either direction faster than Shining could run, Sombra focused on Cadence instead.

The alicorn, still flying, immediately intensified the strength of her magic beam as she saw what Sombra had done, hard and suddenly enough to catch the unicorn by surprise and push him back until he himself almost touched the black wall he'd built. It was not enough to break through his shield however, and as he caught on to the situation he began to push back against Cadence.

The crystals, still spreading, curved their path even further and began to converge as a circle around the two of them, while the angle at which they grew became sharper to construct a proper dome to trap Cadence in, and to prevent Shining from getting over their height on the other side as he seemed to be doing. Soon after, it was Cadence who found herself almost pressed against the crystals as she tried to push against Sombra's magic. Any farther and she'd be impaling herself on their spikes, but she could barely keep up with her magic against Sombra seemingly giving it his all.

It was only because he was pushing so strongly that she could feel the extremely small, extremely brief dip in power that went through his beam. The way her own stream of magic gained just a little bit of air in the struggle. In an act almost fully dictated by instinct, she hurled herself sideways and downwards, using her own existing beam as a shield against Sombra's. Not one second later, crystal spikes jutted through the air from the wall behind her, stabbing at the place she'd just occupied before being shattered by Sombra's uncontested beam.

As soon as she was free enough for it, Cadence teleported to another end of the black dome, to avoid Sombra simply immediately redirecting his blast on her. Once there she fired a single, powerful shot at the unicorn, before teleporting again.

Seeing that her aim was slightly off, Sombra found it easier to dodge the blast rather than shield himself against it. He regretted his decision as he found Cadence again and saw her smiling, and much more so as Shining's magic hit him from behind through the breach Cadence had opened in the crystal wall.