Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

After

Twilight opened her eyes again. The first thing she noticed was the shimmering mist that had come to surround her, and the sparks of energy that occasionally coursed through it. The second thing she noticed was the way the buildings in the area around her had been flattened completely, and the large pattern that seemed to have been burnt into the crystal surface all around her. The third thing she noticed were her own conditions.

She was tired. Maybe the most tired she'd ever felt without being so tired she'd just pass out, though it wasn't really that kind of tiredness. Her limbs were sore and drained, and she realised how if her hooves hadn't literally dug into the crystal ground and gotten lodged there she may have fallen over with how little of a job her legs were actually doing at keeping her up.

She pulled herself free, not without effort and scratches, and clenched her teeth as she forced herself to stay upright. It made her head spin for a moment, but a few deep breaths later that passed. Her own exhaustion properly and throughly noted, alongside the way her horn felt like it would have made ice melt and water sizzle in its state, she got a proper look around to determine what exactly was the situation. The mist slowly began to dissipate too, allowing her a clearer view of things.

All the ponies who'd been around her weren't anymore. Neither were the buildings, as she'd already seen. She wasn't sure of what exactly had happened, she'd never done anything like that before, but evidently the release of magic from her shield when she'd let go of it had pushed everything away and more. The signs on the ground, a single complex mark with her at its centre and extending for several metres, looked roughly like a six-pointed star from what she could see of it, which made sense given her assumptions, even if it was still a peculiar occurrence.

Looking around some more and taking her first few suffered steps, she caught sight of a stream of magical bullets arching through the air and falling towards the ground with her position as its destination. But as they entered the hypothetical hemisphere that corresponded to the circular edge of the wave of energy she'd released, where the buildings stopped being flattened, the ground stopped being shattered and signed, and the mist stopped being there, they simply faded away, dissipating into grey sparkles and shimmers, and then nothing. She took note of that too, aware she didn't have time to properly analyse what she'd unintentionally done.

With every passing second however the bullets got a little farther in before disappearing. The mist around her kept getting thinner, and she saw ahead of her a group of soldiers, who'd previously hidden behind a building, come out from behind it and carefully begin to approach her. They shot a few spells at her, too, but the field she'd generated undid them too before they got too close.

The field was disappearing however. Aside from that, it wouldn't stop rocks from being thrown her way, and soon the soldiers would be close enough to aim those right. Twilight hastily turned around and put up a questionable attempt at a shield, paying for it with a splitting headache. She gave up trying to fly away halfway through the motion of opening her wings, when they practically screamed at her in pain, and instead resorted to running as fast as her battered hooves and tired legs could carry her back towards the centre of town, or at least that general direction. Hopefully, she'd reach a group of construct soldiers to hide past before Nightmare Moon's forces reached her instead.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Okay, now I’ll try to stay up to date. It was a heck of a holiday season. The battle’s been thrilling thus far. Looking forward to more.

[Speckle]

Run, Twilight!