Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Voltage

"Someone needs to stop that thing." Starlight paced back and forth behind their shield, eyes glued to the sphere of dark energy rising higher in the distance and raining down destruction onto the city.

"It's not going to fire forever," said one of the guards. "You think it has enough energy to reach all the way here?"

"They wouldn't have fired it otherwise," Starlight said. "Don't think about it like a regular spell. Think about what a bomb could do, then spread that out over time. Even accounting for the energy being diverted into making it spread out like that the total output is still going to be comparable, especially because it's not all focused in one place."

"What do you propose we do?"

Starlight clenched her teeth, then threw a sideway glance at the simulated map of the city behind her. "I'm the only one qualified and available right now to deal with something like that. I'll go."

"With due respect, orders are to preserve your safety," said another guard.

"I am only here to protect the Elements in the event of a direct attack, and this is the closest thing to it so far. Either I go now or it'll be everyone's problem here in a while."

"But your absence might leave us vulnerable. Furthermore, though I don't doubt your ability to neutralise the threat, you yourself will be exposed while doing so, and likely unable to focus on protecting yourself."

"And if I don't act now we'll all be exposed when we're forced get away from here." Starlight looked at the raging spell with mounting nervousness. "I understand your concern, but we don't have a better alternative right now."

"Do not go alone, then. Find artificial guards to help you along the way, some are stationed on the path there. Your safety is more important than their current occupation, the potential damage your loss would result in is greater than the practical consequences of them abandoning their watch posts. Besides, you won't be able to complete your task if you're shot down."

Starlight nodded. Part of her still wanted to do the whole thing herself, but a predominant, more mature part knew that it would have been a foolish risk. The guard was right. Taking guards with her would lower their defences, and if nothing went wrong for her it would have made it a pointless and downright harmful move. But if she went alone and things did go wrong, the resulting situation would be far worse than them merely losing a few constructs.

Shielding herself and throwing on a number of camouflage spells too, Starlight slipped through the barrier and dropped down onto the road. The first thing that held her attention was the sound. Everything could still be heard clearly inside the barrier, but outside it was a lot louder, a lot messier. She began to gallop down the street, straight towards the oncoming hailstorm of black bolts mowing down buildings in its wake. If she got there quickly enough, maybe she could stop it from doing any damage beyond the purely structural kind.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Good to see Starlight take good advice. The question is what she can actually do about the death ball.

[Speckle]

These guards deserve a raise :)