Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Paid

Nightmare Moon backed into something. The small moment of surprise from that was enough for Twilight to get a good hit in, and one of her wings flew off, severed completely at the base. It began to regrow, while Nightmare Moon herself put up a stronger shield.

Twilight had realised that just attacking wouldn't be enough, and she'd gotten smarter with her actions. Their clash was looking more like a proper duel, though one that still saw Nightmare Moon on the retreating end as her wounds still slowly healed. The one in her chest in particular refused to seal itself at anything more than a snail's pace, like the silvery fire that had burnt a hole in her was still consuming her flesh as it grew back.

She teleported. A risky move even at a short distance like that. She couldn't afford to be backed against a wall. She'd touched the base of the Crystal Empire's central tower, and she teleported to what had become the top of it, where it had been severed from the remaining length by Sombra's magic. Twilight was on her before she'd even fully reappeared, accompanied by spells tracking her teleportation that smashed against Nightmare Moon's shield and cracked it.

Twilight whipped her neck, dragging along a magical blade of golden light that cut through what was left of the shield and ground to a halt against another blade of magic Nightmare Moon put up to defend herself. A fit if black ichor burst from the stump of the alicorn's wing, followed by a newly formed one still drenched in her dark blood. Twilight let go of her blade, which dissipated into mist, and fired a bolt of magic straight ahead. Nightmare Moon was a little slower to let go of her blade, and forced to merely shoot a blast to counter Twilight's that still forced the blunt impact on her neck and made her step back.

It had all happened within seconds. Twilight was far from done. She fired a rapid barrage of shots that travelled around and past Nightmare Moon, then curved in their trajectory to come back towards her. While that was happening, a smaller blade formed around her horn and she lunged forward in a series of quick stabs and slices and feints. Nightmare Moon parried, dodged, and weathered all blows and attacks, but she was still relegated to doing just that, and drawing farther back in the meantime. By choice of course, she was playing things safe. Luna's little stunt, as much as she did not want to admit it, had done actual damage and she would not risk Twilight capitalising on that any further.

That didn't mean she didn't strike back. Powerful and smart as she may have been, Twilight was still clearly inexperienced in combat, still prone to leaving openings. It would most likely be trivial to deal with her once she chose to. For the time being, Nightmare Moon was content with using what openings she did find to keep the alicorn busy. She fired at her after a lunge that went too far and exposed her neck, after all her previous shots had already flown back. Twilight was forced to dispel her blade and deflect the blast. Nightmare Moon took her chance to play the aggressor for a while longer, conjuring up a projectile from below aimed at Twilight's chest.

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