Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Ion

Magic shot forward from Twilight's horn like a geyser, aimed at Stella, while a set of other blasts took curved paths off the source of it and reached around to reach Stella at the same time as the main one would, to the sides and behind and above her. At the same time a faintly visible grid spread through the air from Twilight's horn and covered the whole area, ready to trigger an explosion wherever any pony other than Twilight might teleport within it. It all happened in the blink of an eye, Twilight able to control and direct all the different spells at once while still at a first glance making the main blast seem like a raw discharge.

Stella, sensing the grid and guessing the presence of other side blasts, shielded herself against the flow of Twilight's magic. Her shield held, the impact loud and powerful enough to push her back in the sand a couple hooves' length. Twilight kept pushing as the other, smaller blasts all crashed against the barrier, still not enough to crack it. She hadn't landed a significant hit and she had little hope of beating Stella by tiring her out, but for the moment she had her locked there, and that meant time to think and act again.

She knew she couldn't hope to keep Stella there just by maintaining her fire. The other would push back, and when she did Twilight would be at a disadvantage. Even if she didn't, Twilight would get tired before her. Twilight gave a slight twist of her neck as her magic shifted. The magic of her spell grew denser and began to slide along the edges of Stella's shield. Stella took notice of it, but by that point it was too late.

Twilight twisted her neck in the opposite direction. Her magic solidified into a rubber-like consistence and the trails of it that had extended along Stella's shield tightening around it. Twilight swung her neck, whipping the magical tentacle that extended from her horn into raising up Stella's shield with her inside it, then brought her head down hard and forced the other's shield to smash into the ground. It was not enough to break it, so Twilight began to repeat the process, beating the bubble of Stella's barrier against the earth over and over.

It had little effect, leaving craters in the ground where she slammed but doing no visible damage to the shield itself. Twilight was slowly growing tired and she knew she couldn't keep things up like that. She threw the shield and Stella skywards and let the tentacle detach from her horn, then quickly fired a blast at it and forced it to detonate in the air, exploding against and around Stella's shield. Even that did nothing to break through. Twilight was ready to fire again, but Stella was quicker, and Twilight barely had the time to turn her offensive spell into a defensive one as the other came down on her.

Comments

[Speckle]

Well, if nothing else, at least this was cathartic for Twi