Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Race

Stella turned, staring wide-eyed at the corridor behind her. None of the ponies there were real. She looked at Twilight again, at what she'd thought was Twilight at least. It looked more like a marionette, just without strings. Its mane looked artificial, the surface of its body was hairless and smooth, slightly reflective, cold. Its eyes were lifeless, pulled downwards by gravity.

Stella stepped back, and let the puppet fall to the ground. Stepping to the side and over the head of the construct shaped to look like Rarity, she considered crushing it, but didn't. There was too much else going on through her head at that moment. She stepped through the nearest door, looking around. No one there. She looked back outside towards the fake Twilight. She stepped back outside, into the next room over. Empty too.

A blaze of magic lashed out from her horn, aimed at the wall. It bounced back and struck her. Stella fell to the floor, yelling, and for a moment she lay there. She looked up at the ceiling, her vision blurry, then slowly she forced herself to stand up again. Her breath was heavy and her vision still unfocused, and she shivered.

There was a sound behind her. She slowly turned and blinked, and spotted Sunburst there, looking over the remains of what wasn't Twilight. Stella stepped closer and still he looked down. He spoke. "I'm not sure where you are, or if you can hear me right now. But I imagine you're not too far away at the moment, so just in case, we can talk."

Stella's first and only instinct was to fire at him, as hard as she could manage. Her spell flowed around him, deflected by a barely visible shield that went without harm despite the strength of her blast. She had been making no particular effort to hide the consequences themselves of her attacks, and so he turned vaguely towards her. "It took him a while to figure out the lock you'd put on me, and I assure you Twilight will be extremely fascinated by hearing about it, but Trixie held you for long enough. I doubt you could easily hurt me at this point, at least in your conditions."

Stella stepped back, her legs moving out of her control away from the stallion. She shot at him again and again, but anything she tried just slid right off his shield. She tried to teleport behind him, but magic just flared out around her horn and came back onto it, knocking her down again.

"You lost," Sunburst said, "and unfortunately I can't let you leave. You've already caused too much damage and you're going to cause more if we let you go. But we don't want you dead. Surrender. Allow yourself to be restrained. We will heal you and try to help you. Please."

Sunburst tapped his hoof on the ground. There was bright light for a moment, then Stella found herself teleported to a different corridor.

Comments

[Speckle]

Last chance Stella: you're about to run yourself into the ground.