//------------------------------// // 544 - Risking It All // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// “TWILIGHT!” The sound of the princess’s friends screaming barely registered in Starlight’s consciousness as she watched the mass of black crystals slam down, the alicorn disappearing under what had to be several tons of the stuff. The impact was so heavy that Starlight needed to brace herself, nearly falling over as the ground shook and heaved beneath her hooves. But even when she’d regained her balance, she still felt dizzy from what she’d just witnessed. He killed her. There was simply no way Twilight could have survived that. For all Lex’s talk about wanting to protect ponies, and the rules of the duel forbidding killing, there was no way anypony could have lived through having several tons of extremely dense black crystals dropped on them. And while that meant Lex had broken the rules and so technically lost the duel, that was cold comfort to Starlight right at that moment. He killed her…and I’m next! Lex had already defeated Celestia and Luna. Starlight herself and given him her best fight, and although Lex had needed his minions to soften her up, she’d still lost in the end. And now Princess Twilight had fallen. Since Princess Cadance was, by all accounts, a creampuff when it came to fighting, that meant that there was nopony left who could stop Lex, regardless of whether his magic was somehow compromised or not. And with no more enemies of note to keep him busy, Starlight had no doubts that Lex would turn his attention back to her in short order. Which means I need to get out of here right now! Normally that would have been easy; some teleporting would have let her leave Vanhoover and its insane overlord behind in mere moments. But with the state her horn was in, that was out of the question, which meant that she needed it fixed now. “Soft Mane, my horn!” she barked, turning to the half-human/pony. “Heal my horn! Now!” “Not gonna happen!” In an instant, Fruit Crunch and his wolf were between her and Soft Mane, the colt rearing up and waving his forelegs at her in a naked display of aggression before falling back onto all fours. “Your horn is staying just the way it is! Lex has won fair and square, and you’re not going to mess with that!” “Are you insane?!” snarled Starlight, even as she took a step back, knowing from experience just how hard that brat could punch. “Your hero just murdered a princess in front of everypony, right after agreeing that this duel wouldn’t be to the death, and you call that ‘fair and square’?!” “Don’t confuse Lex for you,” sneered a filly’s voice as Starlight suddenly felt a hoof on her back. Turning her head, she caught sight of Cleansweep hovering just above her, the snake around her middle hissing as the filly kept her hoof pressed just above the base of Starlight’s tail. “You’re the one who tries to kill ponies when they don’t do what you want, not him. And if you so much as point your horn in his direction, I’ll pump you so full of poison you won’t be able to move for a week!” Starlight bristled at the threat, but somehow managed to keep herself under control. “Nice try,” she shot back coolly, “but you already told me you can’t use your magic without your animals. You might have gotten a new snake from somewhere, but that doesn’t mean I forgot that I vaporized your old one.” “I told you,” came Straightlace’s angry voice as he set himself down in front of Starlight, positioning himself directly between her and the battlefield. “You don’t have what it takes to take out our spirit animals permanently. They came back, and so did our powers.” “Just sit down and keep watching.” The latest voice belonged to the other filly in Lex’s little child-soldier brigade, the earth one with the badger, currently moving to cover Starlight’s other side…and it was then that she realized that she was trapped, the four of them surrounding her and cutting her off from everyone else. “It’ll be over soon.” Although she wasn’t sure if the filly meant to do so, Starlight couldn’t help but hear a double entendre in that. Trying to fight down a rising sense of panic, she glanced around, hoping that the rest of Twilight’s friends would come to her aid…only to see that they had problems of their own. Spike and Soft Mane were being stared down by two pegasus mares whom Starlight belatedly realized were the ones who had almost electrocuted her yesterday. The other five – Fluttershy and the rest of the former Elements of Harmony – weren’t much better off. Aria and Rainbow Dash were glaring at each other as they exchanged cutting remarks at a rapid-fire pace. Pinkie Pie and Sonata were arguing with less visible acrimony, but quite a bit more agitation, waving their hooves so wildly that they were almost playing a highspeed game of patty-cake. Garden Gate and Applejack were right in each other’s faces, the latter holding her hoof out in a way that made Starlight think of how Twilight had cast some of her spells by gesturing as she’d chanted, while Garden Gate’s horn was glowing, matching auras surrounding the handles of a pair of kitchen knives tucked into a makeshift bandolier. Rarity looked like she was trying to reason with a pair of earth stallions that Starlight didn’t recognize, while Fluttershy was pleading two earth mares, a heartbroken expression on her face. “You guys have this under control?” A new voice brought Starlight’s attention upward, watching as a pegasus stallion came in for a landing, looking the foals over with a nod. “Nice job.” The praise garnered a sour look from Straightlace. “Lex told you and your friends to back us up,” he noted, his voice thick with accusation. But the pegasus only shrugged. “Garden thought that Sonata and Aria needed their help more.” “And you didn’t?” asked the filly with the badger. A shadow passed across the newcomer’s face. “I wanted see the mare who hurt her,” he muttered, giving Starlight a hard look. “You’re all completely out of your minds,” announced Starlight, the words uttered through gritted teeth. The admission that Lex had deployed them in order to prevent any interference – and likely drag her back once the duel was officially over – had left her with a sinking feeling. There had to be some way- “You guys!” called another foal, a unicorn colt who was the fifth member of the group and had been standing apart from the others, his eyes closed for some reason. “Something’s happening!” “What do you-” Fruit Crunch’s question was cut off as a loud cracking sound rang out, like a thousand sticks being snapped all at once. It commanded everypony’s attention, causing all conversation to cease as everypony turned toward the source of it: the mass of black crystals that had buried Twilight Sparkle. For a few seconds it seemed like there was nothing to see, the enormous mound of jagged jet-black material looking unchanged from when it had crashed down on the princess. Then another sharp crack filled the air. Then another. And another after that. And slowly, their cause became clear. The black crystals were, slowly but steadily, rising up from their impact point. Inch by inch, they haltingly reversed the path of their recent stab downward, until a dome of purplish light could be made out beneath them, pressing them upward as it slowly expanded. And inside of it… “TWILIGHT!” Inside of her shield spell, Twilight smiled as she heard the relieved voices of her friends. But the expression lasted only for a moment before it changed into a grimace of effort, struggling to maintain the ground she’d painstakingly gained against Lex’s last, massive attack. The shield spell she’d used right before the black crystals would have flattened her had been instinctive on her part. It had managed to stand up to the incredible force Lex had brought to bear only because she’d used her alicorn magic when she’d manifested the shield, strengthening it far beyond what she could have when she’d been a unicorn. As it was, the impact had pressed her – shield and all – into a crater over a foot deep, flattening her shield so low that she’d been forced to lie on her belly inside of it. It had only been by the barest of margins that she’d been able to start pushing it back, reinforcing and expanding the shield and pressing the black crystals up and away from her. That she was trying to displace several tons of rigid and unyielding matter, against gravity no less, was bad enough. But what made it worse was that Lex was still actively fighting her. Even now, she could feel the pressure on her shield increasing, knowing that he was creating even more black crystals within the gigantic mound of them he’d already conjured up, increasing their weight and displacing the bulk of it downward, making her groan as she hastily put more of her alicorn magic into her shield to compensate, pushing her limit for how strong she could make it. But she could already tell she wouldn’t be able to push it much further. He knew I was going to do this! Twilight was certain of that. Now that Lex had played his trump card, it was easy for her to see that he’d spent the entire fight building up to this. He’d laid down that anti-teleportation field early on, waited for an opportunity to bind her wings, and then raised a field of spikes around her, all so she’d have no avenue of escape when he did this. With such meticulous planning, there was no way he hadn’t known that she’d raise a shield around herself. And that was why Lex had created such a large quantity of black crystals. While this would have been an overwhelmingly fatal attack against anypony else, he’d anticipated that she’d throw everything into defense, and had adjusted the strength of his attack accordingly. Which means that I’m still following his plan! realized Twilight with a sinking feeling. I’m doing exactly what he expected me to! As if to prove precisely that, Lex’s voice rang out a second later. “Give up, Twilight!” There was a harsh edge to his words, and she knew it was putting a strain on him to create such a huge volume of matter. But he didn’t sound as strained as she felt at the moment. “You have no escape, and I can keep increasing the pressure on your shield! You’ve lost!” “…no…!” Just getting that one word out almost broke her concentration, but she somehow managed to do it anyway. “Not…yet…!” Lex’s retort came in the form of yet more black crystals pressing down on her from above. Desperate, Twilight tried to think of some way out of her predicament. But Lex was right: there was no escape. Trying to throw herself out from under the downward-pressing accumulation of black crystals simply wasn’t possible; she’d need to cease concentrating on her shield to do so, and even if she ignored what the field of needle-sized spikes would do to her when she landed on them, the sheer quantity of the mass bearing down on her gave it a wide radius, more so than she’d be able to clear before it came down on her. She might have been able to fly fast enough to get clear, but that wasn’t an option with her wings bound…and while she’d belatedly realized that she could possibly free them if she used her dispelling spell on the band around her middle, that simply wasn’t possible now. Thaumaturgical spells required focus and concentration, and right now she was putting all of that into keeping her shield up. And Lex had already made it impossible for her to teleport away. …or had he? The teleportation spells Twilight had looked at during her time on Everglow had been beyond her ability to learn, but not her ability to understand. While they’d called for storing more power in thought-forms than she’d been able to do, she’d still been able to study their underlying principles, unpacking the formulae and diagrams and comparing them to how Equestrian teleportation worked. And while there had been more than a few differences, there had also been several points of similarity. One of which was that the teleportation spells of both worlds had safeguards built into them that prevented the user from ending up inside a solid object. If that would happen, then the spells’ safeguards would kick in, and reroute the caster to the nearest empty space that was large enough to allow for them. If there was no such space within a certain distance, then the spells wouldn’t activate at all, leaving the caster in their original location rather than transporting them somewhere that couldn’t physically accommodate them. But what if the caster’s original location became unable to accommodate them? Say, because a huge mass of black crystals had slammed down to occupy it during the brief instant between teleporting and being magically dragged back? What would the spell’s safeguards do if something tried to return her to her starting point then? Twilight knew what she was contemplating was incredibly risky. Although she still had alicorn magic left, even if she used it to bolster her teleportation spell there was no guarantee what she was planning would work. After all, bolstering a spell with her alicorn magic hadn’t let her overcome the curse Lex had put on Luna, and he’d used a curse to prevent teleportation now. It was entirely possible that his malediction would overcome her teleportation’s safeguards and she’d end up inside the mountain of black crystals that he’d conjured…which would be instantly fatal. The thought should have been terrifying, which was why Twilight couldn’t help but feel surprised by the rush of morbid humor that came over her then. If I commit suicide by teleportation, that won’t be a forfeit on Lex’s part! For a moment she almost laughed, but the urge was abruptly scattered as she felt another push against her shield, strong enough that it almost collapsed right then and there. Biting her lip, Twilight seriously considered surrendering. For all that she trusted in the map, knowing that it was an extension of the Tree of Harmony, she wasn’t sure it wanted her to risk her life like this. If the Crystal Heart could fix Luna anyway, then did Lex taking a crown really matter? Except she knew it wasn’t about a crown. It was about living up to the faith her friends had in her. It was about demonstrating to Starlight Glimmer that friendship wasn’t something you gave up on, no matter how bad things got. It was about repaying Blueblood, as egotistical and narcissistic as he was, for letting her duel with what was most important to him. And it was about showing Lex why the magic of friendship was the most important magic of all. Her decision made, Twilight spared a glance upward. Using her teleportation spell, to say nothing of pouring her alicorn magic into it, would mean dropping her shield. If she wasn’t fast enough, she’d be hit with the full force of what Lex was throwing at her before she could even put her last-ditch effort into play. Then the pressure from above increased again, and Twilight knew that if she didn’t try in the next few seconds, that would happen anyway. Closing her eyes, Twilight took a deep breath and counted to three. Then she let the shield go.