When War is Close by

Looking down the rest of Starswirl's Long Stretch Street from it's mid point toward the end where Miss Lulamoon had disappeared Twilight suddenly felt something hot and gooey run down towards her lip from under her nose, bruised by her fall during the pursuit.

“Ouch”, she flinched in pain as she tried to wipe it away and a small streak of blood appeared on the foreleg she had used to wipe with.

With a small sigh she summoned a handkerchief and began to gently pad her nose, using a cold spell on the folded handkerchiefs inner layers to help stop the bleeding, as a huffing and heaving Spike finally caught up with her.

“She got...” The dragon paused to inhale. “She got away?” He finally managed to catch his breath.

“Yes”, she replied with a moody tone studying the red on her handkerchief for a brief moment only to continue padding her nose while looking down the street and note that her conjured glass-like square had landed with a corner stuck in the ground about a meter away.

“Are you okay?” Spike asked noticing the reddened handkerchief.

“I'll be fine. It's just a small scratch”, she waved him off. “But there is definitely something fishy going on about Miss Lulamoon... What do you think Spike?” She turned her head as he didn't respond. “Spike?”

The purple dragon was gazing upon a poster on the wall. “Spike!”, she exclaimed snapping him out of it. “What have I told you about focus!”

“I know...” He sighed as he took his eyes off the poster. “Sorry... Hey, do you think we can go to Ponyville cinema later?” His face lid up as he exclaimed: “This movie looks awesome!”

“Movie in Ponyville?” Twilight gave him a confuzzled look and Spike pointed at the dark poster on the wall which embodied a big headline saying 'Attack on Dragon' and a stallion with green eyes and a brown mane in a weird looking get-up being stared down by a big silhouette with dragon form. At the bottom was a text: 'See it in Ponyville cinema now'.

This puzzled Twilight even more... Ponyville didn't have a cinema and there wasn't supposed to be build one any time soon. She knew this for a fact since it was her decision that it was an expense that could be spared and the small city could live without it until later and no privateers had opted to open one at their own expense due to the war.

Following this train of thought it suddenly struck Twilight who dropped the reddened handkerchief as she fired the quickest spell she could think of at the poster which seemed to just twirl of the wall away from her beam with a loud hiss and glaring green dragon eyes directed at her landing on the ground with a meaty flop.

The slowly morphing half dragon began to crawl forwards down Long Stretch Street away from the main street. Twilight quickly dashed forwards and jumped onto it's back doing her best to hold it down as the posters colours on the shapeshifters back were replaced with dark brown dragon scales.

“Help me Spike!”, she managed to exclaim before fishing the purple glass square out of the ground with levitation smashing it's flat side into the half dragons face as it had attempted to pierce her with a needle sharp-like tooth that had appeared on it's still not fully reconstructed upper jaw.

The half dragon didn't seem like wanting to meet Twilights un-dented glass square head on a second time and had put it's focus into crawling and trying to shake the purple unicorn off it's back instead of trying to fend her off.

“Guards!” Twilight yelled with a magically magnified voice that would have made Luna more than proud as she had realized that she and Spike might not be able to capture the half-dragon as it struggled more than ever before.

Spike who hadn't managed to come to his friends aid yet stumbled forwards and fell flat on his stomach in surprise dazed by Twilights magnified call having to watch as the half-dragon seized the moment that his purple friend needed to focus on her call for help to throw her off it's back and jump onto it's four now fully formed dragon feet stumbling forwards away from the guards now thundering down Long Stretch Street towards them from the main street.

Twilight who had landed uncomfortably on her side quickly turned her head looking for the escaping half-dragon and saw it rapidly sprout bare wing appendages that grew out of it's back a few meters away from her. She altered the shape of the purple glass square which she still carried with levitation to form a sharp arrow-like triangle.

Desperately flexing it's still morphing appendages the shapeshifter jumped into the air succeeding it's attempt to fly only to plummet with a yelp of pain as Twilights arrow-shaped polygon had been sent flying striking the half-dragon with enough force to penetrate it's scales around the left wing axillary jamming the left wing's main joint.

The half-dragon landed clumsily on it's feet but didn't give itself a second rest to worry about it's injured wing before dashing forwards at a surprising speed that left the slower, armoured guards in the dust, at this rate they would never catch up.

But as the dark brown half-dragon was getting close to escape beyond Long Stretch Street where finding a hiding spot would be easy the very same black cloaked mare that Twilight had been chasing not too long ago stepped out of the street corner's shadow rising on her hind legs as the half dragon raced towards her.

“Watch in awe!”, the sky blue mare bellowed as the red lined cloak's black hood dropped onto her back revealing her face and it's self-confident expression. "Fore I am the great and powerful Trixie!"

Trixie lifted her half-moon staff with levitation, gave it a good solid swing conjuring and catapulting forward something that looked like a square steel wardrobe with it's doors wide open literally scooping up the fleeing half-dragon and closing it's steel doors with a spin as heavy chains wrapped tightly around it and sealed it self with a slight click from a big heavy-looking lock.