My Little Pony: Third Gear

Chapter 14: When the Nightmare Comes to Light

Luna, still watching, could not help feeling that Gearhead was wasting too much time launching petty attacks at close range instead of testing Trance’s defences against his Engine’s mid-tier weapons. At the same time, though, she continued to worry that he would harm her sister, so she vacillated in her support of both combatants. She wanted to see Gearhead succeed, but she didn’t want to see Cellie hurt. Or did she?

* * *

“Are you trying to toy with me, boy? Because this feels like the stalling game.” They were again within striking distance of each other, but now Trance was able to keep her staff in play. At the same time, for each swing or thrust she made, he easily deflected it with his bladecaster. The inhibiting effect from the earlier Lightning and Light Magic explosions did not show any signs of wearing off anytime soon. Worse, Trance did not know when Gearhead’s OverBoost would run out. His fourth ring, on the other hand, was fully charged.

“What, pray tell, tipped you off that I have been playing for time? Was it the steadily-growing glow of the big stick I carry, perhaps?”

“And now he jokes. I should’ve torn you apart from the start!”

“Hindsight and all that,”

“I could have done it easily,”

“I would not have stood still for that,” Gearhead promised.

“Yes well, lets see whether you have a choice,” Trance said, and she teleported across the room. His senses augmented by his sensors, Gearhead quickly turned to face her, although he did not immediately move to close the distance. “You don’t have the power to end this,” Trance said, raising her staff in a two-handed hold to start charging her next attack. “And I won’t give you the time to generate it!”

The roiling ball of Fire and Lightning Magic grew rapidly by the moment, until the only way Trance could still see her target and make sure he was still there was to raise her staff high above her head with both hands. The energy continued to grow, and even though it filled much of the room, Gearhead was not doing anything to counter that Trance could see. That did not, however, mean that he wasn’t doing anything at all, Trance knew. She remained on guard against sudden attacks from any direction, but then her attack was as large as she dared to make it. She swung her staff down in front of herself, throwing it at her enemy. It was far too large to evade, so this should finish everything.

* * *

Luna was nearly blinded by the light of Trance’s attack. Its heat burned her coat and mane and skin, and she sought refuge from it any way she could. Is this really my sister? She wondered

Yes it is, she thought, suddenly proud as she pulled cold darkness up to shield herself from the coming attack.

* * *

Trance was correct: there was not any way Gearhead could produce enough power to charge his lance in such a way and in such a timeframe to matter to this battle. That was why his biggest, best plan with which to counter Trance’s power was to press her to do... this. Still, while the big ball of fire that was falling toward him was impressive, Gearhead was worried about the toll this bout was taking on all of them – not least of all was Luna, who had wrapped herself in a cocoon of deep Dark Magic for protection. If not for Shift Focus, which he was using constantly, and the filters in his glasses, Gearhead would have had to shut his eyes or be blinded a long time ago.

In addition, if this crazy plan did not happen to work out, it would end up hurting. A lot. But according to everything Gearhead had read and calculated, it should work. Well, not everything he had read: Gearhead had decided to go as off-book as possible in fighting Trance, since she seemed to possess Princess Celestia’s knowledge and memories. That meant that she likely knew every spell and technique that Gearhead had found in the Canterlot Library, along with some he had not found there. But since the Alicorn Engine was new technology, she should not have an easy counter for it or its abilities – nor, come to think of it, Gearhead and his very non-standard abilities.

Gearhead placed two magical shields five meters in front of his position so they created a wedge that pointed directly toward Trance. He also swivelled his cores to point the same way, putting up his spiralling particle wall. Finally he crossed his bladecasters in front of himself, pointing both toward the floor, while he continued to charge his transformed dagger.

On impact with Gearhead’s two shields, some of the flame and fury split off, striking the floors and walls to both sides of him before the blast itself bent and broke the shields. “Deflexio dua,” Gearhead quickly muttered, putting up a second set half a meter closer. Again, the blast shattered his shields, but his shields bled off some of the power. Again and again, Gearhead repeated the process until the blast was too close to put up the complete wedge.

At this point, Gearhead switched to a triple-layer flat shield, but the blast busted through each of those very quickly. He wrapped himself in a personal shield and had his actuators thrust his bladecasters into the ground. The blast ground up against his particles, which held the still-giant ball at bay for a full three seconds before being blown back and away.

Gearhead suddenly brought his lance forward, putting it into a horizontal hold in front of himself that could not look defensively strong at all. He pushed his arm through the energy still swirling into the lance as it continued to spin, palm open and facing downward and simply called out “Corona Absorbet!” just as the heat from the blast started to become intolerable.

A magic circle, nearly as large as the entire room, rose out of the floor where Gearhead had been engraving it with his bladecaster earlier. It oriented itself to Gearhead’s outstretched hand, and once it was in position, its light changed from silver to his signature turquoise, just in time for Trance’s blast to hit it.

And to be stopped completely in its flight. After nearly one second of grinding up against this unfamiliar spell, energy from the blast began to flow in streamers into the magic circle. While Gearhead’s layered and wedged shields had only shrunk the massive ball a little, his magic circle was shrinking it visibly, and more quickly. After a couple more seconds of absorbing Trance’s brilliant golden-white energy, the magic circle started to send that same energy into Gearhead’s lance. With the connection fully established, the young stallion-turned-man’s weapon seemed to become ravenous, quickly consuming more and more energy and continuing to shrink Trance’s attack at a remarkable rate.

Clearly coming to a conclusion about what was about to happen, Trance teleported herself behind Gearhead and came in with a fast thrust aiming to stab him between his ribs. But both Gearhead and his sensors found the attack, and since his bladecasters had already done their job of helping to transmit the magic circle into the air, Gearhead took up one in his left hand again, while the actuator on his other side took up the other one.

Gearhead directed the actuator to knock Trance’s thrust just a little toward the other side, where Gearhead could thrust his own blade underneath that of his attacker, and with a reverse-held roll, make it come out between a pair of his wings instead of striking his back. When Trance ran out of momentum and started to pull her weapon back, Gearhead directed his wings to wrap themselves around the orb part of the staff, trapping it for a couple seconds.

Gearhead’s lance shone as he turned to face Trance head-on once again. He first raised it in the air, allowing it to radiate for a moment to show that all six rings and the topping cone were completely full now. Then he lowered it to point directly at Trance, who leaped back to retreat several meters.

This time when Gearhead pursued he put all of the Engine’s power into thrust, and quickly closed the distance. Trance seemed to decide that fleeing was pointless, and reversed direction. She also unleashed a merciless wave of magical blasts from her staff as she and Gearhead closed on each other, the latter using a two-handed grip on his lance for once.

Gearhead spun and spiralled around the incoming magic blasts, sometimes moving so swiftly that he seemed to be jumping in mid-air, but he never wasted the effort to return fire, knowing that even if one of his blasts had a side-effect, like his earlier Lightning Magic had, their actual physical damage would be negligible. Not only that, if he was concentrating on hitting Trance with his long-range weapons, he might not hit her with his mid-range weapon – because between Trance’s staff and his lance, the staff had the advantage in reach, but the lance had the power.

Gearhead and Trance finally clashed head-on as their individual charges met. Trance decided at the last moment to turn her thrust into a swing, so when her staff went out wide, Gearhead pressed his throttle past their emergency stops, making him leap forward in a bright spray of overlapping particle circles. “Hello, Sunshine,” he called.

Even hampered by the earlier attacks, Trance managed to swing fast enough to catch Gearhead with her side-blade in the ribs, but when she tried to move her staff away from him to strike again, he glided forward, onto the shaft instead and used his free arm to clamp down on the staff, trapping it there.

Gearhead had already brought his lance back as far as it would go. Now he thrust it forward, and it went into Abyssal Trance’s chest up to the third ring, energy swirling and spiralling as its wielder made his attack. “Your principality needs you, princess. Time to wake up!” He finished, and on cue the lance released all of the energy that it had been storing and containing up to this point, an explosion of turquoise, gold, silver, and near-white yellow.

As Trance screamed in agony, Gearhead held her close and refused to let go, the Light Magic bombarding her from within and without. Her armour cracked and fell away. Thick black dust got blasted from her body, and the screaming suddenly stopped entirely. Her head slumped forward, and her mane returned to its multi-coloured state, but as Gearhead returned them to the ground, deactivating OverBoost, he could not be absolutely certain that Trance was completely under the princess’s control again. The only thing that was certain was that with the Geargem Dagger returned to its sword state, Gearhead could not make another attempt anytime soon.

Gearhead lay the princess gently on the ground, and directed a puff of wind into her face. Her eyelids fluttered open, and then she focused on his face. He could not suppress a sigh of relief when he saw the concern, compassion, and wisdom there. “Welcome back, Princess Celestia.”

“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t interesting, but did you have to go so far?”

Gearhead arched an eyebrow, but then he followed the princess’s gaze, to the line of exposed flesh in his armoured vest, where the microscaling had turned to dust and fallen out. Even as Gearhead looked, though, he could only see light bruising because the particles in his body were already nearly done healing the wound. “Certain leverage was required,” was the only thing he could say in response.

“You need to take better care of yourself, or you’ll worry those who wait for you.”

Gearhead felt it in the same moment the red arrow flashed in the corner of his left lens. He gathered Princess Celestia into his arms and leaped across the room as far as he could, his Engine kicking in partway through, so he could turn them around before landing and skidding to a halt. “Shall I begin with that?” He asked, setting Princess Celestia down on her feet.

“Oh Luna, not again!”

“Ironic isn’t it? In the moment my sister falls, I rise,” Nightmare Moon said. “How, then, shall you defeat me?”

Princess Celestia put a hand to the Alicorn Amulet. When Gearhead saw her grip it, he put a hand over hers. “Let us not give her any more ammunition.”

“Okay, but it’s taking most of my remaining power to suppress it.”

“Then leave the rest of this to me. Mea virga.” Called magically, the Geargem Dagger flew from where Gearhead had left it, directly into his waiting hand.

“Can you make your lance again?” Princess Celestia asked.

“No,”

“Use OverBoost?”

“It is too soon, Princess.

“How many plans do you have?”

“Just one more,”

“What were the chances of your having a hold-over from our fight?”

“What a pity you have no Elements this time,” Nightmare Moon interrupted them, having just changed to Agile Form. Nightmare Moon wore a light-looking robe that left her forearms exposed, as well as her legs from above the knee. She had light purple armour on her shoulders as well as bracers and anklets, but nothing else marked her dark purple robes, other than the blue edging. It was probably more important that Gearhead focus on Nightmare Moon’s nasty-looking scimitars, given how the blades seemed to absorb light, rather than how her figure was nearly the equal of that of Princess Celestia’s It did occur to Gearhead that it was probably strange for Nightmare Moon to be larger than Luna in any respect, since they were the same being, but it was not like he could ask about that. Also, if she had said something about Elements...

“We have one, sort of.”

“A what? And what do you mean ‘sort of?’”

“This,” Gearhead pulled his right sleeve back slightly, revealing the black Anklet he had been wearing as a bracelet.

“And that is supposed to take the place of your Lance of Light and boosted Engine? You’re kidding me, right?”

“I did not think I was known for my humour,” Gearhead said, deciding at the same time that it was best to end this as quickly as possible, instead of trying to stall until he could use OverBoost again. He would just have to hope he had enough magic left to compensate.

“We’ll see how funny you think it is when I’m done with you,” Nightmare Moon said, brandishing her scimitars.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Princess Celestia said, kneeling behind Gearhead.

“Me too. Here goes.” Gearhead focused his emotions and desires of the moment, and even placed his left hand over the jewel set into the bracelet to help his focus. The magic circuits reactivated, but this time he let them flow through, bringing the Anklet into its activated state with the band a white-gold and the gem flashing red, then indigo, then green. “Prolato,” Gearhead said quietly, and the Anklet became wide enough that Princess Celestia could have used it as an anklet on an upper leg.

“Arma fusionem,” Gearhead said, and the Anklet spun over the length of his sword, flowing and blending with it until it turned the sword gold, marked the entire blade with runes, and set its gem into the pommel. The gear-shaped guard had also been changed so that it was divided into a left and right side, with one arc shaped like a half-sun, and the other like a crescent moon.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Nightmare Moon blew a puff of air past her bangs.

“In all honesty I do not know, since this is the first time I have put this to practical use. But if you desire a fight, we shall have the opportunity to put it to the test.”

“It’d go easier for you if you’d just surrender.”

“No thank you,” Gearhead said, quietly but clearly. “Ah, there is one more thing.”

Nightmare Moon lowered her blades in exasperation. “You were about to fight me without an asset? This is why I can’t take you ‘heroes’ seriously!”

“I am only carrying this by special request anyway,” Gearhead said, reaching beneath his vest and longcoat. After a moment, he came back out with the Fireheart Gemstone. The half-sun and moon guards spun, so that the sun was on the side under the leading edge of the blade, while the moon was on the trailing edge. This created a space in the middle, where Gearhead was able to place the Fireheart Gemstone. A wave of energies traveled throughout the sword, and into Gearhead’s hand, which it used to travel throughout his body before seeming to vanish.

Gearhead took a couple experimental swings to test the weight of his transformed sword, and had to struggle to keep the energy from rippling out. The balance was perfect, and the weight seemed to adjust when he thought of it as being ‘too light.’ It fit in his hand like the most perfect extension to his body he could have imagined, and seemed to respond at the speed of his thoughts. But these were things a swordmaster was supposed to be able to do through skill and practice. Still, it could be useful against a powerful foe, like Nightmare Moon.

“Are you ready now?”

“Ready,” Gearhead said, taking a stance. He wondered if this iteration of Nightmare Moon had any telepathic powers, so he opened up a small window in his mental defences. If she did go after his mind, Gearhead was certain his fortifications would slow her down enough to matter in this fight. After all, it would mean dividing her attention between two battlefields. Even though Luna had taught Gearhead how to build a secure place in his mind, Nightmare Moon was a horse of a different colour. There was little chance she could get all the way through Gearhead’s citadel before their fight out in realspace was over.

“You’re sure there’s nothing else?”

“With all respect, are you coming to me, or am I coming to you?”

Nightmare Moon snorted, so Gearhead launched himself at her with two quick pumps of his legs. He planned to merely use his Engines to take over and accelerate his charge mid-way, but his body flew easily over the intervening ground, and he was soon trading slashes with Nightmare Moon instead.

“Ha! Finally a challenge presents itself,” Nightmare Moon said as Gearhead forced her back with a series of three slashes, which he did by spinning his whole body rapidly through three whole rotations.

“I think I have it now,” Gearhead said quietly. He planted himself, then lunged with his whole body. As he extended his arm, Nightmare Moon deflected his sword over her left shoulder. Gearhead gathered mana to the soles of his shoes, then jumped into another spin, aided by his Engines. Nightmare Moon went tumbling to the ground, only to check her neck when she got back up. Instead of being sliced, it had changed to a lighter purple. Gearhead felt the set of three waves as his opponent lashed out mentally: she had taken the bait.

“Joke’s over,” Nightmare Moon got back up and jumped back into the fight. She slashed brutally at Gearhead, her scimitars flashing rapidly between normal holds and reverse-holds to make her strikes seem more random. Because dual-wielding almost always required a specific set of timing not to get in one’s own way, Gearhead was able to pick out patterns and duck or jump out of the way some of the time, while he moved to deflect blows before they got to him at other times. A couple of times he even caught one sword with his blade, and the other with his pommel, making it bounce back.

When Nightmare Moon noticed that Gearhead was using his previous combat training to pick off her techniques before she could complete them, she changed them up, first striking low with her right hand while she struck high with her left hand, then spinning to add fury and power to her every strike.

Unfortunately, while Nightmare Moon seemed to have forgotten about Gearhead’s bladecasters, he had not. When she tried a double cross-down to knock Gerahead’s right sword arm wide, both bladecasters came out on his actuators to make a double-thrust down the middle, forcing Nightmare Moon’s diagonally-slashing blades back apart, and wide. Because they still had the Stabilizer’s extensions, the bladecasters made temporary dents in Nightmare Moon’s magic shields, even as she leaped back.

“Three swords? You think three swords will win this for you?”

“I do not recall using them to deliver the finishing blow in my last duel,” Gearhead said. While his right-hand actuator returned that side’s bladecaster to its back-mounted scabbard, he took up his other bladecaster in his left hand. “Better?”

“Frankly, no,” Nightmare Moon said, but she charged in anyway. Gearhead met her slash for slash and thrust for thrust as they leaped, flew, dove, and dashed across the room. They spun, flipped, and clashed most often in mid-air as they passed each other, picking up speed all the time until Princess Celestia had to have been straining to keep following their action.

As the two combatants flew at each other again near the ceiling, Nightmare Moon tried another double cross-down from an upside down position. Gearhead countered this by turning both of his swords so they were edge-up at opposite angles, and thrust them both from past his shoulders at the same time. This move not only forced Nightmare Moon’s arms out wide, it also broke her momentum and forced her to fly back on her heels.

With Nightmare Moon on the defensive, Gearhead followed through with a direct charge. As he did so he brought his right arm all the way back behind his own back. Nightmare Moon quickly set herself to catch his curved blade between both of her own, with a mind to then bounce it back in Gearhead’s face. That arm came back around, and as it did Gearhead used his Wind Magic to accelerate himself again, closing the distance a little faster.

* * *

Nightmare Moon adjusted her defences and her stance for stability, catching Gearhead’s blade perfectly between her own. She flexed her arms and legs, ready to push Gearhead back and off of his balance, then she looked at the sword that was wedged between her scimitars more closely: it was long, triangular, and straight-edged.

“Wrong..?” Nightmare Moon felt the shock, realizing that that transformed Geargem Dagger was already just a handful of centimetres from her abdomen. Gearhead had flipped his weapons, swapping hands so smoothly that she had completely missed any clues that might have given the move away. By committing to push her opponent back on his easy swing, she had also minimized her chances of evading a follow-up. She had not thought she was mistaken in doing this, because none of Gearhead’s other swords could do significant damage to her, but the Geargem Dagger might be able to force her out of this body.

If Nightmare Moon had any hope of surviving, it was by quickly obtaining the Alicorn Amulet after she received damage from this attack and pulled away, but the sight of the Amulet still around Princess Celestia’s neck dashed that hope.

* * *

Gearhead pulled his own mental probe back from Nightmare Moon’s waking dreamscape and finished the thrust through her stomach, calling out “awaken!” as he did so. This time orange, gold, pink, blue, and green energies exploded in all directions from the blade. The explosions started to resemble petals, which closed up toward Nightmare Moon’s head before exploding again to disperse both itself and the black dust that represented Nightmare Moon.

Gearhead had to dive to catch Luna before she could hit the ground. Her robes had changed to blue with silver edging, and her armour was gone, but other than that her frame also seemed to have changed, becoming more slight compared to that of her sister.

Princess Celestia ran over to where Gearhead had landed with Luna. As she began to examine her unconscious sister, Gearhead noticed that the elder princess was no longer wearing the Alicorn Amulet. “Where..?” Princess Celestia merely nodded to the box on the floor, once again closed and magically locked. “Is it over?”

“Yes, finally.” Princess Celestia sat back on her heels, gently cradling her sister’s head.

“That was a mistake,” Gearhead said, returning the Anklet, the Fireheart Gemstone, and the Geargem Dagger to their rightful places.

“I think not,” Princess Celestia said. “We learned more in just a few minutes, both about you and ourselves, than we could have otherwise.”

“But the risk –“

“Was worth it to teach you the value of pushing yourself this much farther than you previously thought you could go. Now we know for certain that you are capable of, and should, finish threats to Equestria if and when they reveal themselves.”

“You mean there are more?”

“There are always more,”

“That is not a comforting thought,”

“But if you continue your training, you will become powerful and wise enough to face practically anything.”

“Except for Discord,”

“Thankfully he seems to come with his own set of rules, if we could only understand them better.”

“I am not certain I wish to understand him,” Gearhead said. “Now, I believe we should be able to revert to normal as well.”

“Oh, why spoil the fun?” Luna asked from Princess Celestia’s lap. She had one eye open, and was watching their faces from below. “There are one or two things we can do this way that we can’t do so well normally.”

“I hesitate to ask,” Gearhead said, deadpan.

“Then I shall give you an example,” Luna said, turning over. She pounced on her older sister, and proceeded to tickle her.

“Bwa-ha-ha! Luna... ha! Stop, ha-ha! Please,” Princess Celestia begged around her own laughter.

“I do not know if I could look at you two the same way again,” Gearhead said, getting to his feet. That got Luna’s attention, but Gearhead did not like the gleam in her eye.

“Shall we make it even?” Princess Celestia gasped, recovering her breath.

“Lets,” Luna said, turning.

“Oh bother,” Gearhead muttered as the two princesses pounced on him. But soon he was laughing helplessly too.

* * *

Over the next two months, whenever the princesses summoned Gearhead to Canterlot for training, he took them both very seriously. Unlike their dark personas, Celestia and Luna did not wait for him to charge up his major spells, and anything less did not have much of an effect on them, apart from the stunning and slowing effects of Lightning Magic – and neither princess would let him score a hit with the same tactic twice, nevermind with the same spell!

Gearhead relied heavily on his Twin Engine to evade and counter the princesses’ attacks as he completed his incantations, however his sparring partners often proved to be faster and more competent at cornering him than he was at cornering them, and he sometimes ended up biting his tongue, which made his spells fizzle out completely. He considered his options.

Gearhead simply could not use unincanted spells, because he did not have enough Unicorn magic in him to have grown a horn. Delayed spells were difficult, but doable, as long as he did not have to store their magic in his body or Geargem Dagger for more than fifteen minutes: he tended to absorb what mana he stored completely into his manapool after awhile, and the Dagger seemed liable to shoot off any energy left over from a previous effort, so Gearhead discharged it himself.

The best solution seemed to be to imagine a given spell’s magic circle in his mind’s eye, and cast it that way. He still needed to use his activation key and the spell’s name on mid-level spells, and he could not cast high-level spells this way yet, but the princesses worked with him to fix that. Of course, Gearhead could also try drawing the magic circle into the air or onto the ground as he had with Absorbing Ring, but any cautious opponent would be able to see what it was he was going for and counter it. The same could be said for any incanted magic, which was why Gearhead did his best to cast quietly.

Twilight Sparkle sometimes joined in the practice sessions, but usually they involved manipulating mana in non-combat situations. Twilight was completely uncomfortable with the prospect of attacking her mentor and her younger sister, and Celestia would not force her to do so. She did, however, spar with Gearhead on occasion, as long as he only used magic and not his Twin Engine.

When the princesses summoned Gearhead without asking him to bring his Engine, he became curious enough to ask what was going on as soon as the pleasantries were out of the way. “Oh that’s right,” Celestia said, “we found a better venue for your conference. It’s nearly set up if you would like to go take a look.”

“And where might that be, Princess?”

Luna grinned. “It’s in Fillydelphia.”