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SFF Side Story: Unicorn Duels!

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Princess Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer stood at the edge of the orchard, the fallow field stretching out before them.

"Y'know, I think I've been here before." Sunset remarked.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I needed an open space for an anemobaric spell experiment, far enough away from Canterlot that no one would bother me. Blew a ten-food wide crater smack in the middle. Got chased off by a crotchety old lady."

"That's Applejack's grandmother."

Sunset took off her saddlebags, rolling her shoulders. "Lovely mare. Let's start with these."

Twilight cocked her head as Sunset levitated a few empty metal cans out of the bag. "Picking up litter now?"

"No, cheap targets." Sunset flew the cans and balanced them on a collection of large rocks a few meters away, spaced well apart. "Ok, take a shot."

"If you say so..." Twilight examined the cans, hesitant to be judged. Sunset pawed the ground irritably.

"Just blast one! I only want to see how you cast!"

Twilight lowered her head, ears back. "Ok! Ok! Here I go."

With a soft zing of magic, a purple bolt shot across the path and burst on one of the cans. With a clang, the can was torn in half and sent flying to land in the weeds. Sunset blinked, eyes wide.

"Woah. That had some buck to it."

Twilight ruffled her wings self-consciously. "I used the formula for Truetime's Lance as my basis, with Starswirl's second bypass to cast it faster-"

"That..." Sunset stood with her mouth agape, "... that is a terrible idea! Not only is the Lance completely worthless against a competent opponent, but the second bypass takes a ton of energy to begin that overflows into the results! No wonder the can exploded!"

Twilight took a step back, frowning. "Really? I thought I had gotten something pretty good there. It's worked on most things I've had to blast."

Sunset rolled her eyes, then turned toward the targets. Her horn flickered for a moment, and one of the cans popped into the air with a clang. Her horn flashed again as Sunset took a step to the side, erratically blasting the can higher. Lunging forward and to her knees, a gold beam shot from her horn and caught the flipping target before it hit the ground, freezing it in space. Sunset rose back to her hooves with a flip of her mane.

"Be honest. How much did you study Truetime's philosophy compared to his spells?"

Twilight closed her mouth. "I... well I... where did you learn to do that? That was just a few Fling spells and a basic Hold, but the way you cast them-"

"Was Truetime's basic première danse form. Let me guess, you skipped straight to chapter eighteen of his book, to the part where he details spell methods." Sunset accused.

Twilight pouted, wings drooping. "I skimmed it..."

Sunset just shook her head. "This is gonna be harder than I thought. Ok, what do you know? Anything about the classic schools or forms."

Twilight's ears perked up, and Sunset caught on right away. Facts and recital was Twilight's specialty.

"The oldest school is Eisenhorn, developed at an unknown time but in common practice by the end of the Paleopony era. It laid the groundworks for the later schools with the common Barrier spell and methods for direct magical attack, as opposed to just throwing things willy-nilly."

"If historical accounts are to be believed, there was still quite a bit of willy-nilly throwing going on." Sunset remarked dryly. Twilight nodded.

"Right. It wasn't until the beginning of the Shadowed era that Eisenhorn's second and third forms took shape: Klammer Positur and Schlag Positur. Nopony really knew if they were created intentionally, or if it was the result of several villages training simply merging together, but it showed two distinct styles. Klammer was made to fight other unicorns and magic-using creatures like dragons, while Schlag was hyper-agressive and originally developed for overpowering other ponies before they could close with the caster."

"Well, nobody can say you didn't study." Sunset sat herself down, opening her saddlebags and pulling out a ball of blue yarn. "Now, do you know why Schlag Positur became so much more popular?"

Twilight lay down on the grass between the road and field beside Sunset, watching her as she used the yarn to trace a wide circle about five pony-lengths across in the dirt of the field. "Not really, no. Klammer seems like it would counteract the early styles very well."

"Ah, but think for a second." Sunset finished and stood up. "When did the major advance in the practice in shield spells happen?"

"One-thousand one-hundred forty five, Invented by Trotanardo of Fancy, of all ponies."

"Thanks, I actually forgot the exact year. Now when was Schlag Positur at the peak of its popularity?"

"Oh..." Twilight nodded slowly. "Early two-hundreds. So they'd just overpower anypony before they could raise defenses. And Klammer Positur saw a resurgence around one-one fifty, same reason, then."

Sunset smiled brightly. "Good! Now, Eisenhorn's final form, Zweier Positur. We're skipping ahead here, but to stay in the same school overall..."

Twilight followed Sunset as she trotted to stand in the circle. "It was developed after the Canterlonian school, to counter the faster pace of the royal styles with a less-finess, less-training required form. Widely considered unsuccessful as a platform for military training, and Princess Celestia outlawed the form for a time because of its use in street brawls. It focuses on using as few spells as possible as fast as possible."

"Exactly. Stand there." Sunset directed Twilight into the circle, then stepped in herself. "This is one of the most basic exercises of the two-form, even if it's normally done with a circle of salt and a five-bit coin, in a stable. We are cheaper and more efficient."

With a toss of her mane, Sunset lifted one of the tins. "Get the can out of the circle."

Twilight shied away, unsure. "Just... keep-away? What am I supposed to learn from that?"

Sunset grinned, and Twilight found herself thinking she'd seen that grin on carnivorous marine life before. "How to affect a target, when someone else does not want you to. Start anytime."

Eyebrow raised, Twilight eyed the can as it hung in it's sparkling gold glow. She focused and yanked on the metal as hard and fast as she could.

With a soft ringing, something grabbed Twilight's right-hind leg and yanked it straight up, flipping her onto her back with a squawk. "Ack! OOPH!"

"Think fast." Sunset looked down at her, tin can floating lazily back toward the center of the ring. "I'm not gonna just let you push it out, I already know you're stronger than me. This is keep-away. What's the secret to keep-away?"

"There's a secret to keep-away?" Twilight rolled to her hooves, shaking dirt from her mane and sucking on her cheek, eyebrows knitted. "I didn't know keep-away had any... rules!"

Twilight lunged forward, shooting a blast of magic into the ground in front of Sunset. The spray of dirt splattered on a weak shield before Sunset slammed the can straight down into the ground. Twilight's summoned tennis racket missed her target by millimeters.

"Wow." Sunset sat back and clapped quietly. "Dirt-to-the-face already. I was expecting a minute or two before you started resorting to that."

Twilight smiled weakly. "No real rules in keep-away, right?"

Sunset grinned again, eyes gleaming. "Nope. You're not as subtle as you think you are, though."

Twilight's eyes widened as Sunset yanked the can out of her grip, where she had been quietly trying to nudge it away, another burst of force tapping her horn upward.

"Uuhg! Will you quit with the-MMPH!" Twilight recoiled as a wad of smelly clothing appeared over her head, dropping on her. "Eew! Why do you have that?!"

"It's my Rainbow Dash's. Long story." Sunset danced away from the burst of fireworks next to her, the can winking out of existence to reappear under her hoof. Her horn sparked again, and Twilight's wing shot out to the side, interrupting her attempt to animate the can and make it scurry away.

"Hey! Well, I ship it. What would that be, SunDash?" Twilight took to the air, dodging a new spell Sunset threw toward her and forcing the grounded pony to squint against the sun.

"What?" Sunset flipped open an umbrella as a rainshower dropped on her with no warning, yanking her can back as it tried to drift away. "Is this some pop-culture thing I've missed in the past four years?"

"Basically!" Twilight dived, dropping a freezing spell on the umbrella and trying to knock it aside to get at the elusive tin can. Sunset just made it vanish, teleporting the tin to the other side of the circle as Twilight landed, prancing after it. Twilight yelped as a burst of magic made her tail flip into the air. "Will you cut it out with the Fling spells already! I just won!"

"Well, if you even acted like you knew how to stop them- waitwhat?" Sunset looked around in confusion, seeing a can Twilight was floating next to her, outside the circle. "But I have the thing right-"

*ZAP!*

"HA!" Twilight pranced on the spot, the second can dropping to the dirt and Sunset's actual can now sailing across the field. "You brought more than one tin can! Oh, I'm so glad that worked!"

"Well done!" Sunset cheered, gathering up the string. "My guard went down the second I thought you'd won, that's a bad habit of mine. Now, how are you feeling?"

Twilight blew out a big breath, wings drooping. "Pretty... pretty pooped. You, though..." Sunset smiled back sweetly as Twilight glared. "You don't look like you did anything besides get some dirt on your knees."

"Did I?" Sunset looked down, rubbing her legs together. "Right, well, point is, I can't even keep track of all the spells you used. Do you know what I used?"

Twilight snorted. "Fling. You used Fling. Sweet Celestia you used Fling. You used so much Fling, they could call you the Princess of Fling. Oh, and a Barrier and some basic inanimate Summon-Teleports. But mostly moon-damned Fling!"

"Ok, ok!" Sunset giggled, trying to hide her smile behind her hoof. "But! Why would I use a spell most foals can do in their sleep?"

Twilight sighed. "It's faster than a shield. It's easy. And you barely used any energy. All things you want in a fight. I get it."

Sunset smiled. "There's one more reason I chose that spell. Come on, you look like you could use a shower. We'll pick this up tomorrow and you can answer it then."

Twilight looked sidelong at Sunset as they walked back to the path, floating her saddlebags beside them. "You don't mean 'shower' as in the weather, do you? Is that a human thing?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry, it's like a bath but-" Sunset stopped dead, dropping her saddlebags in horror. "Oh my god Equestria hasn't invented the shower yet."

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Author's Note

Well, that's it for now. If this never updates, don't be surprised, but it's fun to write.