Shifted

The sound of air fizzling tickled the hairs in Luna’s ears. “Oh my, so that is what you use to strike at others? It’s certainly powerful, but no match for my powers.”

“Oh, this I gotta see,” Ariel said shouldering her rifle.

Luna lowered her horn and aimed at the target. A silhouette of what seemed to be a human, albeit lumpier than any she’d seen so far. Perhaps a dee-bee, she wondered as she let loose an average bolt.

The target vaporized and a swath of land, trees, and a hill were obliterated by the alicorn’s blast. Luna’s jaw hung open as time limped by. A slow clap started from behind her and she turned to see Ariel’s stunned face looking at the devastation. “Well, I’ve never shot like that,” she said stopping her clapping, “but now I lost my target and shooting range.”

“Uh, I… Apologize… I do not know what happened, the spell should have fired a small bolt. Enough to scorch the target at the center, not do that,” she gulped and shook her head, feeling her mane brush against her neck for the first time in longer than she could recall.

“Expect it,” a man shouted from above, “we’re at a leyline crossing. Miss Air-head didn’t tell you that, did she?”

“I know what a leyline is,” Luna said to the man who was appearing to hover in mid air, “they are the lines of mystical energies that infuse the world with power. My world happens to be full of them, as well.”

“Well, not like these,” he lowered slowly, “the leylines here are specific points where magic is amplified. Can you sense the leylines?” he asked, looking at her with piercing green eyes.

Luna shifted her weight, uncertain how to answer. “No, I can not. I can simply syphon their power when I am near them.”

“So, now you know. And I’ll tell you this too, Moon Butt,” he glared at Luna who glared back, “don’t use magic unless you know where the lines are or you might blow up your friends. I’ve seen it happen and I’ll wear your horn before I let it happen again.”

Luna opened her wings and bared her teeth, rearing to her full height. “If you are challenging me…”

“You wouldn’t last five minutes, darling. That’s a promise.”

“Very well,” she inhaled. “I challenge thee to a magic duel at-” she bellowed, stopped by a sudden fist in her abdomen. She coughed, hacked, and fell to her side, overstretching her wing and gasping in pain as she held her belly.

“You talk too much,” the man said, “and you expose your weak points too easily. We’re not horses and warriors don’t talk, we strike.”

Ariel was next to Luna as she landed to the ground and glared at the man. “Damn you, Shi-Aran, why’d you have to-”

He looked pointedly at the girl. “Because if she doesn’t know how to be stealthy she might as well be dead, and it won’t take much at the rate she’s going. Wearing magic armor that screams it’s power. Carrying herself like she’s better than us all. She knows nothing about this world and acts like we owe her? Typical dee-bee, this one’s just privileged is all,” he said turning away.

Luna choked back a sob as a tear left her eye and she rolled to her belly, forcing herself to her hooves. “I… am ignorant in the ways of this world. Destructively so, and I implore you to teach me something, anything to stave off my own demise. I am too different,” she winced and coughed, her legs wobbling, “and… I just wish to return home,” she coughed again as her hind legs gave way and her rear fell to the earth.

A loud fart escaped her as she trembled. “I, think I am unwell.”

The people looked to Luna and then each other in concern. “Aran, what’d you do to her?”

He looked back and his eyes widened. “Nothing, just a punch, honest.”

“She looks terrible and she’s not going to, pass gas around us,” Ariel said as Luna panted.

“I, am in, pain,” Luna winced and laid down, breathing heavily, “the strike he gave, was it magical?”

Ariel looked to Aran who winced at the glance. “It was just a speed spell, nothing in the punch itself,” he walked over and placed a hand on Luna’s withers. I’ll carry her to the doc-”

Aran grunted as Luna’s wing slapped him hard across the face, sending him staggering and tripping to the ground. She lunged and pressed him to the ground charging her horn and lowering her muzzle to his nose. “If thy ever strike me again I will not hesitate to turn you into a frog and step on your legs,” she snorted a mucousy puff of air into his face and discharged her horn at a stool, turning it into a living, breathing bird.

“...Yeah, I get it,” Aran nodded and watched the bird fly away, “don’t mess with the pony princess of the sky. Remember though, don’t mess with a Leyline Walker in a leyline. Pajuma Takrakan.” A blinding flash of light left his body and sent Luna reeling, but not after pressing hard on the man. She stumbled back and began to instinctively wipe her eyes.

“Tam tam tem, adrilli utiman! Now, I think I’ll have some fun,” he smirked at Luna who placed her hoof down with a slam and looked in his direction, her horn lighting up. “Magica ennatta!” Luna felt something brush against her as her eyes began to clear. She moved to jump at him but grunted as she felt her hooves stuck to the ground.

Luna smirked at him and cast a spell teleporting herself and Ariel to the front door of the house. “Wait here, I have a man to subdue.”

She teleported back and above Aran, opening her wings and charging her horn. “Have at thee!”

She cast a simple ensnaring spell that phased through Aran to her surprise. She felt a firm kick below her tail and yelped, losing her balance and losing several feet of height. She spun and glared daggers at him. “So, a battle of cowards is how thee fight? So be it,” she sneered and flew at him, phasing through him again, stopping and bucking behind her.

“You can’t hit me like that in my element,” he laughed haughtily as he attempted to kick Luna below her tail again. Luna’s horn flashed and she teleported to the ground, her hind legs starting to ache from the unfair strike to her personal areas.

“You consider this your element? Then let me show you mine!”

She roared and her horn flared to life with a double cone of energy, then she and everything in several hundred feet vanished.

Aran flailed as he slowly fell to a white and grey dusty ground. “What’d you do? Where the fuck are w-” he gasped as he looked at her, flowing mane and a calm smirk that sent chills up his arms.

“We are on the moon, Aran. Shall I leave thee here without my magic to aid thyself?”

He began to hyperventilate as he looked around, then up to see the blue marble that is the earth. “Okay! Y-you win, I submit! Please, get me home, alive,” he tried to run but only managed to kick up dust and float up into the air bubble she’d created.

“You will teach me the ways of your world?”

“YES! Please, don’t let me die like this,” he pleaded as his ascent turned into an arced descent.

“Very well. I will spare thee, if thee agrees to be my master in the area of mystical training.”

He looked at her with confusion and nodded.

“We have an accord. End our agreement without my approval and I will return here with a frog under my hoof, and leave it here.”

He trembled and nodded as her horn flared to life, then he fell to the earth from several feet with a thud and shout of pain. A moment later he was standing and looking at the trees, feeling the ground, and breathing the air with a new respect for it all.

“First, I would like to experiment with the rifles that Ariel has, then you will begin my lessons?”

“Y-yes, Your Highness.”

“You will refer to me as Luna; henseforth, I am not a princess here. And if you choose to challenge me again,” she approached him and smirked, lifting a gilded hoof into his crotch with the full force of her might, “fight fare,” she shouted as he landed several lengths away, shouting and holding his crotch, curled into a fetal position.