Celestia wandered into her personal bedroom at last, after a laborious day of civil service. It would be Luna's time to take over briefly, and for a moment she wondered if they had spent enough time together lately after all. It was one of her personal promises to herself after all.
Luna's moon was already ascending, and Celestia smiled knowing the realm would be in good hands. Looking towards her bathroom, she made for it with a slight smile glad to know her leisure time had come at last.
A twitch of the ear, and Celestia paused. She had heard something from the far window, but that was such a rare phenomenon at this time. Drawn close there, she saw a shadow burst forth and away - and the tiniest of magical signature that this silhouette was indeed her sister. A slight frown adored her features, and a plethora of thoughts spawned immediately. Was Luna alright? Was she getting back to her younger years of flight freedom? She quickly discarded the thought as it was gross negligence neither could afford at this stage of life. Had Celestia once again underestimated the emotional connection between them, and allowed a rift to form in Luna's heart? Was there emotional turmoil at play? A breath left Celestia sharply.
Celestia knew that it was probably fine, but she quickly became certain that retiring for the night was not happening on schedule. Luna was already gaining some distance from the castle, so Celestia rushed to throw her window open and take flight.
The alicorn of the sun hummed quietly as she tailed her younger sister. Luna would sense her following, and at this point she wasn't sure if Luna had planned for her to in the first place or not.
Time quickly passed, with minutes approaching an hour. With a realization she knew that whatever this was, Luna wanted to be away from other ponies entirely.
Finally, upon a grassy valley that shone in the moonlight, Luna finally landed. Two minutes later, and a second touched down on the land several dozen meters away. Luna was already laying down, and Celestia quickly noticed that despite expectations Luna did not look shook in the least, sporting a contemplative look instead.
"Are you going to ask me why I've come so far out here?"
"Not quite yet, but seeing as you've decided a barren land was more important than our little ponies I'm expecting something here soon."
After a moment, Luna started to giggle, but it only lasted a few.
"Oh buzz off sister, can we not spend some time in the world we govern appreciating its true beauty with our very own eyes?" A slight smirk and charming side eyes where Luna had one eye gazing straight at her.
"While I do understand the need to show appreciation once in a while, sister, I do believe that is the purpose for which our vacations do ever efficiently provide us with this opportunity amply." Celesta started approaching her. "So now, I would appreciate it if you could be kind and stop beating around the bush and explain to me why we're out here."
The upbeat figure of Luna quickly grew withdrawn and into neutral. "Well perhaps sister, you're right. Look, and I really mean, look at me sister. That, and perhaps some of yourself in the mirror image of yourself reflected from my eyes." She turned to fully face Celestia, still laying on her knees. "We've been alive for how long now? A dream I had, ironic enough considering I govern so many, reminded me of something I had long since forgotten. Nature."
There was a solid pause. "Nature? Please stop delaying I ask once again Luna, I do not wish to be here all night." Celestia started frowning, but she broke it right after when Luna started acting rather than any explanation.
A dark pulse - and a slow mist of shadows started receding to the ground around Luna, pulsing larger with each burst, only to sink back in a moment later.
"To get back to what I was saying Celestia, I want you to look at my mane, or your mane if that pleases you. It is ethereal, the hallmark of an alicorn well lived, would you say not? For you see in my dream it was like most dreams - days from my younger years. Only I was causing all sorts of havoc, something that was quickly and strongly beat into my head that I should not do, as we both learned quickly in life."
"Blowing up trees and mountains because of your silly inadequate control that we both had in our former years, Luna, years in which we realized that perhaps our divinity was not something that nearby mortals quite appreciated when it burnt them to a crisp or came close to ruining their life's work?"
"That is exactly right, sister, and such learned wisdom shall never be lost on both of us." The shadows exploded outward and flew past Celestia, causing no harm but a tickle on the fur. They then quickly got pulled back into the body of Luna as if such a flash had never happened in the first place. Celestia said nothing, but she was starting to catch on to Luna's tangent here. She still didn't understand the gist of the why though.
"Celestia, be honest, when was the last time you allowed your true essence to grace the world around us, when was the last time either of us did, ignoring for Nightmare Noon" she let out quick chuckle, then: "I'm talking about truly letting it out and exploring all the aspects our very nature which we have denied for so long now."
This time it was Celestia's turn to laugh, and she added "Luna are you telling me to let loose after all this time? I understand that at a certain age alicorn's who have spent the majority of their life being cognizant in the back of their minds to hold back and hold within so that we can enjoy life with our beautiful ponies and not worry for their safety from last ponies they should have to worry about."
Silence loomed over both of them.
"This is ridiculous, I'm leaving. Have fun, sister. I will see you tomorrow just like always, you're free to tell me all about your release then."
A sudden blast whizzed right past Celestia's ear and annihilated a local hill. Celestia looked behind her, and then back to Luna and by the time she was Luna's turquoise eyes were glowing and several bats started landing near her, speaking to her in muted words that only Luna would ever hear or understand, being their monarch of the night. Her horn lit up, and those same shadows from before started pouring from her body. This time however they started warping, and formed shadowy tendrils in the direction of the hill that no longer existed. Celestia's ear twitched, and once again turned to see what was happening. The debris of what was left, some sparce trees and rocks included, started shaking slowly until they started to get pulled in the direction of Luna. The marionettes strings had already been attached. Gravitational magic, one of Luna's specialties Celestia remembered, was the culprit here.
"Can't you see Celestia? How much potential we have to paint the world around us in a blotch of our very souls?" The debris lifted up and into the air and the shadows left Luna at the same time to ascend above. This time, they danced through the skies and guided the detritus with it, forming curved waves spread out. Wisps of moonlight appeared and joined in on the dance, moving at random directions as though pleased to join in on the symphony of the night.
After all this, Celestia finally spoke: "While it is true that the core and contrasting essence of our magics - light and darkness, split off into countless different sub categories of magic going from closely related to sparsely, and while the light show you've generated is a fitting tribute to your true art that we can both see in the sky, this isn't enough to stop me from leaving sister." Celestia started to turn away now, and prepared her wing— her head whipped and a flash of light. She had melted several ice daggers aimed directly at her with her flame guard without thinking, something she hadn't done in centuries. Her heart was beating in her chest a little more than she thought it would.
"Damn it Celestia! Just try it out would you? You've seriously never done anything until now with the nigh unlimited resources and avenues available to you? What ever happened to my sister that let loose once in a while? Are you seriously going to stay cramped in the little castle all day until the end of time? I get forgetting about it because I had as well admittedly, but you should be jumping at the seams now that've you've started to remember who you really are, and what you can truly be, just like I am."
"Luna..."
"So that's it then? You're leaving? I won't stop you this time, but perhaps even after all this time my perspective of you still hasn't become accurate enough to know what you'll do in a situation like this. We have always eluded mutual understanding of each other as partial opposites in character I understand, being who we are, but still."
Celestia this time did not turn away like she had before. Celestia wondered why this was causing Luna to act so heated all of a sudden, and she knew in the back of her heart that the recent attack had been nothing more than an attempt to garner any reaction at all in some final hope. She sighed, and then rethought things over. Both sisters gazed across at the other, Luna with a look of slight desperation and hope that only Celestia could see beyond the more masked visage that only a long tenured relationship could bestow, and Celestia who had perfected the mask, or at least believed she had, giving nothing away.
Finally, after several tense minutes, Celestia closed her eyes.. and then smiled at Luna.
Luna gasped, and rushed over to her sister. They united in a hug.
"Alright little sis, I will let loose as you said it for a little bit," she pushed Luna away to look at her face and winked, "but after that we're both going back and you owe me your piece of cake our next tea time."
Celestia glowed with an inner radiance.
"That's it sister! Let it out!"
Slowly, a candle which had been a beacon in the valley illuminated almost all of it. Celestia looked at her hoof for a moment and then closed her eyes, and all of a sudden she felt like a burden she didn't even realized had existed was being peeled off of her as she summoned more and more of her inner reserve and brought it into the world around her. It felt wrong, but also felt so right. Light magic was simple, but it was also her most potent type of magic on the branch which held highest affinity, the branch which all others split from. Earlier Luna had done exactly that, hadn't she? She had conjured pure darkness and then warped it into gravitational. Celestia could play at that game. If Darkness drew things in, then light expanded them out even further. Opening her eyes, and before she could attempt her little play at one upping Luna, she once again found it in herself to laugh.
A giant snowman had been made by Luna, and it stuck out like a sore thumb among the backdrop of a barren grassland deep into its summer phase.
"Blast it sister! I know even you couldn't resist such a thing."
The grin on Celestia's face made it clear that Luna was one hundred percent accurate, but she wasn't going to let Luna have the last laugh. Charging her horn, she chanced upon the funniest thought, one that would redeem the entire night if it went accordingly. Pooling a large amount of magic in her horn, she let her memories and instinct take over. The glow of magic peaked at the end of her horn, and with an explosion was sent rapidly at the snowman hundreds of meters away.
As Luna looked on and followed it with zero reservations about her excitement, she suddenly didn't understand why such build up had lent itself to such a small and fickle little ball of flickering flames which formed a myriad of pyro based colors, was travelling towards her tower of snow in such a lame way. She had made it absolutely massive in the hopes that Celestia would be able to get in the groove of things faster if she got to see how fun it really could be.
"What is this Celestia, why did you make it.."
The blast hit the snowman, piercing the middle and disappearing like an arrow and seemingly doing nothing.
"Really sister.."
An explosion. Luna, who had turned her head to question Celestia, turned back again towards the snowman only to see that it no longer existed. Snow in bunches had been blown into the air in a fantastical manner and there must've been thousands of them. Streaks of solar flares and fireworks soared and coalesced on the pieces of snow, hitting them without melting them, and Luna realized there was more fireworks than there was snow. A million ricochets later, and the snow had turned into snowballs by being compacted and launched by being hit multiple times and at different directions. There was a method to the madness Luna finally realized, but just as she did so started getting pelted by snow from every direction. It was equally chaotic and majestic for the sheer scale and calculation of it all; none of which Luna was able to appreciate for the solid twenty seconds being pelted.
By the time it was over, Luna opened her eyes to see Celestia on her back flailing around, howling from laughter.
"If you saw.." she laughed some more, "the look," some more giggles "on your face just now."
Luna smiled and lit her horn. By the time Celestia had recovered and opened her eyes, a lightning bolt struck down.
A flash. Charred flesh. Blink.
"Oh, so that's how it's going to be little Lulu?"
Celestia glowed for a moment and instantly looked good as new.
Luna gulped, smiled, and not so cockily said: "Bring it on Celly"
"LIGHTBRINGER'S DIVIDER!"
A giant solar beam blew the earth away on the ground as it made a blazing dash towards Luna.
Luna, expecting a heavy-hitter, had already prepared her line of defense in mind. She had always known what she was about to do was possible, but had never actually put it to the test or even attempted it before.
She conjured darkness, a cloak of which started compacting, densifying and layering it heavily around her. In theory darkness could stop every type of radiation her sister emitted if it was powerful enough by dispersing and absorbing it.
The blast hit, and to Luna's delight worked very closely to how she imagined it, the outer layer became fully saturated by solar energy, but by the time it started approaching her inwards, the energy had spread out and lost most of its destructive peak and was barely damaging her. Realizing it would be a waste of energy to simply take this full on and allow it to drain her, since using defensive spells generally required more magic reserves than offensive. Not that it was a problem for Luna, and she felt like she was just getting started and hadn't even really tapped into her inner reserves. She just didn't want her sister to have the enjoyment of watching her take it.
Luna exploded into flight, still cloaked and soaring at an arc around Celestia, gaining distance between them quickly. Celestia stopped her spell and turned to watch her immediately. Luna finally started approaching a local mountain within the massive valley, and lost her sight of Celestia a moment later as she went behind it. Letting out a breath and starting to release her spell she started by lessening the density and bringing the shadows back in, she quickly wondered if she could utterly freeze Celestia by surprising her somehow. It would be priceless, because Celestia likely had completely forgotten that Luna could tap into the abyss of negative temperatures almost instantly.
Magically enhancing her voice to be far louder, she yelled: "naming your spells now sister? I thought that we left that as foals?"
After a moment while still coasting on the flight, Luna realized what her plan should be with a smirk, and quickly cast a spell.
Just as she was about to yell something else, A flash from behind the mountain gave Luna indication Celestia had some kind of answer coming, and was excited beyond all else to see what it would be.
But even considering all of the possibilities, what happened still surprised Luna.
The mountain itself trembled as though the reality it existed upon was a tenuous thing, and just as Luna was realizing what was happening - the mountain split down the middle and borderline melted while doing so. It was the same spell as before, only Celestia had given it a lot more juice this time. Luna's alicorn instincts had slowed time for her to react, but even this would be approaching her quickly. Even still, she used that time to re-intensify the shadowy defenses, which didn't have nearly enough time to approach the thickness it would need to properly protect her.
The beam blasted Luna on the side of the back right leg and she grit her teeth for a moment as it overwhelmed her sinkhole of a defense, but it became a glancing blowing that sent her flying below at ridiculous speeds. She crashed and slid for ages, going through several trees and vegetation that were more prominent on this side.
After a minute of laying there Luna started to get up, she channelled her inner alicorn magic to regeneration her right back leg, which had a nasty scorch mark on it. Celestia quickly approached from above, slowly and hovering to smirk over her younger sister.
"I believe it was aptly named for a spell, don't you think, little Lulu?"
Instead of reacting like Celestia was expecting, Luna started laughing hysterically as she finished her healing.
At the end of her laughter she finally let it spill: "I still can't believe my big old sis would blast a mountain in half! You really are getting it! Good on you Celly. Before you never would've considered even tampering with your surroundings, treating them like relics, and now they bow in your wake!" Another wave of laughing while Celestia started blushing.
"But while you certainly got me there sis, did you really think I wasn't cooking up something myself hmm?"
Celestia tensed, but nothing came.
"A bluff sister? Really? Hah, I thought you were better than that these days."
"Oh, how can you say that when you're in my territory now Celly?".
Inside Luna walked out two more Luna's. Behind every obstacle around Celestia another Luna walked out, surrounding her from all sides. She looked all around her before returning to the original Luna she had been looking at. She hadn't seen Luna's horn light up to cast anything.
"Illusions Luna? Do you really think I'll be tricked that easily? I can easily pay attention to the real you from here on out, this won't work. Tisk tisk sister, you're getting rusty."
"Try this then, Celly."
Every Luna around her started blast her with moonlight hyper blasts, incredibly speedy projectiles that could be spammed by Luna. It lacked punch, but considering the number of them from all angles it would be a problem. Except.
Celestia allowed the majority of them to hit her, and they simply did nothing as the phantasms they really were. She provided a real defense and crafted a frontward flame guard to destroy the real Luna's attacks, which were not different than the rest except they packed a punch she could feel against the wall.
"Really sister, I tried to tell you..."
Suddenly a massively blast hit her in the back and completely staggered her, a large bruise building under her fur and leaving Celestia's mind in complete chaos for a moment. Steadying herself she quickly realized Luna had somehow switched to being behind her somehow without her realizing it. Just as she started defending her behind and turning while still flying in the air, a blast of the same proportion hit her directly to the side to a similar effect. Once again she regained her bearings.
Celestia was pissed.
"Alright! What did you do? I've never seen anything like this!"
"You really haven't realized it yet sister? Do you not remember what I said?"
Another blast as Celestia was now turning back and forth trying to predict where the next attack would come hit her on the side of her head and caused her head to whip. She was faster to correct herself this time but was mad as ever at being embarrassed by her little sister.
"Tisk tisk Celestia, shall I give you a hint? What starts with an E and ends with a T?"
The attacks paused from all the Luna's now, and Celestia wasn't sure why as she figured it out. Another precious few more moments and it clicked like a spark into place in her mind.
"An enchantment! You enchanted the land to throw off my senses so that illusion magic would be more effective, I must admit Luna that is quite clever."
Forgetting her anger for a moment, she paused and then said: "But you forgot one thing, this is easily counter-able and-"
She blocked a blast from behind that before would've assuredly hit her before. Smirk.
She launched into flight to leave the area of enchantment. The area couldn't have been that large, and it was the only reason Luna was having any success in this little showing. Just as she was gaining distance from the many Luna's, they all suddenly disappeared. Celestia considered her next options while looking behind her as she left he sister behind to regain her tempo in this little fight to one up each other. As she turned her had back to look where she was going— freeze.
Celestia had completely frozen solid in a block and plummeted to the ground instantly. The ice adding insult to misery didn't shatter and blew a crater in the ground, behind magically stronger than normal ice and continuing to trap Celestia.
Luna had teleported outside the enchantment area, which had been locked in a world of its own so everything outside of it would look normal, so there was no way for Celestia to have seen her even if she had looked.
An explosion of fire invoked below and the icy prison was no more, Celestia was looking pretty heated.
"Say, what do you think I should call that spell? Or the one that cloaks me? I was thinking perhaps 'World of Darkness' for the latter. Too cheesy?"
Celestia's horn started glowing again.
Luna slowly smiled. The fun was just beginning.
Celestia and Luna stood around half a mile apart. The battle had raged for a while, and a brief breather had taken over.
Celestia stared to her right. The mountain that had formed half of the valley loomed large, casting shadows that felt like they were mocking her with some of Luna's exploits by this point.
Celestia, suddenly realized what else she could play with to mess with her little sister, or mess her up even harder than she already had. By this point both of them had already giving close to half of their total magical output that they could at any given time. At least that was what Celestia had done, so she had assumed Luna would be similar, but deep down being slightly scared to truly hurt her sister despite the scale that had already taken place so far. Luna had fared well against almost everything, so now Celestia knew that she could up the ante a bit more.
She lit her horn and grasped the mountain. Magic flowed and flowed into the land, and she realized in a moment of clarity that any normal pony witnessing this would gawk at magnitude of magic present. Looking over she saw Luna standing calmly still, most aware of what Celestia was doing, but still waiting to see before generating a response.
Finally, the mountain was in her hoof, and she made to smash it apart. Smash, and reform. Slowly, around fifty massive rock golems coalesced together from the mountain an stood at attention. Celestia gave Luna a glare and sent them on their journey towards her.
The golems march was not lost on Luna, and she suddenly realized that getting hit by the sheer weight one of them could throw around would not bode well. Celestia was truly bringing it this time.
So one by one she decided to start flash freezing the ground, a concerted effort to send a layer towards one golem at a time and freeze it. She had increased her output magically dramatically in an attempt to speed things up, and by the time she had frozen around fifteen of them another surprise loomed as they also began getting too close for comfort.
With an iron resolve Luna realized she really wanted to show it to her sister. She wouldn't move from this spot. Celestia wouldn't let her breathe however, and several curving pillars of fire came storm over and around the golems, swarming her from all sides. Celestia usually wasn't one to multi-cast to such a high degree, and Luna knew she could not be outdone here.
Luna quickly charged up and channelled a large body of water, then splitting them into thin spears numbering to the exact amount of fireballs approaching plus a few to do as much damage as she could to some of the golems as a bonus. She launched them viciously with a crack in the air, and the spears each individually met each fire through the exact middle - evaporating by the time it hit the end and fully dousing them. A few of the golems broke apart from the sheer speed piercing through their critical junctions to continue moving forward.
The last remaining golems were swinging at her now, and she made to finish them. Using pure moonlight as a beam she took the closest one out, and bringing to the side strafed the rest to cataclysmic result. The final golem on the right crumbled just before her, and while she took a moment to catch her breath another, smaller golem appeared from inside the cavity of the last golem, surging forward with an earthly glow which marked a suspected enchantment. At the same time, Celestia appeared above horn glowing follewed with a brilliant flash that lit up the valley entirely and forced her eyes closed. This time however Luna truly had been too close, and was completely unable to react. The golems punch, which was large enough to cover her entire equine body, slammed into her and sent her sprawling for miles, dragging across the ground in an unseemly way and leaving a slight trench in the wake.
Luna groaned and paused to appreciate her sisters strategy. She had taken a page out of Luna's book, and it had worked fabulously. Luna quickly fired a massive beam back from whence she had came, and the final charging golem disintegrated under the sheer energy of the attack. Celestia had no interest in pressing her further it seemed. She could see her flying to catch up and admire her work, and Luna was sure she had allowed her to finish that said golem on purpose to give her something to feel good about. Tch.
"Luna, while our back and forth does amuse me, I had something else in mind if you'd be willing to consider it."
Teal eyes met pink and there was a layer of trust and respect there.
"What do you propose?"
"No more games, a match of conjuration and spectacle, where we simply watch our work unfold until there is a due winner."
"Heh. You're on."
Magic missiles filled the landscape, meeting between sisters in a brutal standstill.
The only thing more impressive than the sheer quantity of individual attacks was the myriad of types being used.
Waves of darkness met arrows of light. Fire blasts met combinations of water, ice, and wind.
Waves of boulders were decimated by a banshee scream.
Lightning struck liquid iron, forming a massive shield above Celestia.
Plasma melted a meteorite before it could even get remotely close, having lost it's unpredictability factor.
Both sisters were sweating and struggling for breath.
Luna and Celestia stood side by side staring up at the sky.
Celestia had warped an aurora into the night sky with her magic. It was breathtaking, and anyone lucky enough to be outside this time of night had just received the memory of a lifetime.
"...Oh, I know exactly what's missing"
"Missing.. it's perfect Luna."
Maintaining vision on the heavens, Luna completed her spell and waited for Celestia's reaction.
"Ah!"
Dancing among the aurora now was several streaking comets.
"I've lived a long life Luna, but this really takes the cake. I've missed this. Really."
"I knew you'd love it. It's a shame that the average night is nothing like this, but then again it's only special if it's a rarity."
They both continued to stare.
Both Luna and Celestia sat panting in a barren plains landscape.
"I still can't believe you brought a meteorite down on me! What were you thinking!"
"It wasn't even that big of one! Relax!"
"It was cheating!"
"Was not!"
They were both laughing.
"Still, the fact you managed to surround me with tornadoes was a bit mean Celly, I must've puked for five minutes!"
"Oh hush, you totally deserved that after making me weigh a hundred times my normal weight, you know I'm sensitive in that department right?"
They were both laughing again. Both turned their heads over to the massive crater where Celestia had dropped weighing over one hundred thousand pounds. They both started rolling with laughter, and Celestia stopped with Luna sobering up just a bit after.
"Don't ever do that one again."
"Got it."
Celestia stood up and walked over to Luna.
They looked around.
"I don't even recognize where we are anymore.."
"Heh. Happens when you let loose!"
"No.. no it doesn't Luna." Celestia frowned so hard Luna thought she was about to chew her out. Sigh.
"This was.. a mistake."
"Come on Celly! That was the best thing to happen in.. umm.. centuries and you know it!"
"Luna." Celestia gave a stern look. She closed her eyes and then opened them back up to give a look at the ground.
"Perhaps.. perhaps there was some good that came from today." Celestia knelt down and dug at the dirt, finding what she was looking for and smiling calmly. She stood up again, and then started glowing. At first it started from the beginning, a golden yellow, but it slowly converted to a wonderful green. The ground, which was half grass and half upturned dirt at this point for miles on end, started to glowing faintly in expansion from Celestia at the centre.
Creaking sounds could be heard, and wood burst from the ground, followed by early leaves and other vegetation in between. For as far as the eye could see life sprung back, and soon you couldn't see far at all, because the vision was blocked by the spawn of life.
Both of them were smiling, and Luna finally broke the silence.
"You thought I would let our little babies get hurt just like that?"
Like the night had begun, where daylight soon stood to stand via Celestia's nudge, Luna had a final act of service to make.
Her eyes once again regained their cyan incandescence, and suddenly a wolves howl could be heard. The forest flooded with animals of all kinds, most of them approaching the sisters. Wolves surrounded Luna and she pet them, while Celestia nuzzled a deer.
"None were ever hurt, dear sister."
Flying home, the two sisters had a solemn silence.
Luna finally broke the silence.
"I still can't believe the kind of explosions you are capable of making, you scare me sometimes sis."
"It wasn't that bad. Besides, I was holding back."
"Point made.. but I can see you also give back just as much." A slight smile.
"On the topic of ridiculousness, some of these combinations you're coming up with would put Twilight to shame Luna, you seriously need to write some of those down."
"Meh.. who cares for complexity when it fades away in comparison to a greater force, it has no further value to give."
"Is that what you're going to tell me after that enchantment behind the mountain? Even if I had gone and blasted every direction you could've escaped and still hit me with that nasty cold surprise as I was leaving it. What about that time I fell into the ground combined with your mirror magic being chained from mirror to mirror, never to stop falling? I was so disoriented for a bit that I truly think I would've hurt myself trying to brute force my way out it. Your magic is every bit as effective, sister."
"That's.. very kind of you to say Celestia. Perhaps you're right. You know I hope we can do this again."
"..."
"Minus the destruction quite a bit."
"I think.. I would like that Luna.
