Dimensional Chronicles

Wow, as it turns out, getting hit by an angry magic user hurt a lot more than getting hit by a scared one. Gavla made a mental note of this as she peeled herself out of the wall of a gazebo located towards the center of the gardens, flopping onto the ground unceremoniously in order to take stock of what was still working. Arms? She dug her claws into the concrete, pushing herself into a sitting position. Check. Legs? She planted her hind legs, getting back up into a standing position. Check. Face? She opened her eyes, wincing slightly at the pain the sudden onslaught of light caused. Check. Wings?... This was what she was really afraid of, unlike the rest of her body, she was unable to get her armor to prevent the breaking of wing bones when faced with an assault of great force from above or behind. It was simply impossible to do without compromising maneuverability.

She then remembered something she considered a stroke of genius. She had built small flaps, into both the her armor and the pegusi model armor, that the wings could be tucked into in the event of such an impact, in order to protect them from harm. Stretching her wings out from under the light plates she sighed in relief, thanking the Great Beings that anything with wings' first instinct in to tuck them in when faced with such force. Check. She rolled her neck, popping a few vertebrae back into place.
"Well somebody's cranky." She called out after her assailant. "I knock somebody you like upside the head?" She leered at her opponent, grinning at the mare's glare. "Who in Karzahni are you anyway?" Gavla spat out a mouthful of dirt. Her opponent crouched down, pointing her horn at Gavla.
"Princess Cadance." She growled at Gavla.

"Oh, so you're the one I've been hearing about. The one who got kidnapped by an over-sized bug." Gavla taunted, Cadence glared at her. "It's embarrassing honestly, now I have to tell people that I got hit by someone who couldn't handle a Nui-Rama."
"Oh, shut it!" Cadance lit her horn, power surging through her form as Gavla braced herself, ready to knock the alicorn down a peg. Firing off a neon blue bolt of energy, Cadance took to the air. Gavla got up on her hind legs, bracing herself as the bolt hit, nestling itself in her hoof.

"Hate to break it to ya girly," Gavla cocked back her arm, "but it'll take more than that." She threw the orb of power, loosing one of her own to follow it. Cadance drove herself higher to avoid the volleys of energy, Gavla chuckled. "That which is the makuta's," Cadance's rebounded spell changed course, making a beeline straight for her, Gavla's did the same, the black swath following the blue bolt back to its master.
"Don't you dare say it."
"Shall return to him."
"You said it..." Gavla laughed as Cadance's eyes widened in surprise. She whirled around, putting up a shield, her own power impacted it, shattering the barrier. Gavla's bolt kept going, exploding inches from Cadance's face. A black plume burst out, clinging to Cadance's form as she tumbled through the air.

Righting herself, Cadance looked around for Gavla, not wanting to lose sight of her opponent. Gavla surged up, squaring a vicious punch to Cadance's stomach before flying past her. Cadance's flapping became irregular as she tried to catch her breath, forced out of her by Gavla's armored fist. "Oh, come on 'princess', I know you can do better than that, your aunt controls the sun, the other one controls the moon and you..." Gavla trailed off, taunting her with silence.
"I'll show you what I can do." Cadance muttered, pushing herself up through the air. Power gathered in her horn again. "By the time I'm through with you, you'll be a smear on that tree." Gavla grinned, she'd been wanting to see what happened when an alicorn let go.
"Now you've done it."
"Oh shush, you." Gavla said.

Cadance released the energy, letting it flow through herself. An unspoken rule among alicorns was that they never showed their true power, always locking it away behind several walls of sealing spells. Luna had been the first to break this rule, allowing herself to let go during the initial defense, to drive the invaders out of Ponyville. Cadance was about to do the same to punish the bitch who had beat her husband. The air around her rippled as threads of light appeared in the air around her, unraveling before disappearing completely. Cadances eyes closed tight as power flowed, unrestrained, through her body. In all honesty, it hurt like hell, like someone had poured red hot passion itself into her veins. All that power, bottled up behind something as weak as three layers of protective wards, now it was loose, and it had a target.

"Let's see you handle this!" Cadance's eyes flew open, abandoning their normal dark purple for the blue of her magic. The release was massive, momentarily blinding Cadance as it surged towards its target. The beam was far too large for Gavla to even consider dodging, and trying to outrun it would just make her die tired.
Give the order.
"Gotcha."

Gavla grinned, with a mighty heave she thrust herself forward, claws out, into the center of the beam. She tucked her wings in just as the beam hit, turning herself into a near-perfectly streamlined bullet. Heat engulfed her, electricity arching across her armor as power pooled in all the nooks and crannies of the protosteel. The iron tips of her claws parted the magic, allowing it to simply slide off her sleek armor instead of incinerating her. Bursting out the other end of the beam, Gavla swung a back leg, squaring Cadance in her jaw and opening several shallow cuts with the smaller talons there. Opening her wings, Gavla swung around Cadance, sticking close to prevent her from using properly destructive magics.

Cadance's horn glowed, a pair of wicked scimitars materialized in the air next to her. Gavla slid her blades back out, ready to fight. They charged at each other, protosteel clashing on magic with an electric sound, their fur stood on end as both sides tried to push the other down. Cadance broke off, swinging her swords in a circle around herself to put some momentum behind them. They crashed down on Gavla's, one after the other, spinning her through the air. Gavla used the momentum to bring about one of her hind legs for a heel-kick. Cadance took the opportunity to try and sever the limb, her blade clattering uselessly against Gavla's armor. Gavla pushed down, letting her leg push one blade out of the way and one of her blades to occupy Cadance's other sword. Gavla brought the flat of her blade down onto the left side of Cadance's face, making her see stars, before swooping back, putting a little distance between them.

Cadance shook her head, trying to calm the ringing in her left ear. Gavla retracted her blades, her claws swirling with dark energy. She spun in place, letting the bolts of shadow streak towards Cadance, who brought her swords down, cutting through one and then the other. Gavla was hot on their tail, claws set to strike. Cadance's horn glowed brighter, squaring Gavla in the chest with a burst of power. They were too close together, the release of power sending both spiraling through the air. Cadance was the first to right herself, surging towards the still stunned Gavla. She made contact, driving her shoulder into Gavla's back, pushing her even further down.

Gavla shook herself to regain her sense of balance, glad she had learned to let her wings essentially work on autopilot.
Vamprah, can I get number four real quick? Her claws started to crackle with electricity. Thanks, big guy. She turned back to Cadance, who was streaking through the air towards her. "Sup!" She yelled, thrusting her claws out, two bolts of lightning flew from them, arching towards Cadance with deadly accuracy. Cadance brought up her swords to defend herself, the bolts landed in the swords before arching through them and towards their intended target. Cadance quickly put up a shield, the chain lightning bursting ineffectually against it. Number thirty now, please?

As Cadance threw off the shield, Gavla took a deep breath, releasing it as a shrieking concussive blast of sound. Cadance hardly had time to blink before she was knocked completely out of the air, smashing into the ground with a crash. Gavla circled the spot she fell like a vulture, looking for some sign of movement. She got it in the form of a beam of blue energy, Gavla ducked to the side, flying around the beam and down towards her opponent.

They had gathered a bit of an audience. The order had been for Vamprah to call off the rahkshi, allowing the guards to watch. "Is that all you've got?" Gavla yelled, barreling towards Cadance. Cadance shot up to meet her, swords clashing on claws as they met, sparks flew from where the iron met magic. Gavla broke contact, swooping beneath Cadance and taking another breath. She screeched again, throwing Cadance up into the air and deafening her at such close range.

Cadance felt something hot running down the sides of her face, padding at it with a hoof she found it was blood. The pressure snap caused by Gavla's power scream had popped her eardrums. This, however, went unnoticed by Gavla, who was still a good thirty feet below her. "You like that?" Gavla yelled, "well I've got more!" Gavla flew up, blades out, at Cadance. Seeing the darker red fur around Cadance's ears she stopped, her blades retracting with the sound of metal on metal. Her smile fell, turning to a look of concern. Using the guard code, which Gavla assumed, seeing as Cadance was an ex-guard captain's wife, Cadance knew. She asked, "you good to keep going?" Cadance nodded in response. "You sure? I've got medics downstairs." Cadance nodded again, Gavla grinned fiercely, her blades sliding back out.

Gavla and Cadance clashed in the air again, becoming a storm of blades and magic, neither side giving an inch as they bombarded each other with everything they had. It was nearly imperceptible, but as the fight progressed Gavla was slightly more careful with the powers she borrowed from Vamprah, making sure there was a bit of distance between them before using the more destructive abilities. Space itself seemed to warp around them as they tore into each other, but still neither one would give an inch of sky.

When Shining Armor regained consciousness, nothing could be seen of the two except a ball of swirling black and blue energy. He looked around at the rest of the clearing, the entirety of the guard was there, medics tending to what wounds there were. Most just needed a good bar of chocolate after the rahkshi's draining. Copper Plate stood next to him, appearing to have woken up only a few moments before.
"Your wife packs a punch sir." He whistled before grinning cockily at the ex-captain. "Speaking of which, how was princely life treating you Captain?" Shining Armor pushed himself up, looking at Copper Plate and smiling bitterly.
"It was great, soft pillows and fancy meals every day. I'd do anything to go back."

The two continued to stare at each other for a moment, before bursting into laughter. "It's good to see you Plate, how've you been handling the new position as captain of the earth regiment?"
"Wait, Captain?" Vinyl walked over, her injury healed by a medic named Quick Fix.
"Oh, right, you're new." Sandcroft flapped over to them. "Copper Plate is the captain of the earth pony guard, and I'm captain of the pegusi guard. Unfortunately, Frigid Wind died in the initial attack." He paused for a moment as the Copper Plate hung head and Shining gasped. "The job's open, Armor, we need a new captain, so why not take an old one back?" Shining looked back up, and Vinyl got the feeling she'd walked in on something very important.

"Frigid's dead, my lieutenant is dead?" He asked, eyes swimming with tears, the other captains nodded. "The Shield's Sword..." Shining choked for a moment before speaking again. "What happened? It should have taken an army of dragons to take him down, at least that was what he always bragged."
"Well it took more." Sandcroft nodded. "Canterlot was going to be hit. They showed up when the princesses left to deal with them in other towns. It was gonna be massive, they brought all kinds of big war machines. Things that looked like elephants or giant bugs, they had a bunch of massive metal birds screaming through the skies. Frigid took one look at 'em and walked out, told the unicorns to wait until he gave the signal to raise a shield. He gave the signal, once he was outside the shield's range. All that scrap out there, he did that. Right pissed off their general too, the thing walked up to him and snapped his neck once it'd worn him down on its troops."

"Woah," Vinyl couldn't help but be impressed, everybody had seen the massive wall of debris to the north of the shield, but to hear one pony had done that was awe inspiring.
"Oh, you haven't met Scratch yet." Sandcroft seemed to perk back up. "She was on our squad for the training. And as much as it pains me to say it, she was right about the smith. Now I gotta find Ship Shape and apologize." Sandcroft fluttered away, towards the castle.

At that moment the orb of clashing energy that was Gavla and Cadance's battle came crashing down, flooding the clearing with power for a moment before dissipating. Gavla and Cadance had their blades at each other's throats, metal and magic pressed against flesh. No one dared move, lest they startle the combatants into killing each other. Gavla nodded, almost imperceptibly, at the same time the blades were pulled away and they smiled.
"And that, maggots, is exactly what I want to see from each and every one of you." Gavla yelled, shaking Cadance's hoof. "Thank you, Miss Cadenza." She nodded to the alicorn.

"A pleasure Gavla." Cadance bowed shallowly, speaking a bit more loudly than was really needed, on account of her busted ears. She walked over to stand next to her slack-jawed husband. "But do go a bit easier on Shiny here next time, alright?"
"I make no promises." Shining Armor noticed that Gavla was using the guard code as she spoke, looking over at his wife he could see why. The blood from her ears had hardened, leaving a pair of crusty red streaks on either side of her muzzle.
"Honey?" No response. "Gavla, what did you do?" He yelled at the navy blue mare.

"Get your wife to a good medic, alright Shiny?" Gavla chuckled, walking past him back towards the castle. "She's got some serious fight in her."

Luna gasped as she regained consciousness, feeling even more exhausted than when she has fallen into trance in the first place. Her fur was matted with sweat and her breath came in ragged, shuddering gasps as she tried to bring her emotions back under control. Celestia spoke, breaking through Luna's haze of panic.
"Are you alright Luna? I know how much visions take out of you." Luna cast her gaze around the room, it was the same as when she went under. The throne room still pristine, Spike still sleeping with Peewee and Philomena and the mask still hung in the green aura of Celestia and Luna's combined magics. Luna's noticed through her still muddled mind that she was crying.

"Sister, I believe I have just seen Makuta Krika's afterlife." She shuddered, "and he is not well."
"Why? What happened?" Celestia reached out with a wing, pulling a shivering Luna in close to her chest.
"It is a tartaros of the highest order, so much pain and anger, such fury in his eyes." She gulped nervously. "It has twisted what he believed to be salvation into a nightmare that he has to fight for his life against. I know not what he's done to deserve that, but after seeing it, I'm not sure he aided anyone in his life with pure intent."

"Luna, I'm sure he-" Celestia started.
"He cut me in half," Luna deadpanned, "he was raving about slugs and someone he called 'The Wearer of the Sun'. If nothing else he's gone mad." Luna shuffled her wings a little, turning to look at the mask with which they held the end of the world at bay. And it shuddered. "What?" Luna stepped out from under her sister's wing, walking towards the shaking mask.

~~"Wh-"~~ Luna started at the muffled sound, looking around frantically.
"Did you hear something, Celestia?" Luna asked cautiously. Celestia looked just as startled, and nodded slowly.
"Is someone there?" Celestia called out, searching the edges of the room for anyone hiding in the shadows.
~~"Who dares?"~~