The Story of a Royal Guard [OUTDATED]

by Himntor

Growing Up

The Story of Swordulan Thunder Shield

Swordulan Thunder Shield (though he prefers to simply be called Sword Shield) is a Canterlot born unicorn pony. He was raised by his father Steadfast Shield and mother Sacred Shield. He has a light orange-ish brown coat, bright orange and yellow mane and tail and light blue eyes.

As a foal, Sword Shield was always on the look for learning new things. He was fairly bright for a young colt, if not a bit childish in his studies. He would question anything and everything in the books, and sometimes even complain if there were things he did not understand. The one subject that interested him most of all was the use of magic. He would constantly go to the Canterlot libraries and pick up new books about simple magic and historical magicians, studying them day and night and slowly learning how to use his own magic.

Sword Shield's father, Steadfast, had always talked to him about his father, who was a very high ranking Royal Guard, long since deceased. Steadfast looked down on Sword Shield to live up to his father and his greatness in the Royal Guard. He had wanted to join the Guard himself in his early years, but during his foal-hood he fell off a bridge and sustained an injury to his left leg, making him unable to go to training, and by the time it healed, Steadfast had already gotten his cutie mark and special talent in working well with numbers and money.

Steadfast talked about his father like he was one of the most important ponies in all of Equestria, telling stories about his time serving Celestia as a Captain. He wanted Sword Shield to begin training for the Royal Guard instead of learning magic, and constantly shoved it at him.

"You will not be great like your grandfather by studying magic all day!" Steadfast would say to Sword Shield.

Much to Sword Shield's dismay, his father had signed him up for Young Colt Training Academy to one day be a Royal Guard. He was working double time, training with a wooden sword and hard work outs by day, learning magic by night. Sword Shield was always exhausted, and it was starting to show in his training. He was slowly failing his classes, and even when he tried to learn magic he would simply fall asleep on the books. His father began to take away his books and scolded him for not training harder, but Sword Shield was too stubborn to let his father take away his love for magic.

"I want to learn magic! Dad won't let me, but will you let me Mom?" Sword Shield asked his mother. She sighed and agreed to talk to Steadfast about it. Soon his response came forward.

"I will agree to letting you go to the School for Magically Gifted Unicorns IF you complete your training," said Steadfast.

Sword Shield agreed immediately, and was soon able to continue training without strain. Though he could continue training without being constantly exhausted, he was still struggling with it all the same. He wasn't able to hold a sword upright in his mouth or hooves, and was still failing his classes.

One day in an arena match he was up against another unicorn that was much better than himself, and used magic to hold his sword instead of with his hooves or his mouth. Sword Shield finally saw that he didn't need to use his hooves to hold his sword as other earth and pegasus ponies did, but could use his magic instead, so he copied the other unicorn. Luckily at the time he had already learned how to use levitation magic on small objects.

Their match began, and his opponent took the first attack. Sword Shield barely managed to deflect the hit. Using magic to fight would take a bit of practice. He was in the small arena fighting for roughly five minutes, trying to deflect blow after blow that was thrown at him by his opponent. He attempted to attack himself but was always countered back.

His father watched from the sidelines with a disapproving look on his face. Suddenly there was a loud noise and a bright flash of color in the distance. Everypony was distracted except Sword Shield who was too focused on trying to deflect the blows from his opponent, but once he noticed that his opponent was distracted he saw it as a moment of opportunity. He attacked quickly and was able to drive back his opponent out of the ring and be claimed the victor. Everypony watching was shocked at Sword Shield's sudden comeback, including his father.

That's when Sword Shield's cutie mark appeared. It was a bright orange kite shield, with an iron sword crossing over it. There were also six cyan stars surrounding it, meaning that he had a special magic talent along with being good with a sword and a shield, at least that's what he expected. He was ecstatic about his victory and cutie mark's appearance.

The crowd cheered at Sword Shield's victory in the arena and congratulated him on his cutie mark as well. He began to start wielding a sword using his magic, constantly practicing new attacks and defensive stances. He was soon able to outclass many of his opponents in training, and was winning more and more arena fights.

When his training at the academy was finished his father kept to his deal and let him sign up at the School for Magically Gifted Unicorns. After how well he had been performing during training his father decided it was a good idea to learn more about magic as it would help him even more if he were to become a Royal Guard.

Sword Shield was required to do an entrance exam. A cart was brought in with three items on top; a large rock, a full glass of water and a ball. He was tasked to do different things with each item: Successfully levitate the glass of water for 30 seconds without spilling a drop, levitating the rock in the air for a whole minute without dropping it and finally spinning the ball around his head 20 times without losing focus.

He looked at the three objects curiously and began to use his magic on the glass of water. It was filled to the brim and nearly impossible to hold it with levitation magic without spilling. Sword Shield quickly put it back down and continued to think. An idea struck his mind and he quickly but carefully levitated the glass to his mouth and drank all the water, in addition to that he levitated the ball and placed it on top of the glass and spun the glass around his head 20 times in 30 seconds time.

Sword Shield put the two objects back down and looked over at the judges, who were staring at him in surprise. They nodded their heads and motioned towards the rock on the cart. He began to use his levitation magic on it. He tried to hold it up in the air for a minute, but was only able to reach 10 seconds before having to put it back down.

"I can't hold it, I'm not strong enough, I'm sorry," said Sword Shield with a frown. He started to walk out of the exam room when one of the judges called out.

"Wait one moment young colt, we have evaluated your performance and will gladly accept you as a student here at the School," said one of the judges.

Sword Shield looked at them wide eyed. "What? Really? But... I failed the last test!"

"Indeed you have, but you see, no students have been able to lift that rock. That test is to see if students are willing to accept a failure. The other tests however, you have done most exceptionally."

Sword Shield jumped with delight. "Yes! Thank you! I promise to be a good student."

He began studying magic at the School at a much higher difficulty. The other students were tough, not by strength though, but by intellect. During class they were all knee deep in paperwork and books. One little lavender filly was absolutely surrounded by books.

"You the new student?" asked a burgundy colt sitting at the desk next to Sword Shield.

"Y-yes," answered Sword Shield, "And you are?"

"Arcane is my name, magic is my game," introduced Arcane confidently, "How about you?"

"Sword Shield."

"Ah, so you're more of a fighting kind of pony huh?" He poked Sword Shield's legs. "Those are some muscles on you, I hope you're ready to stretch those brain muscles for a change."

Sword Shield looked around nervously. "Me too."

"Well good, and if you ever need any help with learning magic you can always come to me for help."

Sword Shield slowly came through Magic School, learning about the art of magic and where it comes from, learning more about large historical magicians such as Starswirl the Bearded, Clover the Clever and even the Princess herself, even more information than books had ever covered, it was overwhelming.

But Sword Shield persevered, albeit slowly. He never came to any pony for help, confident that he could do it himself, though he was not always successful in his projects. He constantly tried new things with magic, many times failing, but every now and then a successful spell was cast and he was congratulated by the class.

Eventually the class began to learn the bigger spells, teleportation magic specifically. Sword Shield learned that there are few unicorns that have been able to use the teleport spell. The entire class was taken through the process of learning how teleportation works and what it can do, going through every little detail. After they had all been taught the teacher had each student attempt to teleport.

Student after student attempted to teleport. Arcane tried and failed, most of the other students failed, the lavender book worm filly tried, and surprisingly succeeded. The class clapped their hooves in congratulations to the young mare. It then came to Sword Shield's turn. He walked up in front of the class confidently and focused his magic, closing his eyes. He felt his magic flowing around himself and in the air, in a quick flash of magic he disappeared and quickly reappeared a few feet forward. It was a success, the class congratulated him and continued with studying.

After Sword Shield finished learning magic at the school he went back to regular school and afternoon sword duels. A few years passed slowly by with not much of interest other than a short visit to Sword Shield's cousin's home. His cousin was named Stone Shield. The both of them had a little bit of a rivalry going on.

Stone Shield was a few years older than Sword Shield and was an earth pony. He was also training to be in the Royal Guard and was very close to coming into recruitment. The two of them would duel from time to time, most of the time Stone Shield coming on top or Sword Shield running away. The day would yet come when Sword Shield would best Stone Shield.

The school years ended, and now it was time for Sword Shield to be submitted for recruitment into the Royal Guard. He sent an application to the castle and waited for a response. The response letter came a day later granting Sword Shield access to the castle grounds for training. He said his quick goodbyes to his parents and left for the castles recruiting area.

The guards let him through the gates and he found a group of other stallions that were here for recruitment. He joined the group in waiting for the commanding officer to show up. A few minutes passed before a white stallion came over to look at the new recruits. Everypony stood in a line at attention. The stallion moved down the row looking at each recruit.

"Good morning new recruits!" roared the stallion

"GOOD MORNING, SIR!" yelled back the recruits.

"I am Captain Shining Armor, you may address me as Captain or Sir. As you are all new recruits you will be needing weapons. My first order for you is to go out and forge a weapon of your choice, you may choose either a spear, sword or bow. You will be expected to meet back here in two hours with your provided weapon, and will be judged on the quality of your weapon. Those who do not meet up to standards will be sleeping outside tonight." Shining Armor blew a whistle and sent everypony on their way to make a weapon.

Sword Shield left out the castle and decided to forge his own sword. He stopped by the library to pick up a book on metal crafting and read through it as he walked, using magic to hold it in place. He decided to copy the sword on his cutie mark and went through the Canterlot markets purchasing the materials he would need. Using Steel, Equestrian Gold (which is much stronger than regular gold, and is often used in Royal Guard armor), and some leather to hold the sword, Sword Shield forged his own blade, using the book he borrowed as a guide.

As an afterthought he also decided that he would enchant his sword using crystals and magic. During Magic School he read in a book that inanimate objects could be enchanted to be more powerful using crystals.

"Why not enchant a sword?" he thought.

He went out into the markets again to search for three crystals. He searched for over an hour, and at last he had found three diamond shaped, cyan colored crystals and purchased them with what bits he had left.

Sword Shield had never heard of anyone using an enchanted sword before, but he thought it was such a good idea that he wanted to be the first to try. He quickly put slots into his swords hilt using magic and fit the crystals into the hilt. Now it was time to enchant the sword, but he hadn't learned that spell yet.

With what time he had left he visited one of his professors that had taught him back in Magic School and asked him how he could enchant his sword using the crystals. After going over the spell, how it was cast and how it worked he laid the sword down and attempted the spell. With one bright shimmer the crystals came to life glowing brightly. It had worked. The sword pulsed once with magic and simmered down. The professor congratulated him quickly and insisted that he had to get back to work.

As Sword Shield left the school the sword exploded in a flurry of energy, filling the room with light for a few seconds. He shielded his eyes for a moment then looked back at the sword curiously. It didn't seem to have changed at all. He shrugged and continued on his way thinking the explosion must have been normal in enchanting.

While on his way back Sword Shield built a small kite shield with the remaining supplies he had left and painted it orange, similar to his cutie mark. Style had to count, right? Sword Shield was the last one to get back to the castle grounds. Shining Armor noticed and chided him for being the slowest out of everyone. He then began examining all the weapons that everypony had managed to make.

Sword Shield thought all the other recruit's weapons were decent, but they seemed to make them rather plain. Normal wood and iron spears and swords, he felt proud that his seemed to stand out the most. The Captain's face was blank and unreadable however, he examined each weapon for well over five minutes, it seemed like it had been an eternity when he finished.

Shining Armor stepped in front of everypony and made his judgement. "You've all done very well, no pony will be sleeping outside tonight, I merely said that to get your rumps moving. Those who did not make an adequate enough weapon will be given one more chance to perfect it. I'll leave you to the trainers from now on. Report to your designated trainer, and I will check on you all tomorrow morning."

Another guard came over and assigned each recruit to their trainers. Sword Shield was assigned to his own trainer along with a few other recruits and began to do straining workouts, arena duels and fighting dummy's. There were trainers for each type of pony, earth, pegasus and unicorn, that way it was easier to train them in their type of combat style. Pegasi being good archers and hit and run attackers, earth ponies are good at being unstoppable walls of meat, and unicorns made great weapon specialists. Sword Shield continued in practice with his sword, learning defensive and aggressive positions. Shining Armor checked the recruits on a daily basis for how much they were improving.

During training Sword Shield had bested most of the other recruits in the duels, since his sword had been enchanted he seemed to have a better control over it and managed to be able to sneak up on his opponents. He wasn't doing too well in the exercises, his physical strength wasn't his most strong point and was constantly pushed around for being the 'weaker pony'.

"You only won because you know more magic than we do, egghead," said some of the guards after Sword Shield had won a duel.

He did his best to ignore them. Knowing that he was still the better fighter in the arena helped, but only time would tell when his combat skills would truly work in a real battle.

Author's Note:

Welcome to the beginning of the Story of a Royal Guard series. If you're someone who doesn't like fanfics that are focused on OCs and following whatever continuity and canon the show has, then this story is probably not for you. However, if you are interested in this particular character's life as a Royal Guard, you may find it a fun and interesting read (at least I hope so).

This first story is written in the third person perspective, though the next two are first person to get a better connection with the character. This story is mainly to flesh him out and get him in the place he needs to be, with some crazy adventures in between. I'll be honest upfront here though, this OC acquires a very overpowered weapon very early on. It will be severely nerfed in due time, and it's also fairly significant in the characters development, but understand that its abilities might get a little absurd, though I try my best not to make it so absurd as to totally go against what's possible in the canon show. How much power the character has is not an attempt to simply make a powerful character, but to see how the character uses such power and whether they succeed or fail in their goals with it.

Thanks for any likes, favorites, comments and even views!

Comments

[Lucky424]

Wow, what's with all the deleted comments?

Anyways, this is pretty good. Can't wait to read on and see where it goes.

[Himntor]

Erm, ignore the deleted comments here. The reason is because they're all from when this fanfic was vastly different. A lot of edits have been made, so I believed the comments were no longer relevant to the story that it is now.

[Thunderblast]

Interesting start...kind of rushed though.