//------------------------------// // With Wendy and Ring // Story: Roaring Winds and Rising Tides // by vortex123 //------------------------------// The two took to the air, with Wendy rising slowly and shakily. After a few moments, wind wrapped around Wendy's fists. Seeing that, Ring covered her fists in wind as well, surprising Wendy since she hadn’t seen any other pegasus do the same. Though something about it felt both different, and familiar, though Wendy chose to ignore it for the moment. With that out of the way, the two rushed at each other and threw punch after punch. It went on like that for a bit before they broke apart. After taking a moment to take in a breath, Wendy unleashed a sky dragon roar. Instead of dodging, Ring corkscrewed towards the blast, spinning in the opposite rotation of the hurricane fast enough to cancel it out. Ring quickly reached Wendy and brought her leg up. Before Wendy could react, Ring slammed her foot down on Wendy’s head, knocking Wendy down to the ground, hard. With how often she's crashed into the ground before this point, it didn't take her long to get back into the fight. Casting enchantments to increase her physical abilities and speed, Wendy rush at Ring. But as she got close, Ring did the flying equivalent of side stepping, allowing Wendy to crash into the ceiling due to her poor flying skills. "You know I'm down here, right?" Ring asked. "Maybe I put too much power into that kick, you did hit your head pretty hard." She added with a mocking grin, ticking Wendy off. Wendy then fired another roar, Ring just did the same thing as she did before. But before she reached her, Wendy threw a right hook, which Ring easily blocked. Wendy tried to kick her, but she blocked that too. Ring threw a left hook, which hit, but Wendy grabbed on it. Feeling confident, Wendy poured a good chunk of magic into a third roar, hitting Ring point blank. Unfortunately for Wendy, it didn’t even make a scratch. Ring gives a sweet smile as Wendy feels a sinking feeling in her stomach. Now much less confident, Wendy casts wind armor on herself, which had gotten slightly better since the last time she had used it. Before Wendy could react, Ring throws a strong punch to her stomach, easily breaking the armor. As Wendy doubles over, she lost her concentration on her flying spell, and fell to the ground…again. Ring preceded to chuckle as she flew to Wendy and landed beside her. “Ow….” Wendy groaned. “Not bad, given how short of a time you’ve had these abilities.” Ring says, trying to soften the blow of defeat. She offered Wendy a hand. “Thanks.” Wendy says, grasping Ring’s hand. Ring just sighs. “Remember what Tide said earlier about training?” Ring asked, tightening her grip to the point that Wendy felt was off. “She said that at the end of this we’d want to murder you two, and that this would last for the next few hours….” Wendy trails off as her eyes turn into pinpricks. She looked at her hand that’s being almost painfully grabbed, then back to Ring. Ring’s apologetic look was all the confirmation she needed for her unasked question. “W-wait! Let’s talk about thi-Ahhhh!” Wendy starts to say before Ring grabbed her forearm and yanked her up, before slamming her back to the ground on her other side. This was repeated 5 times before Ring span Wendy around for five seconds with incredible speed and ease. She then proceeded to let go and launch Wendy to a wall 20 feet away, which caused cracks to form in the wall where she landed. Ring quickly flew over to Wendy. Seeing her approach, Wendy ate some air (which she still wasn’t used to), and cast wind armor again. “That’s fair.” Ring said, as Wendy got back up. Though if the armor hadn’t hid everything except Wendy’s silhouette, she would have noticed the changes on Wendy. Wendy’s eyes had turned to slits. The white in her eyes had gained a blue tint, while her brown eye color had turned a slightly darker blue. Her skin turned grey, and her hair had turned purple, and gained the same flowing and smoky look Nightmare Moon had. Her teeth had become sharper then they already were. Her outfit had changed to resemble Nightmare Moon’s armor. Though there were three things Ring could tell. One: Wendy’s magic felt very different. Two: Wendy was much taller. Three: Wendy now had wings. The wind armor then vanished, allowing Ring to see her new look. “LEAVE MY MOMMY ALONE!” 'Wendy' yelled in rage, though her voice sounds like someone else was speaking, someone much younger. "Well I guess that answers how you recovered from your illness." She said with a shrug. 'Wendy’ launched towards Ring as a scythe spawned in her hand. Before 'Wendy' could even reach 10ft, Ring suddenly appeared in front of her, then thrusts a hand to her forehead. 'Wendy' felt a pulse go through her. She fell to her knees, before turning back to normal, confused as hell. "What?" Wendy asked, receiving no answer. "What!?" She asked again, still receiving no answer. "I have so many questions!!" She nearly shouted. "I'd be happy to help you answer those questions, after we're done with training and some business with Mike's stalker." Ring said, offering a hand. "Thanks!" Wendy said cheerfully before grabbing Ring's hand. After Ring's grip tighten again, Wendy realized her mistake. "I expected better from you." Ring says with a frown, disappointment clear in her voice, which hurt Wendy much more then any attack could've. She just lowers her head in shame, and Ring preceded to do the exact same thing she did last time. After they reached the 2 hour mark, Ring mercifully said they could take a break from fighting. One trip to the infirmary and a quick clean up later, they headed to a location far from the training area, with a lollipop in Wendy's hand and a small bag of potato chips in Ring's. The area they were in looked…peaceful, from the calming pond filled with various fish, to the sound of the crickets in the background. It was…nice, to put it simply. After the two were done with their respective snacks, with Ring telling Wendy she'll have to burn that off (with Wendy accusing Ring of planning that, and Ring wholeheartedly confirming that), the two sat down. "So…now what?" Wendy asked. "You remember the mindscape Link mentioned? We'll use that to help you learn your abilities quicker." Ring said, much to Wendy's confusion. "How do you know about that?" Wendy asked. "Oh, well you know Mike's stalker? She informed us that Link told you three about it when you walked to that lake together." Ring said with a chuckle. Wendy raised a suspicious brow, but said nothing. "How'd she react when Zoey called Mike a basic beta-bitch and featherbrain?" Wendy asked curiously. "Oh she was pissed, she wanted to strangle her so badly." Ring said with a chuckle. Again, Wendy said nothing. "Well, let's go ahead and start." Wendy says. Ring nodded, and began to instruct Wendy in the proper way to enter a shared mindscape, in a way that Wendy wouldn't have to worry about people reading her thoughts. Mindscape With a bit (lot) of help from Ring, Wendy found Ring and herself on a mountaintop, which was honestly one of the best places to practice wind related spells. "Alright, let's start with basics. I want you to make an F1 tornado. Focuse on your magic, shape it to where it resembles the wind your accustomed too. Then rotate it in a circle, as time goes on, increase the speed by tiny amounts." Ring instructed loud and clear. "I know you (or at least your body) are already accustomed to advanced wind spells, but since you didn't actually work to get to that level, you don't have a proper grasp on it. Throughout our fight, I noticed you using MUCH more magic then was required. If you fight someone as you are now, you might go overboard and accidentally cause more damage than you intended." She finished. Wendy was about to complain about starting from square one, but remembered what happened with Link. Link easily survived that because he was both much stronger then her, and he could heal. If she accidentally did the same to a normal everyday person, it would have definitely killed said person. With more then a little guilt, she nodded and did as she was told, unaware of the blue slited eyes observing her. … It took a bit, but Wendy managed to make a fairly decent F1 tornado. After looking it over, Ring nods in approval. "Alright, now we'll focus on power. I'll attack it, and you try to keep it going. I'll send weak wind blades at it. If your tornado can take the hit without dispersing, we can go to the next step. Keep in mind that we're still on training wheels, you're currently not having to deal with obstacles like natural wind currents or raising and lowering temperatures. Nor are you dealing with normal physics, so you don't have to worry about being blown away or affecting unintended targets like allies or property. Once you get it down here, we'll have to go over all of this in the real world, with actual obstacles and consequences." Ring instructed. Nodding, Wendy got to work, focusing on keeping her tornado strong. Much to both of there disappointment (not that Ring actually showed it), it was effortlessly taken out by a wind blade. So Wendy tried again, and it was dispersed again. Over and over, disperse after disperse, both were getting bored of seeing it so many times. After the 15th time, Ring decided to point out a flaw she kept seeing. "Uh dude? Why are you letting it stop after the hit? This would go by a lot quicker if you tried correcting it when it starts to get undone after each hit. There's more to power then just brute force, you know that right?" She says in confusion. Wendy contemplates what she said, then nods and focused on the tornado. Ring fires another wind blade, hitting the tornado and causing it to destabilize. But before it could completely disperse, Wendy managed to catch it in time, and restabilize it. With smiles on both of their faces, the two continue the exercise, with Wendy improving with each attempt. … After a seemingly long time, Wendy had got both rotation and power down pat, as far as mental training goes anyway. Now all that was left was control. "Ok, you've done well so far, granted its been about a week or so." Ring said nonchalantly. "Wait WHAT!?!" Wendy screamed in panic, which turned into agitation when she heard laughing. "Hahahahaha, you should have seen your face! Priceless! No it hasn't been that long, it's actually been about 10 minutes, give or take a few minutes or so." Ring says while chuckling. "……So you're absolutely sure that you can't hear my thoughts right now?" Wendy asked, not at all amused by Ring's little prank. "I don't need to hear your thoughts to know what you're thinking, your face says it all." Ring says with a shit-eating grin. "Just start the lesson." Wendy grumbled. "Fine fine. Anywho, I'm gonna place a weak barrier around your tornado. You're going to try to to control your tornado while using the previous steps, but you have to do it without breaking the barrier, got it?" Ring explained then asked. Wendy nods and the two began. Since this was a pretty straight forward thing, Wendy didn't need help in finding flaws, especially since the flaw and solution from the previous step applied to this step as well. That being said, it was definitely the most hardest of the steps. By the time that Wendy got it down pat, she had already gotten sick of the sound of shattering glass. And with that, she had a better understanding of her powers. Finally done with the mental training, they preceded to practice in the real world, for about 30 minutes. While not as good as the mental training, Wendy did gain a firmer grasp on wind manipulation, now all that was left was the flying. Needless to say, Wendy wasn't mentally prepared for this part, but knew she couldn't skip it. Well Ring had said she actually could, since this part and the last one had the exact same methods to preform the spell properly, but Wendy herself couldn't bring herself to skip it. "Again, you don't have to do this now. We've technically already been over the necessary steps. It's literally just power, rotation and control, like the tornado. The only difference between that and this, is that you're applying it to yourself." Ring groans in exasperation. "I do have to do this!" Wendy says stubbornly. "Rainbow Dash told me that if I ever wanted to get better at flying, I needed to practice everyday! She's the greatest flyer I know, so if she says I need to do it everyday, then that's what I'll do!" Wendy finished with conviction. Ring just deadpans. "Considering how you've just gotten the basics roughly down, you sure that's not just desperation talking?" Ring asked flatly. "Sh-shut up!" Wendy yelled in embarrassment, both confirming what Ring had said, and reminding Wendy of her original version's more embarrassing moments. Like when the original first introduced herself to the assembled wizards from other guilds. "Calm down. Go ahead and give it a shot, if it's really that important to you." Ring says with a soft chuckle before taking out a strange looking tablet, which she preceded to fiddle with for a moment. Wendy smiles as Ring does this, which turned into shock as many different flying exercise equipments started to appear, and some strange wheel. The wheel had a green base, with a purple spiral in it. There was a gear in the center of the wheel, and that gear was linked to another one on the inner edge of the wheels via belt, this one was bigger then the first one. The bigger one had what looked like a strap on it. The wheel itself was being held up by three wooden beams. Though the strangest thing about it was, there was a weird portal near it. “Whoops! Didn’t mean to bring that wheel out.” Ring said, blushing in minor embarrassment. “Just ignore it for now. For now, just go through the flyers training course.” She instructed. With a nod, Wendy takes a shot at the course.