Well, then. Where did we leave off? Our training? Right, that. Okay, after we had a relatively quiet week after Applejack saved the town from a stampede and worked herself to exhaustion, we were all subjected to the torture of one lunar princess. Our combat assessment went off quite well for the most part. Sure, we got completely wrecked by Luna, besides Pinkie Pie and Applejack and to some lesser degree Twilight, we debated on what to do about Twilight’s weapon and the lack of combat ability from our resident animal caretaker.
Both of which had surprising solutions. Twilight and Luna worked out a plan to craft a foci to aid in her spellcasting in the form of a wand. For the duration of the training with Luna she needed to content herself with a dagger for the training. She was quite reluctant with learning how to wield it, though.
Part of the solution to Fluttershy’s problem came in the form of a little fox that Luna showed her how to summon. Those two bonded in a little contest of mental fortitude and became fast friends, believe it or not. Oh yeah, the little bugger could turn into a hulking beast of a monster.
Don’t ever antagonize Brightpaw, you will live longer for it.
There was also the part where Luna did some training with Fluttershy that stayed a secret between them. I have no idea what Luna did with her, but after she was done with her, Fluttershy seemed... different. She was still the demure girl we knew and loved but there was this feeling in me that told me Luna and Brightpaw had done something to her. Something I was sure I wouldn’t like in the slightest.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, I just noticed those little instances where the light in Fluttershy’s eyes seemed a bit dimmer than usual. If you blinked it was entirely possible to miss it or think it a trick in the light.
That leaves us to the here and now, some odd weeks later. Once we were through with our training, in the form of forcing us to complete the harvest on Applejack’s farm and running ourselves ragged around the perimeter of it, Luna left back to Canterlot promising us that it wasn’t the last time she would oversee our torture. My words, not hers, but basically the same meaning.
We were left with continuing our exercise on our own and sparring amongst our group of friends. Fluttershy was somewhat exempt from the friendly duels because she cheated. No, I’m not salty. Or jealous. You know what? I totally am, fuck off.
She was apparently the only one Luna trusted with the bond of a familiar. Even if that familiar was stupidly overpowered. Luna was of the opinion that only Fluttershy amongst our group of friends was able to forge a bond with a summon. That basically made her the beast tamer, while Applejack became our tank, Rarity, Lux and Twilight our ranged damage dealers, Pinkie and Sol the melee fighters and Rainbow the go-between, seeing that she would use hit and run tactics as she could fly.
Besides that, we were all told to read up on first aid and train ourselves in how to treat injuries. Not that I was that particularly good with that, I had to admit. I could do it in a pinch, although the quality of my work wasn’t of the highest caliber.
Sometime between our training sessions and work, a friend of Rainbow came by for a visit and was quickly pummeled into the dirt by Brightpaw after she insulted Fluttershy. I was quite surprised that Fluttershy didn’t stop him, either. It really left me feeling suspicious more and more of what Brightpaw and Luna had done to her.
Yeah, that happened. That friend of hers seriously had a death wish, considering the bad attitude she had about it and her continued harassment of our friends. Pinkie tried to salvage the situation but she couldn’t work wonders.
After she was gone the usual normalcy returned to our little corner of the world. We all trained here and there and I decided to patrol the border of the Everfree Forest. I have gotten the eerie feeling that something wasn’t right in there and started doing my exercise from then on there. I could do my runs anywhere I liked, after all. And it was a nice bonus of actually making sure nothing came out of there or stopping curious children from going in there and getting themselves killed in the process.
From all the warnings regarding that place, one would expect people would stay the hell away from it.
In my spare time, I studied the runic circles in my little library on my phone in the private confines of my bed. And regular spellbooks, because how could I ever stay away from those?
While most of it was still beyond my comprehension, some of the stuff was useful to know. Like keeping my tea warm with a little modification to my cups. I really loved that alteration, what can I say?
Just a few days ago, I managed to get the mirror image spell down pat that Luna taught me. It didn’t help me with studying, seeing that I couldn’t access their memory, but it helped me very much in my training against myself.
When you could fight four versions of you, it helped you a lot when fighting against groups.
The flight training with Sol was continuing at a snail’s pace, though. The best I could do was hover for a few moments before losing my rhythm and balance. Rainbow tried to help me a few times, causing me to come up with an explanation of why I couldn’t fly, but she quickly gave up on that notion. She was way too impatient to be able to teach anything in a reliable way.
Apropos teaching, Twilight was currently teaching Lux all the tricks she learned with magic as she herself learned new ones. Spike was ecstatic to have a beard grown on his way too young face for it to look natural. To each their own, I guess. At least the kids in school didn’t get the idea to do anything stupid as I was distracted, while Lux was laughing her ass off.
So, twenty-five tricks as of right now. I would think such spells were beneath Twilight, but one could never know when they would come in handy.
I groaned as Spike began flirting to imaginary Rarity in the mirror as he admired his mustache. A little part of me wanted to drag him away from there by the ear, but I mercilessly beat the jealousy back down from where it came.
His flirting came to a halt soon enough as Twilight reversed her spell and we went outside having stayed cooped up in the library for long enough over the last few days. Not just learning magic, but also tinkering with the magi-tech batteries. We were already at the testing phase of our improvement and they certainly are little wonders! Celestia was quite proud of us for our innovation and we should get some new equipment over the next couple of days.
I couldn’t wait to see how the cars would perform with these new babies! How far could we go before the batteries were depleted and needed to recharge? As long as there were a few stops along the way, it should take us anywhere we desired without problems. I was already getting giddy over the prospect of revolutionizing the method of travel in Equestria, no... in all of Equis!
Our conversation along the way turned away from the magic tricks to the specifics of the talent mark a person has and their relation to magic. As Spike aptly said, normally you were bound to the magic your talent mark gave you access to. Twilight clarified that statement, going so far as to explain that someone with a talent mark purely for magic would have no such restrictions.
That probably explained why I couldn’t do every bit of magic I came across in books and so on. Sure, most often I could brute force the spell to work, but I needed to use a lot more mana to get it done than someone that had a talent for it. Runic circles were a small workaround for that but those were a lot harder to use.
My talent was related to combat, I had to guess, so every spell that was purely used in any way to go on the offensive or defensive was quite a bit easier for me. The fact one could use illusions in combat to great effect and that I was fairly adept with light-based magic made it my go-to for any fight.
The mirror image spell Luna taught me was technically also classified as an illusion based spell, even though they are actual bodies made of mana.
The sudden appearance of two little absentees from school that ran over Spike brought me back out of my musings. The two babbled on about a new magician in town and how she had the most magic than any other magician. Even though we all knew that that was Twilight and whoever this was couldn’t hold a candle to her, the kids got us interested as they led us to the town center where we saw a traveling wagon.
All our friends were already there as it seemed, so we squeezed through the masses to stand beside them as the show started to begin. The woman that spoke was certainly no Penn and Teller but still managed to enrapture the crowd around us with cheap parlor tricks as well as smoke and fireworks.
The boasting of the woman on stage soon turned the mood of our friends sour, as even I was getting a little agitated by the arrogance portrayed by her. Sure, I knew the show biz on Earth was a brutal thing and I couldn’t begin to imagine how it was here, but I was preeeetty sure such an attitude got yourself faster out of a career than you could say ‘Eichhörnchen’. Try saying that, it’s quite funny.
As our friends went on about how boasting is a crappy thing to do and what not, Rainbow decided that she was exempt from that rule. Applejack didn’t look too kindly at her self-love, which brought us back to that ‘magic schmagic’ was apparently bad.
“Well, well, well,” the ‘Great and Powerful’ Trixie interjected, having noticed the mood swing in the crowd and which people were at fault for that. “It seems we have some naysayers in the audience.”
So, how does she think to solve this situation? By issuing a friggin’ challenge to the crowd to disprove her claims to be the most powerful magician in all of Equestria. I groaned in dismay as all of our friends decided to take her up on her words besides Twilight and Fluttershy, no telling where she was... Brightpaw was a real bad influence on her, it seemed. Twilight didn’t want to come off as boastful and protested Spike and my decision to let her teach Trixie a thing or two.
And for the record, I in no way believed the words she vanquished a star beast. Certainly not an adult one.
So, Spike and I suffered quietly through the torture as we couldn’t speak another word due to Twilight’s spell. I tried opening the zipper on my mouth but had no luck in that regard. It wasn’t easy taking the abuse of the idiotic woman up on the stage while Twilight remained passive and one after another our friends tried to bring Trixie down a notch.
If it were legal, I would have pulled out my bow and shot an arrow through her pointy hat. Would have made for a great sight, too. Pretty sure she could sue me for that, though. And it would make me look like a trigger happy lunatic to the residents of Ponyville.
I winced as Rarity was sent wailing because her hair got turned green. I felt a spike of righteous anger flare in me and felt my magic sparking in my hands. Okay, I’ve had enough of this shit. If Twilight won’t act, I will.
And a sinister smile spread on my face, made even creepier by the fucking zipper stuck on them, as I got just the perfect thing for the occasion. She said she beat a star beast, right? Well, I will give her one. One only she can see.
Now then, illusions are normally seen by everyone. How does one make them specific to the person you want to affect? The answer to that was quite simple. Illusions are light and sound-based tricks of the mind and illusion spells in Equestria create constructs to show other people what you have in mind and what you want them to see.
By projecting the image directly into the eye of the target, one could make a specific illusion for only one person and the sound into their ears.
What did she see, then? Well, let’s just say seeing her scream about an imaginary monster was the most hilarious thing I have ever seen.
The crowd around us grew confused as to what was happening and I might, and I say this lightly, I might have caused some of them to panic. Okay... most of them.
“STOP!” Twilight screamed and I lost my focus on the spell, destroying the illusion on Trixie. The majority calmed down, seeing that there actually was no monster there, to begin with.
“Well, Twilight, I guess it’s up to you,” Spike began, also tired of this nonsense. “Come on! Show her what you’re made of.”
Hey, since when could he speak again?! Damn zipper, stuck on my lips.
“What do you mean? I’m nothing special,” Twilight said, trying to dissuade the people around us from getting more curious about her magical talent. Well, too bad Spike thought differently about that and pressured her further. Their argument was interrupted as Trixie stepped forward on the stage.
“Ha! You think you’re better than the Great and Powerful Trixie?” Trixie asked arrogantly looking down on us from the stage. “You think you have more magical talent?”
And then she prompted Twilight to prove it to her which in turn caused her to have an anxiety attack and run away. With a sudden ‘Zipp!’ I got through the stuck zipper and it vanished from my lips. Finally.
“Come on, Spike. Let’s make sure Twilight is okay, I’ve had enough of this charade,” I told him as I stalked off after Twilight. Snakeboy followed dutifully after me as I heard a ‘Run away, it proves Trixie right to be the best magician in Equestria!’ and I just flipped her the finger without turning. Could she not shut her trap or did she love hearing her voice so much?!
Around that time I also finished with my work at school, so I was on the way home with both of my bodies. Perhaps a little practice would get Twilight out of her funk, I know I liked hitting things when I felt down in the dumps. So maybe it will help her, too, if only to let her frustrations out on a willing dummy.
“Twilight?” I called out as I opened the door to the library. A quite ‘What?’ came from upstairs and as I went up to check on her. I saw her cocooned in her blankets on the couch in the living room, almost making me go ‘D’aww!’ at the sight.
“Hey, everything ok?”
“Not really...” her muffled voice replied and Sol finally arrived at my side. I quickly went over to her with him and ripped the blanket away from her and sat down beside her.
“Well, then. Do you want to let off some pent up frustration?” I asked her with a smirk and she got an intrigued look into her eyes.
“I could do with something like that,” she admitted flustered. Come on, it’s not so bad for wanting to beat someones face in every once in a while, liven up! “What do you have in mind?”
“How about I let you beat myself and Lux up for a bit, we still need to get some more training in for this week,” I proposed to her.
“I could use a little bit of exercise, I guess,” she mumbled over to me as we gathered our gear and headed out. Spike went off on his own, so it was just Twilight and me. We went to our usual spot near the Everfree where we didn’t need to worry about bystanders getting in the way.
“With the mirror images, Twi?” I asked with Lux as Sol already got into his stance. Twilight drew her shiny new wand and the dagger as she pointed her wand at him with the dagger in position to deflect any attacks that might get through to her. She actually admitted it was easier that way than to constantly rely on a shield she couldn’t make small enough to converse energy.
“Let’s start off without for the time being and summon them later on in the fight, okay?” she told me and I nodded.
Nocking a training arrow that wouldn’t hurt her on the right side of the bow, I drew the string back, more arrows in my hand as Luna taught me. It was difficult at first to rethink my image of an archer and learn how to fire accurately with the arrowhead on the other side to what I was familiar with.
It soon got apparent in my training with Luna that it was way faster this way. She told me a war archer couldn’t just carry a bunch of arrows only in the quiver at their side, and boy, did she reprimand me for having worn the quiver over my back at first, as that would make it a hassle to draw more arrows to shoot.
Also, she made me run through an obstacle course with the quiver on my back, making me spill all my arrows all the time. Suffice to say I learned quickly to adapt the new style of holding onto my arrows.
“Ready?” we asked each other and together we let out a snort at that. We all grinned at each other and I was the first to move with Lux. An arrow flew over to her and she waved her wand. The air shimmered in front of her where the arrow would have found its mark, but as it flew towards the shimmering air it came out the other side and flew back to Sol instead.
A quick swipe deflected the arrow into the ground. Some arrows were deflected by Twilights dagger, while some got incinerated with a flick of her wand. Whelp, those won’t be able to be used by me anymore.
While I went around her in circles with Lux I got up and close to Twilight with Sol. Let me tell you, even though I had strength over her in spades, she just knew how to manipulate that to her advantage instead. Imagine, while you’re swinging your weapon down at your opponent, that it suddenly got way heavier than before. She was an expert in magic, so of course, she knew how to manipulate gravity. A field of magic that is exceedingly difficult to perform and with the help of her wand it got even easier for her.
Oh yeah, those problems she had before with taking to long to cast spells in a fight? Those didn’t exist anymore.
And thus, Sol went flying due to a beam taking him off his feet. At that point, I cast the now thoroughly memorized spell of the mirror images and fired four arrows at once, all from different directions.
I saw Twilight grin as a quick bubble shield stopped all the arrows from striking her. Then she teleported to the first image and nicked it with the dagger, making it disappear.
“Crap,” I cursed and rolled quickly away before her dagger could connect to me next. While I took a tumble, I swiftly grabbed an arrow already in the ground and fired it just as fast back to Twilight. She actually had to dodge that one as I regained my distance. A clone of mine tried hitting her with the bow, but it was halted in its motion by the dagger in Twilights hand. Her wand made short work of that copy of me. She was to fast for me to make any use out of my clones, damnit.
So, I went with a different approach. If my last clone won’t be of any use now, it will make for good cannon fodder. Casting an illusion on Sol, I masked his approach to Twilight and distracted her with my clone going into melee and me continuing to fire arrows from a distance.
At one point I feared a deflected arrow would give me away with Sol, but I was lucky that it just barely missed. I slowly made my way over to her, and just as she finished with my only clone left, I struck. My plan was simple. My plan was elegant. My plan was masterful!
I booped her on the nose as I grinned at her stupified look.
“I win,” I said with a voice full of glee. She pouted at me but nodded exhausted. “How about a race back to the library? The last one there has to cook dinner?”
“Alright, don’t think I’ll let you win that easily!” Twilight answered back and began to run without me giving the go. Laughing, both Sol and Lux went after her. I knew from the beginning that I would never win with Sol wearing the plate armor, but this wasn’t about me. It was all to cheer her up, after all.
Twilight fought valiantly against my female half as we both tried to get the upper hand by using our magic and if it weren’t for the stumble on my part, I would have won against her.
Both Twilight and Lux were relaxing on the couch in the library as my male half arrived a few minutes later, finally dragging myself through the door. This wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, running with my armor on for such a long distance, but it gave Twilight a new memory to cherish our friendship with.
So like the good loser that I am, I got to work on preparing the dinner while Lux and Twilight chatted about our exercise. It was a relaxing evening talking about this and that, mostly about magic. Both of us decided to read a bit before retiring for the night, so I actually found the time to finish off that Raiding Tomb book that I’ve been reading over the past weeks.
As the day ended and night began I heard Twilight arguing with Spike once more about why she wouldn’t show Trixie up. A slam of the door alerted me to at least one of them being mad again. Damn, just as I managed to get her out of her funk. I went to see what happened and saw her at the lectern reading a book about wildlife.
“Everything okay?” I asked her.
“Yes, just Spike being stubborn,” she told me, so I sat down next to her on a chair. Reaching over, I closed the book on her, making her look at me.
“Why don’t you do what they try to tell you? They don’t want to see you hide a part of yourself.”
“I... don’t want them to think I’m like Trixie, Sol. I couldn’t live with that,” she whispered looking down at her lap. I gave her a poke on the shoulder, where here talent mark was.
“Twi, your talent is magic. They would never think that of you. Our friends all know what you’re capable of, is it so bad if the whole town knew?” I spoke to her gently. Standing up, I gave a pat to her head. “Anyways, I’ll head to bed now, tomorrow is a class test, I have to be up bright and early.”
“Have a good night, Sol,” she said and I nodded at her, telling her not to stay up too late again. You would expect her to listen at some point about that, but as of right now, I had no luck with her on that front.
Imagine my surprise as a loud roar ripped me out of slumber in the middle of the night and finding out that the light was still burning down in the library. The fuck was going on now? Looking at my phone, while hastily putting on my armor, I saw that it was one in the morning. God, I was too tired for this shit right now...
Quickly racing down the stairs, I saw Twilight get her wand, robe, and dagger ready while noticing how Spike was urging her to hurry up. We all went out into the night, one arrow already at the ready and my hand on the sword prepared to draw it from its scabbard as soon as it was needed. A lot of people were running in the opposite direction of us as we approached the center of the commotion.
Guess who lured a fucking glowing bear into the middle of town. Well no, it wasn’t Trixie as one might have expected, but two idiotic kids. And they weren’t safe from me chewing them out about it.
“We’re sorry, Mister Sol,” they apologized.
“It doesn’t matter, get to safety while we deal with this problem. Twilight, I hope you have enough juice in you for this,” I said, turning towards my friend as she gulped. Seeing Rainbow, Applejack and Rarity arrive at the scene, I got at least a small part of a plan ready. “Rainbow! Distract it while Twilight works out something to calm this bear. Rarity, get the people away from here! And Applejack, you are with me, we will make sure it won’t reach Twilight if it comes anywhere near her!”
The three quickly sprang into action, Rainbow Dash annoying the beast enough to keep its attention while Rarity guided the people away from the danger. Applejack came to my side and hefted her shield up in front of her.
“Mind telling me how that thing got here?” Applejack said, glancing at me from the side.
“Two little dipshits deciding they wanted a front-row seat of the oh-so ‘Great and Powerful’ Trixie vanquishing a star beast. Now, let’s make sure Twilight has enough time to work her magic touch and solve this problem.”
“You don’t think we actually stand a chance if Rainbow won’t be able to hold its attention, do you?”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I answered grimly.
Turns out we weren’t needed. Like, at all.
As Twilight worked, the wind started to pick up and a distant melody began to lull the bear back to sleep. Rainbow landed at our side while we watched as a water tower began to get filled with milk from over at the farms and floated over to the bear. The shine of Twilights magic steadily increased, wild sparks were flying away from her. Before the bear could crush Trixie it also began to float in the air as it started to suckle from the improvised flask.
Once it was back in the safety of its own cave, we all let out our bated breaths in relief. The crowd began to cheer loudly as we all praised Twilight for this feat of magical might.
“I’m sorry,” Twilight said in return, much to our confusion. What was this about, now? Well, I had a pretty good idea, but why would she ever be sorry about this? “Please, please don’t hate me.”
Groaning in exasperation, I hugged her with both Sol and Lux and invited Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow to follow suit. Spike joined in as well as we dispelled her notions that we would hate her for what she was able to do with her magic. That silly girl and her insecurities.
So yeah, the girls all told her what I tried to already hammer into her head. It was well past the time that she got the message. I snorted as Spike asked her how she knew what to do with the ‘Ursa Major’. That was a whole different can of worms. I knew already that the size difference between a major and minor star beast was gigantic, but to see an actual minor star beast put it into an entirely different perspective. If Twilight already needed to concentrate her magic so much to handle the little one, I didn’t want to know what would happen if the big one ever decided to show its face.
So, Twilight went on to lecture Spike, and with him the rest of the people, that what we stood against was a teensy weensy baby. Of course, Trixie made a show about how Twilight would never have her amazing show talents and promptly disappeared in a poor attempt of a smoke bomb vanish.
That left us with two little troublemakers.
“Where do you think you’re slinking off to, huh?” I asked them with my most menacing voice I could muster. Sol actually could pull it off in a very frightening way, and seeing that I was one of their teachers at school, I was well within my right to give them a punishment for stupidity rivaling the people that got the Darwin Award.
“Uh...” I could tell they knew what they did was wrong. They can be glad no one got hurt in this disaster, or I wouldn’t be as ‘kind’ with my punishment.
“An essay about local wildlife, an essay about how one shouldn’t believe everything a show magician tells them, a public apology to the town and at least a month detention with either me or Miss Cheerilee starting tomorrow. The essays are due to next week, you will find the books within the Golden Oak Library. If you need help finding them, ask Miss Lux here for the books. I expect to read the first draft of the apology in the next three days,” I scolded them sternly, listing the things off I wanted them to do. I’m sure Cheerilee would agree with me on most of this if not all of it.
Twilight also gave them a punishment that had them clean up the mess caused by the big sparkly bear. There were quite a few damaged trees and gnawed on houses that could use a bit of tidying up, as well as the destroyed wagon Trixie left behind.
The mustaches she gave to them were ridiculous, though. Well, at least the other kids will get a laugh out of that.
And so, everything was solved. The answer to life and the universe, what was the best topping on a pizza and what came first, the egg or the chicken.
What? You expect me to give those answers to you? Why would I do that?
The next day arrived perhaps too early for me, what with me having to be at the school so early to prepare for the class test. Most of the stuff I already had ready to go, but I still needed to rearrange the desks so the kids couldn’t cheat by looking at their neighbor’s test, and therefore their answers. Even if they might be wrong, it would defeat the purpose of solving the equations on their own.
I had put about fifteen tasks of varying degrees of difficulty on them, everything they should know about if they listened to the lessons and did their homework. I also put one bonus equation on it, about the next topic, curious if some of them already know how to do probability calculation.
Ah, whom am I kidding, Sweetie Belle probably did. I swear, she was sometimes bored out of her mind as everyone else still struggled on the tasks I set them to do while she scribbled away on her paper, everything already solved.
I’m sure she would be the only one even attempting the bonus equation at the end of the test.
Applebloom was the first to arrive at school, as she was an early riser due to the farm life and her sister being relentless about which time she went to bed and woke up.
As the classroom started to fill up I explained how and when students could leave for a bathroom break and set the papers face down in front of each and every one.
“Alright. You have two periods to work with... starting now,” I said and some flipped the sheets frantically over. The sound of scratching papers was the only thing filling the room as I went around, searching for any cheat sheets and preventing any shenanigans from occurring by some of the bolder students.
I smiled as I saw Sweetie Belle doing the harder parts first and went on, giving Scootaloo the stink eye as she tried to spy from her answers. I put my hand on top of her head and pointed it back to her own test.
“Only one warning,” I told her and she gulped at that. Suffice to say, she didn’t try again. A ‘Psst!’ came to my attention as I saw Diamond Tiara try to sabotage Applebloom by giving her an empty piece of paper. I took it and her test, causing her to protest me but I didn’t let myself be swayed by the threat of her father ‘coming after me’.
Try it, kid. We will see who will laugh at the end of this little spiel.
I wasn’t all that surprised to see Snips and Snails struggling at even the easy equations. Come on, what did they do outside of the classroom that made them this bad at math? Complete dunderheads, the both of them.
It clawed at my singular soul that I haven’t made any progress with them. Was I really that bad of a teacher for them to learn nothing from me?
Not everyone could be a Sweetie Belle, even if I wished for that from the bottom of my heart. It was actually fun teaching her, unlike some other students of mine.
No, I don’t care that that was favoritism.
As the first period went by I stopped Diamond Tiara from doing something stupid, like you know, stealing Applebloom’s test. I had no idea what was up with her, but it was typically something like jealousy or their own inferiority that spurned bullies on to do what they do. By making other people more miserable than they feel.
The question was, what went on in Diamond Tiara’s little head that made her feel like that. I probably should bring this up with Cheerilee to get to the bottom of this problem.
A few cursory glances here and there showed me that the students weren’t doing all that bad with the tasks, aside from a few outliers.
And I was pleased to see Sweetie Belle tried her hand at the bonus question before she went on to the small fry. I actually remember from my own memories that I never learned probability calculation until I was in high school. Don’t know whether that was because I was ill at the time or had a different curriculum.
Either way, quite a few students turned their tests in before the time was even up, stating that they were done. Looking at some of those tests, I could already tell they didn’t even go over their answers one last time to try and spot any mistakes.
By the end of the allotted time, I went around and took the tests of the few students that hadn’t already turned theirs in. Of course, some protested at that, but I couldn’t just allow them to work on it longer than I told them they had time for.
Thus, I was alone in the classroom going over the answers of the students and writing notes at the margin of the paper for them to look at later. It was quite relaxing, believe me or not.
Cheerilee came in at one point getting ready to let the kids back in. We actually decided to share all lessons, even though I only taught mathematics to the kids at the moment. It gave the children another adult to ask questions to while one of us was occupied with another student or teaching a subject.
It was mostly me helping the students as Cheerilee taught in front of the class. Once the students got a bit older I would handle the more technical subjects And seeing that we had no qualified teachers for the magic and flight part of the lesson plan, I was hard at work with Lux at teaching myself the theory behind magic.
That left us without a flight instructor. It couldn’t be me, because I was shit at flying and Rainbow already had a job. Well, one would think she didn’t, seeing that she was goofing around all the time.
I took the stack of papers and sat my behind down amongst the returning students as I continued to work. Featherweight looked curiously on as I wrote on with my red pencil. I smirked as he let out a jubilant cheer as he saw me write down the grade on his own test, one of the better ones.
Diamond Tiara grumbled a few seats away from me about her treatment being unfair, but I ignored her. She should have thought ahead before trying to sabotage a classmate.
Finally, at the bottom of the stack, I was feeling giddy to correct Sweetie Belle’s test. It was a treat to my soul not having to write all over it with red. Even though the bonus task wasn’t entirely correct, it was a good basis to improve on. She would have no trouble with the lessons, I could tell.
“Miss Cheerilee?” the voice of Applebloom brought me back to the lesson just as I wrote a ‘Well done! :)’ at the end of the test from Sweetie Belle.
“Yes, Applebloom? You have a question?” Cheerilee turned to the red-haired girl.
“Is that smoke normal?”
Confused, I followed where her finger was pointing. Meanwhile, in the library, I dragged Twilight hastily out of the door and pointed at the distant mountain.
“Oh, dear...” Twilight and Cheerilee said at the same time as I stood beside them with my different bodies. It was funny how simultaneous that was, considering that was usually my thing.
“Class, I’m sorry to leave, but I will probably be needed for this,” I said, excusing myself from the kids and giving Cheerilee an apologetic smile. She motioned for me to go on and so I raced to the position where I knew Twilight, Lux, and Spike were.
There never was a quiet moment in this town anymore since Nightmare Moon, was there? Well... it fed my inner adrenalin junkie, so I wasn’t complaining. I actually reached Twilight as Spike belched out a scroll with a familiar seal on it.
As Spike read the letter I began to equip my gear that my other half brought with her. We found most of our friends in the park and also warned the general populace of what was causing the heavy smoke that started to blot out the sky. Turns out, it was a dragon.
Here I thought I would never have to face one besides Spike, but he didn’t count in the sense that he wasn’t an ancient being able to crush me with his palm. Or any other part of his body, for that matter. And was actually willing to do so.
Understandably, I was scared.
That we had to climb for hours on end on a massive mountain wasn’t my idea of fun, either. We would probably have to camp a few days in rough terrain before we even reached our destination. And... you know, haul all our heavy gear and supplies up there with us.
I wondered why Celestia sent us, instead of the military. They would be better suited at handling a national threat, wouldn’t they? I really should read up on the militaries of this world, it was a serious gap in my knowledge.
We would have to suck it up as we couldn’t just tell Celestia to send them instead of us. Maybe we wouldn’t even end up having to fight, so there was that. It would certainly be nice to just get there, tell it to leave, and be done with it.
As we went over our overall plan for the trip up the mountain after we gathered the rest of our little group, Lux and Sol packed the things we would need. With Lux, I went through the kitchen stuffing canned food into a bag that would last us a week at the most, and with Sol, I packed clothing and other camping related gear like sleeping bags. Applejack assured me that her family had a few tents to spare so we didn’t need to worry about sleeping without some modicum of protection against freezing winds and so on.
Roughly an hour later found all of us back in front of the library as we all gathered the gear we needed. Every one of us was decked out in the armor and weapons just in case, while Applejack was wearing a heavy backpack overstuffed with camping gear. We all had a bag filled with at least some spare clothing, while I was in charge of the food and Twilight of the map. Despite our misgivings, Pinkie decided to stuff her bags with games so the trip wouldn’t get ‘super boring’, as she said.
Who knows, maybe it will help. It would help to at least relieve some stress, and judging by the fidgeting of Fluttershy, she would need that.
The trip to the mountain on the horizon took us some time at the pace we were going at. Our speed wasn’t helped by the heavy luggage, which only managed to unnerve us more and more with the mountain looming ahead of us.
Just as we arrived at the foot of it, it was already time for dinner. So we decided to set up camp before it got too dark and Applejack provided us with a firestarter kit to make a campfire. That woman apparently went out camping all the time, she truly knew her way around the wilderness, it seemed.
Not that we needed the firestarter kit, to begin with, as Brightpaw just spat out a fireball at the gathered wood. He went back to comforting Fluttershy as her anxiety started to get the better of her.
Something about that rubbed me the wrong way. It almost seemed like she wasn’t afraid of what the dragon would do but of something else entirely.
Pinkie stuck her arm into her bag, and like the physics-defying girl she was, it went in way past what was possible, pulling out a deck of cards. So, Rarity, Rainbow, Applejack, and I took her up on her offer to play a few rounds of varying card games.
“Oh, come on! How can you have the plus-four card again, Pinkie!” Rainbow complained for the umpteenth time as she got stuck drawing more cards from the stack. We all gave a snicker at her misfortune as Pinkie smiled innocently.
“Maybe I’m just lucky?” Pinkie answered.
“Yeah, sure. More like Lady Fortune playing favorites...” Rainbow grumbled as I put one of my cards down, reversing the direction in which we took turns. Now Rainbow grinned as she actually managed to draw a plus-four card of her own.
Well... turns out Pinkie had another and I had to draw eight cards with Sol. Now I started to think Rainbow’s words had some merit to them as the others laughed at the turn of events.
“Ah’m gonna have to pass on another round, gals. It’s time Ah hit the hay,” Applejack said as we prepared to play the next round after Pinkie won... again. I swear, this time I’m gonna beat her for sure.
“Have a good night, dear,” Rarity said mixing the cards thoroughly.
“Night,” we all said. Looking at my cards I barely managed to suppress my grins from showing on both of my faces. There is no way Pinkie can have a plus-four card as I already had two of them in hand!
And so went the rest of the day, me only managing to win once. Rainbow decided to tell some spooky stories over the campfire and we all had our fun with telling some jokes in-between to keep the mood up, even with the loud snoring echoing from the mountaintop.
It was a wonder we managed to succumb to slumber. I was actually surprised I didn’t get any nightmares from fighting dragons or whatnot and just found myself in the embrace of Horse God.
As always, her serene smile greeted me while her hooves stroked my hair in a soothing fashion. I snuggled a bit deeper into her embrace making her titter in mirth. If I would ever remember my real mother I would imagine her similar to her, only as... you know, a human.
Maybe...
Anyway, over the last few weeks, I got less and less of my memories back, putting a dampener on my mood on a regular basis. Horse God never answered my questions regarding my past, as she always got this far away look on her when I asked. So, I eventually stopped pestering her about it because it made her look so sad when she splayed her ears back. I got the feeling she didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t want to cause me any heartache.
Instead, she just listened to me ramble on about our day and what we did with our friends and I altogether avoided to bring up anything regarding my memories from Earth. I didn’t want to make her feel miserable again after the last time I did so. Based on her behavior I could take a guess and say that what happened on Earth must have been pretty bad to me.
Thus, I spent my night with my deity before the morning arrived all too soon. Applejack was already making breakfast as I got up. I thanked her for the meal and went about my morning rituals on both bodies. It was weird not having a bathroom to take care of myself but that is what you get when you never leave civilization.
Once we brought our little camp down we began our track up the mountain for real. The first few miles were still easy enough before the incline of the rocky terrain got steeper and steeper to traverse.
The mountain looked way smaller from Ponyville’s standpoint. We had to take a few stops here and there, mainly because some of us weren’t used to walking for hours on end up and up. Applejack was the only one that didn’t seem winded besides Rainbow Dash. But the rainbow-haired woman was mainly flying around as it is, so that didn’t count.
The only thing keeping us sane at the end of the day was the talking going on between us. Rarity complained a lot though, just as I was tempted to do. Believe it or not, I wasn’t into dirt and rocks all that much, either. I took it as the half-man that I was and sucked it up instead of following her example.
Okay, maybe I complained too, so what?
We decided to set up camp once more around the evening hours. The weather wasn’t as cold yet as it would be when we got higher up, luckily. That would surely begin to irritate everyone come the next few days.
The girls and I tried to get Twilight to break away from her constant watch over the map and get her to relax that no-nonsense attitude by inviting her along to another round of games. This time we played truth or dare.
There were some questions asked, a few dares carried out, and some embarrassing secrets revealed. Twilight actually loosened up after we all took some turns. I answered some questions regarding the stuff I remembered of my childhood, nothing too embarrassing to be said there, and did some stupid stuff like eating a really hot chili pepper Rainbow took with her on this trip.
She wanted to use those for a prank or two, but the game we played was just as good of an opportunity to use them.
I learned a few more things about my friends, like Twilight still having her stuffed horse plushie from when she was a little kid, Rarity having a full closet of lingerie she never sold, Applejack making her brother wear a dress and Rainbow having performed what she called a sonic ‘rainboom’ at the age of nine-ish. Just a bit younger than the kids I taught at school. She must’ve been training her whole life up to this point, huh.
The next day saw us playing rock-paper-scissors to pass the time and the day after that we played tic-tac-toe. We were making progress steadily to the top. And with that, came even worse terrain to continue on. It got to the point we had to use safety lanyards or it would have been too dangerous for us. Fluttershy had to carry Brightpaw, as he was having trouble with his small stature to get over some gaps and stones.
Let’s just say I wished I had one of those ice picks Lara Croft had in the Tomb Raider series, or even her counterpart Raiding Tomb here in Equestria. Well, at least we had someone that could fly, and was willing to do so, to help us not die a painful death. Rainbow was so kind as to anchor the ropes safely and guide us along when we came face to face with a cliff to big to jump across.
The problem with that was, that Fluttershy was too scared to cross by hanging from the rope. We all had taken our turns by now and Brightpaw was unsuccessful in convincing her to get over her fear.
He wasn’t that gentle in trying to convince her, either. If he weren’t so strong I would have thrown that little asshole down the cliff.
“Come on, Fluttershy. We should be much farther along by now,” Twilight tried once more. Fluttershy on the other hand just stayed hugged to the mountain wall.
“You just need to get on the rope,” Applejack reassured her. It seemed like Fluttershy let go of the rock for a moment, but leaped back to it a second after though, as a loud snore reached us.
“Take care of my things for a moment, won’t you?” I asked Twilight with Sol and went back to the other side of the cliff. I slowly approached Fluttershy as she was shaking like mad, hugging Brightpaw closely to herself.
“Hey...” I said slowly while reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder.
“Eep!” she squeaked out, her eyes shooting up to mine in fright.
“I’ll help you, okay?” I told her and she screwed her eyes shut instead.
“Come on, Fluttershy. It will be quick, I promise,” I said. “And afterward we will start our camp early for you to relax, how does that sound?”
“How...” she started quietly, her voice starting to sound oddly monotone to my ears. “How can you be so fearless?”
“Oh, Fluttershy... I’m shaking in my boots here,” I told her with a small smile. I was telling her the truth, I just barely mustered up the will to get back over here. “I just don’t let my fear control me. That’s what it means to be courageous. Standing up to your fear and say ‘No, you don’t dictate what I do!’, okay?”
Fluttershy nodded at me, so I took her hand in mine and gave a squeeze. Gently asking her if she was ready, we began to climb over to the other side. Multiple times I needed to tell her not to look down and keep her focus on the goal. Eventually, both of us reached the group waiting for us and I told Twilight we needed to set up camp, as I promised Fluttershy she wouldn’t have to continue on for the rest of the day.
Rainbow groaned at this, not liking to have to stay even longer on this godforsaken mountain, but I was adamant in letting Fluttershy have this. And maybe I also wanted this a teensy-weensy bit.
The day went by a bit slower, but the girls didn’t seem to mind as long as it placated Fluttershy and me. Pinkie got the idea to play hangman all day and drove us a bit crazy. Some of the words even Twilight didn’t know what they were supposed to mean before Pinkie explained them to us. I swear the random things she knew...
I had no idea that the whistling noise a sword makes when you swing it around is called ‘whiffle’... Or the fact a crowkeeper doesn’t keep crows but scares them away, seriously how did she know that? One particular hard one to guess at were the words ‘hapax legomenon’, which basically meant a word that only occurred once in a document or text. I had no idea where Pinkie learned all these words (probably for the sake of winning every quiz one could ever imagine).
Our journey continued early in the morning before even the sun came up. To make up for lost time, I would assume. The rest of the trip went over quietly as Twilight warned us that we could cause an avalanche in this area. Because of that, we all traveled cautiously. Rainbow had to stay on the ground for once like the rest of us and all that we had to listen to was the howling of the wind.
The entrance to the cave, in which the dragon slept, was massive. We couldn’t see that far in due to the smoke billowing out from its depth. That couldn’t be healthy, even though the dragon could spew fire like a water hose, man.
Gosh, I didn’t want to know how big it must be for it to produce that much.
“Rainbow Dash, I want you to clear away the smoke,” Twilight began as we stood anxiously next to her. “Rarity and Pinkie Pie, you create a diversion to distract the dragon if things get out of hand.”
Rarity nodded and Pinkie grinned before producing a rubber chicken. We all stared at her as she played around with it. Sometimes I wonder what happened to her when she was a kid...
“Applejack, Lux, and Sol, you get ready to defend us in case it tries to attack,” Twilight told us and I nocked an arrow, Applejack brought up a shield as Sol hefted his sword upon his shoulder.
“But it shouldn’t come to that because Fluttershy will do what she needs to do to wake him up,” Twilight continued. “And between the two of us, we should be able to get him to understand why he needs to go.”
“Is everyone ready?”
Needless to say, everyone besides Fluttershy answered with an affirmative. The poor girl was too scared out of her mind to do anything but hide. And thus, everything went downhill.
Twilight, without looking if Fluttershy was following her, went into the cave, tried her luck, and failed. Rarity was too tempted by the riches of the dragon, Pinkie just annoyed it and gave up, I tried bribing it with gold (that Celestia would provide, fuck her for sending us here), but Twilight dragged me out before we could strike up a deal. Then Rainbow got impatient and attacked the friggin’ dragon.
So yeah, that happened.
And we got promptly smashed into the ground. End of story, we all died, see you in the afterlife...
Nah, just kidding. We were a bit dazed and Fluttershy came to our rescue riding on the back of Brightpaw as he leaped up onto the snout of the dragon. That gave it a surprise.
And apparently, his flames could burn the dragon. Fluttershy didn’t even tell him to revert back to his fluffy little form of a small fox as she went to confront the massive dragon.
And boy, did she make it cry. I wasn’t sure she had it in her, but judging by the thorough tongue-lashing she did to it, you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that. And the way how she stood there, her wings spread out like an avenging angel, a strange gleam in her eyes, and furrowed brow, made her look bad-ass.
Now then, that concludes this little tale of how Fluttershy single-handedly saved Equestria. No need to worry about the smoke anymore and the kids at school were glad that I got back safely.
Spike also was glad he didn’t have to put up with the devil bunny he was stuck with for the past week, so yay, I guess.