Steely and I agreed to head to the Cars Graveyard after he finished his magic researching session. I was on my way outside of the school when SHE showed up again. At first she passed by and I assumed she would leave me alone. But no. She called me and started walking back.
I was not in the mood to deal with her. At all! Just looking at her made me irritated and reminded me of what Steely told me.
As Flaming Star was writing those words, his hand felt tense and his grasp on his pencil got harder. It wasn’t until he let out a breath that he calmed down.
I tried to shake her off. I tried to ignore her. Otherwise I might have punched her in the face.
But what happened gave me a shock. She challenged me to a fencing duel! Well, more of a fencing rematch to compensate for her miserable defeat earlier that day but, that came out of nowhere! Because she was trying to get me to listen to her at…
The point of the pencil was lifted from the paper and Flaming Star soon realized the intent of Sunset Shimmer’s actions. “Of course!” he thought to himself as he face palmed himself. “That cunning girl!”
I denied at first, but she managed to manipulate me into it. Though, I didn’t dislike the idea either. At least that way I could let my anger out a little. So I told her to come to the slaughter alley and I left the school. The fresh air calmed me down quite a bit. I climbed the statue in front of the school and sat beneath the horse.
Sometimes, just taking in the fresh air and watching the sun slowly go down soothes my mind. There is something about it that makes me relaxed. It is far away but you can feel its warmth. Not literally but, from inside? Or maybe it’s just beautiful to look at?
The sun goes down, only for it to come around.
Watch it. As a lullaby it calms you down. However, there is no sound.
I took my time and watched it. And slowly closed my eyes and slept for a little while. That was until Steely called me and woke me up!
“Hey! Flame! Wake up!” Steely shouted.
I got startled at first but after rubbing my eyes a couple of times I was up. “Hey! You’re done?” I asked as I hopped down.
Steely stayed quiet for a couple of seconds before answering. “...Yes…”
I yawned and stretched a little. “So, anything important or just a nonsense excuse?”
Steely didn’t answer. Not as if he didn’t want to but rather that he didn’t pay attention to what I just asked. He walked forward and looked down.
“Um Steely? Hello?” I jumped in front of him and waved my hand. “You there buddie?”
Steely shook his head and rubbed his forehead. ”yeah, it’s...there’s just, a lot going on in my head right now.”
“Does...this have to do anything with the session you just had?”
Steely looked away. “Maybe.”
“Do you...wanna talk about it?” I tilted my head.
Steely rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe later…”
It seemed that he was out of the zone. But I knew exactly the thing that could give him some refreshment.
I gave him a friendly punch. “Hey, what do you say we race to the Car’s Graveyard?”
Steely looked at me with his golden eyes. Took a moment and rubbed his chin. “You’re not goanna do crazy stuff again are you?” He raised an eyebrow and pointed his finger at me.
“No promises.” I winked at him.
Steely sighed and took out his skateboard. He adjusted his hat and put on his goggles. And I stretched a little before getting in position. We both had our hands touching the ground. And I counted to three.
“1”
“2”
“3!” And as I said that, we both started racing.
Steely got an early lead very fast and tried to keep his distance from me. Still it's no surprise that he got the lead from someone who's running! I tried to close my distance a little and keep up until we got to town. So I could start my own game from then on. Tiring myself to surpass him was pointless. I just had to make sure I had him in my sight.
Steely was keeping his speed. Boosting himself every now and then and looking back at me to make sure I was not catching up. His blue shirt was being blown and shaking in his body as he skateboarded.
I, on the other hand, was maximizing my speed by using my whole body against the wind. Keeping my upper body a little closer to the ground and running as fast as I could. The wind was blowing my jacket back and giving my eyes a hard time to keep track of Steely. But, that’s what I liked about it. Steely could keep his goggles for his own. The wind might have been a little problematic, but it also made me feel alive.
We were getting close to the main part of Canterlot City. And I had managed to keep up so far. Now, it was my time to shine. As steely anchored himself to the stop sign and used it to do a hard turn, I went through the alleyway and climbed the pipe of the building up till I reached the rooftop. My path from there on was straight where Steely’s was filled with twists and turns and old grumpy grannies with grocery bags. The worst thing I had to worry about was jumping from one rooftop to another. Which wasn’t hard. Not anymore, after the many times I fell.
I took a deep breath, looked at the horizon to see my destination. And after I spotted the tiny glimpse of it in the distance, I started running.
The first few apartments were always quite close to one another so you didn’t need to jump that far to reach them. In fact, with some of them you could just drop down and you’ll be there. But then I got to the bigger gaps. I had quite the momentum to make the first one. Thankfully it was a shorter building with red bricks. Just keeping the momentum and jumping with all the force I had, I landed safely on it’s rooftop. I nailed the landing.
The next one though, was a taller building. With these, I had two options. Either I climbed down and climbed them up. Or I hopped to the other buildings and basically went around it. I chose the latter. The other building behind the one was on, was rather close, but stopping to find my route had cost me my momentum. I walked near the edge of the rooftop and hanged from it. I had my legs on the back wall of the building. I let go of one of my hands and let the right one hold me up. I turned and looked at the building across. I locked my eyes on the ledge of the other rooftop. I put the energy into my legs and launched myself to the other side. The moment I thought I had it, my hand slipped. The air was leaving my lungs and I felt as if I was falling once again. My eyes went black, and my muscles were going numb. But I caught myself with the ledge of the window.
It took me a few seconds to recover from what just happened but after catching my breath, I climbed my way back up. I looked down for a second and it was quite a fall. But I didn’t have much time to waste. I had to keep going.
After a little bit more jumping around. I could see Steely Skateboarding his way through the streets. He was keeping up! I could see him blazing in between other pedestrians and finding his way. Before I knew it, I had lost him.
I put my attention towards continuing my own path. If I don’t get a head start when I’m on the other side of the city, he would have definitely won. Between my jumps I could catch a glimpse of Steely here and there. However, I was not able to follow him.
Once I reached far enough, I dropped on the firescape and walked my way down to the bottom. Steely wasn't around yet so there was a chance that I could reach Car’s Graveyard before he showed up. Not much was left from the path but I could only run. No short-cuts. I didn’t mess around and kept going. I kept running towards my destination non-stop. I was just speeding when I heard the sound of a skateboard from behind. And I saw exactly what I expected when I turned my head back. Steely Armor! He was leaning onward and using all of his weight to boost his speed. There was still a distance he needed to catch and I was rather close to the finish line. I ignored him and kept my eyes onward. Putting all the might I had in my legs and dashed as fast as I could. The closer I got to the finish-line, the louder and more vivid the sound of skateboards could be heard. I could see Steely from the corner of my eyes though, I managed to get past the wrecked green truck before him, making me the winner.
I wanted to celebrate my victory but I needed to catch my breath after that much non-stop running. “You did better this time.” I told Steely as I was still trying to steady my breathing.
Steely smiled. “I’ve found a better and much faster route this time. Still, it wasn't enough to beat you and your craziness.”
“Yeah, but maybe I will compete with full potential next time.” I gave him a wink.
Steely gave out a half chuckle. “Alright, you catch your breath and I go wear the safety gear.” he said as he walked away.
I might have agreed to let Steely and I practice on our magic but there was no way I was letting it start before he wore the fireproof suit he got.
Flaming Star stopped writing as the thought of how his friend got a firefighter suit crossed his mind. It wasn’t like he could buy those? Could he? But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the first he had found or done something no one else could. After giving his head a little shake, Flaming Star continued to write down in his diary.
After a few minutes, Steely came back dressed in his suit and pulled his black board too. He picked up a chalk and started drawing on the black board as he spoke.
"OK, today we're going to see how far you can shoot your fireballs! Your first target is that bottle over there." He pointed at the bottle that was about 8 meters away from me. Not that far. I’ve hit targets way further than that with a bow and arrow.
“Now listen,” Steely continued, “According to my calculations, you must be generating…something something, to that amount and that something will start getting weaker because of something else so if you do it like that you should hit the bottle.”
It didn’t take Flaming Star so far to realise he doesn’t recall anything of what Steely said then. Nor did he understand it back then anyway. It sounded so complex for him to wrap his head around that he probably didn’t pay attention.
Steely was drawing various arrows and formulas on the board that I didn’t really understand the meaning of. Probably something related to what he was saying.
I got ready by taking off my gloves. I’ve gotten used to them so much that whenever they're not on my hands, I feel off. I prepared to shoot at that bottle. My hands ignited, still don’t know how doing that doesn’t burn my hand but it did make it feel warm. I closed my eyes and threw my hands forward. After a few seconds I opened my eyes just to see that nothing happened.
“Wait, did anything come out?” I asked Steely who was standing back, observing.
“A small burst did come out but that was about it.”
I was surprised. I realised that I wasn’t quite sure how to make a fireball come out.
I threw my hands forward again but still nothing. Once again I tried it, I tried another motion in my hands but nothing came out. I didn’t know what I was doing.
“Are you sure you’re doing it right?” Steely chimed in.
“Not really.”
“Maybe...you know, you should...channel it?”
I turned back and looked at him. “Channel it?” And raised an eyebrow. “Like that anime you watch?”
“It’s called DragonClaw, Flame!” Steely put his hands on his waist.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I got it!”
So I held my hands close to one another and focused. But nothing was formed.
“Welp, that doesn’t work!” I said. I wasn’t sure how to use my powers. Every time it just came out on it’s own or I just felt it. But now, there was nothing!
“How do you use yours?” I asked Steely.
He stepped forward, his suit rubbing off to itself and making plastically noises. “I just...close my eyes and...focus for a second. When I open them, I see things differently for a few seconds.” he rubbed his chin.
I sighed, “I don’t think that’s going to work for me.” and looked at my ignited hands.
“From what I’ve realized so far, magic can be provoked by many means. Like, emotions.”
“What are you suggesting?” I tilted my head towards him.
“First of all, think about what you want to do. Don’t just wave your hands around.” He raised his finger. “Second of all, try putting some of your emotions to it?” he shrugged.
I looked at my hands once again before looking back at him. “Alright, stand back.”
After that steely took a few steps back I stood tall to give it another go. I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath and thought of what I was going to do. Shooting fire! I drew my hands back and threw them forwards. My eyes were closed but I could feel something had happened.
“Did anything happen?” I opened my eyes.
“DEFINITELY!” Steely shouted and walked to me with haste. “YOU JUST THREW FIRE! FOR REAL!”
Even though I couldn’t see his face, I was sure his eyes were glowing in excitement. Though apart from that, I did it!
“Really?” I asked.
“YEAH!” He held my arms and gave me a little shake. “C’mon, do it again!”
So I stood once again. This time my eyes open. I took a deep breath and thought of what I wanted to do. “Shoot….fire.” I pulled my hands back and threw them forward. And with that, a burst of fire came out and traveled a bit but vanished before it reached the bottle. It was an improvement, sure, but I still wasn’t hitting the bottle.
“You see? It’s amazing!” Steely said.
“Yeah, but I’m not hitting the bottle.”
Steely stayed silent for a while. “You know, I just...explained how...you should...”
“Yeah, right! Got it.”
And so we spent a full hour there. I tried non-stop to hit the bottle but each time my fire didn’t even make it halfway. And Steely who was taking notes of everything. No matter how many times, how much force or how much focus I put into it, It just didn’t work. It was starting to get late, and we had to go.
“Hey, I’m going to take the suit off, you better get ready to leave too.” Steely stood up from the dusty broken car he was sitting on top of and walked back.
“Yeah, just...let me try something else real quick.”
Steely nodded and left to change his clothes.
It was only me, and the bottle. The whole day I couldn’t hit it. For one whole hour, I tried but nothing. I wasn’t going to let a stupid bottle beat me. I wasn’t doing something properly. But I couldn’t put my finger on what. But I had to figure it out soon since I had to deal with Sunset Shimmer. My mind started to think of what she had done again. It started to fill with anger and irritation. One more glare was given to the bottle by me. I just didn’t have the time to practice more because of her and the stupid challenge she proposed. I took a deep breath and shot another fireball at the bottle. This time, the fire felt more warm and bright. It seemed bigger too. And most importantly, it hit the bottle!