You know how Pegasus wings are all aerodynamic? How they can make ridiculous turns without being affected by the G-force, reach sonic speeds without being ripped apart, and can generally just fly anywhere they want? Well... sometimes I wish I was a pegasus, cause today was a bad day to be a unicorn.
"SLOW DOWN! SLOW DOWN!" I yelled. I was riding on top of my sword over Ponyville for practice, and had accidentally sped up too much and lost control. I was still standing on my sword, thanks to a spell I used to keep connected, but I was spinning out of control. I laid down on the spinning sword and transformed it to encase my entire body, then cut my magic.
I couldn't see, but I felt that I was falling. After a few eternal seconds I impacted the ground. I seemed to bounce a few times before the sword came to a halt. I used my magic and transformed the sword back to normal, standing back onto my hooves to assess the damage.
Luckily I had been flying outside of town and didn't cause any structural damage, but I definitely left some skid marks on the ground. I transformed my sword into a large plow and repaired the damage to the grass.
I had been practicing for a few hours now, the race was tomorrow and I still had to take some time to train Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle later in the afternoon. I'm beginning to think that my surfboard shape for flying was beginning to slow me down. I could lay down on the board to be more aerodynamic, but I could still feel a lot of drag.
So now it's time to get out of the old and in with the new. I dusted myself off and began transforming my sword again, this time into a small hollow capsule, just large enough for a pony to fit in. I made it so that the front of the capsule were the gems, using magic to stretch them out wider until you could see through them. I transformed it to have a handle and then hoof-stools on the inside, and left the back wide open.
"Alright, test flight time," I said to myself.
I walked into the capsule and grabbed hold of the handle with my front hooves, and then put my back hooves on the stools. A perfect grip. I used my magic and tightened the backside so there was only a hoof sized hole left so I wouldn't run out of air. From the outside I'm sure this thing looked like a giant metal slim raindrop.
I got comfortable, and once I felt ready I began to use my magic and lifted my sword into the air. It felt really weird, I'm not sure how I would describe lifting off. It felt very... artificial? It almost made me a bit dizzy. I lurched the sword forward, watching the world move through the clear crystal. I didn't have as much room to look around, I could only view forward, that might be a problem.
Ah, who cares! I want to fly! I let a burst of magic out of my horn and boosted forward in my sword, heading straight up into the clouds. I felt much less drag than before, I continued to pump my magic into the sword accelerated more and more. I cut my magic, letting the sword fly up a bit, and then began to fall back down to earth. Once I gained enough speed I used my magic again and altered my course to level out then pitch up slightly, then again cut my magic.
The momentum from falling gave me a huge speed boost, to the point I couldn't even use my magic to go faster. I zoomed over top of Ponyville, barely missing the Town Hall building. I let myself fall lower to the ground, and once close enough used my magic to slow down and stop just above the ground. I landed the sword, transformed the back to have an opening again and walked out.
It seems I had found the fastest way to fly with my sword. Probably wouldn't work well with long distances as it nearly drained half my strength, I'd have to experiment with it more later, right now I had some fillies to train.
I walked over to the training grounds at the Royal Guard outpost and began setting up a small obstacle course for the speed test. It was simple, a long line of barrels down a dirt track and then short wall with a platform at the end, easy enough for me to simply jump onto, but would prove difficult for fillies to get up.
Shortly after everything had been set up, Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle showed up.
"Afternoon, girls. Are you ready for today's test?" I asked.
"Sure are!" answered Scootaloo, flaring her wings.
"What are we learning today?" asked Sweetie Belle.
I have no idea, sweet Celestia I'm bad at this. "Today we're doing some speed tests. I've set up a small obstacle course here and I'm going to time each of you."
"Oh! It's just like some of the obstacle courses we have back at Sweet Apple Acres!" shouted Applebloom excitedly.
"Yes, yes it is. First I want you all to come over to the wall here and see if you can climb up onto the platform, just so I know you can," I ordered.
The three fillies each walked up to the wall and jumped up, grabbing the edge with their hoof and pulling themselves up. Applebloom and Scootaloo made it up but Sweetie Belle fell off with an 'Ouch!'
"Let me show you," I pulled out my sword and transformed it into a similar wall, but much higher. "When you jump up to grab the wall, use the momentum of your back legs to help pull up with your front," I demonstrated by jumping up and grabbing the top of the wall and quickly pulling myself up in one quick move. "Now you try."
Sweetie Belle nodded and tried again, jumping and quickly grabbing onto the edge and pulling herself up. "I did it! That was actually pretty easy."
"Yes, it is easy, you just need to know how to do it," I jumped off my sword and transformed it even higher. "This is when it's hard. When the wall is very high, you want a running start. Take a few steps back, run at the wall and quickly jump and climb up," I demonstrated and managed to get up the wall, but only to the edge. "If you get stuck hanging on the ledge like this, try swinging your body back and forth and then bringing one of your back legs up over the edge and pull yourself all the way up." I swung my body and managed to get a grip on the platform, then pulled the rest of my body up.
"Cool!" All three fillies said at once.
I hopped down and landed with a quick tumble, then transformed my sword back to normal. "You won't be climbing high walls today though. But all of this is good to know if you ever need to climb something really high. If it's just for trying to get something out of reach, try just asking somepony bigger, you don't want to get yourself pointlessly hurt. Now hop on down from there and we can begin."
The Crusaders jumped down from the wall and I lead them to the end of the line of barrels.
"Hey, um, Mr. Lieutenant?" said Sweetie Belle.
"You can call me Mr. Shield." I can't believe I haven't told them that yet.
"Mr. Shield, I have a question: When you land and tumble from somewhere high, how do you make it so your horn doesn't get stuck in the ground?"
I gave her an awkward stare. "Uh... that's a good question. Perhaps whenever I figure it out myself I'll tell you."
I spent the rest of the afternoon having the fillies run through the courses and timing them, they made some progress but were starting to wear out only after an hour.
"You know what girls..." said Applebloom in between breaths. "Maybe we aren't supposed to get our cutie marks fighting, it seems like a whole lot of work anyway, and we show no signs of improvin'. We should just call it quits."
Scootaloo nodded. "Yeah, my hooves are starting to hurt, and I could go for a nice cool bath."
"You're really willing to give up this early?" I asked.
"Yeah, we have a whole lot of other plans to find our cutie marks anyway." Applebloom and Scootaloo started walking back into town.
Sweetie Belle glanced in my direction and gave a quick salute. "Thanks for trying to help us, Mr. Shield, it was really kind of you, but we're done. See you later!" She ran off and joined up with her friends.
"Good luck, and don't give up with your crusading!" I called to them as they walked back into Ponyville.
Well, so much for that. I suppose I couldn't ask much from a group of fillies, and I had to admire how curious they were about everything and willing to try anything to get what they want.
"A childhood I never got to have," I sighed.
I just hope they knew how lucky they have it. Or maybe I just don't realize how unlucky I had it. 'I didn't choose this life, it chose me.' Haha. For how silly that phrase is, it sure fits me.
I began to put away all the equipment I had gotten out, shortly after putting the last few barrels away I heard a number of hoof-steps getting closer. I turned around to be greeted by Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle coming over to me.
"Ask him! Ask him! Ask him!" The three fillies were at Twilight's legs prodding her.
Twilight shook off the fillies and looked over to me.
"Are what these fillies telling me true? That you got your cutie mark when Rainbow Dash performed her first sonic rainboom?" she asked curiously.
"Yeah, from what these fillies tell me anyway," I answered. I'm not sure why they were interested at all.
"That's awesome! I never knew my sonic rainboom did so much when I first performed it," said Rainbow Dash.
"Do you think you could recount the tale again? I'm interested in hearing myself," asked Twilight.
I sighed, I didn't like reliving old memories, but at least this one was a good one. "Well it happened during an arena match at Young Colt Training Academy. I was facing a superior opponent who used magic in his sword fighting style, I copied the style but was still losing fast, when suddenly I heard a blast from the sky. Everypony was distracted including my opponent, so I took advantage of it and beat him, winning the match and earning my cutie mark. That's all."
"Wow! That's actually very impressive," said Twilight. "Judging by your cutie mark, you're also talented with magic?"
"Somewhat. If you don't remember we actually went to the same Magic School, I was another one of the unicorns that could successfully teleport, but it's only short distance unless I use my sword here-" I levitated my sword out into view to show.
"Your sword? What's that got to do with teleportation?" asked Twilight.
"Well I'll show you," I teleported as far as my magic would let me without using the sword. I only managed about 15 feet. "This is as far as I can go without using my sword. And this-" I levitated my sword onto the ground next to Twilight and the others then ran off until I was out of hearing range. I focused my magic and located the position of the sword, and wish a quick flash I teleported back in front of Twilight. "-Is only a short distance compared to how far the sword has gotten me before."
"That can't be right. How far have you teleported only using your sword?" asked Twilight.
"Ponyville to Canterlot," I answered plainly. At this point the Cutie Mark Crusaders seemed to have lost interest in the conversation and had left back into town.
"Hold on a second, you're telling me this hunk of metal can get you all the way from Ponyville to Canterlot in the blink of an eye?" asked Rainbow Dash while pointing at the sword.
Twilight thought for a moment. "How is that possible? I can see your sword has some crystals in the hilt, so I'm guessing enchantment, but even enchantment shouldn't let you do something like teleporting the distance between Ponyville and Canterlot."
I shrugged. "I don't know. My best bet is that something happened during enchantment that made it more powerful than it was supposed to be."
"And what happened during enchantment?" asked Twilight curiously.
"A few seconds after the spell had finished the thing burst swirling energy everywhere, and then disappeared. I don't know what might have happened to it," I explained.
Twilight examined my sword. "Hmm. I've heard some things about enchantment using crystals... but I'd need to do some more studying to know for sure," she looked back up at me. "Do you mind if I borrow your sword to study?"
"Well, Rainbow Dash and I were planning to do a race tomorrow, I'd need it for that," I replied.
"Yeah Twi, I need the practice, even though the race will be clearly one sided," said Rainbow Dash.
"Don't be to sure of yourself, Rainbow, I learned a new flight style this morning that might leave you in the dust," I chuckled.
"I'd like to see that, I don't know anypony that ca-" Rainbow Dash was cut off by the sound of me flying off.
While she was talking I jumped into the air, instantly transforming my sword into it's capsule form around my body and immediately taking off into the sky. I flew straight up, back down, leveled out and sped off towards home, quickly landed right at my doorstep. I looked back at the sky with a sly smile on my face, Rainbow Dash followed me.
"Hey, what are you tryin' to pull!?" asked Rainbow Dash while still flying high in the air.
"Consider that a lesson!" I yelled back at her, then abruptly went inside my house.
I hadn't necessarily answered Twilight about studying my sword, I actually just wanted to get out of that situation as quickly as possible, I didn't want Twilight with my sword, I didn't trust her. What if she disabled the enchantment somehow? It would mess up my sword again, and it would be useless. I didn't want that to happen, nothing was going to take away my sword.
It was still only in the afternoon, so I spent the rest of the day buying some supplies and studying some magic books. I ended the day with a half hour work out to help get ready for the race tomorrow, and then promptly went to bed.