//------------------------------// // 4.4 Mark of the War Mage // Story: Unforgiven Memories // by Hidden Brony //------------------------------// Disclaimer: I do not own Hasbro, My Little Pony or any characters, places, or events in the extended cannon, although it would be awesome if I did. In His Memory Chapter Four: Mark of the War Mage “You’re shitting me,” I deadpanned. “I wish they were,” Strike sighed in response. We were standing in the middle of the War Mage practice field—where we had our duel scant few days ago—and were meeting the third and, as of yet, final member of our group. We were on our way out when we got a message from Luna informing us of the addition to our group. While we weren’t told who it would be, we had showed up a half hour early to make sure that we were there when she showed up. Fifteen minutes before the time we were told our new member would show up, there was the flash of a teleportation spell, depositing the most unlikely War Mage in our midst. One without training. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Twilight shrugged. “I know more about sigils and on-the-fly modifications than any other two unicorns put together.” “Being a War Mage is about more than sigils, Miss Sparkle,” Strike said. An understatement if I ever heard one. “I understand,” she replied, not knowing her lie. “However, I was asked by the princess herself to assist you two in your hunt, so here I am.” She turned away from Strike to face me. “I assume that you will behave yourself better now that you’ve had a little discipline?” “Miss Sparkle, you are the visitor here,” Strike interjected. “If anyone has to watch their behavior, it’s you.” It took every fiber of maturity in my body to keep from sticking my tongue at her when her jaw dropped. “What?" She exclaimed, turning away from me. "I have proven myself to be mature! She sticks her tongue out at you when she thinks you can’t see her!” I pulled my tongue back into my mouth. “Being a War Mage isn’t about magic or maturity, Twilight. It’s about the mindset, one that you don’t share with us.” “If you learned it in a week, it couldn’t have been that hard,” she snarked. “She arrived already almost in the mindset required,” Strike said, “and as such required little coaxing to tip over the edge and into our territory. You on the other hand. . . aren’t. It will take you years to learn War Magic, if it’s even possible for you.” She glared at him. “I hardly think that I’ll have a problem with learning your fancy magic, Mage Strike.” He just grinned. “With all due respect, I think that she will be better at it than you ever will.” Twilight snorted. “And why do you say that?” “Because War Magic is her special talent.” “What?!” Twilight and I exclaimed at the same time, looking to my flank in unison. To say that I was annoyed at Strike was an understatement. Stamped against my flanks was the image of a flaming butterfly behind a pentacle—the symbol of control over the forces of magic. “And how long, exactly, has that been there?” I asked him, my annoyance clearly seeping into my voice. “Wait, you didn’t know?” Twilight exclaimed. “It’s your cutie mark!” “Just how often do you look at your own ass, Twilight?” I asked. She just grumbled in response. "That's what I thought." When he was sure that we were done talking, Strike said, “When you passed out after your first casting of War Magic. By the time I made it back to you, it was there.” “And you didn’t tell me until days later, why?” I asked. "I was waiting for you to see it yourself," he replied. Huh. Good enough. Annoying, but good. "But we waste time we don't have. We were on our way out when we got the message that you were on the way. Starswirl's been sighted in Ponyville." Twilight chuckled. "I just came from Ponyville. If he were there, I would have known.” "Twilight," I sighed, "I think that we're going to go with the report of the professional guard that's been watching for Starswirl rather than yours." Suppressing a smirk at her indignant look, I turned to Strike. "Ready, Mage Strike?" "Ready, Mage Star," he said. He looked at Twilight. "Ready, Miss Sparkle?" Neither of us missed his. . . subtle emphasis on Twilight's lack of a title. Twilight frowned. "Ready." And with a flash, we were off. We appeared on the road down from my house. Ponyville was exactly as I left it, peaceful, but anticipating chaos and misfortune. As far as I could see, ponies walked around on their business under a clear sky. They spared us a startled glance before going back to what they were doing, seeing Twilight and two ponies in the robes of a War Mage. I yawned, not bothering to even attempt to stifle it. “So, where to first?” I asked, following as Strike started walking down the street. “I doubt he’s still here, since we had to wait for Twilight.” She gave an indignant snort from behind me as Strike said, “First, we need to talk with the witness. A local mare said her sister claimed to see a pony matching Starswirl’s description leaving flowers, of all things, at her neighbor’s house.” “What’s this mare look like?” I asked. “The guard said it was Miss Rarity,” he said. I stopped mid-stride, causing Twilight to nearly run into me. “Sweetie was near him?” I exclaimed, vanishing with a flash. Twilight would know where Rarity’s house was. I’d love to say that I teleported myself perfectly to divebomb Sweetie unsuspectedly into a tackle-hug, but I can’t. I actually messed up my teleport due to my inexperience with my new magic and found myself standing on the ceiling, of all places. Of course, gravity worked the same as ever, no matter what Spike might tell me of Twilight reversing it for a while in the Crystal Empire, and I fell, shouting and flailing, to the ground. Luckily for me, there was a cushion. Unluckily for me—or probably more luckily for me—that cushion was a squealing Sweetie Belle. “Hi Star,” her muffled voice said from under me. “Good to see you too.” I quickly extracted myself from the impromptu pile, lifting the other member up in my magic and scanning her for injuries. "He didn't hurt you, are he?" "Why would he have?" she asked obliviously. "I saw that Starswirl guy drop a few flowers off at your house and vanish, I didn't challenge him to a duel." "What's going–Star, put my sister down," Rarity commanded as she walked in from the back. "That hardly seems necessary." I looked between the two sisters, deciding following orders would be a good idea. Sweetie squeaked in surprise as my magic temporarily dug into her ribs, sending her into a laughing fit while I put her down. Now that I knew Sweetie was okay, my serious mood melted into a more playful one. Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she saw my grin. "Star, don't you dare—" I cut her off with a magical tickle assault. She dropped onto the ground, convulsing on her side as laughter tore itself out of her throat and tears ran down her face. “I hope she isn’t being too much of a problem,” Strike said from the doorway as I stood victoriously over my thrashing opponent. “Sta–Star! Stop!” she gasped out between her laughs. “Can’t–can’t breathe!” When it became clear that I wasn’t going to have mercy on her, she changed her target. “Rarity! Help!” “This is all par for the course,” Rarity said, waving a hoof dismissively at her sister’s plight. “I’ve actually been missing having Sweetie’s friends over all the time, oddly enough. It’s been too quiet with her moping around.” “Moping?” Twilight asked. “The only time I’ve even heard of a Crusader moping is after they got a lecture from Cheerilee for releasing Discord.” “Wait, they what?” Strike asked, whipping his head to face Twilight. “Ah, but one of her friends—her best friend, if I dare say—got arrested and disappeared for a week,” Rarity said, ignoring him. "Even with your falling out, you weren’t happy about Rainbow’s continued disappearance, are you?” “What was that about releasing Discord?” Strike tried to interject into the conversation. “No, I guess I wasn't,” Twilight replied, frowning. “I think I see where you’re coming from.” “Don’t ignore me!” he exclaimed. “This is important!” "If it was important, we would be talking about it," Rarity dismissed, immediately turning her attention back to Twilight as his jaw dropped. "They're quite fond of one another, you know." I finally took mercy on the convulsing Sweetie, ending my attack and holding out a hoof to help her up. After a moment of pause, she hooked her hoof around mine and let me yank her to her hooves. I gave her a smile that she didn't return, which hurt more than a little. "Sweetie, what's wrong?" I can honestly say that my flanks hitting the ground surprised me almost as much as her hoof smacking across my face. "What's wrong?" she exclaimed, trying her damnedest to sound angry with her voice squeaking adorably. "You lit Diamond Tiara on fire, Star. On fire. Then you get arrested and vanished and now you're here and you're okay and–and—" she sputtered before glomping me, "—don't do this to me again." With her face pressed into my shoulder, I could tell that not all of her tears were because of laughter. I wrapped my legs around her. "Sorry, Sweetie. I'll make sure to tell you the next time I leave." She sniffled. "I guess I can accept that." "D'aww," Strike cooed. I rolled my eyes. "Way to kill the moment, Strike." I sent some magic at him, and he yelped as he felt a swat on his rump. "Star," he whined. "That's for threatening to parade me around in a dress," I said. Two seconds later, the look in Rarity's eyes told me I made a serious mistake. By the glance she shared with her sister, I wasn't in for anything good. —*~*~*— "Your death will be slow and agonizing," I said, pumping as much cheer into it as I could. "That's nice darling," Rarity said, her tone indicating that she both stopped listening to me and caring what I said. I yelped as she poked me in the side with a needle. She put her head next to mine as she pretended to inspect some part of the dress she was building around me and growled softly enough that Sweetie couldn't hear, "Make her cry like that again, and I will end you." Louder, she added, "If you didn't struggle so much, I wouldn't be poking you." I ignored her advice, instead struggling harder against the silk prison surrounding me. "I think you look pretty," Sweetie said from the sideline, making me blush. "I'm not supposed to be pretty," I grumbled. "I'm supposed to be a badass killing machine." "If Celestia took the time to look pretty, then you have no right to complain about a little makeover," the older mare said. "She was a highly efficient killing machine, after all." I latched onto the distraction of the door opening behind me. "Strike?" The response I got was a familiar indignant sniff, followed by, "Of course, she would be looking for her new friend, and not us." "Ah, shut it Scoot," a familiar drawl chastised. "This Strike fella's probably the guy out there runnin' around like a headless hog." "Isn't it usually a chicken?" Scootaloo asked. "Ah didn't want t' offend yer kind like that," a very smug Apple Bloom replied. From the growl I heard, a brawl would have definitely broken out if not for Rarity. "Behave yourselves, you two. Don't make me get AJ and Rainbow." My ears perked at that. "How is she, by the way? Last I heard she was still AWOL." "She's come back to town," Rarity replied. "She's even started working on the weather again, but I hear it’s only because she was told that she had to put in an application for leave to be gone any longer.” She shook her head. “She is always so proud of never having taken a day off of work. Always said that the only thing that would keep her out of the sky is maternity leave.” She put a hoof up to her chin. "Actually, she always seemed to be jealous of the mares that had foals, now that I think of it." For some reason my ear started itching. Stupid dress. “Do you have any idea what that bug gave to her?” I asked. Sweetie gave me a flat look. “The changeling,” she corrected, “and as far as I know, no.” Rarity shook her head. “Sorry, Star. She just sticks in her house and doesn’t talk with anyone.” “Who?” a voice I was very happy to hear said from the doorway. “Strike!” I exclaimed. “No, Rainbow,” Rarity said with a smirk. “Ah,” he said. “Well, turns out there wasn’t anything really funky going on. I looked all over the flowers, but there was no magic on them. I tracked down the mare that sold them a daunting feat, I dare say—” “You looked for the mare counting her bits over and over,” Twilight deadpanned. “Er, well yes. Turns out that Starswirl handed her a massive bag of bits and asked for a bouquet of flowers to give to a filly who lost her father. Didn’t even take his change back.” He shook his head. “There’s nothing special about the bits. They aren’t fake, they aren’t magical. Someone supplied him, but bits are all identical, so there’s no way to track it.” “What did you teach me about War Magic?” I asked him. “Uh, it’s not nearly as limited as normal magic?” he asked. “Exactly,” I said. With a flash, I teleported next to him. One wipe of magic later and all of the. . . ugh, makeup that Rarity had put on me was gone. “Let’s see if we can’t get something out of those coins, shall we?” “Star, we aren’t done!” Rarity exclaimed as she used magic to put the half-finished dress on a mannequin. I cocked my eyebrow as I looked at the six other mannequins with similarly-sized dresses on them, causing her to blush. “Er, maybe we’ve gotten enough dresses for you for now.” “If you really want to make something that I’ll actually wear, don’t do any of that frou-frou stuff. No lace, no giant powdered wigs”—I glanced at one of the mannequins that had a white mass of fake hair bigger than my head perched on top of it—“no frills. Just something simple that looks nice without being all flashy.” Rarity pouted at me. She even stuck out her bottom lip when she saw that I wasn’t crumbling. “Rarity,” Sweetie said. “You have that used against you, you don’t use it yourself. It just doesn’t work.” The older mare huffed as she levitated some paper over to her. “Fine. I’ll get working on that, I think I have enough of your measurements to work with.” Her eyes flicked to the other dresses as her magic started to sketch out a plan. “If there’s a single frill on it I’m lighting it on fire,” I cautioned. “Of course, what kind of mare do you take me as?” she asked as she crumpled the paper, tossing it onto a large pile of such balls and pulling a clean sheet over to her. “What you ask for is what you get, darling.” “Make sure it is,” I said, shaking my head as I trotted out the door. I heard Sweetie from inside, “Rarity, that’s a frill.” “What? Would I do that when she clearly asked for nothing of the kind?” she asked as I heard the sound of crumpling paper again. Right before I got out of hearing range, I heard her sigh, “This is harder than I thought it would be.” Some ponies, I swear. Thankfully, the flower-seller hadn’t left yet. This was doubly thankful, since it was the middle of the day. “Good afternoon!” I greeted as I walked up. “Ah, Star!” she said, making me feel bad for not knowing her name. Apparently that reached my face, because she quickly added, “I’m Roseluck. We haven’t met yet, but after all that’s happened, pretty much the entire town knows you, if only by sight and reputation.” I smiled in thanks. “So, I heard that Starswirl bought some flowers from you.” “Strangest dang thing that’s ever happened in my life,” she said. “I was sure that it wasn’t actually him until your friend there came to ask me about the flowers I sold. Gave me enough money to pay for my whole stock, buy a new stand, and pay for three months of my house, all for a dozen roses, he did.” “Can I see one of the bits he gave you?” I asked. She shrugged, grabbing a bit from one of the two bags she had. “Not that I don’t trust you or your friend, but I’m keeping these separate until I can get them tested up in Canterlot. Got to make sure they’re safe and all.” I nodded, staring at the coin. "Strike, I'm going to need some extra spellpower for this so I don't get burned out." He stepped forward, placing his hoof on my shoulder. I nearly jumped as a hoof touched my other shoulder. I looked back to see a hesitant Twilight mimicking Strike. "So, how does this work? Which sigil do I use?" "No disrespect intended, but if you don't know, you can't do it," Strike replied. Twilight stepped back with an indignant scowl. "I see, you don't want me to be able to do your fancy magic." "More like telling anyone that isn't a War Mage or in training to be one is high treason," he replied. Twilight's shock allowed him to turn his attention back to me. "Whatever you're going to do, do it fast so we can leave." I nodded, feeling like a bobblehead. Focus on the intention of the magic, not the how or the what, but the why. With my end goal clearly in sight, I pushed as much magic as I could into that one coin. I ignored Roseluck's yelp as her bag of bits tipped over, spilling the rest of Starswirl’s bits on the ground. Slowly, starting with one, then two, then five, the other coins rolled out of the bag to join their brother, making a fairly sized pile of bits. Slowly it began to take on a shape. What started as a distorted banana-esque mass had eyes carve themselves out, the excess forming ears. A mouth opened itself up, the displaced coins moving to form a beard. Twilight took in a hissing intake of breath as she recognized the figure. "Starswirl," I said, hoping this worked the way I wanted it to. Poor Roseluck fainted when he replied, "Young Star! This is some impressive spellwork. I have yet to come across a sigil that lets you do this." His every word and movement caused the bits to clink and scrape across each other, copying his actions as well as huge chunks of gold could. "Give up, Starswirl," I demanded as I felt my magic running low. Only Strike made this possible, and not for long. "We're after you, and everyone around you will pay when we find you. Do this the easy way." "Easy rarely means right," he replied with a heavy sigh. "I take it you got my flowers?" "You came to my house to gloat after killing my father, you bastard," I snarled, being as intimidating as I could be with unsure legs. This was taking a ton more magic than I would have liked. "Star," Strike’s shaky voice cautioned as I felt his magic slow to a trickle. "If you truly wish to do the right thing, then meet me by Discord’s statue tomorrow at noon,” I finished. “We’ll see you there, you’ll surrender for your crimes, and you may be shown mercy. If you aren’t there, then I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth and beyond and give you the death you deserve.” He regarded me sadly. “Good luck, little one. I truly mean it.” I hissed in frustration as my magic ran out, causing the pile of bits to collapse back into a. . . well, a pile of bits. I dropped back, leaning against Strike as he leaned into me, keeping us both from falling. I sighed, knowing how well and truly screwed any chance of finding him would be if Starswirl did what we all expected and decided to not show up. I looked around at the ponies around me. Strike was keeping me up more than I was him, even if he was more tired than I was. Twilight stared at me with open shock, bringing a smile to my lips. Roseluck was laying on the ground behind her stall; we’d have to wake her up soon. A crowd had amassed around us, shock, awe, and—in some eyes—fear. They were murmuring amongst each other, and as they stared on it started getting more intimidating. All it would take is one scared pony targeting us for the whole crowd to turn into a mob, and of the three of us that could get out of here, two were absolutely exhausted. “Fuck.”