//------------------------------//
// Learning Curve 
// Story: Equestria: A Flux Tale 
// by Star Sage 
//------------------------------//

	“Alright, now, focus,” said the gentle voice of Quicksilver, her usual fast talk replaced with a slow, careful meter as you tried for the ninth time that morning to do as she asked. Your hands were held out in front of you, their palms overlapping, as you drew power from within yourself, trying to pull at that bright star within you. You closed your eyes to make the task easier, ignoring the distractions outside.

“Focus only on what you want to happen, not on an item that could do the same thing,” she said, and you had to focus to banish the image of Captain America's shield from your mind. Instead you tried to use the power within you directly on the world, imagining it as a wall in front of you.

“Good, good,” she said, and you cracked open an eyelid to find a shimmering barrier before you. It was a circle, unfortunately, but still, it wasn't the shield you'd been picturing. Instead it was just power, raw energy made manifest by your will.

“Hold it right there. Pyro, you're up!” she shouted the last, and then just kind of vanished, appearing back where Radiance and Dewprism sat to the side of the clearing. Today it was just the four of them, and you were far outside the city, which made it easier to focus on Pyro as he trotted up from where he'd been waiting, taking a position near you.

“Are you ready?” he said in that muffled voice of his. You'd taken to, in the last few months, touching his mind softly with your own, so now you heard what he said in your mind, instead of trying to translate it with your ears. It made you realize that he was, at least compared to his siblings, just a kid, his voice having barely broken compared to the deep, thundering bellows that Radiance could make, or the gentle sound of Quicksilver's laughter.

“Hurry up before I lose it again,” you told him, sweat already starting to drip down your brow as you held the barrier before you. It had started out almost a full foot thick, but even as you'd just say there it had already lost an inch, and you knew it was about to lose a lot more, as Pyro charged up.

His horn flared, as little lines of red flame traced there way down its length. Around it, the air seemed to curl and move like smoke, and if you had the attention to spare you would have noticed his whole body shining like a beacon. You didn't of course, it was taking everything you had just to put up the barrier, and not jump out of the way as you waited for what was coming.

At some unknown charge level, Pyro lashed out at you with his power. Unlike what you had seen in battle before, this was raw energy, like something from the heart of a star, or a lightning bolt, trained directly at the shield you had made. It slammed home with an almost deafening blast, and you had to fight just to stay standing as the impact translated from the shield into your body through the air between you.

You held your ground though, trying your best to not go to one knee, even as the shield went from nearly a foot, to three inches just at the touch of Pyromancer's power. Better than Radiance at least, who's first shot had proven far stronger than you had expected, and shattered your barrier in this same exercise the first time you'd tried it.

“Excellent, both of you! Hold that as long as you can!” shouted Dewprism, and you felt a small twinge of pride in your chest. It was as rare for her to complement someone as it was for her descendent Rainbow Dash. Bolstered, you both redoubled your efforts, your shield getting thicker, even as the beam that Pyro shot at you grew into a bolt that would have made Zeus himself proud.

Not that either of you had the stamina to maintain the exercise long. After less than a minute you could feel your body starting to fail, your legs becoming wobbly beneath you, even as Pyro's stance simply grew firmer, his hooves digging into the earth more. Finally, you had to give, and with a cry of frustration you dove out of the way, your barrier shattering into little shimmering shards that faded into nothing as the beam sailed past where you'd been standing, slamming through a boulder and then a tree.

“Sorry!” shouted the Alicorn for Fire, as he shifted the beams course, driving it straight up, and then detonating it in the air, creating an aurora for a moment in the afternoon sky. Said alicorn then slumped down to the ground, breathing heavily, and obviously winded from the experience.

“Nothing to be sorry about, little brother,” said Quicksilver, as she pointed a hoof at the tree and rock, both of which were on fire. She applied only a slight hint of motion to the ground beneath the too, causing a small wave of earth to wash over them, extinguishing the flames with a hiss, as the three of them trotted towards you.

“Indeed, far better than last time. You both should feel proud of yourselves,” offered Radiance as he used his magic to pick you up, then brushed some grass from your armor's front with his hoof. Pyro, meanwhile, was given a once over by his sisters, scanning him with their magic and their eyes, looking to see if his suit had breached in any way, and when satisfied it hadn't, and that he was fine, they both gave him hugs.

“Yeah, and next time, I'm gonna win,” you tell him, trying to sound confident, but failing miserably at it, remembering the first few times you'd tried this exercise with Radiance, and how even the lightest beam he could fire had pounded through your best shield. That had been over a month ago, of course, and you'd gotten far better at making the things, which had started out as thin as panes of glass, and now could be over a foot thick.

“It's not about winning, losing, or anything else. This is about learning yourself, learning how your power works, and how it can be used,” Dewprism reminded you.

“Exactly. Making items out of raw magic is easy for you, but hard for us. It only stand to reason that directly applying your power to the world would be harder for you, while being the simplest thing we learn,” advised Radiance as he demonstrated. His horn shone brightly for a moment, and then you could hear the wing beats of several pegasi in the air.

You smirked a bit as you cast your flight spell, something you had figured out in the time since you'd regained your powers. As it turned out, the spell was simply Fly, from DnD back home. It lasted ten hours, because that was the level you'd seen it cast at in the game you'd played with friends, and the DBZ aura trick that made you go faster was just you focusing the spell for short bursts that used up the energy of the spell quicker for the speed boost.

“Yeah, and I know it's childish, but I really want to master this. I want to be the very best in everything I can,” you said as you floated upward, the others flaring out their wings and joining you in the sky. Pyro retrieved his hat with his magic, covering the horn on his head with a sombrero before taking wing next to the rest of you. As you rose, you could see several forms coming closer, which soon stopped nearby each looking the five of you over.

“Any problems today, My Lord?” asked one of the shapes, who seemed to be clad in solid light. The being was one of Lord Radiance's personal Guard, which had been one of the lessons you'd learned from the Children over the last few months. The Royal Guard were Celetia's, and numbered in the hundreds, policing Canterlot, and being sent on long missions when she required it. The Children and Luna though, each of them had their own guard, smaller in number, if a bit stronger individually.

Radiance, as noted, had his Shining Guard wear platemail that looked common in most respects, except for the fact that when they chose, the stuff could shine almost as bright as Celestia's sun. Said shine could even be focused into lasers, real lasers, that they used to defend their lord and master. According to Radiance, he kept two of them, since any more would be overkill, and he'd also found that with only a pair, he could move faster around his Kingdom.

Dewprism's Guards, the Chameleon Guard, shimmered into place next. Their armor was like their Lady's power, a veritable cornucopia of color, which they could shift and warp with a thought, allowing them to vanish even as you stared at them. It was quite the trick, and one they liked to play with, no more than three being visible at any one time, though Dewprism had told you there were really five members of her Guard, enough that she felt safe letting them do their own things, which sometimes had them going off on their own to take care of some business.

Quicksilver's Guard came next, though it was only one, this stallion was bigger than Big Mac, standing almost as tall as the Princess of the Sun herself. You think anyway. The stallion rarely talked, and his form seemed rather fluid, almost like the T-1000 or something, with the edges of his body flowing rather than moving, and every edge of his feathers looking as sharp as knives, while every surface shone like polished silver.

“Not today. Did you see that explosion though?” asked the Prince excitedly, and his Guards nodded.

“Indeed. We were worried that you might have grown over eager in your training of the Flux Marquis,” said Spitfire, as she and your Flux Guard, still wearing their Wonderbolts uniforms, flew in behind the rest.

“Nothing even close to that, it was Pyro this time,” you tell the three of them as your flock of pegasi, alicorns, and one human, begin to move off towards Canterlot Castle in the distance.

“Really? Your brother is improving at a most impressive rate,” said one of the Chameleon Guard as the mare flew up ahead, and then sort of slid out of sight.

“He is at that. Soon we'll have two new Princes to add to the Royal Family,” responded Dewprism as she rolled over the whole formation, taking a long slow dive and then spinning back into position on the opposite side from where she started, probably just showing off.

“Maybe Mother will stop pestering you to earn the Princess title yourself,” said Radiance with a chuckle, which earned him a death glare from his sister, though got a half hearted laugh from everypony else.

“Mother will never stop pestering her until she does something with herself, you know that,” said Quicksilver, as she did some kind of move where she turned sharply into her sister, giving her noogie, and then in the blink of an eye, she was in the middle of the rest of you, protecting her from any reprisal her sister might try.

“I have done something with my life. I'm an explorer. Just because I don't put down roots like the rest of you,” she complained, not for the first time since you'd met her. It seemed that her staying put to help you train was actually the longest she'd stayed in one area for a century or more. That was a terrible crime, if you heard her tell it, and she should be off expanding the boundaries of equine knowledge. Quicksilver had said it was mostly bluster though, and that she enjoyed having the family around for a while.

Your 'flock' of fliers soon reached the point where you could see Canterlot Castle, hanging off the side of the cliff. It didn't take more than a few minutes for you to be casting shadows over the city itself, several forms looking up at you, City and Royal Guards offering a salute, while town ponies just waved up at the group. After a couple of pegasi and alicorn wing flaps you finally got to the palace itself, with you all setting down in the garden, an elderly earthpony looking up from his flowerbed to nod at you before returning to his work.

“Well, this was a successful day of training, if I do say so myself,” said Quicksilver as she led the way towards the Castle's rear gate.

“And you do,” commented Pyro as he followed behind. The rest just nodded, as Prince, Princesses, Lady, Whatever-Pyro-Was, and Marquis all went their separate ways, walking down the corridors with the clopping of hooves, the ting of metal, and just that light slap of human feet. You had no ideas where the others were going, but for you, the throne room was where you needed to be.

Luckily, you'd learned the winding passages of the Castle well enough that you only took one wrong turn, that was quickly fixed, and soon found yourself in front of the double doors. Opening them with a wave of your hand and a bit of applied power, you stepped forward to find the hall as full as one would expect, with dozens of patrons on either side of the grand walkway. Celestia, looking a bit haggard, nodded towards you as you and your Guards walked forward, standing beside her as she doled out a few small drops more of justice to those who came seeking her wisdom.

'Long day?' she questioned in your mind, and you nodded, sending back impressions of the exercises you'd done, emphasizing your final contest of wills against Pyro, in which he won, if only just. That seemed to perk her mood up as she wove off the pair of supplicants, before turning towards you, and then back to the crowd.

“The Solar Court is adjourned for the day. I turn the floor over to the Flux Court, and ask the next petitioners to come forward,” she said in that motherly tone of her's, before slinking off. Idly you sent a question of where she was planning on going, and got back an image of a tub of ice cream, a large bath, and a lot of hot water. Smiling beneath your helm at her, you let the weary Princess of the Sun trot off, as you took her seat, and turned to find a medium sized drake and a slightly singed pony taking their places before you. It looked like the beginning of another fun day in Court.