//------------------------------// // Chapter 31 // Story: The Elder Scrolls: The Dragonborn of Equestria // by Urimas Ebonheart //------------------------------// The Elder Scrolls: the Dragonborn of Equestria Chapter 31 I burst forward and leap over the logs, it was easy with the boots enchantment to jump higher. Once over them, I grab the net, my fingers and feet make scaling the obstacle easy. I make it to the other side and start running between the barrels, but my wings and hips clip a few and I'm not exactly fast when moving side to side like this. I make it to the gauntlet and watch carefully, I see a pattern and look for the best course to take. After a few seconds, I see it and run through, I dodge most of them but one swings right for my head, I raise my arms up and jump forward breaking through it instead of dodging. I come out the other side with a roll and stand up shaking my arms, that actually hurt a bit. One of the unicorn instructors walks up to me. "H-How did you do that? Those were enchanted to be near unbreakable!" he says shocked. I just shrug. "I just rammed through it since I knew I couldn't dodge it in time." Now that I think about it, maybe my gauntlets enchantment overpowered the clubs? The instructor 'hums' for a second as his horn glows, my armour starts glowing and his eyes go wide. "You're using enchanted armour! And powerful ones at that!" The other ponies apart from Honour and Hammer Strike gasp or whisper to each other. "Yes, Luna herself enchanted it for me," I reply. His jaw drops now. "B-But the Princesses have never enchanted anything for anypony since Starswirl the bearded over a thousand years ago! We know you saved Canterlot from the changelings, but Starswirl saved the whole world!" Wait a minute, the Princesses haven't done this for anyone else for a thousand years? But why? If they did this for all their soldiers, their military would be near unbeatable, so why don't they? While I'm pondering this, Silver Spear speaks up. "If he's using enchanted armour, does that mean he's disqualified since he's not using his natural abilities?" I can practically feel his smirk under his concerned expression. Luna speaks up. "How so? He'd be wearing that armour during a fight, this way we'll know what he's fully capable of," she replies in a calm tone, but I can clearly see the annoyance in her eyes. Spear bows and steps back in line, Luna gives me a smile as Hammer now speaks up. "Princess Luna is correct, this will allow us to properly evaluate his full combat potential, now for the next test." He steps back as a male pegasus in light armour steps forward. "My name is Lightning Strike." A mare then raises her hoof. "Are you two related?" she asks and they chuckle. "No, just two old friends. Now my job will be to train you pegasi recruits, our next test will be a flight speed and agility test." He looks at me. "You'll also be included since you have wings as well." I nodded in reply. Hammer speaks up again. "Now the earth ponies and unicorns will continue with physical exercises until they're done." Honour walks over to him but I fist bump his hoof as he walks past, Spear just 'humphs' as he walks by. Lightning Strike then walks over to the track lines. "Now we're going to test your wing power with this." He points to a little device with four blades on it like a windmill next to him. I raise my arm. "What is that?" I ask. He chuckles. "Understandable you might not know what this is, this is an anemometer, it'll measure the wind speed you pull behind you as you fly past it," he tells me. I reply with an 'ah'. "Now then, who's up first?" he asks, a light brown stallion with a darker brown mane and tail steps forward. "Alright then, go to the starting line and get ready. On my mark, you'll fly as fast as you can past it." The stallion salutes and takes his position. "READY!.." Lightning yells. "SET!.. GO!" The moment he said that the stallion flaps his wings and soars down the track. "No where near as fast as Dash," I think to myself, but then again, Dash isn't wearing armour. He zooms past the device causing it to spin rapidly. "Eleven point three wing power, very good, okay next!" The others congratulate him while a mare takes his place. He yells out his mark and she bursts down the track, she passes the anemometer and Lightning speaks up. "Twelve point eight!" he says. The mare has a large smile on her face while the others are throwing playful comments at the stallion. Others take their turns getting results between nine and thirteen, the pegasi examiners are writing down all the details. I'm called up and I take my place at the starting line and wait for his mark. "READY!.. SET!.." I raise my large wings and get ready. "GO!" I flap my wings down hard but I don't seem to move as fast as the others. I fly past the anemometer. "Nine point seven!" Lightning calls out. "Well not bad considering your size, armour weight, and wingspan." Oh well, I haven't been flying for very long anyway, I wasn't expecting much to begin with. A few more take their turns and after it's all over, Lightning addresses us all again. "Alright not bad, a few of you could use more training but all in all, well done." He walks over to the cliff side and points to a series of hoops, loops and obstacles. "Next test is an agility test, were going to see how quick you can move mid flight," he says. Everyone lines up and one by one take turns running the course, most make it through easily, but others sometimes clip the cloud obstacles. My turn comes up and I stand on the edge. "And go when you're ready," Lightning says. I flap my wings and fly up. I arrive at the first hoop and realise something, while pegasi are small enough to fit through with ease, I'm not. I tuck my wings in and squeeze through the first one, but I can't open my wings in time to manoeuvre through the next and crash through the hoop bursting it into pieces. Well, that turned out just how I thought it would. I recover while falling and continue through the course making it through three more hoops and breaking four. I come up to a multi loop cloud and follow it looping three times before continuing. I'm feeling a bit dizzy from that and just make it to the obstacle course, large walls of cloud block my path with holes placed in them. I make it through the first three holes with difficulty but hit the fourth wall and spin out of control. I manage to pull myself out of the spin and fly back to the others feeling embarrassed, Lightning then walks over to me. "It's alright, the clouds were small compared to you so I understand it was much more difficult for you compared to the others," he tells me. Lightning then turns to the others. "Alright then, we'll continue with some basic training until the combat exams." He turns to me. "I've heard you can use magic correct?" he asks and I nodded in reply. "Then head over for the unicorn magic exams." He points over to the back near a tower with floating crystals near it. I nodded and say farewell to the pegasi who return the gesture, I walk over to see the other unicorn applicants arriving after they had some more physical training. I stand next to them and one speaks up. "Why are you here? Can you use magic?" he asks. "Yes, two thousand year old magic at that," I reply and their eyes widen at that. "Well, I can't wait to see that then," he says and smiles back. A light green unicorn mare with a white mane and tail wearing white and blue robes with Celestia's and Luna's cutie-marks on them walks over to us. "Greetings, I am Major Solar Spell, I specialise in as my name suggests, fire based magic. For your first tests we'll be examining your total magical pool and output," she says in a strict tone. "First up we'll scan you to see how much magic you have in you." She and other unicorns step up and their horns glow. One by one we're all scanned, but as the Major reaches me, her eyes widen and she looks up at me. "You have nearly as much magic as Princess Luna," she says in a completely surprised tone, the other unicorn applicants either whistle, gasp, or drop their jaws. "Erm, well I was gifted with more magicka from the divine Julianos," I reply but she just looks confused. "Err... Never mind." "Well, we'll just have to see if you can use that magic effectively." She turns to the rest. "It seems that..." One of the other examiners whispers in her ear. "Ah... Farengar here has the most magic out of all of you, now the next test will determine how much magic you can put into a spell," she says as the examiners write down our results. We're all told to line up in front of a set of floating crystals. "These crystals will register how much magic is used when hit by a spell, observe." She points her horn to a crystal and fires off a ball of fire, the ball hits as the magic is absorbed into the crystal. An ethereal number appears above it, seven-hundred and forty-two it says. "Now I want you to do the same with your strongest magic spell you can do." I watch as the others launch fireballs, lightning bolts, spears of ice, and bolts of pure magical energy. The numbers ranged from four-hundred to six-hundred and seventy. They want me to use my strongest spell, the strongest spell I know is Solar Flare, well they asked for it. I point my right palm toward the crystal and I notice everyone is watching me, I charge up the spell over five seconds as my arm is engulfed in a whitish flame. Once charged, I release the magic and a beam of intense white fire roars down the range and impacts the crystal. The crystal starts to absorb the magic but it's too much as it cracks and shatters. The beam continues onward and hits the back wall leaving a crater which is scorched black {30%}, I fall to a knee fatigued by the sudden loss of magicka. Everyone just stares at me or the remains of the crystal which has the number two-thousand and fifty-one flickering above what's left, even the earth ponies and pegasi nearby watching are stunned. "W-What just happened?" Solar Spell says completed flabbergasted. I regain my breath and reply. "You wanted my strongest spell..." I wave my hand to the crystal remains. "There you go." "B-But, not even I can cast a fire spell that strong!" She looks from the remains to me. "What other spells do you know?" she asks. I stand back up. "A weaker fire spell called Sun Fire, a spear made of magic, healing, and protection magic," I reply. "You can cast healing magic? How strong?" she asks again. "Pretty strong, can even cure a disease you have here called Magi'annara," Her eyes go wide as she leans her head back. "Amazing, we're going to have to keep an eye on you, you show a lot of potential," she tells me and turns to the others. "The rest of you did admirably, now can anypony beside Farengar here use healing magic?" They all shake their heads. "Well then, please give a list of all the spells you know and what field of magic you'd like to pursue." After all their details are written down she continues. "Our next test will be a combat test with the others as well." She walks over to what looks to be like an arena with crystals surrounding it. "Follow me," she says. {85%} The other examiners follow her as well as all of us. I meet up with Honour who looks a bit tired, I also see Lightning, Hammer, and Solar Spell talking to each other while giving me the occasional glance. "So have you told them about your ability to use magic yet?" I ask Honour. "Not yet, to be honest I'm afraid of what they'll think. I mean, an earth pony that can use magic? It's never been done before," he replies. "Well their reactions alone would be funny," I say with a smile. "Maybe," he mumbles with a frown. Luna walks up to me. "Well, everypony's expression to your spell was amusing," she teases with a smile. "Well they did ask for my strongest spell, why hold back?" I smirk back to her. Solar Spell approaches me. "During this test I ask you to not use that spell again, by the way what was it called?" she asks. "It's called Solar Flare." She snorts at that. "I've got a spell with that name, but it's nowhere near as powerful as yours. Well as I've said, please don't use that spell during the combat test, our shields won't be able to block it." {100%} "No problem, that spell takes over half my magicka, it's more of a last resort kind of spell." She nodded and walks over to the other examiners. Hammer then speaks up, "Alright now, you've all shown many skills and attributes, but now we're going to have you show these skills in a mock combat test." He looks behind him to the arena. "We'll see how well you can fight one on one and as a group." He picks up a list and reads through it. "Okay, first up is... Armoured Honour! And... Farengar!" Mine and Honours eyes both widen as we look at each other. "Erm, well, guess we'd er, better get in there then," he says. "Yeah, yeah sure." We both walk over to the arena and get in positions. Lightning now speaks up. "So here's the rules! Any weapons you use will be magically dulled for your fights as well as a shield to prevent fatal blows from magic attacks, be warned as this is not guaranteed to prevent any and all damage," he says. Solar Spell continues. "Me and some other unicorns will also be keeping an eye on the fight, we'll use levitation and teleportation to stop fatal blows." I take off my gauntlet and remove my ring, can't wear that if they plan to use magic that my ring blocks to save me now can I? I place my ring in a pouch and replace my gauntlet. We both acknowledge the rules and get ready, "Combatants take your positions!" We both get into a stance. "BEGIN!"