//------------------------------//
// Chapter 18: Wing and spear 
// Story: The Equestria Diaries 
// by Istaran 
//------------------------------//

Keeping my emotions in check as best I could, I stormed out of the house. Wind Chaser followed me immediately, but fell back as we got outside in response to my silent warning. Bardrick came out into the doorway just as I spread my wings. I don't know what he would have said, but it was cut short as the force of my downbeat shattered the earth where I was standing.

I blacked out for a few seconds, coming to just as I was reaching the zenith of my arc. The air was substantially thinner up here, but Deus protected me from any ill effects. I had tried to tune the force of the wingbeat to be just within my limits, but it looks like I had overshot. As I plummeted back toward the ground, I spread my wings, arcing away before I could reach the ground, back out over the nearby ocean. 

[What are you doing?] Wind Chaser enquired through our link. 

[Teaching myself how to fly.] I replied. The next powerful upbeat sent a massive wave splashing onto the land, coming a few feet short of the spectators watching from outside the house. [You've given me as much data as I can make use of, now I need to get an actual feel for it.] I hadn't passed out, which was good, but I felt like I had cut back too much, like I was being too timid about it. Now was the time to learn my limits, while there wasn't any enemies in range to make my mistakes really count.

Which was good, because on the next dive I pulled up too little, too late. I hit the waves and bounced off hard, skipping across the surface of the ocean like a skipped stone until I finally submerged under the surface.

"Tell your stallion if he wants to show off he'll have to do better than that." Bardrick commented to Wind Chaser gruffly.

"I'll tell him, but he's not trying to show off. He's training."

"If he calls that training, he'll need more than a week to simply not be a danger to himself. And that's unarmed," Bardrick scoffed.

"Eh. He can take it. You know how tough he is."

"Sure, but that really makes me wonder. What were you running from? What were those lights in the sky? They looked like they were on the far shore, but I'm guessing you were a lot closer than you were letting on."

Wind Chaser shifted uncomfortably, telling everything with her silence. Bardrick left it at that for a few minutes, watching my unsteady progress. I spent about thirty seconds on hovering and other low-speed maneuvers before getting back into the breakneck maneuvers, just shy of blacking out. There would be plenty of time to drift about, but when push came to shove I knew I needed to be able to evade jets without a second thought. It wasn't the superweapons I was worried about. Those were a problem for massed forces, and as long as I wasn't in the middle of said forces, I wouldn't be the target. One didn't nuke a single infantry. The problem would be his airforces, possibly anti-air ground forces as well, but it was easier to simply stay away from those. I needed a way to dodge jets, or outrun them, or something.

I also needed a way to counterattack. Otherwise they would simply reload and return as often as they needed to. Stealing a trick from Istaran's handbook, I used my spiders to assemble a spear. The tip was blunted for now, as I was in no hurry to impale myself while getting the hang of it, but it had a nice long haft and plenty of weight behind it, being made entirely of metal. The was just one problem. I hadn't really gotten the hang of holding things with hooves yet. There was probably some subtle magic to it or something, the way the ponies could lift anything with a hoof using some impossible grasp. But as soon as my spear was fully formed it was falling toward the ocean.

I could have dove after it, which would no doubt have ended hilariously, but I decided to improvise quickly, instead. I may not have known how to make a laser, but I knew all the principles behind an electromagnet, and had a pair of working ones assembled within the bones of my arms (err.. forelegs?) in seconds, in time to arrest the spear's fall and rip it back up to me. While I did have the reflexes to avoid the projectile I had just sent hurtling in my own direction and catch it in a magnetic grasp without mishap, I was still quite glad I had had the foresight to make the tip blunt.

"I suppose I should continue watching, so I can record the time of death," Bardrick told Wind Chaser, as his daughter kindly provided them both with popcorn. 

"He can hear you, by the way. Just so you know," Wind replied, munching on the kernels absently.

He snorted. "That must by why he's armed now. Too eager to prove me right."

In all fairness.. I did manage to impale myself, blunted spear or no, before the sun set. And go for another inadvertant swim. (Salt water and open wounds don't mix. At least I don't advise mixing them.) But by the time the sun rose and I landed to join the griffins for breakfast, I was feeling fairly confident in my ability to perform basic highspeed maneuvers while aiming thrown spears at imaginary targets. It was a far cry from being a skilled warrior, but I hoped mere speed and power would make up the difference. I wasn't at all confident in my ability to hit fast moving targets, particularly not evasive ones. But it was a start.

"Alright, boy, you've convinced me to impart some wisdom to you before you kill yourself," Bardrick greeted. "The first bit of wisdom is that you get some rest! Have  you been training all through the night?"

"I'm fine. Hungry, but otherwise fine. Magic blood," I declared, answering all possible objections with an infuriating catchall. How do you argue with 'magic blood'? 

"I'm quite hungry myself," Wind Chaser said as she came down the stairs, her leer giving those in the room that didn't know she was a changeling a good enough inkling of what she was really referring to. "I do hope you'll come to bed for at least a little while before you resume your training." 

I set a hoof on hers, rubbing her back lightly with one wing when she sat next to me. I tried to focus on her, and my affection for her, giving her what she needed without the need for closed doors. She made some cute little sounds as she leaned into the touch, ignoring little Addy as he made faces at us. "I'm sorry, but I really do need to keep at it. I'm wondering if maybe you should be training with me: you could be in quite a bit of danger yourself if we get into a tight spot."

"I guess, maybe a little." [Turbine won't let me use your little crystal trick without your permission. Care to unlock the option for me, boss?]

"Great.. but first, let's eat!" [Done, but I'm putting limitations on it; I don't want you blacking out like I did the first few times.]

When we had eaten, Bardrick grabbed his own spear before following us out into the morning light. I was still making small talk as we strolled out, looking behind me when we got outside, and Wind Chaser and Bardrick both stared, their mouths dropping open.

"Uh, boss.. what they hay did you do to the sky!?" Wind finally managed. I turned to look to see what they were talking about.

Where I had been training all night, the sky looked perfectly normal. A normal shade of blue, interrupted with a few normal looking white clouds. This existed in a large but fairly contained chunk of sky, looking like it had been drawn in by a two-year old swiping back and forth with a broad brush. The other 90% of the sky was the typical cartoony looking over-bright blue dotted with equally cartoony looking little fluffy clouds being manually pushed about by busy looking weather griffons.

"Ummmm.." was all I could manage.