//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: Basic Training 
// Story: Starry Night 
// by Detsella Morningdew 
//------------------------------//

       The basement of the Crystal Castle was large, spanning the entirety of its width. Quite a few floors were below ground, but this was the deepest complete floor, and so was designated the basement.

It was hardly ever used. It was enormous, almost half a mile across. It was perfect for training.

There were some floors below it that were no more than small rooms that made up the tree's roots, but ponies tended to get claustrophobic in those rooms, and Twilight only used them for her experiments that could blow up half of Ponyville.

But this floor was the largest in the castle. A run around the perimeter was a mile.

And so this is where I started Basic Training.

I'm sure if the residents of Ponyville knew, they'd thank me. Doing it outside would be unnecessarily disruptive.





Basic Training was uniform. Everypony was to perform the same regardless of race. Despite the still-present cultural differences between ponies, I knew that Earth Ponies did not have a specific physical advantage. Earth pony magic did not make you stronger, unless your special talent was athletic. Only the prevalent culture led to the tendency of unicorns being weak, and earth ponies being strong. There was no excuse.

And so I worked them hard. Very hard.

Almost as hard as Rainbow worked me.

But this time, I wasn't training to Rainboom potential. Or any other special goal. I was training them to a standard military potential. An easily achievable goal.

My group really did do well. They were rather good, physically, and within a week, all of them met my standards.

Normal Royal Guard Basic takes a month. I really had picked well. Or maybe it was just the Rainbow teaching method.

Hmm. Maybe I should call it that officially.

Anyway, they had all completed the training, and therefore, were now official Guards.

I brought out the armor sets from the "Armory", really just a glorified broom closet. Rarity lent me one of her outfit racks, and Twilight helped me reinforce it to hold the armor.

I passed them out, and helped them put their armor on. The unicorn of the group had the most trouble, as their telekinesis wouldn't work on them. It would just dissipate.

"As I said before, you will wear this armor at all times, except while sleeping. If you expect danger, wear them even while sleeping. I took the liberty of engraving each of your names on your sets of armor. They will adjust themselves to fit you---"

A couple of gasps as their armor did just that, either tightening or loosening, depending on the pony.

"---and I must say, is a vast improvement from the one-size-fits-all design. They should feel a lot more comfortable, now."

"And as you can tell, the cosmetic changes have taken effect."

Each of them was now a shade of blue or purple.

"But you still retain your individuality."

It really was quite an impressive feat of Twilight's. Most Royal Guard standard enchantments had two or three different forms per race of pony, but Twilight had managed to make sure that all twenty-four ponies could look different, if only slightly.

"What do you look like without your armor? I mean, we've only seen you with it on, before."

The question took me by surprise.

"What's your name?"

"Silver Star."

"Well, Silver, I actually look like this normally."

"Really? You just look so similar to the rest of us. Disguised, that is."

"I know. I keep thinking that maybe Twilight did that on purpose. But I am grateful for it. It would be strange for only one pony to look so much different than the rest."

"I am curious, what is different about your armor? I can see that it covers more of your body, but that makes sense. It's obviously custom made. But there has to be something more."

"Actually, there is a big difference. All the enchantments are the same as on your armor, but these are a lot stronger. Trust, me, Twilight fit as much protection as she could into those gems, but this is bonded armor."

I heard a familiar gasp as somepony came over. It was Dinky. She was, of course, disguised, but as I only saw her magic, she looked the same.

"Bonded armor? What is that?"

Dinky answered for me. "Only one of the most rare and valuable magical artifacts in Equestria. Why?"

"Apparently, that's what his armor is."

Dinky looked at me accusingly. "You could have told me something about this."

"Trust me, I didn't get this until Twilight made me a guard. Apparently she had been using some of my magic each night for years without me noticing."

"But what's the difference? You haven't told me yet."

"The difference is in the amount of power it can store. When you put on your armor, you can barely feel the pull. When I first put mine on, it took almost a quarter of my font."

"What does that mean?"

"Halfway to magical exhaustion. In other words, a lot. The torc part is the only part actually made of metal. The rest is solidified magical energy."

"Like a shield?"

"Yes, but most unicorns are quite limited in how strong they can make their shield. I don't have to expend the mental effort, and it's actually quite a lot stronger than a normal shield."

"How much stronger?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Okay, when she gave this to me, she told me that if she were to attack me with full force, I would only have light bruising."

"Okay, wow. That's strong."

"But she also said that it wouldn't last long that way. I would run out of my magic store in minutes, and be defenceless, anyway."

"But still--"

"Yes, I was surprised too. But she insisted that I have it for some reason. Anyway, now that everypony has their armor, I need to address them again."

"All right. Thanks for the chat."

I got everypony's attention.

"Okay, now, that you have your armor, you need to get used to it. Now everypony, let's go back downstairs. We're redoing Basic again. This time with armor."

Everypony groaned.

"Cheer up. Tomorrow you'll each have at least a third of the day to rest. We're going to start the interesting stuff."