Dawn was beginning to break and while most of the residents of Ponyville were just starting to stir, there was one the had been at work for hours prior. “Phew, it's been a while since I've had to use these things. Mom also wasn't kidding about how hard it was to recharge these once they were fully drained.”
Aegis Flare ran the back of a hoof across her brow as she observed the ring of gem-topped posts that she had been erecting since she had awoken. She set aside the vial that she had drunk while recharging the entire array that they formed as she made one final lap to make sure everything was in place before looking towards the rising sun. “Well it's about time to get Scootaloo for her punishment. I'll need to leave some time for her to get ready for school after all.”
Saying that it was time to awaken the young filly was one thing, but doing to always ended up being a chore. She had just tried to gently wake the filly up since her usual ploy would have been detrimental to her plans so she was forced to go with a less kind way to wake her. With a sigh she looks over her shoulder at Scarlett who had been with her since she woke up. “Do you want to give it a shot or should I dig through one of Pinkie's prank bags?”
The flying fox brought one of her wing claws to her chin for a moment before she leapt onto the bed with a flap and made her way to Scootaloo. The pet didn't do anything at first as she looked at the sleeping filly and she soon started snuffling at her mane. The filly twitched a bit at the flying fox's ministrations but it still wasn't enough to wake her up... At least until she decided to stick her tongue into her ear which caused the filly's eyes to shoot open as she let out a shriek and shot out of bed to land on the headboard.
“Scarlett!? What was that for!?” Scootaloo glared at the red-furred pet who just gave her an innocent stare before her attention was pulled away by the sound of chuckling. Looking up she spotted her sister standing over her bed and she tilted her head in confusion as she glanced at her clock. “Sis? Why are you up so early?”
Shaking her head as she allows Scarlett to climb back onto her back she points out towards the back of the home. “I'm pretty sure I told you yesterday that your punishment was starting this morning. I just finished setting everything up and you'll have to get started soon if you want to have time for breakfast.”
Scootaloo shivered a bit at her sister's cheerful tone of voice as it was one she hadn't heard in a while and it only meant trouble. She wanted to argue with her sister but she was curious about what this training was her father had taught her since she had always slept through it. The was the only reason why she didn't put up much of a fuss at being woken up as early as she had.
The filly wasn't very impressed though when she was lead to a ring of posts that were set up in the area between their home and the distant Everfree Forest. “What's the deal, sis? You always talked about how awesome dad's training was but if this is all it involved then I'd say the school playground would be more interesting.”
The elder sister just smirked as she advanced on the one pole that was set up outside of the ring and set her horn on the gem. After a moment of just pushing magic into her horn for the gem to absorb it slowly started to glow and spread around the entire ring. Once the entire ring lit up the glow began to spread to the inside of the ring before solidifying into a variety of shapes. Scootaloo just watched with her mouth wide open as an entire obstacle course appeared from nothing.
“Hmm, I think I got it a bit out of order but it should be fine. This is mom and dad's personal Black Guard training course.” Glancing over at her sister she rose an eyebrow at her reaction of surprise. “What? You didn't think they just sat around all the time and still remained captains, did you? Still this is a bit much for you to handle, so...”
Reaching over with a hoof to the gem she used to activate the course she started to twist it around while watching over everything. As she twisted the gem the obstacle course started to grow and shrink in size until it was about half the size than when it first appeared. “There, that should be about right. Now all you have to do is make it through the course as fast as you can while I keep time.”
The mare pulled out a stop-clock and set it on another convenient pole while looking expectantly at her sister. Scootaloo recovered from her shock to look over at her sister before she shrugged and moved to the start of the course. With another glance over to get a nod from her sister the pegasus filly began to traverse the course.
The first obstacle she came to was simple to complete as she skipped across a path of stones from the starting platform to the other end. Next up was a steep incline which gave her a bit of difficulty as she slid down the first time as she didn't realize how little traction she would get on it which she corrected for on her second attempt. When she came to a series of low walls she paused for a moment to look ahead and she realized that the course appeared to get even worse later on and she wondered if she could even finish it.
From the low walls, to a tunnel she could barely fit through, to a single rope crossing were the easiest part for her to deal with. The course had variations on those but often turned out to be even harder or take a bit of thought to find a different way to complete them. During another wall climb where she had to leap from box to box to ascend it, she slipped just before she made it to the top. She tried to recover by flapping her wings but all that gained her was a sharp pain in a wing as she plummeted to the ground. When she hit the ground she scrambled to her hooves in panic just to find herself miraculously uninjured. She was a bit shaky after that but she soon regained her composure enough to continue with the course.
Eventually she collapsed at the finish line of the course where she panted from the exertion while she looked over at her sister who was rubbing her chin with a hoof while looking at the stop-clock. “Huh, not too bad for a first attempt while not knowing the course. You didn't do too much worse than my first attempt and it's a good thing there are a couple enchantments to prevent injuries as well. Now run it again.”
Scootaloo didn't comprehend her sister's words at first but when she finally realized what she said her eyes widened in show. “Wait, what do you mean again?! I barely made it through the first time!”
Aegis Flare didn't even react as she reset the clock once again before sitting down to watch again. “What? Did you think your punishment would be easy? I think a couple weeks of this should be enough of a punishment for going out into the Everfree. Just be lucky that I'm going easy on you for now, next week you'll get to do this with a weighted vest.”
The filly's jaw dropped in shock as the full realization of what her punishment was fell upon her. With a shiver she stood up and toddled over to the starting point once again and waited for the signal to start. Aegis Flare gave a nod, sending her sister off on yet another circuit of the obstacle course as her mind drifted back to her own early days of training.
The second lap wasn't the last one for the young filly, but it was during it that two other ponies showed up behind the orange mare. “Isn't this a tad overboard for a simple punishment, Flare? I don't even think my brother uses anything this difficult when training recruits for the royal guard.”
Looking over her shoulder the orange unicorn spotted both Twilight and Rainbow Dash advancing on her from around the house before turning her attention back to her sister. “Oh it's not that bad. I'm still going easy on her right now and there are a couple of the more difficult obstacle pylons still in the shed.”
Twilight just gave her a deadpan look before turning to Rainbow Dash who was examining the course with interest. She waited for the pegasus to give her own opinion but when she just continued to stare at the course the purple unicorn dug an elbow into her side. Looking over at the unicorn to see her annoyed expression the pegasus just shrugged. “What? This looks rather interesting. Of course it's rather small for it to be much of a challenge.”
The purple unicorn just slams a hoof into her face at her friend's reaction before turning back to the other unicorn. “I thought you were asking me to come out here because you were worried about Scootaloo. And how can you justify using something like this as a punishment anyways?!”
Glancing over for a second before raising a hoof, Aegis Flare walks over towards her sister who had collapsed at the end of the course after finishing it once again. “That should be good for now Scoots. You can go inside and clean up and get ready for school.” With a nod the filly slowly drags her way to a standing position once again before staggering into the building to do what she was told while Scarlett followed after her. After watching after the filly and making sure she was out of sight she sighed and turned towards the other two.
“It may seem cruel but it's better than doing something silly such as locking her in her room like I've seen some parents do. An hour of this for a couple weeks will teach her to be a bit safer as well as curb her excess energy a bit. It'll probably send a message to the other two fillies as well once they hear what she is doing.” The two ponies just stare at her for a moment before Twilight just sighs and shakes her head while Rainbow Dash turns to look at the course again.
Seeing the gaze of the pegasus on the obstacle course again the unicorn sighed and started fiddling with the gem controlling the course once again. She watched as Rainbow Dash's eyes shot open wide as the course returned to it's full size again but while she wasn't paying attention her hoof slipped and hit a second gem on the pole causing a second course to appear next to the first. Seeing this she tried to turn off the second one but she instead brought the hoof to her face when she spotted the grin on her friend's face.
“Oh you have got to race me on this thing now. After losing to you during the Running of the Leaves I've been itching for a rematch.” Looking over at Twilight in the hope of help she saw that the purple unicorn was just watching her smugly before she moved over to examine the ring of pole. With a sigh Aegis Flare just shakes her head before heading towards the shed.
“Fine, but we'll be doing it how it should be done, just give me a moment to dig out a couple vests.” As the unicorn walked into the shed the other two looked at each other for a moment before turning back to the obstacle course.
Rainbow Dash's examinations were interrupted by a whistle of appreciation from Twilight causing her to look over questioningly. Seeing her friend's look the studious unicorn started explaining. “These are very high-grade enchantments being used to create the projections for this training course. Of course it's no wonder since Flare's parents were such a high rank. The Royal Guard uses something like this for their recruits as well, though there are a couple enchantments that I'm not familiar with.”
She would have continued but they were interrupted when Flare tossed a vest between the two. Their eyebrows rose at how loud of an impact it made when it landed but when Rainbow Dash tried to pick it up her jaw dropped. “What is with this thing? It feels like it ways as much as Twilight.”
The mentioned unicorn turned to glare at the pegasus for a moment while the orange mare chuckled at them while already wearing her own. “It probably does and it's supposed to weight that much. The main purpose of this course is to simulate a worst-case incident where you have to carry somepony else with you through various incidents. It's not perfect though since the it's easier with this on to get through the smaller tunnels than it is if you were dragging somepony else.”
The two just looked at her before Rainbow Dash grinned and put the vest on herself, slipping her wings through the appropriate holes in it. After testing out how the extra weight affected her movement she trotted over to the starting line and waited for the other unicorn to join her. With a sigh the orange mare tossed another stop-clock towards Twilight. “You might as well keep time for us. Though I am curious about how much my time is changed since I've last run this.”
With a sigh the purple unicorn just nodded and waited for the two to get into position before signaling for them to start. She watched as the two took off quickly and she wasn't overly surprised to see Rainbow Dash take an early lead. That lead was quickly lost when she same to the first tunnel as her wings had been partially spread as she ran so they got caught up on the side of the tunnel walls, much to Rainbow Dash's annoyance.
“What is with this obstacle? I can barely even fit inside of it.” While the pegasus was complaining, Aegis Flare had caught up and, after exhaling as much as she could to slim down, slid half way through her own tunnel passing up the pegasus. Seeing this through the slightly transparent walls, Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Why that...”
With a bit of a struggle to flatten her wings all the way down Rainbow Dash was able to wiggle her own way through the tunnel. By the time she exited she found that she had lost the lead and the orange mare was already half-way up the rope hanging from a high wall. Seeing that she was falling behind, and remembering that the never agreed on any rules, Rainbow Dash spread her wings and attempted to fly to the top of the wall.
On the first flap of her wings she was able to propel herself up towards the top, but she was forced to hang onto the top of the wall as a shock of pain went through her wings. After taking a moment to recover she shot a glare over at the unicorn that was just reaching the top herself. “Hey! What's the big idea doing something to my wings like that?!”
Aegis Flare looks over in confusion for a moment before she realizes what the cyan mare was talking about. “Didn't I mention that? My mom helped enchant this course so that any use of magic is effectively poisoned causing pain when you try to use any. This course is set up to test bodily strength after all, not wings or horns.”
Rainbow Dash just stared after her a moment before she realized that she was falling behind yet again causing he to slide down the rope quickly. From the sidelines Twilight watched as the two continued their race causing her to shake her head. “That mare and her competitiveness. Though I'm not sure if the other is any better considering how she just goes along with it. At least I can occupy myself with looking over this training area. The princess and my brother never let me look over the ones at the guard academy.”
Pulling out a scroll she started jotting down a few notes as she looked over the main control gem for the training course's array. “Hmm, from what I can tell this one is meant to control the flow and output of energies which means it's the other ones that really do all the work. There also seems to be something else that overlays the energy that it channels as well that feels similar to a magic suppression ring.”
She sketched down what she could recognize before moving on to on of the obstacle gems too look that one over. “These are actually easier to understand than I thought they would be. I would have expected it to be something more than a specially shaped barrier with a couple safety enchantments.” She pauses as she takes a closer look at the gem itself before she goes back to the first one. “Of course, that's why they are so rare. These gems are so rare that even a major noble house would have trouble affording this many. The princess must have had something to do with these I bet.”
Looking up she notices that the two are approaching the end of the course so she paused in her note-taking for the moment. Twilight raised an eyebrow at seeing the two reach the final obstacle, a large warped wall that they needed to scale with pure jumping power, but Rainbow Dash was able to scale it first by using her wings. The purple unicorn didn't notice the wince of pain when the cyan mare did so as she was focused more on the clocks timing the two.
“Hah, hah, beat you that time Flare. I didn't expect the whole flying handicap though. You could have mentioned that before we actually started you know.” Rainbow Dash stripped off her vest as she tried to catch her breath while Aegis Flare was moving to check out their times.
“Thanks for keeping time for us Twilight. Though I seem to have gotten a bit slower since I last did this. I knew I've been relying too much on my magic again.” Twilight nodded to her and was about to say something until she saw the other unicorn pull off her vest to reveal a second one below it. When the second one was revealed, Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped before she got up into the unicorn's face.
“Whoa whoa whoa! You mean this whole time you were wearing two of those?! What ever happened to this being a fair race?” The two unicorns just rolled their eyes at the pegasus as Aegis Flare started packing things away.
“Well it was pretty fair since you have never run it before and most of what you've done is more for speed than anything else. Though you did do extremely well for a first attempt. If what my dad told me was true then you did better than many of the ponies of the Black Guard.” This wasn't enough to really mollify the pegasus but instead of pushing the issue she just took off in a huff.
With a sigh and a shake of her head the orange mare turned towards Twilight. “Well since you're still here would you like to join me and my sister for breakfast? It's been a while since we had company.”
Twilight considered this opportunity for a moment. Since she had moved to Ponyville she had yet to see her friend's home before and she was a bit curious. She also wanted to check on Scootaloo as well so she saw no reason to decline. “Sure. Rainbow Dash did drag me out of bed and pushed me out the door before I could get something to eat.”
With a small smile the orange mare led the way inside the building and showed Twilight to a chair at the table inside the kitchen. While she made herself comfortable, Aegis Flare looked through her pantry for ingredients and started pulling out everything necessary to make pancakes. Twilight wasn't paying much attention though as she looked around in the area she could see and she was surprised at how sparsely decorated it was in the kitchen and dining area.
Taking a closer look she found that there really was only one real decoration at all and that was a small tapestry bearing a house coat of arms on it that tickled at the back of her mind. She soon recognized it as one of the crests from the thestral clans. Hearing a sound from off to the side she looked to see Scootaloo coming into room. “Hey. How are you doing there?”
The filly collapsed into he a chair that allowed her to see above the table before her head crashed onto the table. “Ugh, I'll be fine. I'd rather be doing this than some of the more embarrassing punishments my sister had thought up. I still don't know what Rarity needed all those dresses for that she had me modeling. What are you doing here though Miss Twilight?” She angled her head to glace over at the unicorn before shuddering at the thought of the dresses.
Thinking about how the older mare also had a similar reaction to dresses at times caused Twilight to chuckle. “Well your sister invited me in for breakfast after finishing her race with Rainbow Dash.” She was about to say more but she happened to glance over to see what the older sister was doing and stopped in shock.
The orange mare wasn't doing anything too out of the ordinary for a unicorn cooking but what was odd was that she was doing all of it without any utensils. Scootaloo, after looking up to see why Twilight had stopped talking, turned to see what she was looking at before she sighed and shook her head. “Oh great, she's showing off again. She says that she does it to practice her control or something but she only ever does it when she is cooking for somepony other than me.”
Twilight just shook her head and watched as the other unicorn used her shield magic to form bowls and mixing tools to prepare the batter while using a spatula formed with it as well to flip the pancakes in an iron pan. She had to admit that it was a rather ingenious use of magic, especially in how it reduced the need for cleanup in the end.
Soon she had cooked up a large stack of pancakes which she set in the center of the table before setting out a jug of apple juice for the three. They all ate in silence, the youngest due to weariness and the elder two due to not knowing what to say to each other. The pegasus filly soon had to leave for school leaving the other two to clean up what little there was from breakfast. Soon it was time for Twilight to head back to the library but she paused before she left to say something.
“I'm sorry about doubting you on how you were dealing with you sister for doing something so dangerous. I've never heard about somepony doing something like that before but it seems as if it actually does get through to Scootaloo in some way.” Aegis Flare just gave a small smile before looking in the direction of the school.
“Sometimes I wonder if it really is the best thing for her but it's hard thinking of something that would actually get through to her. I try to make the punishment be something that fits with what she did and in this case it'll hopefully drain her of a bit of that excess energy she has and get her to slow down and think a bit more. Between her and her friends she does seem to be the reckless one and from what I hear around town the other two listen to her a bit too often. I just hope that running her through some of the things I did when I was around her age will at least get her to start thinking ahead more. Especially when one of the latest things I heard them planning had to do with building a catapult and launching each other with it.” Twilight's eyes widened at hearing the latest plan of the fillies and she looked towards the schoolhouse in the distance as well.
“Maybe I should ask Spike to keep an eye on them a bit more. He and your sister seem to have been spending more and more time together lately and at the very least he can maybe stall them long enough for an adult to stop their more dangerous plans.” With a small shiver the purple mare gave a final wave to her friend before heading back to the library to make a few plans.