//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: PTSD 
// Story: The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

Sunset Shimmer's voice echoed through the abandoned Crystal Caves deep below Canterlot. "Hey, you foals, this is a lab practicum, not study hall. Some of you are going to join the guard and for the rest of you, this is self-defense training.  Shoot already!"

A flash bang lit the reflective dark caves electric blue.  Had to be Eye Bee.  I cringed behind a faceted stalagmite, fighting off flashbacks of my last night in Hooflyn when Carne Asada and her gang had fought it out with the coppers while she expected me, her lieutenant and bodyguard, to save her flank.  I worked to help ponies, to keep the peace and the bits rolling in; I wasn't there to clean up her stupidity in getting into a shootout with the authorities.  Spoiler alert: unicorn magic isn't made of rainbows and giggles.  Nopony that horrid night cast low level stun spells, even the constabulary. 

I escaped that bloody nightmare resolved to fix my mistakes, to win entrance into a magic school in Canterlot.  Just my bad luck to test into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns the same day Running Mead, the boss of Lower Canterlot, blackmailed me into becoming his enforcer. 

This exercise felt too real.  Three years on the street in Baltimare and Hooflyn had honed reflexes that gave a pony night terrors.  I trembled, wanting someone to stun me already but unable to quit casting a wriggling-eel of a spell, Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look, to let that happen. 

Sunset Shimmer's arrogant voice boomed, sounding closer.  "That goes double for you, Glimmer.  You're a first year who placed into a third year class.  You won't pass by simply being the last pony standing!"

Strobing flashes of magenta, pink, and topaz announced other fire fights—none near me.  I forced myself to breathe.  In…out…in...  This wasn't real.  Dial it back.  Nopony was going to be hurt.  In the harsh street world, I assured I was the one in control; I was the pony who kept the peace.

Mostly. 

This game made me crazy.

A close bang sounded; I reflexively renewed my invisibility illusion spell, sweating as I worked to generate the noise, the random numbers, that made it possible.  

Keep calm—

I couldn't take this!  Disgusted with myself, I reached into my saddlebag like an earth pony.  I found four slices of valerian root that littered the bottom by probing with my tongue for the cheesy fibrous things.  It was legal (for adults), but contraband at school.  I needed calm and was trained not to cast Levitation while maintaining an illusion.  Doing so might preserve my dignity, but could let extraneous magical potentialities leak past my tenuous illusory cloak.  

It did, however, defeat my desire to be seen, be stunned, and be done with the stupid exercise.

Horse apples!  I loathed the idea of letting out the soilder inside again, but the whip of self-preservation had trained me well, and had saved my life many times. 

I'd barely begun chewing when Sunset Shimmer said, "Maybe I'll just shoot you myself!"  

I lost my spell.

I sensed a unicorn's aura before the sound of an in-teleport reached my ears, and deduced the approximate balance node of the pony's exit teleport target before the pop.  By reflex, I balanced the same math I sensed, applying a two-yard transform on three axes.  I saw Sunset appear as I disappeared, knowing she saw me.  Reflex drilled by repetition turned into instinct gave me total control; I appeared above and behind her a tenth of a second later, fully expecting her to be good enough to sense my entrance and roll, ready to shoot.  She did not disappoint.  What she didn't know, and I could not stop myself from doing, was that I could cast Mirror.

Her stun bolt flashed off at a normal to the angle of attack.  I dropped with my knees flexed.  Hard learned quick draw street techniques let me queue spells, inaccurate but good enough.  Having cast Mirror, I transformed the rest into force spells as I fell, screaming my frustration at my overly trained reflexes...

Her unexpected leap at me made it almost impossible not to shoot her.  In the three years since I had run away at age 12, I'd never used a force spell to intentionally harm a pony offensively—property often enough, but never intentionally a pony.  I twisted midair.  I turned the stalagmite I'd hidden behind into pea gravel, melted a glowing gash on the ceiling, and set myself on fire with the backlash from stifling a spell that would have ripped the aggressive teaching assistant in half longitudinally like a rag.  

I dropped, slid along the ground, and rolled more from shock than from the sight of flames or the smell of burnt fur.  I'd gotten myself mostly extinguished before Sunset Shimmer conjured a bucket of water to finish the job.  Nauseating smoke drifted in white layers as I coughed out water I'd accidentally inhaled. 

I lay there shivering and humiliated.  So much for me watching educated unicorns to see how they performed magic differently than the gutter trash I had let myself become.  I heard the clatter of hooves approaching: my classmates.  Right.  The street tough brought down by her own misfire.  More humiliation.

Sunset Shimmer said, "Show's over here fillies and colts.  Class dismissed.  I'll post your grades next week and give my critiques to the teacher…  Class dismissed!  Dismissed now, or do you want me to reevaluate what I thought of today's performances?"

I levered myself up, hurting from burns and scorches to my forehead and right side, not looking back at her or anypony else.

"Not you, Glimmer."

I shivered, but didn't look as she lit her horn and the sound of the other students' hooves echoed and died away in the distance.  

"I counted five spells going off in—let's call it three seconds.  Look at me!"

I turned.  The bright white sphere of light drowned out her aura, illuminating her yellow hide and red-and-yellow mane as if she were truly on fire.  She had a scorch mark where she'd barely skirted the proximity effect of my first bolt, just above that curious fire-eclipsed sun cutie mark on her flank.  Star cutie marks were reputed to indicate high degrees of magic; was a sun a star semantically?  She cleared her throat and I looked at her face.  Her green eyes seemed to shimmer with an internal bale flame. 

I tried to change the subject.  "Are you joining the guard?  You seem pretty good at this stuff."

"Nothing so prosaic, blank flank."  She chuckled.  "Celestia—"  She didn't say Princess Celestia, you know, the one with a full sun on her rear end.  "—is grooming me to run Equestria one day.  Let's call it six spells in ten seconds, if we count that spiffy invisibility spell you couldn't keep powered up for trying."   

Powering wasn't the issue.  It wasn't combat magic; it required constant attention.  Shrug it off.  Others had to be able to queue spells.  "So?"

"So!  You're a high level unicorn.  Nopony in her right mind would have assigned you this class!  Celestia sent you to test me, didn't she?"

I only let loose a few quiet snorts.  The herb I chewed gave me clarity and thankfully numbed the increasing pain of my burns. 

But my motion let her see I had a chaw in my mouth. "What's that?  Spit that out!"

I complied.  I didn't know if using combat magic instead of defensive magic was grounds enough to get me expelled—might, if Sunset Shimmer phrased it right.  Contraband probably wouldn't make it worse.

She levitated the chewed fibers, sniffed, and placed them in her pack.  "Not Celestia's stalking horse, then.  You are a fascinating mare, blank flank.  There appears to be many things you can teach me, Glimmer, and me you.  After we get your wounds healed."

As she turned and led me away as surely as if I wore a bridle, I rolled my eyes and cursed silently. 

Was Equestria filled with blackmailers?