The Adventures of Fragment

by A Dark Reminder

Chapter 9: Preparations

“Alright everypony, listen up! The Secretariat comet has begun passing through the Horse Head Nebula. That means all magic and magical creatures will feel a power surge and are bound to become highly aggressive. I have gathered you all here to send you out to the other settlements in Equestria to protect them until this event ends in three days time. I can't tell you this will be an easy mission, I can't say you'll see the action some of you might be looking for, I can't even be sure that you'll all come back in one piece if at all, but I know that this is what the royal guard is for; to protect and serve Equestria and it's citizens.

“This is what you joined the guard for. This is what must be done for all of Equestria and the Princesses!” Shining Armor said rallying the guards as Princess Celestia, Prince Blueblood and myself watched from a balcony.

He makes it sound like they're going to war. Though I guess in a way they are.

“Does he really think some of them may die?” I asked as Shining Armor's speech continued.

“It depends on what they fight. If it's some unicorn trying to gain power there won't be much trouble, but if they end up fighting a dragon…” Princess Celestia trailed off as the guards cheered to something Shining Armor had said.

“How many guards are staying in Canterlot?” I asked as the guards began moving out.

“Only a few dozen. With Luna and myself here to help protect Canterlot the other settlements need more guards than here,” Princess Celestia said. “Now then, Blueblood, if we're done I have some teaching to do.”

“Yes, I believe we are. I have things to attend to anyways. I shall be seeing both of you around the castle. If it's still standing when the comet has passed,” Prince Blueblood replied as we began to walk away.

“So what will happen if something does attack Canterlot?” I asked as we walked back to the training room.

“If Canterlot is attacked we will do everything we can to protect it. Though I'm not sure what would be foolish enough to attack Canterlot at a time where the city is on high alert,” Princess Celestia said as something outside a window we passed made my jaw drop.

“What about a dragon?” I asked as Princess Celestia looked at what I saw.

“Oh, pony feathers.”

A dragon's tail smashed into the window next to us knocking us down as it dragon flew by. Princess Celestia got right back up as the dragon began circling the castle. It had dark blue scales and yellow claws and spines. “Fragment, go back to your room while we deal with this,” she said as she helped me back up.

“What? Just hide and let everyone else deal with it? I want to help,” I protested as the dragon began breathing fire on one of the towers, which is stupid since stone isn't flammable.

“You can't help right now, you don't have any combat training and even if you did you're in no condition to fight,” she told me as her horn began to glow gold light.

“But―”

“Now, Fragment.” She then teleported away in a flash of light.

“Yes, mom,” I said in a sarcastic and annoyed tone as I began limping back to my room. “A dragon starts attacking and what do I do? I get told to go back to my room like I'm a foal. I know she's right, but come on, I'm sure I could do something. Wait, maybe this is why there was a combat magic book in the bookshelf! She knew about the comet, maybe if I study the book fast I can help! Of course, it makes perfect sense!”

I said as I tried to limp faster to get to my room. I limped as fast as I could toward what I thought, and hoped, was my room. I opened the door with my magic as I reached it, and thankfully it was indeed my room. Scanning the bookshelf quickly I found the combat book and grabbed it. After a short search I found the spell.

“Ah-ha! 'Magic Bolt' spell. ‘Concentrate your magic in your horn and project it at your target. This is a very basic spell and the most common combat spell.’ Looks and sounds easy enough, now I just need something to practice on. The targets in the training room! Perfect! Now I… now I have more limping to do…” I said as I began my annoyed limp to the training room.

After five minutes of limping and silently cursing my broken leg, I at last reached the training room. I opened the doors as I felt the castle shake and then heard the dragon roar.

“They'll probably have dealt with the dragon by the time I figure out this spell.” I walked to a spot about fifty feet away from a target. I looked over the spell again as I prepared to use it. Looking at the target in front of me, I began charging a magic bolt and after letting the spell charge I attempted to fire at the target. ‘Attempted’ is the key word. The end result was failure as instead of shooting a magic bolt the charged magic exploded, with enough force to knock me off my hooves and backwards a few feet.

“Oooowww,” I moaned in dazed annoyance. "Why did that happen? I did everything the book said to do." I said as I carefully got back up.

“Perhaps you overcharged the spell?” a voice from behind me said causing me to turn around and charge my horn reflexively. I turned around and saw a relatively old brown earth pony stallion with blue eyes a yellow mane and tail, who was wearing the same kind of suit the butlers were wearing.

“Hello. Didn't see you there,” I said as I picked up the book and reread the magic bolt spell while letting my magic discharge.

“I wasn't here until I heard the explosion. When I did I came here I fast as I could,” he told me as I turned my attention back to the target.

“Good hustle,” I said as I began to charge the spell again.

“One should be careful when using magic with no pony to help them,” he said as I let out an annoyed groan as I let the spell discharge again. “You should wait until the princess is here to help you.”

“What am I supposed to do until then?” I asked as I looked at him. “I don't know what you've been told about me, but I've been sitting on my flank doing nothing while everyone around me has been taking care of me even though the changelings attacked Equestria. I feel like I should be helping them after all they've done for me,” I said as I turned back to the targets only to see he was now in front of me.

“Princess Celestia wouldn't want you hurting yourself out of a need to help. Be patient, and when the time comes, you will repay your debt.” I discreetly sniffed the air to sense his emotions. He was serious, but he understood how I felt.

“What's your name?” I asked as I closed the book.

“I am Rightmen,” he said bowing his head slightly.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Rightmen. In case you didn't know, I'm Fragment,” I replied with a friendly smile.

“And it's a pleasure to meet you as well, Fragment.” The castle shook again followed by the dragon's roar. “Come now, Princess Celestia will deal with the dragon, then she will address you and perhaps teach you that spell,” He began leading me back to my room. I came all this way, just to go back to my room… I thought as we walked.

“How long have you worked at the castle?” I asked as we left the training room.

“I have served Princess Celestia for more than fifty years,” he stated proudly as we continued to my room.

“I take it you enjoy it here.”

“Of course; getting to serve the princesses is a great honor. They're kind and wise, they never act like they're above everypony, even though everypony treats them that way. The only reason ponies go through such trouble to make things special for them is because they love them so much.”

“What about Prince Blueblood? He screamed and passed out when he first saw me; my ears are still ringing,” I said as the dragon roared again followed by the sound of a magical attack.

“He… needs to learn humility. Unlike the Princesses, he does think he's above everypony and he expects everypony to do exactly what he says. It's ponies like that who start wars,” Rightmen said with a small shake of his head.

“So in other words, you don't like him,” I said as a yellow maid with a blue and white mane and tail came into view at the other end of the hallway and started walking towards us. With a single glance at me she almost stopped dead in her tracks, but she soon forced herself to move forward and walked up to Rightmen without looking at me.

“Good morning, Missis White,” Rightmen said bowing his head a little. Is it really still just morning? I woke up way too early…

“Morning, Mister Right. The head chef wanted to speak to you about dinner,” she said looking at me uneasily out of the corner of her eye.

“Very well. Would you mind bringing Fragment here back to his room?” Rightmen asked as she gulped.

“I-I guess so…”

“How do you know where my room is?” I asked.

“The maids made note to avoid the room with the changeling in it,” Rightmen said simply as he began walking away leaving us in an awkward silence. We just stood there for about three minutes until I spoke up.

“So… are you going to take me back to my room?”

“R-right. This way,” she said as she began leading the way. We walked in silence as we made our way to my room. I wanted to make small talk or something along the way but I knew there'd be almost nothing we could talk about. I didn't know a subject she could talk about, and the scent of her fear deterred me from trying to communicate with her, but to my surprise she was the one to break the silence.

“So… what happened to you? All we really know about you is that you have amnesia,” she said through her fear.

“I don't know. From what I've been told it's most likely that the spell that repelled the changelings caused me to crash in Ponyville. And I obviously hit my head and broke my leg on something when I crashed,” I told her as we walked.

“Is there anything you remember?” she asked as her fear began to subside.

“I've gotten a few flashbacks, but nothing very helpful. All I know is that I was part of the attack,” I said as some pain came to me out of nowhere.

“Do you wonder who you were?” she asked as my room came into sight and I pondered the question for a moment.

“No. I don't care who I was, because even if I was general, or something as petty as a conscript, I'm not that changeling anymore, and unless I get my memories back then that changeling is dead as far as I'm concerned, and for that reason I don't spend time wondering who I was,” I explained as we reached my room.

“I see. Well we're here. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go prepare some tea for the Princess. She always has tea after a stressful event." She said as she began walking away. “Goodbye, Fragment.”

“Bye,” was all I said as I opened the door and went inside. Closing the door behind me, I walked over to the bookshelf and put the combat spell book back, then I walked over to the window. I saw the dragon was still flying around Canterlot, only now Princess Celestia was fighting it head-on. I still wanted to help but there was still nothing I could do, so I simply watched the fight, and after about ten minutes of fighting the dragon began flying away as fast as it could and the moment it was passed Canterlot's walls there was some kind of pulse sound and then a pinkish purple bubble surrounded the city.

Is that a forcefield? It looks… familiar somehow. I thought as I suddenly felt pain in my head. Before I could even yell the pain became unbearable and I fell to the floor. I didn't even have the strength to stay conscious as my vision began to blur…

(~Φ~)

The blurriness was replaced by darkness as the pain disappeared, then the darkness was replaced with a blurry vision. I was hovering over a forcefield that looked the same as the one that was just put around Canterlot. And I wasn't the only one there. There were dozens of changelings around me, and hundreds more beyond them, but the further away they were the more they looked like black blobs. Most of them were just meaninglessly slamming into the forcefield while others just waited like me.

“Major Gezähnt!” a changeling called. I looked to my left and saw a changeling next to me wearing dark blue armor, similar to guard pony armor, and a changeling flying towards us. other than the armor, there were no real defining features about either of them. How changelings tell each other apart is beyond me. The changeling flying towards us stopped a few feet from us and gave a salute that was returned by the changeling next to me.

“What is it, private?” Gezähnt asked as they ended their salute.

“Reports of pony activity near one of our camps. A request to investigate has come in. What should we do, sir?” the changeling asked.

“It doesn't matter!” Gezähnt laughed. “After we take Canterlot we'll have all of Equestria! Let the ponies wander near the camp. Victory is at hoof!” Gezähnt said as the Changeling nodded and began to leave.

“Stop!” a different voice yelled. The three of us turned around to see a changeling in dark green armor flying towards us. “Tell your C.O that Colonel Tödlich said that if the ponies near the camp look even slightly like guard ponies or anything of the sort, kill them all,” Colonel Tödlich said as the changeling again nodded and flew off.

“Kill them? Why?” I asked though I had no control.

“I don't want any unwanted surprises. If we do take Equestria, I don't want to have to deal with a resistance trying to liberate Equestria,” he said as he gazed through the forcefield to the city below. I knew it was Canterlot.

“But still, killing them seems so... wasteful,” I said as I watched the other changelings bash the forcefield.

“And besides, where's the fun in just winning?” Gezähnt said with a dark smile. “We could just play with them. let them think they're going to have an attack on our camp, but as they move in to strike… WE POUNCE! Watch the terr―”

“This is why you're not a higher rank, Gezähnt. You'd rather play with violence than win for the Queen." Tödlich said shaking his head a little.

“They say ‘do what you love,’ and I love violence. And even if there is some kind of a resistance, we'll easily crush them!”

“Even so, I―”

“It would appear the time for talk is over,” I said as the forcefield cracked and a moment later the forcefield shattered with the sound of breaking glass, the changelings began dive-bombing Canterlot and my vision faded again.

(~Φ~)

I felt my eyes begin to open as I groaned from my headache. I'm getting really tired of this kind of sh―

“It's about time you woke up,” a voice I placed as Striker said.

“What happened?” I asked as I rubbed my head and opened my eyes completely.

“We were going to ask you the same thing. Princess Celestia and I got to your room to resume training and you were unconscious. We brought you to the castle's infirmary and made sure you were okay,” Striker explained as I looked around. The room I was in looked similar to the one I had in the hospital and I saw the time was ten fifty-two A.M. The only ponies in the room were me and Striker, and of course, Striker had a chair.

“The doctor said you were fine and you probably passed out from dehydration or something. And what did happen to you anyway?”

“I had a flashback when I saw that forcefield,” I asked as I began getting out of bed. “I was with the changelings over Canterlot just before the attack started, and two of the changelings I was with were really high ranked; a Major and a Colonel,” I said as I carefully got to my hooves. “What was that forcefield?”

“Princess Celestia had Shining Armor put it up to help protect Canterlot. And you should tell Princess Celestia about that flashback after training,” Striker said as he got out of his chair.

“I thought Princess Celestia was going to be training me, what happened to that?” I asked as Striker motioned me to follow him.

“The Secretariat Comet happened. She needs her full attention on keeping Equestria safe, which is part of the reason she's having you be taught some of the magic from that combat book,” he said as we came out of the infirmary and walked down a hallway. “So she found somepony else to teach you while she deals with other things.”

“Who's my new teacher?” I asked as the training room came into view.

“Prince Shining Armor.”

“WHAT?!” I shouted as I stopped. “Why is he teaching me?!” I could have been over reacting, but I could still smell the almost hate Shining Armor had for me, and it scared me. “I'm sure he doesn't want to teach me anymore than how comfortable I feel around him,” I said as Striker continued walking towards the training room.

“It'll be fine, Fragment. I was there when the Princess asked him to do this, he wasn't angry or upset in anyway. I think he was like how he was before because he didn't have a lot of time to adjust to the idea, but I think with you not causing any trouble while you've been here and kind of making friends with Rightmen has gotten you some trust points,” Striker said as he stood by the door to the training room.

“Just because he didn't seem angry doesn't mean he wasn't. You didn't sense his emotions like I did. I really doubt that's changed in all of the two days I've been here.”

“This is getting old. If you want to help you need the training first and this is it. Take it or leave it.” I was about to say something but I knew he was right. After a moment of trying calm down and prepare myself, I walked towards the doors as Striker opened them. We walked into the room and saw Shining Armor standing there watching us.

“So how much of that did you hear?” I asked as I limped up to him. Smelling his emotions, I could tell that he wasn't as aggravated as before but he still didn't like or trust me.

“Almost every word. And you're right, I don't really want to do this, but if Twilight and Princess Celestia think I should give you the benefit of the doubt, then I'll give you a chance.”

“Well let's get started. So what exactly are you going to be teaching me?” I asked.

“Princess Celestia told me to teach at least these three spells; magic bolt, ward projection, and teleportation.”

“Why teleportation?”

“Princess Celestia thought it would be a good way for you to get around since your leg is broken. Now, because Magic Blot is the easiest of these spells to cast and is the one you'll need most it's the one we'll work on first. Rightmen told us you were trying to use the magic bolt spell when Princess Celestia told you to go to your room.”

“Good job on that by the way,” Striker added.

“Technically, I did what she said. I was told to go to my room, not go to and stay in my room,” I said with a smug smile, only to see a displeased look Shining Armor had. Obviously being a smartass didn't get me anything good from him. "Heh heh, so about the spell..." I said trying to change the subject.

“The magic bolt spell is versatile do to the fact it's strength is based on the amount of magic you put into it, but this also makes it easy to overcharge. Now, because you've read the instructions of the spell and therefore know how to cast it, it's just a matter of learning how to balance the power you use and the amount you can control. Try to hit that target with a magic bolt. Start off with a weak bolt.”

I took a deep breath and began charging. Facing the target as the buzzing of my magic got louder, I pushed the energy forward in an attempt to fire the spell. There was a bright flash of dark green light and a blast that sent me back almost to the wall, leaving me dazed.

“What happened?” I asked as I got back up, rubbed my head and noticed the smell of something burning.

“You overcharged the spell, causing it to literally blow up in your face,” Shining Armor told me while Striker chuckled and spoke up.

“Don't worry about it scorching your horn; it looks the same other than the smoke coming off it.” Oh, so I'm what's burning. I thought as I limped back to my spot.

“The Secretariat Comet is giving you more power, so you need to be more careful with how much power you use,” Shining Armor said.

“Thanks for the heads up.” I turned back to the target for another attempt. Come on, Fragment, you can do this… I reassured myself as I took aim and began the spell, this time not letting it charge as long.

I tried again to fire the magic bolt and once again there was a flash of dark green light, though it wasn't as bright as last time. I saw it shoot out from my horn and hit the target almost directly on the bull's-eye.

“Good. Now do it again, get yourself more used to the spell.” Upon casting it, I was surprised by how much easier the spell seemed to be. I charged and shot the magic bolt much faster and this time hit the bull's-eye. “Again,” Shining Armor said. And again I fired. He had me repeat this several times.

“Stop,” he said after the tenth time. “How’re you feeling?”

“Uh… fine?”

“Do you feel physically weak or impaired in anyway?”

“No. Why?” I asked as Shining Armor examined the target.

“I haven't seen anypony as new to magic as you do something like that without experiencing headaches or migraines before,” he said as he set the target back up. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised.”

He then began levitating six targets and started moving them around me; three of them at ground level while the other three circled in the air. He pulled out a stopwatch and said “Shooting is one thing, hitting is another. This time I want you to get a direct hit on every target as fast as you can. On my mark, start firing.”

My horn lit with magic.

Shining Armor prepared to start a stopwatch.

Striker took cover behind a spare target.

“Three… two… one… FIRE!”

I fired at one of the targets in front of me but missed it by a few inches. I continually shot at that target, missing it again and again. It became obvious that this point and shoot strategy wasn't working, so I changed to shooting into the target’s path, allowing me to hit it at last.

Shoot in front of, not at. I mentally noted as I fired in front of another target and hit it fairly close to the bull's-eye. Leading the shot was key for hitting them and after I picked up on that it became much easier. Once I hit the last target they all stopped and floated back to the floor.

“How’d I do?”

“Well you didn’t shoot my or the captain, so I’d say decent,” Striker remarked.

“Not too bad, but you definitely need improvement,” Shining Armor said as he examined the stopwatch. “Let's try again.”

He lifted the targets again and resumed his pattern from before with the targets going faster. This time was much easier because I was cutting off their paths with magic bolts, hitting all the targets in less than half the time it took before. After that, Shining Armor increased the number of targets from six to ten and we started again. We repeated this process until I had hit fifteen moving targets in under seven seconds, which was a massive pain in my ass to do. I was exhausted by the time we had finished, panting heavily and with a small migraine.

“You learn quickly,” Shining Armor remarked.

“Probably a changeling thing… Need to learn fast when you survive… by pretending to be something else.”

“I think you've earned a lunch break. I expect you back here in less than twenty minutes.and when you get back we'll start training with forcefields,” Shining Armor said as he began walking away.

“Great… looking… forward to it…” I said as Striker walked up to me.

“Come on, let's get something to eat.”

“I didn't think training would be like this. Was your training similar?”

“Similar to that? No. It was much worse, but that's probably because I had only physical combat to learn, so there were a lot more bruises involved. Blast Shield told me magic is a lot harder than physical combat, it's just not as painful as long as you don't screw up your spell or overuse magic. It shouldn't be too much trouble for you given how fast you seem to learn.”

“I don't know how I do it, it just seems so much easier the second time around. If there is a reason that isn't I'm just a fast learner then I'd think that changelings learn fast.”

“Faster learners, shapeshifters, love eaters… You changelings are weird.” Lunch was short and uneventful, which was fine by me; I wasn’t really feeling up to another dragon attack. After we had lunch we waited another five minutes so I could have a longer break then headed back to the training room where it appeared Shining Armor had been waiting the whole time.

“Ready to begin forcefield training?” he asked as I limped up to him and Striker stood by the door.

“I wouldn't have come back if I wasn't.”

“Let's not waste any time then. This version of a forcefield, a ward, is the weakest and most basic. It's primarily about focusing your magic into a wall, to actually make your power into something tangible to stop both physical and magical attacks. The size of the ward and the distance between you and it is based on what you focus those to be. Try focusing your magic into a ward now.”

I focused as hard as I could, my magic slowly working to project a ward. A small dark green semi-transparent wall of magic began to form in front of me with a stem of energy connecting it to my horn. The ward was only about three feet around and away from me.

“Not bad for your first ward, but can you hold it while being attacked?” Shining Armor asked as he walked in front of me and his horn lit up with a maroonish colored aura. Is he going to― He was, I didn't even have the time to finish my thought before he shot a magic bolt at my ward.

When his bolt collided with my ward, I felt some of its momentum travel through the ward’s stem to my horn, causing me some pain. Shining Armor’s attack left a large crack in my ward which I quickly repaired, but just as I did so it was hit by another bolt making a new, larger crack.

It didn't take me very long to find out that a ward being bombarded costs a lot of strength to keep up. With every shot I felt my power weaken and strain, the ward becoming more transparent as its size shrunk. Determined to withstand as much as I could, I held my ground and put every ounce of effort into the spell.

After a few minutes of bombarding, Shining Armor was beginning to show signs of exhaustion; partially labored breathing, pauses between shots and most importantly, the meager wall of magic once known as my ward was able to block without being completely destroyed. At that point was when he decided to stop.

“Impressive, I've never seen somepony stand against an assault like that before.”

“Thanks,” I said as I allowed myself to fall to the floor, breathing heavily with a throbbing headache.

“I think it's about time we take a break.”

“Couldn't agree more.”

“You’re not tired, are ya?”

“No, Striker, I just find this floor to be very comfortable.”

We’ll take a few minute break then we can begin teleportation tra―” Shining Armor's sentence was cut off by a loud bang from outside. The two of them rushed to the window as I lazily followed them. At the window, we saw something on the outside of the forcefield. It was about the size of a house, had the head and legs of a chicken and the lower body and wings of a dragon.

“What in holy ugliness is that thing?” I asked.

“Is… is that a giant cockatrice?” Striker asked.

“Looks like it,” Shining Armor said as we stared at the cockatrice, then we saw two more come up to the first one.

“This is going to suck.”

Author's Note:

I know that they say a cockatrice is half snake and half chicken, but those wings - and kind of the legs - are like a dragon's, so I'm going with dragon.

~A Dark Reminder

Comments

[Bronydragon]

Something like this?

Just what I could find right now. Hope one of them is to your liking my friend.

Dragon

[A Dark Reminder]

2800868
I don't know which one! I think I'll have to examine them more before, and of course I'll have to see if anyone else brings any songs to me. The funny thing is that 'Forgotten' came to my mind when I first started thinking about a theme song along side 'Remember' by Disturbed. I shall look more closely at them at a later time.

[Bronydragon]

2801593
Yeah. I think you should take the song where the lyrics describe Fragment the best. Doesn't really matter how it is called.

Dragon

[A Dark Reminder]

2801951

I think you should take the song where the lyrics describe Fragment the best.

Well based on that I kind of think it should be 'Somewhere I Belong' by Linkin Park. You know, because of him kind of trying to fit into Equestria.

And as long as I'm here, you/everyone should be packing your battle song for chapter eleven.

[Darkus Relling]

The faces I have while reading:

[A Dark Reminder]

2812231
So wait, you faved this story about two hours ago, and you've already read all the posted chapters? I take it you read fast, yes?

[Breaking News]

I think I'm finally catching up and another chapter pops up. Oui.

It's a fun ride though. Didn't suspect the comic arc would play but it really interests me. Kind of odd Shining has time to train him while the city is under attack but it works for ironic appeal.

[Lord Nopony]

Lol! The cockatrices remind me of the one that Fluttershy used the stare on!

[Deathclaw2014]

Please remember punctuation! The last chapters suffered this as well.

[Duality]

A magic bolt is when magic is released as an attack, often as a concussive blast. A magic blot is how you ruin a letter to Princess Celestia.
In other words, typo.