Tales of a Brighton Phoenix

by The Stainmore Phoenix

6

We finished the term with straight A's. Once we had our diplomas and were ready, we talked it over with each other some more before taking up Nightmare on her offer. The Nightmare Corps was a more detailed guard unit, and a counterpart to what Nightmare Moon called the “Solar Corps”. As we walked along, Nightmare explained how the Nightmare and Solar corps were in essence the Untouchables of My Little Pony.

“Untouchables?” She asked.

“Basically, you couldn't bribe these guys and they were known for being some of the toughest operatives in the human world,” I said.

“Wow,” Inkwell said.

“Yep,” Skyla said.

We walked towards the Everfree Forest and entered. I sensed Inkwell, Echo and Volcanis's fears, but we plunged forward. With the sun's twilight lighting our path, we made our way to a bridge that was way to weak to support any pony of any weight, we watched as Nightmare took to the air. Skyla, who was more adept at magic than I was, levitated those who couldn't fly while those who could, flew over.

Once safely over, I levitated a knife (which took me seven months to learn to do) to the ropes and cut them, sending the bridge crashing down. I then surveyed the chasm and had a small plan. After rejoining the group, we entered a rather crumbly castle. Be it ever so crumbly, there's no place like home.

Once inside, I started to plan out a new bridge. Nightmare Moon looked at me.

“What?” I quizzed.

“Why are you designing a new bridge?” she asked.

“This is a bridge that we can use. It's easily removable so that way any undesirables are left without a way across unless they have Alicorns in their back pocket,” I said.

Nightmare smiled at that and walked off to inspect the castle. I sat back and finished making the bridge. Once it was approved, Skyla summoned the supplies and I set to work constructing the bridge. It took some time, but eventually I had it built. When I returned, Nightmare Moon had me come to see her in the forge room.

The others were there and being fit with armor similar to her's. Skyla had to have her wings spread out to make sure they didn't catch on the armor. I had to carry out the same process, but the fitters had to take greater care because my Thestral wings were a touch more delicate. To say the armor was heavy would be an understatement. It weighed an absolute ton and a half.

However, the color scheme was a lot more...guard colored. Midnight Cyanish Blue. It could also withstand a magical blast from up to twenty miles away. The armor looked like it hadn't taken any damage. Okay, this was getting more and more better, including better rooms and even pay that would rival that in the royal guard. 1,800 bits an hour with a 3,500 bit increase per job completed. It seemed that she was making an impression on the world

Once we had our armor fit and forged to our body contours, we went to the barracks, were our beds were waiting. Deciding to entertain my team members with some simple magic tricks.

I pulled out three bits and laid them on the bed.

“Why do you have three bits on your bed?” Volcanis asked.

“For a trick called three coins,” I said.

The others watched. I put two coins in one hoof and held one coin in my aura.

“The coin in my aura is the magic coin. I have two coins in hoof. Now I hide this in my mane and now, Volcanis, how many bits are in my hoof?” I quizzed.

“Two,” she said.

“Are you sure?” I asked, showing her all three coins.

Her eyes widened.

“I haven't seen magic like this,” she said.

“Slight of hoof,” I said.

“Stage magic,” Somerset said, looking at Volcanis's confused looked.

We went about doing that until we went to sleep, wondering what Nightmare Moon had for us.