Shine Of The Silver Sun

by Nameless Narrator

Insanity: Abuse III

While the left front lawn was occupied by normals doing their daily exercises under Shadowstep's squad - namely Cross walking between sparring pairs and giving out tips, the right lawn was currently empty barring eight occupants split into fours. The pain of the morning had not been forgotten, but didn't seem to have any lasting consequences, at least from what Astray could feel. Of course, the overtaxed muscles were protesting with each movement as usual.

"Alright," Contradiction said sharply, "it's time for another team practice. I would add these to our daily schedule but I'm afraid my nerves wouldn't survive putting you three into a contest of skill more often," she pointed at four ponies standing as a group nearby, "These guys are a new team put together from those left over by the soon-to-be-leaving Royal Guard applicants. They have very little teamfighting experience together, but each of them was on a team before and they know their roles. Now, prepare your imaginary notepads because there's a lecture coming."

Connie levitated a bottle of water, took a sip, and watched all seven ponies and other miscellaneous creatures sit down into the relative shade of a solitary tree.

"Now, our today opponents, as even you can deduce, are three unicorns and a pegasus. What does it tell you?"

"A lot of magic is going to be involved," Anvil grumbled immediately.

"Great job!" Connie smiled sarcastically, "The pointy things on their heads mean flying stuff, you get a smiley sticker. Last time, I had you deal with the element of surprise on the enemy side and it would have worked out just fine if someone, not naming ash tray there, didn't slip on his own drool and lose us the fight. This time it's going to be different," she nodded to the enemy team, "There are certain classification of pony roles in battle which note their primary function. I'll go over those which will matter to us in this exercise. First, we have a shieldbearer," she pointed at a brown, black-maned unicorn in the enemy team who stood up and bowed to Anvil, Astray, and Bubbles, "These unicorns are specialized on making magical barriers protecting themselves and their teammates. That role in my team was previously occupied by a unicorn noble Leo Goldhorn. Currently, we are missing a crucial member who could protect us in combat like that. Prince Shining Armor is probably the most famous shieldbearer around. These ponies are mostly unicorn fighters with added shielding capabilities."

Connie pointed at the second unicorn who waved at the trio. He was dark red with light brown mane and a cutie mark of scattering bolt of lightning.

"Next up we have a battlemage. They offer less versatility and power as regular wizards, but don't faint when hit by a thrown rock. Consider them, once again, as unicorn fighters with knowledge of various in-combat spells and the concentration to use them in a fight without the need for long preparation. Third, to mix it up a little," she pointed at a black pegasus with grey mane who nodded back, "Is the good old classic archer, i.e. light ranged support. Ponies were never great at long-range non-magical combat due to the grabbing deficiency, but learned a lot from griffons anyway. These days there are tons of hoof-operated crossbows, bows, and various guns, although those are still not too reliable and thus used. Pegasi and thestrals make for the best ranged supports due to their speed, excellent eyesight, and the ability to fly and avoid retaliation. However, as everypony knows, lower bone density of those species that allows them to walk on clouds also means they are more vulnerable to physical damage. Same goes for their naturally less-developed musculature other than around the chest which is generally steel-hard from using wings. So, hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard, and they won't get up again. I'd like to tell you about some famous archer pony, but to be honest, it's a griffon territory mostly. Fortune, though, an old member of my team was pretty good with guns and explosives."

At Connie's beckon, the final member of the enemy team rose up. This one was a good old white and blonde unicorn stereotype, and he was much older than the rest of the team, possibly over forty. He bowed deeply first to Connie and then to her team. Astray noticed his cutie mark was a greatsword on the backdrop of a brightly shining sun. This unicorn was the only pony to whom Contradiction requited the courteous greeting. Without any regard for the heat of the day, he was wearing a full suit of plate armor aside from a winged crusader helmet lying on the ground next to him.

"Well, if you've never heard about the old paladin orders, here you have a living and breathing member. You still breathing, old guy, right?" Connie winked at the big unicorn.

"Indeed I am, miss Contradiction," he smiled warmly.

"This is Lord Bright Star the third, who sometimes assists us in training new recruits and shares new techniques with both branches of the Guard. As a paladin, he is a member of princess Celestia's personal guard, and has knowledge of high-tier light magic as well as some traits gained by living alongside a powerful alicorn. What are you now, hundred and fifty or something?"

"One hundred and sixtry-three, miss Contradiction."

"M-may I ask something?" Astray stuttered, clearly taken aback by the unicorn.

"Of course, young satyr," Bright Star nodded.

Astray dug through his big bag with princess Celestia's set of armor, pulling out a helmet similar to the unicorn's, only shaped for his head. It was heavy, ornate but functional, only with one big issue. Well, small issue.

"How am I supposed to see in it?" he raised it up. The thin slits at the front would make a chineighese pony ask for a white cane.

Star looked from Astray to the helmet and back. Then he said:

"With utmost difficulty, young one. Helmet of this kind are not given away lightly by our princess. While they offer excellent protection for being so lightweight-"

"Lightweight?" Astray interrupted incredulously. That thing was anything but light.

"Have you ever worn a real steel helmet? I doubt you have. The helmet, and if my guess is correct the rest of the armor inside your bag, is made by princess Celestia's personal smith from metals found only in the deepest minotaur mines up north. It is very light in comparison to steel. As for your question, these armors are worn by ponies with great combat experience who must fight enemies such as dragons. We do not need to see everything around us, fight has a flow which we can read from small flickers of information, peripheral vision, and sounds. For somepony as inexperienced as you are, using it would only be a drawback."

"Thank you," Astray put the helmet away and went quiet.

"All done?" Connie asked impatiently. I was clear she didn't want to interrupt Bright Star, but didn't have any qualms with shutting the satyr up. Astray nodded, "Good. The founder of the original paladin orders and the most famous one as well is, of course, princess Celestia herself. These guys spar with her and are basically what we are trying to make of you, only with less 'glorious and holy' approach and more practical 'kill them before they kill us' one. Why, I hear you ask, are you in my team instead of ponies like Bright Star? There is a common denominator to all of us. Our training methods are untested in the long-term, and our enemies are powerful. If we fail... nopony will miss us."

Connie shook her head, stone-cold demeanor returning.

"My old team's composition was a shieldbearer, shieldbreaker, utility, and artillery. Let's focus on the shieldbreaker role, because there's two of us - Anvil and I. We are close-combat fighters who use heavy weapons that can destroy shields in one swoop, very simple. The stronger impact on a unicorn's shield, the bigger the feedback is, however, the area of impact is the most important. I'm not sure how it works, but shields seem to last longer when the physical attack has too much energy and to little weight behind it. That means it's much easier to block a bunch of weak blows or projectiles than something heavy. In terms of guns, the firing speed is the most important thing. That, or having a real cannon."

Nodding to Astray and Bubbles, Connie continued.

"Astray's role is utility, which basically means I have to find a use for you since I don't know what use you can intrinsically be. Bubbles is strange, so we'll pass her classification for now. Speaking of making Astray useful, I'm not a miracle-worker, but this should help," she tossed him a griffon pistol, "It's loaded with quicksilver bullets, Order armorer's secret. They are much better against magical protections and work against divinity. Unlike the lead ones, these do little to nothing against real armor. Against living flesh - sub-par as well, because the bullets are round, not pointed."

"Am I allowed to use my armor?" asked Astray. When Bright Start raised his eyebrow, he added, "Just parts. I would barely move in the full set."

"That's up to you," Connie shrugged, "Well, I think I'm done with the theory. You know all basic information about the opposing team. Usual limitations apply - no lethal spells, I tone down my telekinesis, and Bubbles doesn't bite anypony's leg off along with the armor."

Astray quickly rummaged through his bag again, tossing parts of the platemail on the ground carelessly until he found a set of greaves. It was a pain to put them on for the first time, but with his entire legs covered by the 'light' metal with soft inside padding he felt safer, albeit slower. His logic behind using this specific part of his armor was two-fold. First, ponies usually reached to his abdomen which meant armoring his legs was decent enough protection, unicorns aside. The second reason was this being an exercise - he needed to gradually get used to wearing heavier protection in battle and this was an excellent opportunity. After few careful steps and jumps, he got used to the added weight.

"Leg plates. Good taste," Anvil snickered, "Trying to get more massages out of me by toning your ass?"

"Got it in one," Astray retorted, "Don't think I haven't noticed which part you spend the most time on."

He hadn't. Until now. He hadn't allowed himself to notice before, but... was Anvil attracted to him on some level? She had to be joking, right? She had to be. He was just himself - Astray, there was no way there was more to her ministrations. Maybe Anvil just didn't have time to let off some steam after leaving the north and he was a close target.

"You're still a stick figure, weakling. A real minotaur would show you what a male who doesn't suck looks like."

Yep, still the same old contempt. Or maybe just a little softer. Strangely enough, it didn't really hurt Astray anymore.

"I know, I know," he laughed it off. Perhaps he was just numb to it after so much repetition.

"You'd need run few miles with a polar bear's corpse on your back to build a behind that would interest me," Anvil grinned, then, surprised with herself, added in a vastly different tone, "But you're in for a good start."

Astray couldn't help himself.

"Are you okay, Anvil? Sick, feverish, dehydrated? Hallucinations?"

"Oh shut up!" the minotaur smacked his head, huffing angrily, "That's what I get for being soft..."

"Alright, enough of this," Contradiction interrupted before either of them could say anything else, "Strategy huddle!"

Bright Star departed to have a talk with his team while Connie approached hers.

"There is a lot of magic on the enemy side this time."

"Great..." grumbled Anvil.

"Welcome to the real world," sneered Connie, "Now, we'll do the usual opening. Bubbles flanks and goes for the battlemage. With the shieldbearer in the back as well, it's not gonna be easy to take him out. The goal is just to keep him from casting spells, though. Anvil, usual front line stuff. Charge good old Bright Star straight up, be prepared to deal with strong telekinesis, a crapton of protective spells, and the ability to heal minor wounds instantly. Same as Bubbles, your goal is not to get taken out. Just pose enough of a threat for the shield spells to have to land on your targets. Astray and I will attack the weakest link - the pegasus. We have excellent means of taking down airborne targets. I'll immobilize him or straight up make him drop and you shoot him. We need to be fast, because we're on a time limit before Anvil gets taken down. Any questions?"

Heads were shaken, and strategy huddle ended. Everyone and everypony took their practice weapons. Astray wasn't sure about his pistol, but believed Connie wouldn't give him anything that could seriously harm a friendly pony. He aimed it, sighted along the barrel, shot at the tree, and examined where the bullet hit.

The teams spread out. As expected, the enemy team took a triangular formation with Bright Star at the front and the pegasus flying above the other three. It was very similar to last time.

"GO!" Connie yelled.

Bubbles blasted off. This time she wasn't just having fun. This time she had a lot to prove, both to herself and to miss Connie. She felt a telekinetic grasp slip past her flicking tail, another, and another. She was faster than the unicorn trying to mentally tackle her could react. She saw a flicker of orange in the corner of her eyes. Pouncing high into the air, she jumped over a wall of fire growing underneath her. A sound like whistling reached her ears before she could drop on the ground. She curled up into a small ball, feeling something whizz past her shrunken form. Unrolling and stabbing one foreleg into the ground to spin around it and face the shocked unicorn wizard nearby, Bubbles wasn't toying with them. She would win this, even if she would be the last one standing. Then miss Connie would finally be nice to everypony again.

Anvil's ear-splitting battle roar made all enemies focus on her. She saw Bubbles dash forward and knew it was her time to occupy the enemies. If she had to be honest with herself, she was up to finding out how she matched against Bright Star himself. She closed the distance before the trio behind the paladin recovered, but her unicorn opponent was more than ready for her. He didn't even bother dodging or blocking Anvil's mace which bounced harmlessly off of his protective spell. Under the appraising stare coming from the eye slots of the crusader helmet, Anvil recalled Cross' words about unicorn attack patterns and turned around just in time to block a greatsword swinging at her. At the same time, an armored hoof hit the back of her knee, forcing her to kneel while pushing against the telekinetically held blade. She immediately forgot about trying to one-v-one the unicorn and hoped she would simply buy enough time as she was supposed to. Pushing herself on one leg, she kicked backwards with the other. After all, armor spells protected you from a weapon penetrating your body, but they didn't give you more weight or stability. And from a low position like this, Anvil could punt a pony like a hoofball.

Astray had no time to admire Bright Star's attempt to become a pegasus, because he had a real pegasus to deal with. The flying pony's movements restrained by Connie's telekinesis, Astray aimed and pulled the trigger. Blue barriers surrounded the pegasus, slowing the bullets down but still shocking the target enough to completely stop resisting and be dragged on the ground by Connie. Astray approached the grounded enemy quickly, but much more carefully. That saved him when the pegasus jumped up, hearing him approach, and spun around with his wings covered in steel razors spread out. Horseshoe blades slipped out from his forehooves and he pounced at Astray. The satyr's longsword impacted against the attacker without hurting him, deflected by a blue shimmer hugging his body.

"I'll show you what a shieldbreaker does," Astray heard Connie closing in.

Astray felt the impact like a wave of cold water originating from the pegasus.

"NOW!" Connie called out.

His body acted on reflex and his armored leg greeted the stunned pegasus' muzzle. One down.

Anvil swung at Bright Star. Her mace stopped mid-air, surrounded by the unicorn's pristine white telekinetic aura. He flourished his greatsword behind him at the same time to gain momentum, and counterattacked.

His body flinched and the blade stopped mid-strike when hit by the last three bullets from Astray's pistol. None were able to penetrate Star's plate armor, but the feedback from the paladin's protective spell confused him a little. Anvil didn't need much time to recover, spinning around and hitting the unicorn with a wide swing. He tried to block with his leg, but the force of the blow sent him rolling away. Anvil approached, seeing the unicorn's leg was bent in an unnatural angle, and that blood was gushing from the holes in the platemail. Golden glow enveloped the broken limb, and Bright Star jumped up with a relieved sigh.

"We're not done, young lady," his greatsword gently tapped Anvil's shoulder from behind.

"Ah dammit!" she cursed.

"I'll let it slide just this time. You were only worried that you seriously wounded me in a training situation," Star bowed, glowing sword at the ready in front of him.

Anvil nodded, raising her mace again.

"Let's do this!"

Bubbles was simply too fast. The battlemage was levitating a heavy quarterstaff with both ends reinforced by steel like it was a toothpick, but she could avoid it, duck under wide swings, and follow the random teleportations around the battlefield. Small craters littered the demolished lawn this far away from the other combatants. Bubbles had a plan, which was to get her target into an isolated situation, and it was working. Slowly, but working. Having to focus on creating a gap between him and Bubbles, recasting armor spells Bubbles destroyed with one attack, levitating a staff, and using offensive spells was clearly too taxing on the unicorn. He stumbled after his next teleport spell didn't recieve enough power and dropped him only a short distance away from the terror with teeth following him with inequine speed. That was all Bubbles needed to pounce at him, take his neck into her teeth, and squeeze softly. He tapped the ground, completely spent. Two down.

Seeing Anvil struggling against Bright Star, Astray flanked the unicorn, sword about to swing and...

...a blue dome split him off from everyone else, leaving him with Star and the shield expert whose horn was letting out a column of sapphire light fueling the dome. Anvil started beating against it with her mace to no avail.

"Did you think four versus two would be easy?" said Bright Star. Astray couldn't see the unicorn's expression behind the crusader helmet, but he knew a smirk had to be part of it.

Quickly turning to the shieldbearer about five ponies away, Astray tossed his empty pistol at him while gaining a little distance on Star. Unfortunately, the satyr's fingers went numb after having to block the first strike of Star's sword. Trying to dodge out of the way of the next swing and get into hand-to-hoof combat proved a bad idea after his bare hand hit a metal helmet. In the next instant, Astray was poked in his back by something sharp. He sat down, being the first one of his team to be defeated.

Everyone covered their ears after the sound of a battering ram sent cracks running through the entire blue dome. They quickly resealed, but the shieldbearer unicorn gasped as if the invisible blow had hit him. Outside the shimmering blue barrier, Connie took a deep breath.

BOOM!

The barrier shattered. The poor unicorn attempting in vain to keep the spell going keeled over, eyes crossing. Bubbles, arriving from the back, was immediately upon him and licked his face as a sign of utter defeat.

Bright Star didn't hesitate in a one versus three situation. His horn flared with brilliant light, making Anvil already rushing at him cover her eyes and hiss. The fraction of a second was enough for him to hit her with his dull practice greatsword in the stomach. Bubbles was tossed away from her second defeated enemy. Then Star's sword met one with equal, if not much greater, force behind it.

Connie was limiting herself, that much was clear when she didn't roll the unicorn into a tiny ball of flesh and metal, but she was still much faster in controlling her oversized blade. Bright Star was experienced, keeping his weapon close to him so that it needed to move a shorter distance to block Connie's wide and powerful strikes. All he needed was to wait for an opening-

"NOM!" new weight landed on his back, a vice-like grip of sharp needles tightening around that little unprotected spot where his helmet juuust didn't reach his neckplate.

Bright Star lowered his blade, drawing a long breath.

"You are a quiet little creature, aren't you?" he said, pulling his helmet off, "Well, I admit my defeat. There is no restorative magic in my repertoire that would allow me to live long enough after this situation to deal with the two of you in real combat."

"YAAAAY!" Bubbles leapt off of Star's back straight at Connie, wrapping her forelegs around her neck, "We did it! You can be nice again!"

Connie shook her off, frowning.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she turned away, "In real fight, two of us would be dead, gone, never to be seen again. This is NOT a victory. But at least you did a good job."

Bubbles stared at the unicorn walking away. Her lip quivered. She refused to believe miss Connie was a bad pony. She knew the unicorn had a nice side to her. There was just too much to be done still. That had to be the case.

Bright Star patted her head.

"Stay hopeful, miss Bubbles, and the light will find you. You've done very well today."

"I just wish it was enough," she gave the paladin a distressed look.

"Sometimes it never is. Sometimes it just takes time. Be patient."

Bubbles licked his armored hoof.

"Wanna play fetch?"

"I think a bit of relaxation wouldn't go amiss. Gladly."

Comments

[Blackdust]

Damn Connie... I knew that you were taxed in the last chapter, but this is insane...

[Anonymous Critic]

"Oh shut up!" the minotaur smacked his head, huffing angrily, "That's what I get for being soft..."

Hehehehehehehehehe...

[Anonymous Critic]

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she turned away, "In real fight, two of us would be dead, gone, never to be seen again. This is NOT a victory. But at least you did a good job."

Noone rejects Bubbles's hugs.

[Two_Madmans]

This is Lord Bright Star the third

Ah, familiar faces...
Wait? Third? It's the same one or not the same one?

[Teraunce]

talk about insanity.