Chapter 9
Now here’s something I never thought I could legitimately put on my résumé: Harry Dresden, private investigator, wizard and warden of the White Council, and commander of vampire-hunting ponies.
I had spent the last two hours or so addressing my new battalion, outlining the same information I’d given to the princesses and in general going over the basics needed for surviving the Red Court, which is to say doing whatever you can to keep them out of reach of you. The thirty armored ponies before me drank in every word I said and responded in a precise manner I’ve come to associate with a life of order and discipline.
My battalion was comprised of even numbers of earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Each of them looking rather intimidating in their barding that ranged from heavy to light plating to best suit the ponies individual roles.
I addressed the soldiers with a cocksure grin on my face. “So here’s a quick scenario, you are alone in one of the castle hallways and are confronted by a single Red Court vampire. What do you do?”
Several hooves shot into the air. I picked one more or less at random. “You, tall dark and looming, what’s your name?”
A stout chestnut coated earth pony stallion stepped forward. “Blockade sir, and you would stand your ground against the creature. Aim your strikes at its knees to lame it, and then go for the kill.”
I eyed him and gave him an amused smile, “Very well thought out, and very noble. You are of course dead, but you died nobly.”
Blockade shot a surprised look back at me, and several whispers ran through my battalion.
“Please keep in mind,” I raised my voice so I could be heard over their murmurs, “that the Red Court are supernaturally strong and swift. It would take a soldier of uncommon skill to defeat one alone. If you find yourself faced with one alone, do the smart thing and fallback until you have another pony to help you.”
“Yes sir.” Blockade gave me a small bow and returned to his line.
I looked over at the window and noticed the sun at its highest, midday position. I needed to wrap this up if I was going to have time to assess how the Bearers of the Elements should be used.
“Alright, we’re done here for now, report to Michael at the sparing grounds for lessons on how to properly fight a vampire, just in case you do decide to be noble.” They immediately got up and began following my orders, moving towards the practice grounds and mumbling among themselves.
I had appointed Michael as my second in command, and as he has loads more actual close combat experience than me, as the actual instructor for any combat practices. To the soldiers I was more or less just the instructor of the academic and tactical aspects of combat. This was fine by me because it left me more time to handle my spec ops group.
I don’t really know which was more absurd, that I had my own special ops group, or that it was comprised of ponies. Well whichever it was, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.
I left the classroom and made my way down the hall to one of the smaller sparing rooms that branched off of the main one. These rooms were mainly used for private practices, and would serve me well for Twilight’s and her friends’ training.
I found them already in the room I’d asked them to wait in while I dealt with my battalion. They were perusing the variety of weapons on the walls. Stacked against the walls were several wooden racks containing a wide variety of weaponry such as, spears, swords, and most bizarrely, crossbows.
I moved to examine the odd pony-made weapon. Where there would be a grip and trigger on the human-made counterpart, instead there was a brace and several straps meant to attach the crossbow to its wielder’s foreleg. On the side was a small lever that released the loaded bolt. So you would’ve had to aim with one foreleg and use the other to fire, while having to balance on your hind legs.
Don’t think I could hold steady long enough on my hind legs to get a shot off.
“Look pretty cool don’t they?” said Rainbow from right above me.
I took a moment to get my heart to resume its normal rhythm. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
She chuckled at my comment and proceeded to take one of the crossbows off the rack.
While she was busy trying to figure out how to put on her crossbow, the rest of my new team moved to form a line in front of me.
I took a moment to look them over and decide what to do next. “Alright, since you all seem so hell-bent on fighting next to me, the least I can do is make sure you’re at least somewhat prepared. Now let’s see what you all can do. Applejack, Pinkie, get on the sparing mats.”
The two mares glanced at each other, and then back to me. “You want us to fight each other?” Applejack asked.
“No, of course not. I’m assuming that neither of you have much experience fighting, so what would be the point of pitting two ponies that don’t know what they’re doing against each other?”
I moved over to the entrance of our private training room.
Before I opened the door, I looked over my shoulder at them and smiled a wicked smile, “I’m going to have you fight trained soldiers.”
The looks on their faces were priceless; they were completely shocked and uncertain of their immediate task. But they wanted to help me, so I needed to know what they could do.
I opened the door and called to Michael, who was busy instructing his own group. “Hey Michael, I need two soldiers for sparing practice!”
Within a few seconds two earth ponies came into the room and faced their opponents. One was a large stallion built like a brick wall, and the other was a mare that looked like she probably could’ve landed a dozen blows before you even registered one.
Applejack and Pinkie went to their respective mats and awaited their sparing partners. I sent the stallion to square off against Applejack, while Pinkie got the mare.
As the two parties began sparing, I saw that I was right in my assumption, Pinkie and Applejack were tough but they didn’t know how to properly fight.
Applejack was putting up one heck of a fight though. Her opponent gave her no quarter and landed blows on her side and legs, never really hitting hard enough to do anything more than bruise. Despite how out classed she was, she managed to land a few blows of her own onto her opponent, including one painful looking buck that sent the stallion flying a good couple of feet. But no matter how many times she was knocked down to the mat, she always pulled herself up and jumped right back into the fray.
It was around the fourth time that Applejack got knocked to mat that Rainbow was unable to restrain herself.
She flew right into the stallion’s face and gave him her best glare, “Hey! That’s my friend and if you hurt her again, so help me I’ll-“
I was about to call her off, order her if I had to, but was beaten to the punch.
“Rainbow, it’s alright, I’m fine,” Applejack scolded her.
“But AJ, he’s-“
“He’s doing his job. It’s called training for a reason, Rainbow. Now please just let me continue.”
Rainbow grumbled under her breath but backed off from the soldier and retreated to her corner of the room.
Applejack immediately resumed trying to fight the soldier, not losing any of her momentum. Heck, she didn’t even look tired, despite being knocked around so much. There’s no doubt about it, that mare is tough.
Put her in some nice, thick barding and position her right, she could probably hold back the world if she needed to.
I smiled and turned my attention to Pinkie. I’m still not entirely sure how exactly she was doing what she was doing. Pinkie’s opponent was throwing constant lightning fast kicks and the occasional buck, but to no avail, Pinkie was dodging every single attack. Pinkie was dodging and weaving around her attacks like she knew exactly where they were going to be before they got there.
Of course, her Pinkie Sense must give her crazy reflexes. Not a bad skill to have.
It was then that I noticed something, Pinkie wasn’t retaliating, she wasn’t even trying to. Pinkie seemed to be trying to wear down her sparring partner through simple overexertion. Not a bad strategy if you’re only fighting one opponent and have a larger stamina pool than that opponent. But that strategy takes time and would leave her open to attack from behind, she needed to learn to be more aggressive.
“Hold up, hold up you two.” I moved over to Pinkie, “Pinkie, the point of a sparring session is to actually fight back against the pony you’re fighting.”
She faced me and looked a little appalled, “But I don’t want to hurt her. If I hurt her then she won’t want to be friends.”
“Au contraire,” said the soldier. “I love a good fight; nothing gets the blood pumping like a blast of adrenaline.” She stood up on her hind legs and spread her forelegs to the air on either side of her, “Come at me!”
Pinkie thought about it for a second, then in her normal bouncy manner said, “Okie dokie lokie!”
The two went at each other again with renewed vigor, but this time Pinkie was actually fighting back. Whenever Pinkie dodged an attack she would try to counter with a jab or a kick to her partner’s midsection. She was being clumsy about it, and her unfamiliarity with attacking back was leaving her open to receiving several hits to her own midsection. But through it all she never stopped giggling, even with the occasional grunts of pain.
Not bad, not bad at all. They’re already tough in their own way. Just give them a little practice and they’ll be real fighters.
I stomped my hoof onto the hard floor, sending a resounding note through the room. Both groups of sparing ponies immediately stopped and gave me their attention. “Very nice, very nice.” I pointed a hoof at the mare Pinkie was fighting, “I want you to send a note to the smithy. I need a set of heavy barding for Applejack, and some light barding for Pinkie. It’s very important that Pinkie have a full range of movement in her barding.”
“At once sir,” she said back and bowed low.
I turned to face Applejack and Pinkie. “And you two, go with her. They’ll probably need to take some measurements. Then after you’re done with that, join Michael’s class. If the class is over, ask for private lessons from him.”
They immediately snapped to action and began carrying out my orders.
It was a little odd to see my orders being carried out without question. I’ve gotten used to preteens whining that my orders are too hard or my superiors in the White Council trying to manipulate me into doing what they personally wanted me to do. It was nice to see a clear chain of command for once.
I turned to my two pegasi to assess how they should be used. Rainbow was busy shooting dark glances at the stallion that was fighting Applejack and fiddling with her crossbow.
She’s just overprotective, I told myself. Still, I need to rein her in. One outburst at the wrong time, and she’ll get herself or others killed.
I looked up at her and called in the same clear authoritative tone I took with new warden recruits, “Rainbow, come here.”
She flew over and sat down in front of me. For whatever reason, I seemed to have her respect, probably because of the Iron Will incident, but that wasn’t the same thing as having her follow my orders.
“You seem to like that crossbow, huh?”
“Yeah, it looks pretty cool, and I figured that it’d be better to be able to hit something from a distance.”
That was sound logic. The rest of my group was largely ground-based. Having a pony that could attack from above would be a useful asset.
I turned to the soldier still waiting at the edge of the room. “Soldier, what’s your name?”
“Lockdown, commander,” he responded.
“I assume there is a training center here for archers?”
“Yes sir, it’s taught by Lieutenant Nightingale.”
I turned to face Rainbow. “Good, Rainbow I want you to go and join that class. I’ll need a pony that can rain down crossbow bolts from above.”
She practically beamed at me, “Awesome, sounds like fun.”
“And Lockdown will accompany you,” I added.
That changed her mood almost immediately. “What! No way, I don’t want his help. I-“
“Nearly attacked him just because he was sparing with Applejack,” I cut in. “You are a good and loyal friend Rainbow, but you need to learn to control yourself. If you abandon a crucial assignment because you see a friend get hurt, then ponies will die, because of you.” I put extra emphasis on the last couple of words to really hammer my point in. She needed to understand the importance of focus.
The look she gave me was a stubborn mask, unwilling to allow herself to be changed so easily. She didn’t however, immediately retort back, which was as much a victory as I could hope for at the moment.
“Fine,” she muttered, “let’s go.” Rainbow followed Lockdown out of the room and out of my sight.
Now for Fluttershy, I thought as I turned towards the yellow pegasus.
As I turned my gaze on her, Fluttershy tried very hard to shrink and blend in with the stone floor. She was far too timid for any kind of actual combat, but from what her friends have told me of her, and from Twilight’s stories of their random misadventures, Fluttershy was very capable of becoming extremely fearsome. So much so that she could stare down a full grown dragon and having a skill like that in a fight could turn the tide of a losing battle. However her outbursts appear to happen only occasionally and only when her friends are in real danger.
So the challenge becomes what to have you do the rest of the time…
Then a thought hit me, according to her friends Fluttershy’s job back at home was caring for the local wildlife, and when we got to the castle her first reaction was to assist the wounded.
I looked at the pegasus and tried to adopt the same assuring and authoritative tone my old mentor used whenever I was nervous, “Fluttershy, how much do you know about patching up ponies?”
She immediately stopped trying to hide behind her pink mane and gave me her full attention. “Uhm, I know how to apply bandages, and treat cuts. I know of a variety of herbs that are useful for preventing infections in wounds. I’ve even had to set a bone back into place when a pony lost control of his plow.”
I nodded my head, “Good, good. Fluttershy, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to use you as a field medic.” I didn’t want to outright order her like I did Rainbow. For a pony of Fluttershy’s nature the only way I would get full use from her, would be if she willingly cooperated. “Your job would be to move about the battlefield, collect any wounded you see, and move them out of harm’s way to be treated. It will not be pleasant work and you would be in danger, but having you there could mean the difference between life and death for those that get hurt.”
I realized the mistake I’d made the moment the words left my mouth. I had wanted to ease her into this discussion, to offer her a way out if possible, or maybe a position as a doctor in the castle. But it was too late, the instant I made her aware that her help would be needed in the field. I’d forced a direct confrontation of her two greatest instincts, her desire to avoid conflict, and her desire to help where it’s needed most. No matter what she chose, she would be tearing herself up over it later.
The yellow pegasus’s eyes were darting around in her skull as she ran through the implications of what her choices would mean. She began to tremble and tried to shrink into the floor. I was sure she would refuse to go with us. But as Fluttershy turned and saw Twilight and Rarity standing in the corner, giving Fluttershy reassuring smiles, she stood back up and straightened her back.
“If my friends are h-helping, then so am I,” she said with a slight stammer, but otherwise her voice was hard with conviction.
Behind her, Twilight and Rarity beamed at each other, proud that they could have inspired such bravery in their friend. I got to say, I was proud of her too. Ignoring your base nature to help others isn’t something many are willing to do. But at the same time, I knew that answer was going to cost her later. I was going to need to keep an eye on her to see how she copes after her first real fight.
I smiled and nodded at her, “Good, then I want you to report to the medical wing in the castle. Learn all you can about the kind of fast medical practices you will be using in the field.”
She nodded and whispered, “Yes, Harry.” She left the room and hurried of towards the medical wing.
After Fluttershy left I turned towards Twilight and Rarity. “Well, all things considered, that went rather well.”
“You probably could’ve been a bit gentler with asking Fluttershy, but yeah it turned out fine,” Twilight said, nodding her head a little.
“Well let’s get to it, Rarity we’ll start with you. You see the dummy at the end of the room?” I pointed to a wooden practice pony at the far end of the room.
Rarity looked at it and nodded. “Yes, what do you want me to do with it?”
“Just hit it with your best telekinetic burst. Try to knock it over.”
“Okay, I shall try.”
Rarity took a position about fifty feet away from the dummy and began concentrating on her intended spell. The horn on her head began to glow a light blue, and sweat beaded her forehead. After a few seconds she launched a small light blue wave of kinetic energy at the wooden dummy. The shot fizzled and died about three-quarters of the way to its target. The remainder of the spell that washed over the dummy barely made it wobble.
Rarity hung her head a little. “I’m sorry Harry. This brute force stuff was never my strong suit. Now if you want me to weave you some clothing or robes with magic, or maybe pinpoint where gems are underground, that I can do.”
I studied Rarity for a moment. The purpose of this test wasn’t to determine how well she could fight, it was to see how much raw power she had, and according to what I saw, that wasn’t much. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t useful. In most cases the winner of a fight isn’t the one with the most power, it’s the one that knows how to use it better.
If she can easily locate gems under the ground, and move around a needle with pin-point accuracy, then she must have some skill. Even with a unicorn’s telekinetic ability weaving with magic can’t be easy. I wonder…
“Rarity, how much do you know about subtle magic?” I asked her.
Rarity looked back at me with a puzzled expression, “How do you mean?”
“I mean any kind of magic where control and focus is more important than force. Something like wards, illusions, or-“
Rarity cut me off right there. “Oh, illusions, I do pride myself on my illusions. Focusing light on or away from something is very important during a fashion show. Most ponies prefer to use lighting crews, but I’ve always liked to cast a few illusions to give my designs that extra shine and sparkle. Why I’ve even designed a dress or two that I imbued with a little illusion magic so that it changed color depending on how much light it was in.”
I felt a grin stretch across my face, Perfect.
“Okay, then whip up something real quick. Make a quick spell meant to distract or incapacitate an enemy, like make it harder to see or too quiet to hear. Then just throw it at me.”
Twilight’s face immediately became worried, “Harry, are you sure about that?”
I waved a hoof in her general direction, “I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine. Now come on Rarity, hit me with your best shot.”
I really should’ve thought that through.
After another moment of concentration and a brief flash of blue light, my world became an empty stretch of white. A blinding light so intense that it even shone through my eyelids, prevented me from seeing anything around me. My ears were in searing pain from what sounded like feedback from a stereo speaker placed right next to my head.
As suddenly as it started, it stopped. I dimly noticed that I was lying on the ground on my side. Twilight was standing over me gently shaking my side.
“Harry, Harry? Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Her voice was muted slightly as my ears were still ringing.
“Just gimme a sec, I’ll be fine.” I sat up from the floor and began pawing at my ears to try and get them to stop ringing.
Rarity moved in front of me a look of guilt on her face, “Oh my goodness, Harry are you alright?”
There’s not enough migraine medication in the world...
I gave her a reassuring smile, “Yes, Rarity I’m fine. That was exactly what I wanted you to do. I wasn’t really expecting quite that intensity, but that’s even better.”
Twilight and Rarity just gave me perplexed looks.
I shook my head a bit, “Rarity, you don’t really have much in the way of offensive capability, with pure magic anyway. But you could be one heck of a hindrance to enemy forces. With a little training you could pull illusions like that on a much larger scale. Now I have some basic knowledge of such magic, so I can at least get you started. But brute magical force is more my area of expertise, so we’ll have to get you a more capable trainer.” I rubbed a hoof under my chin. “If memory serves, Luna specializes in delicate magic, I think I’ll send her a letter asking if she can tutor you whenever she’s free.”
Rarity was completely shocked at those last few words. “Private lessons with P-princess Luna!”
I nodded my head. “Yeah, but again, that’s only if she accepts. If she doesn’t I’ll have to try to find somepony else.” I walked over to one of the weapon racks. “Now, since you have little offensive magic, you should take one of these weapons, just in case something gets too close.”
Rarity, still a little dazed at the concept of lessons with Luna, mumbled, “Uhm, yes weapon, right.” She shook her head, regaining some composure. “Does it have to be one of these things? They look so crude.”
I looked over my shoulder at her, “You have a better idea?”
Rarity shuffled a little. “No, it’s just, they’re so bland.”
I sighed, “You’ll just have to deal. Here, take the dagger, it’s lightweight so it won’t encumber you and you should be able to whip it around you fairly easily if anything gets too close.”
I levitated one of the daggers off its rack and over to Rarity. The aura around it shifted from dark red to light blue as she took it.
She looked at the simple dagger with distaste. “Very well, Mr. Dresden.”
I turned towards Twilight, “All right, your turn. Do the same thing Rarity did, and try to knock over one of the dummies.”
Twilight nodded and took her position where Rarity had. With a brief flash of purple light, Twilight sent a burst of energy down the room and knocked over the target. She turned back towards me smiling.
I nodded my head, “Alright, simple enough. Let’s try something with a bit more bite. Have you ever used fire magic before?”
“I’ve lit candles before. All you do is focus heat energy from the environment onto the target right?” she asked me.
“Exactly, but here you need to focus that energy into a ball, and then shoot it at the target.” I paused for a moment, thinking about what I wanted her to do. “Eh, why not. Twilight, let’s see just how much power we’re dealing with. Pack as much energy as you can into your shot.”
She looked at me uncertainly, “Are you sure about that?”
“Are you going to aim at me?”
“No, of course not!”
“Then I’ll be fine. This is just to see what I’m working with.”
She gulped and set out to focus her spell. Her horn immediately began to glow as she drew in power. For several seconds, she just stood there focusing, and I was beginning to think that she had reached her limit for how much power she could control. Just as I was about to tell her to release the spell, the glow around her horn grew, doubling then tripling in size. It was becoming hard to look at without squinting.
The air around Twilight dropped a couple dozen degrees as she took all the heat energy she could from the environment. Ice began forming over everything within several feet of Twilight, but not Twilight herself. The heat energy she was collecting was making her practically glow, and steam was rising from her lavender coat.
I took a step away from the unicorn. “Uh, Twilight, I think you should-“
I was cut off when Twilight released her spell. The fireball Twilight sent screaming at the dummies was about the size of two large stallions. It raced down the room, hit one of the center wooden dummies, and splashed fire over everything in the immediate vicinity.
Though of course, even magic can’t always ignore physics, and with that much force moving forward, there had to be some moving backwards too. After Twilight loosed the spell, the repercussive energy sent her flying into the wall behind her. I hurried over to her, completely ignoring the aftermath of her spell. When I got to her she was already starting to pull herself together.
I examined her as best I could, I didn’t see anything too damaged. She would have one nasty ache at worst. “Twilight do you feel okay?”
She looked up and tried to focus on me, but couldn’t owing to the fact that her eyes were pointing in opposite directions. Either the shock from her impact with the wall, or the effort needed to pull of that spell had thoroughly dazed her.
“H-how’d I do?” Her voice was very faint, as though she hadn’t slept in days.
I smiled and sighed, relieved that she was alright, and turned to see what damage she’d done. Every piece of wooden equipment within twenty feet of the dummies was on fire. I was impressed, with a little bit of work, she would be able to cause property damage as well as me.
She could probably make her way into the White Council if she wanted, heck she could be a warden if she applied herself.
Granted, however powerful that was, it still took a solid twenty seconds to pull off and would be impractical in battle. But that’s what I’m here for, she had the potential, I just needed to help her control it.
Rarity couldn’t tear her eyes away from the destruction Twilight had caused. “I’ve never seen anything more amazing. That was one of the scarier things I’ve ever seen of course, but still amazing.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll get some use out of you yet Ms. Sparkle.” I nodded in agreement.
It was at this point that several guards burst through the door. “What happened? We heard an explosion.”
They saw the copious amount of burning wood at the far end of the room.
“Fire!” one of the guards screamed, “Fire! We need water in here now!”
I turned back around to the two unicorn mares. “We should probably get moving before they decide to fine us for damaged property.”
Rarity nodded her head, “Agreed.”
With a little effort, we managed to get Twilight back onto her hooves, and we slipped out of the room while the guardsponies were still preoccupied with putting out the fire.
I grinned as we left the sparing grounds. For once there’s a fire and it’s not my fault.
Days began creeping by as the various members of my team went through their respective training assignments.
I had instructed all of Twilight’s friends to report back to me at the end of every day. The speed with which my team was progressing through their training was astounding.
I had very quickly developed a routine. In the mornings I would grab whatever breakfast the castle chefs, saw fit to send me, and eat while watching over the sparing grounds from the balcony nearby. Most mornings Applejack and Pinkie were already there, either receiving private lessons from Michael, or else sparing with random soldiers.
With each day Applejack was becoming more and more hardy and unyielding against her attackers. Applejack seemed to scorn the more standard military weapons, in favor of her trusty length of rope. She would often go against multiple opponents while she was armed with her rope. I have no idea where she learned to fight with that thing, maybe Michael is skilled with unconventional weapons, maybe she learned it on her farm, I don’t know. But what I’ve seen her do with it, was impressive.
During one memorable session Applejack was pitted against three lower ranked soldiers. They had some sense about them and decided that their best course of action would be to surround her, and then attack from all sides. Against anypony else, it probably would’ve worked. Applejack loved to use her rope to tangle up her enemies. When the three rushed her, she whipped that rope around one of their legs and used him as a weapon as she flung him at the second attacker. The third reached her and hammered a few blows into her side, which she took easily. She swung a foreleg at her attacker to buy her a second, and then planted an almighty buck into his chest.
With one opponent gasping for air, and the other two still trying to disentangle themselves from each other, Applejack held her head high and began trotting away. “Never mess with a rodeo pony, boys.”
What kind of rodeo does she go to?
On the other side of the room Pinkie was usually busy with her own sparring/free-style dancing session.
Pinkie could usually be seen sparring with one or two random soldiers. Once Pinkie got the general idea of how to fight, there were very few that could ever touch her. Whenever she fought against random soldiers she would dodge almost every one of their attacks and would throw precise counters meant to disable or unbalance. She would giggle constantly and would throw in random dance moves as she attacked or evaded. And always after a fight, she would offer cupcakes to her opponents.
I got to say, I’ve never seen a fighter that could make combat look at home in a disco studio. It was pretty hilarious to watch.
The only opponent that could keep up with Pinkie was the mare she originally sparred with. True to her word, she and Pinkie became fast friends. Pinkie would most often be seen sparing with her new friend, and each day Pinkie would move faster, hit harder, and more accurately.
For a time after our ‘disagreement’, Rainbow was giving me the cold shoulder. Rainbow refused to talk to me unless it was about her lessons or some other official business. As stubborn as she is, that’s not surprising.
Rainbow’s lessons primarily focused on accurate aiming, and precise aerial maneuvers. Her class booked the Wonderbolts race track every day in the afternoon for drills. When Rainbow told me of where she would be practicing, she practically turned into child and started bouncing like Pinkie. It was adorable. Evidently getting to do anything Wonderbolt related was enough of a treat to make her forget her grievances with me.
Rainbow really was one talented flier. She quickly outmatched the rest in her class for sheer speed and maneuverability. I watched during a few of their training sessions, and was treated to one heck of a show. Rainbow was put through her paces as she was tasked with a variety of obstacles. She was maneuvered though such a complex series of loops, twists, and turns that I hurt my neck trying to keep up with it all.
Then came the more practical portion of the class, archery. Rainbow was able to keep surprisingly still while flapping her wings and the bolts she fired generally went where they were supposed to. She was getting more and more accurate with each session and was starting to become a decent sharpshooter. The maximum distance I’d seen her hit the target with any amount of accuracy was at about sixty feet.
During her best session I’d witnessed, she was tasked with hitting a target I was floating in midair. She started forty feet away, loosed a bolt and hit it dead center. She moved to about fifty feet away, paused as she aimed carefully, and again hit it dead center. The other students behind her cheered her on, as she set up for the third shot.
Emboldened by their cheers she decided to take it one step further, and fired the third bolt while flying past the target as fast as she could go. The bolt hit home, not quite on the center, but not far off.
Her teacher, Lieutenant Nightingale was a pure black pegasus mare with a navy blue mane and tail, and a yellow crescent moon for a cutie mark. Nightingale approached me after that particular session and asked if I’d be willing to trade Rainbow for a few of her other recruits.
“No can do,” I told her. I looked back at the blue pegasus now doing aerial somersaults for her fellow classmates. “She’s going to be the stubborn pride of my team.”
I meant it too. I knew that no matter how nasty the coming experiences may be, so long as there was still one of my team willing to stand up and fight, then the others would find strength in that pony and stand beside her. That one pony was Rainbow. No matter how nasty things got, she would never back down, not when her friends were on the line. Put simply, her ego was just too big to let her quit.
I haven’t been able to observe much of Fluttershy’s medical training, owing to the fact that I have five other mares and a battalion that demands my attention. But from what she’s told me in her reports, she’s becoming quite the nurse. Over the past few days Fluttershy has been reporting to me everything thing she’s learned during each day in the castle’s medical wing.
On the first day when I assigned her to her position, she was more or less just an observer within the facility. She spent the entire day just watching and learning the basic medical practices. She got to start participating when she evidently corrected a trained doctor about how best to treat a broken wing. Despite having no real medical training before, Fluttershy seemed to just know, on some fundamental level, how to make others feel better.
She quickly became an assistant nurse to the head doctor, and spent most of her time prepping patients for surgeries, mending cuts and wounds, and setting broken or dislocated bones back into place. As obvious as it was that she was constantly surrounded by those in pain, it couldn’t be clearer that she was having the time of her life.
She told me several stories in her reports of how she helped different patients through their respective troubles, and the look on her face with each story, was one of pure joy. Each pony she helped, every bone mended, and every wound healed was precious to the yellow pegasus.
One story in particular stood out in her recounting. A unicorn had been attacked nearby Canterlot and had been found and brought to the castle just in time. He had a couple of broken bones and several nasty cuts. The assigned doctor began treating immediately, choosing to focus on the broken bones first. Fluttershy noticed that at one spot on the unicorn’s side was slightly distended and discolored. She knew that could only mean that he had internal bleeding. She told the doctor and they immediately shifted their focus to the more important issue. Because of Fluttershy, that unicorn survived, and it would be a memory that Fluttershy would treasure forever.
My lessons with Twilight and Rarity were a little tricky to organize. Immediately after Twilight learned to commit arson, I sent a letter to Luna asking if she’d be willing to teach Rarity. I got my reply within an hour.
Dear Mr. Dresden,
I would be delighted to teach the unicorn, Rarity. Please come by my quarters at your earliest convenience.
Princess Luna
After receiving this letter, Rarity and I made our way to Luna’s chambers. As we entered Luna’s room we got a good look at what the Princess of the Night likes to do in her spare time.
Luna’s room was littered with what seemed like engineering design plans and various gadgets. Luna herself was focusing on a particular gadget floating in the air above a workbench. She looked over at us when we came in. She smiled and set down whatever it was that she was working on, and made her way over towards us.
“Greetings Dresden, greetings Rarity, how are you?”
I’m not really sure what I was expecting to see in her room, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“Luna, what is all of this?” I asked, the reason for my visit temporarily leaving me.
Luna looked back around her room, and only then seemed to realize how much of a cluttered mess it was.
“Oh, forgive my mess. I can get a tad focused when I’m working on something.” She moved over to one of the discarded gadgets and held it up for me to see. “I’ve been working with the head engineer in the castle. She has an idea to incorporate my complex magic into her mechanics. The desired result would be devices that respond to the users thoughts, as opposed to their actions.” She smiled excitedly at the idea, in the exact same manner Twilight did when she bombarded me with questions about her magical theories. “Could you imagine the possibilities of such devices? Maybe if I can perfect this then ponies will stop treating me as though I might attack them at random.”
I suddenly had to wonder if Celestia chose Twilight as her student based off her power, our because of her personality.
Must remain polite, must remain polite.
“That’s a load of crap,” my mouth said automatically.
Damn it.
Both Luna and Rarity just gawked at me.
Well, I was already invested, might as well speak my mind. “You shouldn’t have to do anything to color others’ opinions of you. So long as you aren’t hurting anything, just do what you want with your personal life. If others like you for it, then good for them, if they don’t like what you do, then why should care what they think?”
Needless to say, I don’t get along well with those that judge others based on external values.
Luna thought about that for a moment. “So you don’t think I should pursue this research?”
I shook my head. “No, I think you should do it because you want to, not because you think it’ll improve your standing.”
Luna looked back at me with a relived sigh and a faint smile, “You speak to me as though I were any other pony. That is all I have ever wanted from my subjects since my return. I thank you, and I shall consider your words.” Luna turned her attention to Rarity. “But I believe we are getting off topic for the purpose of this visit.”
I mentally berated myself for allowing my brain to be so easily sidetracked. “Right, Rarity’s lessons. You wrote that you’re willing to teach her?”
“Correct. Celestia is taking the majority of the control over military matters, while I try to keep population as calm as possible. I imagine I’ll have my work cut out for me later, but for the time being I have some free time.”
“Alright then.” I waved a hoof at Rarity, “Rarity here has a decent amount of talent in subtle magic, more specifically illusions. I’d like for you to teach her a little of what you know, starting with how to use illusions in combat, preferably on groups at a time. Then I’ll let you take it from there.”
Luna looked from me to Rarity, and adopted a truly wicked smile. “But of course, you’d be surprised what you can accomplish with a simple illusion.”
Rarity shuffled uncomfortably from her corner of the room. It was a little hard to tell with her white coat, but I thought she might have turned a few shades paler under Luna’s gaze.
I looked between Rarity and Luna. “Do you have a specific schedule in mind, or…”
“Just leave her with me. After we’re done for today I’ll tell her when I’m available next, and assuming you have no need of her, I’ll see her then,” Luna explained calmly.
I nodded my head, “Sounds like a plan.” I got up to leave, “Rarity, I’ll expect a report later today.”
As I left the room Rarity, who hadn’t made a sound during the entire discussion, still looked extremely uncomfortable at the prospect of being alone with Luna. Rarity sighed and visibly steeled herself in preparation for the lessons she was about to begin.
Rarity made great progress with her lessons with Luna. At the end of her first lesson she reported to me that Luna was helping her to control and fine tune the spells she already knew how to use. After two days of hard work Rarity could conjure an exact copy of herself in front of my desk. It was of such detail that I had to get within an inch of the image to be able to find any flaws in it. Unfortunately I chose the wrong Rarity and wound up pointing out what I thought were flaws on the real Rarity.
I got a nice hoof shaped bruise on the side of my muzzle for my trouble.
After this display she chose to take her talents to the sparing room to see how they would apply to combat.
The majority of her fights against my soldiers ended with her assailant kicking and bucking furiously at a patch of thin air several feet away from the actual Rarity. While her opponents would be busy trying to hurt a phantom, she would calmly press the end of her practice weapon against their throat, signaling a killing blow.
One pony from my battalion that I recognized as Blockade challenged Rarity after she had defeated several of his squad mates. Blockade showed a great sense of intelligence after the sparring began. Instead of just attacking what he thought was his target, he attacked with wide sweeps of his forelegs in the general direction of Rarity’s starting position. Rarity was too focused on her spell to notice this new tactic and was knocked off balance by a sweeping leg, then thrown several feet by a buck when her illusion wavered. Before Blockade could claim victory, Rarity retaliated by enveloping Blockade’s head in a pure white bubble through which the bystanders couldn’t see or hear what he was experiencing.
He staggered around for several seconds, sinking his hooves into the white cloud, trying desperately to free himself. He eventually passed out and sunk to the ground as Rarity dispelled the white cloud, a small trickle of blood ran down the side of his head from his ear.
After I made sure that Blockade was going to be alright, I asked Rarity what exactly she had done.
“You don’t recognize it?” she asked back. “It’s the same spell I used on you before you assigned me to Luna’s lessons. It’s a simple overstimulation of sight and sounds, though I suppose I did overdo it a bit. But that buck hurt, and just look at my mane; it’s going to take forever to get it right again.”
I sighed at her bizarre fashionista priorities. Maybe it’s just a guy thing but I just never got the importance of obsessing over looks, so long as I had hair on my head, I was happy.
Compared to Rarity, Twilight was simple to understand, pleasant even. While Rarity was busy with her lessons with Luna, I spent most of my free time tutoring Twilight in combat magic.
Twilight was so eager to learn new forms of magic that her first reaction whenever I presented a new spell to practice, was to dive into the mechanics of the spell before I even finished explaining it. The very first thing we went over, and the first thing any wizard is supposed to learn, was proper shields.
Twilight had evidently already learned some shielding basics in her studies, but not really seeing a purpose for it in her supposedly peaceful life, had never really pursued mastery of it.
Twilight could conjure a full dome shield with little difficulty. I extended my senses towards her first shield, and immediately saw a problem, it was brittle. It was a simple dome of unmoving force, no give or elasticity whatsoever. One well placed strike would shatter it.
I lectured her on the proper basics of shields. That shields needed to have some elasticity in them so that the transferred energy could travel through the shield and into the ground, otherwise the shield would be taking every bit of energy thrown at it, into itself.
“How is this?” Twilight asked as we stood in the same slightly scorched room as we had before. Twilight had conjured up a full dome shield with a distinctive purple tinge all around her.
I paced around the shield, probing it with my wizard senses, looking for any obvious weakpoints. I couldn’t find anything obvious enough to spell disaster. The excellent result of a few hours hard work.
I gave Twilight an approving smile, “Not bad, not bad at all.” I began to draw in my will. “Alright, hold on tight.”
“Wait, what are you-” She was cut off when I loosed my simple force spell against her shield.
She was caught off guard and her shield nearly failed, but she managed to redouble her focus at the last second and hold off my spell.
She shot me a victory grin, “Is that all you’ve got?”
I grinned back, Challenge accepted.
I rained wave after wave of kinetic energy against her shield, each blow becoming more and more focused as I tested the limits of her shield. To her credit, she held up extremely well against my onslaught. Twilight redirected the energy in her shield to the portions of the shield that would be affected, in order to more efficiently block my attacks without having to expend additional energy. That was extremely impressive, considering that I’d only taught her the basics behind shields. She understood and adapted to new forms of magic faster than any other magic user I’ve ever seen, myself included.
Forget being a warden, give her a decade or two and she could be Senior Council material.
On my final hit I focused the full force of my attack into the space of a baseball at the base of the shield, then right before it hit I angled it directly upward, in the magical equivalent of an uppercut with the force of a runaway car.
Twilight’s shield became a network of interconnecting cracks and then shattered at the blow. The vast majority of the energy from my attack bleed into the shield or was diverted into the open air, so when I finally managed to break it, the remaining force only pushed Twilight back a couple of feet.
With my challenge completed, I suddenly felt like I was a high school jock at a football victory party. I laughed and pranced around in a small circle. “Fear me, for I am Dresden, smasher of all that oppose me!”
Behind me Twilight collapsed to the floor, and buried her face in her hooves trying to stifle a fit of giggles. That brought my head back down from the clouds and back into my questionably stable self.
I stopped dancing and addressed Twilight, “Very well done, that was an extremely good shield.”
She practically glowed at my complement.
Over the next several training sessions I began teaching Twilight how to use magic offensively. For obvious health reasons it would be unwise to have her practice these spells in sparring sessions, so we largely stuck to the smaller private practice rooms.
During one memorable session I was having Twilight refocus latent static electricity into a bolt of lightning to be shot at her targets. She had gotten the hang of it after her second try, but practice makes perfect, so I was having her continue the spell until she could perform it with minimal effort.
“Again,” I told Twilight, as she hit another dummy with the lightning.
“Oh, come on Harry. I already know the spell, I-“
“Again, Twilight.”
She sighed and drew together her will and the latent electrical energy around us into the horn on her head. She released her spell and sent a sizeable bolt of lightning directly at a wooden dummy, which promptly caught fire. The whole process took her about two or three seconds, which was one huge improvement to the massive twenty second fireball she pulled of a few days ago. Don’t get me wrong, raw power is nice, but speed is better in most combat situations.
She turned back towards me. “Satisfied?”
I looked at her and got an idea that I thought would be funny.
After all, she needs to learn to do these spells under stress.
I smiled at her, “Almost, just one more then we’ll call it a day, I promise.”
She grunted and rolled her eyes at me, then returned to her position to recast the spell. When she began drawing in the power, I silently creeped towards her. I got as close as I could to one of her ears without making a sound, and when she was just about to release the spell, I shouted, “BOO!” as loud as I could.
Twilight let out a shrill squeak and jumped a little into the air. The spell she was holding ready discharged in all directions, and a massive wave of static electricity washed over us both. When the energy dissipated, both Twilight and I looked like pony puff balls. Every single hair on both of our bodies was sticking straight out in every possible direction.
We took one look at each other and broke out into equally strong fits of laughter. Twilight was rolling over and over on the floor, laughing like a maniac. I simply collapsed into a heap and began laughing so hard, that I had difficulty breathing.
She really was one of a kind.
Now that’s a memory worth keeping, I thought to myself as I sat behind the desk of my office that doubled as my classroom.
With all of the different training sessions eating up my time, I hadn’t noticed that an entire week had gone by. I just sat behind my desk, brooding over how many questions I had that were left unanswered. I still remembered Celestia’s initial letter to Twilight.
She had promised that she would answer all of our questions when we got to Canterlot, and yet here we are a whole week later, and still no answers. How much more time do I have to waste?
I wasn’t really frustrated at Celestia, not just her anyway. I was mainly worried about my home. I had been gone for a little over a week and the Red Court were still going about their business back there. If the White Council fell before I got back, then I could probably consider Earth to be gone.
Without the White Council to keep things in check, then every supernatural predator that had seen the Council as a threat would go on a rampage. Humans would cease to be the openly dominant force on the planet, and everyone that I cared about would likely get eaten, or worse.
I had sent several letters to the Celestia, asking to set up a meet to go into more detail of my current predicament. But thus far I haven’t gotten anything back. If I couldn’t get anything out of Celestia soon, I was going to go to Luna during one of Rarity’s lessons. I doubted Luna would have as many answers as her sister, but some is better than none.
At the same time, I couldn’t really blame Celestia for not speaking with us, not entirely anyway. I mean she’s a co-ruler of a land that is facing an entirely new threat. I imagine Celestia has had little to no down time since our arrival here. But that won’t stop me from brooding over it.
Wizards have mastered the art of brooding.
It was during this scheduled brooding session that I got an urgent knock on the door.
I raised my voice so whoever was at the door could hear me. “Unless Twilight has started another fire, it can wait.”
“Sir, I have a letter for you. It’s marked as urgent,” said the messenger, his voice slightly muffled through the door.
“From who?”
“It’s from Princess Celestia herself.”
That earned my full attention. Had Celestia finally set aside some time to answer the questions that were plaguing me?
“Come on in then,” I called to the messenger.
The door opened, and a light blue pegasus entered the room. The pegasus wore a set of light chainmail barding, and the pentagram insignia on his chest piece marked him as one of my soldiers. Luna had ordered that those under my command were to bear the same mark on their armor as the mark on my flank.
I didn’t have much of an opinion on the subject, as Michael was the one that spent the most time with the actual troops, but I will admit, it did make identifying my units much easier.
The messenger came up to my desk, and set Celestia’s letter down upon it. He then moved to a corner of the room and waited patiently to see if I needed him to deliver a response.
I lifted the letter before me in a dark red nimbus, unfurled it, and began to read. My expression became harder as my eyes traveled down the page. This was not what I had hoped for, but it was progress at least.
“Soldier, come here!” I called to the messenger still waiting in the corner of the room.
“Yes sir?” he said as he made his way back to my desk.
“Send word to my team, I want them to meet me here immediately. Then after you’ve done that speak with Michael, tell him to round up the battalion. We need to be able to move out as soon as possible,” I commanded the pegasus. I was a little surprised at the authority in my own voice.
He snapped to attention. “Yes sir. What should I tell them?”
I looked at the messenger and smiled. “You can tell them, that we’ve found a Red Court den.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.034 seconds
Total duration
1,085 users online
1,670,334 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Also, I really like the way you gave the mane 6 roles that fit really well with their personalities, but also makes them a very well rounded adventuring party.
(With Michael, you have 2 heavy mages, a bard/illusion master, 2 heavy fighters, an acrobat/ninja, a healer, and a ranger/sniper)
Yes. Just yes.
I see that this is about to get very interesting. I'm really looking forward to it.
5/5, enjoy
Give AJ a whip and enchant it with holy energy and you'll have the Vampirekiller!
Fantastic. I'll admit the beginning felt a touch rough to me, but I kept reading and have found myself rather captivated.
Can't wait for the next update.
994928
Yea this is my first fanfic ever, I'm surprised that it's gathered the followers that it has. I do intend to re-edit the first bit soon, mainly for grammar issues though. Oh and the next chapter is being pre-read now, so hopefully I'll have it up sometime tomorrow.
I DEMAND A DRAWING!
Oh, and 995455 For your first fan-fic, its pretty well written. I'm impressed.
for your first fic this is pretty good. but a few word of advice
not everything needs to be spec ops and super elite people killing the bad guy.
and dont be afraid to throw in some oc's and what not
now this is my personal opinion and all that but when people try and take character like the mane 6 and put them into a military role like this iit just does not work. a group of original character's i feel would have fit in way better.
and you need to justify your actions a lot better as well with Dresden getting a battalion of soldiers and access to powerful magical artifacts wielded by national heroes the second he shows up... i doubt that...i really do.
Dresden being hired on as an adviser for both groups makes perfect sense. but Celestia trusting the lives of 300-1500 gaurdspony to some one she just met that day is either horribly incompetent on her part, or im sorry to say bad writing on yours.
now i dont mean to hurt your feeling with any of this but you cant get better unless you dont see where you are screwing up.(at least in my opinion)
also you dont have to ship everything.
i think i saw this somewhere oh yeah on fanfiction.net
Well, actually Dresden, it is kinda your fault. You did tell her to put as much power as she could into her shot.
~Vriska Serket
I sh-nope.
Shiii-nooopenopenopenope!
... shipit DAMN IT!!
I can't help it, there such a pair! Smart-alic mages with a hunger for knowledge and a pension for kicking evils ass! There both my favorite characters in their respective series! Ship fuel!