Bastion Goes to Fight Camp

by Wise Cracker

The Progress, and the Price

Bastion followed Sunburst to the training area after breakfast. Live Wire and Doldrum went in the other direction, towards another camp site outside the little lake valley. Today they’d be playing hide and seek, and the changeling had long since decided he didn’t like that game very much, so he was glad to be getting tutoring instead.

Getting some time away from Doldrum after yesterday’s mixed bag of a paintball game was an added bonus.

“So, have you thought about what sort spells you want to learn next? What is it you’d like?”

Bastion’s ears splayed. “Umm, I don’t really know.” He thought back to his first day, and found that something had changed. He wasn’t sure what, though. “I kinda want to get stronger. Just to fight better, if that’s okay?”

“Okay, just fight better, a little vague but it’s a start. And your conjuration’s good, so how about… evocation today? Some blast spells sound good?”

Bastion’s hearts fluttered. “Yes. Blast spells sounds perfect.”

“You can already make a blob of goop, that’s a few weeks worth of practice we can skip. Can you project an image of something? Purely an illusion?”

“Umm, I can try?” He concentrated and squinted, trying to form an image of a bush in front of him. A green shimmering glow formed, but it quickly faded into nothingness, blurred and unstable. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Hmm, no, but you’ve got some light down, at least, and if you can cloak, you should be able to do other light stuff.”Sunburst thought for a second. “What about just that: a simple light spell? Can you make a ball that glows in the dark?”

Bastion nodded. “I hardly ever do it, though. It just kinda comes naturally, I guess.” With a mere thought, he created a ball of bright white light to rest on his horn.

“And can you move that at all?” Sunburst gestured with his hoof in a circle motion.

A silent breath in, and Bastion twirled the ball around. “It doesn’t do anything, though. There’s no power behind it.”

“It doesn’t need any. Illusion magic or anything involving light is a solid stepping stone. This is a good start, we can work from there.” Sunburst made his own ball of light and brought it before Bastion. “Now follow my lead. Try making the light redder, and brighter.”

Bastion mimicked the hue and heat of Sunburst’s orb. “This kinda hurts my eyes...”

“It’ll do that at first. Focus your awareness outside yourself, on the point you’re holding it, that’ll cool you down.”

Bastion smiled. He was still doing it right. He could taste his own happiness. It felt oddly alien to him.

Sunburst held a hoof up to Bastion’s light and nodded. “There we go, you’ve got it. Simple heat orb, good for survival situations if you need to make a fire quickly. It also keeps the mosquitoes away, since they’re not attracted to red light.”

“It’s a good signal if I need help, too.”

“Exactly. You’ve got the motions down, so now we’re going to practise that until you get the spell for it right. Has anyone explained the difference between a trick and a spell yet?”

Bastion shook his head.

“We can be brief about that. When you have an ability or a trick, you simply give your body the command to do something, and then it does it. Sometimes you have abilities like Pegasus flight that are enhanced by emotions, or Unicorn magic beams that fire off at random.”

“Or Earth pony strength that flares up when they punch you,” Bastion remarked.

“Yup. But those are innate, those are reflexes. A spell is something rehearsed: it has a rhythm to it, a motion. Abilities like your shapeshifting are simple and quick to do, if you have the ability. If you need a spell to do it, you have to break it down and think about it, before you can then cast it in a reflex. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of?”

“Better to show than to tell, I suppose. Try to think about how you made the red orb. Break it down, do it slowly. Every spell has three steps: intent, execution, and release. What is the intent when you make the orb?” Sunburst asked.

“To make a red orb.”

“Good. Then the execution. How do you make a red orb? Do you feel it out, do you see it in your mind’s eye, do you pull or push it out from anywhere? Whatever you do, it’s all good, everyone has their own approach to these things.”

“I feel the red swirling inside of me,” Bastion said, circling a hoof in the air. “I feel the warmth.”

“Alright. And then release. Let it come out, then shift your focus to something else.”

Bastion did as he was asked. “How do I shift my focus?”

“It’s a hard trick to explain, but we can start by taking that red orb and making it something a little more offensive: a flashbang.” Sunburst gestured with his horn, and the red sphere exploded with flash of light and a solid ‘pop.’

“I think I know that one already, too.” Bastion clenched his eyes shut, covered his ears, then poured more power into his ball of light, as well as holding the energy in on the edges. Then he made it pop like a balloon.

Sunburst whistled, impressed. “Okay, that was really quick, too. A flashbang’s a good way to get used to switching from one spell to another, to work on that release. It’s also a good way to get out of a fight without hurting anyone. I guess we can move on to the really advanced stuff, then: the fundamental evocation spell, the basic technique every blast mage has to know.”

“Fireball?” Bastion tried.

“Ye-No. No, not fireball.”

“Lightning blast?”

“No.”

“Ice cannon?”

“No! No: prismatic spells. It’s simple in principle, but most ponies… never bother learning this one, even though it opens up the path to many more abilities. No, you start by making the same ball of light as before.”

With a nod and a horn flick, Bastion made another flare.

“Now make it white light, brighten it.”

Squinting, Bastion did as he was told.

“Now picture the light hitting a prism, and turning into a swirling rainbow. Red, green, blue, yellow, orange...”

It was a difficult mental image to get, but once he fractured the white light into blue and red, something clicked in his mind. Orange, yellow, green, they all started flowing freely in the sphere he’d made, only half under his control. He’d never felt magic click quite as much, that odd sense of anticipating something and willing it at the same time.

“And now?”

“Now you pick one colour, and picture it hardening into its corresponding element. For example: green acid.” Sunburst splashed a target dummy with a green sphere. “Red fire.” Another one was burned with red. “Blue ice, white lightning.”

Bastion stared in awe at the repeated blasts.

“This is a basic skill, in the sense that you learn a lot of other skills by mastering it. Some evocation wizards specialise in one element only, and they tend to get physical problems as a result.”

“Like Live Wire and his heart.”

“Well, yes, but he didn’t do that to himself; he was born with that. A lot of ponies acquire that weakness by their own mistakes. This technique lets you bypass it a little bit. You start by making light, which is neutral, but already manifested. Only afterwards do you convert it to fire or acid or lightning.”

“You don’t do the converting before it’s out of your body, so your body doesn’t have to work so hard. You do that part during the release, not the execution,” Bastion reasoned.

“Now you’re getting it. Mind you, you’re still relying on your body to do the converting, but it’s a lot less stressful this way because you’re sharing the burden. Because you start with white light, it’s a full-body skill, so you don’t risk a heart attack if you use a lot of lightning spheres.”

“And Live Wire can’t do this yet?”

Sunburst shook his head. “Can’t do the light without making thunder, not yet, anyway. But don’t get ahead of yourself: higher-level prismatic spells are a lot more strenuous than the regular elemental kind. If you overdo it on these, it’s your whole body that’s going to be hurting. So, think you can give it a shot?”

Bastion stepped up and let loose a red prismatic sphere on the nearest dummy. It scorched the thing alright, exactly the same damage as Sunburst’s had, maybe veered a little to the left.

“Good. Now try acid.”

Bastion closed his eyes and evoked the ball of light again. He let it go into its swirling rainbow state, then willed it to turn green. He fired, and when he opened his eyes, there was another scorched dummy. “Huh, that’s… not what I was going for.”

“That’s weird. Try cold next.”

Bastion repeated the process, this time shooting two at the same time. More scorched dummies were the only result.

“I can’t get the other colours to work. It always comes out red. Why does it come out red?”

“I think you have what ponies would call a ‘talent’ for it.”

---

Starlight had noticed Doldrum and Bastion developing some frictions all day, so it was probably a good thing that the changeling would be off with Live Wire in the afternoon. She took the Pegasus to the target range after lunch and sat down beside him.

“Okay,” she started. “what’s going on between you and Bastion?”

“Nothing,” he said, still in that whispery voice. According to Bulk Biceps and the twins, apparently Doldrum had an uncanny resemblance to one of the Elements of Harmony, at least in his way of speaking. Said Element was that of Kindness. While she hadn’t gathered any information on them yet – she’d barely planned out the first stages of her national equality plan, after all – she had seen a yellow mare in the newspapers from time to time, so she could put a face to it, at least. Doldrum’s resemblance to any Element of Harmony definitely ended at the vocal part, since right now he was tense and angry-looking.

“Are you sure? Because if there is, you can talk to me about it.”

He shook his head.

“Really,” she insisted. “It doesn’t matter if you think you’ll get in trouble, or if you think it’s something bad either one of you did. I won’t judge. I’m not like most grown-ups you’ve had to deal with.”

He sighed. “We were doing the game yesterday. I told him he could use his shapeshifting to help. He refused. So I ended up having to do almost everything on my own.”

“Wow, really?” She shook her head in surprise. “You won completely on your own?”

“Aside from the planning, yes. I had to do all the shooting, all the dodging, all the hard work.”

Starlight bit down on her first instinct and hoped to all celestial bodies in the sky he wouldn’t notice. Clearly this was another injustice brought upon by the curse of cutie marks and the difference in talents. Poor Doldrum was expected to pull all the weight because he was stronger. He couldn’t formulate his own plans because he lacked the talent for it.

“That’s pretty impressive. But not fair to you, you mean.”

He nodded. “It’s okay. I’m kind of used to that sort of thing.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be, and while it may be hard to believe, I can relate.”

Much to her surprise, he nodded at that, too. “Most Unicorns do. The strong ones, at least.”

“It’s part and parcel of being powerful, unfortunately. Other ponies take you for granted, or simply expect you to be able to solve any problem with a flick of your horn. Or, in your case, I guess a good punch or a nice little sprint.”

He let out a snort that, in context, sounded far too adorable to be effective. Despite his strange build, there was no getting around the fact that Doldrum was still a child. Even with his hard musculature, he clearly wasn’t fully developed into a young stallion yet, and wouldn’t be for several years to come.

“Is that going to keep being a problem?” Starlight asked.

“It depends. No, I don’t think so. Bastion’s not bad, I don’t think? He’s just… umm…”

“Not very smart?”

“No, he is smart. Just not very tactical.”

“Hmm, fair enough. As long as you don’t let it escalate, it’s fine. And you know you can tell him you have issues with how he behaved, right?”

“It was only one time,” Doldrum replied. “And I don’t think he’ll do it again.”

“Perfect. So, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about today’s lesson. You’re an adept at stormcrafting, yes?”

“That’s right.”

“And you have your Ice Amulet, your Wind Belt, and your Lightning Rings.”

Again, he nodded, before gesturing to the bunk. “Should I go get them?”

“What wands do you have?” Starlight asked with a smirk.

“Charged up today? Magic Missiles, Frost Shot, and Flare Shot. Those are the ones I’m allowed to buy. I got a little carried away with a couple of the other ones I brought.”

“Three different ones will do. How often do you use a bunch at the same time?”

“Never,” he replied. “They take too long to switch. I only ever use one.”

She pointed at his chest. “How about we make that today’s lesson? You go and get your wands, and that fancy home-made sheath I saw you carry around. I’ll go get some camp equipment, and I’ll teach you the proper way of using wands in a sheath.”

Finally perking up, he trotted towards the bunk while Starlight teleported to the storage closet. She unlocked it with the password, found what she needed, and donned the wand sheath with three magic wands for herself.

She poured a little bit of magic into the sheath and did a few test shots, just in case.

Magic missile, Spark Ball, Snow Cone. These were low-level spells, to be sure, lower even than what the boy had brought, but they would do for this sort of simple exercise.

She teleported back to find Doldrum ready and waiting, two sheaths and six wands at the ready.

“Let’s start with singular shots first. How do you usually fire a wand?”

He puffed up his chest, made a small gesture with his right hoof, and out from the left-most wand in the sheath there came a threesome of arrow-shaped energy bolts. “Reach out with my magic first. Pegasus magic, like when I’m on a cloud. Then let the magic run into the wand, focus on what I want it to do, and let go.”

“Perfect spellwork, better than a lot of Unicorns your age.” She was happy to see him blush at that compliment. “Yes, artifact magic like yours typically only requires power from the wielder: the skill you’d need to cast a spell is what’s inside.”

“Except I had to get the skill first, too. For some of them.”

“Well, yes, to make the trinkets.” She narrowed her eyes. “Remind me: you didn’t have any Gauntlets of Strength lying around, did you? Or any belts?”

“N-no. But I kinda turned like, you know, this, from the other exercises. Bellows Breathing, Forge Feeding…”

“And the Hammered Skin exercise, right, just checking. Anyway, using wands like that is good if you need to quickly get a spell out without too much mental work, or if you’re under some kind of pressure. All the routine of getting a spell locked into your memory, that routine of splitting it up into steps and then putting it back together as a reflex, that’s what you want to skip with a wand. But it also comes with a big disadvantage.”

“I can’t really switch from one to the other that easily.”

“No, exactly. I’m sure Sage Cracker has the same problem: chaos magic has that little issue too. Now, that’s not a bad thing in and of itself, mind you.” She raised a hoof. “Far from it. The fact that you can work with a wand at all is pretty rare for a Pegasus at any age, never mind someone as young as you. But you might end up getting into some bad habits.”

She waited for him to guess. He waited for her to tell him. “Such as?” he finally asked.

“Such as getting into restricted thinking. Doing the same thing over and over again, for example. Getting more trouble with learning new things. It won’t be an issue with your other weapons, since they’re covering different parts of your body, but wands don’t get used for practice much these days because of the side effects. And that’s what sheaths are for.”

She pointed her hoof at a target dummy, made a point of making the sheath glow without activating any wands, and then let fly. “Magic Missile, Spark Ball, Snow Cone, Snow Cone, Magic Missile, are you getting the point yet?”

Doldrum nodded. “That does sound like a good trick. How do I do it?”

“First you withdraw your magic from the wands. Shut them out of your awareness.”

He closed his eyes and opened his wings, relaxing visibly. “I think I’ve got it. Then what?”

“Then reach out for the sheath, and only the sheath. Try one at a time first, you don’t want to overload yourself.”

Another deep breath, and another nod. “And then?”

“Now comes the hard part. You have to run your magic into the sheath, without touching the wands yourself. You’re using an artifact to control another artifact.”

He clenched his eyes shut. “And then I just point and fire?”

“Yup. Do a quick Magic Missile and then switch.”

He clumsily flung his hoof at the target once, and to his credit, he had a solid grasp of the Magic Missiles. Then he repeated the motion, and got nothing.

He grumbled. “Didn’t work.”

“Nope,” Starlight replied with a smile. “But that’s why we explain things first, and why we practise. A lot. Try again, sheath attunement only. And, one, two, three, fire! Reload, fire!”

---

Bastion was trying to focus on where the group was heading, rather than the unfinished business he had with his bunkmate. From afar, it looked like another forested area, but one that was less thick than the one they’d used for the paintball game. Not as many chances to hide, but also a clearer shot, he concluded.

Live Wire didn’t seem to care either way. He merely grinned in anticipation when Sage let Bullet Time take the stage again.

“Alright, kids, the name of the game today is treasure hunt. You’re all going to be carrying treasure. Hunt each other,” he joked.

Bastion gulped.

“Okay, but seriously, though: today we’ll be focussing on protecting resources and managing defences, as well as piercing them. Like yesterday, you’ll be in teams of two. Every team gets one pouch, like this one.” He held up a little bag closed with a string in his magic. “This pouch contains a set of marbles. The object of the game is to collect as many marbles as you can. The rules are simple: if you get hit, if you have any marbles on you, you must surrender them to whomever claimed the shot. We’ve asked Sunburst to add a little adjustment to the magic of your bellythrowers, so we will know when you get hit. The marbles also have tracking on them.”

Bastion nodded. “So the idea is not to get caught with your treasure in hoof,” he whispered.

“How you protect your treasure is up to you. You can try to bury it, but then you may run into trouble if another team stumbles across it.”

Bastion tapped the ground.

“It’ll be pretty hard to bury anything in this, anyway,” he said to Live Wire.

“Thought so,” Live Wire replied. “The Royal Guard uses this as training grounds sometimes, too. There’s a lot of places where they practise gravity spells, the dirt’s all hard and compact there.”

“You might try to carry it around,” Bullet Time added. “But then what happens if you take a shot? On top of that, you need to be aware of what can happen while you’re securing the enemy’s treasure. It might be a good idea to let someone else try first, empty out their ammo.”

Live Wire grumbled. “There’s a catch. There has to be. As it is, all anyone has to do is take out the other teams, and they win by default.”

“Now, one big difference with yesterday is that being hit does not permanently take you out of commission. We’ve set up several cleaning stations on the edge of the forest, so you can wash off the paint and get back into the action. You will be unable to fire any shots while you’re hit, though, that hasn’t changed. Turtling up is a valid strategy, and one that you will not be punished for. At least, not by the camp counsellors.” Bullet winked at the crowd.

All the foals got his meaning at that, and Bastion didn’t need long to figure out the full consequences of the rules. It didn’t matter if you took out everyone, you still had to secure points. Stay low for the whole game, and you may not lose anything, but everyone preying on weaker teams would win.

On top of that, if enough time passed, with the rule of returning to the fray, anyone could deduce where a big haul was located if it never moved. All anyone had to do was watch where the foals raced off to after scoring a hit, or blanketing a search area for long enough. Leave the treasure undefended, and you wouldn’t draw attention, but anyone smart enough to figure out where you hid it would be after you. Carry it around, and you could defend it yourself, but at the same time you increased the risk of losing it to a stray paint pellet.

“Now, as before: we will be making sure everyone plays by the rules. If you’re hit, you are out of the game until you are cleaned. No hitting anyone with sticks, no bodyblocking for other ponies. And if you’re carrying treasure, you have to pass it over. No funny business. I will be making sure you follow that rule myself.” He glared at the crowd of foals. “Do I make myself clear?”

No sounds came from the foals. Bastion’s mind was reeling with potential strategies, escape plans, considerations of how to go about dealing with Pegasi in this less sheltered environment.

Live Wire, again, seemed unfazed, and went to get the bellythrowers and treasure along with the rest of the kids.

Everyone spread out, to the point where no one could tell where the next group would be, and the signal was sounded. Bastion and Live Wire immediately galloped into the forest, Live Wire carrying the treasure pouch on his neck. Once they were in deep enough, they found shelter behind a tree.

“Okay, so first order of business is ammo,” Live Wire said. “I’ve got twenty shots. You?”

“Twenty, like you.”

“Just checking. So what’s the plan? Do we bury our thing here?”

“Bad idea,” Bastion said. “Even if we could find a spot with soft enough dirt, we wouldn’t be able to hide it.”

“Hang on.” Live Wire looked up and gestured for Bastion to brace himself against the trunk. Sure enough, there was a pair of Pegasi up above, flitting from tree to tree.

With the two boys staying as deathly quiet as possible, they could barely make out the winged pair arguing about something, before they dropped off a little bag in a tree and flew off.

“Guess that’s our first score,” Live Wire said.

“Seems kinda unfair,” Bastion offered.

“Okay. So you’re not going to go get that pouch, then? I don’t think they had time to set up any traps or ambushes yet. Everyone’s just kinda scattered right now. We’re gonna want to move quick if we want to win.”

“I know. The longer we wait, the more chance they get to prepare. It’s fine, I’ll go get the pouch. They shouldn’t be hiding it up in a tree anyway, some pony might get hurt climbing up.”

“Don’t try to fly too much, if you can,” the Unicorn suggested. “Someone might hear.”

“Got it. I can stick to a trunk, no problem.”

Just like that, he vanished.

“Bastion?” Live Wire whispered.

“What? I’m invisible, that’s all. You know I can cloak, don’t you? I learned from Starlight the other day.”

“Yeah, just… I guess I wasn’t expecting it to work that well up close. It never does when I try it.”

“I’m gonna go up and find that pouch.”

“Here.” Live Wire gave him their own pouch, which quickly faded from view as well. “Empty it out into ours, leave it like that so no one will know.”

Without another word, Bastion was off. He kept his gastraphetes on his back, just in case, but he had no intention of firing it while cloaked. His changeling hooves stuck to the trunk easily, and he walked up to where the enemy treasure was with no issues, no sound, no indication of anything untoward. He checked for any traps or trickery and, finding none, undid the cord on the pouch and poured the marbles into his own pouch.

It was a clean swipe, no problems at all.

And he hated doing it. Still, those foals should have known better, and it wasn’t right to exclude everypony but Pegasi from this game. They’d learn their lesson about playing fair now, he told himself.

He jumped down and flapped his wings once to land quietly, then trotted over to Live Wire.

“I got it. They were careless.”

“Yeah, but now we have to be more careful, remember? We’re worth more. Did you see anything up top?”

“A few clearings, good defensive positions for a big group but nothing we can use with the two of us.”

“We could try sticking to scouting only. See where everyone is, wait for the right moment.”

Bastion nodded. “That would be the best strategy. This game is built to reward patience: whoever strikes last wins.”

“If they can keep what they take.”

“Yeah. If they can do that. I’m still trying to think about how we should do that.”

“Deeper in, then?” Live Wire readied his weapon.

“Deeper in. And watch out for any rustling bushes.”

“Why?”

“Funny thing I learned yesterday: I’m not the only camper who can cloak.”

---

Twenty swings of the sheathed wands, and Doldrum still wasn’t getting it. Sometimes he fizzled, other times he only got the first shot off and failed on the second.

Even an untrained instructor would have been able to tell he was struggling.

“Okay, let’s stop for now,” Starlight said, before sighing. “This isn’t working. You’re sure you’re reaching out your magic to the sheath and not the wands?”

“Yes.” He looked down, lost in thought from the looks of it. “I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, magic is usually pretty reactive to thoughts and emotions, especially artifact magic. You get what you project, the old masters used to say.”

“But I’m projecting control,” he argued. “I’m doing it right. I’m doing everything right. Aren’t I?”

She smiled in sympathy. “I’m sure you are, but there’s no way to be completely sure without getting into your head, and that’s something neither of us should want. No, your form is fine, and I doubt you’d be doing anything wrong that you don’t know is wrong, so that just leaves mental blockages.”

“Umm, what sort of blockages would that be?”

“You tell me.” She patted along her neck, back and belly to illustrate. “Do you feel any knots along your neck or spine? Any stomach cramps, nerves?”

He shook his head. “No more than usual.”

She chuckled. “Then it might be the fact that it is usual that’s the problem. You’re not relaxed enough, too rigid instead of flexible.”

“I am flexible,” Doldrum argued. “Just because I bulked up, doesn’t mean I can’t reach or flex.”

“Not physically inflexible, but mentally. That’s that bad habit I was talking about earlier. I’m surprised Sunburst would let it get that far on you. Sage Cracker, I can understand, but Sunburst should have noticed.”

“So… I can’t fix this on my own, then? Are we gonna do something else?”

“We could, but that wouldn’t fix the problem. I could temporarily remove your cutie mark, give you some time without whatever compulsions you’re getting from that.”

“Really?” His ears perked. “You can take away my cutie mark?”

Starlight immediately regretted blurting that out. Stupid, stupid, stupid… “Yes, but that’s not a good thing. You shouldn’t be so eager to get rid of your own talents.” Not without being coached or conditioned to, at least.

“Why not? It hasn’t done anything good for me yet. Every problem it fixes, it just replaces with something else. And it never fixes the problems I want fixed.”

She sighed. “Getting a little sidetracked here. I’m assuming you’re good enough to know basic visualisation exercises at your level. Have you ever done anything like the White Flame meditation? Any of the ego depletion remedies?”

“I don’t know what those are. Maybe?”

“That’ll be the next option, then. It’s a technique used by wizards who find themselves a little too… self-important. It puts the focus back on you, without blowing up your ego in the process and turning you into a maniac. Basically, it’s an antidote to counteract all the things that make you forget about yourself and distance yourself from what’s happening.”

“Oh.” He winced. “Yeah, I do that one a lot.”

“Good, that’s part of the practice. But like any practice, you need to be careful not to overwork yourself. This isn’t a new thing, Doldrum, you’re not the first pony to have this problem.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m not the first pony to have a lot of problems. That doesn’t make it any easier to fix them, though.”

He kept his head down, ears splayed back again. Strange how a boy who was basically a forge incarnate could look so vulnerable.

He really needed some proper attention, and from what she knew of Stormcrafters, Starlight could guess how numb he’d made himself to certain things.

“Just wait here for a second, and I’ll go fetch us a pair of mirrors. I’ll talk you through it, and we’ll try the sheath thing again. Trust me, you’ll feel better after this is done, and you’ll get that trick down pat before dinner.”

---

“We have a problem,” Live Wire said. “Looks like the other campers have turtled up.”

Bastion poked his head out from behind the tree to look.

The ponies had set up a border line through the forest, almost. Forty paces ahead, there was a pair patrolling around a spot he presumed contained their treasure pouch. Thirty paces to the East, another pair was doing the same. Up above, several squads of little Pegasi were doing rounds to survey the area.

“What do you make of that?” Live Wire asked.

“Pretty easy to see the goal: make sure no one gets the upper hoof on anyone. If everyone keeps their base close together, there’s no way to raid any one base without the others getting the range. The Pegasi are sharing the patrol duties, so I’m guessing only two or three foals are out on the offensive right now.”

“Probably those invisible Unicorns, too.”

“That is so unfair,” Bastion said. “This is supposed to be a fun game, and they’re treating it like it’s a war or something. I thought ponies were supposed to be nice to each other?”

Live Wire blinked. “You… you really don’t know anything about pony history, do you?”

“I think I know enough. Hearth’s Warming Eve is when you banded together and fought off the Windigos. It’s doing stuff like this that’ll get them to come back.”

“Hearth’s Warming Eve is not all it’s cracked up to be. Ponies have been nasty to each other since before then and way after. You’re from Ponyville, so you wouldn’t know, but there are still places in Equestria where you can be hated just for how you were born.”

Bastion’s ears twitched. “Like Alherda?”

“You heard about that, huh?” Live Wire motioned for them to sneak due East, to try and get a better view of the defences.

Once they found another tree trunk to hide behind, Bastion whispered, “I heard the grown-ups mention it a few times. What’s wrong with Alherda?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it. They have a really famous hospital for Unicorn foals.”

“Have you been there?”

Live Wire’s ears drooped. “Almost. But the EEA decided I should probably try private tutoring first.”

“So you don’t know what the big deal is, either?”

“I know a little bit. Apparently Alherda celebrates Hearth’s Warming Eve a little differently. They make the Unicorns out to be the only ponies who were really bad. And they kinda keep Unicorn magic down, I heard. No teachers, no books, no help if you have a magic problem, except for the hospital.”

“That sounds awful. Why would they do that?”

“Because they think it’s the right thing to do, I guess. Something about how it was first settled, is what I heard. Any pony will tell you: Alherda is where Unicorns fall apart.”

Bastion looked up, making sure to stay out of sight of another Pegasus patrol. “That’s not fair, either. Are there a lot of Alherda ponies here?”

“Mister Sage used to go there,” Live Wire said. “And a few of the Pegasi and Earth ponies here are from that city. But no Unicorns, no.”

Bastion took another look to survey the area. “Sunburst taught you how to dash yesterday, right? While me and Doldrum were at the paintball thing?”

“Yup. It’s a pretty cool spell, even if it’s not real teleportation.”

“How fast can you go in your dash?”

“Really fast. In and out in a second if I have to.”

“And how far can you go?”

Live Wire narrowed his eyes. “What are you thinking?”

Bastion snorted. “If they want to be unfair about it, then I’m not gonna play fair, either. I say we clean them all out in one go. Think you’re up for that?”

“I’m all ears.”

---

“And feel the white flame…” Starlight started. In hindsight, she felt she might have started with this exercise first. It would surprise her if the likes of Tree Hugger didn’t know this one.

“There is no mirror, there is no eye. There is no swan, only words,” Doldrum said.

Opening her eyes, she was pleased to see his mood looked better.

His body, however, was all atwitch and shaking.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Starlight said. “Are you feeling okay? That might have been a little heavy.”

“It’s fine. Just my talent, I guess.”

Made sense. After stretching out and putting the mirrors away, Starlight demonstrated the proper wand sheath use again. “So, again: reach out to the sheath, block out the wands. One, two, magic missile, spark shot, frost shot.”

Doldrum nodded and repeated the motion. “Magic missile, spark, frost.”

It was only after he’d fired three times that either of them realised he’d done it correctly that time. Three bolts of magic, then an electric spark, then a small wave of frost, all impacting on the dummy.

He looked down at the sheath, confused.

“There you go, now you’ve got it,” Starlight said, “Told you you could do it.”

He smiled, then wiped his eyes.

“Getting teary-eyed?” she asked. “Yeah, it can do that if you’re used to pushing down your emotions too much.”

He nodded and let out another deep breath, then repeated the switched shots again, and again, and again. “I think I’ve got it now.”

“Looks like. That’ll be a good skill to have once you start working with armour enchantments: it takes a lot less effort to attune to the thing holding the weapons than to every single weapon in it.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And sorry for, you know, before.”

“No need to apologise. You had trouble with the exercise, you worked through it. That’s what learning is.”

“I don’t mean that. I think maybe Bastion just got under my skin. I’m… I’m not used to having to deal with ponies like that. Usually they just try to fight me and that’s it.”

She winced in sympathy. “Is it really that bad for you back home?”

He nodded. “Some days it’s worse than others. The grown-ups just want me to take a hint and join their team, so they don’t mind if the kids try to fight me. They think if they can humiliate me enough, I’ll sign up to get better.”

“Huh. And here I thought you looked big and strong enough to scare off anyone. They must be pretty brave if they’ll challenge you just like that. Or foolish.”

He looked away. “Maybe. It’s complicated.”

“Bastion hasn’t challenged you, has he?”

“Not like that, no. But he’s so busy trying to make things fair he doesn’t realise not everypony fights fair in the first place, and you can’t make them. Besides, he just uses ponies to get what he wants, same as everyone back home.”

“Hey now, you don’t know that. Bastion’s a strategist by nature, he’s a planner. That doesn’t mean he uses ponies, it just means he makes plans on what they should do to win.”

“I guess.” he said, in a completely unconvincing tone.

“Would it make you feel better if he fought you fairly sometime?”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Not right now, perhaps. But if he got stronger, on his own, just like you did. If he was your equal, would you still feel bad about him?”

“Maybe,” he blurted out, before thinking. “No. No, I guess not.”

“There you go, then. See if he’s your equal, wait until he’s strong enough to be on your level, and you’ll feel better about it. In the meantime, let’s make sure you can do this exercise properly, without having to meditate beforehoof.”

“Sounds good.” He pointed the sheathed wands at the target. “Oh, umm, Miss Starlight? One more thing.”

“What?”

“I’ve heard ponies talk about a place called Alherda. They said you worked there for a while, and it’s a bad place. But they never talk about why it’s bad.”

Her ears drooped. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because Mister Sage is from there, too. And he doesn’t talk about it, either. So I just thought, if he’s been teaching us, and he got it from there…”

“No, he would definitely not get it from there. Alherda is…” She fired thrice again. “Complicated. It’s a place where ponies aren’t that friendly to Unicorns, basically.”

“But they have a hospital just for them.”

“Not just for them: technically it’s for any foals with cutie mark problems, which in that town are usually Unicorns. And part of the reason they’re often Unicorns is because of how they’re raised in that town.”

Doldrum repeated the triple shot. “And how’s that?”

“Cut off from what they need to know, and taught that they were born wrong.”

“Oh,” Doldrum said. “Yeah, I guess that would make you feel pretty bad.”

“They had a few cases like yours back there, you know. Back when I was working in the hospital, I mean.”

Doldrum barely smiled as he shot more spells at the targets. “Cases like what?”

“Well, using spells a lot means you think differently a lot. You have to relax, sink into an altered state. Sometimes it gets tempting to stay in that state.”

He stopped firing. “It’s not like that.”

“Oh?”

“It’s not tempting, I mean. I, umm, I got into a fight a while back. And it’s like you said: I went deep, to channel my magic. Except I didn’t have my weapons with me, so it was just the magic I have in my body. I went deep, really deep. I never felt so alive. But eventually I stopped feeling so alive. And now… I don’t really feel anything when I’m up again, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, it does. You have the effects of an acute overdose, not the chronic habituation.” She sighed as she thought out loud. “That one’s harder to spot. Sometimes when you go really deep, things get a little stuck in your head. The energy rush, it burns it into your nerves, sort of. Usually it’s harmless, like a showtune or a memory that keeps playing out. Other times, it’s crossing some wires you don’t want touching.”

“How do you fix that?”

I’ll let you know when I get my own thoughts unstuck.

“Well, seeking out happiness and joy is a good start, in moderation. Take ownership of your thoughts and feelings, that’s what the old masters would say. If I had to make a suggestion: find a hobby where you don’t go too deep, and still feel happy.”

“Crafting’s kind of that hobby for me.” He blushed. “So is, umm, wargames, fighting, stuff like that. I feel like myself again when I’m fighting. But that’s probably bad.”

She took aim and demonstrated the shots again. “It really all depends. There’s no point in beating yourself up over what goes on in your own head. Seriously, better wizards than me have tried, history’s full of those failures. No, wean off of it, if you can, try small doses of what you know works, and it’ll come back. It’s not common, especially not at your age, but it’s something ponies know about, at least in some circles. If you really feel down in the dumps and need a pick-me-up, a little bit of combat practice probably won’t hurt.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, smiling as he resumed the shooting practice.

---

The lead-up to the heist was what took the most time. Bastion had calculated the angles, double-checked all eventualities, and he’d plotted out a course for Live Wire.

Bastion’s job would be to make sure neither of them got caught.

“Okay. Ready?” Live Wire said, bracing himself.

“Ready.” Bastion did the same.

“Three, two, one.”

Lightning crackled over the colt’s fur. His horn glowed, arcs sparking off as he charged up. Then, a peal of thunder catapulted him forward. Bastion opened up his wings and followed suit, buzzing at top speed to the spot he knew he needed to be.

Another crack of thunder marked Live Wire’s first stop. The two foals guarding the spot barely knew what hit them before their pouch was taken. Second target was slightly due West, up in a tree. With a mighty leap, Live Wire was on and out with the bounty secured.

Bastion readied his bellythrower. Two Pegasi had turned from their patrol and were making their way towards the ball of noise.

With all the distraction going on, they didn’t even notice the changeling sniping them from behind. He was gone before they could betray his position to their allies.

Live Wire had already scored two more treasures, even with the kids ready and firing in his direction. Bastion flitted from tree to tree, straining his wings. That dash was too fast for anyone to keep up with, but he’d already anticipated the flaw in the Battery’s new trick.

At that speed, turning on a dime was not an option.

So Bastion made sure to get into proper position at one of the turning points while Live Wire emptied out the coffers of two more opposing teams. It wouldn’t be long for the away parties to notice something was going on at their base, so time was of the essence.

He clipped one Earth pony on the flank from ten paces away, making his companion turn.

Unfortunately, he turned right at the moment a mass of thunder, lightning, and coffee brown fur skidded to a halt right by their treasure. Another shot to the back, and Live Wire could take the pouch uncontested and unmolested.

Three more bases lay on their trail. Bastion nodded and rushed over to the third one, the end point of their raid. Live Wire got past the first, the second, but he rushed ahead too far for the third.

The last stand was where the crowd had formed, at least a dozen foals of all three tribes. The Pegasi up above started peppering the ground as Live Wire approached, while some of the Unicorns were putting up shields.

“Plan B!” Bastion called out, hoping his bunkmate would hear in the thunderous cacophony.

The sudden barrage of flashes of light seemed to indicate as much.

Grinning, Bastion joined in and fired off a salvo of light orbs, all coloured to match Live Wire’s coat. None of them were proper elemental explosions, he was still stuck on pure red for that, but he could make coloured flashbangs easily enough.

The distraction worked, even on that big a crowd. What was a concentrated effort to form a killbox moments earlier had become a frantic and random pattern of paint shots, easily dodged by the Unicorn at top speed.

Bastion landed a good fifty paces away from the bunch, at the spot where no other bases would provide cover. He looked around carefully, to make sure none of the roaming foals would interrupt his plan. None came as Live Wire practically flew over the ground, still covered in crackling light. He stopped in front of Bastion and gave him the pouches.

All of them felt full.

“We did it.”

“Yup,” Live Wire said, breathing heavily. “We… we did it.”

He collapsed against Bastion’s body.

For a moment, Bastion panicked, because Live Wire had made a point not to get close to any pony, lest he shock them on accident.

There was no shock when he touched Bastion, and that thought sent a brand new kind of panic through the changeling’s thoughts. He touched Live Wire’s neck, and felt a throbbing that was definitely not in any normal rhythm for a living creature.

“You didn’t tell me your heart was gonna blow,” Bastion said.

“Eh, didn’t think it would. Kinda new to this dashing thing, remember?” Live Wire groaned in pain and clutched his chest.

Bastion snorted and looked past the colt to the oncoming group of enemies. Then, closing his eyes, he twinned a cloaking spell and started carrying Live Wire off.

“Heh, utility casters,” Live Wire managed to say between panting. “You never know how much you miss them until you have one. Good job, buddy.”

“You too,” Bastion said. “Just don’t die over this, okay?”

“Relax. I’ve been here before. A bit of rest, and some lemony heart medicine and I’ll be fine. I don’t go all the way on a game.”

---

Starlight was smiling, and so was her student for the afternoon. After a few more brief sessions with the mirror exercise, he’d loosened up considerably, even in his movements. He had the technique down pat, just like she’d expected, just like she’d promised. He looked content, which was a fine sight given the circumstances. They were comparing notes on what they knew about the different types of magical armour when Live Wire and Bastion returned with Sunburst and Sage.

Live Wire was down, on a stretcher held up by Sage’s magic.

She checked the faces of the stallions first, so as not to overreact around Doldrum. She stayed quiet next to him, and motioned for him to get his gear off.

“What happened?” she asked when the procession of colts and stallions reached her.

“Our resident walking Battery decided to push his limits,” Sunburst said with an annoyance in his voice she’d only ever heard him use around his mother. “So his limits decided to push back.”

“I overloaded a little, doing my dash. But we did win, so lemon tarts for dessert tonight!” Live Wire chuckled, before coughing.

Doldrum came walking to them, his sheath and wands back in the bunk. He glared at Bastion. “You let him overload himself?”

“No,” Bastion replied. “He volunteered.”

“And you couldn’t think of any plan that didn’t involve nearly making his heart explode?”

“Doldrum, that’s hardly fair,” Starlight said. “You weren’t there, you don’t know what happened.”

As soon as she said it, she regretted it. She could see his jaw clench up again, wings bunch up against his sides, and a little tremor went through his front legs.

He let his head hang and let out a long, quiet sigh. When he spoke, all emotion had drained from his voice again, and that tired whisper was right back. “No, you’re right. I’m sure there was a good reason.” He turned and walked off towards the lake.

“Where are you going?” Starlight asked.

“To meditate, if that’s okay. I think I need to loosen up again.”

From what she’d seen, that was probably an accurate assessment. “You don’t want to hear how it went?”

“Not right now. It’s breaktime now, right? Until dinner?” he asked Sage.

Sage Cracker nodded. “You can go to your usual spot if you like. Make sure we know where you are, though.”

“I will!” He called out, before taking off with a gentle flap of his wings and gliding away.

“Is Live Wire going to be okay?” Starlight asked.

“Yeah, this isn’t the first time he’s done that sort of thing. Usually he causes way more damage to things beforehoof, though,” Sunburst noted. “And usually it’s an accident, so… progress, I guess?”

“I’m okay,” Live Wire croaked. “I have my meds with me, and I can rest up. You know, as long as I don’t try any more magic for a little while.”

“A day or two is usually his recovery time,” Sage said. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary, standard elemental overload, is all.”

“Okay, good,” Starlight said. “If it’s elemental overload, then you should be good to do more physical stuff in a little bit, at least. Maybe some martial arts practice, or yoga? Something that’s a little less stressful, perhaps?”

“Ooh, maybe you could show me some of those changeling fighting drills, Bastion,” Live Wire suggested.

“I don’t know that many, but sure, I can show the couple I know. Is, umm, is Doldrum upset with me again?”

Starlight sighed. “Hard to say. I think you hit a nerve with him because you’re too much alike, is all.”

Bastion blinked. “I don’t get it.”

She chuckled. “Never mind, we’ll see how things go. Let’s focus on the immediate problem first?” She nodded at the de-volted colt.

Live Wire, meanwhile, did his best impression of a dead cockroach with his limbs in the air. “Yeah, I’m not supposed to walk for at least another half hour, so… a little help, please?”

Author's Note:

The conflict grows a little bit here, in the midst of some hopefully genuine progress for our upset Pegasus colt. Changing up what was wrong with him compared to Flight Camp was another challenge, and because it was central to his character in that canon, I couldn't make it an unknown factor in this one. Hence why it's just spelled out, and tied in with Starlight Glimmer's experiences in the matter.

Starlight really pulls the first two stories in this series together, honestly. She's a useful character, when used properly.