The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers (Enhanced & Augmented)

by scifipony

Chapter 1: PTSD

Author's Note:

Following Chapter 30, Book 2 continues the saga with a new AU story line with ten new chapters. Book 1 is The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers, rewritten and remastered with new material.

Book 1 -
The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers

Sunset Shimmer's voice echoed through the abandoned Crystal Caves deep below Canterlot. "Hey, you foals, this is a lab practicum, not study hall. Some of you are going to join the guard and for the rest of you, this is self-defense training. Shoot already!"

A flash bang lit the reflective dark caves electric blue, Eye Bee's aura color. I cringed and backed into the hard edge of a faceted stalagmite. The icy glass surface against my flank shocked my heart into beating harder and I stifled a scream. My weak reaction made me want to hit myself.

Yes, I had spent my last half-year leading an almost normal life, attending school, finding housing. I'd lived on the street some of that time. Who knew that if you insisted on not cashing in your scholarship chit, you'd have to pay to attend school. Bits wiped out, I did what I had to, and I'd done it before. Getting jobs had been problematic and sometimes frustrating, with me needing to go unnoticed by anypony who might be interested in somepony that looked a lot like me. I made my way, nevertheless, living around ponies that didn't make a living hurting other ponies. Why did all that soft living magnify the horror of all I'd lived through the previous year? Why did it make me lose my courage when all I faced were flashes of light in the darkness?

The previous three years, I'd acted the foal. I'd lived like I was invincible. I'd learned to fight. I'd done bad things, used and abused my body, but I had protected ponies.

I cringed. Maybe the wrong ponies.

The bangs and crackles nearby, the reflections of colored lights, and the relived memory sawed away at the callus I gained living all that badness with a serrated knife, making me bleed emotionally.

A black and white photograph in The Manehatten Times summed up my nightmares. It had been night and the photographer captured on Kirlian film an image by firelight of a nameless blank flank filly in pigtails, her horn aglow, sitting amongst a dozen injured ponies. Naked, drops and splashes of what could only be red drenched her. Her braided mane, her face, her coat, her hooves. Her hooves pressed against a pony's ragged chest wound. Nebulosity pulsed around torn-clothing compresses held against six ponies dragged within range of her horn in a makeshift field hospital that had been gathered around her. She wrapped a bandage on another pony's leg.

That filly was me.

I was responsible for saving lives in the aftermath of the explosion. I'd gotten the building evacuated by acting like a terrorist maniac, which was appropriate considering I'd been tricked into setting the bomb.

Carne Asada had started a gang war that day. I'd worked to become her bodyguard but I'd let myself be transformed into much worse by praise for all I'd achieved.

A green flash. Gold sparkles from a flubbed spell shot away to my right.

I'd convinced Vice-Headmare Maple to admit me without telling the headmare of the school I was there. For weeks, I'd thought I'd found paradise.

Foal!

My luck, Running Mead, the boss of Lower Canterlot discovered me. He hinted at Carne Asada's demise and my position in the syndicate before and after that event. The opportunity to attend Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns was irreplaceable—without the princess knowing I was there, without the knowledge of rivals in the syndicate who didn't like how I'd departed suddenly. I'd suffered with so many holes in my magic training, I was baffled as to how I'd succeeded as well as I had.

Experience taught me I wanted to be an ordinary nopony. One not forced to employ battle magic.

Running Mead blackmailed me into becoming his enforcer. It paid the bills. The delicate edge between me attending school—and being protected by the emancipation papers in my registered name—as opposed to disappearing and throwing my current name and legal status away didn't make my life simpler, though it gave me a meager ability to negotiate my servitude.

There had been other nightmares that made this live-fire exercise too real at a primal level. In the Hooflyn gang war, nopony fought with Stun. I clenched and cringed deeper into shadow. My instincts denied what I heard wasn't the magnitude more deadly Force.

Trembling, I actually wanted somepony to stun me, to get it over with. My over-trained reflexes wouldn't allow it. I looked around myself like a frightened deer, my eyes wide, working to take in the alien landscape of crystal outcrops that populated the caverns below Canterlot. The slippery-eel of a spell, Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear, required hyperawareness. My agitation fought that, but I suspected the spell nonetheless provided some camouflage.

Sunset Shimmer's arrogant voice boomed through the sound of ricochets and shooting fizzles. She sounded closer.

"That goes double for you, Glimmer. You were admitted without proof of your capabilities. You won't pass my practicum by simply being the last pony standing!"

The alpha mare of the school had seemed relatively nice that first day she showed me around. I'd made myself seem low level. I'd intentionally goofed a spell and splashed a rainbow glow on everypony and her in one of the stairwells, and incensed teacher. (She'd missed I'd powered the spell to fifth level because she was self-absorbed.) Sunset Shimmer had lost interest, which I suppose was what I'd wanted.

Anonymity.

Strobing flashes of magenta, pink, and topaz scintillating off hundreds of faceted surfaces announced a new fire fight. Not close, though. I forced myself to breathe.

In...

Out...

In...

Nopony would set me on fire if I wasn't careful. No lion-bird would dive-bomb me and mine to smash me to splinters of bone. It wasn't a lightning storm: No monster would savage me to teach me that I could fight, and that I no longer had to be chattel.

This... wasn't real.

I whispered, "Dial it back. Nopony's getting hurt. Practice. Training. You like doing that. You taught ponies these things—"

Horse apples. My mind knew better and scoffed.

This game made me crazy!

A bang sounded fifteen pony lengths away, on the other side of a jagged crystal curtain of stalagmites. I reflexively renewed my "invisibility" spell; etched into my retinas were the positions of crystal spikes and purplish-red quartzite clusters. If the lights and translucency confused my eyes, they had to confuse everypony's eyes, right?

If I didn't understand my surroundings, I couldn't convince ponies they saw those surroundings instead of me. Glowing digits spinning through my sight like comet-like floaters in my eyes reassured me my maths were right and balanced.

I hissed. "Keep calm—"

Saying it made me tremble and clench, though silence had returned. I wanted to scream! Disgusted with myself, I reached my muzzle into my saddlebag like an earth pony. I didn't trust I could juggle even one spell. Probing with my tongue through broken pencil leads and crumbs, I found a slice of valerian root amidst the litter at the bottom. Valerian was legal for adults—and I was legally adult thanks to my papers—but contraband at school.

I didn't care!

I needed calm, by force if necessary.

I did not like admitting I was broken on at least one level. You trying living through what I did!

I loathed the idea of unleashing the prizefighter, bodyguard, and gang lieutenant chained inside, but the whip of self-preservation would not be restrained. It had saved my life many times. It didn't care if its bearer was desperate to become a good pony that helped everypony overcome the oppression of society and cutie marks. It simply wanted me to survive.

Valerian tasted like dirt. This fibrous slice was no different as I crunched on it. I'd barely begun when Sunset Shimmer spoke from almost on top of me.

"Maybe I'll just shoot you myself!"

It was dark and somehow I sensed the digits in the unicorn's aura before the in-teleport instantiated. That let me deduce the approximate balance node of the pony's exit target before the pop. By reflex, I balanced the same math her aura presented, my mind absorbing her numbers from the magic pulse as I applied a two pony length transform on three axes. It was almost as good as if I'd queued the spell and spun it up myself.

My perception of time slowed as it always did within the spell's effect. I saw Sunset appear. Green eyes flicked my direction in slow-motion. She's seen me. Static discharge like lightning consumed reality and plunged me into the frigid darkness of vacuum, those few instants in-between where I could do nothing but feel my sweat flash freeze as I held my breath.

Bang!

I was back. Reflex drilled by repetition turned me into a flesh and blood machine, eyes ranging about, muscles twisting to counter-act renewed gravity. I'd appeared above and behind her within a tenth of a second.

I'd expected her to be good enough to sense my entrance as I had hers. She did not disappoint. She rolled, and slid aside onto her belly, frost steam from her teleport swirling in a smoky cylinder to splash into her where she fetched up, horn up ready to shoot.

What she didn't know was that I could cast Mirror Shield. The more threatened I felt, the more likely it would work.

Her Stun spell flashed off at a normal to her angle of attack against the plate of my glassy blue-green apparition. I dropped the remaining half-pony length, knees flexed. Hard-learned quick draw techniques let me queue spells, and in a battle situation, I did so without thinking and had while in-between. Queued spells weren't prepped. More like templates. It made targeting inaccurate, but in close quarters, hoof lengths were the difference between a neck strike and a chest strike, which made no appreciable difference if you got hit with super-heated air. Having cast Mirror, I instinctively brought up Force, queuing child spells in a spiral sequence. Of course I queued Force. It had been my worst spell for the longest time, but I'd defeated my first monster with it, so it always came up. I'd become marginally better and, with it, I'd defeated a second feathered monster that had practically succeeded in killing me.

So.

Of course.

Now.

It queued.

Didn't matter that Sunset Shimmer was no monster, not one copper bit.

She leapt at me. Intuition insisted instinct was correct. Her move made it hard not to shoot her. In the three and a half years since I'd run away and started this whole misbegotten adventure, I'd never used Force to offensively harm a pony.

Defensively?

Well, that was another story. I'd wrecked property often enough—that was easier considering how my magic worked and how trainers had explained it to me—but never a pony intentionally. I wasn't convinced it was impossible, however. That scared me. Especially when I started casting before I was consciously aware I'd begun.

I jumped but twisted midair, principles prevailing over instinct. I blasted the stalagmite I'd cringed beside into pea gravel. Bits ricocheted and stung. I next melted a glowing gash on the ceiling. Then, as I inadvertently faced the golden unicorn, I set myself on fire with the backlash from stifling the third force spell even as I cast it.

And— I had been casting it. No mistake. I'd aimed a pony length short of her face. The plasma bloom from end of the cylindrical friction apparition would have splashed her point blank, setting my aggressive teaching assistant's head ablaze.

My mind supplied what happened to kernels of corn suddenly overheated.

I registered searing pain. I dropped, slid along the ground, and rolled more from shock than the sight of flames that guttered and whooshed around my eyes, or the smell of burnt fur. Mine. I’d gotten my forehead mostly extinguished before Sunset Shimmer conjured a bucket of water from the safety table to finish the job. She doused me with my mouth open, gasping.

I coughed liquid as I fought not to drown. Nauseating smoke drifted in white layers along with acrid crystal dust from what I'd pulverized, making me cough and gag as I tried to recover. Mucus, and probably blood, dripped from my lips as I gasped and choked.

It took painful few minutes, but eventually I lay there quiet, chest hurting, shivering and humiliated. My throat burned. So much for me discreetly observing conventionally educated unicorns to see how they performed magic differently than the gutter trash I transformed myself into. I'd been homeless by my own choice, and I'd willing become a gangster, or was that a mobster? What was I doing here?

I heard the clatter of hooves surrounding us. My classmates. Right. They got to ponder the street tough brought down my her own misfire. I felt almost humiliated enough to cry.

Almost.

Sunset Shimmer said, "Show's over here fillies and colts. Class dismissed. I'll post your grades next week and give my critiques to the teacher... Class dismissed! Dismissed now, or do you want me to reevaluate what I thought of today's performances?"

I levered myself up as my retreating classmates grumbled, audibly wondering what I had done. Right, ponies, that was a piss-poor example of battle magic. Hope my comedy act entertained you! Hurting from burns and scorches to my forehead and right side, I didn't look back at her or anypony else as I walked away.

"Not you, Glimmer."

Of course not. I shivered, but didn't look as she lit her horn with Illuminate. The sound of the other student's hooves echoed off the crystals surrounding us and died in the distance.

"I counted five spells going off in... Let's say, three seconds. Don't be a scaredy-pony. Look at me, Glimmer!"

I looked at the hefty mare. She was built like an earth pony, though I judged that my smaller frame was more muscle than hers. A bright white sphere of a second level Illuminate spell drowned out her aura, making her yellow hide and red-and-yellow mane glow as if she were truly on fire. It shadowed her face. She had a scorch mark where she'd skirted the proximity effect of my first bolt, just above that curious fire-eclipsed sun cutie mark on her flank. Star cutie marks reputedly indicated high degrees of magic. Was a sun a star, semantically? She cleared her throat and I looked at her face. In the thaumalight, her green eyes shimmered balefully.

Best to change the subject. "Are you joining the guard? You seem pretty good at this stuff."

"Nothing so prosaic, blank flank." She chuckled. "Celestia—" She didn't say Princess Celestia, you know, the one with a full sun on her rear end. No more than I did, but I had my own reasons for disrespecting our monarch. "—is grooming me to run Equestria one day. Let's call it six spells in ten seconds, if we count that spiffy invisibility spell you couldn't keep powered up for trying. Stars, you'd probably have kept on firing them off if it weren't for your inept clumsiness."

Powering wasn't the issue. It wasn't battle magic; Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear required constant hyperawareness that my frayed nerves had made casting it into a foalish endeavor. Shrug it off. White Towel had taught me to queue spells so he could train me as a prizefighter—others had to know how to queue, also. The ability did not, could not make me stand out. "So?"

"So! You're a high level unicorn. Nopony in her right mind should have assigned you this class! Celestia sent you to test me, didn't she?"

Considering that I feared being found out by— Me, in league with Celestia!? I starting snorting.

The herb I chewed gave me clarity and thankfully numbed the increasing pain of my burns. The snorting and the necessary jaw movement did not eject the chaw, but did let her see I held something in my mouth. "What's that? Spit that out!"

I complied and spat, and she caught the gooey mess of fibers midair.

I didn't know if using battle magic instead of defensive magic was grounds to get me expelled—might, if Sunset Shimmer phrased it right, her being groomed by Celestia and all. Contraband probably wouldn't make it worse. Wait, being groomed by Celestia could be construed in a different way—

My head wasn't working too well all of a sudden.

She levitated the disgusting chaw, sniffed, and tucked it in her pack. "Not Celestia's stalking horse, then. You are a fascinating mare, blank flank. There appears to be many things we can teach each other, Glimmer, after we get your wounds healed."

As she turned and led me away as surely as if I wore a bridle, I rolled my eyes and cursed silently.

Was Canterlot filled with blackmailers?