Escalation
Fangbreaker Landing was not exactly Vanguard Clash's first choice of destination when it came to spending some free time in the fortress. The Landing was a section of the fortress's roof, one adjacent to the main keep where the Fort Commander resided. Pegasi flying in from long range patrols landed here when they needed to access the upper parts of the fort straightaway. Scouts with crucial reports would be able to immediately run to the Fort Commander's office as opposed to landing by the gates and making their way up. It was also a good place to train for pegasus flight acclimation thanks to the strong, icy winds that frequently battered the place, and the space was large enough for an entire flight to perform drills on. All in all, it was a barren, often empty, open air space the nopony without any official business would want to go. Still, here he was, still clad in nightsteel, now with a layer of wolven fur given the strong wind at the moment.
"About time you showed up!"
Already in the middle of the Landing stood Pyre Valor, clad in nothing, not even a standard mage coat. Her horn glowed the dim red of a warming spell. This must be part of her endurance training. Vanguard noted that she should be on break as he was. "I'm trying to enjoy my break, Pyre," he said. "Freezing here isn't part of the plan."
Pyre Valor trotted over, her eyes darting about suspiciously. "Quiet down!" she hissed. "I need your help."
"What is it, then?" Vanguard asked. He dearly hoped it didn't involve the whole day.
"Every time I train here, I keep noticing a pony spying on me," Pyre replied. "But as soon as I focus on them for even a second, they run off. I want you to stay here and watch. If you spot somepony, do the signal so I can catch the nag."
"Alright," Vanguard said with a sigh.
"I'll pay you back," Pyre Valor said. "Now, douse me, will you?"
Vanguard would have said that this really wasn't the sort of thing he'd hold her to, but she was likely to react with spluttering indignation. They walked over to the sheltered portion of the landing, where Pyre had a barrel of water stored away from the buffeting winds. The contents were still liquid, though there were bits of ice already floating in it. He filled a dipper with his mouth, then dumped the contents on Pyre Valor. She shivered for a couple of seconds before trotting back out to the center of the Landing, the dim red glow around her horn brightening slightly as the water dripped from her mane and fur.
Maintaining that warming spell alone under these circumstances would have given any unicorn mage a good workout of their fire magic. Pyre Valor also practiced a few close combat moves on a stone post, combining hoof strikes with brief jets of fire.
For a while, Vanguard merely watched, letting himself admire her technique while she wasn't watching. The scent of another pony coming into the area put him on alert. Hold on...there were two scents. One of them was all too familiar, so he focused on the new one. A brief flash of yellow appeared out of the corner of his eye. Here was the tricky part. He couldn't make any obvious turn of his head or this observer would bolt, so he searched with his peripherals, a technique he had plenty of training in.
The culprit eventually entered his vision; a young unicorn mare, probably still a recruit, timidly hiding behind a pile of unused training dummies. She had wrapped her mage coat tightly around her, showing only a few hints of her yellow fur by her fetlocks. She trembled while she watched, while her ears flattened desperately into her head. Her long, orange mane was tied into a tight braid then wrapped into a bun likely to prevent it from flying in the wind and exposing her. Her tail was in a similar situation. She peeked past the pile as little as possible, barely exposing the top of her head. Clearly not some master spy or nefarious assassin, this. Time for the signal then.
As soon as Pyre turned towards his direction, Vanguard pursed his lips, then pointed them towards the unicorn's hiding spot. He wrinkled his nose to the right to indicate unicorn; a signal pattern the two of them had worked on since they were running around the streets of Bastion City, getting into fights and joining secret tournaments.
Pyre pursed her lips as well, gesturing acknowledgement. She swiftly turned towards the pile, as if she was simply making another training move. Her horn flared bright orange with that turn. A long stream of fire exploded from her horn, snaking across the ground, and forming a towering wall of flames along its trail. The blaze surrounded the pile before the other unicorn could so much as squeak out in surprise. She stumbled out of her hiding spot, tripping over her own hooves just to avoid being burned.
Pyre Valor's spell sequence was relentless. A green ray sprang from her horn, enveloping the other unicorn in a Dimensional Anchor. Her target was barely halfway through some basic fire protection spell when she was already dispelling it. A surprising move, actually. In duels, she usually did not bother removing fire protections, preferring instead to simply overwhelm them with far too much fire. This wasn't a duel, though, this was a lockdown. Through swift, relentless counters, she planned to simply demoralize her opponent into submission without harm.
Vanguard smiled. It only took that stumbling from earlier for Pyre to determine that her opponent was far inferior, thus undeserving of a relentless barrage of fire spells. Sure enough, the loss of her protective spell proved too much for this recruit. Her spell casting stopped, and she fell on her belly, front legs covering her head in terror. The fire walls dissipated as Pyre closed in. Vanguard checked the mare. A little bit of singed fur and not much else. Pretty good show of restraint.
That didn't mean Pyre stopped being Pyre though. She grabbed the other unicorn by the mage coat lapels, and lifted the poor recruit up.
"Why do you watch me, nag?" Pyre snarled. "You can't be angling for a fight with those moves, so you're not watching for weakness. Are you spying for somepony? Tell me who they are or I'll boil your eyeballs in your tears!"
"N...n...." the other unicorn spluttered.
Vanguard placed a hoof on Pyre's shoulder. With an annoyed glance at him, she let the other unicorn go with a shove.
"Easy," Vanguard said. "Tell us when you're ready, recruit. Start with your name, and go from there."
"My...my name is Star Song," the unicorn said, her voice still trembling.
"Why are you spying on me, Star Song?" Pyre snapped.
"Pyre..." Vanguard sighed.
"I wasn't spying!" Star Song blurted out. "I was just...I was just watching."
"Looking for pointers?" Vanguard asked. He could understand the roundabout way to do that. Pyre Valor was hardly mentor material. Vanguard eyed Star Song further. She was pretty young, probably newly transferred. She had that prim and proper city girl look to her. The mane style was efficient and academic. Her mage coat wasn't issued here. The stitches had a fancy pattern, and used gold thread. There was no hiding the Academy emblem along the collar. She was probably a young graduate from Arcanotropolis. Why they would send somepony so green to the farthest outpost in the north made little sense. Perhaps she requested this duty. Admirable.
"No..." Star Song replied. "My evocations are mediocre at best. I know that. I just...really like watching you train, Miss Pyre Valor."
Pyre's eyes narrowed. She had probably come to the same conclusion about Star Song's outfit. "Is that right?" she growled. "You find how the commoners train amusing, scholar? Think it's quaint how the non-academics just make up their techniques on the go?"
"No!" Star Song said. "I think it's beautiful! The way you weave your flames into your fighting moves...it's so wild and primal. You're so strong, and focused, and when you move, icy water just glistens, I mean you're so gorgeous—"
Star Song's mind appeared to have caught up with her lips at that point. She looked away, and pressed a hoof against her lips, her face flushed.
"Goregous?" Pyre asked softly. "You think I'm attractive?"
Star Song threw a few more very obvious, lovestruck, and embarassed, sidelong glances before nodding.
The moment Pyre Valor's shoulder tensed, Vanguard rushed in to stop her. He was too late. Her front hoof smashed into the side of Star Song's face, sending sending the poor mare sprawling across the ground.
"Call me a stallion, will you?" Pyre Valor snapped. "You've got some nerve, nag. I'll fight you, then. Come here!"
"Pyre, stop!" Vanguard said, his hoof against her shoulder firm. He glanced back at Star Song, who had not yet gotten up. He was sure the blow wasn't fatal so the poor recruit had either been knocked out with one blow, or the sheer shock of suddenly being struck after letting her feelings out like that. "She wasn't challenging you."
"Didn't you hear her call me a stallion?" Pyre asked. She briefly made a halfhearted attempt to follow up her attack before settling down.
"No, she didn't," Vanguard said. "She called you attractive."
"And what would a mare find attractive if not a stallion? She got what she deserved for trying to be clever."
Vanguard sighed. He should have expected this. In fact, he did. He just...didn't really have any opportunity, or reason, to draw her aside to talk about these things. The unicorn magi of Fangbreaker Fortress referred to her as a "Burning Genius", easily one of the best spell casters within the Northern Legion, and Pyre Valor lived up to those accolades. However, that sort of skill didn't come from being lucky at birth, or from a good pedigree. Pyre focused relentlessly on training and experience, throwing the need to know information she found frivolous away with her typical, irritated manner. That was fine...until she ran into these sort of messy circumstances.
"She wasn't— look, she wasn't trying to insult you," Vanguard said. "She called you attractive, as a mare." He leaned down on Star Song to check for injuries before making sure her mage coat was properly secure. A chill wind was still blowing across the Landing. Pyre, on her part, stared at him as if he had gibbered nonsense before doing a little dance.
"She's clearly a mare, Vanguard," Pyre Valor said. A little more tentatively this time. "Make sense."
Vanguard sniffed the air, then cleared his throat. That other pony was probably struggling not to let out a snicker at this point. "She is, Pyre. As a mare, she finds you, a mare, attractive. This was a declaration of love, and you answered with a swift hoof to the face."
"But that makes no—grah!"
Pyre pushed past Vanguard, using her telekinesis to lift Star Song by the collar. With a vigorous shake, she forced the poor recruit back to consciousness. Upon waking, Star Song looked around in a daze before remembering what happened. Her eyes widened, and a flush spread across her face. "U...um..." she mumbled. Her badly swollen cheek made it difficult to hear her.
"Listen closely, nag," Pyre growled. "I want nothing to do with your confused, nonsensical attraction. You will treat me as a professional, and patriotic legionnaire, no more and no less. I don't ever want to catch you eyeing me again. Is this understood?"
First, Star Song nodded frantically, when the reality of the situation began to seep into her mind, tears welled up in her eyes. She let out a sob. Vanguard pressed his lips together. Bad move.
"Stop. Crying."
Pyre's telekinetic grip tightened until Star Song choked. A second more, she let go. It took less than that for Star Song to bolt, still sobbing loudly. "Pathetic," she muttered. "How did she get here in the first place?"
"That was far too harsh, Pyre," Vanguard said. "You've scarred that poor mare for life."
"I agree."
Vanguard's brow furrowed at the sound of that soft, alto tone. Finally, she bothered to show up. Leave it to an illusionist to try to be theatrical at all times. "Captain Nightcanter," he said. "I recognized that scent."
Nightcanter brushed against Vanguard briefly as she faced Pyre. "I've got a glamer to hide my scent, Vanguard," she said. "I just like the feel of you smelling me."
"What do you want, Nightcanter?" Pyre asked. "The Landing's no place to train your fakery."
"I was observing poor Star Song's efforts," Nightcanter replied. "I was the one who encouraged her, you know. And she was just about ready to gather her courage until Vanguard here sniffed her out." She shrugged, then glanced back at the doorway. "This is my fault too, I suppose. I'll have to do something for her later."
Pyre's eyes narrowed. "So you confused her with your trickery, then set her on me?" she asked. "You've got some nerve—!"
"Oh, please," Nightcanter said. "I didn't trick her into anything. I was helping her out. I was helping you out."
"Speak plainly," Pyre Valor replied. "You've wasted my training time already."
The chill wind died down, as if awaiting Nightcanter's answer as well. She even looked around her appreciatively, relishing the continued opportunity for theatrics.
"Well, I was thinking 'how can Pyre Valor be so close to such a fine stallion like Vanguard Clash and not be rutting with him all the time?'" Nightcanter smiled slyly. "Maybe, it's because she's not interested in stallions at all, and hasn't realized it. Then, I conveniently find such a pretty young mare fetlocks over forelocks in love with her. It's perfect. Pyre Valor gets a pretty lover, and Vanguard is freed of the burden of being her only friend." Nightcanter pressed close against Vanguard, and encircled his foreleg with hers. "Free enough for me."
Vanguard responded first by pulling his foreleg free, then stepping back. Pyre, in a remarkable show of restraint, and some measure of curiosity perhaps, stayed still. "You wasted my time on such complete pointlesness..." she growled.
"You could have given it a chance," Nightcanter said with a pout. "She was adorable, and obviously as virginal as you. You two could have explored so much together."
"Shut your mouth!" Pyre Valor snapped. Her voice lowered, and took a formal tone when as she continued. There was only one reason she took on that tone, she was quoting the Prince. "The traditional Equestrian family, that of a father, a mother, and their children, is the building block that forms the foundation of Equestria. It is the only union of value as far as society and logistics are concerned, thus the union that ponies should aspire to." Her voice rose after that. "Of what value then is there in two mares rutting?"
Nightcanter sighed. "The Prince's Third Great Delve Decree," she said. "An incomplete quote, of course. Here, let me finish." Nightcanter apparently also had a quoting voice to use for the Prince. Hers, while also deep and formal, carried just a touch of deliberate exaggeration. "There are, and will continue to be, ponies among you who do not fit the mold of the traditional Equestrian family: those who are childless, those who wish to be with ponies of the same sex, those who wish to be with other races, those with unusual bonds. Do not punish or persecute these ponies for their inability to form traditional families. So long as the next generation remains secure, which shall be so long as there remain a great many fruitful, traditional, Equestrian families, I don't care what you ponies get up to with each other. Do not force me to involve myself and the Legion in your bedrooms, my little ponies, you will not like my solutions for underpopulation."
"So the Prince is lenient with failures," Pyre Valor said with a snort. "And that's what you aspire to, Nightcanter? What you aspire for me?"
"His Highness spoke only in terms of logistics and maintaining society as a whole," Nightcanter replied. "And only because he was being pestered by a bunch of uptight nobles in the Great Delve at the time. He's right, of course, but there's more to us than logistics. His Highness wisely said that he had no intention of trampling on the happiness of ponies as long as he and the Legion can protect Equestria. Come on, Pyre Valor, even you should be happy. I thought the loving embrace of a pretty mare would do it." She looked to Vanguard. "You think so too. Don't you, Vanguard?"
"I think you're a well-intentioned mare overstepping her boundaries, Nightcanter," Vanguard replied. "And I think we've spent enough time freezing on the Landing."
Nightcanter snorted. "Fine." She turned around to walk away. "I suppose I underestimated how frigid a master of fire spells could be. Next time, I'll pick—"
"Shut your horse mouth," Pyre Valor said. Nightcanter stopped, and looked back at this. "And you're warm, are you? I know some things about you and the disgusting things you get up to, Nightcanter."
"Wow," Nightcanter said with a bemused smile. "You may not be as sheltered as I thought, Pyre. Do share."
"There's no warmth in what you do, you discarded delvite princess." Pyre sneered. "You can't have foals. You sleep around because that brief pleasure's all your defective sex is good for."
The smile on Nightcanter's face faded. "That's...that's really blunt, Pyre Valor." She turned around, her horn taking on a glow. "I'm going to have to find out who told who until that tidbit got to you," she hissed softly. "But for now...I can't just take that lying down."
Pyre's horn flared as well. "It'll be the first thing you can't take lying down," she said. "Stand back, Vanguard, this might take most of the Landing."
Vanguard was already backing off at that point. He sped his pace just as a blast of flames erupted from Pyre, engulfing Nightcanter completely.
The flames hadn't died down when a dozen Nightcanters materialized around Pyre, all brandishing her favorite knife. Even he knew the answer to that. He raised a foreleg to shield his eyes. As he expected, a blinding flash of light burst from Pyre's direction, followed by a wave of heated air that blew his mane and tail back. Pyre reserved her Sunfire spell for duels and other single encounters. This time, a spherical explosion centered around her had come forth. Every image of Nightcanter would have been struck. Nightcanter herself, if she had remained close in that area, would have been badly burned.
With the initial salvo of spells out of the way, there was a brief period of silence for analysis. Pyre was breathing hard. She wasn't that exhausted yet, but she had been maintaining that warming spell for quite a while now. He doubted that she was going to keep relying on Sunfire. The extremely quick completion of the spell,and overall power, made it highly exhaustive, much more so than a typical fireball.
Nightcanter wasn't exactly at an advantage. Illusionists didn't excel in head on combat. She would have undoubtedly preferred watching from a hiding spot, slowly weaving her tricks while the enemy didn't know that a fight had even begun. She may be the fresher unicorn mage, but allowing herself to be baited into a situation a highly skilled evoker like Pyre preferred put them at an equal footing. She wasn't around, though. Her images had indeed been destroyed, but she had remained invisible. A typical Combination of Mirror Images and Mislead would have allowed her to turn invisible while feinting with a mob of illusions, buying her time if initial preparation was out of the question. Mislead invisibility didn't last long. Not only that, if the snow picked up again, it would be easy to pick her out through the displacement of snowflakes.
As if to echo Vanguard's sentiments, the wind picked up a bit as the beginnings of snowfall started. Nightcanter had to act soon.
Vanguard raised an eyebrow upon seeing Nightcanter suddenly appear behind Pyre with her knife ready. That was too simple. Was Nightcanter banking on Pyre expecting something grandiose? That wasn't happening. Pyre ducked low, a blade of concentrated flame sprouting from her horn. The knife whistled above her head, while she plunged the searing blade into Nightcanter's exposed belly with an upward swing of her neck.
Nightcanter simply blinked out of existence after that stabbing. Vanguard frowned. That's the second Mislead. Not even she could keep chaining that spell without tiring. Pyre's flame blade was a highly economical spell. If Nightcanter expected to turn this into a sudden fight of attrition, she was going to lose at their current rate of spells.
A loud scrape, like hooves sliding on slick, icy stone, came from behind Pyre. Had Nightcanter slipped while circling around for another sneak attack? Pyre quickly turned around, her blade burning even brighter.
What greeted her, though, was a large, blurry image of...something. Vanguard squinted at first, before his eyes widened; Phantasm. Nightcanter must really be serious. He concentrated on the phantasm. The image was a frightful illusion custom-crafted from the target's psyche. It was powerful, but so specific that onlookers could only see haze. Still, even the size and general shape should tell him something. It was bigger than a typical pony, but not gigantic. This was no brachyurus, ursan, or dragon. What did Pyre see, he wondered. It was quadrupedal, and that was some sort of tail. Pyre faltered at the sight, her blade wavered as she took a step back. She ground her teeth at this, as if the sight of her own fear infuriated her. The image drew nearer.
"You'll cooperate, won't you?" Nightcanter suddenly whispered from beside Vanguard. She was already fading into view, her image just slightly translucent. "No fair helping your friend in a duel." With that, her magic enveloped him. He looked at his forelegs just in time to see them fade from sight. Before he could question why she had turned him invisible, a loud cry from Pyre Valor brought his attention back ahead.
A raging inferno had engulfed the phantasm. The flames tore across the Landing in a brilliant flash before ascending. The heat from that display left Vanguard sweating...in the middle of a brewing snowfall. When the flames partly dissipated, though, the sight of himself running out of the blaze with his caparison on fire suddenly gave his invisibility sense.
"What were you doing there, you—!" Pyre shouted, the look on her face even more fearful than when she faced the phantasm. Nightcanter wasn't beside Vanguard anymore. He considered yelling a warning, but stopped. Nightcanter wasn't going to murder Pyre, though those flames almost made it seem that the feeling wasn't mutual. In the event of a defeat, this was still good training, not considering the extremely bitter barbs from earlier. Perhaps, this might even teach Pyre to be less confrontational.
Pyre ran towards his image, and had already negated her own fire spell. As she came close, though, realization must have dawned on her. Her hoofsteps slowed, and she stared at Vanguard's image. Nightcanter appeared behind her once more, knife in hoof. The layers of distraction took their toll. Pyre reacted much slower, spinning around without creating her flame blade. She couldn't even duck low enough. She blocked the knife strike by slamming her foreleg against Nightcanter's, the blade gashing her fetlock slightly. Her horn flared, and a jet of flame struck Nightcanter...who caught fire briefly.
Vanguard was about to rush in to put out the flames when he noticed three things: his image was still there, the gash across Pyre's foreleg was surprisingly small for such a close call, and that the burning Nightcanter didn't utter a sound.
An answer came to mind; Shadow Conjuration. The image was real enough to very slightly interact with real objects, thus actually scratching Pyre. If that still wasn't Nightcanter then...
The image of Vanguard distorted even as the fake Nightcanter continued to flail around. The dark curly mane turned into purple ringlets, and the nightsteel turned to padded cloth hiding a dark blue coat. Nightcanter slashed hard at Pyre's exposed back.
It must have been raw instinct that made Pyre turn. Perhaps, the lack of screaming tipped her off at the last moment. Regardless, she turned, and blocked so that the knife merely sliced into her other foreleg, a bit deeper than the last one. Blood trickled down the cut, and dripped onto the stone floor.
The response was both instant and furious. A blast of fire forced Nightcanter back. She staggered out of the blast with her foreleg smoking slightly.
"Well," Nightcanter said between ragged breaths. "Drizzle Cloud was right. You are a one-mare spellfire line."
Pyre took a step forward, her horn still glowing. "I'll spay you with fire, whoring sow," she snarled. Flames rose from her horn, coalescing above her, slowly forming the image of a large, reptillian head; Dragon Breath. Nightcanter was readying her own spell as well. That was it, Vanguard ran in to intervene. The sound of horns at a distance beat him to it. A group of pegasi were landing.
"Looks like I'll keep my defective sex a while longer," Nightcanter remarked. She cancelled her spell, and trotted off.
With a snort, Pyre did the same. She walked towards Vanguard once Nightcanter was gone. There was no missing her shaky legs. She leaned heavily on Vanguard, then gestured towards where she had left her mage coat.
"Not a bad day of training, right?" Vanguard said.
"No..." Pyre said with a long exhale. "Too much nonsense involved, but not bad."