What Remains II: After the Fall

Alistair’s skittered up and down the pages of the large spell tome laid across his lap, intently reading every page of the thick text for all of its arcane secrets. He’d been gladly reading in privacy for the better part of a week, and it seemed he wasn’t even halfway done with book as it was.

A light knock came against the door to his small quarters, followed by a familiar mare poking her head in.

“Still reading that book, eh?” exclaimed Shale Press with a grin. “Would’ve thought you’d get bored of it by now.”

“I don’t have much of anything else to do that’s productive,” replied Alistair with a shrug. “If there’s anything important I’m going to get done, it’s this book.”

“Well…” said Shale as she stepped into the room casually. “How about you take a break for a little while and I take you down to the practice rooms for a bit? Get the blood circulating while teaching you a thing or two.”

Alistair raised a questioning eyebrow. “Would your master allow this?”

“Lord Eclipse was the one that suggested it in the first place,” she replied dutifully. “He understands that reading a book can only teach you so much if you never learn to apply it. Now come on.” She gestured out the door enthusiastically, seeming to have her own motivation for getting him to leave the room.

Nodding in acceptance, Alistair rose from his bed and followed after her.

A few minutes later the two stood in a large stone chamber, with large fluorescent tubes cascading abrasive white light down onto the dully colored floor. Several large target blocks had been erected at the end of the room, just waiting to be struck by a bolt of whatever magic the sender could come up with.

Alistair stood at the other end of the room, feet spread evenly apart as he breathed slowly in concentration. Blue auras of magic sizzled in the palms of his hands, their colors a bit darker than normally, but still emitting small, dazzling sparks of light. Inhaling one last time, Alistair’s eyes flashed open.

Thrusting his right hand outwards, a crackle of electricity shot out from the tips of his fingers, whizzing in a flash across the room until colliding with the small stone construct, exploding it in a single concentrated blast.

“That’s good,” congratulated Shale from off to the side. “But try to use less familiar spells; I’m sure you know others.”

Nodding at the statement, Alistair prepped for a different attack. Clasping his palms together, he focused his magic into the collective power of both hands and centered it on the entire space of his balled fists. Throwing his hands above his head, he broke the locked position and made a wide sweeping motion toward one of the pillars.

Materializing below one of the monolithic constructs, a whirlwind of air suddenly appeared out from under the flow, swirling aggressively around the heavy piece of architecture while simultaneously lifting into the air. As the obelisk slowly rose off the ground by just a few inches, its inner masonry shattered abruptly, crumbling the stone into small chunks of dust.

“Aggression isn’t always the key,” added Shale. “Less destructive spells can become more powerful than you realize if you know how to use them. Try some from the tome.”

Grunting at the request with an irritable edge, he combed his mind deeply in search for something he had recently retained. The problem was, there was just so much written upon the text in a single page alone, remembering the specifics of any spell performance required repeated memorization, or preferably, the book right in front of him.

Unfortunately, Alistair had none of these. And yet…there was something he recalled, something simple and ineffective for his tastes, but a single spell had stuck after all those hours of reading. Mentally shrugging, he decided to perform it.

Reaching out with his right hand, he charged the magic to the top of his palm and thrapped it sides ways through the air, as if throwing in invisible ball forwards. On command, a blinding white light shout from where he thrust his hand, sending spots dancing through his eyes as he stumbled back in confusion.

Rubbing his eyes while immediately dissipating the humming magic in his hands, he couldn’t help but stop to catch his breath, feeling a much larger wave of exhaustion than he initially realized.

“That’s good,” greeted Shale as she walked over to him. “Not all the spells you use have to be harmful. Some can serve other purposes, and maybe even be more useful than fighting all together.”

Alistair responded through several heavy pants, arching his back forward while resting his hands against his knees. “You talk as if your one of these Night Lords yourself. I thought you didn’t practice magic?”

Shale patted the center of her straight mane, gesturing to the glaring lack of a unicorn horn. “I already have a pretty large handicap in that department. But even then, you can pick up on the proper ways to use magic instead of actually performing it yourself. It’s tactics really. And even then, I have my own preferences for combat.”

“Oh,” said Alistair alarmingly as he rubbed the edge of his cheek in remembrance. “Those punches back in Ponyville were pretty bad, you know. I’m surprised you didn’t break any of my bones.”

The mare shook her head bashfully, a bit ashamed at her past actions against the boy so many yeas ago. “I understand hoof-to-hoof fighting can be useful,” she explained. “But when I can I prefer to use—” she reached behind her back and brandished a gleaming steel saber seemingly out of thin air, “—this.”

“My goodness,” exclaimed Alistair as he took a few steps back from the long blade. “How did you take that out so quickly?”

Smirking, Shale sheathed the blade back into a belt along her torso. “Trick of the eye, grabbed it when you weren’t looking. Mix some speed into the mix and well…now you know.”

“I’ve never seen you use a sword before,” Alistair noted. “Has this been a hidden secret of yours or did you pick up the practice in the three months since I last saw you?”

“A bit of both. Dabbled in dueling for awhile but finally decided to go all in after our little rumble back on the train all those years ago.”

“Really?” Alistair said as he crossed his arms. “What prompted you?”

“That you were able, despite my best blocks and counters, to still grip me tighter than a metal vice and electrocute the stuffing out of me. If even somepony as skilled in martial arts as I am can’t defend against that, then maybe it’s time to pick up a new style of fighting.”

“You don’t seem to be bitter over it,” he stated sincerely. “I would assume you’d still carry a dislike for me after everything that happened?”

“Are you still bitter at me?” Shale countered, turning his own question on its head and redirecting it back.

Coughing in sudden surprise, Alistair promptly shook his head. “I don’t hate you if that’s what you’re asking. I still remember what you said, what you did. I understand you had a mission and all but it’s hard to shake off getting stomped twice in a row by the same mare.”

“But it’s more difficult trying to tell myself that things are different now, that there was a justification to it all and a higher purpose you served. All these years I thought you were just part of some agency that hated humans and wanted me dead. But then I find out that it’s bigger than that, that a chance to stop Celestia’s reign of tyranny has finally been put into motion.”

A silent shout of success rang through Shale’s mind, Alistair’s utterance of Celestia’s true nature still fresh in his mind. Days earlier she’d been unsure and even skeptical if the boy still harbored such strong ideas against the mad tyrant, and to her joy, he still most certainly did.

If it hadn’t been for her grand reveal of her true motives back in the Griffon Kingdom, if it hadn’t been for her excellent skills with persuasion, and if it hadn’t been for her manipulation of his absolute hatred toward his former friend Twilight Sparkle, who knows what would have became of him?

Smiling in satisfaction, Shale gently patted his shoulder with her hoof. “You’ve learned much in the short time you’ve been with us. Perhaps you’d wish to stay longer, just to understand a bit more?”

Alistair shook his head immediately, not needing even a moment’s contemplation. “Oh yes, I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”