Salvation | Rebirth

Wild was ecstatic - it was finally time to resume his training, to hone his skills, and to learn new techniques. Ever since he was forced to deal with what he didn't wish to think of ever again, he desired nothing more but to return to the routine he knew and liked. Now was his chance to do it, and he gladly took it.

Despite the fight having him warmed up and ready for training, he didn't miss the chance to jog along with the other students, keeping a reasonable distance behind all of them, but never allowing them to be ahead of him too much. Then, without a pause, there were jumps. He didn't do them all that well, but he hadn't fallen once, which was good already. The warm-up continued with jumping from side to side while moving forward, which proved to be even more difficult but still manageable. Then he had to walk some distance in a half-squat, which seemed pretty awkward for an equine.

After the warm-up, Swift Strike divided everyone into pairs, and Wild went with an earth pony stallion of roughly the same age to practice proper distancing. With the help of Luna, the trainer explained everything to the young unicorn, and the training continued.

Wild's undivided attention was on his opponent. Neither were allowed to attack, so they stared at each other, moving in unison, closing or going farther away. The young unicorn trained his eyes on the earth pony's hoof movements as well as on his eyes. Quite a few times, he caught a move before it even happened and reacted accordingly. Meanwhile, Princess Luna was watching him, wondering if she would ever cross blades with him in the future. She saw much potential in the young unicorn and, given the chance, would also like to train him personally. Unlike her sister the diplomat, she was more of a warrior herself and knew quite a lot about combat, and in Wild, she saw the possibility to pass on her knowledge to a worthy pony, to continue the tradition of rigorous training, perfect form, sharp skills, and excellent techniques. He was clearly dedicated to this and didn't simply pick combat as a way to alleviate boredom.

Wild bumped his rear against one of the students, and a painful memory flashed before his eyes, making him stumble and almost fall. His heart beat faster, his breath became panicked, and his eyes opened wide. His partner stepped back, unsure of what to do. The young unicorn swiftly turned around, facing the one who bumped into him.

"I'm... sorry..." the pony said slowly, reeling away slightly from Wild, seeing his frightening expression. His pupils shrunk to pinpricks, his face was pale, and his ears were back, and beads of sweat could be seen on his forehead. He breathed loudly through his nose, holding himself from either running or fighting the pony.

Luna frowned, standing up, ready to intervene if needed. Swift Strike noticed the situation and was on his way.

Wild looked around, the haze in his head now gone. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm his nerves. What happened before didn't matter. That memory was just a memory. The pony who bumped into him didn't wish to harm him. There was nothing wrong.

The young unicorn turned back to his partner, shook his head slightly, and assumed the fighting position. His eyes were back to normal, his breathing stabilized, yet there was still cold sweat on him. The earth pony nodded with uncertainty, and the training resumed as normal, but Swift Strike excused himself to go talk to the lunar alicorn.

"I have seen it too," Luna said before he could speak, a deep frown on her face, "I'm afraid to think about what it could be."

"Is it a good idea to have him train with others?" the stallion asked, "I wouldn't want him to hurt anyone."

"He took a hold of himself in time," the alicorn noted, "His behavior is... troublesome, but I think he'll manage. If anything happens, I will be there to break it up."

"If you think so, Your Highness," Swift Strike nodded, "But he won't be coming here again if his behavior causes issues for the rest of the students. Hot-heads aren't welcome here."

"I don't believe it's the issue of being hot-headed," Luna disagreed, "I will have to find out if anything's wrong after the training is finished."

"Is it something more serious than that?" the eyebrows of the stallion rose, "That is out of my expertise, so I'll trust you on that, Your Majesty."

From then on, the training continued as it should. Wild moved on to practicing attacks, and Swift Strikes helped him see unusual by human standards angles of attacks. The young unicorn immediately had trouble with them, always wishing to default to what he knew. However, the trainer insisted he learned the more difficult path instead, and Wild did agree - it was simply the matter of being used to it. One of the new attacks was faking a side strike only to switch sides and, in the case of the sabre, to switch edge direction all in one go without overswinging. With a regular human body, it would be an awkward attack at best, but telekinesis was not limited in the way human arms were. Then there was the same kind of attack but changing downwards to upwards cutting motion along with edge alignment. It was far quicker with telekinesis than attempting to do it with arms. Undoubtedly, Wild would learn many new techniques just by virtue of being a unicorn.

His edge alignment proved to be good, and the dummies lit up green most of the time. However, it deteriorated quickly when he tried one of the newer attacks, so he had to focus on them in order to improve. One hit after another, he worked out a comfortably rhythm, and his entire mind was focused on correcting his mistakes and making sure he achieved good edge alignment. With time, he would be proficient with it, he knew, as long as he put enough effort into it.

After the attack section was finished, blocking practice came. Swift Strike paired himself with the young unicorn and tested him with the same attacks he had shown him just before. Wild was quick at blocking them, albeit he was slower than would be ideal. If Swift Strike simply ramped up the speed of those attacks, Wild would eventually be unable to keep up. The older stallion noted that for the future - perhaps his duel with the new student would've turned out differently if he thought of this during it. However, now it wasn't the time to take advantage of it - he was there to teach, to pass on his knowledge.

Then Swift Strike allowed Wild to attack as well in low intensity just to help him see how an experienced live opponent would react to attacks. The young unicorn was already trying to incorporate the new attacks, but they were somewhat slow and imprecise compared to his usual strikes. The trainer corrected him when necessary, and the two continued for a time.

Finally, it was time for dueling. Wild was paired with an earth pony he partnered with during distancing practice. The weapon of choice for the earth pony was a spear. The young unicorn went with his sabre again, expecting this duel to be somewhat difficult. A spear had mass, agility, and reach on its side, easily able to swat away a one-handed sword. However, a spear was only threatening as long as Wild didn't manage to go past the point. By then, he could wrestle the spear away or endure being hit with the wooden shaft until he could strike with his sabre.

The duel began, and the earth pony immediately moved forward, angling the spear appropriately. He attempted a quick thrust, but Wild jumped back and to the side, his own weapon raised to deflect. The earth pony continued his advance and attempted another stab, aiming for the neck. Wild duck and propelled himself forward past the spear tip. He used his telekinesis to grasp the pole of the spear and push it away, opening up the earth stallion for a strike. A quick slash to the neck ended this duel.

"You were too eager," Swift Strike commented, addressing the earth pony, "Yes, you do have a superior reach, but Wild is quite nimble and he used your own enthusiasm against you. You overreached and he exploited that to get in close where none of your attacks would be effective. You couldn't step back in time."

The earth pony nodded, accepting the criticism.

"Wild, you've done well," the trainer addressed the young unicorn now, "However, a more experienced opponent would know to keep their distance. Don't take this victory as a sign of spears not being dangerous to you."

Luna was quick to translate Swift Strike's sentences into what Wild could understand, and the young unicorn nodded. He knew not to underestimate his opponents, and he agreed with the trainer wholeheartedly. He would like to point out that he simply exploited what he saw, but he could not explain it with words or pictures if he tried.

After a few duels, Wild was up against a pegasus filly a year or so younger than him. Her weapon of choice was a pair of clawed hoofguards on the front hooves as well as a sword with a D-shaped handle as a backup. However, she also had a few narrow weighted daggers strapped on her chest within the easy reach of her muzzle. The duel began with her immediately taking off.

At first, Wild was unsure of what to do - he wouldn't dare throw his weapon at her, expecting he would miss and then would also be left without any means to defend himself. However, he couldn't reach her with it any other way. Her head then quickly moved, and a dagger flew down at the young unicorn. He jumped aside, avoiding being impacted in the head. Another dagger flew close by, narrowly missing the side of his ribcage. The third dagger was close as well, but he thought quickly and snatched it out of the air and threw it back at the pegasus. Unexpectedly, he didn't miss, hitting her right in the chest. He was never a good knife thrower, so he was genuinely surprised he hit a good spot. At that point, the duel ended, and the filly landed.

"You should've moved quicker and more unpredictably," Swift Strike told her, "You should also continue working on the precision of your throws. Narrowly missing is still, unfortunately, missing."

The filly nodded, although she obviously wasn't too happy about losing, but decided to keep it to herself. After all, it was a fair loss.

"You managed to hit her, but I'm unsure whether it's a lucky shot or a skill," Swift Strike told Wild, "You should practice knife throwing. Against a pegasus, it is rather difficult - the air from their wings can easily disrupt such throws. You managed to throw the knife at the time when they wouldn't, which is good, but don't expect to be lucky every time. Catching the knives mid-air is good as long as you have the reaction for it, you should train it as well. And lastly, a pegasus' knife bombardment can be nullified by having a shield."

Wild nodded after Luna made a translation. He knew shields were tremendously useful even if they didn't quite fit his style. Maybe getting a buckler - a small-diameter shield - would make sense. It wouldn't cover much of his body, but it would be good for deflecting strikes and missiles both. However, could he possibly do it with telekinesis? Obviously, he already managed to catch a knife mid-air. Perhaps he would be able to use his magic to act as a shield as well. He needed to look into it.

He ended up on the side of observation for the rest of the dueling practice. He decided to focus his attention on the pegasi - they employed unorthodox - by his standards - tactics, and learning how to counter them was paramount. Obviously, aiming for the wings was the right way to go, considering it would be difficult to armor them without limiting their mobility. Pegasi, being the flying creatures that they are, obviously would armor their underside whenever possible, so in a real fight, damaging that area would be difficult even if one managed to hit them.

After the end of the dueling practice, the training ended as well, and the tired ponies began to trickle back into the mansion. Wild found out he could simply stick his sabre to his side, and a scabbard appeared right on it, giving him the appropriate feel. It had two points of contact with his body: first, it was a lambda-shaped belt harness wrapping around his chest, going over both of his shoulders, and connecting in the middle of his chest. The second was a much simpler belt wrapped around his midsection. The young stallion knew it was all a magical illusion, but it felt quite real.

Princess Luna approached him, making him tense up.

"Do you want to talk about this?" she asked, visualizing what she meant. Wild simply shook his head and went past her.

He decided to go for a jog around the entire orphanage grounds to unwind himself and expend the rest of his energy. Another reason for that was one he attempted to push down - he needed to forget the resurfaced memory. Perhaps, if he was tired enough, he wouldn't have the energy to think about it, and so everything would continue as it should've been.

Princesses Celestia and Luna met again in the cabinet. The lunar alicorn told her sister what happened during training.

"It's the second time something like this happened," Celestia said, and Luna nodded, both knowing what happened when the former first met Wild, "I'm still unsure what to think... Why is he so averse to the touch of others? Plenty of animals do avoid being touched unless they trust you, but they operate on instincts, not intelligent thought. Wild had already demonstrated a tremendous potential when it comes to the latter, so I'm unsure why he would continue to display the same aversion he had during our first meeting."

"I believe he is simply not telling us the whole story," Luna said, "His story is... strange. He claims to have never been to our old castle. If he spent his entire life in the Everfree, he would've visited it at least once. And... there is one more thing."

The alicorn paused for a moment, deep in thought.

"On the night of my return..." she worded carefully, for the memory still stung her, "I do not remember sensing Wild's presence anywhere in the Everfree. If I did, I would have... used him to my advantage."

"Do you think he's lying, then?" Celestia asked, frowning.

"Indeed, but..." Luna looked uncomfortable for a moment, "I feel like this isn't a lie done in malice, but one he made to, perhaps, protect himself. Perhaps he lied not to trick or fool us but because he simply doesn't trust us with the truth. Maybe he believes we will harm him if he says what really happened to him. I... cannot say I blame him if that's the case. No pony ends up in the Everfree by accident, and he could have very well gone there deliberately."

"I'm afraid to think of what happened to him to make him go there..." Celestia said in a quiet voice, her ears drooping.

"It hurts me just as much, my sister," the lunar alicorn nodded, "He is so young, yet he found himself in such a situation. I'm glad he was found when he was. Maybe he can be helped now that we know something is wrong."

Celestia agreed, and the two continued their discussion about who he could be and where he came from. The search for his parents continued, yet absolutely nothing came out of it to this day. No one had ever seen Wild before, although the princesses did have to visit a few ponies who looked close to him and could be his relatives. However, every such lead was a dead end. No inconsistent stories, no lies, nothing that would prompt the princesses to believe any of those ponies had anything to do with Wild.

If there was something, it was hidden deep and hidden well.