The League of Talented Magicians

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.

Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 3: Breaking and Entering is Magic

Shining could almost hear the sound of his mind snapping as the mad passage through Discord’s teleportation screeched to a halt. Literally. The pair had sprinted into existence out side of the Lunar Battalion’s headquarters in an abandoned alley. But instead of appearing like a normal teleport, Discord’s teleport fired the pair out of the wall of the alley, shooting lines of flame along the ground where insanity and sanity met, making little battling flames.

Shining shook his head and caught his breath. Nothing he had ever done had been as heart-wrenchingly, mind-wearingly terrible as that small trip had been. And the sad part was that they hadn’t gone far. The Lunar Battalion Headquarters was just on the opposite side of the castle from the Solar Guard Headquarters. Shining looked at the big, dark, sleek building and wondered what went on in there. It was true he was personal friends with the General of the Lunar Battalion who shared the same rank with Luna as he did with Celestia, but he knew very little of the rest of the battalion.

“He’s in there.” Discord said.

“Well why didn’t we just teleport inside?”

“Too strong of a magic defense system. I was hoping that I could get in with some influence from you, but I doubt that’ll work. Look.” Discord said, pointing an albino arm towards the front doors of the building. Shining read the magical message on the door and groaned.

“To all visitors,

The Lunar Battalion is busy preparing for their annual games with the Timberwolf tribes of the north. Thus, the Headquarters building will be locked up. Please don’t try to enter unless you have a death wish. Have a lovely night.

Love,

General Crimson Moon Steelhooves.”

“How cute. A hoof casted letter and all.” Discord commented as slashed at the magic, making the message distort, changing the words around in a dyslexic’s nightmare.  “With that, there’s only one thing we can do now.”

“Which is?” Shining asked.

Discord smiled, and his one fang looked all the more deadly since it was made of sharpened marble. “Use the back door.”

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“This is ridiculous. Ugh, you weigh a ton, you know.” Shining grumbled as he strained to keep his magic panel real, since it held Discord afloat next to a fourth story window. If he fell, he wouldn’t get hurt, but everypony with in a six block radius would hear the sound of his impact.

“Shut up you!” Discord hissed. He had been unsuccessfully picking a window lock with his finger that he magically contorted into a pick for the last 20 minutes.

“Oh damn this all!” Discord shouted aloud as he changed the window into rice pudding. He hopped through the glass covered windowsill into the building. He poked his head outside just as Shining heard an alarm go off on the inside of the building.

“Come on!” Discord shouted down to his partner in crime.

Shining quickly let lose a chain of swears under his breath as he made a set of stairs from magic and sped up them to the newly opened window. He jumped through the window into the building and glared at the awaiting Discord. Shining was about to reprimand him for his idiocy, but one of the Units of the Lunar Battalion charged up the stairs at the end of the corridor.

“Halt in the name of Phobos Unit of the Lunar Battal…..Sweet Luna! It’s mother-bucking Discord! Take him out!!!!” shouted the captain of the Unit. At that, five earth ponies charged at the pair, while four unicorns charged up their horns and three more pegasi pulled out bows and notched their arrows. Shining sighed while Discord cracked his knuckles.

“Oh this is inconvenient.” Said Discord is such an unbelievable way that Shining actually heard giggles between his words.

“Discord, if you hurt any one of them……” Shining threatened.

“I’ll just knock them out. Boy scout’s honor.” Discord said, crossing his fingers.

“Whatever.” Shining said as he made a magical shield appear just in time to deflect thee arrows and four magical spells away from the pair. Shining kept reflecting the magic and archery attacks while Discord knocked out the earth ponies in a short order. When he did the unicorns bellowed and charged at him, but Shining took care of them before they could get near Discord. He made a corridor-wide reflective shield at just the right time, when the unicorns were sprinting, which ricochet them onto their pegasi teammates. Discord knocked them all out and tied them up with summoned ropes.

The pair walked down the stairs at the end of the one-corridor floor. Shining was still alert, but Discord was reveling in the fight.

“Did you see me take out that one with the brown mane?”

“We should be…”

“You didn’t. Hmmf. Maybe I should turn one of them into a poodle to make you notice.

“You will do no such thing!” Shining shouted, stopping Discord on the stairs. “These are respectable ponies that risk their lives every day. You will NOT play with them like toys.”

“Fine, fine.” Discord said waiving away the tense atmosphere. “I just hope we get to have another go. I want to see how the Battalion has changed over the centuries.”

Shining sighed. “I swear that you’re having fun.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Discord said with the most impressive innocent face in all of reality.

“Let’s just find this Aspect guy.” Shining said as he stepped off of the stairs and rounded the corner. “I don’t want to…….horseapples.” He said as he magicked up a large shield to protect himself and Discord from the onslaught of a few Units worth of magical assaults, arrows, and thrown weapons.

“He we go again.” Shining and Discord said together, Shining with a sigh, Discord with a giddy laugh.

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After the pair had passed through floor three and floor two without getting themselves hurt, but coming very close to death on various occasions, they stopped for a breath on the last staircase down to the floor level.

“This really reminds me of ‘The Raid: Redemption.’” Discord said between ragged breaths.

“What?” Shining said softly, out of breath.

Discord rolled his eyes. “It’s a fantastic movie.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Well it isn’t from this dimension exactly……” Discord said standing up.  Shining followed his lead, standing up as well. He tilted his head and looked at the stairs for a second.

“Did you hear something?”

“No. It must be your lack of imagination.” Discord replied.

“I could have sworn…UGHN!” Shining shouted as he felt something hit his abdomen. It hit him hard too, because he heard some of his ribs break. But he didn’t have time to worry about that, because he was thrown from the top of the stairs to the lobby of the first floor.

“Shining!” Discord yelled before Shining could hear some resounding metal-on-stone noises. Then he heard something crack loudly.

“How did you do that? I’ve been trying to break this marble since the start of season 2!”

But Discord’s prattle was cut short as Shining heard a lot of thumping and Discord’s words vibrating unnaturally. Shining found out why, as Discord came down the stairs, toboggan-style.

Shining tried to get up to help the disheveled avatar of Chaos, but the pain in his abdomen was too great. He became aware of nine set of eyes on him, so when he rolled onto his back, he found a unicorn with a black coat and surprisingly, a Timberwolf a pawful of glowing claws at his neck.

“Somepony turn on some lights. I want our little burglars to see who they’ve incurred the wrath of before we finish them off.” Said a disembodied voice a few feet away from Shining.

Suddenly, lights blazed on the first floor, and pony dressed in all black seemed to melt out of the shadows a few feet away from Shining’s head.

“Hey Crimson.” Shining said with a wince.

“I don’t know what he’s done to you Shining,” the General of the Lunar Battalion said as he pulled the cowl back from his uniform, revealing his long blood-red mane and sleek, yet dense, silver coat “but he’s gonna pay.” He said, throwing a heavy punch at the prone Discord.

“No!” Shining shouted as he made a shield between Crimson’s gauntleted hoof and Discord’s marble head.

“Crimson glared over at Shining. “Don’t make me knock you out….” He growled.

“Please! Just listen.” Shining said, as he told his story to Crimson.

When Shining was done, Crimson stepped away from Discord and put a hoof to his chin. He walked about in silence for a moment.

“Fenrir, Solitary, help Shining up. He’s telling the truth.”

“How do you know cap’n?” asked the unicorn with the black coat.

“Because Luna called me in from Ponyville to assemble a task force to go do some recon on this monster; it looks like Discord started assembling one first.”

“Yes indeedy, so if we could just…..” Discord started.

“Shut up or I’ll turn you into chalk dust. You don’t look so good Shining.” Crimson said all at once.

“I think you broke a few of my ribs when you hit me.”

“Oops. Sorry.” Crimson said with a sheepish grin. “Twilight will hang this above me for so long……”

“It’s ok Crimson, he’ll be fine.” said a spectacled unicorn who stepped into Shining’s view. The unicorn had a lab-coat-white coat, salt and pepper hair, boxy glasses that defined him as a doctor, a pair of medical saddlebags, and a mortar and pestle as his cutie mark. Shining knew him only by reputation: Syringe Poultice, medic of Puck Unit of the Lunar Battalion, one of General Steelhooves’ right-hoofed stallions.

Syringe walked over to Shining briskly and moved away his two teammates. He gently rolled Shining onto his back and prodded his now-misshapen abdomen with gentle hooves. Every time Shining elicited a gasp or tightened his jaw, Syringe dabbed a small amount of blue goo from his medical bags on the spot. The goo felt ice cold and when Syringe was done, his horn glowed and he lowered it to each spot of blue goo. The goo started to glow and it sunk into Shining’s body, scaring him a little. Then Syringe pulled away from Shining’s body and his horn grew just a little brighter. Shining gasped at the sharp pain that seized his abdomen, but it was gone in seconds. Then he sat up, amazed he could be felling so well.

“That should do it.” Syringe said as he stood up, like curing a pony was no big deal.

“Yes it should.” said Discord who was lying on his stomach, his legs kicking up into the air, his head resting on his hands.

“You my good stallion are the Aspect of Restoration; the healer, the calming wind, the soothing touch of gentleness that the Aspects so desperately need. And now, you are coming with us.”