Changelings and Trainees

Star sighed as she felt Shadowfang against her, and gently put the chair down. "Shaaade. I'm a lover, not a fighter! And I don't have any appropriate weapons at hoof." What would you have me do, fashion a stake or staff out of a chair and attempt to beat you, a well-armed pony who could kick my flank even without a weapon? Geez." Star rolled her eyes. And that purple-maned pony would probably have me beaten if I ruined a single chair." Star grinned happily at the purple-maned pony.

Scrapper laughed out loud, "No appropriate weapons? I never knew weapons needed to be appropriate to do their job." he said as he got up and picked up the chair himself.
"See, even this chair has the ability to help you defend from more effective weapons. You just can't respect the poor thing, all you see it as is a thing to plant your arse on to be lazy." He said after as he put it down again.
"As for your complaints at being essentially weapon-less, I'll have you know that Shade here, doesn't stand much of a chance against me without her magic spinny blade things. And I don't even use weapons!" he said cheerfully as he leaned closer to Shade and whispered to her. "I'm just kidding, don't beat me up." He said and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Scint was constantly fighting himself not to Conjure the Aegis, even if it was his strict instinct to use it if anypony's in any hint of danger; he reminded himself that this was just Shade's way of making a "test." she could handle herself against anything Star could pull, and Shade has no reason to harm his cousin- too much. but he did see his cousin as a blundering mess right now. Shade was testing her for her ability to convince herself to kill, and Star's too busy convincing herself not to harm a friend. he wasn't sure if Shade realized that was the problem. He stood up. "Starlight Charmer." He turned a solid gaze towards his cousin. "Don't think of Shade as your friend, or your teacher right now... she is your enemy. she's holding a knife to your throat, she threatening to separate you from your friends forever. When it comes to a real fight, you don't hold back, you take every advantage you've got. Pacifism isn't going to protect me when I die, and leave you all alone. Everything, is a weapon. every inch of your body is a weapon, Star... so start reacting, fight so you can see your friends tomorrow. and if you don't... you might as well had killed your friends yourself. Lance hoped e could spark something in Star. She needed a reason to fight, so there she had it.

"Oh, I'm sure I could find a way for you to pay off any damages to my home", Sil smirkingly replied to Star. In fact, if the changeling had proven that she was able to kill a pony like Shade with a chair as weapon, that would probably already be reason enough to get her into the rebellion.

"Don't worry, I don't intend to get myself a bloody snout at the moment", Shade said with a chuckle, but didn't return Scrapper's kiss. She also turned only halfway to their unicorn stallion, all the while keeping an eye on Star. "And, Lance, shut up. Her reasoning is better than yours." She fully turned to Star again. "Though, even with an appropriate weapon you'd still have very little chance to beat me in an open fight. It would only end in your death. You'll have to make sure that I don't defend myself, and the only way you're going to manage that is to catch me unaware. Do that, and you've shown that you have at least enough base skill to build on."

Star sighed. "I didn't want to pull this card, but I guess I have to." She rubbed one of her eyes with a hoof, and yawned. "Where to begin..." And with that, Star recited her entire life in a deadpan, monotonous tone and skipped every exciting part in it. While she did so, she watched Shade for any movement or signs of boredom. When she finished, she yawned again, hoping that the yawns were contagious.

Scint threw his hooves in the air, forfeighting the last of his dignity. "I tried, I'll shut up now.

Shade was indeed bored by Star's retelling. In fact, she was so bored, that it took only a few seconds of listening before she started talking over it. "I don't intend to let Star waste my time, so I think I and Scrapper will just go do other stuff", she said and got up.

"I'll send Scintillance if I have news regarding your order", Sil said, also taking the opportunity to tune out the changeling. "With the new help, it shouldn't take too long."

"Okay, thanks. Lance, don't show her the way to the hideout", Shade added, pointing at Star. "Or at least, not intentionally. If she actually manages to stay hidden that would probably be a nice step forward."

"Uh oh, I'm gonna be bullied when we get back I'm sure." Scrapper said as he woke himself up from Star's boring lecture. Seeing as how he had nothing to do, he was already set to leave.
Recalling his breath, he added, "Oh, I hope you have something to freshen up the place Las. I'd imagine your visitors wouldn't be impressed if the place smelled like strong drink!" He said with amusement in his voice.

Star got close to Lance and whispered, "I bored her to tears. It worked." And with that, she started into a fit of giggles. She then mimicked Shade, and said, "How can someone so jovial and stupid be so amazingly boring," This brought more laughter to her, and added a skip to her step. "I outboooored Shaaaaade~" she said in a teasing tone.

Scint made a side comment to Scrapper on his not of freshening the place up, "actually that would have to be my department..." but beyond those words Scint was deadpanned silent. he could hardly believe that even his cousin, flighty as she was, couldn't get her head straight on even for a little while. even for something as important as this. He even hoped she might try to attack shade while she wasn't paying attention during the lecture but... no luck. When Star closed her distance to him, Lance just remained silent. all he offered her was the face of disappointment, and sorrow.

He ignored stare completely beyond facial expression. "yeah, I'll make sure she'd need a pretty good trick to get out of here and know the way back."

"Bye!"

After Shade and Scrapper had left, Sil turned Star, her business smile in place. "Wll then, I have a little job for you, if you're interested. Basically, all I would need you to do is to change into whatever I tell you. Would be easy bits for you."

"Sooo.... Basically you want me to be your personal stripper." Star thought about the proposal for a minute. "Hmm.... I can't say I haven't done that line of work before. Alright." Star leaned on the wall, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as she transformed into Io. "Enjoy the show? I can continue, if you'd like." she said with a grin.

Scint's eye started twitching as soon as Star said the word "stripper." he was then continuesly frozen there with a twitchy eye as his cousin proceeded with the show. after shaking his head swiftly, he finally spoke again, "Star that is NOT what Silvern's asking of you. Silvern please tell me that's not what you're asking her to do. also you'd rather be more specific than that. Star twists vague words like a genie.

Silvern brought a hoof to her shaking head, grinning from amusement at the same time. "No, that's most definitely not what I was asking for. I think strippers are something you actually need to see to enjoy. Any atempts would be pretty lost on me.

"What I want is to study changeling magic, specifically the illusion you use to disguise yourself," she clarified. "6 bits per hour, and I expect I'l need you for at least five hours. Does that sound agreeable?"

"So I can't be a stripper? Dang... Hmm, alright, I accept." Star said, and added in a low voice, "It's better than what I was doing..." She then jumped around Sil as she created a duplicate to bounce around the purple-maned pony with her, as they sang, "Ragnar the Slightly-Red."

"Please don't exhaust yourself too early. You're not much help if you can't cast anymore. Please follow me", Sil interjected and turned towards a corridor to the left of the sales room. "Lance, fetch a fully charged high efficiency storage crystal, five memory crystals, and an isolation box. We'll be in the enchanting room."

Said room was, on first sight, dark. The little light that fell through the open door only barely revealed the small table that took nearly a third of the available space, and a pillow on each sight. "While in here, please only cast what I tell you to. That also includes levitation and light spells. Though, if you're uncomfortable in darkness, you can light this," Sil explained to Star as she brought a small lantern from under the table and put it on top of it. "Please also drop any disguise or other enchantments you have on yourself for now."



((
High Efficiency Storage Crystal: Similar to the High Capacity Storage Crystals, only with the difference that energy does sicker out over time because it's meant to leave, and not kept inside. More efficient to power spells with, but obviously not good to store large amounts of energy over a long time (use it within the next hour or you'll find it's already empty). Lance can find charged ones in a couple of sockets in the generator room (directly below where they are now). The socket glows green if the crystal is fully charged (recently implemented feature since Lance can't simply see it like Sil can).

Memory Crystals: Crystals that are prepared to store and display magical structures to Sil without actually doing anything. Basically, like a picture of a spell. Absolutely useless to anpony without Magic Sight at Sil's level. Empty ones are in the artifact storage (opposite of the enchanting room - I think. Maybe it's at the end of the corridor the enchanting room is in. Where the heck are my plans?)

Isolation Box: A box that is magically isolated like Sil's enchanting room. She can't see into it, and nothing in it can magically interfere with anything outside. Since artifacts increase the magical background noise in the enchanting room, she puts them away in such a box while she doesn't need them. To be found in the artifact storage. Sil only has a view of them, and others usually don't need them (because they don't even notice the magic noise around them)

So, all those are already approved or are simplified/smaller versions of approved artifacts.

Also, I'll see that I get the map of the shop digitalized.
))

Scint was off towards the storage room with out a word, just a confident nod to Silvern and head out. he mentally slapped himself half on the way when he realized Silvern doesn't see nods and figured it'd be too awkward to turn back and say something now. only quietly reminded himself, "get the box first,then the crystals on the way back... not like last time..." Scint started searching the storage room for that box by the time Star and Silvern did... whatever it is they did that too as long as it would for Scint to get to the storage room.

Star made the decoy explode into yellow mist, and gasped, wincing slightly from the drawback; pain. Shaking her head, she headed into the room after Sil, and her eyes lit up a little. "Aaah, the dark. The mysterious and infinity that is the pitch black. Many fear and adore this shade of what some call evil, but I call home..." She snapped back to reality for a moment, and, barely remembering what Sil asked of her, she shed off her disguise, and sat calmly on the floor.

"First of all, about that pain when you cut off that spell: You never had a proper teacher for unicorn magic, am I right?" Silvern asked when the disguise was gone. "With some training, the drawback could easily be eliminated. The only condition would be that you're willing to help the rebellion out in return."

"That's an extremely hard decision, I hope you understand. If the rebellion fails, I'll be caught a sympathizer, and probably sentenced to death. which means, Dudududah! Dead. I don't wanna die, you see. That, and I couldn't be that big of a help to the resistance. and are Griffons really that bad, honestly? I'm asking you, I wouldn't honestly know. All but like, two griffons I've ever met have been pretty indifferent. Yeah, yeah. I know. I sound like a traitor to my own species, but take into account, this isn't my home." Star said, her voice turning from playful and happy to cold and analytic in an instant. She crossed her hooves, and buzzed her wings in distaste. "Honestly, removing a drawback from that spell wouldn't be that big of a difference, not like joining the Rebellion, where I could, um, actually die. Y'know what I mean by this, correct?"

"Fair point." Scint entered the room with a box on his back, the requested crystals safely inside. "but Star, have you forgotten the day we met already? I had to save you from... yeah I'm not gonna let that train of thought go. anyway, not all griffons are bad, true. but there's too many of them doing whatever they want, and they obviously don't all want to be nice. Scint placed the box by the center table.

"I would teach you a lot more than just eliminating drawback, but it's your decision", Sil said. "I just fear, if the Griffons get a hold of you, they might find you just as interesting as I, and I wouldn't trust them to be civil about it. If you change your mind, the offer keeps standing. But back to the original topic." She turned to her assistant. "Lance, I trust you'll keep the shop running while I'm busy here. There are some old Night Guard Hoof-Blades in the store room that need recharging, in case you find nothing else to do." In fact, there was an entire crate of them, having arrived in Manehatten in the early morning. Before Lance had come around, she would have needed weeks to get the recharging done and would have been at a constant power low in her whole shop in that time. For Lance, it would just be somwhat tiring for a day or two. She decided to let him find out for himself just how much work she had just given him.

When he had left, she turned back to the half-changeling while she took one of the crystals out of the box. "Now, Star, please take on a disguise of your choosing, but cast it as slowly as you can."

"What kind of other things could you teach me, per say?" Star asked, her eyes slowly flashing green as she did was she was told and gradually transformed into Io, a green electric-appearing energy flowing up her body. As it finished, she stretched, and stared at Silvern in a melancholic manner. "Voila." she said in a sarcastic manner, as if she had just preformed a death-defying stunt. If this is all she's paying me to do, then I guess I got the best of the deal.... Star thought, smirking a little.