It was my first time hearing that word "Denryu" or however the buck it was pronounced... I’m pretty sure there was supposed to be a roll of the tongue by the ‘r’. There was little doubt in my mind that it even was a word, but nevertheless, it sounded kinda cool to me.

Between the two of us, the silent blowing wind answered for my cluelessness on the word at hoof. Thankfully, Cloud Chaser had begun to explain before he realized my doubt in the word. "Denryū is a cloud offensive tactic, Graze," the young teacher informed, gesturing a hoof as we both sat upon the very same cloud spot that shaded the school's compounds. "I've seen you perform defensive, though. Using that cloud as a shield against Grim was very smart, but uhhh... I don't know if you actually knew what you were doing or just running for cover, but nevertheless, you did it! So, congrats!"

... I'm going to be honest here and go with "avoiding hospitalization", Joy admitted, listening to Cloud as he laid on top my candy cane mane with Kill at his side. To those two conscience freeloaders, the top of my head was like a balcony of some sort, VIP seating and top of the world feeling- the wind in your mane, nopony can beat you and the best seat in the house as you watch every lower class pony have to painfully trot to their destination- yeah, those two were living the good life.

"Erm, I just winged it... guts feeling, you know?" I modestly answered with a sheepish smile. At the back of my head, I cringed, remembering the stinging pain of those tiny green bullets against my back.

With a simple nod of approval and bland characterization, "Mhmm," Chaser proceeded onto explaining the basics of the cuminulimbus based skill. "Take this session as a ‘two-birds-one-stone’ sort of training; your first weather skill and your first offensive tactic," Chaser said, tickling my fancy in the slightest. "To make thunder clouds, all we need is a little friction... here, let me show you," he said, grabbing his cloud between his hooves. "ARGH! Right, that should do it!" he grunted, splitting the nimbus in half. "Now, this is where the weather part kicks in, the lightning... let me just make sure you have step one down, and do what I did," he demanded of me.

"You mean rip a cloud?"

"Yeah, should be simple, right?" he said with his usual smug-like smile. With a carefree shrug, I hovered myself to the nearest cloud possible with a lazy beat of my wings.

In reach of the arbitrary cloud, I glanced back at the only other pegasus for his approval upon my choice. "This one good?!" I exclaimed due to the parting distance between us.

"Any will do!" he replied, patiently waiting for the lesson to start. "Now stay there and rip the cloud apart... remember, we want two separate clouds!"

"Yeah, yeah, I get the point!" I answered the naggy teacher, gripping the ends of the cloud, forcefully ripping it apart into two. "Yes!" I cried out in victory, celebrating with the ever so popular flight maneuver, The loopty loop. "WOOHOO!"

"Alright, alright, calm down, Graze, your ability to rip cotton impresses me," Chaser sarcastically added with his smug look. "Now, let's try and conduct some electricity into this bad boy. First, firmly grasp the two clouds in each hoof, and by firmly grasp, I mean rip them a new one... like this," Chaser demonstrated with a buck of his forehooves through both pillows of cotton, wearing them as boxing gloves.

Hehehe, clouds are getting the soap treatment, Kill chuckled.

"Now, here comes the tricky part," he warned. Only now did I  realize how ridiculous he looked with pillows for hooves. One part of me wanted to shout “PILLOW FIGHT!” like a teenage mare and hit Chaser with the cloud, while the other part demanded that I learned this way of self defense. You could only guess which conscience said which.

 "As I said before, this is caused by friction, so all you gotta do is rub the clouds together, and that's it! Easy, right?"

Getting into the motion of things and based on previous observations, I followed as Chaser did during the Changeling breakout. "Like this?" I asked, curious of my progress.

Sparks continuously flew out  with each furious dash of the clouds upon the other. Both pieces grew dark and more ominous over time, their soft, fluffy, whiteness now becoming a danger zone as sparks wildly discharged from the thick, darkened surface.

"Yeah, yeah, that's fine," he lazily said, waving a hoof in response to show approval of my progress. "Just make sure not to- wait, what are you doing?! NOT SO MUCH! STO-"

CRACKLE-BOOM!

In awe, Cloud Chaser observed as his long, black mane washed to the sides of his face with a forceful violent wind, the vaults of heaven raged on with flashing thin bolts of light as that alone cleared every cloud in its path once struck with the casted misfortune. A thunderous explosion boomed throughout the mid-afternoon sky almost deafening both the teacher and myself.

Holy buck! That woke up the neighbourhood! Captain Obvious, Kill pointed out.

Set in daze by the lightning, confused about time and space and temporarily knowing the meaning to life, I drunkenly danced my way throughout the sky, tipping on my hooves as I flew towards Chaser. "Hehehe, I just don't know what went wrong," I clumsily chuckled, shaking off the ebony smug from my icy coat.

"Wow..." Chaser remarked in awe. "You did it, Graze! You did it! ... sort of," Chaser congratulated me with a celebratory pat on the back. "So, you got the gist of it, right?"

"Yeah! Get the cloud, rip it, and rub the buck out of it!" I excitedly said with a quick mutter of the lips, overcharged by the electric current as it coursed through my veins.

YES! I AM FULLY CHARGED! HAHAHAHA! Kill maniacally laughed as the electricity sparked through his hooves, dying off that in that very instant.

Ha! Serves you right! Joy teased, sticking his tongue out.

Tilting his hoof, Chaser half-heartedly agreed with my statement. "Urhm, well yeah, sort of... just don't overdo the charge, and you'd be fine... and not mentally damaged." Too late for that. "Oh yeah, and a tip: when you see a cloud violently discharge electricity... yeah, it's going to explode. The bigger the cloud, the more electricity it can conduct, aaand the more chance of it killing somepony."

"And how am I not dead?" Curiosity lead me to ask.

"Because, I am not stupid enough to let you grab hold of a big cloud you can't handle. If one of those gets out of control, the school can be in serious trouble with my hind served on a silver platter," Chaser foretold, warning me of the casualties of weather maintenance.

"Yes, Cloud Chaser, and if you very well know it can endanger the school, why teach that to a pony like Graze? Hm?" A third, familiar voice entered the conversation... and neither of us liking the sound of it. "A word if you may?"

Did anyone just feel the testosterone levels increase by 9000%? Joy asked, curious as to why he felt a beard growing.

I don't know, why, but I feel like wrestling a manticore, Kill agreed... sort of.

"Mr. Charge, dammit," Chaser muttered beneath his breath, cursing at the abrupt appearance of his polar opposite. "Hello, Mr. Charge! What a wonderful day, isn't it? How are you?" Chaser faked his enthusiasm in greeting the stern, and apparently, sufficiently pissed off stallion.

"Stop horsing around and get over here, Cloud," Charge demanded as he hovered mid-air before us, his stoic expression proving worthy to conceal his true motives.

Following orders without hesitance, Cloud Chaser lazily flew towards the formally attired stallion. His exasperated sigh alone announced his stress as he asked, "And on what Tartarian's hex do I receive this kind visit? Nightmare Night isn't in a while, you do know that, right?"

Flaring his nostrils, it hadn't been the first time Charge had received disrespect from this particular member of staff. He had grown accustomed to it. "I am guessing you and Graze are the one's who created the thunder, am I right?"

"Yep."

"Why in Celestia's beard are you teaching him something like that!?" Charge scolded, heading directly to the point.

"For his own safety, what else?" the younger teacher answered, his silent hiss countering Charge's. "You saw what happened... if it weren't for me when those changelings came, he would have very well been buried by now, and you know it. As his teacher and more importantly, guardian, I would like to give him a sense of security," Chaser explained, putting his hoof down. "And what in the buck do you mean ‘somepony like Graze’?"

"You very well know what I mean, Chaser. Somepony just like you. Bashful. Outspoken. Sarcastic. And look at this, you're even teaching him to become a weather pony. All four examples proven in one shot."

Chaser hovered quietly, letting the meaning of Charge's harsh words burn into the back of his subconscious.

"Hmph, nothing. As usual, that's all you can say, because you know I'm right. Giving that power to somepony like Graze is like giving Anarchy sovereignty over the school. We don't know what is going to happen, but when it does, I assure you, we aren't going to like the outcome," Charge continued with an analogy, turning his back before taking off. "Just let the boy get back to his books," he announced, returning to his usual volume. "Something you've never done."

"You know, Charge, you're right," Chaser words of admittance brought the larger stallion to a standstill shock. Never in one thousand years would Charge imagine this fantasy become a reality. "You're right about me and that means, you're probably right about Graze. But, only Shadow Mark knows the reason why he permitted me as his guardian. If it wasn't so, he could have easily rejected my request, or pick another teacher pegasi with properly functioning wings, those being only you and me. And guess who he picked? Somepony like me, who is somepony like him, not you. I have faith in Graze... something you never had in me, or anypony."

It was now Charge's turn for silence, his stoic glare gazed upon the smaller teacher beneath his shade, detesting the fact to be proven wrong. "Graze doesn't need to be fed negativity or fear like everypony else. Ponies don't respect you, Charge. They fear you, and that's plain wrong for a teacher. And for a science teacher, you haven't realized the irony about this. These so called facts and observations you're supposed to abide by? Yeah, throw it out the window for all you care, you just downright ignore them because you choose to." The younger pony fought back with lashing words that demeaned Charge's pride to one of a kindergartner. "You can only impose fear, Silent. Respect is earned... something you don't deserve."

Opening his mouth in crushed defeat, Silent Charge was lost for words. His fellow member of staff utterly destroying his pride with something more frigid than himself, the truth. "I despise you, Chaser."

"You always have, sir, and the same could be said here. For a pony, you could have never said anything positive, and I have never figured out why," Chaser continued, both teachers never once breaking eye contact. "Maybe it's because I never feared you like some ponies did, but why should I? You're just miserable and a bully, and I've had enough of your crap. You can't do that to me anymore, and I won't allow you to do that same thing to Graze. Ever."

"Excuse me," I gathered both teacher's attentions. "Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but did you just call him sir?"

"Yes, Graze, I did," Chaser answered keeping his eyes on Charge. "Seven years ago, about your age, I too was learning Denryū, and my teacher was none other than Silent-hoofing-Charge, and I couldn't stand it. Life lesson, Graze, don't let anypony tell you what you can or cannot do... there are always other ways, trust me on this," Chaser gave a warrior's smile in the face of Charge. He did not like that.

"All this talk and no walk? Huh, this isn't a surprise from you, Chaser. But, you're right, you can't stop me from what I can or cannot do... so, for the fun of it, I'd like to make a deal, not with you, but with Graze... something you should be familiar with, artist." Charge chose not to appoint the teacher by his name, nor did he choose to look him in the eyes, but more so at me. "Graze, you can thank your ‘guardian’ for this one. Because of Chaser, you now have two tests at the end of this month. One, to pass my own, which may be impossible, and two, you perfect the Denryū without that training wheel we call a cloud... there is no choice but to agree to this, or else. Likewise if you fail either test, I can drop you from Physics, or ask Shadow Mark to relieve Chaser as your guardian... or both."

In silence and unmoved by the teacher's proposition, I think I felt my heart drop.

"Mr. Charge, I am so happy I came back to this school as a teacher," Chaser remarked, cracking his neck.

"And why is that?" Charge questioned, his attention now on Chaser where the artist wanted it. "So that you can tell me off?"

"No, so I can do this," Chaser gritted his teeth and hook-bucked Charge directly in his jaw with blinding speed, his hoof invisible to the naked eye.

Silent's neck twisted to the right as he endured the pain, facing Chaser once he spat out a drop of blood. "You must have a death wish, Cloud."

"I do, and it's to see you go down."

Next Chapter: Charge Vs. Chaser Estimated time remaining: 6 Minutes