Battle let his head fall back as his eyes closed, sighing in contentment. The hot water of the bath seemed to sink into his aching body, soaking away the ragged and worn feeling that had settled into his bones. Training with Fluttershy tested both his skill as a teacher and his now potentially rusty skills as a soldier. She was quickly becoming adept in the style of Aviaform. So adept in fact that it only seemed appropriate that their lessons now together included an hour's worth of sparring. An hour's worth of sparring that reminded Battle of his own training, and left both him and Fluttershy exhausted.
Battle levitated a bar of soap to his hand, before sitting up in the bath and lathering up his arms. He looked at each individual scar he'd suffered, trying to remember where he got each one. To what weapon had his flesh been pierced? In what war had his body been wounded? After a few moments of studying his right arm he simply gave up. There were too many to count and too many battlefields to go through to find all the right memories.
He bowed his head slightly and began scrubbing away the dirt. As he did he couldn't help but notice how the skin on his hands and fingers yielded to the corded muscles in his arms. He noted how soft they were, how the calluses were beginning to heal. He held up his left hand to his eye, scrutinising it. It was truly beginning to look like a librarian's hand. The other one was probably in a similar state. He closed his fist and gave a soft chuckle to himself.
"So this is civilian life then?" he said to himself. "This ain't so bad. Not too shabby at all."
He returned to scrubbing at his upper body with the soap, before getting to his feet and lathering up the rest of his body, scrubbing away sweat and dirt and grime, and giving his coat a soapy finish to it. He doused himself back into the water once more and as the suds rose to the surface, Battle worked shampoo into his mane, careful to avoid getting any into his eyes. Rinsing his hair out, Battle pulled the plug out and stepped out of the bath as the water began to drain.
He dried himself off and slipped on a dressing gown, before opening the door to the landing.
"OMYGOSHTHEREYOUARE!"
Battle flew backwards as Pinkie screamed in his face. He took several panicked breaths, trying very hard to find the will within himself not to punch Pinkie very hard on the nose. He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath in.
"Pinkie..." he said slowly. "What are you doing?"
"I came looking for you silly," she said as if this were obvious. "You weren't answering your door."
"Did it ever occur to you I might have been out before you decided to break in?" Battle sighed.
"Nope!"
Battled gave another sigh and slowly opened his eyes. "What do you want Pinkie?" He blinked. "And... what are you wearing?"
"Can't you tell? I'm an alligator!" she exclaimed excitedly, bouncing around to show Battle her apparel. Battle looked at her outfight in confusion. Pinkie had somehow managed to squeeze into what looked like a second skin of some green, scaly material, that shimmered and shone as the light bounced off of it. Indeed the outfit was so complete it came with clawed feet and hands. Only Pinkie's usual bright pink face and baby blue eyes were left intact, though Battle noticed as she giggled and bounced that she put in some odd gum guard that made it appear as if she lacked teeth.
"Of course you are," Battle said slowly. "You do know alligator's have teeth right Pinkie?"
"Yeah but if I'm gonna dress up like Gummy's twin sister I need to look the part!" Pinkie explained.
"Gummy?"
She stopped bouncing and looked at Battle. Battle for his part tried not to notice Pinkie was trapped several feet in the air as she looked at him amazed.
"You haven't met Gummy?" she asked incredulously. The long reptilian tail that trailed on the floor, something Battle hadn't noticed up until this point, suddenly flicked up so that it came up to Battle's eyes. Gripping onto the appendage was a small, baby alligator, with big, stupid purple eyes. It blinked at Battle slowly.
"You... you have a pet alligator?" he said slowly.
"Yes indeedy!" Pinkie exclaimed wildly as she brought gummy to her face and rubbed him lovingly against her. Battle blinked. Then he nodded.
"Okay... so you're an alliagtor. I feel like I'm opening a can of worms by asking this but... why?"
"Duh silly! It's Nightmare Night!" Pinkie cried, as if it were obvious.
"Oh.... that was tonight?" Battle asked. Pinkie looked at him like she was about to slap him.
"You didn't know?" she asked, amazed. "How could you not know? Surely someone must have mentioned it when they came in here?"
Battle shrugged. "Must have slipped my mind." Or Fluttershy knocked it loose with that right hook from yesterday, Battle thought to himself.
"Well you can't just sit in here all night and do nothing!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "The whole town is gonna be out tonight. No one does nothing on Nightmare Night. There's games, candy, dancing, candy, drinking, candy, Princess Luna's gonna be showing up and did I mention there'd be lots and lots of candy?"
"Several times Pinkie," Battle confirmed. He sighed. "Look Pinkie, it's not that I don't want to be part of tonight's festivities. It's just I don't have a costume to come out and-"
He blinked and in that instant Pinkie was gone. He did a very confused double take and as he blinked again, there was a crash from downstairs as Pinkie rocketed back upstairs with a very confused and surprised Rarity.
"Rarity we have an emergency!" Pinkie screamed. "Battle doesn't have a costume for Nightmare Night!"
Rarity gave a dizzy shake of the head, trying to get to grip with her sudden relocation. Battle couldn't say he blamed her. He had experienced first hand what travel by way of Pinkie Pie was like that one time she needed a taste tester for a new batch of cakes. All it had taken was a single look to make sure she never did it again, which Battle felt guilty for afterwards. At the time though he had been trying very hard to not throw up the half-finished lunch he had been eating.
Rarity swiftly got ahold of her bearing's and after giving Pinkie Pie a quick scolding, turned her attention to Battle. She hadn't changed into her costume for Nightmare Night yet, still wearing her work clothes. Battle knew Rarity would be dressing up. She never missed an opportunity to create something fabulous for herself to wear.
"So. No costume for Nightmare Night?" she asked. "Well what can we do about that?"
"Can we just stop with the fashion critique and just remember that we three are all currently in my bathroom and I'm wearing nothing but a robe," Battle grunted. "Could I at least get the chance to put some pants on?"
About three hours later Battle stepped out of the Carousel Boutique dressed in a sharp black tuxedo, with designer black sunglasses to match. His mane was slicked to the side in an elegant yet impressive fashion and his Cutie Mark had been covered with a temporary replacement, a red classified stamp. Under the black jacket was a waistcoat made of some fine material the shade of dried blood and the look was completed with a finely crafted black bow-tie.
"I'm surprised you put this together so quickly," Battle muttered. "What's the costume again?"
"Don't tell me you've never seen a Con Mane movie before either Battle?" Rarity sighed, closing up shop behind her and Pinkie.
"Oh this is Con Mane," Battle sighed in clarity. "One of the newer actors then? I stopped watching them after Player Arch."
"Really? Well some of the later ones are quite excellent, especially the ones with Detail Clash. Definately my favourite. That rugged jawline."
"Let me guess," Battle said smiling, plucking at his collar. "Detail Clash?"
"Oh yes indeed. He wore it in Cloudbreak. It's really worth the watch, especially considering it was made for the fiftieth anniversary of the first Con Mane film."
"I'll give it a look," Battle said smiling. He noted absently that Pinkie had rushed off somewhere. Most likely to top up her sugar tank to make sure she kept at tip top speed for the whole night. "So what's on the activities list tonight?"
"Well that depends on what you feel like doing," Rarity answered for him simply. "I suppose we could find the others and see if there's something we can all do as a group."
"Sounds good," Battle said, smiling.