Equestrian Throwdown

by Hex Mark

Balrog: The Secret of the Nacht Jäger

"Skylark!" Lyra called from the front door, beckoning Skylark over as he and Twilight passed her house. Looking over, the human smiled and gestured to Twilight as if saying ‘I’ll be right back’ as he jogged over to her, noticing the dark unicorn stallion there as well. He tensed up very slightly at the sight of him, but kept his cool for the time being.

"You needed something, Milady?" Skylark asked her, only to be pulled into a tight hug. His face buried in the fur of her shoulder, or at least what would be considered a shoulder if she were human, Skylark squirmed a bit, confusing the pony who looked down. “I…can’t breath...”he was muffled, but Lyra got the hint and loosened her grip. Taking a breath, the human wondered why she was so happy, only to remember what he told her before. "I take it those coins were of use?" the human asked her, raising an eyebrow, and Lyra nodded.

"They were just what I needed! I'm more than half way cleared from my debt thanks to them!" the unicorn could not contain her excitement. However, the dark stallion cleared his throat, forcing a smile.

"I take it you are Miles Skylark? Lyra has been telling me about you after we were discussing the matters of her debt. Oh! Where are my manners? I'm Shadow Bit, the one who loaned Lyra money for her 'research' as she called it. To tell you the truth, I am surprised her efforts have borne fruit. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance." Shadow Bit introduced himself. Released from Lyra’s embrace, Skylark hesitated, tensing up a bit more. Something about him…agitates me… he thought before nodding.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.” Skylark replied, although he couldn’t stop his tension. Shadow Bit arced a brow but kept his forced smile on.

“Would you mind telling me what these coins you were talking about are? I agreed to accept five of them as part of her repaying her debt, but you seem to know more about them than either of us.” Shadow Bit asked, holding out one of the gold coins. Unlike the gold colored bits, the coin was a pristine gold color, and the human took it into his fingers.

“Back from my home, we’d use gold coins to trade with others. Usually, the gold would be melted and mixed with a bit of steel to decrease the cost and to make them last longer.” He started, and flipped the coin, catching it before showing a strange symbol. “However, this, along with the other four you accepted, are pure gold. The purpose of this is so they can be blessed at the Roulette Altar- oh, that probably doesn’t make sense.” He apologized with a nervous chuckle. “For Athelinians, if you were to sew seven of gold coins in your clothes, over your heart, Lady Luck; the Maiden of Chance, will smile upon you.” Skylark clarified.

“How has that worked out for you, Mr. Skylark?” Shadow asked, and the human shrugged casually.

“I consider myself lucky that I am even here. I’d say Lady Luck has a bright smile.” Skylark replied, flipping the coin again, this time for Shadow Bit to catch it. The dark unicorn nodded and turned to leave.

“I’d say this ‘Lady Luck’ also smiled upon Lyra…I’ll take my leave then, I wish you luck in the competition.” Shadow encouraged the human, but looked back with a smirk, noting his surprise. “I was watching yesterday's game.. I saw how you handled that displacer beast with that overgrown cow.” He added, and the human rubbed the back of his head.

“If Taurus wasn’t there, I’d have been killed.” Skylark admitted, but was was not given any response as Shadow Bit left. Twilight Sparkle trotted over, passing Shadow Bit to approach the human, looking back at the departing stallion.

"Something wrong, Skylark?" Twilight asked out of concern and he shook his head.

"Just...don't like him.." the human concluded, but was calmed down when Lyra grabbed his right hand...at least until she started squeezing it between her hooves. Looking at the unicorn, Skylark stared as the unicorn played around with his hand, nibbling on two of his fingers. His hair stood up at that moment, the feeling of her tongue pressed against his index and middle fingers catching him way off guard. "L-Lady Lyra...may I ask what you are doing?" he asked, prompting Lyra to open her mouth to take out his fingers, although not letting go of the human's hand as she stared at it.

"What is this? What do you use these for?" Lyra asked him, not only dodging Skylark's question but causing Twilight Sparkle to face-hoof. Smiling softly, Skylark held out his hands to show them properly.

"These are my hands. I guess you can say they are like your hooves. Aside from fighting like yesterday, I use them to hold things, use tools and.." He tried to think of a third thing, seeing Lyra scratch her ear with her fore-hoof. "...scratch itches." Skylark added, bring his right hand to the side of Lyra's head, scratching her gently behind the ear.

"Ah! I love hands!" Lyra sighed in satisfaction, nuzzling the hand that was being used to rub her ear, closing her eyes slowly. She used one of her hooves to hold his hand against her face, prompting the human to continue rubbing her ear. Although ruining the moment, Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat loudly.

"I don't mean to interrupt, but we need to meet Zecora." The purple unicorn reminded the human, who nodded and gently pulled his hand away from Lyra. Saddened by the fact her human stopped rubbing her ear, Lyra looked at Twilight. Before she could even ask, Twilight Sparkle smiled nervously. “It seems that Skylark ages much faster than we do. I am hoping Zecora knows how to brew a potion to fix that. Think of it this way; you get to keep him for much longer.” The purple unicorn explained while playing to her mindset, Lyra’s ears flicking at the sound of it.

“Alright! Let’s go!” Lyra cheered, joining the two as they made their way to the Everfree Forest. Their destination was Zecora’s hut, located within the forest the previous challenge had been held. It was about twenty minutes into the forest that Skylark stopped, tensing up again as his eyes widened. He clenched his teeth for a bit, only taking a deep breath after Twilight and Lyra looked back at him.

‘…Come on out, I know you’re here.” Skylark called out, looking to his right as a shadowy figure moved its way through the trees. The figure was humanoid in appearance, having a purple-black body with spike-like protrusions coming from its arms, legs, and shoulders. Twilight and Lyra immediately stepped away.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is impressed that you managed to sense us!” a rather haughty voice called, the blue unicorn mare walking out to join the humanoid creature. “Although it seems Twilight Sparkle and that pitiful excuse of a unicorn have been frightened. Trixie doesn’t blame you, it’s hard not to be scared of such a magnificent beast.” Trixie smirked, watching as Skylark crossed his arms.

“I’ll admit, I am impressed that you managed to subjugate Balrog of all demons…” he complimented Trixie, tapping his left arm with his index finger.

"Indeed. Only one as Great and Powerful as Trixie is able to-" Trixie broke in the middle of her prideful boast upon realizing what she just heard. Shock turned to anger as the unicorn gritted her teeth a bit. "How would such a lowly creature know the name of Trixie's champion? Trixie demands to know!" she shouted, much to the amusement of both Skylark and Balrog.

"The answer is simple, Master." Balrog started, looking over to Skylark, focusing on the crescent moon branding on his torso. "Miles and I are from the same world. We are both Athelinians." the demon explained calmly as Skylark unfolded his arms.

"While I do admire your talent, I will not tolerate you insulting my master like-" Skylark was interrupted when Balrog had suddenly moved forward and smashed his fist against the human's face with enough force to send him flying back against a tree. His back slammed against the trunk, stunning the human for a few moments as he fell to his hands and knees. His left hand covering his bloody nose, Skylark tried to push himself up, but the impact from the tree stalled his movements.

"Is that all? Trixie had hoped you'd back up your words more than that!" Trixie laughed, Twilight stopping Lyra from getting involved. While trying to calm her down, Twilight focused her magic to look at both Skylark and Balrog's magical auras. In contrast to the human's calm yet restrained cyan aura, Balrog possessed a wild phlox-purple aura.

"Come on, Skylark! Use your Nacht Jäger!" Lyra cheered the human on, surprising both Balrog and Skylark, the latter sighed before a slight smirk spread on his face.

Great, she forced my hand..He lamented, wiping the blood away from under his nose with his right index and middle fingers. Nearly making Twilight vomit at the sight, Skylark licked his own blood off of his fingers, his eyes shifting to the golden hue they were when he first used it. His cyan aura also flared, although it was still much more contained than Balrog's. In a heartbeat, the human ran up to the demon managing to get in a few quick, hard punches in before Balrog caught him by the left wrist, swinging him and slamming him against a nearby tree.

"So she really did give you her power...Lady Mila was a much bigger threat than you are when using the Nacht Jäger. I know that to unleash it, you require the taste of blood- preferably the blood of your enemy." The demon started, looking into Skylark's golden eyes. "You still cower in fear of your own power...so much so that you use your own blood to use that technique. You're a fool if you want to cling onto your humanity- let me show you what I mean." Balrog taunted, quickly squeezing the human's wrist, a snapping sound heard by all present, followed by a yell of agony. The demon would suddenly slam his knee into Skylark's ribs, catching him as he fell to his knees from the blow. Holding him by the hair in one hand, the shoulder in the other, Balrog then smashed Skylark's face into his shin, followed by slamming both of his fists ontop of his head. Face down in the dirt, Skylark's eyes faded back to blue before the demon stomped on his head. Breathing heavily, coughing up blood, the human's eyes shut tightly as Lyra screamed.

"Stop! He's down!" she begged with tears in her eyes, being held back by Twilight as Trixie laughed at the pitiful state the human was in.

"That's enough Balrog. The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't want to be disqualified." Trixie ordered her familiar, who stepped away, looking at the crumpled human on the forest ground.

"You're lucky that the rules forbid me to end your life here. If you do manage to make it to the top and fight me again, you better be willing to transcend your humanity. It wouldn't be fun otherwise." Balrog warned the human before leaving with Trixie. Once they were out of sight, Twilight released Lyra, who immediately galloped to her human's side, trying her best to help him get up.

"Are you ok?!" Lyra's question, while stupid given the situation, was the only thing she could come up with.

"I'll be fine by the time the next challenge starts." He tried to assure Lyra, finally up on his feet before stumbling. After a few moments of silence, the human looked to Twilight. "Do you know if there's a river around here where I can wash the blood off?" he asked with a nervous chuckle. Leading him to a river, Twilight watched the human as he knelt down, using his good hand to splash water on his face.

"The way you interacted...you knew each other back home, didn't you?" The purple unicorn asked curiously. Standing up, the human walked over to one of the trees, plucking a sizable, oddly shaped fruit from it.

"We did...In fact, we were very close..." Skylark stated, a hint of sorrow in his voice before he bit into the fruit despite Twilight's attempt to warn him. It was a bit bitter, but the fact that it was sweet and juicy more than made up for it as he sighed in relief.

"I didn't know humans ate fruit!" Lyra's eyes sparkled in excitement, but she largely went ignored as the other unicorn responded with another question.

"So you were friends...:And, 'Lady Mila'?" Twilight questioned, and the human sighed dejectedly, taking another bite out of the fruit. The fruit was strange in that it didn't have a core, nor any seeds he could notice, but that did not stop him from enjoying it- it filled his stomach and that was all that mattered to him when it came to the fruit.

"She is..was my sister...If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not discuss that. At least, not when we have other matters to attend to." The human replied, being careful with his breathing for the entire trip. Eventually, they'd find their way to the hut, but it was only a matter of knocking on the door.

((tbc))

Author's Note:

Edit: I updated this chapter, fleshed out a bit more and fixed a few mistakes.

Woo! Tenth chapter! I want to thank everyone who has helped me get this far, both motivation wise and story wise! You all know who you are :)

Comments

[Hex Mark]

3142952

3144129

[Ghost-091]

This needs a quick run through for editing. There are a few really basic mistakes. "[W]rite hand" and "opener mouth" for example.

[Hex Mark]

3179323

o-o I could have sworn I put 'right' and 'opened' respectively. But thanks, I'll check it out.

[Ghost-091]

3179482
There should only be a few. I was still half asleep when I read the chapter.

[Hex Mark]

3179486

Ah. I realize my faults. For 'write', I was thinking of writing hand, while with opener mouth- it was a lag on my computer's end when I was typing 'open her'

[Ghost-091]

3180319
I figured as much. I know I've made those kinds of mistakes myself.

[Hex Mark]

Update on the upcoming chapter: I am sorry, but the newest chapter will be delayed since I have realized that I can not properly portray Zecora in this setting, yet I have gone too far to not bring her in.