Chapter 2: Non-verbal Introductions
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Isen Canon
“The Iron Cannon”
A foreleg-centric fighting style named after its creator and sole practitioner.
As there is only one recorded user of this style of martial arts, it is classified under “earth pony,” although it has its roots in traditional minotaur bare-knuckle boxing. The Iron Cannon was historically used in combat, with heavy iron gauntlets strapped to the user's forehooves, and requires an upright posture which reflects its minotaur heritage, but is difficult for most ponies to adopt. Practitioners of the style were known to use special harnesses to help maintain their balance.
Developed by the legendary fighter Iron Cannon, this style is notably simple in its design. It reduces the complexity of other boxing styles of the time to only a few core official moves; notable among these were a straight jab, and a devastating roundhouse. Practitioners would often improvise attacks during combat to make up for the style's own limited moveset. Unlike modern, gloved boxing, the Iron Cannon style has an extended guard, designed to keep opponents at a distance. Speed and precision are emphasized, as well as perfecting each strike in order to take advantage of the practitioner's own skeletal structure.
The style differentiates itself from other forms of boxing through its hoofful (or 'handful,' as the minotaurs say) of aggressive, fantastic techniques, which mostly rely on hitting things harder and faster than any ordinary equine would be able to. Descriptions of these techniques are varied. Known examples include a long-range "sniper straight," which involves punching the air hard enough that it hits the practitioner's opponent from a distance of dozens of paces, and what was called a "wall of fury," which took the transferred shock of a sniper straight and spread it out as a shield to knock enemy projectiles from the sky.
The Iron Cannon was utilized to great effect in warfare, with practitioners rumored to be capable of taking out entire battalions by themselves. However, the physical strength required to achieve these results was absurd, and the style was completely impractical. It is theorized that Iron Cannon was only able to use his own technique because it was his unique special talent. No one else was able to achieve this feat, nor did he pass on his teachings, and the style died with him.
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“And... they're off!”
A bell rang out throughout the stadium, and the earth pony instantly began to close the distance between Rainbow Dash and himself, using short, gliding steps of his hind-legs to advance without ever lowering his guard.
“Wait a minute,” Rainbow frowned. “What's going on here? 'Death battle?' As in, to the death? I am so not okay with –”
When the earth pony came to within four steps, he suddenly accelerated. He lunged, and Rainbow cut off with a squawk as she was forced to duck to avoid a blow from his hoof. A second blow came right behind the first, with lightning speed. Dash slid to the left just in time; she could feel the breeze that followed the strike as it rustled the fur on her shoulder. She scrambled backwards.
“Rainbow Dash takes to the air! Is she trying to keep from fighting her opponent? She doesn't seem to be getting into the spirit of things. How will Iron Cannon react? One minute to go before we have an uninvited guest!”
“Whoa!” Rainbow scowled, looking down on the stranger from a safe distance. “What do you think you're doing?! You could have ripped my head off with that punch.”
The stallion stood there, panting. He said something, but his words were slurred and stuffy, and they didn't sound like any sort of Equestrian Dash was familiar with.
“What?” Rainbow asked. “I didn't quite catch that.”
As Rainbow Dash hovered at a distance of about six meters, the earth pony cocked back a foreleg and threw a punch. There was a shock, a crack of sound, a ripple through the air. His hoof never came anywhere near her.
And yet, somehow, she still felt the impact.
The wind from the strike ripped past her, and it felt like somepony had bucked her straight in the chest. Not Applejack, perhaps; it wasn't quite that bad. Twilight, maybe, or one of the ponies from the weather team.
It still hurt, though.
She fell to the ground with a thud. That hurt too. Before she could get up, the earth pony was there. She tried to block his first punch with a foreleg, but the angle was awkward lying down. As she flipped over from the impact, there was a sickening pop from inside her shoulder. Then another hit, another sound, this time from her wing. Then a crack from her ribs. Lights flashed before her eyes, and she tasted metal as she was struck again, and again, and again. Her mouth was open, but she didn't have the breath to scream.
“Oh! And a brutal beat-down in the first match for our new competitor! Iron Cannon isn't giving the newbie any kind of sympathy, as he shows her how this game is meant to be played, putting her down with a whole thirty seconds left on the clock.”
As the announcer's voice rang out, the blows stopped falling. Rainbow twitched and convulsed as her entire body was racked with pain. The movement just made it hurt worse. She couldn't see anything, her eyes were watering so much. Couldn't hear anything. Ears ringing. Nothing. Noise. Blood, pulsing in veins, trickling tiny rivers down her sides. Noise and pain.
“I... apologize,” a voice whispered.
The stallion?
“All here must fight,” he said. “If you fight, then live, or mayhap die. If you fight not... then death, and never waking.”
There was the sound of dragging hoofsteps in the sand, as the stallion limped away behind Rainbow's back. She gulped back her tears of pain as they mixed with tears of rage, and she tried to struggle to her hooves. This pain was nothing! She could still fight. She could still win! But her shaking limbs refused to cooperate, and she only flopped around on her side.
“That was kind of short for an introductory round, wouldn't you think, Bill?”
“I agree, Pike. I think our newest hero was just a little out of her zone. Things might have gone very differently if she had been just a little more prepared. What say we give her one more chance?”
A glow surrounded Rainbow Dash, and she felt her bones and flesh being nit back together. Joints popped back into place. The pain receded. With a thought, her unbroken wings lifted her into the air once more, just in time to see the stallion's head whip round in shock.
“Hey, buddy,” Rainbow snapped. “Where do you get off just attacking people out of nowhere? Let's try that again, chump, and see how well that goes for you!”
As the stallion stumbled to get back into his ungainly fighting stance, Rainbow Dash gave a flap of her wings and leapt towards him in a soaring arc. He struck out again with that shockwave-punch thing of his. But this time Rainbow knew it was coming, and that made it simple to dodge. A tilt of the left wing, a tuck of the right, in an instinctual movement her experienced mind only interpreted as “move here,” and she ducked around the blast in an almost casual roll. As she drew closer, the stallion tried to step out of the way.
She rammed into him with all the speed of a freight train, lifting him up into the air with a rainbow path trailing behind.
He slammed both forelegs down on her unprotected back, forcing her to let him go. She recovered quickly; her wings had not been injured, and while her back would bruise, it was nothing for her to worry about. The stallion, on the other hoof, kept flying in the direction Rainbow Dash had been carrying him, and with the same speed, soaring up about four stories into the air before crashing down on the reflective glass of the stands. He rolled down the gentle slope, and fell off the edge to land in a heap on the edge of the arena.
Dash felt a twinge of worry when he didn't get up right away. But the stallion was still breathing.
“And Rainbow Dash scores a major hit against Iron Cannon. What an upset! Not bad for a first timer, wouldn't you say, Pike?”
“She's certainly putting on a more impressive performance the second time around, Bill. But if I'm reading this clock right, then her time alone with him has just run out.”
There was a screech from the far corner of the stadium. Rainbow Dash flicked an eye in the direction of the sound, and saw that the whole wall was being lifted. There was a low growl that reverberated throughout the air, and the ground shook as something behind the massive grate stepped forwards.
“Ladies and Gentlethings, let's all give a big hello to a returning fan favorite: Rapthnir, the Dragon King! How will Rainbow Dash react to an opponent like this so soon in her fighting career?”
With a roar and a burst of flame, a giant of a dragon stormed out onto the field of battle, his golden scales stained to rusty orange around his jaws and talons, and his wings spreading out to reach from one side of the stadium to the other.
“... Ponyfeathers,” Rainbow muttered.
Below her, the stallion stood once more. He wavered, and his breaths were heavy as he turned to face the Dragon King. Rainbow Dash found her attention split between the two, wary of another ranged attack from the hoof-fighter.
Then the dragon charged, and she suddenly found her focus much more centered.
“Can't we just talk this out?” Rainbow shouted, as she dropped low to avoid the sweep of a dragon wing. “Dragons can talk, right? I mean, I know that's not normally how I prefer to do things, but I think in your case, I'm willing to make an exception.”
The dragon roared at her, and loosed a curtain of flame. Dash bolted out of range, looping around the arena. A small part of her mind took the time to note how amusing the fire looked; while it was taller than five ponies and wider than it was tall, it was still absurdly small compared to the massive form of creature which breathed it.
The rest of her mind realized that the place where the stallion had been standing was now engulfed in flames.
“No!”
Rainbow Dash had lived a long time, and said goodbye to many of her friends, but she had never seen somepony die like that. In that instant, she decided it wasn't a feeling she particularly enjoyed.
That's when the thunder started.
It began with a single crack. Before the first sound had been given time to die away, it was followed by a second. Then a third. Crack after crack, boom after boom rang out, even over the roar of the flames. The flames themselves were beaten back, and behind them, Rainbow Dash could see the earth pony, keeping himself alive with nothing but the shielding breeze from his punches, which were like clockwork. Bang bang, bang bang-bangbang!
Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay,” she laughed, “You got me. I have to admit, that's kinda cool. You know, for somepony who can't fly, and all.”
Seeing that it's breath had been thwarted, the dragon switched tactics. It swept in a talon to do away with the puny fighter. As the earth pony was standing with his back to the stadium wall, he had to step sideways as he tried to evade the incoming claw.
Even as he stepped, Dash could see it was too late.
The stallion held up his forelegs in a hopeless attempt to block, and was flung a full twenty meters by the bone-shattering blow. His battered body rolled as it hit the ground, legs hanging loose at odd angles.
Then the dragon pounced and ate him.
Its massive head and sharp teeth smashed deep into the ground, carving furrows in the arena floor. When it pulled back there was no sign of the fallen warrior.
'... Oh.' Rainbow's stomach hollowed. 'Oh. That's not fair. He just died twice. You can't do that. Can't kill somepony twice.'
With lumbering steps, the dragon turned to face Rainbow Dash. She thought she caught a hint of smug satisfaction in its face.
The dragon roared as it lunged for her. She yelled back. It was a yell of rage, of defiance and rejection.
“RRAAAHHHH!!!”
Without the need for thought, she soared over the dragon's clumsy dive. As it glided to a stop, it turned to look back up into the arena's spotlights, where Rainbow Dash's hooves clicked on the metal ceiling as she crouched there, upside-down.
Then she dove, broke the sound barrier, and crashed into the monster in a blaze of rainbow destruction.
“And there it is, a real-life, bonafide Sonic Rainboom to finish off today's match! History played out before you, folks, for your viewing pleasure. What a way to go!”
When the dust settled, Rainbow Dash was pacing frantically on top of the dragon's corpse.
“Oh no oh no oh no... Come on, guy!” She shouted, leaning down the dragon's throat. “You've gotta be alive. You're tougher than this! Oh shoot, what do I do? How do I get somepony out of a dragon's stomach? Come on, Dash, think!”
“The life readings say it all, folks. Rainbow Dash overcomes Iron Cannon and the Dragon King to become the newest winner of Death Battles!”
She leaned back, ignoring the cheers of the crowd. “Oh shoot, I just killed a dragon! Shoot, shoot, shoot, Spike's gonna kill me.”
Thinking about the tall, friendly library assistant made everything feel worse. When Rainbow had been fighting for her life against a giant, snarling, fire-breathing monster, it had been easy to forget that dragons were just as smart as ponies. Looking at the corpse – the one she was responsible for – and imagining that chubby purple and green face over it... it just didn't add up in her head. It couldn't. She couldn't have...
A spotlight shone in her eye, and she glanced up to see herself prominently displayed on the weird rectangle thing. She scowled. A fanfare of trumpets blared from behind her, and she turned to see a golden gateway opening up at the far end of the stadium. Some ponies of various kinds and a griffon or two filed out on either side, all encased in sterilized rubber suits. They began picking up the scattered bodies of the fighters and beasts which had fallen before she showed up.
“Hey!” Dash cried out. She flew over to the worker closest to her. “Hey, you! There's a pony trapped in that dragon. We need to get him out before he suffocates!”
“Move along, victor,” the worker grunted, pointing towards the open door. “Your reward awaits.”
The spotlight moved back and forth to the exit, seeming to beckon her towards it.
Rainbow growled. “I don't have time for this. Somepony's dying here!”
She reached out to grab the worker. Before she could even touch him, a powerful shock ran through her body, arching her back as her muscles strained uselessly against each other. Unable to fly, she fell the short distance to the ground, and collapsed into a writhing ball of limbs.
Overhead, the image had stopped showing the real-time footage, and was now playing back the devastating Sonic Rainboom which had been the highlight of the match.
“And that's a wrap! Tune in tomorrow for more historic entertainment. Thank you all for watching, and good night!”
“This is Bill and Pike, signing off. Good night, Selucia!”
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As it turns out, Dash, you can totally die twice.
And of course, that means you can explode twice as well.
The more you know~!
This sounds like it needs a dark tag.
4184485
It does sound like that, doesn't it?
The setting's pretty dark, but that's not going to be the focus here. I mean, there's some pretty horrible stuff, but the characters are going to take it in stride pretty much, and I'm not going to get too graphic I hope.
I might have to add one later anyways, but I'm trying not to.
4184485
Actually, you know what? I changed my mind.
This story may not be grimdark, but I think it's got enough in it already to warrant a label. And even if it doesn't get darker, it's not really going to get any lighter either.
Thanks for bringing it up. I don't think I would have given the matter any more thought if it weren't for your comment.
This is interesting but I'm pretty confused at what's going on here. Can't wait to read more and find out what is going on!
4221298
Well, the mystery is part of the experience~
Things should get reasonably clearer in the next chapter or so. At least by then, Rainbow will be talking to somepony who's been in her situation for a while now.
4221325 Yeah it's much better to find out stuff as you go along than have the author reveal everything near the start. Awesome story btw!
Have you ever considered submitting this story to Equestria Daily? You can find out how to do so here.
Wait a minute... Death Battles and Rainbow Dash? Does this mean that she'll fight Starscream?
4227692
Ha! I hadn't considered that, no, though I'm flattered you bring it up. Equestria Daily is exceptionally intimidating, and I don't feel I've developed this story nearly enough yet on paper or in my head for it to be ready for that level of criticism. Perhaps later, when it's more complete.
4227700
Death Battles is a highly descriptive name, referring only to the events occurring in this (fictional) program. The similarity of titles with the more well-known "Death Battles" is purely coincidental, and I can say with certainty that Rainbow Dash will not be fighting Starscream in this fic.
Probably.
4295542 you're welcome and don't worry I can see you won't disappoint in coming chapters
Is this dead? Are you dead?
4940330
Well, I'm not dead. I've been trying to focus on my other story, but I intend to continue this eventually. It might be a while, though.
4231950 Maybe she could end up against a figure of Equestrian lore who just so happens to be Starscream in all but name?
5145413
That might work. Well, in all but name and being an actual giant, transforming robot. But I bet I could come up with some sort of reference.
We will see...
Will this be continued? I want to see where it goes. Also I like how much Rainbow was in character.
Pretty good start. Shame to see it abandoned. Might be easier to start over, maybe after figuring out a general outline for where the story is going. And maybe do a little world building to figure out how these battles work. It's obvious that they can heal and maybe even respawn fighters at a whim. Not too different from an idea I (kinda) stole for a story where gladiators in the future are pretty much just androids. They can die and be brought back as well.
Dunno if you'll ever come back to this, or if you're even on the site anymore. But I like the story and wouldn't mind seeing more. After all, we still don't know how Rainbow got where she is, how long she's been there, or what happens if she dies. I imagine she'd be pretty traumatized to wake up after feeling her life slip away or end in a quick snap. Getting beheaded is probably a trip, and not something you'd forget. She'll be having phantom sensations from her first few deaths, assuming she could even get used to the whole thing.
I do wish more people wrote stories like these. Battling to the death is a lot more interesting if the fighters can be brought back. Though not everyone would do well living such a violent life. Not to mention it brings up some rather troubling philosophical questions, especially if you're cloning people. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's going on. Rainbow dies, and they get some of her DNA (or just her bones if it's necromancy), then either clone or resurrect her to fight.
Good luck to you wherever you are. Hope you write more good stories.