Fluttershy and the Art of Fighting

by currentlemon

Chapter 4

“Hello? Hello, Fluttershy?” Zephyr Breeze gently knocked on his sister’s bedroom door. “I’m all finished with my work. Can I have my console back please?”

There was no answer. Despite him being somewhat patient, Zephyr began to wonder why Fluttershy wasn’t answering him. He had hoped that she would answer right away, but not a single sound came out of her room. Desperate, he raised his arm and knocked on the door even louder.

“Come on, sis. Why aren’t you saying anything?!” Zephyr whined. “It’s been over an hour already! Can I please have my game back?!” Despite his loud pleas and even louder knocking, there was still no response from Fluttershy. Losing the last bit of his patience, he banged on the door with both of his hands.

“At least say something!” Zephyr groaned. Yet even with the louder tone and knocking, there was still no answer from his sister. As his cries became ineffective, he slumped down to the floor with his hands sliding on the door.

Why aren’t you saying anything? Zephyr sighed as he slowly got up from the ground. He threw his arm back, ready to knock on the door again, but soon caught sight of the door knob. Hey, wasn’t the door open when I left. Maybe she left the door open?

Zephyr quickly clenched the knob with his left hand and twisted it. As soon as a clicking sound was heard, he immediately sighed in relief.

“Yes, it’s open!” Zephyr said, smiling. “Thank goodness. Now why didn’t I try this first? Oh well. I’ll just peek inside and check on her. She’s probably sleeping or something. That’s why she won’t answer me.”

He slowly creaked the door open and peeked inside the room.

“Fluttershy, are you asleep?” Zephyr whispered. Fluttershy, however, still did not respond. “What the heck?” He opened the door a bit more to get a glimpse of the bed, but only found Angel sleeping on one end.

Good, at least her pet rabbit is asleep. I really don’t want to deal with that crazy bunny. Pushing his body forward, Zephyr began to slowly open the door even wider. Now where is Fluttershy? If she’s not on the bed, then maybe—

His thoughts were interrupted when he suddenly heard music playing from inside. It was faint, but still hearable in some way. Curious, he opened the door wide and got a look at the back corner of the room.

“What the—?” Much to his surprise, he found Fluttershy still on her seat, arcade stick still on her lap. Her eyes were completely focused on the screen. She didn’t even notice her bedroom door had opened.

“She’s still playing?!” Zephyr yelled out loud. Immediately, he covered his mouth in reaction, thinking that Fluttershy heard him. However, Fluttershy paid no attention, and continued playing like nothing happened.

Wow, she didn’t even budge. She must be really into the game then. He glanced over to the bed again, making sure that he didn’t wake Angel up. He sighed in relief as he saw that the bunny remained asleep. Glad I didn’t wake that thing. Would’ve thrown a temper at me if I woke it up.

He turned back toward his sister. I’ll just get her attention by tapping her on the shoulder. Slowly, Zephyr tipped toed toward Fluttershy, doing his absolute best not to make a sound. Gosh, she’s so focused on the game that she doesn’t even notice me. I wonder if this is the reason why she didn’t answer my knocks?

A smirk grew wide on his cheeks. Maybe if I surprise her, she’ll fall off the chair. Oh, that would be hilarious. It’s always funny seeing her panic like that.

Reaching out with his right arm, Zephyr attempted to gain his sister’s attention. Before he could however, he looked up and caught a glimpse of the monitor screen. He noticed that one of the characters was moving rather quickly.

Huh, that’s probably Fluttershy’s character. I wonder what’s she doing? Taking his arm back, Zephyr inched closer to Fluttershy and got a good look at his arcade stick. Her right hand was placed neatly on the buttons while her left hand was firmly grasped on the joystick. With a flick of her left wrist, Fluttershy moved the joystick at a pace so fast that Zephyr barely had time to see.

Da!

Zephyr looked at the screen and saw one of the characters had been sent flying away to the ground. He watched as Fluttershy dashed closer to the downed character and started beating it silly. The tapping of buttons could be heard, as she finally ended her attack with a damaging six-hit combo.

Zephyr’s shoulders slumped to the ground as he stared at the monitor W-what the heck?! She can perform combos already? How?! She just started playing the game. And that moved she performed. What was that?

A wide smile appeared on Fluttershy’s face as she bounced up and down on her chair. “Yay, I did it!” She squealed and clapped her hands together. “I finally did it after so many tries. Thank goodness. This one was a little bit more difficult compared to the other combos I did.”

“Other combos?! You mean you can do other combos already?!” Zephyr immediately covered his mouth and flinched backwards as he realized he had broken his silence.

“Huh?” Fluttershy turned her seat around in response to the noise. She gasped as she saw Zephyr staring at her with his mouth covered.

“Z-Zephyr?! What are you doing back in my room?!” Fluttershy asked, recoiling on the back of her chair. She would’ve fallen off if it wasn’t for the recliner. As she recovered, she began bombarding Zephyr with multiple questions.

“H-how long have you been standing there? Have you been watching me play this whole time? Why are you back in my room so early? Did you already finish your work?”

“Uh, yeah, I just finished all of my work,” replied Zephyr as he stumbled on his words. I can’t believe it. She doesn’t even know how much time has passed. “I-I don’t know if you haven’t realized it yet, sis, but it’s been over an hour since I left your room.”

“Wait, what?” Fluttershy glanced at her alarm clock on the end table. “It’s already eight thirty?! Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t notice this till now. I-I need to take a bath and get ready for tomorrow!”

Placing the arcade stick aside, she stood up and quickly walked over to her bed. “Come on, Angel, wake up.” Angel rubbed his eyes as Fluttershy rocked him back and forth. “I’m sorry, Angel. I didn’t mean to wake you up so suddenly. I guess you fell asleep when I was playing. Come now, let’s get ready for a bath.”

Zephyr watched as Fluttershy moved franticly across the room, taking pajamas as well as several other items from her closet. He mumbled as he played around with his fingers.

“So…. Fluttershy, how was the game?” he finally asked. “I’m guessing you liked the game?”

“Oh, yes, it was so much fun!” Fluttershy replied. “It was much better than thought. I haven’t had that much fun since I first played Kingdom Hearts 2!”

“Ok then.” Zephyr walked over to the table and turned off the console. “So, how were you able to perform those combos? I mean, you just started playing the game. I didn’t think you’d be doing something like that so soon.”

“I just used a combo video Angel found online,” she answered.

Zephyr blinked. “Wait, Angel found a combo video?”

“That’s right,” Fluttershy replied. “He was able to log into my computer. I don’t even know how he used it. I was so focused on the game that I didn’t even notice. But he did end up finding a combo video for my character.”

“Ok, but how were you able to perform them already?” Zephyr asked. “I mean, you just started playing!”

“Well, I didn’t get them right at first,” said Fluttershy, admittingly. “I had a little trouble figuring out which moves I needed to do. It became easy for me once I kept practicing. The only problem I had was the just frame move my character had.”

“Just frame?” Zephyr asked, puzzled. “What’s a just frame?”

“It’s a move where you have to press a button and directional joystick input at the same time,” Fluttershy explained. “You never heard of it before.”

“No, this is the first time,” replied Zephyr as he shook his head.

“Huh. I guess it only applies to my character then,” Fluttershy remarked. “I have to admit; the move was really hard. I had so much trouble getting the right input. It wasn’t until I started adjusting my hand on the joystick that I finally started doing it right. Even then I couldn’t get the move down most of the time.”

Fluttershy took her phone off the end table and table and grabbed Angel off the bed.

“Thank you for letting me play, Zephyr. The game was fun! I would love to play it again sometime. I mean, if that’s ok with you.”

“Uh, yeah sure,” replied Zephyr. “Just talk to me anytime you want play. I’ll set everything up in your room like before.”

“Thank you.” Fluttershy turned and petted Angel on the head. “Come on, Angel, let’s get a nice warm bath.” Fluttershy opened her bedroom door and left, leaving Zephyr alone in the room.

He looked down on Fluttershy’s chair, staring idlily at the arcade stick. Both of his arms were deflated to the side. For a while, he didn’t move.

“I can’t believe it. She had fun. Fluttershy actually had fun with the game.” He turned and looked back at the computer monitor on the table. “Not only that, she can perform combos already. I’ve been playing for several days, and I can’t even do that yet. I haven’t even chosen a character yet!”

He looked back at the arcade stick, then at his game console. “Maybe I should stop. I don’t think I’m really good at something like—,” He slapped himself on the face. “No! Not again! I can’t give up again! I promised myself I’d pull through this time. I need to do this! I have to do this.”

Zephyr clenched his fists. “There’s still five more days until the tournament. That’s plenty of time. I’ll just have to find and pick character somehow. When I do, I’ll just find a combo video and practice like Fluttershy did.”

As his confidence returned, Zephyr began unplugging all the cables one by one. “There’s over thirty characters in the game. I’m sure I can find at least one character that I can play. And once I do, I’ll be doing combos like it was nothing. I mean, it shouldn’t be that hard. If Fluttershy can do it, so can I!”

Author's Note:

Alright, new chapter is done! I also have a new title for the story too. It may not be much of an improvement, but it's a lot better that Fighting Kindness in my opinion. Anyway, I'm going to take this story into a small hiatus. It's important that I take things slow and do more research on the game itself before I continue. There's so much that I need to cover, especially when Indigo Zap shows up. I'll come up with the chapter titles later. Thanks for reading.

Comments

[TheAlways-RunningDog]

8395110
What about the most important fighting game on the N64, Clay Fighter?

[currentlemon]

8466985
LoL. I remember playing that game when I was a kid. Fun, but broken.

[currentlemon]

Man, after looking at Chapter 3, I'm thinking about rewriting it. It's poorly written. Reminds me of my early work on my other stories.

[ArcanaMaverick7]

“Oh, yes, it was so much fun!” Fluttershy replied. “It was much better than thought. I haven’t had that much fun since I first played Kingdom Hearts 2 !”

That game IS pretty awesome! I remember first playing it. The Reaction Commands were amazing!

And I like the new title. It's pretty nice.

[currentlemon]

8467255
Thank you. I got a little help on that one.