Xenophilia: Further tales.

by TheQuietMan

26: Sting Like A Bee - by SpinelStride

Sting Like A Bee by special guest author SpinelStride
Chapter published 31st July 2013

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Rainbow Dash panted, sprawled out on the grass. Lyra settled herself down companionably beside her.

"Nice sparring with you as always," Lyra said amiably. "I don't think any other pony in town could have kept it going that long."

Rainbow Dash had to take several seconds of wheezing before she could find enough air to reply. "Thirty seconds is long?" she gasped out, finally.

Lyra nodded. "I don't think I've had a round go that long since I was expert-rated. You're getting very good at not being where I'm casting."

Rainbow Dash knew she should take it as a compliment - Grandmaster Lyra Heartstrings sparred with other Grandmasters, after all, and saying Rainbow Dash had outlasted them on the field was no small praise. But... "I never got within fifty feet of you!"

Lyra patted Rainbow Dash's neck. "You dodged fifteen straight spells before I caught your wing, casting at the speed of magic. That's a level of talent, skill, and very close to precognition any pony should be proud of."

Rainbow Dash groaned. "It still ended up with me face-first on the ground. I was sure I'd at least lay a hoof on you this time."

Lyra chuckled and patted Rainbow again, not urging her up yet. "I promise you, as a Grandmaster, those moves would have been enough to get you in reach of most ranking practitioners of the Still Way. That wasn't any style I recognized. What exactly was it?"

Rainbow Dash managed to give a small, proud smile upward. "Totally new thing I came up with. A couple of weeks ago, after we were practicing hoof-throws, and then you showed me some of your horn-throws? I went over to visit Fluttershy, because sitting in a chair and talking quietly was sounding real good right about then. And I saw how she flies around the place and it just came to me. She flies so slow, it's all herky-jerky, you know? But move like that at fighting speed, and it's way harder to hit the right spot." She flexed her wings to the sides and winced. "Felt like the air was made out of rocks, moving like that."

Lyra smiled back. "I strongly suspect that the pegasi in Equestria who could actually manage to do that can be counted on a single hoof."

Rainbow Dash gave a tired but proud smile. "Well, I am awesome like that." Then let her head drop back to the ground. "Still not enough. Gyehh. I mean, I knew you were gonna totally whoop me, and I bet you were holding back as it was, but I thought I'd do better than that."

"So what are you going to call your new technique?" Lyra asked. "It's more than a move, but not so much a new school in and of itself, and it certainly doesn't fit in any of the existing pegasus schools."

Rainbow Dash smiled a little again. "I'm thinking I'll call it the Flutterdash." She groaned. "And if I show it off at a competition sometime, maybe I can get everypony else to sprain their wings trying to copy it."

"Very humble, I'm sure," Lyra commented, and started rubbing carefully at Rainbow Dash's wings. "Hold still, now. I'm no Lero, but I can help with this."

Rainbow Dash blushed anyway. "Careful," she said. But Lyra's massage was helping, so she tried to relax and just enjoy it. "Say, Lyra? You don't think Twilight could take you for thirty seconds?"

Lyra snorted. "If Twilight and I seriously went at it, the fight would be over within two seconds, one way or another. If I had her distracted, surprised, or frantic enough to have her head out of it, I would have about one shot to take her down before she started reacting. If she saw me coming and was thinking clearly, there would be absolutely nothing I could do. She could teleport, put up a shield, turn me into a potted plant, reverse gravity, negate my spells, and grow a mustache on me for good measure. Skill is one thing, but Twilight's magical ability is a thing out of legend. I'd have as much luck trying to spar with the Princesses."

Rainbow Dash flexed her neck, stretching. She stayed on the ground, though. She'd hit down pretty hard. "So... you're not going to teach her unicorn fighting techniques? I kinda wondered if you might. We do run into dangerous stuff sometimes."

Lyra let out a low whistle. "You really want to see how much of Ponyville is left after Twilight Sparkle develops reflexes to use trained, deliberate violence when startled?"

Rainbow Dash considered that. "Iiiiii withdraw the question." She pushed herself to her hooves, then stretched her legs and wings. "Nnnnngh... All right. Ready for round two?"

Lyra lifted an eyebrow at her. "You want to try again? A straight-up spar, standard starting distance?" She smiled and got to her hooves. "You do recall what I said about me taking on Twilight, don't you? It'd be like me trying to spar with the Princesses."

Rainbow Dash gave her a toothy smile. "I guess that's the difference between us, then. I'd love to go wing-to-wing with Princess Luna sometime. I bet Luna knows all sorts of awesome thousand-year-old forgotten fighting techniques and stuff."

Lyra smiled quietly back. "And Princess Celestia?"

Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. "I kinda already did fight Luna that one time, when she was Nightmare Moon, and then she totally pranked me good on Nightmare Night. So that's one thing. I can picture getting in the air against her. I kinda think they'd fight different, anyhow. Luna might like the challenge and stuff and even do the whole draw-it-out-for-honor thing, but I have this feeling that if it was a real fight then Princess Celestia would just blammo me into the ground and walk on by."

Lyra smiled and settled into her stance. "I'm glad to know where I rank. Next to Luna, is it?"

Rainbow Dash gave her that brash smile again. "Remind me who blammoed me into the ground a couple of minutes ago," she said. "Now, ready?"

Comments

[TheQuietMan]

I do love a good guest chapter, don't you?

And I'm hope I'm not spoiling anything by mentioning this but you should all be expecting something reaaaally special from SpinelStride pretty soon.

[warpd]

I do like guest chapters.

[Ghost-091]

I'm with Dash on this. There is nothing better than a nice, friendly spar with someone who is highly skilled. It's a good way to relive stress and keep those skills sharp.

[SpinelStride]

2969546
And it's posted!

[djthomp]

Lyra let out a low whistle. "You really want to see how much of Ponyville is left after Twilight Sparkle develops reflexes to use trained, deliberate violence when startled?"

[thulsadoon]

"I'm thinking I'll call it the Flutterdash."....That's actually pretty clever. A whole new fighting technique based off of, what is in essence, a pony shaped butterfly. Anyone who tries to catch butterflys for any length of time will understand what I'm getting at. The human equivalent is of course the Drunken Master technique. And yes, I did see what you did thar. Over all a nice quiet understated short that dosn't deviate from the main story. I give it 4 and a duck face .

[FanOfMostEverything]

2969807
And glorious. As is this. Like the other story, it builds on the Dash-Lyra relationship, perhaps the most neglected of the herd, and it does a magnificent job of it. Thank you for both.

Also, I kind of want to see Scootaloo selling tickets to one of these sparring matches.

[Pvt PartyPooper]

More mint pony is always nice to have

[Ausbrony]

Oh man, I so wanna see Lyra vs. Celestia.

[World Theory]

Short … but interesting!

[SpinelStride]

2973943
BLAMMO.

Rainbow Dash poked her head over the side of the hole. "Told ya," she said.

"I think I'm going to just lie here and stay very, very still now," Lyra whimpered.

"Your turn, Rainbow," the Princess of the Sun serenely declared.

Rainbow Dash swallowed, then got into her stance.

BLAMMO.

[Type_Writer]

Say, is that clever foreshadowing for the final chapter I see?
That's how it all fits together!

[nibtip]

Great guest chapter. BLAMMO is my word for the week.

[Sketch Scribbles]

2970253
Luna: "We seem to remember there being a town over where yonder crater lies..."
Celestia: "What crat-... oh... I guess somepony taught Twilight to use offensive spells properly." *sighs*

[neokiva]

This fiction is disorientating is it a mixture of short stories with a lot of plots that are half finished or is it a cohesive story way out of order(that should be reordered) I know the author says the latter but I'm leaning toward the former.

[Amethyst Blade]

Well, both of them are princess-warrior type, and through the POV of Celestia, Luna can fight and can fight very well, better than herself.

[BlueNinja]

"I'm thinking I'll call it the Flutterdash."

She could teleport, put up a shield, turn me into a potted plant, reverse gravity, negate my spells, and grow a mustache on me for good measure.

"What kind of plant grows a ?" "I don't want to find out, Dash."

"You really want to see how much of Ponyville is left after Twilight Sparkle develops reflexes to use trained, deliberate violence when startled?"

I thought the Still Way was all about knowing when not to react?

Princess Celestia would just blammo me into the ground and walk on by.

And then assign you community service to fix the hole in the road your head just made.