Rainbow 8

by Koiyuki

Twilight's Workout Journal: Week 6

Scootaloo arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed for training one day, with her companion, Sweetie Belle, being much like myself on the first day: half asleep and possibly silently cursing her friend for waking her up so early. When Dash heard her grumblings, she asked if this was her first time, to which she replied, “First time getting up this early to work out, yeah. What’re you, coocoo for Cocoa Puffs? You’ve gotta be to think this was a good time for a workout” I could see the beginnings of the angry eye twitch popping up on Dash’s forehead, so I, along with Pinkie Pie, volunteered to ease Sweetie Belle into the program, while Scootaloo went along with Dash for their session. I’d hate to think what Dash might’ve put her through if they were left alone at the gym, but, as a pleasant side effect, I got to understand more about Sweetie Belle’s motivations, as well as why only she came along.

From my understanding, she first heard about it during one of their Cutie Mark Crusader meetings, during which Scootaloo brought up her “amazing” time with my trainers and I. After demonstrating the 1b-1-2-3b combo I taught her, the girls were really interested in training with us, and soon started to discuss the sweet science-including the more dangerous aspects of the sport. The more Apple Bloom discovered things like concussions(which, let’s be honest, is what makes a Knock Out punch a Knockout) and long term brain damage, the more she was turned off by the idea of joining Scootaloo that day, saying, “I can’t go trainin’ with you, if it means trainin’ myself to hurt folks that badly”

Nonetheless, Sweetie Belle was quite game, and stuck with it throughout the no doubt taxing amount of effort she was putting out just to get to the end-why, if I remember correctly, we had to break out the puke bucket the first day of her training, before we even finished warm ups. Afterwards, though, she demonstrated a very innate understanding of how boxing works when we taught her the Pop Boom Pow shuffle and the 4 basic punches-so innate, in fact, that she was learning and applying it faster than I could explain it. I had to know how she learned this so fast, and she started talking about how her sister and her used to train after school at a gym run by Cus D’Amare. They never met Cus, but his students taught them a ton about boxing theory and philosophy, including wisdom straight from Cus, like, “The only difference between Heroes and Cowards is how they feel and how they do what they do.” That mentality showed up in spades when we had her and Scoots, fresh from her session with Dash, spar before we all went for our end day runs.

They had lots of fun with each other in the ring, but seeing them fight revealed many techniques I never saw before, including Sweetie’s volley of pulled punches and the series of weaves into hooks I saw Scoots try to execute. So intense, were their spars, that Dash was close to throwing in the towel on several occasions, including when they exchanged right crosses and knocked each other on their backsides, laughing about it before they got back up and resumed their session. The highlight, for me, has to be when Sweetie goes off and says, “Thanks for being such a great teacher, Twilight” before doing whatever she does when she gets home.

As I went around town, people around town started talking about Scoots and Sweetie, mainly the young ones, and mainly about how much they also wanted to train with someone, “As awesome as Rainbow Dash and that one great teacher with the purple hair,” to quote someone I heard during my daily errands. My senses told me that someone was spreading the word about their time with me and my trainers, which would lead to a curious onlooker or two coming to take a peek at how I train, that curious onlooker soon coming in the form of Sweetie Belle’s sister. Near the end of the week, she just walked in the gym and started doing her own workouts near where her sister was, saying nothing, even when we went for our jog.

The second I saw her, three thoughts crossed my mind: What is she doing here? Why is smiling at me? and What is she wearing? I don’t know where she comes from, but to me, azure short shorts and a white hoodie with azure on the underarms don’t exactly scream “I’m here to work up a sweat”. Seeing as I had training to do, though, I didn’t pay her much mind, even when we were doing drills and practically giving her the blueprint for how I planned to take on Applejack. The end of the week came, and Sweetie Belle had the biggest smile when she went up to talk with her sister, gushing about my teaching methods and how she could now push herself harder than ever before in her quest for a Cutie Mark. Rarity gave her a bag of bits and smiled at her whole time Sweetie was leaving the gym with Scootaloo, immediately turning her gaze towards me and sauntering her way towards the ring. As she did, she said this to us:

I just wanted to thank you all for working with my dear Sweetie Belle. I’m sure she told you about our time in Cus D’Amare’s fabulous gym, but when she got a cut during a sparring session, our parents suddenly pulled both her and I out of the program. We were both simply gutted, and working with you brought out a focus and fire I haven’t seen in her in ages. To show my appreciation, I would now like to test your current capabilities and help you find the kind of fire you lead my dear Sweetie Belle to. If you understand that I won’t hold back and wish to accept, all you have to do is put ‘em up.

I looked over at my trainers, and they gave me a silent nod, the thought, “The only difference between Heroes and Cowards is how they feel and how they do what they do,” prompting me to “put ‘em up,” and Rarity to snap her fingers, summoning two medics to her corner. One held her azure gloves and the other, a bag with a red cross, surely there in case something drastic happened to either of us during this on the fly boxing match. She laced her gloves up and told me I had “3 minutes to prove that you’re good of a pugilist as you are an instructor. As I will be aiming to make you taste the canvas, I expect the same from you, towards me. Don’t disappoint me, now, darling.” The whole thing was a total blur for me, so afterwards, I asked Dash, the makeshift judge at the time, what went down.

According to her, I was actually doing quite well for the first minute of the bout, landing a lot of quick combinations and displaying excellent defense, even implementing defensive techniques we haven’t approached yet-all of which, especially slipping and weaving, I pulled from my memory of Dash and Scoots practicing them. Unfortunately, things started going south when Rarity introduced a technique Dash had yet to either teach me or practice with Scoots: feints.

I didn’t understand what could set up into pinpoint punching until the feints came out, and she conditioned me to start blocking, slipping and weaving into her game plan, which included using double right jabs to the head, then body to get me to duck down.That pulled body jab flowed into an overhead hook aimed right behind my ear-the other magical off button, as Dash explained. Not sure how I held on, but I got my bearings and tried to survive until my 3 minutes were up.

My attempt at catching her duck lead to her slipping my right upper and drilling a cross into my face. After missing a right hook to the head, my sway back from what I thought was an overhead left lead to my ribs absorbing 2 right hooks. My attempt to emulate her feints lead to my overhead right being slipped and answered with a left hook to the body; her feinted jab lead into a guard splitting, head raising uppercut, then, as Dash saw to her horror, a vicious, head swiveling left hook on my chin, with me falling to my knees, then face first onto the mat.

It was humbling, to say the least, to hear the detail Dash recalled in my fight, and allowed me to start thinking about what went wrong as Dash served me a Panini pressed Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich with a glass of milk. The second I saw those treats, I knew something had changed, as the day we began, she forbade those kinds of snacks until she saw I was ready to go beyond what I thought possible. She smiled at me and said, “As you and I both knew, at that point, you had no business trying to put your training into action, but when you laced ‘em up, you showed me you had the guts to go hard, as well as the skills and intuition to pull out everything you had to put up a good fight. Those first 60 seconds totally showed me you have the basics down pat, so it’s time for us to get into the meat of this stuff and give you every tool you’ll need to even the odds and use that egghead mentality to overcome her trying to crack the shell.”

Progress for the Week: I held my own in a fight! A real, honest to goodness fight! Granted, it could've ended better, but the fact that I almost made it to the end of 3 minutes is a very big deal. Hopefully my next fight will end a bit more pleasantly

Goal for Next Week: Refine my technique and my defensive tactics. Knowing Applejack, she'll be a very sturdy, very powerful opponent, and if I expect to win, I have to learn how to minimize how much of that power my body absorbs and maximize how much energy I can make her expend trying to land a punch

Song of the Moment: Gotta Work, by Amerie
We heard this blasting out of Sweetie Belle's headphones during one of our runs, and she actually did an offhand performance of this song afterwards, when we were all resting up. Found a great deal of new relevance after that bout with her sister, and is something that's definitely gonna be a big part of my playlist down the line, since I know there'll be times I'll need to remember that "when you're feeling low, and you can't get no lower, that's when you know you're close."

Author's Note:

In Boxing, it take two to tango, and while Twilight is getting herself ready for the big night, Applejack is putting in plenty of work on her end, too. What could going through the mind of someone with a much bigger advantage and a much bigger audience wondering how she'll fare in the fight? Find out next time, when we follow Applejack and her trainers to the local spa for a chance to unwind and mull over what they need to bring into fight night. Don't miss it!

Comments

[Koiyuki]

2836961 She's always been capable of doing some damage, in my book. Don't let that Grace Kelly vibe fool you, she's shown plenty of times where she has the right stuff to throw down

[Seether00]

Well we always knew Rarity could fight. A lady needs to be able to defend herself till she can afford to hire bodyguards.