//------------------------------//
// Episode 5: Climbing Higher 
// Story: Horse La Horse Season 2: Desperate Struggle 
// by Stegtorn 
//------------------------------//

	“Iron Will says: Wake up, monkey,” you feel a sweaty, smelly towel whip across your face. That wakes you right the fuck up. Nothing like the smell of wet bullman in the morning. You jolt off the couch and damn near slam your face into the coffee table doing it.
“M-meh,” you groan, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes.
“Your montage starts today, dummy,” he says in a strong tone.
“A-already?”
“We’ve got 13 days starting today, and I was not impressed at all by yesterday’s performance. We need to pump you up if you’re gonna stand a chance against anyone in that tournament.”
“Alright sensei, let’s get to it. Am I gonna be waxing your manga collection to build up my reflexes?”
“No,” he grunts, beckoning you to follow him into the next room.
[CUE TRAINING MUSIC]
Theme of Anonymous' training:  Momma Said Knock you out Instrumental - LL Cool J. 
“First let’s work on that vitality, huh?” The old bull says, tossing you some simple weights. You catch them and give those suckers one or two test pumps, lightweight shit. They couldn’t be more than a pound or two each. 
“Put those down, those aren’t for you. This is though,” he says, pointing to a stellar, glistening with sweat, treadmill.
“Really? That’s some really weak shit for someone of my calibur,” you state, thrust a thumb at yourself with undue confidence.
He cuffs you by the ear and tosses you on the thing anyway, rocking that shit up to maximum immediately. ZWWWIP, it whirs to life under you, pulling you in like a riptide. You try to stay afloat in the mist of sweat and the smell of burning rubber, getting your feet back under you and ready to run to keep up with the thing beneath you.
“This isn’t so bad!” you shout over the machine’s inner workings clunking and clinking, your legs moving like the roadrunner’s in a whir of circular green and black.
“Oh yeah, tough guy?” Iron Will asks smugly, “how bad is this then.”	
You don’t see what he does, but you feel it. A dumbbell collides with your head with massive power behind it. And then another two at your back and leg, thrown like speedballs. The pain sets in immediately, feels like you got pegged on the schoolyard playing Suicide times twenty. 
“Why are you doing this?” you cry out, grasping the treadmill for dear life as your legs threaten to give out.
“This is the first day of your new life, I wanna hear you scream if you want Iron Will to mold you into the monkey man who can take on the Mega Forces,” he says with a grovel, tossing another dumbbell.
You can do little else aside from wheeze, pant, and feel pain, but in your head you’re determined as fuck to end this tale with the Mega Forces under you. 
“Repeat after Iron Will: There is no such thing as pain, it’s all in the brain!” he says cheerfully, dumbbell putting a dent in the back of your skull.
“N-no such thing as pain, it’s all in the meh!” you try to reply, feeling your nonexistence asthma take the words for you.
Two more pink 1 lbs plastic weights to your back, “I can’t hear you~”
“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PAIN, IT’S ALL IN THE BRAIN!” you holler, throwing your bruised head back in fury.
“Good, good,” Iron Will said reassuringly, flinging out more weights like a pitching machine of pain. 
FADE TO BLACK.
Camera pans across a large, sunlit, green field. Iron Will, an unassuming goat and Anonymous are standing together in the grassy knoll. 
“Now this here is Iron Will’s signature move,” Iron Will begins, pumping his right arm up and slapping that thick bicep, “do not show the inner workings of this technique to anyone.”
Iron Will slams himself hard on the grass, sweeping the goat’s 4 legs with one arm, a bleat of distress coming from the poor creature. He rolls on top of it, covering it like a ball, and then springs backward on his two hooves, crushing the goat’s head into the floor with a suplex. 
“Hot damn.”
“I call that little number the Iron Clutch, now you give it a try.”
“Alright boss, I think I can manage,” you reply, smiling, remember how much it hurt when you were in that goat’s place. You crack your knuckles and wrench the goat free from the dirt, its horns leaving two three-four inch depressions into the earth. 
You set the dummy up right and get ready. You fall hard on your back, SLAM! As you fall you whip your arm down around the goat’s legs, knocking it over onto its side. With a bombastic roll you mount the bleating, kicking beast, struggling to keep it pinned for the next part. You hear you knees snap into a smoother position as they bend back, back curving like a rainbow. The soothing sound of a goat in pain, and dirt being dug up tells you that something went right.
You erect yourself like a car dealership balloon man, wiggling back up right. After your fights a few days ago, you’re not feeling as limber as before. Maybe it has to do with the suit’s lack of power however. Makes you how much of that power was you and how much was Twilight’s magic.
Iron Will pats you on the back and gives you a kudos, but you don’t pay too much attention. “Something, something, you’re gonna face me in the ring!” he says boisterously, motioning toward a large wrestling ring just a few paces away.
“Wha!?” 

Your boy Will rocked up in something stylin’ today. You hadn’t seen him all morning, and didn’t bother looking for him either. The whole time you were fixing breakfast and getting tense, waiting for a dumbbell to be thrown at you anytime you opened a cabinet. Figuring he was pumping up for your match in some other way, you let him be and mentally prepared in your own way.
That is, by stripping into your boxers and watching re-runs of Neko Neko with a bowl of cereal. That’s carbs right? That stuff is good for you, right? What aren’t you suppose to do before a boxing match? Is it cum? Are you not allowed to cum?
Well, either way, it doesn’t matter now. This is a boxing match, not a virility contest. 
“Get out here you little nerd,” you hear Iron yell. You jump out of your own skin and skeleton strut outside, a nervous jig in your step. Why are you so freaked out? He’s just a bull-man, you literally destroyed a giant metal monster by yourself a couple weeks ago!
Iron Will waves his hand toward the ring, proudly presenting it to you before hopping over the ropes into it. He hits the canvas with a nice “spring” sound. You clamber up the world’s largest twizzlers to get into the ring yourself.
Iron Will gives you a big hairy hand, tugging you up.
“T-thanks,” you begin, but you don’t get a single letter more out before Will chucks you into the nearest turnbuckle, rocking you against the pole with his force. You hang with your arms wrapped against the ropes, unable to move as Will rushes you. He picks you up, on hand grabbing your inner thigh, the other your shoulder, and he bows his head forward. With a swift motion his slams you against his back and then jumps up, spinning so you’d slam into the matt.
Blam! You’re crushed by big blue. He grunts with effort as he tries to crush you into a sweaty mess onto the canvas. Your instincts kick in, and you try to do a pushup to get him off you, and it’s almost working! 
Your muscle connect to the servers, and lock up tightly as you force him off, the big bad bull rolling to your side and slamming on the mat. You jump to your feet, run to the ropes, bounce off them like a maniac, and deliver a sick leg drop to his chest. BOOM! He shudders with the force of your move, spitting up some air and his eyes bulge. 
You help him up, dust him off, and irish whip him into a corner. He grunts as he travels to the turnbuckle, music to your ears. He’s slumped over the corner of the ring, his big arms hanging outside, his muscular back exposed. Time to put his training to use!
“Let me show you how the student becomes the master,” you shout, glint in your eye.
You charge up to him, getting both arms under his legs and lifting, weakly the little hooves of his kick out, and he starts to come to as you pick his furry (m)ass up. 
"No, no, no!" he mutters, desperately trying to get free of your vice grip.
Your biceps burn, and it feels like you can't do it. Beads of sweat develop, but a vital surge of spirit energy hits you. Your training kicks in, memories of all those dumbbells thrown at your head, the pain, the agony! You lift your mentor even higher, and then toss him back at the turnbuckle, completing an amazing powerbomb.
Huffing and puffing, you stagger back a pace or two. Iron Will breaths raggedly, holding his hand up, "good job, ya did good, kid."
"Is that it?"
He shakes his head, "for now. It's enough to convince me to go with you. We'll train more on the road."
You nod your approval back at him, catching your breath still.
"Help me up?"

IN THE NEXT EPISODE:
How will this dynamic duo of humanoids fair in their scheme?
Will the Mega Forces sniff out our heroes and uncover their plans?
Can Anonymous truly redeem himself and right his wrongs?
FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON HORSE LA HORSE!