Noon had come and gone. The clubhouse had been redecorated (thought most ponies would have used the term ‘repaired’, ‘rebuilt’, or even just ‘built,’) the rest of class had had their fair reward for the help, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders had filled up their bellies to fuel their next grand quest of life-altering importance.
“Okay, so which one of these guys is gonna show us how to fight?” Apple Bloom asked.
Ponyville Park had been turned into a meeting ground for martial arts ponies, all of them with their own stands, their own canvas pajama uniforms, and their own fancy names for complicated, graceful, and intricate movements that all had the same noble and civilised purpose: beating the snot out of the other guy.
“Hey, look, there’s a demo starting!” Scootaloo pointed to a set of bleachers that ponies were flocking towards. The girls followed her lead and took a seat to see what the Warrior Meet had to offer.
Truth be told, the demo did not help.
First the karate crew came on. A bunch of ponies did a rigid set of punches, snap kicks, and swipes, all done with an ‘Ayaah!’ cry that made it sound like they pulled a muscle every time they attacked the air in front of them. Given their facial expressions, it was hard to tell whether they actually did pull any muscles.
“Well, what do you think?” Scootaloo asked.
“They look strong, but a little too uptight,” Apple Bloom replied. “Besides, I’ve tried karate already and it didn’t work out for me.”
“Yeah, I think we’d be pretty bad at that sort of thing,” Sweetie Belle concurred.
Next came what looked like some sort of native dancers, led by a zebra. They spent most of their time spinning around and jumping and kicking, and beating themselves on the chest like a gorilla.
“Which one’s this?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I think it’s called Kappaweirdal or something,” Scootaloo replied.
“It’s pretty,” Sweetie Belle said.
Apple Bloom grunted. “Yeah, but they ain’t even hittin’ each other. They’re just dancing around, and I’m pretty sure if you tried that in a real fight you’d just end up falling over.”
The other classes weren’t much better. The buckboxers all seemed to follow an unwritten rule to not grab a pony’s leg even when it was right in reach and up so high it left its owner open to a groin attack. They looked like capable fighters, but all the ponies only fought with opponents who were their own size.
Then came the Royal Guard, who demonstrated their forms with the spear and the halberd. Again, it looked impressive, but it wasn’t anything the girls might use, unless their families let them carry weapons around, which wasn’t likely, especially with the restraining order against them carrying something as harmless as a camera.
One by one, all the martial arts masters showed off their skills to the crowds. One by one, each got a round of applause. And one by one, each made the girls’ hearts sink deeper.
“What kinda martial art does your friend do, Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom asked once the last of the demonstrations was done.
“Umm, Whimper does something a little… different.”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “Well, what kind of different?”
“He teaches himself. Well, mostly.”
“And what does he teach himself?” Apple Bloom asked.
The little Pegasus pony gulped. Her wings clenched to her sides. “He, umm, he does... ninja fighting?”
Apple Bloom furrowed her brow. “Ninja fighting? You mean like those guys in the comic books, with the masks and the funny getups?”
Scootaloo winced embarrassedly. “Eheh, he doesn’t wear a mask, but he does have a funny getup.”
“Uhuh. And what kinda fightin’ is ninja fightin’, exactly?”
Scootaloo shrugged, then shivered. “It’s pretty intense. You don’t wanna get on the bad side of a ninja, trust me. They learn to get angry on command. Like, crazy, scary angry.”
“Sounds great, let’s do that!” Apple Bloom said, hopping off her seat.
“Wait, what?”
“Well, we gotta find a master to teach us how to fight, and you did say your friend’s really good at it. If we wanna challenge Wimpy, we gotta find a ninja master.”
Scootaloo nervously rubbed the back of her head. “Heheh, yeah, he’s really good at getting angry. Wait, what do you mean you wanna challenge Whimper?”
“Then it’s settled. Cutie Mark Crusaders, we’re gonna find us a ninja master.” Apple Bloom took off, and Sweetie Belle followed, leaving Scootaloo behind.
Scootaloo cringed. “You’re kidding about challenging him, right? Right?”
Rumble had spotted the crowds at the park, of course, but that wasn’t where he needed to be. Rumble’s tastes in martial arts were more specific, to the point that he already knew which school he’d ask. The problem at hoof was locating the teacher in said school.
A ninja pony worth their oats wouldn’t be found so easily, after all.
“Hey, Rumble!” a voice called out to him.
Rumble turned. He’d checked out Sugarcube Corner on a whim, but given that it was past lunchtime already, he should’ve known that was futile. He didn’t let that bother him, though. “Hey, Spike. What’s up?”
“Aren’t you going to the park for the martial arts stuff?”
“No, they don’t have what I want there.”
The dragon furrowed his brow. “Really? How come?”
“Umm, did Twilight mention anything about a ninja master coming to town, by any chance?”
Spike’s earflaps perked, which Rumble took as a yes. “She might have, but why do you ask?”
“It’s a ninja grandmaster I’m looking for.”
Spike looked at him intently. “You want a ninja grandmaster? Really? You can just go and do that?”
Rumble nodded. “Yup. The Warrior Meet is a very old tradition: any teacher that shows has to accept a request for lessons, if the student is deemed worthy. I got a book written by a ninja grandmaster, I’ve been practising since Flight Camp, I wanna see if I’m worthy. What about you? You wanted to check out something at the park?”
“Err… I was thinking of maybe asking some ponies if they can teach dragons. I mean, not that these big guys need any more fine tuning.” Spike flexed his biceps to show off, then realised the girls and mares passing by didn’t particularly notice, and let go. “I just kinda want a little brushing up.”
“You like martial arts? Really?” Now it was Rumble’s turn to be surprised.
“Sure. I used to spar with Shining Armour, before he made Captain. But I never got any official lessons, and between you and me -” He leaned in to whisper in Rumble’s right ear “- I’m kinda worried what might happen if I ever have to fight for real. That thing with the changelings was pretty scary.”
Rumble backed away, thinking. “Oh, right, I forgot. I guess you would want to learn how to fight. I mean, firebreath must be pretty neat, but it’s pretty dangerous, too, huh?”
“Yeah, I don’t usually use it to hurt anyone. But I might have to, eventually. I don’t want to, but if I have to, you know...”
The grey colt nodded. “You can tag along with me, if you like. Ninjas do a lot of breathing exercises, and a lot of meditating to get stuff like that under control.”
“Err, are you sure ninja fighting would help?”
“The school is called Nine Dragons Style.”
“Count me in!”
“Okay, now we just need to find the ninja master.”
“Excuse me, boys,” a mare behind them said. “I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about ninjas. Are you looking for someone?”
Spike looked up. His jaw nearly dropped right to the ground.
“Moongazer?”
Hurricane Hue stretched out his arms and legs with a satisfied sigh. The day was splendid and the new crop of stunt ponies at the Canterlot Opera were starting to take to his training methods. The next performance would make jaws drop, he was sure of it.
He always did have a soft spot for passionate students.
The sound of a door opening and closing snapped him out of his reverie, followed by sobbing. Getting up from his seat, he found his little girl was home. And she was crying.
Rainbow Dash had never been an easy child to handle. She was rebellious, stubborn, cocky, all the things her father hated but secretly knew he had been himself not too long ago. As for the girl’s mother, Hue had learned the hard way that Rainbow had gotten her sense of perseverance and loyalty not from him, but from Snow Chaser. This, unfortunately, meant that Rainbow got herself into trouble, a lot.
And then her cutie mark had come, shortly after an accident that had really been Hue’s fault. She’d somehow managed to fly down to Ghastly Gorge, where Hue trained the abilities his Warrior’s Heart could give him. Hue did the route on a weekly basis back then. Rainbow Dash had gotten far enough to be covered in thorns. Most ponies would have called her making it to the hospital a mystery, Hue called it a miracle. He still didn’t know who’d brought her there.
Of course she’d recovered, but Hue could tell she was different since then. She’d always been a little different, growing up with a father who was highly charged, who could affect ponies’ moods with his own, and who had a weird stare that could frighten lesser creatures into submission. He had a glow to him, and while his wife had accepted and grown into the same kind of glow, Rainbow Dash had had it forced upon her.
Her tall tale of the Sonic Rainboom had only confirmed his fears: she was fully unlocked, the energies in her body would affect her mind before she was ready. It gave her incredible speed, stamina, and strength, even more than she’d already had, but at the cost of her thinking mind.
Hue had seen it happen before his eyes. Rainbow’s grades slipped, she didn’t sleep as well as she used to, and she was antsy. She’d always been quick to anger, but nowadays a pony couldn’t so much as look at her without her taking it as a challenge. It was all his fault, Hue knew, simply for being around her and caring for her. He wasn’t sure if she’d hallucinated that Rainboom she’d claimed to make or if it was, as the Flight Camp counsellors had insisted, an accident involving a crash into a rainbow and a thundercloud, but to him it didn’t matter. Something had changed, and the only thought on Hurricane Hue’s mind as he went to comfort her was a plea to the stars and the heavens that just once, his daughter wouldn’t be in trouble because of him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I-I don’t know, daddy.” Rainbow shed her school bag and dropped it on the cloud floor. “We were at this market, and Miss Mayflower was explaining how they grow apples on the ground, and I saw a pony selling cider.”
“And?”
“And so I said I wanted to buy some cider. I don’t know why, but it smelled so good. We kept moving, but I couldn’t get the smell out of my nose. I could even taste the stuff from that far away.”
Hue’s heart sank. Enhanced senses, greater sensitivity, the body’s desire for food clouding the mind’s rational thinking, chalk up another one to Warrior’s Heart.
“Missus Mayflower said no. But I really wanted it, so I asked again. I had my own bits with me and everything, it wouldn’t have taken long. But I couldn’t. So I stopped asking. But then Thunderlane asked, and then Blue Belle, the whole class suddenly wanted cider.”
Her mood spilling over to others, that sure sounded familiar. Hue had to be careful about that, too: bigger crowds got him swept up in emotion, but the smaller ones got swept up with him. Made a nightmare out of spectating sports matches. “I see. And then they stampeded the cider stand, and you got blamed for it?”
Rainbow Dash let her head hang in shame. “Uhuh. I got a note from the principal.” She fetched the note out of her backpack. “She said I was a instigator.”
Hue read the note and sighed. Another mark on her permanent record. Why it was that ponies forgave transgressions in adults yet kept a permanent record for children who didn’t know any better was beyond him.
She pouted. “I didn’t mean to, daddy. I didn’t even get any cider, I swear. I don’t wanna be a instigator.”
“I know you don’t, Dashie.” He picked up the little filly and hugged her tight. “I know. It ain’t your fault. You’re just special, and that takes some gettin’ used to, for you and for ponies around ya. Daddy’ll find something. You’ve got a great talent, we just need to figure out how to tone it down.”
She clenched her arms around his neck. “I’m scared, daddy. What if I never get to be normal again?”
He shivered at the thought, but rubbed her back so she wouldn’t notice. “Aww, fear not, my chromatic little courser. Normal’s overrated, anyhow. I ain’t normal, and I dare say I don’t know anypony I’d call normal. You’ll be fine, you just need time and practice.”
“Really?”
“Really. Why, if you could smell cider from far away, can you tell what mom’s making right now?”
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and sniffed. She never ceased to amaze him: even without coded directions from old texts, she knew how to project her senses already, in a set direction. That trick, even in the Royal Guard, was rare outside the higher levels. “It’s something melon-y.”
“Very good. See?” He chuckled. “You’ll get the hang of it eventually. And while you’re doing that, let’s just pretend I’m very angry at you and you promise not to do it again, like last time.”
She nodded and smiled. “Okay. But, umm, dad?”
“Yeah, Dashie?”
“I think I just went blind.”
Hue waved a hoof in front of Rainbow Dash’s eyes. Her pupils did not respond in the slightest. He groaned. “That’s the third time this month. Come on, you.”
He picked her up and put her on his back, before striding towards the kitchen.
Then the clouds parted and he fell through the floor.
“Whoooaaa!”
The Ashen Blizzard shook his head and adjusted his visor. It had been a long time since someone had bucked him out of a tree, but then his wife didn’t know about all his hiding spots nowadays. Apparently he should have prepared for Applejack’s agrarian sense of decorum.
“This is a ninja grandmaster?” Apple Bloom asked, before exchanging a glance with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.
Hurricane Hue nimbly jumped up to land on his hooves and dusted himself off. “Indeed I am, little filly. I am the Ashen Blizzard, the strongest warrior and mightiest ninja in Equestria. You can call me Ash.” He held out a hoof for the girls to shake.
“Wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?” Applejack asked as the girls formally shook that hoof.
“Not really, darlin’, I was just about to reach spiritual enlightenment. So, what can I do in for ya?”
Applejack nodded to the three girls. “My sister and her friends would like some lessons, if that’s alright.”
“Oh, that’s perfectly alright, you don’t need to ask me for permission. You can go right ahead and get any teacher you like.” He smiled coyly.
The mare furrowed her brow. “You don’t teach yourself?”
“I used to, but most of my pupils found my teaching methods to be not to their liking. And to be perfectly honest, I prefer the self-taught ones, anyhow. Ninja fighting isn’t like the other schools, though you wouldn’t know with most of them nowadays.” He stifled a growl.
“But you do teach ninja fighting, right?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“That all depends,” Ash replied, staring from behind those intimidating shades. “What do you need lessons for?”
“Umm, to learn to stand up against a bully?”
Even with the mask they saw his eyebrows shift. “Little girl, what’s your name?”
“Sweetie Belle, sir.”
“And you?”
“Apple Bloom, I’m Applejack’s sister.”
He turned to Scootaloo. He grumbled to himself and leaned in closer to the pegasus girl. “And you? Are you Scootaloo, by any chance?”
She chuckled nervously. “Uh, yes, sir, that’s me. How do you know my name?”
Ash smirked. “Rainbow Dash is one of my students.”
“You taught Rainbow Dash how to fly?!” Scootaloo’s heart nearly burst out of her chest with sheer excitement.
“No, I taught her how to fight. She learned to fly from Rainbow Blitz, one of the junior instructors at the Wonderbolts Academy. She’s told me a few things about you, Scootaloo. Are you really as nimble as she says?”
“She sure is,” Sweetie Belle said, grabbing her friend closer. “But we’d all like to get a little more nimble and, you know, stronger and all. So, can you teach us, please?”
Ash chuckled. “Alright then, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, I’ll tell you what the deal is. The ninja style of teaching is different from other schools’ teachings, and my style is different from the other schools of ninja. I’ll give you this lesson for free: every ninja teaching has two sides: open and closed.” He curled his right front hoof up and down to illustrate. “The open form is what you can see on the surface, usually something physical. It’s a punch, a kick, a block, and just that. The closed form is more akin to magic, and involves learning to focus, how to breathe properly, even how you need to feel. A punch thrown when angry is very different from one thrown when calm. Every school of ninja has ways of summoning such emotions on command. The Nine Dragons Style is unique in that it doesn’t merely summon degrees of one emotion, but it switches in between the whole range.”
“Okay. But… does that mean you’ll teach us or not?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Oh, fear not, my astute little Apple, I ain’t decided against it yet. My point is: most schools of fightin’ don’t bother with teaching the inner forms of their moves at all, and the other schools of ninja don’t bother teaching it ‘till you’re at least a black belt. If you take lessons in Nine Dragons Style, you’ve got a leg up on the other fighters. And, not to toot my own horn, but if you learn from me, you’ll have two legs up.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Apple Boom jumped excitedly.
“We ain’t waitin’ for anything. I am waiting to hear the real reason you want to learn. I can tell when you’re lying, you know.”
“Is that really a problem, Mister Ash? It’s kind of personal.” Sweetie Belle said.
“If you want somepony else to teach you, fine. But if you want it from me, you need to be honest. A real ninja is a master liar, but he can’t do that if his heart ain’t pure and true. You lie to me right now and I try teaching you, you’re gonna hurt yourself in more ways than one. So, the real reason you want to learn how to fight, please?”
Scootaloo groaned. “Well, we kinda want to earn our cutie marks. We’ve tried lots of different things, but nothing works. We figured maybe learning ninja fighting might be best.”
“Why not try the other schools, then?”
“They didn’t seem all that useful,” Apple Bloom remarked. “And not a lot of fun, either.”
Ash grinned. “I see. So you are, in fact, not hoping to brag about being ninjas or beating up some bully in your class, by any chance?”
“No, sir,” Apple Bloom said. “We don’t really know enough to brag about anything.”
“We just want to learn, just in case,” Sweetie Belle said.
He considered that answer carefully. “Just that? There’s no other reason, no other reason at all?”
Apple Bloom buckled under the stallion’s gaze.”Well, there might one other little thing.”
“And that is?”
Sweetie Belle took over and grabbed Scootaloo tightly. “One of Scootaloo’s friends is a martial artist, and we really want to meet him, but she doesn’t want to bring him over, so we thought maybe if we learned how to fight we’d already have something in common.”
Ash’s ears twitched. “You don’t say?”
Scootaloo groaned. “Whimper again? Can’t you just let it go?”
“What? What better way to meet your friend from Flight Camp than by challengin’ him to a fight, right? You wanted a good excuse, this is the best one we’ve had since summer ended,” Apple Bloom said. “I mean, come on, it’s almost like you’re embarrassed about us.”
Scootaloo shook her head. “Seriously? Please tell me there’s some code of honour against this?”
Ash pondered it for a moment. “I’m afraid not. If you just want to socialise with martial artists, technically that’s what the Warrior Meet is for. How good is your friend?”
Scootaloo shivered. “Really good. He does ninja fighting, too. He’s scary good.”
Ash saw the tremble go through the girl. There was more than mere nerves in that, but what exactly, he couldn’t say. “I see. But you are all just trying to better yourselves, maybe make some new friends, right? No petty grudges, no bullying, no tryin’ to one-up anyone? Including each other?”
“No, sir.” Apple Bloom said. The girls all shook their heads.
Scootaloo broke away from Sweetie’s grasp. “And I am not going to bring Whimper to Ponyville, okay?”
“Actually, if he’s a martial artist, and highly skilled, he’ll probably show up for the challenger’s circle on Sunday anyway,” Ash said. Again, he saw the tremble go through the girl. He could almost taste the fear in her at that, it was uncanny. “But okay, then, that’s a better reason than most youngins have given me. If that’s the case, I’m going to have to find my-”
“Oh, Ash!”
“And speak of the devil. Girls, this is the Crescent Death. Crescent Death, this is Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Applejack, and Scootaloo here is one of Rainbow Dash’s little friends. These three are prospective students.”
The white mare chuckled. “Are they? That’s a coincidence, I found two more of them right here.”
“Hello, sir. Are you the Ashen Blizzard?” Rumble asked.
“That I am. And who do I have the honour of meeting?” Ash extended a hoof for the colt to shake.
“Rumble, sir.” He shook it carefully, doing his best to keep his breathing calm.
Ash nodded as he shook that hoof, slowly. “Rumble… you strike me as a colt with a little bit of experience, am I right?”
“I read your book, sir.”
“Ah, good.” Ash looked to Crescent Death’s left. “And you must be Spike the Dragon.” Again, he offered a hoof to shake, which Spike took gingerly.
“Yes, sir. Did Rainbow Dash tell you about me?”
“Didn’t need to, my boy: my day job is in the theatre, and you have quite the reputation in Canterlot. Not to mention what my successor’s told me about you.”
Spike blushed and fidgeted. “Eheh, yeah…”
Applejack squinted at the oddly named mare. “Crescent… Death?”
She smiled. “Call me Moongazer. These two boys have requested lessons in Nine Dragons Style, Ash. Think you can accommodate them?”
“Along with these three?” Ash raised a hoof to his chin, then walked off towards the tree he’d been napping in. “I’ll consider it, on one condition.”
“I thought the point of a Warrior Meet was to get lessons?” Applejack asked. “You’re just gonna refuse them like that?”
“A grandmaster has the right to refuse, yes, if he deems the students unworthy. Rumble, I’m just going to go on a hunch here and say you know what to expect from Nine Dragons Style, yes?”
“Open and closed forms right away, lots of weird stuff, couple of dangerous lessons?” The boy squeed with excitement, if ever so silently.
“Close enough. So, Spike, your reason for wanting lessons?”
Spike nervously rubbed the back of his head. “Well… it’s kind of a funny story, really. I’m the only dragon in town, and I’ve been in a fight once or twice, but I’ve never really won one. I mean, I did learn some stuff from Captain Shining Armour.”
“Obviously,” Ash added.
“But I don’t actually know what to do, for real. Plus, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I can breathe fire. That’s pretty good in a fight, right?”
Ash nodded. “A decent ranged attack can be useful, yes. I’d even hazard a guess thinkin’ that means you don’t need any lessons in the first place.”
Spike idly kicked the ground. “Yeah, see, that’s the thing: I don’t really know how to use that in a fight. I’m sure I might need to sometime, but I’d really rather not hurt anypony, or anyone. Rumble said you’ve got a lot of breathing exercises in your style.”
“We do. There’s a reason it’s called Nine Dragons.”
“See, that right there, I think I could use some of that. If you happen to know some way I could just do something in a real fight, something that’s not totally useless, that’d be great. I don’t wanna end up risking anypony’s life next time the Elements of Harmony need to be used.” He chuckled. “But at the same time, I wouldn’t wanna, you know, burn down the kingdom.”
Ash nodded in approval. “Right, that all sounds very reasonable. I accept your request, all five of you.”
“Really?” Scootaloo’s wings fanned out with excitement.
“On one condition: y’all gotta take a little test of mine.”
“What kind of test?” Sweetie Belle asked.
Moongazer winced. “Ash, no, you’re not seriously suggesting that, are you? They’re neophytes, for crying out loud. You can’t.”
He laughed a laugh that was the laugh of pure evil. “Oh, yes, I can. My class, my rules. Come on, youngins. Let’s see how you handle the ole’ Ninja Gem Hunt.”