I watched Dr. Sombra take immediate care for Pinkie's right eye. Thankfully, the process wasn't as painful as when she lost it. She had removed the armor and was now sitting on the center counter top. A bandaged eye blocking half her eye sight.
"Does it hurt?" I asked her.
"Not a bit!" she lied. I could tell what a forced smile looked like. And Pinkie couldn't trick me any more than I could trick her.
"I'm sorry this had to happen, maybe you should've stopped before-"
"And miss out on you cheering me on? Not a chance!" Pinkie interrupted me. I honestly couldn't tell if she was pretending to smile anymore. Water was hazing over my vision. And I wished it had been me in that ring.
Not Pinkie, why Pinkie? She's done nothing wrong. I became bitter the more I thought about it.
"Hey, Twi," Pinkie had gotten off the table where Sombra had told her to rest. "I'm supposed to be crying that I lost, not you,"
"But Pinkie-"
"No buts!" she hugged me. "Sure, I lost my eye in this, but that's just how fighting goes. You don't always come out free of any scares. Vinyl had her fair share, but what happened to you was way worse."
"How?" I quivered.
"You lost your magic, and with it, you lost your smarts!" Pinkie was speaking in a panicked voice now. "And you made friends with a bunch of flank holes, whats the matter with you!?" I tried not to laugh, but Pinkie was too good at that for me not to.
"And think of this," Pinkie started, "I got Nightmare Moon to bow with me, how funny was that?"
"Pretty funny," I laughed, agreeing.
"So if I can laugh this off, I'm sure you'll do just fine. So go check and see who you'll be fighting, I got to keep resting," she finished, pushing me out of the door, leading to behind the bar counter. I was nearly pushed into Soarin from behind when I came through. Soarin smiled at me as I wiped away my tears. He was silently drying and cleaning glasses of spit and cider. He probably overheard me and Pinkie talking. But I didn't mind. With good friends like him and Pinkie Pie, there was almost no way for me to be mad at them.
"And Soarin, Twilight likes you," Pinkie popped out her head from the kitchen, making my face turn beat red from that statement. "Aren't I a great friend?" she said to me. I bucked the door into her, kicking Pinkie back into the kitchen, where Sombra clamored angerly that Pinkie was now bleeding again.
Flank holes. I thought to myself as I turned back to Soarin. Who pretended like he hadn't heard anything. Smiling. I guess that's what I liked so much about him. That he was professional, yet, down to earth enough to like. I ended up looking across the bar, where Spitfire was sitting with her two wonderbolts, drinking cider, waiting for the next match.
"Why does Spitfire want you apart of the army again?" I asked. Soarin stopped cleaning at the sudden mention of that. "I- If you don't want to talk about it that's fine," I panicked, "It's probably very personal." Soarin tilted his and made a little noise. Vocalizing that it wasn't too personal, but his body language said that it was.
"You're half right," he said, "I'm just not allowed to talk about in detail. On account of it being classified,"
"Neat," I said, and we both laughed at the awkward atmosphere.
"Do you still want to know?" Soarin offered, and I could only nod in response. "Well, let's just say that I was part of a response team for the Manehatten riots."
Manehatten. The now number one crime ridden city in the world. And all because of an outburst of villainous ponies who wanted to start a new country, independent of the Princess's rule. The riots were against the corrupt. As the citizens of Manehatten stood against the bad guys under the direction of a young stallion who was rumored to have died in the chaos. A white earth pony named Double Diamond. I think it wasn't long after that before Mare Do Well showed up there, fighting the crime left over from the riots. I knew about it, but I never considered it as something to concern myself with. I was too busy with my studies to give a crap. But I didn't know that the wonderbolts were there too. Let alone Soarin.
"We were there to control the attacks, and we were there longer than we should've been because I wanted to see it all through. By the end of the whole thing, a friend of mine, Night Glider, got hurt pretty bad. And I guess you could say that I had my fill of violence for one lifetime."
"Then why are you running a fight club?" I raised an eyebrow to him. He only laughed at that.
"Vinyl," Soarin said with a smile. Of course, it was her. "When I first opened up shop here in Ponyville, I met the Cakes and we joined my bar with their bakery. I became well acquainted with the Apple family with their cider business, and it was all supposed to be my retirement from fights or conflict. That is until Dash and Vinyl came into here fighting each other. They had been traveling with Pinkie Pie in order to find a suitable place to train. And to make a long story short, they taught me how to move past the bad times at Manehatten and not blame what happened to Night on 'fighting'. Cause conflict is going to always be a problem as long as we live, so might as well focus on enjoying the life we have with the fighting."
His logic was sound, but that still didn't answer my question. I tilted my head to him and suddenly he remembered.
"Oh, right, about Sam..." Soarin trailed off, possibly trying to think of the real reason Spitfire wanted him back. He looked over at her from across the way and then back at me. "Probably," he started, hoping that what he thought wasn't the case, "to have me on call if something like the riots did happen again."
"Do you really think that it would? I mean, would someone try to repeat that?"
"There are bad ponies everywhere, Twilight. If you take down one, another will just surface to take its place. That's why we have ponies like Mare Do Well, who battle the scumbags that the formal protectors can't. Either way, I see no point in going back now. But I am a man of my word. If she wins, I'll go back to the army."
My heart sank a beat to that. I really didn't want to see any of us get kicked out of Ponyville. But most of all, Soarin. Unlike the rest of us, Soarin had a life built here. If he had to leave, knuckle brick corner would be taken up by new management. And I don't think the Cakes would like that either.
"Your friend, Fluttershy?" Soarin continued, "do you think she can win?" I wasn't really sure how to answer that question. I spotted Fiona at the far end of the bar counter. Alone, plenty of space given to her by the crowd, like a bubble to keep her safe. Or maybe it was the other way around. Fiona didn't seem mad. I think cranky would be a better term for it. She found me staring at her, I didn't turn away. Fiona huffed and went back to looking the other way, just before Soarin turned on the microphone, alerting her and Spitfire. Making them jump as he began to speak.
"Quarter-finals, last match before the semi-finals!" Soarin started the introductions by making fun of Spitfire again. But Spitfire only smiled at the friendly insults. They both may have wanted different things, but they were still friends. And Fiona's intro was quick and simple. Ponies around the bar had taken to calling her the 'Beast'. A force to be reckoned with if ever there was one. Soarin called for the fight to begin, the bell ringing. And like before, Fiona just stood there, waiting for Spitfire to make her decision. Fight or flight.
"Please, forfeit..." Fiona pleaded. You could see it in her expression that she didn't want to fight. Spitfire thought about it, honestly. Was she going to? She looked over at Soarin and me. No, that smile growing across her face suggested otherwise.
"Sorry, but I've got reasons to fight," Spitfire told Fiona, "and no one is going to stop me."
Fiona frowned, nodding to that, giving Spitfire the stare. It was something that I was now calling Fiona's war face. Her glowing red eyes made Spitfire step back a hoof.
"Oh well," Spitfire smiled nervously. She was beginning to regret deciding to fight. But it was already too late. Spitfire made the first move, Fiona, blocking her hoof before it made contact with her head. Fiona was watching Spitfire's limbs and wings as she moved about. Studying her movements closely, continuing to block. And that's when Spitfire took control of the fight. Fiona wasn't fast enough to block Spitfire next attack as she flapped her wings to spin in a circle, but instead of performing a roundhouse kick like Fiona was predicting, she brought the kick down over Fiona's head. Causing a little backlash as Fiona remained standing, dazed as Spitfire swung a hoof square into Fiona's face. The force of the punch knocked Fiona back, but she still didn't fall. She only refocused on Spitfire after she wiped the blood away that dripped from her nose.
They collided again, Fiona struck back, but her attacks were weak, barely phasing Spitfire as she used her expert skill to counter Fiona into gut punches and sharp side kicks. Fiona wasn't giving her the chance to pin her, but she wasn't making any progress in the fight either. What was she doing? Spitfire landed another punch, throwing Fiona's head back as her nose dripped with blood. Stopping again, but instead of wiping it away, she remained still.
"I thought I was being nice," Fiona said aloud, watching her blood drip onto the floor. Spitfire didn't attack, but she didn't let her guard down either. "I knew there wasn't a way to beat the Rage, the only way to fight is to end it as soon as possible." Fiona's tone got lower, "Give up, captain. Otherwise, I'm going to beat you down, and I won't hold back."
"I'm fine, you can give up if you want?" Spitfire suggested, Fiona almost laughed at that.
"And then what? Someone else is just going to raise their hooves to me later. I swore to someone that I wouldn't allow myself to be beaten to a pulp again, and that I wouldn't hurt her feelings by giving up, or by fighting for ridiculous reasons. And in return, she promised me that she'd find a way for me to never have this feeling again. This... awful feeling of this disgust!" The Rage. I saw Fiona look to me, eyes alight with a faint red glow. "But that pony's gone, and so is that promise!"
Fiona darted for Spitfire, punching through Spitfire's block, knocking her against the bars. Spitfire reacted with a swift kick back that Fiona blocked along with the following punch that she just punched away. Spitfire and Fiona started to fly as they fought, the momentum of their attacks hit the other a few feet away before attacking back. It was constant action to watch, but Spitfire was sorely lacking as Fiona finally forced her to the ground.
Beaten, Spitfire sat up as Fiona waited for her to stand again. "Give up," Fiona told her. Spitfire responded with a punch. Fiona caught it, moved her right hoof to Spitfire's face, and kicked her back legs out from under her. When Spitfire hit the ground, she slowly stood up again, still wanting to keep fighting.
I looked to Soarin, his bottom lip bit, I just somehow knew that this was hard for him to see. Shouldn't he be cheering for her? Probably not. If her aim was to get him to leave, he wouldn't be rooting for that. But in the end, he still didn't want her to lose. Spitfire had done well, she had managed to at least fight back and hurt Fiona for all the beating she was taking. And Fiona? Was destroying your opponent as soon as possible really a kindness? The less you fight, the less you would feel the Rage? Alicorn blood boiling inside you, forcing the potential out of you. I suppose it was a form of kindness. Just like how the Elements of Harmony were another form of Magic.
"Another form?" I said to myself, my attention on the fight was almost taken away. I saw as Fiona raise her hooves high over her head, and slammed them down onto Spitfire, forcing her back. Spitfire lifted her head and saw Fiona standing over her, a hoof, ready to strike again. And true to her word, Fiona wasn't holding back anymore.
Spitfire reared her hooves back, bucking Fiona away as she rolled to her hooves again, raising a hoof to her side. "I resign," Spitfire said, breathing heavily, body weak from fatigue and fighting. She lost, yet, Spitfire lost on her own terms, still standing. Fiona dropped her fighting stance, the bars raising as Soarin turned the mic back on.
"The Beast wins!" he announced, the crowd cheered, and Spitfire stepped carefully up to Fiona.
"Good fight," she admitted, bringing up a hoof to shake. Fiona did too, though she kept up her glare, saying nothing as she bowed and returned to her seat at the end of the bar counter. Next, Spitfire walked over, taking a seat in front of Soarin and I.
"Guess I lost the bet," Spitfire laughed, accepting a root beer that Soarin had ready for her.
"You tried, but my friends were too strong for ya," Soarin commented, Spitfire laughed again.
"Friends, huh?" she said, looking down the counter to Fiona. I glanced too, and Fiona was staring right back. At me no less. Her stern glare gave me the chills. A predator with an eye on its prey. "You're her next opponent, aren't you? And you call her a friend?" Spitfire asked me, a concerned look on her face. I nodded to her.
"What kind of friend glares like she's going to kill you?" she asked next. I only shook my head to that.
"She's in the Rage, that's all. Nothing personal."
"Rage?" Spitfire inquired with a swig of her drink. Soarin summarized what I would've taken an hour to say. That it's supposedly Alicorn blood in us that puts us into a determined state of pursuit. Spitfire didn't seem all too surprised. She already knew about it. Must've never heard it being called 'Rage' before.
"She thought I had the answer to overcoming the Rage, but I couldn't do it," I said. But what I really felt like saying was that I wasn't done. Another form of Magic. There was something on the tip of my tongue. I just didn't know what it was. An answer to what would subside the Rage.
Abigail approached, "Soarin, you can start whenever, I'm winning this," she said, fearlessly. And Soarin didn't have a reason to wait any longer. Abby stepped into the ring. The others came out of the kitchen with Pinkie Pie and Dr. Sombra. If we had any hope of beating Nightmare Moon here and now, it was all on Abigail.
"Semi-finals, everypony!" Soarin started, "Fight one!"