Amethyst Star trotted east with a skip in her step.
Anyone who saw her would’ve thought she must have been just about the happiest pony in the world right now what with the big smile on her face and the bright aura about her. And maybe she was too, cause she was a pony that felt good. She’d been feeling nothing but bliss ever since that race, the world just looked different to her now. Nothing could get her down.
Currently she was still making her way east in more or less the direction of home. Her journey unofficially winding down in her mind but she still hadn’t made the decision to go directly back to Ponyville just yet. There might be more out here that she wanted to see and she was feeling quite a bit more optimistic about. More than either just optimistic or blissful she was… content. Peaceful. Fulfilled. Even in her other brief and fleeting moments of happiness on her ill-thought adventure she couldn’t say that she even came close to approaching the healthy state she was in now. That satisfaction. It really was a new feeling for her.
Her hooves carried her into a rocky and mountainous area of the west. Rock piles, cliffs, small canyons, and small copses of trees all smattered over the granite landscape that she walked on right now. Slightly rough going but not the worst she had had to go through. The weather was nice too, Celestia’s warm sun hanging up there in the sky with not a single cloud to obscure its radiance. Made for a comfortable temperature today, not even a breeze to dampen it either.
Amethyst Star hopped onto a boulder stuck halfway into the ground and surveyed her surroundings. She was up a bit high with a sloping cliff going down to the forested valley on her left while ahead of her things just got rockier, denser, and higher. Well that was hardly the kind of thing to worry her, Amethyst Star smirked and started trotting onward. A couple of pebbles and crags were no problem whatsoever to her now.
She slipped and scraped her hoof walking over another boulder.
“Ow,” Amethyst Star frowned and shook her hoof to make the pain go away. “So I’m still not a mountain pony. But I’m a little better.”
She shifted the strap of her saddlebag to stop it from digging into her too much and resumed her tiny climb over this boulder and the other jagged rocks behind it. Being a little more careful this time. It made her happy to realize however that she wasn’t sweating at all. That could partially be due to the mild temperature to begin with but she was certainly willing to chalk it up to her increased fortitude after all the traveling she had done recently.
The unicorn from Equestria started humming a pleasant tune to herself as she walked over the rocky terrain, eventually sliding down the smooth face of another boulder and coming into an area with a lot of thin pine trees around it. The dirt was still gravelly beneath her hooves, explaining the poor state of vegetation, but she didn’t expect anything else from a rocky place like this. The healthy trees and everything were down in the valley below, where there were actually rivers and lakes to feed them. Maybe there was a mountain spring up here at the most but it certainly wasn’t an oasis or anything.
This little forest was pretty quiet too, she saw a couple birds flying around and some squirrels skittering about on the ground and up the trees but she looked to be the only pony in here.
“Fine by me I guess,” Amethyst Star yawned. “I’m actually pretty tired after the race. Some peace and quiet sounds pretty good for once. Just me enjoying the countryside without anything, including my own dumb negative thoughts, to bother me.” She smirked. “Cause I did good and I feel good.”
I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to stop being so selfish back when I kept ruining things for everyone… or go there right now to make up for things if everywhere wasn’t so far out of the way. Maybe I’ll come back to the Undiscovered West some day? Amethyst Star thought, the events of the past and her future desires mulling about in her head.
It would likely be a very embarrassing and sobering experience to go back and apologize to everyone she had wronged and let down but it was probably the right thing to do. For her and everyone else. It sounded like the kind of thing Twilight Sparkle would do if she had anyone to apologize to.
Amethyst Star came out of the forest into a more open area of the huge granite rock formation she was traveling over. To her left there was still the wide valley, she took her time to actually look out over it for a moment. North. A large forest before her and more mountains in the distance. Considering where she was and how long she had been walking eastward she had to figure that the North Luna Ocean was right behind those mountains. The old map she had was still totally useless and it’s not like she had done a particularly good job of keeping track of where she was but she knew she had to be generally much closer to the Equestrian border than most of the other stuff out in the west, and that ocean was pretty big wasn’t it? She knew the Undiscovered West expanded now once you got off the map but bottle-necked the closer it got to Equestria. If she wanted she probably could go north slightly and end up following the coast all the way to Vanhoover.
But what she really needed to do was get back to Ponyville.
Get back to her friends and her sister and retire to her perfect little house for a very needed night of sleep. It would feel good getting into her bed again. Maybe the next day she and Berry Punch and everyone else could go out to lunch or dinner and she’d tell them about what she’d done… and she wouldn’t dress it up this time, even though that would be more embarrassing than anything. But she owed the truth to them all, and she didn’t feel like lying to or about herself anymore either. That kind of attitude was gone from Amethyst Star.
She stopped gazing out north and began a walk further into the rocks, there may be some interior cliffs and canyons she would have to navigate or climb over but she’d deal with that as it came.
“Hey!”
The sudden yell startled Amethyst Star, actually making her jump slightly and look around. But she didn’t need to do that as the voice happened to be coming from in front of her, a stallion walking out from behind the boulders that lied in the direction she was heading.
He walked towards her with purpose, a slight frown tugging at his lips that made Amethyst Star furrow her brow in response. Who was this guy and what did he want with her? He didn’t exactly look friendly.
The stallion was a unicorn, coat of a gray-white coloring and a greasy black mane and tail that looked dreadfully unkempt. On his flank appeared a Cutie Mark of three pieces of fool’s gold. Adding to the frown his eyes had a cold and distrusting look to them, not an ounce of warmth or friendliness in there. And with a slight pot-belly and yellowing teeth he was not fetching at all either. Whoever this pony was, Amethyst Star didn’t like them. She knew she shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but that was pretty difficult right now.
“Yeah? What is it?” Amethyst Star asked as he strode towards her. She didn’t take a step back but she stayed on guard.
“You’re Amethyst Star, aren’t you?” The stallion asked through a meaty voice.
Her eyebrows shot up way into her hairline. “Uh, yeah, I am. How do you know my name?”
“The name is Coin Flip,” the greasy unicorn responded. “Birdseed told me about you, just like he should’ve told you about me. I’m glad I finally managed to come across you, I was getting tired of waiting around and hoping we didn’t miss each other.”
“Ohhh,” Amethyst Star let out slowly, her eyes looking upwards as she reminisced about that relatively ancient encounter at the beginning of her journey. She kept forgetting about him and the package he had given her, even though it was her first quest that she was given, and one she was quite happy to receive. Especially since it meant someone trusted her to do something and ergo that they believed in her.
Although… looking at this pony and thinking about it, everything seemed a little off in regards to him and Birdseed and this package. Would that orange pony have really given her, a complete stranger, something so important unless he absolutely had to get rid of it right then? And another thing, The Red Hornet. She said Birdseed and this guy were criminals, didn’t she? And that whatever was in that box didn’t belong to them. Amethyst Star didn’t have any proof of that but looking at this guy… the whole situation made her uneasy now that she thought about it. It probably wasn’t something she would’ve realized in the past but after everything else she had been through, and knowing the the world didn’t exactly favor her when it came to stuff like this, she felt that it was probably more likely she had been duped by some criminals than she had been given an epic quest to complete.
“So I hope you still have my package?” Coin Flip asked her with a raised eyebrow, none the wise to Amethyst Star’s inner thoughts. Although his eyes clearly drifted down to her saddlebag.
If it had been at the start of her journey she would’ve smiled, said “Yep!”, and happily hoofed the package over to him. Walking away while whistling, without a care in the world and completely ignorant of what she had just done.
But it wasn’t the start of her journey. And she wasn’t the same Amethyst Star.
“I… do have the package,” she answered honestly but made no movement to give it to him. “But before I give it to you, I want you to tell me what’s inside of it and why you need it.”
That was not something that Coin Flip wanted to hear.
The greasy unicorn’s eyes flickered to hers and narrowed. “What business is that of yours?”
Amethyst Star attempted to not gulp but failed. “I’m making it my business. I’m sorry, but you and Birdseed… does what’s in here actually belong to you?”
Coin Flip scoffed. “You were asked to deliver Birdseed’s package to me and that’s it. You brought it all the way here without a darn problem but now you’re getting worried? What’s in that package doesn’t matter one bit, whether it really belongs to us don’t matter, neither what we’re doing with it, got that? It’s ours now.” He reached up a hoof and poked Amethyst Star in the chest as he spoke.
“Stop that!” Amethyst Star swatted his hoof away and frowned, backing away from him. “Look, I’m not just gonna be some dumb patsy who’s gonna give you something you probably stole.” She glanced down at her saddlebag, worry filling up her chest. “And… whatever this thing is… it’s dangerous isn’t it? It’s not just some ordinary valuable, is it? There’s something special about it. Something that means more than just money.”
“Hah, you really don’t know anything but you’re still trying to be a stupid little hero right now?” Coin Flip rolled his eyes. “Well you know what? It is dangerous. So give it to me and you don’t have to worry about that no more. And fine, it’s more than about just money too, but not for me. I’m just gonna be selling it.”
“But not for anything good… or to anyone good, right?” Amethyst Star questioned him. She absentmindedly reached a hoof to her saddlebag to rub the flap. “I, it’s just, even if this thing is dangerous I would rather hold onto it than give it to someone bad or who was going to use it for something bad.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry but I don’t think I can give this to you.”
He scowled, a low growl escaping from his throat and past his ugly teeth. “You know even if you don’t want to give me that package that’s not going to be the end of it. Don’t you?”
Amethyst Star grimaced, a single bead of sweat rolling down from the base of her horn. “Yeah, I know that. But… if I give this to you, ponies are going to get hurt. Aren’t they?”
“And so what if they are?” He callously asked. It was clear Coin Flip was not only totally apathetic to her worries but also the health of any hypothetical ponies.
The pink and purple unicorn from Equestria minutely shook her head again. “I’m not going to be a part of that. I don’t care if it means failing my first quest. I’m not going to do something that gets others hurt.”
Coin Flip narrowed his eyes at her. It was clear the time for talk was just about over. “Are you going to give me my package or not?”
Amethyst Star took a deep breath to steady herself. She closed her eyes for a second before fixing him with a determined gaze. “No.”
“Alright then,” was the cold response he gave her.
The two of them stood facing each other for a few moments longer. Staring at the other, neither of them blinking. Amethyst Star’s heart had started beating like crazy inside her chest, knowing what was about to happen, knowing what she had just gotten herself into. Was she really about to do this? And what was he willing to do to get that package? This wasn’t the first time she had been in danger on this journey or facing down a pony who pretty obviously wanted to hurt her, but there was no way out of this. Had she ever even been in a real fight? Amethyst Star wondered if maybe she was once again getting in way over her head, this guy was a real criminal, a real bad pony, and she was… what was she?
Her thoughts were broken as Coin Flip suddenly lunged at her.
“Gah!” Amethyst Star yelped and jumped out of the way, tripping over her own hooves and falling onto the ground.
“Give me that package, you tart!” He screamed and lit up his horn, firing a small beam of sickly green magic at her.
Amethyst Star scrambled to her hooves to dodge that, the beam blasting into the ground instead and leaving a small crater. She grit her teeth at seeing that and decided to pay back the favor. Lighting up her own horn she pushed as much of her magic into it as she could and fired straight at him.
Coin Flip’s eyes widened in fright but he still easily sidestepped out of the way of her beam.
Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have put all my magic into that. Amethyst Star thought as she felt a small wave of exhaustion come down from her horn.
Coin Flip running at and tackling her to the ground proved those worried correct.
“Give me my package!” He said as they rolled around in the dirt, him trying to pin her down and her struggling to get the ugly stallion off of her.
“No!” Amethyst Star yelled and kneed him in his pot-belly, getting a pained groan from the stallion as she rolled off of her.
She had absolutely no real fighting experience and not only that but she wasn’t in the best physical shape and didn’t have the most powerful of magic. Did she catch her breath? Did she try to hit him again? Did she run? Amethyst Star got to her hooves and looked over at him, seeing the anger in his eyes directed at her while he got up, she reacted in fear and swung a hoof at him with all of her weight behind it.
Naturally the stallion who had been in quite a few more fights than she had been in ducked under it.
And when her hoof went wide she felt a straining pain go through her leg…
Amethyst Star winced and then winced again when Coin Flip backhoofed her in the side and sent her sprawling onto the ground.
She let out a groan as the wind was slightly knocked out of her and struggled to get back up. Until a hoof came down right next to her head and she looked up to see Coin Flip glowering over her.
“Had enough?” He asked.
She bit his hoof.
“Ow!” He yelped and hopped away from her.
Amethyst Star used the opportunity to get up, but limped once she put a little weight on the leg she had attempted to punch him with.
Ouch… did I seriously pull a muscle just trying to throw a punch?! She internally grimaced, that was gonna be really bad if she had to keep fighting. She put too much force into that punch and overextended herself and now she was paying the price.
The sound of a horn lighting up with magic reached her ears and she turned to see Coin Flip preparing to fire another beam at her, Amethyst Star blanched and tried to jump away but her leg failed to respond properly and she ended up taking the blast in the side.
“Ngh!” She fell over, feeling like she had just been hit by a rock, and reached to her stinging side.
“You’re just gonna keep getting it worse now!” Coin Flip said and fired another beam.
Amethyst Star rolled over to escape from it, hearing and feeling it impact against the ground and spraying dust and pebbles over her back.
This may have been a bad idea! She panicked to get back up.
Coin Flip didn’t give her the chance as he ran over to kick her in the stomach. Amethyst Star coughed and reflexively curled up into a ball while Coin Flip kicked her another and then another time. She weakly swiped her hoof out at him and clubbed him in the shin, making him wince and pull away for a second while she finally stood up, coughing and wheezing after the stomach blows.
He tried to grab her by the mane but she quickly reached forward and ended up accidentally poking him in the eye.
“Ugh!” He scrambled back, rubbing at his eye in pain while Amethyst Star tried to catch her breath.
She limped back a bit with her leg still hurting and glared at the stallion. “W-Why don’t you just give up, huh? I’m not letting you have this package so why don’t you just go away before you get hurt even worse!”
Coin Flip was not at all scared by her threat. It was obvious for him to tell by her childish way of fighting that she wasn’t really dangerous. He finished rubbing his eye and snorted. “Look, missy. I don’t know who you think you are but you’ve got another thing coming if you think you can talk your way out of this. I aint leaving here without that package. So this is your last chance, just give it to me now and we can both go on our separate ways. You’re already hurting something fierce, I can tell, once your adrenaline wears off you’re gonna be a sore and broken mess. Hoof it over to me and you’ll at least be able to walk away.”
“No way. As far as I’m concerned this package is mine until I can get to someone I know will keep it safe. I’m not gonna be some selfish jerk who just lets someone else get hurt for my own convenience… I’ve… I’ve already made more than enough dumb mistakes like that! Sorry, maybe if you had met me earlier I wouldn’t have even realized or cared about what I was doing, but not anymore,” she told him.
Of course Coin Flip was still completely right about the condition she was in and how she wasn’t prepared to really fight him or anyone else in a serious no-holds-barred match like this.
So Amethyst Star decided to instead turn tail and try running into the sparse forest she walked through earlier to lose him.
Unfortunately her hobbling wasn’t very fast and Coin Flip was able to chomp down on her tail and throw her to the ground again. Amethyst Star scraped up some dirt as he yanked her towards him. Coin Flip spit out her tail and reached to grab her saddlebag while pinning down her tail with his other hoof.
“I’m taking your bag!” Coin Flip snarled as he grabbed the strap of her saddlebag.
Amethyst Star wasn’t having any of that though. She turned over and threw the hooffull of dirt she had right into his face.
After having one of his eyes just poked he was even more sensitive to an attack like this and his hooves went up to rub the dirt away as he growled in annoyance at her. With his eyes closed and him no longer pinning her down, Amethyst Star took the initiative and kicked him in the stomach. As he wheezed and doubled over from that she closed her eyes and tilted her head forward, jabbing him right in the chest with her horn.
Coin Flip grunted in pain from her sharp jab and fell over backwards, clutching at his chest. Still disoriented from the dirt in his eyes and the kick, it gave Amethyst Star enough time to stand and run to the forest, forcing herself to go faster even through the pain in her leg.
The amount of trees in the forest, and how thin they were, would still allow him to easily see where she was going if she didn’t fine someplace to hide soon.
Frantically looking around she spotted a boulder lying in-between some trees that would be just big enough for her to duck behind. She scrambled over to it and ran around it, lowering herself to the ground and crossing her forelegs over her hindlegs, sitting in a ball and curling her tail up to make sure it wasn’t sticking out either.
This is bad. This is definitely bad. Amethyst Star sweated as she sat there. What am I going to do?
It seemed stupid to think she was so worried and out of ideas in this situation when she had faced much worse fairly recently. But there was no one else here to rely on. The only pony who could help Amethyst Star was herself. And that didn’t fill her with much confidence. She had to give up on her previous delusions a long time ago, she knew she wasn’t a hero, she knew she couldn’t fight, so how was she going to get out of this?
Her body was aching something bad she sat there. She couldn’t give up the package, that was a definite no. Talking wouldn’t work, she wasn’t Twilight. Fighting probably wouldn’t work, cause again she wasn’t Twilight. And running wouldn’t work now because she was hurt and probably couldn’t have lasted that long to begin with.
“Where are you, you dumb brat?!” She heard Coin Flip yell as he came into the small forest. “I’m gonna find you and boy are you gonna get it bad!”
Crud… She definitely didn’t have much time before he found her. Her thoughts were a swirling mess right now.
I really wish I didn’t get involved with this, why do I have to be so stupid? Why’d everything have to turn out so badly for me?! I just wanted to… ugh. I wanted to do something stupid and now I’m paying for it. This is so dumb and it’s all my fault I’m stuck here. I should never have come out to the Undiscovered West, my friends were totally right. And Sea Swirl was really right, I was taking my life in Ponyville totally for granted. That cozy life was perfect but I gave it up because I was jealous and upset… there was nothing wrong with my life, except for me being unable to accept it. I just felt so inferior comparing myself to all of those amazing ponies. But I was the only one doing that. No one was looking down on me but me. I’m… normal. I’m not special, I’m not amazing, I’m a normal pony. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe I can’t go on an adventure like Twilight and the others can, but who expects me to? I never looked down on any of the other ponies living their average lives, there’s nothing wrong with just being a pony going out and living by their Cutie Mark or whatever. So what if some ponies are better than me?! That doesn’t make me bad. That doesn’t make me a loser, or pointless, or any other bad thing I thought about myself after living in some other pony’s shadow. It doesn’t make what I’ve done with my life pointless! I’ll never be a pony who saves the day and takes down some evil monster like Tirek, but I was there with everyone trying to stop him, I was there when the Storm King attacked, I was there when magic was almost stolen from Equestria, and I’ll be there the next time it or any of my friends are in trouble, doing whatever I can even if it doesn’t amount to much in the end! And this guy, this dumb stupid jerkface, isn’t anything like that. He’s just a common criminal, a thug, the kind of pony who the police would deal with, not the Princesses. There’s nothing special about this, if there was I wouldn’t be the one dealing with it, now would I? This may not be the most normal of problems, but it’s still the type of thing normal ponies deal with isn’t it? Just because I’m not special doesn’t mean I can’t do what’s right too. And just because I’m a failure doesn’t mean I’m a loser. So even I, even someone like me, can still do something. Right?!
Amethyst Star’s head shot up with her face locked in an iron look of determination. She reached onto the top of the boulder and pulled herself up, jumping over it and landing on the ground with her hooves spread and braced for action.
“Hey!” Amethyst Star yelled at Coin Flip. Who was standing in the middle of some trees just a short distance away. His face swung to look at her just as she began running at him, ignoring the pain in her leg and the rest of her body completely.
The pink and purple unicorn wasn’t going to let him take the first move, raising her hoof again once she got close she jabbed at his face… only for Coin Flip to backstep and punch her right between the eyes.
“Augh!” Amethyst Star screamed as she fell back, clutching at her face. Dear sweet Celestia! Why didn’t anyone tell me getting punched in the face hurt so bad?!
“You aint getting the best of me, girl!” Coin Flip said to her and grabbed her by the mane, spinning her around and throwing her into one of the trees.
She bounced off it with a dull clunk, feeling a lance of pain shoot up her side. That was definitely gonna leave a big bruise. And her face… oof, there was gonna be a black eye or two there. She really didn’t have the time to worry about that though with Coin Flip still coming at her. She had a fight to win and a package to keep away from bad guys.
When he walked over to hit her some more while she was down she pointed her horn at his face again and shot a small beam of magic at him with some energy she had built up while hiding. He was surprised but quickly reacted with a green barrier in front of his face that deflected her magic.
“Oh come on! Does every unicorn know how to do that or something? Amethyst Star complained.
“Every unicorn whose business gets them into troublesome situations,” Coin Flip said, a sneer tugging at his lips.
The thing was though, is that he was clearly tired and hurting too. Not as much as she was but he was still decently pained. She could easily see that. Amethyst Star’s dirty fighting and cheap shots had actually done a fair number on him. So even though Coin Flip had the upper hoof and was trying to intimidate her and act all tough and superior while ignoring his own injuries it wasn’t working. She was right about him. This guy wasn’t anything special. So who’s to say that she couldn’t win a simple fight against a pony just as common and unimpressive as she was?
Amethyst Star did something she thought he wouldn’t expect her to and lunged at him. Tackling Coin Flip to the ground and just starting to pummel him with blows. Since she wasn’t very strong and she wasn’t hitting any weak spots he was able to just defend and mostly weather through her blows while he recovered from her pushing him down. While she was in the middle of throwing a punch at him he quickly reached up and grabbed her hoof, stopping her attack and then headbutting her in the chest.
“Agh...” Amethyst Star winced, backpedaling away from Coin Flip while rubbing her chest. “At least he didn’t lead with the horn...”
Instead of rushing at her again, Coin Flip picked a pebble up off the ground and flung it at her face. The small rock ending up hitting her right at the base of her horn.
That was nothing more than a distraction though and it was followed up by another blast of magic that knocked her to the edge of the forest. Coin Flip didn’t want her running around and hiding anymore. He knew he had the advantage in a straightforward fight and that’s what he was going to try and keep this as. Amethyst Star can try and fight as hard or as dirty as she wants but he was willing to be just as cheap as her. Even more so.
Coin Flip ran towards her and gave Amethyst Star a stiff kick in the stomach, rolling her fully out of the forest and getting her to painfully cough and sputter.
She tried getting up but felt too weak in the knees, only wobbling on her hooves while Coin Flip ran up to her and pressed a hoof against her back, forcing her flat on her stomach.
“Stay down!” He shouted and started stomping on her back.
Amethyst Star grit her teeth, she glanced out of the corner of her eyes at his back leg while he was preoccupied with beating her down. She forced a tiny bit of magic into her horn and sent a spark shooting at his back right leg. It would’ve felt like nothing more than a bee sting but it still made him yelp in surprise and jump off of her. She took that opportunity to roll onto her side, bring up one of her legs, and kick him hard right under his stomach and right in-between his back legs.
She was rewarded with a very satisfying and very high-pitched squeal from Coin Flip as he stumbled away from her.
Amethyst Star got up and tried to make some distance between her and him. Her back really hurt and so many other parts were aching along with it that all she could do was slowly shamble away as she took in a few ragged breaths.
“Y-You’re really going to pay for that!” His voice cracked as he briefly took a seat on the ground with his back pressed up against one of the trees.
“Make me!” She taunted him as she limped away.
Seeing as his body needed a slight amount of rest still, he looked around and grabbed another small rock off the ground with his magic and tossed it at the back of her head.
Bullseye.
“Ack!” Amethyst Star squawked, falling to her knees. She looked over her shoulder at him with a glare. “I’m getting really tired of ponies throwing rocks at me!”
“Then give me the package and I wont have to do it anymore!” Coin Flip got up, pushing past any lingering pain and coming after her again.
“Get lost!” She grabbed the rock and threw it back at him but he moved his head to the side to avoid it.
Both of them were pretty tired and breathing heavily now, although Amethyst Star was certainly in worse condition and wasn’t as robust from the start. Only about ten paces or so separated the two of them but neither moved just yet. It wasn’t a showdown, it wasn’t high noon, there wasn’t any signal to wait for, it was just two tired and beat up ponies thinking about what to do next to win the scuffle. Clearly they both weren’t especially skilled in magic, nor had much energy left to use it for anything. Coin Flip had size and durability on his side but Amethyst Star was fighting really scrappily and had hurt him more than he’d ever be willing to admit.
He really wanted her to just give him the package so he didn’t have to go through any more trouble but he knew if he said anything like that she’d take it as a sign of weakness now. So they were at a slight impasse. Coin Flip eyed her saddlebag, if he could just grab it off of her this would be simple. That’s what his goal was gonna be now, forget about teaching her a lesson or getting her back for the trouble. That could come after he actually had the package in his hooves.
Amethyst Star saw where his eyes were roaming and she protectively put a hoof over her saddlebag, frowning at the stallion.
Coin Flip suddenly and unexpectedly broke into a sprint, running straight at her with enough force to bowl over the smaller mare. Amethyst Star grimaced and planted her back hooves into the ground in preparation for his rush. But she wasn’t going to just let him ram her like that, once he got closer and lowered his head in preparation to smash into her she leaned slightly to the side and let his momentum mostly carry him past her before she checked him with her shoulder, knocking Coin Flip flat to the ground.
He was quick to respond though and kicked her in the side from his position, knocking her down as well. She grabbed some dirt off the ground and flung it at his eyes again but he closed them quickly enough to not get any in them, then got up and grabbed her saddlebag, trying to just tear it off of her.
“Stop it!” Amethyst Star fired an unfocused blast of magic at him, the absolute last bit she had in her for the day.
It got Coin Flip right in the face but there was only enough power in it to cause some mild discomfort and force him back for a second as he grit his teeth and shook his head. He responded with an angry blast of his own that knocked her into a daze when it exploded against her head.
Coin Flip then punched her in the face, causing her head to bounce against the ground and send another wave of pain and confusion through her, her vision was a total blur as she felt his hooves grasp around her saddlebag. She blinked a few times to try and fight off the blurriness just in time to see him opening up the flap on her bag.
“No!” She bent around and bit him on his hoof again.
“Argh, brat!” Coin Flip tried to shake her off his hoof but she really clamped down hard with her teeth. He started punching her repeatedly in the head to make her give up, each tiny punch making stars burst in her skull and her eyes tear up a little more in pain.
Seeing she wasn’t going to stop that easily he changed strategies and reached down with his teeth to tear the strap of her saddlebag. His yellow teeth easily tore open the seam of the strap halfway, causing it to almost break off from the bag.
Amethyst Star’s eyes went wide and she let his hoof go, taking a sharp intake of breath and grabbing her bag to pull it away and keep it from falling off and the contents spilling out.
With her doing that he too grabbed the saddlebag by the strap, the two of them stuck in a tug of war with Amethyst Star on the ground and Coin Flip standing over her.
“Let go of my bag!”
“Give me my package!”
A loud tearing noise filled the air and the bag was tossed into the sky, flying out towards the sloping cliff of the rock formation that overlooked the valley and forest below. Both fighting ponies watched with their eyes glued to it as the bag landed with a thud on the ground, a mere five feet from falling off entirely. Silence then reigned for a moment as they stared at the fallen saddlebag and the package inside of it. Right before Coin Flip broke out into another run and went for it, Amethyst Star scampering up after him a second later.
Coin Flip was naturally getting to the bag first but he had to slow down to pick it up, when he did start to slide to a stop. Amethyst Star instead kept going and careened into his backside, knocking him over the saddlebag and right to the edge of the cliff.
“Woah!” He yelled and turned around snarling at her, just in time to see the mare pick up her torn saddlebag.
With a quick lashing kick he got her in the chin, knocking her back and down and splitting her lip. Still, she clutched onto the saddlebag for dear life and held it to her chest.
But Coin Flip wasn’t done, he walked forward and kicked her as hard as he could in the stomach.
And Amethyst Star had nothing left.
She coughed once more and lied there, weakly holding onto her saddlebag without even the strength to glare at him. Merely looking at his angry eyes while she sucked in laboring breath after breath. It was clear she had lost, even after putting up a much better fight than she could have ever dreamed of, and a much better one than he expected from some random mare. But her injuries were too severe now, her body wasn’t listening and everything felt like one big bruise.
“Alright, you’ve had it. Now I’m pretty darn tired too, so why not take this nice opportunity I’m giving you and just give me the package? You know it’s over,” he said to her.
Amethyst Star kept breathing, her eyelids heavy. With not even a nod or word of acknowledgment she reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a small box that easily fit into her hoof. He was right. It was over.
“Give me that!” He grabbed it out of her hoof and looked at it before shooting her a dirty glance. “You’re not pulling a fast one on me either.” Coin Flip said as he opened up the box to make sure his package was inside.
And ten square pounds of confetti exploded in his face.
“WHAT THE?!” He yelled as the blast of confetti from the box blew him backwards, his back hooves teetering on the edge of the cliff. “Agh!” He waved his front legs around like windmills to stop from falling over.
Which made him rather vulnerable.
Amethyst Star got up while he balanced there, rather shakily herself since she was still in a ton of pain, and fixed him with a tired and fairly annoyed gaze. He couldn’t hit her or attempt to grab her, the slightest move could send him careening down the cliff. All he could do was glare at her with a massive amount of confetti stuck in his mane and coat.
Just like how it began with the two of them glaring at each other it was now ending.
“You know-” Amethyst Star started. “I’ve been insulted, looked down on, and been pretty much the exact opposite of cool and awesome on this whole journey. So I’m sorry in advance if this is a little awkward or embarrassing, but I’m gonna attempt to be cool at least one more time.” She reached up a hoof and coughed into it before pointing it at him and narrowing her eyes. “You just got defeated by Amethyst Star. Here are the scars to remember it by.”
The unicorn from Equestria gently poked him in the chest.
“Ahhhh!” Coin Flip yelled as he fell over the side, roughly bouncing and sliding off the steep cliff until he came to a hard landing at the bottom. Still moving, but 100% out of commission.
Amethyst Star looked down at him for a second to make sure he was still alive, and when satisfied that he was, limped around to pick up her broken saddlebag. She peeked inside to see the box Birdseed had given her was safely inside and then flung it up onto her back, balancing it as she slowly walked away. A bit too tired and in pain to smile or do anything more celebratory.
A busted lip, two black eyes, a pulled muscle, lots and lots of bruises, maybe a fracture or two, a head that was pounding, and a very intact pride.
Coin Flip groaned at the bottom of the cliff, lying on the verdant grass at the edge of the valley forest and trying just to breath and not move too much, really hoping nothing was broken. He couldn’t believe what just happened. Now he was going to be laid up recovering for a few days at the least before he could get on that dumb pony’s trail and try and steal the package from her again. What a huge hassle. He didn’t even want to think about it with how much agony he was in right now.
“That dumb pony… I’ll find you and I’ll get you for this,” Coin Flip coughed, slightly pushing himself up against the cold rock he had just fallen down so he could right himself and rest his head.
“Well, well, well. If it ain’t my old pal Coin Flip.”
The greasy stallion’s eyes went wide, not even thinking about the pain his head swung towards the source of the voice in pure fear. To his horror, a scarlet pony was walking out of the forest towards him. She carried a predatory smirk on her face and even though her sunglasses were impenetrable it was obvious how hard she was glaring at him. Those deep blue eyes behind the sunglasses that contrasted with her red coat and mane chilled Coin Flip to the bone.
“V-V-Valentine!” He sputtered.
The smirk turned into a full on sadistic smile as she raised a hoof to silence him. “First of all it’s Miss Valentine. Secondly it’s only Miss Valentine to friends of mine. To my enemies I go by a different name.”
Coin Flip gulped, sweating. “H-Hornet, l-look… I know things got bad and I know Birdseed and I kind of screwed up in Camelback but-”
“Screwed up?” Her smile turned into a frown as she tilted down her sunglasses to reveal her narrowed eyes at him. “You abandoned us. Do you have any idea how bad of a spot that put the rest of us in?”
“It was Birdseed’s idea! And this job too, he-”
“Quiet,” again The Red Hornet interrupted him, this time taking off her sunglasses entirely and folding them up, putting them in a pocket on her black vest. “You can stow it and stop throwing blame around. I already dealt with Birdseed.”
She glanced up to the top of the rock formation, Amethyst Star long gone from sight, and smiled. “Heh, that pony surprised me though. I thought she was some dumb mule but she pulled through in the end I suppose.” She turned a mocking smile back to Coin Flip. “Pretty embarrassing that some no-name mare got the better of you and left you like this, huh?”
Coin Flip growled in anger, and then winced as a lance of pain shot through his body.
The Red Hornet laughed at his misfortune and took a couple of steps towards the cliff, walking alongside it and dragging a hoof along the rough rock face. “I was going to keep tracking her down to make sure that package doesn’t fall into the wrong hooves. But I’m getting the feeling I don’t need to worry about that anymore. Specially if she’s going back to Equestria right now. I’ll have to let Daring Do know what’s happened though, she’ll handle the rest."
She stretched her back and neck and let out a content sigh as she felt a pleasant pop. “Been walking for a while, I could use some relaxation now.” Her cold blue eyes flickered to Coin Flip and she stalked over to him, leaning down until they were face to face, Coin Flip outright quivering in fear at her. “But before that, honey, there’s some payback to mete out.”
There were some very loud and painful screams echoing through the valley for a good while after that.
Amethyst Star by that point couldn’t hear any of it, still walking by herself over the rock formation. Feeling good, mentally at least. Physically though was another story. It would take a really good and quiet couple of days for her to fully recuperate. Hopefully there was an inn or something nearby. She hadn’t seen any signs of civilization though in this area so she really might be out of luck on that front.
The adrenaline had indeed worn off by now and she was hurting even worse but she kept herself pretty positive by focusing on the fact that she had just come out on top.
And that was a pretty strong painkiller.
Now though… what? That was the end of her first quest right there. Technically failed, even though it had been different from what she thought it was in the first place. She was injured, possibly worse than she even knew, so she would have to take it easy on her journey for a while now anyways. And things were already winding down for her in her mind and the fact that she was heading east to Equestria.
So really, what now?
“A soft bed,” she nodded. An action that caused her head to throb.
Amethyst Star was thinking of how she’d really love to jump up and down right now after getting through that fight and getting through this adventure. Her mood was a million times better than it had been on most of this journey. It was funny how foreign success really was to her. Not like she cared anymore. She might even be happier and more proud of herself than after the race, even though she doubted what she had just done was much of a big deal either. In fact she knew it wasn’t. But again that didn’t bother her. She had done something good, not for herself and not to be special but just because it was the right thing to do.
The unicorn yawned despite the pain the action caused and looked up at the sun. “Back to Equestria right now? Or is there anything else out here?”
A dizzyingly loud noise suddenly broke out over the entire landscape, the shockwave of sound traveling from south to north in the sky and startling Amethyst Star like crazy. She didn’t have time to react or wonder just what the hay that was as soon after a positively gargantuan rainbow wave shot from the south, covering the entire sky and speeding north, showing absolutely no signs of slowing down. The warm and dazzling spectacle washed over Amethyst Star, filling her with life and positivity like magic. Her already elated state of mind became one of pure bliss and the wounds all over her body just didn’t hurt as sharply anymore.
Everything was just better now.
And soon after that rush it was over, the Sonic Rainboom continuing its way north, her eyes watching it for a minute longer until the wave completely disappeared over the horizon.
“Been a while since I’ve seen one of those,” she said to herself in nearly slack-jawed amazement. “And well, if that wasn’t a sign then I really have no idea what is. Guess it’s time to head home.”