A week of winter vacation flew by quick and slow in a weird way. Going to a hockey game with Rainbow and Pinkie, touring an observatory outside of town with Twilight, writing a song with Fluttershy, and trying on Rarity’s dresses with Applejack, it all seemed like she had all the time in the world while she was with them. Thinking back, it all mutated to a fleeting moment rushing up into Friday.
Sunset rounded the corner of the block on the last mile of her warm-up jog. She had done this warm up four times a week, up and down the hills around New Trottingham University and on the sand along the nearby beaches. The flat streets of downtown Canterlot barely fazed her.
For winter, it was oddly sunny. Still, clouds still blocked half the sky, while the cold air still bit her lungs with each breath. Sucking the air through her nose burned, but Sunset knew to breathe through the mouth would feel worse, and she didn’t want to make herself look bad in front of Marionette.
Today was their day, and Marionette wanted to start it off with some fun in the park. So Sunset adjusted her normal jogging path and took a straight path to Canterlot Gardens. Once the personal garden of a railway tycoon, it had long since been converted to a public park for children and pets to play.
The park sat a little farther away than Sunset’s usual warm-up, but given how repetitive her warm-ups had grown, she figured it was for the better. Even in the cold, she felt properly warmed up by the time she passed through the big metal gates into the park.
Marionette stretched her legs against the trunk of the tree while she waited, the definition in her calves and thighs showing through her fencing pants. Their gear bags leaned against the bench under the branches, swords all laid out and ready.
“Thanks for picking my stuff up for me,” Sunset managed her breath steadily as she slowed down and took a break on the bench. “Now I don’t have to get a taxi back to my room to get it.”
“No sweat. But I bet you could’ve just jogged back to get it,” Marionette joked while she put on her fencing jacket, “you’re probably in better shape than I am right now.”
She grabbed Sunset and examined her back and shoulder muscles. As a fencer, she didn’t need bulky muscles, but her time spent competing at the collegiate level had transformed her trapezius and deltoids into firm wiring that packed a hidden power. Without strong shoulders, a fencer lost the snapping speed in their thrusts when exhaustion started to come over them.
Sunset turned around. “You’re still getting a scholarship for fencing with your university. Don’t act like you’re out of shape.”
“Not completely,” Marionette chuckled, “but I’m not working out as hard as I used to. Tends to happen when you spend half your day coding instead of doing sprints. I’m just better technique-wise than some of the other fencers.”
Sunset swapped her sweatpants for the fencing suspenders in her bag. A few eyes glanced their way, taking in the odd sight of two fencers putting on their gear at a park. Marionette watched as well, noticing the difference in the rest of Sunset’s physique. She had good legs and core when she was just a club fencer, but being more competitive put her on a completely different level.
“Catch.”
Marionette fumbled as Sunset tossed her fencing mask to her. The rim of the mask caught onto her fingers by some miracle, avoiding the recently cut, dew-covered grass.
This was the battleground Marionette wanted to see. She needed to see. Sunset had been emailing her videos of victory after victory at college competitions, but there was still one thing Marionette had to know before Sunset started taking on the higher-ranked fencers in the nation.
They carried their bags and picked out a corner of the park behind a tree just to make sure no one got too close and took a stray thrust.
“Three weapons?” Sunset offered, leaning her gear against the tree and pulling out a foil, epée, and sabre.
Marionette did the same. “Sure thing.” More of a game than an actual bout, the three weapon challenge required its fencers to rotate weapons after every point was scored. They transitioned the same way tournaments usually did, from foil to epée to sabre, repeating three times before the points were tallied.
Marionette tested the grass under her shoes, hopping gently left and right to build up a steady rhythm. Sunset wasn’t going to get caught off guard. They might have been fencing for fun, but she wanted Marionette to know how much better she had gotten.
After they faced each at CHS’s Interregional Fencing Tournament, Sunset felt like she owed Marionette for putting her on the path to a larger goal. She had no idea what she wanted to do in college, her high school was the only piece of the human world she had really gotten to know, and leaving it terrified her in a way she could never describe.
It was Marionette who had recognized Sunset’s passion and pushed her to hit new heights at the IFT. In return, Sunset set her mind on the single greatest accomplishment for an athlete, the Olympics.
Go see the world, take the gold medal, and show millions of people that a lost girl from an underdog high school wouldn’t be stopped. She had the best friends anyone could ask for. She knew Marionette would understand how she felt if they fenced each other at their best.
Relaxed but focused, they nodded to each other, mutually acknowledging that the other was ready to fence. Sunset took the first steps, advancing forward to put Marionette within her reach. Marionette beat her blade aside and lunged in.
Sunset voiding the thrust was second nature. She took one step back to escape, and a second to dodge Marionette’s follow up attack. But the second thrust never came. Instead, Marionette approached more cautiously, taking her time to recover from the lunge position and advance.
They traded feints, moving back and forth without giving up their strong positions. A fencer at their level wasn’t going to get caught by an attack out of the blue, not when their defences were up. They had to wait for the other to commit to an attack and expose herself to a thrust.
Foil was the first weapon in a three weapon challenge, so Marionette had the advantage in experience. Sunset knew she couldn’t lose sight of her pace if she wanted to keep up.
Feints turned into committed attacks, relying on constant pressure more than perfect technique. Marionette parried at first, but eventually switched to using retreats to step away, leaving the attacks to fall short.
Sunset felt her weight load up on her front leg, telling her she had gone too far and started leaning into her attack. It wasn’t perfect, but she ran every day to make her legs strong enough to take the load. Before Marionette could plant a counterattack, Sunset powered her front leg and dove back.
The grass, meanwhile, was enjoying the moderate winter day, content and joyous at the fact it was covered by a sheet of morning dew.
Sunset’s foot slipped, stopping her retreat short. She managed to stay up, but the momentary loss of balance exposed her guard, and Marionette landed a hit squarely on her sternum.
They stepped back and swapped to their epées. Sunset felt more comfortable with the weight of her weapon now. They gave each other another nod and began to fence. Combining her reach and familiarity, Sunset threw herself into a powerful flying lunge for the bottom of Marionette’s hand.
While her back foot pushed, she lowered her torso and twisted her hand until the thumb faced down, letting the point come up behind the bell guard.
The explosive force was faster than anything Marionette had ever been able to achieve. Despite the grass sapping some of the power out of her, Sunset managed to land the thrust before Marionette could flinch back.
“Nice,” she called out, rubbing her pinky knuckle. Sunset was not a heavy person but she still carried a lot of power when she moved. Mass and acceleration, two variables of force, if she still output as much power as any other fencer, all of that force had to translate into speed.
Sunset threw her arms wide apart as if to goad Marionette. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Been working on my sabre skills too.”
“Uh huh,” Marionette shrugged off the taunt.
Sabre was a lighter weapon than either epee or foil, and cuts being able to score turned a lot of amateur fencers into weed whackers. To be completely honest, Marionette thought Sunset looked a little like a weed wacker herself when she first saw her fence sabre.
As they measured their distance with a few feints back and forth, she reconsidered. Sunset was right about getting more practice with fencing’s fastest weapon.
Instead of maximizing her footwork, Marionette planted herself and reacted with her bladework. Sunset’s hand flashed out, and Marionette could barely move her guard in time to catch the end of the cut. She stepped in with the riposte, hinging with her hip to lean forward instead of stepping too far.
A year ago, that might have worked, but now Sunset’s reaction speed was too quick. She hopped back, inches away from Marionette’s reach. As her feet landed together, perfectly in-time with a textbook retreating step, she pivoted with her back foot, pushing off with her toes and rebounding forward with a lightning-fast cut to Marionette’s mask.
Even with all that speed, Marionette found it all too easy to avoid. She simply recovered from her leaning position, standing upright to pull her head back. The motion was faster than a retreat back, and it didn’t sacrifice her stability to the slippery grass.
Sunset’s back foot, however, suffered to the reduced friction and slid back, leaving her in a lunging position without going anywhere. With a smile through her mask, Marionette came down with a light plink to the top of Sunset’s mask.
“Got’chya,” she chuckled.
Sunset smiled and wiped the dew off her pants. “Switch weapons, then we’ll see.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The game repeated from foil to epee to sabre again. Foil to epee to sabre. Nine points total, three in each weapon, the girls walked back to their bench by the tree once they tallied up their points. Marionette ended up taking the game, five to four.
“I can’t believe it,” Sunset said after a refreshing drink of branded electrolyte water, “I thought I had that last epee point.”
“Yeah, well, you got the other two,” Marionette said, rubbing her hand. “Kinda had to win that, I don’t know if my hand could take another hit.”
“It didn’t hurt that much, did it?” Chuckling, but looking a little concerned, Sunset took a look at Marionette’s hand. The padded glove was standard protection at all fencing tournaments, but her bottom knuckle was still red and swollen from the double hits.
Marionette pulled her hand back before Sunset could take a good look. “It’s fine, I’m just being a baby.”
“Well since you’re complaining, I guess I could whine about the grass.” Sunset used the point of her foil to flick off a clump of leaves and grass stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “Weather’s pretty good for the winter, but it was still so slippery.”
Marionette shrugged. “Why do think I asked to fence out here?”
“Huh?”
She poked Sunset in the thigh. “Yeah, on a fencing strip, I’m pretty sure you have me beat. But I figured you’d still have an efficiency problem.”
Sunset tossed her fencing gear into her bag. “Efficiency problem? I’m not some engine you gotta tune-up.”
“That’s not how your school sees it,” Marionette said. “And against a better fencer than me, the power you’re wasting is going to cost you when you’re tied at fourteen in a DE.”
“Alright coach,” Sunset rolled her eyes, “let’s walk and talk, and I’ll hear your infinite wisdom.”
“Maybe later. First,” Marionette unzipped a side-pocket on her fencing bag and fished out her phone, “let’s watch a movie!”
“Wha-” Sunset looked at the screen. Marionette had opened an email-confirmation for two tickets for the newly released movie Daring Do: Death In the Family. “Dude, no way. How the hell did you get seats? Tickets sold out weeks ago.”
“Well, I had to stay up and finish my programming assignments anyway,” Marionette said, “so I was awake when the sales started at midnight.”
“So what time did you get?”
“Midnight premiere, of course,” Marionette smirked. “Crystal Prep always comes first.”
They both laughed. Sunset had moved beyond competing with high school fencers, and Marionette had proved she could still outperform other students without the school’s ridiculous pressure. The stress Crystal Prep’s expectations had placed on them became funny when they thought about how far they had come.
“Alright,” Sunset said, “but that leaves the whole day. What’re you thinking of doing until then?”
Marionette reached out her finger and traced it along Sunset’s shoulder. “Getting you into a shower, for a start.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to fence,” Sunset dragged her hand off. “Plus, you’re not exactly an air freshener either.”
Marionette cracked a small grin, but flicked her eyes down. “So we’ll both take a shower then.”
“Marionette, we have a whole day before the show.” Sunset checked her phone. “It’s not even noon, I need a real plan, not a shower.”
“No, you need a shower. Call me after and then we’ll figure out where to go.”
Sunset wiped the cold sweat off her neck. Even in the winter, her fencing jacket was really warm. “Damn, you're right.”