//------------------------------// // Zero Hour: Part 13 // Story: Spike of All Trades // by Ariamaki //------------------------------// [Dog Fight Trainer] Bruxis LV 33 King Rudy didn't look as if he objected: If anything his eyes brightened just as much once as Bruxis’ did Spike issued the challenge. So... this was definitely going to go down. Given his earlier performance and his work around the tunnels, it was unlikely he’d get underestimated during the fight... Probably better to start at full force then. As for his opponent? Even though many of the Diamond Dogs had a perpetual slouch Bruxis was tall and proud, with significantly stronger legs and a sleek long muzzle. Light orange eyes were set into pale grey fur, and the claws on his paws were clearly sharp and well-kept. There was a knife belted at each of his hips, and something further visibly tied onto the back of his vest: Maybe a staff or a digging tool? Spike's new 'default' height was enough to see eye to eye with adult ponies, but that put Bruxis (tallest of the council members) a good two heads higher than him. And there was a lot of head in that measurement: All of the other Dogs he had seen carried most of their weight (and muscle) in the paws and arms, but the council and King alike had more balanced proportions. That made ‘right now’ a great chance to really prove his ability to grow, stretching himself taller until he was exactly on par with his sparring partner. There were murmurs and brief yaps of surprise and interest, but they all came from the audience of councilors: Rudy only smiled, and Bruxis actively clapped at the show. "Good good! I hate to fight smaller enemy. Feels beneath me. Ready?" "As I'll ever be, big dog: Bring it on!" No matter how many times he asked when they were younger, Shining Armor had never actually let Spike try to fight him. Maybe that'd change now, but back then Shining's focus had mostly been on keeping Spike (and by extension Twilight) out of trouble. Fat lot of good it did in the long run, since trouble seemed to hunt them down of its own volition. Hindsight and all that... There was one big lesson about fighting he'd gotten from the older pony. Only one. But it was (at least from Spike’s perspective) maybe the only one that really mattered. "Never fight if you don't have to. It's actually really hard to play-fight once you have some strength or skill. I mean, geez... OK. This is going to sound harsh, right? But look. The easiest thing you can do in a fight is lose. It's harder than that if you want to run away, and harder still to run away safely. The next level of difficulty past that is if you want to kill somepony. I know! I said it sounds harsh. But that's the thing. Living beings kinda... break easy. So it's harder than killing somepony to beat them in a fight and have them survive. It's even harder than that to capture them, harder still to get them under control unharmed. That's what the Captain taught me, and it's why being a Guard is so hard and so important. We always aim to capture as safely as we can: Anything less is a failure." ...This would be Spike's first serious fight since then. He'd always been sidelined during Twilight's adventures, barring the rare exceptions where he was the cause. The insects earlier had been simple things and he crushed them accordingly, treating it as more of a controls tutorial than an actual combat. With all of his buffs, the Dogs he fought afterwards were easy enough to disarm without injury. But now he was going to be fighting with a much older and more experienced Diamond Dog whose character Level lapped his own. Maybe there were exceptions in the Gamer's Mind and its aura of unnatural calm and composure, because that idea was making Spike's blood simmer with excitement. His pulse was pounding soft and heavy behind his eyes, tingles ran up and down his limbs... Time seemed to slow down as he stepped forward, one careful foot after the other. On Bruxis' side: The quality of his weapons, years of experience, familiarity with the territory, and eighteen extra character levels. On Spike's side: Stats that were (temporarily) triple the expected base, The Gamer's Mind and Body, a dragon's natural advantages, and his own plethora of skills. "How do we decide a winner?" Bruxis drew one knife, pulling from his right hip holster with his left hand. "Throw down weapons and cry for mercy. But you have no weapons... So just cry, I guess!" Without another word they treated that as the starting call. Spike rushed in to try and take an initial advantage with his speed. Bruxis saw right through that and didn't care. Rather than defending or retreating, the Dog stood his ground with both feet firm and met his charge with a vicious thrust of the knife. This was the real advantage Spike wanted to take: The Gamer's Body and the vague nature of Hit Points. Damage was damage was damage as far as he was concerned. Afraid of causing too much injury to their guest, Bruxis jerked the knife aside and let it blaze across Spike's ribs instead of straight into his heart. The sudden change sapped much of the power from the strike so it ended up dealing a few dozen damage instead of hundreds. It didn't matter either way. The result was identical for an outside viewer: The knife hit the dragon and the dragon kept going. Didn't lose a scale, didn't bleed, didn't stop, didn’t even slow. "Grasp." With a rattled opponent he felt much more confident testing out his new combat techniques. MP flowed, and he understood it far better than he could have last night. Dragon's Eye enhanced all of his senses, including his Innervision and (by extension) the knowledge of how his skills worked. His claws came down onto Bruxis' shoulders and prepared to dig in tightly, pinning the enemy in place. "Advice for dragon? Don't try to muzzle a hound!" One furry paw-foot came up and caught him right in the stomach, at the same time as the southpaw knife slashed for his neck and shoulders. Spike found himself forced onto the retreat, and that set the pace for a while. Bruxis kept hounding him very literally, mixing in free-hand punches with kicks, elbows, and knife strikes. Paw swipes for the face threatened to claw his eyes out... But Spike had no need to yield for something so minor. Spike kept his composure even under the assault, periodically taking the time to hum a few bars of the Birthday Telegram and bolster his recovery. He couldn’t keep the song up for long under these conditions, but it was enough. He was 100% confident in a battle of attrition, but that wouldn't prove his point here. If he wanted to head out and do some damage to their enemies, he had to make his power clear in this little test. "Alright, if you're confident you'll live long enough to cry for mercy? I won't show any!" "Words are words dragon! Show me a FIGHT!" That brief exchange helped reset the tempo and gave Spike a bare second to breathe. Before the exhale even started, he began to throw one enhanced attack after another: Fire was too much of a risk (if not for Bruxis then the bystanders) but that still gave him a lot of options. First came the hand strikes, Dragon's Claws and Heart and Hoard mixing the blows up in both reach and power. Then kicks, extended with the Hoard and made far more flexible through single lines from Art of the Dress. Finally he started mixing in Slices and Grasps when he got close, bumbling his way into growing mastery. Nearly all of those attacks were fruitless, almost all getting either parried or blocked. Spike did get in a real hit here or there! He drew a little blood, cut a little fur. His opponent just didn't seem to care, calmly taking each blow with little more than a wince or growl. Meanwhile Spike was taking much cleaner hits, in greater quantity, to more vital areas. The Gamer's Body just meant he was no-selling like a luchapone regardless. Bruxis was a savvy fighter and seemingly only used one knife in one hand to actually attack: His other paw focused on warding off blows or just hung back. Spike wasn't confident he could use Pierce in the hectic fight, nor sure it would do anything good if he did. His Slices rarely landed, and those that did barely cut the Dog. Vanilla shots without skills involved were right out, and Grasping for the knife or a limb got him cut more often than it slowed Bruxis down. The key was that they did slow Bruxis down and the Slices did cut, no matter how little. Spike wasn't just exhausting his opponent, he was getting in meaningful damage without taking any in return. Well, not taking any visible damage. In reality his HP had already dipped concerningly low, but nodoggy in the room knew that. When Bruxis stopped being able to hide the signs of exhaustion, that was his cue. Spike, still looking about as fresh as when they started, smiled at his opponent and made an offer. It was a bit of a gamble, but (to everybody else) it would probably seem like a fair one. "...Settle it in one more shot?" Another razor-sharp grin, the Dog's eyes wide as he panted. "Hah! Show puppy. Fine by me." Both of them stepped back and stood straight, then sank down into ready postures for their final attacks. Bruxis was low to the ground, legs slightly bent, his knife arm hanging strangely loose and distant at his side. Spike stood tall, perfectly straight, like a soldier at parade rest. He thought back to the first fight with the Diamond Dogs the previous night, when Mr. Ammunition dropped out of the sky and blasted his opponent's weapon away in one shot. Spike twisted, coiled, fell back slightly and bared his teeth. The key was to put as much power as possible into one motion, focused and concentrated to a pinpoint that could break any defense and penetrate any obstacle. He'd seen it done by a pegasus in air using flight, wings, and momentum to provide the necessary power. But he was a dragon and the Gamer and his own creature. He was Spike, and he had a different method. Curling his toe-claws down into the earth, feeling his bond with the elements of the ground and soil... He drove his right claw out, palm flat and fingers extended with the Dragon's Horde. Claws and Earthshaper and Heart were all pulled out to maximize his power, and he felt the power of his MP drive him to Pierce through everything in his way. Bruxis was startled (for only a second) when he saw the fierce attack incoming. He barked out a laugh and began to move with a manic grin. "Good!" His right hand came down to his left hip, grabbing the hilt of the knife he'd never used in the whole fight. He didn't pull it and then attack. He simply pulled it as an attack. A single fluid arc of motion from the scabbard into the air, driven forward with such force that Spike felt the wind in his eyes double in its intensity. A laugh bubbled from his own throat as their attacks collided. The two blows met and made a terrible clamor, followed by the lingering ringing of steel. A skill has been created through a special action! By meeting an expert's ultimate attack with your own and finding yourselves equal, the skill [Draw] has been created! Your newly-created skill is held in abeyance due to lacking an appropriate [Combat Discipline] The skill may be used at reduced effectiveness, increased cost, and increased risk of counters. In the aftermath, Bruxis' larger knife clattered on the ground, the sole sound in the entire audience chamber. A clean chunk had been blown out of the blade by Spike's claws, and it lay alone in the middle of the room. Spike had fallen back several steps, while Bruxis had gone down to one knee, leaning over his damaged weapon. Checking his stats, Spike winced when he saw a solid three hundred health missing compared to his stats before the exchange. And that was just from the backlash of an equal trade! No wonder this Dog thought Spike might not hold his own out in the tunnels... Which made the idea of something that could drive them away from their homes even scarier. Scary in the metaphorical sense, anyways: All Spike was actually worrying about was calculating the potential quest rewards for taking down a real-deal boss monster. Bruxis was laughing again, waving one paw at Spike while he leaned down on the ground with the other. He'd clearly taken his own losses from the final strike. "...Hah! Wahahahaborf, bork... Good dragon. Go! Hunt. Kill bugs. You get my blessing." "Thanks. And sorry about the blade: I can get that repaired or-" "Nope. Good for blade to break in battle! I'll replace on my own time. This goes to the collection." Surprisingly, Bruxis pocketed only the chip of steel, before he threw the actual knife to Spike. "Maybe keep your own collection? Was a good fight. Maybe we fight again some day!" [Bruxis' Broken Blade] A smooth-bladed long knife once, now heavily damaged by the claws of the Gamer. Designed for drawn weapon attacks: It has been rarely used, and always used with the intent to end the battle. Mementos of battle can serve as reminders of the lessons learned. Rather than waste his words thanking the Dog again, Spike chose to just nod and bow lightly. He got a nod in return, and King Rudy clapped his paws together to break the tension in the air. All of the other council members startled in place, broken from their reverie. Bruxis had made his thoughts clear, but that still left the King's final decision... "Go forth and do what you can to secure our borders. Our gratitude will be difficult to measure." Spike didn't hear the ringing of quest bells or a level-up, but the sense of pride was dang close. "Understood!" So he set out into the tunnels alone, feeling as ready as he'd ever be.