“Push!” Iron Will screamed into his face. “Push yourself! You’ll never achieve if you don’t believe!”
It was too far; Tirek surged up from the bench to his hooves, raising the dumbbell up over his head and hurling it right at Iron Will’s face. “You push!” he roared, his chest heaving as he glared into Iron Will’s eyes — directly into his eyes, Iron Will noticed. How pleasant it was, not to have to look down and lower one’s voice.
“I’m sick,” Tirek spat, “Of your rhyming platitudes, you little weasel of a cow! You’re as nauseating as a pony!”
Iron Will stared at him, shocked by his fury. Then, slowly, he began to laugh. It gathered in his stomach, gained force in his huge barrel chest, and then came booming from his muzzle.
“What?” demanded Tirek, his hands clenching into fists and his forehoof scraping at the ground. “What is so sky-damned funny to you?”
Iron Will let out another burst of laughter before shaking his head. “You did it, Tirek,” he said at last. “Look. You did it. You believed, and you achieved.”
He pointed, and Tirek followed his gesture to where the enormous dumbbell now hung, embedded in the mirror, cracks splintering out on every side of it. His mouth opened in a slow ‘O’ of surprise, and his fists uncurled. “I…I did it?”
“You did it.” Iron Will nodded, the smile still on his face. “No magic. No cheats. You lifted my biggest weight, all on your own.”
Tirek gazed down at his hands, his eyes wide in disbelief. “I…did it. I did it.” He looked up at Iron Will, and suddenly displayed all his sharp teeth in a wide, shocked grin. “I did it!”
“You did it!” Iron Will stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder with a blow that would have felled a lesser creature.
Tirek, hardened by weeks of brutal routine, barely staggered. He shrugged off the impact and laughed, a sound as hearty and vital as Iron Will’s own. Then he raised his own fists and shoved Iron Will in the chest, hard enough to send the minotaur skidding backwards.
Iron Will’s breath huffed out through his nostrils, and a feral smile spread across his face. “Want to fight, eh?” he said, his voice low. “I’ll warn you, Tirek, I won’t hold back. Iron Will doesn’t do things by halves.”
His pupils dilated with excitement, Tirek spread his arms wide; a clear invitation. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do so.”
Iron Will laughed, loud and hearty, and swung his first punch. It wasn’t much of a punch, to be honest. No real force behind it. For all his bravado, he was out of practice, and he hadn’t had an equal fight in decades.
With a scoff, Tirek twisted to the side and let the fist sail by. “Is that really the best you can do?”
His grin widening, Iron Will swung again. Again Tirek sidestepped, but this time he used that momentum to pivot on one hoof and bring his strong hind legs up in a powerful buck. His bunched muscles uncurled and released, and Iron Will went sliding across the floor of the gym, scattering elliptical machines in his wake.
Unable to keep the smile off his face, Iron Will surged back to his hooves, lowered his horns, and charged. His hooves thundered on the floorboards, and many split and cracked beneath the weight of his passage. A small part of his mind noted the damage, thought that’ll be one hell of a repair job — but most of him was revelling in the thrill of this, a challenge at last.
Tirek lowered his own horns to charging position, scraped the floor with both forehooves before planting them wide and bracing himself. Iron Will cannoned into him with all the grace and finesse of a freight train, and the crack of horn against horn and skull against skull must have been audible from streets away.
For one glorious second they struggled like that, horns locked tight around one another, Tirek’s breath scorching Iron Will’s face, before Tirek brought up one fist like a mallet into Iron Will’s gut. Gasping for air, Iron Will reeled back, breaking the horn-lock, wild laughter rising like a shout to his lips. He raised both fists and brought them jackhammering down, one after another, against Tirek’s raised arms.
On they fought, surging back and forth, each seizing and losing the upper hand a dozen times a minute, trampling the remnants of Iron Will’s once-immaculate gym beneath their hooves. Blood dripped red and glittering from Iron Will’s nose and glistened like rubies against Tirek’s own ruby fur. And they were both laughing, hard enough that Iron Will had to struggle for air, both alive and existing freely in this one, perfect, moment.
Hurdling the remains of a rowing machine to collar Tirek with one hand, Iron Will sought an opening to land a punch. Tirek grunted and reached up to seize his horns, and for a minute the two of them struggled for precedence. Reaching with his free hand for Tirek’s own horns — his ear — anything that would give him purchase, Iron Will fought to keep his footing. He would not be felled again.
With a gasp of effort, Tirek twisted his body and heaved Iron Will closer to him, bringing his foreleg up at the same time to knee Iron Will in the belly. Iron Will’s stomach clenched — not for nothing did he call them his abs of steel — and he took the blow without missing a beat. Then while Tirek was still recovering he dealt him a bruising backhand and dragged Tirek forward, pulling him off balance.
Iron Will still had him by the collar, their muzzles mere inches apart. Their breath mingled, hot and wet on Iron Will’s grey fur. Tirek’s yellow pupils, vivid against the black schlera, seemed almost to glow. Iron Will could feel the blood singing in his veins. In almost twenty-five years, he hadn’t had a proper fight, a real, bloody, fight. And now here he was, bruised and battered, and a centaur had him by the horns, and he felt more alive than he had in years.
For a moment it all seemed very simple, and Iron Will was a firm believer in simplicity. So he leaned forward to close those last few inches between them, and he kissed Tirek firmly on the muzzle. The centaur’s eyes widened, and Iron Will hastily stepped back, waiting for the recrimination that would surely come.
It hadn’t been much, just a peck really — but he shouldn’t have done it. He was lonely, and Tirek was the first soul he’d met in all Equestria that he actually had a scrap of anything in common with — and that fight had been magic — but he shouldn’t have done it.
Never apologise where you can criticise; it was one of his many mantras, but this time it didn’t seem to apply.
“I’m sorry, Tirek,” he started, but he didn’t get any further, because two muscled red arms whipped out and yanked him forward, and a mouth pressed itself over his.
And there amid the ruins of Iron Will’s Iron Abs Workout Core Blast Zone, Iron Will finally allowed himself to believe again.