//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: The Gym Confessional 
// Story: Love, Friendship, and Gangsters 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//




- 4 -


Because of his schedule of jobs, we didn't spar for two weeks. I practiced my katas everyday because I refused to embarrass Master Feather Flick by not being ready. When I showed up at Twenty-four Underground, he trotted over with a laminated card.

"A membership? You didn't—"

"Don't be a ingrate," he said, swatting my shoulder lightly with a hoof—mirroring my swatting him with a wing at the fights. "I don't want them bugging you to join, and this way you can use all the showers, lockers, and attend classes. Okay?" he finished, arching an eyebrow.

The place was clean, white walls with black carpet and shiny steel equipment on rubber tiles. Modern. It smelled like sweated-up old gym clothes. I wondered how Feather Flick could keep his kirin-style dojo scent-free and Equestrian-style gyms never could.

I got a locker for my street horseshoes as metal wasn't allowed on the floor. After a tour that ended in a corner with mirrored walls and mats, I stretched and warmed up my wings by hovering. He jogged in place, commenting, "You take fighting with your wings seriously."

"Master Feather Flick emphasized the whole body; I walked here so my legs are warmed up. Legs and wings together can match an earth pony's strength."

"Them's fighting words."

"Maybe," I said. "Since I think this isn't about showing off so much seeing how well we can fight, perhaps we should shadowbox first? Show what you got so neither of us accidentally hurts the other."

"Hurt me?" he said with a dismissive grin. "Sure." He blinked at me, as if waiting.

"You've seen me before. You first."

"Ah, wily." He performed a cat stretch, grunting, then jumped up, swiping with alternating front hooves. He thumped mats hard and reared, boxing swiftly. He was as fast as I was fluttering within the bounds of the enclosed space. He bucked, then twirled on his forelegs and aimed back hooves. 

To my eye, it wasn't a kata—sequenced defined moves drilled by repetition intended to ingrain strikes to make them reflex. No. He improvised. Somewhat brutish, it nonetheless demonstrated he knew how to direct force to his hooves efficiently. When he stopped, plopping his flank down, I noted how hard he was breathing and glanced at the clock again. Limited stamina. Somepony didn't do his daily gallops.

I landed and bowed toward him, then started swaying. When I felt a shimmy like a harp string buzzing, I walked in place, kicking up my hooves until I punched in the cardinal directions, then bucked and boxed in pairs front and rear, then transitioned to albeit wobbly spinning kicks with my wings out. This twirled me aloft, a hoof length shy of the ceiling but I compensated, continuing to kick and punch, until I leveled off low enough that I could swoop and yield, which lent me the momentum to swipe with a wing cut and follow up with a trailing hoof without breaking my lift. The two story ceiling was high enough to add a repeating flip and a rotation. The Knitting Dance, that kata was called. I did it well only when within the zone.

In any case, it was also the Grasscutter Dance. I could move the muscles in my skin, not so different than bristling or imagining a chill. Think gooseflesh. Doing so, made the vanes in my feathers align into a razor edge. I could cut tall grass. I'd scythed wheat to help a schoolmate once. Another time, being a bratty foal, I'd shredded bed sheets hanging on clotheslines... around the neighborhood, with Daylily flying behind me, egging me on. It had gotten me grounded—her, too.

I got lost in it.

Pig Pen stuck out a foreleg.

I dove under it, pulled up flaring my wings, circled him once shifting my flank so I shed most of my momentum, and came down sliding backwards.

Unfortunately, not sliding: the flooring was rubber. My hooves touched and I flipped backward. I flapped and lowered my pinions reflexively, pitching myself forward. I stalled, stretched out, front hooves nearly at the ceiling, then I dropped. With a flutter, I dropped and landed on my back hooves, rearing.

Pig Pen asked, "You meant to do that, right?"

I coughed, then heard applause from the direction of the medicine balls, where ponies had obviously gotten an eyeful. I felt my face go beet red. I lowered myself into a bow.

I muttered, "Not only did I flub the landing, my spiral kicks sucked and I got the mouse wheel totally wrong. Master Feather Flick would have used the cane."

Pig Pen got between me and the stomping hooves. He said, "Hey, hey. Shoo. Scoot. Get a life. My pegasus, not—" He coughed, turning to me, and said, "Exaggerate much? You could busk during the summer and earn serious bittage with that act."

"Not an act," I muttered, then shivered thinking what would happen to me if I contemplated defiling the Way of the Nirik. As I rose from the bow, to face him, I saw ponies dispersing. A few grumbled.

"Still amazing. I'd love to put you up against Ma'am. Question. Do I have to worry about getting cut?"

"No. I'm in control."

"I'm going to pull my punches. Can you? And, do you know how to fall?"

"First thing Master Feather Flick taught me: falling. Punches? I think so."

"Start slow. Shadowboxing. Say, 'Ready,' when you want to get real and I will."

I nodded and started my Buzzing Fly kata, looping and sliding around him, watching his eyes sparkle as they followed me. "Ready!" I aimed a swipe.

Bang! I found myself on my back behind him, wings splayed out. "What?"

He clattered about to look down into my face, grinning.

"Again!" 

"Sure."

Bang! I lay on the mat like last time, not quite as stunned, noticing this time slight aches on my right shoulder and pulling sensations in my left leg. I also had presence enough to come down rolling on my spine this time, slapping my rump, wings, and tail on the mat, to dissipate the wicked earth pony strength he had imparted into me.

"Again!" I said, and this time Pig Pen shook his smiling face in disbelief.

I switched up the leg I jabbed with this time, but paid more attention as he jumped at me. Sure enough, he caught my leg and shoulder, twisting his neck and hindquarters as he reared up. Over I went.

Bang! This time, however, I slapped the mat and rolled back into the air. With a few quick wing beats and my momentum, I banked around, found him coming down from rearing, slightly twisted, not quite on four hooves. I dove under "the bridge," planted my fore hooves, and wrenched him up, adding my stifled momentum to a buck.

He flew up with a oof. Not far enough, because he came down on my flank, knocking me away.

We lay there, blinking at each other. I asked, "Fought pegasi before?"

He rubbed the back of his head. "I've experience, thanks to my line of work."

"What did you do?"

"Remember the tag team event? It's a wrestling move." He demonstrated. After half-hour of us explaining to each other what we'd done, sweating buckets, he trotted back with a couple bottles of orange sports drink.

He said, "That bridge thing. Had you sharpened your wings, you'd have sliced all four my legs."

I looked away, accepting the bottle in a wing. I didn't like to think of that, but said, "Yes."

"Wicked."

"Not too deep, and I probably wouldn't have unless desperate. I got into a lot of trouble with Daylily as a foal. Sharping makes my feathers brittle. The second time I wing clipped myself, Maman found me Master Feather Flick to teach me discipline. Unicorn magic to heal pinions and secondaries is expensive."

He nodded, evaluating my wings before trying to open the bottle. "Crown tops, shoot." He put out a hoof to take my bottle back.

"Not carbonated?"

"No, why?"

I smiled, brought my other wing around while rotating the bottle with a scissor grip. I sharpened and the glass made a ski-zzzz sound until the glass neck separated below the crown and bounced on the mat.

His mouth dropped open. "Amazing," he said, giving me his bottle.

Repeating the trick, I said, "No. Corundum." I put down the second bottle of Cragodi-ale, looked around to make sure nopony was looking our direction, judged the light from the hanging light fixtures, took a few steps, and held my wings outstretched so they reflected the light at him while sharpening.

He blinked; stunned I decided. I couldn't see the ruby sparkle that deeply outlined my feathers, but had before in a mirror. He studied at my wings, then his head moved; he looked at the all of me.

"I could look at that all day. I sooo wish I had a camera."

I had felt proud. Now I felt a little exposed. I furled them back. Not exactly what I expected, especially since I had pretty much admitted to being a living, breathing, ruby-edged razor blade. I saw no fear. His admiration bewildered me.

I faced him and grabbed the bottle in both wings, making myself small as I drank it. He chuckled at my antics.

He got us sparring. Incrementally, we became better matched. Pulling punches was good, and I began to feel pummeled. One last bout and we ended up blocking each other's attempts at throws, trips, charges, punches, and my lifts and yields. We had both reared, boxing, when I tripped myself. I compensated, but the chaotic move forward caused him to jump back, and I turned it into a clench but we fell back together, me on top. Barrel to barrel, he tried to roll to pin me. With wings as leverage beyond my legs contacting the mat, I stopped that out of reflexive self-preservation. Rolling could damage them. Flapping to push him into the mat, I got him splayed out as he struggled and kicked. I lowered my body more, pinning him further.

Had we been truly fighting to hurt one another, I had no doubt he would have found a way to throw me. I might have tried to lift him a couple of stories and drop him. 

Instead, he said, "You win. Um. This may look odd to the other ponies."

I thought about it, then realized our position muzzle to muzzle, barrel to barrel, groin to— "Yow!" I realized what touched and jumped off, fluttering back.

We both sat, lathered from our efforts, breathing hard. I actually smelled his chocolate cologne on me. Why that didn't feel weird again bewildered me, and I tried to puzzle out what I felt.

"You said you were almost married. Why not?"

I blinked at the non sequitur. I grasped the distraction and said, "Daylily."

"Her name?"

"Yeah. You see, my family is from Prance. I'm... Master Feather Flick had a word for it: Nisei. My parents and grandparents immigrated to Equestria."

"What's that have to do with the price of hay?"

"Daylily's parents emigrated from Salerno. We're all first generation Equestrian. Our marriage was arranged when I was 2 years old."

"Your? What!?"

"My family owns Supersafe, the main moving company in Vanhoover. Her family has a hold on hauling with Always Ontime."

"A marriage between, what, families?"

"A merger. The families have coordinated for years, based on us, on this."

"The wedding?"

"The not-wedding, now. Daylily was always somewhat coltish, in a very Salernitano fashion. I still like her. I hate our friendship ending this way. We palled around as far back as I remember, got into trouble together, went to school together, rough-housed together, sparred together; she got us to sneak away to Vanhoover-Below and camp in the Golden Stag Redwoods together... (The deer animate the trees and really hate campfires.) I covered her flank when she went around fighting bullies—"

"Dated?"

I blew air through my lips. "Wasn't necessary. We knew each other well."

"Thought you did. Might have been necessary?"

I looked down. "Yeah. Maybe. Not sure if I would have wanted to. As she became a yearling filly, especially after we entered college, she became, um..."

"Girly?"

"Let's say 'less coltish'."

"Dressing up? Makeup—"

"Celestia, no. We both agreed makeup was— Got in the way of a good kiss, but I never pushed further."

"Go on."

I closed my eyes. Seeing the past. I felt cut, like I was bleeding out. Why was I doing this? 

I took a deep breath, and said, "We had friends."

"Jealousy?"

"I don't own her."

"You're a better pony than me, but then I figured that."

Maybe I trusted him?

"She had friends."

I hit a hoof on the mat, beating it. I had lost a friend, and I knew it. "I asked Fidelity to be my best stallion. We took Accounting 50 together. Daylily was a year older than me, but had met him in a biz class. Seemed like a good choice."

"The wedding was arranged for the day after my 21st birthday, but the day before that, we met with the wedding planner. Fidelity looked annoyed all through the meeting. Daylily looked, well, pretty in a white silk blouse, but uncomfortable otherwise. I thought it was the way Fidelity answered everything monosylabically, but I missed the byplay. His grandfather had been a Clydesdale earth pony, which explained how big he was and probably how deep green his fur and feathers were. His amber eyes and mane made me think fire that day. Outside, Fidelity asked, 'We're going through with this?'

"I thought, and I remember my shock, We are?

"I all but spat back at him, 'It's been planned since I was 2—'

"That's when he got in my face. I nearly tumbled into the void between the buildings, but got my wings going. He yelled, 'Do you love her?'

"Can you believe that?

"But he was right. I hesitated. Seconds.

"He sucker punched me. Sent me down the sidewalk into a column, which puffed away in hunks of cloud. He shouted a lot of words at me, surprising words considering how refined and polite he seemed in class. The worst were, and they stuck, were, 'You're as cold as the blue shade of your wings.'"

Pig Pen asked, "Did you believe him?"

"I got angry. I flew at him and he punched me back down again, but my training clicked. We fought. He kept yelling at me, 'Do you love her?' Knocked me out of the air, kept me from retreating. 

"I started cutting him. All that time, Daylily stood there, neither shocked nor appalled. Not even when her lily white blouse got dotted with blood. The stallion kept hitting me, despite dozens of cuts. I lost my anger when I realized that—because I didn't answer him—he might actually kill me. But I couldn't lie. I couldn't stop him.

"That's when I slashed his eye."

I pulled a wing around and looked at it. I flexed and saw the red outlines on my first four primaries flash for an instant. "I have blood on my wings. Daylily grabbed him up when he fell back whinnying in pain, then held her wings up to guard from me slashing him again. I froze. She got him to fly off with her. The air marshals came; the wedding planner had called them."

Pig Pen said, "And now you are in Baltimare."

I didn't love her. And now I've lost my best friend.

I nodded. "Long story made short." 

I felt soiled. I felt ashamed. I stood and turned toward the entrance. "I—I'm going. I don't deserve—"

Pig Pen grabbed me around the withers. He pulled me down. The big fellow actually hugged me, something neither my mother nor father had done in, well, I didn't remember exactly. "You defended yourself; don't cut yourself, too."

It occurred to me that I ought to wrest myself free, but I didn't. I shivered instead. "I'm a bad pony. I have blood on my feathers. I didn't love her."

He chuckled in a self-deprecating way. "It's always hard when we learn we are cowards about something."

I bristled at the word coward, but I heard the word we, too. It had been true. For both of us, apparently. I had adored my friend, Daylily, but had never felt attracted to her. Our wedding was a fait accompli. I'd never had to love her, but I should have. I should have told her when I didn't.

"Enough, okay," I said, pushing him away. "Thanks."
He punched my shoulder, lightly. Perhaps to distract me, he added, "You're good at fighting; I can tell you like it. I think I should introduce you to Ma'am and get you a job you might find more interesting than cutting bait."