//------------------------------// // Sweet Sixteen: Stone-Cold Killers // Story: Atlas Strongest Tournament // by Bico //------------------------------// ATLAS STRONGEST TOURNAMENT ~BICO PART 4: SWEET SIXTEEN ACT I: STONE-COLD KILLERS “Spike!” The purple dragon looked to the floor of the library as his best friend glared murderously at him. “Sorry, Twilight, I know I should have said something, but… well, it was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Ran told me that there are always last minute sign-ups and—” “Don’t try to pin this on Ran Biao,” Twilight said. “Though I can’t say she’s been exactly the best influence on you.” “I know, Twilight,” Spike said. “Really, I’m sorry. But… hey, at least I won my block.” “Yeah,” Twilight said, attempting to swallow the bit of pride for her number one assistant that threatened to burble up. “Well, that’s great and all, but you could still get hurt.” “Yeah… maybe,” Spike said. “But I want to do this, Twilight. I want to prove that I can fight in the big leagues.” Twilight sighed. She had seen him do his best in the ring today. His opponents hadn’t been very skilled, but the fledgling had displayed an admirable level of expertise. She was sure that Princess Luna wouldn’t let anything happen to him, either. If anything did happen, of course, Twilight would be the first to rush the ring, anyway. “Okay, Spike. If you really want to do this, you have my blessings.” Spike smiled broadly at her approval. “Besides,” Twilight said. “We have to talk about what you did with your fire back there.” “Fillies and gentlecolts!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, decked out in a suit and tie as well as sporting some rather snazzy shades. “Welcome to the 2,332nd Atlas Strongest Tournament! Founded by King Atlas 11,613 years ago, this contest was originally a way for nobles to vie for power by sending their strongest champions. Later it became a way for individual nations to settle disputes in a civilized manner. The current version of the tournament was revived by Luna over a thousand years ago because some ponies think beating the snot out of each other is just plain fun!” She giggled in delight. “Of course, there’s also a grand prize of 10,000 bits and the honor of being the official Atlas Strongest for the next three years.” She held a hoof up to gesture toward Princess Luna who sat high above them looking down on the ring. “And now, fillies and gentlecolts, our officiator for the tournament, Princess Luna!” Luna stood and breathed in deeply. “And now, my little ponies, it is my great honor and privilege to say: lllllllllet’s get ready to trampllllllllllle!!!” Explosions and fireworks erupted from around the stadium, accompanied by blaring music that filled the arena, courtesy of a sound system installed and operated by the famous Canterlot disc jockey, DJ Pon3. “Alright, ponies,” Pinkie Pie said excitedly. “We’re about to get this party started!” She gestured to the giant chart showing the fighting order. “For our first match of the day: Derpy Hooves versus… Beach Comber!” Derpy trotted out from one corner of the stage and ascended the heptagonal ring. She looked around with a far off smile plastered on her face. Her opponent slithered to the stage from the opposite side, his mouth set in a grim line. “As is traditional, the contestants will shake hooves before the match begins,” Pinkie Pie said. The two shook, and Derpy said, “Hi, you look like that sea pony who always hangs out with Spike, except, you know, you look like a stallion, and I haven’t seen that filly around for a couple months, so…” Beach Comber scowled at her and said curtly, “Yes, Wavedancer is having a fine time with the Princess and will most likely be back by the end of the week. We are not ‘sea ponies,’ but are called ‘hippocampi,’ and yes: I am, in fact, a stallion.” “Oh, good,” Derpy said. “Alright!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Everypony knows each other now, so let’s commence the brawling!” The two contestants looked at Pinkie warily. “That is to say,” the fluffy maned mare said. “Fight!” Beach Comber moved instantly, springing like a cobra upon his prey. Derpy backed up swiftly in surprise, but then she tripped and began to fall on her back. “I have you!” the Triton cried as he came down upon Derpy with his hoof cocked. He wasn’t quite sure what happened next, but what had seemed a stroke of luck in his favor turned to tragedy for him within the space of a few seconds. He found himself pummeled with his own hooves, his tail somehow shoved down his throat, and he appeared to be looking in two different directions at once. As the dust settled, he found that Derpy was positioned on top of him in a rather uncomfortable looking pose shaking her head as if even she didn’t know what went wrong. “Wow,” Pinkie started, a little confused, herself. “I guess Derpy burst Beach’s bubble. He has until the count of ten to get to his hooves… or, er, in an upright position. Ten… nine… eight…” Scootaloo watched in amazement from the contestants’ waiting area. She turned to Rainbow Dash and said, “Did you see what just happened down there?” Rainbow looked apprehensive. “Listen, Scoot. Just hope you don’t have to go up against Derpy. She’s naturally clumsy, but… the fighting style she was trained under maximizes the potential of her klutziness into a deadly weapon.” “It was just so random…” Scootaloo said. “Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said. “And that’s why it’s so dangerous. Derpy and Berry Punch both trained under the same master, but Berry has to get sloshed to be effective, and even then Derpy’s probably the more talented of the two.” “Wow,” Scootaloo said. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I’m not going up against her in my first match.” “Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, looking at the chart showing the match-ups which had been randomly assigned that morning. Scootaloo wouldn’t be fighting her in her first match, but if she won… “Three… two… one!” Pinkie concluded. “OK! Wait… I mean, ‘KO!’ The winner of the first match is Derpy Hooves!” “Oh, um…” Derpy removed herself from the hippocampus. “Thank you… thank you. Oh, uh, can I help you up, Beach?” Beach Comber coughed up his tail and responded woozily. “No… just… please don’t touch me.” “Alright, everypony!” Pinkie exclaimed. “The first round was quite a wrap. Like a gift! Which reminds me, it’s somepony’s birthday today. You know who you are! Look under your seat and you’ll find a special birthday surprise.” After a moment of silence, somepony high up in the stands called out, “Thanks Pinkie Pie! You always know just what to get!” “I knew you’d enjoy it,” Pinkie said happily. “Now, it’s time for our next two contenders. The first contender is a Ponyville native and a student of our own Rainbow Dash: Scootaloo!” The crowd cheered as the orange filly trotted out to the stage. “And the next contender is a mysterious masked mare of mysteriosity known only as… ‘Lulamoon’!” Awed silence filled the stadium as a mare clad in dark blue wrappings which covered everything but her eyes and her white tail appeared in an explosion of smoke. High up in her own private box, Twilight squinted down at the stage curiously. “I feel like I’ve seen that mare before.” Scootaloo shook her opponent’s hoof and said, “May the best mare win.” The contender narrowed her eyes at her opponent and said coldly, “As if there’s any doubt.” They moved back to their corners and Pinkie held up a hoof to the sky, and then brought it down in a slicing motion, shouting, “Fight!” Instantly Scootaloo was on the move, darting in a rabbit pattern to confuse her opponent, but moving at high enough speeds to still catch Lulamoon off guard. She dove for her and tried to strike her with her front hoof, but she found herself passing right through her image, which then erupted in a cloud of smoke. Laughter filled the stadium. “You foal. You can’t beat what you can’t touch.” A trio of shuriken whizzed through the air at Scootaloo, who dodged deftly with a back-flip that landed her close to the ring’s edge. She scanned the ring and saw her opponent, and launched herself at the masked mare, beating her wings furiously. The other pony extended a foreleg and twin snakes launched themselves out of her sleeves at the orange filly, who altered her course to shoot straight into the sky. As the snakes neared her, she punched on and kicked the other, but their bodies simply wrapped themselves around her cannons. Lulamoon yanked down upon the ropes, wrenching Scootaloo out of the air and slamming her violently to the ring floor. Scootaloo coughed and gasped, trying to regain her breath as she rose shakily to her hooves. Lulamoon wasn’t pressing her advantage, though, instead swaggering toward her while saying, “You don’t even stand a ghost of a chance.” Scootaloo snorted and glared at this overbearing mare. She recognized that her opponent’s major flaw in this match would be her arrogance, evidenced by the fact that she didn’t attack when she was down. It rankled her that she was being underestimated, but her teacher had learned the lesson of what overconfidence could do to an otherwise competent pony, and had taught Scootaloo well how to recognize it and exploit it in her adversaries. She had had ample practice since Rainbow tended to succumb to this same weakness, herself. Scootaloo shot into the air again and began to fly in tight, quick circles. While it took quite a few pegasi to create a tornado powerful enough to, say, pull the water from a lake all the way up to Cloudsdale, one pegasus who had sufficient wing power could still create a small but powerful tornado. This is what the young pony was doing, now, and she advanced the wind funnel on the trickster, who stood her ground self-assuredly. Scootaloo saw the moment the other mare disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and she pulled out of her tornado to scan the ring. She couldn’t see the other competitor anywhere on the stage, but then several blasts of smoke erupted around the ring, and seven Lulamoons stood at each corner. Scootaloo squinted her eyes and tried to look for clues as to what was going on. She knew Twilight could perform a teleportation spell. Was that what this was? What about the duplication? There had to be something to give this mare’s tricks away. “You’re not the only pony who can play with the weather, kid,” one of the duplicates said. The seven ponies pulled back their hoods to reveal their unicorn horns and began to weave a spell. The wind began to pick up, and in the center of the ring another twister began to form. “You see? Anything you can do, I can do better.” The funnel began to chase Scootaloo, and she flew back to escape the violent winds. She gave the twister a wide berth. She flew to the outside of the ring, behind the Lulamoons, but they began to use various spells to flummox her. One tossed out rope snakes while another had an Ursa Major made of light charge her through the air. It was then that Scootaloo began to notice something strange. There were certain… distortions in the different Lulamoons’ movements. There was something off about them. The magenta-maned filly realized what it was after dodging a few of the tricks. It was as if she was looking at a reflection in a mirror. The mirror duplicated a pony’s movements well, but the fact that a three dimensional object was reflected from a two dimensional surface caused barely perceptible distortions in the image. Most ponies wouldn’t notice, but Scootaloo, whose talent was reading and understanding movement, could see it. That was when Scootaloo realized that none of the Lulamoons onstage were real. However, she must be there. She couldn’t have just disappeared. Or could she? Scootaloo began to scan the arena, and picked up a strange distortion right in the eye of the miniature tornado. A nearly perfect strategy, Scootaloo considered. Distract the opponent with a bunch of fakes of which a normal pony would assume one was real and then hide in the one place the pony wouldn’t go near. Scootaloo wasn’t going to play Lulamoon’s game, however. Her wings began to buzz loudly as she moved them at sonic speeds. She then shot toward the twister at full speed. She realized as she approached that while the winds increased, it wasn’t nearly as strong as a true tornado. She suspected that even the tornado itself was partially illusion: a simple wind spell combined with the appearance of a funnel to fool unsuspecting pegasi. Lulamoon reappeared right before Scootaloo struck her, eyes wide and panicked as a smoke bomb exploded and the unicorn leaped out of the way. She only barely escaped being struck by the filly’s outstretched hoof. She watched Scootaloo pull back up toward the sky and she scoffed. “How did you see through my spells?” Scootaloo laughed as she turned herself back around to face the unicorn. “I can see through a lot of things, Lulamoon. It’s actually pretty easy to see through you.” Lulamoon laughed. “Just because you can see through a few of my illusions doesn’t mean you can beat me. My power is far greater than you give me credit for, little filly.” Her horn flared again and a shadow fell over the stadium. Scootaloo looked around, seeing the ominous black clouds forming overhead—seemingly on their own. Even knowing it was more of Lulamoon’s magic, it was just as creepy as the spontaneous weather of the Everfree Forest. Scootaloo felt the electricity building up in the clouds and zipped out of the way a moment before a bolt streaked down at her from the building storm. Lulamoon laughed as more lightning crackled through the sky. Her horn flared bright with exertion. Scootaloo flew back down to the stadium floor and galloped toward the white maned unicorn, who scoffed in contempt at the obvious attack and readied her storm clouds. Scootaloo stopped mere hooves from her opponent and reared onto hind legs, reaching toward the sky. Lulamoon used the opportunity to release her most powerful galvanic blast, and it struck the pegasus true. Scootaloo stood shock straight as the power coursed through her body, making every hair stand on end. Then she extended a hoof toward Lulamoon and gave her a cocky smirk. Lulamoon cocked an eyebrow at the other pony’s leer, but before she could react to the suspicious expression, a jolt bucked her backward and off the stage. She flew through the air, unable to move or perform magic as the sky fire scrambled every neuron in her body. She didn’t register the impact of her body against the stone wall separating the stadium from the seats that rose above it. She did realize after a few moments that she was now face down in a patch of scorched grass. “Luna’s Lovely Laurels, fillies and gentlecolts!” Pinkie shouted, causing the aforementioned princess to surreptitiously hide a blush from her guards high up in the royal seating. “It looks like Scootaloo’s performance was really,” she dramatically removed her shades and her face became set in a grim expression. “Shocking.” The crowd cheered, prolonged shouts of “yeah” resounding through the arena. Scootaloo waved weakly to the audience, soaking up the adulation with glee. That last attack had really drained her, however. Whoever this “Lulamoon” was, she had some truly powerful lightning magic. However, it had provided her with the tool for her victory. She wouldn’t be able to rely on that kind of luck in the future, however. Scootaloo cantered over to the illusionist, whose bandages covering her face were hanging loose. The filly’s eyes sparked with recognition. “Hey, I know you. You were that… that magician that Snips and Snails were gushing over all those years ago…” Lulamoon looked shocked, and tried in vain to recover her face. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m just a simple neighnja master.” “Trixie!” a new voice chimed in. “I’m so glad you came back to Ponyville.” Trixie gasped as she looked up to see Twilight leaning over the wall and grinning happily at her. “You! Curses… I had hoped to avoid any confrontations.” “Confrontations?” Twilight said. “Nonsense! You have nothing to fear from us, Trixie. I just want to be your friend.” Lulamoon looked confused. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, Twilight Sparkle. I… have to go.” She disappeared in a cloud of smoke. “And, now, put your hooves to the ground for our next competitors,” Pinkie said. “Both come to us straight from Canterlot. One: a valiant Royal Knight in Her Majesty’s service, Argent Javelin! The other: a hard body with a heart of quartz, Tom!” Argent snorted and pawed the ground angrily. “Well, well. I thought I’d gotten rid of you for good…” The young dark-coated colt raced through the streets of his small town neighborhood happily on the new tricycle his granddam had given him for his birthday. She had also died days before, so this gift had particular sentimental value for him. His ears flicked back when he heard a pounding sound coming from behind him, but before he could react the world flipped and turned upside down. He found that he had been thrown from the tricycle, and when he looked back, it was lying in shattered pieces. Through his tears he saw that sitting in the center of the wreckage was the monster responsible, towering with smug satisfaction over him. “Um… Glory…” the adolescent stammered as he shuffled his hooves. “I have something to tell you…” The beautiful unicorn bat her eyelashes at him and asked, “Why, whatever is it, Genty?” The black and silver maned colt smiled sheepishly as his cheeks flushed, but he forced himself to continue. “Glory, we’ve known each other for a while now, and we get along so well. And, see, there’s this dance coming up and, well, I thought maybe you’d go with me?” Glory gave the colt a sympathetic expression. “Oh… Genty, I’m so sorry. I would, but… you see, somepony already asked me. And I said ‘yes’.” Tears pricked at the young unicorn’s eyes, and he saw the familiar stony countenance staring at him from behind the filly. “It… it’s him, isn’t it?” His dream filly looked back at his rival’s rock hard body and smiled. “Yes. I’m sorry, Genty. He’s just so wonderful!” “Proceed,” the young stallion said as his companion vainly searched the hedge; “herein is the Amountillado. As for Shining—” His companion’s stony features proclaimed his low opinion of the his friend, but his granite faced rival continued silently with the task of finding the alcoholic beverage. His companion was far too absorbed in the task to notice when he snuck up behind him in the dark of the night and shackled him to the wall. “Pass your aggregate,” he said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.” His stoned companion sat in silent astonishment. “True,” he said; “the Amountillado.” As he said these words he busied himself among the shaped flora that surrounded them in the midst of the maze. Throwing them aside, he soon uncovered a quantity of small plants and potting soil. With these materials and the aid of his spade, he began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche. “Oh, this is juicy, everypony,” Pinkie screamed at the crowd. “Elysium or Tartarus? Let’s rock!” The dark knight whinnied as the match began, and he charged at Tom. Tom stood his ground, as it were, and when Argent's neck crashed into him to no avail. Tom rolled back onto him, crushing the air out of his lungs. Argent groaned with exertion and his muscles strained as he rolled his rotund opponent off of him. He got shakily to his hooves. “Damn you, Tom,” he wheezed. “You’re tougher than I thought. However…” he grinned toothily. “I have a few tricks up my saddlebags.” His horn flared and the ground began to rumble. “Get ready for my ultimate technique: Silver Bullet!” A magic bolt burst from his head and lanced toward the flinty fighter. Argent’s attack struck hard and exploded, breaking the other contestant’s defenses down. When the dust cleared, Argent was on his knees, his barrel heaving as he panted with exhaustion. However, his energy expenditure had paid off as he saw his rival embedded in the far wall, gravel broken off his body and littering the ground. “That was one explosive ending!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she bounced onto the stage. “But it’s only going to heat up from here.” She gestured dramatically to the tournament chart. “Next up we have a big brother on big brother battle: our own Twilight Sparkle’s brother, Shining Armor versus Applejack’s brother, Biiiiiig McIntosh! Stay tuned!” Argent cocked an eyebrow at the pink mare. “What do you mean… ‘stay tuned’?” To be continued…