//------------------------------// // Bonus Chapter 2: Arrell's Sparring Match // Story: To Err is Equine // by RLYoshi //------------------------------// [Perspective: Arrell] It began with a scream. A scream of "FUS RO DAH!", specifically. As soon as it was let loose, I followed it up by charging at my now airborne target. Rather than actually flying, however, I just jumped and landed on her, pushing her back to the ground and leaving her even more disoriented. Of course, False wasn't a Royal Guard because she got dizzy easily. Within a second of us landing, before I could even figure out my next move, she threw me off of her and rolled onto her feet. Drawing her sword, she glared and waited for me to attack next. A good strategy, considering I was used to countering attacks rather than initiating them. I was about to launch another voice attack when some movement caught my eye, and I quickly jumped backwards, barely avoiding a flying Nimble. Now with two foes in my line of sight, I had to figure out who to take first. I quickly decided, turning to the ninja colt and jumped at him, but he was faster and rolled away. My face met the ground and he tackled me, this time successfully. Quickly, I activated Din's Fire, scorching him and forcing him to loosen his grip enough for me to throw him off. Reaching into my saddlebags, I withdrew Bloodbath's axe. As he got up, I whacked him in the head with the handle, putting him back down while I turned my attention back to False... ...who was now three inches from my face with her sword. "GYAH!" I yelped as I jumped back, barely avoiding her blade. "I NEED AN ADULT!" Unamused by my little quip, False jumped at me again, and I manipulated my axe to block her sword, leading to a pushing match. Even if I had less weapon training than her, my weapon was still a lot bigger and stronger, and I easily knocked her back. Swinging again, I managed to knock her several feet away with the flat of my axe's blade. Looking back, I saw that Nimble had disappeared. Typical. Keeping vigil, I approached False as she stood up. My paranoia proved useful, as I risked a glance to the left just in time to see a gray blur and swing my axe, knocking the running Nimble down. He got up quickly, though, and ran at me just as False did the same. Two against one. This is unfair...they should've brought more backup. I threw my axe in the air and jumped, landing on its flat edge and using it as a platform to jump again. The two ponies below me stopped running and jumped to the side to avoid the weapon of death as it narrowly missed them. I angled my body towards them as I fell, inhaling for another voice attack. Then I got tackled by a winged yellow torpedo. Asylum's unexpected strike sent me flying into a tree, causing a loud cracking noise that I'm fairly certain wasn't wood breaking. I fell to the ground with a groan, trying to block out the pain in my back. It was only a second or two before I stood back up, but it felt like much longer. When I finally got up, I was greeted by a hoof in the face. I recoiled, using the momentum to spin and thrust out my back legs. They connected, and when I turned another 180 degrees, I watched Asylum unwillingly flying backwards. Tired of having my attacks interrupted, I ran at her and jumped just as she hit the ground, tackling her and kicking my back legs away to remain in the air, a few inches above the ground. I started punching quickly with my front hooves, delivering a flurry of hits that wouldn't be out of place as a combo in Marvel VS Capcom. To finish, I landed back on the ground and kicked her upwards, making her airborne once again. False got back into the fight at that point, jumping at me from behind with her sword. She managed to get a cut on my side as I tried rolling away, and I hissed in pain for a moment before tackling her. She dropped her sword and left herself open to a powerful punch, sending her gliding across the ground a couple dozen feet. Nimble came back then, popping out from nowhere with a knife. I ducked as he tried stabbing my eye out, then grabbed his leg and pulled, causing him to fall over. I jumped back to get away from his little dagger, but ended up just jumping right into a brown unicorn's waiting hooves. Risk bucked me in the back of the head, knocking me forward and right over Nimble. I landed with a grunt and hauled myself back up, looking around. Asylum landed in front of me, having recovered from my previous barrage of attacks. Nimble jumped to my right, knife still in his maw. False was back up and had retrieved her sword, preparing it to my left. Behind me, Risk was still standing there, waiting. "I've always wanted to be at a disadvantage," I chuckled. "This is probably as close as I'll get." Darting forward, I went for Asylum first. She saw me coming and flapped her wings, but before she could take off I grabbed onto one of them and pulled down. She yelped and fell over just as Nimble tackled me. He and I wrestled for a second as he tried to pin me down, but being ten years old tends to put a damper on your strength. I threw him off and used him as a shield to block False as she tried to get a surprise attack in on me. Dropping the little guy, I gave the surprised False a punch, then grabbed her and spun her around before throwing her into Asylum. Risk got involved then, using his magic to cause a burst of fire right next to me. I jumped away from it, but he didn't let up, continuing to create these small fireballs wherever I went. I grew more and more on edge before suddenly realizing that he wasn't actually trying to hit me – he was distracting me. Hoping luck was on my side, I ducked instantly. Turns out I was right, and Nimble's knife flew just over me, grazing my mane. Risk's eyes widened and he jumped to the side to avoid getting stabbed in the throat by the flying knife. With him taken off guard, I ran at him as fast as I could and used Din's Fire, giving him a taste of his own firepower. After following that up with a powerful buck, I turned around and rolled to the side just as False's sword came at me. Asylum tackled me as I rolled, however, and held me down with surprising strength. I struggled to get out from under her, but she held firm. False slowly stepped up to me, sword at the ready. Thinking quickly, I began lowering my body temperature. This was a trick I had learned about when researching Windigoes back in Ponyville, but hadn't used. Apparently Windigoes were capable of lowering their body temperature to amazingly low levels, and now I was going to test that theory. Asylum yelped and pulled her hooves back, my body now so cold it burned. Throwing her off of me, I just barely avoided False's blade, and got back to my feet. She swung at me once more, but I surprised her by grabbing her sword and yanking it away from her. I spun around, throwing it away, and grabbed the pink earth pony by the throat when I faced her again. A little twist, and I had her on the ground – just in time for Nimble to jump at me for the millionth time. I jumped up, shoving my hind legs onto Nimble's face to jump higher while slamming him to the ground. Seeing me in the air, Asylum flew up to me and delivered an uppercut Ryu would be proud of. Kicking away my hind legs, I flew at her with an uppercut of my own, but she avoided it easily and bucked me in the back of the head. "You haven't done much fighting in the air, have you?" she taunted. "Admittedly, no. I take it you have?" "A bit." With that, she charged at me, but I grabbed onto her and spun myself downwards before letting loose a voice attack, sending her flying upwards out of control. I flew down, grabbing my abandoned axe from the ground, then chased after her quickly. "FORE!" I yelled as I swung before she could recover, knocking her sideways with the flat of my blade. She went spiralling away, finally flapping her wings to stabilize herself and flying back towards me. They keep thinking just blindly charging me will work. They're dumber than I am. I readied my axe...only to be surprised when Asylum dipped, flying down below me just as I swung. I caught a glimpse of her as she flew straight up then, punching me in the stomach and knocking the wind out of me. My legs came back just then and I lost control over flight, but I wasn't too focused on staying airborne once Asylum delivered a second punch to my gut. I fell to the ground and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop, my axe skidding several feet away from me. I grunted as I stood back up, fighting the urge to vomit. I noticed Risk staring at me in amusement. "You better not be done yet." He lit his horn, preparing a spell. I smirked. "I'm never done." His eyes widened as I suddenly jumped at him, doing a backflip and kicking him in the chin in the process (no, I don't know when I was suddenly able to do that). He fell backwards, and I flew up about twenty feet before dive bombing him, making sure to land on the space between his hind legs. "Good luck fixing that with the Fine Rock," I commented before flying off to deal with Asylum again. She was still in the air, but much lower now and expecting me. I tried punching her, but she caught my hoof and swung me into the ground. I managed to throw up my drop shield just in time as she tried to dive bomb me, giving me a few precious seconds to stand up and think of a strategy. Looking around, I saw False trying to get Risk back up while Nimble was heading over to where Asylum and I were. My shield dissipated, and I turned towards Nimble, still watching Asylum out of the corner of my eye. She thought I was distracted and flew down at me, but I moved at the last second, and she ended up tackling Nimble instead. A flying axe caught my attention, and I watched as my axe landed stuck in the ground less than half an inch to my left. Looking up, I saw that Risk was back on his feet, his horn just finished glowing from launching my weapon. False had her sword back again and was beside him, ready for action. Turning, I saw Nimble and Asylum get back up, the former having reclaimed his knife at some point. This won't end well. All four of them charged at me, and I began to mentally panic. As they grew closer, I tried to think of what to do, and eventually did the first thing I could think of that wouldn't end in my death. I pulled my saddlebags off of my back, dropped them on the ground, and jumped inside the left bag. [Perspective: Risk Reward] Our eyes all widened as Arrell vanished just as we dove, and we all smashed against each other directly above the saddlebags. We fell to the ground, groaning and rubbing our noses. "Did he just..." Asylum began, motioning to the bags. I nodded. "Wow. He wasn't kidding about them being bottomless." "Of course, we can just do this," False pointed out as she stabbed her sword through the bag Arrell had gone into. Nothing happened. Confused, she pulled her sword out and poked the bags. Frustrated, she started stomping on the cloth containers until they were completely flat on the ground. "...seriously, what the hell?" I finally asked. We waited for another few minutes, staring at the flattened bags. They began rustling, and we quickly assumed battle positions. Arrell finally poked his head out of them and crawled out, breathing a sigh of relief. "Hammerspace is huge!" he informed us. "It's a whole other dimension, for crying out loud! I wandered around forever until I found a way out!" We all just looked at each other, then sighed and dropped our guard. "I think we're done sparring for today," False decided. The rest of us agreed. "I'm honestly surprised you managed to hold your own against all of us at once," I told Arrell. "All you did was charge at me and hope you could get in a few punches. Really, you kind of got predictable," he replied. "Yeah, a bit. That happens when you don't have freaking voice attacks, giant shields, and axes," I shot back with a smirk. He laughed. "Be glad I didn't get angry. This would've gone from sparring to fighting for your life." "...that's true."