Patroclop felt completely overwhelmed as he exited into the ring. The circular arena, with its desert-brown floor and its millions of seats for spectators. He had never thought that he’d ever be on this side of the arena; in the fight itself. He could already hear Putchuk’s steps up to the spectator’s area.
He looked to his right, to see the leaders of Ponea and Equestria, on the highest seats in the arena. He saw Princess Celestia, in all of her magnificence, with an empty seat beside her, belonging to Luna. She’s probably tending to Podre, Patroclop thought to himself. Beside her, Patroclop saw the leader of Ponea; Konub, the legendary Earthpony, in his red monk’s robe. They were both surrounded by guards.
Konub was a particularly large colt; light brown in colour, with a large mane of grey hair, and a grey beard. Although he was very powerful, there was something about him that made him particularly unique for such an old pony; he was famed for not having a Cutie Mark. Konub was the leader of an order of monks, the Rashu-Atsu, that gained great influence over Ponea, eventually putting Konub in power and having Ponea split from Equestria a few thousand yeas ago. The vast majority of Poneans agreed to it due to the differences in culture of Ponea to the rest of Equestria, especially as Ponea was only a bit smaller than Equestria.
To his left, Patroclop saw the announcer, and the windowed box where the anonymous judges were watching.
“Now, fans!” the announcer bellowed, “Welcome your two combatants; Kinba of Ponea and Patroclop of Equestria!”.
The crowd went wild and Patroclop felt overwhelmed. Celestia was looking at HIM and applauding. He managed to shrug it off and look at his opponent.
Although combatants are difficult to identify due to the amount of armour they wear, Patroclop was able to see that this colt was about his height, and seemed to be about his age. Also young for the tournament. He looked to be a bit less sturdy than Patroclop, though. He was covered in the Ponea dark red combatant armour, as Patroclop was in the blue. As expected, Kinba had a bo-staff on his back. Kinba reached around his back with his head and grabbed it in his mouth.
Patroclop brought his mouth down to his sheath, and took out his sword. Many years ago, unicorns managed to invent handles for items to be held in a pony’s mouth. These handles were crafted around a pony’s own teeth, and allowed the item to be held firmly, horizontally, or even out in front of the pony. Therefore, Patroclop could hold his sword to the right, to the left or with the end straight out in front of him.
But Kinba had his staff hanging from his right and his left, due to its length. Ponies develop a technique when they fight with weapons to change how they hold the weapon rapidly by moving it in their mouth, using their tongue and turning momentum. Patroclop had his blade out to hi right to begin this fight. Both ponies were about two metres away from each other, before the announcer started the match.
“BEGIN!” the announcer shouted.
Patroclop and Kinba began walking around in clockwise circles, eyes on each other the whole time, waiting for the other to make the first move. Patroclop suddenly began focused into the fight; he remembered how big this was, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself by being distracted.
Patroclop and Kinba started galloping towards each other at about the same time. Kinba extended his staff further to his right side, bounced to the side and whacked Patroclop across the head with it, just as Patroclop was getting ready to attack. The Ponea section of the audience gave an especially large cheer, seeming certain that their side had won this battle after such a hit to the head.
The shock of the counter attack sent Patroclop to the ground, letting Kinba poke him a few more times to impress the judges before Patroclop rolled away on his side and stood up. He wasn’t used to fighting people with a much longer weapon than his, and he was much more used to close-range fighting.
Kinba went for another horizontal hit from the right with his staff, but this time Patroclop blocked it with his sword. It bounced back further than expected, as Kinba wasn’t holding it in a stable position, due to holding the staff far from its centre. Knowing that he had the weight advantage, Patroclop rammed into Kinba in this unstable state, knocking him to the ground and giving Patroclop a chance to stomp on his unprotected snout. Kinba yet out a whelp of pain, jerking his head back and releasing his staff, as Patroclop sliced through the armour underneath Kinba’s neck. Kinba then let out a growl, turned onto his back and kicked Patroclop off with his two back legs. Patroclop shot high into the air and fell on his side.
He then took a few seconds to think. Due to the power of that kick, even in heavy armour, it seemed obvious that Kinba was one of the Rashu-Atsu; some of their members sometimes join the Ponea side of this competition, so Patroclop guessed that he was probably facing one now. Although Kinba seemed speedy and strong, Patroclop thought to himself, he doesn’t seem that sturdy. Patroclop needed to overpower him in order to win.
Patroclop got up just as Kinba did, after Kinba picked up his staff, and they charged at each other once again, leading to a excited cheer from the audience. Patroclop was especially wary of the staff this time. But, to his surprise, just as he was approaching Kinba, Kinba manoeuvred his bo-staff to be solely hanging from the right side of his mouth, jumped into the air and pressed the other. end of the bo-staff against the ground. Patroclop’s charged right past Kinba, who was now falling down to a much more stable position behind Patroclop. Patroclop stopped his charge as soon as he noticed this, leaving his flank open to a powerful sweep from Kinba’s bo-staff. Kinba ran up to Patroclop on the ground. “Payback!” he sneered, as he gave Patroclop a very high-powered stomp to his snout, making him drop his sword. Patroclop yelled out in pain, and Kinba stomped on his snout again. Blood began gushing from Patroclop’s snout. Patroclop rolled onto his four legs, staying low, and slammed into Kinba, just as he was coming in with another staff strike. Kinba skidded back on the ground, but was able to maintain balance using his staff.
Patroclop began to fill with passion; the passion he always got when in an intense fight. And this was his most important fight yet.
As the two were fairly far away from each other now, they began moving around in a circle again, keeping complete focus on their opponent, thinking. Kinba now manoeuvred the staff so that most of it was coming out of the left side of his mouth. Due to this breathing space, Patroclop realized what he had to do to win this.
Patroclop charged again, making Kinba smile, due to Patroclop never having pulled off a charge thus far. As Patroclop was getting near, and Kinba was about to move his staff to do something, Patroclop threw his sword up into the air with his mouth. This ruined Kinba’s concentration, as he immediately went to look at the sword in case of a trick. Patroclop used this opportunity to grab Kinba’s staff. Patroclop used his superior strength and better hold of the staff to force down Kinba. Kinba was forced to release his grip and Patroclop threw his staff far into the audience, leaving both fighters unarmed. Patroclop stomped on Kinba’s snout once again, making Kinba yelp and giving Patroclop time to grab his nearby sword. He picked it up from the ground and held it at the downed Kinba’s face.
A buzzer went off from the judge’s box, signalling the end of the match, making the Equestria fans roar in excitement. It was obvious who the winner was after Patroclop’s display.
“Well, this was an… interesting fight” the announcer started, “We haven’t seen a fight such as this, where a combatant let go of his own weapon to disarm another!”.
The announcer then walked into the judge’s box for about five seconds, and came out with a result.
“And the winner, by a very… interesting occurrence, is…. PATROCLOP OF EQUESTRIA!!!”.
The fans of Equestria were roaring even louder, as Patroclop turned to Celestia, and bowed. But, even though he saw her applause, he was suddenly alarmed.
Patroclop could see a shadow of a Pegasus directly above Celestia and Konub. It flew down at great speed towards Celestia. He began to make out the pony’s features; a grey Pegasus, with a mane of blonde hair. As it approached Celestia, it bent its knees forward slightly. This caused an odd mechanism on the pony’s front two legs to activate, causing katars to come from the mechanism, and hang out under the pony’s hooves. Allowing them to be used as weapons.
Before Patroclop had a chance to shout, it was already hovering in front of Celestia. Celestia or the guards had no time to react as the Pegasus gave a horizontal slash across Celestia’s face with its front-left leg, slashing through her right eye and cheek. It then trusted the three katars on its right leg into Celestia’s throat. The guards all dived towards the Pegasus, with their swords out, but the Pegasus was somehow able to manoeuvre itself through all of the sword attacks, by bending its limbs and spine at very odd angles. The Pegasus easily slipped out, and flew out of the arena.
Screams were heard all around the arena. The Pegasi of Celestia’s guard tore out of the arena to find the Pegasus a few seconds after it left. They returned almost immediately, with no sighting of it.
Almost all of the Equestria citizens were in tears. The citizens of Ponea were also horrified, but most of them ran out of the arena, while the Equestria citizens stayed to mourn. Konub seemed shocked for a few seconds; but then quickly left his seat, and left the arena with an escort of guards.
Patroclop was stuck to the spot, barely breathing from the shock, with a feeling that dark times were to come.