//------------------------------// // Pony Battle! (VS Rainbow Dash) // Story: NO MORE PONIES // by Brony_Fife //------------------------------// The deeper Travis went into the Wonderbolt Academy, the eerier everything felt. Did that little green pony seriously kill everyone in the building? She might have already done his job for him. It occurred to him only now that he might have inspired a copycat assassin. Yet another “number one fan” in a whole legion of them. Travis shelved that idea for now. For now, he was on the trail of his next target. She wasn’t in her quarters, where he half-expected she might be. Not in the training hall. Wasn’t in the gym, either. The chilling silence of the aftermath here at the Academy was really beginning to grate Travis’ nerves. His hands were at his hips, each finger snaking around the handle of either one of the Rose Nasty’s hilts, as he walked down the hallways. He looked almost like a cowboy expecting a shootout. Suddenly, he heard some talking. Travis’ feet clipped along the linoleum floors, following the voice to its source. There, in the lobby, was his target. Over her light blue pelt she wore a snazzy bomber jacket. Crowning her rainbow mane was a set of aviator goggles. As she turned to meet him, Travis noticed that she wore, under her bomber jacket, a dark blue military dress shirt with a black tie. She stood over what must have been a fallen comrade. Brighter blue pelt than hers. Dark blue mane and tail. There were an alarming number of cuts in his side, like a set of sanguine gills. Travis raised an eyebrow, slightly hopeful that he wouldn’t be facing a similar out-of-control pony like the green one. They stood there, quietly. Travis took note of the fact that Rainbow Dash didn’t have a knife, and therefore couldn’t have stabbed that other pony. He also noticed how she fought the tears threatening to spill down her face. Was that pony a friend? A lover? Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. “…You.” Travis nodded. “…Me.” “You did this.” If it were any other pony, Travis would have thought of the tremor in her voice as a sign of fear. Maybe on some level, it was. But the tremor in Rainbow Dash’s icy voice—coupled with the intense look in her eyes—denoted an almost-electrical hatred, aimed squarely at him. Travis looked around. “Uh, well… no, actually,” he stated honestly. “This bloodbath wasn’t my fault. It was that green pony.” Only after the words were out of his mouth did Travis realize how utterly ridiculous he sounded. He blinked. It might have lasted a split-second—maybe—but it was enough time for Rainbow Dash to cut across the linoleum floor and head-butt him in the stomach, knocking him clear into the hall. When he regained his wind, Travis got back up to his feet. Rainbow Dash was already halfway to him on another head-butting trip, but before she could get him again, Travis drew the Rose Nasty. Travis dared a swing at Rainbow Dash, like a matador challenging a charging bull. But just before the white-hot laser-blades could bite into her, Rainbow Dash leapt over Travis’ head. He turned as she landed, bringing the Rose Nasty’s left sword upward. With a series of acrobatic twirls, Rainbow Dash dodged the first strike—then the second—then the third. When Travis brought down both blades of the Rose Nasty for a fourth strike, Rainbow Dash brought up a hoof as if she were chancing an uppercut. Her hoof connected with Travis’ hands, knocking the Rose Nasty out of his grip and sending them scattering across the floor into the lobby. They settled near the body from before. Travis looked from where the Rose Nasty stopped to Rainbow Dash—who greeted him with a buck to his chest, launching him after his weapon. Travis slammed into the wall near the entrance with a deafening noise, then fell face-first onto the hard linoleum. It took a while for his lungs to pull any air into them. From the searing-hot pain in his chest, he could tell a few of his ribs might be broken. He considered himself lucky. There was a clip-clop-clip-clop on the linoleum from far away, drawing nearer. “That style,” Rainbow Dash said. “I’ve seen it before.” The clip-clops ceased. Travis looked up to meet Rainbow Dash’s angry glare, coughing and sputtering as sweet, sweet air was finally beginning to collect in his lungs again. “You’re one of Thunder Ryu’s students,” Rainbow Dash continued. “I get it now. I understand why you’d kill my friends. It’s all a matter of revenge, isn’t it?” Travis challenged his legs to lift him back up to standing, and because he’s such a badass, his legs were more than up to it. He clutched his side, coughing again. “Revenge?” he said. “Kid, this isn’t a matter of revenge. It’s about you annoying ponies fucking shit up in my world!” “So it is revenge,” Rainbow Dash confirmed with a nod. “You think you can just waltz in here, and kill Rarity? And Soarin? And everypony else? You think you got the right to just take everypony away from me?! Who do you think you are?!” The way her voice choked, the way her eyes shimmered—Travis could tell Rainbow Dash was having a pure surge of anger, on the verge of a complete rage takeover. His eyes flicked to the Rose Nasty before coming back to her. “Me? I’m the guy who’s gonna kick your ass!” Finally, Rainbow Dash’s patience broke. She lowered her goggles over her eyes, the lenses both flashing dangerously. “Know who I am?!” she roared. “Know who I am?! I’m the one that put those scars on Thunder Ryu’s FACE!!! You’ll be lucky I let you crawl away with your LIFE!” Travis dove for the Rose Nasty, and just as he picked them up, Rainbow Dash shot at him, striking him like a bolt of lightning and thrusting him through the front door and into the Academy’s courtyard. Thankfully, the clouds were much softer than the linoleum. It was like landing on a mountain of marshmallows. Travis wondered how on Earth (in Equestria?) he was able to stand on clouds—but he was also one to never look a gift horse in the mouth, nor was he one to question deus ex machina when it was clearly in his favor for once. Travis stood back up, his feet finding awkward footing on the clouds around him. Rainbow Dash burst from the open doors of the Academy, taking to the sky. He watched her get some distance, implying that she was readying a charge. The Rose Nasty wouldn’t do for something like this, Travis realized. Sporting four laser-blades, arranged in a long rectangle, the Tsubaki Mk II was more of a baseball bat than a sword. If this was the way Rainbow Dash wanted to play, then Travis would more than welcome his chance up to bat. With a threatening hiss, the Tsubaki Mk II came to life. Rainbow Dash dipped a wing and dropped below the clouds. Travis raised an eyebrow, unsure of what she had in mind. Suddenly, he felt a pair of hooves shoot up from around his feet, grabbing him by the ankles and pulling him down to his neck. It was like being buried in oatmeal. From a good thirty feet in front of him, Rainbow Dash “poofed” up from the clouds. She pawed at the cloud-ground, readying a charge. Travis’ eyes widened with the realization that Rainbow Dash had changed her game from baseball to football—and she was going for the extra point with his head! He struggled to pull himself out of the clouds as Rainbow Dash ran for him. He managed to loosen the clouds around his shoulders, and as luck would have it, he was able to pull his right arm up, Tsubaki and all, and thrust it toward Rainbow Dash. She connected with its blunt tip, leaving a bruise on her face as she backed down, dazed. With some effort, Travis was able to yank himself out of the cloud. Just as he did so, Rainbow Dash regained her senses and took off again. Travis decided to keep himself mobile to avoid another trick. His eye traced Rainbow Dash’s path as she circled around the courtyard like a raptor. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash flew in an arc, leaving behind after-images of herself. Each one was a single color of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, that bluish-purple color, and purple. One by one, the after-images shot at him like a dart of hard light. The red one connected with his stomach using a karate-kick. When the orange one rushed him, Travis was able to knock it away using a well-timed swing from his Tsubaki. He kept up this rhythm—and since he wasn’t all that great at rhythm games, I’m sure you know how well he kept it up—until finally, after he’d deflected the purple one, the real Rainbow Dash followed. He met her with a swing of his Tsubaki, but for some reason it didn’t cut her right away. Although it stopped her momentum cold, Rainbow Dash pushed against the Tsubaki, turning this into a vicious battle of tug-of-war. She glared at Travis. “Give up!” she bellowed. “You first!” Travis hissed through gritted teeth. “No, you!” “No, you!” “No! YOU!” “NO! YOOOOOUUUUU!!!” Rainbow Dash thought it over. “Okay,” she said nonchalantly. With that, she let go, allowing the Tsubaki to continue its swing as she sidestepped the blow completely, sending Travis off-balance. In his clumsy state, Rainbow Dash stuck out a foreleg and tripped Travis, causing him to land on his face. Without wasting a moment, Rainbow Dash jumped on him. And then jumped on him again. And again. And again. Amidst the horrible, horrible pain Travis was feeling that moment, he realized she was pushing him down through the clouds slowly, likely delivering him into a decidedly fall-y death. Which was only slightly lamer than tripping him the way she did. His free hand clenched around a handful of the cloud as Rainbow Dash gave him one last good stomp. Travis would have fallen then and there, had his grip not been as badass as the rest of him. Rainbow Dash looked down the Travis-shaped hole she’d just made, expecting to see him fall and become a smear on the ground below—only for Travis to swing right back up on top of the cloud, getting her in the face with a good kick. Everything went blurry from the kick, and Rainbow Dash tried to remain balanced. Suddenly, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her, lift her up—and over—and then crashing through the cloud in a well-executed suplex. She was halfway down to the ground below when she regained her senses and opened her wings, skimming treetops as she took flight once more. When she was far enough away, Rainbow Dash cocked herself like a bullet in a gun. “Should have just done this to begin with,” she growled. She then shot from that gun, colors screaming by her as she built up enough speed to break the sound barrier. While she did this, Travis watched her from afar. She’d changed the game back to baseball. With a nod, Travis struck a swinging pose befitting a professional slugger, the Tsubaki poised over his shoulders. There’s the wind-up! With a shout, the sound barrier was broken, a wave of colors bursting like a bubble in every direction. "SONIC RAINBOOM!" she shouted. And there’s the pitch! Travis swung the Tsubaki, hard light meeting hard light. A loud cacophony deafened everything within a ten-mile radius, the sky turning all colors of the rainbow at once like a kaleidoscope fireworks show. It was an explosion unlike any other, leveling the clouds—the Wonderbolts Academy—the birds—that Squadalah guy on the carpet—fucking everything in the sky. Gradually, everything quieted down and the blinding lights faded. If anyone was brave enough to look up that moment, they’d have seen this tiny black cloud. On it was a man—scratch that, a complete badass—who more closely resembled a burnt match. Travis coughed, realizing that the fact he was breathing meant he somehow survived the battle. Of course he knew he would, but come on, he was kinda worried for a second there. Travis looked around everywhere for any trace of his quarry. Suddenly, some light-blue feathers began falling around him quietly, like snow. He took that as his victory. About as good as one could come. He tried sheathing the Tsubaki, but upon trying to close it up, Travis realized it was broken completely. All its parts dangled about, spitting electrical sparks like broken teeth. He looked it over, sighed, then let go of it, letting it drop. It was twice the sword at half the size, but it died honorably in service of its master. After that impromptu funeral, Travis then looked around, hands on his hips. “Well shit,” he finally realized. “How the fuck am I gonna get down from here?” RAINBOW DASH: DASHES TO ASHES