As we left Trottingham the next day, we were riding high on our success. That first day of travel passed quickly, our thoughts entirely focused on how we were going to go about the next concert and what Dredgemane might be like. Octavia gave us some idea but considering her attitude, I figured she probably hadn’t seen everything the town had to offer. Even our 8 days of night practice went quickly, as we completely focused ourselves on the upcoming show.
The following day, it rained. No thunder or lightning but definitely rain. Lots of it. While Cadence, Vinyl and Lyra could keep the water from the sky out, we couldn’t do anything about the mud. It could have been worse but the day was still pretty miserable. Octavia complained quite often, even with her gradual - very gradual - attitude change and Vinyl calming her down. We all stayed pretty far apart during the minecraft world that night.
The next day was bright and hot. Our emotions were still a little frazzled from the previous and so the heat and humidity was getting to us. None of us really felt like talking and we were all pretty snappy. Especially me, since I had been dragging all of them the entire way. Even I yelled at some of the others. By midday, we hit a breaking point.
“No Vinyl! I’m done with this. I’m going back to Canterlot away from these bestial ruffians. I can be in their presence no longer!”
“Yeah, well screw you too Tavi!”
“You have no right to call me that name, changeling filth!”
“Lyra, can we please go back to Ponyville? These two are the largest asses I’ve ever met and I’m good friends with Cranky Doodle.”
“I don’t need to take such insults from you, changeling hussy!”
“You take that back snob! Bon Bon is a great pony!”
“Hey, leave Tavi alone! Just because you won’t understand-”
“Understand? All of you can’t keep quiet for long enough to hear any of us talk!”
“Well excuuuuse me, princess. Does her pretty pink highness want a fight?”
“Can it, shiny butt. I bet you moaned like a whore for Chrysalis.”
“Oh now. It. Is. ON!”
As the music kicked in from seemingly nowhere, the ‘music world’ sprung up around us and the surroundings dropped away as the ground morphed into a blue-wired platform.
I don’t think Brawl was meant for 10 players.
I was clad in the eponymous green tunic the Link wears in every game. All of my compatriots were standing on their hind legs. Cadence was done up in Princess Zelda’s dress, while Scootaloo donned a similar tunis to mine, only with less detail. On the other side of me, in matching pink and blue parkas stood Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom as the Ice Climbers. Shining Armor… was dressed up in a Mewtwo suit and I could barely contain my laughter at how ridiculous he looked. Lyra was looking pretty kickass dressed up like Fox, while Bon Bon had a Kirby hat on. Octavia had picked up the full suit of Ganondorf’s armor. This left Samus, who had to have been Vinyl.
I grinned as the music picked up. Their beatdown was going to be enjoyable!
A dusky shadow floated in the air near the glowing blue stage. Two eyes, teal and draconic, observed the fight unfolding beneath her. The changeling, Knightmare, threw the first punch, or swing, as it were, slicing at the frilly pink alicorn. This was followed by the white stallion psychically flinging the green-clad changeling towards the edge of the platform. Elsewhere, the armor clad unicorn was firing beams of energy at the hat-wearing fake earth pony, while the gray mare kicked and punched at the blaster-toting, green-coated mare. The three fillies lacked the anger held by their adult counterparts and simply had fun jumping around and hitting each other.
All according to plan. The shadow smiled as it saw the first victim lose, watching the costumed white stallion fall ungracefully off the stage. The other players, it seemed, were a little better at their respective roles. Knightmare was doing an expert job racking up damage on the others, taking swipes at anyone he passed in his current duel with the cellist. The DJ was busy getting sucked up by the female changeling, whose hat changed from the pink thing to the helmet on the spacesuited mare.
A bright flash alerted the shadow to the next loser, which she determined to be the pegasus filly after a quick scan of the battlefield. The mint green unicorn was engaged in a series of punches and kicks against the candy colored alicorn. Miss cosmopolitan-ice-cream mane was, however, proving quite the worthy foe, gracefully dodging here and there, all while striking out with her clothed hooves or magic.
Two more flashes and both the cellist and the paired fillies were absent from the stage. Knightmare had fixed his sights on the other changeling and with a swipe of his sword, she was sent flying offstage, accompanied by the familiar pillar of light. At the other end of the stage, a fiery explosion slammed the lyricist unicorn to the void below the stage.
The emotions are getting the better of them. With those two falls, Knightmare and Cadence were the last two participants. As they rounded on each other, the shadow extended tendrils down, whispering dark thoughts as they went. The changeling was receptive but as her tendrils approached the alicorn of love, her shadows bounced away. For the briefest of moments, Cadence’s eyes darted outwards, piercing the darkness. The shadow drew back quickly, not wishing to make herself known yet. She growled at her failure to affect the alicorn.
But it matters not. Knightmare shall serve my purposes. There will be time to twist them all later. the two charged each other. Knightmare’s blade became a flurry of slices. Cadence dodged back, and sent a fireball at her opponent, which he ducked under to stab at her back hooves. She tripped, but did a back hoofspring to land back on her hind legs, instantly rushing forward magic outstretched. Knightmare threw up his shield just in time, and leapt into the air above her.
Knightmare drove his sword down - but Cadence moved and smashed him sideways off the stage. Knightmare jumped and spun, but to no avail. The bright flash accompanying his death was satisfying to Cadence. The shadow frowned, but dismissed her doubt, and slunk back into the darkness as the real world faded back into view.
I groaned as I sat back up off the muddy ground. Cadence had really done a number on me. She stood there above the rest of us, smug grin on her face. WHen she looked at me, the grin turned to a frown however. She looked to check that the rest of our friends were still getting up before pulling me to the side.
“Knightmare, something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?” I cast her a questioning glance. Whatever anger I’d been experiencing seemed to have burned off.
“Something was watching us fight just now. Something dark. I only barely noticed it, at the very end.”
My eyebrows rose. “Something watching us?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it was but I think it was trying to influence us. That emotional outburst before the fight? Looking back on it, it seems really strange. I know I’m not normally like that, even on my worst days.”
I thought back to the fight we had, and realized she was right. “What should we do?” The others were finally rising to their feet.
“I don’t know Knightmare but we need to be careful.” She looked at me and I understood I was to keep this quiet. No need to worry people unless it became necessary.
We walked back to everybody else, who were apologizing to each other. I cleared my throat.
“Hey guys, I just wanted to say sorry for being so irritable earlier.“ A round of matching sentiments flowed back from them.
“Right! now that we have that taken care, let’s get back to it!” We gathered our things and restarted our travel towards Dredgemane.
As we walked along, I thought I heard something, possibly laughter, from where we were, but when I looked back, I saw nothing. Shrugging, I returned to the path. This concert was going to be amazing!