"What? It's not too late! Don't say that!" James protested, almost incensed.
"But it is!" Willow Wise insisted in despair. "Broken Oak... he will never accept-"
"So?" the man interrupted. Again, that stubborn stallion! "He's just going to have to deal with it."
"No," the old mare moaned. Paralyzed with heavy gravity, a hopeless darkness oozed out of her. "If I attempt to change the course of the Dryponies, he will challenge me, without a doubt."
"But... you lead the Dryponies, don't you?" A rising sense of dread took hold inside James.
Willow Wise dropped her eyes to the floor and she quietly explained, "Strength is a virtue; the most respected of all of Prideheart's virtues. Strength is the mark of a leader. Strength of mind..." She pointed at herself, but then she pointed off towards the forest; off towards wherever Broken Oak was. "... But also strength of body. The Dryponies follow out of respect. My wisdom is respected, but so is his might. If I turn away from the Drypony dream, so devoutly believed, then he will exercise his right to challenge his strength against mine... and I cannot stand against him there..."
James was nearly incredulous. Willow Wise had finally become aware enough to recognize that there might be a better way out of this disaster but her change of heart had been ultimately meaningless because of that one reckless pony.
"What? So that's it? Because he's the biggest pony he gets to have his way?" the man complained. As obstinate and unwavering as Willow Wise had been, Broken Oak was something else entirely. He wasn't just inflexible; he was unrelentingly charging headlong into that demented destiny, oblivious to the dangers, intent on taking everypony with him. The man frantically hoped, "Won't some of the other Dryponies respect you more than him? Won't some of them listen?"
"If Broken Oak challenges me," she whispered in a forsaken tone, "he will prove his authority and that is what they will respect."
"They'll fear him is what you mean," the man contended, angry. "Fear is a very different thing from respect."
But she only shook her head. "It doesn't matter... there is nothing that can be done anymore."
With nothing immediately around him to direct his ire towards, James squeezed his own knuckles until his fingers popped. With bitter and harsh whispers he tried to think of something, anything, that could help. By sheer chance his memory stumbled upon recent words; some simple wisdom, given to him only thirty minutes ago from an unexpected source. "We have to at least TRY," the man demanded.
"But what good would it do?" the old mare asked, pleading for a way out.
"What good would it be to do nothing?" he asked her back. With a burning sigh, he went on, "We know pretty clearly now where things are going to go if we do nothing, or if we just let Broken Oak take over and handle things his way. We have to at least try to do something."
Willow Wise stayed silent. She sat and shivered through an uncomfortable coldness that permeated her, and she eased through deep, tired breaths as her eyes still battled a forlorn moisture.
"I'll stand with you," James promised.
Silence. Silence in the radiant crystal light.
The man tried again, begging, "Don't be the wounded Prideheart, who kept running away. Be Prideheart the hero, who threw himself against a dragon, regardless of the consequences to himself, because he had something to protect."
"... Please, give me a few minutes," Willow Wise requested in a dreary whisper.
He nodded, got up, and stepped away from her. Waiting in the archway, he looked out at the concourse again. The others still sat under the wary watch of the gang of Drypony guards, with the only friendly faces being their two sympathizers and Poppy. A healthy portion of the crowd remained at a much greater distance, eying the whole group with their leery curiosity. There were likely a good chunk more Dryponies peeking from the heights and depths of the trees as well.
At last he heard the slow, reluctant clops of Willow Wise approaching. She was painfully nervous, nearly holding her breath the whole way. "I will... try to take the matter up with my Dryponies," she said in an ailing voice. Perhaps a thousand times in her long life she had addressed her congregation and it had always been with shining pride and an unfaltering confidence. This would be the first time ever she would actually need her all of her willpower in order to speak to them. The first time that appearing before her Dryponies would be a challenging task.
James tried to make himself as supportive a presence as possible, giving her a closed smile and an assertive nod. She acknowledged weakly, but something about her still wasn't fully committed to the task; there was only a weak willingness to give it a try. He stepped out of the hollow before her, matched her pace, and together they steadily walked down the ramp.
A single Drypony from the remains of the crowd spotted them coming and spread the word to her neighbors, who spread it to theirs, and so on. In a hot minute there was a hidden electricity whipping through the crowd, wondering and ready.
It caught the attention of Twilight and her friends too. Rainbow Dash was none too pleased to see James accompanying Willow Wise again, turning an ever distrustful eye at him. The others looked up with hope though, praying that their unicorn friend's short breakout earlier had made some sort of difference.
Twilight noted the change in James: from lost and uncertain to focused and centered. She knew instantly: this was it. She started to stand up but stumbled under her own weight, still weak. Applejack quickly got to her hooves and helped her frail friend up, keeping the unicorn steady.
Poppy raced over to Willow Wise, sensing the change in the air. The old mare restlessly asked the little filly to gather the Dryponies for a village meeting. Obediently she did, first recruiting a few of the excess Branch Dancer guards to help spread the message. They bounced into the trees, calling for everypony, shouting at the peaks of their voices. Those Dryponies who had fled to the trees at the sight of Twilight's unleashed magic swiftly began crawling out of the cracks in the forests. With most of the crowd still gathered from the earlier spectacle, it didn't take long for the rest of Heartwood to assemble.
Quickly they filtered in, a great crowd of Dryponies, growing in size. They moved in closer to their chief but made sure to stand on the side of the concourse that was well and away clear of the guards and their prisoners. The rumorous whispers slowly but surely died down as the expectation of some dramatic outpouring by their great chief built up.
"Now or never," James murmured to Willow Wise.
The old mare stood idly, staring into the eyes of all her Dryponies, too fearful to speak at first. Each one of them looked back with their unequal eyes; a sea of paired gazes; clear eye and Prideheart marked eye, together staring back at her. They were curious, proud, daring, and faithful. They were eager, scared, attentive, and rueful. They were her foals, all. They all loyally bore that symbol of Prideheart's suffering. Never, NEVER, should they have to bear a mark of their own.
In a dry voice, she called out as strongly as her will could, "Dryponies! Prideheart's faithful! Today... today, of all days, may be the day most influential over our destiny! Today... we met for the first time those that we've called our enemies! And..." She choked up for a moment, either forgetful or unsure of her next words. The odd glares of the Dryponies only pounded their way further into her. She breathed in deeply, redoubled her efforts, and continued, "And now... we are tasked to call judgment! But not upon them! Upon ourselves! To see if the long-told stories that we have always shared of them match what we can witness with our own eyes!
"We can choose to face down our enemy blindly, but," she pointed towards Twilight, "we have already seen the weakness invited by such selective ignorance! It it a time now not to stay hidden away in our forest but to seek out those we oppose. Seek them out... not to fight them but to learn of them! To discover them better! To understand that... that... there may be other paths to our own peace than just escaping away from the Sun or eclipsing her light!"
At the short pause in her words, there were rising questions from the crowd. The words bounced between the many debating ponies. Whispers flooded the forest, asking what this could all mean. Low sounds spoken in fear and panic, rage and worry, interest and hope.
Willow Wise raised her voice to overcome them, "There may be a path through reconciliation! A peace to be found... through peace!"
A tremendous crack of thunder, like the earth breaking open, like a tree crushing brush when it falls, like the latent crash of a firework, shattered the noise of the crowd and brought everything to a standstill. The center of the sea of ponies split, parting to either side and revealing Broken Oak, his hoof practically buried in the ground from the force of his stomp.
His eyes boiled and furious air blasted out of his nostrils. He twisted the old mare's words and accused, "THROUGH SURRENDER!"
Willow Wise began shaking in agitation. Her voice diminished as she tried to contend, "No, Broken Oak... we are not-"
The stormy stallion marched forward out of the crowd, smashing craters in the earth as he came. His screaming voice surged out with fire and fury, "Long has our strength held together, here in Heartwood! And now, at the cresting of the wave, you want to turn away in fear?! The time of our destiny is come and your strength fails?!"
The old mare's body shrunk as the unrestrained wrath of the frenzied stallion came pouring out. Still, she tried to press back, lifting her voice enough to be heard better, and pleaded, "No, Broken Oak... you must understand... our destiny... there is no escape from the Sun! The night may be long but the day will always come! We've seen now that this encounter was inevitable, no matter how deeply we hid ourselves. But a true escape will never be ours. We cannot match their magic." She turned towards James solemnly. "And not even the Walking Desert can guide us away from it."
Broken Oak turned to look at the man too. There was nothing friendly, hospitable, or even remotely respectful about his stare. Something deep and destructive was in the stallion's eyes. Some dark reflection of the man, contorted and virulent. This was all his fault. This was all that THING'S fault!
"Perhaps he isn't the one! Or maybe he's still too twisted by the wicked Sun to yet be of use!" Broken Oak shouted. A shadow suddenly fell over him as he looked back at Willow Wise. Biting and harsh, he said to her, "But it is obvious now that he's been a poison to your thoughts; softening your will and weakening your resolve..." He immediately turned and appealed loudly to the crowd, "Just as the wicked Sun intended!"
The crowd exploded into gasps and shouts. Some spoke contrary to the assertions; others not. But in moments it became clear that enough of them were on one side of the argument to shift the tide. Swiftly the crowd's emotions stirred and aligned towards Broken Oak.
Willow Wise's face fell and she slowly withdrew, offering no counter this time.
But like before, James was a mirror to Broken Oak's anger. He couldn't hold himself back against the stallion's hostility and insane vehemence. Especially now that the old mare had seemingly surrendered. He stepped forward and, with perhaps too little caution, he yelled at the stallion, "Hey! You need to shut up!"
Broken Oak faced the man again, all his furious hate intact and visible on the surface. However, one side of him also delighted in the possibility of finally standing openly against this insect; a side of him that indulged in the chance to crush this worm again; justice for all the trouble the man had caused.
"I don't think you really believe in your great destiny!" James accused the defiant pony. "I think you're just looking for a battle to fight! Something on which to spend your immeasurable strength! Something to validate everything you've built yourself up for! Have you even stopped once to consider the consequences of what you're doing?!"
"You may waste your wretched words all you like, Sun-slave!" Broken Oak snapped right back. "I won't be shaken! I am Prideheart strong! I will never back down, not even from the wicked Sun herself!"
"Oh, wake up!" the man exclaimed, tired and wild all at once. He lifted his voice to try and include the crowd, though he found it hard not to angrily spit everything at Broken Oak, "Prideheart won a great battle but then he lost the war! He beat the dragon and his victory destroyed him in the end! It wasn't the Sun! He had the strength to fight a dragon but he didn't have the strength to fight the wounds he took in his heart!" He again leveled his words solely and unapologetically at the brutish stallion, claiming, "You'll be no different if you don't change course!"
"Broken Oak... please...," Willow Wise suddenly stepped forward and pleaded. She was still embroiled in fear, but it wasn't OF the manic stallion. It was FOR him. "There is no escape through retreat and there is no victory to win through conflict. But there is a chance... there may be more than defeat left for us! They have not come here to destroy us; they already would have if that was their aim. We can try-"
"ENOUGH!" the stallion screamed and let loose another earthquake with his hoof. He once again turned around and took his argument directly to the Dryponies, pronouncing, "Our great leader's strength has waned! I will not accept conceding to the wicked Sun, whatever her vile intentions are! I will not let Prideheart's long struggle end without meaning!"
He stormed over to Willow Wise and throw a denouncing hoof in front of her face. "Willow Wise! I now challenge your strength!"
The crowd fell into shock.
In the dead silence, the old mare stared at the powerful hoof in front of her. Slowly, her eyes retreated and fell, followed by her head, and then her rump slid down on to the ground. She hung herself in accepted defeat.
Again, the crowd came alive at this turn of events. Broken Oak turned away from the fallen chief and began to pace in front of them, proclaiming his newly earned leadership.
James leaned down to the conquered Drypony, herself despairing and so devoid of hope, and he implored her, "No... please..."
But her head stayed down. She closed her eyes and, weeping, she said, "I'm sorry... I cannot..."
Marching back and forth in front of the crowd, filled with authority and command, Broken Oak blasted his voice to them, over them, and through all the forest. He decreed, "We will stand idle no longer! No more waiting for the ponies of the settlement to move on us! No more waiting for corruption to undo us from the inside! No more waiting for the Sun to complete the erasure of Prideheart from history!" He stopped his imperious parading to deliver a deadly stare at the collected prisoners. Destroying them with his eyes, he cast new orders out with his booming voice, "We will deal with the evil already in our midst... and then we will march on the enemy settlement and drive the intruders away from our forest once and for all! Curses upon the wicked Sun!"
His energy spilled into the crowd and they reacted only with enthusiasm, cheering him on and shouting their own vulgar phrases and epithets.
The infectious zeal also spread quickly into the guards that surrounded Twilight and the others. They suddenly grew bolder and, seeking to execute Broken Oak's instructions, began to slowly move in on the prisoners, projecting malice with every step.
The two sympathetic jail guards didn't turn on the prisoners. Seemingly the only guards unaffected by the rampaging fervor, they fell into a sorrowful panic and tried to entreat their fellows to not do anything too hasty. Their words fell upon deaf ears and were answered only with hostile stares. But instead of giving up and joining their comrades, the two slowly backed away from their own kind, right up into the captives, as they continued to plead.
The threatened prisoners defensively pulled themselves into a tight ball with their most vulnerable at the center. Applejack and Fluttershy blocked Twilight with their bodies. Rarity pulled the still incapacitated Spike in and guarded him closely. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie stood like shields against the encroaching Dryponies. The rainbow pegasus was poised and ready, daring their captors to make the first move. The pink pony bent low, furled her lips in a growl, and then yapped like a small puppy would at a mailpony.
James was still trying to convince Willow Wise to take action. He didn't have much faith in salvaging the situation but there simply wasn't anything he could do on his own. No matter what kind of Walking Desert the Dryponies thought he was, they weren't going to choose him over Broken Oak. He needed Willow Wise to act. He begged the old mare, "I know you can't fight him but there must be SOMETHING you can do!"
"Only successfully standing against his challenge will have any meaning..." the old mare heaved between her slow tears.
Whistles and stamps interrupted them, and James stood up when he saw several Drypony guards start to surround him. Their intention of capture was obvious. Broken Oak marched forward to join them. He came right up to the man and stood before him without a hint of mercy or a whiff of sympathy. This wasn't surprising: now that this aggressive stallion was in charge, the jig was up.
But Broken Oak suddenly held up a hoof, signaling his guards to back off. Mischievously, the stallion gave James the most knowing and deliberate look. Something clever and intentional twinkled in his eye. In an excessively loud voice, more than necessary to drive his purposes, he hinted to the man, "You know, I have challenged Willow Wise... but one may stand in her stead and prove strength on her behalf." He had a wicked, desirous smile.
It didn't strike James at first just why the domineering stallion would have even suggested such a thing; why this pony would have so willingly granted the man a chance to fight back. He returned a confused grimace at the stallion's offer... until the hidden truth of the matter quickly hit him like a sucker punch: Broken Oak was looking for the chance to break him before the crowd. By publicly crushing him in a challenge of strength, he would have the opportunity to dispel whatever myths they had built up of the Walking Desert in their own minds.
James delayed, swallowing his spit. On the one hand, like before, he felt so spiteful towards Broken Oak's hostility that he didn't want to even give the stallion the pleasure. Not to mention the fact that if he failed (which was probable given the outcome of their last fight,) he'd be playing right into the stallion's hooves and completely lose the Dryponies' respect, which was the only real currency he had with them. But on the other hand, if Willow Wise was right, if besting Broken Oak in a formal challenge was the only hope of restraining the mad stallion's forced authority, then it was the only chance he had to set things right.
"I ACCEPT!"
There were great, stunned gasps from everypony there. Even James had to stop for a second, riddled with confusion. He... hadn't said anything, had he? That hadn't been his voice...
From deep in the circle of enclosing Drypony guards, with bold, glowing eyes and a defiant stance, Rainbow Dash repeated, "I accept! I'll stand for Willow Wise!"
Broken Oak had a boggled appearance, halfway between disbelief and unfiltered anger. This unanticipated turn of events wasn't what he was after at all. But his fury swiftly morphed into delight as he freshly recalled his animosity for the boisterous pegasus. Nothing wrong with a little practice, then!
"Fine. Come forward!" he called before he whistled more instructions to his guards. He shot a final, grisly, departing look at James, a sort of 'just wait until later,' as he moved back towards the crowd.
Bowing to their captain's commands, the chain of guards around both James and the others loosened and then broke away. Most moved over towards the crowd and subsequently stood at attention, but a few leapt off into one of the trees and shortly returned with some heavy hammers, a great length of vine-rope, and some thick wooden stakes. They set to work on something, blocking out a space.
Now surprisingly free of any sort of watch, Rainbow Dash took a few trepidatious steps forward, her eyebrow cocked. It wasn't clear to her yet what she had just gotten herself into. When nopony seemingly objected to her little movements, she picked up to a full trot and quickly bounded over to Willow Wise's side.
Equally perplexed, and not to mention more than worried, the rest of the pegasus' friends followed up behind her. Even the two Drypony sympathizers came along with them, after a short delay of rationalizing to themselves that, "Somepony should keep a close watch on them." Twilight had to take it gingerly as she was still weak. Fortunately, she was assisted every step of the way by a supportive Applejack.
They all stood together and watched as the equipped guards drove the stakes into the earth at several key points, hammering them in securely; six stakes in all. The Drypony with the rope began to lay the line from stake to stake, measuring the perimeter of a shape he was creating. When the appropriate length of rope was cut, they tied it tightly around each stake, one by one, leaving it taut and raised a scant few inches off the ground. What they left behind was a hexagon of vine-rope, but only by the number of sides. It still strongly resembled a square by how shallowly two of the stakes pushed out. A chubby square with two mildly bulged sides, about twenty-five feet across.
"So... uh... what's going to happen here?" Rainbow Dash asked the old mare without diverting her gaze from the working Dryponies.
Willow Wise's eyes hadn't shifted away from the pegasus since the latter's unexpected outburst. Something had marveled her and she just couldn't believe it. Again and again, it was just like James had said. Fluttershy had peacefully driven off the bears, Twilight had exercised reserved magical muscles to only ask for parley and then re-restrained herself, and now Rainbow Dash had stepped up to fight on her behalf. Enemies, doing all this? Enemies...?
When an answer never came, Rainbow Dash at last pulled her head away from the activity going on before her and gave the old mare a puzzled glance. It shook Willow Wise out of her vexed preoccupation and she mumbled while coming back into herself, "You'll have to test your strength against Broken Oak's in a match."
Applejack, studying the Dryponies' tangle of rope and stakes, suddenly realized aloud, "It's a ring! Like for a competition of sorts."
"The victor is the one who knocks their opponent out of the ring...," Willow Wise elaborated, but then more grimly added, "... or knocks them out altogether." She gave a dismayed sigh and then, with alarmed eyes towards Rainbow Dash, she dimly warned, "Broken Oak likes to be thorough."
They all stopped to quietly observe the mammoth stallion. Standing on the opposite side of the ring, in front of the now engaged and eager crowd, he was limbering up for the battle ahead. When he bent his neck, it cracked like a boulder being split in half. When he stretched his legs, the muscles in them relaxed like the tide going out to sea. When he flexed his body, those same muscles turn to hardened stone. The hairs in the small bound buds of his mane stood up on their ends from the intensity that flowed through him, like the quills of a porcupine ready to strike. The sharp swinging of his tail had all the lashing and snapping of a whip, ready to punish.
Nopony really felt envious of Rainbow Dash.
"Ahehehe, uh, Rainbow Dash, dear," Rarity nervously chittered, "perhaps you should, er, reconsider the matter?"
Apparently unintimidated and stalwart, the pegasus replied, "Somepony has to do this."
"Well," the unicorn timidly responded, "I just mean to say... that is maybe you hadn't noticed... but if his cutie mark is anything to go by then he specializes in," her voice suddenly shifted into harsh, panicked blasts, "BREAKING TREE TRUNKS IN HALF WITH HIS BARE HOOVES!"
But Rainbow Dash only lifted her head and steeled herself. "I'm not afraid," she insisted. "I'll take him."
However, she quickly looked back at Willow Wise and asked with a bit of a reserved squeak, "I, uh, get to use my wings, right?"
The old mare returned a dejected stare. "You must face him on equal ground," she related.
Rainbow Dash took another look at her hulking opposition, still warming up his powerful body. "Great...," she swallowed nervously.
James found it particularly easy to sympathize. After all, he had briefly thought that this fight was going to be his task. He didn't really know enough about Rainbow Dash to judge her chances but she certainly had the necessary attitude and intensity. Maybe she stood a better chance than he did. Even when he had thought that he would be the one to step up, before he knew exactly what kind of physical contest the challenge was going to be, he didn't believe that his prospects of winning had been too great. If he were to have fought, it probably would've gone the same way it had gone earlier in the ambush. The fact of the matter was that Broken Oak's strong pony body gave him significantly more strength and weight than anything the human form could muster. Nothing in the man's experience had given him the know-how for wrestling a furious horse.
Still, not everything of his hand-to-hand combat training was invalidated by the opposition lacking hands. All the ground principles should still have applied. And given the combat rules of this particular contest, Broken Oak's immense power, derived specifically from his immense weight, didn't make him impossible to overcome... it would just require the correct application of force.
He started to tell Rainbow Dash, "Just because you're smaller than him-"
But as soon as the pegasus caught the sound of his voice heading her way, her face contorted with disaffection; a twisted frown with sharp, converging eyes. She snarled at him, "Hey, you know what? I don't really care what you have to say." Suddenly determined, as if her anger at him easily overrode her apprehension of Broken Oak, she buckled herself down and started her own stretches. "I'll take him," she repeated to herself harshly.
The reaction stunned James. He recalled his encounter with Rainbow Dash on the train to Hamestown, when she had been only suspiciously evasive and goofy. When they were captured she had certainly grown tougher, arguing against a plan of patience, but that seemed to have sprung only from her charged emotions and not having had fully grasped their situation. This pure nastiness was something new. It was more like when she had first really confronted him, only much more cold and potent. What had happened to her in order to dial up her hostility and mistrust?
He looked to Twilight, and she looked back in weary worry.
On the other side of the ring, Poppy slowly peeked out of the crowd before approaching the stretching Broken Oak. She held her face down, flush with concern for the way things were turning out, and each step towards him lacked the lively bounce that she had always moved with previously. When he caught sight of her, he paused his exercises to look at her oddly. She quickly asked, from some place of deep unhappiness, "Broken Oak... do we really have to do this?"
His face turned stony and rigid. He resumed his stretching and commanded her, "Prideheart strength, Poppy. How does it go?"
The little filly only stared further into the forest floor. Hardly putting a sincere effort in, she barely got her voice off the ground and weakly sung:
Prideheart strength, stand fast and hold firm
Won't bend, won't break, won't ever squirm
Against odds great you must stand tall
Hold your ground, through the fight or fall
"That's right," Broken Oak noted. "We can't ever stop fighting for our dream."
Poppy wrestled uncomfortably with the stallion's uncompromising perseverance. "What about Prideheart courage?" she asked with a shake in her voice.
Broken Oak stopped again, unsure of what the little filly was asking.
She started singing again, and she was able to pull an extra amount of spirit into her song this time:
Prideheart courage, let fear not sway
What must be done, do all the way
Be more than self, show more than might
No matter what, stand for true right
The massive stallion leaned down towards her and, with a strange but honest sort of encouragement, he told her, "Yes! We must have the bravery to do what is right, in spite of any risk to ourselves! Will you stand for what's truly right, Poppy?"
She looked up at her dear friend; her idol, hero, and mentor. A terrible sadness welled up in her eyes. She was fearful, ashamed, and practically heartbroken. "Yes... I will...," she said.
She turned and trudged away, popping softly over the rope of the makeshift arena on her way to join Willow Wise and the others.
Broken Oak watched her go, completely awestruck. He stared on, dumbfounded, as she reached the other side and hugged Willow Wise. The old mare put a hoof around the little filly and together they tried to embrace away some of their sadness and fear. But then, THAT MAN leaned in and said something to Poppy. That VIRUS.
Grinding his teeth furiously, spitting out breaths like scalding fumes, Broken Oak went back to limbering up. He whipped into a enraged practice buck that came out like an bolt of lightning; it split the air and the witnessing crowd shivered at the boom.
After a final few minutes of preparation, the time came at last. Broken Oak, looking broodingly sober and ready, stepped into the ring and took a place a few paces from the center. Swallowing the last nervous knot in her throat, Rainbow Dash followed his lead. She entered and positioned herself on the opposite side.
The Drypony crowd shriveled up into attentive silence.
Applejack wouldn't stand for that though, and she cheered loudly, "Yeah! Go get'm Rainbow! Show'em what for!"
Pinkie Pie too, though as ever she was oddly effervescent despite the subject matter, "Yeah, go Rainbow Dash! Give'em a Rainbow Smash! And a Rainbow Bash! Take'em out with the Rainbow Trash!"
Twilight looked on at the two contenders staring each other down and she shook her head. "This doesn't have to happen," she tiredly moaned.
"No, this does," James countered.
The unicorn gave him an unbelieving glance, but noticed immediately that he wasn't being contrary. He was gloomy and bleak.
"I mean... the greater conflict between the Dryponies and Princess Celestia," the man carried on, "yeah, that doesn't have to happen. That SHOULDN'T happen. But this here, with Broken Oak? This has to happen." He turned towards Twilight with a profound sense of realization. "This is one of those times, Twilight. Unavoidable battle. Broken Oak will never back down. Not willingly. If it wasn't going to be this then you'd be locking him up with your magic somehow, against his will. And even then, he wouldn't ever change his mind. Even if he were standing alone he would NEVER. BACK. DOWN."
But then, with a faint, distant hope, the man added, "The only thing he may listen to is a fair defeat. If he really believes in strength... He MAY listen..."
Twilight looked back at the two, still only battling with hostile stares. If she still had the magic in her to put a stop to all this, would she have? SHOULD she have? Oh, why hadn't Princess Celestia stopped Prideheart from leaving Canterlot in the first place? This awful situation was unlike anything she had ever encountered before. Whether it was her own inability to interfere, or her own wandering confusion, or even something she had picked up from James, she came to a regretful acceptance.
But she maintained with full conviction, "Rainbow Dash won't lose."
"We can hope," said James.
But she insisted, "No, I know she won't."
Rainbow Dash held still, trying to keep her composure. It was a hard task, especially with Broken Oak a few feet away from her, looking fierce and tapping his hoof like a bull ready to charge. She didn't quite feel like a noble matador.
The pegasus tried to ask her opponent, "So, uh... is there going to be like a bell or-"
Without warning, Broken Oak surged forward, beginning the match and catching Rainbow Dash by surprise. He closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye with crashing stomps and rammed right into her. Knocked down and back, she slid across the dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust. She skid to a stop just short of the boundary rope.
Staggering to her hooves, the pegasus grumbled about the cheap attack as she steadied herself. Broken Oak held still, confident in his inevitable victory, chuckling at her with a mocking smile; all but inviting her to take her best shot. Frustrated and fuming, she immediately accepted and spontaneously took off at him in a barreling gallop.
She threw all her weight against the stallion, trying to return the favor. It only wound up being more like a car crash against a solid brick wall; the mountain of a stallion didn't even slide back an inch.
Hooking a hoof around her neck, Broken Oak easily tossed her down onto the forest floor. Towering over her, he reared up, threatening to smash her under his hooves.
Rainbow Dash scarcely managed to scramble away in time to avoid being crushed. Flopping her limbs about, she hurriedly scratched her way across the ground away from him and then tried to rise up again, only to be tackled by another one of his freight train charges. Kissing the dirt once more, she tumbled across the ground and came to a stop just shy of the rope on the far side of the arena, where the Drypony crowd jeered at her.
She picked herself up another time, more slowly than before, and waves of dirt fell off her as she involuntarily shuddered from her great aches. The unstoppable Broken Oak smoothly waltzed over towards her, taking his time and savoring every moment of the encounter. Again, Rainbow Dash tried to counterattack by rushing into the relentless stallion. When it unsurprisingly didn't slow him down, or even cause him to flinch, she threw her forehooves up against him and dug her hind hooves into the earth in an attempt to hold back his push. Effortlessly, he carried himself forward as if she wasn't even there. The peeling dirt piled up around her hooves as he gradually pushed her right up to the edge of the ring.
With one swing of a hoof, he knocked her under her chin and she flipped back, nearly spilling over the rope. She was only saved when he quickly reached out and grabbed her. "Oh, not yet!" he wickedly warned with wide, eager eyes, before he flung her back into the arena.
Applejack and Pinkie Pie were still cheering for their friend, but now they were fighting against the wild and vocal buoyancy of the Drypony crowd. The violence was getting to be a little too much to bear for some of the others; Fluttershy slunk down and clasped her hooves over her eyes, unable to watch, and Rarity shrieked with every blow against the battered Rainbow Dash. Poppy turned away too, clutching Willow Wise and burying her face into the old mare. This wasn't anything like the hundreds of training matches which she had enthusiastically watched Broken Oak participate in; there was something so unrestricted, unrestrained, and horrible about this fight.
Twilight sternly watched with increasing agitation as every effort by Rainbow was shrugged off and meanwhile every attack by the mighty stallion would send the pegasus sailing. It was agonizing to witness; probably how her friends had felt when they had to stand by while she had been dunked in the lake. Almost automatically the gem on her horn-cap flickered, an empty lighter sparking as it tried to strike a fire. But it was no good; there was nothing she could do except join in her friends' supportive cheers.
Broken Oak seized Rainbow Dash by the tail and swung her through the air, bringing her back down against the ground with a horrendous crash. Picking her up again, he gave her a casual toss to the side, discarding her like a soiled rag. She bounced and rolled along the ground until she came to rest at the edge of the ring again, right in front of her anxious friends. The stallion himself halted his onslaught for a minute, basking in the praise of his crowd as well as enjoying the release that came from fully exercising his own glorious strength.
"Ugh...," the dusty and bruised pegasus moaned as she worked to get on her hooves again. Her knees wobbled and she slipped once, slamming back into the ground, before she was finally up and standing, if a little off-balance.
"You can't-" James suddenly began.
But again the sound of his voice seemed to provoke her and filled her with an energy, even if it was a spiteful and aggressive energy. She straightened out her stance and kept balanced. Frowning bitterly at him, she shouted, "Oh, shut up!"
With things growing as desperate as they were, he didn't let himself be shut out this time. He fought back, "Listen to me! You can't beat him like this! You-"
"I don't want your advice!" she growled back.
"You know," James yelled, fed up, "for once there's something happening that maybe I know a bit more about than any of you probably do!"
"And why should I trust you?" Rainbow Dash spat back at him with a bit of a lunge, nearly toppling herself over. "Why should I believe that you even remotely care about us? Or about anything that happens here?" All the dark memories, all the cautious suspicions, all the loyal worries; they reflected off of her all at once and she snorted sarcastically, "Or were you just going to tell me to find something sharp to skewer him with?"
It was obvious that the last barb had come from a place of mistrust and not accusation; she had lashed out at the man with angry suspicion and broken faith. She had never trusted him in the beginning. She had confronted him, had told him so, and had made a promise to keep a vigilant eye on him. It was only her trust in Twilight that had ever gotten her to ease up on him. But he hadn't lived up to her expectations of friendship. More precisely, she had been inflamed by the funk he had put Twilight in and she especially hadn't been a fan of his recent pragmatism. This whole encounter with the Dryponies had her desperate to protect her friends; ready to do anything for them, but he (in her eyes) had only waited, and waited, and waited. And so she had regressed. Her friends were worth more to her than his trust.
Whatever he would have thought about it in his better moments, right now he thought it was just the stupidest thing to waste time over. "Oh my God, is that what this is all about?!" he cried. "Fine, yeah, maybe I haven't been as respectful and thankful and forgiving as I could have been! Maybe I haven't been the most polite and pleasant tourist who, you know, randomly fell out of the sky one day! Maybe I haven't been a wonderful and special little pony who fits right in to happy-go-lucky old Equestria! Maybe I've made some mistakes! I didn't ask for this! But at least I'd like to think I'm still trying my best anyway! And if trying my best isn't enough for you, then yeah, why should I bother at all, right?!"
Rainbow Dash didn't take his large outburst with any compassion or pity, but she also didn't interrupt or respond this time either. Her glare deepened.
Calming down a sliver, he tried to level with her, "Look, you're more than free to disregard anything I have to say, but given our current circumstances the least you could probably do is listen and decide for yourself!" He shook his head and half-sarcastically remarked, "Maybe we could all use a happy little lesson on trying to listen to one another after this is over."
Again there were no words from the pegasus and no real change in her grim expression, but she did pull back slightly and her ears bent just a little more forward.
With the hope that she would at least hear what she needed, he sighed heavily and more evenly explained, "You're never going to match him power for power. He's way too big and way too heavy. But that's the key!" He pounded his fist into his palm. Clear and deliberate, he said, "He likes to throw his weight around..."
The light bulb could almost be seen materializing over Rainbow Dash's head. It flickered and sparked a few times before streaming out a dim glow that grew brighter and brighter. The pegasus gazed about the area for a moment, collecting something in her head, when her eyes finally settled on Poppy; that little pegasus, wrapped in vines just like she was, whom she had seen earlier prancing and bouncing with delicate skill... The light bulb exploded in shining brilliance.
Without a word but with a great big smirk, Rainbow Dash whirled about to face Broken Oak again. The stallion immediately noticed her sly smile and his own haughty confidence dropped into a somber, angry coldness.
Trying to ignore her aches and pains, the pegasus twisted and cracked her neck while condescendingly saying, "So, are we done warming up yet?"
His nostrils flared as he snorted harshly, the resentful anger bleeding out of his eyes. Grinding a hoof into the ground, he scrapped it backwards against the dirt, getting ready for another charge.
Rainbow Dash began taking gradual steps to her right. "I'm just getting so tired of this practice round," she taunted, playful and snarky. She came to a stop once she was in one of the tighter corners of the ring; a wooden stake behind her with the rope boundaries on either side of her, minimizing her room to dodge. With a facetious wink towards Broken Oak, she remarked, "You guys will send out somepony tougher once the real deal starts up, right?"
The stallion tore into a charge with a furious bellow, racing straight towards his target like an arrow speeding through the air. Each stomp in sequence came down harder and louder than the last as he only picked up speed, coming in for the final bone-breaking blow.
Rainbow Dash braced herself, tucking in low and tight like a wound spring. And at just the last second, in the instant before Broken Oak was going to crash into her so hard she would have been left in pieces, she popped into the air like a Drypony Branch Dancer.
Taken by surprise, Broken Oak slammed his hooves into the earth, trying to arrest his charge. However, even his great strength wasn't enough to immediately halt the incredible momentum he had built up. He slid into the corner, stretching the ropes, and spilled forwards. His rear swung up into the air as his face swiveled down, nearly smashing his nose upon the corner stake.
Gracefully Rainbow Dash came down on her forelegs behind him and quickly pulled her hind legs in. Ready, aim...
"See ya!"
With one solid buck, she pushed him the rest of the way over. Flipping head over hooves past the ring boundary, he landed on his back. It echoed like a mountain falling out of the sky and cratering deep into the earth.