//------------------------------//
// The Minutes Before 
// Story: The New Crop 
// by xjuggernaughtx 
//------------------------------//

The grimy mirror in this locker room’s got three big cracks running across it, and when I look back at myself, my pieces don’t fit together right. The lines of my face are just a little off from each other. Most folks would say this mirror’s busted, but anypony that’s set hoof in here knows better. The reflection’s the truest in all of Equestria. You gotta be a little bit broken if you’re standing here. 

Lots of boxers have some kinda ritual they go through before a match, and I guess this one’s mine. Not a real good one, truth be told. More like a curse, but it’s what I do. I stand in front of this mirror and get a real good look at myself because I ain’t gonna look the same afterward. Every time I do this, it takes me a little longer to see that stallion that I was just a few years ago. 

On my left, Granny Smith’s tapping her hoof and glaring a hole through me. I can tell by the way that she’s favoring her right side that her hip must be bothering her something fierce right now. She’s been trying to hide it for months, but her face is getting all creased up from the pain these days. I shouldn’t keep her waiting like this, but I just ain’t ready yet.

On my right, Apple Bloom’s pulling supplies out of the locker we rent here. She’s standing on a stool, all stretched out to fish stuff off of the top shelf. As she reaches further into the locker, her skin stretches tight across her barrel, and her ribs stand out even more than they usually do. Both she and Granny are skipping a lot of meals these days because most of what we scratch together goes to me. They say I got to be healthy, or the family’s done for.

My eyes tear up a little bit as I watch my scrawny sister work. She’s too little for her age. She ain’t getting what she needs to grow. I try and force it back down, but I can feel that lump in my throat, and—

“Mac!” 

I jump and snap my head around. Granny Smith is scowling and wagging her hoof at me.

“Get your mind where it oughta be! How many times do I gotta fuss at you for losin’ focus?” Granny pats a stained bench. “Now sit down so I can get to work.”

It’s time, I reckon. I’ve drawn this out as much I can. Once I sit down on that bench, it means I’m willing to do some things I ain’t proud of. It’s exciting, some nights. Terrible on others. Confusing every time, but at the end of it all, I’m never proud. It’s just what I got to do to get by, so I sit.

Granny Smith winds the tape around my hoof, making sure to pull it taut with each go around. “Now, you remember what we been workin’ at. Hooves up over your eyes. Head down. If he wants to hook into the body, you’re just gonna take it. He ain’t known for his power, but he’s got the kind of hoof speed that’ll creep up on a pony if you keep takin’ shots to the skull.”

Granny yanks on the tape one last time and tucks the end into place. She grabs my head and looks me square in the eye. “Remember: Don’t brawl. Fight! Keep them emotions tamped down, and don’t waste no time in there, Mac. Wallop him good. We’re countin’ on you.”
 
Apple Bloom hops up on a stool and holds my robe open for me. “C’mon, big brother. We gotta get goin’.” Her good eye is over-bright, but I try to let her think I don’t notice.

I glance down at my hoof, flexing it before slamming it into the sole of the other. It feels tight. Hard. The flat whap of the impact echoes through the locker room, and Granny Smith looks away, but nods. This is all we’ve got, but that doesn’t stop her from hating it.

We all hate it.

We’ve learned to deal with it, though. Appleloosa trained us up real good. Since coming here, it seems like bad times is all the Apple family’s ever had. The way Granny tells it, her ma and pa got hoodwinked. Somehow, when the town elders sold my great-grandpa on Appleloosa, they forgot to mention that the buffalo controlled all the good land. By the time her pa realized he’d been had, the land south of Canterlot they’d been looking at had been snapped up by some other pony. Years went by, and they only had a few scraggly trees on one corner of the property to show for it.

But my family’s got a stubborn streak, so my great-grandpa kept planting in the fertile valley. Every time he did, it just riled up those buffalo again, and they’d run his orchard down. Pretty soon, the Apple family didn’t have two bits to rub together, but bitterness a-plenty. It was all the family could do to make ends meet.

That’s how it was for years and years until my great-grandpa passed on. He left the farm to his son, who left it to my pa. All the while, Granny Smith was pushing for a deal, and finally my pa was the one to listen. We all thought that between him and Applejack, things would get turned around for us. He was getting real friendly with the tribe when the fever set in—

That lump in my throat starts to rise again. Stupid thinking about my folks and Applejack before a fight. I know better. I’m supposed to be keeping my head level, but here I am getting all worked up over old hurts. Gotta calm down.

Starting from my hind hooves, I start clenching up, one muscle at a time. It’s a trick I use sometimes because it’s real hard working a single muscle. You gotta use all your concentration. After a bit, my mind gets less jittery. My sister’s face retreats again, and my heartbeat slows back to normal.

“C’mon, Mac! It’s gettin’ heavy,” Apple Bloom says. Her legs are trembling with the effort to hold the robe up for me. 

I hop off the table and totter for a moment. It’s always tough to find my balance. Granny Smith says that when ponies opened up trade with the diamond dogs, they brought boxing back with them. I don’t know about all that, but I do know that I’d like to take whoever came up with this notion that we ought to fight standing upright and get him into the ring. I’ve got some strong opinions on the subject, and I’m reminded of them every fight. Even after all this time, I’ve got to spend a few minutes finding my balance. Once my hooves are wrapped, they can’t touch the ground until I get to the ring. If the ref finds any dirt on them, he’ll call in a neutral team for a re-wrap. It’s meant to be done quick, not well, and you can lose a lot of the power a tight hoof can offer you. The tighter the wrap, the greater chance you’ve got of cutting the other guy.
 
We approach the door, and the sound bleeds through the worn slat walls. Here, everything bleeds, and that’s just the way they want it. This place was built on blood. The primal sounds of the crowd flow through the holes and cracks; it’s both intoxicating and unnerving to know they care so much about an event, but so little about the stallions in it. They just want to see something bleed. To hear a body as it slams face-first into the canvas, knocked cold.
 
Just before the door, I pause and take a deep breath, then cough. Even the smell of violence has soaked into this place. This locker room stinks. Sweat. Blood. Piss. All the stuff you’d expect, but that ain’t the worst. It reeks of bad choices and worse luck. Granny always says it’s the flower of desperation, and as I huddle one last time with my kin, I can see that it’s in full bloom.
 
Granny Smith squeezes my shoulder, then pushes me toward the swinging double doors at the end of the ramshackle locker room. I catch her wiping her eye with a towel when I pass a mirror, but I don’t say nothing. I know how she feels about it, and I ain’t never been good with words.
 
I push through the door, and there it is: The sound of ponies that have worked themselves deep into bloodlust. Out here, on the prairie, violence is their dear friend. Most of these Appleloosans bring him wherever they go. They’re thrilled when he shows up outta the blue to visit friend and foe alike, and they miss him when he’s been gone for too long. These ponies have parked themselves for three hours in these swaying wooden bleachers, stomping and whistling for each blow until they’ve lost the sense of themselves. Out there, in the stands, they’re one big thing. In the morning, they might regret a fighter taking a few too many shots. They’ll gather around the general store and whisper to each other that the doc just told them that strapping up-and-comer can’t see straight no more. They’ll shake their heads and sigh about what a shame it is that such a promising career was cut short.
 
But not now. Tonight’s about blood and madness and pain.
 
They erupt when they see me, and a unicorn in the scaffolds jerks into motion. In an instant, he hits me with some kinda light spell. I’m walking into the sun, my shadow sprinting away behind me. It’s probably the smarter of the two of us, but thinking ain’t what my family’s known for anyway.
 
Now it’s fifty-three steps. The same every time, but I count them just like always. Fifty-three steps until I get to the ring, and I gotta do it on my hind legs. Some nights, this walk’s harder than the fight that comes after. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you just know you might get distracted and put your front hooves down on the ground. Can’t let that happen. Not ever. That re-wrap could mean the difference between a two-thousand-bit prize and the hundred-bit loser’s purse.
 
So I take fifty-three slow, careful steps. The bulging eyes stare down at me, and the mouths scream, but I don’t pay them no mind. I’m looking down, like any good fighter. There could be anything on the ground, and only a total rookie would trip on the way to the ring.
 
I keep my eyes on the path and my hooves in motion. It’s real easy to get tense, and that messes up your speed. Not that I got a lot of that, but I need the little I was born with. Stiff muscles make you an easy target out there, and I’m already a bigger target than most.
 
The last three of those fifty-three are the steps up into the ring, and I breathe easier once I’m on them. Now I can grab the ropes and use them for support. There won’t be no falling now, but even if I do, I’ll be in the ring. As always, I push down the top rope and swing my legs over it, instead of ducking through the first and second. I like to look at my opponent when I do it, too. It reminds them that I’m big—really big—and that I probably hit a lot harder because of it. I’m pretty sure I’ve won a goodly number of fights right then and there.
 
I hear the soft scrape of wood on canvas behind me, and I know that Granny Smith and Apple Bloom are in motion. Quick as lightning, they’ve set up a stool, a pail, two sponges, smelling salts, and salve for cuts. Apple Bloom wipes off the seat with her towel, and I collapse into it. I hate the way it must look, but that walk takes it right out of me. I’ll be good as soon as the bell sounds, but right now, my legs are shaking.
 
Granny Smith grabs my chin and hauls my head around. “You remember the plan?”
 
“Eeyup.”
 
“You gonna drop them hooves?”
 
“Nope.”
 
“Darn tootin’, you ain’t!” Granny Smith holds out a hoof, and Apple Bloom slaps a mouth guard into it. “Open up.”
 
I oblige, and she crams the protector into my mouth, then gives it a little squirt from her water bottle. She opens her mouth to say something else, but somewhere in the blackness beyond the ring, a speaker comes to life. It’s gotta be Tumbleweed. That guy’s always in a big hurry to get going. I scowl off into the darkness at where he’s probably sitting, then push off the ropes and settle back onto my hind legs again. Just one round with the guy who brought this idea back from the diamond dogs. That’s all I want. And maybe one with Tumbleweed.
 
“Fight fans, we have reached… the main event!”
 
A cheer goes up, but that ain’t really a good name for it. There’s nothing cheerful about it. It’s an ugly sound from an ugly crowd.
 
“Fighting out of the blue corner, with a record of thirty-eight wins and three losses, with sixteen of those wins by way of knockout, he is the Prince of Pain: Blueblood of Canterlot!”
 
Lots of boos from the crowd, but that ain’t no surprise. We’re a long way from Canterlot, and these folks ain’t too keen on city folk. They don’t know or care who this yahoo is, but if he does some business in here, they’ll be hollering his name by the end. They just came to see somepony get his head pounded in.
 
And speaking of, Granny Smith says that this guy used to be some kinda looker before he got into the ring, but his face looks like a pile of old potatoes now. Blueblood claims he’s actually related to the princess, but boxers tell all kinds of stories. The fans eat it up, even if they know it ain’t too likely to be true. Granny says he got caught with his hoof in the royal treasury somehow, and so now he has to make his own living. Not sure I buy that, but the long and the short of it is that he’s standing across the ring from me. That’s all that really matters.
 
“And fighting out of the red corner, he has a record of forty-eight wins and five losses, with thirty-five of those wins coming by way of knockout! He is the Apple of every Appleloosan mare’s eye, our hometown hero, the Sublime Equine, Big McIntosh!”
 
I hold up my hoof while the crowd whistles and screams. It’d be nice to think it’s goodwill, but they’ll shout just as loud if I’m the one that goes crashing down to that canvas. I let my hoof drop back to my side and shuffle from hoof to hoof, trying to keep limber.
 
Across the ring, Blueblood’s doing the same thing I am. Wobbling. Looking down at his hooves to make sure they ain’t gonna go crazy. Then, after a second, we both walk to the center to take the ref’s instructions.
 
Tonight, we’ve got Uppercut. That suits me just fine. He’s an old fighter, and I prefer it that way. Sometimes you get a ref who ain’t actually been in a contest, and they’ll make all kinds of strange calls like letting the fight go on too long when it’s clearly over. They’ll stop it on cuts for some little scratch. They forget to get the fighter to a neutral corner before starting the count.
 
But with Uppercut, I ain’t gotta worry about none of that. He’s a legend here in Appleloosa. His body might be broken down, but he’s still quick as he needs to be upstairs; he don’t make too many mistakes.
 
Uppercut reads out the rules, but it’s more for the crowd than for us. The rules are simple. Five rounds. No bucking or biting, and clean breaks are expected. Blows from the forehooves only, and the contest can be won by knockout, cuts, or crowd census. That last one’s supposed to keep it lively. Nopony likes a boring clenchfest, so they’ll ask the crowd to cheer for the winner, and the unicorns magically count them up. But I’ll be hitting hard, because I don’t like leaving it up to a popularity contest. I like to be sure.
 
We nod when Uppercut asks if we understand the instructions, then touch hooves and back into our corners. For a moment, it’s eerie quiet. The crowd’s hushed. Nopony’s yelling from the corners. We’re all just waiting.
 
Then the timekeeper strikes the bell.