//------------------------------// // Proving Grounds // Story: The Mechanics of Harmony // by Kestrel //------------------------------// MLP FiM The Mechanics of Harmony By: Kestrel The following days seemed to pass at an astonishingly slow rate, much to Twilight’s pleasure, as it meant there was more time to fix any damage cause by the ‘accident’ from earlier. Though to Rainbow Dash, it meant that those few days felt more like a few months. Thankfully, the girls managed to finish their reparations with half a day left before the weekend’s club tournament. In order to recuperate, Rainbow spent most of that time in her bed, with her covers thrown over her head. Finally, the day had come for the day of the tournament. Twilight had learned at an earlier date from Iron Will that since the club had grown considerably at this point, there would be two parts to the day’s competition: the preliminaries, and the knockout bracket. In the preliminaries, each team would fight five other teams and try to deal the most damage they could while keeping their machine in the best condition it could throughout the fights, which would be assessed at the termination of each round. These matches lasted only three minutes, so it would greatly reward smart play. The knockout bracket worked exactly like any other sport. After moving on from the preliminaries, the top four teams would move on to become the semi-finalists and then finalists. These matches would be full-fledged combat trials, with the winner being the last one standing. As Rainbow and Twilight walked into their garage to prepare, the damage from Scootaloo’s crash had been repaired almost to be as good as new. The only telltale mark of the accident were some well-defined, ash colored skid and burn marks upon the metallic paneling that just wouldn’t come out. The two girls set about preparation for their fights while talking about their game plan. “Okay, Rainbow,” Twilight began. “This isn’t going to be like the practice bouts we’ve had so far, it’s going to be much harder and the other students won’t be trying new things so much, so they’ll be on a much higher level than our previous encounters. I’d suggest we do the same and stick to what we know.” “Wait, even Flash? But he sucked!” Rainbow quipped. “Yes, even him. He’ll likely be a lot better and make fewer amateur mistakes,” Twilight replied. Twilight began the diagnostic runs on the mech to check its systems post-accident. As each subsystem showed up on the magical display, the color changed from an indeterminate grey to a friendly green. The Rainbow Raider seemed about as ready to fight as it would ever be. As Rainbow finished testing the protective barrier between the work area and testing range, Twilight gave her the all-clear signal for Rainbow to do a bit of warmup in the mech. Rainbow quickly gave another test of the field to ensure the safety of their workplace. She didn’t want a repeat of what had happened not a week ago ever again. To assist on this front, Twilight had been sure to give her extensive lessons on how the barrier worked and how to test, repair, and calibrate the device. As Rainbow donned her piloting outfit, she made her way to the lift to the cockpit. Once she had gotten inside and fastened down the cover, she was hailed by Twilight. “Rainbow, can you hear me?” Twilight asked. Rainbow quickly flashed a thumbs-up back down to her through the window. “Okay, that’s good,” Twilight confirmed. “Now then, we’ve only got a few minutes before we’ll be called up for the preliminaries. I want to make sure you know how this is going to go down this time.” Rainbow internally sighed and groaned, as this was probably around the sixtieth time she was going to repeat ‘the plan.’ This was another thing that had been drilled into her during the time she had spent with her partner during the repair session. “I know, I know, keep the radio on and listen to what you have to say. You’re just as big a part of this team as I am and something about sky eyes and yada-yada,” Rainbow droned on, repeating more or less word for word of what Twilight had told her. “Then I’m glad you know where we stand,” Twilight remarked, satisfied with Rainbow’s understanding. “We’ll win this thing and prove we’re the best, together!” Twilight said, pumping her fist up at Rainbow. Dash smirked from within the cockpit. She may be somewhat annoying sometimes and sort of cramp her style for how she wanted to fight, but she could definitely get behind her friend’s excitement. A speaker within the garage blared to life, emitting a pre-recorded message that called for all the teams to muster at the main arena for the opening ceremonies. They were given instructions to send their mechs to one of the side arenas corresponding to their assigned preliminary arena. After setting the Raider to the proper destination, the girls rode the elevator to the lower floors and made their way to the main arena for the opening ceremonies. As the girls entered the main arena, they were greeted by the low roar of fans and enthusiasts in the stands circling the area. The arena was full of ornamentation and a large stage in the center of the field to ring in the tournament. Other club members were standing in a large crowd looking to the stage, which remained empty for the time being. A quick scan of the area gave Rainbow a glimpse of her other friends in the club. Rarity and Sunset Shimmer were both waiting patiently with their arms crossed, awaiting the chance to show off their style and skill. Both were too focused on the stage to notice much else. Next, Dash saw Applejack with her hat tipped down, covering up her smirk somewhat. She had seen Applejack in this pose in years prior while up in the stands, AJ was getting ready to throw down. As with the other two, Applejack was also lost in her own world, mentally preparing for the games. Upon looking up to the stands, Rainbow saw her friend Fluttershy holding up a sign that was decidedly neutral in who she was rooting for, predictable for Fluttershy, but a sweet sentiment all the same. Though Rainbow was more surprised to see someone she thought would have skipped out on the event. Scootaloo was up in the stands next to Fluttershy as well, holding up a homemade sign herself, though this one was clearly rooting for Rainbow and Twilight’s team. Though she couldn’t hear anything the two were saying due to the other fans in the crowd, Rainbow had to admire Scootaloo’s guts to come back to the arena so fast after what she thought would have been a scarring event to the young girl. But she was just as loyal and dependable as Rainbow was. Rainbow smiled to herself and looked back to the stage with all the other students. The roar of the crowd died down as Iron Will showed himself and walked up to the stage and tested the microphone stand. An earsplitting shriek rent through the room, with students and fans alike throwing their hands over their ears. After delicately shaking the stand with a grip that would strangle a person, Iron Will let out a small, embarrassed chuckle. “Heh, sorry about that everybody,” he opened up with a silly grin. “Anyway… Welcome to our annual Supreme Steam mech fighting competition! This year we’ve had a great turnout. Iron Will hopes you can all make the decision on who to watch during the preliminaries, we’ve got enough teams to put into two of the smaller arenas for the preliminary round. One will be on the east end of the stadium, and the other bracket is in the western side,” Iron Will explained out to the crowd. At the mention of there being multiple preliminary brackets, Fluttershy looked visibly distressed. It was obvious she was worrying about who she would watch and when she should switch arenas. Her left eye was twitching while she was inwardly making her decisions. “At the end of each preliminary round, the top two contenders from each preliminary bracket will meet back in here for a head-to-head knockout match to decide who gets the trophy in classic tournament style,” Iron Will briefly explained the workings of the tournament to the crowd. A billboard display appeared in the air above the heads of the crowd listing the teams in each preliminary bracket. Rainbow and Twilight were in bracket A with only Flash and Thunderlane as other notable competitors. Rainbow was disappointed at first that she wouldn’t be able to face off with her other friends, but she brightened up imagining that they’d all move onto the finals and she’d be able to fight them on the grand stage that was the main arena. “Here are your competitors and their brackets! Cheer them on with everything you’ve got, Iron Will knows he will,” Iron Will shouted out to the crowd. “And with that, let the tournament… begin!” As Iron Will finished, the crowd erupted into cheers and chants for their teams. It was a popular event for certain. As the other students went to their respective waiting areas in their designated side arenas, the crowd filtered out leaving a distraught Fluttershy walking about a hundred feet in one direction only to switch her path and travel opposite to her previous path. This repeated about four times before Scootaloo finally dragged her to where bracket A was going on. Fluttershy was oddly relieved she was being dragged around by a girl several years younger than her. Rainbow laughed at the sight and quickly caught up with Twilight who had been making her way toward their waiting area. As she caught up, she shot Twilight a confident glance and mentally prepared herself for the upcoming matches. The first match of bracket A had the Rainbow Raider out in front, being an undisputable contender in their fights against the other club members. Dash felt unstoppable in the cockpit of the Raider. She did her best to try to listen to Twilight’s advice, but Rainbow ended up tuning her out unintentionally in the heat of battle. Three more matches in and Team Rainboom had a very solid lead with three wins and one loss in the preliminary fights, one more win would secure a certain spot in the final bracket. Thankfully to Rainbow, their next fight was with Flash and Thunderlane once again. As the two teams met out in the middle, they exchanged the customary trash talking and good luck wishes. Rainbow got in the cockpit and readied herself for the countdown. She shifted her mech’s mode to combat. The displays turned from blue to red as Twilight gave the okay and the weapon systems came online. It was time to get serious once more. The countdown timer counted back from five. In each second, Rainbow gripped the controls in her fists tighter and tighter in anticipation for the battle to begin. Her knuckles turned white with the pressure she had been keeping on them. Rainbow took a glance up and saw Scootaloo and Fluttershy cheering fiercely for their friends. Fluttershy looked exhausted from running from one arena to the next in order to do her best to cheer her friends on equally, so as not to show favoritism among her best friends. Scootaloo was really taking it to heart, standing up in her seat and jumping up and down while waving her sign, much to the dismay of the person behind her. Fluttershy had to do her best to quietly restrain her to avoid upsetting the other fans. With that bolster of confidence, Dash entered her focus zone as the timer hit zero. Taking initiative, Rainbow rushed out to meet the Noble Warrior head on like their last bout. But unlike last time, the Warrior took a more defensive stance and waited for the approach. As Rainbow closed in, Flash dropped his stance and swept out one of the legs of the mech, catching the Raider in the foot and tripping it. Rainbow sprung into an athletic role, her confidence shaken somewhat at the much more expert maneuver Flash just exhibited. As she regained her feet, she grimaced and rethought her strategy. Flash hailed her through their radio sets. “Hahaha, don’t think I’ll take it easy on you this time!” Flash called out over the radio. “Last time you won because I was being cocky and wanted to show off. This time, I’ve brought a bit more to the table. It’s not gonna be so easy for you now, rookie!” Rainbow switched from her chakram weapon to her shuriken launcher and fired three shots at the Noble Warrior. “Then I guess I’ll have to wake up for this fight,” Rainbow shot back confidently. Flash grunted over the radio as he deflected the shots with the blade of his mech. Things would be much more interesting this time. Flash took his blade into a two-handed stance, fostering more power and control over his weapon. As he charged Rainbow, he deflected each one of her shots. Finally reaching her, he reached for a thrust with his sword, forcing Rainbow to drop back into a roll while switching her weapons back to the chakrams. Deciding to stick to her strengths like Twilight had advised, she decided to work to her advantage by using her speed to maintain her distance while going in for unsuccessful strikes against Flash, each time being blocked by his swordsmanship. It surprised her how much better he seemed to have gotten since the last fight. Taking a glance at the condition scan of her mech, it registered some minor damage and slight fatigue on the system as a whole due to the large amount of dashing she had done. To allow the mech to cool down, she prepared to meet Flash hand to hand. As he closed in, Rainbow readied her chakrams, looking for an opening. Flash led with a downward slash, which Rainbow parried with one of the chakrams while twisting around and striking flash with her free hand for a direct hit. Rainbow smiled to herself, as that was the first hit that she had scored all match. Not wanting to lose her cool in overconfidence again, Rainbow began her approach to the Noble Warrior cautiously. “Rainbow!” Twilight cut in over the radio. “Remember what I told you the other day about fighting Flash?” “Yeah, I remember, Twi,” Rainbow replied, slightly annoyed at her breaking her immersion. “I just haven’t gotten much chance to catch him off guard enough to break it.” As she finished her sentence, she had gotten to the Noble Warrior, and it broke into a spinning motion like a top. Since she had been waiting for him to react, Rainbow managed to take the extra moment to jump over the spinning blade and kicked off the Noble Warrior’s head, while switching weapon systems once more and firing a round into its face. Satisfied with that maneuver, Rainbow glanced at the timer being kept on the match. The countdown read a minute and a half. All she had to do was keep up this kind of play for another ninety seconds and she’d be moving onto the main event. But Flash wasn’t done yet. As he got up from being knocked down, the Noble Warrior dropped into a roll. Expecting a rising blade attack, Rainbow positioned her chakrams to block an attack. Instead, Flash predicted this motion and switched to his gun, stopping his roll prematurely and firing into the chest of the Raider, taking Rainbow by surprise. After reeling from the blow, and seeing the smoke clear out from the area directly in front of her line of sight, she saw Flash coming down from the air with a deadly slash. Acting quickly, she dropped back and caught the Warrior in the chest with her feet. The edge of the blade ended about a foot away from the body of the Raider. “Now, Rainbow!” exclaimed Twilight over the radio. “Hold your horses, I’ve got this!” Rainbow retorted. Before Flash could reposition his blade to make a strike at the Rainbow Raider’s legs, she had caught his blade in her chakrams. She twisted each one in a different direction, snapping off the blade halfway from the hilt before kicking Flash off. As he hit the ground, he gasped in surprise at what his weapon had been reduced to. Desperately trying to make up the ground he had lost from the ploy, he began to wildly swing with his broken blade at the Raider, which gracefully dodged his attacks. As he was losing his steam, the buzzer ran out. Both mechs were still standing, as usual in these events, so a judge came out to inspect the damage on each mech. While the blade snapping had proved to absolutely cripple Flash’s offensive capabilities, Rainbow was still worried about the final standings of the match since it didn’t entail a true hit to his mech. Throughout the match, there had only been a few minor hits to either side. After about five minutes of suspense and waiting, the judge extended his hand out to the Rainbow Raider. She had won again! She was two for two against Flash Sentry and the Noble Warrior. This meant that Team Rainboom would be moving onto the finals. Both teams exited their respective stations, with the mechanics joining the pilots in the center of the field to meet for post-game greetings. Despite losing, Flash and Thunderlane showed no obvious signs of being disappointed, surprising Rainbow Dash quite a bit. “Man, that was an awesome fight!” Flash spoke out first. “I didn’t make it nearly as easy for you as last time, but I guess I wasn’t quite ready for that last move. I’ll admit I panicked something fierce after that.” He gave out a sheepish grin afterwards, prompting a quip from his friend Thunderlane. “Yeah, buddy. I told you not to do that, she was planning something. But you didn’t listen,” Thunderlane chuckled. Flash turned to him and gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. “Shut up!” Rainbow and Twilight laughed at the bond the two boys showed. If only their first few weeks in the club had gone so smoothly. But both girls were making progress toward this level of teamwork. Rainbow spoke up to compliment Flash, who she had thought would be just as big a pushover as last time. “Dang, that was definitely a more awesome fight! I was totally taken by surprise at first, I thought you’d do your usual stupid stuff and be an easy win.” “Err… thanks,” both the boys replied at once with deadpanned looks on their faces. Twilight cut in to try to save how blunt Rainbow had just put that. “What she means…” Twilight began and trailed off, searching for a way to turn the statement around. “Is that you really wowed us with how much better you fought this time. I was really shocked at how much you held back against us last time.” It took a few minutes for Twilight to bring her explanation to an end and restore the lighthearted banter between the two teams. Pretty soon, it was time for them to vacate the arena and wait for the roster for the finals to be announced. The girls shook hands with the boys and wished each other luck in the final standings for who would be moving on and moved back to their waiting areas. “Whew, that was a close one,” Twilight sighed as she sat down on one of the benches in their little corner. Rainbow just gave a huff. “It wasn’t that close, and I would have been fine without you telling me things I already knew,” Rainbow replied while rolling her eyes. Twilight glared back at Dash, already displeased at her tone during the match, but this was enough. “Look, Rainbow. Like I said, I’m your partner, and you needed to know the best strategy I could give you to end the match without so much damage. If you had done it earlier, it would have been much less nerve-wracking to wait for the results,” Twilight explained. Rainbow once again gave a disinterested huff as she gazed out into the arena where one of the last matches of the preliminaries was taking place. She couldn’t wait to be back out there fighting for the glory. “Are you even listening to me?” Twilight asked. Rainbow glanced back and nodded unconvincingly. “Look, the next round is the finals, you need to have some better correspondence so we can win!” “Alright Twilight, sorry. It’s just that it kinda broke my focus back there is all. If I hadn’t been so far in the zone, I might have taken a big hit when you were talking to me,” Rainbow replied. Twilight mulled over what her friend had just said in her head and made a mental note of how Rainbow believed she best fought. Twilight decided to compromise on this. “Sorry, Rainbow. I guess I just want to be useful. I’ll try my best to not talk too much, only when I see something important. No promises though, I get kind of carried away when all those things start to happen,” Twilight admitted. “Thanks, Twi,” Rainbow said with a smile to her partner. “Then in that case, I think we’ve got this tournament in the bag.” As the two girls consolidated their team dynamic, the last match had ended and the scoreboard came to life in the middle of the stadium. As several numbers spun around like roulettes around each of the team’s pictures, various teams’ pictures faded from view, signaling that they didn’t make it to the finals. At the end of this process, the two teams left from bracket A were Team Rainboom and Team Epic, Flash and Thunderlane’s team. Then, the two team icons were moved to a new screen, which posted the pictures of the other two groups moving onto the finals. Applejack had made it along with the team of Rarity and Sunset Shimmer. The pictures all began to condense in the middle and made complicated motions like the shuffling of a deck of cards. The four teams were then divided into two separate matches. Rainbow was psyched to find out who she’d be fighting in the first round of the finals. One of the matchups was Thunderlane and Flash Sentry fighting Rarity and Sunset Shimmer, meaning that Rainbow and Twilight were paired up with Applejack. This had Rainbow fired up, but at the same time concerned. Applejack had been present since the beginning of the sport, watching and learning from her big brother’s example. She had learned most of his tricks, as well as nailing out a fighting style of her own. And despite how it looked, the Mecha Mac, her own machine, was a tank. It wouldn’t go down easily. To make things even more difficult, the finals were decided by knockout, so it meant that Rainbow would have to find a weak point. Once the minor theatrics for the deciding of the final bracket were finished. Iron Will’s voice came on over the speakerphones to direct the ones who were moving on to join the others in the main arena. As the Rainbow and Twilight moved along with the shifting crowd to the main arena, they exchanged a few glances conveying the excitement, fear, and anticipation of their biggest fights yet. Twilight had her game face on, and Rainbow was ready to throw down as well. They had to make sure that they worked together better during the finals than they had during the last part of the tournament if they wanted any chance of winning. Applejack was a veteran of mech fighting, with two years’ experience in her own mech, winning the tournament. This would be no walk in the park.