The New Life of Shadow Ironsword

by ShadowIronsword

All out brawl(G)

Val and I sat in the little cafe he had chosen as our lunch spot, just having finished him zucchini sandwich he turned to me with a frown on his face. “Should I take it?”

“Uh, I don’t know, I mean the deal for desert, with a sandwich, is a really good one.”

He looked at with a scowl, “No, not that. I mean, should I take Fraener’s deal? I mean, something like that is the deal of a century. I could either sell the scales and become richer than Fancy Pants.”

I nodded my head in his direction. “But you wouldn’t do that.”

“No, I don’t think I could. I mean they’re black dragon scales! One of the hardest, and most durable, materials out there. Not just for swords, but for armor too. I could forge you an entirely new set of armor with that.”

I gave a smirk, “Val, you know I don’t wear full armor. That kind of thing would be a waste.” A thought came to my head. “Hey, Val, I do need a repair of my sword, though.”He had been drinking a glass of water, which he then decided to spit all over me. “Thanks for that.”

He gave a nervous chuckle. Then he leveled me with a glare and all but shouted, “What the hell did you do to that sword? I had it enchanted so that it was more durable!”

I gave a shrug of my shoulders. “I don’t know. When I opened the case after it was delivered it had a minor fracture near the fuller.”

He groaned and collapsed to the table. “That kind of thing can spell the end of a sword. I’m not sure it can be repaired, Shadow. I’ll have to take a look at it. If that’s the case though, I might have to take this deal.”

I tilted my head. “I really don’t understand why you’re even deliberating this deal. I mean, from what I’ve seen of your skill, you could make him a sword that meets his requirements easily enough.” He gave a grunt in response. I shook my head in resignation. “Just think on it, Val. Seems like Fraener is gonna be here for a bit anyways.” I looked up to the clock hanging on the wall. “Looks like it’s time I start heading out. I’d rather not fly there, if I can avoid it. So I’ll head out.” I noticed Val hadn’t looked up at me. “Val, you sure you’re okay? You’re acting really weirdly.”

He looked up at me and smiled, but it didn’t extend to his eyes. “Yeah, I will be, Shadow. I think I just need to take that break Amber’s been forcing on me recently.”

I started slightly. That’s not like Val at all. Normally we have to pry him away from his work. I eyed him suspiciously. “Well I’m gonna head out, talk about the deal with Amber, okay?” He gave a slight nod of his head. I turned towards the door and gave a wave over my shoulder. “See ya ‘round, Val.”

---

I walked up to the Cloudsdale stadium, the main attraction of the flying city. It went all the way back to the days of Commander Hurricane, he’d built it as a show of power to the other pony races at the time. Now? Now it stood as the second largest structure in all of Equestria, second only to Canterlot Castle. It was now a kind of training ground for several of Equestria’s armed forces, and sported many tournaments for the Equus Dueling Society. But, pegasi were very protective of it, of course. As I got within one hundred feet of the stadium two pegasi dropped in front of me.

The one on the left, who had a green coat, a brown mane, brown eyes, and a tornado looking cutie-mark, approached me and looked under my hood, making direct eye contact with me. I scoffed, Tidal Typhoon, number nineteen in Equus’ rankings. “Well, will you look at what we found, Blue! It looks like some kind of mutt.” He sneered in my face.

He turned back to his buddy, who had a white coat, a blue and purple striped mane, with a thunderhead cutie-mark. I shook my head in pity, Thunder Clap, number thirty two in Equestria’s rankings. He looked to me nervously, then turned his head, breaking eye contact. He mumbled, “Yeah, I guess.”

I felt for him, I really did, but I couldn’t show any weakness around Tidal. “What exactly do you want, Tidal? You’re barely within the rank limit, and I know Clap ain’t in the limit.” I gave him a flat look.

“Oh, nothing much. Just wanted to ask how much of a bitch your mom is!”Outwardly I just raised an eyebrow, inside I was fuming. How dare he! He as no right to call my mother a bitch. A thought occurred to me. “I bet she was the biggest bitch in your whole species!”

I brought my paws and clapped them together making a faint clicking noise as my claws hit each other, a mocking smile on my face. “Congrats, you guessed my mom was a female!” He gave a slight growl, obviously he hadn’t gotten the reaction he’d been hoping for. A sinister grin nearly split my face. “Though I guess it would be a little difficult, considering yours is a stallion.” I turned towards the stadium and gave him a sidelong glance. He was absolutely furious. His nostrils were flaring and he was pawing the ground with his left foreleg. “Come on, Tidal, make my day! This might be your only shot for a long time to take a shot at me. Though, I guess I’d be afraid to hit the same mutt who completely destroyed me in the last tournament I fought in.”

That was the last straw for him, He charged me with his head bent low. I laughed and unfurled my wings, with a single flap I ascended over his path. When he passed below me I gave another flap down, hard, making me rocket towards the ground. I landed right on top of him, driving my front paws into his withers. Driving my claws into his withers,I gripped them and pulled myself down, while driving my hind legs into his head. With a grunt I got off of him and walked a few paces away. I looked back at his unconscious form. Then I looked towards Clap. He backed away several paces, plopping down on his haunches and raising his forelegs to cover his face. “Please, don’t hurt me! I didn’t want to go with him, but he’s been blackmailing me!”

My face softened considerably, “I wasn’t going to hurt you, Clap. I was actually going to ask you why you’re hanging around such a douche.” I gave a shrug of my shoulders. “But I guess you already answered that, huh?” I shook my head, before looking back to him, straight in his eyes. “Please, just leave this douche. I’ve seen you fight before. You’ve got talent, but you’re not going to get anywhere around someone like this guy.” I gestured towards Tidal’s form on the ground and grimaced. “I don’t like seeing talent wasted like this. Whatever he’s got on you can’t be as bad as all this.”

He shook his head despairingly, “I guess not, but he said he just wanted some backup for when he approached you. I didn’t know what he was going to do or say. It’s not like I’m hanging around him all the time, or anything.” I rolled my eyes.

“Anyways, just stop hanging around him, he’s not gonna do you any good.” With that I turned towards the entrance of the stadium, nodding at the guards who were standing just inside the door. “You gonna take care of him, or you gonna wait for a kind stranger to?” I raised my eyebrows at them. When they didn’t move I scoffed. You guys are way too stiff. I turned back to Clap. “Make sure you get some street guards and tell them what happened.” I gave a wave to him and turned back to the doors and walked through them.

The stadium had a Romane style, tall, decorative, columns lining the hallways and marble-white clouds making up the walls and floors. I pulled the note Script had given me earlier that morning. “North-west arena, huh?” I looked up to the map hanging on the wall in front of me, memorizing the path I needed to take. I turned to the left and started walking, letting my thoughts wander a bit as I did so. Hmm, so we’re going to have a sparing match with the fifteen best in the world. I might not be able to stand against Silver’s sturdiness, but I might be able to try and take on some of the others. A shiver ran through me as I thought about Fraener. Definitely not him though, not even close to ready for that kind of a fight.

I gave a start as I bumped into someone. I looked up and was met with with the world’s best gryphon duelist, Viktor Blade. He turned to me with a look of confusion at first. Then, his expression shifted slightly, to one of familiarity. “Vell hello, Shadow. Nice to see anozer duelist from ze top fifteen managed to make it.” His thick germane accent making difficult to fully understand what he was saying. He turned to me fully, exposing his massive chest with mostly brown feathers. Except for a V shaped patch that was black. His crest feathers were white, and he stood a good head taller than me, making me look up to meet his gaze. Viktor’s the best dual wielder in the world. Most prefer to stick with one blade, even unicorns since it splits their attention each time they add another object in their magic. Though, he’s still ranked number fifteen in the world. Wonder why that is?

“It’s nice to see you again too, Viktor.” I replied with a friendly smile and held my paw out in offering of a shake, remembering it was polite in his culture to greet others with a firm shake. He took it and nearly crushed my paw when he squeezed. I showed no outward sign of pain, though. “Though, what did you mean when you said you were glad to see another top fifteen show up, did most not show up again?”

He gave a solemn nod of his head and spoke with a resigned tone, “It seems az zo most of ze ozer duelists have denied ze request for a friendly sparring match, most of zem claiming it waz a waist of zeir time.” He scoffed and turned away and started walking again.

I shook my head sadly, but turned to him. With a hint of hope in my voice I said, “Do you know who did show up, though?”

He turned to me with a knowing smirk on his face, “Hoping that Silver Lining waz going to show up, yes?” I gave an embarrassed nod, looking away from him to a painting of Commander Hurricane. He gave a light chuckle and looked back forward, “Vell, it seemz as zough you are in luck today, my friend. Silver Lining decided to show up and is currently varming up in ze North-Vest arena.” With that we continued to walk through the massive complex of arenas and stadiums.

“This place really was ahead of it’s time when it was built, wasn’t it? I mean it is still being used effectively over one thousand years after when it was first built.”

“Really stroking your pony brezren's ego, no?”

I blanched a little, “No, that’s not what I meant it to sound like. Though I can see why you’d think that. I don’t have much of any this stupid ‘pegasus pride’ that seems so popular here in Cloudsdale. I was just admiring the fact that this place.”

The large gryphon gave a nod of his brown head and then looked ahead again, a look of thought on his face. “I vill admit, zis place is very vell built. Zough my people frame Commander Hurricane as a tyrant, I’ve seen ze historiez of both our races and have formed my own opinion.”

I raised an eyebrow, “That would be?”

He stopped, looked at me and quirked a smile. “Zat he was a pony ahead of his time, but was one to looze hiz cool at times.” I snickered. That’s an understatement.

I rolled my eyes, “I think about the same as you when it comes to Hurricane. Though I think it’s a bit of an understatement to say he sometimes ‘lost his cool’, as you put it.”

Viktor gave a hearty chuckle at that, but said nothing else as we arrived at the North-West arena. We both entered the arena and were greeted with the sights of Fraener and Silver warming up in the center.

Fraener was doing wing-ups while also clapping them together at the top of his push. Silver, meanwhile, was doing practice for his full-motion punch. He was up on his hind legs and going through the motion. Then, through one of the other doors entering the arena, an earth pony came in carrying several very heavy looking punching bag. Though he barely looked tired. “Well this ‘aughta do us just fine, wouldn’t you say, Silver?” He said as he put them down. Silver gave a nod to the earth pony. Must be his manager. Don’t recognize anypony like that in the top twenty. He had a cream colored coat, brown mane and tail with two streaks of white, and caramel colored eyes.

He turned, trying to follow Silver’s gaze. His eyes fell upon us and his face split into a genuine grin. “Well, it’s about gosh darn time somepony else showed up to this shindig. Ah was beginnin’ to worry nopony else was gonna come. It’d have been awful boring to just watch the two of them go at it.” He motioned back towards Fraener and Silver. He started approaching us, moving with a slow, but steady, gait. He held out his hoof and gave another smile, “Mah name’s Brick Script, and ah’m Silver’s manager.”

I took his hoof and gave a strong shake, “My name’s Shadow, Shadow Ironsword. I’m currently number thirteen in the world rankings.” I turned to Viktor, but he seemed hesitant. He gave me a look out of the corner of his eye saying he didn’t trust this earth pony.

I gave him a comforting smile, and motioned for him to take the shake. He nodded in resignation. “My name is Viktor Blade, I am currently ranked number fifteen in ze vorld’s rankings.” Brick gave a nod to him, then turned around and started heading towards Silver again.

“It was nice meeting you two, hopefully you can add some spice to this here fight.” He turned to see Silver finishing setting up the second bag up. The first lay in a torn up mess behind him. “Silver ah told about making sure you take it easy on these bags, they ain’t ours!” Silver gave a grunt in return, but set up for his signature move again anyway. I watched closely, trying to figure what exactly he did to get that much force into one punch.

He got up on his hind legs, setting his left hind leg in place. He slid his other hind leg back, while also bringing his hoof back until his elbow was poking out from behind his back. He twisted his hips back, away from the bag. Suddenly he twisted his withers around, while simultaneously twisting his hips. Setting his hips parallel to the bag he brought his hoof around and sent the bag flying from the contact with his hoof. Huh, so that’s how he does it? No, there has to be more I’m missing, but I can’t stop and watch him, I have to warm up.

I moved to the center of the arena and started doing what my father had nicknamed ‘the gauntlet’. It was ten wing-ups followed by me pushing off and doing several low altitude aileron roll, followed by an in place sprint for twenty seconds. I did about fifteen of these before the official judge for our spar came in and started to get set up. Everyone had stopped warming up and had come over to hear the duelist rules.

What was strange was the fifteen extra unicorns that came in and started setting up some kind of magic circle with a ring of smaller ones on the outer ring. With a cough the official brought back our attention to him. He was a small pegasus who had a grey coat, black mane and tail, and brown eyes. His cutie mark was a blank piece of paper. “Look I’m your judge in this little spar, and since you are all world-class fighters I would assume you know the rules for such a thing.” We all rolled our eyes at that. He raised a hoof at us all. “But, forget everything you know about a spar right now.” We all gave a collective eyebrow raise and hum. “This magic circle being set up right now is designed to allow you to all out on eachother. No-holds-barred in this sparring match. This means kill shots are allowed. But no weapons will be allowed into the circle. When you all go in you’ll completely healed to have no imperfections. When you are killed, or ‘knocked out’ as the officials put it,” We all gave another eye roll at that, “you will be sent back into the arena. You will be checked for any kind of actual bodily damage and then, if cleared, will be given the option to head back in. Any questions?” He looked around at the four of us and when none of us asked any he nodded his head. “Head to a unicorn and get set up to go in.”

With that we all started heading for a unicorn. Mine spotted me and waved me over. “Okay, would you please step into the circle and sit down?” I followed the instructions. “Now I’m going to use a sort of sedation spell that’s connected to the center sigil. It’s going to enter you into a sort of dream like state. This spar should have no physical, nor mental damage to you or anyone else.” Should? That sounds like we’re just a bunch of guinea pigs! I felt the tell-tale tingle of magic surround my head and I started to slip from consciousness.

The next thing I knew I was back in the arena, but it seemed much bigger, like almost three times the size in reality. Just a second later I saw Fraener show up twenty feet in front of me, then Silver and Viktor came next. There was a sort of awkward silence as we stood there waiting for a signal to start. It came in the form of a loud bell noise. The officials voice came out of nowhere and announced, “Let the battle begin!” With that Fraener charged forward, straight for me. I gave a pump of my wings to bring me just out of range of his first swipe, but his second nicked my snout. Damn, he’s fast. I dropped into a fighting stance. If I can take his legs out I can get him down, then hopefully out. I charged forward only to have Silver charge into Fraener’s side and knock him off balance. “Come on, Shadow! We can get this drake, but only if we work together!” He dropped back down and backed up to be shoulder to shoulder with me.

Fraener gave a chuckle, “Two versus one? Or is the gryphon going to get over his stunned silence and get over here and help?” That was all the invitation Viktor needed, though he didn’t help us he went and stood by Fraener. “Well, well, well. I expected you to side with the two of them, but hey numbers wise this makes it more fair doesn’t it?”

Viktor gave a gruff grunt in response, but said nothing else. Okay, so I’ve got to face Viktor and Fraener, no big deal. I know how to take on Viktor, but I can’t leave Silver to take on Fraener alone. I turned to Silver and whispered, “Look I can take Viktor pretty easily, but can you take Fraener alone?”

Silver scoffed and looked to me with a glint of mischievousness in his eyes. “Why do you think Brick thought a battle between me and Fraener would be boring? I know all his go-to moves. I know how to counter them and I know how to do the same for you, so I’d watch out, Shadow.” With that he turned and took off towards Fraener. “Come on, you overgrown lizard!”

I sighed and shook my head, facing off with Viktor was not what I was hoping to do. Okay focus. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, held it for a second, then released it while opening my eyes. Okay I’m ready, Viktor. Give me everything ya got. I set my stance and charged forward. I threw my wings forward and putting them under his forelegs. I planted my forelegs and pushed up with my wings, throwing Viktor off balance and sending him up into the air. I followed up with a kick off and four strong blows to Viktor’s chest. Now for the killing blow! I pushed my wings down and twisted, sending me up and past the massive gryphon. I turned around and flew down with a mighty flap of my wings, landing on his back at high speed. I delivered two heavy blows, leaving behind gashes where my claws came in contact with his skin. Then, I slipped around him and brought my claws up to his throat and pulled them back. Can I do this, just murder in cold blood? The second's hesitation was all the time Viktor needed to recover enough to throw me off his back. Though he still landed with a sickening crack on the ground as his foreleg bent at an awkward angle.

His face contorted with pain, but he got back up, and tried to charge me while favoring his broken foreleg. I slipped past him and jumped up onto his back, causing him to lose his balance again. I slipped up and drew my right paw across his throat. He spasmed for a second but then fell still. His body seemed to shatter the shards soon fading into nothing. The sounds of fighting drew my attention to Fraener and Silver’s fight. Fraener was pushing Silver back, but Silver wasn’t retreating or even seeming scared. In fact, he seemed to be smiling like he wanted this to happen. Come on you old stallion, do something!

Suddenly when Fraener took a left swipe Silver jumped forward, grabbing onto his arm. He hooked both his forelegs around Fraener’s left arm and grappled him to the ground. Smiling all the while he started stomping his hooves down onto Fraener, just barely missing his head each time. Silver switched tactics and started pummeling the drake’s chest and making him gasp out for breath, and leaving his neck wide open. Silver stomped down with all his might and broke the drake’s windpipe. The drake’s body went through the same thing as Viktor’s, shattering into thousands of bright shards, then the shards fading into nothingness. Silver started to breath heavily and shaking a bit. Poor stallion, not used to ending the life of another I guess. Silver stopped a few moments later. He got up from where he had killed Fraener and turned towards me.

“Well, Shadow, it’s just you and me. Let’s see what you’ve got, mutt.” Silver dropped into a fighting stance. I mirrored him, dropping into my own stance. I breathed in, closed my eyes, and tried to relax my muscles. Relax, you’ve got him. You’ve practiced for this. With a newfound determination my eyes shot open and I exhaled. Silver charged forward and was upon me faster than I could fully move out of the way. I was nicked by his first strike, and met the other full-on in the chest. I stumbled backwards, trying to get some distance between us. My mind flitted back to what Silver had said about him knowing how to counter Fraener and my own moves. Well, I’ll just have to try and shake it up a bit then. I slowly started stalking around Silver, my eyes tracking every move he made, but he made no attempt to turn when I got behind him. Cocky son of bitch. I furrowed my brows together and charged forward and was met with a buck as Silver pitched his head down and brought his hind legs up into my face. How? There’s no way he saw me! I staggered back and looked up to see Silver still facing away from me, but the shaking of his shoulders was a sign that he was laughing.

“Grrr, I’d stop laughing if I were you, Silver.” At that he stopped and turned around a look of genuine scorn on his face.

“Oh? And why’s that, mutt? You’ve yet to land a blow on my yet!”

I smirked at that. “Check your cheek, Silver.” He reached up and touched his cheek, which had a gash on it. I’d landed it in our initial charge, but it was only a glancing blow. When he brought his hoof down and saw blood his face immediately changed. His face set into one of anger and concentration.

“Okay, so you got one lucky hit in? Let’s see if you can do it again.” With that he charged forwards, but I stood my ground. I didn’t make any move until he was ten feet out. I reared up onto my hind legs, setting my paws into a mimic of his full-motion punch. I went through all the motions I’d observed at the warm-up. It was sloppy and it didn’t have near the force of Silver’s, but it did have the desired effect. Silver barely had any time to react as my claws raked across his muzzle leaving four deep gashes in it. A look of shock is all that was on his face. “How? How did you do that!? I spent years trying to get that technique right, and you stand up and do it first go? Bullshit, you’ve got more tricks up your sleeves.” His eyes sharpened into a hard glare, and he charged forward trying to down me before I could do anything else. I backpedalled and tried to get away from his furious swipes and punches. I ducked out and flew up into the air, staying there and waiting for Silver to chase after me, I didn’t have to wait long. As Silver came flying up to me I gave one hard flap and charged head-on at him. At the last second I dived off to the left and locked my left wing into a rigid state. Hitting Silver’s wing and making it lock up. Silver quickly started falling to the ground head first, but managed to recover enough to land on his hooves.

Damn, I shoulda charged in there and taken advantage of that opening. I chastised myself. Silver slowly rose to my elevation and stared me dead in the eyes. My face split into a wide grin as I saw the slight twinge in his wing that I’d hit. “It’s just starting, Silver. And at the end of this I’ll come out on top.”

Author's Note:

Hey guys! Sorry for the extra long chapter, but I just got going and When I looked back I had almost 5k words and I realized there was a lot more still to do, so I'm splitting it here, but there will be more of this setting in the next chapter. Also I didn't receive any feedback on the whole 'gore or no gore?' thing so Imma do it.