The First Equestrian Games.

by S. K. RyDer

Chapter 7: Day One

“Fetlock please.” A Unicorn levitated a massive syringe, yanking the black-and-blue hoof into the blade.

“Ow! Easy comrade!”

“My apologies, your highness.” The Unicorn’s horn glowed, and the gaping hole was healed. A faint red and green light system glowed from under his flesh.

His eyes scanned the room, catching Luna as the intercom boomed for the tributes to go to their assigned positions.

Stick with me he mouthed to her.

She nodded, trotting to her labeled door. FoxTrot stepped inside his, hearing the door lock closed behind him.

He sighed, “Let the games begin.” He shrugged, the collar of his jumpsuit resting at the middle of his neck.

The platform slowly moved up, “… sake and fairness, the tributes are not to leave their designated platforms until after the count-down of sixty-seven seconds.”

The bright light temporarily blinded FoxTrot, his eye turning a shade of gold. He wore an ornate device strapped to the right side of his face, allowing him to have decent vision in his missing eye.

“Minuette no!” Shining Armor’s cry escaped his lips too late. The mint blue Unicorn landed on the dirt, gave one look of relived annoyance, and then vanished in a cloud of dust.

BOOM!

FoxTrot shied his face away from the gore that once was his city tribute.

You got the easy way out. he thought, brushing a patch of blood from his jumpsuit, I envy you, my friend.

“Three.” FoxTrot snapped out of his silent reverie, finally taking into consideration his surroundings.

“Two.” Five, maybe six feet away lay a saddlebag. Dark grey and white with a clasp of gold.

“One.” He licked his lips, spitting when he tasted the tell-tale sign of pony blood.

“Begin.” He dove from his podium, galloping for all his worth to the bag. He snatched it up, looking towards his sister.

“Aaaaargh!” His head snapped around as he saw the dark blue stallion Sympathy fall to the ground, his chest cleaved right open. The Captain of the Wonderbolts stood over him, her face contorted into a victorious grin.

He shook his head, narrowly missing a blade. He cursed, bucking out into the offender’s chest.

“Fawkes!” He galloped to the voice, falling right in step with Luna. Together the two of them put enough distance between the blood fest in the center that the sounds of the dead and dying seemed more of a babbling river.

“Rest here.” FoxTrot panted, throwing the bags to the ground. He opened one side with his back aura, pulling out some supplies.

“Rope. That’ll be good. Tinder. Don’t need that.” He commented on all the stuff he pulled out, tossing the useless or unsafe in a small pile. He repacked the rest, looking at his sister, “We’ll leave that stuff for others.” He helped her up, looking at the tears forming in her eyes again.

“We’ll survive,” he assured her, “I promise.”

Luna heaved a sigh, “That’s what the two of us said when we made our vows.”

The Prince sighed, “Vel eïnradhin iet ai RyDer”

“What?”

“Upon my word as a RyDer.” He sighed, “Come on, we need to get somewhere not so exposed.” They broke into a gallop again, finally heaving to a complete stop beneath a massive oak tree.

Thud

“What was that?” Luna started, looking around for an attacker.

Thud

“Death cannons.” He said, lacing a hoof around her shaking body.

Thud

Thud

Thud

Thud

Thud

Thud

“Eight dead.” FoxTrot scanned the area, “And that was just the initial bloodbath.”

There was a rustling of bushes. FoxTrot and Luna quickly scaled the tree, hiding in the branches ad two ponies trotted
to where they were moments before.

“Congratulations, my lord. ” A sliver Pegasus sneered at her companion, “You just made a complete circle.”

“Well,” the stallion huffed, “If you want to navigate though these treacherous paths, be my guest.”

The Pegasus snarled, kicking the stallion in the face hard enough to make an oddly satisfying crack, but soft enough to
allow him to continue on with nothing but ringing ears.

The two landed on the soft ground. “That was too close, dear brother.”

He sighed, “At least they’re too stupid or ignorant to look in ALL directions.” Almost as if on cue, a yellow Pegasus fell
from another tree with a loud squeal.

“Hold.” FoxTrot trotted to the fallen form of Fluttershy, “You okay Flutters?”

She stood, “Yes, I’m fine, thank you Fawkes.” She embraced him, “But I don’t know how long it will last.”

“Not too much longer, by my wager.” He pulled her away from him, “Thank Celestia you got out of the center so fast.
Miles is probably heaving relief.”

Fluttershy giggled, “He’d better.”

The three trotted off, creating an unspoken alliance that would take separate deaths to break apart.

“I could have gone to a star. I could have gone to the see the Face of Boe one last time. I could have even screwed up Satellite Five again.. But instead, my inner Brony tells me to go to Equestria, where I take part in a game where young fillies are raped then slaughtered by stallions ten times their size.”

The Time Lord sighed, twirling a knife in his hoof, “And the only weapon I can procure is this fan dangled mess.” He
spun the knife, dropping it when it closed on his hoof. He sucked the cut, “I mean, what pray tell is a knife’s use if it fails to
say closed?”

“YAAAAH!” A white Pegasus swung a massive knife at Doctor Whooves, of which his neck narrowly missed. His cheek,
however, took a good portion of it.

He spat, bringing the knife back. His cheek stung and he tasted his own metallic blood dripping into the corner of his
mouth. When his opponent swung again, the stallion ducked, rolling neatly against a tree. He spread himself out, hugging
the tree with his back.

The Pegasus grinned, “I have you now, doctor.” She gave a mirthless laugh, “You’re mine!”

A flash of silver. Metal hitting organic material. A scream.

Thud

“I never liked your shows.” Doctor Whooves pulled the knife from his dead opponent’s back, her hoof still strapped to
the knife embedded in the tree. He pulled it out.

“Now this is what I’m talking about!” Behind him, a group of ponies materialized long enough to pick up the dead pony,
toss it into a small crate, and then took off again.

“I must be going mad.” He turned back from the site he had just missed, “I could have sworn I heard pneumatics!”

FoxTrot’s ears pricked. For the sake of fairness in the Games, he wasn’t going to use his Shadow-based prowess. But that didn’t stop him from turning his augmented hearing nearly to full blast.

He turned to the source. Having no weapon, he had pulled a dead branch from a tree. Using it as a makeshift staff, he
levitated it to where the pony would enter.

“…and of course, Martha’s not going to believe this. I can’t even get to the Tardis now!”

“Hello Doctor.” FoxTrot held the staff at the ready, expecting the Time Lord to attack with the massive knife now
strapped to his hoof.

Doctor Whooves turned, “Ah, FoxTrot!” He trotted to the prince, “I was hoping I’d find you! What say the two of us team up and try to conquer with our combined forces?”

“As long as you don’t mind teaming up with Luna or Fluttershy.”

“Nay, I’d rather enjoy it.”

The two sat alert, waiting for something to jump from the trees.

“Nice knife.”

“Thanks. I got it from a white Pegasus that tried to attack me.”

“What did she look like?”

“Pale white with a matching mane. Her blue eyes glowed like the watery depths of the seven seas.”

A tune started playing through the night, causing FoxTrot’s ears to flatten against his head.

Up in the sky, nine images formed one after the other, showing the name and order the fallen had encountered.

“Minuette.” FoxTrot’s habit of reading aloud bested him, “Lilly. Sympathy. Pot Throw. Ress. Noteworthy. Hairspray.
Rapid Fire.”

“That was her name.” Doctor Whooves set the knife beside him, “She’s the one who traded her life for the knife.”

FoxTrot snickered, silently picking up the discarded knife.

The black-silver blade positioned itself near the Doctor’s throat.

“What are you DOING?!”

“Never.” FoxTrot growled in the other stallion’s ear, “EVER. Leave your weapons lying around. Not only will they get
tarnished and weaken, but an opponent can easily pick it up and use it against you.”

The blade turned silver once more, falling into Doctor Whooves’ lap. FoxTrot stood, trotting to a certain tree, “If you’re
not going to use the butterfly knife, may I have it?”

Doctor Whooves nodded, tossing the tiny unfolding knife at the prince.

“You have my thanks.” FoxTrot strapped it to his hoof, opening it with expert precision. “Good night, doctor.”

“Good night, Your Highness.”

“Damn.” FoxTrot held a hoof to his tongue, restraining the urge to utilize his element to heal the cut.

He had opened the knife to see the already congealed blood. Not wanting to waste the water that was stowed in his
saddlebags, he licked the blade to clean the blood off.

He wiped the blade on the rough bark of the tree. It scratched the blade as well as the blood, but it was now a slight
pinkish tint rather than an entire crimson mess.

“That’s better” he muttered, closing it with a few flicks of his wrist. He wished he had Kursed’s old weapon; an intricate
blade deviously hidden in a wrist brace hidden under his sleeve, or disguised as his favorite piece of technology, his trusty
Pip-Buck, depending on whether he was wearing his jacket or vest.

Luna stirred in her sleep, catching FoxTrot’s eye. In the saddlebag was a sleeping bag. He had tied it around the
branch he thought would hold the most weight, being big enough for two large ponies and all. Fluttershy, before she ran
from the center, had managed to nick a sleeping bag, much to the Prince’s surprise.

He sighed, settling against the sleeping form of Luna. He wasn’t going to survive these, so why shouldn’t he be with at
least one mare he loved?

“Fawkes?”

“Hmm?” FoxTrot flicked his eyes towards the frightened Pegasus.

“What am I going to do about Smiles?” She looked at the prince, “He’s the only stallion I love. I had to leave him and
Dewdrop to take part in these. Games.” She slammed her hooves on the branch, putting hateful emphasis on her final word.

FoxTrot smiled comfortingly, pulling her close. His hoof started stroking her mane, “If, by the slightest chance, you die, Smiles will forgive you. He’ll understand that it was an honorable death.” He sighed.

Fluttershy squeaked, “Who’s idea was it? I don’t like somepony with this logic.”

FoxTrot’s face contorted, “That doesn’t matter. All that does is tipping this war in our favor.” He hated lying. He was so
good at it.

Thud

The group jerked awake at the sound of another death cannon. FoxTrot slid out of the sleeping bag, slipping his saddlebags on.

“Come on, let’s see if there’s anything useful in the center.” The Time Lord leapt from the tree, landing on the tips of his fetlock.

FoxTrot landed neatly beside him. “Not a good idea. Let’s wait a day or two.”

“So they can, no doubt, be pilfered?”

“No.” FoxTrot levitated an empty water bottle, “Hydration and food. We need to find some soon. Doesn’t matter if we’re going to the center, or staying here until the end of time.”

“But.” The Doctor pointed at the Prince, “Typical Equines get dehydrated beyond comfotability within THREE WEEKS. We’re going to be fine.”

“False.” FoxTrot shook his head, “There are hydration-dampeners in place, as well as hunger. We’re going to be dying of thirst in four hours.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened, “Then let’s get going. Oy!” He looked over FoxTrot’s shoulder, “Look sharp there, my little ponies! Allons-y!” He grinned, “I should say that more often.”

Comments

[FlutterShay]

MOAR.