Of Blades and Brothers

by ChaoticHarmony

Flashing Blades, Shining Sun

Chapter 2: Flashing Blades, Shining Sun

They met in midair, their blades creating sparks as they slammed into their twin. Sparks rained down from the strips of metal as their wielders attempted to strike the other. Flying back suddenly, Cloud watched as Sky swiped through air where he was just a moment before. Grinning to himself, Cloud prepared to smack his disoriented brother with the flat of the blade, a humiliating but ineffective blow. Just as he brought the flat of the blade towards his brother, Sky had spun around, deflecting Cloud’s blade with his iron-clad hoof and bringing with him a flash of silver that struck Cloud in the side.

Cloud dropped to land on another cloud platform, panting with pain. The place where the blade had struck throbbed painfully in time with Cloud’s heart, making him wince as he shifted to look at his twin, who was flying up above him with a gloating smile on his face.

“What’s the matter brother? Did I swing a little too hard, or are you just trying to catch your breath?” Sky’s mocking tone rang out over the audience, caused a small ripple of laughter to flow through them.

Pride wounded, Cloud shouted back up at his brother. “You’re a bit cocky Sky; let’s see you back it up.” With that, Cloud leapt from his cloud with a flap of his powerful wings and shot towards Sky. Laughing, Sky dived to meet him again.

Cloud, not one to make the same mistake twice, unleashed a barrage of swift strikes with sword and hoof alike lashing out towards his opponent. Cloud was dismayed and impressed at how smoothly his brother knocked away each of his attacks, deflecting or intercepting the whistling blade and punching hoof. It was a strange thing; his brother had always been the one to come out of their practices with bruises and cuts, but now he was shining with skills that Cloud had never seen before. Cloud swelled with pride as he watched Sky deflect another strike that would have normally given Sky a bruise on his flank.

Cloud, becoming tired, had only managed to hit Sky once or twice, but even those hits had been glancing blows without much effect. It was all Cloud could do to keep Sky from getting too many hits on him. His blade and hoof, blurred with the speed of their motion, couldn’t keep all the attacks at bay, and Cloud doubled over with pain as a particularly fierce attack to his chest knocked the wind from his lungs. He sank to a platform in the stadium, gritting his teeth. He sat there, balanced on unsteady hooves as he tried to throw off the pain. “Had enough Cloud? Or should I keep winning?” His brother’s mocking tone rang across the stadium’s crowd, gaining yet another laugh.

Cloud focused in on himself, creating a fire within his heart. He fed all his emotions, his worries, and his ambitions, all of his self into the flame, letting them disappear from his mind as he floated in a calm ocean of nothingness. His brother had never learned how to do this technique; he was never good enough at concentration to focus long enough on it. It had taken Cloud years to achieve this state of calm, years filled with frustration.

He opened his eyes to the bright sunlight, lifting his blade so that it flashed in the sun. He was one with the sword, and it was a part of him. He brought the sword down onto the platform he sat on, smiling as it easily cut through the cloud. Floating in an ocean of calm, Cloud leapt back into the sky, towards his opponent.

Sky’s blade moved to block his, but at the last moment, Cloud turned the slash into a stab. He took his brother in the chest, hard. Backing away from him, Cloud let his brother catch his breath after the blow. His brother glared at him, rubbing at his chest with his spare hoof, keeping his other leveled at Blade. Hovering, Cloud watched as his brother dropped a few inches in the air before thrusting up to attack. Intercepting the blade mid-strike, Cloud turned his own so that his brother’s outstretched hoof met with the dull metal. Sky yelped in pain and Cloud allowed himself a small satisfied smile to float across his face. Cloud backed away out of striking range once more, watching as Sky rubbed his leg subtly as he turned to face him.

“You know, you don’t have to go THAT hard on me you know!” Sky’s pained whisper fell on the pool of calmness and slid away. “I thought this was supposed to be a SHOW!”

Smiling, Cloud launched himself at his brother, and spun in a circle before striking. Totally unnecessary, and would get him killed in a normal fight, but his brother was right in that they needed to show off the slicers and flashiness helped to do just that. Sky blocked the blow with ease, and prepared to slide Cloud’s blade off of his own. Before he could entirely recover from the blow, Cloud spun around the other direction, catching his brother on his iron-plated hoof. Cloud launched high into the air above Sky, shaking his head in disappointment. He had been aiming for Sky’s side, but the spin ruined his accuracy.

The crowd laughed a little bit at Sky yelping in pain and shaking his hoof, and Sky searched for Cloud, who was flying high above. With a shout, Cloud turned in mid-air to dive towards his brother, blade held back for a dramatic slash. The dive would obviously never work, as Sky obviously knew as well, deflecting the slash with a shower of sparks for dramatic effect as he jumped away from the whistling metal.

What his brother didn’t expect was for Cloud to recover from the diving slash and launch into a flurry of attacks. Cloud smiled as he watched sweat form on Sky’s face as he launched attack after attack at him. Breaking from his barrage, Cloud jumped away from his brother so they could both breathe for a moment. Keeping each other in view with blades poised, they flapped in midair, catching their breath and preparing to return to the fight.

Cloud launched towards his opponent, jabbing, slashing, and blocking the other’s blade. The sun reflected on the sword’s polished surface, which was cutting through the air with ease. Every time their blades made contact, a shower of sparks rained down from them peppering holes in the clouds below. Neither of them took a hit, and they were evenly matched, their blades whirling through the air. With every slash, their blades whistled with a different tone. Together, they made music for their dance of steel. And that was what it was, each of them flowing from one stance to the other smoothly to block a strike or to make one of their own. The whistles were the melody, and the ringing of steel on steel was the beat. To this song, the two brothers danced the dance of swords.

Soon, they were both sweating and panting with the effort of trying to hit the other. It had now become a test of endurance, not skill. The strips of dulled metal began to move slower through the air as both pegasi became exhausted with the efforts of their swordplay. Cloud knew that it was over as soon as his brother failed to deflect a slash to the side. Cloud took full advantage of his opportunity and unleashed a series of attacks on his brother. Rapid, in quick succession, and weak, the attacks did what they were meant to do, overwhelm and weaken his target. Each attack sapped more and more strength from Sky as he tried in vain to regain his balance, but it was already over. Cloud spun one last time, striking his brother in the chest with his hoof as he held Sky’s blade at bay with his own.

Flying backward, Sky crashed into a cloud platform, and lay there groaning and rolling with pain. Dropping to the platform, Cloud disengaged his sword, feeling it slide into its sheath on his foreleg. He limped over to his brother, his bruised body throbbing with pain. The pain still felt like it was some other pony’s pain, thanks to the calm ocean he floated in. Cloud bent down and pushed the button on Cutting’s slicer, allowing the attached blade to slide back into the sheath with a small ringing noise.

Cloud pulled his brother to his hooves, slipping himself under Sky’s leg and hauling him up. With an effort, Cloud lifted both of them up and flew into the middle of the Cloudasium onto the platform that was stationed in the middle. Once he landed there, he held up his brother’s hoof in his own. The crowd began to cheer for them, and a small smile grew on Sky’s face. Cloud was surprised to find one on his face as well, grinning at the admiring crowd.

In his calm ocean of concentration, Cloud saw a glint of silver in the crowd, and a flash of blinding light. Following the flash was a crack that echoed in Cloud’s mind. Sky jerked back from around his arm, and tried to flap his wings weakly to stay airborne. Cloud saw a red liquid flowing from a small hole in Sky’s chest, and Cloud saw pain in his brother’s eyes before they glazed over. Cloud heard himself scream as he watched his brother drop from the sky in slow motion, blood trailing after him.

A black streak flew across the Cloudasium and grabbed his brother out of the air. Anger, laced with grief, drove Cloud to shoot after the black pegasus who was flying away. The pegasus turned around, his hoof held out and pointed at Cloud. Dodging rapidly to the side, Cloud was blinded by a flash of light and felt something fly past his wing. Blind and disoriented, Cloud followed the sound of flapping wings.

When his vision returned, Cloud saw the pegasus sitting on a cloud with his wings wrapped around a unicorn. The unicorn held Sky in her magic grip, and she pulled the slicer from his hoof. With a cruel smile, she tossed his brother from the cloud. Cloud dived after Sky’s body, grief making time slow to a crawl. Wrapping his hooves around him, Cloud pulled Sky back up to the cloud, barely able to support both of their weights. Setting his brother on the cloud, Cloud finally allowed the grief to show.

His scream of anguish ripped at the ears of everypony in Cloudsdale.

Comments

[Harmonic_Chaos]

Awesome!