Double Duels
Chapter 31: Double Duels
In the skies above the Royal Palace, the Wonderbolts and the Royal Guard were slowly beginning to corral the armored ponies that Wight had marshaled against them, grouping them together so that Firefly could break the horns that controlled their armor, sending them plummeting down to the ground below, where Shining Armor and the unicorns of the Royal Guard were waiting to catch them.
However, that job was made more difficult by the presence of Flash Spark. The stallion's mind appeared to be completely broken by this point. He screamed madly, spewing a dark-brown ichor from his mouth, his one visible eye rolling violently. A shrill scream rose from his wings constantly and flares of yellow light lashed out wildly in every direction. In its own way, this was even more dangerous than his precise, deadly attacks had been earlier, when he was still under Wight Shade's control. There was no predicting where Flash Spark's sonic lances would strike next or who they would cut into. A couple of Royal Guards had been cut down, along with a half-dozen armored ponies that were supposed to be Flash Spark's allies.
"Dammit!" yelled Spitfire, rushing in and unleashing a flurry of blows, the air in front of her hooves lighting on fire as she struck and pummeled Flash Spark, trying her hardest to concentrate her punches on the left side of his face, where the armor had been stripped away by Rainbow Dash's attack earlier, "Go down already, you bastard!"
Flash Spark's response was to scream. On the right side of his head, where the armor was mostly undamaged, a strip over his mouth peeled away, forming a single, pointed pincer that lashed out at Spitfire's head. She barely managed to duck it. Flash Spark surged forward, striking with pincer, hooves, and occasionally dropping his haunches to lash it her from below with his bladed tail. The ferocity of the wild assault drove Spitfire back.
"Move!"
The sharp order prompted Spitfire to react immediately as she felt somepony taking up a position behind her. Her nerves hummed at the sense of the power emanating from that figure. Taking the first opening she saw, Spitfire dodged to the side, wincing as the barbed edges of the stinger at the tip of Flash Spark's tail scraped against her mithril flight suit.
Behind where Spitfire had been was Firefly. The instant Spitfire was out of the way Firefly snapped her wings out to their full spread. They blazed brilliantly, transforming into shining constructs of light hovering just off to either side of Firefly's body. The sight immediately drew Flash Spark's attention and his fight with Spitfire was completely forgotten. With a wordless scream, he lunged forward, the sound coming out of his throat eclipsed by the shrieking of his wings as still more sonic lances speared out from them, many of them slicing straight for Firefly.
However, she wasn't there anymore. In fact, she surged forward, becoming a streak of light and closing right in to within inches of Flash Spark's face, her eyes meeting his, her glare piercing through the haze of madness that had completely enshrouded Flash Spark's mind. The one realization that finally made its way through was clear an concise. I'm going to die.
"You're an eyesore," said Firefly coldly.
She twisted her body so that she was now sideways, her wings pointing straight up and down. The wing on the top began to shine all the more brilliantly, its feathers merging together until it was nothing more than a single crescent of blazing light. Firefly charged forward, slashing with her topside wing as she did so. The curved blade of light cleaved straight through Flash Spark's armor, carving through the flesh beneath it and splitting the stallion from snout to rump as Firefly shot past beneath him.
"Got lost," she snarled, glaring back as the two halves of Flash Spark's body fell away from each other. No blood emerged from either side of his body. Instead, she could see the layout of his muscles and organs as clearly as if she were staring at an anatomy sculpture in a doctor's office. Slowly at first, cracks began to spread across both halves of his body. Then pieces broke off. Bit by bit, what remained of the stallion once known as Flash Spark crumbled away into nothingness.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," said Firefly with a dismissive grunt. Turning, she regarded the remaining attackers with steely eyes. "Everypony stand back!" she shouted, "I'm putting an end to this now."
Down below, Shining Armor and his unicorns tensed, waiting as the armored ponies, with their protection flaking off and their horns shattered, began to fall like spring rain.
Everyone's attention was on the sky and the spectacle taking place there that they completely failed to notice a single young earth pony mare quietly slip through the Palace courtyard, deftly dodging the eyes of the Royal Guard, who were on alert for attack from above. Coco Pommel even managed to slip past the ponies standing guard at the Palace gates.
She shouldn't even be here; that much was clear to Coco. She had no place in all of this madness. By all rights, she should be back in Ponyville, minding the Carousel Boutique and waiting for Rarity's return. But she couldn't just stay there. Even if it wasn't her place, here in Canterlot was where she needed to be.
Because he's here, she thought grimly. She understood well enough just who Perlin Bluestreak served. She knew she could find him. To that end, when Shining Armor and his detachment of the Royal Guard had reached Ponyville, she'd stowed away on their train whilst they frantically moved the engine and the caboose around in order to get it ready to head back to Canterlot straight away. Between all the hubbub caused by the sun's delayed rising and the urgency of their mission, Shining and his ponies hadn't even bothered to check the train cars over and Coco had gotten to Canterlot without being seen.
Quietly, she crept up to the doors and peered inside, wondering how hard she would have to search before she found the young stallion she was looking for.
The answer, it turned out, was not very hard at all. Perlin and Dawn battled fiercely in the main entryway, with the bulk of the Royal Guard unable to advance until Perlin was taken care of. Coco watched the two fighters dance through the air with breathtaking grace and speed. Dawn's movements were sharp and sudden. He would be in one position one second, then another the next, often moving so quickly that he seemed to vanish and reappear, or even occupy two places at once. Perlin wasn't as speedy in overall movement. But his wings were blurs as he fended off powerful blasts of compressed air that shattered stone, crushing it down into powder.
Dawn switched to his deadliest move, slashing the feathers of his wings through the air like knives, sending crescent shaped waves whistling towards Perlin. The vacuum blades of the Gale King were far sharper than any material blade. Even Perlin's previous pair of mithril wings had been powerless against them. However, the Dark Matter of Perlin's new set of wings blocked those blades just as easily as they had everything else.
I thought as much, thought Dawn. He lashed out with an arc of crackling electricity that stretched out from his outermost primary like a whip. Perlin swept out his own wing and batted it away just as effortlessly as he had everything else.
Now it was Perlin's turn to attack. The feathers of one wing detached as Perlin swung the appendage. The feathers vanished through seams in the air that appeared around Dawn, causing a single attack to become several that came at the ebony colt from all directions.
Dawn could feel the seams form in the air and sensed the feathers before they even arrived. He frowned as he danced and twisted, spinning his body about to escape over a dozen slashes from every direction. In a sense, Perlin's original set of mithril wings had been more dangerous. The wired feathers Perlin had commanded with those wings had been so thin and sharp that they cut through the air without the slightest disturbance, even as they were so swift as to be nearly invisible to the naked eye. As a consequence, those feathers had been all but invisible to Dawn's wind-sense. He'd been forced to learn to read Perlin's movements and how the young stallion controlled the feathers through those.
In contrast, the wings of Dark Matter had the capacity to move freely through space, the change in orientation allowing them to attack from a bewildering number of angles without having to travel through the intervening space between Perlin and his opponent. But the seams in the air that Perlin sent his feathers through were detectable through Dawn's wind-sense, allowing him to anticipate their attacks. Furthermore, Dawn noticed that the timing and arcs of the feathers' motion was tied to the movement of Perlin's wing, even when they were detached. For all that the improved durability of his wings seemed like an impressive tradeoff, Dawn couldn't quite shake the feeling that Perlin's previous set of wings had been more formidable weapons overall.
Of course, he thought, it could be that he hasn't fully mastered or explored their capabilities yet. Given how little time he's had them, that's a strong possibility. If that was the case, then Dawn figured he had the advantage. If Perlin was still struggling to master an unfamiliar weapon, then he couldn't fight at his full strength. The only thing left then, was to find a way to get past the Dark Matter and strike at Perlin directly.
There's only one technique that will work, thought Dawn, pursing his lips. He'd managed it in his fights with Flash Spark, but he couldn't claim that he'd fully mastered the technique. It was still too new and unfamiliar that Dawn couldn't quite do it at will, only with considerable preparation of his self could he properly unleash that powerfully destructive, white wind.
The corners of Dawn's lips curled up in a small smile. I guess we stand on more equal ground than I first thought.
"You seem pleased by something," observed Perlin in a cheerful tone as he charged in close, swinging his wing at Dawn. Dawn felt the feathers harden and sharpen as Perlin swung them. He also sensed the feathers detach from the opposite wing as Perlin swung it around back as a counterweight to his attack. The seams in the air appeared behind Dawn's neck. Ideally, he would be caught between pulling his head back to avoid having his throat slip and ducking down avoid having the detached feathers cut through his spinal cord. However, Dawn relaxed his body and, with circling movements of his wings, flowed almost like liquid from between the strikes before reversing direction and charging in. One wing blurred and he launched a concussive blast of air, aiming straight for Perlin's chest.
More seams in the air appeared between Dawn and Perlin, these ones arranged so that the detached feathers emerged in a circular formation, like the spokes of a wheel, the quills pointing inwards, forming a shield between Perlin and Dawn's attack. The blast scattered and the recoil forced Dawn away. As he stopped his backward motion, Dawn answered Perlin's remark. "I just felt that the circumstances of this battle are quite appropriate for the two of us," he said, "I think we are both feeling our limitations and lack of experience."
Now Perlin smiled as well. "When you put it that way, that is quite appropriate," he said with a chuckle, "Shall we explore our limitations then and try to make up the gaps of our experience?"
"I suppose we must," said Dawn with a shrug.
Perlin's smile widened and his eyes narrowed. "I remember telling you once that fighting was different from any other form of competition. The winner devours the loser. In battle, it is eat or be eaten. That said..." His wings flared out, feathers detaching themselves once again. "...do not disappoint me."
"I have no wish to disappoint you," replied Dawn blithely as he spread out his own wings, relaxing his mind and body and letting conscious thought fade away. As he did, he let his awareness bleed out fully into the air around him. Shimmering white began to gather along the tips of his feathers as Dawn's magic charged the air around him with electricity, even as he molded it into something that seemed solid.
Perlin charged in. All the feathers of his right wing detached and slipped away into seams in the air. Instead of coming at Dawn from different directions, they instead emerged by Perlin's left wing, seeming to join with the feathers of that wing until it was now nearly double its own size. As Perlin swung it, the feathers of his wing seemed to shine, drawing light from the air around them, making it dark by comparison.
Perlin's shimmering wing met the hammer-blow of white, shining wind that Dawn fired, the two attacks colliding to release a shockwave of pure white that washed across the Palace entryway and blow everypony watching them off their hooves.
On the periphery of his awareness, Arkenstone could sense the vibrations caused by Dawn's battle with Perlin. However, Arkenstone was preoccupied with his own fight at the moment. He surged forward, swords shaped by his magic passing through the dust in the air around him slashing ahead of him at the elusive opponent, who always seemed to dance out of their way at just the right moment.
Swift Stride was a conundrum. One moment, he moved as though his body weighed nothing at all, sometimes skipping off the air itself to change direction to avoid an attack. At other times, he fell to the floor as though he might have weighed tons. Yet his hooves barely even clicked whenever they hit the marble tiles.
I thought that was the case, thought Arkenstone, His control is perfect. He seems wild and uncoordinated. But the truth is that there isn't an iota of wasted energy.
Every once and a while, in the midst of one of his dodges, Swift would occasionally seem to produce small cylinders or spheres. Sometimes, he would gently lob them in Arkenstone's direction. At others, he would hurl them like bullets. Not taking any chances, Arkenstone cut them all down. Some exploded. Others flooded the corridor with gas. Others scattered powder or strange liquids about. Arkenstone cut through all of them, the perfect motion of his slashes splitting the contents within the bombs along with their housing. After losing so quickly and utterly to Swift in their last fight, Arkenstone was not going to allow a single particle of any of the compounds Swift carried to make contact with him.
All told, the battle was going well. Arkenstone had lasted much longer than he had during their previous fight. He hadn't been taken off guard by a single one of Swift's array of poisions, acids, and explosives...
...Now if only Swift would just shut up.
"You're letting her play right into his hooves," said Swift, his infuriating grin not faltering in the slightest as he made his despicable pronouncement, "The only way to ensure that he doesn't use her to complete his work is to kill her."
Arkenstone snorted and lunged forward, wrapping his fetlock around the handle of one of his blades. The other blades in the air merged with it, forming a gigantic sword. In the hallway, there should have been no room to swing it, but Arkenstone swung it anyway, cleaving through the walls on either side of him, sending fragments of stone and more dust hurtling through the air. As they did so, his power crackled and flowed through them, transforming them into blades.
Swift danced and dodged, the trailing ends of his white sash moved like they were additional limbs, swatting at the flats of blades, knocking them aside so that they bit into the walls, floor, or ceiling. However, that only seemed to make Swift's situation worse as the chunks of marble knocked loose became swords in their own right. Arkenstone's power infected everything that it touched, transforming it into a blade. Even as Swift Stride dodged the blades coming at him through the air, he was beset by the inescapable sense that the Palace around him was becoming a single mass of blades for Arkenstone to command against him.
Knight of the Dancing Blades indeed, thought Swift wryly, Though I suppose this is an appropriate skill for one who also carries the moniker of the Relentless as well. Even if his individual attacks amount to nothing, his power spreads until the entire battlefield is his blade and there is no escaping its strike. Despite this, Swift's smile didn't falter as he evaded yet more blades carving through the air at him. Despite the sheer volume of razor-edged death that Arkenstone was swinging at him, Swift had yet to suffer a single scratch.
Cartwheeling away from yet another series of strikes that carved up the floor and walls, Swift tossed out another black cylinder. Arkenstone's blade sliced into it and the transparent liquid splattered all across the floor. Let's see how he handles a mobility denial attack, thought Swift, That solution has an extremely low friction coefficient. It's more slippery than ice. If he could undermine Arkenstone's stance, the source of an earth pony's power, he could disrupt Arkenstone's attack. Even if Arkenstone refused to fall for the trick and stopped his advance, Swift would still have disrupted his momentum and been able to shift to take a more offensive approach.
To his surprise, Arkenstone stepped forward, stepping straight down without the slightest sign of hesitation, though his sharp ears were certain to have picked up the sound of the liquid spreading in front of him. However, as Arkenstone's hoof came down, the liquid underneath seemed to skitter away from it, as though it possessed a mind of its own and was terrified of the approaching stallion. Arkenstone's armored hoof slammed into the marble floor with enough force to leave an imprint in it and send cracks spreading from the point of impact. The force also drove back the liquid in front of him, forcing it to flow away from him.
"Impressive," said Swift out loud, his smile vanishing for the first time and his eyes widening enough to reveal their ice-blue irises, "Even if you never fully traveled down the path of the mountain root, you learned the basics well enough."
"Stand firm and root yourself upon the earth and all that would impede you shall be as the dust," recited Arkenstone, as though recalling a memory from very long ago.
"Very true," agreed Swift, "At this rate, it looks as though my tricks are useless. You aren't listening to a thing I say. I guess it's time for my last resort, the best trick, the best lie I have."
"Your deceptions will no longer work on me," said Arkenstone calmly, "There is no lie you can tell that I will fall for."
"That depends," replied Swift, "Sometimes, a pony doesn't have to fall for a lie for it to serve its purpose."
Those words actually gave Arkenstone pause. His blades hesitated for the slightest fraction of a second as he considered Swift's words and wondered what he meant by them. That hesitation was all the time that Swift needed. The black-garbed stallion landed on all four hooves and charged at Arkenstone. However, instead of producing another bomb or weapon, Swift simply planted all four hooves solidly upon the earth and leaned forward to slam his shoulder directly into Arkenstone's chest.
The bladed edges of Arkenstone's armor crumbled on contact, not even etching the flesh or so much as slicing the cloth over it. In the space of less than a second, cracks spread across the entire breadth of Arkenstone's armor and it exploded off of him, filling the hallway with shrapnel that tore through the walls, ceiling, and floor as though they were made of paper. With his helm no longer covering his head, Arkenstone's face was revealed, his sightless eyes wide, the featureless white orbs staring at Swift in complete shock.
Swift twitched and vanished, moving backwards rapidly as swords sprouted out from all the surfaces around him, their points and edges piercing through the afterimage he left behind and screeching as they ground against one another. The trailing ends of his sash didn't escape the attack completely and were shredded by the omnidirectional barrage of blades.
Arkenstone stepped through the wall of his own blades, their forms dissolving into dust and swirling around to form his armor once more. "So that's your greatest lie," said Arkenstone grimly, "I feared as much."
"You saw through it already?" mused Swift, raising an eyebrow.
"It is said that the true indicator of mastery is the ability to do great things in small ways," said Arkenstone, "You move as though you have complete control over your body's density and specific gravity, which is amongst the highest tier skills of the Mountain Root. Yet you can do it with such grace and ease that it is barely noticeable. Even Terra Heart couldn't manage such delicate control."
"That's because Terra Heart was a boneheaded brute," replied Swift, his grin returning, "His only concern about the Mountain Root was how he could use it to smash things he didn't like. He got very good at the smashing, but he really was little more than a novice."
"Whereas you are a true master," observed Arkenstone, "easily on par with Granny Smith in her prime...if not better."
"I'm flattered," said Swift with a chuckle.
It made sense to Arkenstone. Swift's endless emphasis on his skill and ability as a liar, his projection of his identity as a liar, his reliance on gadgets, the hidden weapons, and the dirty tricks; all of it served as a veil for his true strength, his complete mastery of the Mountain Root. It seemed he truly was the strongest of the seven Knights of the Celestial Order.
As Arkenstone moved to form new blades and attack...he paused. No...It's true that he's a master of the Mountain Root, perhaps even a greater master than Granny Smith. But he still has his weapons. It's not that he dispensed with them to utilize his true strength, it's that he still has them to use in conjunction with that strength. Arkenstone shivered at the realization that ran through him. Between his strength and all the tools at his disposal, his options for both attack and defense are virtually infinite.
Indeed, rather than dispensing with his persona as a liar, Swift Stride instead enhanced that persona with the revelation of his true strength. If Arkenstone allowed himself to get wrapped up in a straightforward battle of strength, Swift would use the opening to attack with one of the cunning devices he had at his disposal. There was no telling how many he had left or if he had some means of retrieving more if he ran out. There was no telling what form those attacks would take, what Arkenstone would have to defend against.
Though nothing about Swift Stride had actually changed, to Arkenstone's senses, he seemed even more monstrously powerful than before. In Arkenstone's own mind, he felt as though he could perceive the true form of Swift's power, which hovered all around him in the form of an all-encompassing mask that hid infinite possibilities behind its unflinching exterior. Powerful martial artists possessed what was referred to as a Raiment, the act of cloaking oneself in one's own power and unleashing their full strength. Arkenstone's was his armor. Spitfire's was her ultimate fighting form, merged with her phoenix companion. Firefly's was unleashing her Wings of Light so that they lit up the whole sky. Swift Stride too possessed a Raiment. However, his was not visible in the form that the others' were. Instead, it seemed that it was born and given form by the uncertainties within the minds of his opponents.
Arkenstone took a deep breath, trying to steady himself as his blades oriented on Swift Stride. He would have to pierce through that mask of uncertainty and strike the pony beneath. He was up against opponent who wielded doubt and confusion as shield and sword, wielding both with peerless mastery.
Swift noticed Arkenstone's hesitation and his grin faded into a gentler smile. It looks as though he's got it figured out, he thought, He's not so foolish as to fall for my biggest trick that easily. He understands what he's really up against. He might win this yet.
From the ceiling, a single fragment of shattered marble dropped to the floor. It landed with a tiny click. However, that minuscule sound was enough to serve as the signal for the two combatants. Their bodies blurred and surged towards each other. They met with a crash that made the entire Palace shake and quiver. What remained of the walls, ceiling, and floor all shattered and the two of them plunged downward into the Palace's depths and the Crystal Caverns below, their blows shaking the entire mountain.
The collision of their respective attacks knocked Perlin and Dawn away from each other. Dawn flipped over backward and kicked out with his hooves, using the motion to halt and reverse his movement, sending him surging directly at Perlin again before he could recover. Perlin looked up to see Dawn almost directly on top of him, the edge of one wing shining white with a blade of charged air and vacuum, an attack that defied all logic, aimed straight for Perlin's head.
Rather than try to meet his attack, Perlin swung one wing backwards and tumbled back in the same motion, falling into a seam he had cut through the air. A second seam opened directly above and behind Dawn and Perlin tumbled back out, still facing the same way he had been when he'd gone in, but swinging one wing behind him in the same motion that had cut open the seam in the first place. The other wing was already devoid of feathers, which emerged in the space all around Dawn, hemming him in from every direction.
Dawn swept one wing around in a broad arc, twisting to put the force of his entire body behind the motion. The feathers were scattered and Perlin sent tumbling as a white tornado filled the space, its top punching up through the roof of the Palace entryway, even as its base ripped through the carpet and marble below. The staunch Royal Guards, who had been waiting for the chance to try and slip by Perlin instead found themselves scattered.
Coco shrieked and clung tightly to one of the open doors, the winds threatening to send her flying.
Perlin slammed into a wall, managing to interpose his wing between him and the solid stone. The wall cracked and shattered from the force of his impact. Bracing his hooves against it, Perlin pushed off of the wall and shot straight towards Dawn, who became visible once again as the winds dissipated. As Perlin charged in, several feathers seemed to stream off of both his wings, vanishing into the space behind him. He closed in with Dawn, thrusting forward with both wings, pointing his leading primaries like spears at Dawn's body.
Dawn's body almost seemed to merge with the air itself as the ebony colt flowed almost effortlessly around Perlin's attack, easily slipping past the thrust of Perlin's wings and emerging off to one side, one wing already raised to strike. However, Dawn was instead forced to dodge sharply out of the way as the feathers that had disappeared in Perlin's wake emerged from the space directly behind Dawn, launching out of thin air like darts. Dawn avoided them and the feathers narrowly missed cutting into Perlin's own body.
Dawn's dodge took him up above Perlin, who was already moving into his next attack. Rolling his body, Perlin swept one wing up in an arcing cut, aiming at splitting Dawn in two. He had to angle his body to avoid being cut by the detached feathers he had launched, but Perlin managed that without any difficulty. As he swung the wing, it once again seemed to leech the light out of the space around it, leaving a trail of darkness as it moved. The feathers gleamed with the captured light and seemed to elongate.
The air beneath Dawn's upraised wing also glowed, crackling with electricity as Dawn molded and concentrated its power. Twisting his wing, he set the white wind to spinning before thrusting down at Perlin's attacking wing, unleashing a pointed lance of whirling power that met Perlin's attack with matchless fury. The two blows collided and yet another shockwave exploded outward, throwing the two fighters away from each other yet again.
Down below, Coco Pommel whimpered as she pressed her body down to the floor. It was like being caught in a massive wild storm. Every exchange of blows sent powerful wind surging through the entryway. Glass scattered and jagged fragments of stone buzzed through the air like wasps. Thunder cracked and roared, deafening in this confined space. Several times already, she had been knocked off her hooves and fallen hard. It was all Coco could do to keep from fainting from fear. The last time she had experienced a feeling like this was back in Manehattan, when a rogue hurricane had blown over the city. The fighting between these two colts-No!-these two young stallions was like being at the center of a natural disaster. It was a miracle that the walls were still standing after they clashed with one another.
Forcing her eyes open, Coco had to fight through the tears that welled up as a consequence of the powerful winds washing over her face. Her vision blurring, she tried to get a fix on the reason she had come here. Perlin was there, once again struggling to right himself after being sent tumbling by his last exchange with Dawn. He swept his head around, fixing his eyes on his target, completely failing to notice Coco's presence down below, all of his attention focused on a single pony. As he did so, even with her hampered vision, it was impossible for Coco to miss the wild grin that graced Perlin's face. It was an expression she'd seen him wear before, when he'd been tearing through a small army of mares-at-arms like they were so much tissue paper.
He's happy, she realized. Part of her was frightened, but another part of her was relieved. However much she had come to believe otherwise, part of Coco had always been afraid that Perlin derived pleasure from the act of killing, that he'd smiled so broadly back then because he was enjoying the act of ending all those lives. But now, it was here, plain as day. What Perlin relished was not the act of killing, but the fight, a battle he could stake his life on. He was up against an opponent he couldn't cut down with the greatest of ease and that fact thrilled him.
Moving carefully, afraid she might end up getting tossed about again if she let down her guard, Coco looked around for Perlin's opponent. Like Perlin, Dawn was trying to recover his stability after their last clash. When she saw it, Coco was amazed at the almost vacant look on Dawn's face. It almost seemed as though he wasn't thinking of anything at all. Instead, he looked almost impassively at Perlin, as though their fight didn't matter at all. However, the faint upward turn on the corners of Dawn's mouth told a different story. He's enjoying this too.
Up above, Perlin and Dawn hurtled at one another again. Dawn's mind was almost completely blank. His body moved as though it had a mind of its own, reacting automatically to Perlin's attacks and counterattacking without the slightest hesitation. Instead, Dawn's consciousness was consumed with the act of imagining, projecting the whole of his will into every strike, every move he made, creating an image in his mind and then applying that image to what he created with his power.
Concussive blasts of compressed air turned pure white, becoming shining columns that lanced out and pulverized whatever was in front of them. Whirling tornados stabbed out like spears, their swirling forms blazing with light. Shining crescent-shaped blades cleaved through any impediment. As his consciousness faded, the boundaries between the distinct techniques of the Gale King crumbled way, leaving behind only a shining wind that served as a pure extension of his will.
Perlin's situation was little different. The more this battle dragged on, the more enraptured he became. His wings glowed. At the same time, the space in their vicinity seemed to darken, as though their luminance was drawn from the ambient light around them. When he attacked or defended, that light merged with the Dark Matter of his feathers to transform their quality into something between matter and energy. He hadn't even been aware that his new wings had this quality. Instead, it was something that emerged as he pushed himself to his limits, not even thinking, but instead moving as he felt he needed to in response to Dawn's attacks.
Their wings becoming blurs, the two of them exchanged over a dozen blows in the space of a second before passing by one another. Dawn, still facing away from Perlin, sent his body into a tight roll, pulling in the air around him and setting it to spinning in a large whirlwind. He bucked out with his hind legs, using his forelegs to brace against the air in front of him. The buck turned that mass of whirling air into a powerful tornado that rushed straight at Perlin, who was turning around to come at Dawn again.
Several of Perlin's secondaries detached from both his wings, disappearing into the seams they cut in the air before reemerging in front of Perlin's body, arrayed like the spokes of a pair of wheels, spinning in opposite directions. They hovered between Perlin and the incoming tornado like a pair of shields, a nimbus of darkness forming around them as the feathers themselves glowed. The first spinning formation scattered as Dawn's tornado slammed into it. However, the second formation successfully stopped Dawn's attack and dispersed it, the feathers of that second wheel scattering as well.
Perlin looked up as the winds dispersed and found his face mere inches away from Dawn's. Dawn had actually allowed himself to be drawn into his own tornado and had ridden the currents of air he'd created to close in on Perlin without him realizing it. Even more importantly, Dawn had used the act of riding the tornado to increase the speed his body was moving at, accelerating as he made his approach. Now that he was this close in, he let all of that motion flow into his wing, turning it into an ebony blur as he swung it in a sweeping arc at Perlin's body. The air he drove in front of it crackled and began to shine white, thundering at Perlin's unguarded flank like a massive hammer.
Perlin's eyes widened as the attack approached. His wing was out of position to block the strike. Not even thinking, he reacted automatically, thrusting his entire wing through the spatial rift his Dark Matter created. The wing bent sharply, seeming to refract like light through a prism, as it emerged to interpose itself in the path of Dawn's strike. Dawn's blow struck the wing with an explosive roar that made the entire Palace shudder. Perlin's feathers bent slightly, then shattered as though they were made of glass, his primaries disintegrating along with many of his coverts. The blow translated itself back through the rift Perlin's wing had cut and Perlin's body was knocked back by the recoil, his wing withdrawing back to its original position and orientation.
Not even thinking, Perlin swept out his opposite wing and cut open another rift, this one swallowing his entire body. He reappeared on Dawn's opposite side and slightly behind the colt, already using the momentum of his own tumble to add to the speed of his strike as he swept his wing at Dawn's spine. The remaining feathers of his damaged wing had already detached and emerged both above and below the plane of his undamaged wing's strike, forming a sequence of three slashes that carved through the air like a set of claws.
Dawn's eyes didn't even register the abrupt change in Perlin's position. Instead he allowed the force of his previous blow to carry his body into a full rotation that spun him in place. As he did, he whirled his opposite wing in a broad, circular motion, drawing the air in around it and charging it, forming it into a white shield between him and Perlin's attack. Perlin's feathers bit into the shield, which held for a brief instant before they managed to carve their way through. However, Dawn used the pause his shield had given him to skip away, out of the attack's range. As he did so, he turned his body again, using his other wing to launch another pillar of white wind at Perlin, who folded his wings in front of him, the feathers once again glowing as they drew in the light around them. They met Dawn's attack with a thundering crash and Perlin was sent tumbling yet again.
Down below, just as Coco was sure that the cacophony above her was about to make her eardrums burst, the level of the noise dropped abruptly, as though the battle had suddenly moved far away. The winds that whipped and dragged at her body, threatening to tear her off the floor and send her tumbling across the entryway also dissipated. Coco found herself lying in a bubble of peace in the midst of all the chaos that swallowed the battlefield. Looking up, she gaped as she saw a single pink wing hovering protectively over her. Her eyes traced it until she saw the pegasus it was attached to.
Firefly's eyes were fixed on the battle above, but, as though she sensed Coco's gaze, she turned to look down at the young mare, a kind smile playing on her lips. “You’ve got a lot of guts forcing yourself into this, young lady,” she said.
Trembling, Coco managed to force herself to stand up. “Th-thank you.”
“Don’t worry,” said Firefly, lowering the wing she’d been holding over Coco so that it now rested over the younger mare’s back like a comforting blanket, “I can see you’re worried about the fight. Are you worried about a certain young stallion in particular?”
Blushing, Coco nodded.
Firefly raised an eyebrow. “So you’re the one he came to town to visit. He’s an interesting boy, that much is for sure. I can see why, despite the manure he seems to up to his shoulder in, everypony ends up cutting him so much slack.” She directed her gaze back up to the battle. “They make a good pair, those two.”
“Wha-what do you mean?” asked Coco as she followed Firefly’s gaze.
“Perlin has a bit more experience, that much is clear,” said Firefly, “But he and Dawn are really close to each other in ability. Neither of them was half this good last night, when they were fighting against Flash Spark. But now that they’re going against each other, the clash is serving to draw out their latent potential.”
Coco blinked. “Is that why they look so happy now?”
Firefly chuckled, the strands of her mane dancing as the shockwave of another attack washed over them. “So you noticed that.”
“I’ve seen Perlin smile like that before,” said Coco, her eyes flicking back and forth as she tried to follow the exchange of blows, “It frightened me before. But I think I understand it better now.”
“I think I get what you mean,” said Firefly, "That's a terrifying face to have in the midst of battle, especially when your opponents are weaker than you are. But against an equal...it's exhilarating."
Coco found herself nodding. Now that Firefly had somehow used her wing to distance the younger mare from the cacophony and turmoil of the battle, she was able to watch it more intently. Both Perlin and Dawn still moved faster than she could ever hope to follow. But she did the best she could. Every once and a while, she caught the exchange of blows, white wind shattering against a glowing wing radiating darkness, feathers emerging out of nowhere to strike without warning that were evaded with ease. As the battle pressed on, Coco noticed something she hadn't realized before. With how hard they were exerting themselves, Dawn and Perlin should have been wearing each other down. However, instead, inexplicably, the two of them were moving faster still.
The cavern rocked and the crystals around Arkenstone and Swift Stride shattered. Had he the attention to spare, Arkenstone would have lamented the destruction of such breathtaking natural beauty. Down here in this cavern were the works of nature, artistry sculpted from millennia, if not aeons of geological and magical processes, all broken in an instant. Unfortunately, Arkenstone did not have the attention to spare on the damage being done to the caverns. The whole of his will was to live out this fight and somehow find victory...however difficult an achievement that would be.
A slam of Arkenstone's armored hoof brought the crystal shards bouncing up from the floor. His magic rushed through them and they transformed into massive swords that lanced out at Swift. Swift twisted his body, the tattered ends of his sash moving as though they were his own limbs, swatting the blades away from him. Swift pulled a small sphere out of his clothes and held it in the curl of his fetlock. Clenching, he cracked the surface of the sphere before whipping it in Arkenstone's direction. The orb broke open as it left Swift's grip, its powdery contents rushing across the space between them.
Arkenstone heard the crack and could even sense the faint disturbance caused by minute particles rushing through the air at high velocity. Reacting instantly, he twisted his body to bring about the interlocking plates of his armor to intercept the powder. It impacted with enough force to make a faint sizzling noise on Arkenstone's armor, reminding him of the fierce sandstorms of Saddle Arabia. Whatever that power had been, Swift had projected it with enough force that the fine particles would penetrate through skin and into the flesh beneath.
Using his turn, Arkenstone lashed out with his tail, the armor extending along its length to form a segmented, bladed whip, similar to the weapons wielded by Flash Spark and the other ponies that had been encased in Wight Shade's Dark Matter. Swift ducked beneath the attack as the tip of the whiplike weapon pierced the space where his head had been only an instant before. Shifting his weight forward, Swift turned his duck into a roll that brought him directly towards Arkenstone. Swift reached his opponent just as his hooves came back under him, allowing him to come out of his roll and push directly off of the ground, adding his roll's momentum and enhancing further it by bracing against the earth, unleashing a powerful upwards strike that threatened to send Arkenstone flying.
His shoulder slammed into Arkenstone's armor, which cracked, then shattered, under the force of the attack. However, Swift felt nothing behind that armor, no flesh or bone, nothing to be knocked away. He immediately realized what had happened. Arkenstone had shed his armor and stepped away from the line of attack, leaving it behind like an empty shell. His movement carried him into the space the armor had occupied, leaving him surrounded with the shattered fragments.
Arkenstone was standing a short distance away, his body currently unprotected. However, that was the least of Swift's concern as the fragments of the broken armor that surrounded him dissolved into black dust that whirled about his body like a miniature hurricane, merging back into swords that circled around the black-clad stallion, slicing inward in a circular formation, hemming him in from all directions and threatening to shred him to pieces. The blades moved with the speed and power of Swift's own attack, having absorbed the energy of his blow and now redirecting it towards him.
Something slipped out of the sleeve of Swift's foreleg and he flicked it to one side of him. The bomb exploded, the force of the blast smashing many of the blades, especially on Swift's left side. However, rather than trying to escape through that opening, he rode the force of the explosion, allowing it to send him hurtling through the swords on his right. He didn't even grunt as the edges of a few of the blades cut through his clothing and bit into the flesh beneath it. He accepted the pain and allowed his momentum to carry him clear of the blades before they could cut too deeply into him. Rolling in midair, Swift turned sideways so that he hit the nearby wall with all four of his hooves, pushing off so that he could come flying at Arkenstone like an arrow. A slender, triangular blade emerged from the sleeve of his right foreleg that he leveled at Arkenstone as he approached, aiming for the arteries on the beige stallion's neck.
Black dust converged on the space between Swift and Arkenstone, merging together. Swift's blade glanced off the shield that formed. Swift's first impulse was to continue with the motion, transitioning from a stab to hammering his shoulder into the shield to try and break through it with the Mountain Root's power. His instincts warned him of the danger at the last second and he instead twisted his body wildly, barely managing to yank his haunches out of the way before Arkenstone's shield exploded into a literal wall of blades that threatened to perforate Swift's body. Arkenstone bulled into his own construct, which broke back down into black dust once again to swirl around his body and reform as his armor.
He's gotten better at doing that, mused Swift as he landed and rolled, allowing the roll to carry him away from Arkenstone's armored body. The last time they had fought, there had been a minor, but definite delay in Arkenstone creating his armor that could leave him open to attack. However, it appeared that their last battle had taught Arkenstone to combine attack and defense and transition into forming his armor more quickly, as well as doing a better job at covering the openings that process could create.
Swift also liked the trick Arkenstone had pulled on him with the empty armor. "You're almost starting to think like me," he said wryly, grinning widely.
"The essence of growth is using the experience of your defeat to improve yourself," said Arkenstone as he turned to face Swift once more, "I took what I learned form our last battle and used it to make myself stronger."
"That's good," said Swift, "I might make a decent liar out of you yet."
"I would much rather that you didn't," grumbled Arkenstone, advancing. More blades appeared in the air around him and leapt forward to slash at Swift from a variety of directions. Swift lurched sideways then abruptly twisted so that the action turned into a fall that carried him clear of Arkenstone's blades, hitting the ground and transitioning into a roll so efficiently that his body didn't even make a sound of impact. He came out of the roll and pushed off the floor, leaping into the air in a jump that carried him directly over Arkenstone.
As he did so, Swift left several small containers bouncing in his wake. After a brief delay, they exploded, flooding the air with white mist. Arkenstone extended his forehoof, curling his fetlock around the handle of the sword closest to his body. He moved to swing it, even as the other swords he'd created merged with the one he gripped, transforming it into a much larger blade that he swept downwards. The slash cleaved straight through the mist, parting it to either side of him.
Swift hit the ground behind Arkenstone and bounced into another leap, this one carrying him to one of the few unbroken crystal formations that projected out from the wall. There, he perched daintily, his trademark grin still in place as he leered down at Arkenstone with his icy blue eyes.
"You're not going to hit me with poison or acid that easily," remarked Arkenstone as he faced Swift, still holding the massive sword he'd used to part the mist.
That got a wry cackle out of Swift. "Aww, I'd never waste a perfectly good poison on you pal. After all, the last time we fought, I took you out with a whiff of perfume. How pathetic do you have to be to fall for that?"
Arkenstone canted his head at the taunt. He wasn't so insecure that Swift's words could damage his pride. He fully admitted to losing to Swift Stride's trick last time. He'd even found the technique an admirable application of earth pony magic derived from his own techniques. He also knew that Swift couldn't possibly think so little of him that those words would stir any kind of rage or insecurity in Arkenstone.
It could be said that Swift Stride used every resource at his disposal to fight, that much Arkenstone could discern. Amongst those resources would naturally be Swift's voice. He spoke frequently, throwing out taunts and warnings in equal measure, often deliberately giving away the nature of his next attack. However, such warnings were often lies, an attempt to catch his opponent by having him prepare for the wrong thing. At the same time, many of the things he said were pointless, empty, meaningless, having no real application to the battle at hoof.
It could say that Swift Stride never said anything uselessly...by which it was meant anything he spoke might be useless by design and, thus, useful in its uselessness. Such awareness led a wary opponent's thoughts around in circles until his head ached from trying to find hidden meaning that might not even be there. Arkenstone shuddered, once again feeling that sensation of his opponent donning an all-encompassing mask that hid limitless possibilities.
Swift shrugged at his opponent's hesitation. "By the way, do you know how caves like this form?"
"Water," said Arkenstone.
"True enough," agreed Swift, idly tapping the crystal he was standing on, "These beauties may grow from magic, but the caves come from water. It seeps down through the rock and dissolves some of it. The rock that's more easily dissolved flows away and leaves behind openings between the kinds of rock that's not so easily eroded. That's the basic gist of it."
"Your point?" asked Arkenstone. Underneath his armor, his eyebrow went up.
"These caverns are amazing," said Swift, grinning broadly as he threw out an arm to encompass the cave around them, "They've grown this way over thousands of years and, even now, they're still changing. Its an environment that's always evolving and always will, so long as the water continues to flow through them."
"Again...your point?" asked Arkenstone, feeling a hint of frustration, frustration that was spurred by the feeling of dread, the feeling that he'd missed a critical hint in Swift Stride's words.
"My point is that these caves are growing because water is still flowing through them," said Swift, "That continuous change brings about instabilities that may lead entire caverns to collapse if they're...disturbed...the right way." He sat back on his haunches and raised both his forehooves, displaying the three black orbs he held in each of them. "Now, if I scatter these beauties, what do you want to bet that this whole chunk of mountain is going to come right down on your head?"
Swallowing hard, Arkenstone tensed. True to his word, Swift scattered the bombs into the air, aiming for points all around the cavern.
Arkenstone's sword broke into several smaller blades once again, disappearing as they accelerated to cut all the bombs in two before they could reach their target point. As he struck, Arkenstone once again felt that faint stirring of dread.
"Sorry," said Swift, his grin getting progressively wider, "I lied."
Instead of exploding into fire and smoke, the sliced bombs instead burst out into mist that filled the caverns.
"I figured you'd probably catch them," said Swift as the mist began filling the space below him, surrounding Arkenstone from all sides, "So I used poison instead. That batch is very nasty. One whiff and your lungs will rot in seconds."
Arkenstone had already recalled his swords. Now he merged them together into a much larger blade once again. Turning it so that the edges faced up and down, he swung it around his body, spinning in a full circle as he did so, turning the flat of the blade into an enormous fan and generating a burst of wind that scattered the mist away from him. Some of it roiled and washed over Swift, who didn't even flinch as it washed over his body.
"Sorry," said Swift, "I was lying about lying. That wasn't poison. It's not much of anything really, just some water vapor."
Arkenstone hefted his sword and tensed, readying himself to strike. He wondered why Swift had bothered with such a pointless attack...or an attack that only seemed pointless. His ears twitched as the sound of the condensed water dripping off of stalactites and crystals from above splattered against his armor.
Tensing, Arkenstone swung and hurled the massive sword at Swift, who leapt off his crystalline perch just as the blade slammed home into it, shattering it and scattering the crystal shards. Arkenstone used the bridge of scent his blade had forged with the crystal by impact to turn the crystal's shards into blades of their own, which leapt in pursuit of Swift.
Swift twisted over and lobbed more black orbs into the path of the pursuing blades, which cut them apart to release another cloud of water vapor that obscured Swift from sight. Seeing as he could not see in the first place, it struck Arkenstone as a pointless concealment. He could still smell Swift's scent and feel his exact position from the vibrations of his hooves striking the cavern's floor and walls. He whipped his tail, scattering dried pine needles into the air. His nose easily locked onto their fragrant scent and his magic went pulsing through the chains that scent forged, transforming the needles into blades that lanced out towards Swift Stride.
Swift, who'd apparently thought that his mist had been enough to cover his position, barely managed to escape the unexpected attack as the blades Arkenstone created from his needles arrowed in from a different angle than the blades Arkenstone had formed from the crystal debris of his earlier attack, positioned so that they meshed together like the teeth of a pair of gears, leaving no opening for escape. More importantly, Swift had pressed himself back against the cavern wall, cutting off any other routes of escape he might normally have had.
Swift produced another bomb, this one a small cylinder that he threw to the ground directly in front of him. This bomb exploded in a more conventional manner, the shockwave it released shattering the attacking blades into fragments. A fair few of those fragments still made their way through the explosion, slashing through Swift's clothes and even scratching his body. On top of that, standing so close to his own explosion did its own share of damage. Arkenstone could detect the whiff of singed hair in the air, suspecting that Swift's mane might be slightly less spiky after this.
On top of that, the explosion threw up a cloud of dust, a result that made Arkenstone smile. In his desperation, Swift Stride had only added to his opponent's power. Surging forward, Arkenstone charged straight through the cloud of dust, passing beneath a couple of streams of falling water as he did so. Swift's bomb had apparently cracked the ceiling, opening up some hidden underground watercourse, or possibly an aquifer, over their heads. Pursing his lips, Arkenstone realized he would have to be a bit more cautious. If things continued on like this, Swift's lie about bringing the cavern down on their heads might very well become a reality.
His power crackled through the dust, transforming it into blades that he arrayed on either side of him as he closed in on Swift. Swift met Arkenstone's charge by darting forward himself, shifting his motion off to one side to come at Arkenstone at an oblique angle. Arkenstone immediately shifted the trajectories of his blades, aiming to carve Swift to pieces before he could close in.
At the last second, Swift seemed to trip, the unexpected movement sending him tumbling to the side and out of the path of Arkenstone's blades, which clipped a few hairs from Swift's foxlike tail. Swift's fall became a roll that carried him around to the point of Arkenstone's haunches. Arkenstone shifted, preparing to take the blow and use the opportunity to get a strike of his own in...when his ears picked up the faint click of something pressed against the frog of forehoof that Swift raised to strike. Swift was holding another bomb and was going to slam it directly into Arkenstone's armor, apparently planning to use the force of the strike to enhance the destructive power of the explosion.
He'll blow his arm off! thought Arkenstone frantically as his blades disintegrated back into dust and swirled to meet the threat, thickening the armor over his haunch and also forming a shield over that. Just as Swift's hoof, and the bomb it carried, made contact with the shield, Arkenstone came to a realization. Wait! He's a master of the Mountain Root. Such a master could easily withstand the force of such a simple explosion, even at such close range. In fact, if Swift reinforced his body, his hoof especially, he could essentially use the impact to direct and shape the explosion, not merely enhancing its power, but directing it all into a single point...a single point that could potentially punch through all Arkenstone's layers of defense, especially with the additional force of a strike from the Mountain Root behind it.
The bomb went off. But, to Arkenstone's surprise, what resulted was not a fierce, condensed explosion that burned through his shield and armor, but another burst of water vapor that filled the air around both stallions. Had it been poison, Arkenstone would have no hope of escaping its effects at this range. He'd sacrificed his blades for defense and had rendered himself vulnerable. However, Swift obviously wouldn't use poison at this distance either, since he would be affected as well.
Frowning in confusion, Arkenstone went on the attack. The center of his shield dissolved into a large blade that thrust out at Swift, who barely managed to avoid the attack. Even though he did so, the edge of the sword nicked his face, leaving a small line of blood there. All things considered, Swift Stride was looking worse for wear after taking so many injuries...however small and inconsequential as they might have been.
For his part, though he was breathing hard after exerting his magic so much, Arkenstone was still uninjured. His head hurt though. Trying to keep his awareness up to avoid being caught be Swift's lies was mentally draining. Arkenstone supposed he could just as easily stop listening altogether. But that carried risks of its own. Swift's skill at deception wasn't so easily overcome.
"Sheesh," muttered Swift, "This is taking awhile. If we keep this up then..."
Abruptly, something shifted. Arkenstone and Swift were suddenly beset by the feeling of being two places at once. Their lungs and sinuses felt as though they were packed with solid concrete and the feeling washed over them, leaving them with a lurching sense of nausea that left both of them stumbling. The effect was so profound that Arkenstone nearly lost his armor.
"What was that?" he gasped as the feeling passed. Neither of them felt that lurching, sickening sensation anymore. However, they did feel as though something else were there, a sensation of some transparent material being pressed up against their skin, past their fur, wrapping up their whole bodies.
"I think that means Wight Shade's array is up an running," said Swift, his smile no longer visible, "It probably means that our time is up as well."
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Hooray for Firefly finally putting down Flash Spark for good!
Swift is using water vapor to keep the dust down.
through was clear and concise. I'm going to die.
Also, good. About fucking time.
....I can't wait to see Swift's face when they drop the 'no longer a knight' bombshell on him.
Swift: A fun character that really needs a brick to the head.
and
__________
Get
________________
blew
_____________
Cap.
_____________
Swift is my Favorite Knight. He's such an awesome character, and amazing to see what he does.
glorious battle
6870603
And to disrupt the accuracy of Arkenstone's sense of smell.
Twilight Sparkle gets dangerous.
she has always been dangerous, she has always found friendship was the better way to go.
lets see just what Twilight is packing.
6874252 Well from the looks of things, he'd better think of something better.
6871144 Or a truth spell.
Holy shit. So Swift Stride is much, much, MUCH more powerful than I thought. Well done, author. I totally did not see that coming, even though I probably should have.
Also, regarding the Dark Matter Array: Oh, crap.
swift stride is the kind of fighter that keeps you guessing *shivers* that's extremely scary if he's your opponent
7288034 That won't stop him from telling half-truths, generalized truths, and all kinds of things that are true but still make you keep guessing. You'd probably just end up wondering if the spell even worked on him. He might even give tips on how to cast it better.
NEXT: The Dark Matter (The kind from Futurama) hits the fan!
7754957
Nor would it stop the fact that as Celestia told Swift. To tell a good lie, one needs to understand the truth beneath the lie (Thus his true moniker, False Tongue, True Heart). So technically he could tell the complete truth, and it still be an utter lie.
At this point, I ALMOST feel bad for him. The imagery of this scene you painted in my head left me chuckling at his tenacity.