The Students from St. Everfree

by Morex25

Chapter 12 - First Blood

“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO!?” Chrysalis lunged right up to Morpho and grabbed him by the neck of his shirt, with fire burning on her eyes.

“Chrysalis…! I just…” the spy wanted to explain himself, but Chrysalis was adamant in screaming at him some more.

“WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION?!” The fury in her words was such that for a second, the other three occupants thought their leader was gonna kill Morpho right there and then. “WHO!?!?”

“My Queen…” Iron Clad wanting to try and calm down Chrysalis, took a few steps towards her, but he came to a dead stop when she turned towards him and glared.

“STAY OUT OF THIS!” she ordered before turning back to the object of her ire. “YOU! WHAT ORDERS DID YOU GIVE!?”

“I sent some squads to…take care of our enemies.” Despite the position he was in, Morpho tried to remain as collected as possible, with only a small drop of sweat from his forehead as a sign of his struggle to stay calm.

“Ooh! You f*****-up now.” Arachnia laughed, enjoying the sight of Morpho been put on the spot like this, and soon enough he will begin squirming like the insect that he was.

[x-x-x]

“So, Chrysalis decided to send her minions to attack me.” Sombra mused as he watched the members of the dark dressed group walked up to him.

There were five of them. All wearing black hoodies and black half face masks or green bandanas with intercreate symbols of skull prints to cover their faces, except for the ‘leader’ who was wearing a fancy air purifying respirator that covered his nose and mouth.

In short, they looked menacing.

“Or maybe you decided to orchestrate this encounter on your own?” he asked curiously, but the group didn’t seem to have intentions of talking. “A shame.” He lamented. This could’ve been so much interesting. “Still dogs, not yet the masters of your lives.”

“Who are you people?” Trixie demanded to know sounding more annoyed than actually worried despite their menacing appearance. “Are these freak shows friends of yours?” she then turned to Sombra for answers when said freaks didn’t bother to response.

“No, they are not.” Sombra actually dignified a clear answer for once. “They are a nameless minions following orders from a pathetic leader.” Seriously, an attack like this was too direct from someone with the reputation such as Chrysalis. Though he would never voice it, he expected better from the Fake Queen of Everfree.

“Shut up!” The one with the gas mask ordered, finally breaking the silence. “Sombra, by orders of our leaders, you are to be brought up to Chrysalis.” He stated with anger clearly showing off on his eyes.

“Hn, so either I come peacefully or you’ll use force, right?” The self proclaimed royal predicted the cliché line that he expected to come next from the leader.

“Not today.” the gas mask answered coldly. As soon as he said this, he and the other four fell into fighting stances ready to start an attack.

[x-x-x]

“IMBECILE! I just said we need to stay low so we can recover the forces that we lost!” Chrysalis continued to berate him still not letting go from his shirt. “Not only that. Tirek and the others have proven they are stronger than we thought.” She loathingly admitted.

“But today things will be different…” Morpho said a little more calmed and confident despite being grabbed by his shirt by Chrysalis. “Today our soldiers will not hold back anymore…”

“…”

The dark queen kept silent while she contemplated his words. It was true that before when she ordered squadrons to deal with people that stood on her way or became a thorn on her side, she always made it clear she wanted her enemies to be brought up to her so she could “negotiate” or to simply “teach them a lesson”, and for that, the people they brought had to be relatively whole.

But what Morpho was saying, meant that… “You mean…” Chrysalis uttered as she slowly loosen her hold on Morpho.

“Yes, there will be no mercy!” The spy declared ominously.

This caused the place to turn very quiet all of the sudden except for Slash’s constantly flickering of his butterfly knife, which had gotten a bit more erratic after he heard about not longer holding back. Now that was the first thing in this whole conversation that had gotten him excited for once.

[x-x-x]

“There will be no mercy for you, Tirek!”

Unlike Sombra’s opponents that decided that actions spoke louder than words, Tirek’s opponents, actually just the squadron leader, was currently running his mouths consuming and wasting precious oxygen that the plants and apple trees around them could’ve used instead.

“You will not experience the humiliation of defeat under our hands!”

And while the leader of these squadron of ten continued with his monologue, Tirek pondered why he was complaining of being bored before, when right in front of him was a clear example of worse things than complete boredom. Hell, he would welcome complete and utter dullness than dealing with these chuckle*****.

“You may have defeated some of us before, but now we have free range to not hold back anymore.” The supposed leader of this squadron cracked his knuckles trying and failing to look intimidating. “Not only that, you don’t have Sombra or Discord at your beck and call!”

Sombra and Discord?! Beck and call?! Just what the hell was this idiot blabbering about? Was he stupid or was this his first day on the job? Probably both.

“Don’t even think of calling them for help, they are currently ‘busy’ dealing with other squadrons on their own.” The squad leader snorted grossly as he chuckled. “But don’t you worry; when we are done with you can reunite with them when we take you to Chrysalis.”

And now he was blabbering about their plans. Not that Tirek even cared or was even paying attention. He was still hung up on the fact that the idiot said he would call for help. Tirek was way above caring about anything could say about him; let it be insults or stupid rumors. Yet that little line of offended him profusely.

He who had gotten into more fights that he could care to remember. He who had resigned himself to a life of constant conflict with idiots and ***holes. He who had bleed and spilled blood just to try and get some godd*mn peace. The idea that HE, who had gone through hell and back, would ever call for help was infuriating.

So much so, that he decided to be a little proactive for once and claim ‘first blood’ in this fight.

“And that is why we as a group, shall be able to…” but before he could even finish that sentence, he got a feeling that something was ‘wrong’. A sudden feeling of ‘displacement’ followed by a little bit of dizziness.

When the world stopped whirling all around him, he found himself imbedded in the trunk of a tree, upside down, and with an imprint of Tirek’s punch right in the gut.

“Shut the hell up!”

Everyone remained utterly quiet, be for the surprise of Tirek’s display of power or because they were also glad that their squad leader also shut up was anyone’s guess. But it wasn’t long before another member of the group broke the silence with a yell.

“ATTACK!”

[x-x-x]

Sunset was getting irritated.

After Discord left the place where he met with Adagio, he had been going around in random directions, turning and whirling and running from place to place without any reason at all. Because of this, so many times she thought she was about to blow her cover, she would swiftly dodge, roll, hide and jump out of the way, resulting in unfortunate consequences.

She had lost the count of how many times she had step on something repulsive or have garbage fall on her.

At this point any other person would’ve call it quits, but Sunset Shimmer wasn’t any other person, or a real ‘person’ at all (being an unicorn pony from another world and all), she was determined to see things through, and if her “undercover work” disprove her fears, then she could start thinking of ways to get back at Discord for making her go through so much; turning a new leaf be damned for just that particular occasion.

That’s what he gets for currently making her run just to keep up the pace and not lose track of him. Why did she opt to use boots today? Why? And why in the heck would Discord start doing random sprints every now and then for no particular reason? Oh wait… she almost forgot.

Then in the middle of one of Discord’s random sprints, he made a hard turn to a long alleyway that Sunset knew would be closed off at the end. Her familiarity with this zone’s streets finally paid off.

Sunset came to a stop a few yards away from where Discord had made the turn, fully expecting him to walk out of the alleyway any second now once he realized it was closed at the end.

She waited for a whole 2 minutes, before she cautiously made her way towards the alleyway’s turn, her back firmly on the wall as she leaned her face to take a look and see what was Discord doing.

As sneaky as possible she took a peak and what she saw she barely believed.

There it was Discord just as she had expected, giving her his back looking further ahead into the alley. It surprised her to find out that Discord wasn’t the only one there. There were several menacing looking individuals standing in front of Discord, but what disturbed her the most was the fact that around them, for some reason were the unconscious bodies of several people dressed in black wearing masks; scattered and tossed around with reckless abandon.

Just what in tartarus did she stumble into?

[x-x-x]

Trixie could barely believe how a relatively normal day could’ve turn up like this. Sure, the fact that there were six transfer students from another school was the topic of the day, but other than the novelty and the gossip the day had been like any other. But now the spectacle going on right in front of her was definitely something she ever expected to witness.

After the shady group of five made it clear that violence was inevitable, the bastard that had been a pain in the neck this past hours stepped forward with a serious face yet in his eyes one could see a glint of glee.

“Stay put behind me woman!” Sombra commanded her with an overly dramatic tone and a pose to boot. “Otherwise you might get hurt.” He said very certain of this fact.

Trixie wanted nothing more to yell at him and berate him for using that condescending tone and for telling her, the Great and Powerful Trixie!, what to do. Yet she couldn’t get a single word out before the inevitable battle started.

With incredible speed Sombra managed to dodge a powerful blow barely gracing his, admittedly, handsome face. Then reactive instantly he counterattacked with a simple straight punch directed towards his attackers face, but before he could connect the blow, a second member of the group appeared threw another attack at Sombra, who had to divert his own attack in order to avoid being hit by the second attacker. This resulted in three punches connecting against nothing only cutting air; and all of this happened in mere seconds.

Then Sombra tried to jump out of the way in order to put some distance between the first two attackers, unfortunately this move had been anticipated by two of the other gang members who tried to deliver devastating kicks; but once again by mere millimeters Sombra managed to avoid the simultaneous attacks.

Alas, his luck had to run out and the mask wearing leader managed to appear from a blind spot. Unable to even try and dodge, Sombra ended up being hit, the impact sending him a few steps away from where he initially started.

Everything came to a unexpected stillness when Sombra brought up his hand to his face, more specifically his lips what were burning, only to lay his fingers on a wet sensation. Pulling his hand away, he noticed his fingers were stained by the color red.

“B-Blood…?” He asked no one in particular as if he was unable to understand what he was seeing. Yet this solemn moment of his didn’t last long before he returned back to his earlier disposition. “Impressive… you claimed First Blood.” It wasn’t like Sombra was a stranger to been hit or even bleeding, but for him to receive the first hit of a battle was a new sensation for him.

“We’ll claim even more.” The Gas Mask, say sending a dreadful feeling in Trixie’s spine. It was until she heard those words when she realized the whole scope of the situation.

These guys, this fight, they were for real. This wasn’t a mere squabble or heated argument that devolved into a fistfight until both combatants finally had enough. These delinquents were here to really hurt someone and they wouldn’t stop until enough blood had been spilled.

The dread Trixie felt soon turned into actual terror. Sure, these delinquents were here for Sombra and were dead set in hurting him, but who was to say that after there were done with him, they would came after her, after all she was the unwilling witness of his whole spectacle; a loose end that would have to be dealt with.

The instant before she was about to bolt out of there and hope to the stars above that nobody follow her, Sombra turned his head away from the attackers and give her a deep look. “Stay where you are.” He told her almost as he had read her mind about running away. “I’ll deal with these bugs…then we’ll continue where we left of.”

After this he turned his head and focused on his assailants, while Trixie just stared at him pensively. Was this his way of reassuring her…or he was being facetious? Either way, Trixie managed to calm down and her thoughts of running away soon disappeared. She didn’t know why but his words and the sheer confidence he was excluding made her believe him. So she remained a witness to his whole fight, and decided to stand there until the very end.

She still had to berate Sombra for telling The Great and Powerful Trixie what to do.

[x-x-x]

Discord couldn’t describe the situation that he just stumbled upon other than quite the pickle. Any other day he could’ve avoided this sort of thing had he been paying attention to where he was going, instead of playing a game with his little stalker.

Hey, as they say when life gives you lemons…

“My, it must have been quite the party you had in here.” Discord commented as he put his thumb and index finger in a “v” shape on his face feigning deep introspective thoughts towards the ones responsible of this scene.

All around the alleyway he stumbled into, there were scattered the unconscious bodies of what looked like a squad of Chrysalis merry band of followers. And by the looks of things they weren’t going to wake up soon.

“It was quite the hoedown, let me tell ya!” Answered one of a group of three burly looking guys that looked like they were trying to give Tirek a run for his money when it came to muscles. “But we’re always down for another round!” he sneered as he cracked his knuckles. “Would ya kindly join us, Discord?”

“I see that my reputation precedes me, unfortunately I can’t say the same about you.” Discord answered still showing a very laidback attitude towards the small group that took down a squad of Chrysalis minions without much trouble, if the lack of noticeable visual injuries was an indication.

“We’re part of the Mad Bulls from Canter Creek.” One of the Mad Bulls said, “Even there, stories about you git told around. You are sorta infamous even in those parts.” And not only of him, had everybody who was part of any gang who was worth anything, knew about the stories and exploits of the feared gangs and students of St. Everfree.

“Canter Creek, huh? That explains the get-up.” Discord said, ignoring the comment about his infamy as he took notice of the “cowboy” get-up these three were sporting. They were wearing jeans and brown leather vests and different colored handkerchiefs on their necks (black, brown and white), trying to push the look of Wild West bandits.

“You’re pretty far away from home for you to be lost.” He joked but internally he was curious as to why would someone from that far away would come to here and ended up fighting Chrysalis’ mooks.

“We heard rumors that the wicked St. Everfree crumbled to the ground and that all of the gangs ended up splittin or just disappeared.” The Mad Bull wearing a black handkerchief on his neck explained. “We’re just here to see if it was true.”

“So? What are you gonna do now?” Discord already had a pretty good guess as to what they were planning next, but he asked anyone wanting to get some confirmation.

“Now that Everfree is no more, we can expand our territory.” The Bull confirmed Discord’s suspicions before he added. “Not only that, this place doesn’t look half bad either. Maybe we should take over it too.”

Now that would be enticing too. The territory that the gangs from Everfree occupied was mostly on the city itself, and the outskirts of the city were Canterlot High was located never really had any gang activity before so it was a very juicy place to get a hold on, ripe with opportunity and profit.

“You guys are as dumb as you look.” Discord couldn’t help but say after hearing their plans.

“What did ya say?!”

“You guys aren’t trying to take over, you are running away.” The dishevel boy gave the trio a hard look that say he didn’t buy any of it. “I heard that a gang from Canter Creek was at odds with The Buffalo from Appleloosa. That gang is you guys. You are having troubles with your own territory that you decided to try your luck over here.” When he didn’t receive any words of denial he continued to expose them. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you that even without St. Everfree there’s no chance for a little gang like yours to ever make it in our city.”

“Big talk coming from a scrawny city folk with bad wardrobe!” Another of the Bulls, the one with the white handkerchief, growled offended. “We just beat eight of these guys, ya think, ya can talk to us like that and git away with it?”

“Ha! You may know my name but you don’t know me at all.” Discord laughed not even worried about the consequences of infuriating these guys. “I always get away with what I want!” he said with the biggest grin he could put on his face.

“Pft, and here we thought of offering you a chance to join us.” The one with the brown handkerchief angrily spitted out. “Looks like you already took a side.”

“A side?” Discord repeated mockingly baffled. “That implies that there’s more than one player in the game and you…aren’t even playing.” He ended up laughing making the Mad Bulls even madder. “Mad Bulls? More like Cattle Rustlers.”

Now that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, because soon after the three enraged ‘bandits’ launched themselves at Discord to try and wipe the smug grin out of his face.

And Discord only laughed as he saw them coming at him.

“Let’s Party!”

Author's Note:

Sorry for the delay, but here it is! The next chapter of The Students of St. Everfree.

Also, after the Season 5 finale my plans I had with Starlight Story Arc were shot down, so I had to change my plans with her in order to reflect more of her arc with the finale. It will not be exactly the same, but it would be more thematically connected.

So, yeah. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Comments

[DT42]

This caused the place to turn very quiet all of the sudden except for Slash’s constantly flickering of his butterfly knife, which had gotten a bit more erratic after he heard about not longer holding back. Now that was the first thing in this whole conversation that had gotten him excited for once.

This is going to become a bloody good time...

[AKA MrJ]

Ah gang warfare. It makes me all nostalgic.

[5thWriter]

I'm liking the gang fights, so far, but what about Scorpan and Starlight's fights?

[Unimpressive Chaos Lord]

Yay! So now we are going for murder! I like this.

As for the chapter, I felt like I was watching an episode of Dragon Ball Z. Much talking, brief fighting, lots and lots of gloating.
And I enjoy that. I mean, sure; I´ve see better examples of fighting in other fics, but those were more extreme than a gang fight. Amateurs; they don´t even have any guns.
The fighting was decent, scratching very good. However, it is not as fluid as it could be. Adding too many "then" or "buts" can break the illusion of movement. It makes you feel as if they were stopping.
Writing fights is hard, I know it first hand, but you need to improve that regard a little more. You are on the proper road there, but you still need more practice. Don´t worry; you´ll get the hang of it soon.

As for the dialogue, Jesus Christ, I don´t think I have read that much testosterone in a while. And it was awesomely silly! Or sillily awesome!
Take your pick. Sometimes they got a little corny, like that guy Tirek shut up, but I think it was intentional. Besides, he really deserved to be punched in the throat.
The rest of the characters stay in well, character. And I love that consistency. I also find pretty cute the fact that Sombra was trying to defend Trixie. Whether this was out of his knight like persona (ahem, insanity) or because he genuinely likes her, I am okay with it.
My only hope is that she is able to throw a couple of punches too.
Yeah, Sombra and Trixie fighting Bane. Speaking of which, what is up with that guy?
He has a mask, speaks in a different tone from everyone else and managed to hit Sombra first. That character intrigues me. He seems too competent to be among Chrysalis´s gang. There might be something else in there...

We also have Tirek kicking some ass. **** YEAH! About time. I also adore how freaking sick he is of the stupidity around him. He knows he is in a high school drama and hates every moment of it. His humorlessness is pretty entertaining and dare I say, funny.
About the swearing in that part; I think "goddamn" and "assholes" don´t require censorship. To be honest, I would only censor words like "fuck", "cunt", "bullshit", etc. You know, the worst kind.
Or cut them in between. Like "I am so going to kill you, you smug cu-" PUNCHED.
Anyway, feel free to do as you please, it is your story after all.

Discord gloating is once again pretty awesome and funny at the same time. But their dialogue about how easily they take over sections of the city makes me wonder... WHERE THE HELL ARE ALL THE ADULTS? And I don´t mean just the police, I mean, what about serious mafias? If delinquency is so popular in this city I literally cannot believe that there aren´t any more serious gangs.
Hey, I just had an idea for Chrysalis parents!
Still, I like seeing that there are other competitors on the market.
So Sunset is still around. I seriously want to keep seeing her around. Her arc seems pretty interesting.

Concerning Starlight, I am both worried and intrigued about what you are going to do with her. After all, your characterization and that which was given by the show are extremely unlike. That is not to say that I don´t believe you can´t do it; I am merely expectant.
Still, I have faith in that you will do a magnificent work with her.

Until next time, and keep up your great work!

[Morex25]

6708074
Thanks for the feedback.

I do know that I really need to improve on my fight scenes, even after I was done with this one I felt that it didn't flow well.

I need to re-read some stories where fighting is prominent to get some tips and ideas to improve.

As for adults... maybe I'm drawing too much inspiration from high school anime where adults aren't really a factor.
Maybe later I would be able to come up with a nice excuse explanation that makes sense.

[Skye Mist]

Is it bad that I want the blood bath to continue...?

[Bluebottle27]

I have to admit, I'm impressed with Sombra's attitude to his bloodied lip; with his posturing from before, I would have expected him to lose his composure and throw a tantrum of the "how dare you make me bleed!" variety.