False Heroes

by RadicalDishonesty

Chapter 4

I impatiently tap my hooves on the floor rhythmically, listening to the clear echoes from the stone floors. The receptionist gives me the stink eye, like she wants to tell me to stop, but she doesn’t say anything. Well tough, I don’t wanna be here, so you get to listen to my hooftaps.

I guess I could have just not come but… it’s the first meeting with Dough Roll since she told me she’d be able to help. I’m pretty sure if I stopped coming she’d stop helping.

So here I am, even though I don’t wanna be.

The receptionist clears her throat, and I give her a glare.

“Miss Roll will see you now,” she says.

I stand up and plod into her office. She’s sitting at her desk, writing something, and Tough Cookie is lurking in the corner.

“Good morning, Miss Dust,” she says, “I hope you’ve been--” She looks up, and gasps. “My goodness, what happened to your face?”

I scowl. There was basically no chance that she wouldn’t notice the black eye I got from the fight first. “I finally caught up with Mare Do Well.”

“And what happened?” she said.

I scowl harder and glare at her. She can’t be this dense. Whatever. I look away from the two of them. “I had her on the ropes but she got away,” I mumble.

Tough Cookie steps into my view. “And how did she get away?”

Shit. I need a good answer for this. … Okay. Got it.

“Well,” I say, gesturing with my hooves. “See, I ambushed her in this alley after she was doing her fake hero thing at a fire--” Start with the truth. “-- But she was a better fighter than I thought --” Set up expectations. “-- And I hit her with my famous one-two punch.” I mime punching in the air. “And I had her on the ropes!” Then fudge juuust a little. “But then, outta nowhere, I get knocked into the wall and the roof collapses on me! When I crawled out she was gone.”

“Bullcrap” Tough Cookie says, almost as soon as I’m done.

“Wh-what?” Shit, I stumbled. Gotta recover. “That’s what happened.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” she says and crosses her forelegs. “What really happened?”

“That’s what really happened!” I poke her in the chest. “You can’t prove otherwise.”

Tough Cookie starts to scowl and Dough Roll loudly cleares her throat. She stares directly at me, and rotates her wrist as if to say ‘come on’.

Crap. I’m not getting away with this, am I? I look away again and mumble, “She kicked my flank and dumped me in a garbage can.”

“She doesn’t know how to fight.” Cookie snorts at me. “She’s weak.”

“I’m not weak! I do so know how to fight!” I retort back.

“But you’re not as good as Mare Do Well,” Dough Roll interjects. Tough Cookie and I look to her. “If I’m guessing right… You’re a professional athlete, so you’re naturally good at moving and in great shape, but you don’t know the finer points of how to actually fight.”

I… guess that makes sense. I mean I’ve been in fights before but… I haven’t like taken Karate or anything.

“She’s a rank amateur,” Tough Cookie says.

You don’t have to rub it in. Bitch.

“We don’t know how good she is,” Dough Roll says. “And that’s why I want you to figure out how good she is.”

What.

“What?” Tough Cookie nearly yells, echoing my thoughts.

“And then once you’re done with that, I need you to train her.”

“What?!” Tough Cookie actually yells.

Dough Roll smiles and waves her hoof. “I know you’re more than up to the task of training. You’ve trained several other bodyguards in your day. Lightning Dust will be no different.”

Shutting her mouth, Cookie turns her head back to me, and I can feel her glare through the heavy sunglasses.

“And the sooner the better, so I want you to meet her at the warehouse tonight.”

Cookie’s mouth purses and she marches out, saying, “I’m taking my break,” as a parting word.

What is her problem?

“Don’t worry about her,” Dough Roll says, like she could read my thoughts. “Just pay attention when she teaches and get better, and you’ll impress her.”

---

Turns out the warehouse is really boring. I thought, given how posh Dough Roll’s office was, this would be a pretty neat place… but it’s just a warehouse. Sacks of flour and sugar. Shelves with cans and unlabeled boxes. Some crates off in a corner. Smack dab in the middle of a bunch of other warehouses.

I put my elbow on the pony-sized flour sack I’m leaning on, and rest my head on my hoof, groaning in boredom. One of the guards turns his head to watch me. Again. It’s just a groan!

Ugh, and they gave me the third degree when I showed up, too. Like they couldn’t believe that Tough Cookie asked for me. I bet she told them I was coming and told em to give me a hard time.

Fortunately, finally the drab blue mare I was waiting for walks through the door. “Hey, Tough Cookie,” I call to her, “Can you get these guys off my back?” I gesture to the two guards.

She nods at the two of them. “She’s with me tonight. Go patrol the perimeter, I don’t want any interruptions.” The two of the guys both march out of the room, and Tough Cookie turns to me. “Alright let’s get started.”

“Hi to you too,” I snark.

She stares at me through her dark sunglasses, which she was still wearing, even though it’s nighttime.

“Anyway,” she says. “We’re still getting started.” She walks over to an empty space in the warehouse. “Attack me as best you can.”

“I… what? Aren’t you gonna like… teach me to punch or something?”

“Drills will come later. I need to know what I’m working with, so you need to attack me.”

“So what just… punch you?”

“If you want to, yes.”

That’s… weird. But it’s also kinda this… martial arts master stuff. Testing the student and all. Fine. I crack my hoof. “Alright, I’ll give you my best.” Time to impress.

I dash in and throw a punch, full force, straight at her face. Her forehoof comes up and bats away my hoof as her other hoof slams into my chest.

As I reel back from the punch, she charges at me, checking me with her shoulder. I’m forced up off my forehooves, and she grabs my free hoof with hers, twisting me the opposite direction, forcing me down with her body weight. In less than two seconds she had me on to the ground, one hoof pinned under my body and the other twisted up against my wing. I grunt loudly as I try to put force into my pinned or twisted hooves, and she tightens her grip. A lance of pain goes through my twisted arm.

“Ow ow ow ouch!” I say. “Sweet Celestia I get it, you win.”

She lightens up and releases my twisted arm. Stepping back she looks me over. “You hurt?”

Tch. As if. “No,” I spit and wrench myself up, rubbing my shoulder. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” she replies. “Try it again. Be less obvious this time.”

I grimace. Less obvious, she says. I stretch my shoulder back and forth a bit and only feel a dull soreness, which is good. I lower myself into a fight ready stance, and she does the same.

Darting at her, I throw a shallow punch at her head, waiting for her to try to bat it away like before. But she takes a long step back instead. Oh this time she’s playing keepaway? I do it again, and she backs up again. I throw a series of punches, each trying to bait her into countering, but she keeps backing up.

Dammit. Okay, so she can tell I’m not committing? I smirk to myself. Too bad she’s gonna run out of room very soon, with the wall only a few feet behind her. Nowhere to run anymore. I pressure her back with another flurry of punches. As soon as I see her jolt from realizing she’s hit the wall I take that instant to throw my first real punch, a hook straight at her foreleg, which connects with a dull thud.

Celestia, what is this mare made of?

I start to swing at her with my other foreleg and she comes forward, grabbing my bicep, stopping my punch in it’s tracks. Her other hoof flies up to my neck, and she shouts, “Hold!”

I start moving forward, but then she presses her hoof against my neck harder, and I can feel the air being cut off.

“Back off,” she orders, less fiercely.

Hmph. I do as she says, flapping my wings to get some distance.

She walks back into the center of the open space of the room, and I follow.

“Okay. Again.”

What, still more? Fine, I’ve got one advantage that she definitely doesn’t. I unfurl my wings and take to the air, slowly circling around her. We’re cramped in so I don’t have a lot of options. No room for any serious maneuvers, but I can still get the high ground where she cannot, and I can still move faster than she can.

I flap hard and swoop down on her, taking a swing at her head. She ducks and rolls away. Good, finally was able to do a real attack without her immediately countering. I swoop around and do it again, coming in with more speed and taking a swing at her abdomen, but she rolls away again.

The wall comes at me very fast, and I have to do my best stop, and even though I angle myself right I still come into the wall pretty hard, bracing myself against it with my hooves.

Okay, so more speed really is impossible here. I come in less hard for the third time, but instead of attacking I pirouette and take to the air above her, striking at her with my rear hooves. I clip her shoulder once, and retreat to above her, taking a couple bobbing jabs at her, which she bats away, but can’t counterattack because I get away too quickly.

But on my last bobbing jab, instead of batting my hoof away, she grabs it with hers, yanking me down. Her other hoof comes up as I come down, landing a painful uppercut in my gut, knocking the wind outta me.

I feel my wings go stiff from the shock, and she pulls me down the rest of the way, wrestling me to the ground and pinning my head down with her hoof.

I flail my limbs a little, but even though she hasn’t twisted my legs or anything, I can’t get purchase on anything. The pressure on my back lets up as she gets off of me. She steps back and actually offers me a hoof, which I stare at suspiciously. I take it anyway and she pulls me up.

“You’re not hurt?” she asks again.

“I’m fine,” I spit out… before rotating my shoulders again to confirm that yes, I am actually okay.

She nods. “Good. I think I have a good idea of how good you are. Or more like how good you aren’t.”

I glare at her. “What? I was totally doing good.”

She gives me this look. “No, you weren’t, and I was going easy on you.”

“What?! You’re saying you were just playing around?!”

“No, I’m saying that if I was striking to injure you you’d have a collapsed trachea right now, and maybe some broken bones.”

I pause. “So, if you were actually trying to hurt me...”

“I would have punched you, instead of just choked you, and I would have followed through when I pulled you to the ground. I was trying to limit myself to takedowns.”

I frown. “You didn’t tell me to only use takedowns…”

She turns away from me walking away. “I doubted you’d be able to hurt me, and might actually hurt yourself more by trying to wrestle with me wrong.”

I grind my teeth. So what was this? Just an exercise in humiliating me?! She grabs a sack of flour and slings it over her back, then continues. “Your second time was your best. You did a good job on pushing me into the corner and using it to create an opening for yourself. You are able to keep up fierce attacks and that’s good.”

Just who does she think she---Wait. Did she just give me a compliment?

“But you got fancy on the third time”-- She plops the sack up against a crate --”and you clearly don't know how to take advantage of being in the air, and the cramped room is hardly a good place for swooping.”

That’s exactly what I thought!

“And in all three attempts it’s clear your defense is practically nonexistent”--She lashes the top of the flour sack to the crate, setting it upright --”every single time I tried to attack I connected, and I know how to follow up properly so each time I hit you the fight ended. You didn’t redirect or block or even dodge.”

I scowl. Back to the direct insults, I see.

“Anyway--” she finally turns back to me “-- are you good to go, or did that beating take too much out of you?”

“I’m fine,” I spit out. “Let’s keep going..” Like I’m gonna show her the satisfaction of giving up after just a couple bruises.

I swear I see her smirk for a moment. “Good. We’ll start with drills, then.”

Author's Note:

A new chapter!

One of the things I want to do with this story is write action. I already had the one scene with Lightning Dust being beaten up, so hopefully these three other times are also pleasant.

Comments

[Douglas Granite]

Are you still working on this?

[RadicalDishonesty]

8085447
It's been a month and a half already?

Well... what happened is, I intended to have a "constantly work on and release chapters rather quick" story. So I wrote this one. Then I had an idea for another one, and updated it pretty quickly, because I was interested in it at the time.

I intend to divide my time, but right now I gotta admit I'm more interested in Rich than this.

I'll work on getting a chapter out, though. Daily writing should help with that no matter what.

[Douglas Granite]

8085777

Now it's been another month and a half. Sorry if I'm acting impatient, I don't mean to, as I understand people's lives come first (there was this one guy who I asked him why he hadn't updated in a while, and he told me to click on his page and look at his description, and it told me he tried to kill himself (he failed, of course).

[RadicalDishonesty]

8204760
Yeah. I haven't made any progress. I am not too busy to write, but I am very excited about my other story being updated, and currently using any writing effort I make on it.

I think I need to move this to hiatus just to be clear. Sorry about that.

[Douglas Granite]

8211306

Yeah, I saw that Rich had been updated recently. Just surprised at the length of the hiatus so far.