Cutie Mark Crusader Apologists, Yay!
Rumble and Spike walked alongside the three girls, lost in thought. The Ponyville Junior Ninjas caught Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara eating at Daisy’s, presumably their class had ended later.
“Be careful what you say, okay?” Rumble said. “You don’t wanna make it worse.”
“I know,” Scootaloo replied.
“We’ll wait right here,” Spike said.
“Thanks,” Apple Bloom replied.
With all the speed of a snail on lettuce, the girls marched up to the table where the rich kids were eating. Apple Bloom flashed them her best smile, which despite her efforts looked rigid with nerves. “Hey there, girls. Umm, would you mind if we had a little talk?”
“What is it, blank flanks? Can’t you see we’re trying to eat?” Diamond Tiara started.
Silver Spoon chewed angrily on her sandwich. The sandwich suffered the abuse in silence, for such was the fate of its noble kin: to sacrifice themselves in peace.
“Well, yeah, but it’s kind of urgent,” Apple Bloom said.
“So, spit it out,” Diamond replied.
Scootaloo bit her lip and forced herself to look them in the eyes. “I wanna apologise.”
Diamond and Silver both quirked an eyebrow. Silver kept on eating, though.
“Apologise? For what?”
“We want to apologise for what happened at your cuteceñeara,” Sweetie Belle said. “All of us do.”
“It was my fault,” Scootaloo said, again cutting the other two off. “I’m the one who got in your faces, I’m the one who started saying mean things, I’m the one who started this whole mess and it was wrong. So: I’m sorry for what I did back then. And we’re all sorry for everything that’s happened afterwards.”
Diamond stared them all down. “All three of you?”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders nodded. Silver Spoon took another bite of her meal, uninterested in replying to them.
“Why apologise now?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Because we’re learning how to fight now and we don’t wanna get in trouble,” Sweetie Belle said. “We’re gonna be at the challenger’s circle this Sunday, we might end up fighting one of you, and we don’t wanna do that if there’s bad blood between us. We’re doing this for fun, to maybe get our cutie marks. We don’t want it to make things worse than they already are.”
“Uhuh. So, what, you don’t want to get hurt, is that it?”
“It’s fighting, Diamond Tiara,” Apple Bloom remarked. “We’re bound to get bruised up a little. But the three of us ain’t gonna take out our grudges on you.”
“What about that alicorn kid?” Diamond Tiara asked.
Apple Bloom shrugged. “He’s nice to us, I don’t know why he wouldn’t be to you. But he doesn’t speak for us.”
“We just want things to be okay again,” Scootaloo said, sniffling a little. “After the holiday’s over, we’re still gonna be in the same class. So… can we just start over, please? We did kinda make a mess of things, but we can’t start doing it right if we can’t start over again. So, please accept our apology?”
“You’re not gonna try and upstage us at the circle?” Diamond asked.
“We’re gonna try our best, sure, but we’re gonna keep it civil. That’s what the circle is for, right? Just a friendly fight, and a fair one,” Apple Bloom replied.
Diamond nodded. “Okay, sounds good. What do you think, Silver Spoon?”
Silver finally spoke, smiling brightly. “Well, like, that sounds great. I’m sure we can do that. But, umm, I’m pretty good at what I do. You’re not gonna beat me.”
“We’ve only been practising for a week, so pretty much anypony in a club’s going to beat us,” Sweetie Belle admitted. “We just wanna try and see what we can do.”
“Good. And don’t worry about that alicorn kid: he’s a Fencer, he’s supposed to act all tough and stuff. We can handle him.”
“Umm, okay, then,” Apple Bloom said just as a bell sounded in the distance. “We gotta go get to class now. See you around.”
“Bye, girls,” Silver Spoon said as they turned to leave.
“Later,” Diamond added.
Once they were out of earshot, Diamond Tiara chuckled. “Wow. What do you make of that?”
“I think maybe we scared them. Did you see the look on Scootaloo’s face? Oh my gosh, she almost cried and everything!”
“I know. So what are you gonna do?”
Silver Spoon glared at the five ninja apprentices as they headed to their dojo. “Sweetie Belle’s the soft one, she’ll go down first. Scootaloo’s second, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“Really? What about Apple Bloom?”
“Apple Bloom’s just, like, the brains of the outfit. Sweetie Belle’s the one who’ll buckle first, the one the other two are supposed to protect and stuff. Scootaloo’s the alpha, the one that doesn’t do any thinking but gets stuff done. You take one of those two out, Apple Bloom’s got nothing.”
Diamond grinned and sipped her drink. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Alright, class, pair up. We’ll do switching up of the vision techniques: one fights Water style with aura sight, the other high-speed sight for Fire style. Remember: Bear Stance if you’re doing Water, Tiger stance for Fire. Eekay!”
Sweetie Belle raised a hoof as she paired up with Moongazer. “Umm, isn’t it going to be too hard to keep up with Fire style if you’re doing Water?”
“You gotta get some speed in you regardless of your style, Sweetie Belle. Plus, you know the basic strikes and blocks, you should at least know how to defend against it by now. If not, I’ll be sure to demonstrate for ya again. Now, begin!”
Scootaloo paired up with Spike. “You wanna start in Fire?” She struck the usual deep Bear pose: whole body aimed forward, knees bent deep, one hoof way open and the other at thigh height. Like she’d practised before, she kept her elbows low for quick, almost clumsy-looking slaps.
“Probably best.” Spike took a more aggressive Tiger stance: arms crossed, bunched up tightly, breathing quick and claws at the ready.
Scootaloo tried to relax and see the dragon’s aura, like she had yesterday. Oddly, it came more natural this time, like some kind of blockage had been cleared.
She saw some of the lights in his body flare up and dodged left just as Spike let out a quick jab, before he spun around to hit her with his tail. She blocked the low blow with her right arm, then glided over the ground to give him a dull blow to his right shoulder. Spike’s eyes widened at the blow, and he broke the posture to rub at the sore spot.
She understood the need for special sight now, too: where any blow could be struck with energy behind it, the difference between concentrating it through the needle points and just tossing it through the skin was like jabbing with a knitting needle and chucking a bucket of water.
That’s how Whimper had hurt her: a dull blow, a bucket. Strange how he’d supposedly gotten the vision down on his own, but not the pinpoint projecting technique. Not to harm her, at least. His healing touch was pinpoint, though. Did that mean anything?
“You okay, Spike?”
“Ow, yeah, I’m fine. I’m gonna go a little faster now, though.”
“Oka-whoa!” Scootaloo barely had time to gasp as Spike let it rip. His claws whizzed through the air, fists nipping this way and that, putting the girl on the defensive. She ducked left and right, slapping away those arms when she could, but Spike was on point and at this speed she couldn’t line up a counter-attack.
He looked like he was in a trance, even, huffing and puffing in the rhythm of his blows.
Ash chuckled. “Come on, Scootaloo, he’s got you on the ropes, and he’s not even using his claws yet.”
Scootaloo put up her hooves to fend off any blows to her face. Of course, that left her arms getting bruised up. On the plus side, that Water aura vision let her see where the blows would be coming from. “How are you supposed to fight this?”
“Ease up, Spike,” Ash said.
Spike let his attack slow, then stop.
“Think for a second, Scootaloo. How is Spike fighting?”
“Fast. Really fast.”
“Faster than you, you think?” Ash asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Up close, I guess so. But he’s seeing things in slow-mo, right? So he’s always gonna be faster than me if he does that and if I don’t.”
“Spike, how are you feeling?”
“Good,” Spike bounced up and down on his heels, then punched the air with a left and right in quick succession. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”
“No soreness?”
“Well, yeah, a little. Why?”
“Scootaloo, you remember what I said about your Element and moving in harmony?”
Scootaloo nodded.
“Good. Go again, both of you. Scootaloo, remember what I said, and try to use it.”
The girl groaned and instantly put her arms up to block another flurry of punches.
Spike was downright fiendish at this stuff. His punches never let up, the rhythm was too fast to get any counter in between.
Dundundundundun...
Scootaloo gritted her teeth and tried to back away, tried to swat at those fists before they hit, but it was no use.
Donk. Donk.
He drove her back, despite the attempted counter. What was Ash trying to prove here? Scootaloo was a Water type, he’d said. Water types like her were in harmony if they could move with the flow, if they could adapt, if they could be free.
So what was Spike’s harmony, then?
Dundundundundun...
It had to have to something to do with burning, she could tell that much.
Burning. Keeping busy. She didn’t know him that well, but what little she did know fit the description. Spike was always busy doing stuff, the couple of times he’d caused trouble were times he wasn’t able to be useful.
He was strong when he was moving. The punches were all fast.
And with hardly any footwork behind them.
Scootaloo felt, more than saw, that next punch coming in. She took a tiny step forward and ducked underneath it, then snapped at the nerve point near his elbow. She didn’t have the presence of mind to put any magic behind it. She didn’t need to: fancy stuff like that was too slow, and a blow to a nerve point was stunning enough.
Spike flinched and backed away. Scootaloo took another step forward and struck at his left shoulder again, this time able to wind it up enough to put some magic into it.
Spike went down after a second follow-up blow to his right shoulder, wincing in pain. “Ow. You got me.”
Ash nodded. “Well done, Scootaloo. Spike, a word of advice: Fire types like you are strong when they are in motion. The upside is you can outpace a slower fighter, stop them from concentrating on a blow, or on magic. The downside is that you tend to move too fast to put magic into your own attacks, and end up burning out as a result. So, both of you, go again, and this time, Spike, get into the habit of comboing: one, two, three, back, one, two, three, back. Then do one, two, back, and one, back. I know it’s tempting to keep stringing punches together, but you’ll do more harm to yourself than to your opponent.”
Spike nodded. “Got it.”
“As for you, Scootaloo…”
Scootaloo bit her lip.
“Good progress. I can see why Rainbow Dash likes ya so much.”
And on that day, Scootaloo’s heart grew chicken wings of its own, and proceeded to flutter about as much as the rest of her did.
“So, they tried to apologise, did they?” Blazing asked.
Silver Spoon hissed through her teeth. “Yeah, they did.”
Blazing Trail nodded. “Try again, slowly.”
“One.” Silver Spoon hit the training dummy roughly where its gut would be.
“Two, three.” Blazing tapped the ground in time with the girl’s blows to the thing’s chest area, each one aimed at the lungs.
“Four.” A slower, heavier blow to the centre of the ribcage.
“Fivesixseven!” Three blows finished the combo, forming a triangle over the abdominal area.
Blazing snorted quietly. “You seem agitated, Silver. Out for blood. I take it the apology didn’t go over very well, then?”
She slammed the dummy again, hard enough for the other white belts to stop their practice.
“No. Those bullies know I can hurt them now, and then they try to weasel out of it, it’s not right! They still wanna go to the circle on Sunday, they still want to upstage me, and they expect me to go easy on them? Of course I’m agitated!”
“Good. So what are you going to do? Class? Pay attention for a moment.”
Silver panted and growled. “I’m gonna make them pay. I’m gonna make sure they don’t show at the circle. They’re not even gonna dare. I’m gonna teach them to respect me, the hard way.”
Blazing nodded and gestured towards the rest of class. “Class, remember what Silver said here. No room for objections, no doubts, no self-sabotaging. This is how you become a strong Feather Cloak ninja. This is how you can become an alpha and take charge of your own life.”
Silver Spoon smiled proudly, then looked at the dummy’s head.
“Go on,” Blazing said. “You know you want to.”
Silver Spoon leaped and wrapped an arm around the thing’s neck, dragging it down before squeezing. One arm curved just so her muscles would press into the throat, the other neatly behind it to form a perfect triangle.
She choked the thing, pretending it was Sweetie Belle, with that annoying squeaky singing voice.
Blazing nodded in approval. “This is how you deal with bullies.”
“Well done, everyone,” Ash said as they walked out. “Tomorrow we do Air style. That involves keeping your elbows up, so if any of y’all are stiff in the shoulders, put something warm on’em while you sleep tonight.”
Moongazer looked back at the dojo as the kids filed out. “Spike? Aren’t you coming?”
“Aren’t you going to give me any more tips?” Spike asked.
“Do you need any?” Ash replied in kind. “You have the rhythm down, you can use your fists already, and to be perfectly honest with you I don’t think you need tutoring on how to work your claws into it.”
Spike flexed his fists then, thinking. He did have a few ideas he could work with now, but that wasn’t the issue. “I don’t know; you’re the teacher. And back in the forest, you said you know about dragons. So, aren’t you going to tell me?”
Ash sighed. “Do you want to take this, Moongazer, or shall I?”
Moongazer smiled and nodded. “I’ll take care of this. I know him better.”
“Alrighty then. See you tomorrow, Spike.” Ash saluted the dragon, then turned and left.
Moongazer strode over to Spike and sat down. “Okay, what’s the matter?”
“You know about dragons, too?”
“I’ve run into my fair share, as Ash’s successor. You don’t?”
“You never mentioned it back in Canterlot. I didn’t even know you were a ninja.”
She chuckled. “I don’t think you grasp the basic concept of ‘ninja,’ Spike, if you think you should have known I was one.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine, I get that. But why did you never tell me anything about dragons? I’ve gotten in trouble, you know.”
She nodded, pondering. “I know, I heard. But I was away then, on official business. Back in Canterlot, I was still doing research on, well, lots of boring things, so I didn’t think to ask about what you knew. I assumed Twilight Sparkle told you everything.”
Spike grumbled. “She didn’t. She didn’t know anything about me, either. You never talked to her about that?”
“Of course not; your guardian had her nose in books the whole time. If it wasn’t for Shining Armour getting her into athletics, I think she might have turned into a pillow.”
“She did, actually.”
“Really?”
“Transformation spells, long story. But look, you’re here now, so what can you tell me? What do you know about dragons?”
Moongazer let her head hang back a bit as she thought. “Well… for starters, there are different kinds of dragon. Some of them have leaders, some don’t, and the lines can blur in some cases, depending on their age and their magic. The different kinds and races don’t all have names. I mean, ponies don’t have names for all the kinds, but dragons do tell them apart.”
“And my kind is…”
“It’s called a Zwelbast, that much I know. It’s a very rarely seen breed, very secretive even by dragon standards. They don’t typically migrate, or hang out with other dragons that much. They’re mostly unknown within dragon ranks, and the ones who do know your kind don’t think very highly of you. At least not the wild ones.”
“Oh.” Spike let his head hang. His shoulders slumped, and he was pretty sure the blood was draining from his head.
“What we do know is this: a female will only lay an egg based on a very specific biorhythm. Every Zwelbast egg is laid on a Friday the thirteenth. Why, I don’t know, and I don’t think even they know. But you were born on a Friday, no question about that.”
“Friday the thirteenth? Really?”
“Really. A Zwelbast egg is spotted, and coloured to stand out from its surroundings, not to blend in. See, your kind of dragon is kind of like a cuckoo; they lay their eggs someplace where other creatures will find it and take care of it. They don’t raise their own young, they leave that to creatures with, umm, more of a disposition towards caring.”
Spike grumbled. “So, what, dragons like me are too cruel to look after their own kids?”
“No, dragons like you are smart enough to know that a baby dragon in the wild has very little chance of surviving, even if the mother takes care of it. Most dragons, of any species, lay their eggs in pony country or anyplace where there’s civilisation, expecting their young to steal a hoard from wherever they were born. It’s too dangerous to lay a dragon egg anywhere else. Your kind is unique in that they don’t come out of the egg stealing.”
He cleared his throat and tried his best not to get angry, or to cry. He wasn’t sure which one he’d fail at first. “Hang on, just to make sure I heard you right: my mom left me? Just like that?”
“She left you in the best care that she could find. You have to understand, dragons are a very old breed. The concept of love is something they had to learn, as a species, and it’s dragons like you that help set a good example. Dragons used to be a lot more savage, and they made a lot of enemies. As big as they are, as big as you can get, you’re not invincible. It’s only because they’ve started acting more civil that they haven’t been wiped out yet. I mean, aside from what the zebras did to them, of course.” Moongazer’s look hardened. “There aren’t any zebras in this town, are there?”
Spike would have voiced his shock, but he didn’t want to get dragged into a debate about racism. He did make a mental note to take anything Zecora said about dragons with a grain of salt from now on, though. ”Umm, no? No zebras living in Ponyville.”
“Good. They hate dragons, always have, murderously so. Even their history books can’t be trusted. Don’t think you’re a monster, Spike; you’re not.”
“Really? But I get bigger from greed.”
“No, you get bigger from pride, which happens to be related to the size of your hoard. There’s a few dragons who’ve made their home in their hatching lands, they don’t go nuts.”
“Where?”
“Oh, far from Equestria. I think the closest one is four days away, if you fly. But you’d have to fly pretty high and pretty fast, and over territories that you don’t want to stop in, believe me.”
Spike shook his head. “And… those dragons, the good ones, what are they like? Have you ever met any?”
“One, in panda lands. Nice guy, hard to tell how old he was, not much point in asking. Dragon age is weird like that.”
“But what did he do? How did he fit in?”
“The way I hear it, the dragons living in their hatching country usually get a job that involves making their hoard a part of society. They get respected for that, especially by the races that still live in, you know, the wilds. Buffalo and deer and such, they usually stick up for the likes of you, even if others might not. You’ll want to remember that if you ever get lost: pretty much anything with split hooves will be friendly to dragons, by default. And dragons like you end up as ambassadors, once you get past a certain age. Different perspectives and all.”
“But… a hoard? They make a hoard anyway? How does that work? And why would nopony tell me?”
“If I had to guess, Princess Celestia probably wanted to nudge you in the right direction without forcing you to be one thing or the other. She wanted you to choose freely. That’s why she didn’t tell you anything, but she still gave you a good example to follow.”
“I don’t get it.”
She rolled her eyes and patted him on the back. “I’m sure this isn’t as exciting a prospect as you might like, but… librarians, Spike. Dragons like you, if they decide to stay where they were hatched, tend to become librarians. Make a hoard of books, something they’re proud of, something to protect and something very, very valuable. But, as a librarian, you also don’t forget to share. It’s not the same as living in the wilds, but it lets them follow their instincts, to some degree.”
He frowned, then thought, then sighed in relief. “Oh. Well, that doesn’t sound too bad, I guess. I can be a librarian.”
“Exactly. So, does that make you feel any better?”
“A little, but there’s one thing I still don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
“When I got my growth spurt, and when I went on the migration, Twilight tried looking up anything about dragons. She didn’t find anything. If there are dragons like me out there, why doesn’t anypony else know about them?”
Moongazer sighed. “Well, there are books about dragons, but they’re all faerie tales, or unreliable for research. As for the dragon librarians? I guess it hasn’t occurred to any of them to write a book about their own life. They are, after all, still new to the basic concepts of civilisation. Maybe some dragon should start, huh?” She gave him a playful nudge.
Spike chuckled and scratched his chin, pondering. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea, actually.”
“You’re going to have to tell them sooner or later, Scootaloo,” Rumble said as he flew next to Scootaloo.
Scootaloo went down towards Vinyl’s Scratch’s house, her weekday home. “Later is good. Later is better.”
“Come on, Scootaloo, what’s gotten into you? Are you really that scared to tell them the truth?”
She sighed. “Of course I am. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Maybe. But I’d still do it. At the very least, you owe your friends some explanation.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Try the truth,” Rumble argued.
“But I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t know why everything went wrong.”
Whimper wasn’t sure he’d heard the grandmaster right.
It had happened so fast. Three laps around the dojo, some stretching, push-ups, squats, crunches. Then the first kata.
And then the question. In front of everypony. In front of his peers. In front of Starfall.
“So, Whimper, what do you say?” Blazing asked. “Do you want to sign up with us, make it official?”
Whimper looked left, then right. Everypony around him already had their canvas pajamas on. Blazing brought an outfit forth in his magic, one with Whimper’s name on it.
“I thought we were only doing a warming up?” the boy asked.
“We were,” Blazing replied. “But you’ve gone past the warming up now. If you want to proceed with our lessons, just say the word and we’ll register you, you’ll get your own outfit, and you’ll be on the circuit within a week. Your answer?”
The boy shivered and took a deep breath, before letting it out. For once, he spoke plainly and loudly. “No.”
“Why not?”
He bit his lip. “Because it’s not right for me, sir. It doesn’t feel right.”
“But we’re all friends here, we would welcome you.”
His wings clenched against his sides again. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d just take every chance you get to try and stab me in the back. I don’t know anypony here. You put me with older ponies first, bigger ones.”
“That is how you learn, boy.”
“I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”
“Well, that’s gratitude for you.”
The boy huffed. “Gratitude for what, sir? I was forced to come here. I didn’t get a choice. Now I do, and I choose not to join.”
Blazing shook his head, disappointed. The costume he had ready for the boy floated away. “Because you don't like the techniques? Because you're too shy?"
“Because I don’t want to turn on my friends.”
To that, Blazing had a simple answer. “If you have to turn on them, they weren’t your friends in the first place.”
There it was: the big one. “And why should you get to decide who my friends are, Master Blazing? Why don’t I get to learn what they’re like and decide for myself? You’re telling me everypony here is my friend, but you don’t know that. All you know is that anypony I can beat up will be nice to me, because they’re scared and nopony would step in to stop me. That’s not friendship, sir. That’s not what I want. That’s what I get in school already, only the other way around.”
The unicorn growled under his breath. “Whimper, don’t do this. You’re making a mistake.”
“I thought you said I had a choice?”
“You do. Of course you do. We’re not monsters here.”
He gulped. “Then my answer is final. Thank you for the lessons, it was, umm, interesting. But it’s not for me. I appreciate the effort, but I do not want any more of what you’re offering.” He turned his back on the grandmaster to leave. “You don’t have to waste your time with me anymore.”
“You really think you’re making the right choice here, Whimper? You really want to stay this weak?”
Whimper’s ears twitched. That word again, it drilled into him. “Weak? You call me weak?”
“You can learn to be strong here,” Blazing argued.
He looked down at his arms, and his abs, and his chest. He smiled. “If I’m so weak, then how did I get like this?”
Blazing sighed.
“I trained, on my own, to get stronger, to get bigger. You weren’t there for that. Coach Buster never cared. With all due respect, I don’t think you have the right to call me weak, sir.”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”
Whimper shook his head. “I’m not. That’s the whole point: I don’t have what it takes to be a Feather Cloak. I don’t have the hard heart, or the brutality. And I don’t want it, either. I’m better off on my own. I don’t want to stay here, in this class. You just don’t get it. I don’t want you, or Starfall, or anypony else to get a say in what my friends should be like, or what I should be like. I… I don’t want to feel like somepony else, like I have to pretend just to fit in. And I already have trouble making friends, I don’t want it to get even harder.”
“But think of what we’re offering,” Starfall pleaded. The whole class stared at him now.
“You’re not listening to me. I have thought about it. It’s exactly what you’re offering that’s the problem.”
“So you’re going to leave, then, just like that?” Blazing asked.
“Coach Buster said I had to attend three classes. This is the third class. You just said I’d have to join if I wanted to continue. I am not joining. So class is over for me. Isn’t it?”
The unicorn closed his eyes and thought, before nodding and shooting a red glare at Whimper. “Okay. Tell you what, the offer to join will stand. You obviously have some thinking to do, and you are quite young to be making such important decisions. I suppose you can’t really be expected to make the right call in this situation.”
Whimper didn’t look at him. He could feel those eyes boring into his back as it was.
“However, you may want to re-assess your progress. You’d be a lot stronger as a Feather Cloak.”
“I doubt that.”
“Care to find out?”
Whimper heard the other kids starting to walk around him, surround him. “Please don’t make me fight. You don’t know what’ll happen.”
Even with his back turned, the boy could feel Blazing’s smile. “Oh, I can take a wild guess. We’re ninjas, remember? Gathering information on the enemy is our bread and butter. Stand down, class, this one is beyond your level.”
The kids backed off, like a flock of vultures moving off of a corpse.
“I was referring to other schools, actually,” Blazing Trail explained. “There’s a Warrior Meet in Manehattan in about three weeks. Lots of fighters there, lots of young fighters. If you really think you’re stronger without my tutelage, then by all means go there and measure up. You wish to make some friends. Who are we to deny you that? You want to find like-minded ponies, by all means try and mingle, see what happens. If you want to start hanging out with that crowd without the benefit of our experience, go right ahead. I’m sure a pony like you will be very popular, and treated well.”
That remark cut into the boy.
“Of course, if you should find that even at an event where fighters meet, you are still sitting alone in a corner all day with no one to talk to… or if you should tire of being beaten into the ground by properly educated fighters...”
Finally, he looked back.
“Because make no mistake, Whimper, a real warrior, an educated one, would destroy you. The path you’re heading down leads to failure, the likes of which even you have not experienced. You’re going to find yourself beaten, and alone, and doubting. If you think that should be remedied, then you’re more than welcome to come back at any time. Sound fair?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for your time. I’ll be out of your hair now, if that’s okay.”
“Have a good night.”
With that, he was gone.
Blazing nodded to his class, who promptly resumed their sparring, second kata this time, the one with the nerve blows.
“Starfall?”
“Yes, master?”
“I want that boy on our roster. He clearly doesn’t know what’s best for him. If you could, oh, I don’t know, take care of that, I could teach you the Seven Deadly Blows.”
“Really?”
“He has the aptitude for it, and he has the clarity to transmit it. With him as a sparring partner, you should have no trouble acquiring the necessary skills. But it needs to be him. He has too much potential to let it go to waste. You understand, don’t you?”
“Of course. Leave it to me.”
This one came out weird. The initial idea was to have the talk with Spike overlap with Starfall's conversation with Whimper, so you'd have the contrast between my bread-and-butter boy-mare talk and the more sinister one. But that dragged out the chapter, so it was moved.
Then the actual leaving of the Feather Cloaks. At first, this wasn't even in the story, it would just be alluded to. But then that would raise questions about why Whimper changes his mind, or just what leverage the Feather Cloaks can bring to bear on him. Said leverage is simple: there's no one for him to talk to about the martial arts, no one who can speak for him when he gets into trouble. He is alone. With them, he'd be top dog. But he'd be in an environment where someone else decides who his friends are and how he should act. I also needed to refer to the Manehattan Meet again, because, well, umm, ask River Song, she'll tell you.
Finally, Spike's conversation. I've been saying for years now that this incarnation of Spike bears striking resemblance to the titular character of 'The Dragon Who Wasn't, Or Was He?' which is the English title of 'Als Je Begrijpt Wat Ik Bedoel.' It features a dragon hatched from a beach ball-sized egg (green with spots) who ends up in the foster care of a Lord, and who grows when he's stealing. So that whole conversation is both me trying to put a big obscure reference up (something I did more in my early career, hence doing it in this sequel) as well as just giving Spike some closure. No real reason, just doing what any decent pony ought to do with a child like him: give him answers, explain why they haven't come earlier, let him know he isn't hated. If it hadn't been for that movie, I would have just made something up, so it is functional, still.
I'll try to get the new cover art of Apple Bloom butting heads with Hammer by the time their big fight rolls around. Tried to take part in Tyandaga's contest, couldn't get my entry done fast enough, sadly... I really need to work on the art side of things. And write more. And get a job 
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Spoony, you should really stop denying the potential of the Crusaders...
I think the Feather Cloaks just hit cult status. Only the master knows the truth. Everything that happens must be interpreted through the lens of the master's wisdom, or failure will consume you. Never doubt. Never hesitate. Never think for yourself. Ideally, never think at all.
This could go very, very badly in the near future. I'm just not sure for whom it will. Still, very proud of Whimper.
Also, very nice to see Spike get some answers. That's certainly an interesting reproductive strategy, though part of me can't help but wonder how the mother's biology knows both the day of the week and the month. In any case, looking forward to more.
7983541
The weird part is, part of the reason Whimper is so good is exactly because he doesn't think, at least not all the time, not anymore. Natural movement is slowed down by rational thought process. I've read bits and pieces about how there are actual martial arts cults, mostly inspired by Buddhism, but I never did any major research into it, so I didn't go any further into it. Another angle is the responsibility one Moongazer brought up with Rumble: if a student gets out of line, the master is held responsible. The higher the level, the more certain they need to be, doubly so with a style that encourages cockiness like the Feather Cloaks. It's also worth noting that a good ninja, a good spy, is a good actor. They need to stay in character, as a skill.
And yeah, the movie I got Spike's bckground from is available on YouTube. I'm told the English dub kinda sucks, but I can't say for sure. I assume the Friday the thirteenth thing is related to strokes of bad luck. Maybe they need the blessing from an Anti-Fairy. There's a crossover in there somewhere, someone should dig it out.
This would also at least imply that Spike's hatching day was Secret of My Excess, but his laying day was Spike at Your Service, and that's why he kept messing up.
I actually know what you're referencing with 'Als Je Begrijpt Wat Ik Bedoel' even though I haven't read that particular story myself. I do like the stories of Tom Poes and Olivier B. Bommel.
What is Moondancer doing in Ponyville?
8304112
You have no idea how many times I've tried to go over all the instances. There's always a few that slip through the cracks. Fixed now, thanks. I only ever saw the movie, and I have one issue of the comics, which is now unfortunately pretty messed up and missing pages. The holiday at the cursed Silver Lake (Zilvermeer), with the sprites that tossed mud and fire, or some such. Been a while.