Ch 6: Swordsman's Probation
Chapter 6: Swordsman’s Probation
===[???]===
I sat alone in a pool of blood. The coppery smell was overpowering, nearly blocking out all other sensations. The thick liquid was soaking into my clothes, turning them from their forest green color to a dull crimson.
The red liquid was pouring out from… somewhere. Above me was simply an unending abyss, pure black with no hope of light ever escaping. I didn't know where it ended or began.
I only knew the smell of blood.
Parts of the pool around me started bubbling, but I paid them no mind.
I only focused on the blood.
Hands and paws and talons reached out and grasped around for me, but I paid no heed.
All of this blood on my hands.
When they grabbed me, I awoke from my stupor. I saw what was the source of the waters of wasted life.
Desecrated corpses, hundreds of them, hung over me. Ponies, dragons, griffons, you name it. Almost every sentient species stood up in that terrible abyss. Out of their pained face was it coming from. The eye sockets were empty and sunken, but it flowed. The mouths were hung open in an eternal scream of horror, but instead of sound it was that damn blood.
The bodies of those beneath the Red Sea came to the surface. Twisted and malformed were they, empty eye sockets that bore straight into my very soul. Hundreds upon thousands crawled towards me, a low moan emoting from their horrifying faces.
I wanted to run.
Run away, so very far away.
But I couldn't.
Hands and paws and talons met their target. Me.
I was being pulled down. Down into the very pits of Hell from whence they came, hoping to make their eternal pain known to me.
I reached out for something, anything to save me from the metallic taste that was entering my mouth, attempting to drown me. I reached out as far as I could. My head was below the surface, but I kept reaching.
And I felt a hand.
I held onto it, hard. I felt a pulling sensation and felt a strain on my body. When I broke the surface before me was what could only be described as angelic.
Princess Luna held onto me firmly, magic and wings focused on saving me.
“Zoro,” she said, her voice was thick with strain. “Thou art safe, 'tis only a nightmare! Thou must wake up, Zoro!”
I looked down and saw horror. From the pool of blood was an army of bodies, all connected to me, trying to pull me back down. They were climbing over each other, trying to get to me.
I looked up and prayed that she could get me out of this. More appendages met my body and were slowly climbing up. The strain on the lunar alicorn was great, sweat dripping from her brow. The moaning was mind numbingly loud, threatening to burst my eardrums. I felt their clammy hands grasping onto my face, wet and wrinkly.
“Please, thou must-” She paused and stared at the body that was now leaning over my shoulder. It used to be a royal blue thestral with an ebony mane and a regal face. Now, it was a twisted monster that even demons wouldn't touch. “S-Star Shield?!”
Her grasped lessened. Not much, but enough. Enough to let me slip. Enough for them to pull me down into the blood. That endless ocean of blood.
All of the blood on my hands.
===[Zoro’s POV]===
I jolted up, hand grasping at my heart. Sweat was dripping down my face, proof that I did indeed have another nightmare. F***.
“Damn, third one this week.” These have been plaguing me ever since I've come to sleep underneath the roof of Celestia’s Protégé. Luna’s tried talking to me about what could make it so her interactions in my dreamscape were less useful than party tricks, but I shrug it off as me being human. She doesn't buy it, but hey, humans are used to dealing with crazy dreams on our own. I'll live-
Oh, now I done made myself sad.
A few raps on the door pulled me back into reality. Maybe. This could all be one trippy dream still.
“Zoro, it’s Spike,” the dragon said through the door. “Breakfast is ready.”
“Thanks,” I told him. I heard him walk down the stairs, scales scraping on wooden floors. Bless that drake, he works harder than anyone I’ve met and he always finds time to help others.
I got out of my bed, which was admittedly a tad small, and stretched.
Clearing those evil dreams from my current attention, I got around to doing my now normal routine.
Put on my clothes, go downstairs, eat breakfast, avoid answering any of Egghead’s questions with cryptic responses, and train.
My version of training is almost like the actual Zoro’s, with the difference of using Armament to cover a massive boulder with a stick impaled in it for as long as humanly possible. Caused a bit of a stir when Egghead came by.
Speaking of my parole officer, she’s been handing me off under her friend’s supervision when doing something important or when I wander off. Pinks was kind enough to make me another pie. It was a good afternoon all around. Much less mourning then the first pie attempt.
Butters tried to get her animals to be kind towards me, but because my Haki was so powerful, I couldn’t turn off the animal intimidation part of it. One rabbit even fainted at the sight of me.
Curls tried getting me a new wardrobe, which involved me standing around stock still for an hour. Needless to say, she learned why all of my clothes were a bit loose or baggy.
Apple tried making me buck down a few apples. She now has to replace a dozen trees.
And Rainbow was supposed to be getting out of the hospital soon, so I haven’t really had much interaction with her.
It was around the afternoon when anything exciting happened.
There I was, on my sixth set of one hundred reps, when my haki picked up on three familiar ponies coming my way. Quick fact, I’m still not good at using both Observation and Armament at the same time without dulling one. For example, when using Armament like I was, I could only use Observation in a fifty meter radius. I was working on fixing it.
“Please stop looking at me like I’m Bigfoot,” I shot behind me, where the three kids were hiding.
The bush behind me shuddered before three figures fell out of said shrubbery.
“H-How did you know we were there,” a scratchy voice asked.
“We were all quiet-like, too,” a southern-accented voice said.
“Was it your weird magic,” the squeaky voice asked.
“To be fair,” I said, putting down my training equipment and retracting my haki. “You girls aren’t really the quietest group of troublemakers. Now why are you hanging around the same area as a dangerous felon?” Honestly, even Earth kids had more brains than a lot of adults here. Don't go near a dangerous person, and if you do, have a gun. One of these kids had a butterfly net! That wouldn't do shit!
The orange one pouts at that. “Well, we decided to make sure you don’t do anything evil.” The other two shouted in agreement.
“Sure, because three kids can stop me,” I deadpanned. “Look, just go home or something. You can get seriously hurt if you hang around here.”
“Nope,” the white one said. “We’re staying right here!”
“An’ there ain't nothin’ you can do to stop us,” the souther- you know what, nicknames for them too!
Zoe, Jessie, and Bella! Boom, done! Good job brain!
I sighed. Fine, whatever. It was just creepy having these kids watch me. Reminded me of the Shining.
I turned back to my boulder. It was a nice boulder. Grabbing the piece of wood, I enveloped it back into my Haki and restarted my training. The girls silently watched me for around five minutes.
“Sooo… how are you doing that black thing with the rock? Some kind of magic,” Bella asked.
“Not everything that's done in the world requires magic,” I told her. “That said, this is haki.”
“That's not hockey,” Zoe pointed out. “You’re not on ice or anything.”
“Not hockey. Haki. H-A-K-I. It's basically spiritual energy.”
“An’ magic is different, how,” Jessie asked.
“Magic is a tool. This is literally an extension from yourself, of your soul.” That got some wide eyes from that.
Three minutes later was another question.
“Can you show us some sword moves?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don't want to.”
I was then bombarded by three pairs of puppy eyes. They were so cute, I could have said-
“No.” Mwahaha! Evil reigns!
“Awww…”
Another two minutes…
“Why do ya got three swords?”
“Because I use all three of them.”
“How?”
“One in each hand, and one in my mouth.”
“Isn't that a but unhygienic and dangerous?”
“Girly, you're talking to a criminal who was previously held up in the Everfree. All I care about is that it works.” And I look like a total badass while doing it.
Another minute...
“This is boring,” the orange one said.
“Training is always boring for the spectator.”
“Then why the hay are you doing it?”
I brought down the boulder with more force than need be, but it sent a gust of wind their way.
“I'm a swordsman. That means that I need to be in complete control of my weapons. One slip up and I could die. This helps with dealing with the momentum of a swing. I need to correctly stop it in the exact same spot with no deviance throughout my training.”
“How hard is it,” Bella asked, eyes filled with awe.
“Extremely.”
Three ‘wows’ later and we went back to the relative silence.
Not going to lie, my Haki was starting to wear out. I've been doing this for an hour, and that seemed to be the limit of my Armament. I needed it to be at least three hours nonstop.
I set it down, taking off my Haki. I then sat cross legged and closed my eyes.
“Now I'm meditating, and that requires a peaceful environment. It also means I'll be doing nothing for the next hour, so go away.”
I heard three sets of hoofsteps leave and I sighed.
“What is with you ponies and thinking you can sneak up on me? Get down here.”
Hearing a few wing flaps and hooves touching the ground, I cracked my eyes open to see Rainbow Dash, the Girl who Exploded. She had a few bandages here and there, but the largest was on her head. Probably dealing with a headache.
“You must think you’re pretty cool, huh,swinging that rock around,” she stated. “Well, keep away from those fillies, or we’ll have a serious problem.”
“Look, I didn't even want them here to begin with. They just stared at me like some sort of zoo exhibit. Kind of weirded me out.”
“Whatever. I'm just here for Twilight, making sure you don't do anything stupid.”
Huh, doesn't that sound familiar.
“Just tell Egghead to stop sending your friends to watch me, Rainbow. I don't think Curls can stomach my charming personality.” Or my flexing off the clothes she makes.
“Hey, don't call my friends that! You damn well know their names!”
“I do, but they haven't earned my respect.”
She crossed her arms and scowled. “Explain.”
“You and your friends are a forced addition on my life. And so far, the most they've done for me was either attack me, played detainee, or smashed my pie. None of those are really respectable. As far as I see, you're the only one out of them I really respect.” Rainbow actually was stunned by my comment. “You may have been hot headed and brash, but you've got a strong spirit, dedicated to your craft from what I hear, and you flew at me faster then anything I've ever seen before. Plus, you exploded in order to help your friends. So, I respect you, and I call you and only you by your actual name. The others have to earn it.”
She was silent for a minute before finally saying anything.
“Well, I'm going to practice some tricks out. Don't you move or else!”
“Wasn't planning on it.”
So she left me to do my meditation, which wasn't me napping. It was a legitimate way for me to control my emotions. How? Well, I am a Taoist, and you can go look up that shit on Wiki if you don't know about it, so add that in with a few movies and shows and I've got the gist of it.
That went on for an hour until my shackle decided to come pick me up.
Let me tell you, teleporting is only sickening to the stomach if you're either magic resistant or you have no magic. And it doesn't get better. Ever. Poor mop…
===ooo000ooo===
Dinner had come and left, and everyone was going to bed.
“Zoro,” Egghead called after me. “Swords?”
Right. This thing. One of the living conditions was that I had to give them over to the lavender unicorn when it was time for sleep. Through sheer determination and stubbornness, I talked her into letting me keep one with me. I chose Kitetsu, my cursed sword. I remember it's curse, and even though I've managed to keep it mostly under control, I wasn't trusting it with anyone except me.
I handed her Wado Ichimonji and Shusui, albeit hesitantly.
“Thank you,” she said. “Tomorrow, Princess Celestia is coming over for a picnic, so please try to be a tad nicer.”
I simply scoffed, went to my room, and listed down. My Haki picked up on where she put my katanas and when she and Spike went to bed.
I waited another hour before I did my nightly routine.
See, as I didn't want them to know about my agenda, which was confirming a theory I had behind the recent Devil Fruits incidents, I waited until they had all gone to bed.
See, Observation has a passive ability that is extremely useful in certain scenarios. It allows you to kind of see how someone actually feels or their true emotions, each had their own distinct color. Blue for calm, red for angry, pink for lustful, so on and so forth. What the color I'm focusing on signifies sleep or unconsciousness, black with a dark blue outline. The brain usually turns off consciousness the first few hours of sleep, then dreams come in the later times. And I spent the first two days trying to figure out if they were light or heavy sleepers. My luck once again held out as they wouldn't wake up for shit.
Being as quiet as possible, I creeped down the stairs into the main library. I covered my right fingers in Armament and willed the black fire into being. I wasn't stupid enough to use one of the candles here as Egghead usually took inventory in the morning, and would notice a used or missing candle, and my fire leaves no smoke or smell. My Conqueror took care of her pet owl, so now all that stood in my way was her arrangement system.
Upon reaching the nonfiction section, I looked around until I found what I was looking for.
“Magical and Unusual Flora of Equestria, by Nepeta Cataria.”
“Alright, let's see what they've got here…”
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I mean, it's another displaced fic. Another. Displaced. Fic. It could have been written by Hemmingway and it would still be repetitive tripe. Hell, you even use tired tropes to generalize your displaced fic ("The Merchant", subtlety third-wall breaking in the synopsis, etc.). The least you could have done was put a bit more effort into the introduction but... you didn't. You didn't do anything that hasn't been done before. Why would I read this over one of the ten billion other damn near identical fics?
8590206
...I feel as though your profile image is your actual expression while yelling this to me.
8590214
Sometimes you have to raise your voice to get your point across.
Believe it or not, I'm not trying to insult you (although you could be forgiven if you thought that). I'm trying to convey how boring and tired this trope is. I personally never thought displaced fics were done well, but at least in the beginning some of the ideas were unique. Now it's... this. Your story. What does Equestrian Swordsman do differently? Why should I read it when I could be reading another displaced fic from, say, 2014?
Very good chapter, can't wait for more!
Three stories updated today! Is it my birthday or something?
I do have to admit...Twilight disappoints me in one way...she squandered her talent. We have seen her in action against an Ursa...And we saw her potential as an Alicorn against Tirek. Even if she was letting it fly uncontrolled,we can assume any alicorn has a massive power from that,and that during Celestia and Lunas fight they were focusing their attacks. We also don't know if Twilight was using full power,or the most she could channel safely without burning her horn out,considering she didnt have a massive horn aura like with the Ursa.
We also know rarity has far greater control with magic than twilight but not nearly as much.While Starlight has better research.
Yeah,Twilight has talent but she just rolls with it rather than pushing herself.
Sunset honestly had more determination to master herself.She wanted to be an Alicorn afterall.
8590386
I totally agree with you there, and I was planning to make a point of it in a future but I'm wondering as to where this came from.
8590413
Read chapter 5
8590417
Zoro only be impressed by Rainbow Dash.
8590227
Hey, at least with displaced fics you can just ignore the majority of them (as most are just shitty self inserts). I only read the ones i find interesting, and those usually are from the feature or popular lists. If they hit those, they must be doing something right.
*spits on fire* noice
8590608
Untrue. The featured lists seem to be mostly rehashed crap (like displaced fics) and fetish fuel. There are thousands of futa and diaper fics on this site, but only the good ones make the front page? Hint: There are no good ones.
8591776
I don't speak Swedish.
8591953
Man, I really want to leave you hanging so you're never sure...
8591287
then why u read dis?
8593508
Because constructive criticism is useful if the author is willing to hear it.
8593545
I appreciate what you are doing, I really do. Negative comments actually help me inspire to do better at stuff, so I thank you for that.
I understand that I did multiple cliches in this story, and I really don't care about that. Creativity in this is extremely hard when it comes to sending people here, but I only gave Zoro the most used one. All my other humans will, hopefully, be more unique in that regard.
And if anyone has complaints, please private message me, as I don't want to see people arguing in the comments, specifically ones that use poor grammar.
Says the Earth pony
8815290
Lel
Twilight never even realized that he was a lot nicer than he appears. Considering he put up with those kids watching him sure he was a little grumpy about it but he still let them. He was honest about how he felt with rainbow.