Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Level three.

-Tundra Tourney day three, Velvet-

The groups were compressed down to the remaining fighters, Paprika, Arizona and I were still among the rankings. I, however, was about to be knocked out of the competition. I would still give it my all though, just to get in a few hits on Clause.

“Matchup, Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Deer versus Clause ‘Deep Freeze’ Deer.” The match caller called us up and it was time for me to face down a reindeer I didn’t like, I guess this was it then.

“Clause.” I stated sourly as I stood across from him.

“Velvet.” He stated back just as sourly.

“Ready… let it rip!” The match caller quickly backed up as he could see the looks in our eyes.

Clause inhaled and then upon exhaling a localized blizzard started building up around us. I can say whatever negative thing I want about Clause, his ice magic abilities were definitely mastery level.

The drop in temperature wasn’t a problem, it’s that he was going to block everyone’s visibility of what we were going to be doing to each other. I wasn’t walking away from this one without injury.

I started by charging straight for him launching shards of ice at him, he kicked up a huge wave of snow toward me blocking my projectiles and intending to cover me in snow.

I wrapped myself in ice as I threw my body to the ground before the snow hit.

“Come now, that couldn’t have possibly been enough to… what!” Clause didn’t have time to react to me as I leapt out of the snow at him from his left, instead of where he thought I previously was and struck him several times rapidly with my hooves.

He weathered my stunning blows pretty well and eventually gained a moment between my furious blows to move his left hoof, I ducked backwards as he swung it upwards and out in an arc towards me. He had specifically been aiming for my neck.

Clause’s leg was encased in a sharp blade made of ice that extended a foot from his hoof, the blade quickly disappeared and he had to throw up a quick snowflake barrier as I formed multiple hailstones and rained them down on him.

While he was busy deflecting that, I stomped the snow under hoof and turned it into a fifty foot wide area of ice to change the playing field to my advantage.

“Paltry efforts at best.” He raised his right hoof back and then thrusted it forward extending a spear of ice towards me and I swept under it skating towards him. I had to skid under the spear a second time as said spear changed into a long blade that went swinging at me to the side.

Upon reaching him I stood up on my hind hooves and twirled, kicking and hitting him several times with three of my hooves before he caught my leg. He spun me around and slammed me back first against the ice.

He snorted at me derisively and held his front hooves out to swing them inwards while creating two sharp blades of ice.

I slammed my hooves down on the ice when the blades were just about to hit me, his legs froze in place as some ice jumped up and fused to his blades. While he was held in place I bucked him in the chest making him flip backwards.

He landed on his four hooves gracefully, he didn’t look very hurt at all. Clause was one of the toughest reindeer in the village, if not the absolute toughest outright.

“Come now, you must know that I’m toying with you.” Of course you were Clause, you were a mastery level ice magic user and you were only using melee attacks so far to humor me, while keeping a localized blizzard going at the same time. “Though I have to admit you have surprised me once or twice.”

“Oh I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t put up a good fight.” I looked him in the eyes coolly. “I’m not exactly here to win. The only reason I came back to Rein, was for my girlfriend who needed something from here.”

“Let me guess, she has to win the tournament to get it? She’s not likely to get by me then.” He leapt and fired a wide spray of sharp icicles and I rolled away and narrowly avoided taking some in the legs and body. “You’re hits are strong, but you must remember that the cold hardens our bodies and makes us quite resilient. Even more so when you have time and experience like I do. All I will ask of you now is this… survive!”

He rammed me with his hooves in lunge. He sent me skidding across the ice to the far side, clutching at my chest. My floof had taken the brunt of that blow, but that had still hurt a lot. I might have even heard my bones creak a bit under the pressure of the blow.

I quickly got up as he came at me, several waves of snow splashed outwards as he hopped forwards. He was covering the ice I had made and the battlefield was back in his favor so easily.

Well, I should not play him at his own game in any case. He was going to win regardless of what I can do and I shouldn’t make it that easy for him. He lowered his sharpened horns and charged me head first, a wolf would have been stupid to get in the way of them. I wasn’t a wolf, but that’s exactly what I did.

I charged for him head first as well and if I missed my opportunity, this was going to hurt me a lot. I had to time this well. Once he was close enough, given that he was running at me full tilt on the snow he generated to cover the ice, I would act.

We were a few feet from one another when I skidded to stop, raised my front hooves up and wrapped them around his the bladed horns. I fell backwards with his forward momentum and did two things.

The first of which was slap my right hind leg into the snow to clear a patch of snow covered ice behind me, the second was that my left rear leg shot up into his gut as I pulled on his horns and promptly somersaulted backwards slamming him back first into the solid ice behind me.

“Agh…” I heard a slight bone crunching noise as his spine impacted the ice. Didn’t break it, but that has got to hurt and I was now on top of him and started to lay into his face with my bloodied hooves.

His bladed horns had cut into my legs and hooves when I had grabbed him. Once he came to his senses he glared up at me, I splattered the blood leaking from both my legs across his eyes in two swipes blinding him.

“Grr… rah!” He roared out and I was blown off him by a blast of cold air and several blunt and sharp jagged pillars of ice slamming into me all at once.

I was sent me tumbling across the ground and came to a stop on my side, bleeding profusely from a cut across my chest. The side of my neck was also bleeding and it had taken a painful deep hit to my left flank, he stood up wiped at his face.

Clause was having a hard time getting my blood off his face. My poor floof was going to be so hard to clean after this and I must look like a wreck.

“Well now, I think it’s time to end…” He started, but I just smiled tiredly at him. “What is it, what are you smiling about?”

“I’m going to do something that you’ll likely hate more than anything coming from me, something you’d never expect I would do. I never came into this wanting to win Clause…” I slowly tried to stand up and Grinned at him, but instead I stay seated as I felt something wrong with two of my legs. The blunt force trauma might have broken something, but it was so cold my ability to feel pain was numbed except where I was bleeding. I couldn’t stand or move. “I wonder if you have any honor left in you Clause. I forfeit!”

“What you can’t do that… you can’t!” His eyes widened and he looked like I kicked him in the gut again. “You just can’t dismiss me like this!”

“I just did.” He started to charge me with a wild look in his eyes and I sat there smiling the entire time. I had nothing to prove to him and that made him angriest I’ve seen him, it was cathartic in a way.

He now knew I no longer cared about his opinion, no longer cared to try and please him or his absurd standards that no other deer can possibly meet. I had just spit in the eye of everything he wanted from me.

So the worst thing I could imagine doing to him… is giving him a completely hollow victory where I didn’t fight to my last. I might have lost the fight, but I didn’t lose where it counted the most.

“Winner by forfeit, Clause ‘Deep Freeze’ Deer!” The winds had died down at my announcement and as soon as the match caller shouted that out, Clause came to a dead stop with the tips of his antlers centimeter from piercing my belly.

He would have gored me in his anger, I just looked him in the eyes calmly.

“It was a good match.” Adding insult to injury, isn’t that what you taught me Clause?

Clause jerked his head to side and one of his horns slashed me deeply across the face causing me to scream out in pain, he turned his back and left me laying there as the medics came to help me.

I stared dispassionately at his back with one eye as he walked away, everything felt so cold and yet my injuries felt so warm.

-Clause-

“You know Clause, I didn’t think you had it in you. To do something like to your own daughter no less, and in such a dishonorable fashion after the battle was already called.” I ignored my father’s words sounding off in my ears as I set off to get some medical attention, I think Velvet might have actually cracked a large portion of my spine.

“Leave me be old fool.” I didn’t want to hear his words anymore.

“Says one fool to another, I think my granddaughter had the right idea. You’re in a Ho-ho-whole lot of trouble mister and you need me now more than ever.” His voice hadn’t faded from my mind as I stumbled away from the battle, I didn’t look back. “Now the other reindeers will not see her as part of your family, but as someone that can stand on her own four legs and be looked up to as a separate entity from you. You did her a dark kindness… and I’m disappointed in you.”

“I know… I disappoint myself as well.” I sat down and brought my hooves up to my head and rubbed it in the hopes that my father Santa would go away. I did not need or want his conscience in my ear.

“I think my granddaughter’s friends intend to win the ultimate prize with the outsider’s rules, there could only be one thing they’re after Clause...” An old fool Santa may be, but I realized the truth of his words. “For why else would Velvet ever come back to this place?”

“The key.” They would have to beat me to get it.

They will fail.

-Arizona-

The ice spiked upwards and seemed to spawn smaller spikes of ice aiming in my direction, I can see now where Prancer got the name ‘Flowering Cold’. Given how many times she sprouted ice from already existing ice.

“Why won’t you go down?!” Prancer shouted at me, the ice spikes she made to pierce my thick hide tickled.

I, surrounded by flowers made of sharp bits of ice, jumped straight up and slammed the ground with all four of my hooves. This caused the ice to shatter and blow away from me in powerful shockwave.

“You didn’t think this would be easy did you?” I asked with a smirk as I charge towards her. I had forced my way through every one of her ice attacks, all of them sprouting from the ground.

Prancer’s magic might have been good, but it wasn’t very damaging to someone as tough as me. My body might be also be cold, but my blood was still pumping with adrenaline.

“I honestly thought it would be a little easier!” Prancer charged toward me as well and tried to strike me with her left hoof, I just grabbed it in my right and then Prancer realized her mistake in trying to attack me close up almost immediately.

She had been keeping me at bay and now she would realize how strong I was physically.

I pulled her towards me and smashed my left hoof into the side of her head with a nasty hook, badly dazing her and sending her stumbling about. Keeping my hold on her as she stumbled, I stood up on my hind hooves and thrusted two more strikes straight into her face.

I pulled on her left hoof and released it while I rammed my left hoof upwards into her chest lifting her bodily off the ground with a powerful blow.

“It seems Velvet chose someone strong to stand by her side...” She inhaled and tried to blast me with her freezing breath, I’ve seen Velvet do it enough times to know what to look for and how to counter it.

I hopped to the side and then smiled as I stomped both my front hooves into the ground and then hauled myself forward. I rammed the tired Prancer into the air and passed by her on the ground.

“Here comes the rodeo roundabout!” I kicked off the ground and leapt up towards her and kicked out with all four hooves, only to whiff as Prancer rolled in the air to dodge the whiplash portion of my attack. “Darn it!”

I landed and kicked off again just as Prancer landed and tried to get her balance. I rammed my head into her side, knocking her over and smashing her face against the icy ground.

I stood there waiting for Prancer to get up, she looked up at me weakly and apparently had taken enough blows to the head to be down for the count.

“So… strong… make her happy, where we couldn’t…” Prancer closed her eyes, she had passed out.

“I will try my best, can’t make any promises I don’t know whether or not I can keep.” I would still at least make a concerted effort with Paprika to make sure Velvet was happy, buying her ice cream always helped with that.

“Winner by knockout, Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid!” I heard a crowd cheer for me and I was surprised to get any. “You move on to the next round and are done for the day.”

I sighed in relief and started to move away, only for Paprika to show up whining at me. She pulled hurriedly at my hoof, something bad happened to Velvet.

Author's Note:

Almost done with Arizona and Velvet's journey.

We'll be moving on to Jacky and Gene's story. Why? Because if I go to far I might ruin all the other stories with spoilers when they intersect once.

600K words hit, a new record for one story for me. I plan to keep going.

Comments

[theoldhunter]

Well clause is a dead man walking now

[MadHadder]

Hit one mil and you'd be on the top ten longest stories.

[Booster Spice]

Claus doesnt realise the Gravity of what he has just done.

What did Iago say?

Its suprising what you can live through.

Unfortunately for Claus, he aint no Hawking.

[TDR]

Claus is going to find out what an angry cow or an angry demon fluff mancer can do very soon. Either that or the godless twit will take him out eiter way it will be a bad time for him