Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

North Pole VII

Ark’Nogt indeed had a good idea for something Rainbow Dash could do to prepare for the tournament. It was something he set up for her the morning after she had registered and already began her training.

A fight.

He had found a Reindeer who had previously competed in a number of tournaments for her to fight with so she could get some real experience fighting Reindeer and with their rules. Rainbow Dash was really thankful to him for it and now they were in the basement of the communal center. She hadn’t been told about the basement yet but it had a ring set up in it (along with a ton of other stuff for entertainment since the center wasn’t just for visiting fighters) that they could use. Rainbow Dash also now learned that “ring” was something of a misnomer. What they would be fighting in was a square arena with ropes around it.

“The actual stadium ring is much bigger than this, more than double in size, but this works fine for what we need.” Ark’Nogt told her.

Rainbow Dash glanced over it, it looked to be about 15 x 15 feet. “Guess you like giving everyone plenty of room to fight and move around in.”

“I’ve fought in the stadium plenty of times. It’s also to make it more open and easier for the audience to see,” the Reindeer who she would be fighting said. “But it is also to accommodate more mobile fighting styles.”

Rainbow Dash glanced over at him. He was an adult buck at least a decade older than her but still in good shape. Apparently he was too busy with other stuff at the moment to actually compete in the tournament but he had the time to help out Ark’Nogt with this favor.

“Guess I should’ve looked at the ring yesterday while we were there...” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“Seen one, seen them all,” her opponent said and walked to the ring to step up into it.

“True enough,” Rainbow Dash said and floated over the ropes to join him in the ring. “So what’s your name? Didn’t catch it earlier.”

“Ral’Nogt. Ark’Nogt has already informed me that you are known as Rainbow Dash,” her opponent told her.

“Don’t wear it out,” she grinned at him. “So how are we going to start this? We don’t have any referees or judges or anything.”

“Although I’m not qualified to be an actual referee or judge I can still watch over the fight to make sure you don’t break any of the rules, Rainbow Dash. And this is just to give you familiarity with how Reindeer fight in the first place,” Ark’Nogt said to her, standing beside the ring.

“Kay, sounds good,” Rainbow nodded.

There were others down here in this basement, with the majority of them just playing games or lounging previously, but now a lot of them were coming over to see what was going on in the ring. Rainbow Dash was happy to see that she was already generating a decent crowd. It was mostly Reindeer again but a couple of ponies and a griffon were down here too, she wondered if they were all from Ice Valley along with that wolverine? She was going to put on a show for everyone watching and get some good fighting experience at the same time; what more could a pony ask for?

Rainbow Dash looked at the floor of the ring—chiseled stone in a grid design. It would hurt pretty fierce to get slammed onto that. She raised an eyebrow at Ark’Nogt. “So the main ring in the stadium is stone too?”

“Correct.”

“Geez, pretty painful thing to fight on for guys that say they don’t want to see any serious injuries. I thought it would be like a canvas or something.” Rainbow Dash rubbed the top of her head.

“It forces you to not be excessively rough with your opponent, lest you be punished and disqualified.” Ral’Nogt told her.

“Still feels like putting the cart before the pony but whatevs,” Rainbow shrugged.

“Are you two competing in the tournament?” A Reindeer asked from the crowd suddenly.

Ark’Nogt smiled at them and fielded the question. “No, no, only Miss Rainbow Dash, the pony, is participating in the tournament. This is merely training for her.”

“Ohhh...” the Reindeer nodded in mild awe. Rainbow Dash noticed he was fairly young looking.

Rainbow Dash stretched her limbs and rotated her shoulders before slinking down like a cat and taking a big full-body stretch. “Aaaaaalright, I’m ready to fight now. We getting on with it, Ark’Nogt! Just ring the bell or whatever to start us off!” She started bouncing up and down on her hooves, sizing up her opponent and smirking confidently at him. Ral’Nogt in turn tensed up and braced his back legs, lowering his head and getting ready for her.

“I don’t know what ringing a bell would have to do with any of this, at the tournament a trumpet is blown to signify that a match has begun. But since I have none here with me I will merely shout.” Ark’Nogt cleared his throat and then took a deep breath. “Begin!” He yelled at the two fighters.

Rainbow Dash shot towards her opponent as fast as she could—this was no time to think or measure her opponent—she was gonna take it to him immediately. She preferred being on offense to begin with. It was clear from his expression that he hadn’t expected her to be so fast and he couldn’t block her first punch in time. Her blue hoof collided with his chin and knocked him back a few steps while she back-stepped and looked to see how he would recover. She doubted a single punch would be enough to drop a Reindeer who did so much fighting, right?

Ral’Nogt shook his head as he stepped back a bit further to get some distance between himself and her. He brought a hoof up to his cheek to wipe it off and grinned at Rainbow Dash. “That was some impressive speed.”

“You should see me when I’m flying,” Rainbow said and darted towards him again, knowing now that he could keep fighting. She zig-zagged back and forth to keep him on his toes and try and juke him out, but the Reindeer knew what to expect now and his eyes paid careful attention to her movement. When she finally reached him and tried uppercutting him with her left hoof he swiftly moved his head out of the way and then lurched his body forward to try and shoulder check her.

Of course Dash’s reflexes were way too quick for that and she hopped back away from him. But he jumped right after her with his strong limbs, they looked like they could perform bounding jumps more easily than a pony’s, and brought his right hoof at her face in a powerful hook. Rainbow Dash ducked under it but found his other hoof coming straight at her in a jab too. She grit her teeth and side-stepped it but still ended up on the defensive much to her annoyance as Ral’Nogt kept making quick little punches at her face.

She was being pushed back to the ropes so she figured now was a good time to put a stop to his assault. And this was her first real challenge, since in any normal fight she’d just jump and fly above her opponent. But she couldn’t do that here so something else had to be done.

When he tried to jab at her next, Rainbow Dash didn’t dodge the attack, she brought up her hoof to parry it and stepped forward at the same time. His hoof slid over hers and just barely grazed the top of her head while her other hoof came up right at his chest. Ral’Nogt saw it coming though and blocked it with the shin of his other front leg. The two limbs fought and quaked against each other for a moment before both pony and Reindeer disengaged from one another.

She suddenly had the urge, the reflexive instinct, to fly low and around him. But she had to quash that immediately. If she accidentally did something like that in a real match she would’ve been instantly disqualified.

Still, her wings were begging to be used so she figured she might as well oblige them. With a grin she sailed forth at Ral’Nogt once more. The Reindeer got in a low, defensive, position and waited for her. When she got in close she acted like she was going to throw out a left hook but instead she drew her hoof back in a feint and shot her wing forward at the side of his head instead. Ral’Nogt was blindsided by the sneaky maneuver. He had initially started to lean back to dodge her hoof but when he saw her pull it back he thought she wouldn’t be attacking from that direction anymore. Only to instead get a stiff wing in the face.

“Hrk!” Ral’Nogt let out a grunt and closed his eyes as he was knocked slightly to the side, leaving him open.

Rainbow Dash took the opportunity presented to her and dove in at him. Several punches quickly peppered his open stomach and underside before she finished with a stiff jab with her left hoof on his shoulder. Ral’Nogt was thrown off his hooves and slid across the stone floor of the ring. Rainbow Dash paused for a moment, wondering if that was too much, or if the fight was over. But instead Ral’Nogt stood up with a grin on his face and cracked his neck as he stared Rainbow Dash down.

“This is quite invigorating,” he said to her.

“I’m with you on that,” she said back to him and ran in again.

This time Rainbow Dash assaulted him with her wings from the beginning. She wanted to see if she could totally overwhelm her opponent with a flurry of blows from both her wings and hooves at the same time. Rainbow Dash was trying to make it a barrage no Reindeer could adequately protect against. Ral’Nogt did his best to block and dodge everything he could but a few attacks still slipped past his defense and landed. That’s when he shook his head about and tried to knock her limbs away with his antlers.

One of her wings collided with the bone appendages and she winced and pulled it back, stopping her attack. She looked closely at Ral’Nogt’s antlers; the sharp points of them were ground down to nubs so they wouldn’t accidentally stab anyone during a fight. But it still hurt hitting them. Rainbow Dash would need to consider and look out for that whenever she fought a buck at the tournament.

Ral’Nogt took her momentary pause as a sign to take the offensive. Perhaps he was also thinking about her and what she’d be going through soon since he lowered his head and led with his horns. Rainbow Dash dodged out of the way of this dangerous headbutt but Ral’Nogt swung his head again at her, trying to smack her across the face and upper body with his antlers. This time she ducked too low for a simple antler swipe to hit her, practically becoming prone on the ground, before shooting back up once the antlers passed over her and uppercutting him in the throat.

He grunted but didn’t let the single attack stagger him this time and brought a hoof down towards her. Thanks to her extended position she couldn’t recoil quickly enough and his hoof struck her in the chest. Rainbow Dash gagged and was knocked backwards, rolling across the hard stone floor of the ring before stopping herself and shooting back up to her hooves in case she needed to respond to anymore attacks.

Ral’Nogt hadn’t followed up though, the Reindeer needed to take a bit of a breather himself. Rainbow Dash decided to slowly stalk around him like a beast circling its prey while she caught her breath too. The Reindeer kept his eyes on her the entire time and Rainbow Dash felt herself smirking. This was turning out to be a lot of fun.

Before she even realized it herself she was running at him and preparing to end this fight with a series of quick punches to the face. Ral’Nogt turned to face her directly and prepared himself, right as she threw out her first punch with her right hoof he matched it with a powerful straight punch at her face too with his right hoof. He was trying to at least make it a draw or make her flinch and reconsider her punch to try and dodge or block his. Since his limbs were a little longer he’d strike her first if she didn’t change anything and that would either send her off-balance or take away a lot of the force from her own punch.

So instead she did something she could only do thanks to her wings. Rainbow Dash brought her left leg up and her left wing down and caught his hoof in between her knee and wing in a cross-block. It took really precise timing and strength to get it down perfectly but Ral’Nogt found his hoof stuck and his punch stopped completely while Rainbow Dash’s blue hoof was still coming at his face.

“Ugh!” He yelled out in pain as she landed a powerful punch right across his chin, knocking him back to the floor of the ring where he lay sprawled out.

Rainbow Dash grinned and bounced back and forth on her hooves as the adrenaline pumped through her. “Had enough?”

Ral’Nogt looked up at her and considering the pain he was in and how the rest of the match had gone… he nodded. “Yeah, you win. That was a good fight.”

“I was about to call it as well, anyways,” Ark’Nogt said from outside the ring as he stepped up and through the ropes to join them. The others who had been watching clapped their hooves and some even whistled for Rainbow Dash. It had been an entertaining bout, and she was a rather special occurrence. “For a training match that’s really as far as it should go.”

“I know my limits, Ark’Nogt… but I agree that I wasn’t going to be winning after that,” Ral’Nogt said with a sigh and stood up.

“Hey, I think you put up a good fight. I’m just too awesome,” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Uh, it was really helpful though, the antlers especially, I’ll definitely be better prepared when I fight a Reindeer for real in that tournament.”

“I’m glad I could help but if I were you I’d still be training hard and not underestimating any of your opponents,” Ral’Nogt said as he moved around his jaw to make sure it wasn’t dislocated or anything.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at him. “Why’s that?”

He looked at her with a somewhat sheepish and somewhat warning look in his eyes. “I’ve never won a single tournament I’ve fought in.”

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

[redmar]

The fight between Rainbow Dash and Ral'Nogt was interesting and well written.