Harmony's Wake

by HypnoticGemini

Chapter 2: A Splinter of Hope

Chapter 2: A Splinter of Hope

A buzzer went off, signaling the start of the fight.

All right, let’s make this quick, thought Splinter. The petrified pegasus was still backed against the arena wall, so he lowered his head and charged at her. Leiney stood still for a second, paralyzed with fear, but then a flicker of determination appeared in her green and red eyes. She quickly turned to the left and ran forward to dodge Splinter’s head-on attack, then tried to turn around for a counter-attack.

It was just what Splinter had been expecting.

The earth pony always thought ahead in combat. As he approached, he slowed himself down to a manageable speed. Leiney, perhaps out of nervousness, dodged too early, and Splinter was able to follow her movement by turning slightly to the right. He pivoted around on his right forehoof using his momentum, planted his left forehoof on the ground, and bucked out hard. Feeling his hooves contact her flesh, Splinter was rewarded with a cry of pain and a crash as his opponent was slammed into the arena wall as the audience cheered. He then turned around so that he was again facing his opponent.

Leiney was already in bad shape. She winced as she struggled to stand back up (Splinter suspected cracked ribs) and was obviously dazed from the blow. Splinter could have gone in and finished the fight then and there, but he decided to be a gentlecolt and at least let her get back onto her hooves. Secretly, he was impressed that she had attempted to fight back. He was half-expecting her to freeze up and get trampled.

It took a few seconds for Leiney to stand back up. Disregarding the burning pain in her right side, she lunged for Splinter and swiped at him with her left forehoof. Splinter leaned to the right to avoid the blow and countered by turning and using his right forehoof to lash out at Leiney’s head. However, Leiney’s instincts then took over. She dropped to the ground, rolled to the side and got back up. She then threw herself at Splinter, attempting to tackle him to the ground.

Unfortunately for her, the strength of a pegasus was already no match for that of an earth pony, and Splinter was further toughened by his years of combat experience. However, Leiney could still have made him budge if she had caught him by surprise, but Splinter had been expecting a counterattack. As a result, Splinter had dug his hooves into the ground, and the only thing that Leiney’s attack accomplished was to bring her within range of Splinter’s strikes.

Splinter did not waste the opportunity. He lashed upwards with his forehoof, hitting Leiney in the stomach and sending her flying backwards. She landed on her back and all the breath was knocked out of her by the impact. His hoof had scratched a decently-sized wound into her abdomen, but that was the least of the pegasus’s concerns. Rolling over, she quickly got back up and turned around – only to be met with the sight of Splinter charging at her again.

This time, Leiney didn’t have time to react, and Splinter slammed into her. She stumbled backwards a few steps, and Splinter quickly swung with his right forehoof. A small cloud of blood sprayed into the air as the blow came into contact with Leiney’s face. She reeled backwards again, blood flowing openly from her nose. Splinter lashed out with another pivoting kick, sending his opponent sprawling. Cheers erupted from the audience once more.

Leiney began to panic. Splinter had her well and truly beat, both in strength and in skill, and he always seemed to see her coming. She got up one more time and tried desperately to take flight, before remembering that her wings were chained down. She glanced fearfully around, to see that Splinter had closed the gap between them. Leiney was out of breath and her body was on fire in half a dozen places. It wouldn’t be long now.

As Splinter raised his hoof for the final blow, he looked into the purple eye, and saw it shedding a single tear. He felt a twinge of pity that quickly evaporated like dew under the sun. He didn’t want to, but it had to be done.

With all his might, he swung at the pegasus mare’s head, slamming into her temple. Leiney’s eyes rolled upwards into her head and her lids closed. She collapsed onto her right side and lay there, completely still.

A few humans rushed into the arena to examine the fallen pegasus. They obviously found her to be incapacitated, because Splinter noticed one of them putting a hand to his ear and saying something, followed by the booming voice of the announcer. Splinter couldn’t quite tell what they were saying, nor did he care. The adrenaline still pumping through his veins made the world around him seemed blurred and had his heart racing a mile a minute.

He cast one last look at his fallen opponent before turning around and heading towards his gate, unaware of the amethyst eyes watching him from the clouds.

***

Splinter sighed and lay down on his stomach in the soft, dry straw covering the ground inside his stable. Granted, there were the occasional biting insects, but it was still better than sleeping on dirt ground. The chains had been reattached to his hooves, and they dug into his chest and stomach. It was more or less uncomfortable, even though he had done this countless times before, but Splinter knew through experience that if he lay on his side he wouldn’t be able to get back up. However, within the minute, he decided to sleep standing up tonight, and got back onto his hooves.

He mulled over the last fight against Leiney Arc in his mind. There was something different about the pegasus compared to most of his adversaries, though Splinter couldn’t quite put his hoof on what it was exactly. It was almost as though she was somepony he knew, even though he didn’t recall ever seeing her before...

He then remembered the final blow that ended the fight. Normally, he would have turned around and bucked her in the face, which would have left her comatose or worse. However, he had instead opted for a blow with his forehoof, which he was almost sure had left her unconscious instead...

In other words, he had spared an opponent.

He then recalled something else. He hadn’t paid much attention to it in the fight, but now he remembered that the mare had something on her flank. It was an image of a prism, flanked by two rainbow-coloured wings. At first Splinter thought it was painted on, but it didn’t come off at all during the fight, and tattoos didn’t show through fur. It had to be some sort of marking. Splinter looked at his own flank. He certainly didn’t have markings like those. Nor did most of the ponies he had encountered in the arena or in the stables. In the end, he dismissed the mystery mark as some sort of random oddity.

There were so many questions that Splinter wanted answers to. He wanted to know more about this “Leiney Arc.” However, being too tired to think straight, he decided to leash his curiosity until morning.

***

“All righ’, Splinter, lights out in 2 minutes!” came the voice of a human.

Sonuvabitch! Splinter mentally cursed as the voice jolted him wide awake. He had been this close to getting some shuteye. How did the humans always know when he was about to fall asleep? Splinter opened his eyes and glowered at the smirking human standing in front of him.

“Oh boy did ah disturb yer beauty sleep?” the human said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Sorry ‘bout that, ah’ll let y’all get yer fourty winks now. Y’all are gonna need it come the morrow.”

The human patted one of the wooden posts supporting the stable roof and trod off towards a wooden chair outdoors.

Just wait until I get out of these chains, you little... The thought that had kept Splinter going all these years went through his head once more as he glared at the human’s retreating figure. He had always harbored a splinter of hope that he would be able to get out of these chains one day, and when he did, all Tartarus would break loose with him; otherwise, he would have let himself die in the ring a long time ago.

But now, looking at the post the human had just touched, he realized that that day had come.

Sticking out was a large, thick sliver of wood. Splinter examined the locks on his shackles and the wooden splinter, and allowed himself the rare pleasure of a smile as he figured out what to do. A splinter of hope, indeed...

Comments

[HypnoticGemini]

1241464 I don't mind if you have your doubts about this, it's only my first fic after all and you can't appeal to everybody.
But thanks for the compliment I guess?

[HypnoticGemini]

1241968 I'll try to stay away from that, thanks for the advice.