29 - Blood
Sunset wasn't sure if the bleachers being full was good or bad.
On the positive side, it meant more eyes watching what was about to happen. (Her victory, she hoped.) It would only help her to have news of the duel spread far and wide through the School and through Canterlot. On the other hoof, even the great Sunset Shimmer wasn't immune to stage fright and what she was doing was most assuredly dangerous. Even her plan aside, this was going to be her first real fencing bout and one with very high stakes to boot.
Gliding Moth had done her best to prepare Sunset. It wasn't enough and they both knew it, but the mare had schooled Sunset with the ferocity of a Royal Guard drill instructor with ginger up his butt. The training had left Sunset exhausted and sore, but at least nominally ready. With luck, she wouldn't embarrass either of them.
(Sunset did feel a little bad about what was going to happen and that Gliding was probably going to get caught in the fallout. It couldn't be helped and sacrifices had to be made, but a little part of Sunset earnestly hoped it wouldn't hurt Gliding too bad.)
There were about two hundred ponies in the bleachers ready for the show - and a roughly equal number milling around the gymnasium, pretending to be doing other things while they just happened to be watching. Most notable was the ersatz Royal Box that had been created in the upper-center of the bleachers: Princess Celestia, Princess Cadance, and a good dozen bodyguards creating an impenetrable halo of safety around the alicorns. (Cadance didn't look particularly happy about that distance, but she also looked worried at the match itself.) (Princess Celestia remained coolly impassive at both.)
Their field of battle was a little pathetic in Sunset's mind: a string of padded mats to form the strip they would be fighting on, situated about ten body lengths from the stands. (The distance partially to provide a good view for everypony watching, partially because they had to set up on the other side of the jogging track that went around the outer edge of the gym.)
Blueblood stood smugly at the strip, watching Sunset's approach with Hearth's Warming glee. Beside him stood the others involved: Gliding Moth, acting as Sunset's second; Blueblood's butler Posh, acting as his; and Professor Trilby, the weak-willed teacher who was the fencing team's coach and referee for the duel.
Trilby adjusted his namesake hat (not that it helped much - it shared the same drab brown color as his fur and the two blended into each other) before casting an amplifier spell so the crowd could hear him. "Thank you all for coming. By agreement, the two contestants for this duel will be using the foil and abiding by the standard fencing rules thereof. The match will be to a regulation fifteen points, played across three three-minute rounds. Should neither reach fifteen points by the end of time, the one with the greater number shall be declared the winner."
Sunset rolled her eyes and fought the urge to tell Trilby to get on with it. Even she knew it was unwise to sass the referee, but his repeating of fencing 101 was tiresome on her already jangling nerves.
"Each competitor will now inspect the equipment and approve its usage."
That was what she had been waiting for. Sunset tried to remain casual as she first looked over her own gear. It was all school property, taken from the fencing team's communal equipment as she had none of her own. Padded vest for her torso - check. Mask with mesh over her face, split at the top to allow her horn to stick through and with a padded gorget to protect her neck - check. And then the foil itself. It was plain and generic but effective enough. Beyond the traditional (and featureless) grip and guard where her magic was allowed to grasp it extended a length of square steel - roughly as wide as a toothpick, a bit longer than her leg, and ending in a protective rubber tip. Sunset's body had accumulated quite a few bruises over the last two weeks from Gliding's training, serving a strong reminder that even if it was blunt and cushioned, a metal stick jabbing into you hurt.
But Sunset's review of her own materials was quick and cursory. No, it was looking at Blueblood's equipment that she was eager for. They traded places and as he inspected hers, she looked his over. The vest and mask were much the same - made of higher quality materials and bearing his cutie mark but fundamentally identical - but the blade? It was totally unlike her generic loaner. The grip was carved from teak and inlaid with finely-spun silver threads to better conduct unicorn magic. The guard was featureless - as required by the rules so a blade wouldn't catch on any ornamentation - but the interior dazzled with the brilliant blue of lapis lazuli. As for the blade itself, it was proper regulation now. But the edges suggested it had once indeed been a proper weapon. They were rounded rather than proper square, suggesting a cutting edge that had been ground down to be blunted and safe. It was an heirloom and likely older than any ten ponies in the room (save Celestia) combined.
Sunset held it in her magic, turning it slowly to examine the craftsmanship. At least, outwardly. What wasn't seen was the extra magic she was casting at the same time. A curse or a jinx on the blade would be discovered, of course. That kind of trick had been tried centuries earlier and was watched for. No, Sunset simply channeled a bit of heat into the blade itself. Not much - a strong heat would make the metal glow and give everything away, or the radiating waste heat would be detectable from a distance. But enough to make it sizzle a little. Just enough to set up her plan.
Gear inspected, the two traded back without a word and took to their ends of the strip. Gliding helped Sunset don her vest and mask, ensuring they were secure. "Remember," she lectured, "He's weakest on the riposte. He overcommits and that will give you an opening." She gave Sunset a companionable pat on the shoulder before withdrawing to the side.
All Sunset could do was give Gliding a nod in reply.
Across the strip, Blueblood stood ready. The wire mesh mask concealed his expression, but Sunset was pretty sure it was some variation on being a smug jerk.
Trilby stomped his hoof once, bringing the crowd to silence. He waited, eyes going back and forth to the two combatants. And he waited. And then looked at Sunset. "It is customary to salute your opponent before beginning."
A moment passed. And Sunset hovered her foil up before her in a salute. Blueblood - having waited for her - did the same.
That satisfied Trilby. "En garde!"
Both of them moved to their ready positions - that awkward hoof-over-hoof pose to minimize her forward profile. Sunset's muscles ached. She had spent so much time in the unnatural position over the last two weeks it was almost automatic - but that didn't mean it didn't hurt to hold. Foils floated into place, bobbing just before them at the ready.
"Prêts?" Trilby looked to Blueblood, then to Sunset. Neither moved.
"Allez!" And Trilby took a step backwards to be sure he was out of their way.
At the command, Blueblood twitched slightly to his left - and Sunset's foil moved to intercept his attack. None came. Just the distinct feeling of Blueblood's widening grin.
He twitched again to the left and this time Sunset didn't bite on the feint. She held firm, foil floating dead center before her.
A few seconds ticked by as the tension and anticipation rose to a fever pitch.
Then several more passed with no motion before it occurred to Sunset that Blueblood wanted her to make the first move. He certainly wasn't afraid, but he was probably at least uncertain. He didn't know how much she'd learned from Gliding, and didn't want to take the chance that she was suddenly as much a natural prodigy at fencing as she was with everything else she set her mind to. And as a result? He was playing directly into the exact tactic Sunset wanted.
So she obliged him. The strike was as basic as it could be: a straight thrust at his leading shoulder. Sunset was certain it wouldn't hit, but if he was weakest on the riposte she needed to give him an attack to counter.
Blueblood took the bait. His foil batted Sunset's to the side before driving hard towards her center mass. And Gliding was right: he left himself wide open. All Sunset had to do was move to evade his strike and then Blueblood's entire left side was exposed. It was everything she could have asked for and Sunset's brilliant analytical mind took it all in instantly.
The problem, of course, was that there was a vast gulf between spotting the opportunity and taking it. Sunset had always disdained the physical - why have magic if you were going to resort to brute force like a mud pony? - and two weeks of intense training was not enough to overcome that. Blueblood, on the other hoof, was fit and practiced. She recognized the flaw in his technique but he moved too fast. Sunset knew she had to dodge - she simply couldn't do it quickly enough. Even through the padded vest she could feel the impact of his foil's tip against her chest.
"Halt!" Trilby stomped his hoof. Both competitors drew back and the audience quietly applauded. "Point for Blueblood."
Sunset tried very hard not to seethe. It was just one point. She could do this. If not beat him, at least make it competitive.
"En garde!" They took their positions. "Prêts?" Into their ready stances. "Allez!"
This time neither hesitated. There was no careful gauging and testing of one another, and absolutely no uncertainty of skill levels. Blueblood stabbed forward with the same speed as before. Sunset's foil flicked to parry him away - and he ignored it, getting past her guard before she could even begin the motion. Once more, she felt the hard impact against her padding.
"Halt!" Another stomp punctuated the extremely brief exchange. "Point for Blueblood." More quiet applause and another return to their starting positions.
"En garde!" To positions. "Prêts?" At the ready. "Allez!"
Sunset was in motion early - almost too early, on the edge of drawing a penalty. Trilby didn't call her on it, though, and even if he had she was already moving. If defense didn't work, Sunset could beat Blueblood to the punch and strike before he was ready.
Except he was ready. Her attack was parried with almost lazy ease before Blueblood's foil struck Sunset in her leading shoulder, drawing a grimace as he hit one of the spots most bruised in her training.
"Halt! Point for Blueblood."
Sunset fought the urge to pull off her mask and throw it at Blueblood. She was certain he was wearing that smug grin behind his own mask, and it was trivial to calculate the amount of force she'd need to cave the mesh in to break his snout.
"En garde!" To positions. "Prêts?" At the ready. "Allez!"
Blueblood twitched slightly to his left. This time, Sunset fully took the bait and moved her foil to parry. That, in turn, left her completely open and Blueblood jabbed that same bruised spot.
"Halt!"
Sunset reeled backwards, grabbing the bruise and rubbing it through her vest.
"Point for Blueblood."
And her boiling anger continued to rise.
"En garde!" "Prêts?" "Allez!" "Halt! Point for Blueblood."
"En garde!" "Prêts?" "Allez!" "Halt! Point for Blueblood."
The crowd's polite applause disappeared into an awkward silence as Sunset was comprehensively dismantled.
"En garde!" "Prêts?" "Allez!" "Halt! Point for Blueblood."
"En garde!" "Prêts?" "Allez!" "Halt! Point for Blueblood."
By point eight, Blueblood was grandstanding. He was visibly strutting on the strip, passing up obvious openings just so he could bat away Sunset's attacks and counter-attacking to keep her off-balance as she struggled to defend. It was working, too - not only was Sunset physically outmatched but her temper was running hot as Celestia's sun and making her even sloppier.
Point nine stopped halfway with a yellow card as Sunset lunged at Blueblood and stepped off the strip. Just a warning, but it was enough to light a match.
Throwing off her mask, Sunset charged to get nose-to-nose with Trilby. "Out of bounds?!"
The weasel-eyed mediocre academic cringed back as he always did.
"I was nowhere near out!" Sunset glared death, the force of her anger enough to cow the teacher-turned-judge.
Until he looked back. Trilby's eyes flickered away from Sunset to the crowd. To a mass of his students; his teaching peers; to the Princesses watching a full grown stallion be verbally beaten down by a teenage filly half his size. That, it seemed, was enough to give him a little confidence and his opal gray magic levitated up a red card. "P-Penalty point to Blueblood," he pronounced with no small amount of fear. "Next violation will disqualify you."
Sunset glared at him again - and he didn't meet her eyes. "...Fine." She knew a losing battle and returned to her position.
Two more points and time ran out for the first round. A one minute break between wasn't much, but Sunset needed the breather as both competitors withdrew to their sideline. She took a deep drink from a water bottle as soon as her mask was off - and found Gliding Moth beside her when the bottle lowered again.
"Eleven-nil," pronounced the older unicorn in her annoying accent. "If you are lulling him into a false sense of security, I commend you on your dedication. I haven't ever seen a humiliation this one-sided."
Sunset's reply was merely a frustrated grunt.
Gliding paid her no mind. "You said you had a plan. Is this it, or have you yet to unleash your masterstroke?"
Another swig from the water bottle. "I have a plan," Sunset firmly stated. "And it's still mostly on track."
"I hope for both our sakes it is. I banked my own status on your success," Gliding reminded her.
Sunset muttered angrily - but Trilby's stomp to signal the end of the break preempted any further response.
They returned to their spots, masks on and foils up.
"En garde!"
Sunset took a deep breath to try and focus again.
"Prêts?"
Her eyes locked on Blueblood, watching for any little movement he made that might hint at what he would do. An opening, a weakness, something so she could drag this out more.
"Allez!"
Sunset surged forwar--
"Halt!"
Sunset dropped her foil, magic cutting out as he hit her in that same damn bruise before she could even fully extend her weapon and a jolt of pain shot through her.
"Point for Blueblood."
This time though, Sunset's anger evaporated rather than lit. Her breath hitched as Blueblood pulled his foil back and she spotted a tiny hint of silver on the end - the protective rubber tip had started to give way. The heat she'd applied to the blade before the match had weakened it and now the repeated impacts had let it break through.
So it was time for phase two.
"En garde!" To positions. "Prêts?" At the ready. "Allez!"
Blueblood's foil bobbed side to side mockingly, daring Sunset to try another attack.
Her foil stayed still. Instead, she attacked a different way. "You've been pretty quiet, Blueblood. I was expecting more banter from you."
"An exterminator doesn't talk to the pests," he sneered back.
"You never had a problem talking to me before."
Trilby's magic grabbed the red card out of his shirt - but Blueblood raised his hoof to stop him. "No. Let her talk. I don't want to give her the excuse that she lost on penalties instead of to me." The card lowered.
"It's going to be a glorious win, isn't it?" Sunset fired off another verbal stab. "It's pretty obvious who's the expert and who's the helpless novice."
Blueblood snorted. "If you're trying to goad me into making a mistake, it won't work. I already gave you every opening possible and you weren't able to capitalize on any of them."
"Yeah. You're quicker. And stronger."
"And better," Blueblood added with just a little bit of sing-song in his voice.
Sunset stuck out her tongue at him, even if he couldn't see it through the mask. "After this, I'm never skipping gym again. But none of your advantages matter. Because I know that I can win."
She didn't get a proper answer - just an amused snort.
Her foil rose slightly, coming square center in front of her mask and pointing directly at Blueblood. "I just need to score one point."
"And then only be down twelve to one?" Blueblood mimicked her stance, putting his foil unwisely at eye level. It gave Sunset a perfect look at the tip - at how the blunt square steel underneath was poking through the partially melted rubber. One more good hit and it would punch through.
Trilby's eyes widened as he spotted it too. "Hal--"
Blueblood's head snapped to glare. "I said let her talk!"
"But Prince--"
Both Sunset and Blueblood shouted in unison. "Shut UP!"
And Trilby cringed away.
"One point," Sunset reiterated.
"So you're giving up at thirteen-nil. Good to know." Blueblood scoffed. "Deep down I knew you were a quitter."
Behind the mask, Sunset's eyes narrowed. "One. Point."
"So come and take it, Miss Shimmer."
A moment of tension passed.
Then - she lunged. Despite Gliding lecturing her not to (and leaving bruises to show why she shouldn't), Sunset lunged. Rather than attack purely with her magic, she dove forward with all her might and tried to get her foil in to hit Blueblood before he could react.
It was in vain, of course. He was physically her superior and knew she was coming. He struck too - ignoring her attack to hit her instead and end the point before she could reach him. She dove right into his blade.
On contact, the rubber tip on the end of Blueblood's foil gave way just as Sunset had planned. It was the perfect finale and would solidify her victory: an unsafe weapon making a superficial injury. A little bit of blood for drama and Sunset could turn Blueblood's greatest strength against him: his social standing. Princess Celestia wouldn't protect him after he'd visibly bullied and injured her in front of a crowd. And where she went, so did those nobles Blueblood relied on so much.
It was a perfect plan.
Right up until it wasn't.
Sunset threw her entire weight directly into Blueblood's weapon. The protective tip broke and exposed steel. He had been aiming for that repeatedly bruised spot, hitting her in the same place he had seven of the last nine times. She had expected the squared edge of the blade to nick her neck and make a messy but trivial wound. But her violent movement spoiled both of their aims and instead Blueblood found the weakest point in her padding: the seam of the vest where the neck met the shoulder, painfully shown to her two weeks earlier by Gliding Moth.
Both competitors froze in the moment of contact.
The first clue Sunset had that something was wrong was how Blueblood's magic cut out. He didn't withdraw after the touch and return to his en garde line. Instead he released the foil but it didn't fall to the floor. Brain screaming signals that something wasn't right, Sunset turned her head to look. And that was when she realized that even though the foil was blunt, it was still a pin-width of steel she had thrown herself into. Now it was sticking out of her subclavian muscle like a macabre flag.
She took a breath. The pain of a hoof's worth of metal being embedded into her body hit and she dropped to the ground.
Then somepony in the crowd started screaming.
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Sunset probably wasn't expecting her plan to derail that bad. But hey, at least she could charge him with attempted manslaughter :p
Though I believe no one would vouch for that.
well fuck. I knew Sunset's plan was gonna be reckless, but-
Also curse your insistence on not labeling this as AU, implying that it'll end the same way canon did
I really love this ending. Sunset has been an idiot the whole story in my opinion and now when she tried to cheat she just ruined herself like an even bigger idiot.
Oh wow what a devious plan. I'm a bit confused on where she was stabbed though, instead of the shoulder she was stabbed where?
Was this chapter sponsored by the Parentheses Lobby or something?
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Picture how a shirt sits on you, then imagine you've got someone above you poking downwards. There's a gap right between where your collar ends and your neck properly begins. The muscle that runs along the back part of that - connecting your shoulder to the spine - is a muscle called the supraspinatus. Horses have a similar one in a similar place, albeit rotated because they have a horizontal torso rather than vertical. Basically, it's the weak point because it's open on a padded jacket (because the neck needs to move) and normally would be covered by a gorget - but in this case, Sunset lunged and extended, creating a gap by changing her body angle (and demonstrating why you don't do that.) Essentially: she did a dumb and exposed an unarmored spot because she figured "It's blunt, it's no big deal."
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I feel it is very important to occasionally remind that no matter how intelligent, cunning, or wise a character is, they occasionally make stupid choices or overestimate their skills and get totally dumpstered.
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Huh. I guess I did use them a bit more often than normal. Huh!
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Oh ergghh yea that sounds awful to be stabbed there especially
It actually wasn't a bad plan she just didn't handle it properly. Metal is an interesting material. So strong yet so flexible. Steel especially. It takes so small a flaw to ruin a blade. I've seen enough blade competitions to say that. What she should have done was aim for his foil and force it to break. He would have been flustered enough at losing a priceless heirloom it would have made him sloppy with a replacement. Impaling yourself? Sheesh.
Sunset Impaled herself on Bluebloods shaft and started leaking blood!
lol
That probably shouldn't be an author's note.
Mostly because when you download a story to read offline the author's note parts are not included, so someone reading this through a download wouldn't know that it was the end of an act.
good ole’ Stockdale Paradox; Sunset believing her ascension is imminent inevitable decreases her chances
Well, that just happened. I mean, we all knew Sunsetʼs plan was doomed to fail, but Sunset being stabbed?! Talk about brutal!
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Sort of knew thereʼs more to Celestia here than meets the eye, and your comment has made me even more excited for whatʼs next! Itʼs also an interesting position to be in - us, the audience, knowing so much more than our viewpoint character.
And while I have your attention, I would like you to tell that this is best villain protagonist fic I have ever seen on this site! Thank you for it.
I absolutely love your exploration of Canterlot Castle. The building was first seen in Season 1, and has staple of the show throughout its nine seasons. Yet, youʼve managed to make it feel more alive.
The Chancellor Hall, the ballroom, the lesser dinette, the Princessʼ personal library, the east solarium, the west solarium, the gardens, the kitchens, the Guardsʼ training chamber, Sunsetʼs room, Cadanceʼs room and even Bluebloodʼs room. All of it just feels so alive and you managed to make each room so distinct that Iʼve forgotten that the majority of the story takes place in the same building.
Truly beautiful description of locations.
wow I wonder if there is at all anything symbolic in Sunset getting herself injured because she was overconfident in her plan and ability to handle everything