Parry and Riposte

by armid

Untouchable!

Dear diary,

Steely and I got approved for attending the clubs we signed up for. The girls though, I’ve learned that letting my guard down is not something I should be doing with them. Specially with Ms. Baconhead! She came off as kind and friendly, but she has no respect for other people's privacy. She has no respect for others' boundaries!

I was planning on showing off a little in the clubs now that I’ve been accepted. But, things got more complicated than that. As I stepped into the fencing club, AKA the gym. I could tell the state of the members. Amateurs! But among them, was her. AGAIN!

Just looking at her made me annoyed. Thankfully, we keep our masks on most of the time. But still, I shouldn’t have let her presence ruin the fun I was going to have. So I began walking into the middle of the gym to challenge them all.

“Hey! I’m sorta new here so I don’t know who you all consider your most skilled member, but have to say they no longer are. Cuz I’m here. Now if any of you would like to put me in my place, they're welcome to try!” I said out loud and caught their attention. It didn’t take long before the first member decided to step forward and hold his blade up against me.

I didn’t go too hard on him. But even then, I didn’t let him get a lucky hit. I could see his attacks from a mile away. His hand always got drawn back before he wanted to attack, telegraphing his move. And not even an attempt to at least be a little sneaky and do a bait cut. His thrusts were easy to counter too. His whole body would get twisted back as if he was pushing on a spring to let go. But little did he know, before he could even start his attack, I'd already landed two swings.

The second one though, had a nice start. She started thrusting and swinging left and right as fast as she could. It was quite hard to find an opening at first, though, she was putting a lot of energy into that which in the end, she couldn’t keep it up. For the rest of the match, she was significantly slow and tired. She was both desperate and bold, but unfortunately, it takes more than that to get through me.

“C’mon, was that all you guys had? Embarrassing!” I shouted. “C’mon, Give me a challenge!”

The third guy grunted as he put his mask on and walked up to face me. I held my guard down. And it didn’t take long for him to fall for the fools guard. The moment he decided to attack, I just raised my sword and got a point with ease. Next time, he tried his best to beat me to the sword dance. But his wrist wasn’t capable of keeping up with mine. After a couple of successful circling around his sword, I thrusted it to his shoulder. He was really keen on winning a sword circling and thrust at me, but every time he failed miserably.

And should I even talk about the fourth one? That guy literally dropped his sword in the middle of the match. And it’s not like I did anything. He just dropped it.

However there was still one more fencer I had to face. HER! I watched her, as she put her mask on and took a sabre from another member and walked to me as the other members cheered her. So, SHE was their champion.

She held her guard up. But I resorted to the fools guard once again to see what she would do. But even after the match started, she held her guard and didn’t try to attack and take advantage of my weak guard. She knew. But if she wasn’t making the first move, I wasn’t minding it. I changed my guard and held my sword in front of me, pointing towards her. The tip of our swords were almost touching however we both circled around each other's swords quite often. She wasn’t going to be the one attacking first and I was sure of it. So I charged. I made a circle and then pushed my sword up to catch her’s with the guard of it. After that I pushed her sword aside and before she could maintain her guard again, I had landed a hit but thrusting my sabre into her chest. One to zero in my favor.

After taking our stances again, I didn’t have to worry about attacking anymore. If she wasn’t going to do anything, she was guaranteed to lose. And the time was flying for her quite fast. I resorted to the fools guard and waited for her to fall into my trap. She was hesitant still and tried to keep her distance and have a quick thrust at me. Though that was not going to cut it.

Flaming Star took a moment to smile at his unintentional pun.

I easily pushed her blow aside. She tried once more only for her thrust to be pushed aside once again. She was playing clever, I have to give her that. She tried to be a bit more aggressive and tried attacking faster. After blocking them, she was left quite open. Even though she tried to back-step her way to safety, I landed a quick hit to her shoulder. Two to zero. Not much time was left for her. She might have been smarter but she was still losing.

She was getting desperate in the last moments. She was thrusting and swinging left and right. It was getting quite hard to hold all of her attacks. I had to finish it. I ducked one of her swings and thrusted my sword to her chest from underneath. The time was up after that.

---

In the next free time I headed to the Archery Club! They had a very fun task there. We had to shoot three targets that were next to each other one after another as fast as possible. But the distance and the space between the targets was just enough for me to perform three in one! And I did it when it was my turn. I even got the fastest time of the bunch! A new record for me I guess. I have to say, It was quite some time since I practiced archery but thankfully I still knew how to do it.

---

I met up with Steely in the cafeteria. He was sitting by himself, eating a sandwich. As Always!

I took a hot dog and an Apple cider from there and sat next to him.

“Hey, buddy!”

“Hep!” he said with a full mouth and gave me a wave. After he swallowed the bite he took he continued. “Sorry. How was today?”

“Well, I uh, showed all the amateurs in the fencing club how to really fence and pulled a shenanigan in the archery club that made everyone's jaw drop down to the floor so yeah, It was quite fun.”

He took another bite before answering, “Huh, Reaby?”

“Yeah. So how was your day?”

He held his hand to tell me to wait and once he finished chewing and swallowing the bite he took, he answered. “Well, now I am in every club I wanted to be in. Chess, Chemistry and most importantly the workshop but…”

“But?”

I could understand that something was bothering him just by looking at his face. Steely put down the half eaten sandwich and sighed. “It’s about Sunset Shimmer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course it’s her!”

He sat straight and raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

“It’s always her Steely! Always! She guided us around the school. She was the one who found my song's notebook. The one who tutored me! The one who can see memories! And even though she was coming off as friendly at first, she showed that she has no respect for privacy!” I crossed my arms.

Steely looked away for a second, “yeah, about that…”

I looked in his eyes, “Hey, is there something you want to spill out? I imagine it has to do with your experiments cuz, Ms. Memory Reader wanted to get to the bottom of your...stuff a few days ago.”

Steely played with his fingers and after letting another sigh out, he started. “She broke into my garage!”

“Wait, WHAT?” I slammed the table and caught the attention of a few students. “Your not telling me that she actually was that desperate to know what you were doing that she invaded your property!”

“Actually, it’s not my property, even though I have my stuff there but,” He raised his finger and pointed at me. “Yes, she did.”

I held my head in my hands. “Oh man. She really crossed the line this time.” I leaned forward to Steely. “So, did she steal anything?”

“No. I checked everything and there didn’t seem to be anything missing. She did say that was just looking. I guess she told the truth.”

“Huh.” I leaned back. “So what now?”

Steely dropped his head on his hands. “Twilight Sparkle told me that Sunset Shimmer wants to be in our session today after school. That night I caught her breaking into my garage, she said that she will explain everything on Monday! And here we are, Monday!”

“Explain what? Why did she break into your garage? Is there anything left to be explained at all?” I shook my head and raised my tune a little bit.

“She wants to explain what happened in the school before we came. When they had to deal with magic.”

I calmed down a little after he said that. I stayed silent and let Steely continue.

“I’ve been hearing some rumors. But none gave me a clear picture. Twilight Sparkle didn’t want to talk about it either. There is something that they were holding from us but now they want to tell us.”

“Wait, so you aren’t mad that she broke into your garage snooping around?”

“I am very frustrated and mad but…” He paused for a moment and let another sigh out. “...This can make a lot of things clear. I will listen to what she has to say and then I will decide whether I should hold a grudge or not.”

Even though Steely was trying to be more forgiving upon Sunset Shimmers acts. I was not going to do the same. She can’t just invade others' personal life. Whatever the reason may be. She can’t just do it!

“So, are we practicing in the Cars Graveyard after school or not?” I asked. Changing the subject.

“The session may take a while, but if you can wait, we sure can.”

“I’m free. I'll just wait outside.”

Author's Note:

Make sure to read other chapters too.