Family Begins With You

by Jmaster49

Arc II Episode III: Adagio's Turn

With Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Aria, and Sonata spectating from seats nearby, the sparring session between Adagio and Sunset was set to begin.

“If this gets too hectic for you, feel free to call a timeout at any moment,” Sunset explained, with an excited set of narrowed eyes, “Not that you’ll need to since water logically beats fire.”

“I know how elemental stuff works, thank you,” Adagio replied while using scrunchies to put her hair up in a set of twintails to keep it in place, “Now let’s begin.”

Sunset interlocked her fingers and stretched her arms upwards, then outwards. “Okay. Let’s start with something simple.” She separated her hands and snapped her fingers which generated a fireball in her left hand. It was easily the size of their heads! “Let’s see how you can deal with this.” With a simple flick of her wrist, she cast the fireball off in Adagio’s direction.

And she reacted accordingly, slashing it with one of her water blades and making it disappear in an instant. “Wow...that was unexpectedly easy,” she commented with a smug expression, only for the liquid she was casting to disappear. “What the--where did it--?”

“That’s the problem with Aether,” Sunset went on, “Unlike regular magic, you need to constantly dedicate a part of your mind to keep it engaged,” she said while tapping the side of her head, “You need to focus if you want your powers to stay active--but not so active that they cause a flood. You feel?”

Adagio huffed. “Ugh...this was so much easier when we could just sing and win any battle we stepped foot into. But now we have to actually dedicate extra time to our magic? This is insane…”

“Yeah, but you’ll get used to it,” Sunset tried to comfort her, “Who knows, you may end up creating something like this…” She balled her fists and a larger pair of fists made of fire appeared over them. “For extra attack power.”

“...” Ever the spiteful one, Adagio was somewhat jealous of Sunset’s ability to master the Aether so well. “Oh she’s not going to outdo me.” With a quick crick of her neck, she readied herself once more. “Okay, my turn now.”

“Huh--ahh!” Sunset squealed like a parakeet once she realized that she was suddenly caught in a sphere of water. Almost like a prison of sorts.

“Ha! Got you!” she declared while readying another water blade.

But Sunset wasn’t going to allow that to take her down so easily. All the sudden, her hair seemingly caught fire, and she flexed her muscles. “YAH!” With a loud hisssss!, the water sphere turned to steam in an instant, “You didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?”

Annoyed, the yellow siren lashed out, and went on a complete offensive assault. With both of her arms shrouded in water blades, she started slashing and slicing at Sunset’s body, grunting furiously as she tried her best to land a hit.

CHING!

No dice. Sunset had prepared herself by blocking with a sword made entirely out of fire. Holding it with a reverse grip, she was able to easily and flawlessly block Adagio’s attacks with little effort on her part. Her arm was moving like something out of a samurai film--almost too fast for the naked eye to follow.

“Gggh! How are you so--?!”

Sunset glared at her opponent from behind the fiery blade with a tense grin. “You’re focusing so much into trying to beat me, that you can’t even see that you’re leaving yourself open.”

“What?!”

Before Adagio could blink, Sunset stuck her sword into the floor of the boxing ring, sprang off her feet, and kicked her opponent square in the abdomen.

SMACK!

“Oof!” Adagio landed flat on her back within the boxing ring and scowled. “...Dammit. Am I not good enough?”

The sword disappeared and Sunset walked over to help the girl onto her feet by pulling her up with her hand. “You’re letting your anger get the better of you. It’s making you weaker than you would be otherwise. I know how it feels. Trust me...I’m not exactly the most...calm person, per se.”

“That’s a total understatement,” Rainbow Dash commented from the chairs nearby, earning a glare from Sunset in the process.

“Ahem,” Sunset cleared her throat and continued, “The point is--you need to simply focus on what matters most and your magic will work out just fine. Possibly in ways you never would’ve expected.”

“Ways I never would’ve expected…” Adagio repeated what she had just heard in an attempt to process the information.

Sunset placed a hand on the yellow girl’s back, and ushered her out of the boxing ring. “Come on. Let’s you and I take a break and let one of your sisters go next.” She glanced towards the group of spectators. “Applejack, you’re up.”

“Got it,” the farm girl replied as she stood up, “You and me, Aria. Show me whatcha got.”

Aria stood up right with her and followed Applejack into the boxing ring. “Oh, I’ll show you what I can do…”

As her friends got ready to duke it out, Rainbow started impatiently tapping her foot. “Ergh--come on. I wanna get a taste of the magic too!”

“Have some patience, Rainbow,” Sunset said from the water cooler in the corner of the room as she filled her cup, “You’ll get your turn soon enough.”

The cyan girl rolled her eyes, but soon laid her eyes on the doorway that led into the room. She noticed a particularly green hand quickly moving away from the small window that led into the room they were practicing in. “What the...is that?”

In a quick blur, she rushed over to the door and opened it to find none other than… “Zephyr Breeze? What are you doing here?!”

Indeed, the young man had tried to sneak off as soon as he was spotted, but had no choice to face the music. “Oh, uh...hey Dash. I was just...looking for the yoga room and I uh...got lost?” he said, rather unconvincingly.

To which Rainbow replied with a narrow-eyed glare. “Look. I don’t care what you’re doing. Just keep away from me and my friends. I’ve already told you countless times that I’m not interested--so you just need to cut your losses and move on to someone else.”

“Aw, now that’s just mean,” Breeze said with a pouting expression as he tried to take a step towards her, “I wouldn’t dream of hurting someone as wonderful as you. Besides, Thanksgiving is coming up and I want you to--”

But Dash wasn’t having it. She stood her ground, and made herself clear--balling her fists. “Get. Away. From me.”

“Alright, alright,” he responded in a casual manner as he backed away, “But you’ll see what I have planned for us. It’ll be awesome as you say.”

“Ugh…” Dash rubbed her temples as Breeze walked away. “Can’t he ever take a hint?”

Moments later, Sonata would appear, having been looking for her for the last few minutes. “Oh, there you are. Hey, what’s wrong?”

“The usual,” Rainbow replied as she turned around, “Some weirdo can’t understand that I want nothing to do with him.”

“...How bad is he bothering you?” the siren asked with an innocent tilt of her head, “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Meh. He’s one step away from becoming a full-blown stalker,” Dash said with a scoff, “But thankfully, he hasn’t stooped to that level yet.”

Sonata looked out to the hallway with a cautious stare. “...If he bothers you again, let me know. I’ll take care of him.”

“...Thanks, Sonata. But let’s get back to the training room.” “She’s sweet, but she doesn’t seem like she’d hurt a fly.”

Little did Rainbow know...

Comments

[The Crazed Werewolf]

👍

[HB_DS2013]

Oooh, Sonata has buttons that Zeph has pushed. I'm hyped!

[Jmaster49]

11052028
He's gonna regret it if he tries messing with Dash again. That's for sure!