Atlas Strongest Tournament

by Bico

Final Four: Smells Like Ozone

ATLAS STRONGEST TOURNAMENT
~BICO
PART 6: FINAL FOUR
ACT II: SMELLS LIKE OZONE

"Spike," somepony said.

Spike turned, adjusting his backpack's straps self-consciously, and saw a pony with an orange coat, a mussed violet mane, and stormy orchid eyes. "...Really?" he whispered. "Ugh, what's my line? Oh, yeah. Scootaloo, what are you doing here? Did you finish your match already? Don't tell me Shiny was that easy to beat."

Scootaloo laughed as she sauntered toward her target, her eyes fluttering seductively. "That's not important, Spikey. Hey, follow me. I want to show you something."

"What's up, Scoot?" Spike asked, following Scootaloo down the hallway, hesitating for a moment as he saw her enter a dim closet and beckon him inside. "Somepony moves fast," he said under his breath and through clenched teeth. Taking a deep, calming breath, he entered the room.

She whirled on him, crying, "Oh, Spikey!" She wrapped her forelegs around his neck and pulled him in for a surprise smooch. "I was just desperate to see you!"

Spike stared at her, shocked. Then a wide grin spread across his face. "Hey, baby, you been rolling in tree sap? 'Cause you got some sweet lips."

"Huh?" Scootaloo said, pulling back.

"Sorry I can't hear you," he continued. "I guess I forgot to turn off my swag when I left the house, and it's drowning out anything less swag than me."

"W-w-wait," Scootaloo stammered, putting a hoof to his chest as he attempted to advance on her. "I think we should maybe take this slower."

"Yo, Candy Mane, you can't dangle the carrot without giving the stick," Spike complained, ignoring her attempts to put some distance between them and putting his face right up against hers.

"I-I don't even know what that means!" Scootaloo cried, turning her face away from him. "Ugh, dragon breath..."

"Didn't complain before," Spike said with a smirk. "C'mon, pucker up!"

"Okay, knock him out, please," Scootaloo pleaded as she jammed her hooves in Spike's face. The response was almost instantaneous: a purple fist shot out and struck Spike in the back of the neck. He slumped against her chest and slowly slid down, leaving a snail trail of drool on her fur. "Wow, I don't know how Momma does this."

Her savior slid out of the shadows, his face a perfect copy of the one that had just attempted to counter-accost her. "Are you alright, Princess? I didn't think he would actually go for it like that, given what you took from his memories during the match."

Princess Aurelia snorted and looked at the crumpled form of the dragon contemptuously. "Neither did I. All I gathered suggested he would react with surprise, most likely stammering incoherently and melting into a proverbial puddle of goo."

"Unless you'd gone out with the wrong eye color," the new Spike responded.

Aurelia blushed. "Yes. Thank you for spotting that. I can't believe I almost went out with violet eyes. Funny how specific Spike's memories on that were..."

"Now that we've accomplished our objective, though..." faux-Spike said.

"I will move him to a safe location," Aurelia told him. "We have to keep up appearances for now. We wouldn't want anypony suspecting that anything's wrong before the finals."

"Right," faux-Spike said, saluting her sharply.

---

---

"You can feel the calm before the storm as the chapter begins..."

Scootaloo and Shining ignored Pinkie's seeming nonsequitur as they sat at a Neighpponese-style red lantern bar that was, unusually for such an establishment, entirely composed of translucent, rose-colored energy. Shining was completely encased in a personal bubble, nursing a cup of cider, while Scootaloo sat next to him with an empty mug.

"Yo, barkeep, another cider," Scootaloo said. Pinkie dropped her microphone and dove behind the bar, instantly popping back up without her shades, but with a rather dandy mustache adorning her muzzle. She slid a new mug of cider across the table, which, due to the lack of friction, was actually a quite efficient means of beverage transportation. Scootaloo caught the mug and took a big swig. "So, anyway, I don't know when it was exactly. Was it that time when me and the girls tortured him for information, and I noticed how adorable his little squeals were? Was it when I taught him to dance in preparation for your wedding and he managed to pick it up so well he practically swept me off my hooves? Was it when I got stuck to his face for five hours in a tree sap related incident and it was like we were nearly kissing the whole time? I don't know, but now it's all awkward, and I try to spit it out, but I just can't get through to him!"

"That's rough, buddy," Shining said stoically, sipping lightly from his choko. "I remember having a similar problem with Cadance, actually. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried to let her know how I felt, she'd just ignore it or think that's just what ponies in Equestria did with their friends. I even tried showing her how I felt more... directly." He blushed brightly. "She went around for months greeting all her close friends with an open-mouthed kiss after that. Boy, was I glad when Twilight came up with Sunshine, Sunshine, Ladybugs Awake."

"Uhh..." Scootaloo looked away uncomfortably. "So... what happened?"

"Well, when she tried it on her aunt in open court, it caused a bit of a stir. Celestia thought it was hilarious, of course, but she figured it was probably time to formally educate Cadance on Equestrian etiquette." Shining chuckled. "Cadance ended up thinking the whole thing was a prank I orchestrated and didn't talk to me for—"

"No," Scootaloo interjected. "I mean, how did you finally convince her that you... really liked her?"

"Oh." Shining pursed his lips in thought for a moment. "Well, Scootaloo, when it comes to that kind of thing, sometimes the simplest approach is best..."

"Are Mr. and Miss Customer enjoying themselves?" Pinkie the bartender interrupted from behind the bar. She spat into a glass and began wiping it with a rag that was also composed of magical energy.

"Yeah," Scootaloo said. "This is a pretty nice place you got here, actually." She looked around at the artificial building. "It's kind of funny, this is actually really complex and creative, but you usually only make bubbles and boxing gloves out of your shield thingy."

Shining scoffed. "Well, it takes a lot more concentration to make something this elaborate. Anypony who would go out of their way to make something like this in the middle of a fight would have to have rocks in their..."

"Umm," Scootaloo said hesitantly. "Aren't we in the middle of a fight right now?"

Shining looked around at the stadium filled with fight fans glaring impatiently at the two fighters enjoying themselves in the middle of the heptagon. "Right... maybe we should get back to it."

Pinkie ducked behind the bar again and leaped into the air clad once more in her announcer's outfit as the bar collapsed into Shining's main shield. "And the battle continues! Pull out all the stops! It all comes down to this."

Scootaloo kicked off on her scooter, circling around her perfectly protected opponent. Gotta find a way through his shield... but no normal pegasus attack will do. This is going to come down to... that technique. She looked back up at the sky, which were heavy with the rain and lightning that remained within them after the last bout. She locked eyes with Shining, her intention to end this fight clear.

Shining nodded and braced himself, packing more magical energy into his shield.

Scootaloo began to pick up speed, circling around the ring. She let her flight aura flow in front of her and curve under her wheels, allowing her to lift off as her scooter continued to move as if it were still on solid ground. She then spiraled up into the sky until she reached the cloud cover. There, she set her scooter upon the lowest part of the massive cumulonimbus and began making her way up the water vapor mountain, her passage slowly shaping it as she careened around it. She leaned her scooter over to the side and dipped her hoof into the cloud. Electricity began to spark around her.

By the time Scootaloo reached the peak of the cloud, they had been whipped into the shape of floating soft-serve ice cream. Scootaloo perched precariously, power percolating in the pith of her pinions. She dipped her scooter forward and she began to roll downward, letting the pull of gravity combine with the furious beating of her petite wings accelerate her descent as she gathered more and more lightning within her. The entire side of the ice cream mountain melted down with her, so that even as she neared the ground, she pulled a huge stream of vapor behind her. Finally, she hit the stage and fog exploded around her, obscuring the entire ring from view.

"Wh-what?" Shining exclaimed. He twisted his head around, attempting to see anything beyond the limit of his shield, but it was as if he was buried in an avalanche. "What is she...?" He trailed off as he saw a dim light breaking through the mist growing brighter. As he watched, he saw thin beams of light form, looking like the bright sun's light showing through cracks in a dark room. The light swirled around like whirlpools, and quickly took on a shape he recognized: that of a triskelion. "Scootaloo's cutie mark?"

The miasma parted as Scootaloo plowed through it at top speed, her flight aura bursting with electrical energy. Cerise lightning trailed her as she shot toward Shining, sparks flying from her scooter's wheels. Her eyes were wide, and her vision contracted to a pinpoint. She could see nothing but her target, and the shield that was in her way.

She also saw the subtle movements of magic across the shield's surface. Though it had seemed like a solid sphere when she moved at normal speed, with her sudden tunnel vision she saw it as a mass of constantly shifting currents and eddies. She also saw that there was one place where, like the triskelion her flight aura had formed, all the whorls met, leaving a small seam. Its weak point! She thrust her hoof through her flight aura, all the lightning suddenly focusing on her single limb and extending beyond it to a subatomic point.

"Toasty!"

Shining had never seen anypony break through his shield in one hit, before. He would have been too shocked to move even if the attack had been slow enough to dodge when the lance seemed to pass through it like hot dragon's fire through crepe paper. Afterward—for it all happened far too fast for him to think about much of anything at the moment—he realized that the lightning blade had been aimed directly for his heart at first. At the last moment, however, the tip veered slightly to the left and pierced his shoulder. It was no less painful, as his loud but abrupt cry attested, and his shoulder burst into flame. He was sent hurdling through the air, the wind putting out the burning fur almost instantly, and he hit the wall beneath the stadium seating hard.

"Ring out!" Pinkie shouted. "This victory strengthened the soul of... Scootaloo!" She bounced over to the unicorn, who lay with blackened fur on the ground, and leaned in close. "It's official: you suck." As she giggled, Shining coughed, red flecks of blood escaping his mouth and spattering across her face. She blinked, a bemused expression on her face. "Ooh... burn."

---

---

"So she just bolted out after you finished?"

Applejack shrugged at Rarity's question as they exited the aid station. "I dunno, she seemed a bit upset about the bit with Princess Astraea. I don't blame her. That business with Celestia's... well... it shook me up a bit, too."

"After what happened with King Atlas and Discordia—or... Eris... whatever—I don't see how she could still be around." Rarity's eyes unfocused pensively. "Though if it has anything to do with the primordial gods... didn't Discordia once say she was a scion of Chaos?"

"That's right," Applejack said. "Though she obviously ain't now any more than Discord is even if they still got some of the powers. Twilight did say somethin' about Erebos an' Aether fightin' bein' no big whoop... Light and Dark have been fightin' since before Atlas was born. Somethin' about Chaos and Princess Astraea must've been what set 'er off. I wish she would just tell us, though."

"Well, you know," Rarity said. "Twilight will always be Twilight. Sometimes she just forgets that we're not privy to her own little world."

Applejack chortled. "I guess you're right about that. That girl can really—" She paused and tapped Rarity on the shoulder, softening her voice. "Hey... ain't that Spike and Scootaloo?"

"Hm?"

Further down the hallway, near the entrance to the ring, Spike seemed to be greeting Scootaloo enthusiastically as she made her way back inside. After a moment of animated conversation, Spike threw his hands up in the air and gave her a powerful embrace. Her face flushed, and her wings spread, hesitating for a moment before wrapping around him.

"Looks like she won," Applejack observed.

Rarity gasped. "Won? What makes you think she's won? She hasn't won. That hug was purely platonic!"

"Uhh," Applejack squinted her eyes at her friend. "I meant her match."

"Oh," Rarity said sheepishly. "I... I knew that. Of course, what else would you be talking about?"

"Rarity, you got some issues," Applejack concluded. "Well, at least you ain't gotta worry 'bout goin' up against that little filly in the Finals."

"What?" Rarity said. "Why's that? Didn't you just say she won her...?"

Applejack gave Rarity a smug smirk.

"Ohhh-ho-ho-ho, Applejack," Rarity laughed. "I see what you did there. No, no, you've had a hard enough day's work. I insist on taking things from here."

"Aw, Rare," Applejack said, removing her hat and holding it to her heart. "I do appreciate it, but I know how much you hate gettin' your hooves dirty. Let a real mare handle this one."

"You make it sound like it's going to be hard," Rarity said. "I assure you, I can handle this quite well without making a mess of things."

As the two passed Spike and Scootaloo, Rarity couldn't help but steal a glance at them. Her eyes locked with Scootaloo's and they exchanged a challenging glare. Spike turned to glance at her as well, and he gave her an enigmatic smile before turning his attention back to Scootaloo. A hard lump began to form in her throat.

"You hear me?" Applejack interjected into her sudden bout of melancholy. "I made disparagin' comments about the delicacy of your hooves. I can't trash talk to myself, ya know."

"No, no, I apologize," Rarity said, ripping her thoughts away from her two tormenters. "Ah, let's see... um... hooves... delicate... oh, yes, the delicacy of my hooves would only be a further point in my favor as you much prefer the touch of the fairer sex if the rumors are accurate."

Applejack stared at her with a mystified expression. "That... that ain't really trash talk, Rare."

Rarity scrunched up her face in thought. "Yes, you're right, I might as well have said your favorite ice cream was strawberry for all the—"

"Now, you take that back!" Applejack shouted. "I ain't got an issue with trash talk, but that there is just plain blasphemy. Everypony knows apple is best ice cream! Everypony!"

"W-w-well, would you look at that, it looks like it's time for our match!" Rarity derailed.

"Good," Applejack said, trotting out to the stage. "I'll show you whose favorite ice cream is strawberry."

"Hey, my favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry," Pinkie said, a broad smile stretching across her face. "So now that you've shown me to Rarity, I guess we can initiate the contest of hooficuffs."

"Darling, has Twilight been reading the thesaurus at you, again?" Rarity asked, cringing.

"Yes!" Pinkie confirmed. She turned to address the audience. "Now, fillies and gentlecolts, get ready. By the end of this match we'll find out who is going to be facing Scootaloo in the Finals. Will it be the girly-girl, Rarity, or will it be the tomboy, Applejack? Will grace and refinement win out or brute strength and athleticism?"

Rarity's eyebrows rose as she pointedly ignored Pinkie's rambling commentary and looked around the arena. "Applejack... do you know anything about all these saplings surrounding the ring?"

"Oh, yeah," Applejack said with a smirk. "Well, I figured you got all your diamonds and such all over the place, so I reckoned, hay, it might be nice to have some o' my apple trees around."

"They're not even bearing fruit," Rarity said uncertainly.

Applejack nodded and hopped into the heptagon while her opponent followed suit. "Nope. Like I said, I thought it might be nice."

"Well," Rarity muttered, "I didn't take you for a pony with an eye for ambiance, but I suppose it works..."

"—ight on the beaches, they shall fight on the landing grounds, they shall fight in the fields and in the streets, they shall fight in the hills; they shall ne—" Pinkie continued.

"A'right Pinks," Applejack said patiently. "We're good to go. Let's get on with this."

"Oh, right!" Pinkie said. "Then, in the immortal words of the Spinese philosopher, 茶烏龍森(1): '我愛愛齜牙!'(2)"

"Uhhh..." Applejack shrugged at Rarity, who rolled her eyes.

"She wants us to begin," Rarity explained.

"Oh, right," Applejack said with an enthusiastic nod. "I can't say this'll be more fun than tusslin' with RD, but I been lookin' forward to seein' for myself what you got. Let's get 'er done!" With a cheer she began to charge, and she opened with a powerful haymaker.

Rarity spun out of the way of the attack smoothly, lightly kicking off the tile she landed upon and flipping over Applejack's head. She delivered a five-strike combination with the speed and precision of a master. The punches and kicks seemed to have little effect as the recipient immediately countered with a powerful body blow that knocked Rarity clean off her hooves.

"Oh, sorry, Rare," Applejack said. "I couldn't tell if those were hooves hittin' me or if somepony was peltin' me with marshmallows."

"You really have been working on that stamina of yours. Let me guess, did you have somepony throw rocks at you until you couldn't feel them anymore?"

"Pfff, naw!" Applejack said, looking away as she crinkled her muzzle. "I didn't need Pinkie to help me with nothin'."

"She's technically right," Pinkie interjected. "I definitely didn't help her with 'nothing.' It was definitely a 'something.'"

"Pinkie!" Applejack exclaimed.

"Oh, right!" Pinkie said. She made a mouth zipping and locking motion with her hoof and then began to make complicated movements with her hooves before miming hefting something heavy onto her shoulder. She then rocked back before she started to spin into the air.

"I'm not following..." Rarity said as she watched the continuing act.

"Uhh..." Applejack said pensively. " She zipped her mouth closed, then locked it with a key, then loaded it into a rocket launcher, then fired it at a ponycopter, then tracked down the wreckage, then quarantined the wreckage, then shipped the wreckage to a factory where it was melted down and made into... uh... cans? Then fed the can made out of the key to a goat... okay, I lost it."

Pinkie sighed and rolled her eyes. "And then I pooper-scoopered the poo made of the can made of the key, fertilized Applejack's field with the poo, planted an apple seed, and grew an apple tree out of the key-can-poo-dirt." She giggled. "'The key can poo dirt'! Keys can't poo!"

"Got it," Rarity said with a huff. "Let's get this fight back on track, shall we?"

"Let's," Applejack said, smirking. She sprang at Rarity, cocking her foreleg back for a punch, but when she tried to extend, she winced in pain. "Augh!"

Rarity took advantage of the distraction and grabbed her by the hoof as Applejack continued to barrel toward her. With a fluid twist, she flipped the cowfilly over her hip.

Applejack plowed into the ground, and when she sprang to her hooves again she was spitting stone chips. She turned back to Rarity, favoring her right foreleg. "What was that? A cramp? I stretched out before the fight an' everythin'!"

"So I recall!" Rarity said, galloping at Applejack and hopping into the air to deliver precise kick. "Amazing what these 'marshmallow hooves' can do when one knows how to use them."

Applejack shrugged off the blows that Rarity rained down on her, but she felt them beginning to effect her deeply. Her own powerful punches and kicks were also being thwarted as Rarity kept parrying and tossing her aside like a rag doll. She was actually beginning to bruise simply from crashing into the ground. She huffed irately as she considered her options. "I didn't wanna do this, Rare, but it looks like you give me no choice."

"Oh?" Rarity commented as she swiped a stray hair in her mane back in place. "Do you have some dangerous forbidden technique you've been holding back?" She looked around at the trees surrounding the arena with a glint in her eye. "How exciting!"

Applejack smirked. "I reckon you're about to find out." She lunged at Rarity, who was poised to counter once more. When they came within striking distance, however, Applejack merely planted all four hooves on the ground and let loose a tremendous belch.

Rarity gasped, and then gagged. "Augh! I can taste it..." she wheezed. Distracted by the unsettling spoiled apple flavor of the gas entering her lungs, she failed to guard against the haymaker that Applejack delivered a moment later. She flew across the ring, hitting the ground and sliding to the edge of the heptagon. "Oh... thank Celestia," she groaned as she picked herself up woozily. "I'm away from that disgusting mare."

"Hay!" Applejack shouted from above. "Who you callin' 'disgustin''?" Moments before she landed on Rarity, she blew are sharply through her nostrils, sending viscous globs flying ahead of her.

Rarity screamed, wildly attempting to dodge the snot attacks. However, the range of the attacks boxed her in, allowing Applejack to deliver a kick that sent Rarity hurtling to the other end of the ring. "Alright!" she huffed. "No more Ms. Nice Mare." She flung herself back at Applejack, focused purely on offense.

Applejack's eyes widened as she saw Rarity's speed and the fire in her eyes. She flashed back to the incident several years ago when a Discorded Rarity had shown her a glimpse of her kung-ma skills. She pushed that thought out of her mind, refusing to let it distract her, and when Rarity's hoof began to reach toward her for a strike, she countered the best way she knew how. She stuck out her tongue.

Rarity's hoof froze in mid-flight as her brain attempted to parse the situation that had just played out. She had been attempting to initiate a combo that would teach her old friend to use such dirty tactics on her, but when she had almost connected the first punch with Applejack's face, she had felt a wet, spongy thing slide across the frog of her hoof. She shrieked in terror, withdrawing her hoof and staring at the film of saliva in stark terror.

Applejack burst into laughter at seeing her friend attempt to scour the spit from her hoof on the tiles of the stage. She almost didn't notice when Rarity attacked her once again, but she stuck her tongue out again just in time to force her opponent to halt her attack. Her head bobbed and weaved, expertly placing her face in the path of Rarity's oncoming hooves.

"Amazing, fillies and gentlecolts!" Pinkie cheered as she stotted around the contenders. "It looks like Applejack's got Rarity licked!"

"I will not be laid low by your ruffian tactics, Applejack!" Rarity spat. Her horn lit up and a barrage of small, smooth gems erupted from the stage floor, pelting her adversary's hide. "Oh, did you forget that I'm a unicorn? I don't have to come close to your odious self to beat you."

"That ain't fair!" Applejack protested as she fled the onslaught as best she could by galloping around the heptagon while Rarity chased after her. She barreled over Pinkie Pie, who was knocked into the path of the gems.

Pinkie caught the sparkling stones in her mouth and then beamed, revealing her jewel-covered teeth. "Hey, look Rarity: I've got a grill!"

Rarity hopped over the tournament announcer and continued her attack. Applejack was quite good at dodging the diamonds, of course, but she quickly rectified that issue when she summoned gems from the floor which trapped the cowfilly's front hooves, sending her face down into the tiles. She then summoned another set to trap those dangerous back legs of hers. "Nowhere to run, now, Applejack," Rarity said with a smirk. "And no way to attack. I have you now!" She charged her fallen foe, her horn blazing.

In an explosion of motion, Applejack pushed her upper body off the ground even as she collapsed the tight muscles of her hind legs. In a fraction of a second, she had successfully countered Rarity's attack... by sitting on her.

"Get off, get off!" Rarity protested from beneath Applejack's posterior. "Remove... your dirty butt... from my head."

"Oh, Rare," Applejack said as she snortled. "It's about to get a whole lot dirtier down there."

"Wh-what?" Rarity squeaked. "Applejack, what are you going to do? What are you going to do?" She began to struggle with earnest as she felt Applejack shift her weight.

BRAAAAP!

Rarity, having found a sudden reservoir of strength, tossed Applejack rear first into the air, ripping her hooves from the gems that had bound her. Screeching with sheer anguish, she galloped around randomly, tears streaming from her face. "I can't see! I can't see-hee-hee-heeee!"

"It looks like Applejack is blinding Rarity with science," Pinkie commented. She put a hoof to her muzzle and made a face. "Ooh, I can smell the chemicals."

---

---

To be continued...

---

1 Wu Long Cha Sen: Black Dragon Tea Forest (hint: read the pinyin aloud at a fast pace to get the joke)
2 Wo ai ai zi ya!: I wanna fight! (hint: same as above)

Author's Note:

Beta Reader: Imaginary Valued

Comments

[Whiteeyes]

...I don't get the joke. Sorry, I guess it doesn't translate well.

[Bico]

2279619

Hint:

[Ignaltus]

Oh, god! AJ gotten very hardy.

[Whiteeyes]

Just tell me what the pun is, the hint isn't even around anymore.

[Godiswithus3]

Jeez, this fight is extremely hilarious.

[n8dagr8088]

aj is literally fighting dirty! that fart was brutal