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Chapter One, Dark Beginnings3,971 words
Chapter two, The Sands2,413 words

Chapter two, The Sands

Steel helped twilight with her helmet, and made sure her dagger was well in place in its special slot in the mouth hole. After securing his own helmet, and weapon, Steel lowered his visor, for dramatic effect as much as anything else. “Lets give them a show they will never forget.” He said with a chuckle, and charged out onto the sandy arena floor. Leaving twilight to clop after him, still unused to the sandy terrain.

The first thing twilight noticed was the roaring changelings, completely engulfing every seat in the coliseum, a whole sea of blackness and bright green eyes. Twilight felt disgusted by the sheer amount of changelings, she felt so small and ineffective. The cheering didn't help either.

It was a happy and joyful cheer, but twilight knew all they wanted was for pony blood to be spilt. She felt like she wanted to throw up.... and she did. It wouldn't have been too bad, but Twilights viser was down. Yellowish green liquid poured from the viser holes, dripping to the sands with a split splat. Oh, Celestia, the dagger handle tasted terrible now!

“Ugh.” Groaned Twilight, trying to ignore the laughing crowd and spit the foul tasting liquid from her mouth. She took a deep breath to try and calm herself, but the smell inside of her helmet practically made her blow chunks again, luckily, this time she was ready for it. She could almost see Steel smirking from inside his own helmet.

“Ah, you're fine. I’ve seen worse things happen because of nerves.” Steel said, audibly trying not to laugh, “You’re lucky the fighting hasn’t started yet, or else we would both be dead.” He said matter of factly.

“Where are they anyway?” Twilight said, heaving her chest a few times as her body forced her to gag.

“They haven’t been released yet. They want the crowed to get good long look at us, before we presumably die.” Steel answered, shrugging his shoulders, causing the wooden bucklers to clank against his back as he did so. “Build up the tension and whatnot.” Steel said, pausing to allow Twilight to say something, but it seemed she was too busy trying to get the taste of weak old pod juice out of her mouth, so he continued. “There’s a saying we gladiators have. ‘he who controls the crowed, controls the changelings.’”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked, Thoroughly convinced it was impossible to get the obtrusive taste out of her mouth.

“You’ll see.” said Steel. Two other doors on either side of Steel and Twilight slowly began to open, elevating upwards so that twilight could barely make out the tips of their hoofs. “Ok, so just make sure you don't piss yourself and you should be fine.” Steek joked reassuringly.

The doors finished opening with a THUD, and three ponies from each of the two doors trotted out, each wearing similar armor to Twilight and Steel, but all of them having a different type of weapon. When they walked out, the cheers from the crowed doubled over. Guess they like the odds, Steel muttered to himself.

Music started to play from changelings bearing trumpets far off into the sidelines, it seemed the crowd had no limit to just how loud it could get.

“GLADIATORS!” cried Revjak from a balcony over viewing the football arena sized coliseum, using magic to project his voice over the hollering mob of changelings down in the stands. Sitting behind him was a lengthy changeling, with a female changeling sitting in his lap, and another fanning him with a giant pink Glubbaroo feather“ARE YOU PREPARED TO DIE FOR YOUR HIGH LORD?”

an audible “NO.” was yelled by everypony currently on the arena sands, but was lost in the sea of sound.

“GOOD. NOW ATTACK YOUR FOE, SO THAT YOUR LORD MAY SEE YOUR ENEMIES BLEED.” Continued Revjak, not really caring what their response was.

It happened before Twilight ever realized what was going on, a pegasus pony speed away from his three pony squad, swinging his long sword hard at Twilight. Twilight recoiled equally hard in fear, as nopony has ever no bashfully charged her like that, especially with a weapon in hand!

Lady luck was on Twilights side, for she managed to avoid the savage blow, but she could not sustain her balance, and she fell to her back

Twilight, still in shock, began to inch backward, her whole body telling her to just get away from where she was. Crap, crap, crap, crap was the only thing going through her mind. The other two ponies had caught up to the pegasi, and had already began their assault on Twilight.

Twilights finally managed to focus her thoughts, and rolled out of the way from the earth pony with the heavy mourning star, and while still on her back, bucked the him into the charging unicorn, who was wielding nothing, but using his magic to control a floating greatsword. The unicorn, not encumbered by a such a heavy weapon as the mourning star easily dodged, but his charge was cut short.

It gave twilight enough time to stand back up and ready herself. This time though, the three ponies weren't as rash as before, and worked as a team, all of them slowly circling Twilight. Twilight didn’t think she stood much of a chance completely surrounded, but a rampaging Steel shouldered into the pegasus crashing into him with his wooden buckler, placing his short sword perfectly between the holes in the steel armor, and with a quick twist and a jerk, the pony was dead before the other two had any idea of what was going on.

The distraction gave Twilight enough time to steal a glance from where Steel came from. The twitching body of an earth pony, that steel had slain earlier bleed out onto the sands, with a unicorn and a pegasus vainly trying to keep up with the mobil Steel. When the ponies who were surrounding Twilight finally managed to bring their attention to Steel, he had already moved onto somewhere else, nimbly hoping away too quickly for any of them to do anything, which was a feat within itself with Steel being in a full plate get up.

The two ponies turned back away from Steel deciding to ignore him until the purple unicorn had been dealt with. The pegasus took flight, hovering over twilight’s head moving into striking distance only to get close enough to knick her with the tip of the blade, never dealing any real damage but slowly wearing her down. The unicorn also backed away, attacking at range with his magic floating greatsword. The attack had obviously been rehearsed and was executed perfectly.

Twilight managed to avoid the first few great sword swings, but with the pegasus constantly prodding her with his sword, the damage was starting to stack up. She had to do something quick, or she would die out here without doing so much as scratch one of them. Twilight found her chance when the unicorn swing widely with the greatsword, expecting Twilight to duck, allowing the pegasus to get an easy hit off an exposed back. Instead, Twilight jumped, landing tentatively on the great sword hilt, and using it as a springboard, jumping again after the pegasus. Twilight was as new and inexperienced as any pony to ever walk on the sands, and that made her unpredictable. That made her dangerous. The pegasus never would have expected twilight to pull off such a maneuver, and that was all the advantage twilight needed.

Twilight shoved her dagger into the side of the pegasus, holding on for dear life. Blood began to seep from the wound into Twilight's mouth, making all that much harder to hold onto the wet dagger hilt. But still, Twilight hung on as the pegasus began to panic, fluttering about trying in vain to shake twilight off flying left, right, up and down, stopping the unicorn from helping with his magical floating greatsword The pegasus was so surprised that he forgot all about his sword, but even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t have made a difference as twilight was too close for the pegasus to get off a good swing. Instead he punched twilight over and over, denting the metal plate dangerously close to Twilights eye. Twilight still refuse to let go, to give up the only advantage she had.

Twilight began to convulse, twisting and turning the dagger, trying desperately to deal as much damage and possible. But at this point the pegasus had lost far too much blood to care about the pain. He was beyond that, still he punched at twilight over and over. His body slowly slipped into unconsciousness and still he punched. Finally, the dagger broke inside of the pegasus, causing Twilight to fall to the ground.

Though the situation for the pegasus was much, worse. The darkness of death was slowly enclosing on him as blood seeped from his side, there was no way he would make it. A few seconds later, he was laying next to where twilight, completely dead.

Twilight tried to roll with the fall, but this time luck was not with her. She fell hard and fast, practically bouncing with the impact, but the soft sand absorbed the impact well enough to stop her from being crushed in the tin can called a suit of armor.

The unicorn stood there having his greatsword slowly advance, still not exactly sure what twilight would do. In the background steel was not fighting off another pegasus, a unicorn corpse with its head a few feet away laying directly behind him.

Suddenly, he arced the greatsword upward, scooping up the sand and fling it at Twilight. Twilight wasn’t ready for the maneuver and shot up front hooves up in defence. But luck wasn’t with her, as even though the hooves and the steel viser, sand managed to find its way into her eyes.

The unicorn took the opportunity graciously, swinging wildly at the blinded Twilight. Still blinded, Twilights first instinct was to get away. She immediately started to backpedal, only narrowly escaping the downward arcs of the great sword. When she finally managed to open her eyes, the first thing she saw was the sharp edge of the greatsword aimed right between her eyes. She managed to dive to the side to avoid it, but she ended up prone on the sand’s with the hasty maneuver. The greatsword continued to swing at Twilight, who managed to avoid the sharp edge, but got swung aside by the large flat side, knocking her across the sand.

Do something Twilight! she yelled at herself. Though, what could she do? No magic, no weapon, she was completely useless. No! Not yet, its not over until its over! come one twilight, use your head!

That was it! Twilight felt stupid for not thinking of it early... but she had to get close. She got into a charging position, lowering her head and watching the greatsword carefully. this had to be perfect, she reminded herself. When the great sword swung inward, aiming for the kill, instead of dodging backward like she had been doing, she leaped forward, bolting past the sword and charging the unicorn.

There was no way he could bring the sword around in time to stop Twilights charge, the unicorn would have to deal with the charging steed himself. He reared, bringing up his front legs, to smash Twilight as soon as she got close.

But Twilight leaped upward last second, throwing her head backwards. Her aim was perfect, and her metal piked horn pierced the thin helmet easily, cutting through the fleshy part of the lower jaw in an instant. The unicorn struggled helplessly, twisting and convulsing to get free, but Twilight countered by wrapping her front hooves around the pony, and shoving her horn even farther, pushing past the skull and into the brain. Blood gushed over twilight like never before, It was impossible to see through her visor, but twilight didn’t need too, her eyes had already began to water, and tears streaming down her face.

She really loathed what she was forced to do, as she wasn’t a killer nor a fighter. She loathed Chrysalis for putting her in the situation. She loathed herself for doing it...

She finally dropped the unicorn body and plopped down. The adrenaline was slowly leaving her system, and she was beginning to feel the full brunt of her injuries. The crowd had gone completely mad during the spectacle, but twilight somehow had just zoned them out. Steel was also done with his pegasis opponent and was walking over to Twilight. The pegasus who Steel was fighting was impaled through the gut with Steel’s short sword against the far wall.

He walked over to Twilight and helped her up. Throwing her hoof over his shoulder for support. Steel looked completely fine, other than the few knicks in his wooden bucklers and the odd scratch, Steel was unharmed. He didn’t have his helmet on, and the smile on his face was the biggest Twilight had ever seen it.

“You did good,” he beamed, yelling over the crowed. Twilight managed a faint smile, but she was completely exhausted, anything more caused her whole body to scream in pain.

The two of them started to slowly make their back to the room they had come out of, when Revjak started to announce again.

“WHAT AN OUTSTANDING MATCH FOR STEEL AND HIS SIDEKICK!” Revjak yelled, again using magic to project his voice, obvious sarcasm in his voice. Twilight didn’t take kindly to being called a sidekick, but luckily for Revjak, she was too tired to do something stupid.

Steel slowly dragged Twilight back the weapon room, and as soon as the metal door closed behind them, Twilight promptly collapsed, all of the adrenaline completely gone from her body. Steel quickly adjusted his body to catch her, stopping her from crashing to the concrete floor.

“You did good Twilight.” Steel said softly out loud, putting her down softly. “Now wake up so you can take off your armor.” Steel bluntly remarked.

“Twilight? I am not un-doing your armor.”

“Seriously. Twilight. You're covered in more blood than a vampire on holiday.”

“God damn it Twilight...”

Chapter two, FIN

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