A thing or two about changelings and their habits saga

by Young discord

CHAPTER 6 (AKA: Training)

Stan was up and ready for this, the ointment given by Cynthia’s aunt had worked wonders and so did those few days of rest, Stan had never appreciated a bed so much in his entire life.
Right now he was standing in one of the crystal caves, specifically designed and emptied for combat.
On one end sat The Inventor along with a few other family members, the aunt included, ready for first aid if need be and to observe Stan’s skills, what he could do which right now wasn’t much.
On the other end, in front of Stanley stood Cynthia, as mad as she’ll ever be, she had been giving Stan the silent treatment since the time she had to accept him as a family member.
It was a tough two days.

“So… what do I do then?”
The inventor stood up.

“You fight”

“How?”

“That’s up to you, Cynthia”
Cynthia instantly transformed her pendant into her glowing retinas and took off into the air and straight towards Stan.

“Wait but-“
But there was no time to talk, she wasn’t holding back, Stan thought that she was fast the first time he was up against her but clearly, he was wrong.

Duck left!
Stan ducked left, Cynthia’s grab barely missed him, he could feel a slash of air cut through his fur, giving him chills.

Spin right!
Cynthia took no time to recover, she used her momentum as a sling and with an even greater force came back with an aerial u-bend straight to the terrified changeling.
Stan had no idea what the voice had wanted him to do but he just went with it and spun right.
Cynthia didn’t miss this time, her right punch was as if a truck weighing a few tons had ran over Stanley’s face, however the momentum of his spin managed to decrease the blow’s power just so that it was unbearably painful, now he was spinning significantly faster and couldn’t get his footing back long with his balance, he smacked into the ground, right on his wings.
The ointment may have done wonders but his wings were still far from anywhere near functional.
Stan got up as quickly as his hooves allowed him to.

BACKFLI-
But Stan was already in Cynthia’s grasp, it was over.
Cynthia locked Stan’s neck in mid-flip, for a second she stood upside down above Stan using him as a balancing stick, then her wings propelled her back on the ground, Stan could feel that his back was soon to reunite with the hard crystal floor.
Cynthia rolled into a ball behind Stan’s body, her hind quarters now propped firmly against Stan’s wings and back, she then moved onto utilizing her control of his neck to twist it and in combination with her massive buck on his back and the momentum of their fall redirected upwards by her arched back propelling Stan into a high air flip spin making it impossible for him to recover from before he finally hit the ground.
Cynthia then coiled tightly as a spring and with all the force she could muster she jabbed upwards like a nail gun into a spinning mid air Stan’s stomach that cracked like a bag of chips under the sheer force of her blow.
Stan coughed out any air within him along with some blood as he ascended further up into the air with the sheer power of the blow.
But Cynthia wasn’t done just yet, she had a lot more to tell him with her body.
As Stan began to fall yet again and the pain of the blow began to kick in, Cynthia, waiting in midair below him grabbed him by his hind quarters, let the momentum of his fall do a 360 degree full circle up and back down around Cynthia as she added her own force to the acting gravity to deal a massive smash into the crystal floor.
Once again a crack but Stan was in so much pain that he couldn’t even tell anymore if that was the sound of his bones cracking or the floor.
Right now, Stan would scream if only he could but his lungs along with the rest of his body failed him, all he could do was observe as Cynthia ascended high up right to the ceiling and began her final blow, flying down right into Stan.

“That’s enough Cynthia!”
Cynthia instantly changed course and flew sideways away from Stan and slowed down into a halt.
All Stan could do right now was cough out blood.
The aunt came in to deal with Stan’s fatal injuries.

---

It was night, and Stan was still recovering from those 30 deadly seconds of fighting with Cynthia who didn’t seem to feel any remorse about what she did, he lay in silence thinking through what he decided, he knew that he wasn’t going to die but sometimes dying is less painful than living.
The doors to his room creaked open exposing The Inventor.

“Do you have a moment?”

“I’m not going anywhere if that’s what you mean”

“I discussed your repertoire of survival skills with the rest of the family”
Stan was afraid of what he was pretty certain he was going to hear

“I didn’t make it did I?”

“There’s no such thing as making it or not in this family, this wasn’t an exam”

“But I failed so badly”

“Well, You have to consider that Cynthia had a lifetime of experience with what she does”

“But still… it’s been at least a week and all I’ve done is lie in bed, I didn’t learn anything, why can’t you teach me something?”

“Because teaching you would make you weak”

“Weak?”

“Tell me what is the one single greatest weakness of any warrior?”

“I don’t know…”

“His teacher”

“Teacher? What do you mean, like when he’s kidnapped or something?”

“No, when you learn from somepony else, they not only pass on to you their successes but also their failures”

“I don’t understand”

“Tell me, have you ever seen anypony else fight like Cynthia?”

“No”

“Exactly, that’s because it’s her fighting style and her own only, nopony else can do that apart from her”

“But wouldn’t it be easier to just learn how to fight from someone else?”

“Have you ever heard of judo?”

“Yes”

“Have you ever seen it being used?”

“Yes”

“Precisely, the greatest weakness of any skill is its popularity, you know judo, and chances are, you could find its weaknesses and flaws and if you do, anypony who knows judo would have trouble facing you yet if you present the enemy with something absolutely new and unique they don’t know how to respond to... well... did you know what Cynthia was going to do to you?”

“I see your point… so what you’re saying is that having your own technique adds the element of surprise”

“Yes”

“But how the hell am I going to come up with an entire fighting style just like that?”

“Just between the two of us, I know a way”

“Now we’re talking, what is it?”

“Come with me”
Stan’s body was still a little rough but he was much better considering he was receiving intense magical healthcare on a daily basis.

“Where are we going?”

“To the caves”
Stanley followed The Inventor through the portal at the home’s basement through to the caves.
The caves glistened with a nightly melody.

“What’s that sound?”

“It’s the cave sleeping”
The two stopped in front of the giant metal doors in front of which lay a sleeping Cynthia.

“I brought her here”
Stan jumped into a new level of alertedness

“No, if it’s anything to do with her I don’t want to have anything to do with it”
The Inventor approached the door and then turned around facing the sleeping Cynthia and an opposing Stanley.

“Cynthia also needs to learn a lot of things, she may know how to fight but she doesn’t know much else aside from that”

“You don’t have to tell me that… so what is this training going to be?”

“Training? Who said anything about training?”

“Well… you did”

“The best and fastest way to learn is by living”
Stanley yawned, it was the middle of the night and he wasn’t sure if he was registering the words properly.

“I am living”
The Inventor chuckled mildly and stomped his hoof gently, the faint clop spread throughout the cave replacing itself with an increasing ticking sound from behind the doors as if a bomb was about to go off.

“Come back alive”
The floor below Stan and Cynthia who was still sleeping being none the wiser began to glow as a portal was opening itself under their hooves.
Stan couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t use wings at all, not in the state that they were and the portal was far too wide for him to be able to reach anything.
The two fell like water through a sieve and as soon as they did the portal was closed and gone.
By the time Cynthia had woken up they had already hit the ground.
Stan this time had gone through enough falling this past week to be able to finally land on his hooves for once.
Stan looked vigorously around.
The red sky was swirling furiously with countless supercell storms, in the distance a black sea was smacking the rock cliffs and the wind was carrying the smell of danger.
He had no idea where they were but one thing he knew for sure, they weren’t in the same world anymore and something told him that finding a way home is going to be the hardest thing he’ll ever do.

Author's Note:

My initial plan for this was just to make a brief story about Pacifica’s parents but now that I’m doing it, I think it might be longer than I had anticipated (don’t know how this will end up) which means that I might end up doing 2 stories about Pacifica’s parents and if I do as soon as I finish this first part I’ll be coming back to Pacifica and the rest, now depending on how this works out I might do the rest of her parent’s story in the next story with Pacifica and Morty in the main role… this is as much as I’ll say, in fact I think I might have said too much already as is, don’t want to spoil anything and it’s hard to say anything really without having a spoiler as I’m heavily intertwining everything in every one of my stories, but all of this is providing this story ends up being too long, it all just depends on how the next few chapters end up.
Look forward for the next chapter in 2 days!