Chapter 1
No hesitation. No backing out. Keep moving forward and never give up. You need to win one of these… You need to get some Celestians on your side for once! Let’s stop being a goof up and get to work!
A repetitive chanting, loud and obnoxious, was dulled by the walls surrounding the mare. She shifted in place, stretching her hooves and wings out to warm herself up. It had been awhile since her last matchup and after her latest debacle, she was rather happy she had finally been called up for a Match.
The chanting got louder and louder, one booming voice being heard above them all. The mare couldn’t see who was talking this time, but he sounded a bit different from the usual commentator that spoke about the Matches. This guy was more regal sounding, as if everything before him was squishable underneath him and could be wiped clean of his vision in a mere second. From what the mare knew, he could.
The rich ruled this domain, not the ponies amongst it.
“Ladies and gentlecolts! Welcome, once again, to The Nocturnal Gauntlet!” A roar ran across the stadium outside the blackness that enveloped the pegasi. She was in the holding bay which, for lack of a better term, was a just a metal box that opened up into the stadium. Nothing menacing or malevolent. Yet every time the mare walked into it, the back of it closing behind her from the guards, shudders would run down her spine the whole length of her time in it. Out of everything in her messed up world, she hated the darkness more than anything else.
The booming voice carried itself over the stadium again, the metal box resisting little against the sound. “I am Upper Class, current owner of the Night Stadium! Today, I will be introducing our Champions and begin the ceremonies!” The mare could hear a murmur run through the crowd. It had been a very long time since the stallion had shown himself in the Gauntlet! Even the mare knew that much!
“So, please bow your heads as we have High Note, our very special singer, sing The Lunar Empire’s national anthem!” The mare bowed her head, closing her eyes to let the sweet voice of High Note, a very notable singer, wash over her body. This also caused a slight stir in the audience, since the famed singer as well didn’t reveal herself too often. Usually she would only come during important Matches, but today really only had the mare against-
Ohhhh that music!
The other mare’s voice, combined with nostalgia and powerful music, created a tide of emotion that washed over the mare, gripping her insides with an iron vice. It spoke of heartache, power, restlessness, and revolution. Of rising up and defending yourself for what you believed in, even if nobody else believed in it themselves. The song was truly a thing a beauty, just like its creator, Princess Luna.
Once the voice had hushed, leaving everyone in the crowd cheering doubly loud now, the more regal voice of the stallion came back on. “Thank you High Note for that wonderful singing of our spectacular anthem! And now, for what you all have been waiting for, tonight’s gripping Match!”
Another roar from the crowd deafened the mare’s ears. Now she could feel the pressure coming on. It was like you were looking at a wall fall on you, ever so slowly, knowing it was going to hit but you simply just couldn’t run out of the way. It was coming, and you had to prepare yourself for it. The pegasi stretched her wings and legs one last time, preparing herself for the wall she knew was coming.
After all, it had always been there…
“Tonight will be a Normal Bout with two pegasi! On one side of the stadium, we have the Blue Combatant, Derpy Booms!”
The metal box suddenly opened up, letting the grey mare with a blonde mane run out into the stadium, her blue plated leather armor clinking slightly against her body. It only protected her belly, her sides, and her chest but some protection was better than none in the gauntlet. Immediately she took the air in a slow circle upwards, landing on a cloud that physically should not have been there. After all, when one looked up, all they could see was a rocky ceiling peering down at them.
Lightly, she landed on the cloud and spread out her wings, her heart beating faster and faster with every moment. The crowd, as usual, booed and jeered at the pegasus but after a lifetime of dealing with it, she had grown used to the taunts. They weren’t exactly far off from the truth either, so why should she deny them of disliking her?
Shaking off any mental denting, she looked around the stadium a bit, inspecting todays crowd. It was actually fairly full today, although it shouldn’t have surprised the mare. Whenever she was in a match, people always loved to show up. But, hopefully, she could win herself some fans with a crowd like this! So far, so good! Now I just need to- OOMPH!
Derpy couldn’t believe it. She had goofed up, already, this early in the Match. Her opponent wasn’t even out in the field and she already messed up. She slipped. Out of all things, she slipped off the cloud! Falling down, she wondered if somepony had cursed her with such a dysfunctional life…
“OOF!”
Soft cloud cover luckily had intercepted her fall and two realizations happened in that moment. One, she could have simply used her wings to get herself back up into the air. Two, her opponent had already been called out and was glaring at her under her visor of steel.
“Oh, uh, hello Rainbow Bash…”
The rainbow maned pegasus snorted derisively at her and shook her head, her shiny steel plated armor shaking along with her slightly. A large blue gem stuck in the center on her chest plate, reflecting Derpy’s image back at her. Every piece of her red armor looked custom made and well shined, looking much better than Derpy’s flimsy leather and iron armor. Derpy’s opponent swished her tail a second and flexed her wings out, hissing at her under her helmet.
“What the hell are you doing?! Can’t you even stand on a simple cloud, wall-eyed?!”
The last comment stung a little, but Derpy got up to face her opponent, the famous Rainbow Bash. In the Gauntlet, she was considered the best of the best, outperforming nearly everyone in the Stadium. More often than not however, she would be faced against Derpy, although nobody truly knows why the match-up was picked. The outcome was always the same, not matter what the gray pegasus tried.
Yellow eyes faced pink eyes in a lock-down as the crowd chanted out Rainbow Bash’s name over and over again. Derpy shook her head and looked around for a second. One half of the dome looked liked they belonged to the dirtiest parts of the world, literally piling on top of one another to get a good seat. The other half, sectioned off by huge walls, was full of the cleanest looking ponies she had ever laid eyes on, wearing elaborate clothing and having their own tables to sit at, food being served to them by several waiters. The gray pegasus chuckled and looked back at Bash, giving a small shrug. “Well… we've got quite the audience today, huh?”
The other pony smirked, a stand suddenly materializing in the middle of the field below them. The stallion up in the commentator's box spoke again, sounding a little fussed now. “Well, our contestants are out in the field and weapons have been given for both sides! I think we’re ready so…
FIGHT!”
In a blur of rainbow, Bash was gone from sight.
Blinking her eyes a bit, Derpy regained her senses and raced after the pony, who had already reached her side of the stand and took her weapon from the red side of the stand. Derpy raced herself over to the blue side and extracted herself her own weapon for today, making her drop her jaw in disbelief.
“A Bo Staff?! Really?! I've never used a Bo Staff before though! AND IT'S WOODEN!”
Jeering laughter hit the pegasus’s ear as she looked up, watching Rainbow Bash tap the blunt end of her katana on her shoulder. Pointed her sword at Derpy, she smiled grimly and shouted. “Better run, my little pony!”
GRAB THE STICK AND RUN DERPY!
Without a second thought, the mare grabbed her nearly useless weapon and took to flying up into a cluster of clouds. Due to them both being pegasi, there were no obstacles on the ground save the stand, which was slowly dematerializing back to whence it came. Magic could do many things in the Stadium. Thankfully, it had given her a huge cloud to hide herself in.
Inside was all wet and poofy, but she needed to have a plan, a decent good plan! Something to get her to win against Bash and prove she wasn’t a mockery in the Stadium! She looked at her staff, and thought about Bash’s armor, crystal, and weapon, not to mention her aerial moves and incredible speed.
…
…
“Well, I believe I am screwed…”
“GOTCHA!”
“YEARGH!”
Derpy bolted out of the cloud as fast as she possibly could, tailed closely behind by Bash, who idly let her wings do the pumping. The gray pegasus was rotating her wings as fast as she could around the arena, trying to get every ounce of speed out of her body… And Bash STILL could fly literal circles around her in the meantime!
The cyan pegasus yawned once and flew in front of Derpy and smiled under her visor, still keeping pace easily with her. “Really, you should just give up now so we can-“
DONK!
Much to Derpy’s surprise, her last second, spur of the moment plan, had actually worked! After she noticed Bash in front of her, Derpy instantly rotated around, pulling out a buck to the other pegasus’s head as hard as she possibly could. The result was the satisfying sound of hoof-on-metal and Rainbow Bash reeling back, her helmet launching through the air.
The crowd was dead silent from their normally raucous attitude. Even the filthy ponies on their half were all still, staring as Rainbow Bash fell to the ground with a loud crash. Her helmet fell shortly after, clanging across the ground hollowly, eventually rolling around in a slow spiral. Bash’s katana also flew a bit, sticking itself into the ground at an odd angle a few feet away from the fallen pegasus.
Derpy swelled with pride at her accomplishment. Most ponies when going against Rainbow Bash couldn’t land a blow on her but she had done something most couldn’t do! Alighting on a cloud, she peered down at her opponent, wondering if she had actually even won the Bout! A knocked out pony meant victory, and so far, Bash looked pretty-
“Hello!”
Immediately the pegasus turned white, the crowd suddenly roaring in applause. Looking slowly behind her, Derpy peered at the visored head of a fully non-bucked Rainbow poking her head up from the cloud. Looking back at the ground, she watched as the Rainbow Bash there slowly dissipated, along with her sword and helmet.
Imitation spell… crap… She must have used it when we were flying!
Although they weren’t unicorns, there had been some researchers in the arcane arts that had been able to charge spells into special crystals, similar to the one Rainbow had on her chest plate. Each crystal could charge one spell at a time, but they were incredibly useful, although rare. Rainbow had used her one charge, but that’s all she needed for this match.
Before Derpy could try to evade it, she felt Rainbow launch herself from the cloud, coming at her with katana in hoof. Derpy barely made it a foot before she felt the sword impact upon her barding, knocking all of the wind out of her. Her world turned white for a moment, she gasped for any purchase of breath she could find. The shielding around the Stadium though prevented her from getting any breath in and she splattered spread against the purple shimmer of shielding, sticking there for a moment before her decent down to the ground.
I messed up… again… I should have known… she would have done that…
BOOM.
The crowd roared in appraisal as she landed onto the dirty ground, a small dust cloud kicking up on impact. She could barely feel. She could hardly think and moving was entirely out of the question. There were a few bones broken, she knew that, and would most definitely be in recovery for a few days…
Again…
What did know was that Rainbow Bash alighted next to her, leaning down over to her ear and whispering into it. “Honestly, I don’t know why you’re a Combatant. You’re weak, clumsy, stupid. You don’t even have something to drive you to win besides winning itself.” She scoffed. “Pathetic. For me, I’m loyal to my fans, which is why I want to win. If I lose, my fans lose. Simple as that.”
The cyan pegasus turned around and flicked her tail once, walking away but shouting this time at Derpy, who was slowly losing consciousness. “Get better! Do better! I’m sick of you being a crappy punching bag! Come back into the Stadium when you actually CAN fight!”
Crowd roaring, brain swimming, and Derpy finally losing consciousness.
Such a failure…
===============
“Derpy?”
Slowly, the mare opened up her eyes to view the world again. It was bright. Too bright. Much too bright for the gray mare, who rolled on her pseudo-bed she knew she was in. It had become something she visited regularly, and had become a usual accommodation in her lifestyle. After all, she already knew where she was.
This happened after every match she had. Derpy would get beaten to a pulp of varying degrees. Then, when the crowd had enough or Derpy’s body was spent, she was taken to the Medical Facility. There, she would stay in her a white-washed room with clean floors and a medical pony who she still didn’t know the name of. The nurse never talked to her, but at the same time, Derpy never talked to the nurse.
So it was to Derpy’s double surprise that a voice had actually spoken to her. At first, she thought that the nurse had finally decided to say something to the gray pegasus, but she soon realized the voice was much too low and masculine for the nurse. The second surprise was that there was a stallion looking directly at her across her bed, a hurt and curious expression on his face.
“Well… are you sure about this Spare Change? Remember, you can only sponsor one pony, and, well… You saw her today…”
“Oh, I know Upper Class. But, after all, if I can get her to win, I think I will win over anyone in this… business.”
Derpy rolled her eyes over to the bigger stallion, who seemed to entirely ignore the fact that she was awake, and her eyes widen in shock. That’s Upper Class! He is the head of the Gauntlet! But why… me… huh?!
The rich unicorn sighed, although with a smile, and shrugged his shoulders, using his magic to float over some papers for Spare Change. “Well… Alright then. I just hope that you really can turn this pony around! She has had a lot of sponsors over the years but… Nobody seemed to be able to turn her around…”
Spare Change, the pony who woke her up, smiled as he took the papers, signing them swiftly and elegantly with a practiced ease. “I have a knack for changing things in my fortune… Maybe I can rub some of that on her!”
Upper Class chuckled and rolled up the now signed papers, stuffing them into his coat pocket. Turning around, he started to exit the room, but looked back at Spare Change, then Derpy with a curious expression. “I knew I had a good feeling about you…” With that statement hanging in the air, he left Derpy and Spare Change alone in the recovery room.
Awkwardly, Spare Change looked at Derpy, who simply stared back and waited for the wall. She sighed and looked at the other side of the room, casually waving a very sore hoof in the air. “So boss… what do you want to me to do for the next Ma-”
“Just heal.”
Derpy swung her head around to face the stallion, who smiled gently. This wasn’t something she was used to. Usually, when she occasionally had a sponsor, they had immediately ridiculed her style of fighting, throwing out several suggestions as to what she should do in the next Match. Of course, nearly every time this had happened, she was either recovering from the last match or she silently obeyed.
Being ordered to ‘just heal’ wasn’t something she was used to. Most sponsors weren’t so kind.
Spare Change looked the mare up and down, tapping his hoof against his chin with a thoughtful expression. Taking out a notepad, he made a few notes on it, much to Derpy’s curiosity. After a few minutes of his hasty scribbling, he put it down and looked up at her, extending his hoof. “Spare Change.”
Derpy stared at the gray hoof extended towards her as if it was a foreign thing. Eventually, she took the hoof, firmly shaking it, and stated, “Ditzy Booms.”
The stallion cocked an eyebrow but before he could ask the question, Derpy interrupted him. “That’s my official name, but the commentators kept calling me Derpy because of my eyes and general clumsiness in the stadium.” She shrugged. “It grows on you.”
“Ahhhh…” The stallion retracted his hoof, and smiled softly. “Well Derpy… I think it’s time to make you a champion. Heal up. We have a lot of work ahead of us…” His eyes peered into the distance for a moment before he awkwardly nodded his head with a smile, leaving Derpy alone once again in her recovery bed.
The pegasus sighed and rolled onto her side, which sent a nice wave of pain through her. She would be feeling this for a while, but if the medical ponies did good, she would be out in a few days. Then she would be a ‘champion’, according to her new sponsor.
Pft. If that’s even possible…
Drifting off to sleep, she let thoughts of her Match today replay in her head, like a nightmarish song replaying over and over again, repeating every moment of her failure for her to suffer in the blackness of sleep.
Tomorrow night would be the same.
And the night after that.
And the night after that one as well.
Just like every night so far of her damnable life.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
One thousand years of imprisonment, one thousand years of struggle, one thousand years of pain, one thousand years of death.
-The Nocturnal Gauntlet’s motto
A/N:
So... Basically, idea came to me out of nowhere and I had to write about it~ I didn't filter this through my editors like I wanted to do, but blah~ I think it basically is free from spelling and grammar issues so it should be all fine! If you find one, please tell me~
But besides that, please enjoy this chapter and comment on your thoughts! :D
Oh, and if anyone knows of better cover art, please link it in the comments~ :)