If You Strike Me Down, I Will Become More Irritated Than You Can Possibly Imagine
And May The Force Be With Y’all
Written By: Your Antagonist
Red-Pen Heroes: Cpl. Hooves & TheWattsMan
If You Strike Me Down, I Will Become More Irritated Than You Can Possibly Imagine
In the most grandiose bedroom of a certain boutique in Ponyville, a particularly glamorous unicorn squirmed and stirred beneath the velvet-red blanket that adorned her bed. Due to forces beyond the unicorn’s control, her sleep the night prior had been broken and fitful up until the earlier hours of the morning where she was granted but a mere three hours of blissful, solid slumber. A three hours that passed far too quickly for her liking, though she treasured every second that she could squeeze out of the session.
But the commotion emanating from the showroom of her house was doing little to help her state of weariness. A normal pony might have been able to tune out the noise, but the mare wasn’t exactly a normal pony. On top of being an extremely light sleeper, she had spent years honing her hearing to listen in on background conversations in hope of catching a bit of juicy gossip. And here she was: too tired to get up, yet agitated enough not to be able to sleep. As much as she would like to just roll over and stuff a pillow over her head in hopes that it would drown out the noise, her work couldn’t take another incident like the last week she couldn’t get any beauty sleep. The snow-white unicorn had to offer the client an entire outfit for free to keep him from ending all business relations after she snapped at him for referring to her latest cranial creation resting on a mannequin as “garish.”
Prying her eyes open while uttering something between a whine and a groan, she pushed aside the cocoon-like sanctuary of the blanket, sliding herself off the bed as she did so. With all the grace of a zombie in stiletto heels, the mare stumbled out of the bedroom door and into the hallway. As she dragged herself towards the stairs, the ruckus that had drawn her to this spot became clearer and her ears began to perk up so that she could better acquaint herself with the nature of the sounds.
Vmmmm! Zeurm! Zeurm! Pew-pew! Bang-bang! Whoosh! Crreeeck! Crack! Whooloolooloo! Ka-boom!
Pulling her lips back into a weak grin, the mare started down the stairs, mumbling to herself as she went. “Sweetie Belle and her friends must still be worked up over that film from last night,” she said to nopony in particular. “I’ll just ask them to take their little game outside where they can bother the birds instead of me.”
“Wait a minute, that last one ain’t no lightsaver noise!” That hint of country twang could’ve belonged to nopony other than her little sister’s farm-dwelling friend: Apple Bloom.
“Is too, and it’s pronounced light-’say’-’ber’!” She’d recognized the high-pitched know-it-all tone of her darling sister Sweetie Belle anywhere.
“Hey, you can’t talk about lightsabers!” The last voice to sound out could have only come from the final Cutie Mark Crusader, the obstinate and headstrong pegasus Scootaloo. “You’re not a jedi, and besides that you’re a hostage, so act like one!”
“Just because I’m a hostage doesn’t mean I can’t talk!”
“Yeah it does!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Yeah-huh!”
“Hey, you two are supposed to be fighting with me, not with each other!” shouted a voice that definitely did not belong to a child. Curious, Rarity picked up her half-hearted shambling to a slightly more energetic canter.
“Yeah, she’s right, Scootaloo, c’mon let’s get ready to―”
“Ugh! My name’s not Scootaloo right now! I’m Scoot Skywalker!”
“That’s right my little ponies, and it was I, Darth Magenta who took her hostage!”
“Why don’t y’all just surrender and return the princess, Darth Magenta? We just might go easy on ya!”
“Yeah, you can’t possibly win against both of us!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!” The two fillies shouted together.
“Then come test your worth, my little Jedi knights!”
“Sweetie Belle,” Rarity started, blinking away her blurred vision. “I understand that you and your friends want to play, but can’t you do it more quietly? You woke me up, and you know that I require―” The words, much like any joy she’d been hoping to derive from the visage of her formerly immaculate showroom, died on arrival. In this instance, the phrase ‘formerly immaculate’ implies that while the room had once been a pristine sanctuary, it was now anything but a sight to behold. Mountains of of junk food wrappers and grease-soaked paper plates worked in conjunction with strewn, torn sofa cushions and toppled mannequins to create anti-feng shui so powerful it could blind any interior designer within a two mile radius.
“Uh... Rarity, we can explain this,” said Sweetie Belle.
“You four...” Rarity seethed.“What have you done to my foyer?!”
“Well,” Apple Bloom boldly stepped forward. “Thing is we... kinda got carried away playin’ Star Wars after―”
“After you told us to keep it down and go to bed,” Scootaloo interrupted, earning a dirty glance from Apple Bloom.
“Yeah, that.”
“We didn’t mean to go so overboard with it, sis. We just kind of started playing out the parts in the movie after we finished watching it, when Pinkie Pie knocked on the door.” Sweetie Belle’s gaze slowly shifted from the spot on the floor she was inspecting so intently to the pink party pony, whose beaming smile was inexplicably still visible beneath a piece of paper plastered to her face with a Darth Vader mask crudely drawn on it.
“Yeah! And when I saw the makeshift outfits the girls had on, I just had to jump in. I mean, they had three good guys and no bad guy. Booooooring! So I whipped up this costume out of spare fabric you had around. And playing through all of the movie made us super-duper hungry, so I made us some food--” Rarity looked like she was about to have an aneurism at the news that her kitchen was no longer in immaculate condition, but Pinkie still hadn’t picked up on her friend’s irritation.
“--and Sweetie Belle reminded me that we shouldn’t get food all over your nice carpeting, so I grabbed some plates and we ate on those, but I guess I forgot to put them in the sink after we were done, since Scootaloo suggested that since we had finished the whole movie, we should make our own version of how it would have happened. And we were just in the middle of a different version of Princess Neigha’s rescue from the clutches of Darth Magenta by Scoot Skywalker and Apple One-Kenobi.” The excitable mare gasped suddenly and moved inches from the irate unicorn. “Do you want to join us? We could always use a Chewbacca or Yoda.”
Rarity was openly gritting her teeth and staring daggers at the unending bundle of eccentricity that had single-hoofedly talked the three little fillies into destroying not only what constituted her living room, but also her place of business, her livelihood, her life’s purpose. “Do you have any worldly idea how long it will take and how much it will cost to fix what you four have done? Weeks! A small fortune! Time and money that I don’t have now nor will I in quite some time, since no pony with any semblance of taste would buy anything from a store that looks this... this...”
“Trashed?” Apple Bloom offered.
“Nasty?” Scootaloo suggested.
“Demolished?” Sweetie Belle submitted.
“Completely and totally wrecked?” Pinkie Pie posited.
That was the last straw. Eye twitching erratically, the crazed dressmaker uttered an almost primal yell, stomping her hooves on the ground in frustration.
“Oh no! Girls, we’ve angered the Rari-Rancor! Everypony retreat!” Seizing all three fillies in her forelegs, Pinkie Pie hurled herself towards an intact couch, disappearing between the cracks in the cushions.
Rarity wasn’t about to let the foursome get off scot free. She was upon the couch in seconds, ripping the cushions out of their place with an animosity that betrayed her normally gentle demeanor. Much to her confusion, her search yielded nothing more than a long lost remote and some bits that had fallen between the cushions. There was neither hide nor hair of the fillies and mare-child she was pursuing. For only the briefest of moments, she had evidently forgotten just who exactly she was trying to capture.
A loud crash from outside drew Rarity’s attention to a nearby window, where she saw Pinkie Pie watching her while three very confused fillies on her back began to question everything they knew about reality.
“Where did we go just now?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Did you see how many eyes that thing had?” asked Scootaloo.
“Where’d this fondue come from?” asked Sweetie Belle, now holding an ornately-decorated pot of bubbling, cheesy lava.
“Hang on my little ponies!” Pinkie Pie announced just as Rarity stuck her head out of the window. “We’re gonna make a lightspeed jump to Sugarcube Corner!”
“Sweetie Belle, you had better not—” In the time that it had taken Rarity to open her mouth, Pinkie Pie had already bolted off, leaving nothing more than a pink after-image and a trail of dust in her wake. “You’ll have to come back home eventually, Sweetie Belle!” Rarity yelled after her little sister, who was quickly becoming a speck on the horizon. “And when you do, I’ll... oh forget it,” she ceded as the futility of her actions sank in; Pinkie Pie was probably already halfway to Sugarcube Corner by now.
WIth a sigh, the fashionista turned around to face her ruined showroom, silently dreading the many hours of cleaning that lay before her as it would surely delay opening the boutique for the business day. In her downcast state, she failed to notice Applejack merrily strutting through the front door.
“Howdy, Rarity, how’d the sleepover—” The thought died the instant she saw the carnage splayed throughout the showroom floor. “Whoa, what in tarnation happened here?”
“I’ll give you one guess.”
“The young’uns?”
“And Pinkie Pie.” Rarity stopped and tapped her chin in thought as something occurred to her. “Come to think of it, I don’t remember allowing her in last night...” As distracting a thought as her always-welcome-yet-not-invited friend’s late-night arrival was and how Sweetie Belle was to be scolded for that as well, it couldn’t keep Rarity’s attention forever. As her eyes drifted back to the mess she groaned, “Oh, I’ll be at this all day.”
Applejack, having picked up on her friend’s very evident devastation, trotted over, laying a reassuring hoof on Rarity’s back. “Tell you what, Rar’: I finished all my chores for the day, so seeing as this is partially my little sis’ fault, how about I help y’all get this mess situated?”
Rarity’s eyes lit up at the offer. “Oh, Applejack, would you?”
Applejack nodded. Beaming, she said, “Heck, I’ll even give them fillies a stern talking to later. I could punish ‘em for you too, if you like; I’m sure Big Macintosh wouldn’t mind some helping hooves around the farm.”
“That would be most appreciated,” Rarity said, offering a grateful nuzzle.
“Heh, anyway, let’s get to it. The faster we get this mess cleaned up, the faster you can open up shop for the day, right?”
Rarity nodded in agreement, setting off to rescue what she could of her showroom’s display from the chaos strewn about, the likes of which it hadn’t seen since Discord’s return.
Working in relative silence, the pair made steady progress over the course of half an hour, Rarity pausing every so often to engage her companion in a bout of small-talk, while Applejack managed to find herself both awed and somewhat disgusted at the vast amount of junk food the Cutie Mark Crusaders had collectively ingested. By her count she’d picked up six empty pie tins, two pizza-boxes filled with half-nibbled crusts, a dozen half-eaten s’mores, and enough cupcake doilies to make a diabetic double their insulin intake. It was as she was excavating the fallen remains of a formerly grand blanket and pillow fort that Applejack would discover the instruments of her pending procrastination.
“Land’s sake, how much did them girls eat last night?” she asked aloud as she uncovered another warren of potato chip bags. She was ready to start stuffing the bags into a nearby wastebasket when a metallic glint from underneath the pile caught her eye. “Hm? What’s this?” Sweeping aside several paper towels, nine inches of cylindrical, metallic-gray plastic presented itself to the earth pony, who leaned closer to give her discovery a closer inspection. There were dozens of little dials and buttons strewn about the pewter rod, but after a bout of poking and prodding, she found that they were all just useless little bits of painted plastic, that is until her gaze happened across the last and most brightly colored switch on its surface.
Curious, she pressed the button and almost jumped out of her skin as a meter of rounded plastic erupted from the end of the rod, humming to life in a pulse of red light and sound. It took Applejack a moment to recognize it as a toy lightsaber from those Star Wars movies that Apple Bloom had pestered Big Macintosh into buying for her after a family movie night. Intrigued, she took the lightsaber handle in her mouth, the hum sending a strangely pleasant vibration through her teeth. Turning to place her little sister’s toy on the side, Applejack elicited a sharper, sudden hum from the replica which only served to further pique her curiosity.
Applejack gave the lightsaber a few more practice swings, during which time she discovered that the saber made an electric crashing sound when it hit a solid surface. It was at this moment that a particularly devious thought managed to weasel its way into Applejack’s head, but first she had to ensure that she was in the clear. Chancing a glance at Rarity out of the corner of her eye, Applejack found that the unicorn was preoccupied coordinating and redressing her catalogue of fallen mannequins, and with her back turned no less. Applejack smirked. Consequences be damned, there was no way she was going to pass up an opportunity like this; after all what was work without a little play?
The farmer crept along the floor, stepping as lightly as possible so as not to break Rarity’s focus on the mannequins. Before she knew it, Applejack was close enough to hear Rarity humming an upbeat tune as she tied a veil around the head and neck of—curiously enough—a camel mannequin. Stifling a giggle, Applejack reeled her neck back before swinging the lightsaber towards the still distracted Rarity’s exposed rump. The ‘beam’ of the lightsaber soared straight and true until it was stopped by a wall of shimmering blue energy only inches away from its mark. “What in the—” was all Applejack managed to say before a sofa cushion enveloped in shimmering blue energy slammed into her face, knocking the lightsaber from her mouth and Applejack herself to the floor.
Rarity shook her head in disappoint at the sprawled-out famer. “I thought I sensed a disturbance. ” Her eyes fell on the lightly humming lightsaber. “What’s this?” She pulled the fallen lightsaber into her telekinetic grasp, silently judging the inelegant, bulky design of the toy. She gave the red plastic a light tap with her hoof, wincing as the electric crash of the sound effects grated on her ears. “As if the coloring wasn’t bad enough, it has to make such a detestable racket too?”
“All right,” Applejack said, rising to all fours. “Was the cushion to the face really necessary?”
“Well, considering that you were trying to strike my delicate derriere like the hindquarters of some common plow mule, I’d say very much so.”
“Delicate like my manure-covered overalls...” Applejack grumbled saltily, rubbing her face.
Rarity scowled at the remark. “Beg your pardon?” With fencer-like speed and precision, she whipped the lightsaber at Applejack, the tip floating mere inches away from the earth pony’s throat. “Care to run that by me again?”
Applejack was taken off guard by the sudden display of viciousness, but quickly regained her composure. “You heard what I said.” She replied, backing away from the toy sword. Rarity, scowling at the show of moxy, pressed her advantage, keeping the red plastic blade trained on Applejack. The farmer kept her distance, her eyes searching frantically for a way around the infuriated Rarity when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar, faint glint from an untouched pile of rubbish; another lightsaber.
With a cocky smirk adorning her mug, Applejack snorted at her rival. “You want an apology?” She began to circle around Rarity who followed the country-mare’s every step with her blade. “Then I reckon you’re gonna have to beat it outta me.”
“Applejack Applejack, Applejack...” Rarity tutted, “As barbaric and boorish your suggestion might be, I’d only be too happy to oblige, if only to teach you some manners and your place.”
“Bring it.”
“Consider it brought!” Rarity flailed her lightsaber in frustration, the red plastic flying in a dangerous arc towards Applejack. Moving quickly and with a purpose, the earth pony dove under the poorly aimed swing and scrambled towards the trash pile where she’d spotted the other lightsaber. She didn’t waste anytime wrapping her hooves around the saber’s hilt before pulling the weapon from its trash-pedestal as though she were King Arthur freeing excalibur. She brandished the cheaply made movie replica in Rarity’s general direction, smugly meeting the unicorn’s cold blue eyes on equal grounds.
“Of course you realize that this changes nothing,” Rarity said.
“I reckon this changes everything,” Applejack spat back.
“Well, if you’re so full of braggadocio, then have at you, you contemptible cur!”
“I don’t know what you just said, but I’m gonna whup you somethin’ fierce for it!” Applejack cried as she brashly leapt forward, wildly cleaving the blade at Rarity who met the unrefined strike with an elegant parry of her own, their blades colliding with a horrible “Thwack!” signifying that what would have been a mere scuffle was about to escalate into an all out war.
Rarity was the first to break contact, forcing Applejack away with a mighty push of her blade. She knew that she would be hopelessly outmatched in a close quarter skirmish with Applejack, but would stand a chance so long as she could hold her opponent at mid range. Exploiting her telekinetic range to the fullest, she jabbed forth with a series of weak but precise thrusts that kept Applejack on the defensive while she searched the earth pony’s stance for an opening.
What she failed to realize was that Applejack’s athleticism and tenacity lent the earth pony a wild card level of unpredictability that even Pinkie Pie would be proud of. As a rogue thrust ripped past her, Applejack leapt onto the hilt of the passing lightsaber. Using the base of the magically held toy like a turnbuckle, Applejack launched herself at Rarity shouting “Here I come!” as she flew.
“What in Equest—” was all Rarity managed to exclaim as Applejack greeted her with a flying somersault slash. But even as her attack just barely grazed its target’s mane she kept on the offensive. Applejack recklessly pursued her rival, opening up with a relentless onslaught of strikes that Rarity barely managed block, the sabers emitting the sound of a terribly emulated laser clash each time they struck. Tit for tat, blow for blow, stab for swing, did they fight, neither party seeming to be capable of gaining the upperhand against the other. It wasn’t long before the two found their blades joined in another clash for dominance.
“You’re going to have to do better than that brutish display if you want to best me!“ Rarity taunted, sneering at the strained expression on Applejack’s face as she put her all into the clash only to find herself incapable of budging the unicorn’s magically wielded blade.
“You want—ngh— better?” Applejack dug her hindhooves into the tiled floor and tightened her grip on the lightsaber for better leverage. “I’ll give you better!” She roared. Generating power from her legs her blade forth with monstrous force overpowering Rarity’s bastille-like defense. “What’s the matter, missy? Your magic ain’t as strong as you thought?”
Applejack’s raw strength put such strain on Rarity’s telekinetic hold on the lightsaber, that the ivory pseudo-jedi found herself backpedaling away. Just as it seemed as though Applejack would win the clash, Rarity saw something out of the corner of her eye that would help her change the tide of the battle.
“Is my magic particularly strong? No.” Rarity admitted through the struggle as her horn flared an even more brilliant shade of blue. “Flexible and refined, however?” Rarity smiled as Applejack was blindsided by her custom, velvet fainting couch and sent sprawling to the floor. “I’d have to say very much so.”
Coughing, Applejack rubbed her face and picked herself off the floor. “Cheapshottin’ with a couch?” She paused to wipe a small trail of blood from her lip. “I knew you’d make some low blows, but I didn’t think you’d resort to cheatin’!”
“Cheating? I like to think myself as being resourceful. And I hardly recall establishing a proper set of rules before you ran in swinging like a lunatic. Besides, how else did you expect me to defend myself against a brute such as yourself? Get my hooves dirty? You would tear me apart at close quarters.”
A spry smile found its way onto Applejack’s lips. “Yeah, I would, wouldn’t I?” She cracked her neck from side to side. Rarity found herself wary of the look in the farmer’s eye and took preemptive measures, summoning a legion of pillows and fabric rolls to her side. The show of power did little to deter Applejack who in a blatant display of disrespect, turned and spat on the floor. before picking up the fallen lightsaber with her mouth.
It should go without saying that this complete and utter lack of regard for hygiene or decency was the straw that broke the fashionista's back. "Why you uncouth degenerate!" Rarity chastised in a rather unladylike snarl, unleashing her telekinetically held arsenal in a violent salvo. Applejack however was already dashing forward, using her labor-honed muscles to weave through, around and over Rarity’s onslaught. As the farmer began to close the distance, Rarity fired an especially well aimed pillow directly at her rival, but thanks to Applejack’s excellent reaction time and reflexes, she parried the attack with her lightsaber, sealing the pillow’s fate in an explosion of feathers.
Rarity turned away and covered her face with a hoof as the feathered fallout blew past. “Why you… do you have any idea how many sapphires I had to trade for that all that phoenix down?” She whipped her head back to scowl at Applejack and more than likely initiate another attack, but found that the earth pony had somehow vanished. “That’s… that’s impossible! Where did she go?”
“I’m right here!” Applejack shouted from behind. Startled, Rarity wildly whipped her lightsaber in a violent crescent behind herself only to find Applejack had swept under the strike and, faster than the unicorn could react,seized Rarity around the waist and hefted her into the air.
“What what are you doing!?” Rarity fought and kicked futilely in the farmer’s ironclad grip. “Now see here, you ruffian, release me at once or I’ll—”
“Release you, huh?” Applejack grinned deviously and tightened her grip around Rarity’s belly. “You asked for it!”
Now, while some might argue that a German Suplex might have been just the slightest bit overkill, others would call it an appropriate application of the truly, brutally radical. Nonetheless, Applejack rocketed herself up, back and away, dragging Rarity through the hellish arch like a common ragdoll before slinging her out the door of her own store and into the streets of Ponyville.
Rarity hit the stone walkway outside her store, tumbling head over hoof until she finally slid to a stop on her back. “Now, that, was uncalled for,” she grumbled pulling herself to a sit. Fortunately, save for some bumps and bruises, she was uninjured. Uninjured, but not unpursued she noted as Applejack strode out of the boutique, interestingly enough taking care to shut the door behind herself. “Was that really necessary?” Rarity asked.
“You know what they say, Rar’: eye for an eye, suplex for a chair-shot.”
“I’m sure…” Rarity said, standing up; if she was going to be bested by a pony of Applejack’s caliber, she was going to do so with dignity and her chin held high. However, Applejack had other plans for her.
Tossing the sith-red lightsaber toy to the unicorn’s hooves Applejack simply said, “Pick it up and let’s finish this.”
Rarity cocked an eyebrow at this odd turn of events, but did as she was told, collecting the lightsaber back into her magical grasp and extending it. “Taking pity on your opponent? You aren’t growing soft on me, are you, Applejack?
“Nah, it just wouldn’t be sporting to whup your flank senseless if it ain’t a fair fight.”
“Impressive. Most impressive of you, Applejack. I’ll see to it that you’re made to regret this decision.”
A spry smirk made its way onto Applejack’s lips as she placed the toy in her mouth and whipped her head, releasing her own blunt, plastic blade. I wouldn’t have it any other way, she thought, her features hardening as she stared down her rival who returned the look with an equally cold, calculating glare.
The two circled one another like lions of rival coalitions battling for dominance of a pride, so focused on one another that they didn’t even notice that they’d begun to draw a crowd of onlookers.
“Wow, mommy, their lightsabers are bigger than the ones in your drawer back home! Do you think they buzz as much too?” said an unusually loud filly who was quickly ushered away by her embarrassed, scarlet faced mother who in turn was followed by her appalled husband who had more than his fair share of questions regarding what his daughter had said.
The rest of the audience watched in anticipation as both mares came to a halt, their faces the portraits of absolute concentration. Rarity’s eyes narrowed as she focused her counterpart’s muscles, watching for even the slightest telegraphable twitch. Applejack’s jaw clenched in anticipation; she was ready to counter whatever the unicorn threw at her. The atmosphere was tense. No further words would be shared between the two at this point; it was all action from here on out.
They raced towards eachother, neither showing any sign of backing down or retreating. Determination in their eyes, both combatants leapt into the air, greeting the other’s arrival with a decisive crossing of blades.
“Thwack!” sang Applejack’s lightsaber as she sailed past.
“Crack!” Rarity’s own weapon resounded as she flew through.
The audience watched in awe as both fighters landed hard on their hooves and stood static, neither showing so much as a pang of emotion or expressing a desire to face the other. They both knew that the last exchange would decide this contest and that one of them would fall; it was just a matter of who would succumb first.
A moment passed. Then two. To everyone’s surprise— including her own— Applejack dropped her blade and stumbled forward, catching herself out of a stubborn refusal to submit. Unseen by the other spectators, a bitter smile began to form on Rarity’s lips. An instant later, she collapsed, leaving the spent Applejack as the victor.
Whether Applejack had been expecting a chorus of cheers or silent praise she would find herself stranded in the valley of compromise as the onlookers departed mumbling under their collective breath about how the spectacle had been an interesting way to spend a Saturday. But the absence of an audience didn’t stop Applejack from pumping her lightsaber in the air and shouting “There can be only one!” from the top of her lungs
“Wrong movie, darling.” Rarity sighed and picked herself up, dusting her coat off to the best of her ability.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
“Are we quite done here? I’d like to finish cleaning so I can open up shop for the day.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Applejack said, tossing the well worn movie replica into Rarity’s yard.
The End
Author's Note
-Again, not my best work, but I've been trying to clear out my abandoned projects pile for a while now, and I figured "Applejack vs Rarity with toy lightsabers. No one else has probably even bothered to think of this."
-You're also probably wondering why I bothered with the German Suplex and my reasoning for that is (IN MY OPINION) somehow No More Heroes does lightsaber combat just as good if not better than most Star Wars games, and there is a shit load of prowrestling in No More Heroes. It's like homage or some shit. I recommend you pick up the game if you're nasty or just looking for a great time.
