A Twirl Here, A Slice There, And— Oh Look, The Head Came Off!
Ace Blade arched her back, leaning forwards, then backwards, right before craning her neck in all three hundred and sixty degrees. Once she was satisfied with her small stretching session, she let out a long sigh.
She looked out at an endless sea of light blue wireframe pony constructs of every race. Some of them were flying around, but most of them were mindlessly trotting past each other. A few of them were gymnastically ducking and sliding through the crowd.
It was those gymnastic ones that you had to watch out for. In almost every training session one of those jerks would sneak up from behind her and shove a knife through her back, or they’d shoot her from a blind spot, or they’d just trap her and gang up on her.
Ace breathed in sharply, then breathed out again, then in, then out. With each breath, she could feel her strength gathering.
She had to remember she couldn't be too careless here: the constructs could never hurt her, but she didn’t want to wreck the place.
The whites and cream colours of the giant marble hall were quite pretty, there was a mirror in the back that made the room look twice as big, and the plants made things a bit nicer on top of that. It would be quite a shame if any of those things were damaged. Also, standing a few paces behind her was a new earth pony friend of hers that came by to watch. If she remembered his name correctly, he should have been Plastic Tactics. It would be a shame if he got damaged too: he had such a pretty pink mane that matched his white fur.
After taking one more deep breath in and letting it out, waking herself up as much as possible, she shook out her orange mane and tightened the straps of her gold and white armour over the white fur of her chin and underside...
Finally, she leapt into the air and dove right towards a nearby pony construct.
It immediately lowered itself into a battle stance, but the fool wasn't paying attention to its neighbours, and nearly tripped a couple of ponies behind it.
Ace was ready to take advantage of that mistake.
She continued swooping down, straight towards the growling, battle ready construct, but banked at the last moment. She was now coming up against the unprepared, stumbling constructs behind it, and she tilted her body to the right so her wing was pointing towards the ground. The blades on her wing passed through a construct like a hot knife through butter, making a funny sound like tearing paper.
She swiftly kicked the broken construct back against the supposedly battle ready one, right before flying up in a loop and coming right back down on top of it. She watched it shove off the rapidly evaporating construct before her left wing tore through the back of its neck.
Ace flew up to admire her work, but quickly realized that might have been a mistake.
Now the entire army of constructs was staring at her. To be honest, it was pretty scary to have a thousand lifeless eyes staring back at you, but Ace didn't take the hardest challenge just to let some stage fright scare her off.
Suddenly, wireframe arrows, spears, tomahawks, and cannons all shot at her. But a frontal attack was easy to dodge: she dove to the floor and skimmed the ground as she flew, her direction parallel to the front of the army. She still had to dodge the occasional cannonball or spear that happened to be pointed in the right direction, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been up above the crowd. Plus, the suckers had some pretty bad aim.
Ace noticed that she was nearing the edge of the room, but decided to try playing dumb. To any outside viewers, it looked like she was about to slam headfirst into the wall. Instead, she flared her wings, twisted her body, and coiled and kicked her legs, rebounding off the wall in less than a second and heading directly into the crowd, right under all their skirts and kilts, if they had any.
As she slid under the first unsuspecting pony construct, she held her left wing up so it sliced right through its torso like a knife through water. Still sliding through the crowd, she made sure to look for the constructs that hadn't readied themselves and cut away those weaklings first. To her left and right as she slid, pony after pony would jump, fall, or trip, and she would hold out a wing. It was exhilarating, obliterating those lifeless objects left and right, and for a while it felt like it would last forever. That was, until friction finally slowed her down.
She picked herself up off the ground.
Now she found herself standing still in the middle of an enraged crowd of constructs, each of them holding up some kind of weapon. What did she ever do to them? Other than kill randomly, of course.
Ace noted the burning fuse on the cannon, the tension in the stances, and the tightness of the bows. She ducked right before the cannon fired, letting it obliterate the Darwin award winning constructs behind her, and then she rolled into the opening it created.
She slid right up against a bow wielding construct that hadn't yet turned towards her and lightly slid her wingtip across the back if its neck. She grabbed the bow from its evaporating hooves and the quiver from its back and twisted, haphazardly firing arrows at the sword and spear wielding constructs while her wings took care of nearby enemies. She didn't want to hit the bow and cannon wielding constructs, not while they were taking care of so much of the crowd for her.
After a good twenty or thirty kills, she leapt into the air to find a less readied part of the army while she dodged some badly aimed arrows. It was good to know how to fight when someone was expecting it, but that was another training session. Right now she was trying to rack up as many KOs as possible.
Ace dove into another section of the crowd, pirouetting upon landing and throwing her wings out, destroying five or six constructs right there. Now she leapt forward, using one of the bodies as shields and stabbing past it with her wing, killing another construct. She used the same strategy to kill yet another construct on her right.
She didn't get to find out how many wireframes she could kill using that same strategy, because some jerk unicorn in the crowd had to make an expanding shield that ignored everything except her.
The shield slammed against her, nearly throwing her against the training room wall. But right before she hit, she pressed the tips of her wings down. She wasn’t going to go down without destroying that annoying unicorn first!
Feeling the anti-magic crystals slicing through the shield like a hot knife through butter, Ace quickly twirled in a circle, cutting a out a hole. She pressed her barrel against the circle, breaking through it like a cat burglar.
She swooped down behind the unicorn construct jerk, trying to stay out of its line of sight. However, it already felt her break through its shield, and had readied another.
Ace flared her wings, pushing herself back before the next shield came. When it drew close, she reached down and carved another circle with her right wing. She was lucky enough that the circle grew with the expansion to allow her through.
Once she passed the construct’s barrier, she twirled and slapped its horn with her wing, cutting it off. Then she continued her twirl to cut off its neck. She didn't stop there either: a few other constructs had huddled against the unicorn construct, so she sliced through all of them diagonally as she twirled in a small circle right above the ground.
Somewhere in the crowd, while Ace was dispatching a few of the lesser constructs, several more unicorn types took note of her trouble with shields. While the shields didn’t stop her or defeat her, they did slow her down tremendously, and that could be useful.
Another annoying shield crashed against Ace, and this time she was much closer to the wall. Now though, she was prepared: it didn't take her even half the time to carve into the shield and push through. She didn't expect yet another shield to come immediately afterwards, but she was able to slice through it too. The shields after that were easy to predict, and she was starting to get a little less excited.
She was just about to slice through the second unicorn construct jerk that was making the shields when she noticed another shield coming from the opposite direction. As it slammed against her, she used the extra momentum to help her cut the nearby unicorn’s head off. This wasn’t going to be much fun if they just made shields one after another.
Another shield exploded out from the crowd before Ace had time to deal with the first, and she was lifted up into the air as the two shields hit her from exact opposite directions. By now though, getting through them just took a single practised flick of her wing.
But when the third wave of shields rammed against her, she had to rapidly move her left wing back and forth to cut through them in time, while her right wing dealt with the shields in front of her. Dealing with one shield was hard, but three? now things were starting to get interesting again. She could feel herself falling back into the zone.
In fact, she must have been grinning like a maniac, because she felt like a god!
She beat her wings in the spaces between the shields, throwing herself towards the nearest unicorn whenever she wasn’t being pushed back.
When the nearest unicorn construct saw her approaching, it tried increasing the frequency of its shields, but it wasn't enough to stop Ace. In fact, It seemed like she was only gaining speed, and it wasn't long before she had reached the unicorn and sliced through its face while she sported a vicious grin on hers.
Now that one of the unicorns was taken care of, she could practically feel her wings slicing through the other two. Progress was much faster now that she didn't have to deal with three of those annoying shields, but she still kept on the lookout for any new ones.
She felt like she was in a trance as she chuckled and cut towards the next closest unicorn, slicing the shield to her left, then the one in front of her, then beating her wings, then repeating. She couldn’t tell if time was going faster or slower as she homed in on the now retreating unicorn.
When she finally got close, she twisted around and threw her wing down, cutting the cowering unicorn and the pony constructs it hid under in half. In that same motion, she turned towards the next shield maker.
Ace blasted forward with one powerful beat of her wings, then sliced through shield after shield with quick, practiced spins. Finally, with one last twirl of her body, the last unicorn’s head lay beneath her.
She allowed herself a moment to gather her breath after taking out that last construct. Senselessly murdering fighting mannequins was exhausting.
Of course, that breather was taken while she spun around and let her wings swim through the nearby constructs’ bodies.
In that moment, she briefly wondered why she didn't have to deal with a thousand projectiles while the shields were up. Perhaps the shields didn't allow projectiles through either. It made sense.
But this wasn't the time for thinking.
She glanced around and noticed a few constructs ducking and sliding through the now sparse crowd, heading straight towards her. Oh boy, It looked like the advanced constructs were up next!
Ace lowered her body to the ground, using the nearby evaporating constructs as body shields.
One of the special earth pony constructs picked up a body touching Ace’s left side and threw it upwards before shoving a bladed hoof underneath.
Ace flew up, and was almost caught by the flung construct, but it evaporated in time. She twirled downward and sliced through the first special construct while it tried to pick itself up. It must’ve been out of shape.
Another construct killed and carried one of its neighbours, leapt off of someone in the pile of slaughtered pony constructs, and swung the fresh body against Ace.
Ace dodged the body with a back flap of her wings, and then she dodged the blade that came right after it. The sheer viciousness of that attack was inspiring, but the construct needed to work on its form: now that its back was facing her, she spun and sliced right through it.
She could see another construct glancing at various objects in its surroundings, most of which were downed constructs and their various weapons. It was probably plotting some dumb trap, so she grabbed and threw the one she just killed right at it.
While Ace’s wireframe victim fell, the living construct tried to move around to make up for the blind spot, but Ace kept moving behind the body, staying out of sight. Since moving wasn't working, the special construct spun in a circle, throwing its bladed hooves outwards.
Ace just stomped on the evaporating construct she threw when it hit the fool on the ground, crushing both. Then she made sure to shove a blade through for good measure, and also because it felt good.
In that instant, like day turning into night, Ace Blade was cast into darkness.
She crouched and looked up instinctively. She was pleased to see a large dome of wireframe pegasi hovering above her.
Without hesitation, Ace grabbed the recently downed construct by the hooves and swung. Some of the pegasi broke formation as they dodged the body, and that was all that Ace needed: she flew up from right behind the body and twirled past a few unsuspecting pegasi, cutting them to ribbons.
Now outside of the sphere, she banked and trailed her wing along the bodies, cutting through pegasi after pegasi. She occasionally had to twirl in midair or shift positions as the constructs continued to break from the formation. Why couldn’t they just stay in neat little circles for her?
Actually, it was almost starting to get boring again as she twirled, spiraled, and sliced through the dome of panicking pegasi. There was a problem when she destroyed only the top half of the dome with her spiral, and the other pegasi were far enough away to guard themselves. But instead of creating a better formation, they just huddled into a ball!
Begrudgingly accepting the free points, Ace swooped down and cut through a line of bodies in the middle of the group. At that point, there were only twelve pegasi left, and they were still hesitating, heck some of them looked like they weren’t even going to try attacking!
Ace blasted into the group to her right and destroyed six constructs with a quick spin. She lightly touched the floor before she pushed off and ferociously beat her wings toward the next group. She cut them apart with a few quick spins as well; it was easy when their backs were turned.
Okay, forget almost boring, this was definitely getting a little too easy.
Ace Blade looked around. Surrounding her was now a small dead army, all rapidly evaporating. Soon the room would be clean, and she would have to beg her superiors for some better training.
But then, a loud stomp rang out from behind her.
Ace’s head jerked around.
She backed up in surprise at what she saw. Instead of the normal blue pony constructs, she was facing a bright red alicorn construct.
Ace sported a lopsided grin. This would be a nice change of pace.
The alicorn grinned back. Most would have been terrified by the equally psychotic grin, but Ace might have been getting a little aroused. She quickly shook her head to snap out of it.
The alicorn pointed its horn at her and shot out a beam of pure magic.
Ace sidestepped the beam and dove at the alicorn construct.
The alicorn shot again, once again missing.
When Ace was close, the alicorn leapt into the air and charged its horn again, this time showering beams in every direction.
Ace danced around the pretty columns of death, twisting her way towards the end boss. Soon, she would be close enough to slice with her wing, and she would have defeated a mighty alicorn!
Sensing the pegasi's relentless approach, the alicorn switched spells. Instead of beams, it shot out shields in rapid succession. The previous unicorns couldn't make the shields quickly enough to do anything more than slow down Ace, but the alicorn could make up for that by flying towards her at the same time.
When Ace tried to cut through the shields and move forward to kill the end boss that decided to become yet another annoying shield maker, she found that there wasn't enough room in between the spheres for her body. Despite all her effort as she sliced through shield after shield, she quickly found herself pressed up against a wall.
The pressure was increasing by the second. Any more and the training would end. Ace was desperate and losing hope, but she kept slicing through the shields absent mindedly, her previous bloodlust still guiding some of her actions.
She started slouching as she spun, reluctantly accepting defeat, but she perked up after a moment when she realized that, for some reason, she still hadn’t lost.
It seemed that the force of her body against the wall was more powerful than any force she could make in the air. That would be useful.
So, like a master of hip hop dancing, she pressed her front hooves against the wall and threw her body into an even faster spin. She kept her wings angled against the shields and continued cutting. As she picked up speed, she stood up fully on the wall.
The alicorn construct flared its wings, stopping right before it reached the pegasi that somehow managed to cut through all of its shields. It hadn't anticipated Ace surviving that, but it knew hesitating was bad. It charged its horn, readying another beam.
Ace didn't hesitate either: once the last shield crashed against the wall around her, she pushed off of the wall and spun, wings flared and angled correctly. She didn't need to see the alicorn; she could triangulate it by seeing where the shields had crashed. It was obvious that it was right behind her.
Ace felt extreme satisfaction when her wings chopped through the alicorn again and again, reducing it to foot-long slices of construct.
She stopped the spin and slowly descended to the ground, panting. She looked around for any more constructs, but all she saw was magical evaporation.
After a few seconds, the room was completely clean, save for the sweaty pegasi in the center.
Ace Blade let out a satisfied, hot breath. She wanted to laugh, or giggle, or hop around giddily; this training was always so much fun!
She turned and looked at her friend. Plastic Tactics, wasn't it? "So," she yelled out, smiling, "How'd I do?" She flew over to the pony.
"Hmm," Plastic said, his muzzle buried in a notebook. Why he would ever want to look at that notebook instead of watching her fly through the air the whole time was something Ace had trouble understanding. "You could use a bit more training against those shields,” he continued. ”If it's a wall behind you, you're fine, but they could force you into a trap."
"Hmm." Ace frowned. She wasn't sure if it was possible to defeat those alicorn shields.
"Wait"—Plastic looked up—"if you can only beat the shields when you're against a wall, then it's because you don't have enough force. What about chemical or magical propulsion?"
Ace tilted her head. She never heard about 'chemical or magical propulsion' before. "Did you just make those up?"
"No." Plastic deadpanned. “How do you think flying chariots stay up?” He raised an eyebrow, asking the question like it was obvious. Jerk.
“Well excuse me for not knowing something.” Ace pouted.
“Huh?” Plastic tilted his head. “Oh, no no no, I didn’t mean to offend!” He shook his head rapidly, obviously flustered. “Magical propulsion is part of an enchantment applied to chariots meant for transporting—”
Ace sat down. This could be a long lecture, most of which she might not understand, but it was fun to hear people talk excitedly about things.
"So," Luna said smugly from behind the false mirror, taking her gaze away from the battle. "What do you think of our improvements to the training program?"
Celestia's gaze was still caught by the empty battlefield, fear and awe etched onto her face.
"Hey, 'Tia!" Luna tapped her hoof.
"Wha?" Celestia turned.
"So, what did you think?" Luna repeated.
"U— Uh," Celestia stuttered, "it's... uh," Her mouth hung open as she glanced back to the battlefield.
Luna smirked. "I take it you're impressed."
Celestia nodded meekly.
"I still need to make some more rooms for team training." Luna turned back towards the battlefield, still smirking. "You can't have two guards practising in the same place like that."
Author's Note
Inspired by: Dustforce.
