Lineage

“And…” I grunted, throwing myself off the higher position I was and down onto the other side of the valley Luna had landed on about twenty minutes earlier. “Made it.” I looked back over my shoulder at the distance I’d traversed, rubbing my cold hands together to try and restore some warmth to them after clinging onto a freezing wall for the better part of twenty minutes. With a triumphant grin, I walked over to the drawbridge Luna had crossed and entered the fortress, marvelling at the extremely impressive training courtyard they had. It contained everything from a forge, to an archery range, a wrestling ring, training dummies, and a similar climbing course to what Luna had constructed back at the palace. The courtyard was nearly empty, aside from a small table where I spotted Luna sitting with a man in his twilight years, dressed in a similar set of leather armour as both mine and Luna’s.

“Hey!” I called out to Luna, the woman looking over her shoulder and waving at me as I walked over to them. I crossed my arms as I stood behind her, looking at the older man with a smile.

“Good afternoon, Sir,” I said.

“Good afternoon, young man,” he said in a deep voice, looking at Luna with a cocked eyebrow. “I can see a resemblance between you two. Is this one yours?”

“Richter?” She asked with a scoff. “Heavens no. No, the displeasure of raising this one goes to my niece, Cadance. He gets his looks from his father.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever met either, sadly. I haven’t visited Equestria in so long,” he said, getting up and holding out his hand. “Well met, young man. I am Arren of Frostborough.”

“Richter,” I said before chuckling in an awkward manner, taking his arm and giving it a firm shake. “I’d introduce myself in the same way… but I can’t remember if it’s the place you were born or raised in that decides the last one.”

“It’s the place you were born,” Luna answered. “So you’d be Richter of Kyoto.”

“... I was born in Nippon?” I asked in a confused manner. “I didn’t know that.”

“Indeed you were,” Luna nodded. “Your mother wanted to see the cherry blossoms in bloom while she was pregnant, and about a week and a half before her due date, you popped out.”

“Nice,” I said with a nod. “I’ll have to go back there someday. Anyway, back on topic.”

“Right,” Arren nodded with a smile. “Luna and I were just discussing training methods when it comes to combat. She says that she may have cut out a few of our school’s signature combat techniques in favour of more-”

“Useful ones,” Luna said, resting her hands behind her head. “I often found wasting my time learning different grappling techniques for holding an opponent down on the floor when it’s easier to kill them.”

“I’ve heard the older masters speak of you and your distaste for our style of fighting,” Arren chuckled.

“Because most of them are completely useless,” Luna said, standing up and stretching out. “And I aim to prove it. What do you say to a little bet?” Arren crossed his arms with a grin, chuckling to himself before nodding.

“I’m listening,” Arren answered.

“I’m willing to wager… three hundred gold pieces that Richter can take on and defeat every single pupil you have in this school.”

“Excuse me?” I asked in horror.

“What do you say?” Luna asked, holding out her arm.

“Don’t I get a say in this at all?” I asked loudly.

“Every student?” He asked with a smirk.

“Every student,” she confirmed.

“Guys!?”

“You’ve got a deal.” Arren grinned. “We’ll begin in about… ten minutes? Once I’ve rounded all twenty of the students here up.”

“Oh great,” I sighed. “I love getting my ass kicked.” With that Arren walked away to gather everyone up, leaving Luna to unbelt my sword and shield from my back and point to the wrestling ring in the centre of the courtyard.

“What the hell did you just get me into?” I asked in horror.

“Don’t worry about it,” she chuckled. “These kids are gonna be a league and a half below you because of their shit training. They don’t stand a chance.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because I trained you,” she said, guiding me towards the ring.

“I really don’t think that changes that these guys have been trained in ancient, perfected styles,” I gulped nervously.

“Oh yeah,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “In the same way that we perfected the art of walking so that makes it so much better than a horse and cart, right?”

“Fair point,” I nodded.

“Good,” she grinned. “Take your armour off, it’s considered cheating.”

“Of course it is,” I sighed, unfastening the leather armour on my body and stripping down to the cotton shirt and pants I wore, standing in the centre of the ring and rolling my shoulders. I stood waiting for a good five minutes before the flood of opponents wandered into the courtyard, one guy in particular catching my eye as he was about seven feet tall and about three hundred pounds of shredded muscle, having a face like a smacked arse.

“Oh… you are fucking kidding me,” I thought in horror, watching him take a seat and seeing the first opponent, a guy about my height with a bit more muscle weight on him, walk into the ring.

“So… what exactly are the rules here?” I asked.

“If you get knocked out or are too injured to fight,” Luna said, clearly making it up as she went along. “You lose.”

“Ready?” Arren asked, taking the role of referee here, making us both walk towards each other and shake hands.

“Go easy on me, man,” the guy said with a nervous smile. “I like my teeth where they are.”

“Sure thing, lad,” I nodded, smiling back at him. “Nice to see they’re not just assholes. A bit too cliche for my taste.”

“Fight!” Arren barked. I barely had time to get my hands up as he slung a left jab at me, catching me on the shoulder despite my attempt to backstep the attack, following it up with a series of consecutive jabs I managed to catch on my arms, the punches causing slight pain, before he stepped forward with what would’ve been a brutal uppercut. I say “would’ve been” as I managed to cross my arms over in the same X pattern I used against Nightmare Twilight’s form, catching the guy’s wrist in between it and stopping the blow before slamming my forehead into his, dazing him. As he stumbled back in shock, I slammed my fist into his stomach, causing him to hunch over and allowing me to kick him in the side of the head, sending him spiralling into the dirt in an unconscious heap.

“”Next up!” Arren called, pointing to a larger guy, just over six-three to walk into the ring, cracking his neck angrily. “One down, nineteen to go!” The guy cracked his neck before rushing at me, clearly not wanting to shake hands, swinging at me with his fists. I managed to block three of them before a feint caught me off guard, his fist slamming into my jaw and sending me careening to the floor with a loud smacking sound. I lifted my arms up to protect myself, landing on my forearms and dropping into a roll before launching back to my feet in his direction, forcing him to backstep like the previous guy before I ducked low, hooking my arm and shoulder underneath his legs before picking him up and slamming him into the floor. The impact clearly knocked the wind out of him before I knocked the lights out of him, booting him square in the head and causing him to roll out of the ring.

“Next!” Arren called. “Two on one!”

“What?!” I exclaimed angrily.

“Allowed!” Luna called from the side, giving me a playful wink as she pulled a chair from the nearby table and sat on it. Right, fine. I needed to step it up this time around. Two more guys, each the same size and weight as me rushed into the ring, the two of them clearly having two different fighting styles judging by the way they held themselves. The first guy came sprinting at me, launching himself forward with a powerful kick that I managed to deflect my pushing it aside with my forearm, only to forget that he had a second one. He extended his leg out, booting me straight in the eye and knocking me onto my back. I rolled onto my feet in a crouch, having no time to recover before the guy landed, attempting to kick me in the side of my head. I caught ahold of his foot under my arm, yanking him forward as I stood back up, slamming my knee into his groin before slamming my right hand into his face, feeling his cheek cracking before I pushed him back and booted him in the throat.

The second guy made himself known at this point, swinging low and catching me in the side of the leg, the muscle pain causing me to drop down to one knee and barely managing to roll under his roundhouse kick, standing up before he could regain his stance, wrapping my arms around his waist and hefting him over my shoulders, slamming him head first into the floor with as much power as I could. I rolled away from him just as the second guy stormed towards me, launching a barrage of punches, most of them lighter and aimed towards the face before one caught me in the abdomen and winded me severely. Before I could even hunch over he tackled me to the floor, beginning to slam his fist into my face. I felt my jaw crack loudly, but thankfully not break, and I covered my face with my hands briefly, slamming my fist into his shoulder socket as he cocked back his fist, popping his limb out with the impact before using my new free side to slam my hand repeatedly into his damaged cheek.

I managed to knock him off me at that point, grabbing hold of his dislodged arm, placing my free hand on his elbow joint and wrenching it backwards, snapping the limb with a vicious cracking sound before ramming my knee into his head, knocking him out cold. The first guy rushed at me, attempting to tackle me as the second guy had done, only for me to dodge to the side and knee him in the ear, most likely rupturing his eardrum. The impact knocked him sideways and down to the floor, allowing me to pivot on my heel and stamp on the back of his head.

“Right…” I panted. “Four down, sixteen to go.”

“Three in!” Arren called.

“Fuck off!”

“Allowed!”

“Fuck you!”

Alright, enough fucking around. I spat bloodied spit out of my mouth and rolled my shoulders, inhaling through my nose sharply before moving to meet the new opponents head on as they entered the ring. As the first one swung for me, I stepped to the side, grabbing hold of his arm and wrenching it, causing him to drop down to his knees. I spotted another guy moving behind me to try and restrain me, so I lashed out behind me with my foot, knocking him backwards, before releasing the arm I held and bringing my foot up into his face and smashing his jaw, quickly turning around and slamming my boot into the head of the guy I’d kicked moments before. Ad the third guy rushed at me, I managed to avoid all of his punches, spotting his poor footwork before kicking his leg out from underneath him, forcing him to one knee before slamming the bottom of my fist into the back of his head and down onto the floor.

“Alright then… seven down, thirteen to go,” I snarled. “Bring on the four of them!”

“Hjalmand,” Arren called, pointing to the big guy who was sitting in the spectator zone.

“Fucking hell,” I said, hunching over with my hands on my knees and the big guy made his way into the ring. “Gimme a sec, will ya?”

“Nope, time waits for no man,” he growled, cracking his knuckles.

“Fair point,” I said, standing up and putting distance between me and him. “So, Hjalmand… when this is over, what’s say we all go get a drink together? My treat?”

“Sounds good,” he nodded. “You’re a great fighter and I’d like to hear about how you learned.”

“I can show you if you want?” I said, bluffing as hard as possible.

“Sure,” he said, cocking back his fist and throwing a punch. Despite my attempt to block it, he smacked through my defense like a brick through stretched paper, the impact rocking my entire body and sending me straight to the floor, tearing a hole in my shirt and busting my mouth. Spitting dirt out of my mouth, I got back to my feet and sunk it a low crouch, waiting for him to do the same thing and preparing a counter-strategy. He threw a punch again, this time with the opposite hand, and with a duck under it, I was in range for a few quick attacks. I slammed my fist into his gut as hard as I could only for it to have no impact whatsoever.

“Brilliant,” I sighed, ducking sideways to dodge the attempted bear hug and slamming my foot into his back as hard as possible only to get the same effect. “So… as long as he’s tensing, I can’t land a shot on him… alright then… time to C-Lang this motherfucker.” I ducked away from him, locking my guard up and in as hard as possible, shouting at him to try and hit me again. He complied immediately, slamming his fist into my arm as hard as possible and causing an enormous amount of agony to spread throughout my arm muscles.

“Is that it?” I asked cockily, hoping I could back up my boasts otherwise I was about to look like an asshole. He chuckled ominously, bringing his knee up into my gut, slipping past the guard I gave to my head, and lifted me into the air before slamming his fists down into my back and, as a result, me into the hard ground. The wind was knocked out of me once again as pain exploded through my torso, feeling rough dirt and pebbles slamming into my ribs.

“Move…” I groaned to myself as I saw him bringing up his foot to stomp me. “Move!” I threw myself sideways and somehow managed to kickstand up to my feet, trying my best to ignore the searing pain in my chest.

“Richter?” Luna called from the sidelines.

“Yeah?” I asked in exhaustion.

“Have you forgotten how to dodge?” She asked.

“... No,” I answered.

“Then why aren’t you?”

“Uhhh… I forgot?”

“Of course you did… I wasted nine years of my life on you…”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“You’re welcome.”

I turned my head back to my opponent, trying my best to find a weak point on him somewhere or else I’d end up getting to digest my teeth.

“C’mon, Richter,” I said to myself. “Think, think…”

There had to be something I was missing, some kind of technique I’d forgotten about when it came to taking on huge opponents. Something Luna had taught me that she wasn’t telling me right now. She reminded me about dodging to prevent being hit, right? But she doesn’t give advice without meaning something more. I knew that with the way he swung he opened himself up in a big way, but I couldn’t hit him hard enough to do anything to him. I couldn’t just make him charge into something and knock him out, so cliches were out of the option in this case. I was good at thinking on my feet, it was my thing from what I’d learned. But I’d need a little more time to think of something.

I resorted to defending and dodging for a while, analysing and watching every move this guy made to try and find something to exploit: He opened himself up, didn’t keep his hands up, left his core exposed, each punch he threw upset his balance… wait. Balance… that had to be it, right? The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Maybe cliches were the way to go here.

“Alright then, Hjalmand,” I said, spitting out another wad of blood before rolling my shoulders. “I think I have a plan.”

“Care to share?” He asked.

“Of course,” I said, sprinting towards him. I’d definitely surprised him, but I’d hoped that I’d baited him too. He cocked his hand back and took the bait in the same movement. He swung for me with everything he had. I rolled under the punch that would’ve probably taken me out if it had hit, and as he leaned into it, I got to my feet and slammed my foot into the back of his knee, sending the titanic man down onto one knee. With him down, I planted my foot on his back and leaped as high as I could into the air, and grabbing hold of his head on the way down and slamming his face into the floor with all of his body weight and my momentum, his nose breaking loudly as I began to repeatedly punch the back of his head until I was sure that he was down.

“Fucking… hell,” I growled, dropping onto my back and panting heavily. “Any… one… else?”

“Four in!”

“Allowed!”

“Why the hell did I ask?”

“Hang on, hang on,” an extremely familiar voice asked as they walked towards the ring.

“No way,” I said, rolling over and looking at the man walking towards the ring. “Zane?”

“Heya, Richter,” he chuckled, crossing his arms and cocking his head. “You seem to be doing well.”

“Well.. yeah,” I chuckled. “I’m doing great.”

Maybe I should give some backstory about this guy. This is my old buddy Zane, the closest thing I had to a brother in my life. We shared the same hair and eye colour, but he was always bigger and older me, with his hair usually shaved into a short, quiffed style like the rich man he’d brought up to be, but had enough peasant in him to keep me humble. He and another older kid used to watch over me and my three my friends when we were kids: there was me, Anastasia, who was a girl with wine red hair and always had a liking for dresses and medicine in school, a boy my age named Kazuhira, who was the Japonaise prince, and a fourth guy named Alistair… we had a big falling out some years back where he stole something for me and had yet to pay for it. Something I planned to fix sometime soon.

“So… d’you need a hand?” He asked me with a smirk.

“Getting up?” I asked.

“No, getting beat up,” he said, taking off his long, white coat and rolling up his sleeves. “Just like I always helped you do as a kid?”

“Sure thing, buddy,” I smirked, taking the hand he offered to help me up with and climbed to my feet.

“Mind if I use him to wipe the blood off the ring floor?” Zane asked Arren.

“Not at all, Zane,” he said with a shake of his head. “I was gonna save you till last, but if you think you can handle him.”

“If I can handle him?” He asked with a laugh before clapping me on the shoulder. “Shit, you be asking him that instead. He’s never been able to do it before.”

“That may change,” I pointed out.

“Fuck off will it,” he laughed as he walked into the ring. “Come on then, big guy. Show me what you can do.” I cracked my knuckles and rushed towards him, throwing a light jab to try and get him to move only to have him knock it aside with his forearm and shoulder charge me, sending me stumbling back only for him to rush towards me once more, aiming six consecutive hits to the collarbone, left side, abdomen, chest, neck, and finally a brutal punch to the face that nearly knocked me flat on my arse. I was able to stay standing as he leaped forward, attempting to boot me in the chest only for me to catch his leg and thus block the attack.

I smirked at him cockily, only for him to use his much stronger leg muscle to bring both it and me to the ground before leaping up and using his other foot in a spin kick that knocked me aside and onto my front. Zane landed flat on his feet and with a sweeping kick, flipped over backwards and slammed his knee straight into my stomach before pressing his other knee into my neck.

“Submit,” he said.

“No,” I growled. My oxygen flow was cut off as he pressed his knee into my neck, causing both pain and strangulation as he offered me the chance to surrender again. I once again repeated my response before he shrugged his shoulders and slammed his fist into the side of my head which knocked me clean out.

I regained consciousness mere moments after as Zane had gotten off me and was now bowing to the applause he was receiving from the crowd before turning back to me and offering me a hand. Swallowing the burning fury I had in my chest and the sting I felt in my pride from being publicly humiliated, I took his hand again and pulled myself to my feet.

“You’ve gotten a lot better,” he said, patting me on the side.

“Really?” I asked in completely disbelief. “What gave it away?”

“Usually you’d just tell me to fuck off after I won,” he laughed. “You’re actually facing up to the fact you lost like a man. That’s a sign of growth.”

“What? The fact that I lose better than I used to?” I asked with a bitter tone.

“Don’t let it get to you, bud,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked. “I’ve never been able to beat you in my life.”

“D’you know why you haven’t?” He asked.

“I get the feeling you’re gonna tell me,” I sighed.

“Damn right,” he nodded. “The reason you’ve never beaten me is because you can’t.”

“Fucking never?” I asked in a faux-shocked.

“What I mean by that is that, at various points in your life, you are going to come across challenges that you just can’t overcome, no matter how hard you try and no matter how many times you try,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter how hard you train or practice, you’re not gonna be able to accomplish it because it’s simply beyond your limits as a human being.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I asked. “I shouldn’t expect to win because I’m just too shit to ever succeed?”

“If that’s the way you wanna look at it, then yes,” Zane nodded. “But the correct way to look at is this: you shouldn’t attempt things you know you can’t do and then get angry at the fact you can’t do them. It only leads to anger and self-loathing.”

“I…” I sighed, still bitter about the loss. “Fuck, man.”

“I know, buddy,” he said, patting me on the back. “I know.”

“Right,” Luna said, reluctantly handing over a sack of coin to a grinning Arren as she walked over to me. “We need to get you cleaned and patched up, Richter. Are the Master’s Quarters still mine?”

“Always will be,” Arren nodded, weighing up the sack of money.

“Come on then,” she said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Nice seeing you again, Zane.”

“You too, Your Majesty,” he said with a nod. “Sorry about getting him salty.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she chuckled, patting me on the head. “I’ll cheer him up.”