"The only fight I need to win..."
I forced my eyes open to look. All I saw was a blur of streetlights and red. So much red.
Blinking the blood out of my eyes, I could more clearly see the crowd huddled around me. They were all yelling at me. Telling me something. And they seemed rather insistent that I listen. It's funny, that after wishing for silence I finally got it. I just needed to get my head smashed up against a wall.
"Ow..." I muttered, now remembering why I was on the ground. That flank pulled a dirty trick. I glanced at him, a tall Pegasus with a blue mane. He was mostly covered in leather appeal, but even his bright orange coat stuck out in the night time. Placing my hooves on the ground to get balanced proved to be harder than I thought. As I barely did a push-up, before falling back into my blood.
Before I ever got caught up in this fighting nonsense, I might've considered calling for help, but after learning how hard my head is... It's actually laughable how much of a beating I can take. I placed my hooves under my head as I started to get my hearing back, and the ringing ceased. I heard the crowds cheering for the off duty royal guard that I was... "Sparing with".
"Sentry! Sentry! Sentry!" they shouted. I couldn't hear the one pony I knew would be cheering for me. Her hushed, stuttering voice was drowned out by the crowds persistent bellowing. I don't even think I know her name. All I knew was that this creep was messing with her. I told him to stop, and the next thing I knew I was-
"Ow...!" I piped at the sharp pain on my forehead.
He punched me.
That's right, he started a fight with me, and I thought I could match him. But instead, I was on my face, getting a taste of my own medicine. I began to push myself up again, only to be punched in the nose. My head bounced up against the brick street. I didn't move to comfort my head. I let it sting. Vinyl told me it just made things worse. And she was right, if I pretended it wasn't there, I found it easier to dismiss it like the curses some of the ponies were shouting.
I chuckled at those words they threw at me. I could deal with any insult. They were just colorful words for ponies that didn't have much of a vocabulary. But the one thing I hated being called... Was an idiot, or stupid. Those words cut deeper than anything.
You're an idiot! Dash's voice echoed in my head. I felt the tears rushing past my face. I already knew that you flank! I said in my head.
I never felt so low in my life. There was nothing worse than the feeling of tasting that damned dirt of defeat. I don't want to get up again. But this life has never been one I could freely choose for myself.
"Get up, Phoenix!" that voice shouted, quiet spread all around her. I tilted my head up to watch the crowd part. Seeing her terror-stricken face made my heart ache like nothing else. "Leave..." I couldn't raise any sound from my voice, but I mouthed it, hoping she'd take the hint and go before this night got any worse for her. I watched that guard turn from me to move towards her. Fear dominated her expression. Her ruffled pink mane and her yellow coat covered by her winter jacket; she looked so defenseless.
"Right, where was I?" Sentry joked like he'd forget.
"Phoenix!" that girl shouted again, and Sentry stepped closer and closer.
"She's a broken mule, sweets, now how about you give the champion a kiss?" Sentry asked, and the girl froze as she looked to see me behind him.
Weird... Who knew my body could move on its own.
I threw a right hoof over the backside of Sentry's head. He stumbled over the girl and got his hoofing back to jolt back at me with his own right, but after I grabbed it and led him into my right hoof again, blood trickled out of his mouth as he fell backward. He stumbled, but he wasn't down yet. Charging at me again, I let him feel the pain of being on the offensive. I spun left from his punch and smacked him with another right. He placed his front hooves on the ground and tried to kick me with both back hooves, but such a slow move was predictable, and I dodged grabbing both of his legs and swung them onto my shoulder, and in turn swinging his body over me. Slamming him onto the ground.
He gasped for air as he hit the street. Damn, that felt good. He started to comfort his chest, and I got too relaxed as two of his buddies smacked me with the back of their bike helmets. I stumbled forward, and Sentry bucked me in the stomach. His fellow guards grabbed me as I fell into their arms, and he got up to punch me. Back and forth he hit me, my blood spread all over the ground as a few of my teeth fell from my mouth with another punch.
I choked on my own breath as the pain kept coming. Sentry thought it'd be funny if he hit my broken horn. And the scream I let out made any pony near cringe as I began to burst into tears. Sentry flinched but went for another punch. I saw it coming, and instead of taking it like a champ, I reared back and dug what was left of my teeth into his arm as I dodged his punch. He froze in pain, which let me move him back and I pushed my neck over the left guard's shoulder, and head butted his nose so hard I heard it snap.
He let go, and I let go of a whimpering Flash Sentry. I kicked him for good measure and jabbed the other guard in the ribs with my elbow until he dropped his grasp. The other guard side kicked me in the gut, but I instantly forgot about that as I punched the daylights out of his eyes. Snapping that broken nose, even more, I'm sure he wasn't going to get up again. Then the other guard wanted more, so I blocked his weak jab and countered with a barrage of kicks and punches until he was back up against the glass of a street side store. I attacked him until he couldn't hold up any defense and then finished my combo with a kick, crashing him through the window.
I started to control my breathing as he laid there motionless in the ruined display. Small pieces of glass cut his body, he bled a little, not as much as I would have liked him too, but the rallying voice behind me caught my attention.
"Get her! Get her, she's a danger to the city's peace!" Flash Sentry cried, ordering more of his lackeys to attack.
I felt my teeth grind, using your bloody position in the guard to justify your abuse on the streets? Unforgivable.
I charged at the crowd that readied for battle. Hitting hard and fast, taking out as many as I could to avoid a lengthy fight, cutting my way through the ranks, I hunted for Flash's cowering mug. It wasn't a matter of protecting a defenseless woman anymore. I started to fight back with that idiotic idea in my head, but I must've lost any sense of reason the moment Sentry hit my horn. Who knows how many months he just set me back from full recovery. I recalled the day Nightmare Moon head-butted me so hard that my horn cracked. Ruining any chance of returning to school, and continuing my studies as a unicorn. I couldn't even call myself that anymore. I raged my way through every stallion and mare that tried to stop me, I punched them to the ground, I sent them flying over each other, and I kicked them back onto the fallen.
I only wanted to use magic again. That's all. But even fleeing from Ponyville didn't spare me from fighting again.
I tore through the last of Sentry's goons, and he attacked back as if his life depended on it. Punching where I was getting ganged up on by his group. But I let him hit me, I let him think he was making some progress in beating me, and when he landed that last punch on my jaw, I whipped a glance of impatience. Shattering any pride he had as a fighter.
"You can't win..." I told him, and he fell on his back in fear. He knew it now. He turned to the girl, her hooves covering her mouth as she watched him apologize before I led into one last punch to strike his head against the floor. He kept saying sorry as my clenched hoof fell upon him.
This was the only fight I needed to win... The fight for respect.
I walked away from that messy side of town. I wasn't about to be there when the real royal guard showed up.
"E- Excuse me?" said a sweet, silent voice. I turned to see the girl I was fighting to protect.
"Yes...?"
She didn't respond at the sight of me. I didn't even know what I looked like, but I could imagine.
"... Favored hoof, blood dripping face, black eye, and a bandaged horn, that felt more painful than the rest of these bruses... Is that what you see?" I asked her. She had a hurt expression on her face. I knew it. Turning away from her, I hopped on my front left hoof with a limping back hoof on my right.
"No!" She said straight out. "You look brave!"
"This looks brave?" I asked, not turning to look at her, but stopping to hear her out.
"... Y- Yes..." She hesitated. And I laughed.
"Then I'd hate to see what dead looks like." I continued on. I heard her follow after me. Why would she? Don't I scare her after what I did back there? Man, I wish I had lost more brain cells. I started to think about that final punch I delivered to Flash Sentry.
Correction, that punch I almost delivered to Flash Sentry.
He was cowering, still saying that he was sorry with his hooves up to block the punch that was an inch from connecting. Why did I hesitate? Nightmare Moon didn't when she took my horn's purpose from me. But I left him there. Showing mercy wasn't something Vinyl taught me. I guess I was my own student since I left the team. I feel... Not like a coward... But like a...
"Hero." the mare behind me said. I turned to her, now at my side. She took my hoof over her shoulder and helped me walk.
"I don't understand..." I confessed.
"You showed that guard something that he needed to see," I waited for her to answer, "Kindness."
She then told me of what happened after I left them all there. She said that Flash Sentry confessed guilty to the guards on duty, and pointed them in the wrong direction of where I left. I was shocked.
"You have an impact on people, and I want to know more of this drive you have. Where are you going now?" she asked.
"First, you name..." I said, depending on her more as I felt my legs growing weaker.
"Fluttershy." She said, "And you're Phoenix, correct?"
"Twilight Phoenix Sparkle... But you can call me what whatever you want..."
"Phoenix it is then..."
We kept walking forward down the empty street, and I told Flutter Shy I was heading back to Ponyville to settle a fight. At Knuckle Brick Corner. I was... Returning home...
And here I thought, that fighters didn't have friends...
Fighters Don't Have Friends... Will Return Soon.
Author's Note
We'll see if this idea gets any attention. If not I'll save it for later.
It just feels good to read about Twilight kicking butt hoof to hoof.
