Forged Steel's Wrestling Journal

Entry 28

I certainly paid a price for my anger, when I woke this morning my shoulder hurt almost as bad as when I first separated it. I down some pain relievers, slide it carefully in a tight sling and go about a simple cardio-only exercise. As I start out the door, I was joined—to my surprise—by Rusty. I tell her that I go hard and I won't tone it back just because she's with me, Rusty responds that she wouldn't want it any other way.

As we start along with a quick walk and working into a run, I ask her why me, and why now? Rusty responds that she's been dying to get to know the stallion who will be her brother-in-law better. This nearly causes me to fall over. You mean that you're engaged?

“Well yeah.”

Wouldn't sister have a fit knowing that you told me instead of her?

“Keep moving,” she starts off again and I'm quick to catch up, “And no, we talked about it before and she said as long as you know, that's what's important.”

I take her hand momentarily, looking it over and finding it bare.

“You know her better than I do, do you really think she'd be the type to get a ring?”

I quickly remembered our blow out the other day. Oh, right…

“Believe me, I wanted one, at least to give to her, but she adamantly refused. She says our words are enough.”

That certainly sounds like Sister. As we go about, Rusty has a lot more fitness than I gave her credit for, she made it look easy keeping up with me. As we went about the run up the mountains and through their forest, I got to learn a little of her story.

Rusty grew up in Canterlot, her father is a fashion mogul and her mother a real estate agent. For as long as she can remember, she was always a “tomboy”. She loved contact sports, wearing “boy” clothes, and always had a huge skill for wrenching around. Rusty said one weekend as a challenge, while her parents went on vacation, she did a full tear-down and rebuild of her dad’s exotic supercar and they never found out.

She describes her parents as being stuffy, old fashioned, and uptight. That said, their dislike of her and Sister being together isn't any old prejudices but because of who Sister is. I don't doubt it, Sister has almost always rubbed older generations the wrong way. Despite their lack of warmth for my sister, they'd apparently rather spend their time harping about how Rusty could be designing or building cars, not fixing them.

Rusty did go to college for a short time and try automotive engineering, but she only stayed long enough to know she'd never be “any manner of a bean counter, let alone a STEM geek.” Her pleasure has always been wrenching around and tinkering. If she does “build” a car, it would be a restored classic or a custom rod. One thing she likes about Appleoosa is all the hicks buy cheap mods for their oversized trucks, it predictably breaks, and leaves her with a steady job.

Of course, the inevitable question comes about why I don't have a car. I quite simply never had a need for one, I don't know how to drive, and it's just too expensive. That's saying nothing about how neurotic all these commuter drivers are, constantly almost hitting me when it's nearly impossible to not see me, and the all too common bouts of road rage I always see everywhere. If that's what driving does, with my anger problems, the world is much better off with me not driving.

As we stop for a moment near the top of the short mountain in the range, Rusty pulls my shirt up briefly “Oh wow, she wasn't kidding. Looks even more gnarly than she described.” Pulling my shirt down and giving her a swat on the hand, I ask why she couldn't just ask me about the scar like a normal, well-adjusted pony. Rusty says because I'd have told her to mind her own business.

Well, she's not wrong. I would have.

“So are you going to tell me about it or am I going to torture it out of you?”

His name is Stormbrekker. He had all the physical gifts that any wrestler would kill for, plus a genuine pedigree for instant credibility and heat, no matter where he would have worked. A large and muscle-bound dragon, even for his tribe, which was known for some pretty fearsome dragons. He was born of the warrior caste there, knowing how to fight from the time he could walk on his own.

All the gifts and pedigree he had, he found how to make it all worthless. Calling this prick a headcase prima donna would be a compliment. He was born to his tribe’s top warrior and he never spared any opportunity to remind everyone of that. Worse, he was also prejudiced against anyone who wasn't a dragon, considering them inferior races unfit to even oil his scales. Furthermore, his self-obsession extended to his own tribe. He had been a distinguished warrior in his own right, second to only his father.

This wasn't good enough for him, after some 30 years of being under his father's shadow, he began to take steroids. Drug abuse only made his attitude further deteriorate to where he would lash out at his servants with no provocation. His tribe and father decided enough was enough when one of these bouts of rage caused the death of Stormbrekker’s apprentice. Instead of accepting his punishment with penance, he called his father out in a fight over leadership. He was roundly defeated, humiliated, and exiled from the tribe, and that’s how he ended up in Stalliongrad.

I know his story because I was around Papa when the dragon tried to get into Papa’s wrestling school. All the trainers and even the wrestlers felt it was a bad idea, but Papa wanted to at least give him a second chance at life. Unfortunately for us, he only picked right up where he left off, feeling he was above us “inferior” ponies. He would only half-listen to Papa and Gryphus, the two trainers. It all came to a head sooner rather than later.

Gryphus’ nephew had enough of this dragon’s attitude and called him out. It was before the day’s session, and myself and Sister were there, as the wrestling school had the only gym in our part of the city. I remember I had just finished my warm-up when I heard the fight break out, followed by the booming voices of Papa and Gryphus practically shaking the walls. Fortunately Grendel, Gryphus’ nephew, only had a minor claw wound but that was the last straw for Papa, who kicked the dragon out.

Sister, as you know she can’t hold her tongue, was sitting nearby the ring and remarked “Wow, what a prick.” I poke my head out of the weight room I was in just in time to hear Sister’s remark, and Stormbrekker’s rebuttal. His eyes are full of wrath as he glared right down at Sister and hissed, “When I come back, you’re going to be my sex slave.” We’re all well aware that there are things you do not say about my family, especially my sister, doubly so when I’m able to hear it.

I don’t know what came over me, but when I step out of the weight room and slam its door behind me, I went deaf. I could not hear Papa telling me to let it go. Other wrestlers who see what was developing try to physically hold me back, but I push and shake them off one by one. Stormbrekker glared at me in the doorway and says he’ll dismember me in front of the whole city, punctuating the statement by swiping my face with his claws. Feeling the hot blood drift down my face, I immediately step outside the building and with one swing of my fist, I strike one of his horns so hard it cracked, causing his shout of pain to echo through the streets. The fight was on.

As I get into a ready stance, he spear hit me, his horns gouging my abdomen, and knocking me against the wall. I use both my hands to lock his up and prevent him from goring my face with his claws, but his warrior instincts allow him to ascend the wall and his right hind leg digs its claws into my right shoulder. As he takes a downward swipe with this leg, I feel it cut down to the bone and even snapping ribs as he cuts across my chest.

I use my other hand to grab hold of his right hand and bend it backwards, his hinds slipping off the walls and him backing into the streets. He drops to his knees as I continue bending the arm, dead set on breaking it in the most gruesome way possible. As I succeed, his blood-curdling roar once again echoes down the road, a crowd having now gathered. I begin to take control of the fight, using my amateur wrestling abilities to lift him clear overhead and slam him face-first into the asphalt. The blow having momentarily stunned him, I use his horns to press his face down and deliver repeated knee blows to his skull, having no desire to stop until he stops moving.

A police constable pulls me off momentarily before himself being pulled away by other constables, allowing the dragon a chance to again gain the upper hand. I assume a high guard but this was a fight for blood, my guard only being met by his teeth biting my thigh. I jam my thumb through his eye with all the force I could muster, weakening the bite. Wasting no time, I took my opportunity to push my shin against his throat, pulling his neck down against my leg. At first he thrashes around, his struggling managing to swipe my face several times, but I’m long since possessed, my air choke only getting stronger with each passing second.

I finally hear him wheeze and see his struggling weakening. His own blood soon runs over his teeth and down my leg. He can only faintly gasp that he can’t breathe, and to please let him go. I roar loudly enough that the crowd takes a step back to say it again so they can hear him. With a final rush of energy from him, he beseeches loudly “Please have mercy on me!”

Once he said those words, his body went limp. I release the hold, crawl away from his body, and before I can stand up, black out. The both of us were covered in blood, and blood loss is believed to be why I went unconscious. I only awoke late that night in a hospital, both Papa and Sister bedside, their eyes swollen and red with tears. No words were spoken.

It was a week before I was released. Even then I could barely walk under my own power. I had suffered seven broken ribs, a cracked sternum, ruptured stomach, compound fracture in the shoulder, muscle torn completely off the shoulder. In addition, I needed some 270 stitches and 42 staples to close all the wounds.

I had done something that no other pony in history ever had, defeated a dragon in a fight by making said dragon beg for mercy. I noticed my “prize” two weeks later when I had the bulk of my bandages removed. As I had stripped in anticipation of a bath, I once again saw the scars and marks, suffering a panic attack and flashback to the fight. I sat, hunched over the sink for several minutes crying.

Finally I had seen on my hip a mark, a set of shackles. I hobbled over to the bath, sinking into the water. I don’t know how long I sat in the water, staring off into space. However long it was, it was long enough that the silence was finally broken by Papa bursting through the door, scared that I’d drowned. As he helped me out, it finally all dawned on me. I was born to wrestle, whether it be professional “show” wrestling, or amateur “real’ wrestling. The mark was indicative that my grasp is inescapable, the only reason anyone would get free of my grasp was because I let them.

That’s my special talent, wrestling. The mark I bear on my hips, and the dragon’s scars on my chest are proof of it.

As for what became of Stormbrekker, he was charged with attempted murder in a corrupt Stalliongrad justice system that is openly prejudiced against any non-pony races. He suffered a compound fracture of the arm, skull fractures, a broken horn, and a crushed trachea. To cap it all off, he’s serving a lifetime sentence in a gulag. Unlike Equestrian prisons, in Stalliongrad you are sentenced to hard labor. I’ve heard stories of wrestlers who’ve been in these horror camps; backbreaking, chattel slavery labor from the minute you step out off the bus until you are forcibly pulled from the yard for your release.

He still got no mercy. Mercy would have been his death, as he has almost certainly relized long ago.