I Hit It With My Sword [Open]

[mithrarin]

Who: Dust and OPEN
What: Dust settles back into Ponyville with some training.
Where: The dojo, the Night Market.
When: Afternoon.
Warnings: Minor violence.
Prose or Commentspam: Whichever!


Though the back of the dojo had a fence around it, all privacy went out the window when a solid wooden training dummy shot skywards about fifteen feet into the air from behind it.

Dust followed it up without using his wings, just the raw power of a leap that sent him skyward as the Blade of Ahrah flashed forward in a quick series of brutal blows that sent the dummy spinning.

Before either it or he could fall, Dust spun around, Ahrah whipping through the air with such force that a gale wind spun up around him as he launched forward. Both gusts and blade slashed through the dummy as Dust shot past it. Dust stopped immediately on the other side, letting his momentum spin him to face the dummy as he slashed through it, four blows in quick succession again. Then he spun around in the Dust Storm again, lashing through it -- then struck again, then the Dust Storm again, then struck, then Storm...

All told, with his blows lightened and not trying his best, he kept the dummy spinning for over a minute in midair before he finally grabbed it, flipped around, and plummeted back down behind the fence once again. A ferocious thud and the shattering of wood spoke of just how hard he'd slammed the thing into the ground.

Comments

[kuukai]

Kyouko watched from the edge of the dojo, chewing on an apple, as Dust attacks the mannequin. When he landed, she shouted at him.

"Hey! Yer gonna mess with flight patterns around here if ya keep that up."

[mithrarin]

"I think they can handle it," Dust said with a smile as Ahrah flipped back to parallel his foreleg, rather than extend from it as if he were gripping it from a fist. "Would it be better if I got out of shape?"

[kuukai]

"Why's that so important?" She crunches on her apple again but steps into the dojo, brow furrowing at the wooden remains. "Looks like yer just tryin' ta take yer anger out."

[mithrarin]

"Why would you even think that was anger?" Dust said, mild confusion evident in his voice as he turned to her. No eye contact, of course. Never eye contact. "That was just practice."

[kuukai]

She glanced between the weird pony and the debris on the ground. "Uh-huh. Practice. Fer what? Fightin' somethin'?

[mithrarin]

"No, I'm taking up carpentry and am just bad at it." She couldn't see Dust roll his eyes, but it came through anyway. "Fighting is normally what people do with a sword and the training to use it."

[kuukai]

Kyouko snorted and pawed at the ground. "C'mon. Yer plannin' on either doin' battle or attackin' somethin'. So what? What is there yer so worried about or eager ta kill?"

[mithrarin]

"I don't know exactly what it is." Dust looked away, thoughtfully. "I've been wondering that for a while. But there's something."

[kuukai]

Kyouko waited for him to say more. When he didn't, she sat down, annoyed, and muttered "Bet ya like bein' all mysterious, don't ya."

[mithrarin]

"I don't know the answers!" Dust said indignantly. "All I know is that if I'm here, it's for a purpose."

[kuukai]

"Yeah, sure. You 'n' the rest of us." Kyouko snorted. "Face it, weirdo. We're stuck. This is purgatory for now."

[mithrarin]

"That's ironic, considering I came back from death to be here," Dust retorted.

[kuukai]

"Join the club." She pulled out some Pocky and chewed on one. "You're the first not from my world who did, though."

[mithrarin]

"Then why so skeptical?" Dust said. "I came back because I still have a purpose."

[kuukai]

"Who says?" She stuffed more Pocky into her mouth. "Not everythin' has a purpose. Maybe whoever or whatever dropped us here just likes messing with us."

[mithrarin]

"Because it's the only reason I'd come back. It's built in." Dush tapped the side of his hat with one hoof. "The Sen-Mithrarin will always return so long as he has more to do."

[kuukai]

Kyouko paused, trying to figure him out. "What's that? Yer hat?" She snorted. "Learn multiversal theory, ya daft pony. Rules don't carry over between universes."

[mithrarin]

Dust, for his part, had given up trying to figure Kyouko out. As near as he could tell, she just wanted to be argumentative. "I'm the Sen-Mithrarin. And why wouldn't they? I'm still me. I still can do everything I could do before. Ahrah's still Ahrah. Why would there be a difference?"

At that, Dust leaped into the air -- then shot higher as a second pair of wings manifested and beat hard to proper him skyward. When he came down, he landed as lightly as ever.

"If the rules changed, I couldn't do that any more."

[kuukai]

Kyouko raised an eyebrow. "Very impressive." She pulls out her soul gem and transforms; at the end of it, she's wearing a red dress and carrying her spear, which she slings over her shoulder.

"Of course some rules carry over. But not everything. I'm supposed to have witches to fight so I can purify my gem. But there en't any here. ... Well, there's one, and she's incredibly unhelpful. The system is broken."

[mithrarin]

Dust wasn't particularly impressed by that transformation, since apparently everyone around here could do something like that...

"But if a witch came here, then it would still work the way it should, right? That's not a system that's broken, it's just missing something."

[kuukai]

"What about me, then?" Kyouko scowled. "Where I come from, what I'm supposed to do is fight witches. But if you take that away, what's left?"

[mithrarin]

"Who says there aren't witches here? Just because you haven't found them, doesn't mean they aren't hiding somewhere. Maybe this 'Pale Pony' is the biggest witch of all." She certainly SEEMED to be his purpose, and yet completely inaccessible.

[kuukai]

She gritted her teeth. "I don't know much about the Pale Pony, but you don't know what yer talkin' about. I can sense witch magic fine."

... Sure it took her too long to sense Homura's magic. But still!

[mithrarin]

Maybe he didn't, but... "Even if it's deliberately hidden? Or if it's not technically on this world at all, just watching from another one?"

[kuukai]

"Well... well even if!" She sputtered. "If it's a witch and that's what I'm for, what the buck's everyone else for, huh? There's... there's like three of that one pony, the yellow shy one. They all take care of animals. I'm supposed to believe that whatever the buck's takin' us here needs three animal ponies? Ya think whatever's doin' this is intelligent??"

[mithrarin]

"Good question. I'm not sure the Pale Pony can control who it brings here, or why. The few people I've spoken to have more questions than answers about everything." Dush shrugged slightly. Of course it wasn't easy. Why would it be?

[kuukai]

"There. So we might have a purpose here and we might not."

She chewed thoughtfully on her Pocky. "Or you could create yer own."

[mithrarin]

Dust frowned slightly as he looked back at one of the target dummies.

"You seem oddly intent on writing off the idea that I might have a purpose here, just because you haven't clarified your own yet."

[kuukai]

"Just... things aren't always easy, ya know?" She sighed. "Whatever, if you want to be blinded to possible complexities, go right the buck ahead."

[mithrarin]

"I'm not sure how much more straightforward it can get than, 'if I came back from death, there's a reason for it'." Dust was puzzled that this was even questionable. "At the very least, I don't know anyone else here who stopped being dead to be here."

[kuukai]

"I dunno. It shouldn't have even happened. But now ya know a second one."

[mithrarin]

"Is it part of your purpose to return, or something that's just happened?"

Dust wasn't really surprised. What was left to surprise him in this world of transformations and oddities?

[kuukai]

"... Don't really have anythin' to go back to, do I?" She stuffed the Pocky away again and pawed at the ground. "But it's not like I belong here or deserve to be here. Just waitin' ta move on, I guess."

[mithrarin]

Dust sighed. "I know what you mean. Waiting for some sign... or some meaning to it all."

[kuukai]

Kyouko looked up. "... Not really. Just waitin'. Doin' what I usually do, 'xcept with more colorful horses 'n' less witches. About the same amount of magic."

[mithrarin]

Wait, now he was confused. "Doesn't waiting for a witch to appear count as a sign? Or at least some idea of what we're doing here?"

[kuukai]

"Maybe there won't be, ya know? Maybe this is it."

[mithrarin]

"Then I'd be dead," Dust said, quite simply and with a calm acceptance of the fact. "And at the very least, I want to deal with this Pale Pony before I drop dead again."

[strawberryredgrave]

Dust's display of swordsmanship gets a round of applause from the human-sized dragon, who's casually sitting on that fence.

"Hell of a sword arm you got there, pal. Don't see many like yours, but I gotta say: I'm impressed."

[mithrarin]

Getting compliments was strange. Not entirely unknown, but still strange.

"I think technically it's a leg now." Dust let his foreleg drop to the ground, and Ahrah shifted to lay alongside it rather than perpendicular, as if he were holding it.

[strawberryredgrave]

"If you wanna talk semantics, then yeah, but we both know what I'm talking about." Dante slips off of the fence and lands back on his feet. "I'd say an arm like that deserves to practice on more than just dummies, wouldn't you?"

[mithrarin]

"I'm not used to holding back," Dust said with a frown. "Friendly practices aren't something I'm used to. Even against dragons."

[strawberryredgrave]

"Lucky for you, I'm tougher than most dragons so no need to hold back." He reassures with a shrug.

[mithrarin]

"I'd say you'd regret saying that, but you wouldn't believe it till you actually got hurt..."

Dust shook his head, then lifted his foreleg again, letting Ahrah swing back into its ready position.

"Let's see what you can do, then."

[strawberryredgrave]

Dante readies his blade, unsheathing it from his back and focusing his eyes on Dust. At first, he stands motionless...but the first clue he gives the swordsman is a smirk, following it with a rush forward to strike.

[mithrarin]

As soon as Dante got within rage, Dust lashed out in turn with Ahrah, his blade aimed to clash with the dragon's. Behind that parry was the force of a hurricane, a strength that sent most foes reeling backwards when it slammed into their weapons.

Most but not all, and Dust had no intention of waiting to see if Dante might be one of those who wouldn't be stunned. As part of the same motion, he rolled past the dragon, coming to his hind legs behind him as his blade struck out for Dante, a side-slash that he'd follow up with a launching uppercut if he could chain them both together.

[strawberryredgrave]

On the plus side, the parry interrupts Dante's attack. Unfortunately, the dragon is quick to recover and parry that side slash. Immediately, he tries to counter with several rapid thrusts of his sword, thrusts faster than almost anyone would be able to wield such a large blade like a rapier.

[mithrarin]

Easy enough to address -- no sooner was his first hit parried than Dust leaped into the air, vaulting over the thrusts just high enough to add his weight and momentum to a descending slash with Ahrah.