mylittlelogs | Trial of the Dragon

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Trial of the Dragon

Who: Dante and Chie And any onlookers
What: Chie challenged Dante to a duel! Epic martial arts are sure to follow.
Where: Crystal Empire, by the Great Glass Lake
When: August 4th, dawn
Warnings: Kung Fu flick tropes, Dante
Prose or Commentspam: Whatever works!

Everything about the setup was just right. The Glass Lake calmly rippled, the sun was moments away from returning to the sky and much of the Crystal Empire was still at rest. This, of course, meant that this duel would play out as it should: two martial artists giving it their all in a battle of strength and skill. The only ones who would play witness to this duel of spirits are those Chie brought with her. Staying true to his word, Dante wouldn't cross paths with the girl without her friends until she can trust him...which meant the audience would play more of a supporting role than they normally would.

Still, Chie and her friends can easily find the red dragon waiting by the lake with his arms folded. He's already shrunk down to human size, so all that's left to do is wait for the challenger.

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The pony that challenged the dragon, meanwhile, was up and ready. In truth, she should probably be dead tired. Less then 24 hours ago she found herself in this strange land of Equestria. Since then she had a lot of ground to cover to catch up to what her friends and everypony else knew. She had learned a lot, but each time she picked up new information only distressed her for various reasons. No reasonable person would have been surprised to find that her last night's sleep wasn't restful. The Pale Pony, her friends being here for a year, Teddie's talk about wieners. All things considered challenging a dragon was probably one of the few things that actually made sense.

A part of her had also hoped that she would wake up and wind up back in Inaba. She must have woken up at least four times that night only to be reminded that her center of balance wasn't what it used to. She still didn't fully pick up that trick. Her walk over was a little wobbly, but she had set the deadline and she was going to keep it.

She looked forward to this fight. She wanted to do something to take her mind off of anything. As scared as she was she also knew that the opportunity to challenge a dragon wasn't one that she'd be offered under normal circumstances. As thrilled as she was of the idea, she also remembered what this was about. She didn't trust Dante. Not yet, anyway. Sure, a part of that was because he was a dragon, but another part wasn't convinced that the person he said he was was real. She hoped to change that in the fight. If he was the type of person that would take advantage, she suspected he would use her fire breath and end the battle quickly. If she was a real man, then he would be true to his word and back off once one of them reached their limit. She suspected, or rather hoped, that she was an honorable person.

But only this fight was going to truly convince her others.

She stepped out in front of Dante. Her eyes already set on his. Her legs, meanwhile, were a little unbalanced and wobbly. She wasn't sure whether she could give this fight her all, but that wasn't the point. What really mattered, what really made a difference was what Dante did when pushed within a confrontation.

Chie stepped away from the group and gave Dante a confident grin.

Edited 2014-08-07 05:09 (UTC)

In retrospect, arranging for the duel to happen so soon after her arrival may not have been entirely fair to the girl. Chie has to deal with a whole new kind of readjustment that Dante never had to bother with since he kept a humanoid form.

On the other hand, he couldn't deny his curiosity. He saw a lot of things from Chie during their first conversation. Playfulness, courage, honor...but also a lack of self esteem. He felt she wasn't giving herself enough credit and wanted to see exactly how much credit she denied herself. If nothing else, the early duel was a continuation of their introduction. Perhaps, if he were really lucky, he'd be able to help her out with her confidence. If not, then at least she has a good group of friends cheering her on.

"Right on time." He smirks. "You did your stretches and all that?"

Chie rolled her shoulders and arched her back. "You just worry about yourself." Okay, that was bold talk, but she was trying to get into the zone. She would be lying if she said she wasn't intimidated, but there was too much at stake.

"So is this your first duel or do I have to go over the rules?"

Well, maybe she was being a little audacious.

"Relax; this isn't my first. No cheating, no unfair advantages, no hitting the opponent when they're down...I got the gist of it.

And don't worry; I remember my part." He lifts the coat off of his sword and proceeds to tie up his wings. With the knot he's tying, he won't be able to unfurl those wings without breaking his coat...and he'd rather not do that. He likes this coat.

As for the fire breathing, he grabs a bit of rope from his coat pocket and proceeds to tie his mouth shut. That sadly means no commentary, but at least there won't be any fire breath going on.

"Oh come on. You don't have to do that." Somebody about that seemed so unfair. Wouldn't he be uncomfortable?

"If you're going to go that far, you might as well keep them. I don't want you to say that you weren't at your best."

Dante shakes his head and a finger. The confident look on his face suggests he'll be fine like this. He didn't need wings as a human and he doesn't need them now.

As further sign of his readiness, he even properly bows, the universal sign of the honorable duel. He's staying true to his word.

Oh. Crap. Well, if that's how it's going to be then there's nothing she could do about it.

So a proper duel it is. She returns the bow.

After the bow, Dante begins with a few stances, switching between them and standing at the ready. He doesn't charge yet and that's for one very specific reason: every honorable duel needs a staredown.

Unfortunately, Chie doesn't quite understand the staredown. Either that, or she just can't stand quiet time.

"I'm not sure what it is you want with my friends. But let's see if this fight decides this."

And with that she gets into a stance... for a human. For a pony it looks wobbly as heck. Bear with her. Wait. No... yes. No...

Yeah, no. She's back down on her four legs. That's not going to work. Hmn. She ponders this situation and considers how to make the best of it.

Okay, so that's about enough of a staredown as he can get before it gets ridiculous, so after deciding to not waste anymore time, Dante runs towards the pony (at regular human speed), he starts things off simply enough: a straight punch. That shouldn't be a problem for her, right?

Even if she was in a form that was completely foreign to her, a straight punch was one of the easiest things to see and evade. A shift in weight and a twist of the muscles is all that it took.

Unfortunately, retaliating was harder to do. Her first inclination is to do a spin and kick, but with the front two legs in the way the process was not her usual flow. What she tried was to use her first two legs as a pivot to swing her hind hoof forward.

What happened was her first two legs got crossed along with the pivot. The new Earth pony swung a wild kick in Dante's direction, but ultimately found her face toppling to the ground.

Okay, that's a bit of a problem. Poor kid's still tripping over her hooves, but she still had the courage to challenge Dante to a duel. In some ways, that was a pretty stupid decision, but Dante's not one to argue logic. Hell, he defies it all the time.

The kick, though wild, is easy enough to evade with a little footwork, but he backs away from Chie as she hits the ground. chances are she's too proud to admit that she's in over her head. That and it's probably for the best that Dante's mouth is tied shut; this is the part where he'd ask if she really wanted to go through with this. You know, the supportive kind of offer that's very easily taken as offensive.

And she'd appreciate that. Her eyes dart around quickly because she knows that this is a compromising position. She quickly arched her back in an arc to stand up...

Except the move was meant to correct her body when it was standing upright. As a pony she nails the landing but the small size and posture of her hooves means that she's just going to head backwards onto her rump.

Her eyes looked at Dante, who hasn't done anything to her this whole time. She knows that he's backing off when he could very well take advantage of this awkwardness. Her cheeks flush and her eyes water.

"Well? Is this a fight or what??!" She spoke out of hurt of her pride. Her spirit wants to fight, but maybe this was too much for her too quickly.

Dante's concerned, Chie. He really is. He respects your spirit, but he's not liking this scene anymore. He undoes the rope around his snout just enough to speak.

"Honorable duel, remember? No hitting down opponents."

"Y-Yeah... okay."

Chie wobbles to get back up again. She still makes the mistake of trying to get onto her back two feet. Instead of falling backwards, though, she falls forward onto her two front hooves waiting to land.

Okay, yeah. She got the hang of walking, now she needs to get the hang of fighting. Problem: her primary weapon was her back two feet. Problem: her back two feet was being obstructed by her first two feet. Solution: ???.

Experimentally, she tries standing up again, bringing her two front hooves to her chest. It's a stretch and felt a little uncomfortable as she thought about it, but if she bounced from one rear hoof to the other she found maintaining that position to be a bit more easier, if painful on her back. Equine spines were not meant to bend that way for long. She returned back to all fours and considers this again. A front hoof comes flying out as she tried seeing if those would do. No. She was a kick chick, not a boxer. Hmn.

With another experiment, the pony let out a might "HYAAA" and jumped backwards into the air. This seemed to have been a backflip gone badly as the poor girl failed to manage to turn herself the entire way. She lands on the ground with a thud.

Really this was quite the spectacle, and Dante dragon was getting quite the front row seat.

This is too painful to watch. It's at this point that Dante decides that he can't let this train crash any harder. Especially since she pulled off a good kick yesterday. Maybe she's overthinking it? Still, it's about time he decides to step in. He raises a claw.

"If I may?"

With a snap of his fingers, the dragon's form shifts into something much more approachable. He now faces Chie as a red earth pony with a white mane and tail.

"You're on to something there, but you gotta relax. Ponies here can do a lot more than you think; you just gotta learn to go with it."

It's here that he decides to mimic Chie's earlier action of standing on his rear legs and hopping from hoof to hoof. His eyes stay focused on her, as if expectantly waiting.

"I know! I know!" She had a feeling this was coming but did not enjoy seeing her fears come to life. This was getting embarrassing and painful, but...

Like before, Chie arches her back and jumps up to her hind legs. Only this time she remembers that her center of balance is off and quickly has her legs to prop to balance the shift in gravity. She goes back to hopping from hoof to hoof and gives a jumping spin kick like she did the day before.

"I think I'm getting the hang of it now. So if you don't mind, I'm not really in student mode yet." Yet. Ugh, that was a word she was going to regret. As far as Chie was concerned this was still an honorary duel and she was going to win! Okay... yeah, no, she was pretty sure she was going to lose. But at least she was going to put everything into it and to hell with the consequences.

Her eyes narrowed on Dante as she remembered why she was here. This wasn't meant for learning how to fight as a pony; this was a test for him too.

"You got it." And in a flash, he's back to being a dragon. His wings are still tied up and the rope still hangs from his snout.

"Remember: Don't think. Feel." He instructs before once again tying his mouth shut and preparing to continue the fight.

"What but that's--" There was just a momentary lapse and for a second Chie was about to totter over on her side.

She corrects her mistake quickly though, a confident smirk coming to her face. Okay, yeah. This may not go well, but how many times had she gotten into a fight when the outcome wasn't assured?

Taking a moment, Chie's stance shifts. As she stands on her two hind feet, she gives a quick right left with her front hooves and a jumping roundhouse kick. Her movements are much more fluid now, and before Dante knows it she has asummed a familiar stance.

...

Round two fight, bitches.

There's that familiar look of confidence he's looking for. Now that Chie's back in charge, the dragon can't help but grin through his restraints. In fact, the two of them might hear an all too appropriate tune for the situation. Dante normally calls for these pretty easily, but he did no such things this time around. This time, it was their spirits, his and Chie's, that brought the rhythm of their hearts to life. This was a true duel: one of will, one of wit, one of skill...and one of heart.

Dante wastes no time in running towards her once again with the same straight punch he opened with before. With her confidence and balance restored, the counterattack should be easy.

Chie should wonder where the music is coming from. She should be questioning why she's a pony. Hell, she should be questioning why she is fighting a dragon.

But right now none of those things matter.

As before, the attack was easy to dodge. Only this time Chie, stepping up on her four legs, responded with a move of her own: a right jab with her left forehoof. With all the kicking, she doubted he'd be expecting a move that wouldn't telegraph easy.

There's the vigor he's been looking forward to all match. There's both confidence and skill in her counterattack. No hesitation, no doubt...just a counterattack. And for that, Dante's faith in the girl rises.

That said, he's still quick to react and parries the jab with his other hand and attempts to trip her up with a low kick.

Her eyes were glued to Dante's ready for his next move. At this point she didn't know what to expect, and was trying to anticipate anything. The instant she saw his leg sweep across she was already up in the air with a jumping vertical kick.

She knew this was a risky move, though. Sure the move was powerful but her ability to evade was gone up in the air. She just hoped he wasn't expecting it.

There's no denying the power behind that kick. Even with the dragon just narrowly avoiding it, Chie's only off by a few centimeters.

Dante swerves backwards and turns to move out of the way and readies a heel kick, lifting his leg straight upwards and preparing to bring it down. Like Chie's jumping kick, it's a strong move, but not without its flaws. It leaves him vulnerable before the actual attack. Just enough time for Chie to recover from her own kick.

Maybe ordinarily Chie would have been able to easily avoid that move. Still, with the few hits she had just a few moments ago and the fact that she was still getting used to her new body, what would have been easy becomes a near narrow miss.

In fact, it took so much time to recover that she didn't have enough time to counterattack. Just a few steps out of the way and enough to get back into a defensive stance.

Even with the near miss, the kick still comes down hard, but the dragon seems undeterred. With the same foot, he takes advantage of the situation with a spinning kick.

Grr... now it's time to put up or shut up. Though she that kick looked pretty strong, one thing that she could try is to counter with as spinning kick of her own.

WOULD HER LEG BE ABLE TO OVERPOWER A DRAGON'S KICK? Probably not...

Overpower? Not really. But stalemate it? Now that's much more likely. In fact, the force of the collision not only stops Dante's attack before it connects, but it also emits a shockwave that blows through the area like a forceful breeze. Of course, it doesn't affect the fighters or their match, but it's something to note.

Also worth noting is how Dante tries to follow it up with a few, but short kicks on the same leg. Not nearly as forceful, but still a force to be reckoned.

Yikes! She wasn't actually expecting a statement, but what was more amazing was how quickly Dante recovered and followed up with some attacks of his own. The only thing Chie could do in this situation was raise up her front hooves to deflect, but the kicks leave their impact.

She knows one thing absolutely right now: she is completely out of her league.

"Stop stop! I yield!" She hollered as the last kick connects, forcing her to the ground.

Dante instantly backs off once Chie surrenders, lowering his leg and ceasing his attacks. The match ended quickly, but to Dante, it accomplished exactly what it wanted to.

Despite earlier warnings of not getting too close, the dragon approaches and offers a hand to help her back up.

Chie was feeling a dozen emotions. Most of them were sour: she hated that the first part went so badly; she hated that she got overpowered so easily; she felt bitter that she was being offered help; and she felt powerless against facing Dante.

But despite all those things, she was still having an honorable duel and begrudgingly accepted the hand.

"Good fight." That was the least she could offer.

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Trial of the Dragon

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