Unusual Company

[Kiernan]

Sparring. There was an offer Turnkey didn't hear very often. "Hmm. The way most unicorns spar is by slinging spells at each other. I doubt that we could do the same. However, I take it that you will a physical battle, of which I must decline, as I have only a basic knowledge of combat, and some tips from this friend of mine. I fear that I would bear no challenge to you."

His brother had taught him a few things about physical combat, namely how to dodge incoming attacks, and how to disarm an opponent, if they were close enough. He could handle himself in an escape, and in a magical duel of some kind, but, to actually stand and fight, this was new to him.

"Besides," he reasoned, "I don't have a weapon."

[Person]

"Weapon? Oh no, the kind of sparring I intended is merely two stallions going at it tooth, hoof, horn, and wing." Silent Storm said, throwing his knife at the wall behind Turnkey. It made a single rotation and impacted the wood tip-first at about head height where it stuck, its hilt at a slight upward angle. "Oftentimes if you're ambushed in the streets or a forest you won't have time to reach for any kind of conventional weapon. There's a nice open grassy spot behind the cottage that's usually well-lit by the moon, perhaps even better now with the eclipse, and I was thinking we'd just go back there and have a little rough-and-tumble fun."

Storm considered Turnkey's horn and its advantages in hoof-to-hoof combat. Since the princesses rarely visited Cloudsdale, and when they did they certainly wouldn't be sparring with anypony, much less a dragon-freak, he'd never fought somepony with a horn. He'd have to be wary if Turnkey went in for any kind of skull hit.

Storm removed himself from the beanbag and extended a hoof to help Turnkey do the same. "Care to join me?" he said accompanying his words with a disarming smile, "Even if you don't, I'd love to take a good look at the sky tonight."

[Kiernan]

Turnkey chuckled to himself before standing, himself. "Why not? It makes more sense to do it this way, I will grant you that."

Turnkey followed to the back of the house, taking careful note of the layout. Not for the purpose of robbing the place, but for finding his way to the lavatory in the middle of the night, should he need. When he did get outside, he found it to be dark, despite the fact that the moon was out. With a bit of deduction, he realized that it was because the moon was blocking out the sun, rather than reflecting it's light. Still, there was enough refraction to see around the yard, and it was, in fact, quite picturesque.

"My, you have a lovely garden back here," he said, taking it all in.

[Person]

"Yes, it's most of what I have to do around here. What I don't eat from my garden I sell at the market so I can buy more food and, well I used to buy linseed oil from the swordsmith and get an occasional blade polish." Silent Storm said. He knelt down to examine a plump red tomato hanging from one of the green stalks, raising is slightly with a hoof to judge its firmness, then stood up again. "These will be ripe soon. Almost everything I eat is grown here or gathered from a little ways into the Everfree."

Storm walked a little way into empty expanse and while doing so considered his opponent's physique. He was slightly on the skinny side, but looked like he could handle himself in a fight.

Sil sat down in the middle of the grass, wings folded at his sides and face cast downward. He closed his eyes and waited for several moments. He opened an eye and cast a challenging look at Turnkey.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Storm said, his voice clear and confident, "Take your best shot."

[Kiernan]

Turnkey braced himself. He considered to himself what his best shot was, exactly, coming up with three answers. One, he could flee the scene. He was quite practised at it, though it wasn't really a move one would use in this situation, without being thought insane and cowardly. Two, he could churn the contents of his opponent's stomach, creating a very effective distraction. A spell used primarily for when he was in the middle of stealing something, and his mark got out of bed for a glass of water, or something. However, in this situation, he opted out, as it would most likely be considered an unfair advantage. Besides, he didn't want to watch as Sil vomited all over his cabbages. That would be painful for both of them.

Then there was the third option. It was downright crazy, but somehow, out of all the ideas he had, it seemed to be the most logical. Turnkey ducked low to the ground, then took off in Sil's general direction, swerving slightly. When he was a mere one and a half yards in front of his quarry, he jumped into the air, his target landing not Sil, but rather, right behind him.

[Person]

Silent Storm heard Turnkey take off toward him then jump, and as soon as he heard this kicked his his hind legs out as hard as he could, launching himself forward at great speed but low to the ground. He intended to knock Turnkey into the air, where he fought strongest, with a blow from beneath. He opened his eyes, expecting the stallion before him, but his eyes met only empty field.

He must've gotten behind me, Storm thought

He extended his right wing a small degree outward and the air caught in it spun him around midair. He stabbed his hooves downward, carving grooves into the soft earth as he decelerated. He crouched low to the ground and found Turnkey's form with his eye, wondering where he learned to do that and how extremely close he must have been when he jumped.

[Kiernan]

Upon landing on his front hooves, with nary a look backward to where he was in comparative location to Sil, he collapsed his right foreleg, rolling diagonally to land back on his hooves. He considered this 'shot' to be counteractive, as it was simultaneously successful and unsuccessful. It was successful because he had achieved his goal of moving behind his foe. However, since his opponent had turned around, the success became null and void.

He took a brief moment to assess the situation: He had done nothing, except waste time, and energy. 'Excellent,' he thought to himself as his plan took shape. He once more ran at Silent Storm, this time keeping high until the last moment, where he ducked into a sliding drift, bound for Sil's right legs.

[Person]

Silent Storm saw the oncoming unicorn, and decided to try something a little more unorthodox than usual, dropping to his knees. He folded his wings in front of his head and layered them one in front of the other but tilted them both away from his body, like the snow plows the earth stallions sometimes used to clear the roads during winter.

He pulled his head low and supported his wings with his front hooves, waiting for Turnkey. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and braced for impact.

[Kiernan]

'Not bad,' thought Turnkey, as he dug one hoof into the ground mid-slide. Since he had aimed to clip Sil, rather than risk a full frontal assault, it was easy to change course to avoid the newly created inclined plane by simply altering his vector by a few degrees.

The new alignment, Turnkey realized, would put him right next to Sil, whose face was blocked by his wings, at the perfect point for a flank attack. With some quick thinking, and one more hoof dug into the dirt, he flung his entire body around, back hooves first, into the space currently occupied by Sil's core.

He also took the opportunity to cast three quick spells that Kai had taught him: To blunt his aura, which would hide two weak spells, Cast a minor spell-retardant layer of skin around himself, then finally, cast a a stamina absorption spell on himself.

Alone, these spells would do almost nothing. The blunt aura spell would hide only weak spells, and that was only useful if you didn't want somepony knowing that you were casting spells that weren't powerful enough to cause any harm to anypony. The reflective spell was weak enough that the only thing it could do was reflect weak spells, so long as they were weak enough to be hidden by the blunt aura spell. Lastly, if anypony tried to absorb their own energy, they would just receive the energy they took from themselves, minus the energy required to cast the spell.

However, together, the reflective spell and the absorb stamina spell would draw all the energy leaving his body, and draw it back in. This made it easy to remain energetic throughout rigorous activity, though it did take it's toll after the spell ended. And The Blunt aura spell made the entire thing seem as if there had been no spell cast at all, to any opponent or onlooker. In fact, if you didn't know to look for the small charred lump at the end of the horn, there was no way of knowing what was going on inside the caster's head.

[sorry, I wrote some spells as Kai. This was the first one he ever used, and one of the few he ever taught anypony.]

[Person]

When no collision with his wings came, Silent Storm refolded them and looked around, confused by where his opponent had disappeared to. He soon found out as two hooves forcefully met his midsection from slightly behind him. Instead of tightening his legs to attempt to withstand the impact, Sil allowed his forelegs to crumple and thus instead of absorbing the entire impact, transferred its momentum into his movement.

He quickly rolled forward on the grass then stood back up again, now facing Turnkey from only a few yards away. Sil winced as a dull, painful throb rang throughout his side. Though he avoided the brunt of the blow, it had still been a solid and unexpected hit. He returned his attention to Turnkey and immediately closed the gap between them with a kick from his hind legs with the intent of tackling the unicorn.

[Kiernan]

Turnkey felt the parry, which did exactly what a parry should do. Without dealing the full blow, and skimming his target, rather than the planned force, Turnkey was thrown ever so slightly off balance, causing him to land on his shoulder. One stinging pain later, he transformed his momentum into a roll, pulling himself back onto his hooves. He had somewhat expected to collide with the ground in such a way: such a reckless assault had no safe landing.

As soon as he was back on all four hooves, and structurally sound, he scanned the area, managing to find Sil in under a second, but not by much. It seemed as if Sil was trying to tackle him, a commonly used move in most sparring matches, or it would be, if sparring was a common activity. Still, it was an effective maneuver... When it hit. Turnkey easily dropped down onto his shoulder to roll out of the way, and sprang back up as soon as his sore shoulder hit the ground, placing him back in the impact zone, where he took the hit.

He was good at dodging, but parrying was another story altogether. Turnkey instinctively tensed up, accepting the full attack, knocking him to his back, which winded him greatly.

[Person]

Silent Storm collided with Turnkey hooves-first in the chest just below the neck, knocking the two of them into a tumbling roll across the ground. Storm planted his front hooves on Turnkey's chest and dug his back hooves into the ground, stopping the two of them and placing Storm above Turkey. Storm tried to hold the unicorn on the ground while still maintaining his grip on the ground with his back hooves as to not fall onto the ground as well, but because Turnkey was a bit older than him and thus a bit larger wasn't sure if he could keep him down.

[Kiernan]

Turnkey opened his eyes, only just realizing that he was holding them shut so tightly. From what he could tell, he was pinned to the ground. Not exactly the best place in the world to be, he thought to himself. The way he saw it, there were four possible outcomes. One, he could struggle to get free, but that would most likely do more harm than good, considering the amount of energy it would take. Two, he could wait for Sil to attack, displaying a weak point. All attacks had a weak point, you just had to see it, and get to it in time. But that was also risky, considering that any counter would fall straight down, right on top of him. He reiterated in his mind, pinned to the ground was definitely not the best place to be. Three, he could wait for Sil to declare victory where he stood. This outcome meant the end of the match, and likely time for bed, and a rest for his aching shoulder, back, and chest. Fourth, he had noticed that his back legs were free, still. A quick abdomen curl, followed by a kick would send Sil into the air, and if he followed up with a foreward roll, he would be back on his hooves again.

After some thought, he decided it bast to continue, and took the fourth option, using the power of his back legs to kick at Sil's chest, freeing himself.

[Person]

Silent Storm was launched off of Turnkey by the kick, but before getting too far away from his opponent, grabbed hold of his back hoof. He flapped his wings once and used the momentum from the kick combined with the upward force of the flap to flip Turnkey over onto his stomach with his back leg. Storm came back down on Turnkey with a slight gravity-fueled impact and placed his front hoof on the back of his neck and held the rest of him down with his body.

Though he wouldn't admit it if you would have asked his, Sil was tired. His midsection hurt even more, now that it had been kicked for the second time, and the two beanbags that were to be he sleeping arrangements that night became all the more appetizing. But still, he didn't want to concede, so he kept trying to hold Turnkey down.

[Kiernan]

It seemed as if Turnkey's luck had run out. He was now pinned once more to the ground, but could move in no direction other than the farther reaches of his extremities. He had three options. He could struggle, forfeit, or cheat. He could maintain his energy spell, and still send a burst of ice across Sil's face, but he decided against it, as it wasn't very sporting.

After a few seconds of lying there, face-down in the dirt, he pulled his head up , and spat out the mud that had made its way into his mouth as dirt. "How did I know you were going to win?" he asked rhetorically. "Get up, I concede."