Travis scoffed at the misleading title of this chapter. He knew that the more astute readers would realize that a few chapters ago, it was mentioned that he had been training Pinkie, but was seriously holding back on it. The more appropriate title should have been 'The First Real Lessons of Combat.'

Also, this title didn't end with a plural like all the other ones did. Sure it had a plural word in it, but it still didn't fit with the whole pretentious auteur bullshit this jackass had while he was naming every chapter without an assassin fight.

Another thing that got on his nerves: where was the chapter where he was training Pinkie to convey that he was holding back while training her? Or the chapters where he was learning about Equestria, Ponyville and all of his friends for that matter? That was just lazy writing by a guy who couldn't wait to get into the action like some over eager badass wannabe! And what about all of the people who wanted to read that stuff?

"Travis! Quit being such a nit-picky nelly," Pinkie interjected, ending Travis's stream on consciousness, "They've all had fun reading up to this point, so what does it matter if they missed a chapter or two?"

Travis had to agree. Pinkie was right. After all, why would anyone still be reading up to this point if they weren't enjoying what they saw so far. Unless they were waiting for a really, really smutty chapter, with graphic details about pony anatomy and (possibly deviant) sexual behaviors.

"Sorry, smut-monkeys, but this isn't that kind of story," Pinkie apologized to seemingly nopony, which made a nearby couple trot past her a little faster.

In addition, about a hundred readers quit following the story.

After Travis discarded the garbage he collected, and got his payment for the job, he and Pinkie went to start their lesson.

"So where are we going to fight? Do we go to the gym and pump iron, push it to the limit and walk along the razor's edge," she asked excitedly. "But don't walk too hard, because those things are crazy sharp," she cautioned.

"We're not going to the gym, Pinkie. I never take Spike and Dash there, because a real fight can happen anywhere," Travis explained.

Often when he was training with Thunder Ryu, they'd take field trips into the dangerous parts of Santa Destroy and its neighboring cities to test Travis's skill level. The problem was that here in Equestria: there weren't many dangerous places besides the Everfree Forest. Because of this, Travis had to get creative when it came to a teaching environment.

The golf course at the Trottington Country Club in Canterlot was a tranquil place where the well-to-do nobles and other assorted high society ponies went to enjoy the tranquil scenery and peaceful atmosphere. And on occasion, they would play a round of golf or two to help pass the time while basking in the serenity of the place.

Today, Lord Foie Gras was having the best game of his life so far. The lord had done what most thought impossible: two hole in ones in a row. And he was going to see if he could make a streak of three.

He teed his ball, grasping the club with his magic and lined up his shot.

With a calculated swing, his ball flew in a graceful arc towards the hole on the green.

He watched the ball anxiously, practically willing a hole in one in the hopes that he could set some kind of record at the club.

Then the unexpected happened.

A scruffy looking unicorn stallion in shabby clothes stepped onto the green just as the ball bounced next to him, giving him a jump.

"Hey! You're supposed to yell 'fore,' dick hole," he yelled across the way.

Lord Foie Gras clenched his teeth, and nearly bent his club in frustration had another disaster not happened.

When they were making their way to their destination, Travis shared some helpful tips with Pinkie for a proper fight. The one that she took to heart was that when beginning a fight, you don't just approach it, you make your presence known to your enemy with a grand entrance to let them know that you're a force to be reckoned with.

An explosion sounded behind the nobles, and a pink blur surrounded by confetti and streamers came rocketing out of a cannon past them all and towards the unicorn on the green.

Before the blur even reached him, Travis pulled the flag out of the hole and swung it at the flying object.

Travis didn't swing with all his force, since he didn't want to hurt Pinkie, but even that may have been a bad idea.

As she flew through the air, Pinkie caught the flag as it came at her and gave Travis such a forceful smash, it knocked him backwards. In fact, she hit him so hard that the flag snapped right in half.

When Pinkie landed, she grabbed the other half of the flag, and took a combat stance as Travis got to his hooves.

He drew the Tsubaki and swung at Pinkie. He warned her that the lessons may be very dangerous, and the risk of injury was high, but he had no intentions to actually hit her. Not that this was going to be a problem.

Pinkie easily blocked his strikes with the two pieces of the broken flag. Even though she was just a beginner, she was blocking like a pro, the way her moves flowed from one strike to the next.

Travis decided to up the ante on this. He started swinging the Rose Nasty at her, to test her ability to dodge as well as block.

Two blades were no problem to be blocked, but the presence of a third forced Pinkie to start moving.

Over and under the blade she went, bypassing every attack she couldn't block.

Soon, their fight expanded to the entire span of the green.

Pinkie devised a new strategy to combat the factor of a third blade. As one blade of the Rose Nasty came at her, she threw one half of her flag at Travis like it was a javelin and caught his sword from his magical grip.

In turn, Travis caught the projectile flag pole and swung at her with that.

Pinkie kept up her strategy to catch Travis's weapons as she discarded her own, creating a mad juggling spectacle that would have been impressive if it weren't so terrifying.

Terrifying for Lord Foie Gras, that is. He had entered the fray and crawled under the action across the green to the hole. He truly did want to make the record at the club for most consecutive hole in ones, and he was determined to find out if he had accomplished that. The lord let out a terrified squeal when the Tsubaki flew directly over him. Finally, he made it to the hole and peered in.

Yes! Hole in one! A personal record, and it was all his! He took the ball out and triumphantly held it high from his prone position to show it to his colleagues back at the tee.

"Thanks Mr. Fancy Pants," Pinkie said to him.

That confused Lord Foie Gras, as anypony with any sense at all could see that Fancy Pants looked completely different from him. But it stopped mattering to him when he saw her wind up for a buck.

Pinkie's hooves shot out and sent the ball flying to Travis's head.

The ball was easily blocked, but the next projectile was not so easily parried.

Pinkie had loaded herself into her cannon again, and fired herself at Travis with a deafening explosion.

Travis's swords were tied up with attacking and blocking, so he didn't have time to anticipate Pinkie's impact.

She hit him hard and sent the two of them flying right towards the main building way in the distance.

The patrons at the club house's dining area looked out the window after the first explosion sounded, but disregarded it when they couldn't seen the source of the noise.

After the second time, their attention was recaptured, and this time they saw two large objects flying right towards the windows. Some of the patrons recognized one of them as the stallion who, along with a pegasus and a dragon, trashed the business district and destroyed the museum.

Everypony ran for the doors and before Travis and Pinkie came through the window, the entire building was cleared out.

When the two landed, Pinkie was on top of Travis, hungrily kissing him.

During the fight outside, Pinkie felt a fire growing inside of her that became so intense she nearly exploded. The second shot from the cannon was what pushed her over the edge. As soon as she hit Travis, her passion unleashed itself and she rammed her tongue down his throat before they even hit the ground.

She knew that this wasn't good for her training, but she didn't care as long as she was with her coltfriend.

Then she felt her fire begin to dwindle, and she needed to do something to rekindle it.

Travis felt like kind of a pansy for being the one on the bottom, but what the hell. This was Pinkie he was with. Sweet, saucy, gentle, horny-for-battle, perfect-in-every-way Pinkie.

Well, nearly perfect. The way that she was raising a golf club over her head was a bit disconcerting.

Before she brought it down on him, Travis magically grabbed a silver platter and smacked her face with it.

Pinkie's head rattled with the platter, stunning her and giving Travis time to put his rear hooves on her stomach and launch her across the room.

Pinkie rolled to a stop across the floor, shocked that Travis would hit her, but at the same time, sickly delighted. It wasn't getting hit that she enjoyed, because let's face it: nopony liked getting hit. It was the act of attacking others, and the desire for retaliation that got her heart racing. She almost started foaming at the mouth at the thought of the fight escalating, and needed to do something to take it there. She started by bucking a bunch of tables at Travis.

Travis cut the tables that he didn't dodge, and was barely able to perceive Pinkie hopping across the tops of the tables as they slid towards him.

She jumped off the table, and over Travis's head just as he sliced the legs of the table off.

Pinkie tried to kick the back of his head with a fluid somersault, but this was offset by her missing completely and spinning wildly until she landed behind one of the overturned tables.

Travis charged the table, ready to buck it away and smash Pinkie against a wall, but a surprise awaited him as soon as he got close.

Pinkie shot out from behind the table, holding a portion of the length of the tablecloth between her hooves.

Once Travis was in her reach, she wrapped the cloth around his throat and pulled the back of his neck to the edge of the table.

As Travis struggled against the choke hold Pinkie had on him, she leaned down and kissed him.

Unfortunately, that situation brought up some very uncomfortable memories for Travis. Chloe Walsh came to mind, except instead of being poisoned, he was being choked during a makeout.

Travis could practically feel his face turning blue, so he tried to break from of Pinkie's passionate stranglehold. He grabbed her shoulders and flipped her over the table to try and loosen her grip on him.

No good.

Pinkie spun herself around in mid-air so that the tablecloth stayed wrapped around Travis's neck, and as soon as she landed she began kissing him once more.

This was becoming way too much for Travis, and he now regretted not laying out some ground rules for her. Or at least coming up with a safe word.

Travis meant it when he told Chloe that he didn't have a bondage kink, and this was just another reason to add to the list.

Shit, this wasn't even bondage, because that would imply consent, or that some pleasure was being gotten out of it.

He tried a few more attempts to slip out of the choke, but she always anticipated his movements, moving in tandem with him like some kind of sadistic dance.

A new idea popped into Travis's head.

He drew the Blood Berry and used it to sever the tablecloth.

As soon as he was free from her, he bucked Pinkie across the room, and through the kitchen doors.

"Fuck," he gasped as he caught his breath. He then went through the doors to continue the training session.

As soon as he did, he realized the mistake of sending Pinkie into the kitchen. He was now on her turf.

Once he burst through the doors, he saw that Pinkie was waiting for him with an entire array of cutlery, utensils, and various cooking ingredients.

Two stoves on either side of her flared up violently, surrounding Pinkie with an aura of fire. As the fire roared around her, she took a knife and ran the flat of it along her cheek. When it reached her chin, she licked the blade ever so lightly as she shot Travis a 'come hither' look, daring him to attack.

"Holy shit! I know how to pick 'em," Travis thought. Seeing Pinkie like that, intimidating as if she was simply one of the powers that be, turned him on so much it was scary. It must have been how Pinkie felt while fighting.

Pinkie ended her theatrics by kicking a fully loaded knife block at Travis.

The knives all made a beeline for his face, which he deflected to the side.

The knives were taken care of, but the wooden block was still coming right for him.

This was rectified with by holding his sword directly in front of his face.

The block was severed in two, and both pieces simply diverged around him.

The two charged each other to begin a close quarters battle.

Travis found Pinkie's fighting style to be erratic and unpredictable to say the least.

Whenever she ducked out of sight, she reappeared in the most unexpected place. It wasn't like what Dash did to him, but it was more like when she disappeared, she came popping out of a fridge and slammed the door in his face, or she would come out of a cabinet and smash his head between two frying pans.

Pinkie began using her environment to her advantage by picking up anything that she could find and throwing it at Travis.

The volley that Pinkie sent his way was so dense that he had to use all of his swords against it.

Her tactics wore his magic thin, which let some of the projectiles get past his swords.

Of all the things to get past, he saw that Pinkie had thrown a metal sheet full of still steaming hot croissants at him.

Travis's magic was tied up, and his swords were still blocking for him.

He did the only thing he could do: catch the blazing hot tray in his hooves and throw it back at her.

Pinkie caught he hot tray as it came at her and bounced it back and forth between her hooves, and all the while, she tried not to lose a single croissant on it.

She saw Travis advancing with his swords drawn and tossed him the baking sheet as he got close.

"Whoah, shit," he yelled as he caught it with his hooves.

Pinkie tried to attack with a roundhouse, but this was countered by Travis passing the tray to her.

She almost felt betrayed by the fact that her coltfriend gave her a piping hot metal sheet.

When Travis tried to attack, she tossed the sheet directly upwards, grabbed Travis and switched places with him.

He caught the tray just as it came down on him, and burned his hooves once more.

Travis sheathed his weapons to focus his magic on the croissant sheet, he simply let it hover over the two of them as they continued their battle through the kitchen.

Pinkie grabbed the corner of a table and swung it so that it hit Travis and put itself between the two of them.

This also allowed the sheet of croissants to rest on it.

Pinkie took one from the sheet, bit into it and immediately grimaced.

It was everything that a croissant should not be: grainy, tasteless and entirely un-flakey. She forced herself to swallow her bite and looked at the baked abortion in her hoof.

"What is this!? Chalk!?" Pinkie asked, dumbfounded by the thought that such a thing could be considered baking.

With her guard down, Travis was able to have at her, and this time he wasn't going to let up.

In their previous training sessions he had always let Pinkie get a few hits in, but now that she had proven herself to be such a strong fighter it was time to stop going easy on her.

After so much abuse, Pinkie had to put a stop to Travis's repeated blows. She decided to unleash her full fury too. She was going to make Travis understand the true terror that was her party cannon.

It started with a slap to Travis's face, that spun him a complete 180.

The next thing he knew, something came down over his head. Something pony-sized, metal, and very constricting, like a trash can or an oil drum. But where the hell would an oil drum come from. Then again: this was Pinkie he was talking about.

"Oh, shit!" He thought as it dawned on him what this contraption may be, "She wouldn't!"

It turned out that she would.

Pinkie aimed her cannon at the wall that had the most obstacles in front of it and fired Travis through them all, and out the wall.

Travis landed in a concrete planter, rolled over the edge of it, and then landed once more on a flight of stairs.

He fell down a few of the stairs before he got his footing back.

Travis shot his gaze to the hole in the wall where he just came from to see Pinkie rushing out of it before she jumped through the air towards him.

Her hooves were spread wide, as if she were going to envelope Travis in a massive hug when she reached him. Her smile as she jumped was wide and jovial, and would have looked welcoming if it wasn't so scary, considering everything that happened up to this point.

Pinkie landed on Travis, and the two of them bounced down the rest of the steps towards the harbor by the lake.

They landed in a small, two pony canoe.

The force of their landing shook the boat loose of its rope, and sent the small boat across the water.

As they drifted out into the lake, Travis struggled to keep Pinkie pinned, knowing that if he let go she'd unleash hell.

It may have been the atmosphere of the setting, drifting on a peaceful lake in a boat for two under the afternoon sun, but Travis's will to fight soon waned and he eased his hold on Pinkie.

Apparently, Pinkie felt the same way, as she stopped struggling against Travis.

The two gazed at each other. The lingering knowledge in their minds that they would be separated made that moment a precious eternity to them.

Travis leaned down and kissed Pinkie.

They went on like this for several minutes as the boat drifted closer to the far shore in the shade of a grove of cherry trees. The boat rocked suddenly as it hit the shore and beached itself there. They would have stayed there forever if they weren't interrupted by a warm chuckle.

"Having a little too much fun training I see," came a familiar voice, regal and motherly.

When they looked up, the two saw Princess Celestia standing over them. She knew about Travis training Spike and Dash, since she and her sister always had to fix things after they destroyed half the city every so often, but seeing Pinkie learning to fight was a bit of a surprise, since she knew about her desire to make ponies smile. "I see that you have a new combat protege."

"I'm not a protege, Princess! I'm his marefriend," Pinkie said as she bounced out of the canoe.

Travis followed her shortly afterward. He was exhausted from the fight, and decided to simply direct Celestia to the demolished training ground.

"The country club across the lake's been pretty messed up. But I don't think its anything a few bursts of magic and a construction crew cant' fix," he said. It may have seemed presumptuous, but he was right. He heard how Ponyville was once devoured by a swarm of parasprites, and how Princess Celestia helped repair the damages with her magic.

"I'll see to it," the princess answered, "But I must insist that you choose a less populated area to train. I always worry that somepony may get caught in a crossfire." As far as she could tell, Travis was always very conscious of bystanders, because so far nopony got hurt during their training. But that still didn't mean that it couldn't happen.

She flew away to assess the damage.

Travis and Pinkie looked on until Pinkie grabbed Travis's shoulders and kissed him.

"Travis, we need to make chocolate syrup. Now," she demanded. It didn't matter where they did it, just that it happened as soon as possible.

Travis was almost positive that 'making chocolate syrup' was a euphemism. He had to admit: it would be a great way to wind down after their training session.

"Donut Joe's?" Travis asked, trying to think of an exciting public place to do the deed.

Without another word, Pinkie led him away by his hoof towards the city.

Author's Notes:

Travis is right. It is lazy of me omit those chapters, but the truth is that I have so much more fun writing the action-oriented chapters, because I love writing action scenes.

And of course Celestia helped repair Ponyville after the parasprite swarm. How else would the town get put back together in such a short time, unless the next episode took place several months from then. We're talking a little over a year from the looks of the town.

That's it for this chapter, have fun with the next one. Rock on \m/