Author's Notes:

Done reading this and Zephyr's fight? Decide who wins right here!

Things cannot possibly get any weirder from here, Fire Weaver thought to himself as he stared at the door that led outside of the small, featureless, empty room that he had found himself in, contemplating just how he had gotten himself into such a situation.

When he had first been approached by this… ‘Discord’ to participate in a ‘tournament of the ages’, Weaver had at first thought he’d finally gone over the deep end and had started hallucinating and hearing things. That is, until an undeniable display of what was unmistakably chaos magic had convinced him that the alcohol he had been drinking wasn’t screwing with his head.

A single display of a Chaos God’s power… And it could conceivably be anything one could wish for, Weaver remembered thinking to himself as he stared at the glass of firewhiskey he had been holding in his telekinetic grip when he had suddenly been whisked away to come face-to-face with Discord himself. To his sides in a neat, straight line stood fifteen other individuals who weren’t just ponies—griffons, dragonlings and changelings were apparently included. The Chaos God had then told them why they had been brought there, and when Weaver heard just what the grand prize was, he had immediately tossed the shot of firewhiskey back before he had emphatically agreed to participating in the tournament.

If there is even a chance that she could be restored back to normal… I’m taking it, no matter what danger it poses. Weaver clutched at the simple bit coin marked with an intricate insignia that signified his status as an agent of the crown, his eyes tightly shut as he remembered the reason why he was here in the first place. He set a hoof on the door before him—the door that would lead into the arena where he would face his first opponent. Cursive, hang in there for me. I’m going to get you healed one way or another.

The royal agent pushed the door open and was greeted by a sight unlike anything he had ever seen before.

“Well, Discord certainly spared no effort in creating this place,” Weaver muttered as he took a step forward and peered over the edge of the rocky ledge that he stood upon, overlooking a crater lake that undoubtedly contained an at least semi-dormant volcano. The lake was already beginning to bubble and let off wisps of steam, and he could see multiple cave entrances leading off into passages in the walls of the crater.

But the kicker wasn’t how grand or vast the chaos arena Discord had created was, or the fact that it was a bucking volcano that Weaver was standing on right now—it was the fact that when Weaver took a breath in through his nose, instead of the pungent stench of fire, ash, and brimstone, the air smelled faintly of blueberries. When he peered over the edge of the ledge to take a look, he realized that the lava of the volcano wasn’t a molten orange, but a shade of cerulean blue.

Okay, I stand corrected—things just got weirder.

The lava was already beginning to break through the surface of the volcano’s top layers of cooled, hardened rock, and Weaver had just enough time to note that it was beginning to run off in smaller blue, snaking veins that disappeared into the caverns below before a loud, ringing voice echoed from the sky.

“Welcome, friends, to round one. ” Discord’s familiar, whimsical voice echoed through the air and reverberated off the rocks around Weaver. “By now you’re probably wondering where your opponents are. Well, look around! Somewhere within the Arena your obstacle to victory is thinking the same thing. So keep on your guard! You never know where they might be or what they might be capable of.”

There was a brief pause, and Weaver was about to start moving when Discord started speaking again. “Oh, and by the way. Once one of you has proven to be a clear victor, the exit will appear at the center of the battlefield. Good luck finding it! Ta!”

Never mind the exit—just focus on finding your opponent first. Weaver didn’t have even the slightest clue of who he was up against, but if there was one thing he knew, he wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of winning the match.

His training kicking in, the royal agent of the crown slipped into the shadows, his ash grey coat blending seamlessly with the rocky walls of the cave he entered. He vanished from sight, on the prowl for his adversary.

Even though Weaver had knowledge of the basic horn-light spell that nearly all unicorn mages learned the moment they came into their magic, there was no need for him to use it as he explored the caves—azure-hued crystals the same color as the lava in the volcano above dotted the cavern walls at intermittent spots, illuminating the caves with an eerie, blue glow.

Weaver had tried to touch one of the crystals and found them to be far too hot to try carrying around. Still, they provided more than enough light for him to see by, and the heat from the crystals that surrounded him in the caves suffused him with the warm reassurance of an old friend that had his back.

Eventually coming out to an exit that afforded him a plain view of the volcano and the stormy ash clouds gathering over it, Weaver heard the signature keening cry of one of the many shades that occupied the arena, and he looked down to see two of the maddened aberrations kicking and scraping at one another on a ledge that hung precariously over the crater lake, just a few steps away from a fatal fall.

As he watched, one of the mad shades gained the upper hoof over the other one and sent it tumbling down into the boiling crater lake below it with a savage push… but not before its adversary managed to hook a foreleg around its own ankle and drag it down into the abyss with it, kicking and screaming.

“Poor little buzzards, aren’t they?” an unfamiliar, youthful-sounding voice came from above Weaver, and the stallion let out a startled flinch before he shot his gaze up, mentally berating himself for getting distracted.

Above him, a grey storm cloud floated a few dozen metres overhead, and a head topped by a mane of solid black peeked out, looking down expectantly at him. The pegasus seated atop the cloud had a coat of grey, and he was looking at Weaver with a friendly smile.

“I’ve been sitting up here watching them roam around for some time now. Though, I admit I was actually looking out for you,” the pegasus admitted as he stepped off the storm cloud, his wings taking him to a light hover. “Name’s Zephyr—what’s yours?”

“Fire Weaver,” Weaver answered carefully, hardly able to believe that his adversary had chosen such a bold-faced, suicidally reckless way to approach the pony that was supposed to be engaging him in mortal combat. “And I won’t mince words, Zephyr, but if you’re my opponent for the match, I have to say that you chose an exceptionally poor way to make your opening move.”

“Maybe so.” The pegasus grinned as he shrugged. “But that don’t mean I can’t get to know who exactly it is I’m fighting here, right? Just seems kinda rude to me, that’s all, not to mention it’d be really dirty fighting if I tried to get in a sucker punch.”

“Uh huh, right,” Weaver responded dully, eyeing the pegasus warily.

So, this was his opponent for the match? The pegasus didn’t look like he could have been any older than Weaver himself, and his expression bore an optimism, sense of honor, and naivete that Weaver would have found respectable, had he encountered this pegasus two years ago. Right now, all it did was remind him of all the painful mistakes he had made, and he couldn’t help but wince internally as he realized that he was going to have to fight this young, idealistic pegasus, very possibly to the death, if he wanted to win this match.

Stars above, could Discord have possibly picked a worse opponent for him to face off against in the first round?

Casting aside his thoughts, Weaver quickly refocused himself on the pegasus before him and raised an eyebrow. “So, I suppose you want us to fight like gentlecolts, then?”

“I find that a lot more preferable to dirty fighting, yes,” Zephyr admitted as he alighted on a nearby ledge. “And I know that Discord said that most of the matches would be duels to the death, but I’d also prefer it if we didn’t have to kill each other. I just don’t like… staining my hooves with that sort of thing.”

“That’s horribly impractical, and that’s the kind of thoughts that would get yourself killed horribly in the field,” Weaver said, perhaps a little more harshly than he had intended, and when Zephyr’s expression turned into a look of chagrin, Weaver grimaced slightly inside. “Although, finding an opponent who wishes to fight like that is certainly a refreshing change. You’re not a soldier of any kind, are you?”

“Nope, never was,” Zephyr shook his head. “I had the will, just...never the disposition for it.”

“So what makes you think that you can win this match against me, then?” Weaver shot at the pegasus challengingly, already bracing himself to enter a battle-ready stance. “What are you fighting for that makes you think that you can win if you aren’t willing to do what is necessary?”

“I… honestly don’t know the answer to that question, on how I can win if I’m not willing to take a life,” Zephyr admitted as his wings unfurled, already sensing the subtle shift in tension between the two of them. “But I’ve been searching for my parents for years now, and I’d sooner forsake my wings before I go down without giving it my all in my search for answers. But what about you, Fire Weaver? Who are you, and what are you fighting for?”

“All you need to know, kid, is that I am a trained agent of the Crown, and I have somepony waiting for me back home that I have to restore to health.” Weaver’s voice gained a steely edge as he began preparing his magic. “And I am going to bring her back by whatever means necessary.”

“Fighting to save a loved one, huh?” Zephyr had an almost wistful look on his face. “Yeah, I can respect that. So you’re an agent of the Crown, you say? Well then, I guess that means I won’t have to go easy on you!”

The pegasus grinned as he took to the air again, landing atop his storm cloud, and raised his legs in preparation to give it a good, hard kick. “So, what do you say we get this match started?”

“You’re more than welcome to hit me with everything you’ve got, kid.” Weaver grinned back at Zephyr. “I can assure you that I’ve dealt with much worse.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!” Zephyr chuckled, and his leg lashed out at the storm cloud. There was a flash of unleashed lightning as it lashed out towards Weaver, and the unicorn immediately retreated back inside the cave as the lightning struck the ground mere inches from where he stood in a shower of sparks.

As he took cover behind a nearby rock, he saw Zephyr already streaking about in the air in tightening circles. A fresh storm cloud was rapidly forming in the centre of his arc as he drew in detritus and water vapor from the air that the volcano’s smoke plume provided, and the pegasus gave the cloud another buck, sending another burst of lightning flying towards Weaver.

The lightning bolt struck a spot a few feet away from him, and the unicorn mage decided that it was time to retaliate. Before Zephyr could begin gathering more vapor for a third storm cloud, Weaver stepped out from behind the rock and took aim, his horn blazing a fiery orange before a ray of red-hot fire lanced forward with unerring accuracy towards the airborne pegasus.

Zephyr jerked out of the way of the fire ray with a startled yelp, immediately taking higher to the air as he began to pick up speed in rapidly concentrating circles. Weaver sent several more fire rays flying at his opponent, but the airborne pegasus evaded those with ease as he continued building up velocity in the air, the winds around him steadily picking up speed. Enough speed to disturb even the pebbles that lay at Weaver’s hooves.

Oh, horseapples, he isn’t doing what I think he is, is he? Weaver cursed internally as the pegasus above him became nothing but a blur in the air that was soon surrounded by the gale-force winds of a tornado, and the royal agent reacted before the pegasus could take it any further. His horn flared as another ray of fire was sent flying towards the winds that Zephyr was manipulating… and Weaver watched as the fire got caught in the tornado and set the entire thing ablaze.

The unicorn fire mage watched with his mouth set in a grim line as a few seconds later, a small, pony-shaped silhouette trailing smoke tumbled out of the growing fire tornado... but not before he saw it twist in a certain, vindictive manner that was undoubtedly aimed in his direction, and Weaver felt his bowels spasm when he realized that the firenado was now heading his way.

Sweet Celestia, nice job breaking it, Weaver!!! the unicorn thought to himself in a panic as he scrambled back further into the cave as the firenado approached. Once he was further in enough, he spun around and began focusing his magic and his will on the only defensive spell that he had.

Immediately, a wall of fire sprang to life over the cave entrance, covering the opening in its entirety, and Weaver directed his entire focus on the spell as he felt the heat and fury of the approaching firestorm bear down upon him. He could feel the heat energy of the fire wall that he was maintaining, its volatile power shaped and controlled by his magic, and as the heat of the blazing cyclone came closer and began to overlap with the energies of his firewall, he accepted that energy into himself and subjugated it to his control with several brute force applications of his will—the purest manifestation of his power and talent over fire, as dictated by the cutie mark of a blazing flame upon his flank.

As the firenado drew closer, the flames that raged within it began to die out, and Weaver’s shield blazed brighter than Celestia’s midday sun as he transferred the heat into the energy that he was channelling into his fire shield. Moments before the cyclone reached him, Weaver cut off the power to his shield… just in time for what remained of the flames to be swept aside by the gale force winds Zephyr had conjured, and they sent the unicorn flying backwards into the cave, where he slammed into a rocky wall with a pained grunt.

Okay, not my smartest idea ever… But at least I’m not on fire. Weaver groaned as he coughed and forced himself back onto his hooves. The impact had certainly been a painful one, but it was nothing that his time as an agent of the crown had not trained him to endure. All right, so Zephyr has the definite advantage out there, and I can’t fight against him effectively when he’s up there hurling lightning bolts and tornados at me. A confrontation out in the open where he’s got the space to maneuver isn’t good, so the only place left to go is…

Before Weaver’s thought processes could get any further, there was a deafening thunderclap from the direction of the cave entrance, and without warning Weaver found himself knocked off his hooves.

The breath knocked out of his lungs by the freight train force that had barrelled right into his chest, Weaver was helpless to resist as it took him with it further and deeper into the caves, slamming him against what felt like every single wall it could find along the way. Each impact sent jolts of intense pain running through his body, and by the time his mind had caught up with what had just happened, his body already felt like it had gone several rounds with a pony-sized meat tenderizer.

What felt like an eternity of savage impacts and crash landings later, Weaver felt himself being released, and he started freefalling through the air for a few moments before gravity reintroduced him to the ground in a harsh, sudden meeting. The unicorn skidded across the stone cave floor for several meters before he managed to regain his bearings and stop himself, and he let out a groan as his injuries caught up with him.

Okay, that... might have hurt a little. Weaver winced, and he started forcing the pain of the many bruises and scrapes he had just earned out of his awareness, the discipline of his training taking over. Note to self: start using fire shield spell to defend against melee attacks. Seems that Zephyr will have to resort to hoof-to-hoof when he's stuck in the caves with me.

Apparently, thanks to whatever thunderclap maneuver that Zephyr had just pulled, both he and Weaver were now deep within the cave system of the volcano, probably dozens if not hundreds of meters underground. The pegasus had thrown Weaver loose in a large, underground chamber that was nearly the size of an amphitheater, and nearly a dozen tunnel entrances led elsewhere on multiple levels both around and above him.

On a higher ledge several metres away from him, Zephyr was on two knees upon the ground and was beginning to stand upright himself, but the pegasus was already leaning over, panting from exhaustion. The pegasus’ fur was singed in several places, and a number of his feathers were scorched, but the fight in his eyes hadn’t dimmed, and they blazed with every bit of fervor that Weaver had first seen in them when the fight had started.

Zephyr’s gaze met Weaver’s, and he gave the unicorn mage a grin. “Fire magic, huh? You don't see that too often these days. Been no real call for such aggressive spells since the time of Nightmare Moon's banishment, and that's been centuries. But here you are, wielding it as though you've been using it your entire life. You're not from around my time, are you?”

“What are you talking about? Nightmare Moon was banished only fifty years ago.” Weaver’s head spun as he registered the implications of Zephyr’s words. “You’re not telling me you’re from the future, are you?”

“Well, this is a Chaos tournament we’re fighting in, so I think finding opponents from the distant past or future isn’t all that far-fetched.” The pegasus shrugged. “I wouldn’t think about it too much, not when we’ve got winning our matches to worry about! I have my parents to find, and you’ve got your marefriend to save, so why don’t we skip the existential crises and get right down to the meat of things, huh?”

Weaver chuckled as he conceded the point. The young pegasus was right—with Cursive waiting for him back home, he couldn’t afford to be distracted. Redirecting his focus, Weaver started running through his strategies. Without access to atmospheric weather conditions, Zephyr’s only option now would be to engage in hoof-to-hoof combat, and Weaver would have sooner turned in his coin that marked his status as a royal agent than to have been unprepared for close-quarter encounters.

Without warning, the pegasus blasted forward in a sudden burst of speed as he lunged at Weaver. His body was already moving into position to deliver a punishing series of blows that even Weaver would have been hard-pressed to defend against… only Weaver needed no warning whatsoever, because before Zephyr had even moved, the unicorn already had a defensive strategy in mind.

Before Zephyr even had time to alter his path, the same flames that had protected Weaver from the fire tornado outside immediately sprang up in a shield around the unicorn that would have deterred even a charging minotaur with the heat they gave off. Unfortunately, Zephyr’s velocity made it too late for him to change his course, and he barreled right into Weaver with all the force of a wrecking ball.

The flying tackle sent them both tumbling across the ground, but the spell had accomplished its purpose. While the hit Weaver had taken was a heavy one, Zephyr’s intended flurry of blows had been averted, and right now the pegasus was too occupied with screaming and attempting to put out the fires on his fur to recover and mount another offensive.

Weaver looked at the pegasus writhing helplessly on the floor, and contemplated ending the fight right then by using one of his more powerful spells. However, the young pegasus’ screams struck a chord in him that made him hesitate for a fraction of a second, and Weaver stayed his hoof, unsure—was this how he wanted to make his first win of the tournament in his quest to save Cursive? To take an innocent, idealistic life in cold blood? Weaver hesitated at the thought of such blood staining his hooves, and the spell that was half-formed in his horn halted in its tracks.

Unfortunately, that was all the delay it took.

Before the unicorn could come to a decision, Zephyr rolled to his hooves and launched himself at Weaver, his mouth locked in a rictus of pain even though his eyes still blazed with determination. Barely able to react in time, Weaver dove out of the way, and the unicorn rolled onto his back just in time to see the pegasus land in the vicinity of one of the crystal deposits close to one of the tunnel entrances.

Weaver wasn’t sure what made it seem like a good idea at the time, but in the heat and rush of the resumed battle, the glowing crystal growth was such an inviting target that he just couldn’t help himself. Zephyr lay writhing on the ground about a few dozen feet away from the crystal deposit, and Weaver didn’t waste another second. He aimed his horn at the growth, and let fly with a fire ray.

The explosion sent Zephyr flying away even further into the tunnel beyond, and Weaver felt rather than heard a succession of chain reaction detonations reverberate further through the walls and ground, travelling further away before culminating in another massive explosion somewhere else in the cave system. The aftershock shook loose several rocks that caused the tunnel entrance Zephyr was in to collapse, and the pegasus disappeared behind an avalanche of stone and dust that Weaver couldn’t see through.

Now that their brief scuffle was over, Weaver finally had the time to properly observe his surroundings. As he looked around, he realized to his growing vindication that he had just hit the motherlode, and if he played his cards right, he might just have guaranteed his own win.

The royal agent raised his left foreleg, pulling back a small handle on the box-like device that he wore on his wrist that all field-worthy royal agents possessed, and with a deft flick, he triggered the mechanism that sent a miniature grappling hook flying upwards in a burst of compressed air. Guiding the projectile with his horn’s telekinesis, Weaver flicked his wrist again once the hook was attached to the ledge he had been aiming for. The return mechanism triggered, swiftly pulling him up into the air towards his destination, where he immediately faded into the shadows.

Over the next few minutes, Weaver crept from entrance to entrance to the cavern he was in, pulling out crystals that glowed a dim, pulsing orange from the pouches of the vest that he wore, and sticking them to the walls with small smears of sticky resin. Taking care not to place them too close to any of the glowing blue crystals—because Weaver sure as Tartarus didn’t want to set any more of them off lest he collapse the entire cavern around himself—the young unicorn stallion ensured that all of the possible entryways into the cavern were covered. Once that was done, he silently made his way back down to the ground floor of the cavern, where he finished his preparations by planting five more crystals in a more-or-less even pentagon on the cave floor, magically tethered to one another by invisible lines of arcane power.

By the time he was done, Weaver could honestly say that he was surprised that Zephyr still hadn’t found him yet. The sporadic sound of beating wings still echoed from the cave entrances, yet it never seemed to be getting any closer. All the same, if Weaver still wanted to bring a quick end to the match, he was going to have to give the young stallion a bit of a helping hoof.

“Zephyr!” the royal agent called out, and his eyes picked out a likely ambush spot that would have been perfect to get the drop on somepony who was entering the cavern. “It’s time for us to put an end to this! Come and get me with everything you’ve got, because I’m not going to be holding back on you either! Come on and make your parents proud!”

Without waiting for a response, Weaver grappled upwards to the vantage point he had spotted, and as he settled behind a rock for cover he noted the approaching sound of beating wings with grim satisfaction. Yet as the wounded and singed Zephyr came into sight, Weaver couldn’t help but wince at the extent of the pegasus’ injuries.

Zephyr was burned and bleeding in multiple places, his fur singed almost completely black over nearly his entire body, and he was keeping himself aloft with a strain that was obviously taking a toll on his wings. Yet he still moved with every bit of swiftness he had started the fight with, never giving up or stopping, and when he passed by one of the orange crystals that Weaver had planted to cover the entrance of the tunnel, the unicorn mage almost felt sorry for the poor kid.

The orange crystal, having been configured by Weaver to detonate its payload when somepony got too close to it, glowed brightly for a few seconds before it exploded in a shower of flame that washed over Zephyr once more. The young pegasus was sent into a fresh bout of screaming as he tumbled to the ground, his fur ablaze, and Weaver enacted the second step of his ambush.

A tiny bead of white-hot compressed flame gathered at the tip of his horn… right before it shot forward towards Zephyr, rapidly expanding over the several seconds it took to reach the pegasus into a blazing fireball twice the size of the explosions his pre-prepared fire crystals could make.

The resulting blast of fire swallowed the pegasus entirely from sight. When the flames died down, Weaver was amazed to see that Zephyr had somehow managed to fling himself clear of the blast radius, sparing himself the worst of the blast. Weaver didn’t doubt that had Zephyr been airborne, he would have evaded the fireball completely, but given that the pegasus was currently groundbound with the feathers of both his wings scorched, his options were severely limited right now… especially given exactly where he had landed after his desperate dive roll.

The wounded pegasus lay in the centre of the pentagon of crystals that Weaver had planted ahead of time. The young pegasus’ life was literally in his hooves right now, and if he had wanted to, he could have pulled the metaphorical trigger to end his opponent’s life and put him out of his misery, instantly guaranteeing his win... but the fire mage no longer felt like there was a need for it.

He felt like he had already done enough damage to Zephyr as it was.

As the fires died out, Zephyr lay prone on his side, burned and bleeding, immobilized by pain, and he remained that way as Weaver shot a grappling hook into the cavern ceiling before swinging his way down, slowly lowering himself to the ground just outside the pentagon of fire crystals before alighting in a whisper of a landing. The pegasus twitched as he registered Weaver’s presence, a futile effort at standing that he quickly abandoned, and he turned his eyes to meet the unicorn’s.

“Well, you got me good there, I’ll admit.” The pegasus groaned as he twitched again, once more failing to rise to his hooves. “I guess we could almost call this a draw. What do you say, best two out of three?”

“You really should stop moving.” Weaver shook his head as he looked down at his fallen opponent. “You’ll only make your injuries worse. Will you yield now, or do you think you have what it takes to still keep fighting?”

Zephyr’s mouth set itself in a grim line, and the pegasus shook his head before letting out a tired, resigned groan. “I saw the crystals you planted. Those were meant to be the framework for some sort of massive fire spell that I would be in the middle of if you triggered them right now, weren’t they?” He gave Weaver a meaningful look. “You have me dead to rights here, pal. Ain’t nothing I can do about it.”

“It was a good fight, either way.” Weaver bowed in respect to Zephyr, already feeling guilt beginning to creep up the back of his neck at how far he had been ready to go against a stallion like Zephyr just to ensure that he would win the match. “I’m sorry that you won’t be getting the chance to find your parents after all. It seems that only one of us here will be getting what we want.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Zephyr grinned as his eyes began to slowly droop closed. “If I live through this, I’ll always be able to find out some other way. That marefriend of yours though… The way you said it, it sounds like you really wanna bring her back.”

The pegasus’ eyes locked with Weaver’s one last time, and Weaver saw that the determination in the young stallion’s eyes, despite his extensive injuries, had still not faded one bit. “You need this chance a lot more than I do, so promise me… Promise me that you’ll fight for it with every fibre of your being. Bring that mare of yours back to health, and that way I’ll know that even if I didn’t win, at least some good came out of all this.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Weaver chuckled as he nodded. “You’ll have my word on that as well then, Zephyr.”

“Good…” The pegasus sighed as his eyes finally closed. “I think I’m just gonna crash here for a while then…maybe take a nap and…be back at a hundred percent in no time…”

As Zephyr’s speech trailed off, Weaver watched unconsciousness take the pegasus, and the unicorn disabled the arcane tethers that kept the fire crystals connected to each other with a tired exhalation. The fight was over—there was no longer any need for them.

Far above him, he felt a brief pulse of arcane power coalesce into the exit portal in the centre of the arena, and Weaver turned away from Zephyr’s unconscious body, slowly limping and trudging his way back up to the portal, every passing second bringing him one step closer to winning the tournament… and one step closer to saving Cursive.

No… Not just that. He thought. His winning was not just for Cursive’s sake now... because now, he had also inherited Zephyr’s will.

For the sake of the honor that Zephyr had entrusted him with, Weaver resolved, whoever his next opponent was, he or she was going down.