Author's Notes:

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

"And probably a black coat, so sexy. Oh and green mane, we should match, it's like destiny! Well, this is dyed, but you get the idea, don't y—"

Ember stopped her rambling description as the door behind her vanished. There was a very good chance that Discord hadn’t even been listening to her list of very important requirements, but that was fine. She had a written version of her list after all. For a supposedly reformed creature, Discord had sure seemed determined about the whole “Kill each other” thing. But with a prize this good... Well, you had to break a stone to find a gem, right? Those old sayings had to have some merit to them.

She took the time to look around and realized that she was sitting in a stone room with a single, rickety chicken wire fence door. Not dissimilar to the type she saw on mines all over the place back home.

But really, this looked like a very poor mine, if indeed that was what it was, as whomever had made it got barely ten pony widths into the rock before stopping. Then for some reason they had made it cubic. Not a very efficient way to find ore.

It would be a great place to bring a date, though! No holes to fall into, though that one time had been fun...

"Okay, fine, I'll go, but we have a deal, Discord! Either you or the perfect stallion!"

She then turned and walked out of the door, only to immediately slam into the ground with considerable force.

"Okay, fine. Just the perfect stallion. Jerk."

She realized after a moment that her whole exoskeleton was being pulled to the ground, along with her goggles. The pressure felt like being tied down or laid on, a feeling she was intimately familiar with. She had to fight back a moan, her hindquarters wiggling in an aching need.

Once she realized what the feeling reminded her of, she blushed through her red coat and squirmed a little more, trying to free herself, to no avail. This only darkened her coloration, and she giggled softly.

"Oh you sneaky draconequus, you did your research on me! Come on, I'm helpless, you know you wan—"

‎"Welcome, friends, to round one."

Ember pouted with all the disappointment a mare could express, looking up toward the voice plaintively. "Friends? I'd hoped for lover, long lost beau, we were meant for each other!"

She did notice, as Discord spoke, that the force tugging her down only affected her toolbag, goggles, and exoskeleton. It seemed magnetic, rather than a force designed to hold her down. Discord probably hadn’t known about her kink after all. Still, it was his fault that she was turned on!

"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.”

Ember giggled.

“Let’s hope they’re more ‘capable’ than you!”

“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!‎"

"I wasn't thinking any that," Ember sighed as the voice faded out and the sexual grip of the magnetic stone began to let up.

"I was thinking, Discord is a jerk and doesn't finish what he's started."

Once she could stand, the earth pony looked back to the door, which was gone, of course.

"A sexy jerk, admittedly."

Finally, the aroused and frustrated mechanic looked about herself to observe her environment.

Naturally, it looked like Discord had designed it while huffing paint fumes. Stones all around seemed to float, clanging together like cymbals, exploding into dust and debris, as they followed the island-like spires that would occasionally shove the rocks away in a burst. They would scatter against other islands, which would again push them away or sometimes gather them like a mother hen pulling her chicks close.

While observing all this, ‎she heard a clattering. She would almost say it sounded like a stampede, but she didn't see any other equines, much less a whole herd.

The cloud of magically floating stones that seemed to be moving over the peak behind her in an eerie cloud of death, though, that could certainly be a problem.

As the stones fell, rattling against the ground in a torrent of gravel and hoof-sized rocks, Ember ran away from them as fast as she could go. She was quite happy that the magnetic pull hadn’t lasted much longer though. She might have still been trapped against the ground with pebbles pelting her.

Every once in a while, a rock would smack against her rear. She would cry out in a combination of embarrassment, pleasure, and ‎anger, before sprinting ever faster across the rocky ground, tail tucked between her legs.

At last, she found shelter under an overhang on the opposite side of her little island, panting to catch her breath a bit as the last of the storm pattered against the island in a hail of marbles.

With a growl, she drew a sheet of paper from her bag that she laid out flat. It had once been a flyer for the most renowned mansion of the sexually provocative in all of Equestria. She had once considered joining the place’s staff before deciding she appreciated a more private experience. She flipped it over, and there was her list.

Titled "The perfect mate," the list seemed disjointed and sporadic, and it continued like this:

Male and/or female

Bigger, stronger, and sexier than me (if possible)

No deformities or illnesses

Smart

Knows how to perform "maintenance" on an "Ember-powered steam engine"

"Properly lubricated"

Green eyes

Actually, red eyes

No, one red and one purple

Maybe color changing?

She then took a mechanic's pencil from her bag and with a flourish added "Not Discord."

After underlining this latest entry on her list several times, Ember put it away and stepped out from under the protective cubby, only to stop and stare at one of the fallen rocks that had latched onto her tail.

"More magnetic...crud."

She took the time to remove the stone and toss it away. Then she picked her way to higher ground as carefully as she could. From that vantage point she observed her island, with three chains of stone linking it to other solid spots high above the waves below. One of those other solid spots was actually hovering, instead of being a spire from an island like the rest.

She decided that a hovering rock island was more interesting and latched her metal tail-hook to the ground to lower herself down the cliff face. This let her get closer to the stone bridge that would lead her to the magical floating island.

That moment, as she was lowering herself down, became remarkably odd.

For some reason, she was getting further away from the wall, instead of sliding down it. That in itself would have been odd, but on top of that she saw a grey pony hugging a rock while screeching in terror, being propelled ever faster away from the ground and into the sky.

"Huh... So...repulsion?"

She gasped as the pushing faded, and she fell back towards the cliff face.

Twisting at the last moment, she landed with all four hooves, her tail straining under the shock as her line stretched taut. Finally, her claw released to drop her two pony lengths onto the path. Winded and nursing sore hooves, she noticed that the wailing noise was getting louder...and louder.

She looked up and rolled out of the way, wide eyed.

The odd grey pony’s lift had faded too, so he fell. Hanging off the bottom of a rock as big as he was, as it plummeted down ever faster.

She hid behind her forelegs as the horrible sound of rending bones and cracking stone filled the air.

When she opened her eyes and lowered her shaking hooves, her red coat was speckled with another type of red, the empty eyes of the dead stallion looking at her. They looked confused.

She stumbled backward away from the horrific sight. She then ran.

A while later, Ember found herself at the base of her island, shakily cleaning her coat in the water.

Sure, she had seen dead ponies—mining was a dangerous profession—but she'd never been there. She hadn't seen somepony die. It could have been her. She could have been flung from the island if she hadn't been latched on. Nervously, she latched onto the cliffside ‎behind her as she washed up and checked her bag of things several times.

She didn’t think the stallion had been her opponent. He hadn't had a cutie mark after all. What sort of pony wouldn’t have a cutie mark?

She got out her list and shakily added a pair of new lines.

“‘Has a cutie mark’...and...’Is alive’.”

The path back up around her island was treacherous, and she had to cling to the stone or struggle not to be flattened by the alternating magnetic fields several times before she made it to the bridge. She tried to latch onto the opposite side, but the varying fields around the bridge threw her hookshot wide, and she instead took the grabby end in one hoof and used it to anchor herself to each rock as she went.

‎About halfway across, one of the stones sent an excruciating bolt of electricity through the metal appendage, and she let out a horrific scream of pain, barely staying on her rocky perch as it swayed in reaction to the released energy. She couldn't get her tail to latch, as she lay there, recovering. That was not a good type of pain.

The pain faded soon enough, and this time she nervously crossed the rest of the bridge on her hooves, covered in her glove-like rubber engineer's sleeves. Her metal shot retracted, she made it to the other side with relative safety and cautiously latched onto the floating surface. She was relieved to find it was inert for the time being.

That platform was‎ flat save for a tree that covered a quarter of the surface and sheltered a small bush and spread of grass. As she moved closer, her stomach growled, and she smiled up at the inviting branches.

"Oh, how nice. Maybe you aren't so bad, Discord. Well except for the whole contest to the death thing. That's never good."

She tore up a few mouthfuls of the grass before laying down to rest.

"I could stay here awhile."

"I wouldn't advise it, ma'am."

Ember rolled and leapt back away from the gruff voice, her tail whipping to pull her up into the tree. But the latch grabbed a chunk of leaves instead, and she gulped when she spotted the newcomer: A literal knight in shining armor, crackling with electricity that seemed to skip across the surface of the metal plates.

The stallion was wielding a lance that looked sharper than any weapon that she had on herself. His face plate was raised to let her see his eyes. They examined each other from across the island, the knight and the lady.

Thunder Hammer had walked from his stone block room and out onto some sort of beach, with frothy waves tumbling over themselves and similar islands nearby, with towering rocks and cliffs that he turned to confirm were similar to this island.

Instead, a wall of dead warriors twitched feebly, blood dripping...

A blink and it was a plain ‎rock face, stretching up about five times his height. Breathing heavy, he slipped off his helmet and splashed some of the cold water onto his mane.

He couldn't forget... But it sure would be nice to be in control.

The helmet went back on, and he pulled his wet mane through to form the crest. It was a fight to the death, after all. Even if it was a selfish goal, he wouldn't be improperly dressed.

Conveniently, a cliff side ‎path led up the island’s peak, and, as he ascended, he noticed something ominous.

What he had thought were dark stormclouds or gliding birds were actually stones that defied gravity to hover and glide across the sky. Eerie and impossible, ‎yet they were there.

Among the rocks, unreal angels flew, carrying away his friends and comrades. Thunder averted his eyes and continued on his path.

The world around the brave knight was always ethereal, the visions and illusions nothing new. Yet something of this world made it even more chilling. The impossible qualities of sudden weight or lifting force confused him. The rocky islands floating above made it even easier to become disoriented.

It was in such a state of confusion that he found a pony standing ahead of him. Black pitch coat and ratty mane, the stallion mirrored Thunder’s own haunted expression. As he raised his lance, the strange pony raised its mouth to the sky and howled a keening death toll. It then charged.

He barely had to lift his weapon to bring it into line. Never before had Thunder seen a pony charge headlong into a lance; it went against every instinct. Yet the stallion drove itself deep against the steel until it came to a shuddering stop mere hooves from his nose. It was not an honourable fight, it was the killing of a sick dog. No more or less meaningful.

With a huff, he shoved the body over the cliff edge and looked around to observe his surroundings. While standing on one island he was able to see too many others to count, spread out across and above the sea. Most were speckled with greenery and trees, but his was bare.

A flash of warning red gave him pause, before he began to approach the bridge to the island on which there had been a flash of color. A fire, or another pony? Maybe his opponent?

Before he could find out, he had to cross one of those floating stone bridges. He sighed and gingerly set an armored hoof onto the first chunk of magical stone, only for his hoof to slip right off, as though pushed away. He wheeled and sat back on his rump to keep from toppling forward. He then tried again, with a similar result. The closer his armored hoof got to the rock, the harder it was to approach, until he was shunted aside. So he instead reached over it to the next rock which seemed to behave normally.

Carefully stepping over the pushing stone, he came to rest with all four hooves firmly planted on the magically levitated platform. From there he had little trouble except for the last rock. At that point, lightning sprung forth and struck his armor, only to harmlessly dance across its surface. Insulated from the metal, he just smirked as he finally reached the end of the bridge.

There, on green grass in the midst of a strange land, a fiery earth pony mare lay with some sort of lense contraption strapped to her head just above her eyes.

"I could stay here awhile."

She spoke as though this was some sort of vacation, a retreat to the island of magic rocks. He spoke as he stepped closer, readying his lance.

"I wouldn't advise it, ma'am."

A big, tough stallion. In armor no less; how seductive. His grey coat seemed to mirror his armor, and a pair of brown eyes watched her carefully.

“Well, a knight in shining armor. Are you here to whisk me away?”

She stopped as she caught the coldness in his eyes. There was something wrong in there, and she suddenly didn’t feel like being swept off her hooves by him. No, she felt like running.

But there was a chance that he would be able to get to her before she could escape, and that lance didn’t look friendly. Especially not with streaks of rust-red blood marking it. He must have killed one of those poor grey ponies. How sinister.

“Neigh, I am spoken for. I am here to strike down all that stand in my way, to reach my goal.”

Typically this would be quite a joke, or at least laughable. Yet this stallion seemed quite open with his intentions.

“Well, I’m not...standing in your way, necessarily.”

As she stepped slowly away from him, he took a single heavy step toward her.

“I must kill you to continue on my quest. I apologize.”

Seeing a rapidly closing window for escape or bargain, Ember gulped and stepped till her tail brushed the tree.

“What...is your name?”

He snorted. “Might as well do this properly. It is Thunder Hammer. Knight of the royal guard. Who might you be?”

Ember batted her eyelashes and held a hoof up to her chin demurely.

“Who, me? My name is Ember! I’m a mechanic! You could say I work on...the machinery, if you catch my drift.”

The wink and giggle only made Thunder sigh and roll his eyes.

“No. I do not, but I can guess.”

“Well, don’t be a stranger, why are you here?” Ember asked swiftly, trying to avoid a lull in the conversation.

“I was sent here by Discord,” he growled. “Same as you were, I’d venture to guess. We all have our own quests.”

Ember nodded, probing for the edge of the island with her grappling tail, finding it only a pony length behind the bushes.

“What...is your quest?”

“To seek...”

For a moment, the strange knight seemed puzzled, as though unsure what he was seeking. This was Ember’s moment to strike.

Leaping over the bush and off the edge of the floating island, her tail latched to the bottom of the stony disk to swing her back toward the other side.

Silently praying that she would not fall to the crashing rocks and waves below, she let go and flung her whip-like tail to latch onto a bridge-stone which she was happily pulled to by its magnetic force. At that moment, a great roar came from behind her, the knight having found her entirely vanished from the island. Rather, she clung to the bottom of the smaller rock and carefully edged her way across from beneath.

At long last, she came to rest on the other side of the bridge on a new island altogether. Thick with bushes as big as ponies, the magnetic pull was slight but enough to make standing for any length of time uncomfortable.

Settling into the brush, she waited for the stallion to wander by. This quickly proved to be a poor plan. The sun didn’t move and it was impossible to tell how long she had been waiting. Eventually she spotted a hill sticking out of the sheltering shrubs with its own scattered bushes. This offered just enough cover for her to ascend while keeping out of sight. Using this method, she was able to spot her enemy again.

Pulling out her flyer and flipping it over again, she stared at the searching knight with a scowl before adding two more items to the list.

“‘Not a knight’ and “Mentally sound’.”

She put it away and began formulating her plan. Clearly, she was going to have to go to him, not the other way around.

Stalking and planning to kill somepony gave Ember a sickly feeling in her gut, like being asphyxiated for just a little bit too long, and she started to wonder what her papa would think of her. This certainly wasn’t a conventional way to get a partner. Neither was it something that the old mine operator would see as “good.”

In fact, the eternally kind and benevolent old man would have likely admonished her for not adhering to the teachings of Celestia or Luna. The alicorns were the closest that her town had to moral leaders. Though, living in a mining town, a pony found out pretty quickly that burly, overworked stallions had a hard time following those same teachings. Hypocrites.

But it was a chance that she had to take, to get what she wanted. This one action would guarantee her a mate that she would like. She could ask for somepony that wasn’t just a stallion, even. She could have the best of both worlds!

She could have Luna herself if she wanted, she realized. Except a mare and a stallion and with tentacles. Maybe even half dragon with a bit of Nightmare Moon in there. The pictures of the night being were quite attractive, as the stack of them under her mattress back at home could attest.

With new enthusiasm, she started gathering rocks from her new island, and planning for an ambush.

Thunder Hammer turned yet another corner in this endless maze of islands. That cursed mare had escaped, somehow. Without a body or any sign that the contest had been completed, he had to assume the enemy was still around.

The edge of constant danger made Thunder Hammer feel far removed from his own mind. The mind of a warrior was guiding him now. He had left his lance on the floating platform, after seeing that the spritely mare was too quick to be speared in a charge. Instead, he rested his warhammer across his back. The massive hunk of metal was designed for crushing armor but it would do just as well against limbs and annoying heads.

There was a hunger eating at him to win. Despite not knowing much of this “Ember” she was an obstacle and a genuine annoyance to him. A taunting figure moving through his hallucinations and the vivid figures of his fallen friends.

With so much confusion and impossible sights all around him, he was quite surprised to find the mare’s lense contraption laying on the ground ahead of him. Cautiously he approached while looking all around. There seemed to be no trail of blood or other objects that would suggest that she had been attacked. Instead, the glass disks shone in the sunlight as he grew closer. Something caught his eye.

Something red in the reflection of the glass...

It was too late, as a roar and crash of magically attracted stones came crashing down the hill next to him, slamming the brave knight to the ground with a groan. The rocks only clung tighter to his armor as he struggled to be free of them. A whole pony or two of weight held him pinned as his breathing became frantic.

“Did I getcha? Yeah, I got ‘em!”

He pushed and pulled and struggled, trying to regain his footing. But the cursed rocks! They held taut, their strange magic burying him alive, a cairn to mark his passing. Slowly he felt the struggles and stress of all his dreams slipping free as he could not. The mare approaching from his peripheral was then just enough to push him over the edge. With a final loss of control, Thunder Hammer let go and Head Case took over.

Another unearthly roar of fury came from Thunder Hammer as Ember drew closer, and his efforts to escape redoubled. With strength she had thought impossible, he heaved to his hooves and stepped towards her. Despite an incredible amount of stone slowing him down, he somehow built momentum until he was fully charging her, his hammer forgotten on the ground behind him.

Wide eyed and taken entirely by surprise, Ember’s only chance for survival was to run across the brush covered island and through rock strewn caverns, until the roaring pile of rock and fury caught up with Ember.

A tackle sent them both sliding across sharp rocks and shrubs, and Ember kicked out to try and escape from him, but only earned a ping off his helmet. In retaliation a hoof reached out and grabbed hold of one of her hind legs, dragging her close enough for the other hoof to swing in and slam into her stomach.

Ember gasped, twisting to slam a hoof into his snout and managing just enough of a blow to loosen his grip. She rolled aside and struggled to stand but again the stallion shoved her over and this time pinned her to the ground.

With all of the sincerity and pent up craving that the poor mare could find in herself, she took in a deep breath and shouted.

“Please, Celestia, fuck me until I die, you sex-crazed monster!”

Disappointingly, he seemed lost to his rage, completely unhearing her cry, or mistaking it for a shout of pure fear. A swift kick to his groin proved just as useless, him being protected not only by his armor but now by a layer of magnetic stone. She struggled, barely avoiding a slamming hoof aimed for her head. Then another. Finally, a lucky break came her way when she slammed her own hoof against his neck, catching a jagged rock and pushing it into a small crevice on his armor. He cried out and pawed at it, cringing and rolling on the ground. It gave Ember another chance to jump up and sprint away.

Looking for any way to get away from the mad stallion, Ember went past her lookout hill and towards the floating platform, only to find that the bridge to it had moved. There was no way to get off this rock, and, inevitably, she was run up against an edge.

Stopping only to catch her breath for the briefest of moments, she leapt out into the void between islands with only water below her. Her grabbing tail shot out to latch onto the cliffside in an attempt to slow her descent, or bring herself closer to the rocky face, yet something heavy hit her from above and she began plunging toward the water.

Of course, she had been hit by Thunder Hammer, leaping off the edge of the island without any regard for his safety. They tumbled through the air as they accelerated faster and faster.

The stone giant of a stallion swung a hoof and hit her hard against the side of the neck, causing a gasp of pain and a coughing fit. Then her tail finally found purchase.

With a whipping motion, she was suddenly on top, just in time to hit the water going far too fast. The fountain of water they produced nearly touched the rocks above. Ember’s metal tail fell limp and released from the rock. It slithered into the water after the two fighting ponies.

The waves resumed their steady movement, lapping serenely against the hollow shores of the unreal land, as though their flow had been uninterrupted since the beginning of time. No animals scuttled along the sandy shores, leaving the only movement as the waves and a slight breeze rustling the trees that lined most of the rocks. Nopony would tell or likely ever would be able to tell what had made the stones in such a unique way. Sure it could be said simply to be chaos magic, but what had it been before then? What conjunction of stone and magnetic force could have inspired these impossible islands? Lost in time, nopony would ever know.

Then it changed, smaller, simpler, but a change nonetheless.

The red stain of blood tinted the water slowly like a sunset gracing a hillside with crimson, and from it the crimson Ember dragged herself out of the waves that held the same shade as her now mottled coat to lay coughing and retching on the sandy shores. The sea became brown and then faded until it was once again a deep teal.

Below the waves a body came to rest encrusted in magic stone and mundane steel. For a while, it leaked red tendrils, stretching out far and wide. The only evidence that anything living existed within the shell. But then the flow stopped. And it became, like so many others around it, another rocky outcropping below the sea. Anonymous and dead. Forever.

Back above, from one trembling red hoof, Ember dropped a six inch flathead screwdriver that still held the eviscerated remains of one mutilated eye. It was one of Thunder Hammer’s eyes. Somehow, as they had struggled in the waves, her body had known enough to grab it. To use it. She couldn’t bear to look at it. One of her own tools, like babies to her; it was tossed far into the rolling water, never to be seen again.

It seemed like hours passed before she could bear to eat more of the green grass she had found, and she still would not touch the water. She knew what lay down there now. No fish or coral, but a single corpse.

“Innocent of death” had been added to her list, in shaking script. Ember now knew that she didn’t want a lover that had suffered through what she had just experienced. This was a horrifying foray into the mind of the stallion she had killed. The reason for his steely gaze. She wondered idly if she now would have that same dead look to her eyes.

But now it was done, and she wandered the islands looking for the doorway to leave.

In a way she didn’t want to leave. This didn’t feel finished, it felt wrong. The island world seemed to agree with her, as time passed on without note. The sun stayed stuck above her, and her thirst eventually drove her to drink from the water, far from the scene of Thunder Hammer’s death.

Her thoughts wandered in odd directions. He had really been a royal guard, hadn’t he? She could probably go home and look him up at the library in Canterlot. A knight who had died a long, long time ago. The feeling of knowing that his death was likely never explained, that made her more contemplative.

Ember curled up beneath a tree after searching for quite a while, and she slept. In her dreams she imagined her mate. Her perfect mate. They would take her up in their magic and hold her close. Unable to move but cradled close, they would protect her yet do with her whatever they wanted. It would be perfect in her own twisted, sick little way. Ember knew that she was sick. A pony couldn’t beg to be pinned down and choked and not know there was something wrong with her.

Waking, Ember found herself napping within a short jog of a glowing doorway. She must have simply missed it in her sleep deprived state. Well, maybe being well rested would help her in her fight against her next opponent.

With a sigh and the squaring of her shoulders, Ember stepped through the doorway and out of the world of the lodestone locks.