Twilight was nervous. FURIOUS ALSO! But mostly nervous. Her and Sunset Shimmer were surrounded by what appeared to be six large werewolves, and Sunset had led them right into this situation on purpose. Twilight could only assume it was out of some twisted desire to force Twilight into a situation where she would need to steal magic from monsters, but Twilight hated that idea more than anything.

She would find another way out of this. She would have to.

“Well, what’re you all waiting for?” Sunset stepped forward confidently and threw her hands out to her sides. “Are you gonna attack or—”

“Hey, don’t listen to her!” Twilight jumped in front of Sunset, pushing Sunset back with her hoof. “You don’t want to have any business with us, trust me. We taste real bad, and we smell awful and—”

It suddenly occurred to Twilight that she didn’t know a lot about what monsters wanted or valued; nopony on the surface took any time to question why the monsters were attacking them or stealing souls.

Except Twilight, but most of her attempts to converse with monsters on the surface ended with her being tossed in the ocean or locked in a trunk or tied to a tree or… well anyway, they weren’t terribly successful at gathering information.

That said, Twilight’s conversations with Sunset had yielded a little bit of information at least.

“We don’t have any magic,” Twilight said matter-of-factly. “At least, I certainly don’t.”

One of the werewolves clambered forward; a giant wall of muscle covered in red fur, she towered over the other wolves, let alone Twilight and Sunset. Her mane of golden hair covered most of her face, but Twilight could still make out her stern features. There was something about her that was instantly endearing to Twilight, despite the threat she posed. Twilight felt a kinship, she supposed.

The wolf pointed a single claw in Twilight’s direction, and while Twilight was tempted to shrink away and hide behind Sunset, she instead took a step forward, interpreting the wolf’s gesture as some kind of invitation.

“You sure about that?” Sunset snarked, but Twilight didn’t even turn to look at her, instead standing in front of the giant woman, her claw inches from Twilight’s face.

“Orchard Blossom, you’re challenging her to a duel?” a green-furred woman with red pigtails said.

The giant wolf nodded slowly; her gaze, shadowed as it was by her mane, never leaving Twilight.

“Why?” a blue-furred woman with a long blonde mane scoffed. “We can just beat them both up and take ‘em.”

Sunset audibly laughed at that comment, but thankfully kept her mouth shut otherwise, and none of the wolves pressed her on her interruption. Although actually, Twilight for once could really use her help.

“Sunset?” Twilight asked, looking back ever so slightly to catch Sunset in her peripherals without letting her gaze entirely leave Orchard Blossom. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“She’s challenging you to a duel,” Sunset said, arms crossed and smiling smugly. “It’s a thing weaker bands do when they don’t think they can take on an enemy. Basically, two members fight one-on-one, no interruptions, and not to the death. The loser becomes a member of their opponent’s band, whether they like it or not.”

“So it’s a way to reduce unnecessary bloodshed,” Twilight said, and a chorus of laughter resounded around her as her cheeks flared bright red.

“It’s a way for the other members of the band to conserve magic,” Sunset explained. “Or to get rid of members of your own band that are dragging the band down. There’s a bunch of reasons why people agree to it, but the point is…

“I won’t be able to help you out of this. If you agree to this duel and lose, you belong to them now.”

What were her options here? Say no and let Sunset either murder these werewolves or possibly the both of them get killed instead? This way it would be a simple one-on-one fight, and if Sunset Shimmer was so confident she could take six of these wolves, Twilight could be certain that she could handle one of them.

“Alright, Orchard Blossom,” Twilight said, locking eyes with Orchard. “I accept your duel.”

The arena for Twilight’s duel with Orchard Blossom was incredibly similar to her battle with Sunset, in fact. Though to Twilight so much of this hellhole looked the same, so maybe that was just it. Either way, a circular stone arena surrounded by small cliffs with many a stone archway all around them.

The wolves were watching from behind the arches, all looking prepared to pounce if need be. Even monsters couldn’t let down their guard in the Underworld, it seemed. Sitting atop one of the arches was a very amused looking Sunset Shimmer.

Twilight had no idea what Sunset would do if Twilight lost this duel; she hardly took Sunset as the type to lose something valuable to her without a fight, but the last thing Twilight wanted right now was to find out.

Twilight would simply have to win, and that was that on that.

Orchard Blossom clenched her fist and with a few crackling bolts of magic, she was surrounded by two ornate statues. They were both female werewolves, one a ferocious and confident looking older woman, the other an equally tenacious looking young girl.

First thing that Twilight noticed: her opponent was using pretty basic Terramancy, magic that controlled rocks and crystals and other such earthy things. Summoning statues to either do the Terramancer’s bidding or provided passive beneficial effects was as standard as it got for most Terramancers, but from that simple shell was an ocean of possibility, and Twilight was lowkey excited to see what this woman had in store.

It also made her melancholy, thinking of her friends. Terramancy wasn’t a particularly popular school of magic, but Twilight was friends with no less than three absolutely brilliant practitioners of it. They always joked that they were the only ones who used it, and Twilight couldn’t help but wonder how they would feel about Orchard’s magic.

Anyway, Twilight needed to focus. The statue of the little girl was siphoning magic out of the ground; a barely visible night blue aura seeping out of the ground and becoming blood red as it was absorbed into the statue. It was the exact kind of magic Sunset had warned her about. It was faint, but Twilight could also see a vague honeycomb pattern emanating from the air around the old woman’s statue; a shield, most likely.

Hm. An interesting strategy for sure, but was her combat style all defense, or was she ramping up to something bigger? Twilight didn’t really want to find out, so the sooner she broke through Orchard’s defenses and ended things, the better.

Twilight paced back and forth a moment, idly observing her opponent. She didn’t want to dally for too long, but she wanted to make sure she had ample information before moving in, and Orchard Blossom didn’t seem terribly interested in making the first move.

“You know,” Twilight said cheerfully, “if you let me analyze your technique for this long, I might find a weak spot.”

Orchard didn’t react. If she had even heard Twilight speak, she didn’t show it.

“Hey,” Sunset called out drolly from up on her perch, “maybe don’t give helpful advice out to your enemies like that.”

“She’s not my enemy,” Twilight corrected. “She’s my opponent. And besides that,” Twilight looked at Orchard and pointed her lance at the werewolf, “you’re going to need to get a bit more aggressive if you want to beat-” Twilight threw her lance, the weapon perfectly puncturing the air and making it behind Orchard through a hole in her shield, Twilight instantly warping behind her and reclaiming her lance “-me.”

Orchard Blossom was not terribly impressed by Twilight so seamlessly breaking through her technique, simply grabbing Twilight by the head and nearly smashing her face into one of the statues, but she stopped just short and simply threw Twilight away from her, Twilight hitting the ground and tumbling across the dirt and stone.

As Twilight got up, she saw Orchard moving her statues closer together, and closer to her own position; apparently she did on some level appreciate Twilight’s advice, and that made her smile.

Twilight took in a deep breath, placing her hands on her hips for one moment. Sunset was right of course, giving advice to her opponent may have cost Twilight this battle, especially since Orchard Blossom’s defenses were only going to get stronger the more magic her little girl statue absorbed. Twilight was on a ticking clock.

Still though, if given the opportunity to redo that moment, Twilight wouldn’t have done anything differently. A Paladin fights with honor, and in Twilight’s heart that honor extended to everyone, monster and pony alike.

Twilight took a deep breath and charged in; it wasn’t enough to test her opponent’s weaknesses, she needed to know her strengths too, and when Twilight’s lance collided with the honeycomb barrier that Orchard’s statue provided, and Twilight felt like her body had slammed into the side of a mountain as a shiver ran all the way through her, she got more than enough information on that front.

Twilight walked around the statue, which turned along with Orchard to face her as she walked. She clinked her lance against the barrier a few times, learning that it only hurt her if she collided into it with momentum.

“So,” Twilight said, examining the statues’ features a little more closely, “who are these statues of?”

Orchard Blossom said nothing. Frankly, she didn’t need to.

As Twilight looked at them more closely, even kneeling down to look at them as closely as she could, at the snarl on the older woman’s face, her arms clasped together in a protective spell as her statue cast its barrier, and at the grin on the young girl’s face as she sat perched, digging into the ground with her claws, Twilight recognized their features somewhat.

Or rather, she could see the familial resemblance to Orchard Blossom.

“Are they your family?” Twilight asked, and for the first time since Twilight had met her, she saw a flicker of emotion across Orchard’s face.

“Eeyup,” she said, and Twilight smiled. Her voice was quite deep, but Twilight felt it was quite beautiful.

“Are they…” Twilight paused for a second to consider her words. “Did they d—”

“Nope,” Orchard said sternly, and suddenly Twilight felt like she understood Orchard, like a puzzle she didn’t know she had been trying to solve all clicked into place.

“You’re fighting for them,” Twilight said solemnly, “aren’t you?”

Orchard Blossom nodded, her arms folded across her chest as she stood perfectly still, like she had for the entire battle. Her patience was nothing short of extraordinary, and admirable.

“I don’t know how yet,” Twilight said, steeling her resolve and gripping her lance and shield tightly, “but I’ll find a way to help you reunite with your family. I swear that, because that’s a Paladin’s duty, to help those she comes across.

“But I’m also fighting for the people I love, and I can’t back down.”

Orchard Blossom said nothing. Twilight didn’t expect her to.

“We’re similar in that respect,” Twilight said with a smirk. “We’re also similar—” Twilight bent down and picked two screwdrivers out of the claws of the young girl statue; two screwdrivers that were now full to bursting with the magical power that Twilight had been leeching out of the statue thanks to the spell she had crafted with them “—in that we put too much trust in our opponents!”

Orchard’s patience had backfired on her; she had no intention of rushing the battle to a conclusion so she hadn’t even noticed when Twilight had hacked into her stream of magical energy and started feeding on it herself while she was walking around the statues and inspecting them.

Twilight wound up her lance, gripping the screwdrivers tightly in her hand as Orchard gritted her teeth and prepared for what everyone could see was about to be a massive assault.

Twilight bore her lance directly into the honeycomb barrier, which sprang to life in order to defend Orchard, only to get shattered into splinters by Twilight’s lance and fade into nothing. Orchard’s defense had been destroyed, but the statue remained intact; Twilight wouldn’t dare to deface it.

Orchard jumped backwards as Twilight lunged at her with the lance, glowing purple and blue with magical energy as she thrust it toward the werewolf over and over, not in an attempt to gore her exactly, just enough that she was away from her statues, and therefore her defense; if Twilight could get her to surrender, that would be ideal.

Unfortunately, Twilight forgot a simple detail: Orchard Blossom was a giant of a woman, and she grabbed Twilight’s lance after one of her predictable strikes, yanking it toward the werewolf and forcing Twilight off balance before reeling back and laying Twilight out with a massive punch that made her head spin and sent her careening toward the ground.

Twilight rolled to the side quickly, and not a second too soon if the crater under Orchard’s clawed foot where Twilight’s head had just been was any indication. She was able to spring to her hooves fairly easily, only to be blindsided by another punch to her head.

“Twilight!” Sunset yelled, standing on top of the stone archway now and looking irate. “This isn’t some fairytale where battles are won by the power of your heart or whatever! This is a battle of skill and strength! So step up your damn game!”

“Eeyup,” Orchard added and cracked her knuckles, Twilight wobblingly backing away from the werewolf, who was raising her fists for another attack.

“You’re wrong,” Twilight whispered. She didn’t know if Sunset could hear her and frankly she didn’t care. “All battles are decided by what’s in a person’s heart, by the strength of their convictions! And that’s why a Paladin can never be defeated!”

Orchard shook her head and sighed. Her claw crackled with magical energy and before Twilight’s eyes another statue emerged. This one was not of a wolf, but of a lion; with an extravagant mane of fluffed hair and a kind smile on her face, her eyes looking gentle and serene at Twilight.

Twilight raised her shield to defend from Orchard’s punch, and Twilight could tell by the clang of her shield and the way her arm was bent nearly to snapping from trying to defend that if the blow had connected it would have taken her head clean off.

Twilight jumped away, and now Orchard was the one glowing with magical energy; orange and red mist pouring off of her new statue and into her body. It seemed likely that this one was making her already incredible strength even more formidable, and Twilight knew she wouldn’t have more than maybe one more opportunity to block before Orchard just ripped Twilight’s shield right off of her arm, and frankly maybe even taking the arm with it.

Orchard charged in and Twilight desperately blocked with her shield, wincing from the pain as she readied her lance and threw it over Orchard’s shoulder, the werewolf just grabbing the damn thing out of the air and Twilight clicked her tongue in frustration. It would have to do.

Twilight warped to the lance, landing on top of Orchard’s massive arm and kicking her right in the head. It did basically nothing, and Twilight sucked air in through her teeth.

Orchard grabbed Twilight by her leg and slammed her body hard against the statue of the lion, knocking all the wind out of her as her spine collided with the stone statue at a mortifying speed. Twilight was left gasping for breath on the ground as Orchard stepped over her, raising her clawed foot to stomp.

Twilight raised her shield, Orchard’s claw colliding with it and pressing it straight into the ground, blinking in disbelief as Twilight had disappeared, using her shield’s warping spell to appear on the other side of the shield, standing behind Orchard now and ready to counterattack.

Or rather, ready to get backhanded by Orchard, which is what happened instead and it sent Twilight reeling back as blood poured from her nose.

Twilight nearly lost her footing, but she stood her ground, and she warped her gear back into her hands.

Orchard clapped her hands for a moment before pointing to Twilight, then pointing her thumb down at the ground.

“This is your last chance to surrender, Twilight!” Sunset called out, still standing on top of the arch and tapping her foot against it irritably. “Before she knocks your lights out, anyway!”

“A Paladin doesn’t surrender!” Twilight called out, directing her lance at Sunset, and then at Orchard Blossom. “And she’ll always win in a battle of the heart!

“Listen up, everyone! I’m going to end this battle with one attack!”

Orchard Blossom chuckled into her hand, and it caused the rest of the werewolves present to laugh as well, Sunset burying her face in her hands. Orchard’s claws crackled with magic and the statue of the old lady returned to defend her, its honeycomb barrier now fully restored and empowered by the statue of the lioness.

“If you’re all so convinced that strength is what matters, then fine!” Twilight pulled out the second of her two screwdrivers and grasped it tightly, the magic flowing through her into her lance. “I’ll simply defeat you with overwhelming force!

“And if I can’t defeat you as I am, I’ll destroy the source of your powers,” Twilight aimed her lance right at the statue of the lioness. “The statues!”

Twilight fired off a powerful blast of magic energy, just like the one that ripped through Orchard’s shield before, and just like before it tore through the shield easily once again, but the statues remained unharmed, and now a new statue arose to defend them.

Twilight only had a moment to look at it, but it was by far the most impressive of them all; a confident and stunning muscular werewolf girl wearing what looked to be a well-worn and aged cowboy hat, a long mane of hair tied into a loose ponytail behind her.

It absorbed the magic of Twilight’s attack and fired it right back at where it came from, at where Twilight had been… but where she was no longer, as she had thrown the lance for her attack, and was now standing safely behind Orchard Blossom, who tuned slowly to see Twilight and the tip of her lance pointed at the werewolf’s throat.

“Surrender,” Twilight said.

Orchard shook her head and refused. Twilight sighed and brought her lance to bear, reeling it back to gore Orchard and go for a decisive blow; Twilight wasn’t exactly sure how to make Orchard surrender since this duel was supposed to not be life or death.

But it didn’t matter. Twilight stuck the tip of her lance into the ground and gave Orchard her hand instead.

“Then let’s consider this match a draw,” Twilight said with a smile.

Orchard Blossom blinked, but a cautious smile etched itself onto her lips as well as she took Twilight’s hand, shaking it politely and bowing her head before collapsing to the ground, her magic all but exhausted.

“The match is a draw!” Twilight announced to the crowd, the werewolves all looking warily at each other before clapping nervously.

“Booooo!” Sunset called out and sighed in bemusement, before jumping down into the arena and marching toward Twilight.

“What’d you think?” Twilight asked, feeling rather proud of herself.

“I think you should take her magic,” Sunset grumbled.

“Why?” Twilight giggled and teasingly patted Sunset’s shoulder, walking past her and flicking her tail at Sunset as she passed. “I clearly don’t even need it.”

i gotta say, while i personally think the episode that coined the name orchard blossom SUCKS ASS, that name is good as hell

If you enjoyed this chapter, please let me know by leaving a comment! I absolutely adore reading them!