All Amaryllis had experienced of Thiemo’s fight were the few emotions that she could catch after the shield around the field had fallen. Joy, excitement, but also pain. All in all, it looked like he had won. She would know more later, just like the other contestants, once today’s fights were over. No one was allowed to see the fights of the others in order for them to avoid learning their tricks. A simple rule, but everyone seemed to break it a bit.

Thiemo had once said that rules are there to be bent, not broken. If no one stuck to rules, then the world would fall into anarchy, something that no one wanted. No, you should bend them to your advantage. It was the complete opposite of what her mother, Chrysalis, had taught her. She said that rules were created by weak creatures to hold back the strong ones. Something she had learned in her time with the human, however, was that the weak ones also were a force to be reckoned with, simply by their encounter with the Elements. Not that the six mares were weak, but Thiemo had thought so. And indeed, in the beginning his chances had been good, only to then easily be overwhelmed by their combined power. Even the maxim of the humans in the cave had said so.

Of course she had thought about how she could see the fights. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten an idea yet. “Princess, you are up,” the voice of a pony came through the door.

The room she was in was small. A table, a seating cushion, and a small wardrobe for potential clothes and weapons, that was all. “I’m coming!” she shouted back and took a deep breath. Quickly, she went through everything her father had taught her, then nodded. “I can do this,” she said to herself.

She gulped and gathered all her courage before stepping outside. Just like the arena would be later, the hallway towards it was shielded from the voices of the spectators and announcer. Right now, though, the applause of thousands was roaring at her, together with the voice of the announcer. “And here is the first fighter of the second round! I don’t think I have to introduce our newest princess anymore, for her Majesty Mi Amore Cadenza has done that already. So I may proudly present to you the newest princess of the Crystal Empire, Amaryllis, Princess of Emotions!”

With her mouth slightly ajar, she stared into the crowd a second time. Again it was like her body had grown ten times heavier, but now she actively fought against it and slowly stepped into the middle.

“And here is her opponent! He escaped the distant isle of Ti a long time ago and for years has been a citizen of our beautiful Empire. At day a simple bank employee, but at night he transforms into a fighter. I present the second human we have in the tournament this year: Jason!”

Amaryllis’ eyes shot towards the other entrance where, as Loudmouth had correctly stated, a human stepped out of the dark passage and into the light of the grounds, also accompanied by cheers. She had seen a few humans while wandering through the streets of the Empire with Thiemo. He was tall, even taller than Thiemo, and maybe even taller than Celestia. On his head rested short, messy, black hair. His torso was wide from what she could see. His cold eyes locked onto hers from his angular face. In his right hand was a long blade that didn’t seem to have a handle or a cross guard. A hose connected the strange-looking swords with a large metal bottle on his back.

Unlike most humans, he was dressed similarly to Thiemo. He had black gloves made out of a strangely sparkling material, armour that seemed to be made out of solid textiles, as well with fitting pants and boots. As he slowly marched into the middle of the arena as well, the princess could see that something was dripping down from the sword. Her first thought was poison.

Loudmouth began to herald the start of their round, but neither of them were listening. The human had taken a strange stance. Both hands were around the handle of his sword that he held directly next to his head, the point pointed at her. “Give up and I won’t make such a big mess out of you, little princess.” His voice was deep and completely different than the rather high and happy one of her coltfriend. And he didn’t just sound confident, he seemed to feel it too. His whole being was focused on her, and to her horror, she realized that she didn’t have access to his emotions. Quickly, she remembered that Thiemo always let her in. Jason didn’t do that.

Then the sound died, much too fast for the princess to recover from the shock. The human charged forward, pulled away both her forelegs with one of his legs, grabbed on while she fell over, and threw her with all his force over the ground. She landed hard on the side, directly on one of her wings. She winced as she felt the membranes take damage from the sand.

She calmed her spirit again and forced herself to concentrate on the fight. However, the last opponents she couldn’t read the emotions of were the robots in the cave, and without Thiemo’s intervention, they would have almost killed her. She just wasn’t used to that.

When she opened her eyes again, the human was already charging towards her again, but this time she reacted in time and fired her first magical missiles into his direction. He stopped his attack to dodge and quickly jumped a few steps back. Amaryllis used to the time to get back on her legs. The goal of his attack was clear. Since she wasn’t using a weapon, she was allowed to fly. A place where the human couldn’t reach her with his sword, as she realized now. So she unfolded her wings and prepared to fly in the air.

“No you don’t!” the human shouted, again running towards her. A clicking sound could be heard, and she suddenly realized what the content of the large bottle on her opponent’s back was: oil. The clicking were two firestones that ignited it and now a burning sword was being swung at her. The loose oil was squirted off the blade into her direction and connected with its target. Holes burned into her wings, and faster than she liked, she met the ground. She screamed as not just her wings but also parts of her coat began to burn, her skin being scorched as well. Her natural healing kicked in immediately, consuming the love in her, but that didn’t dim the initial pain. The healing would also sap her strength.

The weakness of any combat mage was to not having enough time to cast your spells as Shining Armor had often told her. Now she knew what he meant.

Amaryllis managed to soften her fall, as she hadn’t gone very far up yet, and fired two simple magic missiles at her opponent. He was now moving again directly towards her. He ducked underneath the missiles and swung his sword again. Again the oil that came from the bottle disconnected from the sword and flew in her direction. She averted her face reflexively. The smell of burnt mane filled her nostrils. She couldn’t take another hit like that.

Angrily and full of pain, she screamed and erected a barrier. Jason reacted immediately, braced himself with a foot against it, did a summersault, and slid a few metres back. Amaryllis used the pause to take a deep breath and began to prepare her next spell. The human seemed unimpressed by the barrier and began to run around it, leaving behind a trail of oil.

As the first magical sphere formed outside of the barrier, she realized what Jason had done. The fire, which was burning around her, heated up the air, blurring her sight. She had a cannon now but couldn’t aim. However, that didn’t stop her from trying. She moved the sphere behind her opponent and began to bombard him. The first few shots hit their target, the back and the bottle of the human, but then he began to move again, noticing the source of the attacks. He couldn’t see the sphere, just like her, but the missiles had a clear origin. It had been relatively easy to hit a standing target, even with the disturbance of the flames, but the movement made it impossible. She couldn’t tell precisely how far away he was.

Immediately she began to form a second sphere, but something kept her from doing so. The air in the barrier was getting warm and stuffy. She didn’t have much time. Sooner or later she would have to drop the barrier to get some air. And even then it would still be a problem, as the fire around her was devouring all the oxygen.

Thiemo slowly regained consciousness. A numb feeling through his whole body was the first thing he noticed. Then the two small hooves that were lightly pressing into his side. His head fell to the side like a stone where he met the wide, grinning face of his daughter. “You’re awake!” she screamed excitedly and jumped on her hind legs. He just grinned weakly at her and began to inspect his surroundings. More beds stood behind Auralia in the crystalline room. Windows let warm sunlight fall into the room which otherwise looked sterile. An infirmary then.

“Water?” he gasped and coughed a bit.

“Oh, mom went to get some.” And just as if fate had decreed it, the door opened in that moment and Applejack, followed by Meena, entered the room, on her back a plate with water and glasses.

“Ah, I see our patient has woken up. You gave your daughter a real scare,” the doctor said with a grin and closed the door. Thiemo was too busy staring at the glass of water than taking it. Only when Applejack handed it wordlessly to him did he notice that his right hand was bandaged.

Quickly he changed to his left and downed the glass in a few, large gulps. “What happened?”

“The short or long version?” the doctor asked.

“The short one should be enough.” Meena stepped aside and let Applejack talk.

“Ah, well. The jaw of that diamond dog and the club were both harder than ya hand. Ya somehow… forced ya way through it?” Seeking help, she looked up at Meena. “She said that ya were lucky that ya only broke some fingers, not your wrist.” Thiemo was about to ask a question, but then he remembered where he was. Magic was, of course, the answer. What else? He had felt once already what healing magic could do.

“How long was I out?”

“Not long.” The doctor took over again. “Fifteen minutes maybe. You just really needed some rest since you overstretched your magical reserves. I don’t think I need to tell you that they are like a muscle. Physically you might be able to do more, but when it comes to magic, a unicorn filly would beat you right now in terms of stamina.”

Thiemo just nodded and tried to sit up. “So Amaryllis’ fight isn’t over yet? She was up after me, right?”

“Yeah, but…” Applejack began.

“But according to the rules, you are not allowed to leave this room,” Meena finished the sentence. “You know, to not spy on the other contestants. You had enough time for that during the preliminaries.” To not look stupid, he just kept his mouth shut, but his will to leave this room remained. Thiemo’s eyes wandered over to Auralia, who was browsing through some files on the little desk that was probably for the dear Miss Doctor. They both looked at each other, and after a short moment, Thiemo pointed over to the window. His daughter nodded and began quietly, at least as quiet as a pony on crystal floor could, to sneak across the room.

He got ready to start running as soon as the first breeze came through the open window to blow the documents and create the distraction that he’d need. So he was completely confused when she just shut the curtains. She was just a filly. He needed a new plan.

“Where did I leave…?” Meena’s voice drew the attention of Applejack and him on the doctor. She had bent underneath the desk and clearly seemed to be searching for something. There was plan B. As quietly as he could, the human got out of the bed and began to sneak across the room. Applejack followed him with a stern look, which he just returned with a smile. Then he disappeared through the door.

She had erected three spheres, her current limit. However, she needed air and soon. Amaryllis was already feeling dizzy, and her lungs were burning like the fire outside of the barrier. She was used to heat, but paired with the lack of air, it wasn’t really helping her current situation. Every once in a while she would fire a shot out of one of the spheres, but Jason managed to dodge each single one of them. It surely wasn’t that hard given that her view was so limited.

She had to get out of here quickly. She could, of course, shapeshift as soon as the barrier fell, but into what? A buffalo would be easy, especially since she had more than enough time to study their anatomy in the Broken Leylands. A pony wouldn’t be a problem either, but she didn’t have many other options….

In that moment, she noticed the two gigantic dragons who sat on the edge of the stadium like birds on a line. Without further ado, she decided to give it a shot. Amaryllis prepared to lower her barrier, knowing exactly how little time she would have before Jason would strike after her again. Still, the barrier fell. Heat, warmer than she had expected, overwhelmed her, and the last bit of air that had remained in the barrier just stoked the fire further. She couldn’t concentrate. Her hooves tried to find an escape, and her flight instinct overwhelmed her thoughts. Instead of a dragon, she turned into a bird and quickly rose into the air. Just after she left the fire circle, she turned back into a changeling princess who tried to gulp as much air in her lungs as possible.

Just as the oxygen circulated through her body again, she knew that she had to prepare for her opponent’s next blow. After all, he had waited for almost ten minutes for it. But nothing came. The human stood a bit to the side and stared with wide eyes over at her. No, not at her, past her. Her head turned to the back as well, where the hallway that had brought her to the fields was. However, it wasn’t empty as she had expected, for another human stood there and held a finger to his grinning lips, a sign to motion her to stay quiet. And all she could think about was how stupid she had been to not think about how few guards there were. She could have just transformed into any pony to spectate. Her coltfriend just stood there as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and no one seemed to bother.

No one except the other human, who stood there as though rooted. Amaryllis looked back at her opponent, who still stared at Thiemo as if he had seen a ghost. In her mind, she debated whether it was fair to attack him in this state. It didn’t go longer than half a second. All three spheres opened fire on the petrified Jason. The first barrage threw him to the ground, and then the rest hailed down at him. Out of fear of a serious injury that could see her be disqualified, she ceased fire a few moments later.

Jason lay on the ground, his bottle bent and leaking, the fire at his sword having died in the sand. The human jerked up and took a combative stance as before, with the sword at the height of his waist, again pointed at Amaryllis. One hand wandered to the belt that held the oil to his body, and the bottle fell into the sand, now useless with the hole in it.

Again her opponent attacked, now a bit faster without the weight on his back. The princess didn’t need long until she fired from all sides. The missile from her horn hit its target directly into the chest, while the next from the first sphere hit the shoulder. The human was stopped in his movements and went to the ground again. However, this time he remained there, shook his head, and slowly rose again, but this time without his sword. He held both arms above his head so that they crossed.

“I yield!” he shouted as loudly as he could. Amaryllis, who was about to fire again, blinked in confusion. The barrier around the arena vanished, the cheers drowning out all her thoughts and even the voice of Loudmouth, who had probably announced her victory. All the while, she could only wonder why her opponent had given up.

“There’s something fishy about this,” Shining muttered.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked curiously. “Amaryllis had the control over the field, and the weapon of the human was destroyed. He couldn’t have won.”

“You lack the experience, Twily, but this Jason, whatever he is doing now, was or is a trained fighter. He dodged all of Amaryllis’ missiles and always kept the approximate position of where the spheres last fired in his mind. Someone who learned to do that isn’t a banker.”

“And what he did to her in the beginning,” Rainbow threw in. “That was an attack specifically against flying opponents. We learned to dodge attacks like that at the Wonderbolts so that our wings wouldn’t get damaged.”

“What do you think, Cadance?” Shining turned at his wife.

“He hurt my poor baby!” Well, what else did he expect? “Her beautiful coat, it will take weeks to grow back. And we will have to cut her mane…”

“Miss Peel, you are up.”

“Finally!” Eris exclaimed, already bored to death. It wasn’t like the two fights she had been watching through her crystal ball hadn’t been entertaining, but she wanted a bit of action herself. She had jumped up so quickly that she had almost forgotten to transform into a pony before opening the door. “About time,” she said to the red shimmering mare and began to follow her. For about three seconds, then she sprinted past her into the fields. “Yeah, yeah, I know I’m great! Thank you, thank you, you are far too kind!” She bowed and sprinted towards the middle.

“And there we have our first contestant. From our beautiful neighbouring country Equestria, here comes Banana Peel the Mysterious!” The announcer announced. “Really, that’s all I have on my sheet. But reliable sources have told me that she scored the maximum number of point in each preliminary match, so don’t get fooled by her cute and innocent look!” Eris could only grin.

“And here is the second contestant for round three. He travelled here from the distant Zebraica. We have Zende, youngest son of the chieftain of his village. The fact that he is standing here today already means that he has defeated every other warrior in his village. So let me hear it for such an outstanding young warrior!” Loudmouth paused to give the audience time to cheer, more than Eris would have liked.

“I hope that both contestants are ready. I know that I am!” A pause. “Soooooo fight!”

The zebra charged forward, and Eris decided to give her opponent a closer look. He was a bit taller than the average pony, but that could also be because of his mohawk. His colours were the usual boring black and white of all zebras. Around his chest, he wore a belt that contained smaller arrows, probably filled with various mixtures. A blowpipe hung around an extra belt, also at his neck. Hold on, maybe she should react. The zebra was directly in front of her and would hit her if she just stood there.

Suddenly, and without warning, she slipped on the loose sand, her hind legs shooting in the air, giving Zende an uppercut. “Sorry my dear,” she said with a giggle.

Her opponent stumbled backwards, and Eris used the time to inspect him again. He was muscular, as she noticed now that he was so close. And now that she was so low, he seemed to be well built elsewhere too. Too bad she was in some kind of relationship now. She liked Fluttershy too much to try anything. Although…

Ah, there he was again, trying again to grab her while she was still lying on the ground. “How rude,” she mumbled and pushed him with a bit of magic away. “Did no one ever teach you manners?” The warrior didn't reply but instead grabbed for the blowpipe and loaded an arrow into it. Eris couldn’t even blink before it stuck in her chest already. “Oh dear me!” she shouted and spun around on the spot before she collapsed. Confused, Zende checked if he had used the right ammunition and didn’t notice that the brown mare vanish in a quiet puff.

Only when a hoof jabbed him did he spin around and promptly slammed his face into Eris’ outstretched hoof. “What are you doing there?” She shook her head, pulled the zebra back on the legs, above her head and a few metres through the air. “Oh, I’m just so clumsy today.” The look that Zende threw at her told Eris that he had now realized that she was playing with him. Too bad, she thought she could play a bit longer.

The stallion had just loaded multiple darts into his blowpipe and took it into his mouth before running towards Eris. She just stood on her hind legs and almost danced as she dodged one after another. The last one was aimed at her muzzle, so she bent herself backwards as far as she could, her head almost touching the ground again. During the entire sequence, she was waving around with her forehooves to keep her balance. Zende, now directly in front of her, lunged out again, but Eris could no longer keep herself upright, this time literally. Really. She fell backwards, hooking her legs to her opponent’s chin and threw him through the air. This time, however, he didn’t land in the arena, but instead on the tribunes between some spectators. “Oops!” she just said and looked at her work. “That was an accident!” she shouted towards the poor, scared spectators.

The warrior was standing back up, but the field around the arena lowered and Loudmouth began to announce her victory. And she had such a nice plan. These mortals always had to have it their way.

Author's Notes:

And now remember that all of this was supposed to be in the last chapter. I read through the comments and noticed that some think they know how this will end. There even was a speculation that Auralia will go Son Goku on this tournament as in the original Dragonball. Well, nope. I think you will be surprised in the end.

Also, I wrote an semi important blog entry. You might want to check it out. [Beware little of spoiler]: Click me hard

Maybe we have it the big 1000 next week, who knows. Would make a very happy man ^^

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.

And give this story a try too:
Twilight's World