Celestia's Academy for Protectors

Anja watched the landing, rolling her eyes as she darted between the target dummies and students, occasionally tearing the leg from one, or the head from another. Eventually, she darted from the melee proper, leaping into the air, and landing lightly as a pony. Dusting herself off, she walked towards the groups emerging from the airship, blowing the head off of a previously untouched dummy with her crossbow, eyes never leaving the airship.

Sunny rolled her eyes as the show-off students were greeted by the battle-hungry visitors. "That's just what happens when make yourself seem like an inviting challenge. Bet those visitors aren't even first-years either." She said to herself. Rather than get creamed by the foreigners, Sunny would much rather improve her stance with this old estoc. "I think I'm getting the hang of this thing. Hmmm..." She paused, looking at her sword. "Maybe you could use an upgrade... Yeah, I'll talk to her again first chance I get."

Viridian watches as the astonishingly agile blur of equine comes rushing through the demonstration field and sets her expression on "I'm surrounded by idiots" while she polishes off her portion of that demonstration, ending with the explosive finish. When the towering mare leaps over her and comes to a thunderous landing a few yards behind, Viridian registers no reaction to the fact that she's been effectively flanked by someone visibly much, much larger than her. Instead, she calmly reloads and reverts her rifle back into its melee mode before pushing herself to her feet, dusting herself off (quite unnecessarily) before she turns around to look at the mare, leaning heavily on her polearm. Naturally, Viridian's own height means that with the mare towering over her, she finds herself looking at a navel with the tight muscle of a very physical fighter rippling around it.

So Viridian tilts her head upwards. And then up some more. And then more on top of that until she is seeing the exuberant redhead's face above a rack of truly epic proportions, even adjusting for the other mare's larger scale. With looks like that, practically oozing fertility and health, I'm a little surprised at the lack of baby bump. "Most assuredly," she says to the redhead. "If I didn't want to fight, I wouldn't be going to a school teaching fighting techniques and training me to hunt Grimm. But I take it that you're asking if I'd like to fight against you, and the answer to that is that I do not want to. That might well be a fair fight, and it's never good to get into a fair fight if you want to win." She smiles at the mare and reaches up with a hand. "I'm Viridian Rain. May I ask you name?"

A figure lingered by the ramp as the giant equines made their way into thee training ground, standing apart quite literally from the crowd as she seemed to be the only departing member of the airship to be alone; the mare had a deep purple coat and a large, pink mane styled up into a mohawk style, her coat complimented by the armor she wore, a full plate attire comprised of dark purple and pitch black steel melting together as seamlessly as stars in the night sky.

The armored mare also walked over to Docile storm and staged a brief discussion with the teacher; Docile Storm frowned at the first words from the mouth of the newcomer but soon was back to his relaxed, friendly demeanor and shook hands with her, directing her towards the training pit too. The armored mare swept her eyes across the entire training pit, slowly studying and making notes of every combatant in the pit before they swept back across the pit and settled on Anja. It was the first time her eyes had been facing the group since she had arrived and immediately they stood out vividly; while her left eye was normal looking, a pale blue iris glaring down, her right eye could not have been more different, a pit of black with a small, glowing green pupil staring out from it, as if her socket were empty and a single light emanated from the depths.

"Curious..." She spoke rather softly for her appearance as she approached Anja. "I have never seen a semblance quite like that before. How... interesting." She remarked as she strolled up to Anja. "Your name?" She asked, without any indication of giving her own.


Razor Back turned to the face the imposing figure who had jumped down to the pit and walked up to her, leaving behind the brutalised remains of he dummy she had been decimating in a variety of inventive ways ever since they had been told to start.

"Uhh... guessing you're one of the visiting schools yeah?" Razor shrugged. "Eh, why the hell not? Odds are we'll meet up in the tournament anyway. Name's Razor Back."

As she reloaded her crossbow, Anja's eyes never left the airship, locked on the figure that waited there. She was familiar, to say the least, though she could not for the life of her place where. All the same, she cut an intriguing figure. It was, after all, unusual to find someone wearing full plate armour, when they had their aura to protect themselves.

"With all respect, you are interesting yourself. Few wear plate this day, and fewer still have eyes as entrancing as yours," she said, giving a small curtsy. "My name is Trompe L'oeil, a pleasure to meet you, miss..." she trailed off, hoping she would fill in the blank.

The mare gave a slow blink that left her eyes even more lidded than before. Nothing about it implied disinterest: in fact, it somehow had the opposite effect. "Illusionist." she said after a moment. "And a name of Cassidian origin, but no hint of it in your appearance or demeanor." Equally interesting...

"...Fizzle Pop." she answered eventually. Her eyes hadn't yet left the mare, didn't seem to concern themselves with the idea. "I find it foolish to rely on Aura alone, and many Protectors have suffered for that folly. Aura and armor in tandem can and have saved lives, even if the armor is 'kinda heavy'." That last part was said a few octaves too high, as if she were quoting somepony else's frivolous stupidity. It was also the first time in the entire conversation that Fizzle Pop had taken her eyes off of Anja, to roll her own in disdain.

The redhead glared down at Viridian for a minute. Her ears twitched and swivelled in response to both external and internal noise, and her eyes occasionally glanced away in hard thought. Her posture, though, remained taut and wary, showing where a good half of that processing power remained.

And then the mare grinned. Chuckled. Evidently, she’d liked something that Viridian had said.

“Rosier de Guerre.” she introduced herself in her thick accent. She looked down at Virdian’s hand and her jovial smile was quickly replaced by a wary stare. But a quick look up (well, what constituted “up” for a horse looking at a pony) to Viridian’s face, a once-over of her body, and the smile returned, noticeably self-assured. She shook her hand, very briefly.

“If you won’t fight,” Victoria shrugged. “I’ll find someone else.” She took off like a shot, one hoof kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake and the other already starting her gallop back into the arena.

---

“The dragon that so generously donated his scales to my great-grandparents no longer has opinions on the matter.” She did not shake Wild’s hand, and left it up to him to guess why. “Shall we fly, then? Or have you been instructed to remain on the ground?”

---

“Argenta.” the hooded mare softly responded. She swung her arm up, and the rectangular device instantly unfolded into a long pole of mechanical parts easily as tall as herself, the top snapping into a horizontal position to reveal a crescent-shaped blade engraved with runes and Dust channels. “Ready?”

---

Admittedly, Rosier’s expectations of the ponies had so far been exceeded. Not greatly, mind: most of them exercised one or maybe three attacks, those (or most of those) who chose to use weapons instead of magic displayed a severe lack of proficiency, and their armor…

That was not armor. That was dress-up.

(Granted, her team didn’t look much better, but they used protective runes! Protective runes were in, and for good reason!)

Regardless, there were more potentially worthy sparring partners than she had anticipated. At least a couple more. But one of them didn’t want to fight her (her blunt pragmatism had been quite a shock, and not nearly an unwelcome one), and Rosier wasn’t even sure there was another one. She might have to settle.

She looked around for any and all ponies she could find as she galloped through the straw wreckage and dodged the countless magical attacks. One, a little unicorn in actual, proper armor, was tearing through the straw opponents like a blind madmare; Rosier put her at the bottom of the list. Another unicorn, tall and dark and hooded like Argenta, was performing a controlled incineration of her ground-level enemies while leaving the straw innocents untouched; Rosier placed her a little above the madmare, a potential partner but also a potentially one-note pain in the ass. Yet another unicorn, fiery inside and out but taken by Victoria; she spitefully dismissed the pony as likely a kettle to their pot of a leader. Another unicorn (they weren’t kidding about Canterlot, were they?), visibly the weakest pony here, potentially the weakest pony in the entire Academy; she hadn’t thought she’d place anypony below the madmare. A yellow pegasus half-heartedly beating a single straw opponent with an extremely standard weapon; sadly, the pegasus was highest on the list so far, making it all the way to the middle. The dark pegasus was taken, the thestral, while she hadn’t looked terribly interesting anyway, was taken, the bunny-eared pegasus was busy speaking with that weird earth pony, the kelpies were out of reach and a little too enthusiastic in their displays to safely approach…

Rosier landed in front of Sunshine, behind her dummy. “Duel?” she asked.

Wild Card spun his sword around idly before shrugging, "Well I more meant the dragons in the ship you all arrived in. I know I wouldn't feel too great being near someone who was wearing pony skin... ugh... I just thought about pony skin clothing, not good. Ew. Why?" The pegasus visibly shuddered at the thought before shaking his head and standing straight again. "Anyway, interesting to hear that it's an heirloom. That normally means it's a proud thing to be wearing, and that family is backing you in your endeavours."

Wild then chuckled, "Apologies. I get quite talkative with new folk, especially interesting sorts, but yes, we are to be fighting. Talking can happen later. Anyway, I didn't think fighting had to be exclusively in one place or the other. Start on ground, head to sky, vice versa, or perhaps one and not the other. We'll see where our fight takes us, but not outside this crater. That'll be our boundary." He said, continuing to stand rather casually and make no sign whatsoever that he'd be making the first move.

Anja gave a gentle shrug, her armour rippling with the movement. "My parents were odd. Circus folk often are," she regarded the mare with an equal interest. A memory twinkled, but she could not place where she had seen the mare. She shook the memory away, instead returning her focus to Fizzle. "Armour is always heavy. Better it takes a sword than I," she smirked at the octave rise. "And armour isn't like, totally pretty. It clashes with like, everything."

Sunny had been content to stand back and watch the others duel while she stood back and looked like an unappealing target. It was a good idea, a way to judge how others fought. So it came as a bit of a surprise to see that the large mare that originally challenged Viridian was rejected, and had come to her instead. And boy, what a looker this one was. Sunny wasn’t sure if she belonged on the battlefield or in a brothel. Unfortunately for sweet little Sunny, her plan to stand back was thwarted as she was challenged. She could turn it down of course, but where’s the fun in that?

I suppose I’ll make do with second-hand observations. “Very well, since you came all this way, I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to turn down a friendly duel. Fair warning though, I’m not very good with taking hits, so this should be over pretty quick.” She adjusted her stance and gestured to the mare with her estoc. “Challenger gets first move.”

Razor's fangs glinted in the morning sunlight as she grinned with a savage, predatory manner and unsheathed both her swords again. "Now you're speaking my language. Well, one of my languages, but the first one probably won't get you very far on the battlefield... and generally involves less armor and toys of a different sort." Razor grinned wider, clanging her swords together at the word 'toys' before taking a combative stance and took several steps back.

"I'm sure I can find room to squeeze you in later and teach you all about it~" Razor purred, waiting on her opponent to make the first move, wings unfurled and ready to move.

Viridian nods to the stated intentions of the very well-stacked mare and watches as the real-life pin-up makes her way to Sunny and appears to be requesting a fight. Viridian, after glancing around a moment to make sure she isn't being observed and that her breaking her facade to appear like an actual normal person won't be noticed, grins a little. Poor Rosier... looks like she really wants an opponent but so far, I was too practical and Sunny, bless her glorious maid plot, will fold when Rosier looks at her funny. Speaking of Rosier, Viridian covertly slips a monocle out of her pack and uses it to enjoy all that's on display, and see how the Sunny/Rosier fight goes.

Blancheur looked like she was having to bite her tongue to not interrupt the pegasus' rambling but made up for her allowing him to ramble by pointedly ignoring his inquiry about dragons altogether and simply adopting a combative stance.

“Anyway, I didn't think fighting had to be exclusively in one place or the other. Start on-” Blancheur cut him off here with an attack, pointing her spear at him and shooting at him with a bolt of electricity, then charging at him, spear pointed straight at him. These foreign students were evidently not so honor bound as to be above trying to catch their opponents off guard like this.

--

Tempest smirks in genuine wry amusement at Anja’s joke. It didn’t last long, though, and she turned to observe the ponies in the pit. Sunset had Victoria hanging upside down, weapon just out of reach, and was shaking her vigorously and looking very smug about it. Fantasy had found her rhythm and was making good jumps now, though she had clearly gotten bored as she was now starting to go under, through, and hopping from one hurdle to another. Nox and Shining had stopped to apparently give advice/have a heart-to-heart. Tempest’s eyes widened, then narrowed, as she spotted the kelpies with the scars in their chests. “Trompe,” Tempest said, her voice dangerously soft. “Do you recognize those creatures? The aquatic ones, with the scars above their buxoms.”
--

Rosier smiled at the smaller pegasus. "You are a humble one, strangely dressed servant girl warrior... I hope it serves you well but perhaps you should be more confident." She said, sounding genuinely encouraging enough compared to her cohorts as she otherwise mirrored most of her fellows and took a defensive stance, beginning to circle the yellow pegasus and look for a a weakness in her reactions while waiting on tender hooks to receive the first strike.

--

Razor could see Argenta's expression shift into a scowl as she took up a defensive stance, waiting for the thestral to strike first and probably looking to leave her with a few lumps after the flirting that she didn't seem to appreciate. That was fine by Razor... after all, what sort of thestral would she be if she didn't like to play a little rough?

"Aww, don't worry... lots of people are nervous on their first time." With a laugh at the snarl she produced from Argenta at that remark Razor spread her wings and zoomed towards her larger opponent, blades flashing from their scabbards as they immediately began a frantic scramble of back and forth blows, sending dirt and remnants of dummies flying as they battled.


--

Victoria let out a grunt as she was flung backwards into the dirt, her weapon falling into her lap not far behind her as she sat up, glaring at the orange unicorn who looked quite pleased with herself.

“Round two?” Sunset asks smugly, hand on her hip.

Victoria took a moment to regain a sense of up and down, then scowled at Sunset. “You did not win!” she objected, indignation and embarassment clear in her voice. “You did not defeat me!”

Wild Card immediately and, rather uncannily, bent backwards to avoid the lightning bolt aimed at him, spreading his wings to stop his fall and pushing himself back up with a shotgun blast behind him, sending him spinning into the air. With another shotgun blast, this time aimed at the larger pegasus, Wild is sent further away from his opponent and lands on his hooves. "Now that's not very nice," he said, adopting more of a crouched stance.

"However, I won't hold it against you, I was prattling on a bit there, my mistake. But come on, this is fun, and I'm not even dizzy." Wild said cheerfully as he aimed the pistol in his sword at the other pegasus and fired shot after shot while walking backwards, not actually believing it would do much but the pressure of being shot at would hopefully elicit some reaction, and he was mentally preparing himself for whatever came next. Ultimately, Wild was planning a more defensive approach to the duel... at least for the beginning.

Anja hummed, her eyes following Tempest's to the sirens, giving a slight nod to her. "Would be lying if I said that I did not, but they have yet to do anything I would consider anything outright suspicious." She hummed, tapping a hoof, before looking back to Tempest. "I suppose we are supposed to fight now? Though I am more partial to a conversation with someone like you than a fight. All the same, en garde?"