Title: Cutie Clash - Tread Softly vs Double Cone Author: Panzermane Pastebin link: http://pastebin.com/pV3u5Dy5 First Edit: Monday 20th of July 2015 12:01:16 AM CDT Last Edit: Monday 20th of July 2015 12:01:16 AM CDT   Be Tread Softly (AKA “Treads”), mechanic, tank enthusiast... and Cutie Clasher...   You ease the plastic tanker's cap onto your head and slide the visor down into place, whereupon it locks with an audible click. You immediately note subtle splotches of grease on the visor from where the fringes of your mane brushed against it, which you hasten to wipe away.   Big match today. It's the third round of the tournament and all the fair-to-middling clashers, including the two you previously fought, have been knocked out already. They still won't tell who your next opponent is but you know for a fact they're going to be tough to beat.   With subtlety befitting your slight stature, you trot your way up onto the raised platform at the center of the stadium, the cheering crowd so much white noise to you as you focus on the matter at hoof. You see the tip of a smooth, round helmet come into view, but immediately something isn't right. It's too small...   Is that a filly? It is...   Well, you didn't get this far by underestimating your opponents. She's defeated as many clashers as you have to make it to the third round, and most of them probably had a much larger height and weight advantage over her than you do.   She doesn't say anything. No opening one-liners... not even a friendly greeting... Some would consider it impolite, but you kind of like that, in a way. She's focused, and you can tell immediately this is going to be a good match.   Your perception shifts, the scenery around you changing as your helmets build the battlefield in an expanding electronic patchwork. They could just use a progress bar labelled “loading” and have the whole thing pop into existence all at once when it's ready, but they say it's more immersive and less disorienting this way. You look around to see a flat, empty expanse of brown earth, pock-marked by what seem to be blowholes. You hear a hissing roar and briefly shift your eyes to see that, sure enough, jets of steam are occasionally bursting from the holes, rocketing into the sky as steam geysers are want to do. Going to have to be careful of that, though you think with some more time observing these things in your peripheral vision you'll be able to start predicting the pattern. You also note that you don't have to worry about being rained on by scalding, half-boiled water, as the system is simply despawning it after it reaches the invisible wall at the top of the arena. Well, that's nice...   Your opponent momentarily disappears behind an erupting geyser, and the second it clears, she sails over the hole midway through a flying leap towards you. Why is she acting so soon? Not only did she time that well, but your weapons haven't spawned yet. Not good for a clasher who favors a ranged weapon like yourself...   Still, she was obviously expecting you to be too slow to react, no doubt unaccustomed to opponents who can exploit agility the way she can, and it proves an easy enough thing to evade. You hear a rush of air whistle past your ear as you hastily side-step and then spin in place to see the filly skid to a halt as she plants her hind hooves into the earth, kicking up a skittering of pebbles and dust as the ground absorbs her momentum. At that moment, her weapons spawn. Two curved daggers. Good choice for a nimble little customer like her.   Your weapon spawns as well and you raise it to a firing position threateningly. Although somewhat oversized due to the large, sluggish bullets gun-toting clashers have to use for balance reasons, the Germane Luger pistol is a handsome weapon in real life and makes a handsome weapon here in your hoof as well... or so Little Star insists, at any rate.. Unsurprisingly, the filly is unmoved.   You've literally brought a gun to a knife fight, but that doesn't mean anything in the arena. You have to keep your distance, you decide... stay out of gutting range... but the filly clearly has other ideas. You can see what's coming from the way she raises her forehooves back.   Throwing daggers...   The mathematical part of your mind takes over as the knives sail towards you and you fire your Luger for the first time this match. Hot on the hooves of the hefty crack of exploding gunpowder, the heavy bullet pings into one of the knives with a metallic clang, the freshly deflected dagger tumbling end-over-end into one of the geysers just as you had planned.   Seven shots left before you'll have to reload.   If this filly wants to disarm herself, let her, you think as you easily evade the other dagger. Now you just need to re-acquire the targ...   A small pair of hooves lock around your gun leg.   Damnit, she followed her daggers in and now she's latched on! Her hind legs clamp around your shoulder and neck, trying to distract you with breath-interrupting knees to the throat as she struggles for your pistol. The only thing you can do with your gun hoof is cling onto your gun for dear life. Getting shot by your own weapon would be embarrassing to say the least.   There's not much you can do to throw your opponent off you with her superior agility (still superior to yours even though yours is impressive enough), but that still leaves you your secret weapon. All those hours of strength training your limbs... it's all come down to this moment...   You can hear Kimono droning on in one ear about focus and Mountain Ash in the other about resilience. You can feel the sweat rolling down your brow and the horrible, cloying ache in your muscles, so powerful are the memories. You can see the filly's face in your hoof-boxing dummy. You swing...   Never let it be said that Tread Softly doesn't have a left hook.   The filly goes sprawling, and you waste no time in stabilizing yourself and raising your weapon, pumping a bullet into her before she can right herself. You watch, still peering down the ironsights as the speeding metal flays the plastic of the helmet from the filly's face, followed by skin, bone, and a spray of crimson. Her health pool appears and one of the three hearts shatters before the damaged parts of her head respawn.   Six shots left.   There is, unfortunately, no time for a second shot. By the time the invincibility period is over, the filly is on her hooves, daggers respawned and ready to go.   She wastes no time in hurling them at you again, but you're onto her schemes and ignore them (beyond what is necessary to not be hit), pumping out a shot from your hip before advancing after your bullet and following it up with another, better aimed shot at closer range.   The filly evades them with almost irritating casualness, twisting and bounding to keep her distance as she starts to circle around to the right. Just as your about to follow, you let out a strangled noise and go rigid, white-hot pain shooting through you as her daggers bury themselves into your back, skewering your heart and liver. They despawn, and fountains of blood pour out of your back as you helplessly watch one of your precious hearts shatter.   Boomerang weapons! That little sneak! And silenced as well! You shake off the pain quickly as your wounds close over, but the invincibility period won't last for much longer...   Alright, stay calm, Treads. Take a step back. What do you know? You know you can't hit this filly while she's paying attention to your gun, but the same is now true of her weapons now that you know they can boomerang, at least when she throws them. You have to sneak up on her.   Use cover...   There is no cover!   Well, use concealment, then!   Your mind has mapped the pattern of the geysers while you've been fighting. Now's the time to exploit that knowledge. Knowledge is power...   You disappear behind a geyser, and begin hastily repositioning between them, deftly slipping from eruption to eruption as you exploit your own mobility to its absolute fullest. The filly has her head on a swivel, glancing one way and then the other, but she's stopped. Bad call. Even when she gives close attention to the most recent geyser to erupt, you've already moved on by the time it clears, leaving her with no idea where you are.   Confused by your apparent disappearance, the filly is now standing around like a big, stupid lemon with a target painted on it. All you have to do is wait for when one of the geysers will erupt close to her... and there it is...   You already have your weapon aimed by the time the steam clears, but you have to spend half-a-second or so re-adjusting your aim as you confirm the filly's exact location.   You press the trigger.   You see a glint of steel.   Pain.   Hurk. That was your spleen...   Did we just hit each other?   Well, judging by the hole in her chest...   Incredibly, she managed to turn and fling a dagger at you in the fleeting moment she had to react. You're impressed. A little annoyed as well, but mostly impressed. Both your second hearts shatter and you see the filly's daggers lengthen and become more ornate, the ends adorned with what looks for all the world like solidified chocolate sauce. Odd, but it signifies an increase in danger in any case. Of course, two can play at that game and you smile very subtly as you feel the barrel of your weapon extend and expand, growing into a full-sized rifle barrel of polished wood. The metal pistol butt expands into a wooden stock, and you settle your hooves onto the trigger and under the barrel. Finally, the words “System Luger” carve themselves into the metal in Germane.   It's time to end this.   You level your rifle, but you know you'll never hit the filly. Your Luger's second form makes the bullets more powerful (allowing them to punch through blocks with enemy weapons more effectively), but not THAT much faster. You need another approach, and as a geyser shoots off to your left, you have a flash of inspiration. There should be an immense amount of pressure under this earth, and your bullets are MUCH more powerful now than they just were. And hey, you still have four shots left, so why not?   You lower your aim slightly, and squeeze off a shot. The filly jumps, avoiding what she thinks is a shot into her legs.   You seriously could not have planned that better.   One of her daggers comes sailing in, but you leap out of the way deftly as it sticks to the ground and covers the surrounding area in deadly spears of ice.   Interesting.   Too bad you won't get to see more of this ability.   You look to where your bullet struck the earth, and note the crack that has formed. It is still growing, running off into the middle-distance as an ominous red glow forms far beneath it... which is kind of weird actually as that isn't lava that's under there... In any case, as the filly reaches the apex of her jump, the steam pressure becomes too much for the crack, and you watch with no small amount of relief as the filly disappears in a scalding torrent of steam, screeching helplessly as her flesh is completely boiled away by the bath... although neither you 'nor the fans get to see that happening...   When the steam disappears, all that is left is a skeleton and the one remaining dagger the filly still had on her. It hangs comically in mid-air in blatant defiance of the laws of physics for a few moments before plunging into the fissure you created, her final heart floating back up out of the fissure a couple of seconds later and then shattering   WINNER: TREAD SOFTLY   As the simulation ends, the filly takes off her helmet, revealing her neatly groomed, cute little mop of a mane. She looks crestfallen for a moment, but her expression quickly hardens again.   “Well played,” you compliment. “Thanks for the game. Nopony else in the tournament's given me such a good match.”   She nods, but says nothing.   “What's your name?” you ask politely.   Still she says nothing, merely exiting the stage in what you suspect is a huff.   “Oookay then...” you conclude, looking after the departing filly with an eyebrow quirked.   Well, that was odd...