Anonymous and Rarity Fight a Giant Crab

Anonymous and Rarity Fight a Giant Crab
By IceMan

>Day Beach Day in Equestria.
>You are hanging out in the saline surf and the dazzling sun with your best friend.
>Sword.
>Technically, she’s a katana, but you prefer to just call her Sword.
>Sword is a silver blade forged from the finest steel by the monks of the Jade Mountain, made from the finest craftsmanship Earth had ever seen.
>It was sharp enough to cut through even Kevlar, and light enough to be not noticeable in a heavy pack.
>In short, Sword is great.
>She’s thin.
>She’s beautiful.
>She’s sharp.
>And she cuts anything you want into tiny ribbons, whether it be potatoes for the creamy potato salad you brought in your picnic basket or the hordes of bad guys you fight on your adventures.
>You and Sword have been through a lot together.
>You once explored a treacherous cave filled with Changelings.
>Never once did Sword flinch as you cut through their chitinous exoskeletons, sending emerald goo flying all over her shiny metal skin.
>Then there was the time you fought a vicious manticore in the Everfree Forest.
>You spent days cleaning the blood, leaves, and mud off of Sword after that encounter.
>It pains you deep inside to see Sword be dirty.
>You could almost say that you –
>“Anonymous, would you put more sunscreen on my back please, darling? I can’t seem to reach it?”
>Oh, and Rarity’s here too.
>You sigh.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
>You grab the plastic bottle of white sun-protecting goo and reluctantly spread it over your companion’s soft frame.
>You dislike ponies.
>They aren’t sharp, sleek, or useful in any way.
>They aren’t like Sword.
>But, Rarity insisted on coming to the beach with you.
>She whined to you for at least an hour while she repaired a pair of pants you ripped about how she was simply dying to go to the beach and hadn’t gone in ages and never seemed to get the time to go and none of her friends wanted to go and ugh, if someone would just take her and...
>On and on she went.
>You’re glad Sword isn’t so chatty.
>Now, here that chatty selfish broad is, taking up space and eating your food that you made for yourself and Sword.
>Well, of course, Sword doesn’t need to eat anything.
>She needs to keep her striking figure.
>You finish lathering Rarity’s back and return to simply staring at the repetitive crash of the waves and foam on the rough beige sand, rather meditatively.
>Rarity flips from her stomach onto her back and continues adding what little melanin she can to her pale coat.
>The burning celestial orb reflects against her oversized sunglasses, and her purple sunhat lolls onto the blue and cream striped towel beneath her.
>After staring at the tumultuous ocean for a good five minutes, you pick Sword and its sheath (which you sling over your shoulder) up out from the sand and begin to practice your maneuvers.
>You slash and hack your way through a throng of invisible enemies, sending vital organs and blood spilling onto the coarse sand beneath your feet, constantly pushing forward with lithe steps.
>Sword becomes an extension of your very essence, the focus point of your spirit as it flashes through the air, reflecting the sun high above.
>Thrust, parry, twirl, thrust, thrust, parry, parry, twirl, thrust, dodge . . .
>You practice every combination of moves you know.
>Fortunately, you chose a secluded spot of beach to lay out your towels, umbrella, and picnic basket, so, other than a few odd looks from the other beach goers about 10 meters away, you are not interfered until your swordplay brings you to the water’s edge.
>With a drawn-out flourish, you sheath Sword to the sound of hooves clapping together.
>“Bravo, Anonymous, bravo! That was an excellent little bit of fencing there, darling,” Rarity exclaims.
>You simply nod and pant in thanks, then slowly walk back to your towel to return to staring at the sea.
>The sea which now appears to be roaring louder than before.
>You cautiously look over your shoulder to see the water bubbling like molten metal was flowing deep beneath it about fifteen meters out from shore.
>Suddenly, two stubby eyestalks peak out from the depths, scanning around like periscopes.
>Then, they quickly recede back into the swells.
>The water begins to roil more furiously as a giant red shape emerges from the depths.
>You immediately draw Sword and get into a ready stance as an enormous crimson crab splashes outwards on bristling spiky legs the size of tree trunks and marches towards the beach.
>Its claws are the size of VW buses and could probably snap a redwood tree in two.
>The entire colossus is covered in ruby-red armor, with sharp barnacles, kelp, and algae clinging to every feasible spot.
>At the joints in its suit, the Crab is covered in thick pointy spikes.
>It charges forward sending a tidal plume of white water before its mammoth frame as it rushes towards the beach and hundreds of helpless ponies to feed on.
>Not that you’re going to let it do that.
>Because you are Anonymous, and Sword is your weapon.
>Forged in the greatest fires of the Jade Mountain by the very monks of the Sacred Order of Swordsmen, and brought to this world as your sacred token so that you may defend it from evil.
>And you will not let this evil – oh, God, those claws really are much bigger up close.
>A barnacle-encrusted claw hammers your body, sending you skyward.
>Your head lands in the partial comfy softness and partial unforgiving hardness of the bowl of potato salad.
>Great, it took you three days to make that potato salad.
>You thank whatever physics control this world that your bones aren’t broken.
>Out of the corner of your eye, you see Rarity charge a spell and levitate your umbrella out from the sand, as well as the hundreds of ponies fleeing back to their carriages and packing up their gear as fast as they.
>“Stay back, brute!” she orders to the senseless crustacean and twirling the closed shade structure like a halberd. “I’m not afraid to use this.”
>The Crab simply roars and swings its mammoth claws towards the white unicorn, the threat incomprehensible to its poorly evolved brain.
>You recover from its initial strike and press the attack, leaping onto its claw as it impacts the sand and grabbing hold to a bit of seaweed embedded in the joint where the two claw parts connect.
“Take this!” you shout, and stab Sword deep into the joint, severing the ligaments holding the claw together.
>The terrible beast roars and attempts to shake the wasp that stung it off.
>Meanwhile, Rarity lobs the umbrella like a javelin into the creature’s left eyestalk, sending a fountain of orange blood spilling onto its carapace.
>The Crab flings you onto the sand and snaps the umbrella shaft off with its other claw.
“Nice move back there,” you say to Rarity, adeptly dodging a careening claw strike from the monster.
>“Thanks!” she yells back, flinging a mound of sand into its eyes with telekinesis.
>You didn’t think she was even capable of such a clever attack.
>A leg crashes into the sand near you; you take this opportunity to jab Sword into the joint between the bottom and middle segments, sending the Crab stumbling back towards the ocean and then into the sand as its balance becomes nonexistent.
>Rarity takes this moment to pin one of its legs to the ground with her blue aura.
“Anonymous! Quick!” she says through gritted teeth. “Stab it!”
>You sprint forward and prepare for an aerial strike, but Rarity’s magic fails just before you land in the joint between the carapace and top segments of the crab’s first right leg.
>Recovering, the Crab shoots its right claw forward to send you soaring into the water with a splash.
>You fortunately drop Sword before you land in the briny deep.
>Seeing Sword rust... you don’t even want to think about it.
>The Crab rises back to its full height, dwarfing a three story building and roars at its remaining assailant.
>Rarity throws another lump of sand in its still functioning eye, blinding the creature once again.
>Then, she comes up with an idea.
>She lifts up your towel, a solid red cloth, and whirls it beside her.
>“C’mon, you... nasty sea monster! Charge!” she yells at the Crab.
>The Crab just grabs her in its left claw.
>You pull yourself out of the waves, flicking a smaller hermit crab off of your shoulder, and pluck Sword from its landing place to return to battle.
“Not today. No one dies today.”
>Rarity is barely holding the Crab’s pincers at bay with telekinetically lobbed sand, but she is tiring from extended use of her limited magical abilities.
>You charge forth, preparing to stab the Crab in its back left leg, occasionally adjusting your direction so as to line up for the perfect strike.
>You remember your training as you always do in this moments:
>The Sword is an extension of your self.
>The Sword is your spirit.
>The Sword is you.
>And, with that thought, you stab the great scarlet Crab in its shiny white muscle, forcing another roar from the beast as it loses balance once again and falls into the sand.
>You run up the leg and hack at the other ligaments, nerves, and muscles, bringing the leg into a non-functioning state and provoking a bellow from the Crab at each slice.
>Sword becomes coated in the beast’s fiery blood.
>Whenever you accidentally strike the Crab’s chitin, orange sparks fly like you had struck solid granite or steel instead.
>There is no way through this beast’s armor.
>You continue your surgical murder of the Crab as you race onto its back towards its head and lop off its remaining eye, sending out another gout of gingery blood.
>You then run down to the claw joints and hack at those until the leviathan’s claws go limp.
>You repeat the same process with the rest of the other joints on the legs, slowly coating yourself from head to two in slimy gore and orange soda colored blood.
>As you hack at the third to last leg, you hear only a whimper from the creature.
>If it thinks it can surrender after all the pain it’s caused you so far, it has another thing coming.
>You’re going to beat this thing into submission, wish it had never stepped on your –
>“Anonymous. Enough! It’s dead,” Rarity informs you. “All you’re doing is tiring yourself out.”
“It’s not dead until I say it’s dead!”
>You continue hacking at the limb.
>“It’s been dead since you stabbed it through its eye socket fifteen minutes ago! Enough already! It’s not worth the effort.”
>You pull sword out from the joint you were cutting and sigh.
“Ugh, fine. Fighting an opponent who can’t even fight back anymore isn’t fun anyways.”
>You set your beloved blade back into the sand, then pick it up again, realizing that particles are clinging to the sticky, drying blood.
>It’ll need a good cleaning later, but, for now, you just rub it off with a towel, staining the fibers orange.
>You stare at the white-coated, purple, curled-maned unicorn now gazing at the dead Crab intently.
>Before you thought she was just a... well, you didn’t know what she was.
>She was a hard worker, the Element of Generosity who constantly had to deal with being selfish and needy.
>But now you’ve seen she can really hold her own.
>They’re not as useful as Sword by a longshot, but maybe...
>Maybe these ponies aren’t so useless after all.
“You did well out there,” you tell Rarity. “I probably wouldn’t have lived if you hadn’t been here.”
>“It was my honor to fight beside you, Anonymous. Everyone in Ponyville always talks about your adventures. I was glad I could be a part of one.”
>You smile and nod.
>“By the way, your sword...”
“Hm?”
>“It’s so much better seeing it in action than hung up on your mantle. You treat that thing like it’s your girlfriend or something, Anonymous. Swords are made to fight enemies, not to be treated like people.”
>You’ve heard those words long before, from a very wise person.
>The Sword is an extension of your self.
>The Sword is your spirit.
>The Sword is you.
>But, without you, the Sword is nothing. Just a piece of metal.