Chapter 13: Hitting the Books
I had a long, well deserved sleep and rest after working out at Applejack's. I woke up early to Twilight nudging me with her hoof.
"Come on Dako, it's time for you to get up, we've got a lot to cover, I found a bunch of books about martial arts," Twilight said eagerly.
I slowly got out of bed. I followed Twilight down the stairs, with my clothes in my hands. She was hopping around like a little filly.
"Isn't this just so exciting, finally it's my turn to train you!" Twilight said, piles of books all around us.
"Uh, yeah," I said yawning, "real fun."
"I know, I can hardly believe it myself, we can both learn so much!" Twilight giggled.
"So, where do we start, and how long will this take?" I asked, looking at the stacks of books all around us.
"Well, it might take all day, but this time we have many more books and I'm using a new spell that I came up with for just the occasion," Twilight explained.
"Okay, how does this spell work?" I asked.
"Well, instead of taking the information right from the books, we're gonna live through the information in dream form," Twilight said.
"Uh, come again?" I wasn't quite sure I understood her, "You're telling me that you woke me up, just so I could go back to sleep again and train with you?"
"Yes, waking up and returning to sleep is the easiest way to get straight into dreaming, plus, by using some natural medicines for dreaming from Zecora, and a few techniques I've read about, this will make lucid dreaming the easiest," Twilight said.
"So, what are you gonna do?" I asked, still half asleep.
"We are going to be put under a sleep spell. While asleep we'll be able to train for a lifetimes worth in a dream. You're brain functions much quicker when you're asleep, you can have several dreams in one night, each can last seconds or minutes and feel like hours," Twilight explained.
"Huh, I think if we had done this the first time things against Xendo would've gone a lot better," I said to myself.
"Keep in mind that this won't train you physically, only mentally and psychologically, you'll be a better fighter in reflexes and form, but not in body or strength," Twilight said.
"Well, what are we waiting around for, let's do this!" I said, excited to become a super martial artist.
"Good, I knew you'd be excited to start. Now just, lie down, and I'll cast the spell," Twilight said.
I laid down on the floor, ready to begin. Twilight laid down next to me.
"Once we begin we'll share a dream so we can see the information together," Twilight said, her horn starting to glow.
"Right, just do what you gotta do," I said, closing my eyes.
"Here we go, one, two, three," Twilight said.
The next thing I knew I was standing in the library with all of my friends. We were sitting around, laughing and talking.
"So, what did you guys do next?" Pinkie Pie asked us.
"Well, I," I began, "we, uh. We just…"
I couldn't remember what I was going to say.
"Is something wrong dear?" Rarity asked.
"Dako, what did we do again?" Twilight asked me.
"I don't know, didn't we, train?" I asked.
I looked back to where everyone was sitting just moments ago, but now they were gone.
"Well that was awkward," Twilight said.
I turned to look at her. She was also looking at the spot where our friends were sitting just moments ago.
"What a blur, huh?" Twilight asked.
"Uh, what's going on, what just happened?" I asked, confused, and a little scared.
"Dako, relax, we're still dreaming," Twilight said.
"Wait, are you sure?" I asked.
I looked around, then looked at myself. Everything looked the same.
"Yes, see?" Twilight said, lifting off the ground, "I can fly as though this were a dream, we just started from somewhere in the middle."
"Whoa, I guess you're right," I lifted off the ground too, but not with my own ability.
"Let's go outside," Twilight said.
We both floated to the door, Twilight opened it without her magic, then we both landed outside. We were standing on a sidewalk, car's passing by, the sounds of revving engines and car horns echoing off the sides of buildings all through downtown Austin.
"Wow, so this is where you live," Twilight said, speechless.
"Yeah, pretty much," I replied.
"I want to see all of it," Twilight said, looking at the tall buildings, watching the cars slowly come down the street.
"Maybe some other time, right now we should get to practicing," I said.
I turned to look around, to try and see where I was. I noticed all kinds of shops and stores, clubs and bars. I was on Sixth Street. I turned back around to Twilight to see something that took me completely off guard. There she stood, as a human, completely naked.
I quickly started laughing at her.
"Twilight! What are you doing!? Put some clothes on, we're in public!" I laughed.
All I did was blink once, and suddenly she was wearing a uniform like mine. I actually took a close look at her. She was probably in her twenties or so, I'm not really good with guessing peoples' age based on their looks. But she couldn't have been any younger than my age, 19.
Anyway, there Twilight stood, wearing my outfit, her hair and eyes were black, which seemed odd to me, I guess I just thought she would look different. She came up to my shoulders, about five feet tall even.
"So, how did you do that?" I asked Twilight.
"This is a dream, remember, anything is possible. Besides, we're sharing minds right now, I know from you what a female from your world looks like." Twilight said.
She turned around to look at the cityscape to reveal a monkey-like tail coming out of her outfit.
"Wait a minute, you're not human, you're a saiyan like me!" I said, pointing at her tail.
She turned around looking confused.
"See, you have a tail, and your eyes and hair, it makes sense now," I began, "you're a saiyan."
She reached behind her and pulled her tail around. She moved it back and forth on its own.
"Wow, wait, saiyans have tails?" she said, "But, I thought, you were just like humans, like the people around us?"
"Yeah, except for that. I think I had a tail once, but it must've been removed when I was really young," I said.
"Whatever, we have to get to training," Twilight said, "I'm already starting the spell on the books as we speak."
I just walked around back and forth as Twilight shut her eyes to concentrate. I was looking around the city, trying to notice every little thing and detail, trying to figure out where detail was lost from reality and where my brain was filling in the details. I had always wanted to learn how to lucid dream, now that I kinda was I had a chance to really observe a dream and see what it really felt like. As I looked above me I saw something streaking through the skies.
I was surprised, I squinted hard to see what or who it was, but it quickly flew over a building and out of sight. Then I heard someone call my name. I turned to see someone familiar on the corner of the sidewalk, they were smiling wide and waving. As they ran up to me I could easily see who they were and I remembered them based on their hair right away. It was Benny Breeze.
"Oh my goodness it's you, it's really you!" He said running up to me.
"Um," I looked around to make sure this was actually happening, "are you for real?"
"Of course I'm for real, Zen didn't believe me when I told him we could use the technique of dream-walking! This is great, I finally found you!" He shouted in joy.
"Um crap, Twilight we gotta go," I said, grabbing Twilight's arm.
"Huh, hey where are you going!?" Benny Breeze shouted.
Twilight opened her eyes.
"Dako, what's happening?" she asked.
"Come on, we gotta go, let's fly," I said jumping from the ground.
Twilight followed behind me as we left Sixth Street and headed for anywhere else. Luckily it didn't look like he was following us. We landed a couple of streets away, but kept running. We were both looking behind us, trying to watch for anyone following us until we bumped into someone. Normally I would run someone right over, but this time I bounced right off the guy. I looked up to see another familiar hairdo. The person turned their head revealing themselves to be Zen.
"Wow," he said, "looks like Benny Breeze was right, this dream walking crap is for real."
"Uh-oh, not you," I said.
"Dako, who is this guy?" Twilight said.
Zen walked towards me with a very serious look, but he was smiling, not in an evil way, but like he was happy.
"Oh man, do you know how glad we are to find you, where the hell are you anyway?" he asked, still walking towards me.
Twilight threw herself between me and Zen.
"Oh no you don't mister, you just stay away from us!" Twilight said.
Zen frowned a little and lowered an eyebrow like he was confused.
"Excuse me, do I know you? Hey Dako, who is this girl?" he said, still walking towards us.
Twilight threw her arm forward, and blasted Zen as hard as she could, completely taking me by surprise. He was blown back into and through a building.
"How the hell did you do that?!" I asked in disbelief.
"I learned it from you!" She said.
Zen reappeared right behind us, and he looked angry.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said.
I quickly shut my eyes tight and tensed up my whole body, holding Twilights hand tightly. When I opened my eyes, we were back in Equestria, well, the dream one that is. We were out in some field somewhere, but I knew we were in Equestria because far off in the distance I could see the mountain that held Canterlot.
"Wow, that was some quick thinking," Twilight said.
"Okay, enough excitement. You can see my world some other time, right now we're training," I said.
"Okay, well, I was able to get the knowledge out of the books, in fact, our minds should technically be in the books right now," Twilight said.
"Alright, so what are we starting with? Kung-fu? Karate?" I asked.
"Actually, we'll be starting with Tae Kwon do," Twilight started, taking off her boots.
"Uh, yeah I'm kind of a master at that, already. Remember that book a year ago?" I said to her.
"Well, that was a beginners version. This is a master level book," Twilight said, stretching her legs and arms.
"Huh, this whole time I thought I was a badass, guess that's why Zen totally 'owned' me," I thought aloud.
Twilight laughed at that.
"What?" I asked.
"You, I've learned so much from you, I know just exactly what you mean when you say those things," Twilight began, "but if it makes you feel better, my friends and I have always thought you were a badass."
"Ha-ha ha, that sounds funny hearing you say it," I said.
"Whatever, now take off your boots already, this is Tae Kwon Do, remember? You don't want to kick me with your boots still on, do you?" Twilight said.
"No, now calm down and keep stretching, that way you won't hurt quite as bad after I beat you," I said, smiling, sitting down and pulling off my boots.
"Oh really? This is a dream world, I've made myself as strong as Xendo, don't expect it to be easy," she said.
"Wait, how do you know how strong he is?" I asked, almost suspicious.
"Dako, how many times do I have to tell you, I can access your memories, and you got your ass handed to you by him, I know how strong he is," Twilight said.
I laughed at her again, it was just so funny to hear her talk like that.
"Quit laughing at me," Twilight said, getting annoyed.
I started to stretch out a little too.
"Fine, but you gotta stop going into my mind like that, I'm warning you, there's stuff you don't need to see or know. That and you're kinda invading my privacy," I said, stretching my arms.
"Are you ready to finally train or do you want to just keep talking?" Twilight asked.
"I don't know, I'm kinda liking this conversation," I said, "it's nice to just talk, right?"
Twilight vanished before my eyes. I stood up, looking around for her. Then I felt someone hit me in the back of the head hard. I fell forward hitting the ground then rolling onto my back. I saw Twilight floating mid-air behind me, smiling.
"What the hell was that for!?" I asked.
"That felt kind of good. Maybe I'll find a way to keep this body, then I'll defeat Xendo instead of you," she joked.
"No, seriously, why did you hit me?" I asked her.
"Because one of us had to be serious," Twilight said, dropping back to the ground, holding out a hand, "let me help you up."
I grabbed her hand, climbing up to my feet.
"Okay, I'm sorry. I just can't help it, its still and a dream and I'm only trying to have some fun," I said.
"Its okay, now we can train," she said.
Twilight walked around next to me and took a stance.
"Now, watch me and repeat. We're going to practice these moves together," she said.
Twilight punched at the air with her right fist, then drew her fist back to kick with her left foot, finally pulling her leg back to repeat the opposite, left punch, right kick.
I just watched, not sure if she was serious.
"Well, can you follow this, or should we start something even simpler?" Twilight asked.
"Um, do we have to start with these practices?" I asked.
"Yes, we need to make these techniques and moves concrete within your mind, as though you were born knowing them," Twilight said, "trust me, once we're done here, Xendo will think you're a completely different person."
"Okay, if you say so," I said.
I took my own stance, right next to Twilight and I began the series of punches and kicks, following her in exact mirror-like timing, staying as true to her movements as possible. We trained like this for hours, maybe even an entire day. I know I could feel pain before, but we never got tired, not once. We went through every single move in the book in no time. It was actually quite nice, very peaceful, and relaxing, more relaxing than the fact we were asleep, but because we were compressing days of mental relaxation and meditation into a couple hours of a nap. The best part was that I didn't have to eat, but it didn't stop me from eating every now and then in my dream.
We were still practicing different moves and strikes, punching left then right, left then right, then kicking. We practiced in perfect unison, keeping our time like a pair of clocks, it was actually kind of fun, it was a lot of fun really. Eventually we could talk again, now so into our practice that it wasn't distracting to talk.
"So, for never standing on two legs before, you sure are doing really well, considering you're also teaching me how to fight at this moment," I said, continuing my moves.
"Yes well, I learned a bunch from you, and anything is possible in a dream," Twilight said.
"Yeah, anything's possible," I said, "but, will I actually remember these moves? Could I actually pull these off?"
"Sure you could, why not?" Twilight asked.
"I don't know I just want to be sure." I said.
"Trust me, I'm using the spell on the books we're learning from, remember?" Twilight reminded me.
"Oh wow, you're right," I said, "say, how long have we been here practicing these moves?"
"In dream, about two days," Twilight said plainly.
"Two whole days!? How long is that outside, in the real world?" I asked.
"Hm, probably fifteen, twenty minutes," Twilight said, guessing.
"Wow, this is amazing. How long do you plan on doing this?" I asked.
"Until we finish each book, and at the rate we're going, in fifteen real world minutes we've already finished two books in the equivalent of two dream days," Twilight started, "so we should be done in about a month in dream, which should be about, a four or five hour nap."
"Wow, you're determined when it comes to any kind of studying, huh?" I said.
"You bet, knowledge is power, and this will definitely show Xendo the power of that knowledge," Twilight said smiling.
"Wait, you said we finished two books, which were they?" I asked.
"Well, we finished the first one, 'Tae Kwon Do: The Masters guide for Expert level fighters' and we've just finished 'Karate: The complete training guide' and we've just started 'Kung Fu: The complete collection'," Twilight said.
"Wow, all that and in two days," I thought to myself, "hey, what's in the Kung Fu one?"
"It includes a bunch, like Wushu, Shaolin, Wing Chun, and Tai Chi," Twilight said.
"What's next?" I asked, my eyebrows now raised in curiosity.
"Next is Muay Thai, and the next couple of books are even higher levels of stuff we just finished learning," Twilight said, getting a tone of joy in her voice.
She really loved to learn, no matter what the subject was, just gaining knowledge and learning something new was so thrilling to her. She looked like she was having more fun than me the entire time we had been practicing. I wasn't really sure, but I think she was having so much fun learning how to fight because she was now in a saiyan body, and her new saiyan body was pretty much yearning to fight. In fact, she looked like a real fighter, even a super hero as a saiyan herself, and with my outfit on. She looked more like a real superhero than me, if only she could keep her new body, maybe, just maybe she could help me fight Xendo.
"You know Twilight, you look good as a saiyan," I said.
She stopped practicing her moves, for the first time in two days she took a break, stopping to look at me. She wasn't sure if I was serious or joking, but just by saying that I had her full and undivided attention.
"You, think I look good?" She asked.
"Yeah, I mean, you look like a real superhero with that outfit like mine, in fact, I think you're more of a fighter and protector than I am," I said, with a hint of envy.
"But, you think I, look good, like this?" She said, her face turning light red.
"Oh, well, I, don't get me wrong, you're okay as a pony, I mean, I like you as a pony, I think you're cute and everything," I started, just openly and plainly telling Twilight the truth.
"But, you think I look good, like this?" She asked again.
"Well of course, I mean I hope you're not offended, but even if you were human with that body, you look very pretty, you know? I've seen plenty of pretty women before, but I've never really seen a saiyan though," I continued blabbing, but the whole time I was still practicing my moves.
"You think, I'm pretty?" Twilight asked, starting to blush all the way now.
"Well sure, why not, I just thought I'd let you know. You haven't really seen yourself yet, like in a mirror and all, but yeah, you're very pretty," I said, actually slowing down my practice and stopping too.
"Thank you Dako, that's really nice," Twilight said.
"Oh, well, you're welcome," I said.
"Dako, let's take a break," Twilight said, sitting down.
I stopped practicing my moves for a bit, watching Twilight sit down. I walked over near her and sat down next to her, relaxing, taking a break from practice. We started talking. Twilight was suddenly interested in my relationship with Fluttershy. I explained that I genuinely loved Fluttershy and would even marry her if I could, and how destroyed I was when I had to leave her, how I didn't go outside or do much of anything for the first two weeks back home.
"Its amazing that you love her so much, you're not even a pony, but the two of you sleep in the same bed, take showers together, live in the same house, you kiss each other. It sounds like you two are married already," Twilight said.
"Yeah, I love her so much, I can't stand to think I might have to leave again after this, hopefully Princess Celestia can forgive me about last time and this time as well," I said.
"I might be overstepping my bounds a bit, and you don't have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable, but I've wondered for a while, and so have the others, but, have you two," Twilight started.
"Hm? Have we what?" I asked.
"Um, have you two, you know," Twilight continued.
"What?" I asked.
"Have you ever, um, done, anything?" Twilight asked, slowly.
"Like?" I asked.
"You know, like, um… Sex?" Twilight asked quietly, her face red.
"Uh," I chuckled, "no, we have not, we might have come close, but no, not to my knowledge."
"Really? You're not just saying that for privacy's sake?" She asked.
"No, I wouldn't 'kiss and tell' but no," I said almost laughing, "there were times we came close, though, sometimes when we were making out I guess, but we stopped ourselves from going any further."
"Wow, you guys are really in love," Twilight said.
"We talked about it before, but, we decided together it was best if we didn't. But I told her myself that it didn't mean I loved her any less," I said, "Besides, I'm old fashioned, I believe in marriage before doing that sort of thing."
"Oh, well that's good, I can see why you think that from," I interrupted Twilight before she could finish.
"From my memories?" I asked
"Yes," she said, giggling.
"But honestly, if we did anything, it wouldn't be for the sake of 'doing it'. It would be because I love her, because I really truly love her, and I'd want to make her happy and feel good," I said, "it wouldn't just be sex, it would be, well, 'making love' I guess."
"I understand," Twilight said, nodding, "you really do love Fluttershy."
We continued talking, pretty much wasting a whole day doing so. But we knew that we had to keep training, and we would get back to practice later. We both understood that we had to focus on training at all costs and make sure I knew these moves no matter what.