//------------------------------//
// Fighting Eyes 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"...Can we help you?" Maple asked uneasily.

The red filly stared back at them with every bit of complexity and emotion in her eyes Starlight had seen on the main road, and didn't answer. To Starlight's side, Valey grinned innocently. "Aww! What a cute kid."

That was impetus enough. "You have bat wings," the filly pointed out, standing her ground.

"Sure do!" Valey winked. If she was unnerved by the filly's demeanor, she did a perfect job of not showing it. In fact, the uneasy tension seemed only to excite her, tail twitching predatorially at the very tip. "What of it?"

A second passed, and the filly dropped part of her guard. "Can you help me, then?" she asked, glancing nervously around, ears having gone from rigid to flat in a heartbeat. "The staircase broke and I need to make sure Ma is alright, but I can't fly and it's really hard to know if you can trust somepony here..." She turned shyly, showing off wingless sides and a cutie mark of a hoof ladder.

Starlight watched Maple's face soften, the mare giving a sigh of relief, and frowned. That frown intensified when Valey eagerly agreed. "Oh, absolutely! I can always..." She stretched her wings, cracking them audibly at the joints. "Make some time for a little public service! Lead the way, kiddo!"

The filly turned and nodded to a dark, doorless entrance in the far shadows of an overhang, low enough that a grown pony's ears would have brushed the top. "Oh, thank you!" She pleasantly smiled, eyes unchanging. "It's in here. It's a little dark, so watch your step and follow me."

"This has 'trap' written all over it," Starlight muttered under her breath as Valey cheerfully followed the filly. "I don't like it..."

Maple suddenly paled, her own smile sliding away over the course of a very long second. "Oh... Oh it does... I didn't think a filly would..."

"I would," Starlight countered, "if I was desperate enough. And she wants something."

"...But the only thing we're carrying is your saddlebags," Maple protested, whispering. "Valey doesn't have anything to steal. And it's just one filly!"

"If they know who she is, and she's as good at fighting as she says she is..." Starlight straightened her posture and took a step forward. "Then the filly wants to distract her from us."

Maple grimaced. "I'm more worried that she's as good as she says she is, and that poor filly doesn't know." Hastening her stride, she followed Starlight into the darkness of the building.





Valey stepped around a pile of broken glass, deftly navigating the pitch-black interior. Maple and Starlight were following her, silhouetted in the gray light from the door, which earned a slight huff but was probably for the better. No reason for them to get ambushed while she was having her fun. Admittedly, fighting fillies for sport was hardly her best idea of a good time, but the lack of concern wafting from her red coat indicated it was definitely a trap. So long as the filly wanted to play dirty, who was she to refuse?

"So, uhh..." she began, putting her forehooves on a staircase that seemed intact, if rickety, not flying due to the low ceiling and copious amounts of dust that would be stirred up. "Where's this broken thingamajig you can't get past? Because this one looks fine to me."

"It's up ahead!" the filly's little voice called from the top of the staircase. "Hurry!"

"Yeah, yeah, one sec..." She paused on the stairs, stalling and watching the others. Just because she could see in the dark didn't mean they could, and giving them her voice as a beacon would be a lot less work than letting them get injured or lost and making up for it later.

"Valey?" Maple's voice hissed behind her, the mare almost in reach of her tail. "Are you sure-"

"Oh yeah." Valey flashed a smirk, though she knew Maple wouldn't be able to see it. "Careful with these stairs, by the way, Ironflanks. I think they're built for normal ponies."

Hoping she had earned a blush and unable to check, Valey coiled her hind legs and sprung, clearing the entire flight without even using her wings. She skidded to a gentle halt at the top, expertly catching her balance and kicking up a cloud of dust in the process. Her muzzle scrunched, sniffing.

...There was more than one pony in the room with her. Enough that she had trouble counting, even. Their emotions ranged through tension, apprehension, excitement, and a hearty dose of fear, but any despair was at least an hour stale, not fresh. What there was was a palpable scent of dislike bordering on hatred, varying intensely by body but especially concentrated in at least three points. A middling level of danger tingled on her flank to cap it all off, just low enough to tell that no weapons were immediately pointed her way.

Breathing deeply, Valey let out a contented sigh as Maple and Starlight arrived at the top.

"All right, kiddo! Let's get this party started! Where's your broken stairs?"

"Here." Shhhunk!

There was a swish of a blade embedding itself in wood, and with a clatter, something large and flat fell from a wall where it was suspended, landing and completely covering the stairs back down. Colored lights lit sparsely around the room's edges, revealing themselves to belong to unicorn horns as no less than fifteen colts and fillies stepped out from behind boxes and broken furniture.

"I'm Redshift," the filly she had followed announced, positioning herself as the group's leader, demeanor suddenly haughty and antagonistic. "My mother isn't here. She's up living in a nice house at the top of town, because she's lucky. But you know who is here? Them."

She swept a hoof angrily, indicating three of the foals, all pegasi, who stepped stubbornly up to stand beside her. "I know you," one declared, pointing a hoof.

"Yeah," another added more meekly. "You're Commander Valey. My dad used to say nasty things about you all the time."

"Admiral..." Valey hissed under her breath, keeping her smile eager and calm.

"Used to," the third emphasized. "Until you fired him. Mine quit because he hated you. And because you messed up all their paperwork, they couldn't get jobs anywhere else, and we were having hard times already! We had to move, and now we're stuck here!"

"And it's your fault," the first pegasus accused. "And this city is a dump! Nopony wants to live here, especially when you and your government won't help us fix basic problems!"

"We," Redshift finished, taking attention from the pegasi, "don't like you, Valey. So when-"

"Woah, woah, hold up." Valey waved her forehooves for them to stop, then butted in regardless. "First off, to set the record straight? I don't fire ponies. That's like throwing away your toys. You're probably just confused. And second...?" Ignoring the roomful of scowls, she clutched her cheeks in bliss. "You kids set up a mob ambush just for me!? It's like it's my birthday and someone remembered!"

The three pegasi's confidence abruptly wavered, and they stepped back. Redshift stood firm, though her mask was pointless when Valey could smell the nervousness behind it. "No, no, don't let me scare you off," Valey reassured. "Trust me, I've been looking for a fight. It's why I'm here. Your traps need work, by the way. Super easy to spot. But don't worry, I'm generous."

Redshift's face twisted in anger. "You came here to...! You came to Blueleaf looking to attack our ponies? You're evil! Everyone, get her!"

As the ring of foals surged uncertainly toward the batpony in the center, Valey's eyes lit up. Tongue lolling in anticipation, she spread her wings and readied her empty forehooves, lacking anything to use as a weapon. "Oh boy let's go!"





"Valey!" Maple protested urgently as the foals flowed past her, utterly ignoring her and Starlight, who was crouching beneath. "They're just children!"

"Buh?" Valey looked up instants before the wave reached her, breaking off to nimbly flip over a colt's head. "But they want a fight!" she complained, strafing towards the nearest wall. "And so do I!"

Starlight held her tongue, Maple's dirty chest fluff tickling the back of her neck. "But..." Maple extended a forelimb. "But they're kids!"

"Look, Ironflanks," Valey grunted, nevertheless obeying the commandment not to strike, dodging and skirting around the room as she was chased by an uncoordinated mob of large heads and flailing hooves. "This is like, my dream arena right here, I haven't gotten to let loose in several days, and these little lemon bags asked really nicely for it. Will you please not be offended if I knock just a few blocks off? See, I'm even asking nicely!"

"Arrrrrgh!" a foal howled, leaping forward with a punch that Valey deftly dodged.

"Knocking blocks off?" Maple gritted her teeth. "No!"

"You won't be offended?" Valey bobbed her head, using half a chair as a shield. "Slick!"

"Hey! Hey!" Redshift shouted from atop a broken vanity. "Don't forget our strategy, you guys! You have to corner her, or she'll wear you down and pick you off one by one! Don't go for where she is, split up and cover the whole room!"

"Oh, come on!" Valey pouted, gently running backwards and flapping her wings as if to blow the foals away. "I'm not fighting right now! Don't take all the fun out of this by admitting you're trying!" Grunting, she tipped over a rack in her wake, leaving it as an obstacle.

"All right," Redshift called, "Change tactics! Take her friends as hostages!"

The foal mob changed course, and Valey's face fell. "Hey, wait!" she protested. "I hadn't even-"

"I'm done with this," Starlight abruptly growled, stepping out from under Maple to face the incoming ponies, horn lighting and crackling with energy. "We can talk later!"

Flashhhhh!

A teal laser flew at the mob in a concentrated beam, and crystals spiked around them, melding into place until every combatant sans Redshift was immobilized, looks of shock and fear plastered on their faces. Valey hung upside-down in the crystal too, looking vaguely amused.

"Listen up!" Starlight shouted above the buzz of her horn, eyes squinting from the effort. "I don't know who or what happened to all of you in the past, and I don't care! I'm sorry your town stinks, and I'm sorry life hasn't been fair to you, but apparently that's the way things are and there are better things you can try to do to change it than getting revenge! Now all three of us are going to leave, and we're not going to cause trouble, so leave us alone! Right, Valey!?"

"I-I-I..." Redshift stammered, the giant manacrystal reflected in her wide eyes. "Who are...?"

"Zoop!" The moment Starlight took her eyes off the prison, Valey's voice crowed in her ear... and she turned around and blanched. The mare was standing right there, completely free.

"How did you get out?" she demanded, brow unable to furrow further.

"Meh. Magic." Valey dusted her shoulders and moved to the closed trapdoor, bending down to pry it open. "Killjoy. Oh well. They're probably too scared now to fight any more, so no point in sticking around. Let's blow this dump."

The stairs clattered open as she shoved the blockage aside. Starlight's aura finally faded from her horn, and she slumped with a gasp, Maple barely catching her before her head hit the ground. "Starlight!" She wiped Starlight's brow worriedly, no longer visible in the darkness. "Are you all right?"

A single unicorn in the pile where the crystal had vanished managed to light their horn, giving the room some semblance of illumination once again. Redshift stayed still on her perch, eyes unblinking and mouth slightly ajar. Starlight's head swam too much to tell if she was saying anything, but she quickly vanished from sight as a strong foreleg grasped her, carrying her down the stairs.