//------------------------------//
// Fight For You 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"Look! Look! Look!" Gazelle's smile slashed across his face, and he did a tiny dance in the commander's chair as a large screen displayed a security camera feed coming from the brig. "They're freeing the Varsidelians! Glory hogs."

Valey folded her ears, standing at the top of the staircase. "Look, prince dude, I'm, uhh... not really here to watch someone else's fight montage on a big screen. If I nope outta here and get on with my business, will you please stay happy spectating and not come mess with me or anything else?"

Gazelle snapped the chair around to face her fast enough to defy the laws of momentum. "Oh! You're back. The eeeing stopped, but I didn't hear a fight. What went on down there?"

Valey braced herself as Gazelle tensed, and then threw himself into the air, flipping over her head and down the staircase where her entourage was now waiting much more silently. She drew in a sharp breath and dove after him, hitting the floor with a quiet swish.

"Well well." Gazelle straightened up, surveying the empty room with Valey by his side. "No sarosians? You're quick. Quiet. Effective. I knew you had it in you!" He reached a wing out and patted Valey's head... then quick as a flash bit down, yanking one of his feathers in his teeth and pulling it out. Valey had just enough time to see that the tip was covered in metal - a knife disguised as a feather? - before he flung it point-first at the wall, striking a switch and causing the room's lighting to spring to life.

Nearly twenty sarosian mares were ejected from the shadows, all looking like they had recently come off bad in a fight.

"You scared them into submission!" Gazelle proudly ruffled Valey's mane. "But not all the way away, it seems. What a pity. For them." He grimaced. "Seems we have an appetizer. How should we make the most of this? I guard the door while you chase them around? No, they could flee through the window... How about this!?"

Gazelle rushed forward in a feathery charge, scattering the mares and ending with Grapejuice pinned against the ground in his front paws. The mare played dead as Gazelle delicately lifted her in his teeth by the scruff of the neck and carried her proudly back to Valey, like she was a mouse.

"I'm such a bully," Gazelle purred, dropping the mare, slapping her with his tail until she winced and awoke, and then grabbing her around the barrel with his paws again, standing her forcibly upright on her hind legs. "Making an example of the little one. Poor you. You shouldn't have stood out." He gave Valey a searching glance. "...Hmm. That's odd. I've forgotten what I wanted to do with her! Any ideas? We need something that will make their eyes bulge. Remind me, what were the heresies against their goddess...?"

He stroked Grapejuice's chest fluff with a single claw, and Valey shivered. Even though this stupid crew of pirates had attacked her ship and stolen her Nightmare Module and connection to Amber, and even though they were only being nice and loyal to her because she scared them and they thought she was related to their goddess, she still needed them to get around through this ship. She needed them to help recover her stuff! If she didn't act now to get them out of this... She shook her head. She didn't want to save them because they were growing on her, or anything. She didn't. And then she caught the expression on Grapejuice's face. The mare was sneaking her a terrified, pleading, wide-eyed look... Save me.

Valey moved. Calling on her speed, she flung herself through the air, catching Grapejuice with an outstretched wing and ducking into a flip to wrench her from Gazelle's grasp. She landed on her hooves and skidded to a stop facing the sphinx, Grapejuice held so tightly to her side that the short mare's hooves didn't even touch the ground.

Gazelle pursed his lips in surprise. "Oh, this is interesting."

"Yeah. Interesting." Valey set her charge down gently, giving her a comforting nudge, and then strolled toward Gazelle, summoning an old, predatory look in her eyes she had often used in Ironridge. "Hey, prince dude. You wanna know a secret?"

Gazelle's claws sheathed and unsheathed themselves against the floor, and his tail lashed excitedly as she approached. "Do I ever."

"Heh heh..." Valey matched his grin, paying close attention to her cutie mark as she got within whispering distance of his ears. "This lot?" she breathed, fluttering her wings with feigned excitement, making sure the sarosians couldn't overhear. "I've got them convinced I'm an acolyte or prophet or chosen one or something of their Night Mother. They'll basically do anything I say. Hear that?" She tapped his chest with a forceful hoof. "These are my pirates. And the reason I'm here in the first place is because these dudes stole something and I want to steal it back. Got this? You hang out in your fancy spectator room, because this is my heist and my show. You want entertainment? Then don't kill my minions."

"Really?" Gazelle's slitted pupils widened until they were round. "Really? Hah! I knew you had it in you!" He backed off, grinning, and bowed. "I'll be right here, watching. Blow me away! Make it cool, and I'll owe you one."

He vanished up the stairs, leaving the mares breathing a collective sigh of relief. Valey wanted to collapse, legs shaking, but she stayed form and upright more to spite Gazelle than anything. She would have a lot of soul-searching to do before she could unflinchingly feel justified fighting that, but every instinct she possessed still wanted her to. She would... she would...

"Yo," Grapejuice whispered suddenly in her ear. "Thanks."

"You alright?" Valey breathed back.

"Yeah. Dude like that has nothing on me. Still cool that you bailed me out, though."

"Cool." Valey nodded, then straightened herself. "Alright! Nothing up here but him. Come on, you all. I've got some stolen saddlebags to find."





"Grenada!"

Shinespark trotted through the mess of freed Varsidelian soldiers, most busy stretching themselves, plundering rations from the table of defeated guards, or repurposing sliced-off iron cage bars as weapons. "Grenada, where'd you go? We need to talk."

"I am here, Shinespark," Grenada replied from in front of an empty cage.

"There you are." Shinespark sighed, emerging from the crowd and giving her a one-hoof armored hug. "Listen. I just talked with Golbez, and we... have things to talk about."

"We do," Grenada sadly agreed.

Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "You can guess what I'm going to say, can't you?"

"I can," Grenada sighed, adjusting her short, spiky mane. "About what we do after this. I am not welcome in the Empire."

Shinespark hung her head. "Because you've joined up with pirates. Golbez said you plundered something a few times, too. And now we've apparently freed a lot of Varsidelian soldiers, who are going to try to escape."

Grenada gave a pained, wistful smile. "It almost reminds me of home, seeing them prepare."

"Of the Spirit. Yeah." Shinespark touched the side of her head to her sister's. "The point is, they owe us and are on good terms with us, and since we're fighting for a way out too, we'll be fighting together. If any of us wanted to ask them for a small favor after the battle... say, asylum from the Empire in Varsidel, especially if that someone is a capable fighter or administrator... they'd probably be happy to help."

Grenada sniffed. "But... I just found you... Would you come too?"

"We just found each other," Shinespark corrected, putting a foreleg around her shoulder. "And... I don't know. I wish I could, but all my other friends... Well, we shot down the idea of going to Varsidel pretty hard when we were thinking about where to go after Ironridge. I don't know. I'll need to talk with them, at the very least. But even if we go our own ways, we'll at least have the knowledge this time that both of us are alive, and the other's out there. Right?"

"R-Right..." Grenada wiped her nose. "Assuming we do not perish attempting to flee this pirate ship."

"Yeah. Assuming that." Shinespark squeezed her one more time. "Before we part... if we do... I've got something to tell you, by the way. Something I'd like you to live your life knowing."

Grenada swelled slightly with hope. "I do too, Shinespark."

"So we better both live through this escape plan to hear it, because it's sure not something we have time to talk about now." Shinespark straightened up. "For survival!"

"For survival," Grenada echoed. "For us all getting out alive."