-Hoofington, nighttime, Maries-
“So… seedy a bar?” Well it was what was confirmed by our trustworthy sources Arizona. “The kind of place my mom would go to?”
“Seems like it.” Mara stated for us as we looked to it.
“La Perm style?” Asked Maria with a few flames licking her lips.
“Is there any other way to start a bar fight?” An amused sounding hiss came from Marie. “Let’s make this a night to remember.”
“These guys probably don’t even warrant a warm up for me.” The world’s strongest, yet scrawniest looking, cow stated. “Still, it’s nice to get a few favors from this.”
-Balsamic Brew’s Bar-
“So I took down that chimera all by myself.” A pegasus mare, with a green zebra styled mane and purple fur, was clearly hitting on a local stallion with her proud boast.
This mare was among the thirty or so clearly marked mercenaries in the bar wearing light cloth armor. The mercenaries had crossbows, a few blades and were relatively lightly armed. They had plenty of unicorn ponies, earth ponies and pegasus ponies and a single pudgy thestral.
What they didn’t have was pony paranoid enough to be constantly on the lookout for danger.
“Really, you didn’t need the help of all these other ponies in your company here to deal with such a nasty and vicious sounding chimera?” A voice said from behind her.
“I’m Maven of Maven’s Mercs, of course I can take down a chimera by my…!” The mare paled as she turned look at the speaker who would doubt her prowess in combat. “Y-y-you…”
“Us actually, we’re a plural you know.” She was met with three faces that she recognized speaking in unison and she wasn’t quite sure how they all snuck through the door without the rest of her company noticing them.
Maven went to scream, but two tiger paws slapped both sides of her head and she fell off the stool in a loud clatter.
Every mercenary in the room froze and turned towards the bar to see the chimera that they had ambushed a long time ago was standing among them. Said chimera was lifting a stool with a paw while turning towards them.
Maven, the mercenaries’ leader, was already out on the floor with a single attack.
“As per usual rules and regulations as followed by the family that we’re going to be joining into in matrimony, we will now be starting this fight in a traditional manner. I would like to warn you all that don’t understand this, we are starting a bar fight.” The goat head stated, the shivering bartending stallion slowly shrank down behind the bar. The tiger head continued for the chimera. “However, just to be clear here, this is revenge for a bunch of flank holes throwing us into Tartarus without so much as a how do you do. This led to my sister being permanently traumatized by a Chupacabra, This is clearly our idea of a therapy session for her. If you are going to support these mercenaries I suggest you stay and enjoy the festivities of a brutal one sided fight. As for everyone else... we would like to politely ask you to please exit the bar.”
“We took you down once we can…” Before the unicorn could say much more, a rope wrapped around his glowing horn and he was yanked into a nearby wall. He hit the floor out cold and Arizona slid her rope back under her bandana.
“Yeah… you don’t exactly have the element of surprise this time.” Arizona stated calmly, as a fairly large cow walked in with a stick of dynamite between her teeth. When she saw her bulky mother trot onto the scene like she owned the place, Arizona paled. “Mom… what are you doing here…. AND WHAT COMPLETE IDIOT GAVE YOU DYNAMITE?!”
“Grace, also she’s not an idiot kiddo and don’t disrespect your aunt! I know she raised you far better than that!” Minnesota ‘Maggie’ Magnolia Arid said as she joined Arizona and Maries from out of nowhere, the bachelorette party of beating up a room full of ponies was going to be slightly more exciting. “Did you know these mercenaries have a collective bounty on their butt’s my little Zoney?”
“That’s Interesting to know Maggie… well this will make what we’re doing here easier, legally speaking of course.” Marie turned to the two heads at the front of their body. “Throw the stool a single foot Mara!”
The stool left Maries paw and flew more than a foot, it embedded into the wall with how hard she threw it.
Every pony that wasn’t a mercenary, or a brave and prideful idiot, immediately evacuated past the two cows. Some ponies drunkenly stumbled about having had too much salt lick this night, they were also allowed to vacate the bar.
The mercenaries started to gather, as did a few bar patrons that had stayed for a fight. Only Maggie quickly put a stop to them grouping up. Pony herding instincts, even in a mercenary troupe, were a horrible idea when an explosives wielding nutcase was nearby.
“Light them up baby!” Maggie yelled as she smacked her hooves together and a spark jumped from them to her stick of dynamite. The short fuse lit up and Maggie spat the dynamite into the room.
Maries were already pulling themselves over the bars counter and Arizona quickly wrapped herself in a spiral of two ropes. The center of the room was rocked with an explosion and ponies were knocked all over the place in a painful manner.
Arizona’s rope burned away, but she was fine and she stayed near the entrance, looking a little haunted as her mother was stealing what was supposed to be Maries’ fight.
Maries immediately grabbed a bottle of vinegar on the bar and smashed it roughly against a unicorn’s head, but it only cracked and didn’t break. This was as far as they got into starting the fight before Maggie took over.
“I’m going to knock you out~!” Leaping Maggie performed a painful looking elbow drop on one of the earth ponies, the floor shuddered with the impact as her weight engulfed the poor mercenary. She rolled and kicked upwards into a pegasus’s face. “Do you want to mess with this wild cow~? Someone at least try to give me a bloody lip now~! What do you got to fear, or do you just know that I’m not any average steer~! Stear clear, because when I get near to throw a single hoof to the face and… oh dear~!”
Most of the ponies were too shell shocked by the crazy cow to really stop her from putting her hoof into an earth pony’s face and sending him flying across the room, she followed that up by grabbing and pile driving a unicorn into unconsciousness.
“Down you go, to a single blow, what a wuss, what a puss, got cream that’s sour, since there’s no matching a cow with this kind of raw power~!” Maggie tilted her neck with a sharp crack and pressed her hooves together flexing all the muscles in her body. “I throw my weight around, get paid by the takedown, are you afraid yet or do you need a better break down~?”
“This is our vicious come back, in Tartarus we had some fears, you messed with us three, now we’ll just enjoy your tears~!” Mara and Maria gripped an entire table in both their jaws and swung sending five unicorns slamming roughly into the wall. They spun around and released the table into three pegasi ponies pinning them against the ceiling and embedding them in it. “Did you think a chimera like us would take this sitting down, ambushing us and forcing us to the ground, well let’s return the favor with a smattering of musical flavor~!”
They grabbed a pony and Maria slammed her skull into his making him flop bonelessly out of their paws. Mara slapped outwards with her left paw and the raw strength sent several ponies flailing.
“So we’re going to knock you out, there’s no reason to shout, get ready and don’t you pout, this is just round one and you have another bout~!” Throwing a rope, Arizona yanked a pegaus into a table breaking it. She slung them around bashing several surround ponies with the stallion’s body and then sent him flopping across the ground. “Shout, that you don’t stand a chance! We’ll prance on you, watch us take you down with nothing but a glance~!”
Arizona glared at a unicorn, scaring the mare out of her wits. She turned and summarily slammed her face in the wall and fell onto her back with her legs twitching.
“Rip and tear, until it is done~!” Mara shouted as she bucked two ponies into Arizona’s outstretched hooves clotheslining them. She grabbed the thrown stool from the floor and reared up to bash a pegasus into a wall back first.
“By a metric ton, this sure to be fun~!” Marie stated before she rapidly, and deeply, scratched several ponies with her fangs as she was swung around by her sisters. It would be about thirty seconds before those ponies fell over, their adrenaline spreading Marie’s poison through their bodies at an accelerated rate.
“You should learn to fear us… because we’ve already won~!” Maria hit a unicorn with her flame breath and he started rolling on the floor after being lit up.
“We’re going to knock you out~!” Using her bulk Maggie smashed several ponies against the wall all at once.
“This is no gentle bop to the snout~!” Arizona rammed her hoof into one of the braver bar patrons that actually tried to make a moved, he flipped over backwards from the impact and now had a broken nose.
Arizona tossing out ropes to start tying up the various battered mercenaries who were having problems getting their bearings from the sudden violent assault.
“Do you think that crossbow scares us lout~!” Maries screamed as one at a whimpering, pudgy, thestral stallion mercenary trying to load his crossbow, the poor guy was too shaken up from being near the dynamite explosion to do so. He didn’t stop trying to load it, a paw swiftly slammed into his temple in a karate chop motion that knocked him out.
“Is this a battle~? I call it a rout~!” As a mercenary tried to surge toward Maggie with a sword she caught it between her hooves, she snapped it in half and then lifted the earth pony into the air with her right hoof. Maggie pulled the mare up to her face and gave the poor mare a steely stare. “You should be running, especially with this kind of clout~!”
After punching the mercenary mare in the face with a single left hoof, Maggie dropped her to the floor in a heap.
“So how many of you are really left, do you want to come quietly or do we need a break your cleft~?” Maries said holding up a curled paw to a stallion who whimpered pitifully at the total massacre happening here and curled up on the floor sobbing.
“I’m sorry, please don’t take me in~!” The stallion whimpered, Maries let him be. “I have a family, I accept defeat, you win~!”
They all looked around only to spot one last bit of trouble.
“Nobody move, or I’ll make this stallion pay~! Now give me time to back out, still, all of you better stay~! One wrong move and this won’t be a clean end to this day~.” Maven had gotten back up and grabbed one of her own mercenaries and was aiming a crossbow at their heads, the stallion looked fairly betrayed by the mercenary leader. Mara, Maria, Arizona and Maggie stopped cold. “So you tracked us down, you thought you could catch me~. Well we all know, that it just wasn’t meant to…~”
A smashing sound was heard. It was the breaking of a bottle of vinegar against Maven’s head, the crossbow dropped and subsequently went off. The arrow harmlessly impaled a wall full of decorative knickknacks.
“Be…?” Maven’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she went down again with a painful lump on her skull.
The stallion looked at the broken bottle being held in a snake’s tail at his hooves. Marie held the broken bottle at him threateningly and he held completely still. Nodding to him, Marie simply turned away from him.
“My sisters, always needing someone to watch out for our collective backsides…” Marie threw the broken bottles to the side and then slithered over and rejoined with her sisters. “Arizona finish tying them up. Excuse me sir…”
“Balsamic and you’re going to pay for all the damages to my bar!” The bartender shouted at Maries, there was a slight hint of greed in his eyes. “That’s roughly thousands of bits in damage that you just caused and customers I’ll never get back, if you have money to hire help then you have money to pay me for the damages.”
“We can’t pay you for legal reasons, one is that this building clearly isn’t up to code and hasn’t been for a long while.” Exclaimed Mara lazily, Balsamic paused and looked a little ill.
“Two, there’s an illegal parapsrite spawning operation in the back. Hoofington had a big problem with those and banned any sign of their existence in the area.” Rubbing the back of her hoof against her fluff, Maria was also fairly calm. “The authorities are going to look into your other business as soon as they arrive Mr. Balsamic. We’re going to be here to make sure you don’t hide what Marie saw in your back room while we dove over the counter.”
The stallion paled visibly.
“Three, we had this building condemned before we came in. We had a safety inspector we know personally come in to check it in secrecy and everything. So technically you don’t own the building because you didn’t have rebuilt or refurbished in the last five years you’ve been bribing the safety and health inspectors off.” With Marie’s words, Balsamic the blue stallion with the short rusty colored mane was slowly getting paler and paler by the second. What was said next clearly made it plain he couldn’t do anything. “Thus you have been illegally running this building within that timeframe which thereby strips your ownership of said building according to the will that your late grandpa left behind and we have no need to pay reparations on it for the repairs you should have done a long time ago.”
“Not to mention the fact that you’ve been harboring, aiding and abetting a bunch of criminal fugitives known as Maven’s Marauders.” Inserted Maggie cheerfully as she dared him to try something.
“I…” The stallion looked down. “How?”
“We’re lawyers.” Maries exclaimed.
“Oh buck me… you’re ‘THAT’ good!” Yes, Mr. Balsamic was thoroughly bucked.
“Paper trails Mr. Balsamic, you have them. Be assured that if you win your impending court case, then you ‘might’ be in control of your bar again. You can’t threaten money out of us as you have no legal legs to stand on.” Explained Maria as she exhaled a few flames. “You clearly weren’t doing your job in taking care of this place correctly. Our mates Jade and Fizzy would be proud that we researched everything thoroughly.”
-A minute later, Maggie-
The authorities had it handled and we were exiting the bar when an impressive explosion went off up in Canterlot.