*Third pony POV*
Mawa used the link she’d formed with the human to continue monitoring his progress.
He’d torn through the guards who’d went into the kitchen to check out the noise pretty quickly, she was disturbed at how easily he did it but she couldn’t argue with the results, he would be getting to her in no time and she’d be free as a bird.
But in this case, it seems like she’d thought too soon, as she could hear the tramping of a massive amount of hooves coming right up the staircase.
She gulped; she might need to give Marv a heads up…
*Marv’s POV*
I didn’t know whether or not I’d died on Earth but regardless of what really happened…I was having a Hell of a time.
I generally don’t go for killing animals unless I got no option, but given that not only were these horses trying to kill me but were obviously sentient and didn’t seem to find a problem with ripping my head off.
So yeah, I was enjoying making these guys into hamburger meat.
I’d fought my way right out of the dining room, and went right into some kind of great hall with a staircase, and I was facing off against four of the horse guards with my sword, icy mitt…and my other mitt, couldn’t use the gun just yet, had to find more ammo.
There were two on my right, one on my left, and the last one was right behind me. They were especially determined to see me dead and were a bit scared.
Already killing about twenty other guys and leaving them to rot on the ground might have had something to do with it.
A smirk grew on my face, they think that’s something? This is just a light workout.
“Well?” I said “Are you gonna try something already or are you planning to waste my time with the thousand yard stares?”
That set them off, the horse on my right and the horse behind me attempted to charge me with those wing contraptions. I quickly stepped to the side of the one behind me, grabbed his neck and in a swift motion, hurled him right into the path of the other horse…and his sword.
The blade laden horse was shocked to see his buddy impaled on his own sword, so shocked he didn’t even get up to react before I swiftly beheaded him.
The other two were even stupider as they just tried to charge on me, they didn’t think that maybe this job wasn’t worth the trouble of going up against me.
Not like I minded, I love a good fight.
As the horses ran right for me, I quickly used my reflexes to parry the blow of one sword while punching the other horse right in the snout.
I let go of my own sword after parrying the blow and grabbed the heads of both the guards, smashing them together like a hammer on an anvil.
“Bet that’s gotta be a hell of a headache” I quipped as they fell right to the ground, I couldn’t have put out the lights better if I’d smashed a lamp onto the ground.
I suddenly heard the voice again ‘Marv, there’s a problem.’
“You say problem, I say all you can eat buffet.”
‘Cute, but put your psychotic tendencies on hold for now. I think my father suspects I have something to do with you, he’s put most of the remaining guards on the stairs, and they’ve blocked them up. And it’s the only real way up to the tower he’s locked me up in.’
“Well what the Hell you want me to do with it? Invite them to Old Town?”
‘Old Town? If that’s some kind of human night club-’
“Well that’s one way to put it.”
‘-spare me the references. I still need to get out of here, and though you’ve handled yourself very well so far, you wouldn’t be able to stand up to these killers, not with the numbers they have. I need you to sneak up here and break me out.’
“Well how hard could that be?”
‘Damned impossible if you were a pony, but you humans are supposed to have thumbs like a griffin, so maybe you could do what would be too hard for just a pony to do. Head to the second floor, I believe there’s some rope in one of the closets there.’
“And just what’s the rope for? Bondage?”
‘You’ll see.’
The voice cut out, and I was alone again, I had to get up there eventually.
I had to give these guys credit for trying to kill me, but seriously, locking a girl who was some kind of princess up in a tower? How cliché can you get?
I began to walk towards my destination, moving carefully but firmly as I made my way up the stairs.
There was a hallway that was mostly empty, there might have been a few horses behind doors but I could clearly hear two horses having sex in some room. They were keeping themselves busy for me, lucky break.
With my eyesight, it was easy to find the closet the voice had told me about, there was a decently sized number of cleaning supplies and a surprisingly large amount of rope.
“What the hell is rope doing in here?”
‘It’s for the gallows in the backyard. We go through a lot of it.’
“Horsehanging? From the look of all the swords around here I’d have thought your old man was more keen on chopping off heads.”
‘He’s a maniac, trust me on that.’
“Hey, I’m not going to complain. I didn’t even need the damn rope, I’ve scaled tougher buildings than this.”
‘You haven’t been outside of it yet and even if you were sure, I’d still need you to use the rope, you’re my only way out of here and I’m not taking any chances.’
“If you say so toots, I’ll just-”
“What was that?” said a female voice from one of the nearby rooms, the same room I’d heard sex coming from earlier.
“Hold your tongue woman” a gruff sounding male voice grumbled “I’ll see what’s there.”
Two doors down, a horse came out of the room, he looked very much like a guard, but he didn’t have any armor or weapons on.
His loss, I came prepared.
I hurled my sword right into his leg, the guard let out a cry of pain and I heard the woman gasp inside the room.
A chuckle came out of my throat as I menacingly advanced towards the stallion who was doing a very poor job.
“Hey bub, you do realize how bad this’ll look on your resume right?”
The horse tried to get up in order to run off, but I was quick enough to grab him by the neck and toss him into the room.
It looked a bit like a guest bedroom, and in side was the guard’s armor, contraption…and a quivering female horse with peach colored fur who was attempting to hide behind the bed where she and the jackass were screwing, judging by the servant outfit I found on the ground, she was one of the maids or something.
After throwing this mook in, I felt like his teeth needed some loosening.
My foot solved that.
As the colt coughed up some molars and forcibly went to sleep I looked the woman right in the eyes.
“You’ll probably want to clean this up.”
The mare screamed and galloped past me in a panic, sure there were a bunch of horses trying to kill me, but I still don’t hit women, and she’d probably get killed if she didn’t move it, the guard wouldn’t be so lucky…but I couldn’t give a fuck.
I’d wasted enough time; it was time to get back to business.
“Alright voice, just what the Hell am I going to do with this rope?”
‘At the end of the hallway, there’s another room with a balcony, on the outside wall there’s several other balconies…including one just outside my tower.’
“So I use this rope to climb up the building’s walls.”
‘Exactly, now if you gather some of the swords from ponies you’ve already killed and/or maimed, you can tie them together to create a grappling hook, it’s not a perfect solution, but I can walk you through-’
I laughed, this wasn’t the first time I had to build something like this on the fly.
“Relax kid, I know how to do this, I’ll get to work now.”
I got the swords I needed and managed to make the hook in about four minutes, a bit longer than I’d hoped but who knows when some other guards would show up.
I took a look at it, the damn thing was uglier than me, but it held together and that was more important.
Moving over to the door the voice mentioned, I carefully snuck out onto the balcony, and was a bit surprised at what I saw.
Outside this building, I saw a courtyard that was all set up for some very lavish wedding, the sort of thing fit for a king.
Suddenly some things began to make sense; this whole place looked just like some twisted ‘Arabian Nights’ story, her father running a place this big…
“Arranged marriage” I muttered aloud.
‘What?’ the voice replied, in a tone that implied she was suddenly quite scared.
“Your father is trying to put you into an arranged marriage isn’t he? That’s why you’re trying to escape.”
‘I- he…Oh Celestia. Look-’
“No need to explain yourself…I’m still coming to break you out.”
‘…You are?’
“My city is an absolute shithole, and that’s on a good day, why do you think I’ve turned out the way I did?
“Back when I was there, I was just a local thug, but I had a bit more scruples than most of the losers in my town, I even helped people out by…dealing with problems.”
‘In a violent way?’
“Like you wouldn’t believe, I especially hate it when people hurt children and women, and with a few exceptions, I don’t hit women.”
‘What exceptions are you talking about?’
“Once there was this girl who was helping me avenge the death of someone I cared about, who also was her sister.
“But before I killed the asshole who murdered my Goldie, I knocked her sister out…what I was about to do the killer was so horrific she’d get nightmares for life.
“The other time was when this broad was running a child prostitution ring…she wasn’t a woman anymore, she might have had breasts, but she was so evil she deserved to be killed anyway.
“You’re acting like this is the end of your life, and I don’t like the idea of this arranged marriage, your hatred of the idea just screams of sex slavery. Is your father trying to make you marry an older horse?”
‘No, the king’s son is about my age…but I’d sooner die than marry him, he’s like the prince from ‘A Whinny of Fire and Ice’, he’s a sadistic bastard who is extremely misogynistic, racist, and homophobic. My father would kill to have connections with the king, and I’m his only child.’
Genocidal, ridiculously xenophobic, and willing to force his daughter to marry an absolute asshole like this…I couldn’t wait for a chance to rip this fucker’s throat open.
“Don’t you worry none, I’ll be up there soon…I guess the balcony on the top of the wall is yours?”
‘I-it is.’
“Alright, I’ll be there in a minute…oh and kid, talking with you’d be easier if I knew your name. You got one?”
‘It’s Mawa…Mawa Sihr.’
“Right, I’ll see you in a bit.”
The voice of Mawa left my head; I needed to concentrate about scaling this wall after all.
There were six floors above me, all but one of them, the Seventh floor, just below the final balcony that led to Mawa.
I was about to throw the hook and start my climb, when Mawa’s voice returned ‘Uh, there’s just one more thing Marv, my room is on the sixth floor, accessible by the balcony. I have some emergency supplies, a few reference books and an atlas. If we’re going to escape this country, or even the city, we’ll need them.’
“None of these supplies are makeup are they?”
‘What?! Don’t be ridiculous, what use would makeup be in an escape like this? I mean food I’d been storing from past attempts, a carrying bag, some clothes, stuff like that.’
“Just checking.”
Mawa’s voice quit talking, and I was free to focus on my work again.
I took a look right up to the other balconies and carefully tossed the hook up to the third balcony.
The climbing wasn’t too hard, not the first time I’ve scaled a building, I generally didn’t use ropes for it but this wasn’t too hard at all.
I moved up quickly but careful enough to try and keep myself from getting attention drawn to me, there was a Goddamn party down below and I was dead meat if they saw me.
The rope gave me access to the third balcony, I threw it up pretty good but when I got off, I couldn’t waste time.
My next throw put it right at the fifth balcony, right where the horse-girl wanted me to go.
I’d gotten into the rhythm of this, making this climb took even less time; I knew this thing wouldn’t just fall apart now, and I wasn’t going to stop at this point.
As soon as I lifted myself right over the edge, Mawa’s voice returned “Alright, now open the door, it shouldn’t be unlocked.”
The balcony looked like some sorta patio, and there was a glass door leading into Mawa’s bathroom, I tried the doorknob…and found it was locked.
“I don’t know what horses think ‘unlocked’ means, but this door doesn’t want me coming in.”
‘Crap’ Mawa grumbled ‘My father is even more paranoid than I thought, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for me then, I could probably get in there with little-’
“No problem” I cut her off “I know my way around a lock.”
‘No!’ she hurriedly said ‘The lock is magic, my father had every lock here be magically affected, and you really can’t crack it without the key, a skeleton key or a lock-picking spell. I know one, and I can do it when I’m down there.’
I muttered something foul under my breath, once I had Mawa things would probably get fucked up so badly the whole scheme would turn into the biggest game of chase ever, with the stakes being our lives.
Smashing that door would be easy, but even I knew that this’d be so loud I might as well have painted myself in white paint and yelled at the top of my lungs. Everybody would know I was there.
However, since this was a doorknob, and I could clearly see where the screws were, I knew just how to handle this.
“Does magic affect the doorknob itself? It’s just unable to be unlocked without the key, right?”
‘Uh, yeah. Why do you ask?’
“Well, there’s always a way to get around this kind of problem…and while this tree is pretty big, it’ll make a nice screwdriver.’
Carefully, I began to turn the sword so I could get one of the screws out, I’d slipped a couple of times but very soon, I removed it.
‘That…that’s amazing’ Mawa commented in an amazed tone ‘Why the hay didn’t I think about that?’
“Don’t let it bother you. I had to figure out something to get this lock broke, struck me that the screws would be more interested in moving away.”
After the first screw fell out, removing the others were easyand as the doorknob fell, the lock was right in front of me.
“Almost done” I said to reassure Mawa, I thrust the sword right into the lock to smash the lock, crushing it quickly and breaking out the other doorknob.
I stuck my fingers through it and forced the door open.
The bedroom looked fancy but not overtly so, with a large bed, a table, and a chair, there didn’t seem to be too much in it though, but I did see a dish used to eat off of.
“Alright, where’s the emergency goods?”
‘My emergency supplies are hidden in the floor; go to the right of my bed, there’s some carpet that’ll feel hollow and if you feel around it, there should be a crack. When you find it, carefully remove the cover.”
I moved over to the carpet and found the panel of floor easily. Lifting it out of the ground, I saw a black duel-backpack that looked like it’d fit a horse well enough, even if it’d just be awkward on a human, right beside a book that looked very much like a magic spellbook and another book entitled “Saddle Arabian Atlas.”
‘That’s it!” Mawa exclaimed ‘Grab them and get up here, I can hear music down in the courtyard…I think they want to start the marriage.’
“Not on my watch…you got anything in that room?”
‘Not much, but I have a dresser and a few tables.’
“Good, barricade the door with those, that should slow them down just a little, maybe not long enough to cover our whole escape, but part of it at least.”
‘Got it.’
As Mawa’s voice cut out again, I ran to the balcony and grabbed the grappling hook. My throw was still accurate, if a bit rushed. I couldn’t afford to take my time now.
When I got over the balcony, I looked right into another glass door and saw what I knew was Mawa.
I’d previously seen talking horses and a whole bunch of winged horses…but never once did I ever consider I’d run into a frigging unicorn.
She had a tan coat of fur with a black mane, on her left flank I could see some kinda portal with a human hand sticking out of it, a tattoo maybe? I didn’t know. She also was wearing some sort of wedding dress built for horses, a damned expensive one too.
She was standing in the center of the room with a tan glow coming right from the horn on her head, and the very things she described were being moved right to the door, like some kinda telekinesis.
As she finished, she turned around and gasped when she saw me, a smirk rose on my lips, was she expecting some kind of knight in shining armor?
The surprise didn’t last long though, her snout soon turned into a look of relief and slight irritation.
There was a tanish glow around the handles for the door and it opened up for me, the unicorn then trotted over to me “Finally” she spoke, actually speaking to me with her actual voice instead of a voice in my head “Had to wait until the last minute to get here, huh?”
“Well I’d have taken the elevator, but it was out of order.”
The clothes the unicorn wore began to glow “As much as I’d prefer to banter” Mawa began “We have to get out of here, watch the door while I get this off.”
I looked at her questionably “Look, I’m no local, but are you sure it’s a good idea to go around naked?”
She chuckled as the dress came off “I’m a pony” she said “Going around naked isn’t exactly a taboo like it is among goblins.”
She had a point, what use would horses have for clothes anyway?
“Besides” she continued “If I keep this on it’ll be harder to get around, plus it’d draw too much attention when we go out the window.”
Soon she’d removed her dress and was moving towards me “Alright, now hand me the pack, I’ll need to-”
Suddenly I heard a knock at the door “Mawa you bitch!” Roared the voice of an old Arabian guy “Get out here! I know you summoned the monster wreaking havoc in my castle! Do you know how bad this is?!”
Mawa had began to growl and a snarl was present on her face, I put a mitt on her snout “Cool it, just put the pack on, I’ll handle this.”
The horse begrudgingly nodded and started to put it on, while I turned right to the door and said…
“Hey geezer! I might be scarred up more than a Yankees fan in Jersey, but I still got feelings!”
There was silence behind the door for a minute before the voice returned “It’s in there! Kill him!”
Suddenly the door began to get smashed with something heavy, it didn’t break immediately, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
I turned to Mawa “Alright kid, I think we’ve loitered around here long enough. How are we going to escape?”
The unicorn gulped as she saw the door begin to bulge “There’s a way out in the basement, I’ve never used it to try and escape but I know it leads into the sewers, and if we use it, we can get out.”
“Same basement I was in?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well that’s convenient” I quickly grabbed the kid underneath one of my arms
“What the Hay?!” She yelled “Why’re you doing this?!”
“Sorry, but if we try to shimmy down the rope, they’ll catch up to us too quick. So if we’re going to escape…”
I quickly ran over to the rope, unicorn in hand as I grabbed the rope “We’re going to have to pull a Tarzan.”
“What’s a Tarzaaaaaaan?!”
The unicorn screamed out as I quickly swung out from the balcony with the rope.
“Hang on kid; I’ve only got one shot at this!”
Swinging like one of those pendulum things my old pal Dwight kept in his office, I used the momentum to swing the two of us through the air and onto the fifth balcony.
The Unicorn sighed with relief as I landed…right before I leapt off and aimed for the fourth floor balcony.
Setting the horse down quickly, I drew my sword and smashed the glass door and demolished it.
I quickly turned to the unicorn as I put the sword away and pulled out my gun “Kid. You want your freedom right?”
“More than you could ever imagine.”
“Then run, run like Hell!”
We bolted right through the door like a pair of missiles, the actual door out of the bedroom getting reduced to a bunch of toothpicks when my foot smashed it open.
I could see a clear shot to the stairway right in front, the broken door didn’t faze me at all, and both of us continued sprinting.
I could also hear the distant sound of an assload of hooves trampling down the stairs…and a pair of hooves coming up the stairs.
The pair of Pegasus guards who showed up from the stairs were about to charge us, but when I raised my gun, the thunderclap of a gunshot rang twice and they fell over dead.
“C’mon. Unless you know some magic that can turn air into bullets, I won’t have enough for everybody!”
Mawa was about to say something but I could tell she’d had a change of mind after deciding to just concentrate on running. Smart move.
We ran down the stairs as quick as we could, making it to the ground floor fast. Only way we could have done it even faster is if we jumped out of the window.
It took even less time to make it back to the door to the basement.
As soon as we entered, the unicorn quickly gestured to the door, immensely worried.
“Freeze the door! I have to find the entrance.”
Turning back to the door, I could hear the loud clopping of what sounded like a thousand hooves. I hurled an icebomb at the door, concentrating on freezing it up.
I managed to barricade it with what looked like an iceberg…after the seventh try, I just couldn’t hurl them right.
As I turned I saw Mawa was standing right next to a round metal door with a valve on it, the sign above it said ‘Sewer’, there were several boxes around her, which she probably moved, and were keeping me from seeing it earlier.
“Come on!” She yelled out “I still don’t know a matter creation spell.”
I didn’t know what she meant by that, but I knew I couldn’t hold the rest of these guys off, however fun trying to kill ‘em all would have been, Mawa’d end up as a Goddamn sex slave.
I ran over to the door, ducking in like a weasel trying to break into a henhouse. The tunnel barely had enough room for the two of us, but we could fit in well enough.
When I got in, Mawa used her magic to make the door close. As it closed, a beam of heat came out of her horn and welded it shut.
She let out a sigh of relief “Oh thank Celestia…we might actually make it, they won’t be able to follow us through this.”
“Worst guards I’ve ever killed.”
“Well to be fair it’ll be more like they’ll just try to send ponies into the sewers to find us, but hopefully we can leave them before we go.
“Now we can talk more later, but if we stay here too long, we’re dead.”
She had a point, we’ve escaped for now, but we still had a city to get the Hell out of…but that wouldn’t be too hard.
“Alright then Mawa…you lead the way.”