All The Queen's Mares

by Imperator Chiashi Zane

Tinkerer

“Know that you won’t be getting out of here. Those walls are laminated in eighteen millimeters of steel. You can’t break through that with your bare hooves. And I know you don’t have any of your little gadgets anymore. My stallions checked.”

The scarf wrapped around the mare’s face moved as she sighed, “I understand. Thank you for letting me keep my dignity at least,” her face turned away from her captor, who trotted away with a reverberating clicking on the old linoleum floor of the converted hospital.

As soon as the clicking stopped, she pulled off the scarf and reached her hoof into her mouth, rooting around. Her hoof came back out with a piece of metal and plastic that had been clipped to her teeth, which she dropped to the floor. She stomped on it, shattering the plastic and exposing a hoof-full of small metal picks. The scarf went back around her muzzle as she worked the picks into the air with her wings and set to work picking the lock from behind. It fell open with barely a sound, and she slipped out, tucking her tools into her scarf.

It only took a few moments for her to make her way to the end of the hallway, where the guards were standing, waiting, not really watching. She listened quietly as they discussed the game. What sport she couldn’t tell. It was never her forte. Slipping one of their crossbows up from the ground and aiming it at the nearest one’s back was easy, silent. The twang of the string as it fired, not so much.

The second reacted to his companion dying horribly by spinning around, horn lighting up. A pair of feathers jabbed him in the eyes, and he clutched at his face, only to get cracked in the jaw by a rising hoof, then body-slammed into the concrete. His skull clacked down on shattered teeth, and the Pegasus slipped the guard’s quivers off them, strapping one to either flank, and slinging the crossbow between her wings. The stairs went down, she was on the third floor. The stairs had a rail preventing Pegasi from flying all the way up or down. Security measure from the days of this building being a hospital that never got removed. It slowed her descent to as fast as she could trot down the stairs, trusting her thick leather boots to absorb the impact force and mute the sound.

She heard a clicking approaching as she reached the opening for the second floor, and stopped, wings opening in preparation. A broad-winged stallion stepped through the door, and she launched straight up, spreading her hooves to lock herself against the concrete supports of the next level. He didn’t look up, even for an instant as he trotted towards the stairs and started climbing. She swallowed, realizing that her escape was going to be found quickly. A bolt made its way from the quiver on her left flank, onto the crossbow grasped in her hooves. The bolt whipped out of the slot, and sank into the concrete.

The stallion bounced off the railing hoof first, and spun, his own crossbow coming out. It very nearly sank into her thigh as she dropped to the floor and scrambled for the stair-well. The stallion pursued, looping around as he reloaded the weapon. She didn’t have time for that luxury, and instead threw her acquired weapon onto her back. She kicked off the wall at the bottom and launched through the doorway just half a pace ahead of her pursuer.

Her hooves slammed into another pony as she launched herself in an arc over her pursuer, and took off in the other direction. Alarms were wailing, and she regretted for a moment failing her marksmareship class. That was until she reached the laundry room. She twisted and shot up the chute, hooves scrabbling to shove her back up to the third floor, or higher. If she could get into a ventilation duct, she could get up to the roof. It was bound to be easier than trying to get out through the ground floor.

A searing pain made her slip, and she started sliding back down as her rear left hoof stopped responding. A clicking noise made her glance down, and she saw the bolt sticking through her hoof, just above the pastern. She tried not to scream as her forehooves found a hatch and she ripped it open, using her wings to shove through. The bolt in her hoof caught, and she whimpered as she rolled onto her back and reached for the piece of metal.

She grabbed the bolt and jerked it the rest of the way through with a scream that probably woke the entire facility, falling to the ground. She rolled back to her hooves, keeping the injured one higher as she looked around. The room was a laundry storage room, with bins that presumably held dirty laundry at some point, and a stack of old dust covered towels. She yanked the bottom one out and tore it into strips, wrapping her bleeding hoof securely. With a grunt of pain, she pressed the hoof to the floor. There was no way it would support her weight, she knew. And these hallways were too narrow to fly in. She looked at the ventilation ducts. Wouldn’t work. Too narrow. Shit.

The door opened, and two stallions wearing armor burst in, crossbows up. Their heads clanged together, metal on metal as she swept down and shot into the hall, sliding on a towel on her back. With a scream, she launched herself at the window, forehooves crossed and wrapped in towels. The glass, fortunately, gave out, and she went through, only to crash into the metal grating keeping ponies from doing exactly what she was trying to do. She shook the glass filled towels off and wrapped her scarf around the four middle bars, tying it in a tight loop. With a grunt of effort, she twisted the knot tighter, the steel rings in the scarf binding together and crushing the bars until they snapped. She dove out, looping the scarf back over her neck as she took to the air.

More Pegasi charged into the air, pursuing her as Unicorns fired blasts of magic at her retreating form and Earth ponies fired crossbows. Another bolt struck her already injured hoof, sinking into the frog, right through her shoe, and embedding itself in the bone. She screamed as she fell from the sky and hit the dirt, sliding through dry shrubs and cacti.