Nuts and Bolts

by Nines

Battle

Silver Spanner was happily drafting designs for a new helicopter toaster when a throwing axe whizzed past her head and embedded itself into the wall. She stared at it, her body stiffening. Then her brow furrowed and she slouched as she looked over her shoulder. "Mjolna, I just repaired that wall! I don't know about you, but I don't want to lose our security deposit! Gold Estate is looking for any excuse to evict us after my last experiment."

"Draw arms, Silver Spanner," Mjolna cried, one hoof stomping the end of another axe, making it flip up into the air where she grabbed it deftly with her mouth. "Faddle smeh!"

"I'm too busy to 'faddle'!" Silver snapped, looking back at her blueprints. Her horn glowed as she drew a line with a white crayon across the page. "I'm barely making ends meet with my repair business, and you haven't had a blacksmith commission in weeks. We still have to pay the rent this month! This invention could keep the roof over our—"

The crayon snapped in half as an axe whizzed so close to her head, a lock of her mane was chopped off.

"Mjolna, you crazy mare—!" Silver whipped around just in time to see Mjolna flying toward her in a hind leg kick.

“Hyaaa!” her roommate screamed.

Silver ducked, and Mjolna’s hind hoof struck the wall. With practiced ease, she kicked off of it, and swung a fore hoof at the unicorn’s face.

A magical force field went up, and Mjolna's hoof struck against it, sending blue sparks flying. With no way to press forward while the shield was active, the earth pony allowed herself to drop to the floor with a hard stomp of her hooves. Taking advantage of the momentary reprieve, Silver Spanner hopped backward, her brow furrowing under her white bangs. The force field dissipated. “All right, that’s it you ground-stomping jerk! You want a fight? You got a fight!” she barked.

Mjolna flicked her thick mane back, a grin splitting her face wide as her honey-colored eyes took on an electric glint. “Ha! A skrælling like you is no match for a warrior like me! But I need to practice if I ever hope to join the Royal Guard, so I suppose you’ll do as a living dummy.”

Silver smirked at her as her horn started to glow. “Oh yeah?”

The other mare chuckled arrogantly. “Come at me, welp. Let me show you what true strength is!”

From an open crate of spare parts and small devices next to the drafting table, a leather cap with a horn opening and a strange series of circuits and wires floated over to Silver in a blue aura. With her magic, the unicorn placed the cap on her head, the belt fastening under her chin. “Now you’ve asked for it!” she exclaimed.

Mjolna squinted one eye. “Is your plan to defeat me with hideous fashion?”

Silver shot her an annoyed look. “No, mallet-head! This is my UniGun!”

“It’s a hat,” her roommate returned flatly.

The tinker pony blushed. “It’s a weapon.”

“It’s an ugly hat.”

“That’s it,” Silver snarled, her horn glowing again. This time, however, it burned so bright, the tip turned white, and long shadows were cast across the room.

Mjolna’s eyes widened and she strafed to the side. Within the next instant, a thick beam of magical energy struck the drafting table, scorching it and blasting off a jagged chunk at the bottom edge. The northern pony glanced at the table, then turned back to Silver.

"See?" Silver said smugly. "The UniGun augments my magic, focusing it to devastating levels! Fortunately for you, I have it set on 'STUN'!"

Suddenly, Mjolna's manic smile reappeared with a vengeance. The unicorn balked. That wasn't quite the reaction she was hoping for.

Uh, oh, Silver thought with a hard swallow.

“Finally!" her roommate roared rapturously. "Now I’ve got a real challenge!”

Silver Spanner struck a hoof on the floor, her horn lighting up again. Her mouth set in a grim line. “Let’s go!”

Blinding light flashed repeatedly as the tinker pony fired up her magic over and over again and took aim at her roommate. She tried to fire as fast as she could, but a dull pain was entering into her head, and her UniGun was getting uncomfortably warm. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to hit Mjolna, whose acrobatic dodges would have made any pegasus jealous. Silver was just barely able to keep her zealous sparring partner at bay. Just as she thought she couldn’t keep up the struggle any longer, an unexpected development occurred.

Mjolna had just cartwheeled to the right in another artful dodge when a standing mirror behind her, turned just to the side, reflected Silver’s beam of magic. The energy struck the earth pony’s back, and she grunted, crashing to the ground in a graceless heap.

Silver cheered, rearing back to her hind hooves. Using her magic, she removed the UniGun from her head and said with a grin, “Wow! And to think I was going to scrap this!”

She levitated the cap closer to examine a switch on the side. “Lemme just see what it was calibrated to for notation purposes, and—” Her face fell and the aura vanished from the UniGun, letting it drop to the floor.

The device had been set on KILL.

Silver’s eyes snapped on Mjolna’s body, which still had yet to so much as twitch.

“Mjolna!” She exclaimed, running to her friend. Placing a hoof on Mjolna’s side, she rolled her over. “Hey, buddy! Hey! You okay!? Speak to me!”

Mjolna’s eyes slowly rolled to Silver, her tongue lolling from her open mouth as she gurgled unintelligibly.

Silver sighed in relief. “Phew!” Then she frowned and looked over her shoulder at her invention. “Rust it! I need to recalibrate that thing.”

Another gurgle.

Silver shot Mjolna an impatient look as she levitated the UniGun to her, along with a screwdriver. “Oh, hush. It serves you right for interrupting me."

Comments

[Evowizard25]

Wow, guess Mjolna is tougher then she looks to survive a kill shot. A very impressive fight scene, if I have to say so myself. Mjolna is a delightful bit of zealotry which is ironically the same sort I have for my own Quickfix {Silver Spanner}. So these two seem to represent both her sides in that regard.

[NobodieZ]

“Oh, hush. It serves you right for interrupting me."