The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Light Trick

With a ripple of black, Valey reached the top of the elevator shaft. Someone pulsed a flash club from behind the open shaft door, and the ruined elevator carriage had been jammed sideways such that she would have to shadow sneak to fit past it and then immediately be revealed.

Unfortunately for whoever was waiting at the top, Valey didn't take kindly to being told she had to do things. Coming out of the shadows and clinging to the wall just below the carriage, she wedged her back into a crevice, steadied herself... and kicked the carriage bottom so hard that she finished what the artillery had started, snapping it clean off and sending the metal disc sailing into the room as a lead-off attack.

The pegasus with the flash club dodged out of the way, but was unable to stop her as she followed it, getting a firm hoofing in front of the elevator and taking quick stock of her surroundings. Three hostile pegasi; two mares and one stallion. Two dozen unconscious or incapacitated pegasi that looked like real Defense Force ponies... and fought like it, too, if they had been bested by three. Signs of a fight everywhere, ranging from scattered and broken weapons to a smashed display on one wall.

Valey grinned. "Ooh, looks like someone's party got crashed. Did the three of you do this?"

Looking slightly harried, one mare stepped forward, sweeping a wing back. "They were the ones who tried to stop us. Sorry, but business is business, and our business is you. We'd appreciate it very much if you surrendered, because the longer this goes on, the more likely it is to get bloody."

"Or you could leave me alone," Valey offered. "Or I could bust you all up." Her flank was beginning to tingle; either they were about to charge or the elevator shaft wasn't as blocked as she thought it was. Whichever was the case, stalling wouldn't be in her best interest.

The pegasi accepted her challenge as one, grabbing hardened Defense Force spears from the defeated party and dropping into formation.

"Hoboy..." Valey rolled her eyes as they approached, trying not to show her nerves. Would she be fine? Probably. The mooks she was up against were clearly elite and far more than what she was used to dealing with, but they were still mooks, and she was still her. Her friends, though? She saw no signs of them, so that could be an issue. She fell into a defensive stance, preparing to block an incoming swing.

The attacking mare anticipated her block, but wasn't quite fast enough to play around Valey's reflexes as she shot a hoof at the thrust, wrapping around the weapon and catching it in a lock. The stallion, however, was, and as Valey twisted herself around the spear to deliver a kick to its owner's head, he stabbed straight at where she was going to be. Only the nimblest of twirls allowed Valey to get below the caught spear, kicking off it into the ground like a lever, uppercutting its owner with the haft and dodging into the stallion's own shadow with one movement.

The other mare gave her less than a second before having her flash club primed, hitting the metal-plated ground with a blast of light. Instead of trying to gain momentum coming out of the shadows, Valey flipped away, keeping her guard up. Three stabbers that close together needed a to be separated; fighting all three at once would inevitably give one an opening to stab her while she dealt with the others. All three pegasi anticipated her erupting from beneath them with an attack and guarded downward.

Before she could take advantage of their split-second distraction, four pegasi streaked up from the elevator shaft, and she had to roll out of the way to avoid being immediately flattened. So much for her grenade holding them off. With a single glance, they formed into a team, and Valey had suddenly gone from an armed three versus one to an armed seven versus one, both in close quarters. Those were odds that needed evening.

She backed up until she felt her hoof bump against a defeated Defense Force pegasus. Did he still have a spear? Of course he did. Good for him. She grabbed it with her good wing, aimed, grinned as the pegasi realized if they failed to dodge, that could be a lot more lethal than a simple kick or headbutt... and jammed it into the room's overhead lighting mechanism, causing it to explode with a hiss of magic and sparks. Red light filtered into the room from its smoke-stained window to the core, dimly bathing the ceiling and completely shadowing the floor.

The pegasi grinned; they had their flash clubs. Valey grinned harder: they'd be forced to use them to stop her from escaping, but lacking her borderline prescience, they'd have no way to keep from blinding each other with the flashes. So long as she kept them going, they wouldn't be able to see her, even when she wasn't sneaking.

She ducked, and her mark tingled. Flash! She surfaced just in time, squinting to protect her eyes as five out of the seven pegasi tried to flush her out at once, the combined intensities of their strobe forcing most of them to rub frantically at their eyes and even earning a yelp. She could have hurled the spear then and there and stood a good chance of impaling one, but instead she flung it to the side, clattering, and ducked again.

At least one of the pegasi had caught on and screwed his eyes shut, relying on hearing and their numbers advantage to fight, but that meant he fell for the decoy, chucking his stolen spear at the noise and blasting away blindly with the flash club. He was at the wrong angle to illuminate her, though, and the dizzied other pegasi had just as much luck as the previous time as she chaotically ducked and resurfaced, never quite being submerged when the shadow was parted. Sensing they were sufficiently thrown off, she made a break for the door...

...And smacked into three more pegasus mares who were freshly arriving. Gasping, they grasped the situation far faster than Valey was hoping, using their flash clubs as clubs once again and trying desperately to block her way with a precision rain of blows.

"Nope, nope and nope!" Time slowed by her cutie mark as she pressed into their attack, Valey moved her forehooves and spare wing like lightning, catching all three clubs at once. Wrenching herself in a circle, she yanked the three mares together so that they tripped on each other, falling into a pile. She didn't bother kicking them out of the entrance, vaulting over the heap and hoping it would slow the others down. That was ten hostile ninja-tier ponies in one room, and she was far more exhausted thanks to climbing the core than she had been for her previous battle. Not even stopping to taunt or wave, Valey cantered down the tunnel, hoping to find a place where she could ditch the pegasi for good.

Comments

[alamais]

lol, rip defense force mooks.

Quick, escape into an air vent!

[FloydienSlip]

Ayy, finally caught up. Good stuff going down!

[Cold Bolt]

Geez, Valey is nothing short of a One Mare Army. Good on her for staying nonlethal, too - that puts her at a disadvantage, especially against opponents who aren't.

[sploopy slooder]

i kinda wish this was more of a pg18 novel, if only so the violence would be a bit less superficial. tons of guns and spears and other deadly weapons, but people barely ever even get hurt, much less actually die. theres no real consequences to like.....anything. i hope the story takes the kidde gloves off and starts making people bleed a bit at least.