The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Get Out

Maple stumbled through the door to the Water District lift chamber, the aesthetic half-melted appearance of its frame perfectly fitting now that she knew what the Flame District was really like. The lift platform sat obediently at the bottom of the incline where she had left it; she wondered if it had even been used. A few abandoned crates and tools dotted the floor and walls, and then the tunnel sloped away, steep and rectangular and with no end in sight. Pairs of dim floodlights dotted the sheet-metal walls at sparse, regular intervals, and her eyes could trace their hazy glow until they converged from distance, far, far above her.

Neon and Howe bolted for the platform. Gerardo hung back, ready to help her if she slipped; they hadn't met any more mercenaries, but had pressed themselves as hard as they could to reach the lift, leaving Maple on the verge of collapse. The moment she was a safe distance inside the platform's edge, she simply flopped, panting and feeling the warm metal against her side. Cool metal would have been more welcome.

Starlight punched at the controls, and with a mechanical grind, the platform came to life. Warning lights flickered, a gulf appeared as the rim retracted from the ground, and safety railings rose up to guard the edges. Boxes stuffed with gears churned into motion, and the lift began dragging itself up a track built into the smooth incline with measurably less grace than it had used going down. Maybe it was an illusion because they were in a hurry, but it could have stood to go faster.

"All right. We're safe..." Maple screwed her eyes shut as the platform's vibrations shook through her entire body. "We're making it out... Valey, please be okay..."

---

Valey burst out from a tunnel, cantering at an angle into one of the many rooms that formed a ring around the Flame District core. This one was filled with benches, lockers, and an equipment maintenance station. She bore right, then frantically swerved left, dodging a thrown flash club as she tried to take weight off her crippled hoof.

A pegasus lunged, and she dove under a bench to escape, slipping into the shadow the metal plank afforded. A stallion soared to the other side, ready to cut her off, but she emerged with all of her momentum thrown into a frantic feint, getting him to block right and then sliding past without attacking at all. She had a way out, and it hopefully wasn't one the pegasi were thinking of.

One side of the room was filled with windows to the core. Dirty, grimy, smoke-stained windows, but still translucent enough for her to slip through, and so heavily-reinforced that the pegasi wouldn't stand a chance breaking it with their silly clubs. Darting and rolling beneath another attack, she reached the glass... and a flash stopped her from getting through.

She winced; the pegasi had formed ranks. Three were alternating their flash clubs in perfectly synchronized strobes, leaving small enough time windows between each flash that she couldn't get through the thick barrier without being ejected back into the room. The other five were advancing, preparing to strike as one now that her back was to the wall. Two held spears, two held flash clubs, and one's hooves were the size of her head, needing no weapon. She gulped.

"This is your last chance to surrender," the unarmed stallion warned. "You're cornered."

No duh. "Thanks, captain obvious," Valey ground, holding her injured hoof and gritting her teeth. "Go choke on a banana peel!"

She kicked off the wall, shooting forward at the attackers. A wall of deadly spearpoints shot forward at point blank, leaving no chance to dodge... until her tail wrapped around a wall support, yanking her back as hard as it could, causing the spearponies to stumble forward as their thrusts failed to meet their target. Again, Valey lunged, grabbing a spearhead in her teeth and pulling away, tugging it free from its off-balance holder. The two motions happened in less than a second, and by the time any of the pegasi realized she wasn't dead, she had a spear.

Then she wasn't. Not even wasting time to turn it around, she flung it shaft-first, perfect aim sending it into the battery of flash clubs pinning her down and giving a mare a very sore hoof. In the split-second of disruption, she launched herself backwards, skimming through the shadow where the glass fused with the wall...

Flash! Another club strobed, and she was launched violently out of the glass. But she had reached the core, and rather than being flung back into the room, it flung her out, away from the wall and into freefall at the top of the giant mineshaft.

...Until her wings pumped as one, sending her gliding back to the wall the moment she was out of the window's line of sight. Valey found a crevice several meters below the glass and sank inside, resting her wing. She was hardly about to do acrobatics with it, but there were certain benefits to pretending an injury was worse than it was, and now she had shaken the pegasi and made them lose her trail. The flash clubs could only expose her if they already knew where she was. All she had to do was stay stealthy and get away as they were forced to take the long way back to the core.

Then the wall exploded. With a whoosh and a roar, the entire windowed section blew out in great shattered chunks above her, and she had to pin down her hat to keep it from being blown away as the debris tumbled into the district below. Her hiding spot was safe, but just over her head seven pegasi swooped out, circling and wheeling and setting off all the flash clubs they still had in random directions, determined to flush her out if she was still nearby. Those without dove, streaking straight downwards to see if she had fallen far below.

She couldn't stay there. It was only a matter of seconds until a pegasus accidentally flushed her out; her cutie mark was fluctuating like a scientific instrument on an overloading reactor as danger rose and fell with every strobe that missed. The room above was only a single leap away, so the moment enough backs were turned...

That instant arrived, and she sprang, vaulting back into the room. Half of it had been completely destroyed by the explosion, and as she landed, she saw the source: one pegasus, left behind to stand guard, holding a back-mounted rocket launcher. She didn't want to know where he had gotten it, just whether it would weigh him down enough to make him an easy knockout. It did.

Her climb wasn't without notice. A pegasus spotted her taking the cannon user down and alerted her team, but didn't immediately attack. There were seven of them left, Valey realized, and none of them were fresh. They wanted to group up to assault her. As battered as she was, if they strung themselves out, she could take them... so she made the most of the reprieve and liberated the launcher.

It was impressively large, boasting an entire clip of ammo despite firing missiles that were nearly the size of her barrel. Granted, that clip was only three long, and the first had already been used, but still! As she dragged it toward the continuing tunnel, Valey watched the pegasi finish forming up and start to streak forward. Seven of them and one of her, and below she had taken ten at once... but that was when she had been fresh. Then again, the pegasi were tired, and the quarters were open, so if she was ever to stand and fight, this would be her best chance to finish them off...

Then a squad of four appeared from the tunnel she had entered by. Two were stallions she had ditched or incapacitated earlier, and two were the mares she had trapped under the floor, looking flushed and angry and ready for revenge without a single injury on their coats. Of course, that was the trouble with playing the nonlethal game: as the fight went on, your opponents would recover and rejoin the fray. For all she knew, the pegasi she had taken out down on the bridge at the bottom were flying back up right then as well. Those weren't odds she fancied. Time to run.

"Leave me alone!" Valey growled, backing towards the exit and fixing the newcomer squad with the rocket launcher. Her cutie mark was hovering at medium, implying there wasn't a pegasus waiting behind to impale her with a spear, so she focused everything on covering her retreat. "I'm serious! Notice how I'm not making you guys dead? I'm trying to be nice, here! But I wanna get out of here in one piece, and if you idiots keep chasing me, you won't enjoy finding out which of those I want more!"

The pegasi hesitated... then split up, forming a wide line instead of a concentrated target. They started advancing, trying to flank her, betting on the launcher's power only being enough to take out a hooffull of them rather than all. Valey's eyes widened. "You're insane! I will shoot this!" She disarmed the safety for emphasis, placing another missile in the firing apparatus.

That halted the pegasi for half a breath, during which Valey backed toward the tunnel as fast as she could. Suddenly, she made it; she felt grate beneath her hooves and the tingle of being surrounded by an enclosed space. The pegasi looked frustrated.

One more step... two... three... and they lunged, flying in a vertical line, desperate to intercept her. Valey lunged backwards as well, tumbling back and letting loose a missile at the ceiling.

It detonated with a shatter of rending pipes, the wall of heat blowing her hat off and singing her mane, making her burnt hoof throb in agony. The ceiling didn't collapse like she hoped, but from the carnage of the pipes sprang multiple jets of pressurized steam, forming a wall of impassable death that would cook anything short of a dragon. Valey fell back, heart pounding, watching as the pegasi were cut off through the white haze.

Then one flung a spear through the wall at her. It missed, but spurred her to her hooves with a yelp. There wasn't time to loaf around just yet.

She grabbed the launcher, took the spear under her wing for good measure, found and replaced her hat, and limped off down the tunnel, nose twitching. Her mark was still tingling, but dully. Starlight was ahead, to the right, and going up... The lift to the Water District. Why would she go up there? Maybe she thought it would be a shortcut to the Sky District. Tensing herself against her injuries, Valey pressed on, face set in a mask of determination that wouldn't expire until her she and her friends were safe and out of Ironridge.

Comments

[RoboRed]

kablam

[HURTBOTPEGASUS9]

Give em Tartarut Valey!!!

[Sypher]

but there were certain benefits to pretending an injury was worse than it was, and now she had shaken the pegasi and made them lose her trail.

Aha! Learning from dear Rainbow Dash, I see.