The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Can't Be Everywhere

Valey's ears pressed flat against her skull as the tide of sarosians washed up over the cliff, breaking on the merchant ponies in an angry swarm. Neither side looked heavily armed, but it didn't matter. Each thought the other was ambushing... and both sides were correct. In less than a second, the entire clearing had devolved into a merciless brawl.

"Nnngh..." Grenada struggled against her pin, trying to get down from the tree. A stallion who wasn't preoccupied lashed out at the trunk with a mighty buck, yelling upwards as he attempted to free her, and Valey hissed as the trunk wobbled. "Let me go!" Grenada snarled.

"Bananas, no!" Valey dodged her flailing hind legs as she tried to unpin herself, Grenada's horn beginning to charge again for another shot. "You'll just find some way to escalate this further! Hey! You, merchants!" She looked down, getting the attention of all of one or two in the crowd. "Go back to your camp! Just scram! You're gonna get beaten up if you stay here!"

A fearful mare frowned, jaw slack, and picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could.

"Hey!" Valey yelped, twisting and letting the projectile impact Grenada's armor instead. "Knock it-"

Above the din of howls and meaty thwacks, her ears faintly made out Felicity's scream.

"Oh, fight your own battles!" Valey immediately dropped Grenada, throwing her at the forest floor and jetting towards the cliffside. The battle wasn't as chaotic as she had thought; the batponies were actually organized: they fought near each other with their backs to the cliff, focused on shoving or knocking as many enemies off as possible to split the opposing forces in two. But on the beach at the bottom was...

Valey dodged another flying rock as she flipped out over the edge. Near the wreckage of the net, Felicity stood panting over Shinespark's unconscious body, two paralyzed Varsidelians at her hooves and more standing to face her as the ponies pushed off the cliff recovered.

"Get away from that mare," a stallion growled, lunging at Felicity with a bull tackle. "Do you want us to leave this place or not? We're being rescued!"

"No, you!" Felicity cried, dancing aside with far more grace than Valey expected, hitting him with a careful combination of hooves and causing him to crash to the side, his entire body locking up.

"That's a sarosian ship, you dummy!" a mare berated the fallen stallion. "They led us into an ambush! Can't you see she's trying to protect that one!?"

"I recognize her," another pointed out. "Wasn't she some leader's kid in Ironridge?"

"Doesn't matter, this sarosian's alone! Take her!"

Felicity wasn't alone for long. Valey dropped on all fours between her and the Varsidelians, wings spread and teeth bared. "Stop fighting!" she yelled. "Can't you see we're different from the locals!? We're trying to help all of you!"

The mare who had spoken looked at her strangely. "Say that to the ones that pushed me off that cliff," she growled, rubbing a bruised shoulder. "Harshwater told us we were being rescued and then there was an ambush!"

"Yeah, 'cause you guys threw a net over everyone and made them panic!" Valey felt Felicity's calming effect wash over her, though with the amount of tension in the air, she wasn't sure how far it would go. "Leave the fight! Go home! Bananas, I could beat all of you all by myself even if both sides teamed up against me, so don't push it!" She glanced around frantically. "Come on, I'm Valey. Admiral Valey from Ironridge? You guys are traders, someone must have heard of me. You wanna find out firsthoof what I can do?"

The stallion who had recognized Shinespark earlier looked at her with widening eyes. "This might not be a bad time to surrender..."

Any way she was getting through to them, though, was rapidly undone every time a new pony slid down the cliff... and at this rate, Valey figured more than half of the Varsidelians had to be at the bottom. Why did the batponies have to be so coordinated? Better they were fighting her than the locals, at least. A new mare lunged at her, barely taking the time to roll to her hooves.

"Nope!" Valey sidestepped, caught her, and chucked her like a flour sack towards the gathering crowd, stomping a hind leg. "My friends!"

"Gerardo," Felicity panted into the sound stone behind her, "We really could use a way out of here..."

The Immortal Dream hovered overhead, and a stolen glance upward told Valey that Maple, Amber and Slipstream were all watching at the railing. Not smart... "Hey, Felicity," Valey said, catching her breath. "Sparky's out? How hard would it be for you to bail along this beach for a bit with her while I stop any of these goons from following? I can't-"

She was interrupted as another pony tried to attack, lashing out with an uppercut and sending them staggering backwards. "Can't carry both of you up there at once!"

Valey glanced up again, noticing that the flashes of Grenada's horn were conspicuously absent. She could feel her cutie mark's danger growing, and knew that at any second, the clifftop sarosians' tactics would change, and they would come down to finish the ones below. "Uhhh..."

A batpony tumbled down the cliff. It was the round leader, one of her wings hanging at an awkward angle and an eye swollen shut. She landed straight in the middle of the Varsidelians.

"Oh no. No, leave her alone," Valey warned, but the Varsidelians didn't listen.

"We've got one alone!" one yelled, raising a hoof to strike. "Take it out!"

Valey's wing snapped out, and she blasted forward. "Nope!" With an upward twist, she slipped between two ponies, kicking one harshly into the bay and knocking the other into a third. Whirling and landing on her hind legs, she slapped another's nose with a wing, causing them to recoil from the sting, and caught the first blow on her foreleg, booting the offending pony in the chest.

These ponies weren't warriors. They were travelers and civilians, hardened by a month or two in the wilderness, but they weren't even armed, and there was nothing they could do to block her assault. Ducking, she grabbed the round mare with a foreleg, earning a sharp cry of pain, and tried to retreat toward her friends... There was already another Varsidelian there.

Felicity took a blow to the neck, wincing sharply, but her hoof shot out to counter, and the offending pony dropped, spasming uncontrollably. "Yo!" Valley yelled, dragging the round mare toward them and glaring for nobody to follow over her shoulder. "Got someone who needs reassurance and a time-out." She made it the rest of the way, unaccosted save for a frantic, betrayed look from the mare she was carrying.

Gerardo was talking through the sound stone, she realized once she got closer. "...Said my sword wasn't an option, of course, but I'm not sure what else we can do!"

"Yeah, no, keep that stupid sword outta here," Valey warned, dropping the mare at Felicity's hooves. "You all!" She glared at the Varsidelians. "I hear one scream or cry for help from anyone down here, and every single one of you is getting used for target practice with the ocean! Go home, go home, go home!"

Mute nods met her. The Varsidelians seemed scared enough to comply. "Good," Valey told them, spreading her wings and returning to the top of the cliff.