The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Sosan Welcome

"I believe you have something that belongs to me."

The bandits by Gerardo's crate turned, nearly jumping in surprise when they realized a sword was flicking back and forth, inches from their muzzles. "What the...?"

"Indeed." Nodding, Gerardo pushed closer, and they retreated until he was standing firmly between the two crates. "These are mine. Steal from each other if you must, but when my own belongings are taken I am forced to become involved."

The ponies on the cart watched him intently, Nimwick tensely and the other two with suspicion. From the back of the circle, a bandit called, "Hey, didn't you just fly off that way? What are you doing, laying claim to stuff we just found in the woods?"

"Yeah!" Another bandit smacked his chest. "Finders, keepers! Unless you wanna fight for it?"

One of the bandits being faced by Gerardo's sword nearly panicked. "Dude, shut up! He's got a huge sword! He'd hurt us!"

Nimwick could no longer contain himself atop the cart. "Arrgh!" he shouted, flailing. "We are not a charity case! If you're going to get rid of them, hurry up and spare my ego, would you?"

"No fighting!" Shinespark sharply announced, cutting him off and brandishing her own weapon.

More than half of the bandits turned to her. "And why should we listen to you, huh?" one demanded. "You're a sellout to Yakyakistan!"

"No she isn't!" another protested, shoving his companion. "She's the only good Sosan left among the higher-ups! Don't you get her mixed up in this!"

A third turned to the second. "Wow, are you okay? You sound like you have a crush on her..."

"Who doesn't?" another loudly proclaimed. "She's incredible!"

"Ugh! Seriously!" The third looked up at the cart, almost beseeching. "Please tell me you're, like, in a relationship right now? Associating with these guys is getting embarrassing!"

"Tell me about it!" Another threw down his cannon, pouting. "I just wanna do what's right for our great city! I feel like my dignity got thrown in a centrifuge and then flushed down a toilet..."

"Spare me the rhetoric..." Nimwick moaned. "You guys are all idiots! Sosa isn't great, and Ironridge isn't ours! What do you clods even think you are, loyalists? You're going to, I don't know, enforce a no-fly zone with all this stuff? Or are you just going to hit on the pony you're trying to rob?" He buried his head in his hooves, nearly sobbing. "And you're talking about your dignity? What about mine? I'm getting held up by this... This is so degrading..."

"I feel ya, dude!" one of the bandits who had addressed the cart called back.

"Hey!" a fifth loudly announced. "No fraternizing with the enemy! That includes hitting on them! We've got a job to do, ponies, and we're not gonna disappoint the commander! Now move it and get those boxes!"

"Hey, screw you! You don't get to talk about her like that!"

Gerardo could only stare as the pack of would-be robbers quickly fragmented, the argument spreading and getting more heated. Swiftly, he realized that the coast was clear to take his cargo and run... except that he couldn't carry it by himself, and had no line of sight to the bush where Maple and Starlight still hid from where the crates had ultimately been deposited. On the cart, Nimwick looked on like a loser playing their final coin in a gambling den, drowning in despair while maintaining a possessed grin, with Dorable watching impassively and Shinespark's face twisting in a mixture of shock, disgust and disappointment.

Slowly, he crept closer, aiming to get in sight of the bush... when the first sound of a punch rang out. A stallion carrying a back-mounted launcher far too big for a normal-sized pony toppled.

The griffon readied his sword in defense, hoping none of the artillery would be used and wondering exactly how a group of bandits could be cohesive enough to function while so readily falling apart. Then he realized that the brawl was safely far from his cargo, yet very near Maple and Starlight's hiding place. Hopefully, they would be smart enough to move... but in the meantime, he readied himself to intervene the instant it should become necessary.

---

Under cover at the edge of the clearing, Starlight's ears flattened. "What are they doing?"

"Don't know, doesn't matter." Scooping her up, Maple stepped backwards, nearly tripping on a root. "We are not staying here. Come on, let's get to Gerardo and run."

She crept through the undergrowth, wet leaves clinging to her coat. Constantly looking sideways as she moved, she stumbled more than once, but both wouldn't and couldn't take her eyes off the brawl. Most of the ponies were incapacitated by their own weapons, the heavy accessories making it difficult to get up once knocked down. It would have been almost comical, had it not been so dangerous. That danger was only accentuated when one pony got far enough away from the group to set up their weapon and begin firing.

SHOOM!

A huge, slow-moving pellet of magic erupted from the nozzle of the device. In almost an instant, Shinespark's telekinetically-controlled spear left her side, skewering the cannon in an explosion that sent its technician reeling. The other bandits, quickly alerted by the weapon's blast, broke up their melee to dive out of the way, leaving the bolt soaring for Maple's place of hiding.

"Oh, that's not good," she breathed, tensing her legs and jumping to clear the magic blast's path. Immediately, her tail snagged on something and she crashed back to the ground, legs splayed.

"Wha...!?" Starlight scrambled backwards, too startled to begin lighting her horn. "Maple!"

The earth pony tried to lift herself upright, but there was no way to move out of the way in time. All she could do was spread her forelimbs wide, as if trying to catch it and shield Starlight. Milliseconds from impact, the filly lunged... and the magical blast disappeared.

---

Gerardo went rigid at the sound of Starlight's cry... and that rigidity evolved into motion when he saw where it had come from, and what that area was presently in the path of. Abandoning all hesitation, he charged, boosting forward with his wings as he swept through every bandit in his way. Swish! His sword cut a broad, back-and-forth arc in front of him as he plowed, passing seamlessly through the midsections of bandits without a trace of resistance or a drop of blood, the metal visibly fuzzing as it intersected with flesh. Through the eyeslits of their masks, pupils went wide... before they were shoved aside, or simply collapsed of their own accord. Still, despite the desperation of his charge, it was clear that he wasn't going to make it... not that he had a plan of what to do if he did. That he would be late became all the more apparent when something massive and metal erupted from the jungle, sending him crashing to his side.

---

For an instant after the projectile vanished, the air around Maple was still... and then, with a concussive blast exactly like the original cannonshot, it reappeared, blazing its way upward like a flare. The force of it bowled her over backwards, eyes dilating and chest heaving as her legs pointed up at the sky. Immediately, Starlight leapt to her, clinging on to her shoulder. The filly was speechless.

"I-I just..." Maple panted, not yet trying to roll upright. "I just tried to catch it, and..." She blinked several times, shock slowly being replaced by wonder. "I just stored magic. My cutie mark... works on magic." Blinking again, she slowly rolled over and began to climb to her hooves.

---

"Nnnnngh!" Gerardo slammed heavily to the ground, rolling with the momentum and quickly getting to his feet. He was too late. The projectile was gone... but his sword was still in his talons, and he had a clear view of what had attacked him.

It was a pony in a thick, full-body suit of armor that gleamed as if it had been polished for days. Plates expertly interlocking, it fitted so finely that not the slightest bit of their coat, face or mane was visible. It was so heavy that the pony stood just as tall as the bandit stallions still standing, despite having the proportions of a mare. A large, golden horn graced the suit's forehead... and, most strikingly, a pair of ornamental folded metal wings adorned the sides.

"Enough," the armored pony demanded in a magically distorted voice, holding perfectly still. "Spirit of Sosa, take your fallen and leave. This display brings shame to your noble cause. Griffon, do not harm my ponies, no matter how poorly they may be behaving."

"I will not," Gerardo answered, shuddering. "Whoever you are, you claim ownership of this street brawl? Because you just-"

He was interrupted by a tremendous bang, and a surge of magical light soared upward from the forest nearby. The bandits turned to look. Gerardo didn't wait to see if the armored pony did as well.

His sword flew forward in a swift, horizontal stab, aiming to pierce the armor and reach the pony's chest. But the pony was ready, rocket boosters attached to their forelegs firing, blackening the dirt below even as they launched their owner swiftly backwards. Gerardo missed, immediately following with a swing as the pony landed safely out of the way.

"Don't fight her!" Shinespark's voice called from the cart, laced with alarm. "She's dangerous!"

Gerardo ignored her, this time prepared. As the pony made to jump again, he readied another horizontal swing, adjusting his trajectory upward... and her hooves couldn't clear the blade in time. But just as it began to bite into the metal, preparing to cleave it in two, she twisted into a backflip in an incredible display of agility for one evidently so heavy. As her hoof turned, the top and bottom of the partially-severed sabaton bit down on the blade like a clamp, wrenching it from Gerardo's grasp and uppercutting him with the hilt.

He shook his head to clear it, eyes widening in alarm as the pony didn't return to the ground. Instead, she hung there in midair, boosters on all four hooves firing to keep her airborne as the sword dangled limply from where it was embedded.

Growling, Gerardo spread his wings... and the armored pony flipped her hoof, tossing the sword out and catching it between the two. A protrusion from the armor likely designed for wielding just such weapons latched around its handle until it was tied to her good hoof, and she held it warningly, waving slightly as she hovered away. "Who are you?" Gerardo hissed, crouching. "And give me back my sword!"

Wordlessly, the armored pony stared back through a pitch-black visor, the sword still held wardingly... then turned, angled her legs, and fired, rocketing away over the trees.

Gerardo had already tensed, preparing to give chase, when Maple staggered out of the forest. "I'm all right," she panted. "I'm all right. Don't do anything... stupid."

From their vantage point atop the cart, Dorable, Nimwick and Shinespark merely watched, some to the deflating griffon, others the distant, retreating forms of the disgraced Spirit, and some the empty space where the armored mare had soared away, Gerardo's sword firmly in her grasp.

Comments

[alamais]

RIP sword, we hardly knew ye.

[Arcshod]

You say Sosan, I say Searonese.

[VcSaJen]

"I-I just..." Maple panted, not yet trying to roll upright. "I just tried to catch it, and..." She blinked several times, shock slowly being replaced by wonder. "I just stored magic. My cutie mark... works on magic." Blinking again, she slowly rolled over and began to climb to her hooves.

That's what I'm talking about! 👍

[Cold Bolt]

Maple can catch and store magical projectiles.

That is awesome. Please tell me she can return fire at will with them too...

Also we're getting that sword back, right? It was too cool to lose this quickly.

[Pluie]

ssbwiki.com/images/c/c8/VillagerProjectileCatch.gif

[GMBlackjack]

1) Bouncing around POV a lot, even a story with this fast of a speed, is disorienting.

2) Is Maple literally just the villager? Because if so, sweet! When are we gonna get to see the murder in her eyes?

3) NOOOO SWORDY (and thus begins a quest hundreds of chapters wrong to Get Swordy Back.)

-GM, master of four.

[bronyheat]

Well technology escalated quickly here. Also so long Gerardo's sword, I hope it's blade will have new songs to sing when we meet it again.

[Merula]

Bitch took his sword!