//------------------------------//
// Chapter 124 
// Story: Unshaken 
// by The 24th Pegasus 
//------------------------------//



Kill them all: 11 Votes (Lady Luck Tiebreaker)



In the end, it was Kestrel’s rage that won over. Killing Wanderer could not go unpunished, and she was determined to kill as many Apples as they could before they ran off with their tails between their legs. So, readying her revolver, Kestrel spread her wings and leapt into the air with a snarl. “Kill them! We kill them all!”

Roughshod let out a roar and charged forward as well, followed by Snapshot, whose look of concern lasted for only a few moments before he set his rifle to his face and started to line up a shot through the settling dust from the explosion. Only Trixie, terrified as she was, lingered in place, but with the rest of the Gang charging into the fray, she nevertheless grabbed the rifle she’d been provided with and put it to her face in an awkward magical grip.

But it was Silver who acted first from her lofty perch in the clouds, firing right before Kestrel flew through the dust cloud and could set her sights on one of the Apples on the cliffs. Her rifle cracked from somewhere overhead, and the spray of blood as the bullet connected with a pony’s back distracted the Apples right as Kestrel fired. Within a split second, the two pegasi had killed two Apples, evening the odds some before they could even react.

Unfortunately, Roughshod and Snapshot had less success behind her. Rough’s shot went high, while Snapshot’s went low, ricocheting off of a rock and knocking Kestrel’s hat off of her head, the sudden shock causing her to falter and lose the next target she’d been picking out. But somehow, Trixie outdid both of them. Incoherently yelling and firing with her eyes closed, Trixie’s round struck one Apple in the side, causing them to fall back and into one of their companions on the cliff’s edge. To Kestrel’s amazement, both earth ponies went tumbling over the edge, flailing briefly before a sudden date with the hard stone below them put a stop to that with a sickening crunch.



Trixie shoots an Apple: Critical Success



From there, all Tartarus broke loose. Bullets flew back and forth as the Apples recovered and switched their attention from the chaos in the quarry to the pack of angry outlaws charging at them. Kestrel, Roughshod, and Snapshot each managed to kill an Apple, while Silver dropped another one from her lofty perch, but soon all four were diving and twisting away from bullets as the Apples returned fire. Kestrel felt one rip through the feathers in her left wing and clip some of the muscle, turning her flight into pain with every beat of her wings, while another managed to find the cloud Silver was shooting from and fire up into it. Silver leapt off of the cloud and flew as fast as she could to another one for cover, but blood dribbled down her flank, spattering on the quarry floor far below her. Roughshod took two hits that barely left him stumbling for a moment, while Trixie, still amazed and shocked that she had killed two ponies, took a bullet deep into her leg that left her crying in pain and laying in the dirt.

Kestrel spared only the briefest of glances into the quarry to see Tumbleweed, Starlight, and Starlight’s companions running for safety out of the hole in the ground before she turned her attention back to the Apples on the cliff, but that little look aside messed with her next shot, and she barely missed the Apple she had picked out. As she flew out over the quarry itself and the rest of the Gang pushed wide around the edge, the direction of the Apples’ fire began to spread out, while the Gang’s was as concentrated as ever. Silver, Rough, and Snapshot each took down more Apples, causing the Conglomerates’ hired help to falter, but that didn’t stop one from putting a second shot into Trixie with his rifle. Kestrel only saw a glimpse of the blue mare tumble back into the dirt and grasp, her hoof feebly reaching skyward, but unable to pick up her rifle and continue fighting. She could only hope that Trixie was okay. To lose not just one but two gang members in one botched ransom…

And then, just as the Apples started to break and run, the Gang managed to exact their last measure of vengeance. Four guns fired, and the last four of the Apples dropped, either dead or dying, along the edge of the quarry cliffs. As the last gunshot echoed off the walls of the quarry, adding its noise to the cacophony of still-tumbling rocks and boulders, the red haze filling Kestrel’s vision began to lift. And it was then, as she hovered over the quarry of death, that anger finally turned into anguish and despair, and she let loose a torrent of curses and swears… until Roughshod’s own curses overpowered her own.

Turning around, Kestrel saw the brutish earth pony sitting next to Trixie as she coughed and squirmed in the dirt. Beating her wings despite the pain in one, Kestrel quickly alighted by Trixie’s side—and when she saw that the mare’s coat was half blue, half crimson, her heart sank even more. She knew from the bubbling of blood coming out of Trixie’s chest when she tried to breathe that there was nothing that anypony could do.

“Just… j-just hang in there,” Roughshod pleaded with her. “Hang in there, dammit! This ain’t… y-you’re gonna be alright. You’re gonna be alright…”

Trixie’s face was contorted in pain, and blood dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. “T-Trixie… I… I j-just wanted… w-wanted to be… be famous… great… and… p-powerful…” she wheezed, and her pink eyes turned toward the sky. “I-I… I-I don’t want… don’t want to… to…”

She never managed to get more words out. Instead, her eyelids fell half-closed over glassy eyes, and her whole body slowly fell limp in Roughshod’s hooves as her blood continued to pool around her. All the magician had left in her was one last drawn out sigh, and then the traveling unicorn embarked on her last journey.



Trixie has died.



Roughshod, Kestrel, Snapshot, and even Silver, who had flown down to join them, could only stand in silence as their newest member was the latest to die. In one day, they had lost both one of their oldest members and their newest recruit, and what did they have to show for it? Nothing. No bits, no money, no anything. Only a lot of dead Apples that only heralded more trouble down the line. For the first time in a long time, Kestrel was scared. Scared for her Gang, scared for tomorrow, scared for what the future held in store. Because after today, it was clear it wasn’t getting any brighter.

“We should find that whore and kill her if she ain’t dead already,” Roughshod said. “Her buddies never wanted her alive, so why should we let her live? Let’s find her and kill her. Send a message. Send a message these sons of bitches ain’t ever gonna forget.”

“We need to run,” Silver said, biting her lip in equal parts worry and to keep the pain of her own injury at bay. “The Pinks’ll be after us soon. All of Hoofston had to hear that noise. We ain’t safe here. Not no more.”

Kestrel, numb as she was, blankly stared off into space for a minute before finally making a decision.

1.     Find Applejack. A life for a life. A crime for a crime. A murder for a murder. We’ll send a message to the world not to cross us.

2.     Gather the dead and flee. We can’t stick ‘round any longer. Let’s grab Wanderer and Trixie and get. Only be a matter of time ‘fore the Pinks are on us again.