Here is the disclaimer: I don’t own MLP: FiM. That belongs to Lauren Faust and Hasbro.

You Wouldn’t Believe Me if I Told You

Chapter 11: Revenge and Reunion

Tears stained the dirty cheeks of the blue pegasus with a bandaged wing. She had forgotten her sadness over her inability to fly rather quickly once she had discovered her crossbow. As with everything else she had ever done, she had been determined to master this cool gadget.

Berry Punch, the mare who had bandaged her, was a reluctant helper, fetching stray bolts as Rainbow Dash fired at her chosen tree target. She quickly got rather proficient at aiming, firing, and reloading, despite her hooves.

A breeze ruffled her mane, and dried the last of her tears, leaving only their stained trails.

Confident as always in her abilities, she convinced Berry to hold up an apple for her to fire at.

Her confidence was ahead of her skills, however. Unfortunately, Berry never learned whether Rainbow had hit the apple or not; because she did not. The bolt had neatly gone right into her left eye and into her brain, a small portion exiting out the back of her skull while the feathered end remained protruding from her now bloody face. In fact, she remained lying right by the tree where she was killed, apple still near at hoof.

Rainbow had not been able to move for near a full minute, her brain unable to comprehend what she had just done. When it did sink in, however, her heart sank lower. She had run to the downed mare with tears streaming down her face.

“Nonononono! This didn’t just happen! Berry! Berryberryberry!” She slid to a halt beside her, already on her knees. She picked up the damage, lifeless head of the pony who had healed her, who had helped her, and who she had carelessly killed.

All hope had left her. No flying, no friends, and a dead pony she had never really even known in her hooves who had died at her hoof helping her. Disregarding the star on Berry’s neck, she made up her mind then what she had to do next.

She had climbed back into the tree she had jumped from before, only this time she tied her bandages to the tree branch to stop her fall before she hit the ground, crying the whole while. But she had not tied the other end around her waist or chest. It was around her neck. It was tight. She did not notice at the time. She continued crying.

She had taken a deep breath, and jumped. The knots did not slip. The bandage did not break. She did not struggle. Suspended between the sky and the ground, she imagined she was flying again. Her last flight.

Lyra, standing on her hind legs as she was liable to do, held a pot lid in her left hoof, and a Taser in the other. She refocused on her attacker, a familiar blue unicorn mare with a machete. Trixie took another wild swing at her head. Lyra again blocked the swipe again, as the dents in the pot lid suggested she had. There were also some other dents; round wounds in the steel made by Trixie’s pistol shots.

There were some round wounds in her, too, as well several cuts from failed dodges. Many oozed dark red blood, some had clotted with dirt.

After the block, Lyra swung her sparking, crackling Taser in retaliation, missing again due to her comparative lack of reach versus a machete. Lyra was worn out from the blocking, defending, and dodging; along with weak from her injuries and blood loss. Trixie noticed, and her crazed face twisted into a cruel, satisfied sneer. Her light blue mane was in such disarray, with sticks, leaves and dirt clinging to it, that Lyra was sure she had gone completely nuts.

“You’re going down,” Trixie taunted, “you know you are. And when you do,” she paused to nod her head behind Lyra at the other pony, “I’m coming for her next.”

Lyra risked a glance back at the orange filly with a purple mane, who was scared stiff by the brutal combat she was witnessing. Scootaloo, who had ‘donated’ her pot lid to the battle, could not find the courage in her to move, let alone help or run.

She turned more, shouting and curling her lips against the pain that racked her whole body. “Scootaloo! Run! Now! Or I swear if I don’t die, I’ll kill you myself!”

That did it. Startled out of her stupor by the outburst, Scootaloo turned on her hind hooves and bolted into the underbrush. Scared out of her mind, she had no attention for the sticks slapping against her face, scratching long, narrow red furrows in her face, and pulling out hairs from her tom boyishly unkempt mane.

Lyra, now certain that Scootaloo was well on her way, turned back to the duel at hand, only to find a large machete pressing against her chest. She had used the last of her pistol ammunition on the two before the fight had begun, and due to her degenerated state of mind, most shots missed or were deflected by the pot lid shield. She regretted the loss of her firearm, but it had served its purpose. And machetes never run out of ammo.

Suddenly spinning herself around on a single hoof, she brought her pot lid shield against the machete, knocking it aside but not out of Trixie’s grip. The spin had left a lightly bleeding ring around her middle, but compared to her other wounds it was nothing. Her other hoof brought her Taser against the left side of a slightly shocked face (no pun intended).

Trixie`s grin evaporated into contorted agony, the device delivering dozens of volts of electricity sparkling into her face, sending the underlying muscles into spasms. The fine fur on her face caught fire from the energy surging through it, further increasing her pain. The shocks made it impossible for her to breathe, or even make a sound. Her eyelids also were locked shut due to the surges of electricity, so could not even see her opponent.

Using all her available control, she swung her deadly blade as hard as she could.

She felt that she connected. She felt a warm liquid spatter her face and arms. She heard a thump.

First she saw a heavily bloodied machete in her right hoof. Next, on the ground at her hooves, was the face of a mint unicorn, sightless eyes glazed over in death. Finally, next to that, she saw the headless body to which it had until recently been attached.

Bloodthirsty satisfaction crossed Trixie`s twisted, mutilated face. Nearly one whole side of her face was badly burned from the Taser and the fur that had burned off, bits of which were still smoldering and smoking. Her left eye had been essentially destroyed, and the lid fused closed. Luckily for her, the shock had burst her sensory nerves in that area, otherwise she would have been writhing in unbearable pain from the wounds sustained from the encounter.

Painfully, she stepped over and kicked the bloodied star on the fallen mare`s collar with her fore hoof. Both Lyra`s body and head instantly began to swell and bubble, as if she had become some sort of gory water balloon. Trixie, intrigued, did not flinch. Quickly, the skin was drawn so tight that it burst violently, releasing a wave of clear water outwards, soaking the nearby area and drenching the grotesque unicorn beside it. Her face sizzled quietly as the last embers were snuffed out by the disturbing waters.

Her machete now clean, she used it as a mirror to admire her new star with an etched lyre on it, nestled snugly beside her own star, blank as they all start as, and the stars of both Sapphire Shores and Rarity.

She caught a glimpse of her face in the blade. Burned, mutilated, drooping skin remained where it had once been immaculate blue fur. Her eyelid was still locked shut, but she knew that the eye behind it would not work anyway, as she could not feel it move in sync with her right one. She gave herself a disgusted look, which immediately took a turn for the cruelly pleased. She saw how revolting she looked; how scarred and frightening she had become. Her twisted, tormented soul now oozed through to her face, now equally twisted.

“I quite enjoyed that! How about you, Brother?” asked Flam, adjusting his mane with one hoof and wiping his mouth with the other.

Flim was wiping his knife on the grass, cleaning it of the blood it had accumulated throughout their violent, perverted pastime. “Yes, Brother, it was rather enjoyable.” He made a motion with his hoof. “Do you think we should put her out of her misery now?”

Fluttershy lay broken in the clearing nearby the two stallions. She was bleeding from the many cuts and gouges Flim had inflicted over the last hour with his blade. Her face was a mess, mottled heavily with tears of fright, pain, and sadness. At least two of her legs had been broken, she was not sure which, as none of them would move. She had several broken ribs, which made breathing very laborious, not aided by the pain in her throat sustained from other activities. Fluids trickled from nearly every orifice, but mostly blood, and that most noticeably from her eyes.

At one point, she had attempted and nearly succeeded in staring down one of the brothers. But the other one had figured out her strategy, and had shoved both front hooves deep into her sockets, bursting the tender, loving, but currently stern eyes within.

She would flee, but she was far too shattered to budge from the pool of her own blood.

She would call for help, but all she could manage was breathe. And even that was almost too much to ask from the pegasus mare.

“I believe I’ve had enough; as has she, for that matter,” remarked Flim, advancing toward her, knife in hoof.

“Alright, but do make it quick,” Flam said, already walking off through the bushes noisily.

Flim reached the pitiful, red and yellow mare. Over the sounds of his brother in the underbrush, he said to her, “Well, it’s been a blast. But we have to go now.” He placed the knife across her throat, shuddering from her breathing, flinching from the contact and his voice. “And so now do you.”

“Are you sure you didn’t want to finish her off yourself, Brother?” He paused. “After all, you did catch her, and you know how much I dislike killing another pon-”

A large, red hoof bucked him squarely in the jaw, crushing his skull and ending his sentence very shortly before ending his life.

Two, large, strong forelegs grabbed at Fluttershy’s limp body, embracing it gingerly. Fluttershy, still barely conscious, heard and felt the restrained sobs coming from the oversized stallion, knowing exactly who was there.

“Ah’m too late. Dear Celestia, Ah didn’t run fast enough!” Big Mac moaned to himself quietly, sitting in Fluttershy’s blood. “Oh, Shy! Ah’m so sorry…”

“Ah never even got to share mah love with you, we were both so shy… And now we can’t, because of those sons of a horse! Oh Shy! Please forgive me!”

Fluttershy, with her last remaining strength and breath, managed to close her eyelids and whisper out her final words.

Big Mac, feeling her life leave her body with that breath, began to shake her. “Shy? Shy! Talk to me! Ah love yah! Ah can’t live without yah! Come back!”

Although he said it, he did not really want her back in that world in the state she was in, not after what happened to her. Deep down he knew she was better off wherever she was now. And wherever that was, he knew he had to follow her to try to make it up to her.

He gingerly placed her back on the ground, this time in a patch of clovers by the base of a large tree. He retrieved Flam’s body from the bushes; exactly where he had fallen when his battle-axe had cloven his head in two, axe still embedded in his neck between the halves of his head, and threw it on the corpse of his brother.

He then sat down on his flank beside the body of his beloved, and embraced her with his strong front legs, crying. Scooping up Flim’s knife, he then looked at the sky; eyes clouded in tears, as he plunged it deep into his chest and severed his heart in two.

His eyes fell to his wife who, in his dying moments, no longer looked to him like a mutilated corpse. Instead, he saw her as tenderly beautiful and radiant as the day he had walked down the aisle and received her hoof in marriage. Her mane was done up in an elegant wrapped style, a veil draped down the back of her head, and she was wearing a gown made by Rarity herself, green and yellow with flowers and butterflies adorning it. Live, growing flowers and real, delicate butterflies asked to participate by Twilight. She was the most beautiful sight he had ever beheld.

Moments later, a new pony entered the scene. She stopped dead still; startled by the sudden level of carnage she was confronted by in the clearing. Applejack first saw the two Flimflam Brothers piled awkwardly on top of one another, one head sickeningly crumpled and bloody from some sort of blunt force, and the other with his head chopped in half and an axe embedded in his neck. She remembered how those two had tried to swindle her and her family out of their farm years back, and she had to force down an evil smirk at the sight of them in such a state.

Advancing into the clearing, she noticed a large pool of blood. She was puzzled by this initially, because it was evident that this blood did not come from either stallion. Neither had enough blood on their coats to suggest one had been laying in it. Rather, their still slightly stained hooves indicated that they had been standing in it. Why, though, she did not know yet.

Noting the presence of the stars on their necks, she became even more curious. If somepony had killed them, why had they not taken the precious stars? She gave both stars a tap. Flam began to turn a dark black colour, with cracks running over his body that glowed bright red. Flim, gave a crackling noise as he turned into a light grey statue, as if he became stone. A breeze picked up suddenly, tearing off particles of the two as if they were formed of sand. Soon enough, there was nothing left of them save some spatters of blood that had run from their mangled faces. Weapons remained on the ground relative to where they had been before the bodies had been removed. She noticed a shotgun, a bandanna, and the battle-axe.

Suddenly fearing that they had been placed there as a trap to lure ponies in, Applejack retrieved her rope from her pack and glanced all around her for anypony lurking about.

A red hoof sticking out from behind a tree caught her eye. She ran for it, carefully skirting the blood puddle; recognizing it immediately as the hoof of her older brother, Big Mac. As she neared the tree, she could start to see his leg and side. She slowed to a walk and prepared herself for the worst.

There he sat, in a patch of clovers, eyes closed and leaning against the tree; blood still trickling from a mostly congealed wound in his chest. The bloody knife was resting against his limp hoof on the ground beside him. His other hoof was wrapped around the body of his wife, and one of her best friends. She had cuts all over her, with old blood trails from most of them and from her eyes. Her whole underside was thick with dark blood from laying in it in the clearing for so long. But despite the obvious pain and torture she had undergone, Applejack swore she saw a small serene smile on the originally yellow pegasus’ face.

Applejack collapsed right there and cried loudly. She mourned for the passing of her brother and one of her oldest friends and newest family members. She wept to her exhaustion, emptying her of her tears.

Eventually, she picked herself out of the dirt. Still sobbing lightly, she gave them both a hug, uncaringly covering herself in blood, and a kiss goodbye.

“Ah’m sorry…” she whispered. “Ah’m sorry Ah wasn’t here to save y’all.” She paused, wiping the tears clinging to her fur with her fore leg. “But Ah still gotta find Twilight… and Applebloom… and figure a way outta this Celestia-damned mess!”

She lowered her head solemnly, closing her eyes. “Ah’ll always love ya, Big Mac; and y’all will always be one of mah best friends, Shy.” With a deep breath, she reached out and tapped both of their stars.

Immediately, the tree behind them began twisting and groaning. Applejack jumped back in alarm, rope automatically at the ready. It appeared that a hole was forming in the tree’s trunk. Applejack looked on in amazement as roots began popping out of the dirt around the two, and eased them backwards into the ever-growing cavern. Once they had both been moved entirely inside of the tree, the roots slowly moved upwards, intertwining and effectively sealing the opening.

They were gone from Applejack’s sight, and immediately two more stars appeared on her collar besides her own and the Flimflam Brothers’ two.

She turned away from the tree. “Ah promise y’all. Ah’ll find her. Ah’ve gotta find Applebloom… before it’s too late.”

She looped her rope around her neck, and she scooped up the battle-axe and placed it in a convenient loop hanging from her bag. She ignored the unfamiliar shotgun beside it, dodging it purposefully. She started to run.

Steve was worried and nervous. He had not yet found any other ponies, despite his collar tracker. It seemed that whenever he would head towards the nearest blip, it would either disappear or head off fast in the other direction from him. But this time was different.

A big blip was heading straight for him, and had not altered course for about half an hour. This meant he was on an imminent collision course with a small group. What worried him was that he did not know who was in that group, or, more importantly, what their intent would be once they did meet him.

That was why he was in a tree, out of sight. Unarmed and slightly uncoordinated, Steve doubted his ability to fend off a single, similarly unarmed opponent. But a handful of possibly well-equipped equines? Not a chance in hell.

“…told you. There’s nothing you could have done. It was an accident. Alright?”

Steve perked at the familiar voice. Part of him wanted to call out, but he cautiously stayed put for the time being.

“I’m sorry, Twilight. I’m just kinda confused by all of this. All I want is to go home…” said Ditzy, coming into sight out of the bushes beside Bon Bon and Twilight.

“That’s OK, Ditzy,” replied Twilight sympathetically, “I want to go home, too. But first we have to find my friends; Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and even that new guy Steve I mentioned earlier. I wonder where they- AAAAUUGHH!”

Steve, who always loved a good prank, had tried to drop out of the tree and land directly in front of Twilight to startle her mid-sentence. In this he almost entirely succeeded.

He just never landed. Instead, he ended up face to face with her, hanging upside-down from the branch by his tail.

“You, apparently!” Twilight cracked back. “Good to see you, too, Steve. What are you doing in that tree?”

“Just… hanging out.” He smiled comically, made even more ridiculous because he was upside-down.

Twilight giggled, Ditzy laughed, and Bon Bon rolled her eyes again, shaking her head and muttering.

You Wouldn't Believe Me if I Told You

by PinkiePiedPiper

Chapter 11: Revenge and Reunion