Chris
Okay, Scarlet was right. My plan straight up sucked.
"THIS WAS A HORRIBLE PLAN!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"GET ON YER GODDAMN KNEES!!" replied the terrifying stallion-thing who was somehow still able to scream.
This thing was determined to kill us. We were basically trying to avoid his punches and hammer, shooting at him whenever we had the chance. His health bar was barely dropping, but it was kinda hard to focus on shooting a guy when you keep looking at his head flailing limply about behind him like a half-deflated balloon comically attached to a headless gorilla. How he still managed to talk with his head like that was baffling. At one point, the bandit smashed his hammer in half. That only seemed to make him angrier, his attacks becoming more savage and reckless. Noticing that gave me an idea; I just hope this one works out better.
"SCARLET!!" I screamed over the chaos, "We need to get him to charge into the wall!"
"What!?" she screamed, her voice cracking, "What for!?"
"If it works, he'll charge straight through it and fall over the edge!"
"This one better work!"
I dodged a punch and launched myself off the bandit's shoulders, landing behind him and running towards the wall. Scarlet was already waiting for me at the wall. It didn't take long for the bandit to find where we ran, because his head was hanging behind him and his eyes pointed directly at us. He turned around and cracked his knuckles.
"Okay," Scarlet whispered, "now what?"
"When he charges, the moment before he reaches us, we jump to the side and let him crash through it."
"Sounds easy enough, but if it fails, then what?"
"Let's not think about that."
The bandit scraped his hoof on the ground, like a bull about to charge, which I was counting on.
"YOU ARE SO FUCKING DEAD!!" he screamed before charging at us.
"Wait for it," I said.
"Chris?"
He was about half way to us, moving now would all ow him to change direction.
Wait for it."
The bandit was almost to us. Just a couple more seconds.
"I'M GONNA GRIND YOU INTO DUST!!"
"Chris!"
"NOW!" I signaled, both of us jumping out of the way at the last second.
The bandit crashed into the wall with enough force to shatter a brick wall. The wall splintered and cracked but it didn't give. There was another sound in the impact as well as the breaking wood. A sickening crack that only a breaking neck could produce. I looked at the bandit who was stumbling, barely able to keep balance. I looked up and saw his health bar had dropped to zero. His coat had lost its red color and his muscles had ceased bulging.
"Why... so much... hurt?" he said slowly.
The bandit dropped to his knees and then with a final grunt, fell to the ground, shaking the earth beneath us. His head smashed the ground, limp as before but now silent and lifeless. Scarlet walked over to the massive body and placed her hand to the exposed blood vessels that are usually invisible beneath the neck on a normal pony.
"He's dead," she told me, "How did you know he would charge?"
"That's the thing, I didn't. He could have done any number of things. We just got lucky."
"So we could have died there?"
"Eeyup. Come on, we need to search his body for the key."
Scarlet wasn't to keen on looting a corpse for a single key, but I honestly didn't care. In the elite guard, you were trained to be prepared for anything. As for what caused a normal pony to look like this, a couple centuries ago, there was supposedly rumors of a group disposing of failed magical potions by dumping them over the haven walls. Maybe the waste caused mutations.
"Hey Chris!" Scarlet yelled waving me over to the helmet, "I found it!"
The helmet was huge, about the size of a trash can, and had a single opening in the helmet to allow sight. The key was hidden on the inside of the helmet above the visor. Pretty smart place to hide a key, no one in the right mind would want to try and take it if they knew it was there. I took the key from its hiding spot and was surprised by a groan. We both looked down and found that the bandit that the helmet landed on was moving. I felt guilty, seeing as I was the one that got him crushed by the helmet anyway. The helmet wasn't as heavy as I thought before because I could lift it without magic. It wasn't even sturdy metal, why would a bandit be wearing this aside from hiding their appearance. Without thinking about it anymore, I tossed the helmet aside and nudged the bandit with my hoof.
"Hey buddy," I said, nudging the bandit, "your back ain't busted. You can get up."
It crossed my mind just then that he could have a concussion. If he did, he probably wasn't getting up any time soon. I looked up and saw the phoenix circling above, reminding me of our task. We should just leave the bandit here, if he's gone when we're finished, it won't make any difference to me.
"Leave him alone," Scarlet told me annoyed, "We got the key, let's go unlock the gate so we can get inside."
"Are you angry because of my plan?"
"Gee, What do ya' think?"
I didn't answer. I just rolled my eyes and walked over to the padlock. I never was good at making plans, Chelsy was my strategist and my best friend. We used to date but decided on staying friends. She told me I was handsome but not very good with words or using my head. That's gonna need to change soon. I placed the key in the lock and tried to turn it. I took the key out and looked into the lock, hoping to find something. When I didn't, I put the key back in and tried turning it again, and this time it broke.
"Son of a bitch!" I swore, "The goddamn key broke!"
I went into one of my moods, where I just started screaming random shit. I don't know when during my freak out I did it, but I magically blew the lock open. I didn't notice until Scarlet calmed me down and pointed it out. I never really understood magic, but I could always find some spell that would help me out; it's why I chose to give up flight instead of magic.
Scarlet patted me on the back, before running ahead of me towards the castle. The bridge had been wrapped in a light fog that obscured some of the castle, so when I ran onto the bridge, I got a really good look at it. It looked like someone couldn't decide on building it out of wood or stone. The bandits had used thousands of planks of wood to make the crumbling castle structurally safe enough to live in. The front towers had been modified to act as sniper lookouts and the walkways had wood planks set up to provide cover. However, one detail stuck out the most. Growing out of the center of the castle, was a massive tree, that could have only been grown with magic and then left alone for hundreds of years. Its branches extended through the walls and its roots hung over the cliff and into the canyon below us. The front gate had fallen over long ago and was now lying half buried in the ground in front of the door way. I could hear cheering from inside. Something was going on inside.
Scarlet
The inside of the base was nicer than I thought. The bandits had strengthened the ceilings with wood and kept the castle lit and warm with hundreds of torches(which wasn't very safe considering all of the wood). Which struck me as odd was that no one seemed to be around. Chris said that the cheering was coming from the center of the castle but we should still be careful. I stayed together and began searching through rooms. Most of them were storage rooms, some of which Chris decided to loot for ammo or guns. He mentioned something about maybe being able to sell them. After checking all the rooms we found, we began moving closer towards the cheering. We cut through the kitchen to find the source of the cheering, but I wish we could have gone around. The bandits weren't very tidy, dirty dishes were everywhere and there was a huge fish lying on the table. I couldn't believe the bandits were eating fish. Chris didn't seem bothered. He said fish were a main source of food for griffins and kelpies. I hoped he was right.
As we made our way closer to the cheering, which had escalated to a roar with stomping and whistling mixed in, I also became aware of other sounds. It sounded like two animals were fighting; two very big animals. Chris was unfazed and continued in the direction of the noise. The source was a massive room that may have once been smaller, but had been converted a huge arena. The massive tree we saw from the outside was growing on the other side of the pit. Hundreds of bandits were seated in various spots cheering, and from what Chris pointed out, mostly unarmed. I was glad to see there weren't any other bandits like the one we fought earlier, but I saw some new ones. There were a couple griffins that I could see, next to one of them was a creature that looked like a pony mixed with a crocodile that had straight black hair and glowing yellow eyes; I assumed that was a kelpie. There were also small shacks built on top of the platforms surrounding the pit, so there was a possibility some shacks contained more bandits. Chris tapped my shoulder and pointed into the arena, and I was horrified by what I saw.
Fighting in the arena were two creatures that looked like nothing I've ever seen. One looked like a massive tree that had grown legs and four arms. Its leaves and branches hung down, like a willow tree, giving it the appearance of having hair. The other creature was just as bizarre. It had two heads, a goat's head and a lion's head. It had the front legs of a lion and the back legs of a goat and instead of a tail, it had a long snake that was looking at the tree creature and bearing its teeth. The beast looked like it may have once had wings, but if it did they had been cut off. Chris identified the tree creature as an Ent, a magic plant being found only in deep forests, and the three headed monster as a Chimera. As we watched the two creatures fight, I began to notice that something was off. They weren't physically attacking each other; they were just roaring and clawing at the air in front of them. Is this why the bandits captured the Elder's pet phoenix.
"We have to stop this," I whispered to Chris, "this is wrong, it's inhumane."
"I know," he whispered back, "but we can't just run in there, we're out numbered."
"Then what? It's not like we can attack them from behind a corner."
"Actually, we might be able to do just that."
I didn't understand he meant at first but then he pulled a small object out of his bag and showed it to me. My I-Sparkle became active and told me it was a bandit made grenade, although my display spelled it as Humming Boome Stik. Apparently bandits don't have very good grammar, weird since my assault rifle is bandit made and it has correct spelling. Maybe the bandit who made my rifle knew how to spell.
"What do you plan to do with that?"
"Easy; it's a homing grenade. It homes in on the closest target that's registered as an enemy. All we have to do is get their attention and when they come up here, take out the group. I only have one so-"
He was interrupted by a gun shot coming from the stadium followed by an increase in cheering. We looked back in to see that someone had shot the Ent and somehow managed to light it on fire. Some of the bandits had jumped into the pit and were tossing chains around the Chimera. Another group of the bandits stood up and began walking in our direction. I frantically looked between Chris and the bandits. I panicked; without thinking, I grabbed the grenade from Chris's hand and tossed it at the group of bandits. Chris grabbed me and pulled me back as we heard beeping.
"What the?" was all one of the bandits could say before the grenade went off.
There was no good way for me to describe what it sounded like when the grenade went off but it was sickening, and worse, now the bandits knew we were here. Chris wasted no time in pulling out his SMG before running out of our hiding spot and then began unloading bullets. I did the same thing, but instead of standing in the door way like Chris, I ran past him and began making my way down to the pit. I wasn't going to let them lock up that creature. No creature deserved this kind of treatment.
It wasn't very hard to get down there, most of the bandits had low quality pistols or rifles and some were even completely unarmed. However, one bandit caught me off guard. He was a muscular stallion that had a large horn on the end of his snout, a smaller one right behind it. My I-Sparkle labeled him as an Indrik Raider. The way he spoke told me to fire a bullet into his skull.
"Hey goily," he said, "hows about you drop the gun an' we go someplace nice 'n quiet?"
I growled at the statement. I fired the first bullet into his crotch and smiled as he dropped his gun and fell over in pure agony. I walked up to him and fired a second bullet into his neck. Without a second thought, I picked up his gun and strapped it to my bag, I'll sell it later.
I was caught off guard by a piercing pain shot across my side. I looked down and saw a shallow gash in my hip. I spun around and saw that a bandit had fired at me and was furiously attempting to reload his gun. Unfazed by the pain, I emptied the rest of my magazine into the bandit's body. I walked over to his now lifeless body and found his gun was the same as mine, which gave me an idea. I took the rifle from the dead bandit's hand. Both rifles in hand, I continued down towards the pit, firing bullet after bullet into bandit bodies. I need to remember this method. It's as effective as it was fun.
I fought my way through more bandits before I reached the edge of the pit. Upon reaching the edge, I tossed the other rifle aside, noticing that I was consuming twice as much ammo as before. I hopped in and fired at the bandits trying to subdue the Chimera. I hit the first one in the chest, the second in the knee, but I missed the last one entirely. The third bandit dropped the chain but was bitten by the chimera's snake tale and slammed down on top of the bandit I shot in the knee. The chimera turned around to face me with its two front heads and brushed up against as a way of thanks. It then jumped up into the stands and began ripping apart bandits one by one. It charged past Chris who jumped down into the pit with me. We looked up and saw some of the remaining bandits were just watching us.
"So you think you can walk in and ruin our fun," a voice said from above us.
We both looked up and saw the griffin Chris had pointed out earlier. My display identified him as First Mate Skylar. He wore muscle shirt with an ax design on it, and a pair of heavy pants with a lot of pockets that sported a camo print. There was a large chip in his beak and his feathers were fashioned into a mohawk.
"I think they look like a couple of party crashers," another voice said.
This voice came from the kelpie that had been sitting next to the griffin Skylar. He wore a ratty, dusty brown vest over top of a shirt that looked like it was fashioned from a net. His skin was visible through the net shirt and I could see he had scars, teeth marks it looked like. His pants were just as ragged as his vest. They looked like they've been repeatedly drug through the mud. I bet he smelled as dirty as he looked. He was identified as Second Mate Marshal.
"Hey Marshal, what do you think we should do?" Skylar asked.
"I bet they think they're pretty strong," Marshal answered, "Maybe we should let Tomahawk take care of them."
"Hey everybody!" Skylar yelled, "Should we call Tomahawk?"
"TOMAHAWK! TOMAHAWK! TOMAHAWK! TOMAHAWK! TOMAHAWK!" the bandits began chanting.
The griffin and kelpie jumped into the stands and joined in the chanting. We kept looking around for the bandit called Tomahawk, but we couldn't see him. It was then that a roar broke through the chanting, causing us to look up. Dropping from the top of the massive tree, was a massive griffin. The griffin landed on a platform at the base of the tree. He looked like lion with the head of a vulture. His wings were bigger than any of the other griffins in the room. He wore a jacket that had its sleeves ripped off and no shirt was visible beneath his chest feathers, but he had a necklace showing various animal teeth around his neck. He wore a pair of camo pants and a pair of combat boots. He had a bright red mohawk on his head, the edges of his beak the same shade of red. He pulled a gun from a strap on his belt held it so we got a good look at it. It was a double barrel shotgun with a serrated blade at the end of the barrels. The handle was carved wood and had silver plating with designs carved into it. It was the gun that the Elder had seen, and it looked terrifying. His voice was rough and violent.
"So," the griffin yelled, "I hear we gotta couple'a party crashers. They look more like two 'o them tree huggers to me. To me, tree huggers are just idiots who want t' be trees. As of right now, you two tree huggers are trees, and what do we do t' trees boys? WE CUT 'EM DOWN!!"
Commander Tomahawk: TIIIIIIMBEEEEEEER!!
Chris
I looked away from this, monster of a griffin, to Scarlet who stood trembling next to me. She was shaking, most likely from thinking about what was going to happen to us. Tomahawk jumped off the platform, throwing up a cloud of dust when he landed, and began walking towards us. Scarlet was visibly panicking now, she's probably never seen a griffin of this size before. When he was about ten feet from us, Scarlet fell over and began backing away. I however, didn't flinch, I never even blinked, and I could tell Tomahawk noticed.
"Your filly friend looks like she's about to start screaming, but you, you stand tall. Like a knight protecting an innocent. You've got guts kid."
"Maybe, but then again, you're not very frightening."
I could tell I struck a nerve. Tomahawk snarled and smashed me across the face, throwing me back. I could taste blood on my tongue. I didn't care, I've taken worse punches than that.
"Who the fuck do you think you are, comin' in here, talkin' like you're king, callin' me a coward," he screamed in rage, "What makes you better than me?"
"You're a wuss," I said through my blood covered teeth, "You're a big griffin who hides behind his grunts. That guy we fought outside the gate was scarier than you."
He punched me again, knocking me onto me back. My nose was bleeding now. I looked over at Scarlet, thankful she wasn't shaking now. I mouthed a sentence to her, hoping she'll understand.
Aim for his wings.
Tomahawk picked me up by the neck and raised me above his head. He took his gun and placed its blade to my throat. I could see he was twitching. Like, I could visibly see his veins twitching under the feathers on his head.
"You come in here," he said, "kill my strongest guard, kill my men, release my entertainment, and then have the nerve to call me a WUSS!? What makes you better than me, huh!? Why are you special!?"
"I still have wings," I said, running out of breath.
Before he could question me further, Scarlet pulled a second gun from her bag and shot Tomahawk in the wings, sending blood and feathers into the air. He tossed me to the ground and began stomping around screaming from a mixture of pain and anger. The bullets were explosive rounds and had blown his left wing right off of his body, while the other was hanging loosely, turning red from the blood pouring out. Scarlet ran over to where I had landed. I was coughing and gasping for air. I stood up shakily and took out Lemon Drop. This fight ain't over yet.
I glanced up into the stands and noticed that none of the other bandits were moving. Maybe they were waiting for something. Tomahawk had begun to quiet down and now turned to face us. His eyes were full of hate, but his health was also a fourth of the way gone. I knew that the gun he was holding would do serious damage if it shot me. I needed to keep him enraged.
"Hey Tomahawk," I taunted, "I noticed none of your men are jumping down here to stop us."
"Yeah?" he said through his panting, "What about it?"
"I was just thinking that, you know, maybe they're waiting for something."
"Waiting for what?" he growled as he turned in my direction.
"I thought," I continued while spinning Lemon Drop on my finger, "Maybe they're waiting for you to grow a pair and actually kill me."
I heard a few of the bandits surrounding us start laughing. Tomahawk on the other hand, was getting really, really pissed.
"You stupid, fucking, pony," he said through his teeth, "I am going to claw that tongue out of your mouth if you don't shut up."
"Really? Those are big words coming from a griffin who just had his wings clipped."
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!! I'M GONNA KICK YER ASS!!"
"Oh! In that case, I'll shut up. After all, I wouldn't want to crush a chicken's dreams."
"I am giving you one last chance..."
"Alright I'm done," I said before leaning closer to him, "Have fun getting back on your perch Captain Flightless."
For almost a solid minute, he just stood there twitching. I was laughing my ass off inside my head, and the bandits surrounding us were now laughing uncontrollably. I even heard his mates Skyler and Marshal laughing. Griffins can speak, write, read, and use guns, but get them angry enough, they change back into what they truly are: wild animals.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!
Tomahawk went into a frenzy, slashing, snapping, kicking, roaring, anything a wild animal would do when enraged. Meanwhile, I was just frantically trying to dodge his attacks and firing at him every chance I could, Scarlet keeping her distance and doing the same. The bandits up in the stands were cheering like before. This is what they wanted to see, a fight to the death between a monster and something else.
Eventually, the blood lost from the wound on his back, plus the blood lost from the bullet wounds, was beginning to take its toll. Tomahawk was moving slower, his attacks became less vicious, and he was visibly sweating. I kept him going by taunting him, but now it didn't matter. Calm or angered, Tomahawk had lost a lot of blood. The walls and floor of the pit were dotted with spots of crimson and speckled with feathers. He collapsed in the center of the pit, panting heavily, his body weak and burning from a mixture of pain and exhaustion. I walked up to Tomahawk and aimed Lemon Drop at his forehead.
"Please," he begged, "have... mercy..."
I raised an eye brow and took my finger off the trigger and lifted Lemon Drop above my head. My eyes were uncaring and my expression was like stone. He deserves no mercy.
"Sorry," I told him, "I don't care for tyrants like you."
"YOU PUTRID FUCKING CUN-," was all he had time to say.
I brought Lemon Drop's blades down onto Tomahawk's head, ending his life. Not even a second after I had killed him though, a green question mark appeared over Tomahawk's lifeless body. I activated my watch display, and a screen popped up alerting me that I've completed the mission. I gained money and a gun from the mission. I looked at the gun I earned and it was the shotgun I had seen Tomahawk holding. I brought up my display screen to look at its stats. It had incredible power but bad accuracy and fire rate. It also had a magazine size of two and it consumed both bullets in one shot. There were two names given on the stats: Bonechipper and Apple Family. I figured Bonechipper was the gun's name, so that left Apple Family as the manufacturer's name.
When I closed the screen, I became aware that the bandits were cheering. Skyler and Marshal jumped down and landed in front of me. I readied my newly obtained gun for a fight but Scarlet ran over put her hand on the gun. Skyler spoke first.
"Dude!" he spoke excitedly, "That was awesome!"
"He means thank you," Marshal added.
"Hold on," I said confused, "you're not gonna kill us?"
"Why should we do that?" Marshal asked.
"If it weren't for you, we'd have never been rid of that idiot." Skyler said.
"So wait," Scarlet asked, "You mean you were being forced to serve him?"
"Exactly," Skyler answered, "I am the actual leader of this group. We were never hostile, we would help the nearby tribes in their trading with other villages."
"And then Tomahawk came along and decided to take over," Marshal continued, "He wanted to take the resources for himself and he forced us into helping him. None of us were brave enough to attack him because he had that thing with him."
"And now that you've killed them both," Skyler finished, "we can go back to doing what we like to do. Tomahawk also liked capturing animals and forcing them to fight. We thought that was entertaining some times, but others..."
"It was just cruel?" Scarlet asked.
"Right," Skyler answered, "but now I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm gonna have t' ask you to leave. We got a lot of cleaning up to do. Be careful though, some of my men did align themselves with Tomahawk on their own free will. They'll still try to kill you.
"Thank you Skyler," I said, shaking his hand, "It's good to know there are good people out here. You'd have made great knight."
With that said, I gave Skyler and Marshal a salute, and they saluted back. Scarlet and I made our way back out of the base and found the phoenix waiting outside with the chimera. The chimera walked up and brushed up against Scarlet, making a sound that I assumed was supposed to be purring.
"Oh," Scarlet said, " Would you like to come with us?"
The chimera sat down in front of us. I guessed that was a yes, so we walked across the bridge with the phoenix flying over head and a new companion by our side. We found a group of bandits lighting the dead hulking bandit on fire. I would done the same thing, because, I don't think I could have lifted him even with magic. The bandit who had the helmet fall on him was being treated by a mare wearing bandit clothes smiled and waved at us as we walked out of the clearing.
I looked at my mini-map and found a new objective. It said to return to the village, probably to return the phoenix to Lightning. We had just defeated a tyrant and saved several villages, and though I hurt in parts of my body, I felt good. It's official, falling off the wall was the best thing to ever happen to me. Maybe second to meeting Scarlet.
Our journey back was less exciting than the journey up to the base, but it gave us time to talk. We stopped when we passed Zecora's hut. I don't know what it was about that place but when I see it, I feel this aura of sadness around the hut, like someone is still there, mourning. We walked away from it, without saying another word until it was no longer in view. I guess we felt it was wrong to laugh at a place where sadness remains. I looked up to the sky and just now noticed it was night time. Wow, how could I have not noticed that?
Establishing feed. Processing.
"What is his progress Gallant?"
"He's currently returning to Lightning. He successfully defeated that bandit like I had hoped."
"Have you delivered the message to Lightning?"
"Of course, I did that the second they entered... that place."
"Holding on to the past only hinders progress, Gallant."
"Seems to me like you could have benefited from doing just that, Sombra."
"...I...suppose I could have, but back on task. You need to make sure he goes to New Manehatten."
"I know, I know. He won't be able to survive unless he goes there first."
"..."
"What's wrong?"
"Godammit, we're being watched!"
KKRRZZCH!!
ERROR! Probe damaged. Feed lost.
End of Chapter 4...