//------------------------------//
// Chapter Nine: Courage 
// Story: Tear of a flower 
// by Zephyr 
//------------------------------//

If you see someone that needs help, what do you do? Go up to him/her and ask about the problem?
If no, then what if the one who needed help was you?
Think about it.

When standing in front of a bunch of angry punk-ish figures, the only thoughts I had were to save Dawnie and don't let anything happen to her.
I was alone, I saw faces in the windows... But I was alone. No one would come to help.









-Chapter Nine-
.:Courage:.








The seconds passed like hours. Finally, the leader of the small gang stepped closer. He was the same pony who got a little shouting from me. And he was clearly more than upset.

"You think you can just yell at me?" He asked, half-shouting. "You don't know who you ar-"

His idiotic speech was interrupted by my right foot in his chest.
Normally, I would choose diplomacy, but this kind of man, I mean pony won’t have any sense to it, also, I had a little chance to scare them.

The force I used to kick him was big enough to send him fly - he tackled the biggest member of his group and because there was no screaming in pain, he could've fallen in unconsciousness.
Seeing my extremely quick reaction and, well, power, the other 5 members of the gang (there were 7 of them) just looked at me in surprise.
Then one of them cried up and tried to kick me with his back hooves (like a horse would) - no avail. His pathetic yell alerted me so I had time to step back and when he kicked out his legs, I grabbed them.

The sudden change of the attacker's role made its effect.
I swung the previously attacking stallion around, throwing him at another one.
At this point all of them jumped on me.

Have I told you before? I can switch off the pain in me for a short time. But it has its cost.

The first one tackled me, sending me to the ground, where the second one would stomp on me - but I rolled away and got to my feet quickly.
I don't know how, but a baseball bat suddenly appeared in the mouth of one of my attackers.
Thanks to having five digits, when he swung it to hit me, I grabbed the bat and punched him in the face. He let the bat away, with a few tooth of his.

"Dawnie! RUN!" I yelled at her. She was standing in the same place all along, probably because of the shock. Fortunately my shout snapped her out of it and she gave me a very anxious expression. "NOW!!!" I yelled again. She waited for one more second, then turned around and ran away.

The situation was this: The 7 membered gang had heavy losses: an unconscious leader, three on the ground, getting up, one who got a fine punch in his face and two others ready to attack. And there was me, with a base-ball bat and bruises because of the close encounter with the ground.

Something popped in my mind. With all the danger I had to handle and pain to ignore, the funny part of my mind worked. And I imitated the Scout from Team Fortress 2.

"Who wants some-a this? Bonk!" I imitated his moves too.

The 2 attack ready stallion was surprised and confused by this, but they charged at me a second later. 
I cried up.

"Eat my dust!" I turned around quickly and began to run.









Running in a city at night was almost an everyday routine for me. The air was cold, my lungs burned, my throat had ice-crystals on it, but I kept running. The 5 remaining members of the punk-ish gang still chased me, but I was (I don't know how) faster. By a sudden idea I imitated the Scout again.

"Wanananana..." The empty streets echoed my voice so it was more cool than I expected.

"You can't run forever! We will get you!" one of them shouted. They were beginning to fall behind.

'Looks like jogging every day is really paying off!'

After a minute I still heard their rushed hoof-steps somewhere behind me, but I was out of their sight.
Looking for a good hiding place I realized that I was in the market-place of the city. Quickly climbing on a wooden stand's top, I sat down, and tried to rest a bit.

To my usual bad luck, half minute later one of them trotted through the market-place, but he didn't notice me.

'Oh-hoo, idea!'

When he got close to me, he stopped, panting. You can imagine my face. Evil grin.
Climbing down like a ninja wasn't enough. I walked behind him, then poked his head with my bat (yes, I stole it, it's mine) then said.

"Yo, what's up?" He slowly turned his head, looking at me.

"You sonov-" And he was cut short by a nicely sent bat-hit on the head.

"Two out, five more!" I thought for a moment. "Do I even have to deal with them?"

As answer I heard several hoofsteps coming in my way. 

"Ohh, not again.."

I began to run, not leaving my trusty bat behind.








About five minutes later I was back at the place where I last saw Dawnie. Because my chasers totally lost me, I followed Dawnie's trace. To my luck, those punks were dumb enough to not follow her before.
Not too much time later I was in the middle of the way, back to Dawnie's distant home.

The cobblestone road was still surrounded by snow, the grey clouds and the full moon behind them gave a pretty good lighting. And this was the moment when my pain-lock went offline.

The pain in my side was big, but the freezing limbs were even worse.

"Oh, not again, I don’t want to be in bed for days again!" I said aloud and quickened my pace.



In the distance I saw the lights of the little house. She was in her home, waiting for me.
A word formed in my mind.

'Home.'