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// Welcome to Saddle Hill 
// Story: Heroism 
// by The_Last_Centurion 
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This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.


Welcome to Saddle Hill

The throbbing pain in my head and the sharp, stabbing pain in my left leg woke me. The world spun around me as my vision came back to me. At first, I thought I must have gotten a concussion or some sort of head lesion. The world was strange and flipped, the wooden bar and stools on a ceiling that hung above my head by just a few feet and the ground below me was far below. Or so I thought, until the stallion in the sand goggles came into my view. This time, he wasn’t wearing his hat or cloak and his salt and pepper mane sprung out from his head wildly while he hung above me, walking on the ceiling. I realized I was hanging from some ropes and that all I saw was upside down while the stallion worked over my left leg, tugging and pulling on the Gauntlet. The same robbers we saw earlier were with him and the barkeep.
“Ow!” I exclaimed when he gave another sharp tug on the Gauntlet. The robbers looked up at me in surprise while he just put a hoof to his chin and pried at the Gauntlet again.
“Stop that!” I told him as he stopped. He rose and looked at me. His dirty-gold coat rippled as he stood and I came face to face, if not upside down, with him. 
“Where are my friends?” I asked him angrily.
He removed his goggles to show a pair of golden eyes and he glared at me. “They’re somewhere safe. We haven’t laid a hoof on ‘em, if that’s what yer askin.” 
“And that also explains why I’m hanging upside down?” 
He grabbed my left hoof hard. “This does. These ponies told me what you can do with this thing. It’s a weapon and I was trying to get it off.”
“You’re gonna have to cut off my hoof if you want to do that.” 
He dropped my hoof, walked over to his coat-which was draped over a chair-and pulled out a long dagger from within the folds. “That can be arranged.”
“Hold on.” I stammered, struggling against my restraints while he walked closer towards me. He stopped short of me however and hissed under his breath.
“Scram!” he called and all the ponies vacated from the saloon, running out different ways as a large, bright blue unicorn kicked open the doors and came in leading a group of other ponies. Each wore a pitch-black vest and had a silver star pinned to them. They came in with their weapons ready, but lowered them when they saw I was the only one in the saloon. The big sky-blue one had a gold star and came over to me, his horn glowing, and he freed me from the ropes. I was lowered down to the ground via magic as he asked “Who are you?”  
“My name is Deft Hooves. Thanks for helping me.” 
He nodded. “I’m the sheriff o’ this town. That’s my job.” He replied as he helped me up. “I’m Sheriff Ice.”
“Thanks again. Please, you’ve got to help me.” I said as I told him about how we came into Saddle Hill, were jumped once, and then were jumped again. I didn’t tell him about the powers of the Gauntlet or where we came from, but I almost left no details about the three of us out of the story. When I told him about the stallion with the golden eyes and coat, he grimaced.
“Ah know that one well.” He said. “His name is Six Shooter and he’s the leader of the bandits and vagrants that have come to plague Saddle Hill since last year.” 
“Ah’m sorry for all the trouble he’s caused ya. While we look fer him and yer friends, why don’t you go down to the station with my deputy while we continue lookin fer him. You can stay there while we investigate where they went.”
“I’d rather stay and help look for them.” I said adamantly.
“All right…but yer going with some of my ponies and you need to do exactly as they say. It prevents accidents that way.” He said hesitantly, his eyes narrowing as he said so.
“Got it.” I replied, going along with the squad he assigned me to. We went our separate ways then and went through the town that had thoroughly woken up by now. Still, that didn’t mean too much as Saddle Hill was not near as close to as large as Oattara was. But that didn’t mean the search went too easily. We asked passing ponies, entered stores and the only hotel, and genuinely looked around the town, asking if anypony had seen my two friends or Six Shooter. Many of the ponies we asked complied meekly, but some outright hated us. I understood, since the law really was never our friend in the gutters, but the way some of these ponies regarded us made me feel like I had committed some chain of atrocities.
I asked the deputy, a chilly pegasi mare, about this and she answered in a serious tone. “They won’t ever like us, but at least they’ve learned to shut up.” Was all she said, leaving more questions on my mind than she had answered. I tried to ask her more questions, but her look buried them under a sheet of ice.  
Midway through the day, we went to the Saddle Hill market and asked around the same questions. We received the same receptions we had gotten all day and started to leave empty-hooved. The squad headed back in the direction of the station, leading me, when I bumped into a stallion heading to market. He went spinning to the ground, his wide-brimmed hat flopping off of his head as he spilled the bushels of peppers he had been carrying in two large wicker baskets over his shoulders.
“Gods, I’m sorry.” I said ashamed at my lack of perception. I helped him up and then started to help him clean up his peppers.
“It is alright, dude.” He answered, making me laugh. He was a tall, portly, old stallion with a long, jet black mane and a deep brown coat. His silver eyes glimmered as he put the hat back atop his head, shielding his windburnt and wrinkly face from the harsh sun.
“But still…” I said, still embarrassed I wasn’t looking.
He started dead into my eyes. “Just let it be, man. You can’t catch the wave after its hit the shore. But more importantly, you can keep yourself ready. A waxed board will help you go far.”
“What?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t trust them, or the laws here.” He said with a nod over to the police ponies who were waiting for me to finish up with the old stallion. He then picked up his peppers and walked away whispering “Stay sharp.”
I was confused, but got back up and followed the squad to the station. It was built like the other buildings in the town, large and wooden, but the inside had cells of steel bars and metal lockers to put convicts’ and polices’ weapons and personal stuff. There were three offices, one for the Sheriff, one for the Deputy, and one more that was filled with paperwork. 
“You can take one of the cells while we’re looking for your friends.” Said the Deputy as she walked into her office without looking back. Stretching, and knowing I had nothing better to do, I opened the door to the cell closest to the Sheriff’s office and went to sleep.


“…here. As soon as we find his friends and capture Six Shooter and co, we’ll make sure he knows. Yes, understood. No, I did not, not yet. Give me three days. By then it will be easy. Got it.” Sheriff Ice’s voice went as he spoke to somepony in his office, waking me a little earlier than dawn. I couldn’t hear the other pony and as he came out of the office into the dark station, I could see that his horn was glowing slightly, as if he had just been using some powerful magic. I feigned sleep because of the look on his face. The old stallion’s warning floated through my mind as suspicion climbed into my soul, but I made sure it didn’t show as the station’s lights went on. He stood over me with his horn aglow, a violent electric blue light that pierced everything I saw…and then everything went black.
“Good morning, Deft.” Sheriff Ice said as he opened the door to the cell and tossed me an apple. I yawned and caught it between my hooves. “If you’re still dead-set on helping us look for your friends, than ya best get outta bed. We got a lot tah do taday, Ah’m afraid. Six Shooter an’ his gang were busy last night.” 
“What do you mean?” I asked as I got up out of the cot and took a large bite from the apple while rubbing my eyes. I could have sworn he had woken me up already, that he was standing over me, but that was impossible. He had opened the door of the cell to wake me. It must have been some sort of dream. 
“Accdordin’ to eyewitness accounts, Six Shooter and a good part a’ his gang went an’ rustled up some trouble last night. He went door to door, looking fer a pony that was described as looking jest like you. Now why would he do that?” Ice asked as he gave me a narrow-eyed glance. 
“I was going to ask the same thing.” His deputy asked, her voice dripping with suspicion as she came into the room holding a rolled-up letter. “One of the squads on patrol sent this back to me. It was pinned under a large sign on the wall of the saloon.”
“Any luck finding the proprietor?” Ice asked as he unrolled the scroll.
The deputy fixed an icy gaze on me as Ice spoke to her. “Negative. He escaped with Six Shooter. Looks like the bastard had been helping him all along.”
Ice glared at the letter. “FREE YOUR MIND. DON’T TRUST THEM.” It read. “What is this supposed to mean?” he asked in confusion.
“We’re working on it sir.” His deputy replied. “Maybe…Mr. Hooves would know?”
“I’ve got nothing.” I said while shrugging. “The only thing I could guess it would mean is that he wants to instill distrust through Saddle Hill.”
“Ah get it.” Ice said with a grimace. “Deputy, send word to all patrolling squads to assemble near the Saloon. We’re gonna have a lot a’ work on our hooves taday.”


We got down to the front of the saloon about ten minutes after Sheriff Ice had told Deputy to send word to the squads. By then, they had all been organized around outside the saloon. Many looked like they had been awake for quite a while, but what was stranger was that they all had electric blue eyes. Sheriff Ice’s horn illuminated as he started to speak in a magically amplified voice and I looked over to him as he spoke to the crowd, not listening. Then I looked back to the ponies listening to him and their eyes weren’t blue anymore. I guessed it was just their eye reflecting his magic. 
“Listen y’all. We all know ‘bout Six Shooter an’ his gang. We also know that varmit’s been stirrin’ up more trouble. We’re all gonna split inta squads a’ four an’ search Ole’ Dry district since that was where he left that message. Be on yer guards. Understood?”
“UNDERSTOOD.” Shouted everypony in unison as they were separated at Sheriff Ice’s commands. He commanded that I, his deputy, and two other officers, another earth pony and one unicorn, stay behind and go through the saloon once more. We were also to guard it as a meeting place for the squads after their searches. The Sheriff gave a wave while leaving with his group and Deputy led us into the saloon. Soon, we were searching it top and bottom for anything the other officers might have missed. I let myself behind the counter and into the room behind that.
Inside were stacks of bottles, boxes filled with different bottles of liqueur and all sorts of beers and ales. The room was also quite cold, but ever since the search, the door to the cold pantry had been left wide open, letting the delicious cold seep into the hot desert. I lifted flaps and moved boxes around, but didn’t really expect to find anything. The other ponies had already searched this place inside and out, so why would I find anything. Or so I thought, until a seemingly unmovable stack of boxes swung out of the wall on hinges. I jumped back and was about to shout, but a silver flash darted out of the opening and stuffed a mouth over mine.
We broke off after a few minutes, only because our lungs were screaming for air. “What?” I said puzzled as my love grabbed me tightly in crushing hug. I was going to say more, but then Six Shooter stepped out of the hidden doorway too and nodded to Siren. She spun me around quickly, locking my hooves and front legs behind my back while placing another hoof in my mouth. 
“Sorry.” Was all she said as my mind raced. Why was she helping him? And to what end? Something nefarious, no doubt, but what? I noticed that Blade wasn’t here, so maybe he was held hostage? Or maybe it was Reggie who was hostage? There were too many factors, too many reasons for why she was doing this that I didn’t care. Even if I loved her, I needed to stop this, so I struggled with all my strength.
“Hold him still.” Hissed Six Shooter as he came up to me and pulled his sand goggles back. He peeled the lids back gently from one of my eyes with his hoof and looked at my eye with concern. I started to rage at him, knowing he was the reason why I was separated from my friends, that they were being made to do vile acts because of their noble concern for the lives of their friends and innocents. I started to think about how he was the main reason why my life sucked right now. Incoherently, my mind flashed with pictures of oppressed ponies back in my home of Oattara. He was the reason for them. He was the reason why the Central Citadel blew up. He was the one who clamped this gods-be-damned Gauntlet onto my leg. But he would learn. The power of the Gauntlet would teach him.
“Let him go, quickly!” shouted Six Shooter as the Gauntlet’s gem started to glow. “Ice has him! We need to leave, now!”
Siren held me for a minute, but then threw me to the ground, letting me hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thud. I bared my teeth and felt the magic of the Gauntlet flow through me. Six Shooter was the reason for that as well. He needed to die. However, before I could get them, they vaulted through the hidden door and closed it. I yelled out in rage and the others came running. Suddenly, I could feel the path they were taking, a tunnel lined with the same wooden flooring of the saloon. When I smiled sinisterly and ran out to the front of the saloon, the wood and earth reacted to my magic. 
The ground in front of the saloon exploded outward, revealing a large cavernous underground room, filled with Six Shooter, my friends, the stallion I had seen in the market, and the other ponies of Six Shooter’s gang. My smile bordered on insane as I call more magic to raise the room to my level, so the ponies would be caught in the open with nowhere to run. As the ground shook to answer my commands, Sheriff Ice and the rest of the officers came sprinting from down the road and stopped around me, forming a circle around the caught ponies.
“Good job, Deft.” Ice said with a smirk. His horn glowed with lightning-blue magic and I felt amazing. The magic of the Gauntlet coursed through me and I knew that this would end it here. My friends would be rescued and Six Shooter would pay for everything. 
“Officers,” Ice called to everypony, “Leave nopony alive. Make them an example.”
I smiled at this thought, that I would be able to use my magic to slaughter them all…but something was wrong. I…my friends were there…I couldn’t…
“STOP!” Six Shooter shouted, causing me to shake my head and wonder what was going on. “He looked around the crowd and pointed to the Deputy. “Deputy Haymaker! You know who I am. I would never do the things that this scumbag said I would. I was Saddle Hill’s Sheriff! Don’t fall into the bounty hunter’s trap!” he pointed to another and another and another. “Silverado! Picante! Rusty! You’re all my friends! Break his spell! Focus on who you are, not his tricks!”
“That’ll be enough outta ya.” Sheriff Ice said. “It don’ matter what ya say. You an all the rest a ya are gonna die here. Then Doom’s gonna give me this here town an nopony will be richer than me.” he said with a snarl.
Siren and Blade looked at me with fear in their eyes. To my disgust, or a small part of me, that amused the overreaching rage and power that was consuming me. I bared my teeth at them.
“See.” Ice said in amusement, pointing to me. “This ‘Hero’ is gonna be the pony to start the bloodbath! Go sic ‘em, Hero!” Ice told me and I lept at the chance. I bound closer to my friends with rage and bloodlust building.
“DEFT!!!!!” screamed Siren, calling me back from the depths of the false-Sheriff’s magic and to my disoriented senses. I tripped and fell, rolling with the momentum of my leaping and bounding, and stopping at Siren’s hooves.
“Uhhh.” I moaned as my head throbbed and everything seemed to flash in shades of lighting-blue and a dark-throbbing red. I closed my eyes and rolled into a fetal curl as Ice laughed.
“So that’s all the Hero can do? An’ Ah’m not even Doom! What a worthless creature. Kill him, minions.” He said and I screamed as his command called through our minds, as blue as lightning. 
In that split second, before the bullets were fired by Ice’s mind-slaves, before I and my friends were killed, I heard a small voice that grew into a grand one. Time slowed as it called to me and I opened my eyes, seeing the world in a blood-red tint.
Embrace me. It said. Embrace me and kill all your enemies. Revel in the power you had before, only ten-fold this time.
I had no choice. I looked around quickly at my friends, their faces wearing resilient masks, even at the end. At Ice’s minions, innocent ponies trapped in evil magic. At Ice himself, his horn and eyes blazing blue against the red tint, his mouth marred in an evil, victorious grin. I felt true fear and grasped for the power that called me.
Suddenly, time was back as it was and I let out a scream that was not only feral, but laced with something more, something uncontrollable. My scream blasted waves of magic around me, sending Ice’s minions and my friends flying away from me, while Ice managed to hold his ground, just as I wanted him to. He grimaced as I launched myself at him, waves of magic surrounding me while I sped forward like a missile from a scorpion. I sped closer and closer to Ice, but he grit his teeth and his horn glowed even brighter. Electricity crackled around the magical shield he was forming and soon my propulsion came to an end and I landed on the ground.
He laughed. “Ya think Ah haven’t fought with magic before?” I could taste blood in my mouth, but I kept walking towards him, erstwhile waves of his magic, both physical and mental, wreaked havoc on me. The physical pushed me back and scathed my body with cutting debris and slashing attacks, while I could feel his mental attacks playing with my innards, making my organs bleed and me cough up blood while I marched towards him. However, I kept marching.
“Yer gonna die here.” He said. “Yer magic won’t harm a powerful unicorn like Ah.” 
Then a pillar of rock shot out of the ground as I smiled. “The magic of the Sand Ponies was never meant to be like Unicorn magic!” I screamed with a rage-filled certainty. Ice catapulted through the air, crashing into the “SALOON” sign above the saloon and bringing it crashing down to earth. I sprinted up to the wreck before he could return magical fire and I tackled him back into the pile of splinters that he was rising from. I got on top of him and started hitting, my mind going blank and the pleasure of the power washing over my mind. However, as his face became more and more bruised, I started to stop.
“That was for Saddle Hill! My friends! The ponies you manipulated!” I screamed at him. “Now stop your magic! MAKE ME STOP SEEING RED!” 
He looked aghast and then smiled a bloody, pulpy smile. “Ah stopped my magic when I hit the sign.” He said to me in a raspy voice. “The red…that’s all you. That’s yer power. And that means that you ain’t no hero. Yer gonna die like a dog when you fight Doom, because that power…that’s his…” he finished with, an evil, deathly chuckle coming from his broken form. 
It was more than I could bear. My sight became a darker shade of red as I started to pummel him, missing more often than not, but when I missed, the magic of the Gauntlet poured through my hooves and into the splinter, picking them up and giving them lives of their own. They grew into wicked spikes as I continued to pummel Ice’s form into an unsightly smear. 
“That’s enough, little dude.” Said a calm voice behind me. I turned, my vision scarlet now, and I saw the same stallion from the market. Only this time, he wore a grim face and Siren and Blade stood on either side of him. Blade looked at the smear, horrified, while Siren glanced at it with a look of disgust, and then to me with a look of disappointment and fear, like I was a monster. The rage and the power ebbed from me then and I felt drained and…and…I started to cry. I couldn’t continue like this, I couldn’t live knowing my friends thought I was a mindless killer. Wouldn’t that make me and Destruction, Demise, and Doom all the same? I was supposed to be the hero…
Suddenly, Siren was there, her hooves and wings encapsulating me as I sobbed. She spoke gentle words and held me as I had held her when the Citadel was destroyed. I felt another pair of hooves around us and I knew it was Blade as well, being there because I needed all the friends I could get. 
“Let it out, dude.” Reggie said calmly while tears streamed from my eyes and sobs echoed throughout Saddle Hill.


We sat back in the station, around a large table Six Shooter had pulled out of one of the offices. I sat with a blanket around my shoulders, a cup of hot coffee in front of me, and Siren holding onto me. Yet, I still shivered. Our conversation made it so.
It turns out that “Sheriff” Ice was no Sheriff, but in fact a bounty hunter sent by Doom to take over Saddle Hill and collect the heads of any higher-ups in town, all so his armies could move through the town faster to A.) Invade Oattara and B.) Invade Elder Equestria when Doom thought it right. Saddle Hill didn’t look like much, but according to Six Shooter, it was the easiest way to go through the town and then take either a train or follow the tracks. Either that, or climbing through rocky, shattered hills until reaching the gentler Macintosh Hills to the North.
Whatever his reasons, Ice had started off by overthrowing Six Shooter by controlling the town’s mayor with magic…only to kill the poor pony a week after he was appointed to be the new sheriff. After that, he went on a spree of slaughter and had ponies who were once friendly chase after Six Shooter and try to kill him. Of the ponies that weren’t effected by Ice’s magic (some had a stronger resistance to it, especially the bartender of the saloon-he said “being a bartender teaches you to have a steel mind”-whatever that means) almost all of them had formed alongside Six Shooter while he and his loyalists were vilified and hunted like rats. That was one of the reasons they turned to banditry. The other was because it kept ponies out of Saddle Hill, a smart move to keep innocents away from the vile trap.
So, when I, Siren, and Blade had come into town anyway, the group of ponies thought we were more bounty hunters. It was only after Six Shooter had interrogated me and scattered to their hiding place with my friends did he find out about us. Siren had told him everything and Six Shooter had tried his hardest to get her to me, to make sure I wasn’t under the spell, but it was too late for that.
After I killed Ice, his spell wore off and the minds of the enslaved ponies were returned to them. In fact, many ponies didn’t know what was happening or where they were. The past few weeks had been a blur to most, but not to some. Deputy Haymaker had been sobbing just as hard as I was. She told us about how she knew the things she was doing were wrong, that helping him in general was just evil, but she had been trapped by her own emotions. She was no longer the frigid mare I had met, but a strong deputy full of life and emotion. Ice’s magic had been nothing but pure evil.
Because Ice was one of Doom’s ponies, we all suspected that word had gotten out that Blade, Siren, and I were here. We were worried, but Six Shooter and Reggie didn’t seem to care. “We’ll know when they’re coming.” Reggie said with a flick of his nose. “The coyotes you encountered on the road, they’re my ohana, man. They’ll warn me about anything, even if Doom’s ponies decide to teleport into town.”
“If they do,” Six Shooter said, cocking what I found out were called ‘guns’, in a threatening manner “we’ll be ready for them.” 
“We should still leave as soon as we can.” I said, suppressing a shudder and trying my best to not think about the power I held in my left hoof. After the fight with Ice, I never wanted to use the power of the Gauntlet again. True, it was helpful at times, but that amount of power, that flow of emotion, it was too risky.
“Chill, my little surfer. Just be calm. You can leave without knowing where to go, but you’re already in that position, aren’t you?” Reggie said with a wistful and warm smile. “Instead, I’ll give you directions this time. You just have to be patient and relax a little.” 
“But Doom’s ponies…”
“Ainokea, brah.” Reggie said with a hoof in the air. 
“What?” I asked.
“Just chill out. You’ve just been through some harrowing stuff, little pony. We all have. Right now, it’s best if we recuperate and regain our positivity.” He said taking a deep breath in and signaling for the rest of us to follow. We did and he held up a hoof for a while, then let them fall gently and exhaled. We all did the same.
“Better?” he asked with a smile.
“Somewhat.” I answered truthfully.
He rolled his eyes, went over to the one unbarred window in the open room of the station, and opened it. Then he gave a long and strangely melodic whistle. He waited for a short while and then a roadrunner came up to the window, with a strangely small guitar on its back. Reggie and the roadrunner communicated in whistles and clicks until Reggie finally said “Thanks Desmond.” And the roadrunner turned away. Reggie came back to his chair and plucked a few strings on his mini-guitar. 
“It’s an instrument from my home, a ukulele.” He said knowingly as he started to play a song. When he finished, I knew he wasn’t from here, neigh, he wasn’t even remotely close to home. So who was he?
“Who are you Reggie? Truly?” I asked, noticing I felt better.
Reggie kicked back in the chair, tipping it a bit, but not seeming to care too much. “My people would call me an ‘Aumakua, but that’s just a title. Out here, I’m called a Skinwalker. I don’t care for either. I like ‘medicine pony’ or ‘shaman’ or ‘radical dude’, but call me what you will. Reggie works pretty well too, so I like that.”
“I’ve been around the block for quite a while, so ponies come to me with questions, and I like to try my best to give them answers. To answer your first question, I’ll need a map. I’m sorry, but I can’t answer your second question though. But enough with the twenty questions, man. Let’s just listen to some tunes and chill.” He said as he broke out into a song that quickly brought a smile to Siren’s and Blade’s faces. I fell in with their smiles and singing around the second verse and soon we were all laughing, singing, and smiling.
After that, we each grabbed a mattress from the cots in the cells and pulled them together on the ground. We went to sleep happy and together.