//------------------------------// // 119: The Trade Depot Massacre. // Story: My Little Fortress: Dawnpick // by Paaaad //------------------------------// The Afternoon of 1st Granite, 260 Virtue was making her way to the trade depot to speak with the rainbow pony merchants and see what wares they had brought with them this year. She didn't expect things to be much different than the last few years. She'd trade some assorted crafts made in Dawnpick along with some of Skillet's best stews, which the rainbows seemed quite fond of, for a large supply of cloth, leather and a few exotic foodstuffs they couldn't make on site. It wasn't a great deal of trading, but it kept the rainbows coming back every year, and kept a few ponies busy here. This time though... something was wrong. A few of the guards seemed to be missing from the trade depot, and more worryingly, she heard what sounded like quite agitated shouts coming from the dining hall. Her heart picks up pace a bit as she tries and fails to make out the words. Somepony was probably drunk and had started a fight. No big deal... she'd just go locate Partisan if he wasn't there already and sort things out. If the rainbows got involved, she'd offer to get any wounds looked after and pay for the damages. As she sets hoof inside the dining hall, her heart stops completely for a moment. Dozens of very irate looking ponies, as well as rainbow ponies of all sorts were standing around a dining table, and worse, Panacea was crouched over somepony who wasn't moving. “He... he's dead...” the pegasus mare mutters at last, hanging her head. “Murderers!” a darkbolt with an axe shouts, looking around the room with a hateful glare on his face. “Who did it!? Which one of you murdered him and why!?” He glares at Skillet. “You! You're the chef here, you did it didn't you!?” Virtue feels horror closing around her. She had to do something fast or this was going to get out of her control and there would be no return. She trots over to Panacea and sees a draltha pony lying dead on the floor, apparently devoid of any injuries. “What happened?” she demands, looking at the darkbolt first, hoping to gain his trust. “Somepony here murdered him!” he shouts. “Poison! He dropped dead after taking a bite of your chef's food!” As Skillet sinks back, Virtue recognizes the dead pony's clothing as being that of the the rainbow pony diplomats. And now it hits her what she was looking at. He was dead... Skillet shakes her head. “I... I did nothing of the sort! I'd never do that!” “You!” the darkbolt exclaims as he looks at Virtue again. “You... I know you. You're the leader here... I'm going to go speak with the foreman, and you're coming with me. He's going to want to know about this, and I'm not letting you out of my sight until he does. You probably arranged this...” he hisses, reaching for his axe. Virtue tenses as the blade comes dangerously close to her face, but she stands and nods, all but trembling. Several of the ponies in the dining hall shout obscenities at the gesture, but she quells them with a hoof. “I'll speak with him. This isn't what it looks like, I can assure you...” The darkbolt shoos her to the door and mutters through the weapon, “You don't have to assure me...” Virtue follows the darkbolt to the trade depot where a dozen more rainbow ponies of all types were milling around, furious expressions on their faces and weapons loose in their slings or scabbards. She was numb to what had just happened... did somepony poison the diplomat? Why? It had to be something else... maybe he was sick... nopony here would murder anypony else... never... She feels a moment of relief as she sees Kat and Sarissa standing near the trade depot, sure that they would help quell any thoughts of brewing violence. Then she sees similarly angry expressions on their faces... As they arrive, a large gorlak pony strides forward to meet them. “You. Baroness Virtue, I presume. You've got a lot of explaining to do. You'd best start and no lies.” She stumbles over her words for a moment and fishes desperately in her mind for an explanation. She didn't have one. “I-I-I didn't see what happened... b-b-but I-I assure you that this is j-j-j-just a mistake...” The gorlak grimaces and raises a crossbow to a ready level. “I'm not sure how much I believe that.” Sarissa sees the crossbow come up, and a hateful glare forms on her face. She storms over to the two and says in a less than nice tone, “You... I don't care who you are, nopony points a weapon at my lady!” “And nopony kills my men!” he snarls back at her, raising the weapon to Virtue's face. “How does this make you feel? Huh? If I killed her like one of you killed Tislam?” Virtue shrieks and cowers as the crossbow meets her face, and Sarissa reacts instinctively. With a calculated kick, the crossbow sails into the air and discharges, sending a bolt into the trade depot. Virtue feels her entire spine ice over as she looks up and sees a roiling mob of hatred and violence form. There was a flash as the gorlak swings at Sarissa, then another flash of steel as his head is removed from his shoulders by her axe. Virtue shrieks again and scrabbles backward as blood begins to pool around the corpse of the gorlak. Furious shouts and the sounds of metal weapons being drawn meet her ears as she clings to the ground and covers her head with her hooves. A terrified whimper passes her lips as the sound of a crossbow being discharged also reaches her ears, and she looks up to see things going about as horrifyingly as her worst fears. Sarissa was all but gleefully dancing around the clumsy blows of the merchant guards, and each of her retaliatory strikes drew blood or worse. Several rainbow ponies were already lying motionless on the ground or clutching profusely bleeding and surely mortal wounds. Kat has a curious combination of a sinister grin and rage filled scowl on her face as she joins Sarissa in the madness. She looses a bolt which strikes another gorlak squarely in the chest, spraying the ground with a fountain of blood. The mortally wounded pony collapses immediately, and a slippy pony behind it scrabbles into cover. Kat happily gives chase. Virtue stares in abject horror at the blood strewn about the trade depot, not to mention the dead and dying rainbows. She desperately reaches inside for the will to scream for them to stop, but nothing but a muffled squeak leaves her mouth. Even as she watches, Kat descends upon a keshi hammer pony and lodges a bolt deeply into his rear leg. The pony retaliates with a crushing blow from his hammer, mangling her wing with a single strike and hurling her through the air up against the curtain wall. She is convinced she's about to watch Kat die horribly in front of her as the hammer pony leaps after her and raises his weapon to crush her skull. Another bolt zips past and strikes the hammer pony in the chest, followed by him dropping his weapon and staggering about, gasping and wheezing. The pony coughs spasmodically, spraying blood on the grass, and staggers backward until another bolt lodges itself in his chest. Overcome with agony, the pony collapses, and a black pegasus swoops down next to the motionless Kat. Jaxler raises his crossbow and fires at another rainbow pony, scoring a hit if the confused scream was any indicator. This... this was... madness Virtue thinks to herself as she continues to fail to comprehend what was going on around her. Another rainbow pony died noisily, this time by Sarissa's axe if the solid crunch of splintering bone was what she really just heard. She looks around, trembling as Sarissa laughs off a bolt that spangs from her armor before striking down a hovering darkbolt. But through it all, one thing catches her eyes and ears. Kat was beginning to stir, crying out as she rolls over and rests on her crushed wing. Something stirs inside Virtue. Something instinctive and desperate. She sees a couple of rainbow ponies with axes spot Kat and charge for her. But she was closer. Without a thought she leaps to her hooves and bolts for Kat, snatching her up and throwing her over her back just as the axe ponies were upon her. Both ponies swung their weapons, and Virtue knew she was dead. After an agonizing moment and no pain stabbing through her, she looks up to see Jaxler firing at the two and drawing their attention. Sarissa then barrels into them, throwing one from his hooves and quite thoroughly distracting the other. The instinct reasserts itself and Virtue gallops for the hospital, feeling Kat shift on her back and let out another pained cry. "No..." Kat mutters weakly as she cracks her eyes. "...the fight... it's not over yet... I... I can still... fight..." Virtue ignores the pained words coming from the wounded pegasus mare and continues on. This couldn't be happening... it couldn't be happening. Ponies were dying. She shoves the hospital door open to find Wool standing there, dumbstruck. She places Kat on the nearest bed and says, “She's hurt... maybe bad. There are going to be a lot more.” With that she gallops back toward the trade depot where she hoped the fighting would be over and she could through some miracle salvage the situation. She knew that wasn't going to happen, but she had to try. Things were worse than she could have possibly imagined. Nopony but Jaxler and Sarissa were left standing at the depot. Both were inspecting the bodies of the fallen, and every last one Virtue looked at was clearly dead. None were even just beyond help. They were dead. All of them. Dead. Her adrenaline charged trot peters out into a stumble as she stops in front of the bloodbath. Sarissa catches sight of her and returns her bloodied weapon to its sling. “My lady, are you alright?” She steps over to her and begins inspecting her for injuries. “You're not hurt, are you?” Virtue stares in silence and does not answer. “Lady Virtue? Are you alright?” she persists. Virtue finally manages a weak shake of her head and collapses to the ground, covering her eyes. She tries to say something, but only soul-consuming sobs leave her mouth. No. No, she was not alright. This was not going to be okay. It couldn't. So many ponies were dead. So, so many. And for what? Sarissa gives Jaxler a nervous glance, but he simply returns the unsure look. This was neither pony's forte. A small gaggle of ponies begins to emerge from the dining hall and approach the scene. Virtue ignores all of them and continues to bawl and cover her face. This was not going to be okay. It just wasn't.