//------------------------------// // Let's Start With A Bang! // Story: The Bandit Hunter // by Imperium Bedlam //------------------------------// Even as I walked away they kept chasing after me, bloody morons. Still, they didn't have much of a hope thanks to my trusty Cyber Eagle. There weren't even that many of them left and I'm pretty sure that if any of them had seen what I'd done to their friends... well, there ain't no gettin' vengeance after that splatter-fest. "Trois." Another shot, right on target as per usual. The furry freak never saw it coming. So, maybe I should introduce myself right? "Deux." Woo, copped her right through her eyeball. I'm pretty sure she saw that coming. How many of these idiots are left anyway? Ah well, ain't no cure for stupidity I suppose. Oh right, I'm getting off track. The name's Natalie, though ever since I got stuck on this odd planet filled with weird hybrid people I've been going by my persona's name. Ripped it straight from the game, or games I suppose, but hey as long as it's memorable then I've got no worries. Ahhh I'm getting off track again aren't I? Wait, am I? Sorry, I get so wrapped up in my own world sometimes. Heck, right now I'm just standing on the outskirts of some 'private company' as they like to call themselves. I usually just call 'em assholes though. Anyway, I'm just kinda standing here, looking out at the train station as their main building looms up behind me. Oh hey, speakin' of which, I think I see the train right now. "Un." Haha! Fucking idiot thought he could sneak up on me! And would ya look at that! Got him right through his schnoz. Wait, they call them muzzles don't they? Super weird. I mean, just 'cause you got a big nose doesn't mean ya gotta give it a whole new name. Ah shit I'm getting off track again. Sorry again. Where was I? Oh right. Let me just hop up on this platform for a sec... there we go. Hmmm, no passengers, that's a tad odd. "Hey Track Timer! Ain't there gonna be anybody else on the train today?" Good ol' Timer, could always trust him and his kin to keep to their schedule. His passengers on the other hand... "Sorry Nisha, news got out about a bandit encampment up north that're packing some of the guns you'd get from the Steelers." That's right! My new name is Nisha if ya couldn't guess. Wait, Steelers? Ohohoho, looks like I might get a lead today after all. Poor old Timer just sighed and shook his head, I think I may have been smiling a little too wide. "Fine, but you remember that I'm hightailing it at the first sign of trouble right?" "Wouldn't expect any less from ya." I just smiled and made my way into the train, taking my usual seat close to one of the carriage doors. Whoops, one more thing I almost forgot. I brought up my ECHO communicator and stashed away my Eagle, never really knew how the thing worked but it sure beats actually carrying around my guns all the time. Ah the Auditing Fremington's Edge with bonus fire damage, oh how you light up the world when I shoot you at stuff. I wound down the little window beside me and changed my position so that it wouldn't be too uncomfortable sticking this baby out the window. I mean the gun by the way, I don't stick actual babies out windows unless I intend to drop them, and I've never really had a reason to drop a baby out of a window. Anyway let me see... There you are ya little blighter! Poor guy really wasn't having any luck today, especially with all those Eridium-laced explosives I used to tie him up. He looks kind of adorable in that little uniform of his, shaking about in his ropes without a care in the world~ Besides the explosives of course. Well don't you worry little guy, I'll put you out of your misery real soon, even though I'm the one who put you into it but really can ya blame me? It's gonna look so awe-hyuck! Argh! Dammit Timer, damn you and your OCD for schedules! Maybe I shouldn't have rambled on so much... naah. Doesn't make much difference anyway, after all, I never miss and even if I do happen to miss, I don't. I pushed the stock of my Edge against my shoulder while I looked down the sight at the poor fellow. One shot wouldn't really kill him right? I mean, he has that mask on for a reason so I'm sure he'll be fine. Ew gross, he wet himself, yea I've had my fun I suppose. With barely a thought I activated my showdown skill, my scope moving just a smidge to the left as it locked on perfectly with the target I drew on him earlier. Eh, we can't all be perfect I suppose. A light tap on the trigger and the gun didn't even kick as it sent a bullet right where I was aiming, digging into the pony's mask and leaving a nasty dent while setting the poor guy on fire as I pulled away from the window and hugged my gun. "Oooh my precious baby!~ I love your ninety-six point two percent accuracy~" I was gigglin' like a schoolgirl as the scope slid forward and I pulled out the mag, quickly replacing it with another before resting it up against the seat while the Showdown's timer reached its end, and I pulled out a small button before gently pressing it. "Aaand, zéro". The explosion that seemed to rock the world lasted a minute at best as the consequent explosives went off one by one, forming a cacophony of destruction on the small corporation I left in my tracks. Really, a lot of my skills can be called 'overpowered' I suppose, but it doesn't mean they aren't fun. 'The Unforgiven' is definitely a favorite of mine. I haven't really explained much have I? Sorry again, as I said, it's a bad habit. I kicked my boots up and tilted my hat forward slightly, always glad to get a bit of rest between shootouts. Anyhow, name's Nisha, though folks tend to call me The Lawbringer. I coulda sworn the world just froze fer a second there... ah well. So, my story starts out when one day me and mah friend Ma- JESUS MARY JOSEPH! Right ahhh, anyway, I'll get back to the story in a bit, the train is tipping pretty dangerously close to the- HOW MANY OF THOSE THINGS DO YOU IDIOTS HAVE?!- Right, right, anyway, right. I'll be right back, just have a few short... errands to run. "Give it back ya damn mutt!" I kept struggling to pull on the hat while Sarah's Rottweiler 'Mindy' kept tugging it back like it was some kind of stupid game. "If ya don't let go of it right now I'm gonna skewer you on the hen-house. Now, let go!" I didn't have much time to yelp as the hat tore along the rim slightly and Mindy let it go. I swear the bitch was laughing at me as I rubbed my back in pain. "Still playing tug of war back here Nat? You know we've got to get going in the next few minutes or we're going to be waiting in line for ages." I huffed as Maddie walked in. She'd had her Gaige outfit ready for months, she was practically radiating enthusiasm. Meanwhile I was sitting on the floor in pain with a newly torn shitty stetson I managed to find on ebay. The rest of the outfit I had down pretty well though. We had a sort of Borderlands theme going. I was going as Nisha, one of the boss characters in Borderlands Two and Borderlands: The Pre-sequel. Maddie was going as Gaige from Borderlands 2, and Aaron was outside in the car, waiting in a Salvadore getup because he reckoned he would be the cheapest to go as. "What the hell am I supposed ta do with this now! My whole cosplay is ruined!" I grumbled at Mindy who just mockingly looked on from the sidelines. Maddie helped me up and cleared up some of the smudges on my arm from the floor. Oh right, we managed to get these special markers, no idea what they were called, that wouldn't smudge very easily or get worn down with sweat. We'd used them to draw lines on ourselves to sorta replicate the cell shadin' from the games. Apparently Aaron saw some people do that last year and wanted to give it a go, wasn't nearly as easy as he thought to draw them on though. "Oh relax Nat, you'll be fine. Even without the hat you're a pretty close match to Nisha if it wasn't for the accent. And I'm sure you'll be able to find a replacement at one of the stores there. Last time Aaron and I went there was a whole stand just filled with random stuff from different games and those cartoons he likes so much." She did the finishing touches on one of the lines, patting it down with something that was supposed to help it dry or something. "Thanks Mad, it's a good thing at least one of us knows how this stuff works. Wait, what's wrong with mah accent?!" I glared at her slightly while Mindy barked at the two of us, makin' me redirect my scowl to her. "Oh get out of here ya brat, you've caused enough trouble!" Bloody dog's tail was waggin' as it left, probably to go mooch some food off Sarah or somethin'. Damn mutt. Maddie panicked slightly as she tried to hold me still. "Calm down there Nat, you're going to get it smudged up! Now just relax alright, we'll make sure that getting you a new hat is the first thing we do okay?" I sighed and relented and sighed as I picked up the torn hat, wiping some of the mutt's slobber onto mah sisters favourite chair. "Alright Mad, but fer now I'll just duck-tape it alright? Hopefully that'll keep the thing in place." She calmed down once she realized I wasn't as riled up as earlier before nodding and heading out the door. "Oh and don't forget, Ryan's going to meet us there~," she singsonged as she left, while I just grumbled and looked around for the tape. She was just one of those types y'know? The kind of girl who thinks if ya don't want to be in a relationship it's 'cause you haven't been in one, so they end up tryin' to push ya into somethin' you don't agree with. Oh well, ah'll definitely make sure to tell her to stop after today if anything. Oh hey! Yer back! Where did y'all head off to? A loud snap rang out as the unicorn crumpled in my arms, no longer tryin' to yell out fo- oh you've swapped to first person 'ave ya? What lazy asshole is in charge anyhow? At least try to keep to a consistent style of writing or whatever it is you eedgit. Right, better get adjusted to this now so just gimme a sec. I stood up after rifling through the hairball's pockets and pocketing some of his rifle ammo. Waste not, want not amiright? I'd made sure to swap out my rifle for something a little more close ranged, the Bad Touch Jack-O-Cannon. Why would I use this instead of a more conventional weapon with some form of elemental damage? Well fer one I don't really like elemental damage unless it's fire. What? I got a penchant for hot things, ya can hardly blame me. There was a loud tearing sound as I ran one of the 'earth' ponies through with the big ol' meat-ripper attached to my gun, my second reason for picking it. Bloody idiot ended up screaming his lungs out even as I was tearing through them. Ah well, wasn't one fer sneaking around anyways. I just pulled the trigger and blew the idiot off the end of my gun, I didn't even notice the two winged ones creepin' up on me. Didn't have to either as some of the bullets ricocheted off the unicorn and went straight to the wings of one of them and the others thyroid. As you can imagine, the first one screamed out while the other choked silently on his own blood, clutching his hands around his throat fruitlessly. Jeez there were a lot of male bandits nowadays, way back when it used to be the females who dominated that industry, though I suppose most of 'em have joined up with the Steelers now. Dangit, I forgot to explain this didn't I? For fuck's sake. Well, before you nitwits chickened out a rocket managed to find its way to the cabin in front of mine. Good thing there were no passengers on board I s'pose. Then while my cart while still moseying along the tracks on its own momentum the money-grubbing fucknuggets jack-knifed it with some mish-mash of car parts they called, and I'm not making this up, a Jackknife. The blasted thing had these big old hook things on the front so that it'd stay attached to the cart and enough speed to knock it off the rails. Then, of course, they shot it again at point-blank, almost blowing their own vehicle up while I was knocked out of my seat and almost lost my wittle Daisy. Oh right, I decided to name my rifle on a whim when I was standing on top of the train car and headshotting any psycho that came at me. The way their heads exploded kinda reminded me of flowers, hence the name. Almost finished explainin' so don't go groanin' yet. Anyway, I managed to figure out that these bandits were the ones Timer had told me about considerin' they had Steeler guns and some of them even wore this flashy logo that kinda looked like a train on fire. Turns out they called themselves the 'Train Jackers', dumb name right? I mean, Equestria barely uses trains for transporting supplies anymore, mainly use them for tourists or movie sets. Considerin' Timer had nicked off thanks to the explosion I just stole the car they used to knock the train car over, drove right up to their base and went right in through the front gate. Stupid right? I mean, Equestrians had been doing this kind of thing way back before I ever got here and yet some of them still didn't know the reason some nations had guards at the front gates. Mostly hicks though, the smarter companies like the ones I raided earlier had these fancy I.D. badges and everythin'. Made it so much easier to find out who was in charge and get that dynamite strapped to 'im. I'm gettin' off track again so let me make this simple. I'm currently shootin' these fellers in their ugly muzzles on account of the weapons they got. These real fancy guns colored in yellow that you can get from the Steelers. I'm mostly just followin' a hunch but ahm pretty sure if I can find out where the Steelers main base is then ah can find out where they're gettin' these guns, since I'm damn well sure the ponies didn' make them. They're way too... similar. Which brings us to now, or at least as close to now as I can explain in a few sentences. Point is, that's the main reason I've now got my gun at the neck of this big moron covered in armor that couldn't stop a wooden dagger if someone swung it fast enough. He's kinda just layin' on the ground sweatin' his man-tits off while I adjust my lollipop across my mouth. I wasn't too sure when I got it outta my pocket amidst the carnage but I ain't complainin', bloody love strawberry. "I'm not sayin' this again flapjack, where'd you idiots get the guns?" He sputtered a bit, goin' through a few phases of anger, fear, hatred and depression with his eyes lookin' all over the place before finally givin' in. "Alright! Just please don't hurt me!" "Those're the words ah like to here, so go on and spit it out." I lifted a foot up and went to push it down on his chest, guy was so big I missed though and winced as I heard a crunching noise. Never heard a guy squeal like that before, and didn't really feel like hearin' it again. Took him a while but eventually he managed to sputter out a few words between his sobbing and relentless twitching. "We man-managed to rob a couple of shipments tha-th-that were heading to a place called P-P-P-." Really he is just being frustrating. "Spit it out already Taco Tits!" I stomped down on the guys knackers, making 'im scream silently for a bit before he managed to pull off a smile, so I just rolled my eyes, lifted my gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Turned the idiots head to mush and some of the bullets bounced to the upwards and a little to the side. I sighed as I headed out, bringing up my ECHO and looking over the map as I stood at the front doorway. "Now let's see... places beginning with 'P' 'round here... Well that sure makes it easy." Was only one town close enough for these idiots to 'ave hijacked anythin' headed that way. Now, these guys hijacked trains and there weren't many headed to and from Ponyville. If I add in that it'd be on this side of the town since I doubt these idiots would actually get close to the town, then there's only a couple of towns and cities that woulda sent the guns over. Well, this was rather easy. Ah suppose I'll pay a visit to Ponyville first and see if I can't find the guys receiving the guns to narrow down me search. This shouldn't take too long so long as- *beep beep* motherfuckers! Can't even give a girl a few days vacation without some stupid reason to throw me back into No Man's Land. Right, I'll just get whatever... Celly wants me to do out of the way and hopefully her and her stupid sister don't need me again for a few days so I can get my business sorted. Okay Nisha! You've got yer goals sorted, now to find a way ta get to Canterlot. I suppose the shitty car will have to do. I didn't really care about the blood soaked sniper that fell from above as I left, wasn't going to be any good if it actually took the blighter that long to aim the stupid thing.