Cutie Mark Crusader Saviors of the World

by D101 Reviews

Chapter Four: Hit the Ground Running

Chapter Four: Hit the Ground Running

And yet Death is the Destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it...

Pinkie Pie kicked open the door to the dusty little shack and ushered the three young mares in before her. When Sweetie Belle dashed past she slammed the door behind them, cutting off the already diminished twilight. It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the light that managed to filter in through the holes and gaps in the rotting wood of the shack.

"What are we doing here?" Scootaloo asked wearily. They hadn't stopped walking since they set off from Ponyville yesterday.

"Pit stop," Pinkie grunted, reaching to the corner of the shack and pulling what Sweetie Belle could only assume was another gun, propped up there. It was much larger than the other one; while the barrel was much the same diameter as the revolver Pinkie carried against her hip, it was much longer by far, about the length from the tip of Pinkie's index finger to the point of her elbow. The barrel emerged from some kind of rest rather than a handle. There was a groove for where the palm would sit, but it was clear the butt of the gun was to rest on the wielder's shoulder. This rest was made out of some smooth and worn deep brown wood. The was a trigger and a trigger guard just on the underside of the barrel before the groove and a hammer just behind that. On the right hand side just where the barrel met rest was a cut in the metal revealing the inside of the weapon and a small mechanism which purpose the three didn't understand.

Applebloom looked around at the cramped little space. There wasn't much in here. A knobbly little stool, a bed mat rolled out in the farthest corner and a small chest with a padlock on it. That was it. There wasn't exactly space for all of them to lie down to sleep comfortably that was for certain. That was until Pinkie reached for the end of the bed mat and pulled it from the ground, taking the ground with it as she went. There was a wooden ladded just beneath the lip of the hole that had been revealed to them.

"Come on," Pinkie said, jerking her head down. Scootaloo moved first, jumping the ladder entirely and fluttering out of sight. Following her, more slowly and taking the ladder was Applebloom, then Sweetie Belle and Pinkie brought up the rear, lowing the false floor down over their heads.

"Shouldn't ya... I dunno, barricade the door?" Applebloom asked as they were sealed in almost near total darkness.

"Locked door means there's people wanting to hide or something you don't want prying eyes to see," Pinkie explained as she fumbled around in the dark. "Better to let people see an unguarded empty room than search a locked one. Damnit wasn't one of you a unicorn?!"

"Sorry!" Sweetie Belle squeaked, and the darkness was banished in a pale green light from Sweetie Belle's horn. The hole they had climbed into was marginally larger than the hut that was above them. There were about six or seven bed-mats unrolled on the ground and a handful of boxes about shin height. Hanging on the wall were a few sacks and a belt bandoleer with leather tubes holding cylindrical pointed capsules. Pinkie was knelt by a tiny lantern. She was fumbling with a box of matches and grimacing in frustration.

"Some stupid bastard left these somewhere damp," she grunted. "Gonna be almost impossible to strike a light with these. Shit!" She had just managed to catch one of the matches and set it on fire, but the sudden shock of seeing it flare into existence made her jump and sent it tumbling to the ground. "Son of a Tartarus damned mother fucking ass hole!" She looked up suddenly at Sweetie Belle. "Don't suppose you know any spells to light this bastard? Don't wanna strain you by having you light this place up for a few hours."

"Hours?" Applebloom asked. "Thought you said this was a pit stop?"

"It is," Pinkie muttered, trying to light another match. "We're here to get a nap and resupply. Fill one of those bags up will ya?" Pinkie said to Scootaloo causing her to jerk suddenly in surprise. "Check that box your sittin' on." Her attention turned back to Sweetie Belle. "Seriously though if you know any magic about this I'd be glad because we got three matches left right about now."

Sweetie Belle was about to tell her that she barely knew any unicorn magic; that she was almost a complete novice to almost everything magic related and that even lighting this tiny space was testing her rather restricted limits, when she stopped. For the first time since she'd woken up that morning she realised that there was... something different about her magic. This light wasn't anywhere near as strenuous as it usually was. It was easy. What's more the place in her head where she memorised the basic spells and incantations was now bursting at the seems with magic spells and incantations. Mystical formula, magical writings she certainly hadn't memorised before today. She had a catalogue of, what seemed to her, every magic spell that had ever been written. In that library it was easy to find a spell that could conjure a small flame.

She gulped, nodded to Pinkie and knelt down by the lantern. With the barest hint of concentration, she pointed her finger at the wick held in the tiny lantern and it sputtered into life. A tiny flame that grew brighter and stronger with every second soon filled the room with a pleasant orange glow. Sweetie let the light of her horn go out and Pinkie stood up to hang the lantern from a small hook from the ceiling. That done she grabbed the bandoleer and slung it across her torso.

Meanwhile Scootaloo was filling one of the sacks Pinkie had indicated from the box she had been resting on. Various root vegetables and bundles of wheat grain along with several dusty bottles of water.

"Is this your place?" Applebloom asked as Pinkie picked her way to the bed mat furtherest from the ladder and sat on it, leaning back against the wall and loading one of the capsules into the large gun she had picked form upstairs. Pinkie shook her head.

"Plenty of these places all over Equestria," she explained. "Smugglers holes. Ponies tend only to let good ponies know about these if they do know. They're kept in good nick to help ponies who're down on their luck, resistance ponies that sort of thing. Bad ponies use these places too sure but I doubt they know anything 'cept what they see upstairs. They're plenty of dummy huts like this that are just the room upstairs. No secret chamber just a room an' a bed."

"You use these places often?" Scootaloo asked as she tied a knot in a full sack and picked a bed mat between Pinkie and the ladder. Pinkie snorted.

"If there's less than ten people yeah. If I'm taking a group of foals to Ponyville or Appleoosa then I have to stick to less common hidey holes."

"And no one's ever found you whilst using these?" Applebloom asked, taking a spot opposite Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle sat beside her.

"I'm still here aren't I?" Pinkie grunted, pulling her hood tighter over her forehead. She nodded to one of the boxes by Sweetie Belle. "Should be some sarsaparilla in there somewhere if some drunk bastard hasn't finished it all off."

Sweetie Belle nodded, rooting through the box, trying to ignore a large lump of ice that had settled on her senses. She had Twilight's Cutie Mark and now, she was slowly starting to learn how to cast spells like Twilight. It was like she had assimilated all of Twilight's magical prowess through the transfer of the mark. It was an unnerving sensation to be certain. It was just another question to add to the ever growing pile that had begun to stack up ever since she had woken up in the scarred fields of Sweet Apple Acres.

What had happened to turn Equestria into this monstrously twisted place? What had happened to Applejack? What had happened to Rarity? Where was Twilight if Sweetie Belle had her Cutie Mark? Where were the alicorn sisters? And perhaps most importantly: How could they save Equestria?

---

For the fifth time since she'd blown out the lantern, Pinkie jerked awake, rifle stock pressed into her shoulder, aiming through the darkness at the ladder, her breathing tight and her heart hammering in her chest. When she realised the sound that had disturbed her was again, one of the young mares rolling over in their sleep. She gave a calm sigh and reached for where she'd left her half empty bottle of sarsaparilla. She swallowed a flat, warm mouthful and she grimaced in disgust.

She was about to try and get back to another fitful burst of sleep when something caught her hearing. Her ears flicked in suspicion and at once she was on her feet, picking her way through the back space to reach the ladder. On her way through she kicked the orange pegasus, Scootaloo, to wake her up. She came too grumbling gently. Pinkie hunkered down beside her and gripped her on the shoulder, gently shushing the pegasus to be quiet.

"Listen," she hissed. "I thought I heard something outside. Get the others awake and ready to move by the time I get back. You don't go anywhere without my say so got it?" She felt the young mare shift slightly and Pinkie rolled her eyes, a tiny smile tugging at her lips. "Tell me you didn't just nod."

There was a bashful silence to these words and Pinkie gave a short chuckle before she got to her feet, slinging the rifle over her should and stepping onto the first rung of the ladder. She looked back into the darkness, before she deftly clambered the ladder and pushed open the hatch, rolling out into the cabin above and dropping the false floor swiftly.

It had been late dusk when they had stopped walking and they were now well into the night. Pinkie judged they might have been underground for a good four hours, maybe five; a decent night's sleep for once. Pinkie stealthily made her way to the door and pulled it open a slither, peering out into the dark knight.

A fire was burning a good few yards from where the hut was. And it was getting closer. A torch for certain. A good number of them. Pinkie knew that no regular pony would walk around in the middle of the knight lit up like the damned moon. She knew there were only a handful of ponies or other creatures that would roam Equestria in the night, brazenly carrying torches. None of them were friendly. Pinkie knew she should avoid large parties like that... but she recognised the monstrous shadowing figure in the midst of their number.

A Minotaur. A huge, hulking beast of a creature, nearly twice as tall as Pinkie was and nearly three times as broad, a torso carved seemingly out of marble stone and wielding a broad, double-headed axe. The large, bull's head resting on squared, chiselled shoulders had a brass ring pierced its nose and two, large, twisted, pointed and bloodied horns emerging from just behind it's ears.

Pinkie cursed internally. No matter who this party was, they were connected somehow to Diabolus. And if they were connected to Diablous they were planning on doing something monstrous. It didn't matter where they were heading, Pinkie had to stop them.

Deciding not to go running across the road and risk being caught in the light of their torches, Pinkie dashed across the hut and leapt out of one of the empty windows, landing in a crouch in the outside air, her cloak getting caught up in a sudden wind. She dashed across the open space through the shadows, keeping her gaze on the group and their torches. There was a clump of trees near the road a few yards back from the group. Setting her sights on the trees she clambered clandestine into the branches.

She shimmied her way along one of the lower branches and brought the rifle to rest between the outer branches and dying leaves. Getting the sights aligned with her gaze, she screwed up her left eye and stuck out her tongue. She took a few quick breaths and then breathed out, emptying her lungs and pressed the stock into her shoulder and looked through the sights at the back of the Minotaur's head. Keeping her lungs empty she shifted her gaze a few millimetres and squeezed the trigger.

The gun roared and almost instantly afterwards the Minotaur stumbled, his legs buckled and his axe hit the ground as a fountain of blood burst from where his neck met the base of his skull. There was a cry of alarm from the surrounding figures as the Minotaur hit the ground with a thunderous crash; dead.

Pinkie rolled out of her perch and landed once again in a crouched position. She smirked at their confusion as they took up a guard stances around the dead Minotaur. Pinkie raced across the road and slid down the embankment, lying down again and taking a few seconds to calm herself and line up another shot. She ejected the spent casing from her first shot and fired again. One of the figures cried out and fell down, clutching his throat as blood spurted from his neck. The others cried out in shock as Pinkie wasted no time in ejecting the spent casing and taking another shot.

The group was in complete disarray now. The last three were looking terrified into the darkness. Pinkie inched closer and closer, slinging the rifle over her shoulder and drawing her revolver. They were talking amongst themselves in a blind panic and Pinkie could see what they were wearing now. Leather armour that had obviously been dipped in some black paint or tar, worn over chain mail. The cuirass they each wore was nicked in several places but she could clearly see the emblem paint in bright white paint. It looked like the mathematical symbol of infinity with the letter I emerging from the crosspoint, two horizontal lines coming out from the centre line, making it seem like a pair of back to back upside down 'F's. The alchemical symbol of Sulphur Pinkie knew and she smirked. Bounty hunters under the employ of one of the Riders no doubt, though given the sate of their armour and the equipment they carried they appeared to be very far down the chain of command. Pinkie's smile turned cruel and she lifted the revolver to shoulder height.

Her foot came down on a stray branch with a crack like a whip. She looked down in shock, lifting her foot as if she'd stepped on a snake. The three bounty hunters were looking in her general direction, aiming a rifle a revolver and a wood-cutter's axe at her, peering into the darkness. Pinkie scowled and took a step back before strafing to the left, keeping the three of them in her sight. They were looking wildly into the darkness as Pinkie began to sneak around behind them.

Taking a risk, she dashed forwards, stepping into the circle of light from their dropped torches and pulling a knife from within the folds of her coat. Sneaking up on the cloaked figure with the axe, she gripped him around the neck and jabbed the knife into her throat, blood dripping from around the blade. They gurgled quietly before Pinkie lowered the body to the ground, the other two still talking between themselves.

"I kept telling you ponies that work for the Riders aren't welcome around Ponyville," hissed the one with the rifle.

"What sort of backwards ass town is this?" snapped the other one, clearly younger than the first by several years. "They've got to recognise the symbol. They've got to know who we work for. This job's supposed to give us some damned respect!"

"Respect this," Pinkie snapped, pressing her revolved to the spot where the younger's skull met their neck and pulled the trigger. She was very pleased to see his head spin through the air like a gory firework in a fountain of blood. Pinkie was very quick to point the revolver at the other bounty hunter, striding over to them as they spun, raising the rifle to fire. Pinkie smirked. If there was thing Pinkie Pie was, she was fast. Like a bolt of pink lightning her free hand whipped out, seized the rifle by the barrel and twisted it sharply form the Bounty Hunter's grip, ejecting the magazine in a practised one hand motion and tossing the weapon aside, revolver pointed into his face the entire time.

"Look at the emblem," he growled, lifting his hands into the air. "Look. I work for the Riders. If you kill me-"

"They won't give a shit," Pinkie muttered and shot him in the face.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Care to tell me more about Todpole's original concept for this story?

[D101 Reviews]

7230559 The original concept for the story was very similar to what I'm writing. He did want to have the Riders be a little more like lawyers and each be different creatures. There was an entire blog post about the story idea he had and he was asking for writers to turn his vision into a reality. The original concept had a few stipulations set in place which basically said a whole bunch of people had to be dead before the story started and there had to be plenty of monsters. Imps, Minotaurs you know the works.