> A Showdown at Appleloosa
>  by RubyDubious
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> A Drunkard's Duel
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The world is full of ponies who know the word ‘sobriety’ better than I do. Those same ponies will tell you there’re places outside the bar and the bottom of a bottle. They’ll say, “Oh Berry Punch, you’ve got to get out more. Oh, Berry Punch, go home. Ah! Berry Punch stop waving that gun around, or we’ll cut you off!” Damned fools, the lot of them. Don’t they know I’m the law around here? I can handle a gun as well as I can handle my liquor, but not at the same time. Duh. I only have one mouth.

There I am, sitting in my usual spot in an Appleloosa bar, two empty seats on either side of me, enjoying some hard cider and chatting up the barmare. The air carried the aroma of fresh cider and the sound of a familiar Songbird Serenade tune. Hot off the heels of my victory at a marksmareship competition in Canterlot, I was drunk off my glory and the cider. Mostly the cider. In between hoovefuls of peanuts and gulps of cider, I boasted about how I bested marksmares from Saddle Arabia to Ponyville to New Pegasus. No one could outshoot me. 

“Ahnd dere I was,” I said, teetering in my seat. The barmare held a hoof in front of her nose, and nodded politely. “In tah final round of tha tournament, only me and this buck from Saddle Arabia remained. Hic!” I guzzled what remained in my mug, the sweet chilly cider cooled my throat on the way down but warmed my belly when it settled. I signaled for another with a “Yooohooo,” blinking one eye after another and waving the tankard like a flag of drunken glory. The barmare obliged me with a sigh and a roll of her cyan eyes. I leaned in, prompting her to recoil. “Thank ya kindly, pretty thang.” Her nose wrinkled and she backed away behind the tawny counter separating us. I withdrew from the edge of the bar, leaning back and looking skyward “Now… where was I?”
“Something about a final round,” the barmare scoffed, flipping her brown mane.
“Oh yeah. Ahnd dere I whas! Just us two, pistols in our teeth, poised for tha final round! Hic!” I raised my vessel above my head. “We had tied, hic, the previous round. But, hic, we had beaten everypony else. There was… Hic! There was,” I blinked, forgetting where I was, “Oh!” I yelped, spilling some cider to the counter below me. “T’ere whas this mare from, erm, Fillydelphia, who was jus, hic, plum mahd to lose.” I gulped down half my goblet’s contents, “She bucked, and stomped, and threw one helluva tantrum. Ahnd t’en she whas escorted out by some biiiiiig buck, I mean HUGE!” I slapped my chalice down for emphasis. “After Hunk McStrongStallion took away, erm, something like Bouncing Betty I think. Tha announcer did some, hic, announcin’ sayin’ we had to err… Do a speed shot match! Yeah, that was it!” I finished the rest of beverage, my hoof raising instinctually to call for more.
The barmare, I think her name was Cold Brew, huffed with a sneer. “And then what happened, Berry? You shot ten bajillion times as fast as him or something?” 
The saloon doors creaked open, and a few dark brown hooves clopped sloppily against the wood, skittering off before catching themselves. A coarse voice exploded across the tavern. “It was more like, hic, half a second. A HALF OF A SECOND!”
I sleepily glanced at the source of this disturbance. I am the law here after all. A dark brown coated colt stood leaning on a table, a piece of straw clasped in his jaw. The crimson eyes beneath a stubbly black mane had a fire in them that called out for revenge, but a faraway focus to them. Eyes that craved revenge, but lacked a plan. He spat the straw from his mouth, finding its new home somewhere adjacent his gritting teeth, and with a voice that set aflame the already detonated sound in the bar, “Berry Punch! I demand a rematch!” The piece of straw wiggled like a freshly unearthed worm while he spoke.
I got up, stumbled, sat back down, but got to my feet soon after, supporting my weight on the mahogany stool which I claimed my own. With a slurred tongue, I called out to him with vigor identical his own, “Shifting Sands! You loooost.” I snickered. “Youuuu looooost. I’ll beatcha again, if it makes you sleep better tonight. Oh, whoops, hic, I mean rematch ya.” Not a soul in the bar looked towards the feud, I couldn’t tell if it was out of shame or fear. I like to think it was fear. Steam erupted from Shifting Sands ears, “I’m, hic, I’m serious Berry! I challenge you to a duel!” He raised a hoof, wobbled, and anchored it to a wall, stabilizing himself. 
I giggled, losing my balance and falling to the floor, my gaze never leaving his, “And I’m seriously, hic, gonna beat you at that too!” I heaved myself up, “I’ll even let ya take the, hic, first shot!”
If Cold Brew dug her hoof any farther in her muzzle, she might have broken skin. “Look, whatever you two are about to do, do it outside the bar please.” Shifting Sands and I looked to her, dazed, and then to each other, confused. Cold Brew grabbed a broom and started shooing us out through the swinging doors, “Out! Out!” 
The two of us collapsed on top of each other, and then scrambled away. We both sprang to our feet, eyeing each other down with drunken, glass-eyed, fury. I roared to him, inches away from me, “Now move to the other side of the street! That’s how a, hic, duel works!” Sands pouted, his muzzle becoming a row of wrinkled hills, the piece of straw suctioned to his face waggling like the needle to one of Princess Twilight’s machines, “You first!”
“No you! I, hic, said to first!”
“Nuh uhhh!”
“Yes huhhhh!”
A broom punched out from above the doors, slamming down on our heads. We both turned tail for the middle of the dusty street, Sands moving further than myself. 
We unsteadily leered at one another, a tumbleweed rolled between us, landing only to drift away weightlessly the next instant. The sand crunched beneath us as we circled each other, leaving a fair distance between us. We stood parallel the bar which so rudely threw us out, and a bank opposite the bar at which many of my checks have bounced. Shifting Sands bellowed, sending tremors through the earth. “Berry! I want to, hic, switch sides! The sun is in my eyes!”
“Not ah chance, you wanted, hic, ah duel din’t cha?” I smiled drowsily at the now somehow more seething colt.
“Yes! But, urp, this isn’t ah fair… Fair duel! Fair duel…” He squeezed his eyes before opening them again, reigniting the fire contained near his pupils. 
“What’re ya yella? Ya scarrrred Sands?” My smile grew wider as it did dopier. 
He recoiled and thundered, “I am not! I Will never, hic, be scared of a tiny pink pony!”
“So then draw, yellabelly.” I challenged, reaching down with my teeth for my revolver. 
The air grew thick, seeming to press down on the both of us. If I wasn’t teetering, my grip would be steadier on the pistol. Shifting Sands craned his neck to clasp his firmly in his square jaw. His eyes squinted, blinking rapidly, in the blistering Appleloosa sunlight. It was sudden, but he sounded with a gruff, concise, “Dwah!”
Our necks bolted up, two shots exploded on the desert town’s street. Both of them… Misses. Impossible! I haven’t missed a target since Twilight grew wings! Frustrated, I gave the next call, “Dwah!” 
Again, the two bullets missed their mark. The latter shot of which burned as it grazed my cheek and buried themselves into the woodwork of the neighboring buildings. Screams rang out from inside either building, and some ponies even fled for the path which we were warring on, taking off for the hills or their homes. We didn’t even call for a draw the next few shots. All three shots, all three misses, and all three causing property damage. Enraged, Shifting Sands leapt at me, loosing a round under my neck. I kicked the sand, diving to the dirt, and unleashing my last pellet with the sights dead center on his temple. At the very last instant, he dove for he, casting his weapon aside, as did I. 
We kicked, and bucked lying there in the dirt. I spat in his face, and he returned a loogie in mine. Our frenzy was the likes of which I’d never witnessed before. A cloud kicked up around us as we launched each other across the trail and pummeled one another into the gravel. 
The cloud dispersed, leaving myself and Sands a panting, heaving mess of bruises and scrapes. I reeled my foreleg back to take a swing, but released it mid-swing, with a panting fit. Shifting Sands yawned, and tried the same, but falling even shorter. He smacked his lips together, and for the first time since he welcomed this duel, I heard him speak instead of holler, “Berry, urrrp, Berry… Truce?” He reached out his hoof in an act of mercy. I reached out as well, meeting his limb, and slapping it ruthlessly. He retaliated, flailing back with unbridled rage. We continued, our eyes deadlocked, our hooves flapping across the other with fiery ferocity.
“Alright! Hic!” I sputtered out, “Truce.” We extended hooves again, this time shaking them with a mutual yawn. I closed my eyes, my hoof in his, and dozed off along with my adversary there in the bullet-ridden town.