Shot to Bits and Cut to Ribbons
When I tell you that I am a stone cold bandit, you had better believe me. There is nothing on this earth that will set fire to my fur faster than a pony that thinks otherwise. And there are few things that will have you staring down the business end of my revolver, than some poor sap that takes me for a fool.
I am not a gentlecolt, nor am I an outright monster. I am just your average, run-of-the-mill villain. I do average run-of-the-mill villainy, and I get paid a hell of a lot of money to do what I do. Both myself and my partner have been doing this for a long time, and after a long time, there are very few things that can sprout up in the course of our line of work that will take either of us by surprise. At least, that's what I had believed, up until I and Shooter had taken on this last job.
In case you're wondering, my name is Buzz Cut, and my partner's name is Straight Shot, earth ponies, the both of us. We each grew up with a sort of burr up our asses, and we really weren't the sort to sit around waiting patiently for destiny to set us on our paths of life after we had our flanks graced with our cutie marks—a bull's eye for Straight Shot, and a hornet perched on a rose thorn for me of all damn things.
As soon as we each had our marks, we high-tailed it out of our home town faster than a cheating mare from her stag's bedroom. I mean I suppose we could have stuck around and played barber and, well what ever the hell a bull's eye cutie mark represents, but that just wasn't in us. And no doubt the holy rollers would roll right out of their worship and kick our asses for not following after our callings, but sometimes life isn't very fair when dealing out our justs and propers.
So from an early age the two of us raised all sorts of hell, and set out to make a life that was made by us, and not some fanciful notion of predestination or destiny. And wouldn't you know it, that wayward life lasted about as long as it took for the law to catch us, send us to boot camp, and make right upstanding young colts out of us. Of course, as soon as we were both out of the service, we began our life of crime and villainy. No job too hard, no robbery too far, nothing was really out the question except out right killing... at first.
See, the way we always start out in life, is not really the place we end up. Some ponies will tell you otherwise, and try and sell you on a bullshit line of logic that anypony is able to change, and correct their ways. Not us, we seemed to veer a lot further from the track than most others, and we liked it that way. "Hell on Hooves" was our motto, and "Death and Destruction" our creed.
Two decades later—us living like hellions—and robbing and looting, and murdering, we find ourselves a thousand miles from from where we started, headed for a sleepy little country town, and out for a pony quite thoroughly marked for death. For the life of me, I couldn't quite figure out why anypony would hire us to kill a filly, but hell, the money wasn't just good, it was damn good. The client was a rich uppity mare that owned more land than Princess Celestia herself, and there was always my favorite part. Complete anonymity.
At present Shooter and myself were riding on a train bound for Ponyville. It was at best a three hour ride, and it sure as hell beat taking the coach. Though after just an hour spent cooped up with Shooter in the same train car, I was ready to jump from the nearest bridge into deathly waters and get taken out to sea.
"Hey Cutter." I heard Shooter say while I had my head back in the seat and watching the scenery pass by the window. "Know what I could go for right about now?"
Oh for the love of Lion Colt's golden whiskers, I already knew what he was going to ask for. And it only made me instantly angry.
"What could you go for?" I ask him knowing damn good and well it wasn't something I was going to like.
"I could sure go for some chocolate." he said giving me that look.
It was a good thing we had most of the passenger car to ourselves or there would have been more than a few casual glances our way when I raised my hoof and brought it down on his head as hard as I could.
"The hell did you do that for?" he demanded, rubbing his mahogany colored hair over the spot I just smashed.
"Can't you go more than a half hour before you start bellowing for your fucking chocolate?" I ask irritated and pissed.
"Come on Cutter, you know I gotta have my fix. I have my condition to worry about."
I stared at him with a dumbfounded expression. "Your... condition?" I was almost ashamed to be seen with him. "What got-damn condition? You are nothing but a chocolate whore. You always have been, and you always will be!"
I chanced a look around to make sure that I wasn't attracting any undue attention to myself or Shooter, and only spotted a few ponies casually glancing our way. Nothing to get myself in a tizzy over. Though it didn't stop me from planting another firm whack on Shooter's head.
Oh yes, we were the genuine article no doubt. True dyed in the wool murdering sons-of-bitches, and bandits. not that anypony would be able to tell by looking at us. Not to mention our run of luck with taking jobs had recently played thin, and nearly every bank job or get away ended up with us being less than successful. We had seen the empty side of a wallet more times the past few weeks than I thought possible, and if our luck didn't change soon, we were apt to be forced to give this life of bliss up for more domesticated work.
It wasn't to say that we weren't good at what we did. We were damned good at being bandits, just bad at keeping our hands on the cash, or sometimes the mark.
Trying to take my mind off of smacking his skull a third time, Shooter changed the subject on me as I did everything in my power to continue my peaceful staring out the train window.
"So tell me about this mark again." he said a little more subdued than before.
"It's just some pony that needs whacking is all." I tell him. "We play our cards right, and we won't have to keep living from hoof to mouth, and you can get all the chocolate you want."
"I think it's odd that somepony wants us to off a filly." said Shooter shaking his head. "It ain't right. Not that I have any problem killing a filly, cause there's some mean bitches out there, but I still have to wonder about what sort of sick soul would want to cause a filly of all ponies harm."
"I don't know Shooter. I gave up on figuring ponykind out a long time ago." I tell him with a hard sigh. I hate it when he waxes deep thinking on me.
I settle back into the bench and let my thoughts drift. It was still another twenty minutes or more until we reached Ponyville. I loved listening to the sounds of the wheels on the train tracks. Feeling the vibration run through my body, and letting the surreal fields and pastures lull me.
• • •
I must have drifted off to sleep for a bit, because the next thing I know, Shooter is shoving on me, and telling me that we've arrived.
I glance around and notice that the other passengers are getting off, and I see Shooter standing over me clutching his duffel-bag in his teeth. "The station's still a couple of blocks from the town, so we need to get moving."
If only he could know just how much I hated it when ponies talked while holding crap in their teeth. Stretching my back, and giving my hind quarters a tap with my hoof to get the soreness out, and slide my own bag over my neck and follow Shooter out of the passenger car.
We both exit the train into bright afternoon sunlight, and I can feel the blast of Southern heat instantly make me want to drop to my knees and hocks. Charcoal black fur and a dark grey main and tail isn't the sort of colors that will necessarily reflect sunlight, and I can feel a huge weight of lethargy hit me in my stomach. I look over at Shooter and see that his coffee colored hide is less affected by the heat than I am, and he seems almost chipper.
Damn him.
"Hey Shooter, why don't you go find the hotel and get us a room, while I take a look around." I don't like heat, and I especially don't like walking around in the heat, but I figured if I could acclimate a little, I'd be better off if and when we had to pull iron and start blasting.
"No sweat Cutter." he says as he starts to trot off for town ahead of me. "I'll get us a good one with a view."
"We don't need a view." I say to him as I head for the station. "And for fuck's sake, don't get side-tracked!"
Before I head into the station, I turn and glance once more in the direction Shooter had gone, and see him casually strolling along. It wasn't that I was concerned for his safety, I was more or less concerned with the safety of everypony else. It didn't take much to get him fiery mad, and once Shooter took hold of his guns he was as easy to stop as a firestorm in hell itself.
Turning back to walk into the station, I nearly plow right into a pony wearing a top hat, and almost chuckle to myself at how stupid it looked. The inside of the station was nice and cool, and the window shades were drawn about half way, making it easy on the eyes.
Heading to the ticket booth, I tap on the glass with my hoof and wait as the station worker took his sweet time to look up from his news paper.
"Welcome to the Ponyville Express Depot... can I help you, Sir?" he finally said as he glanced me up and down. He had a bit of a tone to his voice on the "sir" part, I didn't like that. I had a sudden notion to drag his sorry ass out of the booth through the hoof hole and beat the shit out of him.
Setting my bag down on the floor, I rummage in the top of it for a second and bring up a folded flyer. I unfold a corner of it with my teeth, and slap the picture side of it against the glass, so the obstinate pony can have a good clear look at it.
"Have you seen this pony?" I ask as politely as I can, given my overwhelming urge to still beat him to within an inch of his life. "I was told there was going to be a show here."
He took a few seconds to take his eyes off of me, and turn them to the flyer, and shook his head. "No. No show ponies have come in on the train today."
"What about yesterday?"
"None then either." he said frowning. "I'm sure I would have remembered seeing somepony that outrageous come through here."
Taking the flyer back down and stuffing it into my bag, I murmur my thanks, and turn to trot off when he hollers back at me through the hole. In an uncharacteristically kind gesture he informs me that the town of Appleoosa had been hosting a carnival for the past week, and that the filly I was looking for might be there, meaning a town a whole day and a half away. I ask if he has a phone, and he points out the way I came into the station.
"The only phone in town is at the Post Office." he says. "Unless you want to send a wire?"
I tell him no, and then head out of the station back into the heat, and straight into what felt like the fires of damnation. I had only been there for ten minutes, and already I hated Ponyville. Everywhere I looked, it seemed filled with yokels and hayseeds. Of course, all I had to do was just find our target and kill her, and then Shooter and I could get the hell out of this fucking hot sty.
Find the target, kill the target; and then get the hell out of town. Sounded pretty simple.
• • •
Sweet mother of Celestia this heat was a killer, which in and of itself is a bit of humorous irony, considering there would be nothing more distasteful in the world for a hitpony than to have himself done-in by a heat stroke, or health problems.
Sauntering off to the downtown part of Ponyville, I try to not think about the weight of the bag around my neck or the fact that the target could be anywhere between here and Appleoosa. My gut is telling me that if she isn't here already, then she will be, and it was only a matter of time. My gut instincts were right more often than not, and right now was a good time to listen to them.
I suppose from a casual glance around, Ponyville wasn't that bad of a place to look at. It was rather quaint for a boarder town to the bigger cities of Canterlot and Manehattan, and despite the rustic wooded looking dwellings I could see a certain charm in it. Though all the dirt streets and flowers and candy shops were nothing for my taste. I preferred the bright lights and the fast life, and this town barely had electricity.
The walk from the train station to the center of town was made all the more grueling by this got-damn heat, and eventually I was just wanting to find this pony and be out of here. First things first though. I needed to make sure that our target was actually here and not another day and a half away.
My first stop was to be at the post office, and see about using their phone. Of course I was going to be some kind of pissed, if the target wasn't even here or at least on her way. So approaching the downtown of Ponyville I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, but it was pretty obvious that I wasn't from around here.
Almost as soon as I got to the center of town, I noticed that there were a lot of ponies about, and bustling, but the one thing in all of it that caught my attention was a bunch of youngsters gathered around a puppet stage, and a highly ornate looking knight puppet standing over a fallen dark knight puppet.
I admit that I am a sucker for a good play, and despite that it was for kids, I was still curious to see this spectacle.
I inched closer and heard the sound of what I could only assume was the voice of the warrior over the fallen dark knight.
"You shall never enslave us again!" said a raspy voice with a hint of accent. "Your days are through, an now ah'm a take your sword and throw it in tha lake, where it'll sink to tha very bottom."
There was a general surge of applause from the seated colts and fillies, and suddenly a orange tanned pony with a blond mane popped up from behind the little stage and took a bow.
"That thar is the story of how the Legendary Guardian of Equestria defeated the evil Lord Se'Thisto, and brought peace to all of Equestria." she said looking over the faces of the youngsters with a big smile on her face.
I shook my head at the subject of the play. Every pony knew the story, but nopony really knew the whole story, and what they didn't know, they always made up into adventure, comedy or once, a romance between Se'Thisto and a mutual pony that both he and the Guardian were both in love with.
I wanted to laugh, but found myself trotting away. I didn't have time to waste on children's plays and made up shit.
• • •
The phone call went about as well as I expected. The ponies in Appleoosa were even more backwater than the ponies around here, and while there was in fact a Carnival a few days back that had been held there, there was no indication of a pony with them that matched the description of the one I and Shooter were looking for.
When I got to the hotel, Shooter was there to meet me, and after getting my stuff squared away in the double bed room, I stretched out on the bed closest to the window till something happened. Shooter on the otherhoof went in search of his fucking chocolate, and I just wanted to unwind from the day, and the oppressive heat that had already sucked precious life away from me.
I've never been one to remember what I dream about. I know that I dream, and I'm sure they are pretty vivid, but I am one of those that forgets everything as soon as I open my eyes the next morning. It also doesn't take much to wake me up either, and less than thirty minutes after drifting off to sleep, I heard the sound of explosives, and jumped up from the bed practically landing flat on all four hooves.
Instantly slipping my hoof into the cuff of my revolver, I make for the window as stealthily as I can, and use the barrel of the gun to part the curtains.
Outside I can see a crowd gathered back toward the center of town, and I spun around as the door to the room opened and Shooter came in. He had a funny sort of look on his face as he told me that our mark had arrived.
"Are you sure?" I asked him. "It's her?"
"No doubt about it." he said looking past me out the parted curtains. "Let me tell you, she's not subtle either."
I returned my gaze back outside, and watched as more ponies moved past the hotel towards where the mark was located. "Alright, let's get down there and see what all the fuss is about."
Putting my bag on the bed, I rummage in it and bring out my gear. A long black flowing trench-coat and a holster that could accommodate my customized set of 45s. The coat would make sure that the guns were concealed, and the dark color of the coat guarantee that I burnt my ass up in the heat. I knew I should have brought something more practical, but then again, nothing seemed to be as fitting as the trench.
After Shooter got into his get-up, which looked more like a poncho than a professional hitpony outfit, he and I made for the lobby of the hotel and eventually outside to the gathering crowd.
As we approached, we could see a make-shift stage had been put up in front of a building and a blue furred unicorn pony was parading about, dressed in a wizard's cloak and hat.
The crowd at this point was several rows deep, and as me and Shooter were at the back we went un-noticed as we verified that the filly up on the stage was our intended target.
"No doubt about it Shooter." I said leaning over to him. "She's the one."
I glanced around at the crowd which were a combination of oohs and ahs, and several hecklers booing for her to get off the stage. There was no way we were going to be able to shoot her here, not in front of all these ponies, unless we wanted to bring the whole damn town down on us in a moment's notice.
Shooter was obviously thinking the same thing, and shook his head slowly as he looked from The Great and Powerful Trixi to me. "We need to get her alone." he said.
"We can wait." I told him.
I knew the moment that I laid eyes on this filly that our client wasn't the only one that wanted her dead. From the way she pranced around, and the way she talked, it was everything I could do to keep from busting a couple of well-placed caps into her skanky ass from where I stood.
No doubt Shooter was thinking the same thing as he seemed to be transfixed on her performance with a look of incredulous stupidity. I could tell that Shooter was using every ounce of restraint to keep himself in check as well.
When we were first commissioned by our client, I made the meeting and gathered the information. normally in my line of work, I don't ask questions, unless it pertains to the target. In this case, the target didn't just go by one name, but several. It seemed that as our client had informed us, the Great and Powerful Trixie was a stage name for Lulamoon the greatly annoying.
All I got was a flyer featuring Trixie, and a scribbled notation that gave her real name as Lulamoon. I was told we'd get a shitload of bits for the job, and pointed in a general direction of where we could most likely find her. Other than that, I was only left to assume that Lulamoon's mouth had gone off on her once too often, and somepony had taken great and powerful offence.
• • •
The rest of the evening seemed to turn from bad to worse. Everything under the stars seemed to have it against us, and nothing we tried seemed to bring us any closer to Lulamoon.
First, we thought about nabbing her after her show, but the smarmy loud-mouth managed to have too many fans that actually liked her performance, and how she had managed to upstage half of the permanent residents, so she had a small but manageable crowd with her from the stage all the way back to her dressing trailer.
As if it wasn't bad enough that we had to stand around in the fucking heat waiting for a pony that was a glory hog to go into her damn trailer, we get interrupted again right when were about to charge in. Two youthful colts came running up announcing something to her, and then the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan, and the proverbial panic pretty much took a dump from one end of the town to the other.
Apparently the Great and Powerful Lulamoon had bragged on about being able to defeat a Ursa Major, and the two moronic colts that had been at her trailer just a few moments before had wanted to see how easy she could dispatch one. So being the retards that they looked, they trotted off to the nearby forest and fetched a nasty looking Ursa, and had that mother fucker right on their tails as soon as they came racing back to town.
Shooter and I were more or less running with the rest of the town's ponies, since we both knew that no manufactured weapons were going to be enough to stop one of those if it got on a well angered rampage. And after taking cover behind an over turned cart, we watched as a purple pony stood up and took charge of the situation, using her Pegasus magic to get the Ursa to fall asleep and send it back to the forest.
During the commotion, it wasn't any surprise at all to find that Lulamoon was a performer and not a real magician. Her skills were good at playing pranks and working some basic illusions, but when it came right down to it, she was more or less a fraud. So seeing her run for her life in stark terror at the sight of the beast was infuriating.
I wanted to shoot her even more now.
When everything had calmed down, and some order had been brought back to the crowd, Shooter and I could only watch as the whole town seemed to gang up on the loud-mouth carnival performer. At first I thought I was about to be out of my payment for yet another job gone bad, but instead of lynching her to death, they pretty much just ran her out of town.
Wasting no time, I motion for Shooter to follow after her, as he and I both made our way out of town discretely. Though, two ponies wearing coats and parkas wasn't really being as discreet as we could have been.
Once we were out of the town, I could barely make out the mare in the darkness, and of course her flight out of town was not all that quiet. If I thought I could hit anything in the night, I would have started blindly shooting into the darkness until I heard a thud.
After twenty or so minutes of running her down, the damn pony darted into the forest. I imagined she never even suspected that me and Shooter were after her.
It was difficult to determine how far we had chased after her. Twenty minutes of hard running on hoof was equal to about a mile, maybe less on unfamiliar terrain and ground. And now that we were going into the woods, it made it doubly hard to know how far out we were, or exactly where we were for that matter.
Eventually, I came to a stop. Winded and breathing deep and ragged, I turned to Shooter who was out of breath and trying his best not to cough from the dry air he had been pumping in and out of his lungs.
"Where the fuck is she?" I whispered to him.
"She can't have gone very far." he said back, between breaths.
Moving more slowly through the woods, Shooter and I emerged on the other side, and I instantly heard the sound of my hooves on stones. We had crossed over the woods onto another road. Looking to my left, I saw that there was a clear path that ran a good distance away before it disappeared into the night. To my right, I saw the same road veer off sharply, and right before the darkness swallowed up the road from my visibility, I saw a silhouette of a pony casually walking along the same path away from where I now stood.
"I'll be dammed." I mumbled, which caused Shooter to follow the direction I was turned.
"Enough of this Cutter." he said irritated. "Let's just shoot the bitch, and be done with it. She's more trouble than this job is worth."
I had to agree with him, this job had lasted far too long than it could have, and though we weren't up against any real opposition for the target, we had still taken a day and a half longer than anticipated.
What can I say? Time was money after all. And not more than a couple hundred yards away was our money walking.
Realizing that the two of us were not going to be very quiet running on the stone road, I tell Shooter to get on the grass, and he and I proceed toward Lulamoon on opposite sides of the road, moving as fast as the cover of night and the noises of the darkness will allow.
When I was within earshot of her, I could hear her crying and mumbling to herself, but I was having a hard time understanding what she was saying due to the ringing in my ears, and the pounding of my heart from all the running.
As soon as I was upon her, a bit of moonlight seemed to part the overhead night sky, and I watched as she slowly turned in my direction. For just the smallest of moments, she had a look of relief on her face, for some reason that I'm sure I'll never understand.
In less than a breath though, her relief vanished, and her mouth opened with a scream, before I brought my gun up to her nose, and pressed it hard against her nostril.
There was a lot of things I wanted to say to her at that moment, and as I watched Shooter come up behind her from the other side of the road, and put his gun to her head, all I could think of saying was, "Are you Lulamoon?"
For a second or two she just stood there, looking terrified, or from what I could see in the darkness and the moonlight anyway that passed for terrified. So when she didn't answer right away, she got a smack to the back of her head from Shooter, who I imagined was bending his hoof hard against the trigger of his gun.
"Answer the question bitch!" he roared from behind her, causing her to shriek with fright.
"Are you Lulamoon?" I said again, digging my gun farther into her snout. I had no doubt that she was Lulamoon, A.K.A. The Great and Powerful Trixie, but if there was one thing that I had learned in this profession; it was that one can never be too careful. Kill the wrong target, and it's just as bad as not killing the right one, even if you still kill the right one later on. Clients did not like messy operations.
Eventually she nodded her head, but never actually said anything until Shooter began to shove her to the ground in a sitting position.
That was the moment. Shooter was going to plug a bullet into her head, and then he and I could go collect our cash from the client. It was actually taking a turn for the better, despite the long wait, the chase and the got-damn heat.
"What do you ponies want with me?" she said, as her voice cracked. "I'm sorry okay! I'm sorry about the Ursa, it wasn't my fault!"
It took me a second or two to realise her confusion. She thought that Shooter and I were a couple of angry ponies from Ponyville that weren't satisfied with just chasing her out.
"Oh, I think you've got us pegged wrong." I tell her. "Were here because of somepony else that wants you dead."
At those words, she nearly swooned, and then let out a terrible scream. I wanted to clasp both hooves over my head, and in the second or two that she screamed she tried to get away, and run, but Shooter was all ready for that.
Punching her in the back of the head, Lulamoon careened forward and staggered back into sitting. Then looked back up at me, while I repositioned the gun at her forehead this time.
"I would love to say that this is nothing personal." I tell her. "But after just five seconds of listening to you this afternoon, I was almost ready to drop my fee for wasting your ass."
There is always a moment when the intended target faces their own end. Sometimes, they try to bargain, sometimes they just cry, and then there are times when they pray to the divines. On rare occasions they don't say or do anything at all. I'd like to say that she just sat there and said nothing, but this was one of those occasions where she did the first one.
"If it's money you want, I can get more than you're being paid." she said darting her eyes back and forth trying to bribe her way out. "I know really rich and powerful ponies."
"Yeah," I say, "and those same rich and powerful ponies are the ones that want to see you face down in that ditch over there."
Just as I was about to squeeze the trigger, I heard the sound of pony hooves and wooden wheels on the stone road.
Shooter heard it too, and I turned to see a small lamplight of illumination coming from down the road behind us. It wasn't all that late at night, so naturally there would still be carriages heading to and from the towns.
Grabbing Lulamoon, and forcing her back into a standing position, I shove her and Shooter to the edge of the road, and step around behind the mare, and shove my gun into the soft flesh behind her rump.
"You make so much as a fucking peep, and I'll blast a bullet up your twat and out your throat!"
I leaned over to Shooter, and told him to follow my lead, just as the pony-drawn carriage came to a stop next to us on the road.
The ponies that were pulling were big strong fellas, and seemed unconcerned with either Shooter or myself, but it was the carriage driver that seemed to want to be a friendly sort.
"Hello there." he said in a friendly voice. "Got caught out in the night I see."
Putting on my best smile, I replied back, "Yup. We were heading out of Ponyville, and got a little turned around, then it got to be dark on us before we knew what was what."
The driver looked us over and at that moment the carriage door opened revealing an older colt, a filly that looked about ten, and another colt.
"If you need a lift," the older colt said, "I'm sure we can accommodate till the next town."
I looked back at Shooter, who was giving me the look of, don't want to and then looked up at the driver who was giving me the look of hurry the hell up and then down at Lulamoon who was expressionless.
Fuck me, this was going to be a long job.
"Sure," I finally say shoving my gun a little harder into Lulamoon's crotch, "we'd be grateful for the lift."
~ • ~
to be continued