"Who's responsible fer all this?!"

Whose fault was it, actually? In something like this, do you blame the escalator, or the antagonizer? He pulled a gun, but that fucker had fucked with Teddy.

He shook his head, small curses whispering lightly off his tongue. What a great thing to wake up to. As the sounds of the approaching stallion's hoofsteps echoed and creaked along the old oak wooden floor, the patrons and inhabitants of the local bar began to rise from their adrenaline-induced slumber with moans and groans that would've fit better in an old zombie flick. He himself joined in on the collective mumble train, blue eyes straining to see what was directly in front of him.

"What the fuck?" Someone familiar asked incredulously from somewhere nearby.

Delirious blinked the blurriness from his sights for a few seconds before grumbling to himself, seeing his vision swim again, and simply muttering, "Fuck."

"Godsdamned drunkards. You'd think in a town like this ponies'd just off themselves..."

Who the hell was that? He didn't recognize the voice all too well. Looking at the floor, he had to admit that, then again, he didn't recognize much at the moment. Delirious shook like a wet dog, then craned his neck and glared to his left to find the rather gravelly, twangy source.

"All right," the voice started up again, going back to its original, booming volume, "show's over!" With that, like a teacher announcing a pop quiz, the ponies—either drunk, dizzy, or damaged—gave a collective groan and growl. Something particularly glass-like fell onto the floor and shattered, almost drowning out his next words, "Everyone off your asses and on yer feet. Move it on out, now."

With a new, blinding, almost godly light source streaming in from the now open front swing doors into the prior completely dark saloon, ponies began stumbling to standing positions and limping out into the day, their aching and whining wafting back into the bar for all those remaining to grovel at.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah where the fuck are my hands?!" Delirious heard Wildcat cry from the other side of the bar.

"Hey, you!" The now apparent lawpony, complete with badge, vest, and hat, spat from next to a kneeling mare, pointing Wildcat's way with a boot covered hoof. "You hush now, y'understand?"

It was as if the pig had been rehearsing his retort in his head for months, quickly shouting back from behind the counter, "Go fuck yourself you fudge packer."

Delirious' eyebrows went up in anticipation of a gun and then a shot, but the lawpony only rolled his eyes, thoroughly ignored the obvious weapon in his holster, bent down, assisted the mare up off the floor, patted her on the back, and murmured something to her before walking around and perusing the thrown tables yet again. "Now how's about you stay right there so I can come getcha myself?" The lawpony asked with his mustache a-shuffling, not even looking at Nogla, who—out of the corner of Delirious' eyes—was just raising a hoof to move.

"I didn't do anything!" Nogla affirmed, brown eyes narrowing from under his now horribly torn-up paper bag.

"Everypony pointed at'cha," the lawpony replied matter-of-factly, dipping his head up and down at the Unicorn.

"That doesn't mean shit–"

"Not t' say I trust my own townfolk more than a couple o' recent strangers, but..." The lawpony gave Nogla a full once-over, frowned, and shrugged. With no response from the alleged culprit, save for a stuttering of curses and bewilderment, he turned around and about bumped noses with a pink mare.

Without even flinching, he glared at her, slacked his shoulders, and spoke flatly, "Pinkie Pie. Shoulda known you'd gotten caught up'n all this."

Pinkie's mane was, by now, tussled beyond all belief, with one half in its original state and the other completely matted down like someone had taped an incomplete ballcap to her head. Her John Marston "cosplay" was in shreds, with her blue vest completely unrecognizable, her white undershirt unbuttoned and showcasing her pink stomach to the ground, her gloves discarded, and her hat upside-down and inside-out on her head. You wouldn't have been able to tell thanks to the ginormous, eternal smile crossing her lips.

"Sheriff Silverstar, you trust me then," she began, patting her chest with both forelegs, "don't ya?"

Silverstar clenched his jaw. Must've been chewing gum. "Yes," he droned.

Delirious bit on his bottom lip and looked toward his friends in the midst of his sitting down on the floor. They mirrored his expression; mildly concerned, wary, and cautious, they didn't expect Pinkie's next words to be what they were. If anything, they expected a prompt selling out and a nice slapping of handcuffs.

"Nogla didn't start it–"

The Sheriff immediately guffawed, "Nogla? Which one is–"

"Paper bag!" Pinkie exclaimed in a similar fashion to answering on a game show, leaning over to her right and violently waving at the Unicorn. He waved back quietly, a request to speak dying on his tongue. "It wasn't him, Sheriff Silverstar."

"Now how'm supposed t' believe that with that glass–" he swept a leg to the Irishman, "–in his hooves, and the glass–" he swept it to the right, where the rest of the bar stood, "–all over the saloon?!"

A small hoof shot up tantalizingly from behind the counter next to Wildcat, who looked at it then looked down. "Oh! Oh! That was actually me!" A squeaky voice claimed. The hoof pointed down as well. "I stabbed him with it."

Delirious looked at Silverstar. His jaw was wide open.

"Throwing bottles isn't a talent, man. Anyone can just do it," came Vanoss, who, unlike the others, was calmly standing against a post. The wide, beady eyes of his owl mask betrayed the blood splashed across its surface. The frown, however, did not.

Silverstar turned back to face Pinkie Pie, who was now hovering in front of his face, a suspicious look on her face. Silverstar—and Delirious, and Vanoss, and Wildcat, and Nogla, and, with struggle, Lui—regarded Pinkie's legs, or where they should've been on the floor. Instead, they blinked away the empty space underneath her, and Silverstar reached up, adjusted his hat, placed his hoof against his muzzle, and cleared his throat.

"I–"

The light from the front door disappeared, in its place a group of all black figures that began to slowly walk into the bar.

"Now what all happened in 'ere?" A light, very accented voice drawled out. Its source was unveiled as it and its companions began walking around the room; a light yellow Earth Pony with a brown and tan mane stopped, his green eyes wandering the broken shelves, overthrown tables, obliterated bottles, and wet floorboards. Screwing up his face, scrunching up his lips, and snorting, he asked, "Silverstar, didjou have another one o' your bachelor parties without invitin' me again? Now what'd I tell you about all that? Shame on you."

"Thought you were in a meeting, Braeburn," Silverstar replied, minding the apparent Braeburn as he began upending the furniture.

"We were, 'til we heard the commotion," Braeburn responded with a grunt, planting the base of a roundtable back onto the floor. "Another bar fight, huh?"

Silverstar nodded at his cohort's head shake, joining him on the opposite side of the piano and grabbing it. "Nothin' t' concern yerself with, heeyup!" He whooped, pushing the instrument across the floor back to its spot near the bathrooms. His voice, a little high pitched and straining, came again, "Why don't'chy'all just head on back and let me clean this up m'self?"

It was at that point, with Braeburn and Silverstar continuing their conversation, that Delirious noticed the other two members of Braeburn's group. Big, brown, and bulky, they were either really fucked up deer, or buffalo. Only when he saw that the slightly larger one's ensemble was a feathered headdress did he figure out the answer.

The buffalo didn't even seem to mind Delirious and the gang as they trotted around the building, lifting chairs, and tables, and occasionally ponies up off the ground.

The obvious leader perked up and immediately shook his head when his brethren sighed, "It is nice to see our land being used for good purposes."

"Hush, Moonwater," was his gruff cutting-off. Placing a hoof against a wooden chair and propping it up like a skateboard, he flicked his head around and regarded the two lawponies, "Who did this?"

Silverstar, a little huffy, hissed and flailed a hoof, "Apparently he did."

In not actually looking at where he was directing his point, Silverstar made a mistake. His hoof made an imaginary line directly toward Delirious.

Delirious' eyes widened as the thunderous stomps of what he assumed to be an annoyed buffalo walked over to his position. He turned his head away from the Sheriff just in time to feel a heavy tug on his left foreleg, which would've begun dragging him away were it not for deus ex Pinkie Pie cantering over yet again.

"It wasn't any of these ponies, Chief Thunderhooves!"

The Chief let go in an instant, retracting his hoof like he was worried he'd catch an illness. Seeing as how the Europeans had done the same centuries ago, and there was some kind of parallel here, Delirious could understand the worry.

"Oh!" Chimed Braeburn, accompanying his gallop over to the group's position. "These're the folks y'all were tellin' me yesterday about, Pinkie?"

"For Gods' sake mare, who the hell started this then?" Silverstar's voice hollered.

Braeburn turned at his stomach, then waved the Sheriff off with a hoof and a shake of his head.

"Yup yup yup!" She beamed, the three of them behind the counter finally trotting out to join her side. Vanoss, wiping his hooves, got back down all fours and bumped elbows with Nogla, who whispered a very obvious, "Fook off," to him.

"So who then, Miss Pinkie Pie?" Thunderhooves questioned, his chin going up slightly.

The answer was lightning quick. Delirious had to blink a few times to make sure he hadn't somehow missed something. Following her—and now everyone else's—gaze, he suddenly peeled his ears back, grit his teeth, and felt the stirring pot inside him begin to bubble. The yellow Unicorn, his cowboy hat angled oddly on his head, sat up in a second as if from a hard sleep and rubbed his skull.

Next to him, on the ground was Delirious' teddy bear. Delirious raised a hoof to stomp over to his beloved stuffed friend's side.

"Well that ain't no shit..." Silverstar grumbled, shooting air out his nostrils and trotting over to the culprit.

"I see that everything is handled now. I believe we have business to attend to, Braeburn," the Chief proclaimed, turning tail and beginning to walk out of the saloon. Braeburn, midstep, paused for a second, swiveled about, and regarded Delirious with a sheepish grin.

"Sorry 'bout all that. Go on home an' get some rest, now." With that, and a boyish chuckle, Braeburn brought up a hoof and hit Delirious in his right foreleg playfully. Delirious barely even flinched, not even feeling the stallion make contact. Braeburn recoiled swiftly, waving his hoof around and asking, "The hell's wrong with your shoulder?" Sitting on his haunches and grasping his injury with the other leg, he cursed, "Gaaah, dammit! Ya feel like a damn tree over there!"

The low, heavy, previously constant hoofsteps against the floor cut out instantly. Delirious turned to them as Braeburn continued to seethe in pain.

Chief Thunderhooves was staring, his eyes wobbling around in their housing as he narrowed them in scrutiny.

"A tree, you say?"

Braeburn gave the Chief a half-hearted look, then sighed at his leg. "Sure as hay felt like one. Gods, my hoof..."

Thunderhooves, true to his name, strode toward Delirious, never blinking an eye and never missing a step even as he descended two of them near the entrance. Like a ginormous wall of brown fur with a face, he stopped a bare inch away from Delirious and stared at his hooves, looked to his left and right, then back up into his blue eyes. Black into blue.

Without a word, the buffalo yanked up Delirious' foreleg, then began humming very bassy nothings to himself. He turned the appendage round and round for two seconds before finding what he needed, and what Delirious knew to be–

"This stem."

Thunderhooves poked it like a child. It didn't waver an inch. He let it go, then minded Delirious.

"How long has this been here?"

"A month or two, I think."

Thunderhooves was quiet for some time, humming yet again, and then he spoke, "Then there's still a chance..." He leaned over to his right—Delirious' left—then retired to his position once more. "Speak with your friends first. They look like they wish to speak to you." He about-faced and began ambling away. "Then, come and find me at the Sheriff's office." He looked at Delirious from next to the front door, where Silverstar was just escaping with his criminal in tow.

"We need to talk."

Author's Notes:

Bah, you'll get it later.