“Hey, I’m talkin’ to you! Yeah, you gals slinkin’ around in the dark.” He called out.

“How did he…” Scapegrace cursed.

“ You’re upwind! I can smell you all the way over here. Everypony has been sweating it up.”

What was he? A dog? Ponies have always had crazy traits, but some just seem to have more than they needed.

Calypto smiled. I couldn’t see that he smiled with the shade of his hat blocking out the world, but I knew from all the spirit I’d from him today that he was most certainly smiling. Killjoy was just one crazy pony making an easy shot for Calypto. He leaned back and harnessed a revolver into hoof, and lined the steel barrel up with killjoy. “I don’t chat with bugs…”

‘Bang! Bang!’ went his guns, launching bullets into Killjoy’s face. Much like monsters do, Killjoy stepped forward through it. Swishing the saliva around in his mouth, he spat on the ground. There was a quiet tapping of the deformed bullet as it tumbled across the wood stage.

“What the hell…?” Calypto’s composure dropped from his shoulders.

“He’s an earth pony.” I mumbled. Calypto’s eyes wandered skeptically. There was a moment of calm as the striped bastard stroked the short hairs on his chin. Suddenly, there was a loud bang and pain shot up the side of my hoof. “That doesn’t mean shoot me!”

“Huh, still got it. Guess he really is tough…” Calypto smiled, reassured. There were better ways to check if your guns still had kick, but none of them came to the mind of that zebra. I just knew it, everypony wanted to shoot Tumbleweed.

Killjoy dashed forth in a whirling circle. Those dancing hooves drove down deep, planting themselves hard into the ground. In an instant, the heavy stone club rocketed toward us through the air. We scattered, jumping to the side out of the way as the club perforated the side of the building we were hiding by. This was the type of thing that was much too large to be flying through the air.

“Everypony okay?” I called out, searching out to make sure none of us were pasted on the walls. I had pushed Scapegrace to Calypto’s side when the attack came.

“Yeah, we’re fine.” Scapegrace called out measuring up the distance that had grown between us. Our spirit dodged had placed us several meters apart.

“I want you two to get moving. Find those ponies. If Calypto says they are here, then I have to trust him. Go find, them. You don’t need me for that. I can take this guy.” If we could detour around dogmeat over here, that would have been ideal, but we couldn’t afford to be caught from behind, and he was looking on with an eagerness that demanded attention.

“Are you crazy? We can fight him together!” Scapegrace called out.

“I am the only one with half a chance of surviving this fight. Leave this to me.”

Scapegrace sighed. “Just tell you aren’t doing this because it feels cool.”

It felt really cool… “You go on ahead, this guy is mine.”

Calypto and Scapegrace cantered to the town hall, leaving us behind. I stayed to stare at the pony with the mile thick skin and I grinned. Killjoy leaned from the top of the stage, resting his head in one hoof.

The loud ring of gun fire pulled my attention behind me. Calypto was fond of simple and effective means of getting my attention. From the mouth of the town hall building he called out. “I don’t work for dead ponies, you hear? Don’t even think about dying!”

“I can’t make any promises…” I yelled back before he slipped away again. I felt myself waver on an ethereal line between excited and terrified, but I had to face the holes I had dug for myself. I lowered my stance to prime my muscles. “You must be Killjoy, I presume?”

The raider smiled at me. He had some garb around his waist, but it was quite interesting to look at. It seemed like a personal artisan craft. Perhaps it was stolen, as raiders do, but it didn’t seem like something to wear into battle.

Killjoy leaped from the stage, launching off like a rocket before hitting the ground in full stride. With a two hoof bound, he lunged towards me. “Oh ho ho, look’s like my name is getting around, but what’s your name, bitch? Tell me, I’m curious..”

I met him spearing my right hoof from underneath to his jaw bone, my other hoof gripping to the inside of his fore-hoof. “You don’t want to know my name.”

He was strong! I expected that, but it felt different from what I was used to. I couldn’t figure it out. I had to relinquish ground just to keep a hold. With his free hoof, he swung down at the side of my neck. I raised the crook of my right hoof to block, but it folded in like paper to the sheer strength.

Killjoy bared down with that single attack. I had to readjust just to resist against it, bracing my hind hooves and holding against him with two hooves just to carry the strike. He was just sinking his weight, but it was like he was made of fucking elephants. “Oh why not? I don’t get a lot of ponies who challenge me to one on one! Either you’re dumb or you’re brave. Those are the best, really... or maybe you’re both, but when I tell my friends I want a name to go with it.” Killjoy smiled.

“I’ve got quite a few names…arhh… maybe… I’ll tell you if you beat me.” I joked, struggling with the words. I looked him in the eyes just to see his reaction as all resistance disappeared against his hoof as I slipped to his outer side. I didn’t throw Killjoy so much as Killjoy threw himself. I just gave him push and tug, as I pulled his hoof along his direction of movement before ripping it circularly, both underneath and behind him. His body torqued across his own physiology and his direction of movement, flipping him onto his back and slamming against the ground. I proceeded to stomp a hoof to his head, but the bastard seemed to smiled as I pounded his face like it didn’t do anything to him. “How about that, Tough Cookie?” I yelled.

“You don’t get to call me that!” His tone changed. I could feel it surging through him in the way his body reacted against my hooves.

As I jumped with my stomp, Killjoy rose up, meeting my hoof head on. He ate the brunt of my entire weight, but he didn’t seem to care as he powered through and threw me off balance. As I frantically swung my hooves, trying to regain my footing, Killjoy turned to show a whole lot of flank before two heavy hooves slammed into me. A baren skull with a defiant grin, despite being dead, biting down on a bullet. It was an interesting cutie mark to be sure.

I flew through the air, crashing into the wall of the house behind me. I spread out the impact across my body, but I still braced myself, gasping, as I felt the air that had been knocked out of me. And beyond that, my back hoof hurt! It was like stomping on concrete. It was like somepony left him out too long, he was totally stale! As I fell to my hooves, Killjoy came charging with hellfire on his hooves. I jumped to the side, gunning for the hole that Killjoy’s club made in the building, just as Killjoy tore the building a new earth pony shaped asshole.

The inside was dark, but there was enough ambient light around to tell that it was pony’s home, or somepony’s den or dining room to be more accurate. Killjoy had gored his head through an entire china cabinet, knocking foreign dinnerware all over the floor. There was a round table in the center with several chairs. A mini-bar jutted out of the wall charismatically sectioning off the kitchen. There was a dark void torn through building, telling of the stone club’s adventure through the room. Killjoy shook the powered drywall from his coat.

“You get points, bucko! You hit pretty hard, kid.” Killjoy said as he grinned. They weren’t the words I wanted to hear. I don’t care if I hit hard, I care if it hurts!

I shuffled my way to the opposite side of the round table. Sweat was dripping down my face. “ughh… I’m not a kid. I’m twenty-eight.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, what is that big hulking ‘mail-box’ looking ass thing you carrying around? You supposed to be some kind of courier?’

Something in my gut burst into fire.“What are you calling a ‘mail-box’? This is a refrigerator! What are you supposed to be? You look like you lost a fight with a garbage disposal.” I snapped back. Nopony knew my struggle. It was a really useful box when I found it, and it made a nice makeshift refrigerator.

“Oh, thems fightin’ words!” Killjoy muttered as he arched a skeptical eyebrow around agitated eyes.. He galloped to his right, so I galloped to my own. Round the table we went. It was a lovely game of cat and mouse. On the second loop, he slowed down with a scoff. I leaned my hooves onto the table and stuck my tongue out at him. He juked one way, and I juked in return. With a snort, he kicked table inward at me, trying to pin me against the wall.

Riding with the flow, I hopped forward onto the clothed table. “Ha!” I cheered triumphantly as I stood on the sliding table, only for that enthusiasm to bite me in the cutie mark as Killjoy raised his hooves up.

Killjoy struck down on his side of the table making the wooden legs of the table cave in like putty, launching me diagonally upwards into the air towards him. I skinned the ceiling, but my hooves caught something metal. What was it? A chandelier? Look at that! It was a chandelier! It had six prongs for gemstones, but the stones had burned out a long time ago. It also had another six spokes running from the center, out beyond the ring that held the prongs. I swung right over Killjoy’s attack. Before I could swing back around for a counter-attack, the screws holding up the chandelier ripped free from the ceiling. Clearly, they were installed by a unicorn. I swung gracelessly to the ground, almost impaling myself on the chandelier.

Killjoy swooped forward launching a piercing kick with his ridiculous amounts of force. I raised the chandelier to intercept the thrust while fading back on a diagonal path to break up the direction of his momentum. The strike sent my hoof reeling back as some of the gems shattered on the chandelier. Even in the dim light, I could see the pristine shape of the chandelier with the old ‘durapony’ logo. My heart skipped a little. This wasn’t just a chandelier… it was an earth pony chandelier.

“Damn, how have I not killed you yet?! Like really! It’s a mystery to me. This is getting interesting....” Killjoy said, digging a hoof into the ground. “Stop moving around so I can tear you to pieces, alright?”

Sweat poured down my face like a shallow river, and I was getting out of breath. Today was a long day, and adrenaline made it hard to tell how much my muscle could give, but I was sure Killjoy was feeling similar. Still, I needed to be all the more clever if I wanted to win. I needed a way to hurt him and right now I just didn’t have that. The longer the fight went, the more I could slip up, and if I got lazy, my bones would be good as dust.

This chandelier was tough. I spun the frame around my hoof, just to feel it out. I felt like a lion tamer. Killjoy took half a step forward and I hopped back preemptively. The bastard chuckled. My nerves were on edge.

Killjoy lunged forward, stepping to my right to swing his left hoof in an unyielding arc. I jumped back on a diagonal, stepping into some of the broken debris as I neared the wall. Quickly, Killjoy ducked left, reaping with both hooves across his body, right hoof following left. The wall behind me let me know I couldn’t keep this game of chase going. I dropped myself nearly flat to the ground (as much as the fridge would allow), but ready to explode up to my hooves. As the swings flew over me, I rose up, planting the spokes under left arm. With a steady push rather than a strike, the stabbing outer spokes of the chandelier forced Killjoy up off his balance.

Even as he fumbled, Killjoy swung a hoof in to strike me away. I pulled the chandelier in to brace against the attack using my whole body for support. With a clever tilt of the chandelier, his hoof fell in the gaps between the prongs. Spinning the frame like a wheel, it locked Killjoy’s hoof in place. Holding the locked hoof close to my chest, I hopped to the outside of Killjoys charge. He resisted with arm force, but with every muscle in my body, I managed to compete. With a pivoting turn I ran him into the wall behind me. That was right! Power wasn’t the only factor in fighting. In a real fight, what matters is control! Just keep swinging Killjoy! Your power is my power!

I made my move. I rotated the chandelier to pull his hoof behind him as he swayed about the ground. I mustered a fiery energy in myself and kicked down at the shoulder joint with my right hind leg, but it didn’t budge! My horseshoe cracked on hitting Killjoy’s body and he smirked with blood running down his face. Killjoy had forced the joint to bend and was braced against the ground and wall. I couldn’t even tell if he didn’t on purpose, but martially it was exactly what he needed to do...

Killjoy forced back his hoof, the chandelier still attached to him. He struck the chandelier into me, sandwiching me against the wall. I breathed out with the strike and braced with both hooves, but it felt like my world shattered. All my strength dwindled, and sight faded in a quick flash. An intense pain screamed in me, droning out the world as my body took the shock of the strike.

Damn it! I got cocky! I thought. I could see my mentor shake her head at me with that unimpressed smirk. I had been cocky this whole time really, and luck caught up with me. Damn it, I didn’t like luck. I believed in my ability, luck had nothing to do with it, or that’s what I want to believe. Maybe this was my escape from luck, from destiny. That destiny I had been told of… Give it to somepony else. Don’t tell me what to do! Maybe death would be my defiance against that fate… but I didn’t like death telling me what to do either… still sometimes, you can’t choose. Guess I made a bad play...

My back had imprinted on the wall. I took the hit really hard. There was a cracking noise. Did my back crack the wall, or did the wall crack my back? I felt suspended and delusional. I wanted to sleep, to fade, to disappear… to not have to try anymore. It would be nice, right? No more sores, no more aches, no more regrets, no more mondays… It sounded beautiful, but there was a nagging sting in my hoof that refused to let me fade into that tempting void. Fuck! It hurt a lot. It wasn’t the worst of my injuries, but it was the loudest in my mind. I couldn’t get away from it, it wouldn’t let me ignore it. That nagging pain was enough to make a pony claw their own brain out... and with hooves, that would be pretty hard.

I strained myself into some faint sense of consciousness, trying to figure out what it was. Can a pony die in peace for fuck sake? I felt the strange sensation of the world moving around me. I must have fallen over after Killjoy hit me. He was dragging me around, fridge and all, by the chandelier, not caring about the added weight. The obnoxious pain in my hoof was mid way down my arm. It was a bullet wound, but I didn’t remember getting shot since Scapegrace took a pick to my flank playing lead miner…

That wasn’t right at all, I did get shot. I didn’t just get shot, I got shot by that fucker of a Zebra, Calypto! That pretentious fuck! That gunslinging flank-hat shot me for little more than a joke. It would be his fucking bullet! I burned inside, and it was all I could think about. I would not go quietly in the night. I had things to do. Compared to him I wasn’t arrogant at all. What was I doing trying to give up like this? I had fallen pretty far.

I raged, but my mind was struggling to move my body. I couldn’t give up, though. I pulled the bullet wound to my mouth and I bit down with my teeth. Pain surged through my body. Good. Life was full of pain, and death was empty, so I bit down to summon all of my life. I’m an idiot! A stubborn, living, air-breathing idiot! My nerves lit on fire, but I bit down even harder. I dug in with my teeth as Calypto and I forced my brain not to give in. I felt… yes, feeling returned screaming and howling inside. My teeth felt something hard in my wound, and I yanked at it. Thought escaped me, and I ascended to a state of pure adrenaline.

Killjoy had been puppeting my body, lifting me up and down via the chandelier. When he brought me down, I caught the ground with my hooves. Never in my entire life had I felt so damn alive. Blood rushed in me like a burning star, pushing back a darkness of death. And I felt powerful. I bolted into motion.

I pulled Killjoy by the chandelier into a punch, and turning in toward him, my tail whipped a windy strike, lashing the weight in my tail hard against his skull. It didn’t do much, but it caught him off guard. I spit the bullet that I kept between my teeth into his eye. With it left my fear, my hesitation, and all of my thoughts. I found a fierce meditation of action. It was trance-like, but not repetitive. It was instinct processing motions quickly. The spit got Killjoy to flinch back. Spinning the spokes of the chandelier like a ship-wheel, I wrenched his hoof back, bending the joint at the base of the hoof back. With all my body I torqued down on the joint, moving smoothly but powerfully. The joint broke out of place, severing muscle, and for the first time Killjoy screamed. I lifted the arm at the fore-hoof and twisted it out of alignment. I didn’t feel it snapped with as much force as the first joint, but it clearly hurt him.

I wrestled my hoof out of the chandelier as it clanged to the ground. Killjoy’s chipper facade had faded away as he cradled the limp arm in pain. I reigned in my heavy breathing and in a sobering instant, I felt quite how much I was sweating.

Killjoy slinked off into the darkness. I won. I felt like I beat a demon and as such I stood in satisfaction and in weariness. What to do now… I didn’t know. All there was in my head was the fight and the screaming pain. My hoof really hurt. Actually, my everything hurt. I sat breathing as I tried to find my thoughts, but it was as if I lost my brain. What was I doing? My head was geared up towards the fight, but the fight was over and it left me empty, so I sat and listened.

I heard a tin clang of a box hitting the floor. I was curious to see what it was so I followed the sound. There was a ting of a latch opening and the clinking of glass. I found Killjoy coiled up around a yellow and pink ministry of peace box, the ones with the butterflies on them. Ha, it felt good to make him lick his wounds… To make him feel pain… that indestructible juggernaut having to break down to drink some kind of healing po...

…THE HELL WAS I THINKING ABOUT!? I didn’t want to fight that pony shaped wall of granite again! Once was more than enough for today! For this week! For this life! Fuck, that’s not how this is supposed to happen! I scrambled over the floor towards him, and he hobbled away from me with a sour looking snarl.

“You cheating, rat-assed bastard!” I yelled out as I swung my hooves into his back side, to little success. I forgot how much it hurt to punch this guy.

“My potions! Get your own!” Killjoy said between gulps, struggling to find limbs to ward me away with. He tilted the red potion back and the liquid swished around before disappearing into his gullet.

Beating this horse wasn’t getting me anywhere, and he wasn’t getting any deader. I pounced in inept fury, wrapping my right hoof around his throat and pinning the hoof behind the crook of my left forehoof, squeezing into violent choke hold. I could feel the muscle strain to force the healing liquid down his esophagus, but I locked tighter around his neck. If he wanted to metabolize that damn vial, it would need to go through me. These tumblers weren’t budging! The physiological gears jammed up and in a spitting fit, the liquid flowed back into the glass.

Killjoy pulled the potion away from his mouth for a moment, as he tried to retaliate against my lock, but I was already making my move. I reached my neck out, grabbing the lips of the potion in my teeth as I pushed Killjoy to the ground. When stealing, steal from the raiders! The tables had turned! I took a great swig in triumph.

The putrid sensation of health potion befell me. Bleagh! What was I thinking!? It tasted fouler than death and not as quick! What was worse was that it had a faint new taste that was befitting of the backwash cocktail it had become. Few times in my life had I rushed so headstrong into pouring liquid filth down my own throat! Clearly I wasn’t using my brain!

The complete lack of counter attack finally pulled my attention. I looked back to see Killjoy hobbling off with the butterfly box. As I gave chase, he slipped into the bathroom down the hall. I collided with the door full sprint, but it held up.

“Let me in!” I screamed to the other side of the door. I tried my hoof at the knob. He had locked the door.

“It’s occupied!” He called out from the other side of the door.

“This is terrible fighting etiquette!” I screamed as I pounded against the door with my hooves.

“Behold! In the vast wasteland world, the grand collective sum of all the fucks I have to give! Oh wait, what that? I seem to have misplaced them!”

“Killjoy, you suck flank!”

I turned around to try to buck the door open, but suddenly the door exploded off of its hinges, throwing me over my own ass. The door’s force was distributed over a large surface area, so it didn’t particularly hurt, but it knocked me back. As I crawled out from behind the door, I was forced to duck behind my shield (the fridge of wonders) as a fast moving porcelain sink soared through the air toward me. The hit knocked off my balance again as I braced against the impact. The sink shattered into pieces, a fine particle dust was cast into the air.

Splinters filled the air Killjoy swung his club out from the debris, tearing apart the portal of the bathroom.

“You’re gonna tell me your damn name!”

Stone club in tooth, he jolted down the hall, the club plowing through the walls like they weren’t even there. In a mad swing, Killjoy narrowly missed me, as I leapt back instinctively. The club grounded itself snugly in the wall, but even before I could enter in for a counter attack, Killjoy ripped the club free for another attack with a jumping swing. I cushioned the strike with my case, but all of the murderous force transferred through its body, knocking me back. The shape of the hallway walls began to sag at the loss of the chunks Killjoy had ripped from them.

Killjoy galloped in with bulging intent in his eyes, almost like they were going to rip out of his head and kill me themselves. Be cool, Tumbleweed, I told myself. With gravity on its side, the club came this time from above, turning over his shoulder. I rose to meet the attack, bracing the metal case at the base of his swing.

“You’re gutsy! That’s why I am going love killing you, you’re fun.” Killjoy said as he leaned in.

“Good to hear, I was beginning to think I pissed you off!” I said, barely managing the words as I resisted against him.

Killjoy bucked his body forward, and I buckled at the strain. I passed the strike down my right side, and stepped beside him. Killjoy took the club in his teeth and carved a circular arch. With a clever leap, I latched onto Killjoy’s side, riding his spinning attack. With a toss of my weight I pulled Killjoy off of center. The club crossed through a support pillar, utterly obliterating it.

Killjoy caught wise to my trick quickly and bucked to throw me off, and I eagerly disengaged. The house was audibly aching. The loose particles sifting through the transforming ceiling alerted both of us, but through my hooves I could feel the strain on the house. Everything on the verge of collapse, but it was like I could see it in every detail. Maybe not see, but I could feel it. It was my perfect weapon.

I rolled over my case as I hit the ground, but I recovered to my hooves as Killjoy marked me with his gaze. He made a powerful charge, but I leaped back behind another pillar. “Hey, stop playing around. Put up your fetlocks! Fight me like a pony!” I said, sticking up my hooves and shuffling them around in the air. Killjoy spat at the ground. The anger in his head must have quiet down, as he started approaching slower. He knew I had schemes, and loud yelling thoughts would get in his way.

Suddenly, the house shook as rays of energy penetrated the wall from above. Strange spears of light cut through the house. We heard the heavy sound of something slamming into the upper level, and that iconic otherworldly ringing of magic. My hazy visions of strain came into focus as giant chunks of debris fell from above. I only barely dodged a falling bed that fell with part of the ceiling between me and Killjoy. Knowing that the ceiling only can fall so many times, I chose to cross towards him.

Even in the chaos of the collapsing house, Killjoy committed to his attack against my approach. He swung in diagonally as a beam fell askew of the ground and to the side. The bed was springy, allowing me to jump clear over Killjoy. I almost didn’t make it, the depression of the springs slowing me down. I wasn’t the only pony thinking with springs. Killjoy used the bit of bounce in the spring to rebound his attack around in a circle. I turned to block the attack with my trusty fridge shield, but the attack sent me rolling out against the ground.

Killjoy rushed in as I rolled about on the ground. My senses picked up on the spiking stress of the ceiling above me as tension crawled all over its foundation. I shuffled towards Killjoy, meeting his charge. He was posed to strike downward, but I entered in grabbing around his torso. With a hind hoof, I kicked to his groin, which did far less than I wanted it to do, he had balls of steel—but bracing the hoof, I carried him over throwing him behind me, with his own momentum launching Killjoy behind me.

Before he could give chase, a sway in the house opened the ceiling up. Sliding out from the sky, a flower pot crashed on his head. Then a cabinet, and then even an entire chunk of floor board fell down at an angle. Killjoy’s angry head burst out through the floorboard and the pile debris, but it was thick, binding him in a loving embrace.

I hobbled over to Killjoy, taking a good look at his lack of being able to move. Just about everything had fallen on top of him. “This is a good look for you!” I said with a smile.

“Bite me, flankwipe…” Killjoy sneered unable to move.

“Some other time, maybe…” I ruffled his hair as I passed him. I climbed up the floorboard to the second level.

“Aaaahhhhhh, yahhhghh!” Killjoy screamed, shaking the floorboard as he freed one hoof. I scrambled up the debris trying not to lose my footing and slide down. When I got to the top, I found a perfect weapon. From what I knew of this guy, it probably wasn’t going to kill him, but I didn’t really care.

“I’m not done with you. Get back here!” Killjoy yelled. There was no response back. “You yellow coward!” Killjoy yelled as he freed another hoof.

“You know me too well!” I said as I pushed the piano towards the edge of slope. “I am yellow!” I said leaning over top of the piano.

Killjoy squinted, putting his head on his hoof. “I don’t like you.” He said with robust frown. That club-flinging bastard double-timed his struggling, as I gave the piano a gentle push. He was most of the way out, when the music found him.

I turned around to make my escape. Sections of the flooring were falling, but I had some weird intuition of which areas could support me or not. The house buckled in toward the hole we had initially torn in it, throwing everything onto a slant. The erie scraping noises crawling up behind me gave me a chill. I glanced over my shoulder, only to realize that all the furniture in the room was sliding towards me. With a room full of cabinets pushing at my back, all I could do was orient myself toward the window, and jump. Putting my case at the front, I crashed through the window. The wave of furniture crumpled as it met the wall.

Aching, bruised, and sweating, I crawled away as best I could. I would be damned before I let myself lose by such a small margin. I turned back to the house as it crumbled in on itself. I looked back at the shambles left behind of the house and sighed. It had been a long fight… however before I could turn away, lightning flashed across the sky..

The stone club punched through the pile of debris. It folded the heavy fragments in on itself like it was a giant mandible.

Killjoy climbed to the top of the rubble and spit the dust from his mouth.

Again he charged, and I jumped to meet him in one final clash, when a figure flew over head. A scarlet array of burning lights filled the sky—illuminations flares. The ambient glow caught the image of one of those aberrant creatures as it darted through the sky. They were tall, well built creatures but they had little expression on their faces. They had both feathered wings and magical horns. My people called them demons of harmony, but they had gained another name…

“Was that a fucking alicorn?!” Killjoy’s eyes nearly fell out of his little raider head.

Something was off about this alicorn. Alicorns only came in three flavors: Sour apple, Grape, and Hawaiian Blue, but this alicorn’s coat was splotched like it was sick or something. Parts of the winged nightmare had taken in a red color. Whether she was actually red, I couldn’t tell because of the flares, but if I had to guess, she would be a deathly white.

A stunning stream of arcane spellfire rained from above. grape flavored alicorn viciously pursued the other, curling in its wings and dropping into a rapid dive. This one was fully armored, like it was geared for war. The strangely colored alicorn had banked a sharp turn, pivoting in the air. The mystery flavor alicorn’s horn shimmered, and a brilliant spell dust blade formed in the air, but before she could intercept, the electric howl of some kind of powerful pre-war cannon ripped through the sky. The shot was too fast to see, but the ricochet off of the first alicorn’s arcane shield was clear as day. The… cinnimon vanilla… or Wildberry alicorn beat it wings back and swooped towards direction of the shot. I love the wasteland, but when it throws these weird colored alicorns at me, it makes the system fall apart.

A sour apple alicorn took off from its sniping perch, but the discolored alicorn blinked from space and in the next instant she had struck the sour apple alicorn out of the sky. The sour apple mutant’s horn shined and her skin took on a layer of stone, becoming statuesque. The discolored alicorn shot a single star-like burst, shattering through the shield projected around the statue. The shot burrowed into the statue, and a fissure crawled up the stone surface. A hissing noise escaped from the cracks with a thick fume of smoke. The aberrant pony cackled hysterically.

“Did she just crack one of the watermelon ones?!?” Killjoy interjected.

“Watermelon?”

“They’re green on the outside, red on the inside. They’re watermelons.” Killjoy explained.

I didn’t have the attention to argue at this point. It didn’t matter. They were sour apple. That was final. I didn’t need his agreement.

The discolored alicorn wove out of the path of the grape dive bomber. Before she could hit the ground, the grape alicorn disappeared in a flash of magic light.

Suddenly the grape pony was chasing the mutated alicorn, firing a heavy barrage from a gatling style spell caster. The alicorn’s target slipped in between the spell charges, leaving the strikes to explode through several nearby buildings. The mutant rolled her wings in looping circularly over the grape alicorn. With a brilliant arch of light, a silver blade of magic sliced through the translucent barrier around the grape alicorn, fracturing it into cinders of spell dust. Her right wing was sheared from her body, sending her spiraling down near us.

When the discolored freak among devils landed, I could see a strange amulet fastened along her neck. It bore a red gemstone, with an ebony sculpt of a red-eyed pony with both wings and horn. She walked with an uncharacteristic gracelessness upon her hooves as she approached the other alicorn.

“Submit… Submit to the Unity.” The crippled alicorn shuddered as it spoke. Its horn was cracked, and it was bleeding profusely.

“I refuse…” The mutated creature flashed a venomous grin. “I don’t have any desire to be the puppet of wanna-be deities...”

“T-the unity… d-demands the key to… the new generation.” The grape pseudo-goddess raised her head in nobility, however, even the mental influence of the pool of thoughts couldn’t keep her from quaking pathetically. “We are strong… a solitary unit can not stand up to us…”

“An infestation of mindless insects wants me to give them the means of reproducing? You really are pathetic scum. Just tell me my name, damn it.”

“Resistance is futile.”

“Say…my…name.” A mass of spell dust materialized all around the unity alicorn. Her horn shimmered, sparks spitting relentlessly out of the fractured stub, as the shield took form around her.

The cloud of spell dust formed a barrier. Two points on the barrier spiraled downward into a bladed eddy. Spell static crackled as the vortex began to drill into the grape pony’s final defense. The silver barrier shrank in size it pulled tight over the alicorn. After a moment, the Unity alicorn’s resistance faded, and the shrinking sphere bent the wing-clipped alicorn’s infamous shield like it was some kind of gelatin, and the gyrating drills of magic, the width of a pony’s foreleg, dove into the shoulder and the pelvis, eviscerating large chunks of flesh. A cloud of splattering red mist coated the inside of the magic sphere. When the spell dissipated, the wall of viscera fell to the ground, revealing a macabre husk.

“She just turned that alicorn into a grape smoothie!” I panicked.

“And she also said ‘I’!” Killjoy added.

We took a moment to look at each other’s wide eyed, horribly contorted faces. Somewhere along the way, the terrified little fillies inside us both had galvanized us to clamor together, wrapping our hooves around each other in a pathetic display of instinctual fright. We were a shuddering, stallion, cry-pile of bitches. After all, it wasn’t everyday where you see one of the wasteland’s alpha predators get blenderized. We looked to each other, then to the alicorn, then back to each other.

“Truce?”

“Truce!”

We shook hooves on it.

“Sorry I dropped a piano on you…”

“S’alright.”

After a few moments of meditating on a particularly egregious case of what we call in the business, a “what in actual pastel pony colored fuck just happened?” incident, we realized just how uncomfortable this position was.

A devious sparkle caught Killjoy’s eye. He ran a quizzical eye over my ensemble.“Do you have glitter on you or something?”

“no….” The emotional stress foiled any slyness I could have worked for such a simple lie.

Killjoy carelessly flung me into the ground. “Eyaech! Don’t touch me!”

That glitter bomb was going to haunt me forever. Anyway, we started trying to sneak our way out. I unfortunately managed to overhear the Alicorn’s conversation in passing.

“Say my name…” The alicorn stomped a hoof down on the neck of the mangled remains of the Unity alicorn. By some twisted miracle, creature was still alive, covered in it’s own blood, its shallow breath weakly struggling vainly to not be drowned in vicera.

“Misera…ble…creature…” It said.

“hmmm… Misera? I guess it will have to do.”

“Pfffffft!!” My body blurted out involuntarily. Killjoy shot me a death glare. I shrugged painfully. How was I supposed to control myself when somepony actually chooses the kind of name that only a one-half dimensional, mustache-twirling, villain who likes kicking puppies would have? Watch out, Killjoy! She’ll kick you!

“Does something amuse you?” asked Mis… Miser… asked the crazy flying pony narwhal.

I took a deep breath. Find the words, Tumbleweed , I told myself. “It must take a lot of guts to pick a fight with one of the wastelands biggest and least socially adept chain gang. It is impressive, Miss.”

“Very polite. It’s good for the weak to know their place…” She looked around in smug approval. “Mis? A lovely nickname…” the renegade princess reject said as she walked far beyond my comfort zone, putting a hoof around my neck and petting my head. “The Unity are weak minded trash. In a group, decision falls down to the lowest denominator. They are nothing but a collective of genetically enhanced slop... I’m taking back everything they took from me…”

I was filled with a simmering rage at my involuntary enabling of her stupid name, but I had to stifle it if I was going to survive this. Being this close, I noticed a strange thing on her flank. It was some kind of remnant of a cutie mark, except it was hazy and blurred. Alicorns didn’t have those! Then I noticed the corpse she carried on her back. It was decked out in a high tech, heavy-looking black armor. What’s more was that it had wings! More winged bastards… what we’re they called again? The kind that didn’t have horns… I could of sworn I had the word earlier today…. Not the time, Tumblefuck! Safety! Survival! Those things you care about… I coughed to call myself together. “They are definitely going to come back here. You should get out of here before they send in their swarms. Alone, fighting so many alicorns could be difficult.” I said. Yes! That’s the way, Tumbleweed. That’s some excellent thinking!

“It is lonely at the peak of power, but it is the price I pay for identity. I saw this town in a fleeting memory. It’s in that MAS building. Knowing is worth the danger.” said ‘Miserable-taste-in-names’. “Hmm, almost time... I don’t like the location, but all I need is an earth pony.” Her eyes sparkled at the two of us. “Why don’t you come with me?”

Damn it! I could sing a song right now about how frustrated I was. I needed to think up lyrics…

She then with a telekinetic grip wrapped an invisible chain around Killjoy’s neck. “On second thought, you look better suited for the spell.”

Spell? What? Did I just dodge getting ‘Temple of Doomed?’ The alicorn dragged Killjoy toward the Town hall stage. Killjoy kicked and struggled, but even with his ridiculous strength it didn’t help him. He gave me a look of desperation.

I didn’t owe him anything, right? Couple minutes ago he was trying to kill me. … I did swear a truce. Damn it, I needed to be more thorough with setting the terms of those kinds of contracts. My old self was smarter than this. I was getting soft.

I followed after them. The splotched pony rose onto the stage. She had also dragged the corpse of the alicorn along with her.

With a magic energy she cut an intricate set of grooves into the wood of the stage. She pooled the blood of the armored pony and the alicorn in two different isometric wells.

Concentrating intensely, she sparked the magical catalyst, gathering her wells of power. The amulet around her neck glowed and spell static flavored the air. Her pupil vanished in the flood of light that poured out of them. It was a fireball… no... more like a small star, but it was dark, it had no light. The temperature started to spike in a deadly way. She launched the star high into the cloud ceiling.

She then turned to Killjoy and floated a simple knife to his chest.

“That is going to take forever, Kalimare. Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size.” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth.

“What happened to that polite pony from before?” The false goddess walked towards me.

The knife moved with an alacrity I was not expecting. It rose up to my neck, and made a delicate cut. My blood began to flow…

“oh hoho, I was wrong... Your blood is magnificent. This vibrant hue, you’ve done terrible things, haven’t you?”

I didn’t want to hear that when I was actually doing something arguable heroic. I wasn’t listening, I had maybe eight seconds of consciousness left to do something ridiculous. It wasn’t a deep cut, maybe I had a bit longer... I had to try for something.

The demon levitated a measure of blood to fill the third well. “With this, the unity will think twice about coming for me, and it will give that blockage up in front of the MAS building the push it needs.”

I didn’t even care to listen to the words. I couldn’t waste a precious moment as my blood seeped out. This was a fatal injury, and even as I pressed my neck to keep blood in going to my brain, I wouldn’t have much longer than 30 seconds to live and that would be generous. I was searching frantically through my bags. I had one. A potion for this type of emergency. Where the hell did I put it? Damn it all. I was gonna die.

… but it wasn’t there.

Part of me realized I wasn’t going to find it. I looked up in defeat, but I wasn’t ready for what I saw.

The sky itself was being ripped apart. The clouds strained, as lightning flared unnaturally across the landscape. Smoke poured out of one of those giant towers in the distance.

But the thing I was not prepared to see, was the great shining orb in the sky staring down above me. The moon...

In those moments my mind raced in complete disbelief. What the hell was going on? What was ponyville? I didn’t know. My vision faded, and I could feel the heat rapidly pouring out of my body.

The last thing I remember was something hitting me, almost crushing me.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Author's Notes:

*jumps out from behind the curtain*
That's it! He's dead!
Yup, that's totally the end of Joker's Wild, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it. And remember, don't listen to anything about chapter 4 or further stuff, those blog posts totally lie. Yeah, totally...

What ever crazy stuff is happening, I assure you, it is definitely not only just beginning...