Third person, ghost town:

Red sat on a chair with his rifle resting on a table that peered out onto the streets below. Milo stood vigilant while Mane sat, still bound in cuffs. The group had been unable to break the chains, and would only be able to break them if they shot the chain links. Milo had told not to risk the noise and Mane agreed. Red didn’t care either way.

“So… Mr. Red…how’d you come to be… missing, your limb?” Mane asked curiously. Red smiled deviously.

“Well… back when I was… oh shit, uhm… about 16 I guess. The gryphon motherland sends me and a few others over to this shithole country… Marexico, on some godforsaken mission from our glorious leader. Anyway… I get over to Marexico and these savage buffalo capture me not even twenty minutes into the country. They ask ‘Why are you here, gryphon scum?’ I looked at them, they were all scrawny as hell but there were a lot of them. ‘Well excuse me.’ Says I ‘But it was your glorious leader who sent me.’ I told them. True to my word, it was actually the rebel boss buffalo who had pleaded for help. So they took a handful of us and sent us over. The others were killed but they kept me alive.” Red informed the other two. Mane listened in part fascination while Milo just rolled his eyes and looked back to the streets below.

“So they take this hammer right, this ugly little cudgel looking thing… and they smash my entire hand until literally every bone is broken… then they begin peeling off my talons and skin until all that is left is a fleshy, bloody, fucked looking hand.” Red smiled as he displayed his knife hand, the blade fully extended.

“Anyway so they keep torturing me, thinking that I’ll give them precious information about the zebras. Well unfortunately for them, I didn’t know jack shit about the zebras.” Red said with a hearty laugh before continuing the story. “So they begin to strip away all the meat from my hand, until only little dangles of meat are left, and a single pointed bone. The other bones had come off with the meat, mixed in like ground beef. They tossed away the hammer and pulled out a rusty knife… said they’d slit my throat.” Red smirked.

“So what happened after that?” Mane asked, interested in where the story was heading.

“I used my bone that was protruding from my crushed limb to stab the bastard in the throat… you should have seen him. He was gurgling like ‘Gah… ahhh… gaughah.’ And I was like ‘HA!’ A bunch of other buffalo entered but I stabbed them all to death with my bone… that’s when I got the idea. Make my seemingly useless limb, into something lethal.” He replied with another laugh.

“On the street, 11 o’clock.” Milo informed Red. He peered through his gritty scope to see that blue mare he hadn’t really talked to. He squeezed the trigger and a bullet slammed into her side, blood spurting from an exit wound.

Red smiled. “One down.” He commented but Milo broke him the bad news.

“Not quite… that was a hologram spell.” He told the now frowning gryphon. Mane smirked.

“Oh, she’s good.” Mane said as he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a bible then began to read it aloud to the others, but rather silently as to not agitate them.

Red rolled his eyes. “Well… who’s up for some soup?” He asked. Milo and Mane looked to him with a curious look on each of their faces.

Billy sighed. “I didn’t see where it came from… he must be hidden deep inside a building somewhere.” Billy told his now exhausted friend. The spell had taken a lot out of her. “Hey, don’t worry, you did good.” Billy said as he tussled Brixie’s purple mane.

Brixie gave him a genuine smile before the two shared a brief kiss. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news… but it’s hardly the time to get frisky.” Elijah muttered. Brixie looked to him then smiled faintly.

“You know… that was the same spell I used for my act…” She trailed off with a huff for breath. “It was only my mom and I… I put on the act to pay for her to get medical treatment that she needed but… well magic shows didn’t really pay that well unless you ‘Really’ put on a show.” She told Elijah.

“So I decided to do a magic show where I’d put a mare under brainwash and make her undress for the crowd. Not to many ponies clued in that the other mare looked almost identical to me… the majority of them just tossed money to the stage as she undressed.” Brixie had a small chuckle.

“I guess there was a scornful mare in the crowd who knew magic… she reported me to the police who arrested me for fraud.” Brixie said before having a faint laugh then her face saddened. “My mother… died while I was serving forty-eight hours in jail… she didn’t die of her sickness… she died a broken heart. I know it because she had left a note before she passed away. It read about how proud she was of me… and how sad it made her that I would resort to near thievery…” Brixie shed a tear.

Billy went to hold her tight before John whistled over to them. Billy looked over to John who motioned for him to look at a building on the other side of town. Billy peered down the street with the scope of his Lee Enfield.

John whispered over to him. “Third building to the left where they used to be hiding… second floor.” John called out to his friend. Billy looked to the spot John was talking about and saw a rifle barrel that was slung across a certain gryphon’s back.

He saw a hat rise up through a window and Billy quickly fired. The hat was knocked away but there was no blood to confirm a kill. Billy scowled to himself.

Red looked to the hat. “Told you so… we need a new hiding place.” He called over to Milo who looked back to him with cold eyes. Red crawled over towards a hallway with no windows. Halfway down the hallway, the walkway was destroyed by explosive damage. There was a gap that spanned about 7 feet.

“Who’s up for a little long jump?” He asked the other two. Milo stepped forth to jump but Red held him back. “Nah… I think you jumped first last time… it’s my turn to jump first… you can have a bullet put in your knickers while old Uncle Red sips on his tea.” Red snickered.

The gryphon stood first, Milo behind him, then Mane in the rear. Mane concentrated hard and thought of John. ‘John… Red’s jumping first, then Milo, then me… make sure you hit the right target.’ He thought.

John’s mind was invaded by a telepathic message. “Billy… shoot the second jumper.” John called over to Billy who just returned his request with a curious look. “Just trust me… he’s the most dangerous.” John told him.

He knew that at this range, Milo was far more dangerous than Red. In a brief moment, Billy saw the gryphon leap across the gap. He went to pull the trigger and slay the menace, but recalled what John had said. Waiting only a fraction of a moment more, he squeezed the trigger and his rifle shot cracked through the air.

The zebra literally lept into his shot as he tried to jump across the gap as well. A lone .303 round slammed into the side of his head, spinning his body around as his body went limp and crashed against the ledge of the other floor. Mane was already across before Milo’s body flumped to the ground in a lifeless heap.

“I got him.” Billy informed John. Billy looked away from his rifle. “The zebra, John?” He asked, wondering why John would have him kill the zebra rather than Red.

“WHAT?!” Elijah hissed. At first he had thought that Billy had shot Red, ending that psychopath’s life. Now he was furious that he had instead shot the zebra, who, to him, didn’t matter as much as Red.

“Milo was a veteran marksman… at this range he’s deadlier than Red.” John told his friend. Elijah was still having trouble stomaching the thought but quickly came to bear with the whole situation. John was right, and he couldn’t let personal vendettas endanger the group.

Red looked down the gap. “Well shit…” He muttered. He peeked around the corner of the building before ducking back behind cover and escorting Mane along with him. “It’s gonna take a little more than luck to deal with these bastards huh?” He chuckled.

Billy waited while Elijah’s tensions quickly rose. He wanted to see Red dead with his own eyes, for redemption… for revenge, and everything in between. Billy let out a deep exhale but suddenly Elijah lept up and rushed away. “ELIJAH!” Billy yelled. John watched his war veteran friend foolishly rush up the side of the main street.

“Got one.” Red muttered as he fired a shot, but he fired too late and the bullet simply kicked up dirt behind Elijah’s hooves as he galloped along. Red shot again but once again he missed.

Elijah cocked back the charging bolts on each of his Maxim machineguns and let loose. .303 rounds sprayed through the air and riddled the walls that Red and Mane hid behind. Red risked a shot which just barely missed Elijah.

Elijah drew closer to the building and slid behind some crates across the street from the building. Elijah pulled a stick of dynamite from his battle saddle and lit it. The fuse sparked and hissed frightfully as it burned towards its core.

He looked to the building then tossed the dynamite into the building and only moments later, the building was the origin of a large explosion that rocked the rickety old building. Elijah rushed up to where Red was just getting to his feet. The grey stallion let out a war cry as he tackled Red through a wall.

The duo began to duke it out. Red head-butted Elijah but it barely fazed him. Elijah returned his head-butt with a powerful and swift knee to the gut, which knocked the wind out of him.

Red swung and elbow into Elijah’s temple that dazed him and sent him crashing through a flimsy wall. The gryphon pounced towards him but Elijah managed to roll away just as Red drove his knife hand into the floor.

It jammed into the floor and Red struggled to break free as Elijah stood up. “Stupid shit… this is for BEAR!” Elijah roared as he kicked Red in the face, knocking him onto his back. He tried to get back up but Elijah booted him again. “And this is for ME!” He roared as he kicked him for a second time, this kick bringing blood into Red’s mouth.

“And this… is for what you did… TO BEAR!” Elijah roared but just as he went to curb stomp Red, the gryphon slipped the knife out of the floor and stabbed Elijah in the leg. The big stallion howled in pain as Red lept up and drove the knife into his right shoulder.

Red twisted the knife before pulling it out and going finish the job. “Night, night… hero stallion.” Red sneered insultingly. Elijah quickly kicked Red’s left knee backwards. The gryphon screeched in pain as he staggered back, grasping his wounded limb.

Elijah rushed him and drove his own knife hand into his gut before ripping the gryphon’s C96 automatic pistol from his holster. Red staged back against the wall as he gripped his gut painfully. Elijah quickly lined up a shot with Red who spat blood onto the floor in front of Elijah’s hooves.

“I ain’t beggin you… I ain’t never gonna beg for mercy.” Red spat. Elijah squeezed the trigger back and the gunshot rang through the house before Red collapsed with a bullet hole in his chest.

“Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.” Said a voice, who Elijah spun to face. Black Mane trotted forwards, still bound in hoof cuffs. “You know… if we all took an eye for an eye… than the world would be blind.” Mane stated. Elijah simply dropped the still smoking pistol to the floor, landing in close proximity to the still smoking brass shell casing.

Author's Notes:

And Elijah, is a badass. "It's about soup time isn't it?" Anyway, I'm glad to be writing again, and glad that some people are still reading. So thank you