Adventures of Kaise and Co.

I lived a nice life, although not in the luxury of the city like most ponies desire; it was too cramped and too expensive for a larger family like mine. We lived with my on a farm in pretty much the middle of nowhere. I was small, by my family’s standards at least, but that didn’t bother me much, especially because I proved the strongest on many occasions! Almost all the rest of my family was a unicorn, although I was a genetic anomaly and was born an Earth pony. Sure I couldn’t pick stuff up and do magic like they could, and it took me a bit longer to do up my saddle bags and harnesses, but when it came to farm work, I out-pulled them all every time! That was until the raiders showed up.

It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, a small group of around 10 set up camp on the edge of the farm; we had many groups of nomads in the area, but not usually in the middle of the season. Even still, we paid them little attention. This was a very big mistake.

I was in the field, taking a nap under one of the apple trees, taking a break from field work when there was that recognizable crack of a shotgun, accompanied by the shattering of glass, and screaming. I ran home as fast as I could, to find that the “nomads” had clothed themselves in thick leather and iron plating, and most of them had a gun of sorts. I was lucky they didn’t notice me at first, which in retrospect, probably saved my life. The unicorn that had the shotgun floating next to him also had a rather large knife strapped to his foreleg. I sneaked in through the back door to find my family curled up in a corner, with my dad holding his old service carbine, the royal guard had given him, as commemoration of his service in Celestia’s elite guard.

“You better come out little ponies! We don’t want to hurt you… yet. We just want to take you with us as travel companions!” The one with the shotgun said with a harsh, grating voice that hurt my ears. When there was no reply, he quickly lost his temper, which made his voice sound even worse. “You have ten seconds to get your tails out here or we slaughter you all, and hang your entrails on the fence”! Sheesh… talk about a short fuse to extreme measures… He started to count down, “ten, nine eight…” my dad shot me a sideways glance through a hole in the wall and said something that I couldn’t hear to mom, and my siblings, “Get out of here, I’ll deal with these guys!” he said as loud as he dared “go on! GO”. We started to edge out of the house and around the back. I knew my dad was strong, but he had no chance when the odds were 10:

1 and were much stronger, much younger and better armed colts, and he knew it. The raiders didn’t seem to notice our escape. “Four, three, two, one…” There was a pause, then the rattling of my dad’s semi auto carbine, two stumbled, but recovered quickly, the leader unicorn flinched, and somepony quickly threw up a magical shield. The majority of the bullets missed completely. There was a metallic ping as the cartridge was ejected. The pony who I assumed was the leader laughed, dry and cackling, loaded shells with a red and orange band and shot the plaster wall which exploded and caught fire. They all moved in, a short time later there were some loud thumps and a squeal or two, followed by a loud snap of bone and my dad was launched through a window, and landed in heap, limp, lifeless and bleeding badly.

“FIND THOSE OTHERS! AND BRING THEM TOO ME!!!” The leader bellowed. The youngest, Haystack, started to cry, and then without warning dashed towards the lifeless figure that was my dad. BANG. There was nothing left above his shoulders, due to the exploding buckshot. I turned to my family “Run, and don’t stop until you’ve found help, and for the love of Celestia, keep quiet.” I ordered. It was a strange tone for me, as usually I was not the one to lead, but they got the message and started running. Only to be mowed down by a hidden raider with a machinegun who had moved out from behind a tree. I was furious, I charged at him, my forehead connecting with his chest. He grunted and stumbled back a few paces. The commotion had attracted the attention of the main group, and they quickly had me surrounded. A streak of orange and black from behind a tree told me that Havoc, who was only a few months older than me, had survived. I pretended to not have seen anything. Havoc launched himself into the air and brought one hoof down on one of my attackers’ back. There was a sickening snap as his spine shattered. He landed gracefully he could, but he wasn’t unscathed. It looked as though he was keeping his weight off his back leg, as he limped to my side.

“Looks like yer friend survived. Well, that means more fun for us” a cream coated stallion with a rifle grinned taking the occasional shot to keep us off balance. I was enraged, I spun around, keeping most of my weight on my fore-hooves, and apple-bucked, my hind legs connected with the nearest chest, breaking bone and my old work horseshoes tearing flesh. Once the force of the buck had overwhelmed his mass, he was launched back a good five feet and landed in a crumpled heap, bleeding baldy and taking ragged breaths. The rest were in shock.  Apparently, they’d never seen a colt my size, not even shoulder high, stand up to them, much less buck somepony twice my size that far. There was an unbearable pain in my flank as a hailstorm of lead ripped through it. “Well, looks as if you just earned yourself a hell ‘uv a beating, you have”, as the leader stood over me. He yanked the machete out of his colleague’s bindings much to his anger, and wrapped it in a field of black telekinetic magic and swung it in a wide arc toward my head, but rolled and it hit my knee on my right foreleg, leaving it hanging by skin and torn muscle. Having lost all my balance and woozy from blood loss, collapsed on my face, where he swung again and again. Purposely not killing, but severely crippling me, none the less, I did my best to dodge.

“You should keep still! It would end a lot faster!”. His friend walked over avoiding my body and whispered something that made the leader smile wickedly. “Now, you two get his friend!” they turned his direction but staggered back as a flash of red lightning, and the smell of ozone. “Why’d you let him escape!?!?!” He bellowed.

“Sorry boss, didn’t know he could teleport! Almost nopony can do that!” one muttered.

“If so, he can’t of gone far, scan the area! FIND HIM!!!”

He turned back to face me. “Okay, change ‘uv plan, we’re gonna let you run”

“Wh…What?” I managed to stammer over the pain and blood loss

“Eeeyup, we’re gonna let you run. It wouldn’t be very fair otherwise!”

Oh great, they’re going to let me run just to use me as a target.  I tried to stand, and promptly fell on my face...again. The raiders laughed and teased. The leader lifted me up and practically slammed me onto my hooves. I ignored the rapid onset of light-headedness and disorienting colors that followed and started to half-walk-half-fall in the general direction of safety.

“Now MOVE, before I change my mind and gun you down on the spot”

I didn’t need telling twice. I ran as fast as I could, (which in my current state, was not very fast). They let me go for a less than 20 feet before they started to shoot. That probably had to do with the leader’s twisted idea of ‘fair play’. Most of the bullets missed, which was good, because I couldn’t dodge to save my life (no pun intended). Running with two-and-a-half-legs is hard enough when you aren’t in pain, woozy from blood loss, and being shot at. I didn’t get much further, when the barrage stopped. The leader had most likely had gotten bored of seeing me run and decided to finish me. A particularly large caliber tore through my side, narrowly missing most vital organs, effectively ending my escape. I skidded to a stop, stones and twigs making the hole wider and filling it with debris and collapsed in the dirt, done for. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination, but I managed a weak smile as a stray cloud storm chased the raiders, five of the ones who remained got toasted when one tried to shoot it. Then the bliss of sleep took me one final time.