Hooves, Vigors, and Ammo

The lightning iluminated the combat zone. Somwhere in Columbia, a fight was going on.

Booker jumped off of the Sky-Line with a groan accompanying his landing as he plunged his Sky-Hook through the chest of an officer, rending his heart after tearing through his rib-cage. Booker was an ex-Pinkerton, known for his violent methods and controlling strikes.

After many a wrong-doing in the military, Booker had spent years in gambiling and drinking and had amassed quite an amount of debt. So, he had come here, to Columbia, to bring a girl named Elizabeth home with him. She would wipe clean his debt. And now, he was here, where Elizabeth was supposed to be - the massive, golden, angelic statue in the sky. Taking one last look at the scene surrounding him, he opened a door in the side quietly and walked in.

There was no end to the number of strange and suspiciously sinister devices he'd passed on his way in here. From what he could gather, this girl was of great importance to the people of Columbia, though the prophet, Comstock, seemed to take great care in the controlling of her life. It didn't matter now, though, because he would get the job done.

Booker passed some corridors with screens into rooms more suitable to be a home than the metallic hallways through which he walked. Eventually, through, he came upon a lever, which he pulled.

The wall opened up, apparently - through it, he could see a girl - the girl he was looking for - looking back at him, However, what she was looking at didn't seem to be him. She seemed to be looking into a mirror, but the wall was one-way; Booker could see her, but she could not see him. Thus, he just observed.

After a relatively short time of looking at herself in the mirror, the girl picked up a photograph from the counter and held it close to her, like the image was a treasure. She ran off into the next room, and Booker continued along the corridors.

The next room he looked into from behind his one-way window was a little different. The most prominent image in the room beyond, which was so thin it looked more like a hallway than a room, had an easel with a bright, colorful painting of the Eiffel Tower on it. To the left of the easel, behind Elizabeth, were a number of assorted drawings pinned to the wall. Looking on at her as she places the photo from the other room down and walks over to the easel, Booker thinks to himself, "Well, what else would she be doing in there all day? She's alone in there all the time." He squints to see what she's doing next, and when a light begins to glow from in front of her, his brow furrows in curiosity and concern.

As Elizabeth pushes her arms out from her chest, the glow intensifies. Booker stares on in awe as he witnesses her open a tear in the fabric of reality itself. Through it, he sees the streets of Paris and the Eiffel Tower, in glorious color and sound, sihponing a startled "Woah! What is...?" from his mouth. Before he can take it all in, however, a vehicle careens towards the opening, and Elizabeth is forced to shut it.

Panicked thoughts race through Booker's mind for the brief moment the vehicle is heading towards them, and he resists the urge to bolt to the side as Elizabeth closes the rift, though he continues to pant. 'What was that?' he thought to himself. 'This is going to be more complicated than I...' his thoughts trail off, and he shakes out his head. Out loud, he reminds himself: "Whatever that was, it's got nothing to do with the job at hand."

As Booker ascended the nearby set of stairs up to the next observation room, he couldn't help but think back on what he just witnessed. Would he have to put up with that while he escorted the girl to safety? He commented to himself, "This job's getting worse all the time..."

As though coincidence were out to answer his questions, a Voxaphone was waiting on a chair at the top of the stairs. He picked it up, sat down, and listened:

"What makes the girl different? I suspect it has less to do with what she is... and rather more with what she is not. A small part of her remains from where she came. It seems the universe does not like its peas mixed with its porridge!"

Booker had taken the time to check himself in a nearby metal panel. He was a towering six feet and one inch tall, white with somewhat bony cheeks, chestnut hair, and hazel eyes. His gray striped pants, gray button-up shirt and its white collar, his watered-down blue jacket, and the skin where his sleeves were rolled up were all stained with blotches of blood. His red handkerchief, however, looked to be just fine. He had a vary rugged look to him overall, and he also had a brand on his right hand that said "AD".

Once the recording had ended, he hit a button on the wall, just wanting to continue at this point. "Library," he muttered to himself as he proceeded - that's where he needed to go.

Opening the next door led him to a balcony with a less-than-safe-looking railing. He warily ascended up to the safety of the walled metal corridor... until the floor collapsed unexpectedly beneath him, sending him falling down into the library below. Frantically flailing his arms around, he managed to latch onto a balcony in the library and pulled himself slightly up to look a thoroughly startled Elizabeth in the eyes. She was clutching a book against her chest and staring with caution and wonder in her eyes down at Booker. "Uhh... hello?" was all he had to say to get her to throw her arms back and stumble backwards, sending her book flying, and to shriek loudly. Booker lost his grip on the balcony, falling to the library floor below. Upon hitting his back against the floor, he lets out a pained groan, and to add to that, Elizabeth throws a book from the balcony down at him. Thankfully, it missed.

"HEY!" shouts Booker, reaching a hand up to block any further projectiles. "KNOCK IT OFF- Ugh!" he exclaims as Elizabeth throws another book at him, descending the stairs. "Will you stop it??" She approaches him a little more, another book in her hand, and Booker repeats: "WILL YOU STOP IT??" An exhausting pain in his head draws his hand back to it as Elizabeth approaches him with a book and he mutters, "Not here to hurt you..."

"Who are you??" she demands, book at the ready.

Booker takes her pause to gather himself and rise to his feet. As he gets up, he tells her: "My name is Dewitt... I'm a friend." He reaches an arm over to her shoulder as he continues, "I've come to get you out of-"

"Get away!" she exclaims, drawing away, attempting to whack him with her book again, but Booker holds her back. Her panting comes to a stop when she realizes he's not a threat and she actually looks at Dewitt for the first time. She raises a hand to his face as though she were about to touch him, where Booker notices she has a thimble on her pinky finger, which appears to be somewhat severed, and she asks seemingly to herself: "Are you real...?"

Booker simultaneously gets his first good look at her. He dwarfed her five-foot six-inch caucasian frame. Her wide, blue eyes which stared unblinkingly into his were courageous but cautious oceanic wells of curiosity. He replies, "I'm real enough."

As she was about to caress his cheek with her hand in an effort to affirm her excited hopes, she's interrupted by a whistle that comes from a nearby statue of the prophet, Comstock.

Elizabeth gives the statue a fleeting glance before turning back to Booker. "He's coming..." she starts, pushing him away a little. "You've gotta go!"

"Why?" asks Booker calmly. Suddenly, a loud, mechanical, high-pitched squeal echoes into the room from the ceiling above, which answered Booker's question.

"You don't wanna be here when he get's here-" she pauses, turning to the ceiling and shouting: "JUST A MINUTE! I'M GETTING DRESSED!!"

Booker remains calm when he says, "I can get you out of here." The sound echoes again, louder this time. The walls begin to pound with the sound of metal on metal.

"There's no way out, trust me, I've looked!" she resignedly replies. "STOP IT! YOU'RE TOO IMPATIENT - THAT'S ENOUGH!!"

"What about this?" asks Booker, holding out an ornate brass key. The side facing Elizabeth was the cage, but Booker spun it in his hand to show her the side with the bird on it.

"What about it??" she exclaimed, not paying much attention to Booker or his key.

Booker held his other hand out and gave it to her.

From then on, Elizabeth had grown to trust Booker with her freedom. There were pitfalls in their friendship, but they perservered. They fought throughout Columbia together until they came to the First Lady gunship.

After having done combat with the Vox Populi over complicated multi-dimensional stuff, they were on their way to kill Comstock, that bastard, for locking Elizabeth up in that tower most of her life and siphoning off her powers.

Booker jumped onto it, Sky-Hook gripped tightly in his left hand, the beautiful streets of Columbia caked in the blood and bodies of fallen policemen, yet more kept on coming from buildings and from gunships. The Columbian gunship he boarded resembled a shallow-bottomed barge, and it had a small cabin in the rear and an open deck. Inside the cabin was the mechanical pilot, which indicated that the vehicle operation was at least partially automated. Booker noted that he could exploit the gunship's cargo hooks to board it as an attacker, and beckoned for Elizabeth to follow.

He made his plan as he rode high on the Sky-Line, pistol fire barely missing him. He jumped onto the gunship, using his Charge Vigor, which manifested as wind around his Sky-Hook, to propel himself at lightning speed down at one of the officers, who was knocked clean off the gunship. He plummeted into depths unknown, screaming for help, but none came as he disappeared beneath the cloud layer. Booker turned for another officer behind him, the last one on the ship, who was firing on him from his pistol. Just as Booker's shield broke, he fired his shotgun at the officer, staggering him. To finish the fight, he used his Undertow Vigor to launch a tsunami of water from his hand, sending that officer flying off the edge as well.

Elizabeth landed on the gunship beside Booker. By now, she'd gotten out of the clothes she wore during her imprisonment and got into something more appropriate - a blue dress with a white lining at the bottom. She was perched on black, heeled boots, and her hair had been cut shorter. It draped down in layers over her cheeks.

"Booker, I... uhh... wow," she managed. "That was graphic." Her voice was full of innocence that seemed to be slowly washing away, revealing a golden heart of strength and determination.

Booker grimaced, but turned to her. "Too violent? I thought you said you'd get used to it." His voice was gruff and tough, but had a pain to it... like he hated every kill he made. He holstered his shotgun, drawing his pistol just in case. Elizabeth shuddered, nodding.

"Yeah, I will, just... still getting used to it."

Before either of them could react, a gunship came up behind them. All Booker could here was the sound of an RPG firing before the engine's roar was drowned in the explosion. Metal bent and the jets gave out; the thing began to fall! Booker grabbed onto Elizabeth as quickly as he could and hooked them both onto a Sky-Line before they could fall. The enemy gunship was in rapid pursuit, their guns trailed on them!

"BOOKER, A TEAR!!" Elizabeth shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice barely surpassing the gushing wind.

"Open it! NOW!!"

Elizabeth didn't need to be told twice. She opened the tear to an unknown city square, and they dropped from the Sky-Line, tumbling with a thunk.

Booker looked around the strangely familiar streets... but only familiar in the sense that it looked like Columbia. It had all the same 1918-style architecture, roads made of stone and Sky-Lines around the city. On the tallest building, there was one of those big screens Comstock normally showed his face on, but the first thing Booker noticed was all the ponies running around. Ponies, in clothes! Like his own, only... they're ponies! They fled from where Booker and Elizabeth appeared, some using the Sky-Lines with Sky-Hooks designed for the hoof, others galloping into buildings, and the rare unicorn teleporting away.

The second thing he noticed was a propaganda poster with him on it, looking like he was about to hurt a young, innocent unicorn filly in a school uniform. The bold red words underneath read: "Beware the Homo-Sapien, for the y are from the Everfree, the place of evil, and they will slaughter the innocent as they are agents of Discord!"

The third thing Booker noticed were the ponies in gold, segmented plate armor galloping towards them, shouting: "Death to the Homo-Sapiens!" At this, Elizabeth ran for cover and potential tears became visible all over the place.

Booker drew his pistol and sighed. "Here we go again."