“Thanks for listening children! This is DJ-PON-3 OUT, remember, stay tuned for more updates on our Wasteland Heroine’s feats!”
Silver Bolt left out a loud grunt, expressing his displeasure. He went to the radio and turned it off, no point wasting energy.
He wondered why he even bothered hearing the DJ, so far hearing the radio news only made him hate the Wasteland Heroine so much more… nevertheless he always tuned it on the hopes of hearing about her demise, which the DJ never announced.
His lazy gaze drifted around his dusty weapons shop. The place had its days of glory back in time; he used to run a profitable business… those were the days, when even foals packed heat. The stallion used to make a lot of dough; he used to be the most respectable citizen of Parasprite Falls, a small settlement like many others that sprouted along the Ponave desert.
All of that gradually faded because of that single, damnable mare. By setting the example, the Wasteland Heroine encouraged several wannabe heroes to take up arms and make the world a safer, more peaceful place. They gradually eliminated most of the threats out there, rendering Silver Bolt’s business dry… few townsponies needed weapons, relying on these “brave adventurers” for protection, and offering their hospitality in turn for it.
The weapons shop was now a decayed building, where the black earth pony with a white mane and three bolts on his flank spent most of his days locked, broiling hatred over a mare he never met on his life… on the day that the DJ pon-3 announced that blue was the Wasteland Heroine’s favorite color, the stallion made a bonfire with everything remotely blue-colored on his store, on the day that the radio program revealed that the Wasteland Heroine was a filly-fooler, he turned into a homophobe before the DJ even completed his sentence.
One of the few things that made Silver Bolt happy was that radio of his… he spent a ton of caps hooking up spare parts and used his natural talent for mechanics to make the machine capable of picking and decrypting simple-coded comms up to a distance of five kilometers, provided his antennae was undamaged.
The mechanic left out a shrug as he glanced over his beloved machinery… every day he tuned it hoping to hear that the Wasteland Heroine was killed, he never heard such… the stallion begun to even question the existence of a Wasteland Heroine, for all he knew, it could be a hoax, a story made up to scare raiders and other crooks. The mechanic lit a cigarette... that mare bothered him so much that it drove him to smoke.
He lifted up from his stool and made his way towards the front of the store. There still were a few weapons on display, doing nothing but catching dust… it had been months since Silver Bolt made a sale, the only ponies who ever visited him were those “goody-two-shoes-right-out-of-the-diapers-adventurer-types” who roamed around the desert taking out radhogs and talking about it like it was a big deal, who received their first and, most of the time, only weapon from retired adventurers who looted them from raiders or other hostiles. Most of them either wanted repairs (which amounted to a few scratches almost all of the time) or came to offload crap on him: broken pipbucks, cockatrice poison glands, toy cars, burnt slave collars and all the kind of worthless shit he could even imagine, he often used all of his willpower to not wisecrack on them, hoping that these kind of ponies would have a special circle on the Tartarus. Indeed, there were caps to be made out of these things, but the amount of work and the meager profits often discouraged other merchants from buying them.
Silver Bolt, on the other hoof, had tons of time available, and used the opportunity to broil even more hatred over the Wasteland Heroine while working on the things. The results of his work were often scrap metal, miscellaneous electronics and other usable materials, nothing really valuable, but still enough so that he could make a living out of it, although none as glamorous as the one he once had…
It was on one of those days that seemed like many others that he heard a soft static out of radio. Thinking that it was interference or something, he begun to fiddle over the many dials of the machine, setting levels and frequencies until the noise was eliminated, hoofing through the various frequencies, the stallion cruised over one particular frequency where a voice could be heard clearly, not like the melodious voice of the DJ PON-3, but a hoarse voice, filled with sadistic pleasure and evil.
“… It’s going to be a piece of cake… they won’t even see what whacked them, stupid town. Just a few more nights until we take out these half-assed “protectors” of theirs, and then we will be able to wreck havoc on their little settlement: raid the city, dismember everypony, get high on the chems we can make with their crap and then, BURN EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND!”
Silver Bolt quickly rose from his stool, the message still taking a while to kick in… raiders, he intercepted a raider comm… they already taken out some of the adventurers, and it wouldn’t be long until they were into the town.
The stallion scampered outside, heading straight to the town hall: a big, wrecked building which was in slightly better shape than the others on Parasprite Falls.
He trotted inside, not paying respects for etiquette or other silly protocols, it was a damn emergency and Miss Keyring should be notified.
Yes, he tried to convince the mayor from the validity of the threats, which should be taken with upmost seriousness, yet, the mare dismissed him, attesting that “If Parasprite Falls were under a real danger, our protectors would surely notice and inform us about something… from what I see, this is nothing but a pitiful attempt of yours to try to panic people into buying some of your weapons. I know it’s hard, but you gotta move on, get a new business or something.”
There were no words that could express the rage that Silver Bolt felt at the words, he, who worked so hard to make Parasprite Falls what it was today, whose advice was so respected back then, now was taken by a pathetic rabble-rouser…
On the way back to his home, the stallion set his mind. He had no love for the other equines in Parasprite Falls, in fact, he loathed them. Let them suffer their ill destiny.
Every night from that day, Silver Bolt moved stuff from his shop to an empty cave, one of the many that were encrusted on the hills overlooking Parasprite Falls. Once, these caves had been home for a number of parasprites which often swarmed into the settlement, hence the name “Parasprite Falls”. Nowadays, the caves were empty of creatures and loot, the result of the overzealous efforts of many treasure-seeking adventurers. Since they were long since empty and unused, Silver Bolt was sure that he wouldn’t be bothered while up there.
For three nights he took what he could from his shop: weapons, foodstuffs, scrap materials and the like, the last thing he took was his radio when he heard that the raiders would raze the town next night.
And he saw the fires from up there… with an old pair of binoculars; he saw everypony there suffering the worst of fates at the hooves of the raiders. On that night, a river of blood flowed through the town.
Silver Bolt found the scene quite pleasuring… he saw everypony who doubted him, who took for granted their security, being torn apart.
He was glad that he was able to bring his thermo… there’s nothing like watching a bloodbath while sipping on a cup of hot coffee.
Although it was pleasing at first to watch all being torn to dust, the mechanic begun to think about what to do now that the town was destroyed. He had no place to go, nopony to follow… his stock of foodstuffs would last a month, at best.
Silver Bolt spent the next week observing the raiders. He knew he should move on and find a new direction in life, but it couldn’t be helped… it was an incredibly worthless exercise of observation, and yet, he was fascinated by the raiders’ stupidity.
Having killed everypony in town, there was a limit to how much they could pillage from it, and eventually, some of the raiders thought they deserved more than the others.
On the first day, there were twenty raiders.
Four days later, there were only half a dozen remaining.
These raiders, they had some nerve… Silver Bolt conceded that. But it was to no use: without a proper direction, they were nothing but dumb puppets that fared under the whip of the dumbest and strongest raider.
During one of his observations, a crazy idea formed on the stallion’s mind… “Why not me?” He thought, “These raiders could milk a helluva lot more off from their victims if they were set on the right path.”
Packing some of his foodstuffs and taking a shotgun from his personal arsenal, Silver Bolt trotted down into the city. He had no trouble in finding the raiders, they were all into the town square (at least, that was the name of the rough patch of dirt with a few scattered props right on the middle of the settlement), wasted on chems.
Numbed as they were, the raiders quickly shifted into battle positions as a stranger approached them.
“Not one more single move or we’ll carve your heart out, dumbass.”
Six raiders, all of them using pig-pokers: knives, shovels, bats, batons… typical melee makeshift weapons, none of them a real match for a shooter.
Then, Silver Bolt did the thing that none of the thugs expected… he threw food at them. The stallion knew that the raiders had eaten little for days, fought over the crumbs and were probably low in morale because of that.
Being dirty pigs, the raiders wasted no time in stuffing themselves with the food, eating it directly from the ground with no regards for germs or other silly worries: they were tough ponies who did tough pony stuff, caring little for namby-pamby society conventions.
“I saw everything.” Silver Bolt spoke as his “guests” were eating their meals. “I saw how you majestically crushed this pathetic town, and how, after that, you almost starved to death.”
At that point, all of the raiders’ eyes were upon Silver Bolt.
“I came to make you an offer… this food is just the beginning. If you take me in and obey my orders, there will be more food.”
“Here’s a better idea…” One of the raiders, an especially imposing one, lifted his face from the dirt and spoke. “Why don’t we kill you and take all your food? It’s easier that way.”
“Why, you ask?” Silver Bolt replied with a smug tone. “After my food runs out, what will you do? Fight over the little that is left? Develop vegetative functions and work on photosynthesis?”
None of the raiders had an answer for that, just like he expected… long-term planning is a heroic feat when you’re high on chems on a daily basis.
“Accept me as your… general advisor, and I will forge you into a ferocious and respected band of thugs.” Silver Bolt despised the word “leader”, if he wanted it to work properly, there shouldn’t be a leader in the orthodox sense of the word, it was through communal effort that the group would either thrive or fall.
“You want to boss us around?” The raider who spoke before voiced, he was probably the leader. “That’s my job kiddo… now empty your pack unle…”
He was never able to complete the sentence. A knife stuck the raider’s back, bringing him down cold into the ground.
Silver Bolt raised his eyebrows and eyed the stabber, a slender, carmine, scarred pegasus with a grey mane and blue eyes, who had a scissor for a cutie mark.
“The stranger makes sense.” He spoke. “But words are just words… what if your direction doesn’t solve anything?”
“If it yields no results, then I’ll allow you to kill me… just like you did with your old boss, but without resisting. You won’t gain anything, but you won’t lose anything either if I fail.”
The raider slowly nodded. “That’s okay for me. Anypony have something against it? If you do, you can hit the road right away.”
The other four raiders fell silent, it was clear that they accepted the agreement.
Then, the Pegasus approached Silver Bolt and shook his hoof with a stern expression.
“Pleasure to meet you, I’m Sharprazor.”
“Same here, my name is Silver Bolt.”
And so, the hoofshake broke and Sharprazor eyed his crew, a bit unsure…
“What to do then, boss?”
“A few kilometers to the northeast of here, over one of the hills, there’s a cave. I stashed some stuff inside, take your boys and bring it here, take it to the least damaged building…” Silver Bolt’s eyes crossed through the town. “The town hall will do fine… there’s a few burns, but it’s mostly intact. Get my stuff and we will set a proper camp, then tomorrow we’ll begin our work.”
“Just asking, but what kind of work?”
“You will learn how to use a weapon, how to lure ponies into traps and capture them, we’ll live off from their sweat, we will build a better city, in due time, we will learn how to run a town. We will enjoy pleasures you only heard of… we will become a goddamn feared group of slavers that take no shit from anypony and build ourselves a fortified town, with snipers over those hills who will be able to take out any cocksucker that comes too close.”
The raider’s eyes widened with curiosity.
“Tell me more”
For the first time in many, many years, Silver Bolt smiled.
Slave count: 0
