Hitpony

Now with cover art!

I brought a hoof up to block the sun from my eyes. I looked down the street to see if my friend, Party Thrill, was there, but he wasn't. I was waiting for him so that we can walk to school together, like we normally do. He was running a bit late today, so I sat down to wait. Normally he shows up on time, so it was weird that he was this late. Whenever he couldn't make it, he would make sure to tell me. I looked back and saw that he was there. He was in a hurry, and his orange mane was blowing in the breeze over his green eyes. His orange mane blended with his red coat. He was a unicorn, but he wasn't very good at magic, so he still went to normal schools. I grabbed my saddlebag and walked over and waved to him. He started to gallop over to me to catch up.

"Hey Bolt." Doom Bolt is my name, but my friends call me Bolt. We started to walk towards school, which wasn't too far away.

"Hey, what took you so long?"

"I woke up late, so I was really in a hurry and forgot things and had to go back for them."

"Whatever, just hope that we're not late."

"Uggggghhhh. How long 'til the weekend?"

"It's Tuesday." He let out a large sigh and dropped his head to the ground. "Yeah, I know that feeling. You know it's going to be a bad week when you're already waiting for the weekend this early in the week. Anyway let's hurry up, I don't want to get in trouble." On that we both picked up the pace. We galloped around the corner past Sugar Cube Corner and came into view of the school. All the foals were walking to the door, so we started to go faster.

When we arrived in the schoolyard, I pushed Party away so I could walk in the door first. When I walked in, I stopped to catch my breath. Party followed close behind, and hit me in the shoulder.

"Well, look who decided to show up today." I looked up and saw our teacher, Storybook Bloom looking at us, with her forelegs crossed. Her wrinkles were always more visible when she frowned like she is now. She had light black fur, not quite gray. Her pink mane stood out from her coat, except for the stripes that were turning gray. I also saw that we were about a minute late. "Take your seats and take out your ELA things." We both trudged over to our desks, which were right next to each other. I took out my notebook and pencil, and slid my saddlebags under the desk.

"Alright, now that everyone's here, we can go back to talking about commas. Commas are used ..."  I looked over to Party, looking at him in disbelief. He looked over at me, and I gestured my foreleg to Storybook. He moved his mouth as to say 'I know', while he shrugged.

I leaned closer and whispered "What's up with her today?"

"I don't know, she doesn't want to be here more than I want to today."

"DOOM BOLT!" I jumped in my chair and snapped my attention to Storybook Bloom. Oh no. "Can you tell me what I just said?"

"Uhhh..." My mind raced, to find something to say. I had no answer. "Nope. I guess I just don't care." That was the best that I had.

"Really? That's what you have to say? This stuff is very important and all that you can say is that you simply don't care. You NEED to pay attention because you can't do anything in the real world without this knowledge. Pay attention." She turned back to the board. I rolled my eyes and bent my neck backwards to the ceiling. "You can't pay attention when you're rolling your eyes." I looked and she hadn't even turned around. I decided that it would be a good idea to put in an effort to at least pretend to pay attention.

So eventually she finished her lecture, and let us go outside for recess. I could see that she was eyeing me, clearly still mad at me. I ignored her because, like I said, I just didn't care. I caught up to Party, who was already out of the door.

"Hey Bolt, teach is pretty mad at you."

"You weren't paying attention either. It's just that I ended up getting in trouble for it, like always"

"Whatever. Hey, you comin' to my 9th birthday party next Saturday? Party starts at 2. Oh, and you'll be sleeping over, and going home whenever."

A birthday party with Party? Besides being my best friend, he was great at throwing parties, in case you couldn't guess. I'm surprised that he didn't have his cutie mark for it yet. He always had a large crowd of ponies that would go and knew how to keep everypony entertained. "I'd love to, but I'm not sure if I can. I'll ask my mom if I can."

"You'd be missing out." We walked over to a table with benches on both sides, and sat down. We never really ran around and took part in all of the nonsense of the other foals. At least I didn't. Party would join them sometimes, but he still spent time with me. Personally, I can't handle all of their stupid games and whatnot.

"Have you seen Clashing Blade today? He looks like he's about to snap at somepony." I said to him. I could see him walking through the crowd, and he was pretty much knocking the other foals to the ground. Clash was older than all of the other foals in our grade. He was held back a year a while back. He had a brown coat and a red mane. He was easily a few inches taller than all the other foals in our grade. He also was very muscular. He had a reputation of taking nothing from nopony. He often beat up kids that would really piss him off.

"Wow, what's up with him? It seems like he's gonna beat up somepony."

"I know. I hope he doesn't." I could see that he was looking around a bit. He stopped for a moment looking at me, then went back to paying attention to the crowd. Then I realized that he had turned and had started to walk in our direction. "Oh no, I think he's walking towards us."

"Alright. Be cool, and don't address him." I guess that was our best plan. He continued to make his way over towards us. I noticed that neither my nor Party had said anything. So much for acting cool. I decided not to be looking at him in case he looked up and noticed that we were staring at him. I just sat there tapping my hoof on the bench nervously. I turned back and saw that he was standing right in front of me. He appeared to be straining himself to look as tall and strong as he could. He was glaring at both me and Party.

"Hey, Clash." I said. His eyes darted to be looking directly at me.

"Only my friends call me Clash. Call me Blade."

Party gave him a very relaxed look. "Okay, Blade," saying 'Blade' like it was difficult for him, "waddaya want?"

Blade turned and slammed his hoof onto the table. "DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!"

"Okay, jeez." Party said as he shrunk away a bit from Blade. I just sat there shocked at Blade doing that, but not too surprised. He turned back to me.

"Bolt, I hear that you're a pretty tough pony."

I got kinda confused at this. I mean, it wasn't like I wasn't tough, but I was far from the strongest foal in our grade. So somepony like Blade tell me that I'm 'pretty tough' wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

"I guess.." I said, trailing off a bit.

"Yeah, well I need you to beat up a little colt that's been annoying me."

"Uh, why don't you? You've never been afraid to beat up some colt that you think deserved it."

"Storybook Bloom has really been on my case about that recently. I think that she might suspend me or something if I do something else. But you have a clean slate. If you do it then she won't get too mad at you since it's your first time-"

"Yeah, and why should he do this?" Party interrupted. I looked over at him trying to get him not to be so blunt with him, but he didn't care.

"If he doesn't I'll break this table using his back."

Party backed down at this. I sat there for a moment, until I realized something. "If you beat me up, then Storybook will suspend you." I pointed at him to put him down. He stopped for a moment to consider it. Then he shook his head a bit.

"Fine, I'll pay you to do it. 25 bits."

I thought about the offer for a moment. Was 25 bits worth it? I'm not too concerned about Storybook yelling at me. She does that already. I thought about my parents, but I'm not even sure if they'd find out. They didn't care too much about what I did. They stood out of the way of what I did and I did the same for them. So I guess that it would be a good idea. "Show me the money."

"What did you say to me?" He leaned in a bit closer to me.

"I said show me the money. Why would I do this if I'm not even sure that you have 25 bits?"

"Are you calling me poor?" At this his face was pretty much touching mine.

"No no no." I assured him a waved my hoof and backed away from him. "I'm just saying that you might not have 25 bits with you right now."

"I do. I'll show you next recess. Now are you going to do it?"

"Not until I get my money. If I beat up this colt, how do I know that you'll pay me? You could just not give it to me and I wouldn't really want to fight you for it. If you give me the money now, then if I don't do it you can just beat me up and say that I was stealing your bits." I said to him. I didn't trust Blade. Not at all. He thought about it for a moment. I could tell that he didn't want to do the wrong thing and risk losing 25 bits.

"Fine. As long as you do it."

"Okay. Now who is it that you want me to beat up?"

"Fluffy Wing." Both me and Party looked at Blade weirdly. Fluffy Wing? The nice colt who never did anything to anypony?

"Wait, Fluffy Wing? Why? What did he do to you?"

"ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT OR NOT?" He shouted as shoved me.

"Yes yes sure." I said, holding my hooves up in defense. His hoof was still on my barrel from shoving me. I could see that a bunch of the other foals had stopped their playing and looked over our way.

"Good, meet me here next recess."

"Alright students, recess is over. Time to come back inside." Storybook shouted. All the other foals forgot what happened, and dropped their stuff to walk in. Blade turned and looked over to her for a moment then back at me. He pushed me lightly and then went to walk back in.

I looked over to Party, and saw that he was just as scared as I was. We stood up and walked inside, not saying a word. We were both very shocked at the request. I still wasn't sure if I should do it. I had nothing against Fluffy, and liked him a bit. He was an okay colt, and he never really got on my nerves. He didn't do anything that bothered me really, better than most of the idiotic foals in this school.

I walked over to my desk and sat down. I looked over at Party. He was just sitting there, with his stuff in front of him. He was looking straight to the board, not taking a moment to look over at me. I turned back to look at my desk. I grabbed some stuff and put it on my desk, so Storybook wouldn't yell at me. I couldn't focus on the lesson. My mind kept thinking about this dilemma. I liked Fluffy, but not too much. 25 bits and staying on Blade's good side was a pretty good deal though. In the long run, I could probably make up with Fluffy. Blade probably wouldn't look at me the same way for a while, and potentially put me in danger. 25 bits was a decent amount of money. I could get some pretty good stuff at Sugar Cube Corner for that. I could get a few muffins, like chocolate chip or blueberry. Maybe some cupcakes. I always liked the ones with strawberry frosting and chocolate breading. Those were so delicious. Or maybe I could keep some of the 25 bits for a birthday present for Party. I could get something nice, but then again my mom usually paid for things like that. So I guess I'll keep the 25 bits for myself. I snapped out of my food induced trance, so that I wouldn't start to drool on my desk. All that was left to do was to wait for lunch and then get everything straight with Blade.

"Alright class, put away your learning materials and grab your lunches." Wow, that took forever. I don't know why, but I just couldn't wait for that to be over. That was easily one of the most difficult lessons that I've had to sit through.

All of the other foals ran over to the door, to try to be the first in line. I decided to hang back, because it really didn't matter. We all walked to the lunchroom, and sure enough being in the back of the line didn't matter at all. Everypony had their seats already chosen. I sat down next to Party, and took out my lunch. I said 'Hi', but he just nodded, not saying anything. Somepony reached over and dropped some bits next to me. Turning around I saw that Blade was there, and he was looking around at the other foals nervously. I saw that Party was eyeing the bits out of the corner of his eyes. I put them into my lunch bag and went back to eating. At that Party turned back to his own lunch. Party talked with some other of his friends throughout the lunch, but never to me. I shrugged it off. He's done things like this before. I realize that he has other friends that I don't get along with, and some days he feels like talking with them.

After lunch was over, we were brought back over to our classroom to drop off our lunch stuff before our second recess. I walked over and put the bits away in my saddlebags. While walking out I looked around to see if I could spot Fluffy, but I couldn't. I proceeded to walk over to our bench. Party didn't show up, but Blade did shortly.

"Hey Blade."

"Alright, Fluffy is over by the swings."

"Okay. Hey how bad do you want me to beat him up? I'm not too sure about beating him too badly."

"Whatever works for you. I just want him to be injured significantly."

"Fine. Anything you want me to say to him to help get the message across?"

"Hmm." He brought a hoof up to his chin to think of something to say. "I dunno, just let him know that it was me who sent you."

"A'ight. Give me a minute then I'll do it."

"Cool. Don't you wuss out on me." He finished the sentence pointing at me menacingly. He then turned and started walking, but turned around. "Oh, and make sure that he won't say anything about me."

"Will do." He turned around and walked over close to the swings. I guess that it would be weird if he was right there when it happened. I looked around and didn't see Party anywhere. I took in a deep breath. I got up from the table and slowly walked over. Sure enough, Fluffy was standing near the swings, probably waiting to have his turn. Some other kids were yelling and screaming and whatnot. I slowed down as I came close, with my mind racing about what I should say. Once I was confident I walked up behind him. He had a small pair of glasses, not anything too ridiculous. His light green mane was getting tangled with the wind that was blowing. His eyes matched his blue coat very well, something that I found interesting. I took another deep breath before approaching him. I looked over and saw Blade standing in the background. We made eye contact for a moment before I turned away. I walked up nervously and tapped Fluffy on the shoulder. He turned around to face me.

"Oh, hello! I'm Fluffy, who are you?" Wow he was nice. I wish I didn't have to do this. I was close to him, and nopony was close enough to hear what I would say to him, with all of the commotion.

"A messenger. I got something for you from Clashing Blade." He looked confused for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something to me.

I pulled a hoof back and punched him square in the nose. He fell back on the ground, grabbing his nose with his hoof. His glasses fell to the ground next to him, and cracked on a rock. I could see that there was blood coming down from his nose. All of the noise around had become surprised hushes, nopony daring to make any noise. I took my other foreleg and hit him directly below his ribs. He let out a scream and moved one of his hooves down to cover his gut, while the other was raised up to protect his face. It was clear that there were tears streaming down his face. For the most part, the foals around were completely silent. I bent down lower, and hit the hoof protecting himself away, and hit the side of his face with a left hook. At this he screamed again and started to cry loudly. I pulled back my hoof to hit him again, when he kicked me in the stomach. I fell over, surprised that he was fighting back. I recovered quickly, to see that he was trying to crawl away. He looked up at one of the other foals through his tear covered eyes. I walked over and hit him right in the back of the head. I wound up again and hit him twice more in the back of the head. At this point, he was still teary eyed, but had stopped crying. He didn't hold up a hoof to protect himself or anything. He just laid there and grabbed the back of his head, tensed up and preparing to be hit again. I leaned in real close to his ear, and whispered to him. "Don't mention Blade to Storybook, or else." After saying that I slammed the side of his head with a final punch. He moved one of his hooves to the point of impact, and lie there, slightly cradling his head. The blood from his nose had formed a small pool, under his nose, and was covering both of his hooves. There was blood in other places that I hit him, but I couldn't tell if it was blood from his nose, or the spot itself.

I stood up completely, and turned around to walk away. I immediately saw that Storybook was running over, with a filly next to her. She was yelling at the foals to move away, which they did, leaving Fluffy with more space. Storybook ran past me, more concerned about Fluffy than me. I looked back for a moment, then continued my slow walk away. For a small moment, I saw Party in the crowd. He was one of the few not looking at Fluffy. His face was blank, which wasn't what I'd expected. I thought that he would be disappointed at me, but he wasn't. The school nurse ran over to Fluffy, and went to help him inside. With Fluffy taken care of, Storybook turned over to me, and walked me inside.

"WHAT IN TARTARUS WAS THAT?" Storybook yelled. Blade was the only pony to ever get into any fights. There was also usually some sort of warning. You could generally tell when he was going to do something like get into a fight. He would walk over, and say something to somepony. When he did, it was clear that he wanted to fight, so all the other foals would back off immediately. Also, the majority of his fights took place after school, so it never interrupted school. This was out of nowhere, and at the beginning of recess. To my understanding, recess was still going on. Also, I think that Fluffy was hurt pretty bad. I guess since almost all of my punches were to the head. I overheard something about him seeing stars, and they were worried that he might pass out. I didn't mean to hurt him that bad, but what's done is done. "WELL?" Oh yeah, her.

I sat there for a moment, not sure what to say. I really had no clue. I couldn't mention Blade because that was part of our deal. And if I said that I was paid to do it she would ask who paid me, and I wasn't going to lie about it. If I didn't say who, we would sit here for a long time. Well I figured that I should say something. "I hated that kid. ... He always pissed me off, ... with the way that he talked and whatever. ... I told him to stop being like the way he is, but he didn't listen, so I taught him a lesson. I guess that I got a little carried away with it. I didn't mean to hurt him that bad. ... I just wanted to give him a bloody nose and maybe a bump on his head."

"... Really? That's it. He just bothered you, that's why you did this to him?" Honestly, I just didn't pay attention. Most of what I had said was a lie, so I just didn't care. She went on to talk about how this isn't how to solve your problems, and how messed up that was, you know. Same old story with a different event. I did feel bad though. Not because she was scolding me and that I would get a punishment, but because of how bad it was. I was honest in saying that I didn't want him to be hurt this bad. "So, come in tomorrow and we'll talk about your punishment. You will finish classes today and a letter will be sent to your parents. Stay in here until I come back to get you." I nodded, and she walked to the door. When she went to open it, she looked back at me. She stared at me for a moment, but not making eye contact. Then she closed the door and walked away from the door. I sat there for a moment, looking at her desk. There was some loose paperwork laying on her desk. I turned back to look at the door. I got up and opened it up very slightly. I poked my head out and looked for her in the hallway. She wasn't there. She probably went to talk with the foals who were worried about Fluffy.

I took a left in the hallway and started walking, looking for the nurse's office. I saw the door on my right that had the label on it. I stood up as much as I could so that I could see through the window. Strange, I would've thought that they would have wanted to have more privacy in there. I looked in and saw Fluffy, sitting up on a bed, looking very woozy. All the blood had been cleaned up, and he held a tissue up to his nose. The nurse was in front of him, holding up a hoof and moving it around in front of his face. Fluffy tried to follow the hoof with his eyes, but I could tell that he was struggling. He was blinking a lot, and seemed to be struggling just to keep his balance. I wanted to walk in and say something, but there was nothing that I could say. So I turned around and walked back to Storybook's office, and waited.

"Alright class, that's all for today. See you all tomorrow." And like that, class was over. The rest of the day had gone without incident. Fluffy never returned to class, and was probably sent home. After we got back to class, all of the foals kept their distance from me. I'm not too surprised that they were scared of me. What did surprise me was that some of my friends had refused to talk to me. I thought that maybe they'd ask why I did it, and wouldn't leave me alone once they figured out why. However, they all stayed away from me. I made my way out of the school and started walking to Sugar Cube Corner. I decided that I was going to get some of those strawberry frosted chocolate cupcakes. My mouth was already watering thinking of them. I looked around and saw that I was alone. I guess that all of the other foals were too scared to risk going and being near me. I walked in, and the bell rung. Mrs. Cake, who was carrying some sweets turned to see me.

"Hello. How are you today?" she greeted, with a very cheery smile, as she put the tray onto the display case.

"Eh, good I guess." I said. I wasn't quite sure how I should say that my day went.

"What can I get for you?" She gestured to all of the sweets on the rack. When she did it was almost as if the treats sparkled. I looked and saw all of them glistening like they were in some invisible spotlight. They were trophies in the trophy case of a famous wonderbolt. But I already had my mind made up. The chocolate cupcakes stood out the most from the group.

"I'll have some strawberry frosted chocolate cupcakes." She opened up the case and brought out the tray for me to pick out which ones I wanted.

"They're 8 bits a piece." I took a moment to do the math. With 25 bits, I could buy 3 and have 1 bit left over. I looked back to the tray, and grabbed three that were in a line towards the back of the tray. She went back to put the tray away, and I put my saddlebags on the counter. I took out my money and started to count out 24 bits. I put the last bit into my saddlebag and put the saddlebags back on. Mrs. Cake took the bits and put them into the register.

"Have a nice day!"

"You too!" I said, and walked over to one of the tables with my cupcakes. I sat down and put two of them down. I took off the wrapping of the third, and put the wrapping on the table. I stared at the cupcake for a moment, before taking a bite. I let the flavors mix in my mouth as I chewed. I always loved the taste of strawberries and chocolate, ever since I first had them. Chocolate covered fruits were delicious, but I especially liked chocolate covered strawberries. I swallowed and took another bite. This bite tasted kinda weird. It was like there was something sour in the middle of the cupcake, that had poisoned the inside of it. I swallowed this bite without savoring it too much, and took another bite, hoping that it wouldn't be sour like the last one. This wasn't as sour, but still had a fowl taste. I finished off that cupcake in disgust, and started eating the next one. This cupcake was the same as the last one. The cupcake was a bit hard to swallow, but it tasted okay-ish. I ate the last cupcake, and crumpled up the wrappers. I rubbed my stomach, right where Fluffy had kicked me. I didn't expect him to kick me that hard. It still hurt a bit, but not too bad. I picked up the wrappers and threw them away. I proceeded to walk to the door and leave.

I walked into my house and then walked up to my room. I assumed that nopony was home yet. I usually had the place to myself for a while. I put my saddlebags down in the corner of my room and laid down on my bed. I let out a sigh, glad that the school day was over. Tomorrow, Storybook was gonna yell at me, but it was inevitable. I knew that it was coming when I beat up Fluffy. I looked over at my saddlebags, and remembered that I still had one bit left over. I walked over to my saddlebags and took out the bit put it on the table.

I sat there for a moment and then went to the bathroom, to wash out any mulch that may have gotten in my tail or mane. Luckily, the pieces of mulch stuck out from my light green tail, and were easy to pick out. While washing up I noticed something on my rump. It was a bit more difficult to see because my dull yellow coat was a bit similar in color. I went to wipe it off with my hoof, but there was nothing there. I turned my head to wee what it was.

My cutie mark!!! I had gotten my cutie mark! A lot of other foals in my grade hadn't gotten their cutie marks yet, so I was among the first. It was difficult to see exactly what it was, but it looked like a single bit. But the bit was weird. Parts of the bit had some gold that looked like it was flaking off, and underneath there was nothing. There was just black underneath where the bit was falling apart. On the left of the bit, there was a liquid that had pooled up on the lip of the bit and was dripping off slightly. The liquid was a dark red. I stared at it for a moment. I was very confused by it. I think that it had something to do with the fight, because that was the only time that I had done anything with money. As for why the bit had pieces of gold flaking off of it, that escaped me. The red liquid, I figured, was blood, again referencing the fight.

So what exactly did that mean? Was I going to be a boxer or professional fighter of some sort? Probably not though, since the main focus seemed to be the bit. Other fighters usually had cutie marks of a boxing glove or whatever. Maybe it was getting paid to beat up other ponies. Yeah, that seemed about right. I mean, I got the money to beat up Fluffy. I can't say that it was a fight because Fluffy had no idea what was going to happen. So I was going to be paid to beat up other ponies. What does that make me then? Hmm. A contract killer? No, that would imply that I only killed other ponies. Fluffy was still alive. So I think the right term would be a hitpony. Yeah, that seems about right. I'm a hitpony.