One Thousand And Eighty

"Hey man!"

The lone Unicorn's head shot up, his ears stiff and straight as he heard the call.

"Put your gun down now, alright?"

The Unicorn's green eyes narrowed to mere slits, scanning the area in front of him. The sun beat down into the dense forest, its celestial rays heating the heavily geared-up Unicorn as he raised his AK-47 and sweeped the area around him.

"You really don't want to do that, man. Drop the gun, or I'll shoot."

The Unicorn stopped in his tracks, the bright green aura surrounding his firearm the only thing moving as the stallion froze on the spot. He swallowed a lump in his throat, the heat beating onto him churning his stomach and bubbling it up, the unfortunate stallion beginning to feel his incredibly small lunch coming back up as he inflated his cheeks and groaned in fright.

"Drop the gun, mate."

"Okay, okay!" he shouted, releasing his grasp on the AK, the assault rifle clattering onto the dirt by his hooves, "I dropped it, I dropped it! Don't shoot, please!"

A bush rustled behind him, and the Unicorn suddenly turned to face the intruder.

The brush was a berry bush, and out of it stepped a pony dressed in a full Phillie suit, an AS50 floating next to him in a dark brown aura, its long barrel focusing solely on the Unicorn sitting on his haunches with his forelegs raised into the air, the appendages shaking in complete fright at what the stallion was thinking to be his last moments alive.

The Phillie-suited pony silently trotted to him, the only sound in the forest clearing being the frightened Unicorn's hyperventilating. The pony stopped, and the Unicorn shut his eyes, beginning to cry as not another sound was heard.

The stallion slowly, carefully opened his right eye, looking directly into the darkened shadows of the Phillied pony, before the pony suddenly reached a hoof up and threw the grassy hood off, revealing a dark green horn and a mess of black hair, a smiling Unicorn staring at the other member of his kind with golden eyes.

He smiled, and shouted, "Lighten up mate! I told you I wasn't gonna shoot you!"

The other stallion whimpered, thinking the Phillied pony's light-hearted behavior odd and suspicious within the dark wasteland of the present day.

The Phillied unicorn allowed his eyes to look to the ground and toward the AK lying forgotten on the ground. Lighting his horn, he shifted his .50 cal away from his side and magicked the assault rifle, squinting an eye in observation as it levitated next to his face. Directly afterward, he gave a short but rowdy laugh, slowly handing the AK-47 back to its owner.

"Here's your gun back, man," he said, watching as the other stallion cautiously lit his horn as well, levitating the firearm to him and holstering it. Noticing this, the green Unicorn added, "I don't need any of your stuff, man, unless you've got some bandages."

The lesser-clothed Unicorn gave a slow nod, a green aura surrounding the saddlebag on his side.

"Name's Frag Out. My friends call me Jack, or well, what friends I have left that is."

The Unicorn turned his head and found Frag Out, a leaf-covered hoof stretched for a friendly hoof-shake. Raising a brow, the Unicorn slowly walked up to it, stopped, looked the green stallion up and down, and threw his hoof into Frag's, shaking it vigorously.

"Nice to meet you, Frag Out," the stallion spoke in a light voice, "I'm Trigger Hoof."

"Well, I'm glad you put your gun down before I stepped out, heh heh."

Frag found the familiar sight of bandages being placed into his bag, commenting, "Listen, I need to get back to my mate, alright? He's bleedin', got shot in the stomach by some dumb bastard in the woods. You think you could lend us a hoof?"

Trigger Hoof shifted the brown saddlebag on his side and replied, "Yeah, yeah man," attention diverted to his rifle, he lit his horn and levitated the AK next to him, adding, "got a spare mag?"

Frag's horn illuminated as well, his own saddlebag glowing brown and opening the flap, his golden eyes staring into a collection of, namely assault rifle, magazines and canned food.

A single, curved magazine was levitated out of the bag, Frag turning toward his companion and tossing it to him, watching intently as he caught it, fumbled, and dropped it to the grass by their hooves. As Trigger gave a growl of anger, scooping it up with his magic, Frag gave a laugh.

Trigger looked back at him with a frown, before he placed the magazine into his saddlebag and cocked the lever on his AK-47, turning tail and following as Frag passed him, mouth still wide open in laughter.

The two trekked through the wood, neither pony talking until Frag suddenly informed, "Almost outta the woods here."

Turning his head, he asked, "Know how to use that thing?"

Trigger scowled, obviously offended, "Yeah, of course I do."

"Tough crowd-"

BANG!

"Ponies, ponies."

Frag looked over to Trigger, who sat in a crouch and magicked the AK up to his eyes.

"Get in cover, man. You'll get fuckin' shot out here-"

"Nah, I got 'em. Here, there's one standing right up for me here-"

Trigger found himself thrown to the ground, a small, very noticeable dust cloud drifting upward where he had previously sat. Looking back up to Frag, breathless, he mouthed, "Oh shit."

"Move, dammit. Get behind the trees!"

The two dove, the sound of bullets whistling by them accompanying them as they lay prone on the grass, the shade of the pine giving them a camouflaged advantage. The stallions rose to their haunches, Trigger slightly shaking in fright, his green eyes shifting from the left and to the right of their cover repeatedly. Looking to the pony next to him, Trigger's eyes widened at the green stallion's calm composure, the Unicorn magicking the AS-50 closely in front of him, the matte black magazine floating underneath it, bullets feeding themselves into it with a brown glow.

Trigger sat in silence with the stallion for a few seconds, hyperventilating as bullets continued to zoom past them, dust clouds flying into the air as close as mere inches to them.

Now, there comes in everypony's life a single moment where they feel the need to do something.

"Alright," Trigger heard to his left.

He turned his head once more to look at Frag.

"Take some shots at them, get their attention. I'll take them out while they're lookin' at you, alright?"

Trigger gulped, but nodded, brandishing a pair of knit brows.

To do something their enemies won't forget.

"On three, alright man?"

"Got it."

Frag shoved the magazine into the sniper rifle, pulling the lever back as he looked at Trigger Hoof, his green coat almost perfectly blending into the grass underneath him.

Trigger stared back, sudden determination in his green eyes.

"Good," Frag replied after a moment of silence.

The hood around his neck became engulfed in a brown aura, and found itself covering Frag's eyes, darkening his face in a shroud as he added, "Let's do this."

Nodding one last time to Trigger, Frag fell to the floor, crawling toward the open and turning into the group of ponies still firing shots at them from the road. Laying there, he lit his horn and brought the AS-50 next to him, deciding against pulling it up in favor of maintaining the element of deadly surprise.

Not bothering to turn his head, Frag began to count.

"One."

Something that not a single pony on this planet would even consider.

"Two."

Trigger gulped, holstering his AK.

Something incredibly. Fucking. Stupid.

"Three-"

Trigger suddenly leaped out of the cover of tree, standing onto his haunches and waving his forelegs in the air, "Right here bitches!"

"Goddammit...."

"Come get some! Yoohoo!" he continued, ignoring the barely audible whisper of Frag, still laying prone a couple feet away.

A quartet of ponies met Frag's vision as he stared through the brush. The highway stretched for miles to both his left and right, a sharp incline sloping down to it a yard in front of him, the divider between the two lanes making a great, but spoiling cover for two Pegasi, assault rifles held in their hooves as they aimed to Frag's left, the sounds of the stallion's taunting reverberating into Frag's skull.

If he wasn't quick, the innocent Unicorn would surely die.

Thinking quickly, the Phillied stallion magicked the AS-50 to his right side, levitating the scope to his right eye and tilting the sniper rifle to better aim toward the party, searching with his cross-hair for the leader.

In less than two heartbeats, he found him, the steel-coated Earth pony clad in blood-ridden Royal Guard attire, a baseball bat clenched in his teeth. His red tail swishing behind him, he turned his head and motioned toward a pink Unicorn mare next to him, the same armor occupying her as well.

Taking the bat into her hooves and smiling a sadistic smile, the Earth pony mouthed a few words, beginning to trot toward Trigger Hoof as he was suddenly reduced to mere whimpers.

Hey, what can I say? Bambi's don't know shit, man.

Frag shifted his sniper's barrel toward the Earth pony, slowly squinting his eye as he peered through the scope. Holding his breath, he suddenly rolled to the right, now completely open to any paranoid eyes willing to scour the pine trees to the right of the Great Sea Highway.

The Earth pony continued his approach, mouth still moving as he talked to the light yellow Unicorn currently whimpering in fright, a polar opposite of his taunting them barely thirty seconds prior. Cursing under his breath, Frag readjusted the AS, focusing the cross-hair over the leader's head.

TOOF!

Frag's eyes widened. For a brief second, the Unicorn thought that Trigger Hoof was dead. Lowering the sniper rifle, he looked to his left out of the corner of his eye.

And found the black-maned Unicorn, his forelegs still raised in the air, his rump on the grass, and his head turning both ways in a tight motion.

Frag's mouth dropped, his sniper rifle still on the floor, momentarily forgotten.

The Earth pony leader stood as still as a statue, his head looking down toward the hole currently bleeding on his side.

The Unicorn mare next to him dropped his bat as her jaw fell open.

But ponies like these are a special kind of stupid.

TOOF! TOOF! TOOF!

The Unicorn mare fell to the ground, the bat rattling next to her.

The lightly clothed red Pegasus holding an M16 collapsed onto the divider, his forelegs hanging over the concrete and the rifle clattering onto the road.

The other Pegasus yelled in pain, disappearing behind the cover, his screams echoing around the area.

Frag slowly got up, the AS-50 hovering next to him as he joined Trigger Hoof, who turned his head to look toward Frag as he trotted up next to him.

Frag looked back.

A dark blue Earth pony suddenly trotted into view, his brown mane covered and tamed by a sand green baseball cap, the bill providing a shadow that shrouded his eyes as he stalked toward the red Pegasus still lying on the ground, his cries of pain still sounding out.

Shifting, he withdrew a pistol, aimed with a single hoof, and fired two shots, the screams halting at once.

Trigger shook.

Frag smiled.

The stallion disappeared for three seconds before reappearing again, vaulting the concrete divider with an AR-15 strapped to his side, the barrel bobbing up and down at level with his right eye as he stalked toward the two stallions standing motionless on the hill, unscathed from the fight.

The bearded stallion wore a grey, long-sleeved shirt protected by an olive green vest and a dark grey, bulletproof piece of hind armor, a pair of blue jeans clinging to his hind-legs, olive green knee-pads strapped to both appendages. A green scarf was wrapped around his neck, a dark brown saddlebag strapped to his right side.

As he grew closer, Trigger's shakiness grew, until he was full-fledged quaking on the spot, afraid of what he thought to be yet another hostile.

The Earth pony stopped in front of them, turning his head to look at both Trigger Hoof and Frag Out, before he lifted his head, a smile on his face and his golden eyes wide in happiness as he suddenly spoke strangely cheerfully in an odd accent.

"Hey buddy! Hey Jack!"

He looked toward Trigger Hoof, a sly grin on his face.

"Who's the Bambi?"

Trigger still shook, but no longer from fright. His jaw was wide open as he gasped at the blue stallion, who threw a hoof out to him in a friendly manner.

Slowly looking toward Frag, stammering, he found the green Unicorn with his Phillie hood down, a smile etched onto his face as he stared back at Trigger.

Trigger, finally finding his words from the dark abyss, looked between the two and asked in awe.

"Are... are you Frankie?"