Prologue
Dust groaned, knocked almost unconscious. He supposed his enemies were either thought he was out cold, or too lazy to bother with him, as they had tied his hind legs fairly tightly, but not his fore legs at all. They putting bullets into the two stallions he had just met, one by one, laughing maniacally and blurting out insults as they died. One of the stallions had a wife, a young mare, but the touch of the Wasteland gave her a tattered, worn look. She cried out in anguish, tears falling as the one she had loved fell to the ground without another word, blood seeping profusely from his head. Dust could only bring himself to watch. His gem upon his necklace was glowing, though too weak to offer him any kind of energy that he knew he needed at this moment. Because this was the moment it all seemed over. The mare was bashed in the back of her head, though she kept weeping. It didn’t seem that pain would bring an end to her loss, and it was becoming too much for Dust to watch. When these “Raiders” turned their back from him, he turned to his left, and saw his pistol's holster strap. He pushed himself to believe there was a solution out of this, and that death will have to wait to claim his soul. His gem flared, and sputtered, still weak, but not fully exhausted yet. He quietly undid the strap, and pulled his old handgun from its holster. If it wasn’t loaded, then it surely was over. He was sure to die this day. And with no time to check, he pulled back the slide with his energy, and loaded the weapon. His foes were too busy laughing at the devastated mare to notice, but Dust had scooted onto his back, still tied up, and leaned himself up to aim. Swerving the handgun, pointed right at the closest enemy to him and pulled the trigger.
*PLAAAAM!!*
The first went with a grunt in pain, not dead, but rather incapacitated. He swerved the pistol, lining the sights with his eyes and firing twice, on the next two.
*PLAAM PLAAM*
“OOAGH!” “AGHFF!”
The next two dropped instantly, holding their stomachs as they cried out. There was still three more who looked up and noticed him. And just as they brought a rifle, combat shotgun of some odd design he didn’t recognize and small revolver. He had the proper aim at them already. And with whatever energy he could summon, he pulled the trigger, still restrained by old ropes that began to hurt his hooves.
*PLAAAAM!! PLAAAM!! Plink!…*
No. Not like this. It just can’t end this way. I had to run out? On the last one?
Dust dropped two of the psychotic Raiders, who had their laughing smiles wiped off of their faces when they were hit perfectly in the chest by the strength behind .45 ACP rounds. The last Raider was one with a rifle, bolt action it seemed. Dust dropped his weapon and tried to scoot backwards a little more, hoping that this one would miss, and maybe he would be blessed from the Goddesses of another single chance. Instead, he found he couldn’t move since he had moved into a large boulder, almost cornered into a wall. The mare who had been balling had been watching with hope, but frowned as if a savior was now impossible. Nonetheless, she weakly stood up, and moved into the Raider’s way just as the raider fired his weapon. The shot was clearly a high caliber, as it was visible that the mare was hit, rather gruesomely due to the point blank range. She fell. The raider grumbled and went to pull the bolt back but had jammed it in his struggle to reload his weapon faster. Dust paused, to watch the mare who fell to the ground. She had turned to him when she did, and whatever she may have been thinking, Dust could only believe it was something like “Thank you” or “I’m sorry”. He didn’t have time to think or mourn, and attempted to reach his telekinetic energy to the fallen raiders’ weapons. The closest one he could see had merely a knife on him. It was a worn and dulled kitchen knife. Dust raised it up with all his might and lurched it forward at the unsuspecting raider. In an instant, in pierced his neck and brought him crumbling to the ground, gurgling and choking on blood. Dust sighed and looked around, finding nopony else around who had been watching. He relaxed and brought the bloody knife back and started to work on cutting the ropes, to free himself. When he stood up, he moved to the mare, who had been alive, only barely, and quickly bleeding out. She looked up when he attempted to tend to her wound and spoke.
“…Tha-aghh…..-
She was dead. And thinking back on the entire situation that he just went through, it had only been nearly thirty seconds since he grabbed his handgun. He stared down to the body of the mare. She looked far too young to have died like this, it seemed, and he looked around again. His soul Gem was pulsating, absorbing energy around him and regenerating. He had time to bury the dead properly, and be done doing so by dawn. He took in the subtle breeze and could hear the world around him. The more vacant he thought it was, the more it truly felt like he was being watched. He looked around for something to dig with. This is going to take a while....
