Kill the five

“Water…” Apple Bloom said with a dry throat and crispy lips. The sand beneath her hooves burned and the sun above blinded her. Every breath she took sent another mouthful of hot, dry air down her lungs and the wound on her back burned in the sun´s rays.

The road before her seemed to go on forever. Close to the blurred, shimmered line that was the horizon.

What was Hammerhead doing here? How far away was she from the Cinder´s cabin? Who else was there? Those three questions loomed over Apple Bloom´s mind. They kept her from thinking about the sun and the long path it had to take across the sky.

Apple Bloom looked forward with her dried, golden brown eyes. She put a hoof on her forehead to block out the sun.

The only thing that she could see was the bright yellow sand and dry, bright brown bushes. But she could hear something. A humming of some kind.

“A car?” Apple Bloom said to herself. At first she was relieved. She could get out of this sea of sand and drink a bucket full of cold water. But then she remembered, Cinder drove out here in a car. She didn´t manage to see it in the dark. He could be returning. What would anypony else be going here?

Apple Bloom could see some kind of black shape forming on the horizon. She walked of the road and hid in the bed of dried out river. Thin clouds of dust rose from the ground when she pressed herself against it.

From the dead river she watched the car pass. It was a black truck with a yellow, round smily face painted on the door. She couldn´t make out the driver. Once it was well past her Apple Bloom got up and kept walking. She stayed of the road but always kept it in the corner of her eye.

After another few hours of walking, she saw a little cottage growing from the horizon. When she got closer she started recognize it. She knew without a doubt, that was Cinder´s house.

“Gotta get my things back.” She said, mostly thinking of her hat. The vengeful mare galloped, or at least trotted forward as fast as her legs could carry her, towards the cabin.

She opened the door and started turning the entire cabin over. It only took her a moment to find the katana and the revolver but her hat was a little trickier. It wasn´t on the hat shelf or the place where she had passed out. For some reason it was in the room beneath the stairway. Apple Bloom stared at it and removed another of the strings.

“Two left.” She put the hat on and walked towards the door.

When she walked out the door she was greeted by seven stallions. All of them standing in a line in front of her. Guns drawn, pointing at her.

Apple Bloom made a move for her revolver out of reflex.

One of the stallions fired. The bullet wised past her head and buried itself into the wall behind her. “Don´t.” He said with a hard tone. The stallion was blue, in a shade that reminded Apple Bloom of Nightglade, with a dark green mane and bright purple eyes. “Put your weapons down and put this on.” He threw her a black bag.

Apple Bloom stared at the stallion. Then at the bag. She picked it up. “What if I don´t?”

“We´ll take you with us but it´ll be violent.”

“I´ve taken on more than you lot.”

“Yes, I know.” The stallion gave her a light smirk. “I also happened to know that only one of them had a gun.” He pulled back the hammer on his revolver. “But I´m not stopping you from trying.” He pointed it back at Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom´s eyes narrowed. She knew if she tried to take attacking the stallions right now she would end up dead before she could draw her sword or raise her gun. A deep, rough grunt passed her lips.

The blue stallion raised a brow. “You planning something?”

“No.” Apple Bloom reached to her side and released the buckle and strap that held her katana and revolver. She threw it towards the stallion and was about to put the bag on when she touched her hat. Despite her best efforts, her hooves started to tremble when she removed it.

“Now put the bag on and stay still.”

***

“You can take of the bag now.”

Apple Bloom yanked it off. The light was blinding at first but she soon managed to get used to it. The first thing she saw once her eyes had adjusted was the blue stallion. “Where are my things?”

“You´ll get them back if the boss says so.” He was sitting opposite her on a polished table. The muzzle of his gun was still pointing at her.

“And where’s the boss?” Apple Bloom decided to act more reasonable but her anger could be heard through the tone of her voice.

“He´ll be here soon.”

The moment he finished a sand brown Pegasus walked into the room. He had azure eyes and a bright blond mane. When he saw Apple Bloom he smiled. “Hm…” His voice was deep and smooth. “So this is the lost sister of Sweet Apple Acres.”

Apple Bloom felt her brows sinking into a hard frown when he said those words.

“Oh, I guess I accidently touched a raw nerve there.” He put his hoof before his mouth. “Sorry. At least that confirms who you are.”

“And you are?” Apple Bloom had to struggle not to growl out the words.

“Velvet Jaxon.” He said, calm and courteously. “That name probably doesn’t mean anything to you, so I´ll tell you something that might ring a bell.” He smiled, warmly. “I am Cinder´s younger brother.”

Her heart jumped into her throat so hard that Apple Bloom nearly gagged. Then her eyes started jumping around, looking for ways to get the gun of the blue stallion before her could shoot.

The stallion fired his gun.

Apple Bloom sat frozen. The wall behind her was smoking from the bullet buried in it. She took a breath. “I didn´t do anything.”

“No, but you thought about doing something.” He pulled back the hammer. “If you had tried anything you´d have a hole in your head leaking blood and brains.”

The vengeful mare´s golden brown eyes narrowed.

Velvet sighed. “Should have known this would happened.” He rubbed one of his eyes. “Let me get things straight with you, Apple Bloom. I am not giving you to Cinder, okay?”

Her brows jumped straight to the middle of her forehead. It had been a while since she was surprised like this. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?”

“That will probably be the biggest surprise for you today.” He reached down under the table and picked up a bottle of red wine with two glasses. He poured to himself first and filled the one for Apple Bloom. The Pegasus pushed the glass towards her.

Apple Bloom stared at the glass for a moment before she picked it up and pushed it to her lips. She never liked the taste of wine and this time was no different. It tasted bitter and far too sweet for her but she forced it down all the same. “So what´s the big surprise?” Apple Bloom got sick of waiting for Velvet to tell her.

“I´m gonna help you get Cinder.”

The glass slipped out of Apple Bloom’s hoof and cracked on the floor.

“Called it.” Velvet said with his relaxed, confident voice. He turned to the blue stallion. “You can leave us now.”

“You sure?”

“At this point I think she knows enough to realize that I´m not gonna kill her. And if she isn’t it will only take you a second to get in here.”

“Let me make one thing clear to you, Velvet.” Apple Bloom butted in. “I´m out to kill Heartbreaker and Cinder. Anypony who gets in my way, I´ll kill. Anypony who gets out of my way, I won´t waste the bullet or effort.”

Velvet Jaxon gave her a nod and turned to the blue stallion. “See.”

The blue stallion left.

Velvet Jaxon poured himself another glass. “Heartbreaker and Cinder? What about Hammerhead?”

“I crushed his skull with a rock this morning.” Apple Bloom felt somewhat proud when she said that. “Right after I crawled out of the cave Cinder threw me into.”

“So Hammerhead´s dead.” Velvet took a sip of wine. “That makes things a bit more troublesome.”

“You seem to have forgotten something.” Apple Bloom leaned forward. “I haven´t accepted any offer you´ve made.”

“Afraid there´s a catch?”

Apple Bloom raised her brow. “Remember what I said before? I will kill anypony who gets in the way of my revenge. Right now you´re either an obstacle and an opportunity.”

“And how would you kill me? You don´t have any weapons and if you try anything my friend outside will come in here and pump you full of lead.”

“I´ll snap your neck. You´ll be dead before he can reach his gun.”

“And what then?” He swirled the wine in his glass and took a sip. “He´s far from the only stallion I have around here. And all of them have guns. So stop trying to get smart and take my offer.”

Apple Bloom grunted. She brooded on what he said. “I have a few questions.”

Velvet Jaxon took a mouthful of wine. “Let me guess the first one; why am I giving up my brother to the same mare who´s been killing… a few of his friends? Did I get it right?”

“Yes.” Apple Bloom admitted, begrudgingly.

“The hole Cinder threw you into, he threw me into it when we were young.”

“You know, somehow I don´t find that all that surprising, considering what Cinder is known to do. But it doesn´t really sound like a reason for one brother to want the other dead.”

The Pegasus filled his glass again. “That was just when we were young. And it was far from the only time he tried something like that. As we got older he got worse.” He took a large chug of wine. “He started experimenting. Started killing animals. And dad always kept praising him. Whenever he presented a bad cat or a disobedient puppy he would shower him with praise for rooting out the weeds. And then he moved on to ponies. Killing ponies in creative ways. Killing each one in a far more painful way then the last.” He looked Apple Bloom into the eye. “Do you think I am easily shocked, Apple Bloom?”

“No.” Apple Bloom shock her head.

“The things Cinder has done, shocked me. They haunt me. They fill my nightmares.”

“So why don´t you just kill him?”

“Because Cinder´s not an idiot. If I or anypony I know would try to kill him and fail, he would figure out who tried to kill him and immediately come after me.”

“So when you got word of me, you figured; here´s a pony with a grudge against my psychotic killer brother. If I send her after him I can work around that problem.”

“I didn´t get that idea until I heard he captured you. When he told me he was going to throw you into the pit, I saw a perfect opportunity. He would assume you´re dead and I could point you right towards him. He´d never see you coming.”

“And then I killed Hammerhead.”

“And then you killed Hammerhead. Things would have been far simpler if you´d just stayed in that pit.”

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. Even if she had known that he was coming to dig her out, she still would have crawled out of that pit. “What does it matter to you? Cinder will know that I´m alive but he won´t suspect you for it.”

“No but he´ll be on his guard.”

“That´s my fucking problem.”

“And how well did it go last when he wasn´t expecting you?”

“I won´t fall for the same trick twice.”

One of Velvet´s brows jumped slightly and he gave of a snorted chuckle. “Bold and Beautiful.” He smiled and took the last sip of wine from his glass. “In another time and place I might have grown to love you. Maybe I still can.”

Apple Bloom felt the taste of bile rising from her throat. What he said reminded her of Noose. “In another time and place my family might still be alive and I would never have to see you or your fucked up brother.”

Velvet’s eyes narrowed. The fact that he was disappointed was plain enough for Apple Bloom to see but it wasn´t because he wanted to have her. He wanted to have her at his side. Not just for killing Cinder, he wanted to have her as a soldier. “So when you´ve killed my brother you´re just gonna go after Heartbreaker?”

“Exactly.”

“Well if that´s the way you feel, then fine. Any more questions?”

“Why did they kill my family?”

“Is that your last question?”

“It is if you answer it.”

“Well it´s an easy one. They did it because they thought it was fun.”

Apple Bloom felt like something cold had smacked her right across her check. She was stunned and angry at the same time. “That was their only reason? They thought it was fun?”

Velvet filled up his glass before answering and looked at her with frustrated eyes. “They´ve been killing for over twenty years. They´ve killed for others. They´ve killed for money. They´ve killed for me. They´ve killed for themselves. And they´ve killed for fun. Your family is far from the only massacre they´ve caused.”

Apple Bloom stared into the floor. She sighed and chewed on her lip.

“Not what you were expecting?”

“I don´t know what I was expecting. I´ve had them on my mind for twenty years. Hundreds of ideas and thoughts of why they decided to go after my family have gone through my head. The idea of them doing it for fun has crossed my mind.”

“But you never believed that was the actual cause?”

Apple Bloom didn´t answer.

“No, of course you didn´t. They were your family. You loved them and they loved you. They can´t have been killed just for some ponies’ fun.”

“Shut up.”

“Touched another raw nerve it seems. Sorry.” He took a sip of wine.

Apple Bloom took a few moments to think. “Say I go after your brother. Say I kill him. What will you do then?”

“You keep coming on with the questions.” Velvet muttered. “I certainly won´t be trying to come after you or contact you in any way. As for what will be the consequences of his death, I´ll keep that to myself.”

“Fair enough.”

“So that´s it? You´ll take my offer and kill Cinder?”

“Give me back my things. My weapons. My cloak and my hat. I´ll go after him alone. Just tell me where he is and that will be the last we see of each other.”

Velvet took a mouthful of wine. “So that´s how my brother will die. At the hooves of a long lost mare. If you weren´t out to kill him, it would sound downright romantic.”

“Killing him is the only reason I´m going after him.”

“Good point.” He spun his glass. “It´s a deal then.”

“Just one more thing.”

“What?”

“Can I have a glass of water?”