The Good, the Bad and the Unfriendly

The Shadowbolt Gang.

It was a name that struck fear into the hearts of every traveler and then some in Equestria. No road was truly safe in the country now thanks to this gang.

But it wasn’t always that way. Less than a year ago, two friends by the names of Rarity and Sunny Flare got together because they wanted to change things in the country of Equestria. Outlaws and small roaming gangs of bandits had been terrorizing the roads and less remote parts of the country for ages. It wasn’t as bad as it was now but it was still a persistent danger. Women especially were in danger, being targeted and captured more often to be sold off to a brothel or kept as entertainment for whichever gang found them. You couldn’t travel alone if you were a woman.

Rarity wished to make things safer for the ladies of Equestria. She was already a well-known philanthropist who donated vast sums of money to charity organizations, women’s shelters, rehabilitation for ex-prostitutes and battered wives, orphans, and was known to have personally paid off the debt of many women who found themselves stuck in indentured servitude as prostitutes for one reason or another. Lady Rarity had a dream to help even more women all across Equestria and create a safe haven for any poor, destitute, girl who needed one. But she herself needed friends to help achieve this dream of making Equestria a better place.

That was why she contacted an old friend of hers called Sunny Flare. Rarity was not and never has been the type to do dirty work, she hated riding a horse, and more than anything she hated guns. But her friend Sunny Flare had no such issues and had even made some minor fame as a bounty hunter in recent years. Which is why Rarity sent a wire to her—seeing her as the perfect woman to tackle the dangerous parts of her dream. Sunny Flare was to be the lady that actively patrolled the roads with any buddies she needed to help her. She would be the one fighting against, capturing, and killing any bandits, outlaws, or Buffalo Men that thought they could terrorize the innocent travelers of the country.

And for a time things were good. Really good, even. Sunny Flare in turn contacted a lot of her friends and associates and with the promise of making Equestria a better place (and money) the roaming band of vigilantes got to work. Their success was immediate, Sunny Flare had a knack for both guns and leadership and the guys and gals under her were loyal and obeyed her without question. It was what was needed in a world like this, strong leadership.

Strong leadership with a bit of ruthlessness. You had to put fear into the other scum of Equestria that might be thinking of doing something bad or becoming road bandits themselves. To make sure this kind of thing stopped others needed to see what happened to those who Sunny Flare and her friends dealt with. That’s why hangings and the bodies of dead outlaws swinging from trees became a fairly common sight out in the outskirts of Equestria. A warning that this was going to happen to you too. A message that things were changing in Equestria. It did indeed work, attacks by bandits and gangs became less likely even in the more remote parts of the country, Sunny Flare and her friends were happy to escort people through Buffalo Men territory and anywhere else, the name Sunny Flare became beloved by the common folk and despised by criminals all over.

No good thing lasts forever though.

It was a change that her friends and acquaintances all saw coming. Or perhaps an awakening is more accurate. Because Sunny Flare discovered something about herself while she defended helpless innocents and fought gangs of bandits out on the road.

She enjoyed killing.

She enjoyed killing far more than she enjoyed helping others. She loved the thrill of a gunfight, loved the power she felt when ordering someone to be hung. And thanks to her great success there was unfortunately less and less of that to be found the more she worked on protecting the roads and women of Equestria and all that. Sunny Flare didn’t like that. She started to become agitated and angry, hating the lack of excitement and resenting the weaklings she was supposed to be protecting. The killing blood was inside her now.

It started small. She would sometimes extort those she was escorting for more money, and threaten them with abandonment if she refused. She would torment recovered prostitutes, telling them that maybe she’d let them enjoy “one last spin at their old job” by giving them over to some of the guys in her group. Battered runaway wives were constantly insulted and belittled by her for their weakness and poor life choices. Any criminals they did come across now were never taken alive or merely left for the authorities. Sunny always either shot them or had them hung herself.

A few of the others in what would soon come to be called the Shadowbolt Gang didn’t exactly like this. They saw Sunny Flare getting worse and they wanted her to stop.

And a few more bodies ended up on the road.

The violence was spreading to the rest of her friends now too. Their loyalty to Sunny Flare was becoming twisted as they started to enjoy and partake in the crimes she was committing. Even those who didn’t fully agree with her wouldn’t stand up to her or speak out against her.

It all came to a head one day when they were escorting a wagon train heading from Manehattan to help settle a new piece of land down south. At this point Sunny Flare was still well regarded, most didn’t know about some of the bad things she had done, and the wagon leader thought he was in good (and naive) hands. Sunny Flare though was bored. Bored and tired of this damn charity work, this stupid philanthropy that her old friend Rarity loved. When was the last time she had killed someone dumb enough to try attacking her and her group? She couldn’t remember.

What she did know though was how much this wagon leader was annoying her. He talked incessantly and he kept saying things like how if they didn’t come across any bandits then he shouldn’t have to pay them anything. He made passes at Sunny Flare and the other girls, even though he was married, and treated the guys in the group with disdain.

Sunny Flare was getting agitated.

After the third day of being on the road with nothing coming up, that wagon leader came up to Sunny Flare with a smile and said she and her friends could just leave. And of course they wouldn’t be getting any payment for their trouble. After all there hadn’t been any danger for them at all to protect them from. Right? And Sunny Flare and her group were working with Lady Rarity, so wasn’t this supposed to be charity and something done out of the goodness of their hearts in the first place?

Sunny Flare took out her pistol and shot him between the eyes.

The rest of her friends watched on in shock, they heard his wife scream and run over only for Sunny Flare to shoot her too before she could even ask “Why?”.

Others in the wagon train had seen this happen too.

It didn’t become a massacre, in fact the wagon leader and his wife were the only ones killed that day, but it did become a ransacking. Every wagon was torn into, every valuable stolen, the settlers were beaten and tied up, their protectors now their tormentors. They didn’t understand why this was happening. These were supposed to be the good guys, right?

It ended with Sunny Flare setting fire to the wagons and her friends leaving the settlers to die. On her way off the road, Sunny Flare stopped at the body of the wife she had killed and reached down to take her wedding ring. Looking at that band of silver in the sun with a grin on her face she pocketed the ring and shortly after the newly born Shadowbolt Gang rode off into the sunset. Only by pure chance were the settlers rescued by a traveling group of cowboys. They explained what had happened and now word of Sunny Flare’s change traveled fast.

So it was that Sunny Flare and the Shadowbolt Gang replaced the old bands of roaming outlaws on the road. Now they were the ones preying on the weak and helpless, vigilantes turned villains. And no one had been able to stop them. Most who tried ended up dead.

Lady Rarity was despondent over what had happened and what had become of her old friend. Many reporters came to her, asking for a story, but she refused them all and just did the best she could to continue her work in other ways.

All the while the Shadowbolt Gang brought greater terror to Equestria than there ever had been before them.

Sunny Flare sat on a wooden box full of canned food as she slowly reloaded her gun, pushing one bullet after another into her revolver while she eyed the woman on the ground in front of her.

A middle-aged woman. Breathing heavily, terror in her eyes, clothes torn and sweat dripping down her face. Behind her there were three covered wagons. One had been tipped over onto its side and was currently on fire while the other two had a few men and women going through them, taking out any food and anything else valuable lying around in them. Around the wagons a number of dead bodies and horses lied in a haphazard circle, guns still in the cold hands of some of the people.

Sunny Flare herself wore a pair of excruciatingly tight looking white jeans with a pair of white cow-hide chaps over them and black boots covering her feet. A black belt was tied around her midsection along with her gun belt. The shirt she wore was slightly baggy on her but still tightly tucked into her pants and was colored white with black splotches—dairy cow patterned. Over that shirt she wore a black vest and had a red bandanna tied around her neck with at last a white cowboy hat on the top of her head.

“Well, you didn’t do anything wrong honesty,” Sunny Flare suddenly said, briefly looking down at her pistol while the frightened woman stared at her. With the sixth and final bullet being pushed in, Sunny Flare at last looked back up at her. “You took an off-route that you knew we didn’t usually prey on, so you did your research there, and you hired a good number of bodyguards just in case, so I can’t criticize you for skimping on safety.”

Sunny Flare exhaled and stood up, cracking her neck and then spinning the chamber of her revolver. “Yep, you were smarter than a lot of the others we’ve ambushed and knocked over out on these roads. So I wouldn’t blame yourself if I were you.” She grinned and stopped the spinning with her thumb, pointing her gun at the woman’s face she cocked the hammer back. “You just got some really shit luck, lady.”

The bullet entered through her right eye and she fell over backwards like a springboard. Her body folded unnaturally on top of the back of her legs with a terrified expression frozen on her face.

Sunny Flare licked her grinning lips and put her silver gun back into its holster at her side. Leaning down she grabbed the dead lady’s left wrist and held up her hand, sliding off the wedding ring she wore and taking it for herself. Sunny Flare held the ring between her pointer finger and thumb and squinted at it to see how nice it really was. Pleased with its quality she then reached with her other hand into her shirt, pulling out a necklace that had more than two dozen other wedding rings already looped through it. Quickly adjusting the necklace she slipped the newly dead woman’s ring on it and stuffed it back into her shirt.

“Lovely,” Sunny Flare said to herself.

“You really have to act like that every time? Can’t you just shoot them like normal?” An annoyed voice asked her.

Sunny Flare giggled and looked over to her friend. “Sorry, Sour, you know how much I love to make things fancy.”

Sour Sweet snorted and looked over at the wagons their underlings in the gang were rummaging through. “Whatever. At least we got a good haul from these.”

“Indeed. This was one of the best raids we’ve had in a while,” Sunny Flare said and raised her arms up over her head, taking a big stretch. “Now I’m just a little confused by one thing about these wagons though.”

Sour Sweet looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Where were they going? They didn’t have enough water to make it to the nearest city. So where were they going?”

“How the hell should I know?” Sour Sweet frowned, an angry glare on her face. She was always quickest to anger among their whole gang. The freckled girl could be amicable one second and stabbing you in the gut the next.

“I don’t know,” Sunny Flare rolled her eyes. “But we’ll find out.”

Sour Sweet grumbled and glanced over at two guys just standing around on the outer circle of the group. “Hey! Trenderhoof, Jet Set! Instead of standing around like a couple of jackasses how about looking for a map? See if these idiots had a travel plan why don’t you?”

Sunny Flare grinned as the two guys glared at the freckled girl but still did as commanded without a word. Sour Sweet was her oldest friend other than Rarity and was the de facto number two of the Shadowbolt Gang. She was tall and slim, almost as tall as some of the men in the gang, with her hair down in a long ponytail that fell to the middle of her back. Unlike Sunny Flare she wore a long gray coat with simple blue jeans and a red shirt. Her weapon of choice was a long rifle that she carried slung over her shoulder, preferring shooting from a distance to getting stuck in a close range gunfight with hails of bullets going everywhere. She was the first friend Sunny Flare had contacted after Rarity told her what she wanted to do.

“Man that was fun! I wish every day could be like this, I love hearing all those bullets fly!” A loud and energetic voice came from behind Sunny Flare and she looked over her shoulder to see another loyal friend, Lemon Zest.

“I’m sure we’ll get to have some more fun soon, Lemon,” Sunny Flare told her.

Lemon Zest had ragged green hair that she never did anything about, with a brown hat on her head and dirty clothes that were torn and ripped all over in places. Another close friend of Sunny Flare’s and Sour Sweet’s, her obnoxious behavior was put up with due to her eagerness and loyalty to Sunny Flare. She also didn’t care as much for the simple revolver but instead carried a repeater rifle. Using cartridges and a lever-action mechanism it gave it an impressive rate of fire. Lemon Zest liked to fill the air with as many bullets as she could as fast as possible.

“We should set fire to the rest of the wagons and leave soon. I don’t want us caught by a posse like other idiots have been in the past,” a new voice cut in, this one steady and just a little bit biting.

Sugarcoat. Now there was a girl who didn’t know the meaning of the word tact. Sunny Flare always loved that blunt honesty of hers though. Especially when it was directed at people she herself didn’t much care for. Right now she just snickered thinking about all the morons Sugarcoat had insulted in the past, mostly when they were back actually trying to make Equestria safer. Sugarcoat was like Sour Sweet, carrying a single bolt-action rifle. She completely disdained the use of pistols. On her head she wore a white fedora while a brown coat that she almost always kept buttoned up was draped over the rest of her body. The only thing you could see below it was a pair of long brown leather boots.

“Even if a posse did try and come after us we’d just kill them too,” Sunny Flare said to her.

“That kind of overconfidence will get us killed one day. We’re best at hitting and running,” Sugarcoat frowned back at her.

“Heh, you’re lucky you’re my friend or I’d shoot you for saying something like that,” Sunny Flare laughed.

The sound of something slicing through the air came from behind Sunny Flare. She knew what that sound was and she turned to see another of her close friends, Indigo Zap. Now Indigo was different from any of them. She didn’t like guns at all.

Nope, what she carried on her side was a rapier. Apparently Indigo had been the student of some crazy old codger that liked the “old ways” of fighting. He trained Indigo and some other girl by the name of Rainbow Dash in the art of swordfighting. Sunny Flare always thought it was pretty stupid. Anyone with half a brain could pull out their gun and shoot you just like that. But Indigo took it very seriously. She wasn’t as vicious as they were either. Apparently that teacher of hers had instilled some silly honor into Indigo Zap, Sunny Flare didn’t get it but Indigo was still a good friend of hers so if she didn’t want to partake in some of the more… excessive things they did sometimes Sunny wasn’t going to rake her across the coals or anything for it.

Unlike the other girls, Indigo Zap wore something more akin to a suit, blue pants and a blue jacket over a white shirt, with black rugged boots on her feet.

“Having fun waving your sword around?” Sugarcoat asked Indigo Zap with a raised eyebrow.

Indigo Zap sighed and made a few more thrusts and cuts at the empty air before sheathing her blade. “Just trying to keep in practice.”

Sunny Flare grinned as she looked back and forth between the four girls. They were her closest and most capable friends and together they formed the core of the Shadowbolt Gang. She couldn’t have asked for better accomplices.

“Hey! Hey we found it!” Trenderhoof came running over with Jet Set and Jet Set’s girlfriend, Upper Crust, tagging along.

“Found what?” Sunny Flare asked as her close friends all gathered with her.

“A map!” Trenderhoof said with a smile and held up a brown piece of paper for Sunny Flare to see. “It was in the pocket of the guy driving the first wagon, you know, the one Sour Sweet shot in the head?”

“And an excellent shot it was,” Sunny Flare grinned and winked at her friend.

“Yeah but look, look at this map, boss.” Trenderhoof was exuberant as he practically shoved the map in her face. It had a drawing of the road they were on, as well as a number of the main roads in the area and where it connected back up with them. The nearest town, Dodge Junction, was labeled near the top of the map. But there was something else too, a smaller settlement that Sunny Flare didn’t know about was drawn on the map. Apparently it was up in the hills down an unmarked trail that branched off this road only a few miles away.

“Well, well, well, a hole in the wall, is it?” Sunny Flare darkly chuckled as she looked at the map.

“They must’ve been planning to stop there and stock up on water and other supplies,” Sugarcoat said.

“Mhm, my thoughts exactly,” Sunny Flare nodded and smiled. “This poor little dive was probably expecting them, probably were going to be trading things with these wagons or taking money off them. We might have just deprived the hole on this map of its livelihood for the whole month. Isn’t that just tragic?”

Sour Sweet got a nasty grin on her own face, which spread to the other girls sans Indigo. “Thinking about something, fearless leader?”

“Oh I was just thinking how we really need to make up for what we’ve done and visit this hole in the wall ourselves. We’ll give them some of our business instead,” Sunny Flare said and started laughing, unable to hold herself back. Slapping her knee with tears practically in her eyes she looked back up at her friends. “Hey girls, I’ve got a question for you. Can a little town do anything about thirty people with guns riding on in that they weren’t expecting?”

Lemon Zest immediately pumped her fist into the air. “Hell no!”

“That’s exactly right,” Sunny Flare winked.

It was later in the day, closer to evening, when the Shadowbolt Gang stormed into the small growth that was too new and too small to even be called a town. The place didn’t even have a name, it was practically a rest stop in the hills that wasn’t even on most maps. There was no real hotel, bar, and of course no real bank. Just a well and a storehouse for food and other supplies that travelers needed. Along with a small place for food to eat at that doubled as an inn with a couple of rooms above it and then the homes of the ones who lived out here and worked at the stop. Besides that you only had hunters and trappers and their meager hovels along with a couple of small vegetable gardens. It wasn’t much to speak of, and it was totally enclosed between two large hills.

Of course even places like this still had money and other valuables in them.

And of course even if it didn’t, Sunny Flare could enjoy herself in other ways.

The folk living here were surprised to see all the riders suddenly come in, they were expecting a few wagons led by a family that had already been here once or twice and were friends of the locals. Instead they looked on warily from their homes and out on the street. These fellows who just came in on their horses had a bad look to them. There was just something unsettling about the way they carried themselves, and the grin on the face of the woman that led them.

Outlaws. They were all afraid to say the word out loud but they knew it to be the case. And there was only one outlaw gang as big as this that would just come marching in like they owned the place.

Sunny Flare rode until she was right in the middle of all the buildings and brought her horse to a stop, the others now stopping in turn and milling about in the one road that went through the “town”. She calmed down her horse and hopped off him, yawning and stretching before looking around the place with that grin still on her face.

“Not a very warm welcome, is it?” She said loudly enough for all the locals to hear. “What? We’re not ghosts or something, you know. Is this really how you welcome people to this place? I wouldn’t want to have to tell others about how unfriendly you all are.”

Despite her insults and attempts to prey on their reliance on others coming through here, they still seemed too scared of her for any of them to want to come out and talk to her. But all Sunny Flare did was stand there by her horse and start whistling. It was clear she wasn’t going to be leaving for nothing. One of the locals, an old man with a balding head and glasses on his nose, gulped down his fear and finally stepped out from in front of the inn and walked towards her.

He got to about five steps away from her and nervously rubbed his hands together, afraid to look her in the eyes at first before finally meeting her gaze. “Can I help you with anything, miss?”

Sunny Flare didn’t say anything. She pulled out her pistol and shot him in the face.

While he fell over backwards dead the rest of the locals screamed in terror, some running inside their homes while others were frozen in shock. Sunny Flare flipped her gun over and playfully blew on the barrel before putting it back in her holster. The rest of the Shadowbolt Gang laughed atop their horses. They thought it was a riot. Shortly they started to have their horses trot up around Sunny Flare, going deeper into the town so they could look over every inch of it.

Sunny Flare though just whistled some more and walked towards the inn and other buildings the old man had come from. There were a few people still there and now they were worried they were next. Sunny Flare paused in front of them, looking down the way and seeing some people peering at her out from their windows, and a family or two gathered on their porch. She took a deep breath so she could speak loudly, not shouting, but projecting her voice further so everyone could hear.

“Alright, here’s what’s going to happen. You all are going to give us everything we want and anything we ask for and that way when we leave there might still be some of you still here. I’m talking money, water, food, alcohol, gold, anything. Don’t give us shit and maybe I won’t shoot you. That’s it. Do any of you inbred hicks living in this pisshole have a problem with that?” She hooked a thumb back to the body of the old timer. “I killed the guy who was nice enough to politely ask what we wanted. I’ll kill any of you too if I feel like it. So don’t make me feel like it and let’s make this a nice experience.”

She smiled and took another glance up and down the row of buildings. “All of you hiding in your homes or whatever get the fuck out here right now. Or we’ll make you come out. You’ve got till the count of ten.”

They all made it out before five. Now all the locals were arrayed before her and the rest of her gang.

“Good,” Sunny Flare drawled and put the most amicable smile she could on her face. “In case you idiots don’t know or hadn’t figured it out yet, you’ve made the pleasant acquaintance of Sunny Flare and the Shadowbolt Gang.”

“I think they probably knew that by now,” Sugarcoat said from behind her.

“Shut up,” Sunny Flare playfully said back to her. She then snapped her fingers at Sugarcoat and the other girls. “And you four get off your horses and come over here.”

Sugarcoat and them did so, walking up right next to Sunny Flare with their guns on display, making the townsfolk even more worried.

“You see these four girls here?” Sunny Flare said to the people. “You listen to them the same you would to me. Hell, you better listen to anything anyone in my gang says, but these four especially. Don’t think about trying to fight back or anything either, we obviously have you outgunned. Now, got any questions?” She raised an eyebrow to see if there actually was anyone dumb, courageous, or curious enough to raise their hand.

One man did. He was standing with his family, a wife, a teenage son, and a young daughter, in front of his house.

“Yeah?” Sunny Flare grinned at him.

He sweated nervously a bit but managed to find his voice. “J-Just what exactly are you going to do now?”

Sunny Flare folded her arms over her chest and started tapping her fingers. “Good question, good question. Well like I said that does partially depend on you and how good of a mood you can put me in. But I can tell you what’s definitely happening of course—we’re going to ransack your houses and take anything valuable we see, and take all the food and whiskey you have lying around too. That’s what’s going to happen tonight. And then we’ll probably leave tomorrow morning.”

There were a lot of worried faces, some even angry, some even said something nasty under their breath. Sunny Flare didn’t care.

“Hey now, don’t get like that. We can all be good friends still. And after all, money isn’t everything. Your lives are a lot more important. So if I was you I’d start treating us like visiting royalty and get out of our way when we’re searching through your homes. Then maybe tomorrow morning all we’ll be doing is waving goodbye to each other,” Sunny Flare said and mockingly waved at them.

She cracked her knuckles. “So here’s my orders right now—I know you won’t just give us everything even if we threaten you but go on and get us all the alcohol we can drink from your homes and bring it here. While that’s going on we’ll be going through the rest of this shithole. If you want to make things easier for all of us you can just leave your money out so we don’t have to tear your homes apart. But that’s up to you.” Her grin turned down into an even glare. “Now get the fuck out of my sight.”

Sunny Flare turned around with her close friends and went over to the rest of her gang, whistling at them to get their horses tied up and come down so the pillaging could begin. The locals weren’t about to stand up to her and defy the gang. Even the ones carrying guns themselves didn’t fancy their chances on fighting. So most of them just did what she told them to, begrudgingly or just fearfully they slinked back into their humble hovels and looked for the stuff the Shadowbolt Gang wanted. So that just maybe they could get out of this terrible situation alive.

Except for one.

As Sunny Flare walked down the row of buildings with Sour Sweet by her side to check things out, she suddenly had to pause as someone yelled out to her.

“Hey! Y-You dirty outlaw!” A young but distinctly brash and male voice shouted at Sunny Flare as she walked by.

Surprised and slightly amused, she turned to look at the source of this voice. It was that teenage boy she had noticed earlier. The one who had to be the son of the man who talked to her. He was standing out on the dirt in front of his house with his family staring at his back in terror. Obviously they weren’t too happy to see him doing this.

Sunny Flare on the other hand grinned.

“What is it, kid?”

“I know who you are! I-I recognize you and your gang!” He pointed his finger at her. The kid was maybe 15 at the oldest, gangly, with a pronounced Adam’s apple and freckles all over his face. He wore a cowboy hat that looked to be one size too big for his head.

“Oh, you do? It’s not like I was really keeping it a secret,” Sunny Flare shrugged. “So tell me, kid, who are we?”

“You’re Sunny Flare! Leader of the Shadowbolt Gang!” He shouted.

“Bravo,” Sunny sarcastically quipped and gave him a slow clap while her gang members snickered behind her.

“Shut up, don’t you make fun of me!” The kid said as he stomped closer to her.

Behind him his mother tried to come after him but her husband grabbed her by the arm, stopping her. Meanwhile a couple of Shadowbolts stepped up to protect Sunny Flare. But she only waved them off.

“You don’t need to worry about anything,” she said to them. “The kid doesn’t even have a gun. He’s got a lot of courage though, I’ll give him that. It’s actually pretty respectable. What’s your name kid? And just what do you think you’re doing anyways? You saw what I did and you heard what I said. You just crazy or stupid maybe?”

“I’m not afraid of you! You… you and your gang can’t just come in here and do whatever you want! This is our home!”

“Actually we kind of can, cause unlike you we have these,” Sunny Flare said and pulled out her gun.

The kid froze and a number of others gasped but Sunny Flare didn’t shoot him. She just held the gun lazily at her side.

Sunny Flare laughed at all of their reactions before leveling her gaze at the kid. “Heh, do you still want to talk big? Or are you going to go cry to mommy because you’re scared of this gun I’m holding?”

The boy got red in the face and took another step towards her. “Like I said I’m not afraid!”

“You’re making me pretty amused here, kid,” Sunny Flare chuckled some more before looking up and rubbing her chin with her free hand. “Hmm, well if you want to prove how courageous you are… and if you want to protect your home… why not the two of us have a little competition?”

He was a little apprehensive, as much as he tried not to show it, before he managed to respond to her without too much wavering in his voice. “W-What kind of competition?”

Sunny Flare snorted and whistled for her horse, the brown stallion coming over to her. She reached into the saddlebag at his side and searched around for a second before pulling out a pristine looking pistol. It was a shiny silver and looked like it might never have even been fired yet. She turned it over in her hand and grinned before walking away from her horse and carelessly tossed the pistol on the ground towards the teenager. It slid across the dirt and stopped right below his feet where he stared down at it like it was made of solid gold.

“A duel of course,” Sunny Flare said.

The teenager swallowed and hesitantly looked back up at her before looking back down at the formerly spotless pistol laying there in the dirt.

“Never used a gun before? It’s easy,” Sunny Flare giggled at him.

“I-I know how to use a gun...” he said.

“Then pick it up and let’s get ready for a duel if you’re so serious,” she grinned at him, the faintest look of malice on her face. “We’ll hold our guns at our sides and my girl here-” she nodded at Sour Sweet. “Will count to ten. At ten we see which of us can pull up our gun and shoot faster. If you win, well, I’m dead and congratulations, you just saved Equestria from the biggest scourge it has. I’ll even promise that the rest of my Shadowbolts will up and leave town without a fuss. No one else will get hurt. Of course if you lose though nothing’s gonna change except for the fact you threw your life away for nothing. Do you have the guts, kid?”

A drop of sweat snaked its way down the side of the teenager’s face before it stalled on his chin and dropped after a second of hanging there onto the ground. His eyes were locked with Sunny Flare’s as he reached down and picked up the gun.

Sunny Flare’s face split into the widest grin she had sported yet. “Good.”

“I’m… I’m putting an end to your reign of terror,” the kid said to her.

“Cartwheel!” His mother screeched from in front of her house, her husband holding her back while her even younger daughter was hugging her legs tightly.

The kid, Cartwheel, didn’t look back over at her. Instead he gazed down at the six-shooter he now held in his right hand, then looked over at the one Sunny Flare was holding. Both of them kept their guns at their hips with the barrels pointed down at the ground for the moment. It would only be at the count of ten that they raised them to try and shoot the other. They were maybe only a good dozen paces apart, an easy shot for even someone that didn’t have much experience with guns.

“Are you ready?” Sunny Flare asked him.

Cartwheel nodded even as his hand shook and more sweat gathered at his brow. “Ready.”

Sunny Flare glanced over to Sour Sweet. “Well? Start us off.”

Sour Sweet smiled and nodded. “One~”

While she started the countdown the rest of the onlookers might as well have been in a painting for how stiff they were. Cartwheel himself only vaguely registered the numbers Sour Sweet was saying, his heart was pounding so hard in his chest, his vision going white at the edges. Was this real? He didn’t recognize what the other woman was even saying now, only knowing that on the tenth time she opened her mouth to say something that it would be the time to shoot.

The sun had almost completely gone down, only the last littlest licks and rays of light were visible in this hilly enclave now. Shadows were stretching to their apex before they disappeared entirely. Cartwheel sucked in a breath to try and steady himself. To try and not faint while the world came to a stop at dusk. His hand gripped the gun he was holding until his knuckles were white and his blood felt like ice in his veins.

Right now that gun he was holding was the entire world.

Sour Sweet was close to ten and as Cartwheel looked ahead to Sunny Flare she saw her casually staring at him with a mocking little smirk on her face. His anger did a good job of focusing his thoughts. He wanted to beat her, had to beat her, for his family and everyone else she was going to torment or had terrorized already. This was his chance to be a hero and stop the Shadowbolt Gang.

“Nine~” Sour Sweet said.

Everything came back to normal for Cartwheel. One more second and it would be over. His trigger finger twitched along with the whole rest of his body while a droplet of sweat hung on the tip of his nose.

Sour Sweet paused with her eyes darting back and forth briefly between the two before finishing her count. “Ten.”

Cartwheel raised his gun as fast as he could directly at Sunny Flare. It wasn’t particularly fast compared to some quickdraws out there but it wasn’t terrible. His finger almost slipped off the trigger before he could pull it but he recovered, aiming the gun as steadily as he could at the fiend. And then he pulled it.

click

“Huh?” Cartwheel said dumbly as nothing came out of the gun. He pulled the trigger a few more times but all it did was click emptily at Sunny Flare. Finally he brought it closer to his face and really looked at it.

The chamber was empty.

“Ahahahahahaha!” Sunny Flare practically doubled over in laughter, holding her stomach as she roared at Carthweel. A lot of the Shadowbolts were laughing with her, they had known what was up.

Cartwheel just stared at her with his mouth hanging open. “Y-You...”

“Hahaha...” Sunny Flare’s laughter lightened up a bit until she managed to stand up straight and wipe a few tears from her eyes. “Kid, you’re too funny.” She looked over at Sour Sweet. “What is this? The third time I’ve done this? Never gets old.”

She lifted up her gun and aimed it right at Carthweel. His eyes had a split-second to go wide before she fired, any last words that were on the tip of his tongue went unsaid.

The bullet hit him in the center of his forehead, knocking him off his feet and blowing his hat off while the back of his skull exploded outwards from the force of the bullet. Jets of blood along with bits of brain and skull streaked out twenty feet behind his dead body. His eyes were half-lidded when he hit the ground with a dribble of blood running down between them. Just looking at him from the front it would’ve almost looked clean, but everything else was there to show how gruesome of a death he truly had.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Cartwheels mother let out an ear-piercing shriek as she looked at her son’s dead body, hands gripping her hair so hard she threatened to pull some of it right out.

Sunny Flare winced and glared over at the mother and the rest of her family. The husband was white as a ghost, a vacant look on his face, while the daughter was crying openly, blubbering with tears and snot running down her face.

“Tch, I hate screamers,” Sunny Flare growled and raised her pistol towards the three of them.

The first shot was for the husband, blowing him away from his wife where he slumped over dead against the front of his house. The second was for the daughter, who died with a strangled breath as a bullet tore through her lung and knocked her to the ground. Lastly—after pausing for a second so the mother could truly register what had just happened—Sunny Flare shot her too. Right through the heart, making her fall over and collapse against the house on the other side of the front door from her husband.

Sunny Flare snorted in amusement to herself and grinned. “There you go, now you can all be a happy family together again.”

There were screams and cries from the other locals, some of them outright fainted or threw up, but the rest of the Shadowbolt Gang kept their guns trained on them so they couldn’t do anything. In fact, Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat started to lead the other members of the gang over to the buildings and houses so they could start to do their thing.

Sunny Flare ignored that for a moment and holstered her gun, walking towards the dead woman she had just shot. Once she was standing right above her she squatted down and grabbed her left hand. Her grin widened as she saw the pretty band of gold on her ring finger. It was almost plain except for a small flower design engraved in it on one side. Sunny slipped it off the cold finger and rolled it over in her hand.

“Pretty. Two new rings in one day, how lucky,” Sunny Flare said to herself.

While she was busy with herself the locals left alive had realized something. It was all a lie. Everything she had said about maybe letting them live, maybe just leaving peacefully tomorrow morning, it was all lies. Maybe she had just said it to make them more compliant. Maybe she had said it all to give them false hope so she could laugh at them when she finally ended up actually pulling the trigger. It didn’t matter. What mattered is that they knew now that none of them were getting out of this alive.

Sunny Flare woke up with a yawn the following morning. Stretching her arms and rolling over in the comfortable bed she had taken up sleeping in. It sure was a lot nicer than sleeping out in the dirt or a tent. She blinked her eyes a couple of times and looked at the portrait sitting on the nightstand, a smiling couple with a young boy standing beside them and a bundled up baby held by the wife.

“You two sure had a nice bed,” Sunny Flare said and knocked the portrait over before throwing off the covers and stepping out of bed. She was wearing a pink nightgown that she had pilfered from the closet last night, that got tossed down by her feet in a second so she could go back to putting her normal clothes on.

When she was done with that she hopped into their bathroom for a second to check herself out in the mirror and groom as best she could. Sunny Flare always liked to look her best but unfortunately the life she had chosen didn’t always give the opportunity for her to take care of herself. Luckily this morning she had combs, clippers, water, lotion, make-up, and all sorts of other things for pampering all to herself. She was going to take her sweet time to look good. The first thing she did was apply some mascara and use an eyelash curler to really make those piercing eyes of her stand out. Then used some blush and powder on her cheeks, nose, and the rest of her face. A quick brush through her hair showed it was still smooth despite her rough living, thanks to years of adequate care, and with the clippers she got rid of any split-ends or strays sticking out. The very last thing she did was take a file to her nails and make sure they were perfectly manicured.

And viola—Sunny Flare looked gorgeous. She always did, but now even more so. She posed a little bit, turned around, checked her hair and skin once more, and smiled.

“Perfect.”

The sound of a gunshot from outside broke through the quiet morning. Sunny Flare looked at the wall in the direction she believed it came from and raised an eyebrow.

“Sounds like someone is already having fun this morning.”

Sunny Flare started her way out of the house and once she opened the front door took in the sights of what had become of this hole-in-the-wall since the Shadowbolt Gang graced it with their presence yesterday.

Several new bodies lay out in the streets, along with the ones Sunny Flare had personally killed yesterday. Naturally no one had bothered to pick them up and the buzzards and flies were already having a go at them. She started walking down the rows of buildings and took a gander at some of them, lots of newly broken windows, doors of their hinges, the insides all ransacked. She could hear a lot of the members of her gangs partying inside the inn, likely drinking and playing cards and messing with whatever locals were left.

Another gunshot rang out and Sunny Flare looked down the path leading into the hills to see Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat standing there just at the limits of the “town”. Both of them had their rifles shouldered and looked to be taking aim at something while Lemon Zest stood beside the two of them and watched. Sunny Flare was curious to see what fun they were having and sauntered on over to join them as well.

“Hey you three, what’s going on?” She asked them.

They paused and greeted her with a smile and wave, except for Sugarcoat who kept her expression even.

“Did you get enough beauty sleep?” The glasses wearing girl asked.

“More than enough,” Sunny replied. “So what are you doing?”

“Target practice!” Lemon Zest ecstatically yelled, practically right into Sour Sweet’s ear.

Sour Sweet winced and glared at the green-haired girl before looking at Sunny Flare. “What she said.”

“What targets?” Sunny Flare asked although she had a pretty good guess already.

“See for yourself,” Sugarcoat said.

Sunny Flare grinned and walked past her, putting her hands around her eyes to block out anything else and stared out down the hills. She saw some people running down there. Running down the path or over some of the small hills, some even close to getting out into the desert. And of course there were a couple of dead bodies lying on the way too.

“How much of a head start did you give them?” Sunny Flare asked.

“Plenty. But they’re dumb, they mostly just ran in a straight line,” Sugarcoat said.

“Easy pickings,” Sour Sweet laughed.

“I’m gonna go out and get any of the ones who hid out in the hills once Sour and Sugar are done,” Lemon Zest said and made a cutthroat motion. “Gonna be a lot of fun.”

“But before that...” Sour Sweet said and brought up her rifle again. She was aiming carefully down the sights at some poor sap running straight for the desert. It was pretty pathetic to be honest, even if he made it far enough he was just going to die of thirst or starvation anyways. Sour Sweet squeezed one eye shut and kept her gun level, showing more patience than you’d expect from one as volatile as her, and pulled the trigger.

The running man dropped with a hole in his back and flopped on the ground before rolling a few feet down the hill.

“Nice shot,” Sunny told Sour.

“And if he’s just playing dead I get one more to finish off!” Lemon Zest pumped her fist.

“You still have to wait, Lemon. And right now it’s my turn again,” Sugarcoat said and looked for the next target with her rifle.

Sunny Flare left them to their own devices after that. They always knew how to have the most fun when the gang was doing something like this. But where was Indigo? Naturally she would never partake in something as vicious as this, she had to be doing something by herself. Probably practicing more of her silly swordplay. Sunny Flare yawned as she walked back to the buildings that made up this meager settlement. The inn still looked plenty rambunctious so she decided to head inside to see what the rest of her gang was up to.

Well rambunctious was definitely putting it lightly. It was a madhouse in here with her gang taking up one side of the floor and some of the locals forced into the other, playing instruments and dancing for the amusement of her gang. Every now and then one of her guys or girls would fire at the feet of the dancers or shoot close to the head of a musician to startle them. It always got a row of laughter from everyone.

Sometimes they’d even land a hit and one of the dancers would fall over screaming and grabbing his bleeding foot.

Sunny Flare chuckled inwardly. Poor them.

She saw one of the more recognizable members of her gang leaning against the inn’s desk, clapping along with the music and watching the pitiful locals. A taller than average lady with an almost deathly pale face and soft pink hair. “Fleur?” Sunny Flare asked as she walked up to the statuesque woman.

Fleur only just now noticed the arrival of her leader and stood up straight. “Yes?”

“Heh,” Sunny smirked. “Don’t get so serious all of a sudden. Do you know where Indigo is?”

Fleur smiled and nodded a few times. “Yes actually, she’s up on the roof of the inn.”

“Excellent, thank you. And by the way I want us back on the road before noon, so while I’m talking to Indigo I want you to tell everyone to finish up down here and go get their horses” Sunny Flare told her.

“Of course,” Fleur answered.

Sunny Flare gave her a last little wink before she walked up the stairs leading to the inn’s second story. From there it was just a collapsible set of steps that had been pulled down from the ceiling and she was able to walk up into the attic. The attic looked like it was for storing things like extra furniture, if there had been anything else inside it it was already looted by her gang. She had to look around for a second but saw a ladder up in the corner leading to an open door to the roof. With an annoyed sigh and a roll of her eyes she climbed on up it too before emerging on the roof.

Indigo Zap was indeed up here, doing the same thing she always did when she had the free time and nobody else in the gang was bothering her: practice her swordplay.

She went through the motions, the thrusts, the parries, practicing her footwork while visualizing an invisible opponent in front of her while Sunny Flare watched from behind. Indigo Zap practiced every form and stance she knew with rapier in hand. Her self-training was useful, in her words, for keeping sharp even though she hardly ever found herself fighting someone who used any blade at all. Indigo Zap still yearned for a good swordfight anyways. That’s why she went through every movement perfectly as often as she could.

With one final thrust at empty air she let out a breath she had been holding in and sheathed the thin sword.

“Are we leaving?” She asked Sunny Flare without turning around.

“Soon enough, my dear. Were you having fun?”

Indigo Zap shrugged. “Same as always.”

“Try and be more sociable with the rest of the gang then, enjoy yourself!”

Immediately after Sunny Flare said that the two of them heard a round of gunfire down below.

“See? Just like them,” Sunny Flare put an arm around Indigo Zap’s shoulders and led her over to the ladder.

The whole gang was back together out on the dirt road in front of the buildings, a good number of them already on their horses while some of the others were still fetching or bringing theirs over. Not a sound came from anywhere else in the hole-in-the-wall as Fleur and the others had made sure that the last few locals were taken care of inside the inn. The Shadowbolt special is what this place got to experience. They learned something a lot of others had unfortunately learned all over Equestria:

Sunny Flare isn’t too keen on survivors.

Now that they had their stuff and it was all packed up on their horses it was about time to leave too. Sour Sweet and her other top girls were with her and ready to head back out onto the winding roads of Equestria. Those roads where there was always more prey for them to find. Always something fun for Sunny Flare to do.

There was just one last thing left to do here.

“Trenderhoof, Jet Set?” Sunny Flare looked over at the two guys with a raised eyebrow and a closed-lip smile tugging up her face.

The two of them knowingly grinned back at her. “Yes, Sunny Flare?” Jet Set asked.

“Burn this shithole to the ground and let’s get out of here,” she told them.

The rest of the Shadowbolt Gang cheered and Trenderhoof and Jet Set got to work on making sure this whole place was gonna go up in flames. Each of them had a few matches, rags, and bottles of moonshine to make things easy. With how dry it was here the fires should have no problem catching. Sunny Flare watched with joy as they threw bottles into or on the front of each and every building in this little settlement. No one was gonna be dumb enough to start living out here again anytime soon now, not when they learned what had happened here.

Who had happened here.

Once she saw that the fire was indeed burning strongly and black smoke drifted up into the sky, Sunny Flare whistled for her gang and started galloping down the hills on her stallion. They all loyally followed after her. Unflinchingly the pack of deadly psychopaths and gunslingers had a new day ahead of them. The Shadowbolt Gang would continue to terrorize Equestria until someone, anyone, could stop them.