The Darkness Within

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off.  You sit and trust the engineer.” –Corrie Ten Boom

“Trust no one.”

Chapter: Charles

Boomer was drunk, but he was always drunk.  His ancestors were drunk, and his descendants will be drunk.  Boomer came from a guild of engineers in Baltimare.  After Ultor left, he went to the market, to buy his favorite fruit, apples.  He loved apples for strange and unknown reasons; always eating apples, Ultor nor the other leader had any idea why.

Boomer lied to Ultor, he wasn’t drunk, and he was on a mission.  A family had paid him to save their filly from some kidnappers in Ponyville.  He respected the family and will make sure that filly is returned to her family.

They said that they received a note that she will be killed if the guard or anypony interferes.  Well, they didn’t say machines.  Boomer’s machines were different; they weren’t like the machines that two scam artists that came by Ponyville a while ago.  No, his machines were far different from that.  His machines were mechanized robot ponies and improvised bombs.

Boomer went to the area that the family had sent him.  The place was empty but he knew that the kidnappers would be there.

“Where’s the family.” A pony said

Boomer turned around to see a group of ponies.  There was a filly behind them, chained to the nearest pole.

“They sent me.” Boomer said “Now, may I have that filly behind you?”

“We asked for money, not some stupid pony.” The leader said

“Sorry, but you’re stuck with me.” Boomer said “Now, you pick, the easy way? Or the hard way?”

The leader lashed out at him, only to be shot by a sentry that was on a rooftop. This was a product of Boomer.  The sentry had three legs holding it up, with three crossbows attached to a metallic box with a crossbow inside that box.  The arrows came from the metallic box that with magic loaded more arrows.  It aimed at the rest of the ponies.  The rest of the group were stunned, this was a death machine.  With enough magic, Boomer could just about kill a whole entire legion if he had wanted to.

“Now, the filly please?” Boomer said

The ponies unchained the filly that ran to Boomer, crying profusely.

“Thank you.” Boomer said “Now, start running.”

The sentry started firing arrows while the ponies ran.  Eventually the ponies were all gunned down.  Luckily, Boomer had covered the filly’s eyes so she wouldn’t be traumatized.

“Go back home, young one.” Boomer said sternly

The filly ran to her home, thanking her savior.

Boomer teleported to the sentry and made it disappear.  In reality, he had teleported to his storage room in his house.  Boomer was satisfied on how the sentry performed, he had just made it and it was very effective at taking a group of ponies down.  It had one error though; it needed a pony to use magic to load the arrows and it was exhausting.

He left the area, heading to the bar to get drunk again.  He needed it after today.  He had arrived to see ponies talking about the recent incident in Cloudsdale.  He knew this was Ultor, it had to be. Who else would it be? Nopony would dare attack or threaten the royal crown, but that was before.

He remembered the first time that he had met Ultor.

Flashback:

FPS-Boomer

I had accepted a job to kill a pony who was threatening a local store.  Back then, crime was frequent in that time.  I was setting up my crossbow sentry making sure it was loaded and it had perfect coverage on the area.  I saw the pony in the alleyway; he was surrounded by about four other stallions with him.  Luckily the crossbow sentry had about four bolts already locked on each and every one of them.

I would have killed all of them, if he didn’t show up.  One pony disappeared from the shadows.  The rest started to panic from the looks of it.  I saw the other two ponies start to run; only they ran into the sentry’s line of fire, getting gunned down immediately.  The leader was floating in midair, seemingly being choked to death.  I ran up to him to find that he had died.

“So are you working for these ponies?” A voice said

I looked around to find Ultor there.  His eyes stared at me while I looked back.  I guessed he was trying to scare me, but I knew that I wasn’t scared of him.

“No, I’m not.” I said

“You an engineer?” He said

“Yeah.” I said “I build things.”

“What kind of things?” He asked

“Oh, you know,” I said looking at the corpses of the ponies.

“I see.” He said “What’s your name?”

“Charles Boomer.” I said “Yours?”

“My name is Ultor Shadowmere.” He said

We both shake hooves and travel to the nearest bar.  We discussed things, mostly our life stories.  I never had a friend before, till then.  He had lost his sister; I myself had lost my parents and my wife.  That’s why I do what I do now.

I’m always an engineer, but I can’t fix everything.