Alone.
I was completely alone. But you know what that meant to me? I was safe, I was free, and I was happy. Well, that's what I thought I was. In reality, I was exposed, and fragile. For the last four years I had barely spoken more than a sentence a day to anypony except to those few whom I sold to. Four long years I'd gone without friends or family or any real communication and interaction. It was beginning to drive me insane, but I didn't even know it. I was out of my mind and convincing myself I was perfectly fine. I didn't have a care in the world because I had no friends to care about.
But no friends to care about me.
I sighed to myself, out of nothing but sheer and utter boredom. I allowed myself to look up from my unending gaze at my own forehooves and look around the room. Guns. Lots and lots of guns. There were shotguns and pistols and assault rifles and snipers. Just about every legal firearm anypony could imagine was sitting in this room, but that's mostly because I liked to keep the illegal junk for private and trusted eyes only. Yes, that's right, My gun store. Filled with guns, ammo, accessories, parts, attachments, and everything else related to guns that one could possibly need. Every inch of the walls and every spot on the counters were occupied by the most dangerous killing devices in existence. And I was selling them.
My eyes rolled past the rows and rows of guns until they finally settled on the most inviting - yet the most threatening - part of the room: the solitary, tiny square window.
Brilliant summer sunlight poured into the otherwise dreary room. "It's a brilliant day to leave the shop and go outside, isn't it Silver?" I said out loud to no one but myself. After all, there was nobody in the shop to hear me. "No, you can't do that," I retorted to myself. "There's no place for me out there. And besides, you know what it's like in Ponyville, in all of Equestria! The Lunites and the Solists are about about to crack, shots are about to be fired. There's a war on the horizon, and as an arms dealer, I'm certainly not gonna go out there and pick my side before it starts." I sighed again. I really was going crazy.
"And what side would that be Miss.... Silver, I'm guessing?"
I began to roll my eyes. "You know damn well wha- Oh what the Fuck?!" I cursed when my eyes found a unicorn mare in the doorway. I jumped back so hard my flank crashed into the wall behind me, before I helplessly fell to the floor.
"Oh! I'm Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, are you alright?" she spoke with a wonderful voice. Her coat was completely white and her mane was striped two shades of electric blue. She wore brown saddle bags which obscured her cutie mark, and a blue stocking cap fitting so well to her mane in color that ponies with vision not much worse than mine wouldn't have even noticed the difference. She looked to be about my age, but in much better shape than myself. (never leaving the shop doesn't help much with fitness) But what I noticed most was her eyes, A deep red that would've been threatening on any other pony, but was completely inviting on her.
I also noticed the troubled look she was giving me from right over the counter, probably because I was still on the floor staring at her and trying to call on what little social ability I had.
I got up and brushed myself off, "Oh, no it's alright. My fault, I wasn't paying attention. Yes, my name is Silver Bullet, and this is my humble little gun store. What can I do for you?" That last bit I'd memorized and said nearly every day for a few years. I was particularly proud of the 'humble little' part. As for this white unicorn, I wondered what she was doing here. She certainly didn't LOOK like the kind of pony who needed a gun, and certainly didn't seem like one who wanted one either.
"Your side," she said bluntly. Not wanting to look foolish, I turned my head to gaze back at my flank.
"What? My sides look fine, don't they?"
"Oh hehhee!" she giggled, a wonderfully cheerful laugh, "No not those sides. You were talking to somepony in here about not showing what side you were on. I just wanted to know, what side are you on?"
What the fuck? She heard that? Along with her amazing voice, she must have had remarkable hearing. "You heard that?" I said, embarrassed and impressed.
"Oh," She seemed flustered, "Yes, I have very good hearing. I'm sorry if I was eavesdropping."
"No it's fine," though it usually wouldn't have been.For the past few years, I hadn't really spoken to anypony about much of anything except the guns I was trying to sell to them. But something about this mare just made me want to chat. "Obviously as a gun store owner, things getting tense between two sides of an argument is good for business. A perfect example is this whole 'New Lunar Republic' shenanigan. When the Lunites started doing their thing, every city and town in Equestria split in two, and our Ponyville is one of the most severe cases of this. Things got a little crazy, bonds of trust were severed, and all of a sudden everypony in Ponyville is a paranoid freak and I'm raking in bits by the barrel. But unfortunately, things are getting a bit worse for wear out there, and I do not want to be around when shots are fired. When war breaks loose, who knows who'll show up in here looking for guns? I'd like to be even, that way I can sell what I can to both ends of the argument, without getting shot by either. And hey, when things get bad for one side I can just go ahead and say I'm on the winning side." Every bit of it was true. The mare considered this for a few moments, a puzzled look on her face. For a moment I thought I saw a glimpse of disgust, though I wasn't sure if it was towards me, or the idea of war. I guessed it was me. Then she smiled at me the warmest smile I'd ever felt, well, that I could remember. God, I needed to get out more.
"You're a very logical and calculating pony, aren't you silver?" she began, not as criticism, but as a complement, "That's certainly something rare around here, what with all the superstition and paranoia. I think we're going to be very good friends." Friends? Was she shitting me? I hadn't had a friend in years.
I must've made a face at her dumbfounding statement, because she laughed again and continued. "Here's what I meant Silver, you may want to appear neutral for the sake of your business and your safety, and I respect that, but don't you have an opinion on the issue itself?" I thought for a moment and formed words in my head just before she cut me off. "Is it that hard to think on whether you're going to lie to me or not?" she said, eyebrow raised, "I heard you began to say 'you know damn well what side I'm on' before I scared you to death," She said, stifling a laugh, which I wanted to hear again despite it being directed at my own foolishness.
"You understand what I just said right? It's really not in my best interest to be talking about this."
She laughed again, which made me smile. (something I hadn't done very often) "You ARE a logical and calculating pony. I like you Silver, you've got character. We should stick together." Stick together? What in Equestria was this girl talking about?
Her face suddenly turned very serious, and very grim. She leaned in real close to me, putting her lips inches from my ear, making me VERY uncomfortable. "Listen to me, very carefully," she whispered so soft that not even her hearing could've eavesdropped on it. "The Lunites already consider you a Solist." My eyes widened as I began to back off, before she reached at me with her hoof and pulled me close again. I guess she has more to say. "I don't have time to explain. Pack saddlebags with valuables, weapons, money, medical aid, food, and plenty of water. If there's something you need to keep safe but can't bring, hide it and defend it very well. You have about 8 hours. Run outside your back door when it happens. You'll know" she turned and walked to the door.
I had so many questions. Why am I packing this stuff? What's going on? Who was this mare? Was she a Lunite spy? She telekinetically opened the door and turned to look at my astonished and overloaded self.
The only insight she provided to my confounded little mind was her name. "By the way, call me Scratch," she said with a wink. Then something hit me. It was about the strangest thing I could have thought of at the time.
Something I remembered from an ad poster I'd seen at the market last time I was stocking up on food. "You know, if you had magenta eyes and musical notes for a cutie mark, you'd look a lot like that Lunite DJ everyone likes."
She laughed and rolled her eyes, "Logical, calculating, AND observant, are we? I believe I've found a fitting ally," she said ominously before slipping out the door.
And suddenly, loneliness was much less inviting than it was fifteen minutes ago.
* * *
"She's crazy, she has got to be crazy. Isn't she crazy?" I asked myself, as I was going crazy. Or perhaps I already was crazy. Whatever the case, I had to make up my mind. Nopony would just walk in and tell me to do something like that without a good reason, right? But then again, nopony would tell me to do something like that without giving me an explanation, unless they had a good reason for that too. I sighed, and allowed myself a moment of peaceful thought.
It had been seven hours since Scratch had left. Night was finally falling after an uneventful day in the shop, nothing more than a couple of teenagers coming in for some BBs to go shoot tin cans off the fence. I looked around the one other full room in the building I called mine. It was, quote on quote, my room. And it basically covered everything in a place of living that one would need. I had a desk and piles of books from the Ponyville library, my primary source of time-killing when I'm not running the shop, and frequently when I am as well. There was the 'kitchen' which was essentially the cupboards in the corner that held all of the food that I ate, cold, at my desk. There was a place to sleep, there was food, there was my time-killer, just about everything one needed to survive.
Now all I had to do was decide if I was going to pack it all up or not.
Well, I guess there's not much of a reason not too. If she was telling the truth, and I do what she says: good. If she was lying, and I don't do what she says: also good. If she was lying, and I do what she says: the only real loss on my part is the minor inconvenience of packing and unpacking a bunch of things for nothing. And if she wasn't lying, and I don't do what she says? From the sounds of it, it could be catastrophic.
"Well, I didn't have much of anything better to do for the evening," I said, glancing at my pile of library books. The novel on top was entitled Home sweet home. Sigh. This had better be worth it. I was really looking forward to finishing that book.
I began to pack, following Scratch's advice and instructions to the letter. Money, medical aid, food, plenty of water.... Valuables? Did I have those? I sat and pondered. What could I not stand to lose? My saddlebags looked like they'd be pretty full with much more in it than I had. After a long time of sitting and pondering, I decided. In the very back, in an almost hidden pocket of the saddlebag, lied a picture of a little filly named Silver Bullet, and her now deceased mother. The picture was wrapped in so much tight rag and padding that it would take a small bomb to do even the slightest of damage to the contents of the bundle. Next to the picture was a single, 10 mm round, with a bullet of pure silver. "Looks like we're going mobile, Ma," I said, as I zipped the little pocket closed. "and if all else fails, and I run out of options, then that bullet will put me right up there with you." But those two weren't the only valuables I couldn't live without. The last one would take some work to get to though.
I walked downstairs, to the door in the back of the room labeled 'storage'. After a quick glance at the window to ensure nopony saw this, I slipped inside to the near-empty room and closed the door behind me. the five-by-five-by-five foot safe in front of me was probably the most secure thing in Ponyville. No lockpick could bypass this safe. no firepower short of a bomb that would level the city would break it open, and if somepony was dumb enough to try that, it would destroy the contents. It was foolproof. After telekinetically shuffling around in my saddlebags for a moment, I used the key, as well as the PIN code, and finally opened the behemoth.
Remember when I said I liked to keep the illegal firepower in the back? Well, this was the back. And there were lots of very large firearms and pieces of ammunition. I'm not going to go into detail, for the sake of my good reputation, but let's just say that some people would have whistled and others would have grimaced. Those guns weren't important though, I was here for my gun. There was one last little safe, inside of the monolith of a safe. After a different PIN code, it opened to reveal two small items. A 10 mm pistol, and a brick of a rather infamous rock. However, that rock wasn't going to be going anywhere for long. That'll come later.
I examined the pistol with my keen eyes. It was exactly as I had left it when I took it out last week to clean it. I didn't need to clean it, it was enchanted with a durability spell, but it felt religiously necessary. This special little pistol was my first gun, which means that durability spell was the only reason it had lasted the 15 years it had been in my possession. Having not shot it in five, I knew I wouldn't be able to aim for shit, but Scratch had said to bring weapons, and I intended on doing what she said to the letter.
Slipping the gun and four magazines of ammo for it into my saddlebags, (completely filling it up to the brim) I closed the safe(s) and raised my left forehoof to check my watch. 9:30? Isn't that like, the exact minute that scratch had said I'd "know" to leave out my back door? I certainly didn't hear any signal, no knocking on the front door, no pebble on a window, no...
CRASH
I jumped and hit my ass on the wall for the second time that day as I stifled a yell. What the fuck was that?!?! Sounded like someone was trying to fucking break down my front door! Oh no, not in my house. No way in hell the were going to-
CRASH
They were bashing my door down! They actually were! Thinking as quickly as I could, I examined my options. I could charge out there and give them a piece of my mind and a bigger piece of my ammo, but that didn't seem logical just yet. I could always just
BLAM... creeeeeeek...
Well I guess that answers that question. They gave up on crashing through the front door and just shot out the lock instead to open it. That meant they had guns. That meant I could be dead, very soon.
"Come out little Silver. We just wanna have a little chat with you, you sun-loving fucktard!" came an intimidating voice from the main room. I silently thanked a higher power for letting me be in storage and them in the store. It sounded like there was more than one of them from the sound of their steps, and from the other sounds I could hear, they were stealing my guns! No fucking way there were getting away with-
Wait. "Sun-loving fucktard"? They think I'm a solite, and they're not..... Oh shit. Looks like Scratch was right... Oh shit! Scratch was right! I had to leave out my back door, before they fucking look in storage and put holes in me where I don't want them. I was damn lucky that my back door is through storage, but I still had to move fast in case they check in here for more guns.
Ensured that my safe was well, safe, I silently made my way out my back door and into an empty alleyway. It was a beautiful night, if one were to ignored being robbed and ran out of their own home.
"Silver, is that you? Are you all packed and ready?" Came a voice from an indiscernible location.
"Yes it's me, of course I'm packed. Scratch, there are some Lunites tearing my store apart, we have to stop them!" There was a brief pause, before she answered back.
"Okay Silver, fine, just hold still for a second and we can go stop them." Hold still?
Thuck
Ow. Something just hit me in the... no, wait. Something just impaled me in the side. I began to feel woozy. Poison? Who would poison me? It wasn't Scratch was it? She wouldn't... couldn't do that. Right? With the last of my strength, I pulled out a single dart from my right side. I had so many questions, and I was filled with rage, but it was all draining away with my consciousness. My lifeless body finally gave in and fell, right into a bag being held by a telekinetic field the same color as Scratch's before, when she opened my door.
"For you're own good, Silver. Sweet dreams."
"Scratch. You fu-..."
And everything went black.
