Dealing with Slavers [CLOSED]

It would be incredibly difficult to miss from so close. Nevertheless, in Shutter's panic it took three shots to finally hit the raider. The bullet hit her straight in the head, and the knife fell out from her mouth as she fell limp against the floor.

In his panic, Shutter didn't stop firing even after the third shot, emptying almost the remainder of his clip into the Unicorn long after she was dead.

When his mind finally took control of his body again, he let his gun fall limply from his mouth, stunned at what had just happened as it sank in that he had actually just killed somepony! He'd only wanted to disarm them and knock them out so that they could be handed over to the law in New Appleloosa! He hadn't actually planned to kill them himself...

"...Oh...Oh Celestia, I didn't...I wasn't going to...they had a..."

He mumbled weakly to himself, before shaking his head as he tried to regain a bit of self-control over his emotions right now...he'd have to sort this out later, right now, his friends could be in trouble!

Leaving his 9mm in the dirt, Shutter ran back over to the boulder the rest of the group had been hiding behind, looking back every few seconds at the Raider's corpse.

Soon he would arrive by the boulder, biting back a gasp as he saw both Starry and Lucky.

"Oh no, that dosn't look good..."
He mumbled, before rushing over to Starry.
"Starry! Are you okay? How many hooves am I holding up?!"
He said as he held up one hoof. He knew this test was pretty much pointless, but he at least wanted to make sure Starry was still conscious enough to speak.

Techno came sprinting up the road, sweating and panting. As he came upon the battle-scarred hill, he skidded to a stop, uttering a few swear words before surveying the damage.

There was a fire burning a ways up, and from the looks of it, Starry and Lucky were both out for the count, and Shutter had just shot another raider. He ran faster towards the damaged group, his magic already coming to life, levitating various potions and med-x along with gauze and other medical equipment out of his bags as he approached the two downed ponies. He went to Lucky first, since he was closer.

From the looks of the damage, he seemed to have broken two ribs, but that seemed to be the extent of the damage. He went to work, rolling Lucky over and holding him up a bit so that he could drink a healing potion. "Celestia damn it..." he said, a grimace on his face. He looked up and saw Shutter. "Hey! What happened here?" he asked, rather panicked, yet still mending Lucky's broken ribs to the best of his ability.

Sky was in pursuit of the raider, flying ever so close to him. The raider turned around, and pointed the shotgun towards sky. Only a second between them, question is who will fall first.

Shutter glanced back at Techno, before moving to fish his emergency potion out of his saddlebags.
"Raiders, four of them..."
He said quickly, as he pulled out the healing potion, carefully clasping the potion between his hoofs before pushing it to Starry's lips.

"Starry, I'm not much of a doctor, but hopefully this should keep you going for a bit longer untill Techno can help you..."

Techno grimaced as he finished his work on Lucky, having patched up his chest area and given him another potion. He silently cursed to himself as his stockpile of meds slowly diminished. He turned and saw Starry, bleeding on the ground with Shutter trying to give her a healing potion. He rushed over. "Shutter, out of the way!" he called, since he was in between him and Starry. He rushed past him anyways, knocking him to the side a bit, and started medical treatment on Starry. "Whoa, jeez, Starry... If I didn't know better, I'd have thought you've been trampled by Brahmin..." he said, examining Starry's much more severe wounds. She had four broken ribs and what seemed to be a punctured lung, but he couldn't be sure.

He levitated forth a healing potion and turned Starry so that she was facing upwards. He brought out a syringe of Med-X and injected it near the shoulder, since it was more than a bit dangerous to inject it directly into the chest, but even so, it would still do it's job. He winced as he saw the large bruise already forming on her chest, and brought up the healing potion and slowly poured it into her mouth. "There ya go. That should help a bit..." he said, more to assure himself than Starry, glancing around to ensure the remaining raider was still occupied.

Lucky's breathing became less labored, and he slowly regained consciousness. He tried to get up off the ground, but his hoof, which still had the knife strapped to it, tripped him up. When he looked down at his hoof, he saw the reason why.

The knife was stuck inside the head of the dead Raider pony, and there was blood splattered all down Lucky's foreleg. He tried to pull his weapon from the corpse, but it was jammed tight in the skull.

Lucky opened his mouth to call for help, but as soon as he did, a wave of pain burst forth in his head. Instead of any kind of comprehensible speech, all that came out of his mouth was a strangled scream of pain.

The fourth raider spun around, having just finished reloading the shotgun. He didn't have time to aim, Sky was a fraction of a second away from striking him. He lifted the shotgun and fired.

The bullets tore through Sky's left wing, but barely grazed her side. The spray hadn't struck anything vital, but Sky was forced to make a crash landing. She landed on the raider, toppling the two over. His shotgun flew from his mouth from the impact, landing several meters away.

If there was one thing Shutter hadn't been expecting, it was to be shoved to the side, letting out a yelp as he clattered to the ground, his potion spilling. Sure, the shove might have been light, but Shutter wasn't really in a right state of mind at the moment to think to just ground himself and avoid falling, the kill he had recently performed still fresh in his mind.

Giving a light groan as he pulled his face out of the sand, the first thing he saw was his emergency potion lost to the sand, and he let out a groan of frustration.

"...Great...just great..."
He mumbled, as he slowly pulled himself back up, shooting a glare at Techno.
...However, this glare didn't last long, as he was quickly distracted by Lucky's scream of pain.

"Lucky! Are you okay?!"
He asked, quickly heading over to the other Earth Pony.

Starry's eyes burst open. Her eyes shifted from side to side, trying to grasp her surroundings. She had no idea how long she had been out, but she was in the same spot she had landed.

Starry saw Techno standing over her. She tried to let out a sigh of relief, but the breath had caused her to cough violently, hacking up another chunk of blood. At least the pain in her chest wasn't as bad. 'that must be the drugs. It felt like a splash of cool water over a terrible burn. She could feel herself recovering, the effects of the healing potion. There was no way a single potion would fix her completely, but Starry could at least begin to breathe regularly.

"Goddess Damn! Agh!"

Lucky knew what the cause of the pain was, but he couldn't say anything other than a stream of angry cursing and screams of agony. He rolled about, still attached to the corpse, and writhed in pain. As soon as the gunshot rang out however, he curled up and tried to make himself as small as possible.

He kept cringing in pain as the others milled about around him, oblivious to anything but the burning in his head.

Techno sighed with relief as Starry came to. "Hey, Starry. Nice to have you back among the living." he said, rather sarcastically. He pulled out another potion and started pouring into Starry's mouth. He heard a loud bang as he heard the left over raider's shotgun fired, followed by a yelp from Sky. He looked up to see her falling from her place in the air, trailing blood behind her as she fell. "Brahmin shit, that raider is dead." he said, as his horn began to charge more powerful magic than levitation, and he took cover behind a rock close to the raider as it charged.

Sky crashed into the raider, hard. Feeling both, her wing bleeding from the gunshot, and her chest to feel only pain as she breathed. seeing the raider several feet away from her, also in pain. She looked around to see the shotgun, in between both of them. both of them just feet away form the weapon, Slowly Sky and the raider crawled towards it. Every second crawling towards the weapon was excruciating for both the raider and Sky, getting closer to the shotgun both the raider and Sky outstretched their hooves to reach for the weapon.

Unknown to the ponies and dagon that accompained them, Athanix had been flung quite the distance when the missle had exploded. He landed out of sight behind some rocks in a withered mess. He just lay there on the ground rolling over from time to time to releave some pain and allow the other side to take some of the beating.

Miraculously, his shades had survived albeit a little more cracked than before, but still in on piece. The lay just out of reach as Athanix tried to grab them with a hoof. His foreleg just dropped to the ground with a dull almost silent thud. He knew how he was hurt and where. He just could mmore enough to treat his wounds.

And although it pained him, Athanix smiled.

"Okay this is not what I had in mind for entertainment..." Athanix said before closing his eyes to rest.

(Sorry for not posting! You guys post fast... I hope this explains the lack of me in the fight. Sorry again.)

The raider pony dragged himself by his forehooves as fast as he can toward the shotgun, but to no avail. It landed too close to Sky, and she got there faster. The raider wound up staring down the barrel of his shotgun, held in the hands of the grounded pegasus.

Sky now held the shotgun in her hooves, With a shot left she wanted to make it count. She wanted payback for the shot wing of hers, seeing the scared face of the raider. She put put the barrel right in his face, and pulled the trigger.

((Dont know if can post killing him or not, cause you doing that for us???:/ ))

The raider didn't have any tricks up his sleeves. One second, he was staring at the wrong end of a shotgun barrel, and the next second his head was nothing but a sickly red streak across the dirt. The rest of his body fell lifelessly to the floor.

// Typically you wouldn't post killing him, but in this scenario it would have been perfectly acceptable. It's still wise to air on the side of caution, as you did :)

Sky finally to have blown off the raider head, made her smile a little. See the one raider that shot her wing, was finally dead. Sky dropped the shotgun and rolled onto her back, seeing the outer edges of her vision start to blacken. Due to the amount of blood loss, She started to black out.

"i finally got you,..... you...........prick." Sky said as she fell into unconsciousness.

Starry lifted a hoof shakily, trying to push herself up. She felt incredibly weak, and still heavily injured, but if she could make it to the caravan then maybe she could scavenge something that would help her. From the sound of the two shotgun shots, Starry surmised that the battle must still be in progress. She needed to get to that caravan so that she could make herself useful.

As she pushed herself up, she could feel a very sharp pain in her chest. She let out a brief yelp as she fell back to the ground. Starry spoke in relative discomfort from her resting place on the floor. "Techno, it looks like you might have to clean up this mess on your own. May I just say how grateful I am that we have you with us?"

Shutter perked his ears up, having somehow missed the first Shotgun blast in his panic, but he heard the other one clear as day.

"Oh no...please let that shot have been the last one...and let it have been from Sky and not at them..."
He mumbled, unable to really see the battle from his position.

However, his attention was once again distracted, when he heard Starry yelp, and turned to look at them, giving a wince.

Darn it...everyone's injured, and I don't even have a scratch! I should be able to help them out more then to just stay out of the doctor's way...

He thought as he looked around...and immediatly had an idea the second he set his eyes on the Caravan and Wagon the Raiders had been loading! Of course!

"Techno, you look after Starry and Lucky...Sky too if they need it. I'll see if I can find you anything useful to help them in the Caravan and the stuff the Raiders stole! Tell me if there's anything you need in particular and I'll look for it!"

He said quickly, before rushing off from his place beside Lucky towards the nearby wreckage. He needed to do something to help, and this sounded like the best way he could.

Techno was about to fire off his spell he was charging, but when he jumped from his place behind the rock, Sky lay there, a shotgun in her hooves and the raider missing a head. His horn flickered out and he shook his head. "Well, 'least I can keep up the 'pacifist' title now." he said, now wrapping Sky in a levitation bubble and carefully picking her up and moving her towards where Starry and Lucky lay.

He smiled as Starry spoke. "Yes, yes you may. Oh and Shutter!" he called to the pony running up the hill, "Look for healing potions and other meds!"

Shutter gave a nod back to Techno before he reached the Caravan.
He was really hoping they would get lucky with something that could help...maybe a few extra-strength healing potions, or a few doses of Med-X.

The more valuable items could wait, right now, he really wanted to help his friends, and so, he began rooting through the remains of the Caravan's load, sorting through the stuff the raiders hadn't already scavenged before he went for their haul. He figured they would probably have gone for the weapons and any chems first, so there was probably still a decent chance that any real medical supplies were still in the wreckage.

The pain in his head began to subside, and Lucky finally quit yelling. He could feel his ribs were back in place, and he didn't have a pressure pushing down on his chest anymore, so he started to calm down. His strength was nearly back to normal, and he ripped is knife from the raider's head. Lucky unbound the weapon from his hoof, wiped it off on a piece of cloth that was part of the dead pony's outfit, and replaced it in a bag. Lucky looked around and saw Techno fiddling about with some medical supplies, Starry laying not too far from himself, and Shutter running towards the burning wreckage of the caravan. He couldn't tell where Athanix or Sky were, but he figured they had to be around here somewhere.

Lucky got up from his place in the dust, and looked at Techno.

"Thanks Doc, I owe you one. Is there anything you need?"

Most of the loot on the wagon was contained within about two dozen metal boxes. Opening the first one, Shutter found a large collection of canned pre-war food and bottled water. Most of it was dirty, but some of the bottles were clear. Also contained in the crate was a "Sword Mares" magazine, which featured two mares in scantily-clad bikini chainmail, battling it out with swords. This must be what the caravaneer employed during those lonely nights traveling out in the wastes.

The second crate Shutter opened was filled to the top with toy dinosaurs. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about them, they were just.... toy dinosaurs. The third crate had more toy dinosaurs, and so did the fourth, and the fifth... and the sixth.

In the fifteenth crate, Shutter found even more dinosaurs, but there was also a note near the top. It was poorly written, and looked like it had been torn out of a journal. It read;


I just passed through Old Appleoosa. Those guys were eyeing me, like I was an easy target. I’m surprised they actually let me leave town with the way they were looking at me, like I was more valuable to them than my merchandise. Maybe if I was a unicorn, good thing I’m not.
I’m heading to Stableton now, all I’ve got left are two-dozen crates full of toy T-rexes. The Old Appleoosans bought most of my ammo, I only kept what I needed to defend myself. They weren’t much interested in the T-rexes , only the weapons, ammo, and drugs. Nopony ever buys the T-Rexes…


In the sixteenth crate, Shutter finally managed to find some healing supplies. There were many healing potions, but all but six of them were emptied. There was also a tray of mint-als, which only had three candies left in the tray. It would make sense that the caravaneer would pop up on mint-als before bartering. There were also quite a few surgical instruments, but Shutter didn't know their function. Techno would probably be able to sort through them and find what he needed to patch up his friends.

Techno laid down Sky near the other two injured ponies. He pulled out three healing potions- his final three, and levitated one towards each pony. "Thanks Lucky, but I don't have anything to request at the moment. I'll have to cash that one in later." he said, while looking over the freshly created wound that Sky had on her wing. He pulled out a roll of gauze, but it was a bit small. He looked at it and shook his head. "Should be enough, but after this, I'm gonna be fresh out of both potions and gauze." he said before getting to work at cleaning and wrapping Sky's wing.