Title in Progress

There is a small bar at the outskirts of Dodge City. Not many of the normal residents go there, but if someone is looking for any sort of gang member or indigent, almost any of them can be there if they’re not at each other’s throats while the music blasts to where they can barely hear anything from outside or even next to one another. Most, if any business between them is never in the bar itself, but in the back. An earth pony with an unscrupulous background is seen with a griffon making one of those deals.
	“I’m telling you that these are some of the finest we can make. Almost as good as the real ones,” The earth pony wearing a coat tells his griffon friend as he hands him the metal object. “Are you sure? They don’t look as good,” the griffon says.
	“Trust me my bird compadre, the looks aren’t everything. Rhinestones look as good as diamonds, but that doesn’t mean they’re worth the same.”
	“Ya got me interested, what are ya selling?” The two hear a voice they didn’t recognize beside them. They look to see who it is coming from and see it’s from a strange minotaur hiding it’s face with a bandana and hat. The two realize that they have made a terrible mistake. The griffon tries to point the metal object at him. The masked being shoots it out of his claws like it was nothing. The masked one than rushes the two. He grabs the griffon and slams his head against the wall, knocking him out. He then grabs the earth pony and lifts him above the ground. Utah then grabs the metal object, realizing that it is some sort of pipe pistol, and shows it to the earth pony.
	“Now why would a pony be selling a firearm? And one that doesn’t look to be legally made on top of that?”
	“I’ll never tell you anything. My friends are in the bar. Help!” The pony screams as loud as he could until he realized none of his friends could hear him. “I don’t think ya understand. Let me ask ya again. Where did ya get this and who made it? Ah’ll know if you’re lying to me.” The pony gives up and tells whatever he can. “I won’t! Please don’t hurt me. I got them from my boss, 10 of Diamonds. He wants me to sell them to possible friends who will return a favor. That’s all I know.”
	“You didn’t say anything about where.”
	“I forgot! I don’t know where it actually is. They make sure I don’t see. All I know is that it’s a building on a plateau with an odd looking cactus by it.
	“Do your friends know anything?”
	“No, they work for me. They know less than I do. I’m only 2. Can I go now?”
	“Of course.” Utah slams his head against the wall much like his friend. He decides to take a look into his pockets. He finds a bit bag, what appears to be a fake id, and the strangest thing is a 2 of diamonds playing card. It has gold on the edges. Must be some sort of way his gang knows he’s the real one. Utah takes several pictures of the card and the pipe pistol and put them back to where they belonged after he is finished with them. Now all he has to do is find the building, but first he has to call someone.
He heads to his motorcycle and puts the pictures in a side compartment of it. He then takes off his hat, mask, bandana, and whatever else that would make him recognizable and place them in a different compartment at the front. Utah then walks toward the entrance of the bar and goes through the swinging door. Everyone in the bar stares at him and he softly says, “Excuse me, but is there a phone I can use here?” The unicorn bartender points to where the payphone is. He walks to the phone, seeing that no one is paying attention or even acting like they all stared at him at once just a few seconds ago. He grabs a few loose bits and calls the local police.
	“Dodge City police department, what is the problem?” a female voice asked on the other side of the line?
	“There seems to be something suspicious outside of the Sad Onion Bar. I’m not sure what it is, but can you please see what it is?” asks, changing his voice to sound more stern and confident.
	“We can send a unit to examine it. Can you give us your name?”
	Utah hangs the phone up and soon leaves the bar. He then gets on his bike and drive his way back to where he lives, a small cabin near where uncle Braeburn and cousin Ambrosia live. While he was driving, he sees a wagon with three police pony going to the bar. He smiles and waves at them, acting nonchalant as he possibly could. Once he gets close to where he lives, he turns off his bike and walks his motorcycle the rest of the way there, not wanting to wake up anyone around him. He parks his bike where he always has and takes everything he needs out of the bike. As he grabs an elevation map, he notices the time and sees how late it is. He decides that he will look into it later because he still has to do work with Braeburn and his family.

 A Week Later
	After he was able to finish his chores for his Uncle Braeburn, he took a nice nap. Ambrosia and her mother always wonder why in Tartarus’ name he always takes naps at strange times. They wonder how he doesn’t feel like garbage all the time. Ambrosia never actually bothers to ask him what he does though. He grabs his equipment and his maps, going to the last possible one. It wasn’t easy. He had to narrow down any high elevation areas, including buttes, mesas, and plateaus that couldn’t possibly support a warehouse. Than he had to thin the possible ones further to look for possible ones that could possibly support any sort of cactuses on them. He has finally figured there is only one possible option left after searching this entire time while helping any ponies that needed a hand in-between. Utah then gets on his bike and head to the final possible one. If it isn’t, he’ll find that earth pony again and see if he can jog his memory a bit more assertively.

But first, he has to visit a couple of friends. He heads to their house. Their family is a bit odd to say their least considering how their parents are arranged, but he won’t judge it. They’ve been really helpful to him. He gets their house and sees the workshop’s lights are still on. He does the secret knock they arranged, the first measure of the college song that they went to and quit out of. Utah could never remember why, but it had to do with them being too smart or something like that. The door opens and see one of the two satyrs who have been helping him.

“Ah, it’s good to see you again. I guess you got the call Rider,” the peppermint haired satyr said. “Glad I had time. Your brother said you two have something new for me?” Utah tells him. “Of course, come right in,” Wesson tells the poncho wearing gunslinger as he lets him right in. Utah looks around and see it’s the same, lights all over their computers and constant beeps and boops going off. In the middle was more mechanical and actually making their inventions.

“Rider, I didn’t think you could make it. Glad you got our message because we got a few things we want you to test.”
The two brothers lead Utah to one of their tables and Wesson holds up one of their inventions. It looks like some sort of vest.
“This first thing is we noticed that you don’t have any sort of protection other than the clothes on your back. So we made a prototype piece. Now all it can do is protect you from crossbow bolts and knives. I wouldn’t recommend testing it too often” Utah takes off his poncho and puts the vest on. Surprisingly, it fits perfectly, not too loose and not too snug. Then they grab something else from the table. It looks sort of like a gun, but there’s a sort of claw coming out of it.

“Uh, Mind telling me what this is?” Utah asks as he examines it further. It looks like there is some sort of rope or string inside of it.

“It’s something we’ve made a while back. It’s a grappling hook gun.”

“Ya know there aren’t any buildings around to use this thing, right?”

“Well, there aren’t many tall buildings around, but there are tall landmarks.”

Utah probably won’t use something like this, but it’s the thought that counts. He’s sure there are some part of the plateau that isn’t too steep that he can just walk up there. “Ah’ll thank ya two later. Is there anything I can do for ya?”
Wesson decides to pipe up, “All you need to do for us is to test them. Oh, and don’t let them steal any of our stuff. It’s one of a kind.” Utah starts to leave and wave them away, “Ah’ll be sure not to.” Utah leaves their shack with his new equipment. He gets on his bike, heading toward the final plateau on his map.

The ride is probably at least half an hour away but it is in the middle of nowhere much like most of these hideouts are and near the Macintosh Hills. Once he gets close to where he marked on the map, he hears something going off that sounds like a loud bang. Looks like he finally found the right one this time.

	He parks his bike and covers it with a blanket that matches the colors of the rocks in this area, hiding it in plain sight. He looks around to see if there is anywhere that he can walk up. As he searches, Utah sees there is a one. There is a problem with it though. It is guarded with at least half a dozen guards, all armed with crossbows. Sure the twins asked if he could test the vest, but he doesn’t exactly want to deal with something like this. He can’t believe he has to do this, but he may have to use the grappling hook.

	Utah heads back to his bike and decides to look for something out of one of the containers, grabbing the grappling hook. He gets a bit nervous, getting prepared to use this ridiculous invention. He aims for the corner of the plateau and shoots up. The second the hook grabs the corner, he presses the button on the side and it pulls him incredibly fast. In almost an instant, he was able to get on the top of the plateau, seeing the warehouse those guards were protecting at the opening. He is glad he had a tight grip on the gun, otherwise he would have seen how hardy half an earth pony really is. Utah gives himself a second for a breather and looks around the plateau. In the distance, he sees a cactus that’s as large and has the shape of a bed. This must be the right one.

	Utah looks toward the warehouse and sees there is a wall all around it. He walks around the warehouse to look for any sort of security around it. He finds an opportunity without getting caught, a hole big enough to where he can put his hand in at the bottom of the wall. Utah grabs a mirror that has a small handle from his bag and puts it into the hole. He kneels down and looks around for any guards for several minutes. All he’s seen is the same two, both diamond dogs. One carries a plank with a nail in it, while the other looks to be holding some sort of pipe. They both also seem to be on the opposite side of the other at all times. He jumps the wall and sneaks toward the one with the plank. Utah then punches him in the back of the head, causing the dog to fall flat on his face. He then grabs the plank and snaps it in half using his leg, making it near unusable as a weapon. As the dog tries to get up from the shock, Utah kicks him in the head, making sure he is out like a light. He then grabs the unconscious dog and props him against the wall of the warehouse and waits by the corner for the other one to get over there. Once the other reaches the corner, he didn’t notice Utah and passes by. That was until he noticed his friend was passed out. He looked at Utah and tries to take a swing at him with his pipe. Utah ducks before he could get hit and grabs the other end of the pipe. As he does, he also grabs the dog. Utah takes the pipe from him and swings down, hitting the dog in the head and knocking him out. He grabs both ends of the pipe and sees that he can bend it, realizing that this must be one of the cheaper ones. He bends the metal to where it is practically impossible to use like the plank.

	Utah props the other one against the wall and walks to the back of the warehouse and see there’s a generator powering the warehouse. He then turns it off and breaks it by cutting the wire to the power. He heads to the front an opens the door, hoping that the first thing he gets is a crossbow bolt to the chest. The warehouse is pitch black from the inside without the moon or any starts to brighten it up even the smallest amount. He does see that there are a few large shelves full of crates. He walks to one of them to see what they hold. The first crate he checked is what he expected, it’s dozens of pistols with the same design as the one he found on that earth pony who called himself 2.

	When he enters he hears someone yelling at him, “What in the name of Tartarus are ya?” Utah looks in the direction and sees a minotaur across the room. He hears something going through the air and something hitting his chest. Utah runs to the side and hides behind one of the shelves. He looks down at his chest and see it’s a crossbow bolt. To say that he’s glad that the twins’ invention actually works is really putting it lightly. There seems to be only him, but he doesn’t know what else he could have on him. He could have a firearm too with his luck. Utah realizes that the minotaur probably knows where he is and crouches down to sneak to another shelf. He hears the minotaur open a crate and takes a peak of what he is pulling out. Utah then realizes that they aren’t just making pipe pistols. He sees that he is holding some sort of homemade rifle.

	“Whatever ya are doesn’t matter! I’ll make sure ya ain’t getting out of here!” The minotaur yells. Utah has an idea, and hope that this actually works. He grabs one of the pistols from the crate he opened and threw it to where he wants the minotaur to go, right between two shelves. The minotaur walks where he wants him and straight in the middle. Utah climbs to the top of one of the shelves next to him and does what he thinks is one of the riskiest decisions he has to make. He takes one of the crates and throws it directly into the head of the minotaur. He grips on the top of the shelf and picks his grappling hook. He then shoots it not at the minotaur, but at the wall, making it to pull him where the hook his. This causes the shelf and everything on it to land on the fallen minotaur. Utah takes a small breather because of how bad his nerves were and how many ways that stupid idea could have gone wrong. He unhooks the grappling hook from the wall and gets prepared to interrogate this suspect. First he checks is his pocket and finds what he was expecting, a playing card with a golden edge. This one is a 9 of diamonds.

	After a unknown amount of time, the minotaur wakes up in the same warehouse, tied to a chair. He of course struggles and see the strange bipedal he tried to shoot in front of him.

	“10.”

	“10 what? What are ya talking about freak?”

	“Much like humans, minotaurs have ten fingers. If ya enjoy using all of ‘em, I suggest ya tell me what I want. Now, who do ya work for?” The minotaur tries to hock a lugey and spit in Utah’s face, not reaching far enough. This makes Utah grab his pinky and twisting it, breaking the lower part of it.

	“Ah, Fine! I work for the Ace of Diamonds!” He screams as loud as he could. He starts to breath heavily and may break further soon, whether it’s body or his mouth. “What’s he doing with all these firearms and who is he selling them all too?” Utah continues to ask.
“Screw you.” 9 of diamonds says. Utah clearly gets a bit more annoyed and grabs his ring finger, doing the exact same he did for the pinky. “Ah! He’s giving these to both us and any of the local gangs that may want to join us. Ya know, the more the merrier and that they may be able to control any locals that we couldn’t.”

“Good, now one last question and this is the most important one. Where is this Ace of Diamonds?”

“He lives somewhere near Dodge city. It’s close to the border of the Badlands. Can I go now?”

	“Good,” Utah tells him before he knocks him out. He takes pictures of the crates and the playing card like last time before he leaves the warehouse. He sees that the two dogs are still knocked out. Before he can leave the plateau and shoot a flare, he has to do something he almost forgot about. He walks to where it is possible to walk down and see that those two guards are still looking forward. Utah grabs both of their heads and slam them together, finally taking care of all the guards. He does get a strange feeling that someone is following him. This makes him look around to be sure there is nobody nearby. Utah grabs the flare gun and shoots it up. He heads towards his bike and takes the blanket off, riding away.

	Somewhere close, a strange bipedal watched as Utah left. Seeing that he may be the perfect one to help her. To think that he’s been right under her nose the entire time, never realizing it. Either he is incredibly good at hiding this or that she never really considered him as a possibility.

	In the middle of day Appleloosa, Utah is seen leaving a general store and on his way to go to the farm with a wheelbarrow full of supplies that his uncle asked him to get. He also gets a few things he wanted to get for himself, mainly seeds and a bag of dirt. It’s been near a week since he interrogated Ten of Diamonds and the effect of the deals from his gang is becoming more clear. The night before when he took a shotgun shell to the back. If it wasn’t for the armor the Twins made, he would have left there with something much more than a large bruise and being sore all over his back. He did have to go back to the twins and they told him they were surprised it was able to hold up against a shell, but the twins also told him that it’s going to take at least a week to fix the vest.
As he heads close to the farm, he sees a face that looks almost familiar. He sees an athletic dark skinned girl with odd looking ears, brown eyes, almost orange, curly hair and she's holding what looks like an apple from the orchards in her hand. She also seems to be wearing some sort of garments that don’t look like the ones his family would wear. Looks like some sort of brown dress with shorts under it with some sort of bands on her arms and head. The last thing is the three feathers on the back of her headband. He doesn’t want to come off as rude, so he stops with his wheelbarrow and talks to her.

	“Howdy, can I help ya with something?” He asks her. She gets off the fence and start to walk towards him. “Oh, don’t you remember me, Utah?” Utah thinks for a bit, trying to jog his memory. Then it hits him and he starts to smile. He then let go of the handle of the wheel barrow and gently drops it. “Feather Heart? Where have you been? I haven’t even seen you once since I got here a few months ago.” he asks her while walking toward her. She gets off the fence and opens her arms.

	“I’ve been with my grandpa. It’s so good to see you again. I still remember I used to be taller than you when we were still a calf and a foal.” She tells him, noticing that he is a good head taller than her now. When she hugs him, Utah realizes he made a terrible mistake. When her arms make contact with his back and squeeze, he winces a bit. He holds out as long as he can and hugs his childhood friend back. “Yeah, puberty kind of hit me harder than my uncle’s kick.” Feather Heart clearly notices how he recoiled. “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me I squeezed you too hard.” Feather Heart says as she lets go of him. “Nah, I’m fine. I just got into an accident at the farm.”

	All this does is make Feather Heart more curious, “Really? What kind of accident. Grandpa may know something.” Utah tries to play it off as nothing, “It’s nothing much. Just a rotting branch hit me and I wasn’t paying attention.  I’m fine.” The two continue to talk and one thing lead to another. “Are ya planning on doing anything tonight? Uncle Braeburn only asked for the dirt and I’m done for the day. There’s a place called the Burning Cactus. I went there with Cider when she visited. They had some great peppers and guacamole if you’re interested.” Utah offers her. Feather Heart pretends like she’s debating with herself whether she wants to or not. She then smiles to him, “You got yourself a deal. Want to do it at 7?”

“That sounds just fine.”

“Great, I’ll see you then.”

	The two wave each other a goodbye as Feather Heart leaves going back to her grandpa Thunderhooves. Utah heads to the barn of his uncle’s orchard with a smile and wheelbarrow with him. He can’t believe that he couldn’t recognize her. He sees his uncle there waiting for him. “Thank Granny Smith ya finally got here. Did ya get all that Ah asked fer?” his uncle asked him.
“Got the dirt ya asked fer. Ya said ya needed the kind that has fertilizer in too?” Utah asks his uncle, not realizing his accent changed. As he unloads the bags from the wheelbarrow and grabs what he got for himself, his uncle notices he is much more expressive than usual. “What happened to ya? Finally decided to look like ya having fun fer once?” Utah just smirks while he grabs his packets from the wheelbarrow. “Nah, Ahm meeting a friend tonight. Ya don’t mind do ya?” Braeburn raises an eye, “Ya really need to yell about things like this. Why didn’t ya tell me or yer aunt?”

	“It just kinda happened right now. Ahm sorry about it, but Ah did promise her.” Utah tells his uncle, scratching the back of his neck. “Her? Who’s the gal? Somepony you met wherever ya go in the night?” Braeburn asks his nephew. Utah decides to not hold back any secrets, at least not this one, “Nah, ya remember Feather Heart?” Braeburn chuckles a bit, “Strongheart’s girl? Yeah Ah do.” He thinks back to when he first met Strong Heart, nice buffalo. He wouldn’t mind seeing her again.

	“Ah just saw her and we wanted have dinner together. Sorry Ah didn’t tell ya.” Utah tells his uncle, hoping that his uncle doesn’t mind him leaving for tonight. “It’s fine boy. Just try to get back here at a decent time fer once. Tell her Ah said hi if ya don’t mind.” Utah starts to smile again and thanks his uncle. He heads to his small cabin with his packets in hand. He looks at the time and see’s that time has passed almost like it was nothing. He grabs his coin bag and heads out.

	Once Utah reaches to the Burning Cactus, he looks at the time and sees he’s unfortunately a few minutes late. He looks into the restaurant and notices that there is barely anyone else there. The only other people in it are just a few employees and a maybe half a dozen ponies at their own tables. He finds Feather Heart and walks to her table.  Feather Heart smiles when she sees him. “I was almost worried you forgot Utah.” He then tries to apologize to her “Hey, sorry I’m late. Didn’t realize how long my uncle would be needing me.” The two of them start to talk endlessly and lost track of time. Feather heart brought up all the dumb things they would do whenever they could see each other as small kids.

	“Remember when we would go to that small movie theater? Gosh, I can’t even remember its name, but one of the exit doors was broken and we would sneak in to watch whatever was there?” Utah said. Feather Heart smiles, “Of course. I remember when one of the people caught us.” Utah started laughing. “I forgot about that. That stallion tried to have us arrested and I threw a bag of popcorn at him. Then we just ran out of the exit. I’ve never seen someone so red that wasn’t my uncle.” Feather Heart continued to laugh, “I can’t believe you did that.” Utah decided to defend himself, “We were like six and I didn’t want to get arrested. I just saw the popcorn and didn’t think about it.” The two laugh remembering how big varmints they were together.

As they were laughing, Utah sees something drops out of her bag. He picks it up for her and notices it’s a newspaper. What catches his attention is that the picture for the headline looks familiar. He realizes it’s one of the people that shot at him. He grabs it to give to his friend until he sees the headline, reading it to himself. “What’s this? ‘Masked Vigilante Strikes Again.’” Feather Heart smiles at him, “I guess you’re not much of a newspaper huh? They said it’s either some sort of minotaur or human that isn’t normal. One of the people they interviewed said they shot him in the back and they only flinched at it.”

	Utah chuckles as she told him, “I’m sure he did much more than flinch if they exist in the first place.” Feather Heart gets curious, “What do you mean by that?” She would love to see where he is going with this. “Well thank about it. A masked vigilante stopping an arms deal? Is that a vigilante or some misunderstanding? Besides, someone dressing up and trying to do something like that is either brave or stupid. I doubt anyone around is that stupid.”

	A waitress comes by their table to give the two another round of an Appleloosan special sarsaparilla. They both thank her and enjoyed their cold drinks. Utah looks at the time and sees that they’ve been there for almost two hours. “Sweet Celestia,” he mumbled to himself, “I think I should go now.” Feather Heart looks at him a bit sadly, “Can you stay out a little longer? I wanted to stop by Sweet Tooth Sugary Bakery.” Utah smirks, “Are you trying to get us to go down a trip down of memory lane?”

	“So is that a yes?” Feather Heart asks him. He scratches the back of his neck and thinks about it, “Yeah, I’ll go.” The two pay for their food and leave the restaurant, walking closely together. The Bakery is close enough where they can see it and maybe a few minutes to walk there. They see that it is still open and enter the store. Utah grabs some red licorice and Feather Heart grabs a bag of circus peanuts. As they buy their candy and leave the store, “Remember when you got a chocolate bar and when we left the store, it melted.” Utah smirks and nods his head.

	The two head back to the farm and his cabin. Once they reach it, Feather Heart sees flowers all around the cabin. “Did you do all of this?” she asks him. “Yeah I have. I’ve been doing it whenever I get bored. It’s relaxing.” As they reach the door, Feather Heart grabs Utah’s hands. “So, do you want to do this again?” She asks him. Utah pretends he’s thinking about it, already knowing what his answer is. “Hmm, yeah. That’ll sound real nice,” he says with a huge grin. With little time to react, Feather Heart gives him another hug. He expected it and didn’t flinch this time. When they let each other go and say their good byes, Feather Heart walks away to head back to where her Grandpa Thunderhooves is. Utah opens the cabin and gets ready for a good night’s sleep, hoping to have another like this again soon.

	It is near night in the orchards of Appleloosa, and Utah heads to his cabin after a fine dinner and a great time with his Uncle and family. He stretches a bit, glad that his bruise seemed to have finally healed by now. As he heads back to the cabin, a mailpony heads their way toward him. He notices them and stops, “Evening Ma’am. Little late for deliveries though, isn’t it?” She nods her head, “Of course, but my boss asked me to send this package as soon as possible. Said something about the client needing it to get to you tonight.” The mailpony gives him a letter, “Well, have a good night kid.”

	Utah tells the mailpony to have a good night too. As she leaves, he looks at the letter to see who it’s from. The only thing that is an indicator is a stamp as the diamond suit of cards. He realizes that this must be from the diamonds. He opens the letter immediately and the only thing in it is a single piece of paper with numbers on it. There are only two words on the letter. “Hello vigilante,” the letter says on it. He looks at it closer and realizes that they’re coordinates. This makes him run into his cabin and look at one of the local maps. After finding where the coordinates are, he sees that 10 of Diamonds was telling the truth all along.

	Utah realizes that there is a good chance this is a trap, but this is only lead he has. If he can at least scout around the area, it could give him almost anything he needs to know. He grabs his poncho and everything he will need to head out with the exception of the vest that hasn’t been fixed yet. The last thing he grabs is his old domino mask. He takes the cover off of his bike and gets on it, riding to Smith and Wesson because they said they had something new for him. After that, he will take care of this Ace of Diamonds once and for all. The ride takes a while and a bit relaxing as always. The wind going through his hair and seeing what little that passes by like the cactuses and tumbleweeds is nice.

	He gets to the old shack of the twins and do their secret knock as always. Wesson open the doors and they say their hellos. As Smith leads them to the table, shows him the old vest “Rider, do you remember when we said that we could fix your vest?” he says to him. Utah raises an eyebrow, “Yeah, why?” he asks the two. Wesson takes off his glasses, “Originally when we were making the suit, we thought repairing it would be as easy as sewing a button or stitching someone would be.” Smith decides to continue what his brother said as Wesson goes off to one of the other tables, “Turns out, it would be more like fixing a statue or a marble floor. Once a piece is broken, the overall vest slowly deteriorates. That shotgun blast you took was like a sledgehammer going against a statue. It’s a miracle that it didn’t go through. Now we have to make a new one entirely.” Utah looks at the vest to see how damaged it is and ask the two, “How long will that take?” They both think about it for about a minute until Wesson blurts out, “At least five days, and that’s if we only work on it all day.”

	Utah sighs, “Is there any good news?” Smith does smile a bit, “There actually is,” he says as he grabs the vest, “because we figured you would be going out tonight, we did patch the vest up the best we could. It’s not what I would consider as good as it was, but it will still protect you.” He gives Utah the vest and he takes his poncho off to put it on. be with it. “Well, the less they know the better. Thank you.” Utah tells the two as he starts to walk out of the shed, mentally preparing himself for whatever could possibly be in those coordinates. He gets on the bike and prepare for what is for him the first time in a while, driving to the unknown.
Utah rides his bike straight to where the coordinates are. He knows there is a good chance they are waiting on him. The ride there takes roughly another fifteen minutes. Once he gets close to the coordinates, he sees everything he needs to see. There were four cars surrounding a plateau with a huge, gaping hole in it. This must be the right place. He parks behind a rock fairly far away from the plateau. He slings the bag with all of his gadgets over his shoulders. He takes the pair of binoculars and looks at the plateau.

	Looking through them, he sees two in one of the cars get out and starts to walk into the cave. Utah doesn’t recognize them, but he does notice that they are both bipedal and they are both wearing masks. It’s clear that one is a boy and the other is a girl. The tall one is wearing a suit while the shorter one has what looks like long black hair and is wearing a red dress. Both of their clothing is unfortunately covering their legs. The taller one is wearing one that looks like it is also a sort of helmet. As they enter the cave, they are swallowed into the darkness of the cave and making it impossible for Utah to see anything. Utah knows what he is about to do is probably an incredibly stupid idea, but he decides to sneak into the cave. He walks toward the cave and doesn’t enter it quite yet. Hiding himself behind the wall of the entrance, he looks in and sees that there are torches inside. Just enough for there to be light, but not enough for anyone far away to notice. He slowly goes into the entrance, expecting the worst. Once he enters the plateau, he realizes that this isn’t just a basic cave and realizes why he couldn’t look into the cave. It looks like whoever is behind all this made this it underground and there is actually a stairway made of the stone here. He walks down the stair, grappling gun ready and revolver in hand.

	At the bottom of the stairs, Utah sees an entrance to another room. He sneaks into the room as quietly as he possibly could and enters the room. He walks forward and sees that there are three people playing what seems to be poker across the room, none of them noticing he’s even there. He cocks his gun and gets ready to fire if he has to. Then Utah realizes something sees off. He sees a bipedal, the masked one in the suit to be specific. There is also a buffalo and a saddle Arabian. Then it hits him. The one in the dress and whoever drove one of the cars is missing.

	All of a sudden, what looks like a glowing shard of glass hits his gun from the right, making him drop it. When he looks to the right, a minotaur tackles him. The minotaur starts to beat on him further. Utah tries to stop him and is able to get a single swing to connect. He gets on his two hooves and takes a good look at the minotaur. The minotaur has an eyepatch on his left eye and wearing a sleeveless suit. The two clash once more and both are able to get a few more swings on each other. Utah is almost able to get the upper hand against the one in the suit. It was until the one in the red dress decided to interfere. She summons more glowing glass and launches it into Utah’s right arm, making him lose concentration. The minotaur uses this to his advantage and grabs Utah with one hand. He throws him into the wall. Minotaur grabs Utah once more and lifts him over his head and slams him into the ground.

	To think he was finished was foolish. The minotaur then starts to stomp on Utah’s chest. He keeps doing so to the point where he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be surprised if he had a cracked rib. He continued until one of the people at the poker table yelled, “That’s enough 10.” The minotaur stops stomping on him and waits. The three that were at the poker table and the one in the red dress start to group around Utah. All five of them surround him. “So you’re the vigilante who’s been messing with my men?” the masked one asks him. Utah gets a good look at the masked duo and the other two. The one in the suit is wearing one that reminds him of a sugar skull and it looks like it’s covered in diamonds. His suit also has diamond cufflinks on them too. The red coated buffalo has a gauntly look to him and with his hair falling out, almost as if you can see his skull even with all the fur covering it.

	He then looks to the saddle Arabian and wears a robe with jewels you would expect from royalty. “I’m talking to you, vigilante,” the masked bipedal tells him and kicks him in the eye, making Utah swing his head back. He steps on the same spot the minotaur was stomping, making Utah groan in pain. “I expect you to pay attention. After all, I’m the one you wanted.” Utah looks at him confused, “I thought 10 was in prison.” The one Utah realizes is the Ace of Diamonds just snickers, “What, you thought I would give up one of my men after I heard what you figured out with 2? That 10 was a look alike.” Utah grabs his hoof and pushes it off his chest. All five of them are ready to attack him again. The minotaur pops his knuckles, the masked woman hands start to glow, the buffalo’s pupils start to dilate to where it was impossible to see his irises, the saddle Arabian has sand start to surround her, and the Ace just pulls out a pipe pistol. “How do you know who I am? The letter.” Ace of Diamonds stares him down, “Those letters? I have no idea who you are. I just sent letters to all the houses in the area. I figured you would know what they meant because of what the fake 10 told you.” Ace of Diamonds step towards him, “You got me curious now. Might as well see who you are.”

	As he is about to take off the bandana hiding the bottom of Utah’s face, an arrow lands right on his head. Instead of going through his helmet, the arrow explodes into a giant cloud of smoke. Everyone in the room starts hacking, coughing, and had tears running in their eyes. Utah feels someone grab his should and helps him up. While he gets up, a strong shock of pain continues in his ribs. Gritting his teeth, Utah feels a hand grabbing his and helps him out of the room. Whoever helps him pushes him into the stairwell and shuts the door behind them. He sees who helped him. It’s a satyr like him, only that they’re wearing a hood and a scarf to cover the bottom of their face. They give him his revolver that he dropped. “Come on, we gotta get out of here.” The satyr tells him. They sound familiar to him. He forgets about it and takes the shard out of his arm. Now he knows at least one of them is a magic user. The two run up the stairs and get out of the plateau through the entrance. “Quick, where’s your bike?” The hooded satyr asks him. He points to the rock where he parked it and they both sprint there. Utah looks at the cars that were around the plateau and see an arrow in at least one of each of all the cars’ wheels. They get on the bike and ride the hell out of there with Utah driving it and the satyr who saved him holding him to stay on the bike.

	The gang of Diamonds eventually get out of their plateau and see their cars. The minotaur kicks his out of anger. “The vigilante got away and now he knows how faces. What are we going to do now?” says the buffalo gritting his teeth. “Calm down King. Same goes to you 10. All we have to do is wait and watch. He will show himself again and we’ll jump when the time is right,” says Ace while he looks at the damage to his car. “Ace, we had him pinned. He should have never gotten out. He also knows who is real and not,” Says the Saddle Arabian. The Ace of Diamonds was tempted to take his mask off to make the Jack to look in his eyes, but he decides against it. He then tells her, “Listen, if we try to jump on him now, he may expect it and we’ll all get caught. After all, patience is a virtue.” All the Queen in the red dress could do for her Ace is to calm him down.

	The two get out of the plateau and they stop by a cactus in the middle of nowhere, far from where any of the Diamonds could catch them. Utah parks his bike, “Thanks for the save there, but who are ya? I don’t reckon we’ve met.” The other vigilante takes their scarf off and shows who they really are. “Oh Utah, I thought you would figure out by now,” says the hooded one, revealing it to be Feather Heart. Utah becomes a bit surprised, “Guess we both had a secret or two,” as he takes his bandana off to show it’s him, “but why are ya doing this too?” Feather Heart takes a deep breath and explains herself, “That Buffalo you saw calls himself Wendigo. He tried to hurt my grandpa with some sort of dark magic. But Grandpa Thunderhooves was able to take care of him and forced him to leave the tribe.” Utah tells her, “I remember my Pa telling me about that. Didn’t that happen a long time ago?” Feather Heart continues, “That’s why I’m here. I heard him coming back, but I don’t think Grandpa can take him again.” She tells him this as she looks down, thinking to herself. Feather Heart looks back at Utah, “I guess I’m asking if you want to work together?”

	He scratches the back of his head, “I don’t know, going alone had been working out well so far.” Feather Heart takes a mirror and gives it to Utah. He grabs it and looks at himself, seeing a bad shiner where the Ace kicked him. He tries to touch it, but stops after feeling how much it stings. He knows it will be better by at least tomorrow, but it’s probably better if he had someone to back him up. “Are you so sure about that? Since they saw how they trapped you, I don’t think they will be too afraid for a while.” Utah thinks about it, “Alright. Let’s do this, partner,” he tells her, raising his hand for a handshake. “Yeah, partner,” Feather heart says as she shakes his hand, both feeling great about this and that they can take on the Diamonds now.