//------------------------------// // Does that metal thingy talk too? // Story: The socially awkward assassin // by wariyoshi //------------------------------// (Ponyville) Kal was flying so fast that he didn’t even know where he was going at this point. The faster he flew the more time seemed to pass for him. He needed to tell Hans to suit up as fast as possible, or they’d miss their chance. His flying was on autopilot as his mind raced about what was about to happen. Gotta tell him to get suited up, go back to the library to get some gear, get back. Plain and simple just gotta do this quickly. Unfortunately for him, with his mind on other subjects aside from flying, he failed to remember that he can’t fly through metal doors. He smashed into the HQ door and comically fell to the ground, rubbing his head. Ow. That was smart, Kal. He heard a voice from inside of the door, “Passwo-” But he was in such a hurry he cut it off, “Royalty first, now open the damn door” (Royal guard HQ) The door opened slowly, much to Kal’s dismay, and he bolted in. He made for Hans’ office and ignored the ponies that stood at attention when he passed saying “Sir!” He charged in and felt stupid when he saw that Hans wasn’t there. Changy, I swear to Celestia, you had better be gone for a good reason. He went up to the nearest pony he saw and frantically asked him if he knew where Hans was, to which the pony replied, “Hans is helping some of the guards set up positions around building alpha, sir!” Kal grunted in annoyance, “Which one was building alpha!?” The pony paused for a second, now sensing the urgency in Kal’s voice, “Er, the one where Tony was spotted, sir” Kal groaned, Hans was at the wrong building, “Then this was just one big waste of time!? Gah!” (Ponyville) Without another word, he flew away from the confused pony and flew as fast as he could towards Twilight’s tree. He had to get his gear before Tony left; he wanted to get as much information as possible. The doors burst open as he rushed past Twilight towards his pile of gear in the corner, “Hi-Twilight-Bye-Twilight” When he left she just sat there, blinking, before returning to her book, “I don’t wanna know” Kal gave Rainbow a run for her money at his speeds, before landing on the same stakeout roof as before. He sat there, panting, as he took out his binoculars. He looked the house over, but he was looking for something in particular. Aha! It’s still there! The tiny bolt-microphone from his crossbow was still embedded into the wall near the window. He took out the small device from before and switched it on. A voice sighed, “I dunno, I’m worried about dat kid. She’s always keepin’ secrets from me, an’ I just wanna talk to her ‘bout it” “Well, why don’t you just sit her down and tell her that? Maybe she’ll open up to you” the feminine voice offered sincerely. “I’m not too sure about that, Enza, she din’t wanna talk to me earlier today. Lyra stopped by, but I was too stressed from Bon-Bon to listen to her. I just told her I wasn’t takin’ visitors today, but then she started’ whinin’ about how she wanted to see a movie with Bon-Bon, an’ I almost snapped” Tony said in a sad voice, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. “So what did you do, then? Surely you didn’t let her go out when she was GROUNDED?” the mare seemed appalled at the thought; “We need to teach our daughter DISCIPLINE, Tony. Just because she throws her little temper tantrums doesn’t mean we have to soften up on her about this” Tony sighed, “Seems like we’re runnin’ outta options” “HI THERE KAL!” a rather silly voice said from behind. “Gah!” Kal shouted as he quickly drew a pistol at the flying, Derpy pegasus, stopping himself from pulling the trigger at the last second. Yes, it was none other than Derpy, and he had to deal with her, “Derpy, get down! And stop being so loud!” Derpy obeyed his harsh tone of voice and dropped down low, imitating him as he set his gun down next to him. “Whatcha doing Kal?” she whispered cheerfully. He rolled his eyes, “Nothing. Now stay down and don’t talk at all” She tilted her head slightly, “Don’t talk at ALL?” “Shh, yes!” he hissed. “I want to meet that boy you told me ab-” the mare was cut off. “What’s that thing?” Derpy chirped cheerfully, already forgetting that she wasn’t supposed to talk. “Oh. My. Celestia. Derpy, if that snout of yours utters one more word”-Kal started shaking angrily-“I can’t be held responsible for what I do to you” The two were silent for a few seconds before Tony’s voice started to speak again, “He’s not so bad, although I don’t trust ‘im. We just gotta be-” He was interrupted by Kal this time, “Stop poking me, Derpy! This isn’t funny!” “But you said I couldn’t talk! How come the metal thingy gets to talk and I don’t? It’s not fair” she pouted. Kal gave his pistol a meaningful glance, with the are-you-seeing-this? look on his face. He contemplated what a relief it would be if he were to stick the gun in his mouth and ‘accidentally’ pull the trigger. Derpy saw him staring at the gun for a few moments before she spoke again, “What’s THAT metal thingy? Does it talk to?” Kal started shaking with anger, but then stopped, and put on his best cutesy eyes possible, “No, Derpy, it doesn’t talk. It yells sometimes, but it never talks” You’ve gotta deal with her nicely, or else she doesn’t leave you alone. “Oh, ok then!” Derpy cheerfully said before lying on her back and looking at the sky with one of her eyes. Kal let out a sigh of relief and focused on the conversation more, when he heard the mare talking to Tony say something else, “And is he dangerous? Does he do anything…bad, ever?” “Well, he can’t be too bad if he protected both of the fillies” Tony stated bluntly. The other voice sighed, “Yes, yes, that is true. Although are we really sure he-” Kal couldn’t listen to the two voices anymore for some reason. Was he feeling regret that he was going to empty a seat at the dinner table for this loving family? Was he feeling sorry for Tony Bon about his situation with Bon-Bon? Was he finally growing soft? He paused for a long while, trying to determine what was wrong, when he finally started listening to his thoughts, which he had tuned out. Look at Derpy, look at Derpy, look at Derpy, look at Derpy, look at Derpy, look at Derpy. He was confused as to why his subconscious was really so obsessed with the silly mare. Then he thought for a moment, and realized that she hadn’t talked for a few seconds. That was probably pretty bad. He blinked, and slowly turned around to see what the mare was doing, having to force himself to really WANT to know what stupid thing she was doing. Derpy was curiously looking through the hole of the gun with one of her eyes. Oh, nothing to see there, she’s just being curious, that’s all. His mind content from worrying, he looked back at his machine, then went wide-eyed in realization of what she was doing. Oh buck my life. He turned around quickly and noticed that she was about to pull the trigger, “Gah! Derpy, no!” He knocked it out of her hooves and into the alley nearby seconds before she finished the action. Upon its landing, they heard a loud popping sound, signifying that it had gone off when it landed. “Derpy, why did you do that!? Our cover’s gonna be BLOWN because of what you did!” he spat, his face going red with anger. “Er, Kal? It’s about to rain, we should-” she tried before she was interrupted. “Can’t you get it through your thick, retarded little head not to mess with other ponies’ stuff!?”-Kal failed to notice that the derped-out eyes of the mare in front of him started to water-“You could have DIED because of your stupidity. You’ve RUINED what I’m doing, you’ve-” He was interrupted when he noticed that she was quietly sobbing. His heart sank into his chest at that point. He couldn’t feel physical pain. He was trained not to feel pain at all, which was handy when he was being tortured at the hooves of his enemies. But this was the first time he felt complete, uncontrollable pain as his heart started to implode. His throat tied into a knot as he helplessly stared at the crying mare in front of him. Almost on cue, thunder boomed in the sky, as if to say, “Hey, you down there! Yeah, you! You have no soul! Go tap-dance in a minefield!” He failed to realize that thick storm clouds had covered the skies and that drops of water had just started to fall. One fell directly onto his little device and short-circuited it instantaneously. He sighed, and helped the crying mare back to Twilight’s. Looks like my listening in on them is over. (Twilight's library) He opened the door and gently helped her into a seat, softly reassuring her that everything was ok. “Goodness, what happened to her?” Twilight rose from her seat and started hurriedly walking towards Derpy. She tried to answer in between violent crying spasms, “I-I touched his stu-stuff and I dropped i-it and he to-told me I wuh-was bad and I cr-ied and-” At this point, she was crying too hard to be understandable by the other two. Kal hugged her tightly and nuzzled her affectionately, “No, Derpy. I was bad, you were good. I messed up, I was mean. I bullied you, it wasn’t your fault, Derpy. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” She stopped crying as hard and one of her eyes looked at him, “I’m s-sorry Kal, I didn’t mean tuh-to touch-” He put a hoof up to her mouth to shush her, “Deep breaths, Derpy. Deep breaths. Do you wanna go to Sugarcube Corner to go get some muffins? I’ll buy you some muffins, Derpy” She averted both of her eyes from him and still cried a little, “Y-yeah, I like muffins” Kal put on a comforting smile, “Well that’s great! Because I like muffins too, Derpy! Do you wanna go get some muffins with me?” Twilight ran off to go get them an umbrella and a few bits for him to buy some muffins for her. The two took off through the rain and Derpy calmed down a bit. He made sure to carry the umbrella above her the entire time, so that she wouldn’t get wet. (Sugarcube corner) The two arrived at Sugarcube corner and Ms. Cake behind the counter noticed that Derpy had been crying, “Aaaw you poor dear!” Kal was soaking wet, but he didn’t mind, because at this point, he was just glad that Derpy wasn’t crying. They walked up to the counter and Ms. Cake handed them a plate of hot, fresh muffins and winked at Kal. As they walked away, she whispered to Kal sweetly, “It’s on the house, Deary” Kal smiled back at her and nodded in thanks before sitting down at a nearby table. He didn’t know why Derpy crying hurt him so much, but when she did, it felt like his heart was stabbing itself intentionally. Kal smiled cheerfully towards her, “All better?” Derpy nodded, “I’m sorry I touched your thingy, Kal” Kal frowned; he wasn’t comfortable with potentially making her cry again, “That gun could have hurt you, Derpy. That’s why I got mad at you, and I’m sorry I called you stupid. You’re not stupid, Derpy, don’t let anypony tell you otherwise” She smiled, “Thank you Kal!” Kal sighed, relieved that she wasn’t angry or sad in any way. He liked Derpy more now, she felt so fragile and innocent, and also childishly curious. He thought about giving her flowers tomorrow, so that there would be no hard feelings in the future. But for now, he would just enjoy muffins with his new friend. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Okidokiloki, another short chapter I have SUCH a good work ethic, I know, you don't have to tell me. While I was gone I only produced two chapters because it was hard to make a new chapter without criticism from the old one=/ So I guess this is my masochistic way of saying I missed you all :3 That being said, I regret to inform you all that I'm going to be gone for another TWO WEEKS :C I'll be on "vacation" (I use the term loosely as I'm going to be doing a lot of physical junk and I'll be volunteering to be getting tased while I'm there Fun times indeed) and I'll miss my normal routine a LOT. So anyways, to anypony out there who's a fan of this, I'll miss you all lots. BAI!