Click.
“Hey, Cappy, what’s up?”
“Artist, I think—What’s that thumping noise? I can barely hear you.” Odd. Dusk Dancer sounded almost out of breath.
“That’s the bass, silly.”
“We have more important things to do than rave, Artist. I need you back on the Eventide ASAP.”
The Artist’s usual playful tone dissipated. “Did something go wrong with the tradeship heist?”
“You could say that. Imperial Knights were waiting for us. I was the only one that made it out alive.”
“That’s bad news. But now it sounds like they’re on the offense. Glad to know we finally got their attention.”
“I hear you. Head to the usual extraction point. We’ll pick you up. Watch your back, Artist.”
“Alright, Captain. Meet you there.”
Click. Dusk Dancer’s voice dropped out of the chat. The earth pony stood up and stretched, opening her eyes and shaking her head, causing her mane to bounce about. Her mane looked more like cotton candy than it did an actual hairstyle; ridiculous curls in different shades of bubblegum pink and blue, mixing with her naturally bright white coat to make her stand out even more.
Scatterbrain walked over to a nearby table, and picked up a heavily modified kinetic sniper rifle, folding it and placing it in its holster around her midsection. The weapon’s camouflage and curvature ensured it would blend in fairly well with her dazzling white coat. When her uplink established a connection with the rifle, a green status light winked in the corner of her vision.
The Artist then made her way to the exit, opening the door to find herself once again in the back of the main room of Sugar Rave Corner, her ears twitching with each thump of the bass. She took a moment to lean on the rails overlooking the dance floor, watching the ponies dance the night away underneath the strobe lights. Her right eye, glowing a pale cyan color, whirred softly in her head as it turned about in different directions. Her left eye remained concealed beneath a small black oval, allowing her to use her far more effective cybernetic eye instead.
***
“Is this the place?” wondered the Knight aloud, who then turned to his partner. The other Knight returned his skeptical look.
“That’s what our informant says. ‘Sugar Rave Corner.’”
The first Lunar Knight shrugged with a sigh and double-checked his weapon, which remained concealed within the plates of his Lunite armor, until he was satisfied that the status light remained green on his uplink’s HUD. His companion followed him into the nightclub.
Immediately, the thumping bass assaulted their ears and strobing rays of all sorts of colors flashed before their eyes. Their eyepieces glowed an eerie cyan, adjusting for the light as the two ponies scanned the crowd for their prey.
CRACK.
A single sound managed to rise above the roar of the bass and the noises of the now confused crowd. The first Knight's eyes darted, trying to locate the source of the sound. The second Knight was no longer moving. A loud clunk alerted the remaining knight, his partner's armor crashing to the floor. A bloody hole had been torn through the Knight’s head. The first knight managed to turn around in time to see the telltale glint of light reflecting off of a sniper’s scope, near the rail above the dance floor.
A second crack echoed through the rave, a faint blue-green stream left in the trail of the second kinetic sniper round, missing the Knight’s head by inches. The Knight took a defensive position, his armor covering most of his vital areas, and snapped his rifle into place on his hoof, quickly unfolding into a ready-to-fire configuration. His eyes met those of his assailant. To his surprise, when her lips started moving, her heard her voice loud and clear, echoing through his own headset, over the guard’s own channel.
“Oh, look at that, I missed. Silly me,” the voice pouted, sounding strangely upbeat for somepony who had just ended the life of a Lunar Knight. He could faintly see the lengthened rails of her sniper rifle fold up and retract before she holstered it. “Tell you what, Mister Knight, you’re kinda cute. Let’s take this party backstage, if you know what I mean. Catch me if you can!” squealed the voice, and he could see her shape bounce off and into the back rooms.
The Lunar Knight stared in a mix of rage and confusion. He stamped his hoof twice before breaking into a full gallop, shoving past the crowd and after the murderer. Nearing the door to the back rooms of the club, he reared onto his hind legs and knocked the door down, entering with his weapon at the ready. The annoying earth pony was nowhere in sight.
The knight only took one step before feeling a weight on his back. The white mare reached around and covered his eyes with her hooves.
“Peek-a-boo!” she shouted merrily. “I see you!”
The now-enraged Knight began trying to bring his weapon around to fire at point-blank range, but his weapon would not respond. Its status light winked from green to a mish-mash of blue and pink on his HUD. He blinked for a second, making sure he wasn’t seeing things other than the white hooves in his eyes. “Get off of me!” yelled the Knight.
“Okay. Have it your way!” replied the snow-white mare, doing an acrobatic pirouette off the Knight’s armored back and into his field of vision several yards away. He immediately brought his weapon to bear on her head and triggered his rifle, eager to finally wipe that silly grin off her face with a bullet.
Instead of being propelled outwards, however, the round simply exploded upon being charged inside the Knight’s kinetic rifle, igniting in an electric-blue explosion that severed the Knight’s right leg and knocked him sideways into the wall, letting loose a yell of agony.
Scatterbrain bounced over to the injured guard and stuck her hoof in his mouth. “Shush, you! We don’t want the party ponies to panic! That’d simply ruin the party!”
While mumbling violently into the mare’s hoof, the Knight flicked his intact hoof and withdrew a small, curved blade, thrusting it blindly at his attacker.
“Ooh, are we playing Pin the Tail on the Pony? Yeah, that’s it! Show me your stabs! Missed! Ooh, you missed again! Gee, you’re terrible at this. Here, let me help.” Scatterbrain grabbed hold of the Knight’s hoof and twisted it, then redirected the limb into his own side, slicing directly into his chest. His scream of absolute agony only lasted for a few seconds before he was silenced by another deafening CRACK. The Knight’s head limped lifelessly to the side after snapping backwards, trails of blood travelling down his face from the newly-created wound. The wall behind him became a twisted mural of grey matter.
“And that’s why they call me ‘Scatterbrain.’”
***
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
The doors to Scatterbrain’s room opened, allowing the Librarian to step through. The country stallion looked around, taking a moment to admire the pony’s rather macabre works of art, each unique and eerily beautiful in its own way. No matter how many times the brick-red earth pony saw them, the paintings still managed to unnerve him. He looked over the earth mare’s shoulder at her current painting, a rather gruesome depiction of what appeared to be a Lunar Knight in the middle of a crowd of raving ponies, sporting a massive, bloody hole torn through the dead center of his forehead.
The earth pony finally turned around to greet the Librarian, who only caught a brief glimpse of a pale, gaunt face before the Artist put on her usual facade, smiling brightly. “How can I help you, partner?”
“Howdy, SB. I need you to do me a favor.”
Scatterbrain tilted her head slightly. “Sure thing. Whatcha need?”
“One of my good friends has dropped off the grid. I want you to find out everything you can about the Mayor. I want to know where she lives, her work hours, any patterns to her travel, anything you can find. If anyone knows where he is, it’ll be her.”
Scatterbrain scratched her chin with her hoof. “What makes you think she’ll know where he is?”
“From what I can gather, the Mayors of each city report directly to Luna herself. It’s part of their job to deal with any terrorist or rebel threats.”
“You can count on me, Librarian.” Scatterbrain dropped her smiling charade and traded it for a look of determination.
The stallion knew that look well, and knew then that he could very well count on Scatterbrain. “Thanks, SB. I’ll see you around.”
Scatterbrain nodded and watched her friend leave. She turned around and took another look at the painting she’d been working on. The pony’s silently screaming face looked back into hers, the same face that had been burned into her mind’s eye that night. She remembered every face she had ever put a bullet through.
Looking around the room, Scatterbrain observed similar illustrations of horror covering the walls, showing ponies in their final moments. Her eyes lingered on one in particular, larger than the rest; it portrayed a male pony, close to her own age, with a blindingly white coat and a hint of a poofy pink-and-blue mane, an Imperial Knight’s Lunite helmet surrounding his stunned expression. His young cyan eyes bore into her own from behind his eyepieces. She sighed and closed her eyes as they began to fill with tears.
When she opened them again, she was perched on a rooftop overlooking the crowded streets of Eclipse, looking through the scope of her sniper rifle. The streets proper were cleared to make way for a parade in Her Majesty’s honor, with a procession consisting of her officials. The Empress herself wasn’t the priority; It had been proven time and again that even the most modern weaponry couldn’t do much to harm her.
No, Scatterbrain was simply here to do as much damage as possible. She drew in a deep breath and held it, steadying herself and her rifle, its vertically-aligned, elongated rails leaning over the edge it was balanced on. Scatterbrain took one pony in the procession at random into her crosshairs, and prepared to pull the trigger.
Scatterbrain waited for the familiar, snow-furred Imperial Knight to buck his way through the door, only to receive a bullet for his troubles. But this time, no such Knight came. Confused, Scatterbrain lowered her weapon, removing her eye from the scope. In the process of turning around, she found a grey pegasus colt sitting next to her, silhouetted against the bright moon itself. When she noticed him, he turned his head to look directly into her cyan eyes, both of them still natural at this point in her memory. As soon as his piercing azure orbs met hers, she blinked.
Scatterbrain found herself back in her room, looking at her paintings through her mechanical lens. Her alabaster coat was standing on end. Shaking her head to clear her troubled thoughts, the Artist decided to save her bizarre day-dreaming for later. Sitting down on her haunches, her view became filled with virtual lines of information as Scatterbrain began her search for data on the Mayor of Eclipse.