CHAPTER FOUR
"Sweet mother of Celestia, you survived!" Bruiser exclaims as Onyx walks into the large central room. He was absolutely soaked to the bone, a puddle was forming under his hooves. He shakes, flinging water every which way.
"What'd you expect?" he asks, grabbing a bagel that was sitting unguarded nearby on a table. He had worked up quite the appetite. He'd spent the last five hours pulling that Celestia-forsaken wagon through the mud and the muck. It was probably a good thing he had a mechanical heart, his old one would've probably exploded by now.
"Well, most new recruits that Angel Fire takes out don't come back" Bruiser responds as a small crowd gathers round. "We figured she just killed em or something."
"Psh, her?" he mumbles, mouth full. "She's not so bad once you get to know her."
"You mean, you... talked to her? Hot damn son, you gotta pair on ya, I'll give ya that" the blue pony says.
Onyx wolfs down the last two bites at once. "Don't see what all the fuss is about, heck she even told me how she ended up here."
The crowd gasps. "What happened?!" one of the ponies eagerly shouts.
Onyx straightens his posture, enjoying being the center of their attention. "Well, turns out she..."
He noticed the crowd had a horrified look on their faces. Onyx looks down to see two tall shadows reaching up over him on the ground.
His head slowly cranes around, seeing the aforementioned mare standing right behind him, metal wings spread to their full length giving her a menacing silhouette against the sterile lights of the room. Her eyes were burning a hole right through him. That scowl on her face could have frozen over Tartarus itself.
"She... did nothing worth mentioning, so I'd just forget I ever said anything" he says. She doesn't lower her glare off of him.
The crowd quickly disperses, returning to their previous business with haste. Angel takes a step towards the petrified midnight-black stallion. "That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble. Learn to control it" she snarls, edge of her wing dangerously close to his neck.
"Y-yes ma'am" he stutters. She lowers her wing and walks off. Onyx lets out a massive sigh, outstretching a hoof to a nearby table to steady himself. Bruiser laughs heartily.
"Not so bad, huh?"
"No it's not her, I just nearly pissed myself for the fun of it" Onyx replies.
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So, Bruiser gave me a journal. He said writing down your feelings and what's happening to you is a good way to cope, personally I think it's a bunch of touchy-feeley-bullshit, but, whatever. Not like I have anything better to do.
Recently, I did take it upon myself for some... "me time", if you catch my drift. When you share a room with a few dozen other stallions, you don't get much time to yourself. Not without it quickly getting weird, anyways.
Not surprisingly, the base is a little short on appropriate reading material. I did manage to find a modeling magazine, judging by the dog-eared pages and wrinkles, somepony had been using it for the same purposes I intended to. Mercifully, none of the pages were overly-sticky. I did make a note to wash my hooves after touching it however. Ok, not so much "wash" as "power scrub".
I just needed to verify everything, y'know, still worked. That's all it was.
Now that I had the necessary materials, I had to find an appropriate location. I tried one of the supply closets, but a cockroach the size of a cat crawled across my leg. Needless to say, I exited rather swiftly, the mood spoiled a bit. I only had the heebie-jeebies for 5, 10 minutes at the most.
I eventually settled for a bathroom stall. Classy, I know. I don't think of myself as a picky stallion, but none of the models really did anything for me. They all had way too much makeup plastered on their faces, or just looked like tramps. I mean I could work with it, but ... I'm unsure as to where I'm going with this particular paragraph.
I did find one mare that caught my eye though (that's funny because I only have one eye. COMEDY), a cute little yellow pegasus with a long pink mane. She had 3 butterflies for a cutie mark, pretty cute face too. She didn't look like all the others in the magazine though, not all high-strung and probably wouldn't give you the time of day if you met them.
No, she looked nervous, hell even a little scared. It was like she didn't want to be there. She didn't know what lie in store for her, and that was likely what scared her the most. I dunno, maybe part of me empathized with that... Anyways, I was nearly done before I was interrupted.
Two stallions came barging in. They were, let's just say, enjoying each other's company. Loudly. At first I thought this just might be another joke on the new guy, like the lid falling off the salt-shaker or the fake snake in my bed. However a peak out the door's crack confirmed either these were the most devoted pranksters of all time, or the statistics of a bunch of stallions living together 24/7 had just now become apparent to me. Because I don't catch onto that sort of thing very quickly. Took me 5 years to realize my childhood friend Violet Lilly was a lesbian. And yes, it was only after I asked her out.
Now that I think about it, I don't suppose it's too surprising. Hell, Angel-Fire's the only mare worth looking at around here, and she's terrifying.
Sitting there, as an unwilling witness to what was unfolding, I couldn't help but think of the time Rusty first saw those two mares kissing outside the horseshoe store.
He'd never seen anything like that, he was just a little kid. He asked me about it, so I explained it best I could. I mean I'd rather he hear it from me than some pony on the street, right?
Of course, he waited until we were all sitting around the table eating dinner to ask me aloud how two mares had sex. Mom and Dad had words with me, strong words. Rusty was just mad because nopony told him. I miss that little guy...
These droplet stains on the page, that's the vent leaking over me. They're not mine.
Anyways, so I'm stuck there in the bathroom stall. The party has died, hard. I can't just walk out with em going at it, so I just sit there and wait for them to leave.
I sat in that fucking bathroom for 30 minutes. They eventually left, I considered giving it another go but after listening to that grunt-fest for a half-hour, I doubt that pegasus could do anything for me even if she was actually here.
Still got the magazine, it's under my mattress. Because that's the absolute last place you would expect somepony to hide makeshift psuedo-pornography. My own devious craftiness scares me sometimes.
I'm not sure what I'm doing here. I mean, it's not that I don't care about Earth ponies being oppressed or anything, but...
I've never really felt oppressed. I mean sure, there was the requisite grade-school teasing from the unicorns and pegasi, but that's only because they weren't very creative. I had LOADS of stuff wrong with me they could have made fun of, but they weren't smart enough to realize that.
There's a strong likelihood that I'll be forced to do something in the near future that I won't want to. I just wonder if I'll be able to do it for a cause I honestly, don't feel that strongly about, or if I should at all.
Onyx closes the journal and slides it under his bed. He lies down and tries to get some sleep, there wasn't anything left to do.
He tosses and turns, unable to drift off. Try as he may, he couldn't get the unicorn from the other day out of his head. The night they returned he was exhausted beyond comprehension, he had no problems sleeping. Tonight though, his mind was free to torment him.
Did he have a family? A wife and kids? Even though he wasn't the one who killed him directly, it was he who enabled Angel to deliver the final blow. The blood was on his hooves just as much as it was on hers.
He recalled a conversation he'd had with the old pony when he was just a foal with stunning clarity. There was an old, snow-white pegasus that hung around the barber shop, mom never did like it when he talked to the pony.
The pegasus was one of the few surviving veterans of the last war in Equestrian history. The conversation replayed in Onyx's head like a movie.
"What's it like to kill another pony? Don't you get sad?" the small black foal asked him.
"Son, in a war, you don't see them as ponies. They're faceless targets, vermin in need of extermination. You don't think about the lives they led, or the families you're shattering. You get the job done so you can go home" the grizzled old pegasus replied, the years giving his words a raspy tone.
"Faceless targets..." Onyx repeats aloud to himself. The words echoed in his head. That's what it would take then.
"Zrrt! Angel Fire, Bruiser, and Onyx, report to Blackout's office. Zrrt!" the PA buzzed.
Onyx groans as he climbs out of bed, what did that lunatic want now? It was just after midnight, didn't that guy ever sleep?
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"You uh, wanted to see me?" he asks, slowly entering the large office. It had taken him a few minutes to find it, the compound was like a maze inside.
Angel Fire and Bruiser were already inside, standing in front of the steel desk. Blackout was seated behind it, he waves Onyx inside. "Yes, do come in."
Onyx joins the others in the center of the mostly featureless room. Aside from the desk, a computer terminal and the single lamp hanging from the ceiling, there was practically nothing in there. He supposed Blackout didn't like distractions.
"First of all, I'd like to congratulate you for successfully completing your first mission" the cyborg stallion says eloquently. "I suppose you are your father's son after all."
The lamp gave off an electrical buzz overhead. The vents cut on, a low drone sounded out from them as fresh air is pumped throughout the base.
"Now normally, I'd reserve this mission exclusively for more experienced members, such as Bruiser and Angel Fire here, but I think you're up to the task."
"Now that Onyx is here, can we finally hear what this super important mission actually is?" Bruiser asks somewhat impatiently. He was not fond of waiting, for anything.
"Of course" Blackout replies. He brings a hoof to his temple, a shimmering image is projected from his robotic eye. Onyx immediately wondered if he could do that as well, because that was badass.
An image of a unicorn with long blonde bangs is seen. A heart with a music note inside it sits on the flanks. "This is Heart Throb. He's a young up-and-coming musician, although I'm using that word very loosely."
"Wait, that's a dude? Thought that was a mare..." Bruiser comments. Angel rolls her eyes.
"He's amassed an absurdly dedicated fanbase comprised almost exclusively of adolescent girls, and will be hosting a concert in Fillydelphia tomorrow evening."
Onyx blinks twice. "Wait, holdup. This super-tough assignment is going to a pop concert?"
"You've never heard one of his songs, have you?" the cobalt pony says. "Try to make it all the way through just one. It's physically painful."
"Focus" Blackout says authoritatively, the 2 stallions snap to attention. "I got curious, so I examined one of his more popular... songs." The way he said it implied he was unsure if that was the best word to use. The image changed from the unicorn to a waveform spiking and peaking in various places.
"A spell matrix?" Angel Fire says.
"Yes. More specifically, an obsession-spell. These are banned, and for good reason. Once the spell is in place, it leaves the victim in a state of semi-mind control, indefinitely" the tall black pony says, the image vanishing. "You will infiltrate the event, and eliminate him."
"Oh FUCK yes" Bruiser exclaims with a crazed look in his eyes.