"...And then he went BUCKING Berserk!!! And said; Oi!!! Ya littl' SHIT!!! COMERE!!!! And... then he chased him... ON THE THIRD STEP HE TOOK TOWARDS HIM, HE TRIPPED AND BROKE HIS MUZZLE!!!!!!!" Snapshot rambled about laughing with such intensity, he fell off is stood spilling his cider all over the ground, attracting a lot of unwanted attention from bystanders in the bar.
His friends were not so impressed.
"Snapshot? Snapshot?!" Flash poked the broken down stallion. "Is he alright?" He asked Tappenfield.
Tappenfield gave Flash a glare of 'are you serious?' before taking another small sip of his own cider, causing Flash to turn his attention back to Snapshot.
"Far out Snapshot! Get yourself together!"
"HAHAHAHA! OW IT TICKLES! HEHEHEHE!!! O! HAHHAHAHAH!!!! MY LUNGS!!!!"
"Bucking Hell!" Flash muttered as he smacked Snapshot hard across the face, shutting him up slowly.
"Hahahaha! Ohohohoh! Ahhhhhhh.... Heh Hewwww......" Snapshot calmed down.
Flash sighed before he noticed all the ponies around him was staring silently at the exchange.
After ten long seconds of the awkward silence, it was cut with a: "Hehehehehehe..." from the stallion on the floor.
Flash lost it.
"I FUCKING SWEAR I WILL SMACK YOU SOO HARD THAT IT'LL TWIST YOUR TRACHEA SO YOU WILL STOP LAUGHING!!!!"
"Argh... my head hurts. *hic*" Snapshot moaned as the trio stumbled down the street. "Why the hell did you *hic* slap me?!" he whined.
"I think the real question you should ask yourself is why wouldn't he slap you." Tappenfield calmly interrupted.
"Great! Just bucking great! Now we are banned from what is considered the best bar in the Empire!" Flash burst aloud. "Where are we gonna stay then?! You'll think they would let us stay at the barrack, but no... They want us to get a 'real' home. Pretty much using rent! Rent is nothing but just money going down the toilet!" He rambled on.
How am I friend with these bastards? Tappenfield thought as Snapshot continued to stumble every few steps as Flash was rambling something about the Empire's economy.
After a few moments of walking down the quiet streets, the stallions were interrupted by a mare in the alley.
"Hey... Colt's... Havin' a tough night? Whatcha think about a great night with us?" a mare interrupted from the alley, posing along with her 'friends' in 'clothing with very limited coverage'.
"No, not interested." Tappenfield muttered emotionlessly and headed down the street.
Flash cut his rambling a stayed silent as he followed Tappenfield, giving the mares a few stern glances. And then his eyes widened and shouted as loud as he could, "SNAPSHOT!!!"
"Hey... *hic* watchcha think of a..." Snapshot was interrupted with a choke hold, which then started dragging him down the street.
"You think they would get rid of the prostitutes all ready." Flash huffed as he caught up with Tappenfield as Snapshot continued to gag in his choke hold.
"They wouldn't change that quickly. Equestria was in tough times a thousand years ago," Tappenfield said with no emotion in his voice. "There would be brothels, prostitutes, illegal trading all operating in open daylight under Sombra's reign. Be thankful the brothels were destroyed and repurposed as soon as the princesses seized control."
"Yeah... but the ponies here still have the same mindset despite the changes the princesses are trying to impose." Flash stated.
"Well the place only reappeared a few weeks ago. These 'crystal ponies' don't even realised that they had been gone for a thousand years."
"It's a miracle *hic* that we haven't *hic* encountered a fight or anything. *hic*" Snapshot added before coughing violently and then began to cover his mouth as his cheeks puffed and faced turned green.
Tappenfield and Flash both quickly skipped forwards as Snapshot began to release a torrential downpour of things he had consumed an hour earlier.
He paused, moved his jaw to speak, but was interrupted with another phase of expelling waste from his mouth.
"You think he's alright?" Flash asked.
"He'll be fine." Tappenfield continued to step forwards.
"Oi mate. I don't want any trouble, just leave me be." A voice came from around the corner.
Flash squinted curiously at the direction of the sound.
"Hah! tryin' to get away? No such luck!"
"What... Do you..." Flash was cut of as Tappenfield waved a gesture at him, telling him to shut up.
Tappenfield instantly transformed from a stallion casually walking down the street into a silent guard on patrol as he ran quietly towards the corner.
Flash followed in suit, closing his wings to prevent any sound from the wind as well as the ground.
"Let's hav' a deal, shall we?" a sinister voice echoed.
"Look, just let me go." a voice said calmly.
Tappenfield peered around the corner, facing his muzzle away from the sound so that the first thing that will enter possible line of sight was his eyeball.
"Give us your money, your clothing and we'll leave you be."
Flash waited in silence behind Tappenfield as he continued to observe. There were four ponies in the alley, three of them were armed with clubs and knives and all were masked with a variety of cheap masks to hide their faces. There was also a white Pegasus stallion in the corner who had a Wonderbolt woollen jacket on him who was clearly trying to sort out the situation.
"How about you leave me be, and I'll leave you be." The white pegasus said without hesitation.
"Gettin's cocky are we?" one of the masked ponies said, jabbing the white stallion further into the corner with his club.
Tappenfield knew what he had to do, but he could risk the innocent stallion to get hurt. He turned around quickly towards Flash, without making a sound and gave him a bunch of hand signals.
Flash stared at his commands as he translated it in his mind: There's three offenders and one victim. Offenders are armed with clubs and knives and are masked, and one offender is watching the alley every once in a while. Victim is a white, pegasus stallion. The alley is blocked from the back. Go the top of this building and swoop down, not dive, onto the two when watch-pony looks. Engage the two, protect the stallion. I'll engage watcher when he is focused on you.
Flash nodded, he had full trust in what Tappenfield was planning to do. He silently flew up the side of the building and landed softly on top, hugging the surface of the building and stealthy peered down towards the alley.
He immediately identified who was who and watched the situation from above.
"Let's see how 'cocky' you are, WITHOUT A COCK!!!" a pony armed with a knife stepped towards the pegasus.
The watching pony looked towards the opening of the alley.
"Look, It doesn't have to be that way," The stallion said calmly.
The pony looked back at the pegasus.
"If we left him, he'll notify the guards." a masked pony said to his comrade.
"Then let's loot his dead body shall we?" The other said with a blood dripping from his voice as the offenders step forwards.
At that moment, the watch-pony looked back.
Flash jumped down at the ponies in a vertical dive as he opened up his wings slowly as he fell towards them. When he was 4 metres (13 feet) above the heads of the ponies, he thrust his wings out swooping down at the ponies, transferring all his downwards momentum across the offenders.
Tappenfied waited until he could hear a 'Swoop' sound and waited for a second before silently charging in the alley.
The fight had begun.
Flash's swoop attracted attention from the ponies as they looked up towards him; the white stallion couldn't help but let out a grin.
Although the masked ponies turned towards Flash, they didn't have time to react to his attacks. For Flash, everything when slow-motion.
Flash placed all his energy from the dive into his right hoof which connected with an offender's jaw and neck, knocking him out. The pony next to him wind his club back and swung it towards him.
Using his spinning momentum from the punch, Flash duck and spun towards the pony under his club and placed a blow under his jaw. The pony fell back as he took the uppercut and placed a hoof onto his jaw. Out of nowhere, a powerful roundhouse kick from the white stallion was delivered to the back of his head, stumbling the pony over towards Flash who performed an strong elbow strike square on his forehead, finishing him off.
The last pony charged towards Flash with a machete which he drew from a hidden place in his cloak.
Flash stood at the ready as the pony got closer and closer. Before he gets a chance to swing, a hoof struck him in the back, knocking him towards the ground. Tappenfield grabbed the pony from the ground by the neck and threw him towards the wall, causing a large crack to echo throughout the alley, from both the wall and the head. He quickly finished him off with a knee strike in the stomach and a powerful hammer fist into the top of his head, causing another painful crack, leaving blood tricking onto the ground. Dead.
"You didn't have to kill him," Flash muttered, only to enter a grunt from Tappenfield as he shook his hoof.
"Wow," The stallion muttered in astonishment. "Never thought that there was a secret police in the Crystal Empire," The stallion joked.
"We ain't," Flash replied. "We're from the Royal Guard in Canterlot. We just transferred here a few weeks ago."
"Pleasure to meet yall," The stallion chuckled and stuck out a hoof. "Name's Soarin, from the Wonderbolts."
"And that big guy here's Tappenfield." Flash pointed at the stallion.
"Nice to meet ya both."
"Are you of Appleloosan decent?" Tappenfield asked out of curiosity.
"Oh! Sorry about the accent. We did a show in Applelossa before we came here, the accent usually sticks for a while... as well as the taste of pies." Soarin licked his lips.
"You were awfully calm for a pony being mugged," Flash stated the obvious.
"Its not my first time in the Empire. Crime is astonishingly high, and with all the guards moved to the castle, the streets run wild."
"They say that they moved the guards to the castle for a good reason," Flash told him.
"The greedy bastards were too pussied out to spare a few guards on the streets," Tappenfield muttered. "They'd never seen any trace of action in their lives, and are not willing to ever will."
"That's pretty deep," Soarin thought in his head as his grin grew in size.
"Speaking of action, are you guys implying that you've done action?" Soarin asked, only to meet Tappenfield's signature 'Are you serious' look and Flash's 'It happened right in front of you'.
Then Flash's face turned solemn and serious and muttered, "We... don't want to talk about it..."
"Okay... Just confirming."
"Who are you here in the Empire with?" Flash calmly asked.
"I'm here with my platoon to do a tour to 'enlighten' the crystal ponies," Soarin replied. "Apparently the feelings of the crystal ponies, somehow, indirectly reflect across the all of Equestria."
"Speaking of friends, where's Snapshot?" Flash suddenly asked.
Tappenfield's eyes widen and ran off towards the street, muttering aloud, "That ARSE BETTER BUCKING NOT..." expecting the worst.
The ponies' ran out onto the street, looking all around in search of their comrade.
Only to have their eye's meet with an exhausted Snapshot in front of a pile of unconscious pegasi with their masks either broken or on the ground.
"*Huff**Huff**Wheeze**Phew* You... *Huff* Better owe me... *Huff* At least a 'thanks'..." He wheezed out before dropping to his knees, revealing a group of six knocked out pegasi behind him.
"I think your friend's right there..." Soarin commented.