Disclaimer: I do not own Hasbro, My Little Pony or any characters, places, or events in the extended cannon, although it would be awesome if I did.
Recurring Memories Chapter Two:
Spring Cleaning, Streak Style
Now where the hell was I going to make connections? I’m a soldier, damn it. I don’t do diplomacy.
I sighed as I sat in the local park two hours later. I didn’t do walking up to strangers and making friends. I did walking up to strangers and beating the hell out of them. This whole ‘socializing’ thing was hard!
“Streak?” I heard a voice ask.
”Hmm?” I said, looking up to see Fluttershy standing not even two feet away from me. ”Oh, hey Fluttershy,” I said. ”Have you been there long?”
“No,” she said. “I just saw you sitting there looking sad and thought I’d come over and see if I could make you feel better.”
I sighed, cracking my neck. She winced at the sharp report. Guess somepony didn’t like cracking joints. ”I’m going to be living here, but I haven’t the foggiest who I'm supposed to talk to or what I’m supposed to do,” I said. ”I am a soldier, Fluttershy. I kill people. It’s not pretty, but it was at one time necessary, and has come in handy for my entire life up to now.” I threw my hooves up as I said, ”I have no useful skills! I can’t just throw a paper on the announcement board saying ‘Local soldier for hire. Want somepony dead? Give me a call.’ “
She sighed at my words, settling down on the seat beside me. “Streak, you’re looking at this from the wrong way.”
”How?” I asked.
“I was getting to that,” she said, giving me a look. “Now first things first, are you scared to talk to ponies?”
”I have no idea where to start,” I said. ”What would I say? ‘Hi, I’m the guy that committed regicide, how’s that coffee taste this morning?’ “
“You’re scared,” she summarized succinctly. “You don’t want to say the wrong thing, so you say nothing.”
”Yes,” I said.
“You know what you need to do?” she asked me.
I sighed, ”I have no idea. That’s why I’ve been sitting on a park bench doing nothing for the last two hours.”
“You need to stallion up and stop being a coward,” she said matter-of-factly. “Now go out there and talk to somepony.”
I stared at her with eyes wide in surprise. I was not expecting that from her, to say the least.
The effect was ruined a second later when she blushed and backed out. “Oh, that was rude. I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me.”
”Hate you?” I said. ”Fluttershy, that was brilliant! Could have been worded better, but brilliant!”
"But it was so rude," she whined.
"Fluttershy, I needed a kick in the ass, and you happily supplied it," I said.
"That sounds mean," she said. "Why would I kick somepony?"
I paused a moment before replying. "Not a literal kick in the ass, Flutters," I said. "Necessary, nonetheless. Try that some more."
“Uh,” Fluttershy thought as she scanned the crowd. She noticed a pony that seemed to not want to talk to anypony around him, and decided that I could make a friend in need. “That pony. Make friends with him.” I could tell she wanted to apologise for her commanding tone, but she didn’t. She was learning.
I walked up to the stallion. He was a medium build, with fairly average coloring. He had an pale green coat and dark blue hair, and I was sure that if he had been social, Fluttershy’s eyes would have passed right over him.
”Good morning!” I called out with false cheer.
He seemed surprised that I was talking to him. “Uh, hello,” he said, looking me in the eye.
”Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” I said. I saw something in his eyes. It was faint, and most likely suppressed, but I saw it nonetheless. Hunger. Primal hunger with no outlet.
“I suppose,” he said, breaking eye contact. He knew I saw.
”You got an itch you can’t quite scratch, don’t you?” I asked.
“Wha–are you coming on to me?” he asked. “I mean, I’m flattered but I don’t swing that way.”
“It could have been awkward if you did,” I said. ”Especially since that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked me.
”Don’t insult me by pretending not to know,” I said. ”I feel it too. What kind of hunger is it for you? Sex? Drugs? Murder? That last one is fairly rare here in Equestria.”
“Hey, man! Not so loud!” he scolded quietly. He sighed, and I knew that I had him. “Sex. It’s sex, alright?”
“I’m sure you can find some mare willing to jump your bones,” I said.
“I’m not exactly satisfied with the. . . consensual kind,” he admitted.
”So you want to force a mare to jump your bones that in no way wants to?” I asked. I apparently hid my disgust well, since he didn’t pick up on it.
“Exactly,” he said. “I’m out here looking for one. I’m not exactly the strongest of stallions, so I need to find a small mare. Plus, the petite ones are cuter,"
"I think I can help you," I said. "Look at the park bench. Do you see the mare sitting there?" He started to turn his head, but I put my hoof on his shoulder. "Look with your eyes, not your head" I advised. I saw his eyes drift over to Fluttershy. "She's still there, right? Yellow mare, pink mane?"
"I see her," he said, licking his lips. "She's a cutie, alright."
"She lives on the border of the Everfree, so you'll have as much privacy as you need," I said. "She's also a tiny mare. I think you'd have no problem overpowering her."
He chuckled darkly. "I like you. Name's Gridiron."
"Streak," I said, and my companion’s eyes widened. "Oh, please. If I wanted to turn you in, I would have already. I'm here to help you."
"Alright. If you were going to turn me in, you have more than enough evidence to get me," he said.
"Exactly," I said. "Like I said, I'm here to help you. Her house is right off the path to the Everfree."
"Why are you helping me?" he asked. "I'm not the kind of pony that normal ponies want to associate with."
"I know what it feels like to have a hunger," I said. "What kind of pony would I be if I didn't help another with theirs?"
We said goodbye right after I got an agreement from the stallion to try tonight. I walked back to Fluttershy with a smile on my face. She smiled back at me. "I trust it went well?"
"Better than you can imagine," I said. "Let's put you to the test this time. Tonight sounds like a great night for a sleepover."
"But nopony has brought it up yet," she said.
"Then bring it ip," I said. "You're a hermit, Fluttershy. You need to get out of your house. Tonight."
"Why tonight?" she asked.
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” I declared.
“So is tomorrow,” she reminded.
”Fluttershy, be assertive,” I said. ”You were doing a great job of kicking ass earlier, what happened to that?”
She sighed, “Alright. So besides you, me, and the girls, who else should I invite?”
”Not me,” I said.
“Streak,” she said. “You are our friend. You need to actually do things with ponies that aren’t Rainbow Dash.”
”You’re asking me to come to a sleepover where my sexy, frisky marefriend will also be,” I reminded. ”We buck like funnies, and we’re shameless. You girls won’t sleep a wink.”
Fluttershy blushed a deep crimson and squeaked.
”You should invite Star,” I said. ”It would be good for her to hang out with some older mares.”
“Are you calling me old, Streak?” Fluttershy asked, frowning at me.
I sighed. It was going to be one of those days.
*~*~*
Fluttershy had left her doors unlocked, as she always did. I had taken the initiative to move inside the house and prepare for my visitor. The house was dark, save for a single lit room—Fluttershy’s. Her animals were outside because of her absence, so that was another thing I didn’t have to worry about.
About an hour after the shy mare had left and gone to the sleepover she set up, he showed. His green hooves tapped softly against the floor quietly enough that if I wasn’t explicitly listening for it, I would have never heard it. He had an anticipatory grin on his face and he crept through the house, most likely thinking of how this would work out for him. He probably thought it would work well.
I proved him wrong the second he threw open the door to the mare’s room and found it empty. “Wha–?” he asked, scratching the back of his head.
”She’s at a friend’s for a sleepover tonight,” I said from my position behind him. He whirled around to look at me only to be met with manic eyes. It had been far too long since I had a chance to hurt something. ”That leaves just you and me here.”
“I thought you were helping me!” he exclaimed. “Is this the part where the guard swoops in and takes me to prison?”
”Nope,” I said, grinning. ”This is the part where I sate my hunger.”
“I knew you were gay,” he groaned. “I’ll scream. Somepony will hear.”
“Oh, yes you will scream,” I growled. ”I will make sure of it, and nobody will hear you this close to the Everfree.”
“Dude, I knew I should have stayed home today,” he said. “Now instead of raping, I’m being raped. I wouldn’t have had the courage to even come out here if it weren’t for you, so thank you.”
”I’m afraid you have me wrong,” I said. ”My hunger is different from yours. I don’t want sexual release. I have that. No, what I want is something my marefriend can’t supply. I want to cause you pain.” My grin widened in anticipation as I lifted my hoof, revealing the kitchen knife I held in it. I don’t think I was ever that excited to hurt something. “I want to hear you scream as I tear your life out of you inch by inch.”
“You–you have issues man!” Gridiron said as he backed up.
I ignored him. ”But we don’t want to leave a mess all over Miss Fluttershy’s house, do we?” I asked rhetorically. “No, we can’t have that.” My eyes drifted over to a branch I had drug into the room from outside in preparation of this moment. I swiftly grabbed it in my forehooves and swung it. The stallion couldn’t dodge, and I hit him directly in the head.
With minimal effort, I dragged the stunned stallion—and the branch, of course—outside and into the Everfree. I decided that the location of Starswirl’s old memorial, where they are building the memorial for all six of the ancient Bearers. It was a thing of beauty, I had to admit. When it was done, it would be each of us in a battle pose, frozen together for all eternity. While it was only half done, it was finished enough for my purposes. Starswirl’s statue—being smaller than the rest, as it should be—was already finished and installed.
I splashed some water over the face of the stunned stallion woke him up nicely. ”Okay, this is how this will work,” I said, tossing the knife from hoof to hoof. “You try and hurt my friends, I hurt you right back.”
“I didn’t hurt her!” he exclaimed, backing up against the statue. “I didn’t!”
“But you wanted to,” I said. ”If she was home, you would have raped her. You would have violated her in the worst way imaginable and filled her with your corrupt seed, potentially creating vile copies of you.”
“I wouldn’t have,” he tried to lie. “I wasn’t going to!”
I pressed a hoof into this shoulder, pinning him against the memorial. ”This is almost what she would have felt,” I said. ”This feeling of terror, of pain.” I accented the last word with a stab to his leg near his groin. He cried out and tears started falling down his face. ”Knowing that things won’t work out in the end, but hoping they will anyway. You know the difference between what you’re feeling and what she would feel?” When I didn’t get an answer from the sniveling stallion, I twisted the knife. He cried out again, and I repeated my question. ”Do you know the difference?”
“No!” he shouted, writhing his body in an attempt to escape from the pain my knife supplied.
”She would have known that she had to live the rest of her life with the guilt and shame of having been violated by a bastard like you. She would realize that she had a good chance of having to suffer the physical consequences of your despicable act for the next nine months while you walked off feeling none the worse,” I growled. ”But you didn’t care about that, did you? You only cared about how you felt. You needed relief, and willing partners couldn’t give it to you, so you decided to just take it by force.” I removed the knife and quickly slashed his other back leg by the hoof, rendering it useless. ”I’m here to take you off the streets of my country, and to provide a warning to all that would follow your path. I will not suffer your kind in my nation, even if I can only enforce in one town.”
“I didn’t–I didn’t,” Gridiron gasped out.
”There are things that are legal to do to you,” I said, ”then there are the things you deserve to have happen to you. I’m here to supply the latter.” He whimpered as my hoof went to his groin. With a painful grasp, I tugged his balls away from his body. ”This is part one,” I said, raising the knife in my hooves.
“No! Wait!” he shouted as I dropped the knife, severing his sack from the rest of his body. He wailed in agony unimaginable as I casually tossed the now-useless hunks of flesh away.
”If we were to be discovered right now, justice would have been served,” I said as I looked down at his twisting body. ”Since fate isn’t so kind to you, I get to have more fun.”
I drug the dull side of the knife over his forehead. ”These make such good canvasses. The perfect space to write a short message.” I shifted the angle so that the tip of the knife drew a line across his forehead. He whimpered as blood ran down the vertical cut. ”Part two,” I whispered in his ear. ”Do you want to know what yours will be?” At his whimper, I dug a semicircle at the top of the line. ”I’m thinking RAPIST will work quite well,” I said calmly, wiping off the blood that was obscuring my view of my workspace. With a smirk and a quick slash, I added the diagonal line that finished off the ‘R’. It took not more than a minute for me to finish my message.
He whimpered as I picked him up in my hooves, standing on my back legs. He squirmed weakly as his blood drained out of his three lower wounds and down his mutilated face. ”I’m not quite yet done with you, rapist. Part three.” I eyed the pointed horn of the Starswirl statue with interest. This was almost the most important part of the whole thing. ”Let’s see if I can get this on the first try, eh?”
He whimpered more as I heaved his body up and at the statue. I wasn’t quite sure from his cry of surprise and pain if I had hit or not. I let go, and the stallion didn’t fall, instead sliding down the horn slowly while his whimpers got louder. That could be good, or it could be bad. A quick climb onto the platform the statues were to be placed on revealed that I was completely on target. I smirked. ”This is the closest I will get to making you feel like she would have felt.”
“I get it,” he wailed. “I get it, man! Get me off of this thing!”
”You don’t want it?” I asked innocently.
“You know I don’t!” he shouted.
”Good,” I said. I stared at him for a moment before humming thoughtfully. ”It’ll take too long for you to bleed out,” I decided. “Someone might show up and get my name before you die.”
“Let me go man, I won’t tell anypony!” he pleaded, looking at me with wide, tear-filled eyes.
”I’m not that stupid,” I said. ”Even if you keep your side of the bargain, what’s to stop Luna from digging into your mind and finding me? No, I need to finish this now.” I tossed the knife up three times, checking its weight. Satisfied, I whipped my hoof around, hearing the satisfying sound of muscle and skin parting. When I looked up at him next, his stomach was split from side to side, showing the myriad of shapes, sizes, and colors inside his body. He feebly grabbed at his gaping stomach, trying to keep his internal organs where they belonged.
I left him to his struggle, turning around and leaving an eviscerated, gelded, and mutilated rapist impaled up the ass with the horn of a statue of Starswirl the Bearded. I think that sent a proper message to that bastard, and a message to the poor sap’s ilk, as well.
*~*~*
My act was the talk of the town the next day. The poor mare that showed up first to work on the memorial threw up and fainted, as did the next two ponies. By the time the guard was contacted, nearly half the town had been to the site of the murder.
I arrived soon after the first pony told me it existed. Everyone there, including the guards attempting to clear out everypony, looked physically sickened at their proximity. I pushed my way to the front to speak to the guards. "Hey, what's going on?" I asked.
"We can't give ongoing investigation details to a civilian," one of the guards said without looking at me. "Return to your home for now."
The other guard dug his elbow into his companion's side. "Are you crazy? That's Streak you just blew off!"
"It is?" the first guard asked quickly. He looked up at me. "Ah, hell. It is."
"You were doing your job," I waved his concern off. "What does it look like?"
"I'd say murder, but you already know that," the first guard said. "It looks like somepony really didn't like this guy."
"What's that on the victim's forehead?" I asked.
"Perp carved RAPIST into his forehead," the second guard said, shuddering. "It wasn't pretty, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't fast."
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Besides the fact the perp took the time to describe the victim's alleged crime with a knife?" the second guard said. "There's the fact that until a few minutes ago he was, erm. . . impaled on the statue's horn and eviscerated."
"Not to mention gelded," the first guard said. They both seemed uneasy about this whole thing. "How do you take this so well?"
"When I was a rookie, I had to watch my commanding officer and friend bleed to death with a chunk of rebar through his gut," I said. "Not months after that, I had to explain to a filly with a broken leg that her mommy wasn't going to wake up. It only got worse from there. I'm accustomed to death."
"But not even a blink at evisceration?" the first guard asked.
"Starswirl once ripped the scales off of a dragon in flight and cut it to ribbons with them before it hit the ground," I said. The guards appeared green, so I changed topics. "How much of this is getting out to the public, officially?"
"As little as possible," they said in sync. The first guard took over. "Whatever we need to to make the media happy."
"Make sure to mention the carved word," I said.
"That's on our list of things not to tell the press," the second guard commented. "Right under 'evisceration' and 'sodomised by statue'."
"This looks like a message to me," I said. "Not spreading that message will only anger the murderer. If he wasn't planning on killing again, it might drive him to it, and if he was, it might speed up how fast he kills again."
"So you're telling us that we need to tell the public how this poor sod was mutilated or it might happen again?" the first guard reasoned.
"Exactly." I lied. There was no way I wasn't getting that detail out. "If you find another victim, call me up. I'm not going to suffer scum on Equestrian soil."