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// It Kind of is A Cold Day in Hell 
// Story: How to Make Enemies and Be Generally Unsociable 
// by Okhlahoma Beat-Down 
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Begrudgingly, my limbs finally decided to play ball and let me drag myself out of the water, which I did so as fast as I could. That, however, only equated to a weak pull on the bridge nearby. After all, falling 50 feet and body slamming into solid water that was a lot deeper than first expected was actually more than enough to leave a massive throbbing pain all over the front half of my body. I was just thankful my sunglasses hadn't shattered and stabbed my eyes, since that would probably have resulted in less panting for breath that gradually slowed down to a calming rate, and it instead would have been blood everywhere, me screaming, and glass shards ripping into my eyes as I struggled to get out of the water, before finally succumbing to my injuries and drowning in the knowledge that I had been seduced by a horse.
It took a few minutes to get used to the pain, something I could relate to being shot in the leg but all over my body, and finally succeeded in dragging myself to the river bank. Sopping wet, cold, and unarmed, I rolled onto my back, and simply lay there, still getting my breath back into my body and my heart rate back to normal. Above, there was the endless void of space, with not a cloud in sight, and stars flickering gently in the sky. The moon was much better than it was on Earth, bearing much greater size and a strange pattern emblazoned onto it via the use of craters that were slightly darker than the others. It made out the shape of what seemed to be a side view of a unicorn, glaring angrily down at the place as though it had some form of unfinished business with the planet. What intrigued me most, however, was that there was a set of four tiny stars drifting slowly towards it. I knew what that was. That was simple astronomy; Stars would move themselves because Mann Co. had fired off a laser that made everything in space start moving about because the laser had broken the particle bonds that kept the stars in place. Easy logic, Mann Co. said so in their book on the matter.
After a few more minutes of breathing heavily, slowly getting back to my normal, not-pained state, I realised I finally had the strength to stand up, so I did just that, with only minor stinging in my legs. As I began to scan my surroundings, not leaving the riverbank for the purpose of safety and low detection chance, I was temporarily reminded of the first time a rocket went off right next to me: Wave of pressure, a few minutes of no limb strength, and finally the strength to get back up. It surprisingly helped me survive that battle; they assumed I was dead for the duration of the fight, so they didn't bother checking, and I managed to crawl away into a corner. I was conditioned for rockets, not water.
The first thing I noticed about everything was how quiet this small town was. Not a single soul in the streets to be seen, not a car, not a market stall, nothing. But judging by the style of the houses, they mustn't have gotten as far in advancement as the car; Each individual cottage had a thatched straw roof, brown wooden support beams, and white walls, plus wooden shutters, plantpots on the windowsills, and unusually coloured doors. It all seemed like something from a Fantasy filmreel; the huge castle in the mountain with waterfalls on it, the unicorn that could also be a very attractive woman, the beautifully painted houses, the market stalls, everything seemed as though it were some level of utopia. Hell, I was even expecting to see a rainbow randomly appear with a small Irish person doing a strange dance beneath it whilst wearing a stupid green-painted gibus, but that didn't happen.
I did another quick scan to ensure nobody was around, and upon seeing that it was all clear, I clambered up the riverbank and kept a low crouch as I began to head into the village. So far, I'd set myself three primary objectives:
1) Find my rifle. Top priority in spite of me not being good with it. And also get the other guns, 'cuz that's useful too.
2) Find a place to stay, and earn a positive image with the locals whilst waiting for 'Nightmare Moon' to give me some work. (I still prefer Nancy.)
3) Get some new friends to stick with. I know nothing about this place, except that the water hurts to land in from 50ft, so having somebody who knows what's what would be useful.
Keeping these in mind, I carefully made my way to the tallest building of them all, which was a tower set in the centre of the village with ornate furnishings and a gleaming gold carriage outside. I could also hear voices coming from inside, as though it were an audience hall of some description. I was almost about to go out of the bushes and head inside, until I noticed the two horses by the carriage. I don't know what it was that made me pause about them.
They were wearing armour, sure, a fair few British military horses get given armour. But the thing about it was that they had spears held in their hooves as though they were stood guard in some way, over some thing. Even more eerie was that they both had almost human-like eyes, and weren't doing...well, horse things, I guess. They were staring straight ahead, not moving, and at full 'attention' like the Queen's guards in London and stuff. 
The only problem with me stepping out there was that if they weren't, as I assumed, just horses with spears and armour, then I could easily be impaled. Sure, I could probably take on one of them and maybe come out on top, since I was much more dangerous up close than I could ever hope to be at range, but two of them? I'd probably win, at the cost of one of my lungs and the refund of a new asshole. So, that wasn't really worth the risk. But judging by the actual position I was in, it was more than likely the guy they were guarding the carriage of had gone in the back door. That meant I could probably go around to the front door, and find some way of avoiding detection when I entered. "Alright," I whispered to myself as I began to crawl away from the bushes and move around to the other side of the building, "Let's try the front door."



After about ten minutes of sneaking down alleyways, climbing over fences, and doing a few roof-to-roof jumps (Nearly bloody killed myself on every single one), Imade it to somewhere I'd be able to easily sneak in. I was pretty much hidden, since most of my clothes I had worn in the Outback whilst hunting animals to avoid their sharp senses. But it turned out it would be even more effective; Pretty much all I had seen going into the building were little colourful horses, like the ones I'd seen guarding the carriage around the back. Even more weird was that some had horns, like Nancy's horse-mode, and some others had wings, also like Nancy's horse-mode. The latter ones came flying along lazily into the hall, with a few landing on the wooden porch and trotting in with their friends. I was also slightly surprised to hear that most were talking to each other, in a language I understood. All of these little unicorns, the little horses, and the little...little...uh, Pegasi? I thought for a moment.
I hoped that was right, I didn't want to be racist. I was already on thin ice when a Swedish RED joined my team and every time I went past him I coughed 'Ikea', 'Meatballs', and 'Vikings', so it wasn't really worth making enemies yet. Not until I'd settled in, at least.
After a few minutes of lying in a bush a few yards from the entrance to the building, the stream of entering horses slowed to a trickle, and finally slowed until there was none heading inside any more. I waited two minutes to make sure, and finally went up into a crouch, beginning to enter the building to find out where I could conceal myself. The moment I entered, however, I found myself with quite a few choices.
All around the grand room, there were banners, streamers, and balloons, hung from an upper platform where a few more of the horses were stood. Above that, though, there were multiple arches, and all of them were empty, overlooking the celebration. I smiled to myself, and carefully looped around the crowd using darkness to hide myself. I was almost spotted a few times, which scared the crap out of me at the time, but I managed to make it out of the crowd's view and into a back room. Here, I was able to stand up behind some curtains leading to a stage, and that was somewhere I definitely didn't want to be. "There's gotta be some stairs somewhere." I muttered, walking around the room and moving curtains I could tell didn't lead anywhere. After a few minutes, I was able to find a ladder leading up a shaft to the second floor. I found it just in time, too; behind me as I left, a brown and grey horse with a little scarf thing on its neck and glasses walked into the room. I didn't care; at least I hadn't been spotted.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the horses on the second floor had already vacated downstairs for the brown and white horse giving a speech, so I was perfectly free to grab one of the thick wooden support beams, put my weight against it, and use it to climb up to one of the arches at the top. I still felt slight pain from the water impact, but no PTSD, so I was fine. I also found out I wasn't the most 'physically adept' individual, as when I reached the top I was out of breath and sweating slightly. However, that didn't matter, since I was already there, so I could just sit back, and watch what happened at this festival. From what I'd overheard from some of the horses I had gone past, this festival celebrated a 'Princess Celestia', and she would 'raise the sun at dawn'. This genuinely surprised me. If their entire species was advanced enough to build advanced structures full of advanced mechanisms like lighting, then how the bloody hell hadn't they figured out that the Earth orbits the sun?
None of that mattered or anything. I was just here to wait for a job.
Quietly, I shifted against a post, leaned back, and observed what happened downstairs.



Apparently, on the brown horse's word, 'Princess Celestia' was supposed to appear to raise the sun. But she must have been a lot more powerful than first anticipated, because she was also invisible. I watched what happened down there, and for a minute or so, nothing did. A white unicorn with a purple mane with curls in it came out onto the balcony where the spotlights were directed. She also, not that I was staring, had three diamonds on her ass, and they seemed to be burned or tattooed into the fur. Then, in a strangely British accent, she simply said "She's gone!" This seemed to satisfy the audience's confusion, causing them to all murmur amongst themselves.
Just as I was about to jump down and get ready to help should something be really wrong, I noticed something. All around the second floor, there were strange patches of shimmering light, similar to when a friendly Spy was cloaked. But this glow was...neutral, I suppose. It seemed like really clear glass, shimmering and shifting as the patches moved. I assumed it was nothing; just a trick of the light. But my attention shifted quite quickly as a blue smoke began to form on the top balcony with Mrs English Horse on it. It swirled and condensed in an impressive show, like when you put a smoke machine next to a fan, or throw a smoke grenade at an air conditioning unit. Finally, there was a warp of white light, and after one bright flash a figure appeared that I recognised.
"Nancy?" I said quietly, surprised. She must have been here to give me my job. However, something was off. She was stood, in horse-mode, above all the other horses as though she owned them in some way. She couldn't have been Princess Celestia as well, since the naming here seemed to rely on what you'd do for either a living, or a weird little power or niggle you had. Nancy's horse was called 'Nightmare Moon', and she certainly looked emo enough to earn that title. But Celestia? It was like a reduction of Celestial, a word relating to sun. The sun was cheerful. Nancy-Horse-Mode didn't look cheerful. She laughed in quite an evil way.
"Ah, so good to see my subjects again." she grinned, revealing what I made out as really clean white fangs. "It seems you don't remember your beloved Princess, doesn't it? Well, maybe I have a few friends who can remind you!" I then realised I was wrong about the shimmering. Each of the individual patches dematerialised in a fashion similar to a decloak by a Spy, but with a more liquidated sound, revealing creatures I could only call Aliens. Similar to me, they stood on two legs, but with a third joint inbetween the thigh and shin. Their feet had two armoured toes each, and their thighs had metallic plating with lights on them. Moving up, most had unarmoured stomachs, with thick metal chestplates with lights and panels and ornate carvings of all kinds, and their arms were no less ornste. All of them had large helmets, but with their mouths and lower faces visible. They weren't exactly pretty; all shared the same mouths, with two small maws on either side that pointed in, and their top face was covered with helmets with lights for eye sockets. A few had astronaut-like helmets, and fully white armour, while others were blue, red, gold, or black.
Weapon-wise, all of them were either carrying, or had clipped to their belt, a small, blue laser, with a small beam of energy between the prongs at the end. They reminded me slightly of fish, as they had fins on the end, but that wasn't my major concern. The few golden aliens were carrying small cylinders on their thighs, and either bulky red rifles or massive golden things that could only equate to the alien version of a Rocket Launcher. The ones with the astronaut helmets were carrying slender, purple laser weapons that would likely turn out to be a sniper rifle or something. Unfortunately, even the blue ones, which seemed to be quite numerous in the huge crowds of the aliens on the second floor, were all carrying larger rifles as well as their weird blue laser pistols.
"Ah, damn." I muttered, looking down at them. "I guess I'm the only human here, I'm unarmed, and those guys down there are a fair bit taller than me. I'll probably last 30, maybe 40 seconds against them. Probably less. And they're also threatening innocent horses with lasers. Bugger." I knew I stood no chance if I got on their bad side. And Nancy hadn't called for me yet, or spotted me, so I wasn't entirely sure if I was meant to be seeing this.
"General, send up one of your Rangers to stop anypony from coming near." Nancy ordered the yellow alien closest to her. The alien gave a nod, and pointed to one of the astronaut aliens.
"Wort blarg honk!" It ordered, in my best approximation of what came out of its mouth. Er, maw. Weird squid face. I dunno.
"Blarg...honk?" Asked the other one.
"WORT. BLARG. HONK." Growled the yellow one. The astronaut looked down slightly, then nodded almost cautiously. The horses below were in panic, and the fact that the white alien was able to use a laser jetpack to get up an arch on the other side of the hall. This was when I decided that, judging by the large numbers of the aliens on the second floor, none of them would miss one guy. This also meant I might be able to steal some alien guns, his weird little handle thing, and maybe even his super cool jetpack. Quietly, keeping low in case he turned around, I began to circle around the hall to take him by surprise. What I was hoping was that since Nancy called him a 'Ranger', that meant he'd probably specialise in long range combat like a Sniper. So with any luck, when I got to him, he'd be crouched down and zoomed in, not paying attention to his local surroundings. I'd taken out a few inexperienced enemy Snipers like that, and it was fun to watch their look of sheer shock as the enemy Sniper, who they were meant to be shooting from a distance, had managed to literally walk up to them and put a knife in their throat.
One of the biggest perks of my plan was that I'd get one of their alien guns, which would probably be useful against Nancy and her aliens. Yep, you heard that. I'd seen exactly what Nancy would do to innocents, and attacking civilians wasn't my thing.
I'm an assassin, not a gunman.
The alien wouldn't care; Hopefully, he wasn't as skilled at point blank shooting as he was at being a big white alien with a laser.