The first thing Christopher Razka felt when he woke up, was a throbbing pain in his head, an inevitable repercussion to having so much to drink the night before. The pain would be manageable, but the situation with Shepard would not be. Not even the throbbing pain in his head stopped him from trying to find a way to fix his situation.
“I’m glad to see you’re finally up,” Luna said as Razka slowly walked into the kitchen. “How are you feeling?”
“Some Advil and I’ll be fine,” Christopher grunted. He took the cup of coffee that Luna seemed to have prepared for him. As he took a seat at the counter, he noticed Luna staring intently at him, as if she expected him to say something else. “What?”
“Last night when you came home drunk, you said something about that man named Shepard finding out about everything. What did you mean?”
Razka dropped his head, unable to make eye contact with the night princess. “Shepard’s suspicious of what I’ve been doing lately. He’s going to find out about MARS, and more importantly, you. I’m sorry.”
“How do you know this is bad, maybe he’ll help us? Maybe he’s not as bad as you think he is.”
“When they find you, they will have no intentions of letting you escape this planet. You will be the first living alien to have made contact with the human race. There will be nothing they won’t do to you.”
Luna was now mortified. All of her worst fears were more than likely going to become reality in a short amount of time. “What about the portal? Isn’t it almost ready?”
“We’ve been stuck trying to find the portal to link with on your world. It’s like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet while wearing a blindfold, riding a horse. I have no idea how much longer it’s going to take. We could only need a few more hours or we may need a few more months.”
A single tear fell from Luna’s muzzle. “So that’s it… I’m never going to be able to see my sister again, except for in the dream world.”
Razka got up and put a hand on her back, trying to comfort her. Suddenly, an idea struck the chairman. “There might be a way to protect you if we can’t get MARS online. Follow me.”
Razka led the princess to the computer in his bedroom. It was his personal desktop that had files specifically for his eyes only on it. Files that if discovered by the wrong people, could get him killed at best. He pulled up a file titled “Operation: Defiance” on the giant 25 inch monitor.
“The solution is quite simple; we attack our enemy before they attack us. My forces will launch an all-out blitzkrieg on D.C. and annihilate as much of their military as possible,” Razka explained.
Hearing Razka’s plan to overthrow a nation was one thing, but actually seeing every little detail to the plan was overwhelming for the princess. “Christopher… this… you’ll be slaughtering millions of people. Decimating entire cities, you’ll kill countless innocent civilians. This is evil.”
“Acceptable losses in the changing of the guard,” the chairman dismissed. “More importantly though, this will keep you safe. The U.S. will be too occupied trying to put out all my fires to launch a direct attack on me. This is the only way you get home.”
“Christopher, I know you want to change the world, but not like this. Don’t do this,” Luna pleaded with the man. “I know what you’re thinking, I’ve been there. You think this will bring you peace but it won’t. It will only leave you wanting more. You’ll still be the empty shell of a person you were before it all.” Luna was practically begging with Razka now. She saw that he could be a good man if he wanted to be, and she wanted to nothing more than to show him that. But Razka’s eyes never left the monitor. Razka wanted this. He needed it. He had been planning for this his whole life and nothing was going to stop him now. Not Luna, not the president, and not that son of a bitch Shepard. “Come with me to Equestria!”
“What?”
“No one deserves a fresh start more than you. Come with me to Equestria and you can have a clean slate. You can have a chance to enjoy life. None of this plotting and planning. You can do what you really want to do.”
Razka ran a hand through his thick graying hair, deeply contemplating the offer. “Perhaps in another life I would have taken you up on that offer, but not now. I’ve come too far to just throw it all away. All my life, I’ve waited for the day I would conquer America and now it’s nearly here. All those sleepless nights, covert ops, countless lies and people I’ve killed to get here. I can’t stop now.”
“Yes you can!”
Before Razka could continue the argument, his cell phone started ringing. Glancing at who it was, he cursed upon seeing Shepard’s number. “What the fuck do you want now, Shepard?”
“Good to hear your voice too,” Shepard calmly said, ignoring Razka’s tone. “I’m sending over a team to collect the data I want. They should be there in half an hour, so make sure it’s ready. If I so much as think you’re hiding something else, I’ll have you serving life.” Without bothering to hear a response from Razka, Shepard hung up.
Razka didn’t even give Luna so much a glance as he dialed Janet Stahl’s number. “Stahl, it’s time. Begin Operation: Defiance immediately. I need a task force sent to my residence too. Shepard is sending in some clowns now that I should be able to deal with alone, but there will be more.”
“I’ll send in the 516 right away,” Janet replied, a grin on her red lips.
“We’re going to change the world, Janet.”
“And destroy all those who stand in our way. My dad really underplayed how ruthless you are. I wish we had met sooner.”
Hanging up the phone, Razka finally glanced over at Luna. She simply gave a disapproving shake of her head and trotted up to her room. Silently cursing for actually giving a damn, Razka followed the night princess upstairs. He knocked on the open door to signify his presence to the alicorn currently staring out the window.
“Everyone has their addiction. For some it’s alcohol, drugs, sports, or whatever. For me, it’s this. This is the war I always wanted and now I have it. I’ll be the one that leads the march into the White House, tear down the flag and raise my own. I’ll be the one who kills the countless men with a grin on my face.” He sighed, looking down at the ground. “I am evil.”
Luna whipped her around and locked eyes with Razka. “You’re not evil, Christopher.”
“Then what am I!?” the chairman shouted, slamming his clenched fist into a hanging picture frame. Razka dropped to the ground, holding his head in his hands as he leaned against the wall. Blood from his cut hand dripped onto his face, but he didn’t even notice.
“Broken,” Luna whispered as she sat down next to Razka. She placed her wing on Razka’s back. “There is nothing in life that makes you happy. You’ve spent all your life looking for something to make you happy, and this is the closest thing you could find. But it will never be enough.”
“Tell me something I don’t fucking know,” Razka choked, a single tear falling from his eye. “Everything you said is true. Nothing makes me happy; it only keeps me occupied. The truth is I have no Goddamn clue what I’m going to do when this is over.”
“Then let me help you. Come with me to Equestria, I can help you get away from all of this; a fresh start.”
Christopher looked up, staring into Luna’s eyes, as if searching for something in those deep blue pools. Before he could speak, the doorbell rang, and Christopher’s eyes went wide in shock.
“Stay here and don’t make a sound,” Razka ordered as he got up.
He went into his room and pulled out a Desert Eagle loaded with .50 AE ammunition. He hid it behind his back and went to go answer the door.
“Mr. Razka, I’m Director Marks,” a tall man introduced. He, along with his two companions were dressed in similar black suits. Based on the bulges in their suits, Razka guessed they were carrying Uzi’s or a close equivalent. “I’m here to collect the information the Sec Def wanted.”
“Gee, thanks for spelling it out for me,” Razka replied condescendingly. “You see, I thought the DCIA was at my door to go golfing. Why the hell did Shepard send you here anyway?”
“To make sure you didn’t try to hide anything else,” he answered as they walked into Razka’s house.
Razka led the three men into the dining room, his laptop sitting on the counter. “Password is Defiance,” he said, motioning for Marks to open the laptop. The director gave Razka a questioning look, trying to figure out what game he was playing. “What, is opening a laptop and pushing some buttons too hard for you? You want the files, then you fucking open it up.”
Marks opened the laptop and entered the password. On the main screen was a single file titled, “Operation: Defiance.” As the director scanned through it, the other two men glanced over to see what he was looking at.
“You are going to burn for this, Razka,” Marks muttered just loud enough for the chairman to hear.
“Not before you do,” Razka replied as he pulled out his Desert Eagle. As Marks turned around, Razka blasted his guards’ brains out, leaving only the director.
"Razka, don't do this," Marks pleaded.
"To be honest I was going to kill you no matter what. You coming here just made it that much easier for me." Before Marks could say another word, the chairman pulled the trigger.