//------------------------------// // Chapter the Fourth: Hit by the Books // Story: Doing His Duty // by Dick McKickEm //------------------------------// Doing His Duty A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fan fiction by Wolfram and Hart CHAPTER FOUR: Hit by the Books Books. Lots and lots of books. Short books, long books, old books, new books, books on magic, books on politics, books on rocks, books on trees, novels, novellas, short-stories, poetry compilations, biographies, autobiographies, fan fiction and everything else under the Pony Decimal System was housed in Canterlot's Royal Archives. It was a forest of monolithic ceiling-high shelves filled to the brim with all manner of tomes and scrolls. This wing of Canterlot Castle was the largest repository for the written word in all of Equestria, and perhaps the entire world. It housed a few copies of nearly every book ever published in Equestria, as well as many of those published in other countries. It was, as some have called it, the ultimate library. This was where Prince Blueblood chose to spend most of his time. Flash Sentry never would have pegged him for the bookworm type. He wasn't much of a reader himself, though that was partly due to the fact that personally owning any kind of book was a major luxury in the days before the printing press. Establishing an effective patrol routine in that place was an absolute nightmare for the guard. Flash could've blindfolded himself, spun around three times, and thrown a rock in any direction and that rock wouldn't fail to hit a potential hiding space for any would-be assailants. It was like trying to protect the prince while navigating a labyrinth. At least he didn't have to march in that Celestia-awful set of armor, as Blueblood graciously allowed him to wear the normal guard's lighter armor. Upon entering, Flash found that the labyrinthian library was guarded not only by the Blueblood Corps, but by a musclebound female minotaur that could've easily given Xander a run for his money. It followed them like a shadow. "Brecca," Blueblood said "is the Loremaster of the Archives. Her duties are much like your own, actually. There's a strict policy about checking these things out. The library must contain within its walls one copy of absolutely everything at all times- a measure to prevent knowledge being lost forever. It's her job to enforce that rule." The hulking cow glared fire beams at the pegasus from behind a pair ridiculously oversized reading glasses. He couldn't help but swallow a lump in his throat when her gaze met his. Flash could have sworn that a puff of steam rolled out of her nostrils every once in a while. The prince had situated himself at an empty round table, a ten ton tome spread out under a reading lamp before him. Blueblood squinted hard as his eyes scanned line after tiny line of squiggly cursive text. The guards opted to patrol the nearby corridors, each choosing their own random routes that circled the prince. So far, they found no signs of anypony else at all. They were essentially alone in the nonfiction section of the archives. Every once in a while, Brecca would disappear into the annals of the library and come back to leer at them some more. The prince continued to sift through his sizeable stack of books, mouthing words with no sound as he went. Flash had fallen into a decent routine that covered quite a bit of ground. He checked each crevice of the bookshelves again and again, keeping his peepers peeled for any suspicious activity. If somepony was lurking amongst the spacious shelf tops, he would be ready for them. * * * Flash found himself idly daydreaming as he put one hoof in front of the other. There were a lot of books here. Heaps of them, actually. He could've stopped patrolling to build himself a castle out of all those texts, then he would put a throne in that castle and declare himself "Lord of Literature." His first royal decree would implement a law requiring all the citizens of his land to know the difference between affect and effect. Anypony caught using either word incorrectly would be flogged on the spot. His second decree would be to outlaw using the letter "U" interchangeably with the word "you". Anypony caught using either term incorrectly would be flogged on the spot. His third decree would be to hire more ponies trained in flogging. Flash eventually realized that if somepony was coming for the prince that day, it would be better to have a pair of eyes on him at all times. Wandering the aisles like an automaton wouldn’t be much help much; the archives were a ghost town. Flash stood stock still at the end of a bookshelf, his eyes moving from place to place, as was his routine. His word games kept the guard busy for longer since the library wasn't as sparsely decorated at the poolside. Much to his surprise, Blueblood had tried to strike up a conversation alongside his studies. The prince didn't even look up from the ancient texts when, out of the blue, he asked "So how are you handling your new career so far, Flash?" Flash fidgeted in place a little, but Blueblood didn't notice. "Sir, is it proper to speak like this in public?" Blueblood rolled his eyes. "Oh, I can already tell you're going to be five pounds of fun in a fifty pound bag." He turned away from the book just long enough to gesture to the rest of the area. "As you can plainly see, Lieutenant, there's nopony here. Besides, I have no other friends to speak with that aren't utterly insufferable." "Bite my flank!" Cotton's gruff voice echoed from somewhere behind a bookshelf. "Present company excluded!" Blueblood hollered back. "QUIET IN THE LIBRARY!" The bellowing and almost demonic voice of Brecca exploded from within the deeper parts of the archives. It made Flash's body seize up like he had been given surprise prostate inspection. "Don't mind her." Blueblood didn't seem to react to the minotaur's bellows at all. "So spill it. What do you think?" Flash cast another glance at where the roar came from. He was reluctant to answer, but his prince requested it, and so he shall oblige. "I- I cannot say for sure yet. I've witnessed one assassination attempt too many, and I'm not looking forward to the next one, if it does occur." Blueblood barked out a derisive laugh. "Trust me, it will. Another pony will try again. She could come today, she could come tomorrow. It's only a matter of time." He paused briefly, then added "Think of it this way: apples grow on trees, rain fall from the sky, and ponies try to kill me. You may still be in the denial stage, but I've long since arrived at acceptance." "I'm not in denial." Flash denied. "I'm just... surprised." "Mmmm," the prince hummed "who wouldn't be? Stop me if I'm wrong, but you're still on the fence about everything thing we've told you so far, even if you don't know it yet. All you've seen is a single shot taken by a masked mare, and you're still trying to wrap your mind around it. You've got a vague idea of what has happened and what will come to pass in the Corps, but you won't get the whole picture. Not overnight." Flash opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but no words came. He did not stop the prince. He still couldn't believe the way Blueblood and the Corps spoke about all the assassins they've faced. From what the guard learned, a countless number of ponies have come at him with blades, bows, and booby traps, and all of them have gotten close to success, failing only by a hair's width or a fraction of a second. Flash saw that assassin's shot with his own two eyes, a foot to the left and she would've put Blueblood six feet under. To go through that on a daily basis... he couldn't even think of what it would do to him. The prince smiled, but not out of joy. It was more for himself than for Flash. "You'll get used to it. I know I am." "Me too!" Cotton Swab poked her head from around a corner, then promptly went back to patrolling. "Uh huh!" Xander agreed, then followed suit. "Having those two around does wonders for my sanity as well. You might not be picking up on it, but they've gone through the same thing that you're going through. All you need is time." Blueblood looked as if he had more to say, but decided against saying it. He instead buried his nose back into the book, only casting a glance at Flash every so often. After a while longer, Flash was starting to feel a bit chattier. After all, a thousand years of talking to the same ponies tends to leave one remarkably hungry for conversation with somepony a little more opaque. Blueblood seemed desperate for a reason to tear his eyes away from the book, so he thought Why not? "So, what are you reading?" "Alchemy." the prince said instantly. He lifted up the cover of the tome to reveal the crude outline of a fuming flask filled with some bubbling liquid. "Alchemie" the title read. Flash's facial muscles involuntarily twitched. "They misspelled-" "I know." Blueblood cut him off. "Equestria Equestrian didn't have as many rules as Imperial Equestrian back then, so it was technically correct at the time. We eventually adopted their superior methods." Flash found that deeply disturbing. "You should keep away from anything written in the second age if you don't like a more, ah, liberal approach to Equestrian. It's actually an interesting read if you like ponies curing diseases and mixing tonics that enhanced sexual vitality and whatnot." "Put me down as a definite "maybe" for that one." Under his breath, Flash added. "Heh, vitality." * * * "Well I don't think that there's much of a difference between-  Shh!" Flash held up a hoof, effectively ending their barely stimulating conversation on the myth of the Fillyosopher's Stone. "What is it?" Blueblood whispered, his neck reflexively pivoting to check every spot that a potential sniper could be hiding. "We've got company." He muttered, a grim grimace upon his face. "Where?" "Ground floor, behind the bookcase." "Which bookcase?" Flash gestured to the offending wooden construct "That one." "Wait, that one?" "No, that one." "That o-?" "Just get down, okay!" The guard hissed. Blueblood immediately sank under the relative safety of the reading table. Sshhhhhwaaaang. The blade sangma sad song as it was released from its sheath. Sword hilt clenched in his teeth, Flash Sentry crept forward on the tips of his hooves. His senses were on the razor's edge, his muscles were tensed in anticipation. Whatever came from behind that mass of books, he was ready for it. Flash hugged the flat end of the shelf. Peering around the corner as little as possible, he caught a brief glimpse of the assailant. A sliver of purple-ish fur was all he needed to confirm that there was indeed a pony lying in wait. He wasted no time. Flash threw himself around that bookcase and brandished his blade, a guttural warcry sounding from within his chest. The new pony's eyes became as wide as basketballs as he caught sight of the fearsome pegasus guard with his weapon ready to meet the flesh of his enemy! This assassin would rue the day that he crossed paths with the bodyguard of Prince Blueb- Flash froze. His jaw dropped, the sword rolled out and onto the floor with a clatter. His only reflex was to bow low. As low as he could go. Bow limbo. The uniform helmet rang like an iron bell when Flash's head hit the floor. Twilight Sparkle breathed a sigh of relief a pregnant moment after she realized that there was no need to fear for her life. "My princess! Forgive me!" The princess blinked. She stared vacantly at the guard swabbing the floor with his face before her. "It's okay. I think. Hey, don't I know you?" Flash detached his forehead from the wooden flooring and put on his favorite stony expression. "Your Highness may not recognize me immediately, but I am a former bodyguard for Her Highness Princess Cadence." "Could you be any more of a horseshoe licker?" Cotton Swab rounded the corner. "Hiya, Twilight. S'been awhile since I seen you in Canterlot." The princess's features instantly perked up upon seeing the mare. "Cotton! It has been some time, hasn't it? I've just been so busy with this whole princess thing that I hardly have any time to sit down with a good book anymore!" The unicorn guard jerked her head toward Flash. "S'cuze the new guy. He's still green as a blade of grass." "I'm a thousand years older than you!" He instantly protested. "And does anypony in this corps besides me know the meaning of discipline at all?! That is a member of the Triarchy you're speaking with!" Cotton gasped. "You don't say?" She rolled her eyes and regarded Twilight. "Like I said. We still need to perform a stick-in-his-ass-ectomy on him." Flash clenched his jaws so hard that he could've split the shell of a walnut. Despite this, his tone of speaking was as calm and respectful as they came. "I apologize for my outburst in front of Your Highness." Twilight furrowed her brow and mouthed out Flash's last two words. "Who's highness? Oh wait, you mean me!" Her face grew so red that it could've been mistaken for a strawberry. "Yeah, I uhh- apology accepted." "Thank you, Your Grace." Flash bowed again, prompting the princess to shuffle her hooves awkwardly as he held it a little too long. Twilight forced a grin."You're... welcome? By the sun and stars, I'll never get used to that." Cotton could only watch their exchange with mild amusement. Twilight cleared her throat. "Ah hem. Anyway, I don't have that much free time set aside for the library. It was truly nice seeing you again, Cotton, and meeting you, Flash Sentry-" "Thank you, Your Grace." Flash hadn't yet gotten back up from his second bow. "So I'll just be on my-" Twilight's entire body went rigid the moment she looked up from the two. "Duck." "On your duck?" Flash uncurled. "I didn't know Her Highness could ride ducks." Thonk. Flash watched in confusion as the bright blue bristles that were supposed to be attached to top of his helmet fell over his face like snow. He uncrossed his eyes to see the two mares staring at the bookcase before them. It was as ordinary as a case in the Royal Archives got, except for the fact that had a dull iron double-edged hurling axe deeply embedded into one of the shelves. They all whirled around in unison. The source of that axe was the mare in black. Well, it was a mare in black. This one wasn't a pegasus. She stood in the open space, as easily seen as the sun in the sky, not making any attempt to hide from anypony. The first thing that one would notice about her was the literal arsenal strapped to her person. One could count two broad and curvy blades strapped across her back, a variety of oddly-shaped dagger sheathed along her front hooves, some kind of four-pointed star on either of her flanks, and several black spheres strapped to her chest. She. Was. Loaded. What caught Flash's attention, though, was the mare's eyes. Those cyan orbs burned with... something. He couldn't tell whether it was hatred in those eyes, or determination, or sheer excitement, but he knew that whatever emotion the mare was feeling, it was strong. He had seen that look before, he just couldn't remember where. "What's going on over here?" Blueblood trotted from around the bookcase. "Did you find who-?" The mare locked eyes with the prince. "Oh, dear." "Prince Blueblood!" Her voice held the energy and eagerness of one who still clings to youth. The mare twisted her neck at an angle that made Blueblood wince. She bit down upon the hilt of a blade and whipped it out with practiced fluidity. The sword was planted nearly a half foot into the wood floor. She stood tall, speaking with a voice that commanded attention. "I am here to rid myself of the taint that you have brought upon me with our abominable acts of coitus!" "Coitus?" Twilight turned even redder. "Oh my." "Acts? As in plural?" Flash asked. "Ho-kay, here we go again." Cotton let out a shrill whistle. "Xan! We got a troublemaker." "Yes, citizens of Equestria, coitus," The mare when on, not once averting her gaze from the ever-shrinking prince "of which I am deeply ashamed. I have met flesh with flesh before I could be made a whole mare, and broke my sacred oath to The Mother. For indeed, one such as myself cannot have honor with an oath in pieces. My moment of weakness has led me to be an outcast! An undesirable! My life can not have meaning without sacred vows to uphold. I have strayed from the path of the faithful and from Zircon. Into exile I went, into this land of colorful ponies. I have traveled long and far to be here, to repent for my sins. And so, I must finally face the ultimate price! Only death may pay my debt to The Mother, and that death shall yours, Prince! Let us see if you actually do bleed bl-" The mare was too caught up in her own speech to notice the hulking being of armor and muscle waltz right up and almost casually deliver a devastating steel hoof to the gut. She flew like a rock for a good five feet before skidding across the floor. "Hey, that wasn't fair." Twilight said out of the blue. "She didn't finish monologuing!" Xander shrugged. "I'm not complaining." Blueblood said. The mare pulled herself up with one hoof while pressing against her aching side with the other. "This is none of your concern, halfborn. I do not care if the blood of Zircon flows through your veins, it spills just the same." Xander put himself directly between Blueblood and the assassin. He dug his hooves into the floor and bared his teeth like an animal, as if to say 'I'm not going anywhere.' Both Flash and Cotton shared a knowing look and promptly joined the zony. Taking their spot on either side of the prince, they formed a protective semi-circle around him. Flash picked up his trusty sword, Cotton ignited her horn with a pale red light, Xander remained motionless, and Twilight just stood there and watched in shock and awe. "If that how events must unfold, so be it. I will cut down all that do not stand aside." The mare calmly trotted forward and took the floor-blade in her hooves' grasp. She used the blade to push herself onto her back haunches and handled the sword not with her jaws, but her front hooves while all of her weight was balanced on two hind legs. She was standing bipedally, like a diamond dog or a dragon, and was showing no signs of pain or discomfort. "Shall we begin?" "Thought you'd never ask!" Without further warning, the magical aura that encased Swab's horn flared in intensity. A bright beam of shining red light cut through the empty space, kicking up dust and stray papers as it went. The assassin fell backwards in response, the bolt of arcane energy missing its target and melting a few innocent texts into a pile of papery goo. The nameless mare caught herself on her front hooves and easily flipped back onto the hind two with flexibility that confounded the five others. "Holy Tartarus!" Cotton breathed. She stepped forward, her brow furrowing as she launched another bolt as a follow-up. The mare cartwheeled away from that one just as easily, and the beam ended up singing the corner edge of a bookcase. Three more spells were launched in rapid succession, each with exactly the same effect. "Aaaagh!" Cotton roared. "Stand still Celestiadamnit!" Pew pew pew pew pew. She weaved and ducked around the destructive bolts without breaking a sweat. It was the assassins turn. She dashed forward- still on two legs -and brought the blade around in a horizontal slash that Cotton barely backpedaled away from. Several more swings followed the first at alarming speeds, two of them managing to scrape against her armor with a grating screech. Xander wasn't about to let his friend fight alone. He backed up a few paces, lowered his head like a ram, and charged the assassin with enough weight and momentum to bring down a brick wall. The mare's eyes widened comically as she caught sight of what closed in. With the reflexes of a fly, she leaped over the zony with an acrobatic roll and landed safely behind him. Xander on the other hand, was as agile as a freight train. He could neither stop nor turn on a dime. This led his unprotected face to an unpleasant meeting with a polished marble wall. The resulting impact could be felt throughout the castle. * * * Rumble. Brecca the minotaur was roused from her reading session by an unexpected tremor. She looked up from the book, gritted her teeth, tensed her biceps, and growled. There was only one pony in all of Equestria that could cause a ruckus like that. "Blueblood." She stuck a folded scrap of paper in her book and shoved it back into the shelf. The earth quaked with each step that she took toward the origin of the disturbance. * * * Though his fellow guards preferred the direct approach to combat, Flash adopted more subtle tactics. Cotton and Xander kept the assassin busy trading spells and blows, neither side seeming to get a good hit in. The guards were covered in shallow cuts while the mare sported a few mild burns and bruises. While the three duked it out, Flash took to the air and crept across the tops of the shelves, leering down at the spectacle below. He quietly observed them going round after round, with beams and blades flying about making a general mess of the place. At one point the mare sheathed her sword and started flinging around small triangular knives. Most of them missed, some were lodged into the guard's armor. When those ran out, she just threw whatever was within her reach, which were primarily books. "This chick is crazy!" Cotton hollered, ducking under a limited edition copy of The Schizopedia! All you need to know about mental illness and more. "It is not I whose mind is sick!" The mare yelled back, returning to her two-hooved cheater's stance. She waved around that sword like it was made of cardboard. "Insanity is the only excuse for standing between my mission and I!" "Get over yourself!" Somehow Cotton's horn found a way to glow even brighter than it had been. Its ruby red aura flared like a fire that had been doused with whiskey. With a high-pitch squeal of magic, a slender shaft of light shot forth from her forehead, but this spell was no laser beam. An ethereal spike two feet in length enveloped her horn, shimmering and undulating with raw magical prowess. She charged at the assassin and wielded the spell like a sword, wildly slashing and stabbing just like her opponent. The mare was caught way off-guard. She was forced to either parry or dodge each strike just to keep from losing the rhythm, and then the battle. Cotton left no room for retaliation, she swung her mana weapon with all the fury that she could muster. One two three, one two three. Stab, right slash, left slash, then stab, stab, left slash. Again and again magic and steel clashed with a ringing that resounded through the lonely halls of the archives. Klang! The curved sword of the assassin sang a shrill song as it sailed through the air and embedded itself into the floor a ways away. She had lost the upper hoof. Before she could reach for her second weapon, the mare was forced back from the first farther and farther by Cotton's advances. Her entire body was too busy to even attempt anything other than retreat. This was when Flash made his move. Up high from the towers of literature, the pegasus dove like a falcon at a field rat. The assassin had barely registered his presence before it was too late. Some ponies say that time slows down when one recognizes an imminent loss approaching...this was not the case. In fact, it seemed to speed up. It was over in a fraction of a second. Flash grabbed her by the neck and dove to the floor, both bodies colliding with a dull thud. And just like that, she was pinned. Flash's forced her forelegs in to the ground with his own, leaving her bottom half to thrash and buck helplessly. "L- let go of me!" She screamed pathetically. Flash's muzzle was inches from hers. "Hmmm, lemme think. No. In addition to that, hell no." The mare eventually conceded and continued to struggle no more. Flash took the opportunity of a calm moment to remove the mare's cotton mask. This revealed the slender black and white face and short-cut mohawk mane of a zebra. She glared at Flash so hard that he thought her brow would stick like that forever. "What's your name?" He asked. "My name is Katarina! Shamaness of the great nation of Zircon!" "Yeah, that's nice." Flash wadded up the mask and shoved it into her mouth, eliciting a series of muffled mumbles from her. Cotton shot an annoyed look at her prince. "You jumped the bones of a zebra shamaness? Celestia's mane, have you romanced a mare from every country on the planet?" "No, only nineteen of them. Despite what the tabloids might say, I've never known a dragon or seapony that well. Or a changeling, but then again who knows if they even do reproduce our way." "Well that put some ugly images in my head." Flash glanced back at the two other guards. "Get this lady's stuff before she stabs me, will ya?" The two crowded round the tangle of ponies and snatched every blade and bauble that they could find off of her person. Cotton, her horn dulled down to a soft glow, levitated a wad of equipment onto Blueblood's reading table. "Day-um, girl." Cotton Swab said to the assassin. "You got you some toys." Unfortunately for Katarina, she could only speak gag. "Rrrrrrf!" and "Mmmpf!" were certainly not words in the Equestrian dictionary. "Yadda yadda yadda. They're cool anyway." She sifted through the pile of stuff and withdrew one of those odd black spheres. "What do these even do?" She asked. The eye-roll that Katarina gave needed no words. "Ho-kay, now that that's over with..." Flash disentangled himself from the zebra and coaxed her to her hooves at swordpoint. "We can cuff Miss Katarina and escort her to the dungeon." The guards happily obliged and shackled the assassin with a pair of gangly black iron hoofcuffs that made every step she took that much harder and noisier. With their prisoner in tow, the guards- "Hey, does anypony feel that?" Cotton asked out of the blue. "Kind of like a rumbling." The room grew completely still for a moment as everypony awaited something to happen. "Well, I don't feel anything." Flash said. "BY THE PRINCESSES THREE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Heavy decibels forced the six equines to flatten their ears against their heads to keep from going deaf. Brecca's roar was mighty. Everypony looked up in horror to see a chocolate brown minotaur almost as tall as the bookcases looking down upon them with all the fury of Tartarus. "LOOK AT THE PIGSTY YOU'VE MADE! LOOK AT IT! THIS WILL TAKE DAYS TO REORGANIZE!" She pointed a meaty finger at the floor, which happened to be littered with heaps of beaten-up texts and crumpled pages. One could not also forget the shallow nicks and burns covering the floorboards and shelves. They had made quite a mess with their little scuffle. Blueblood was first to come to his senses. "Ah, Brecca. I do apologize for-" "SAVE IT." The prince recoiled. His voice was barely audible.  "Saving." "THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THIS YEAR YOU AND YOUR HUSSIES HAVE DESTROYED MY LIBRARY. I HAVE BEEN AS LENIENT AS I CAN BE THESE PAST TWO YEARS, BUT NO MORE." Brecca had to get down on her hands and knees to look Blueblood in the eye. A gale of foul breath blew everpony's manes back with every word. "AS LOREMASTER OF EQUESTRIA, I HEREBY STRIP YOU OF YOUR LIBRARY CARD AND ALL PRIVILEGES ASSOCIATED WITH IT FROM HERE ON UNTIL THE END OF DAYS." It was the first time that Flash had ever seen Blueblood completely lose his composure. The shock on his face was as plain as day. Flash could have sworn that the prince's heart had stopped. "N-no! Please, not that!" He sounded like a child who had his favorite toy taken away. "Please, you can't do this to me!" "HAND IT OVER, LOSER." Even Twilight Sparkle agreed. "But Brecca, isn't that too harsh? It wasn't his fault!" She looked from the minotaur to Blueblood in panic. "There has to be an exception. He's Celestia's nephew for crying out loud!" "It's just a library card." Flash said, but his words fell on deaf ears. "GIVE ME THE LIBRARY CARD OR I WILL SHOVE A COMPLETE SET OF ENCYCLOPEDIAS DOWN YOUR THROAT." "But I-" "SPINE FIRST." "Okay." Tentatively, Blueblood levitated the simple paper card he had been using as a bookmark. He took one last longing look at it before presenting it to the loremaster. Brecca plucked it from his magical grasp. Between two fingers, she held it tight and glared harshly at the inscription that read "Property of Prince Blueblood". "Again, what's so important about-" "GYAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" She bellowed with all the force that her lungs could muster. Her voice somehow changed its pitch to be even lower than before, warping and twisting into something not of this world. The noise seemed to cause the earth to quake with it, shaking books off of their perches, knocking over inkwells, and dislodging a chandelier or two from the ceiling. Before their very eyes, the card in her hands burst into flames as she continued her roaring. It flared in intensity and rapidly devolved into ashes that were blown away on a wind that nopony felt. "How did she do that?" Still nopony paid attention to the guard. "I've had enough of this." Nopony knew where Katarina had gotten that knife from, or how she got the gag off. Sometimes it was better not ponder such things. The dagger had a short blade that gleamed like a light, and it was jammed deep into Flash Sentry's left shoulder, right where there was a gap in the armor. Fresh blood poured freely from the wound, running down his chest and legs, staining the fur and armor a crimson red. He crumpled to the ground, squealing a high pitched squeal that no professional soprano singer could dare match. Before anypony knew which way was up, the assassin had a hold of one of her black spheres. She threw it to the ground and poof, nopony could see a thing. A smokescreen as thick as pudding filled the immediate area, followed by a chorus of hacking, wheezing, and eye-watering that came from such a fog. One pony in particular was having quite a bit of trouble breathing, though it was less from the smoke and more from the chain wrapped tightly around his neck. "Ack!" was all he could say. Being strangled to death tended to leave one with a remarkable speech impediment. Things had gone to shit pretty fast. Then, as quickly as the trouble began, it ended. All one would be able to see was a brilliant purple glow piercing the fog for the briefest of moment before a gust of wind came along with an immense force. And just like that, the smoke cleared, revealing everyone in the room except the princess and the minotaur lying helplessly on the floor. Twilight Sparkle extinguished her horn, huffing and puffing from the sudden exertion of will and with a mightily pissed look upon her face. "You guys really ruined my day off." the princess growled at nopony in particular. "Quit whining and help me!" Blueblood tried to say, but had to settle for a deathly gurgle. "You, off of him!" The zebra was little more than a ragdoll in the alicorns magical grip. She flailed all of her extremities wildly, only succeeding in rattling chains as she was caught in the zero gravity of a levitation spell. "Foul witch queen!" Katarina spat. "Hippie shaman." The princess shot back. "Shamaness. Shamans are male, knave! It is a wonder how Equestria still functions under the rule of an imbecile." Twilight was never much of a violent mare. She solved as many problems as she could with a spell, the help of her friends, or a magical deus ex machina. But there are some problems that you gotta just beat the crap out of sometimes. Katarina was one of those problems. Twilight whipped her horn around, maneuvering the telekinetic field right into a shelf. The zebra bounced off of it like a fleshy basketball with a half-surprised, half-pained cry. "Anypony else wanna correct me?!" Her words were met with complete silence, save for the mewling of one Flash Sentry. "Bleeding out, here!" Flash whined through the pulsating jolts of pain running through his shoulder like lightning. His vision was starting to blur. "Oh right, sorry." * * * "Hold still!" "I am!" "Are you kidding? You're prancing around like a friggin' rabbit." "For a doctor, your bedside manner is really bad you know." "Yeah, that's why I quit. It's wussy ponies like you that drove me up the wall. It's just "I've got the flu, I need antibiotics!" and "Does this inconsequential and slightly off-color scrape look serious?" Bitch, moan, whine, complain all day long. It's a wonder I haven't broken the Hypocritical Oath yet." Cotton gasped and pointed a hoof at the doorway. "Dear Celestia, she's loose again!" Flash bolted upright from the operating table and looked to the object that Cotton gestured to. "Psyche!" "Aaaaahhh! Sonofa..." The oddly shaped knife slid out of Flash as easily as it slid in, its slender blade soaked in a red hue. "Seriously, do ponies ever not fall for that?" "I hate you so much right now."