How to Make Enemies and Be Generally Unsociable

by Okhlahoma Beat-Down

iDidn'tEvenTryToOffendYou

I remained relatively quiet at the back of the group whilst we navigated the forest via a pretty beaten path. While Rainbow seemed to be the one mostly against my presence, a few of the other girls started to wonder why I came along if all I was doing was 'pointing a stick around when there's nopony there'. But, as per most international/interspecies relations, they believed that I couldn't understand what they were saying about me because I wasn't looking at them. It wasn't something I particularly cared about, but if I made it my personal safety precaution that if I heard 'ditch him', 'knock him out', or 'give him back to Nightmare Moon', and then they turned to me, I would be fully within my rights to blow each of their individual brains out if they tried anything bad. I wasn't exactly having the best time from work, so I suppose that being insulted by little horses whilst wandering through a forest wasn't exactly my ideal weekend plan. However, they did seem to be tolerating my presence well.

It must come with being a Sniper: Stay quiet, draw no attention to yourself, and remain unseen until the time is right. Of course, I was brilliant at the first two parts: I could sometimes remain unseen for an entire series of battles before finally being spotted. It was the third bit that always buggered me over: After all, using the time right was what I couldn't do, as was the reason I lost my job in the first place. The ponies didn't seem to mind, though: I did have my knife and gun back, and I had that cool little widget that the alien was running around with, so as long as I was armed, I was happy, and the ponies would feel a bit safer, which made them...marginally more cheerful. It was about twenty minutes into the walk, when we'd passed the point ponies believed was literally the Death Zone as bad as the exit to the BLU base in Badwater, that one of the girls decided to make an effort to speak to me.

She dropped away from the leading group of five, seemingly unnoticed due to her quietness in doing so. The mare in question was, for lack of any other description, bloody adorable: Almost the same colour as the living box of my van (pale yellow, except she wasn't covered in rust, mud, dead animal blood, etc.), and had a mane as pink as a salmon. Her head was hung quite low, and she occasionally flicked her teal eyes up to look at me before quickly looking back down as though I was upset with her. Considering how I had my rifle over my shoulder, held in place by the strap with the robot head on it, and both my pointy weapons were either in my back-sheath or clipped to my belt, I couldn't see exactly how I was intimidating in any way.

But there was...something else. About the mare. The way she carried herself seemed a tad...off. Like she had some deeper secret. I'd read about it in a comic once; Cyborg robot ninja acts all quiet, doesn't say much, kills everything calmly, then when he gets angry...damn. Looking back, I could see why that thing was rated a 'Five-Star Hale Approved Adventure'. I was shaken from my thoughts by the little pony coughing quietly.

"Um...hello," I greeted carefully. 'Easy now Face...don't wanna scare her off...' My voice alone seemed to terrify her; She looked back to the group of girls up front, considering running to join them perhaps. I raised a free hand. "Shiela, calm down, I don't wanna hurt ya. My name's Face." The mare calmed slightly, looking up at my 'reassuring' smile (pretty much a toned-down version of my psychotic grin when I get my knife out). It worked though, because she spoke.

And Oh My Bloody God, was her voice adorable.

"Um...N-Nice t-to meet y-you, M-M-Mr. F-F-F...F...Face..." She seemed terrified, and the problem was that I couldn't simply stop to pat her on the head, gently stroke her, or anything of the like, since A) She wasn't a dog, and B) She'd probably scream and run if I reached a hand out.

"It's OK, I'm not plannin' to hurt ya," I repeated. "You're too innocent to be hurt by the likes of me. I only hurt bad people." 'Real smooth.' The mare looked petrified. "The people I hurt wanted to hurt my friends and blow up my...uh...'house'." (Oh, house is a very strong word for an industrial hellhole with convenient bomb-tracks leading to a convenient fuel storage hole full of the gravel equivalent to thermite). "I do what I can to help, and helpin' you stop Na...Nightmare Moon, is top of my list right now. She's gonna do bad things. I'm here to help you stop her." The mare looked a slight more terrified, and I didn't think that was possible. I looked ahead, narrowing my eyes. "And I'm stopping her by any means required."

Before I was really able to figure out what I'd just said, the mare had already taken off to rejoin the group of girls up front. I, meanwhile, hung back at the rear, seriously considering what I was doing.

I had the perfect opportunity right then. Right there, in front of me. I could've shown myself as friendly, nice, a good guy to hang around with that wasn't evil, but there. I basically just went off on one about how I would kill Nancy when I found her, and the opportunity I had so craved was destroyed. Great. And to make things worse, now all of the girls were casting glances back at me in the manner that many had called 'giving the evils'. I considered shooting them back, but then I realised that A) I only had a finite number of bullets, about 25 at last count, so shooting six would mean I could get about 10 of the guards coming after me due to my hit/miss ratio, and B) if I should them the evils, they'd think I was up to something and probably smite me on the spot using magic.

Just then, in front of us, I noticed a rustling in the bushes, and I quickly began to run towards the group. Rainbow Dash took up a pose that showed she wanted to fight me, and I ignored it, instead moving them out the way, dropping to a crouch, and levelling my gun with the bushes. "What is it, Face?" Twilight asked curiously. She barely even seemed to register that we were in the most sinister place I'd ever seen, we were in the middle of nowhere, and the bushes were rustling with possible hostile intent. Regardless, I kept my aim straight, and spoke through the side of my mouth so as not to shift my aim accidentally.

"Movement in the bushes up front," I replied calmly. "We don't nail this bastard, he'll nail us." There was almost an air of awkwardness the moment I mentioned 'bastard' and 'nail', and it took me a few seconds to register one of the most horrible, horrible things about Equestria up to that point.

They were far too innocent to understand swearing and murder.

Regardless of my depression that was slowly beginning to sink in, the bush rustling became more intense and obvious, forcing the girls to quickly dart behind me as a shield. (They trusted me to be bulletproof, at least.) I tightened the grip on my rifle, narrowed my eyes as the leaves began to part, and...

...it...it was a box.

Literally, I am not even joking, a box walked out of the bushes and then dropped down in front of us. There was quite obviously someone in it, using the cardboard box as a disguise, then it seemed the moment he had seen that we knew he was there, he dropped the box on the floor and remained still. If I hadn't have been paying attention, we...might have walked into the box. And...um...fallen over. The six mares behind me peeked their heads out to look at it in confusion, and I stood up, lowering my weapon. Put simply, I had not been expecting that. I was expecting one of the aliens to surprise attack me, maybe lunge from the bushes with his sword aglow, ready to duel me with super badass background music. I was expecting a Tiger to throw itself through the brush baring its sharp teeth ready to rip us asunder, just like back in the Bush. But no.

This was possibly the thing I had least expected to see, maybe besides Miss Pauling walking out of the bushes with a .44 Magnum revolver.

I looked back at the girls, who seemed to be wearing the same look of confusion as myself, and gave them my best 'what the bloody hell do I do?' face. Twilight shook her head and shrugged slightly. I flicked my gaze back to the box. I couldn't really see any reason why somebody would use a box as camouflage in a forested area, but for all I knew I was the only human in Equestria. So, either a very, very flexible Elite, since the box was small, or another human. Gently placing my gun down, I carefully behind me in a low crouch and pulled my Bushwacka from its sheath. Then, taking care not to alarm Mr. Box (Or whatever his/her bloody name was), I made a slow approach, tentatively reaching my left hand out to poke it.

While it wasn't a reaction I was expecting, the box suddenly lifted up and was thrown back, revealing...what?!

I was thrown backwards into the mud, past the girls and rolling onto my back, before using my momentum to flip back onto my feet and get into a fighting stance. The girls were quick to dive behind a rock, so it meant that it was just me and...the guy. Standing in front of me, there was what could only be described as a generic Japanese ninja robot: Black armour, human-ish facial features, long black katana, and a thick mop of white hair. He also had a black bandana stretching over his head and across his left eye, with a menacing red glow in his right iris. To be fair, he was probably the only really intimidating enemy I'd seen for a while.

He stood to his full height, roughly as tall as me, and turned side-on, raising his katana up. It seemed more like a long piece of metal than any traditional sword, but it was crackling blue, and that was probably not good for me. I kept my ground, standing up and holding my Bushwacka to my right and angling my left slightly towards him, in the stance that all Snipers were trained to use by the manual. Good movement, offense focused, and if they swung at your arm, you could lose your left arm, which, to me, was a useless appendage. I kept my eyes locked with him as the girls hid behind the rock, ready to do nothing helpful should the time arise.

"Who are you?" I barked. The man simply continued to look dramatic, staring me in the eyes and raising his lip in a snarl, which looked quite unnatural considering he had a black metal jaw. Finally, he spoke.

"You first," he snapped in a gravelly voice. "Who are you, and what have you done with the Metal Gear plans?" I blinked. What the bugger is a 'Metal Gear'? He could just go to a garage and get a gear-box, if that's what he meant.

"Metal Gear?" I asked. I felt like a serpent was watching me for stealing its line. "What? I'm just a Sniper, I don't get told any of this stuff."

"Who's your leader?" He persisted, swiping his sword closer to himself and looking like he was ready to stab me.

"I don't have one!" I cried. "I've been bloody fired from Reliable Excavation and Demolitions, so it ain't Redmond Mann, and I don't do work for Nancy anymore, since she's evil, so I don't have anybody bossin' me about! You pointin' that bloody sword at me ain't gonna do much good for gettin' answers, lad, so put yer bloody knife away and we can talk like men!" My words seemed to echo around the clearing, and also seemed to hit home: The man sighed, closed his visible eye, and put the katana into a sheath on his back. It was similar to how I stored my knife, except his was longer, cooler, and robotic. He seemed very distrusting of me, even as I put my machete away, so I suppose words were actually my best weapon.

Heck, maybe I could pull off the same thing I did with the Elite, and calm him down.

"My name's Face," I began. "I'm...I was a Sniper, for Reliable Excavation and Demolitions Incorporated, or RED Team, for short. Almost every day for the past few years, I've been fightin' other Mercenaries from a rival corporation, Builder's League United, or BLU Team."

"RED versus BLU..." the man murmured. He seemed to chuckle at the thought.

"Like that, yeah," I nodded. "Then, about two days ago, my whole team was killed, and I was fired alongside a member of BLU Team simultaneously, so I have suspicions that I was double-crossed..." I paused. "Oh, yeah, anyway, regardless of that, I stole some corporate secrets in some folders along with the guy from BLU, and they had somethin' to do with...aliens, or somethin'. Lots o' pictures. Badly done pictures, but pictures. So, if that's what you're lookin' for, I've got those. Otherwise, a woman called Nancy-"

"Nightmare Moon..." Rainbow Dash whispered from behind the rock.

"-NANCY visited my camper-van when I was leavin' the Badlands. She said she had a job offer, and when I took it, I ended up...here. And I dunno if you've noticed, but this ain't Earth." The ninja in front of me looked around for a moment.

"You're right," he said calmly. Then, he stepped forward, and to my surprise, extended a hand. "Call me Raiden."

---

TEN MINUTES LATER...

---

Raiden said he would be more than happy to go on ahead and see if he could find anything relating to Nancy's whereabouts, and after a brief goodbye he took off up the path, vaulting over practically everything in his path and cutting down things he couldn't go through. That included rocks, a large bear, and an oak tree. As I watched him disappear into the woods, I couldn't help but smirk. "That bloody sword..." I muttered, before turning back to the girls with my rifle in hand. "Alright ladies, let's get bloody goin', we're burnin'...uh, 'sunshine'." As I turned to head up the path ahead of the girls, I heard hooves moving up to my right. Doubtless, Twilight was already up and ready to speak to me.

"So, another one defused," she smiled. "You're good at this, have you ever considered being a politician?" I made a 'pfft' noise.

"Tsh, no," I laughed. "Too much paperwork. Being a Mercenary is more my speed: Kill or be killed, paperwork filled in for you, and wear a nice hat."

"Ah, just a suggestion," she whistled, trotting beside me and still just up to my chest in height. "You seem very good at convincing people to help you. An alien, a ninja cyborg, and even me."

"Even you?" I asked.

"Even me. I wouldn't have even considered asking for your help if I hadn't seen you stop a fight with your tongue."

"That sounds painful."

"Regardless, once this is over, I think a visit to Princess Celestia is in order afterwards. She'd probably want to offer you a job or something: After all, you are unemployed."

"I certainly am, and I might even entertain the idea of politics, just for you."

"Pfft. I'm flattered."

"Don't be: I'm no good with women."

And with that one, awkward comment, conversation died and I carried on leading up front.

However...I did think of her words.

I might make a good politician, once I thought about it. Defuse opponents with words, and if it all goes to hell, then I can deal with it personally, Mafia-style.

Sounds like fun.

Comments

[ShadyCanopy]

This. Is. SO AWESOME! I loved this story, and can't wait for more.

[Chad]

I love this story, but it needs MOAR HATS!!!!!