Bringing Out The Worst In Others

by Murder Knight

The Great Khan

A shaggy old dog was slumped on his gem-studded seat. At his sides stood his honor guard. The four of them stood at attention, watching the occupants of the room with alert eyes. The round table which took up half the room was completely occupied, save for five seats. The Great Khan and his Noyans silently awaited the arrival of Deigo and Kadan. The Great Khan didn’t show it outwardly, but he was worried. He didn’t worry about Deigo, the pup was always out in the field and showed little regard for the council meetings which usually just amounted to things like ‘kill x’ and ‘attack this’. But he was worried about Kadan. He never missed meetings, even if his presence wasn’t necessary.

Barring their eyes, none of the attendees moved when a scrawny messenger dog creaked open the door and stood before them. Overcome with the gazes cast upon him, the messenger stuttered, “K-kadan will not be attending this war council,” he gained some courage and spoke clearly, “Deigo Noyan has been captured by the enemy in the Everfree. Deigo’s remaining forces are moving to attack the Everfree ponies along with a quarter of Kadan’s forces. Kadan himself will be coordinating the assault.”

All eyes turned to the shaggy dog. “Well, I suppose we should start then,” he croaked out.

Oh nephews of mine, what have you gotten yourselves in to?

---

Infiltrating the castle was easy enough. Avoiding the guards was somewhat harder. Getting around the castle was a nightmare.

I’m pretty sure we already passed this room twice.

I consider myself a patient person.

Didn’t we just come from here?

But even I have limits.

Fuck this shit. I mean it.

If I wasn’t on an important mission, I would have admired the fact that the diamond dogs managed to set this up in two months. But right now, I just wish that I could just magic up a few explosives and blow it all to the heavens.

That would require explanations we don’t have. It would also make Celestia suspicious and make Luna stab us in the back harder than she already will.

Aren’t you supposed to be comic relief?

I ignored the response given to me and stalked forward. The castle wasn’t as big as the one in the Everfree, but it was still big enough to have me walking in circles. I waited for a pair of guards to walk by before skulking into the room across the hallway. Eagle Vision is a wonderful thing.

It can’t see through walls though. That would have made my job a hell of a lot easi- aw shit.

The room was circular and bare aside from two torches. And the two guards inside. I quickly ducked back into the hall before I could be seen.

This is odd. Aside from the guys at the gates, everyone else is patrolling. Those dogs are guarding a door. Maybe the door to the war council?

I risked a peek around the doorway. Yup. Still not moving. No windows either.

Windows. Wait a second.

I looked out the windows to my left and saw nothing. No ledges or conveniently placed bricks to jump to and no windows to enter the room they were guarding. I got the same result with the windows to my right.

One way in, one way out. I patted the miniature crossbow Gandalf had given me along with a few throwing knives and a dagger.

The crossbow had only one shot, intended for the Great Khan. One of Gandalf’s contacts was with an alchemist and she dipped the bolt in the poison she made, saying that even a scratch could kill a minotaur. The dagger wasn’t anything special, just something to stab things with. The alchemist was reluctant to poison it as she thought I might kill myself with it. Naturally, I insisted. The three throwing knives were poisoned as well, although after I was done she kept away from me and my equipment muttering something in Griffin.

I readied myself and took one more peek. The dogs were heavily armored, almost as armored as Deigo Noyan. They stood still, with one of them holding a spear and the other holding a halberd. The spearman(dog?) had a sword in his belt.

I am not equipped for this.

Maybe if you had brought the sword…

It would have been harder for me to sneak with me wearing it.

…You don’t have any imagination at all. You could have shrunk it.

I don’t need someone telling me I’m stupid right now! … Actually, you just gave me an idea.

I looked at the dog with the halberd and started concentrating.

What are you, oh. OHHHHH. Alright then.

The dog didn’t notice it at first. When the room started rapidly getting bigger he turned to his companion and started barking at him. While the spear… wielder lowered his weapon and scooped up his friend, who was about twelve inches tall at this point, I endured the sensation of pain as best as I could and charged in with my dagger.

The larger dog didn’t expect the wild stabbing he was about to get and ended up with a mess of a neck. The smaller dog yelped as he fell and I mauled him with my many frantic attacks. I wasn’t in the state to care that I managed to kill two formidable foes or the bloody carnage.

Aghhh! Fuck! Someone put a fucking hammer to my head!

That someone is you.

Thankfully, the pain wasn’t anywhere close to the amount I got for giving myself Eagle Vision. So instead of excruciating pain and a blackout, I got what was equal to a hangover. I quickly moved back out the hallway and was relieved when I didn’t see guards coming at me.
The guys behind the door probably heard that.

I didn’t hesitate. I charged towards the door with the crossbow in hand, the adrenaline blocking out some pain. Not all of it, but enough to make it tolerable. I threw the door open and the sight of dogs clad in armor with emblems confirmed my suspicions. I took aim and fired at the most important dog in the room before dashing away with some of them on my trail.

If I missed or got the wrong guy Gandalf, I’m sorry. But right now, I’m busy trying not to get myself impaled.

Or bisected. Or chewed up. Or torn to pieces.

You are very cheerful right now. I don’t like that.

---

“So it’s settled then. We kill the rebel leaders in public view and leave their bodies on pikes to warn the others. If not, we kill all of them,” the shaggy old dog announced. At that moment, the gathered Noyans and Great Khan heard a yelp from just behind the door.

As if taking unseen cues, they all fell silent and readied themselves. Kaldor Noyan in particular was moving to assault the intruder from the side as he entered. The Great Khan gripped his axe with both hands and eyed the door.

The door burst open and the bipedal intruder fired into the room with his crossbow before making a run for it. Kaldor howled in rage as the intruder entered before he got into position and gave chase. The Great Khan heard a raspy noise from beside him and saw that the shaggy old dog was clawing at his chest. The Great Khan looked at his honor guard with something akin to regret in his eyes.

I’m sorry old friend. But it looks like I was right to be paranoid.

He looked at the remaining Noyans who hadn’t dashed out of the room, “All of you! When I give the signal, I want you to kill all the rebels and rioters! Show no mercy. After this, we march for Canterlot and Everfree!” He turned to the rest of the honor guard, “Ring the alarm bells! Tell the people that the Great Khan is dead!”

He glanced at the shaggy old dog
.
You will be avenged.

---

“Silhouette, give Us your report,” Princess Luna said, breaking her usual language in favor of briskness. “There isn’t much to report, Your Majesty. We didn’t find anything unusual, except for these.” With those words, a mace and a spear were dropped to the floor.

Princess Luna stepped forward and scrutinized them carefully. After a few seconds, she looked back to Silhouette, “We don’t see anything wrong with these weapons. What is so unusual about them?”

“When we brought back the weapons to stock our armory, we had a blacksmith inspect them. He noticed that some of the weapons were longer than others of the same kind. It’s not much really, but it was unusual.”

“… Very well then. Return to your post.”

As Silhouette shut the door to the room, Luna sighed. Aside from the pony who turned into a slug, there wasn’t much evidence saying that Altaïr was an evil sorcerer. In fact, he was rather passive and modest when he was taking his reward for bringing in Deigo Noyan. Definitely not how the evil sorcerers she fought acted like.

Maybe We acted too hastily.

“PRINCESS!” A pegasus pony’s voice interrupted her musing. Luna turned to gaze at the pegasus hovering outside her window. “What is the mea-“

“Princess! An army is marching towards Everfree. From what the scouts have reported, the army is at least four thousand in number! They are half a day’s distance to us.”

Without a word, Luna’s horn glowed and opened a chest, revealing her armor.

“Warn Celestia about this matter. I will prepare the levies.”

Author's Note:

Christmas time is here! And I'm back with a new update. Isn't that rare? Anyways, I have decided against rewriting the entire story. I'll work with what I have and try to keep up a quality standard. I don't know what that quality is, but I guess that we'll find out soon enough.

Comments

[Hallucination]

4631515 no, I'd call The Joker "somewhat unhinged" if not more, but not edgy

[Murder Knight]

5419779
... That is actually pretty accurate. But now that I've reviewed the story and browsed through Fimfiction for some more, I have found out that there are way too many edgy human fics. There are also too many friendly human fics. So I'm just going to make a compromise somewhere there.

[Lazauya]

I'm probably the only one that get's irked by this and it's kinda just a gripe, but "sapient" refers to "ape-like". I think the word you want is "sentient", which means "self aware".

[Murder Knight]

5419897

Sapience, the ability of an organism or entity to act with judgment

I was actually referring to this meaning. But I guess you can use sentient instead of sapient with how I used it.

[Lazauya]

5419906 Ah, I see. We are using different dictionaries. (I'm using google's.)

[Mad Maudlin]

Tsk. They really should have given him a picture or at least a description. Thats kind of important when it comes to killing a specific individual.

And if one's plan for an assassination is 'walk up to the guy and stab him', one might as well use white phosphorous grenades to make sure it takes.

[Murder Knight]

5424032
Assassins didn't have a long life expectancy in the distant past, considering their loadout and tactics. And you're also absolutely correct. They should have showed him a description. Maybe they did and he just forgot. Then again, he was having a bit of a headache and kind of in a hurry to not be mauled by the dogs in the room.

[GNECproductions]

Wait so did he kill the wrong guy? Or did he hit the Khan?

[Murder Knight]

6961715
Spoiler
He hit the guy pretending to be the Khan. Forgive my amateur writing skills, I don't know how to do reveals very well.