The Job

by Gaekub

Footnote

---

"You sure have been going up to Canterlot a lot lately," Twilight said happily, placing one piece of bread on top of another to create a sandwich. She slid the snack towards Spike for wrapping and stowing. "Is everything alright?" she asked as she left the counter to go fetch Spike's bag.

"Everything's fine," Spike said, prying open the sticky sandwich to reveal a variety of vegetables. He quickly began to pluck out the cucumbers. "The Princess just wants to make sure I'm prepared for my first growth spurt." The circular vegetable slices, un-digestible by his reptilian system, were swept into the garbage. He just managed to close the sandwich back up before Twilight entered the room.

"Oh, right." Twilight placed the bag next to Spike as the baby dragon slipped the sandwich into it. "Does she know how big you'll get? How much longer are you going to be my little baby dragon?" She giggled and picked up Spike by the tail using her magic. She lifted him until his eyes were even with hers, albeit upside down.

"She says it varies from dragon to dragon," Spike said vaguely. "Don't worry though, even if I get bigger than this house, I'm not going anywhere," he said with a smile, grabbing the counter edge. With a little effort, he managed to escape from the telekinetic grip and end up sitting on the counter, right side up. "After all, if I leave, who's going to take care of you?" He flashed the mare a cocky grin.

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but a voice from outside indicated that the cart had arrived. "Alright, get out of here you," she said instead, pushing him off the counter and towards the door. "And for your information, I'd be fine without you," she called after his retreating back.

Spike turned in the doorway. "You wouldn't last a week," he said with a laugh, and ducked a hurled cushion easily.

---

Spike's expression hardened as the cart took off. The jocular attitude he had with Twilight was replaced with a business-like one too old for his few years. The case was secured from under his seat, and the file slipped from the wooden box.

He scanned the information held within. Fairly simple. Young pony, unmarried. He had a roommate, but it had been arranged that she'd be out for the evening. The file didn't say how, but Spike wasn't that concerned. If Celestia was willing to have her hurt too, she wouldn't have arranged for her to be out.

He tossed the file aside, but noticed something strange scrawled on the back. In dark blue ink, somepony with a graceful looping script had written something.

Ask him what he did.

Spike read the strange instruction three times, and then flipped the paper over to see the front. Nothing else was out of place. This was completely unprecedented. He had never been told to talk to the target, Celestia never wrote anything in the folders by horn, and even if she had, this wasn't her writing. Spike had read it enough times to recognize her particular script, and although this was similar, it wasn't hers.

He thought about asking the guards, but shrugged. They wouldn't know anything, and besides, he wasn't being payed to ask questions. Well, this time he was, but not to ask the guards.

The weapon was in its place as always. Spike took it out and replaced the file, and then nearly had a heart attack when he noticed that the safety was off.

"Crazy guards..." he muttered as he flicked the small switch into its safe position. "Somepony could have been killed..."

---

Spike left the dark street behind him as he entered the apartment building. Dark, but far from silent. He hated doing jobs in Manehatten. Too busy, too many ponies that could notice him. This time he'd managed to find a side door into the building from a small alley. Hopefully that would stop the questioning police ponies from hearing about a baby dragon sneaking into the building. As a bonus, the alley contained a rusty fire escape that should be able to provide him with a quick escape.

He passed the elevators and headed for the stairs. He never took the elevator. It was lazy and dangerous, and he was only going to the third floor anyway.

He cracked the third floor door open and peeked up and down the hallway. It was empty, and he attempted to filter out the muffled sounds from the street and concentrate on the muffled sounds from the doors. He could hear a few ponies talking, but nothing unusual. Stepping out into the hall, he searched for apartment 303.

It was a few doors down. The handle was gingerly tried, but it was of course locked. Manehatten, after all. The hairpins in his bag made quick work of the cheap lock, and Spike managed to ease the door open without a sound.

He could see the target from the front hall, sitting facing away from him, hunched over a clicking typewriter. He eased out the weapon, leveled it at the head, and then remembered his secondary objective. The carpeted floor provided a wonderful sneaking surface, and he managed to step up behind the author without him noticing.

His options were a little tricky. His small mass meant he couldn't physically restrain the pony, and the chance that he would recognize the gun as a weapon was minimal. Luckily, he had weapons the pony would recognize.

---

Lucky, hunched over his typewriter, felt an appendage wrap around his neck. "Clover, have you been-" he started, and then was cut off by a unfamilar voice behind his left ear.

"I'm not your roommate," the voice said, and Lucky felt a piece of metal press against his back. More distressingly, the limb tightened, and the stallion could feel razor sharp claws pressed against the side of his neck. "Now I'd rather not get blood all over the typewriter, so you're going to answer a question or two, alright?"

Lucky started to nod, but stopped himself. "Y-y-yes," he stammered. "What are you?" he asked, fear in his voice.

The voice was silent for a moment, as if considering whether to tell him, and then finally said "Dragon. What did you do?"

"Dra- what?" Lucky asked. "What do you mean? I didn't do anything!"

The voice was silent again for a moment. "What do you do, Lucky? For a living."

"I-I'm a writer. Non-fiction," he added, an instinctual clarification from years of being called a novelist.

"And what are you working on?" the voice asked quietly.

"It's a news story. About..." Lucky paused to gather his thoughts. "There's been a string of strange deaths. All in the same way, all over Equestria. Some sort of spell that puts a hole through a pony."

The voice was silent, which Lucky took as tacit approval.

"And the weird thing is they'd all been talking out against Celestia, or about the way Equestria is run. So I think there's some sort of assa-" The stallion cut himself off. His article didn't exactly paint Celestia in glowing terms.

"Some sort of what?" the voice asked.

"It's you," Lucky whispered. "Oh Luna, it's you," he said in terror, and then attempted to buck forwards.

Instinctively, Spike pulled the trigger, but realized just too late that the safety was still on. The trigger resisted the pressure of his claw, and the moment of distraction allowed Lucky to free himself.

As Spike flipped off the safety, the pony galloped towards the door, screaming for help. Spike brought up the weapon and took a hurried shot. He had to stop him before he reached the hall.

For the first time in a long time however, he missed. The bullet just clipped Lucky's ear, splattering a speck of blood against the wall. The momentary stumble that the pain introduced into the stallion's step allowed Spike time to line up a second shot, one that found its mark. Lucky tumbled to the ground, abruptly silenced.

"Lucky, are you alright?" a new voice asked from the hall. "I heard yelling."

Spike glanced back at the window. He'd never make it, so instead he flung himself towards the front door. He reached it just as the knob turned and the door began to open, and he threw all his weight into the wood to slam it shut. He reached up and put the security chain across the door to stop it from opening fully.

"Lucky, was that you? Is something wrong?" the voice asked, worried. "Say something."

Spike momentarily contemplated imitating the stallion's voice, but dismissed the notion as ridiculous. Instead, he bolted for the window under which he knew the fire escape lay. He had just about reached the halfway point when he realized that the chain would allow the door to open just enough to reveal what was left of Lucky's face.

The mare in the hall began to scream. Other doors could be heard opening, with new accompanying voices. The door wouldn't hold for long. Spike clicked the safety back on, shoved the weapon in his bag, pulled the satchel close, and leaped for the window.

Glass shattered around him, but with his eyes closed the hard scales on his body protected him from the edges that would have sliced a pony open. He rolled onto his feet, claws catching on the grate underneath himself, and bolted for the stairs.

He had gone down one floor, now around twenty feet from the ground, when he heard the wood of the door splinter above him. The yelling voices became abruptly more clear, and Spike paused in his flight. There was no way he could run down these stairs fast enough to escape without being seen.

He could, however, fall fast enough.

With only a moment of hesitation, he threw himself from the metal escape, aiming to land on his shoulder. He hit the concrete hard, and the blow knocked the air from his lungs even with his roll absorbing some of the force. However, the bag was fine, and his scales and iron-hard bones protected him from any serious injury.

The baby dragon staggered to his feet as best he could and ran down the alley, only slowing to a walk once he was out of view of the fire escape. Nopony had seen him. There was nothing to connect him to Lucky's death. He had escaped, if only barely.

He walked through the busy streets, squinting his eyes against the overly bright streetlights and neon signs. His shoulder was bruised, but the pain was forgotten, overpowered by the spinning of his mind.

The stallion had been writing about him. About what he did for Celestia. Everything he'd been writing... it had been the truth. And he'd died for it. No, more than that. Spike had killed him for it.

The dragon shook his head, clearing the treasonous thoughts away. Necessary evil. If ponies started doubting Celestia, there would be chaos. Riots and anarchy; Celestia had explained it all, so long ago. So many more would die. It had to happen. He had to believe that.

Still, that little bit of nagging doubt wouldn't leave the back of his skull. Before this, he had known he was doing the right thing. Now, he wasn't so sure.

There was one thing he was sure of. Celestia hadn't written that strange instruction. That was somepony else, somepony close to the Princess. Probably a guard. Somepony wanted him to think about what he was doing. Somepony wanted to instill this doubt in him.

The question was, why? Was it to help him? Harm him? Whose side were they on? Whose side was Spike on? Was it the right one? Did he even have a choice?

---

He had been reserved a room at a nearby hotel, but when the pegasus cart showed up the next morning, the bed hadn't been used. He'd sat in an armchair the entire night, unable to even try to sleep. He had tried to read, but that had proved to be a futile exercise.

"Job done?" the guard in front of the carriage asked.

"Yeah, it's done," Spike grumbled, brandishing a fresh newspaper at him.

The guard checked the paper, and then looked past it as Spike. "You all right? You look... tired."

"I'm fine," Spike answered curtly, taking the paper with him into the carriage.

The money was under the seat, as always, but this time Spike didn't count it. He didn't even want to open the bag. It felt different now. Gross. It didn't matter, Celestia wouldn't cheat him.

Not as long as he was on her side, at least. Or as long as she thought he was.

Comments

[Doxkid]

Oh, excellent. Him questioning this is a bit abrupt, but that's my only problem with this; it's somewhat minor since that's a means by which you are initiating a major change and the next chapter wholly depends on it, but that's still something I noticed.

If you update like I do I'll see you in a few months and thoroughly enjoy every words.
Later
~Lord Doxkid~