Snipershy

by WarmenBright - SniperShy

Act 1: The Definition of a Problem; chapter 2: Dismission and Training

I couldn't see anything. I had no perception over my body. I couldn't even hear anything apart from soft whispers. Whispers telling me about obedience, submission and abnegation. The total elimination of my own will in order to execute every order without hesitation, or regrets. For a few istants at a time images would appear in the corners of my field of view, flashing in and out of existance without a clear pattern or sense; images of dead ponies, of blood, of limbs of living beings being exploded, burned, burned, broken and tore off, thrown away in every direction, bloody, pulpy, corrupted and decaying away.

Images of death, death and death, the whispers talking to me, describing me combat tactics, martial arts techniques and surgical reports.

I wanted to scream in terror, but I had no throat to make a sound.

I wanted to look away, but I had no neck to turn, or eyelids to shut.

I wanted to flee, fly away, but I had no bones or muscles to move. Only my mind existed, in that abyss with the voices and the images. I was forced to stay and look. Look and most importantly, listen, to no end. Forever.

I suddenly gained back conciousness. I slowly opened my eyes, and for a few tenths of seconds I couldn't see anything but white. I couldn't feel the weight of my body. I couldn't recall where I was, or how I got there.

Little by little I managed to focus on the light source above me, the source of all that white, hung at a certain distance from where I was laying. But with the clearness of my sight, the perception of my own flesh came along. And with that, the pain. Sweet paralised Celestia, the pain! Every vein in my body would feel like tiny shards of glass, coursing all through me, my muscles numb and sore from what seemed like a pretty long period of inactivity.

My head felt like it was about to explode, the sides of my temples pumping hard and my whole cranium feeling tightly tied up in bandages.

At a certain point I could feel a voice with a visible foreign accent, coming closer and therefore louder. By Celestia's pussy, my head!

"...sechs und achtzig stunden, vier und zwanzig minuten und drei und vierzig sekunden! Our Flatterzei has just smashed the previous patient's record, who didn't even wake up!" Medic exclaimed, enthusiastic.

"I beg you, mind your volume..." I hardly whispered while trying to get myself to sit upright. All that managed to get me though was a deep, painful sense of vertigo that made my sight fuzzy and had me falling back in bed, my head hitting the metal headbar with an audible thud. Ouch.

"Ach, of course, keine pony. But it's best if you don't try to move for another few hours at least. Your body still has to get used to your new condition, and your antibodies are making themselves in four to prevent some weird complication. But in the meantime you can keep your mind busy, and ask me what it is that I put into you while you were asleep... If you get what I'm saying, as well as what I removed" he said, smugly checking his own bloodied up hoof, which was drippong blood all over his sleeve, as if the rest of his surgeon coat wasn't drenched in the stuff almost completely, from what I could spot.

"Huh? removed?" I asked quizzically "Lyra told me that you'd implant only this artificial frontal bone plate"

"And that IS what I did, in fact. But with all that time with you sedated in my ha-er, hoofs, I also had the time to lobotomise a certain emotional barrier, which would have been a limiting factor for you in the battlefield. And I just COULD NOT waste the opportunity"

And he was not wrong. I did not feel stopped from speaking up anymore, and it made me feel emptied, light, and definetly more reactive.

"So that's what my job will be about: being a hitpony" I then asked.

"Basically, yes. Already having buyer's remorse?"

"No, I was just wondering since before the surgery. Oddly enough, the thought of it doesn't repel me as much as before, and I'm surprised I even know what a hitpony would be" I grunted with a smile that I forced more to myself than to him.

"That's reassuring, keine pony. It would have been an enormous waste of material if you had changed your heart now" he said, empty voice and spaced-out eyes.

After a short pause, he resumed his explanation "That's because I had also installed a few combat-oriented contraptions: First and foremost, behind that frontal lobe of yours there's now a teeny tiny processing unit called a computer, which is going to help you formulate your thoughts an eightysecond faster than your usual brain speed, which doesn't sound like much, but I promise it is. Well to be fair I did remove one point twenty-four cubic centimeters of brain matter from your skull, but I'm clinically sure you aren't going to need that mass of neurons" he said, listing out from a noteblock he was levitating in front of him, browsing through the pages with his clean hoof.

"Moreover, I've attached to your heart a better -I think- version of a device of my own design: the Ubercharger.

It generates free electrons and releases them in your blood, effectively turning your veins into extra nerves, amplifying your reflexes"

Trying to combat my vertigos, I raised my head and gave him a puzzled look. He just sighed tiredly.

"You're faster now, Dumkompf" he just sentenced. Fair enough.
"Anyways, by linking yourself with a certain device you'll be able to earn yourself a tenful of seconds of invulnerability every once in a while. I don't think it's worth it to explain you the details, but what you do need to know is that after that tenful of seconds you're going to feel very, very sore, even exhausted. Or at least that's the effect it has on us humans. The sockets for the Ubercharger are on your left wrist. Feel free to have a look at it"
I slowly raised my hoof, bringing it up to my face. A few cubic centimeters of the flesh in my wrist were dug out, and in their place there was an inlaid metal plate with a couple of holes in it, equally spaced between eachother. The feeling was pretty distinct, and I could feel them penetrating about two to three centimeters deep into my arm. They were coated in an iridescent kind of glass. The sight sent a deep and painful chill down my spine.

I laid my now trembling hoof to rest on my lap, feeling it shake due to the effort of keeping it up.

"The Ubercharge level is measured in percentage, just as your vital signs are. Your now ionized blood renders your skin slightly less magnetic, and smaller caliber bullets won't visibly damage your skin, although the pain you'll feel is the same. Higher velocity rounds are what you'll have to be weary of, as they take away a way bigger percentage of that magnetism. Under a certain percentage you'll start to feel dizzy, and practically just ooze atoms from your body"

"So I could even dissolve if I get hit too much?" I interrupted him, curious.

"That's what Mann Co. medkits are for. They hold stem cells in them, and they'll automatically fill up the gaps in you in a few seconds. The Ubercharge rate replenishes with time, usually in a few minutes" he explained patiently.

"Very well then, Doc. Now if that's all, I'd like to have a look at myself" I then said, with a decisive tone that I had never heard coming out of my mouth.

"It actually is all. I'll give you a han-er, hoof sitting up, and then I'll pass you a mirror" He said, helping me lay my back and wings against the headboard. We were in a pretty big cell, covered in white cercamic tiles. The white blankets on my bed were tightly wrapped around my body, and they covered my body up till my belly.

There were no windows, and the neon lights that hung from the ceiling were bright enough to slightly hurt my eyes. The safedoor couldn't be too thick, since I could hear muffled hoofs nervously trotting outside my cell.

"Hier. In order to operate more comfortably I had to cut away your nice mane. To my own accord I added a few hormones among the proteines in your IV's to facilitate its regrowth" the unicorn defended himself. Third place in the last ten meters of sprint; that madpony couldn't imagine how I loved my mane. He magically levitated the mirror up to my face, allowing me to observe the result of his doings.

My forehead was bulging out by a few millimeters, and my whole head was tightly wrapped in clean white bandages. On the right side of my chest there was a long red cut mark, which was still stinging from the surgery.

What hit me the most were my eyes: my look had become harsh and focused, and my irides looked more ample, capable of catching more colors from the environment.

"Ach, ja: I also worked on your eyes, stimulating the growth of additional cones and rods; you'll see way better now" he also warned me.

"Looks like you did a pretty good job, Doc"

"Indeed I did, counting in the fact that I'm neither a vet" interrogative look on my side "nor an IT guy, but seeing as it was either that or being shocked to death by the tests I ran on the Ubercharger, I suppose I really did a good job after all"

There was a silent moment of awkwardness due to the -now gone- danger I had undergone. I swear I could hear cicadas and crickets.

"But let's not be here petting porcupines if you get what I'm saying. You've got visistors, Element of Kindness! I'll bring them in" he said trotting to the safedoor.

"Wait a minute Doc! I'm not an expert in pony medicine, but I do believe to know that the heart is on the left side of the chest; why have you opened me up on the right side?" I asked him, pointing to my chest.

"Oh so it was on the left you say! that's why it was so far deep into your ribcage!" he mumbled, surprised.

I felt butterflies in my stomach. As the unicorn opened the metal door Snowdrop came in like a thunderstorm, followed by Lyra. The little filly started bouncing around the room hysterically like a Pinkie Pie, while the azure NeoAlicorn simply accosted my bed petting my left hoof.

"Hier, frauleinen. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some mercenaries to update" Medic said trotting out of the cellar, leaving the door open.

"Oh Fluttershy, finally you're awake!" the small pegasus squeamed "They took me from the cottage a couple of days ago, Angel stayed to take care of everything even though they wanted him to come too! They said you chose us as your staff, your squad, but I've been out here waiting this whole morning. Lyra arrived just a few minutes ago, maybe a couple of hours. Oh Fluttershy, I was so worried!" Snowdrop spewed out all at once. She must had gotten quite a scare. And after her burst, what I had gotten instead was a migraine.

"I was worried for you too. I wanted you close to me to protect you but I only just discovered what kind of job I signed up for. What did I miss Lyra?

"Well first of all Princess Luna has agreed to give us full freedom for our operations. Then a lunar mission team is being planned, whatever that means. Apparently our natural satellite is packed with highly conductive metals and rocks which will be very handy. We'll just need to get up there and fetch them! Lastly, we have sheduled your hospital dismission and training program. But we'll get into that when you'll be back up on your hoofs" the mare listed out loud. She inched closer, biting her lower lip.

"The scar suits you" She whispered to my ear, looking into me with her golden eyes "It's... enticing"

Her words sent a long chill down my spine. While before they would repel me, now they attracted me, and by a long shot. I don't know what Medic did to me, but I liked it. The small pegasus caught my attention again, not without awkwardness.

"Tell me Fluttershy, when will you be able to get out of this place?"

"Uhhh Medic hasn't told me yet. But I suppose soon. And then I-WE'll be able to get to-"

"...Ja it's here, schveinhund. I don't think it's the right time to talk to her about it" The voice of a quite annoyed Doctor was getting closer, and as it sounded, he wasn't alone.

"Oh come on KrapfenStrudel, these medicate, doctorine or whatever-they-are things ya can keep 'em to yourself! Can't get a hold on this force 'a Nature!"

"Even when you're going the wrong way?"

"...Course not! Where the hell is her cell?"

"It's here, schveinhund" It sounded like Rarity and Applejack bickering about fashion. The pegaus that entered my cellar -basically busting the door down somehow- looked like he had been rubbed all over with a supercharged sparkgem. His red coat was of a flashy, hot-rod shade, his hair upright all over his toned and slim body, his Cutiemark a winged foot. He was wearing a weird black baseball cap and some orange earpiece, while a pair of blank dogtags were hanging from his neck. His blue eyes were spastically darting all over the place, as if he was high on something strong. His pupils were dilated, and I think he couldn't have stayed still if he wanted to. Not like he would have wanted to, if he could have. Moreover, it looked like embers were burning his hoofs under his rubbery horseshoes, trotting in the air as if he was gallopping away from something.

"Yo, you must be the new recruit! You can call me Scout baby" the half stud said, a tad too loudly.

"And you can avoid calling me, if you don't keep your voice down" I reprimanded him, my head feeling like it was going to burst.

"Oh oh, here we have a lil' commander! You'll be my trainee next month, once you'll be out of here. But don't ya worry, I like 'em combative" Scout said even louder, eventually landing on the ground. Luckily, my barn wouldn't open up that way.

"Is there any neurotoxin left from the surgery, Doc?" I asked the unicorn.

"Ha ha, jawhol, keine pony" he got the joke, returning a sympathetic grin.

"Hahaha, funny. I like it" Scout commented, turning to Lyra, visibly eyeing at her cutiemark "And I gotta say you're not too bad either... what's your name again?" he catcalled her this time, smugly smirking. To that she just rolled her eyes, before violently thrusting her hind hoof out and violently kicking him in the shins, making Medic burst out in laughter to the likely multiple fracture of his comrade's hoof. Scout fell to the floor, moaning in pain.

"Anyways, you'll start your training with him, if he survives Lyra. You'll find him in front of your home as you come back from the base, and he'll train your body for the new efforts your body will need to sustain during your contract. We'll do something for your 'staff' as well, don't fret" He concluded as Lyra stepped in "In fact, I'll do my best to train this little filly to the best of my abilities"

To that the little pegasus started fluttering about the room, frantically bouncing up and down in excitement.

"Sehr gut, meine liebliche. Now that meet&greet time is over, I advise you" he interrupted himself to send an annoyed look to Scout, who just started orbitating around my bed again, holding his crippled hoof like a wounded dog"ALLES, to leave our patient alone, los los. And as far as you are concerned, keine Flatterzei..." the strawberry milkshake-hued unicorn then turned to me "Dinner will be ready in, let's say, four hours. I suggest you get some sleep in the meantime. The button for the lights is on the bedside table to your right" he lastly said, trotting out of the room.

"Gute nacht, Flatterzei" he said, closing the safedoor and locking me into the cellar.

I turned off the lights and closed my eyes, trying to focus for a moment and reflect on the crazy turns of events of the last few days. I could not keep my mind clear though, and so in a few minutes I slipped in a light sleep with no dreams.