Snipershy

by WarmenBright - SniperShy

Act 1: The Definition of a Probem; chapter 3: The 3G

Twelve months.

Twelve months had passed since my drafting. It had been a long, yet rewarding year of learning, training, and experience-making into the arts of my new job. I got to learn the tricks of the trade, so to speak.

My first deployment had to be guarding duty at that year's Grand Galloping Gala. The location for that year was on the slopes of the now Canterlot Hill, of which the southern side was rebuilt into a memorial park honouring the casualties of that now distant autumn morning. A big statue was even erected in the very point where Princess Celestia was fatally impaled: a huge rampant alicorn leaping towards the sky, representing our bond between our world and the other side, where old stories tell of a realm of pure magic essence.

The shrine was in the very center of the park, surrounded by a pretty sizeable field of synthetic grass, now covered in long tables and embellished accordingly to the festivity. There were a lot of ponies sitting by the tables, along with a wide array of other races; gryphons, zebras, buffalos, along with a few Mann Co. PR representatives.

All of my old friends were there, the life of the party: as promised by Lyra, they were all assigned to various tasks in the corporation according to what they were assigned to.

Applejack moved - much to her sadness- to Appleloosa, and started managing the biggest warehouse in equestria, along with the whole Apple family

Rarity was burocratically stuck in the RED base due to some debts she protracted with a few high-ranking officials of Mann Co., and was thusly assigned to the head of PR. She was holding up pretty well, considering her sister was helping her out, too. Which might be both a blessing and a curse, knowing Sweetie Belle.

Pinkie Pie had gotten to work with a mare named Vinyl Scratch as an announcer on the biggest radio station owned by the corporation. From WestHoofall the the eastern borders of Equestria, the best music and the most truthful news of the land.

I still can't understand why Rainbow Dash was there. I think they explained it to me once, but I really wasn't listening. She had no obligations to attend, and galas weren't her thing, given her position as a Wonderbolt official. Though there were rumors where Princess Lunna would have announced the selected agents for the Millennium lunar program, the so called 'Moon Dwellers'. I had heard that she applied, so maybe she was there for that.

Lastly, there was Twilight. The Alicorn was long over the passing of her brother and the hospitalization of Celestia, But took its toll on her. She became a shadow of herself after that day, even if to not careful outside lookers she looked as composed as ever, and had a smile for everypony talking to her.

The gardens were enclosed among four not too tall walls made out of stone, which were for embellishment more than anything else. I was stationed on the whereabouts of the southeastern tower, right in the corner. I was sitting there, looking inside the walls with a certain Harpoon Spear, whom I got to befriend during my training shifts.

I was there, chitchatting with the sky-hued unicorn as he fiddled with his crossbow, playing the 'load-unload-discharge' game.

"...And so what did you tell him?"

"Oh right, and so I said: 'Are you coughing because you have a piece of carrot stuck in your throat? do you need some water?" And so he grabs my nozzle and points it to the sky, and I go: 'Or maybe you're coughing for that massive smoke cloud approaching from that mountain?' and so me and the girls go there, and guess what! there was a dragon on the mountain, and guess who had to deal with it? But yours, truly of course" I ended my story between laughs.

"Pfft, you Elements of Harmony are crazy" Harpoon Spear neighed, having a laugh he'd been missing for a while back then.

"Can't deny we did do some good to this humble Land of ours, though" I grinned, remembering some of my old times with my friends.

"Alright, anyways, bet you that the 'Infallible' Canterlot Guard won't notice it in time?

"You're on. What are our stakes?" I asked him, interested. The unicorn checked the pouches in his tac-saddle, looking for something to bet over.

"I've got five bits and four penetrating rounds of the right caliber for your rifle. I need my arrows of course, if I didn't I'd bet those, too, obviously" he said pointing to my rifle, which was laid against the battlements of the wall.

"Obviously. I've got three bits and some obsidian buck shot myself. Nasty stuff. I'll bet over the part where the Guard won't notice it in time. Come on, I wanna get myself another bottle of this stuff" I said, taking a small gulp from the bottle I had in my hoof, the rainbow-hued wine burning the back of my throat with its chemical sparkles.

Well perhaps Applejack hadn't been so sad to leave Sweet Apple Acres after all. Her family company's earnings were on a downhill trend due to the very bottle I was drinking from; after the flops of their apple cider and their curative tonic, the Flim and Flam brothers hit gold when they eventually settled in the plains under Cloudsdale. Plains that are contaminated with the toxic and highly flammable wastes raining from the rainbow factory; right against the shores of the raw rainbow lakes under there, there were whole forests of some weird wild weeds, named rainberries.

The two unicorns immediately took the opportunity to make some dirty profit, and began experimenting on a drinkable version of the essence of said rainberries. The final version after a number of failed and poisonous attempts was the first ever spicy wine in Equestria.

The presentation of the wine was special in its own right, a whole number of different hues whirling around in the bottle behind the glass, mantaining a stable and perpetual chemical merry-go-round that produced the spicy compound in an exothermic reaction. The brothers called it Flaim not just because it was a portmanteau of their names, but also because it was a fitting one-word description of the effect it had on the throat with every gulp. Fancy, strong and cheap, good for both a gentlecolt's table and for a mercenary's strong drink, with over thrity percent alcoholic volume. Truly the perfect alcoholic product.

Before long I came back to the present.

"Alright, deal. Princess Luna is about to start her speech. I'll be looking over the exterior side of the walls, so I'm not forced to listen to her. Call me over when they notice" He whispered to me, doing a one-eighty towards the other side of the walls. I spotted the dark alicorn make her way up the stage and clear her throat by the microphone that stood at its center.

Thanks to the traditional Voice of the Canterlot royals she shouldn't have needed the mic in order to be heard, technically. The audio implants were for recording purposes, so the organisers thought it would have been a good idea to install speakers right above each tower, which meant that at least two very loud speakers started blaring right above my head just as the princess started to talk, prompting my brain to start pulsating very very painfully.

"People of Equestria! Hard times had come upon us. The landslide of the Canterlot Citadel took a lot from the life of us all, wether it be a parent, a friend, or a sibling" she started off with a sigh.

"However, the avalanche also took a toll on the economy of our nation, empoverishing the survivors and their homes. But on the other side of the bit, a great blessing has also come to Equestria: from another world, a group of people took an interest for our condition, crossing the barrier that kept us separated. A group of Humans, very rich and powerful Humans, who offered us their manpower, their technology and their immagination to heal our broken hearts. Tonight, among us stands one of those people, who worked to better our lives and to help us recover from the rubble lapping our hooves. Everypony, I am more than glad to introduce you to Mister Redmond Mann, co-owner of Mann Brothers Corporation!"

The princess stepped aside to leave room to an old, balding unicorn of a red coat so light to be almost milky in its hue. He was firmly stuck to a bulky wheelchair, which housed a big metal box on its back; from there, an indistinguishable number of tubes, cables and tethers were lodged in the unicorn's back, neck and shoulders, making liters upon liters of drugs and artificial blood flow through the old body.

His entrance on the stage got greeted by loud hoof-stomping and cheering, clashing with the presmably high social class represented by the audience.

Everyone was cheering, except for my old friend, Twilight Sparkle.

I could spot her purple horn, pointed towards a completely different direction from the stage; towards the walls.

"Looks like I've won, Spear: Twilight's noticed" I commented back to the unicorn behind me. His only response was to suffocate a chuckle as he took a step towards me.

"these guys aren't professional at all. They got spotted immediately by somepony who wasn't even supposed to be on lookout. It's like they aren't even trying to stay hidden..." while I was talking, little by little I sneakily shimmied a shiv from under my sleeve. -Come on, one more step...-
Once I heard his hoof touch the ground I spun around, thrusting my knife right into the face of what turned out to be an unknown assailant. The blade lodged in the left eyesocket of the earth-toned pegasus, his green and white scarf staining with his blood. He instantly threw himself on the ground, screaming, paralised from the knife lodged in his eye.

As he tried to focus his other eye on the knife it would move all over, ony worsening his wound and making him blind himself with his own blood.

Catching some movement to my left out the corner of my eye -heh heh, the eye-, I swiped in that direction while unsheathing my bayonet. The wide circle made by the blade connected with the neck of the other pegasus, slicing it open right below the jugular, sending him right where his mate was heading as well.

I checked my surroundings for any more threaths. Both of my assailants were on the ground, one dead, one soon to be.

Arpoon Spear was on the ground as well, dead from a silent stab that went right to his heart, probably from one of the ponies I had fended off.

I trotted towards the newly semi-blinded infiltrator. Blood was still pouring out from his eyesocket, and he would soon be dead. But first, a few questions were in order.

"Don't worry, I'll get the knife out. But first tell me how many of you there are" His main argument consisted in trying to spit up to me, it only resulting in him gagging on his own saliva, his muscles having gotten too weak to achieve much.

"You'll see... soon... our revolution" he stuttered. The shock was starting to kick in over the adrenaline.

"Alright, now hold still; I'm taking the knife out" I said. I firmly held the handle in my hoof, and then yanked back; the eye though, it stayed stuck to the blade, just popping off and making the pegasus scream in agony.

I stomped his guts with my free hoof out of frustration.

"Who are you!?" I yelled over the onset of his coma.

"We... are... the future of Equestria" The stallion sighed before the last drop of his life spilled out from his empty eyesocket.

I inched back to my ex mate, searching through the pouches in his tactical saddle; I recovered five bits and a few AP bullets, of the right caliber for the sort of rifle I prefer using.

"I've won the bet after all, comrade" I whispered to my dead mate while standing back up.

I glanced back at the red-eyed pegasus; wrapped around his neck was a scarf that seemed like decent loot for my first kill: it was a long strap of green and white stripes. Once I wrapped it around my own neck, I could smell the dried up blood of the terrorist, but I figured I'd get over it. It certainly wasn't a worse inconvenience than my headache at that time.

I leaned in to check the inside of the walls.

Thankfully, the bad press that was happening up there went unnoticed by most of the Gala guests, the voice of Princess Luna doing a great job at covering up screams and gunfire coming from the other walls.

The battle was halfway over at that point: as I looked at the other sides of the walls, I spotted a thin line of shadows stretching over the walkways, much different from the shining armours of the Royal Guard.

It was then that I decided that I would regroup with the remaining guard; there were too many to take on on my own, but an extra gun would be useful to the ponies below.

Twilight Sparkle had already warned the sentinels on the party grounds, who were on the lookout and preparing for the fight down below. I could also see Redmond Mann and Princess Luna being escorted to safety along with some foreign representatives, as the regulars from the equestrian army frantically waved their ordinance weapons around.

I fetched a flare gun from Arpoon Spear's body and checked the chamber: the round was already inside.

I raised my arm pointing the flare gun to the sky and pulled the trigger, the loud hiss of the bright sparkgem tracer following the bang as it rose for a few tenths of meters, thus catching the attention of everyone present at the Gala.

Including the intruders.

The walkways of the walls had absolutely zero cover, so it wouldn't have been much of a problem for any terrorist to make gruyere out of me, unless I hid between the gunwales.

I leaned in over the inner side of the wall: there was a metal net bolted to the rocks, to reinforce it were it to crack. I grabbed a karabiner from my tactical saddle and recovered a bungie cord from the guard tower. A quick knot and a link later, and I was secured to the grate.

I pushed myself up and over the parapet, taking a deep breath in; I could hear the distant clopping of hoofs qickly shortening the distance between them and me, along with bullets flying from what were clearly unexperienced shooters. With I sigh I stepped forward, and for an instant I could fly without having to spread my wings.