The Professional: A cold, clinical killer with a hidden past. But now, through the notes of her various psychiatrists, her story is revealed.
These are selected and expanded notes taken from psychiatric evaluations of Patient 27365, "The Professional". Notes are arranged in chronological order, with memories ranging from foalhood to adulthood respectively. Ordering and compilation is accredited to Doctor Redwing.
(Rated Teen for some violence and potentially upsetting themes, this fic is a one-shot detailing the past memories of a villain which I believe deserved more time than I gave her in Mare-Do-Well: Genesis.)
Source: Patient Interview 51 - Foalhood Memories. Interview notes taken by Doctor Starlight.
I can gather from the interview taken that the patient's early memories are perhaps the most vivid of all. After having taken Interview 43 with her, I can see a definite change in the overall clarity of memory shown. She told me during the interview of her earliest memory. According to her, she must have been "only a year or two old". A mere filly. Here follows a transcript of her account, edited to remove my prompts and irrelevant data in order to provide a more flowing, prose-like account of events.
"It was the first memory I can remember. My family lived in some far-off land, in a village surrounded by forests and mountains. I forget the name of the place. But it was a nice place, up until the war. Horrendous fighting had apparently broken out across the region, apparently the result of quarrelling between the Pegasii and Unicorns. Well, we never thought that the war would affect us, being in that sheltered little community. But war has a way of affecting everypony. It burrows into your mind like a thousand maggots into a rotten old cadaver, one by one.. We were unaffected for a week or so after the news of the war hit town. I'll always remember the day it turned violent, though. Our settlement was predominantly made up of Pegasii and Earth Ponies. There was only one Unicorn family in the place, and soon they became the clear target. It started with dirty looks and ponies refusing to talk to them. It ended with them strung up to a tree, legs broken and horns cut off. Within a few more weeks, our little slice of paradise had been turned into a silent, shunned place."
Patient Interview 91 - Involvement with the Pegasus/Unicorn War
Source: Patient Interview 91- Involvement with the Pegasus/Unicorn War. Interview notes taken by Doctor Reedbank and Doctor Starlight.
The following notes were taken from a lengthy session with Patient 27365, in which she described her involvement with the Pegasus/Unicorn war. The memory recorded here shows her first-hoof introduction to physical violence, unlike the simple observation of violence from her village in Interview 51. (Not to say that the events of Interview 51 were insignificant, as they clearly influenced the patient's mental tolerances and reactions to violence beyond that time. However, it is safe to assume that the following account outlines the first time that violence became a major element of Patient 27365's life.)
"I was about four years old. My family had moved from our forsaken little village, trying to find a place untouched by the war and the evils going on across the land. We travelled for a while by train, stowing away in one of the storage cars to the rear. This was a mistake. It turned out that the train was carrying munitions to the front line at someplace called.. It was called Nail's Drop. Once a bustling town, now reduced to broken wooden debris on a muddy, trench-scarred battlefield. There were dead trees everywhere, and the Unicorns on the other side of No Pony's Land were invisible through that decrepit forest. Nothing but shadowy figures and bright gunshots. We were dragged from the train car then, and pulled down into a trench. My father was given a gun, and my mother and I were led along through the trenches toward a dug-out bunker somewhere East of there. I remember looking back to try and call to my father, and seeing his body lying in the mud. The Unicorns must have gotten him. Or maybe he ended himself. When we got to the bunker, we were shoved into a storage room and told to keep quiet until the commanding officer came to see us. We waited for hours, and when the door to that cramped little room opened again, it was not the commander. It was a platoon of Unicorns. Helmets on their heads, and mud-caked battle gear on their bodies. They pushed my mother aside, beating her until she barely moved. Then it was my turn. "We'll let you go, little one.. If you kill her." One of them grinned at me, leering above as he dropped a knife in front of me. Needless to say, I made it out of that bunker alive."
Source: Patient Interview 25- The Ending of the War. Interview notes taken by Doctor Ailinghoof.
What follows is an account of the ending of a supposed war between the Pegasii and Unicorns, and the patient's reaction to the news of peace between the two. She has not mentioned war before now, and I can only hope that we uncover more of the details as time goes on.
"Have you ever become dependent on something? And then had it taken away from you? I had been trapped in a savage, evil war for two years by the time I was six. Bloodshed for no real reason other than political differences and bureaucracy. It was like the tale of Hearth's Warming Eve, but the fighting was not settled peacefully. It was cold, and violent, and cruel. I lived in bombed-out, abandoned trench for those years, with only a knife and the leftover guns from the dead soldiers around me to fend for myself with. I lived there by myself as the boundaries of the front lines moved back and forth, inch by bloody inch. It was a useless, horrible stalemate. And do you know what the worst part was? However much I hated my position, and I wanted it all to be over, and I wanted it all to stop.. I loved it. The thrill of the cut. When a stray soldier would fall into my trench at midnight, I would adore the sounds he made as I eviscerated him. Slow hacks to the skin, or a quick, beautiful dig into a central artery. I loved war. I began to see the battlefield as a game, a hunt. The screaming, shell-shocked ponies on either side of No Pony's Land were my prey. But then that day came. That damned.. Day. An armistice was signed, and the war was over. I heard the bugles and the cheers, and I watched the ponies climb from their trenches. Some walked away, and others ran to embrace former enemies. They showed love when they should have shown hate. The war was over, but I did not want it to be. I was hungry for more blood. I'm still hungry."
Note: This was Doctor Ailinghoof's final set of notes. Directly after the final line was written down, the patient attacked the doctor. Cause of death was a precise, vicious bite to the veins in the neck. After this interview, Patient 27365 was placed into restraints in the remainder of her interviews.
Patient Interview 27 - Patient 27365's First Contract Killing.
Source: Patient Interview 27 - Patient 27365's First Contract Killing. Interview notes taken by Doctor Branstock.
I admit that I am a little shaken after the news of Doctor Ailinghoof's death at the hands of my patient, but if anything, the news pushed me to try ever harder to help her mental condition. She recounted her first kill as an assassin to me today, and the look in her eyes as she told me.. Disturbed me greatly. Her indifference to suffering and desire to destroy are upsetting, to say the least.
"It was in Manehattan. Dark, rainy night. The mare I was contracted to kill sat on her sofa in the apartment, just watching TV without a care in the world. She had no idea that I'd been watching her routine from a rooftop over the road from her. For a week prior, I'd been watching with a rifle-scope. Waiting, and taking in her daily routine. I'd brought enough supplies to be able to stay on that rooftop, completely motionless for the most part. She hadn't suspected a thing. And now, while she'd been out to visit her friend in the apartment precisely 3 floors down - smiling brightly as the stallion let her in, taking a cup of coffee at around noon, and then fumbling with the door as she left - I had entered her apartment via the window, closed it again, and stationed myself in the wardrobe opposite her bed. I stood there for approximately two and a half hours before she washed up, brushed her teeth, muttered something about the broken bathroom lightbulb, and got into bed. Another two hours, and she was fast asleep. She looked so peaceful there, snoring ever so softly, her eyes fluttering beneath their thin, protective lids. I stabbed her in the throat."
Source: Patient Interview 113 - Threats. Interview notes taken by Doctor Starlight.
Here follows the last interview we took with Patient 27365 before her escape from Canterlot Correctional, with the aid of an accomplice from outside the facility. (Security footage has confirmed the outside accomplice to be none other than "The Baron", a crime lord who is well-known in Manehattan. The break-out was performed with high-powered explosives and the use of a helicopter. The Baron's motives have not yet been ascertained.) The content of this interview is radically shorter than that of the others recorded, but it is now clear that the threats made here were not empty ones. Six of the facility staff have turned up dead in the last week. I fear I will be her victim soon. I pray to Celestia that she is feeling calm when my time comes.
"I'll get out of here soon, Doctor. It's just a matter of precise timing, and knowing the right people. You've all been very kind to me, though, I must admit. I'll try to be kind in return when I'm killing you all. But that's not a promise I can be sure of keeping, you know? When your mind is as twisted as mine, sometimes all the frustration and the pent-up anger.. Just leak out. The next thing you know, the person you were calmly chatting to is dead on the floor, with their neck slashed open."
Note: Doctor Starlight was found a mere three days after making these notes, deceased in his home. Cause of death was a quick, clean slash to the jugular with a blade. A note was left by his side, along with a red rose. The note read as follows:
