Prologue - The Brewing Maelstrom

View Online

Location: Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria, Equus
Time: 4:30 AN (Afternoon)
Date: 22 Sechortus 1002 A.B. (After Banishment)

The double doors to Equestria's seldom-used war room burst open, sending clouds of dust into the air until a golden glow suddenly spread into the room and cleared the many centuries' worth of dust and clutter. Princesses Celestia and Luna, along with a few trustworthy advisors, strode into the now-clean room, each taking a seat at the table in the center of the room and a young guard Sergeant lay out a map of Equestria over the previous, now woefully out of date map.

“You're dismissed, Sergeant Storm Fury.” Princess Celestia said as she motioned to her assistant to begin laying out notes and photos for the meeting about to take place. The guard gave a quick salute and eyed the magically blank papers briefly before letting herself out of the room. A blue glow encased the doors, quickly shutting them as soon as the guard was out of the way and the anti-eavesdropping spell woven into the doors immediately went into effect as soon as they were locked.

“We are sure you're wondering why we're having a meeting here in the war room when our usual board room is available and also why there are so few of you involved,” Celestia said in the most 'This is very serious, but I don't want you to worry' voice she could muster, “but this is potentially a matter of national security and we hope to have this resolved without this room having to live up to its name.” She took this opportunity to reveal the contents of the notes and photos and give out copies to all those who have not seen the brutality, “This just recently came to my attention early this month. I had to make sure what I was seeing was true before I said anything to anypony, including you, dear sister.” She gave a brief, apologetic look to her sister while she still had the attention of the room at large.

With each photo everypony went through, the advisors looked more and more green around the gills and Princess Luna began to look more and more incensed before she finally slammed her fist down into the table directly onto a dent that had surely come from a previous and similar outburst, causing everypony but Celestia to jump as she shouted in tones nearing those of the Royal Canterlot Voice, “HOW DARE THOSE FOALISHLY FOUL FOWL-FELINES! PRAY TELL, WHAT POSSESSED THOSE—THOSE FUC—MMPH?!”

Luna's rant was cut short as Celestia quickly but gently held her muzzle shut with her magic and once she was sure that her sister had quieted down, let her go, “Easy, dear sister. Volume. I know, I'm very upset with the griffins as well. This morning, I sent a very strongly worded letter to Augustus that he would have to be insane to ignore.”

Luna's scowl only deepened at the mention of the griffin Prime Minister, practically growling, “That complete featherbrain will only rebuff ALL your requests, sister! Be it for arrest and extradition or for even just investigating those responsible! We NEED to reactivate our spy networks and have them gather intel!”

“Ahem-hem,” a middle-aged noblemare in attendance decided to interject, “while I quite agree that the griffins can be rather...Uuhm...violent and harsh, I have a great deal of doubt towards the veracity of these photographs. Surely, these sorts of wounds can't be possible! I mean, crossbows are rather savage, but those don't hold a candle to these wounds...Uuuh, ignoring the beak and talon marks, obviously.” The other advisors gathered gave murmurs of agreement with the noblemare as they perused the photos with critical, if nauseated eyes.

Photos of pony corpses were spread on the table, all of them varying degrees of gruesome and some the advisors chose to look at once then not again for fear of losing their lunch. The corpses all had one thing in common aside from the varying amounts of flesh ripped off and presumably eaten: strange, round wounds in various points of anatomy, most being in the torsos.

Celestia could only shake her head sadly at the noblemare as a frown crossed her features, “These were all taken within Equestrian borders and all verified by autopsies from castle physicians. What's more, we were able to capture one and only one of the griffins responsible for this travesty. Before we could question her, however, she chose to end her life with vial of poison. Thankfully, this meant we were able to appropriate one of the weapons responsible and I have never in my life seen such a thing of elegantly engineered horror.” Her horn glowed and the weapon appeared to float above the table, turning to show it at all angles to everypony in the room.

The weapon resembled a griffin's crossbow, but only in passing as it was made of stamped steel and with a strange thin rectangular box that stuck out past a wooden handle stuck onto the steel frame. Celestia manipulated the weapon with her magic, extending foldable metal bar that would allow the user to steady the weapon as they used it and even ejecting the thin metal box from its holder to show the small metal objects inside.

Celestia showed the inside of the rectangle to each pony in the room individually, “We believe that these metal objects are what give this weapon its power. If they weren't being used against my little ponies, I'd say it's quite ingenious. A metal pin inside the weapon hits a point on the projectile, causing a reaction within using black powder similar to that in fireworks except more energetic to send a small piece of very hot metal flying through the air at great speeds into a target.”

Celestia nodded toward Luna as she went on, “I'm afraid I have to agree with you, dear sister. Our dormant spy networks need to be reactivated to gather more intel on the griffins' intentions and weaponry before we bluster our way into potential conflict. However, they will need to exercise extreme caution as there are rumors of Equestrian citizens being deported or even devoured within griffin territory. Perhaps we should employ some griffin expats in this endeavor. Naturally, Discord will prove invaluable to Equestria's spy network should he consent to—”

She's cut off an odd sort of ringing noise sounds through the room, causing everypony to turn their heads to and fro to find it. Without warning, a vent materialized in the ceiling and out dropped Discord wearing a form-fitting black outfit over his mismatched parts and a balaclava covering all but his eyes. Bending down onto one knee and holding a claw to one ear, he adopted a sort of gruff, growling voice, “Spy network? Hu-uh, I'm all over that. Are there going to be sneaking missions? I get to pick my codename, right? I want to be Firm Asp. That sounds like a good, non-infringing name.”

Celestia deadpanned at Discord's antics before letting out a soft sigh as she decided to go ahead and start filling him in on what he should be doing, “I'm glad you're eager, Discord. But this is very serious and for this...'mission', you need to stay intangible. This is strictly reconnaissance until we can decide whether or not to take more aggressive action.” The weapon floated up into Discord's immediate field of view as she continued, undeterred, “These weapons have been causing me no end of grief as I wonder how many ponies will fall to them. I'm sure the other heads of state will wonder the same for their charges as I've seen minotaurs, zebras, and buffalo taken by this brutality as well.”

Discord was secretly glad that he was wearing the balaclava as he examined a weapon he's only ever seen in his chaotically prophetic dreams, wearing a concealed look of pure shock and panic. He may not have been directly responsible for these sorts of things appearing in Equestria, but he was sure he made the spell that may have been used to procure them. Many questions ran through his mind: where are the originals so he can track down from where they came, how did the griffins persuade anypony to even cast that spell and for what purpose other than to cause trouble, what's for third breakfast, how can he avoid being stoned for this, how can he get something to get him stoned the fun way, and why are griffins such killjoys?

Discord glanced around somewhat guiltily before quickly composing himself and giving an overexaggerated salute, “Mission received and understood, au reservoir, ponies!” And with that, Discord let out another odd noise as he disappeared, leaving behind a large red exclamation point that disintegrated after a few short seconds.

Everypony in the room shared odd looks as Celestia's gaze met Luna's, “That...was easier than I expected that to go.”

Luna simply shook her head slowly, “That is Discord to the core. Unpredictable, but dependable in his unpredictability.” And with that taken care of, everypony began to lay tentative plans on what to do moving forward and how to respond should the worst happen.

Location:Empty Parking Lot, ???, ???, USA, Earth
Time: 10:55 P.M.
Date: Current

Had there been any residential buildings in the area and had anyone been paying attention anyway, they'd almost never notice a black SUV pulling into an abandoned factory's parking lot. Inside, silently fuming, was a man scanning the lot before his eyes finally fell onto the opposite end of the lot where a dark green sedan was arriving, its only occupant being a very professionally dressed woman who would not look out of place at a company board meeting. Samael, as he prefered to be called more often than not, growled to himself as he went over this night's previous events, turning off the engine to the SUV and stepping out as he pulled off the jacket that labelled him a member of a high-priced security firm.

The sedan stopped short of touching bumpers with the SUV and the woman stepped out, walking back to the trunk as she did so and speaking in a brisk, dignified tone, “I had a talk with our client, he's not exactly pleased. He expected a quiet—”

Samael had already thrown the jacket into the SUV in disgust as he shot off a venomous glare to his assistant and spoke in a low, authoratative tone, “I know, Moira, I fucking know,” his tone took on a growling, rage-filled timber as he pealed away the carefully prepared bits of prop makeup that had hidden some unfortunate facial scarring that would've made him easier to identify and threw them into the SUV as well, “Is it my fault if the bastard has more enemies that aren't willing to take the patient route?! Is it my fault that a damn sniper a building over decided tonight was the night he wanted that son of a bitch dead?” Samael snatched the device presented to him by his closest confidant out of her hands and walked back over to the SUV, turning it over in his hands as he did before finding what he was looking for on the incendiary IED.

Moira sighed with misery as she watched her normally patient and stoic boss set the timer on the bomb to incinerate any evidence left behind and climbed back into the driver's seat of the sedan, “Not much we can do about it now. He's dead, you almost had him, but now we don't get paid for this one.”

Samael climbed into the passenger's seat with a grunt, “Almost?! He was practically in his death throes. It was so fucking PERFECT too! Foul play? What foul play? His food must've been prepared in peanut oil, he must've misplaced his epi-pen, and the panic button was on the fritz. Really, brighter minds in security should've noticed all this! I sure as hell hope either you or the police find the guy who pulled the damn trigger! I want to know where his family lives, who sent him, and where THEIR family lives!”

The black sedan pulled out of the parking lot and was half a mile away before the firebomb destroyed the SUV and contents. Samael ran his hands through his hair with a scowl as he eyed himself in the passenger side visor mirror, “Go as fast as you can without getting pulled over and take as many shortcuts as possible so I can get to the safehouse and wash this shit dye out! I need a drink or seven before I'll be able to forget that my carefully laid plans failed miserably because some prick couldn't hold his wad long enough for the bastard to die ANYWAY!”

Moira shook her head slowly at his theatrics as she reached between the seats and pulled out a clipboard, “Insurance forms to sign. They still haven't found the last of your shipment and they need to know what's missing to recompensate you.”

With a low groan, he took the forms from her and dug between the seats for the pen, “Tell me, how the hell does a shipment of what should be museum pieces suddenly disappear without a damn trace? Took long enough to find a damn collector willing to sell me those things at a reasonable price for my collection. I swear, I think they stole the fucking things and they just don't want to get caught. Not going to do anything about that until I'm sure though. Don't want any attention after all and especially not over some goddamn Nazi guns.”

The forms were finally filled out properly by the time they arrived at the safehouse and the slow burn of Samael's temper had cooled enough for him to bid his assistant a good night and to find a job that can be done quick and easy to make up the money lost from the wasted three months spent planning the botched job tonight. He reached into the backseat to grab a "full" travel bag to give the appearance of coming home off a red-eye flight and stepped out of the car with a heavy slouch to make himself appear to be exhausted, his untucked shirt and loosened tie also giving the appearance credence. Unlocking the door as Moira pulled away, he practically threw the travel bag into a nearby closet and slammed the door behind himself.

Samael, safely inside his safehouse which appeared to be a very nice modern home to the untrained eye, let out a loud, angry growling groan as he sank onto his couch and reflected on the night's events, 'Why does everything go to shit when you take your eyes off of it? Oh well, things will get better. After all, I'm amazing at what I do and bad luck can only affect so much if your plans are solid.' With his thoughts squared away and his desire for a shower overtaking him, he headed upstairs to wash away his failure after a quick check of his camera room to make sure he wasn't followed or overtly noticed. Satisfied at what he saw, he headed to his bathroom, not noticing two camera monitors briefly took on the appearance of a solid mustard yellow with two mismatched red circles. 'Interesting...'

Feeling in higher spirits after the meditative feeling of a long, warm shower, the tired hitman examined his reflection to make sure all the hair dye he'd been using to keep a lower profile was all washed out. After all, a conversation piece in the form of a wide, nearly platinum blonde streak in his otherwise dark, shoulder-length hair would draw some unwanted attention and made for easier identification. He made sure all the base concealer around the two parallel scars across his left cheekbone was washed away as well. It was amazing how easily one could go from being a remarkably unique individual to practically Johnny Everyman with a little know-how and some stage makeup.

After he left to dress and hit the sack, his reflection stayed behind and gave a crooked smile, eyes flashing to the same mismatched eyes on the camera monitors, 'Oh yes, you'll get the job done and make sure I'm not taken for granite, won't you? I'll need to spin it so you want to do it, but that will be all too easy. After all, a job is a job and you won't rest until it's finished.' The reflection in the mirror swirled as it morphed into a laughing Discord before fading.

Location:Residential Safehouse, ???, ???, USA, Earth
Time: 8:25 A.M.
Date: The Next Morning

After a quick, "nutritious" breakfast of a granola bar, some coffee, and a bagel, Samael holed himself up in his weight room to let off some steam. He'd been doing this sort of thing for nearly a decade now to varying degrees of success. A brisk workout always helped him center himself after a job, good or bad. The peace of the room was suddenly pierced by three buzzes in rapid succession coming from the front door and without missing a beat, he pulled out the smartphone that had just started ringing from his pocket.

He smirked at the name on the I.D. and answered with a jovial, teasing tone, “Ohayo, Lindsay. I'm in my gym right now, get in here.”

Shortly later, Moira stepped into the weight room and immediately wrinkled her nose at the smell of a hard workout, “I see you're drowning yourself in your own testosterone. Better than alcohol, I suppose. And I'd really wish you'd stop saying my name like that, Kenny.”

“Sounds like someone needs to go out and get herself a hard dicking. Take a night off, go get laid, and we can get past this together,” said Samael as he toweled off, “Hell, I'll bite the bullet and give it to you if you want. I know you want it.” He was rewarded with his own water bottle thrown directly at his head and he grinned smugly as he caught it, “Thanks, sweetheart~. I was getting dehydrated.”

Moira silently cursed the lack of HR in her choice of profession and smiled sarcastically, “Ha. Ha. Glad to know you don't know to drink until I tell you to. That bodes well for your continued existence.” Seating herself on a nearby bench, she withdrew a tablet PC from her bag, “Onto business, please. Our sniper was caught trying to exit the building by police and as it turns out, nobody sent him. He was acting on his own like a complete amateur.” She let out a thoughtful hum and gave the screen a few taps, “And it seems somebody just hanged themselves in their holding cell, what a shame.”

Finishing his water, Samael raised his eyebrow at his assistant, “No family?” and he sighed as she shook her head, “Damn. Oh well, water under the bridge now. Jobs?”

“Are you sure you want another one so soon? Maybe you should take a break. Go get your pole ridden and get the tension out,” she smiled as he glared, “Works both ways, sweetheart~. But fine, be that way.” Her finger flew across her screen several times as she scanned for potential work, “Ahh, not seeing much of anything worth doing without having to pay anyone off. Oh, here! Bain has—”

He held up a hand to stop her, “No! Nonononono, I'm not going on Crime.net for work. I'd be fine with the sneaky stuff, but even then, the clowns have been getting too much fed attention lately and I want none of that.”

Moira sighed, “I figured as much. Still, it's worth keeping in mind in case things don't work out. Your last shopping spree put a dent in your funds that I'd like to have made up,” and continued browsing until she gave a small start, “Oh! Something just popped up from one...'Sid Droc.' Maybe it'll be up your alley.” Her eyes briefly went out of focus before she looked up with a smile, “This will do perfectly, actually. I'll give you the GPS coordinates, go clean up and he'll meet you for brunch at a private residence.”

He raised an eyebrow at this, but said nothing as he swept from the room to do as she said, “This better be good. You know I don't like those sorts of meetings. People getting off on trying to act like fucking supervillains when they have no real plan and expect me to do anything and everything for them. Help yourself to a drink or whatever and in approximately twenty minutes, go start the car.”

Soon, the dark green sedan pulled into the long driveway of an opulent house and Samael stepped out in a pristine white suit with a black vest and tie, eyeing the front door of the house apprehensively, “Be ready for pickup, Moira.” He shut the door at her nod and watched for her to park before ringing the doorbell. He fought his instinct to jump when the door opened almost instantly to reveal a gorgeous, smiling maid that simultaneously caught his attention and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. She stepped aside, held out her hand to invite him inside, and wordlessly led him towards the dining room where she made sure he was sat comfortably before making her exit into the adjoining kitchen.

Samael fought down his apprehension and...was that fear? He hadn't felt that in a while, but it could've just been the fact that he just couldn't place why he was uneasy about this whole situation. A deep, greasy-sounding voice rang out from around the corner in front of him, "Ah, my guest has arrived, it seems. Very good. I hope you're hungry!” And with that, an older man stepped out and quickly sat down with a wide, crooked smile. Samael merely nodded as he took in the other man's appearance, trying to not betray anything more than polite attention as he made note of the man's stark white hair and goat-like beard. He had to stop himself from thinking too much about the man's red eyes, chalking it up to colored contacts for shock value.

“Now, now, my new acquaintance! No need to be quite so taciturn. I may have a job for you, but we'll be seeing a lot of each other over the course of time it'll take to complete. Why, we might even become friends!” And with that, he snapped his fingers. A small number of nearly identical maids stepped out of the kitchen at the sound and laid out silverware, placed napkins in each of the men's laps, and finally laid down plates of immacuately prepared food before disappearing back into the kitchen.

After masking his surprise at the maids' appearances, Samael gave a polite smile as he pushed the plate away, “Good service, Mr. Droc, but I had a big breakfast and I'm much hungrier for a good job than a meal at the moment.”

Sid's smile didn't even waver as he began to take large, greedy bites of his own meal, “Fair enough, I suppose. I guess it WAS a bit too much to ask to have my servants' DE-LICIOUS food eaten instead of thrown away. But who am I to judge? I'm sure you have your reasons. Fearing a bit of poison, maybe even some tranquilizers of some sort, or even just plain...allergies,” and grasped his hands together to regard Samael imperiously, “That's the life of an assassin, isn't it? Always looking out for anything that can trip you up, always looking over your shoulder for unwanted attention, trying to maintain a cover, trying to keep you and your pretty little assistant Ms. Lindsay Brooks from facing down the business end of a pair of handcuffs...Eh, Mr. Ken'ichi Sammuels?”

The hitman's chair hit the ground with a loud thud as he jumped up and pulled a suppressed pistol from the holster hidden by his jacket, aiming it directly between the other man's eyes, “You have ten seconds before you have another hole to breathe out of, mister. Fill it with words that'll make me decide that you're not a threat to me or Moira.”

The older man held up his hands in a gesture of surrender with that same smile on his face, “Easy, Sir Samael. I've got a unique opportunity for you and your assistant. So if you please, put that rather handsome looking firearm away. I guarantee you no harm to yourself AND your assistant...Even if I do get that other hole.”

“Go on.” Samael kept his aim focused even as the other man stood up and began to pace slowly side to side.

“I'm here to offer you...a clean slate, so to speak. You might have avoided unwanted attention as much as possible, but eventually they will catch up to you by your own error or their dumb luck. And you and I both know that the Continental doesn't take kindly to such attention, even from a respected member such as yourself. That can be avoided with the considerable power I have at my disposal,” said Sid as he paced back and forth, keeping a smiling eye on the wary assassin and seeming completely unconcerned about the threat he would pose to any ordinary man, “All you have to do is sign on the dotted line and you'll get something I know you've wanted for some time now: a second chance. Just...don't waste it.” His smile turned slightly sad as he pulled a scroll from his smoking jacket, but it quickly went crooked again as he moved the plates of food out of the way and set the scroll down.

Samael eyed the man pensively as he very slowly lowered his pistol, ready to bring it back up at the slightest errant twitch as he considered his options, “What makes you say I want a second chance? I do well enough. Moira does good by me and I clean the streets of trash more often than not. I may not have the most virtuous morals, but they're there and I won't take jobs if I don't agree with the reasons.”

He leaned forward slightly, keeping Sid in his peripherals as he read down the scroll, 'Who uses scrolls anyway? Those are old as...Hu-uh. What the hell am I even reading? I mean, I get that everyone has different euphamisms for safety reasons, but what's all this shit about ponies and griffins and magic? He better explain, that's all I know.'

Sid continued to pace as he watched the hitman read, “You might not think you want a second chance, but believe you me, it'll do a world of good. I might also mention that most of the targets I have in mind are scum. They've been slaughtering a great deal of innocents and I assure you that the world would be a better place without the extremists responsible. Oh and they might've also stolen your property. You know, those collector's items that disappeared?”

Samael's head shot up to look the other man in the eyes before slowly looking back down at the scroll to continue reading. He debated with himself until finally looking up slowly, “And you guarantee mine and Moira's freedom? I'd hate for her to go down for what I've done. She may be all I've got here, but she has family to think about.” A genial nod and genuinely uncrooked smile from Sid was all it took. Samael grabbed the pen he was sure that he had missed in all the excitement and confusion as he tucked away his pistol and finally signed the scroll.

As soon as the pen left the scroll, it was gathered up by Sid, rolled up, and tucked away in his smoking jacket, “Wonderful! I'll get back to you tomorrow morning with the details, as of right now, spend as much time as you please with your assistant and assure her that she'll be fine in your retirement!” He ushered the assassin out briskly and disappeared back into his house with a great crooked grin.

Samael was dumbfounded at the other man's words, but shrugged and signaled for Moira to come and pick him, musing on what had just happened. He climbed into the car and just looked over at his assistant, “That...was quite possibly the most unique meeting with a client I've ever had in my life.” She raised an eyebrow at him that clearly said "Well, spill the beans" as she pulled away.

He quickly regaled with everything he experienced, leaving out no details and he had to smile when Moira excitedly looked over at the mention of his retirement, “Well, it's about time! Can't spend forever ending lives, now can you? Here's hoping he'll have everything handled properly for it, though,” her smile turned teasing, “Because if I end up in court because of you, you know I'll roll over on you. Just like we agreed back when this arrangement started.”

With that out of the way, they spent the day together with the understanding that they'd be parting ways after this next job, possibly never to see each other again. How little they knew how true that actually held as the day ended and they headed to their places of rest.

Location: What Was Previously The Safehouse, ???, ???, USA, Earth
Time: 10:00 A.M.
Date: The Next Morning

News crews swarmed up and down the street with excitement, trying to be first to cover the odd phenomenon that had occurred the previous night. After all, how could a residential home simply disappear into the thin air?

A dark green sedan pulled up to the cordoned off area, the sole inhabitant gawking at what used to be the spot where her now ex-boss lived and a blip sounded on her handy tablet PC. She picked it up and read the message before finally breaking down into tears of simultaneous sorrow and joy.

Dear Lindsay,
It's been quite a time. Have a fun time without me and don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong anymore. Enjoy the money, all the details have been taken care of by Sid. Oh, and find a good guy to give you a good dicking since I won't be around to offer any more.
I Set You Free,
Ken'ichi

Chapter 1 - Meeting the New Neighbors

View Online

Location: Residential Safehouse, Edge of Ponyville, Equestria, Equus

Time: 7:30 BN (Before Noon)

Date: 27 Sechortas 1002 A.B.

‘HOLY FUCKSHIT, WHY ARE MY INSIDES ON FIRE AND WHO DO I HAVE TO BLOW TO MAKE IT STOP?!’ was the first thought that occurred to Samael as he rolled around in his bed, feeling as though someone were using a white-hot hydraulic press on his very core. He grit his teeth as he rolled out of bed onto the floor of his bedroom with a thud, tangled in his sheets. He began his meditative breathing exercises to calm his frayed nerves, ‘Fucking hell, am I actually nostalgic for being shot close to death over whatever this nonsense is?’

His training to use mind over matter to ignore and/or mitigate his pain kicked in, his breathing slowing from painful hyperventilation to an uneasy slow pant. Standing up, his eyes shot to the red bulb in his room connected to his alarms and sighed with relief at how it remained unlit. But then, how was this happening? Quite a few poisons could trigger such a reaction, but he was certain he had been safe the previous day even when he had spent time with Moir—Lindsay, he reminded himself.

Samael shrugged off his concerns for the moment as the pain seemed to be very slowly fading and chose to take the day as it came instead, opening his bedroom closet. He fought back a very unmanly whimper as even his muscles ached with each movement. Remembering that that Sid fellow would meet him this morning, he very carefully changed into a plain dark navy blue t-shirt with a white undershirt, black pants, and a pair of black military-surplus combat boots to avoid agitating his pained muscles too much. Of course, it was quite a chore to slip on the ballistic vest underneath the t-shirt, but sacrifices had to be made for the sake of paranoia.

Speaking of paranoia, he stopped in front of what appeared to be a blank stretch of wall and with a practiced hand, pulled aside a panel revealing an electronic lock. The blank stretch of wall slid open smoothly with some manual assistance after inputting the key, revealing a very large room with shelves and racks of all sorts of black market weapons. Methodically, he looked all around before stopping at a footlocker at one edge of the room.

‘This should do nicely just in case Sid tries to start shit,’ he thought as he bit back another whimper to bend down and unlock it, ‘Getting easier to move now. Good. I’ll need full movement if that’s the case.’

He pulled open the case to reveal no small number of flashbangs he picked up from a crooked SWAT officer who had been looking to make some extra off-the-books money to feed some odd habits. Hooking two on the back of his belt, he let out an inaudible groan as the front door buzzed rhythmically, ‘Shave and a haircut? Classy. Be right there, asshole.’

Straightening up quickly with a low groan of pain at the sudden movement, he closed the footlocker. As quickly as he could in his sore state, he made his way out of the room, grabbing a balisong knife, some piano wire, and a pair of SAP gloves as he went. After all, he didn’t want get any questionable bullet holes in his walls or accidentally shoot out a window. As he closed off his gun room and the panel to the keypad, he groaned in frustration as the pain continued to take its sweet time in ebbing away.

Tucking the knife into his pocket and the piano wire into his belt, he made his way downstairs to his living room and he was halfway through pulling his gloves on when he just had to stop and gawk, his mouth agape in sheer surprise. There, sitting in the assassin’s favorite recliner without a care in the world, was Sid with that damnable crooked smile on his face.

“Easy there, Sammy boy, if you don’t close your mouth even a little bit, it may drop off,” chuckled Sid as he swirled a glass of chocolate milk around leisurely.

Samael reflexively looked toward the ceiling in the hall of the second floor where one of his alarms was still resolutely dim before eyeing the other man with naked suspicion, “I will admit. You are pretty clever and resourceful if you can shut off my alarm, but I’m not going to stand here and say that I like it.”

“Who said I turned it off?” Sid grinned as confusion overtook Samael’s features and then eyed him curiously, “I will admit, I’m surprised you’re even up and about right now. Just goes to show what a grand mixture stubbornness and willpower make...Oh, don’t be that way!” His tone took on a slightly scolding timber as he watched the assassin jump to the bottom of the stairs to take on a boxing stance, “I can see how much that move hurt, but magical shock is no joke, mister.”

“I...What...Magical. Shock?” Samael dropped his stance as he eyed the other man with total disbelief, “Are you fucking trying to tell me that what I signed wasn’t actually full of euphemisms?! Mind, I get it all the time because such agreements have to be purposefully muddled in case authorities get involved, but are you fucking insane?! All that shit about magic and ponies a-and griffins wasn’t just fucking code for I don’t even know—”

With each word, Sid’s smile grew and grew until he finally knocked back the chocolate milk, only the glass seemed to disappear down his gullet and the milk remained, “A classic, but effective in showing you that I’m a man of my word...Or rather…” He turned on the spot, his form warping into that of his Draconequus form, “A Draconequus of my word. Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Discord, spirit of Chaos, pleased to meet you.“ He waved the chocolate milk away with a squeak before bowing his serpentine body toward the now stunned assassin.

“I...You...Dracowha...That...Love...Hate...Clouds,” sputtered Samael before he finally took several calming breaths and considered his situation. The pain still present in his body indicated a lack of dreaming, the clarity of mind regarding the rest of his surroundings hopefully indicated a lack of a psychotic break, and the fact that the creature now in front of him bore a few similarities between this new form and the old one indicated that if he were actually insane, he was pretty damn lucid and consistent about it. So, why not go along with his newfound insanity if that were the case?

No harm in it, really, and there could only be more harm done in panic, so stoicism it would be, “Alright...Fine, I’ll go along with this for the time being. Am I right to assume that my job is literally what I read it to be? What was it again? Refresh my memory.”

Discord laughed heartily as he could practically and quite literally read the thoughts and emotions Samael just went through, “Oh, it’ll be a job you’ll want to do, my friend, and as I said, my payment is freedom for you AND your assistant. What higher pay could you ask for?...Well, they do have currency here, buuuut I’m sure you’ll be able to get that on your own without my assistance.”

With that, Discord turned himself into a large spinning golden coin with his face on both sides to emphasize his point before continuing, “Well, there’s a problem here with a few griffin extremists terrorizing innocent civilians of varying species just trying to live their lives without being shot down and eaten.”

Samael had to raise an eyebrow at not only this strange being’s antics, but the implications of what he just heard, “Civilians? What the fuck is wrong with them? That just isn’t right.” He shook his head with a grimace, “I mean, I’m all for killing someone if they’ve done some shit to deserve it, but to fill my belly? I’d have to be starving to even consider it.”

The Discord coin disappeared, only for Discord to reappear lounging on the nearby couch, “Oh, I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Even when I wanted to rule with chaos, I wasn’t that bad! But that’s only part of the problem, amigo. Remember when I said that the guilty party involved stole your collector’s items?”

“I, uh, yeah. I do remember. How the fuck did they do that, by the way?” Samael decided to let himself sink into the recliner Discord had abandoned, wincing as pain shot through his body at the renewed movement, “AND WHY DO I FUCKING FEEL LIKE THIS AND HOW DO I STOP IT?!”

“Oh, it’ll go away eventually. It’s just your body absorbing and adapting to a force it’s never been in contact with before. I guarantee you’ll feel better than ever once it’s done,” giving the assassin a reassuring grin, Discord giddily made a mental note that he didn’t seem to even react to the wanting to rule comment, “As for how those griffins did it, well, I take very, VERY partial blame for it. I’ll keep this as simple as possible: A very, very long time ago, I invented a rather tricky spell. When a new spell is invented, even one of mine, it weaves itself into the magic surrounding this planet, which allows any being with the know-how and fortitude to cast it.”

Discord held up his lion’s paw where a big yellow ball labelled with the letter A formed and his talon where a big red square with the letter B formed, “Let’s say that World A here has a neat little trinket that I desire. Whether it be for a gag, a joke, to eat, or to keep,“ a piece of the A broke off and floated over to stick itself to the B, “the spell takes it and makes it available to me. Of course, since I know the complete ins and outs of the spell’s mechanics, I can control it best and even trace the object back to where it came. In fact, I used that spell to bring you and all your amenities over here. You’re welcome, by the way. It wasn’t easy making your plumbing compatible with this town’s and it’s a good thing you had those solar panels on your roof for me to buff up or you’d be drawing more power than a quarter of their largest city.”

At a mumbled expression of gratitude from Samael, Discord continued, “Now, I don’t where those griffins learned my spell, I don’t know why they used it specifically, I was not involved in any way except for the initial creation of the spell. I merely found the original objects they stole from you, traced it back to your world, and even found the intended owner. And here you are, ready to work! Of course,” Discord’s voice dropped to a warning tone, “you will have to tread carefully here. At least for a while, let the others here get used to you. They’re a little...Hmm...Skittish, I would say.”

“How carefully? Be a little more specific.” Samael squirmed around in his seat a bit as the pain flared up briefly before finally beginning to truly dull.

“Hmm, let’s see. Well, you’re on the edge of a peaceful little hamlet called Ponyville,” Discord was cut off by a snort of mirth from the assassin, “Oh, I know, but I know for a fact that there’s actually a Humansville where you come from, not to mention Manhattan and many other places, so don’t act like a bastion of creativity. Now, if I can continue. The majority of inhabitants of this town are what are known as ponies. I know what that sounds like to you, but it’s not what you think. They walk on two legs just like you, they talk just like you if a great deal less foul-mouthed, and...Well, better keep that a surprise...BUT! Suffice to say, they are much like humans in a number of ways, but they tend to be less...Confrontational than humanity. As a whole.”

“And uh...The griffins? I’d like to know what I’ll be potentially facing here.” Samael ignored the pout Discord gave off as it seemed that he wanted to say more.

“Oh, very well. Let’s see now. Well, I know that humanity has myths about griffins and such, so pretty much those, but again, bipedal, talking, et cetera. Only…” Discord motioned for the man to stand and as soon as he was standing straight up, Discord floated toward the man before turning himself into what would be considered an average griffin, “I neglected to mention that most ponies would be considered a ‘normal’ height for humans like you, but as you can see, griffins…”

Samael’s eyes widened as he took in the behemoth standing in front of him. He was only very slightly below average height at five foot seven, but even if he had been six feet tall, the “griffin” in front of him would still tower over him at what he estimated to be at the VERY least seven foot eight, “Well, that’s...That’s going to guarantee fun times for me in the future. Guess I better get used to aiming high.” He dropped back down into his recliner as his mind reeled momentarily, but pulled himself together as he eyed the large creature critically, already mapping out potential weak points in his mind.

As soon as Discord felt that the man had had enough to take in, he disappeared and reappeared back on the couch in his original form, “Well, I hope you got enough information from that because I hate to be the bearer of bad news. You’re about to have a trial by fire. I’ll be watching! Ta!” Discord waved serenely before disappearing entirely with a raucous laugh.

“I’M ABOUT TO WHAT?! GET BACK HERE, YOU SAD SACK—Oh, what’s the use? Probably off watching by now. Hmm...Trial by fire, huh? Maybe I should go get a gun—” He winced as an ear-piercing shriek sounded from outside, “Son of a bitch, this is going to suck. Oh well, might as well try and get in good with the locals if nothing else.”

(Music start)

Samael jumped up, sighing in relief as he felt only a slight twinge of pain, and ran toward his front door. Quickly turning off his alarm, he sprinted out toward the wooded area the scream appeared to originate from, making sure his flashbangs, knife, and piano wire were still secure, ‘It’ll have to be enough for now.’

As soon as he arrived in the wooded area proper, he slowed down and began to stalk further in, trying to make as little noise as possible and attempting to get some clue as to what was transpiring. Ducking behind trees where possible, the assassin crept toward the sounds of a struggling, yelping young girl and four deep yet feminine German-accented voices apparently mocking her, ‘Oh, come on! A child?! Really?!’

Controlling his breathing and watching his step as he crept closer and closer, Samael fought back a groan as he peered around the tree he was hiding behind at the scene transpiring in front of him. In the nearby clearing stood four intimidatingly large griffins cornering a clearly young pony girl with light purple fur and blonde hair. He noted the obvious fact that the griffins were female judging by the GIGANTIC tits they all sported. He also noted that two these griffins appeared to be holding scaled up Lugers at the ready, the other two sporting Walther P38s.

“Zat is right, mein liebling. Cry out more. We need more meat than vat you can give us,” mocked one of the griffins as she kicked roughly at the pony before firing off a shot into the ground right next to the pony, causing her scream and cower with her arms firmly over her head.

Samael steeled himself as he reached back for one of his flashbangs and began to psyche himself up before rustling a bush next to the tree to get the griffins’ attention, smiling as they all turned with smug looks on their faces.

“And just like zat, our bait delivers. Come out now and we’ll make it as quick and painless as we ca—” one of the griffins began to taunt, cutting off as they all followed the arc of the flashbang as it flew through the air before hitting the ground right in front of them, “And just vat is zat supposed to b—ACK!” The griffins all flinched as the flashbang went off.

“Too easy.” Samael leapt out from behind the tree before rushing the stunned griffins, but was forced to sidestep as they all blindly fired at where they had heard the rustling bush. He wheezed slightly as two bullets hit his vest, the force behind them sure to bruise, but more concerning was the bullet that had caught him in his left arm in his charge.

He knew that would be a problem in the future, but tried to ignore the pain as he planted his feet in front of the nearest griffin and pivoted his hips as he threw his fist forward into as hard a punch as he could muster into her sternum, the powdered steel in the knuckles of his SAP gloves adding a great deal of force to his punch and protecting his knuckles all at once. All the griffin could do was wheeze painfully as she doubled over in pain. Another punch to her temple put her down for the count.

Samael sidestepped and drew his balisong knife with a twirl to get it into an reverse grip before plunging it down into the shooting arm of another griffin. She squawked in pain and dropped her pistol before starting to wheeze as a heavy strike from the assassin’s elbow hit right in her diaphragm. Another heavy strike split her beak before yet another caught her in the temple same as the first and that was one more griffin down and out.

He noted with no small amount of horror that the other two griffins were beginning to recover from being stunned. So, he grabbed one’s arm to hold it as tight and stiff as he could before driving his elbow in the side of hers to break it, causing her to involuntarily drop her pistol as well.

She let out an eagle-like scream as she attempted to claw this smaller creature’s back with her other talon, but was stopped by the odd, tough vest he wore under his shirt, leaving three claw marks in the material and tearing away three strips of cloth from his shirt. She couldn’t even scream as the creature kicked her locked knee hard, bending it at an unnatural angle and causing her to pass out from sheer sensory overload and shock.

The last griffin had recovered and was bringing her pistol up to shoot at the creature that had just taken down her fellow tormentors, but even another shot to the chest wasn’t enough to stop him as he only winced. She adjusted her aim toward his head, but in a flash, her pistol was no longer in her grip and was being taken apart expertly in his. She sounded out a lion’s roar mixed with an eagle’s screech as she lunged toward him, talons spread and ready to tear.

Samael only grinned as the last griffin acted exactly as he had expected and threw aside the pieces of the pistol to draw the piano wire from his belt, taking a firm grip as he sidestepped her swipes and kicked her in the lower back to set her off balance. She stumbled just as he had predicted, but swore softly to himself as he forgot her wings she was now spreading to balance herself. The assassin stepped forward, leapt up, and rammed his elbow as hard as he could into the joint where wing met back.

The griffin wailed with pain as such a sensitive spot was assaulted so brutally, reaching back with both talons in a futile, instinctual attempt to rub the pain away, but received a surprise in the form of piano wire binding her talons together behind her back.

‘Alright. Wing joints. Weak point. Got it. I’d prefer to have my wire for this, but Discord did say that going all-in was dumb.’ He jumped up onto the griffin’s back as she desperately tried to free herself from the wire and put her into a sleeper hold, hoping that the concept would be the same for griffins, ‘Gotosleepgotosleepgotosleepgotosleep!’ Samael let out a sigh of relief as her struggling slowed due to the lack of blood getting to her brain and set his feet on the ground as she dropped to her knees before following her down to make sure she fully passed out.

Collecting his piano wire and standing up slowly so to not agitate his bruising chest, he panted softly as the adrenaline began to wear off, ‘Well, that wasn’t so hard. Only got shot once, really.’ Samael rubbed at his chest slightly before eying the wound on his upper arm, ‘And even then, only grazed. That’s a win in my book.’ He looked over at the still cowering pony and steeled himself, stepping over to her slowly.

(Music end)

Dinky whimpered softly as she shook like crazy in her fetal position. First those mean griffins swooped down and pulled her away from the rest of her class as she had tried to enter the school, then they said they were going to eat her and anypony else who showed up because she screamed, they were taunting her, and somepony DID show up! There was that loud bang that made her ears hurt even as she covered them and then all the other, faster loud bangs, then the Griffins made a lot of noise and now...Nothing, and that was worse!

The assassin winced as he bent down to regard the cowering pony and placed his hand softly on her shoulder causing her to jump as he put on the most gentle and reassuring tone he could muster in his state, “Are you alright, little lady? You’re not hurt, are you?”

The filly let out a soft yelp of surprise at the sound of a stallion here and not those big, hungry griffins as she slowly unfolded herself, still shaking like a leaf. Her eyes found his gloved hand first before following it up to the oddest looking stallion she’d ever laid her now-widening eyes on and squeaked out, “I um, no...Uh...Sir, no, sir, I’m not hurt, just...scared.” Her ears pinned back as she noticed that while he was looking at her with concern, he also seemed to be in pain, “You’re...you’re not hurt, are you, mister?”

Samael gave her a reassuring smile as he slowly stood up, gently pulling her up onto her feet—hooves he corrected himself, “I’m fine, just a few bruises and a little scratch. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

Dinky opened her mouth to give protest, but froze as she noticed one of the griffins stirring behind her unexpected savior and whimpered out, “Mmmph, she’s getting back up…”

As soon as the assassin had turned around readying himself for another bout, the griffin had gotten to her knees before a wooden crossbow bolt hit right between her eyes, ‘...Well then. So much for having an aversion to confrontation.’ He looked around to find the source of the bolt, hoping that one wouldn’t find its way into him...Or the girl he was with, he reminded himself. He fought back his urge to run once he spotted a large group of what obviously passed for law enforcement here, judging by the badges, armor, crossbows, and was that a longbow?!

A whole battalion of guardsmares had been dispatched once they had caught word of a filly being foalnapped by a group of griffins with those new, deadly weapons they’d be briefed on. The fight they had expected to lose at least half, if not more of their numbers to seemed to have already occurred. Surprisingly, they saw what appeared to be a lone stallion helping the foalnapped filly to her hooves when they arrived and all four of the griffins beaten and broken on the ground.

And upon seeing one of the griffins beginning to rise to get back into the fight, one of the guards got over her shock long enough to take aim and shot a bolt into the griffin’s head. This caused the rest of them to come to their senses and rush forward to detain the three remaining, unconscious griffins. One of the guards quickly scooped up Dinky’s hand to take her to her hysterical mother. The filly smiled gleefully at the fact that she’s no longer being threatened and called over her shoulder, “Thanks for saving me, mister!”

Samael couldn’t help but grin at the little girl’s praise as he waved at her retreating form, but his grin quickly turned into a nervous grimace as three of the guards closed in on him like three mother hens. He tried to answer, but they just kept interrupting and asking if he was hurt, if he needed to go to the hospital, how did he manage to beat four griffins by himself, how he wasn’t anything like anypony they’d ever seen, and he swore he caught an “Are you single?” in the bombardment of questions somewhere, but he couldn’t be too certain.

He held up his hands to try and get them to stop, blinking in slight surprise as they did so. Chuckling nervously as their attention was firmly on him, “Uhm, I uh...Well, I am sort of hurt, but BUT,” he held up his hands again as the guards opened their mouths to interrupt, “it’s not bad, it’s just some minor bruising, I’m sure. But uh...I may need some bandaging here-ERE!” As soon as he held up his left bicep for the guards to see, they quickly began pulling him in the direction of the hospital.

“WAIT WAIT WAIT!” Giving a nervous chuckle as the guards stopped, he stepped over to one of the griffins being detained and kneeled down to pull his knife out of her arm, “This is mine and I’m rather fond.” He smiled nervously to the guards attempting to escort him before wiping the blood clean on the griffin’s clothes and then closed the knife with a full twirl before tucking it into his pocket. He allowed the guards to grab hold of him again and this time followed them without (outward) protest.

‘Well, this is a first. Being patched up without being nagged at about how I should’ve been more careful. I think I prefer that given the alternative here.’ Samael thought sardonically as he listened to the admittedly cute nurse coo gentle encouragement to him in the most adorable Québécois accent he’d ever heard. She disinfected his wound gently and he fought the urge to roll his eyes as she called him “so brave” before she ran off to fetch the doctor.

He facepalmed as soon as the door was closed and soon wondered briefly if it would be worth it to make a break for it. Swearing softly to himself as the door handle turned as soon as the thought had occurred to him, a (thankfully) more taciturn doctor walked in and seated herself in the chair previously occupied by the nurse. The third thing he noticed after the first two most males would notice about this one was that she appeared have a horn sticking out of her head. Well, this must be one of those unicorns he’d read about.

Doctor Saccharine Smile tugged gently on this sweet stallion’s arm, eyeing his wound with professional interest and her mind certainly not focusing on how firm his muscles were. She wondered in the back of her head whether the vibrant colors on his arm depicting an emerald green snake coming out of a dark pink lotus flower was his special talent somehow and if so, what did it mean? She’d have to get Nurse Crème to ask in her stead since he seemed to like her, she had to be professional after all and she lit her horn to heal his wound.

‘Alright, noted. Horns do glowy things and…Hu-uh.’ Samael barely caught himself and kept himself from jumping as he felt the pain of his wound melt away, keeping his expression neutral as he watched the bleeding slow then stop, ‘Alright, staunch the bleeding, awesome. Won’t bleed out if I get shot as long as I have one of these guys near me and that’s super handy and pretty aweso—’ Externally, he remained neutral, but internally he was outright gobsmacked as his wound closed entirely. ‘I was not prepared for today. I don’t think anyone would be.’

“So uh, that’s me done, right? I can go and uh not be in this hospital anymore, right?” Samael attempted to stand to leave, but was held back by the doctor. ‘Oh no. Don’t do it, please don’t do what I think you’re going to do.’

“Oh no, mister. We have to make sure you’re at one hundred percent! That means a full examination!” Doctor Saccharine patted the poor dear’s arm reassuringly and stood up to allow him room to do so as well, picking up her clipboard and fighting an eager smile, “Now, shirt off, sweetie, I need to make sure that that chest pain you mentioned to Nurse Crème Fraîche isn’t anything more serious.”

He fought back an amused smirk and a snort of mirth at the nurse’s name, and sighed to himself in defeat as he stood up, “Fine, fine, but I’m telling you, it’s not serious.” Lifting his left arm and ignoring the doctor’s look of slight confusion, he reached over with his right hand, grabbed his left sleeve, and pulled up to pull off his shirt. It was always easier to do it that way with a ballistic vest restricting him otherwise. That and the tears in the back of his shirt stopped him from pulling it off from the collar without completely destroying it.

He then pulled off the ballistic vest and undershirt to reveal three silver-dollar sized bruises on his chest and stomach, ‘Hu-uh. Guess those bullets were a bit bigger than the 9mm I expected. But it seems like those morons don’t understand that you have to scale up the propellant too. Either that or it’s not as high quality as it could be. Good.’ The assassin fought his urge to jump back as the doctor practically lunged forward to examine his bruises with a look of deepest concern on her face, ‘...Please don’t, I don’t know if I can take it.’

“Oh, you poor thing!~ That looks very painful. But it’s a good thing you had that...armor?...on or else you’d be in a lot worse shape,” she fought to maintain her professional composure and lit her horn to heal those awful bruises. Doctor Saccharine tilted her head slightly at the fact that his right arm was also marked very vibrantly with what appeared to be crimson red snake-like dragon wrapped around his bicep, the tail down to his elbow and the head on his right pectoral. Her magic very quickly healed his bruises and she allowed herself to look a bit closer at these markings with fascination plain on her face.

Samael raised his eyebrow slightly as the doctor leaned in to gawk at his traditionally applied irezumi, “Do uh...Do you not know what tattoos are? Do I need to explain because...Kinda getting a little awkward here.”

“OH! Uh, no, no, sir! I was just curious, that’s all,” her mind clicked as she realized what he had said and her jaw dropped at the implications. She’d only known zebras and minotaurs to get tattoos and even those weren’t nearly as intricate as these, “I do know what tattoos are, but I’ve never seen any like yours before.” She grabbed his arm to bring it a bit closer as she stared, “They’re beautifully drawn! And very striking!”

‘Well, that’s a first. Usually I get asked if I got these in prison by some dumb bitch who doesn’t know better.’ “Thaaanks? Well, now that I’m all done here, I should probably be going now.” Gently pulling his arm from her grip, he was able to get his undershirt then ballistic vest back on and his shirt halfway on before he heard her speak again.

“Oooh nonononoNO, there’s all kinds of forms to fill out before you get to go anywhere, mister! And the fact of the matter is that because we have no record of you, we’ll also need to make those and get even more exams done and…” Her words seemed to go on forever as she enumerated various tasks he’d have to do while here, including a complete full body scan after some tests, body fluid samples needed to be taken, and many, many other things. It was at the point he had heard “especially semen” in there that he wondered how much trouble he’d be in should he decide to just drop the other flashbang and run.

A tingling in the back of his head stopped that train of thought in its tracks as another voice interjected directly into his brain, Discord’s, “That won’t be necessary, my impatient friend. Just let me handle this.” And before he could talk or think back, Discord popped into the room behind the doctor and she froze in place mid-blink.

Before Samael could even register what had just transpired, Discord had transported the two of them back into the safehouse living room. He looked around in complete surprise before giving Discord a grateful smile, “Teleportation, huh? A little warning next time would be nice, but thanks, that was getting kind of insane.” He then rushed upstairs to get a new shirt and to dig out the bullets stuck in his vest to check out later.

He came back down to find Discord playing with what appeared to be a cat toy, “I...What are you doing? You know what, no, don’t answer that. I’m fine with not knowing. What’s next on the agenda here? I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, but you seem to have a schedule in mind. So, if you don’t mind. Spill.” He sat down in his recliner as he eyed Discord expectantly.

“Hmph. Spoil sport. I wanted it to be a surprise, but if you MUST know,” Discord snapped his talons, making a tablet PC pop into existence in Samael’s hands, “Here, it’ll take some time, but I haven’t forgotten our deal. Your assistant gets all your assets with none of the hassle of those silly government officials wondering where all the money came from. If you have one final message to send to her, now will be the time to do so.”

Blinking in surprise before finally breaking into a true smile at this news, Samael looked down at the tablet for only a moment before smirking to himself as he decided to get the very last jab possible in and typed out his message with careful deliberation. He muttered under his breath, “Sorry, Lindsay, you’d do the same to me, but just know that I win our little game.” Reading his message back to himself, he smiled with satisfaction before tossing the tablet over to Discord, “Done.”

Discord grinned with appreciation at slight mischief amongst the sap before tapping on the screen once and making it vanish, “She should get it when she needs it the most. Now, there’s something else I may have neglected to mention.”

“And that would be…?” Already, Samael could tell that he wasn’t going to like this.

“Well, you’re about to have company. After all, word travels fast in this little town, especially with something as interesting as what you’ve done. I will say this: Try to be friendly if you can, it’ll help you a great deal in the long run.” With a sleazy grin, Discord popped out of existence once more to let his message sink in, only for his head to slide back into reality with a serious look, “Oh! Before I forget: you don’t know me, you don’t know how you got here, and you’re here to help.”

“I don’t get it. Who are you and what are you doing in my house? I just woke up and for some unholy reason, my house wasn’t where I left it last night. But as long as I’m here, I’ll try to help those who deserve it,” recited the assassin, prompting a look of satisfaction on Discord’s disembodied face before it disappeared once more. Not even ten seconds after he disappeared, a quiet yet firm knock sounded from the front door, ‘And it begins.’

Samael walked toward the door with a growing feeling of unease as he heard the voices pick up behind it, one voice scolding someone there for not knowing how to knock properly and then the door shook as apparently whoever had taken offense to the first one’s knocking prowess pounded on the door. He groaned agitatedly to himself as he realized that this was probably going to be a very lengthy visit and hoped he could keep it together long enough to get through it.

After all, his social skills pretty much amounted to just enough to get by to do his work, to negotiate the terms of agreement on a new job, and to pick up barflies for a one-night stand. Well, that and the only person he felt he could’ve talked to any time about anything and still be comfortable was quite possibly hundreds of billions of miles away or just plain did not exist in this reality, he’d have to ask Discord which it was.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Samael opened the door and aimed a bemused look at the owner of a cyan fist readying to knock again, “There’s a doorbell. You don’t have to break down my door.” He reached over and pressed the button, causing a loud buzz to sound from within the house, “Now, uh, what can I do for you ladies?”

Earlier that morning

Twilight Sparkle had not had a good morning today and the poor lavender unicorn had woken up far earlier than she had wanted. Between Princess Celestia’s worrying letter describing a new threat to Equestria that they simply couldn’t zap away with the Elements and the fact that the town was on high alert due to some suspicious activity from four rowdy and rude griffins from the day before, she’d been walking on tenterhooks since earlier this week, full of nervous tension. It didn’t help at all that a certain pink party pony was at her kitchen table babbling away in between full body tremors and eating her pancakes.

“...I’m telling ya, Twilight! This is going to be a big doozy of a doozy! I mean, the biggest doozy to ever doozy with whipped cream and hot fudge!...Speaking of, do you have whipped cream and hot fudge? Those would go GREAT on these pancakes!” Pinkie bounced up and down with both terrified excitement and Pinkie Sense in between bites.

Twilight rubbed her temples slowly, thanking Spike as he set down another plate of pancakes for her consumption, “No, Pinkie. And you’ve been shaking with that ‘doozy’ for almost thirty hours! When’s it even going to happen?!” A bite was halfway to her lips as an ear-piercing shriek shattered the uneasy calm of Ponyville and she sighed with resignation at the timing, “Save my pancakes for me, please, Spike?”

“You got it, Twilight. Fill me in on everything you can when you get back!” Spike gathered up the uneaten pancakes and placed them in the refrigerator as Twilight grabbed Pinkie’s hand and led her out of the kitchen.

“But Twilight! I wasn’t done yet!” pouted Pinkie as she was dragged away from her delicious breakfast, but she quickly fell into pace beside Twilight nonetheless as they raced toward Ponyville’s Guard Outpost. Just as they arrived, the entrance burst open and out raced a group of armed guards, hurrying toward the origin of the scream. And still, Pinkie could not stop bouncing up and down.

A white Earth Pony mare with a long, straight light green mane wearing golden armor stepped out to regard Twilight and Pinkie momentarily. She gave a brief salute before speaking in a moderate Neighponese accent, “Captain Peace Lily at your service, ladies. The rest of the Elements are safe. Please make your way inside.” She turned to enter before snapping her fingers and turning back, “Oh and try not to make Derpy worry any more than she already has. We just convinced her to calm down.”

Twilight and Pinkie followed her inside, passing a shaking, squirming gray Pegasus with a blonde mane and tail along the way. Derpy looked up and also down at the sounds of hooves before focusing on Pinkie. She very quickly jumped up and grabbed Pinkie’s shoulders firmly, begging and shaking her back and forth, “PINKIIIIIIE! YOU CAN SEE THINGS, RIGHT?! THE FUTURE?! PLEASE TELL ME DINKY’S GOING TO BE FINE!”

“I-I-I d-d-d-don’t-t-t-t-t kn-kn-kn-know-ow-ow-ow, Der-er-er-er-py-y-y-y,“ Pinkie’s voice vibrated as she was shaken before pulling Derpy into a tight hug, “Buuut!~ It’s better that I don’t know because if I did know something bad was gonna happen, then it would be bad. But I don’t know so that’s probably good!”

Oddly reassured by Pinkie’s words, Derpy sniffed and nodded as she slowly composed herself. Right as she was just about ready to sit back down, a quiet pop then shortly after a slightly louder pop in the distance reached the ears of everypony inside, followed by several more quiet pops. And that was all it took for Derpy to burst into tears, assuming the worst and clinging to Pinkie tightly.

“Shh...Shh, it’s alright, Derpy. I’m sure she’s fine. Go on ahead, Twilight. I’ll try and take care of Derpy.” Pinkie continued to whisper soothing words of encouragement to Derpy as Twilight very quickly stepped past.

“I swear! If any of those dumb griffins hurt anypony, I’ll kick ‘em into next week!...Oh, hi, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash paced back and forth as she wrung her hands together, straining her ears for more of those weird pops.

“I know, darling, it’s all looking much more serious than usual, isn’t it? To tell the truth, I almost miss the colorful megalomaniacs we’ve had to contend with,” intoned Rarity as she attempted to maintain her composure, worry written plainly on her face as a shaking Fluttershy had her face buried in the unicorn’s shoulder.

“Don’t you worry, girls. I’m one hundred percent certain that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have been working on a brilliant plan that’s sure to work! Besides, those griffins would’ve wanted to cause trouble with or without those weird weapons of theirs,” Twilight had a look of utter confidence in her mentor and mentor’s sister as she took an empty seat next to Applejack.

“I reckon so, Twi, but that still doesn’t stop me from worryin’ ‘bout mah family gettin’ hurt. Hay, Rainbow saw somethin’ ‘fore all this started that’s even more worryin’ cause the Princesses probably don’t know ‘bout it yet. Tell ‘er, Rainbow,” said Applejack as she nervously turned her hat over and over in her hands.

“What? Oh, right! That weird house,” Rainbow stopped to look Twilight in the eyes as she went on, “Part of the weather team pointed it out because they said they were getting some weird reflections in their eyes. Not too much trouble, I mean, there’s plenty of that from the lake. But then Flitter and Cloudchaser had to pull me over and point it out to me.”

She pulled up an empty chair as she finally decided to stop her nervous pacing, “It had to be one of the most out of place looking houses I’d ever seen. And I know for a fact that it wasn’t there yesterday! I had half a mind to go over and knock just to see what sort of pony put a house there that fast when a guard flew up and told me that I was supposed to be here to be kept safe.”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she considered Rainbow’s words and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, “That’s...That’s very strange, Rainbow. But it does explain the magical surge that made my thaumometer shatter and wake me up way early this morning. I’ll have to write a letter to Princess Celestia later. She’s probably so busy and stressed right now, she wouldn’t hear her phone ring. I know I wouldn’t if I were in her place.”

They waited in the tense outpost for something to happen, talking only to discuss what they should do and what possibilities awaited them in the form of the strange house. Before long, the atmosphere turned joyous as a guard escorted Dinky in to see her mother. They all turned their chairs to listen to Dinky’s excited story as she clung to Derpy.

“It was SOO scary, Mommy! Those griffins were pointing those weird thingies at me and calling me bait for more ponies. All I could do was curl up and hope they just went away,” Dinky shivered as she remembered her terror, but then her face lit up, “But then! Something amazing happened! I mean, it hurt my ears and it was scary at first, but this loud bang happened and then I just heard the griffins fightin’ somepony and getting hurt!”

Everypony exchanged shocked looks at the thought of a lone pony fighting four griffins and actually hurting them, but then quickly turned their attention back onto Dinky as she continued, “And then it got all quiet and then a really different stallion was asking if I was alright. He looked hurt, but he told me he was fine, so I looked and he didn’t really seem to have much wrong with him except his arm was bleeding a little and all four of those griffins were down on the ground!”

Captain Peace Lily let out a low whistle as the guard that had escorted Dinky into the outpost nodded her affirmation, “My kind of stallion. Four griffins and only a scratch? Sounds like he could handle some rough…” She quickly decided to cut herself off as she realized Dinky was looking at her with a deep curiosity, ”Uuh, customers. If they decide to take advantage of his business...If he had one.”

“I don’t believe it. How could one stallion take on four griffins and only get a scratch for his trouble? How could anypony take on four griffins and only get a scratch?! Even ones without those dumb weapons they have!” Rainbow crossed her arms with disbelief written plainly on her face even as Rarity started forward and gave the guard who had escorted Dinky a glowing smile.

“Ooh! Darling, you simply must tell me! Is he a guard too? Is he handsome~?” Rarity leaned in excitedly.

The guard blushed at the attention as she seemed to be the focus now that Dinky had told her story, “I’m not sure if he’s a guard or not, he didn’t seem to have armor on or a badge, but~,” her voice turned sly, “I didn’t exactly get a good look at his face, but he was definitely exotic. And he had a wonderful behind. The fact that he didn’t seem to have a tail made it really easy to check out those great foal-making flanks. He wasn’t very tall, but he was certainly the athletic type.”

“He didn’t have a tail?! But, every sapient species we know of has a tail unless they lost it somehow. What sort of creatu—” Twilight’s question was cut off as Rainbow Dash pointed out the window.

“Whoa, jeeze! If what you say is true and it really was just him, he really messed them up!” she said as she watched the guards outside carry the battered griffins past the outpost to the holding cells. Everypony gathered at the window to see except for Dinky whose eyes were being shielded by her mother.

For the second time, Captain Peace Lily let out a low whistle, “Wonder if he teaches ponies how to fight. I could use whatever training he has to teach my recruits...Whoa, look at that split beak! It takes a LOT to break a beak like that!” She shook her head slowly as she stepped back, “I’d better get to filling out paperwork now. After I report this. The Princesses will definitely want to know about this. Especially if somepony like that’s on our side.”

Twilight turned to the Captain and gave her a sweet smile as the rest of her friends all exchanged looks of varying degrees of excitement and trepidation, “Sooo...Danger over, Captain? We can leave?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’d think so, sure. Just don’t overwhelm the poor guy when you go to meet him,” Captain Peace Lily smirked as Twilight bristled with slight irritation at being caught. She waved them off as she headed for her office and grinned as she sat down, saying to nopony in particular as she pulled a pile of forms over to herself, “After all, I’d like to see what he’s got going on myself and I can’t do that if he’s surrounded by you lot.”

After getting confirmation that this new stallion had been taken to the hospital to be checked out and healed, the Elements arrived at the front desk only to be met by an irate Doctor Saccharine Smile.

“Yes, he was here, and I was working on getting his examinations and checkups done, but then I blinked and he was gone,” she crossed her arms with a slight scowl. “If you see that stallion, try to get him to come back for more tests.” The doctor glanced left and right before leaning in conspiratorially to whisper as her scowl softened, “I think the poor guy’s scared of hospitals. So break it to him gentle.”

“Oh. Oh, poor thing. I know exactly how he feels. Especially the needles…” breathed out Fluttershy as her face took on a look of sympathetic concern. It was all Rainbow could do not to laugh at the idea of an apparent tough stallion squealing like Fluttershy would at the sight of a needle. A cuff to the back of the head from Applejack was enough of a reprimand as Twilight promised the doctor to bring him back as soon as possible.

As they exited the hospital, it was Applejack who decided to bring up the obvious, “So. If’n the fella left the hospital, I'd imagine he left to rest up after a tryin' day, so then where is he restin’ up?” Each mare simply stared at each other blankly as they each wondered. All, except Pinkie.

“Well, DUH, silly fillies. If this new stallion is not like any we’ve seen before, then it’s totally obviously plain to see! After all, if a new stallion hasn’t been seen before then he’d totally be from somewhere we’d never seen before so that everypony there is somepony we haven’t seen before and so nopony there thinks like nopony here—” Pinkie’s run-on was swiftly cut off by Applejack reaching over and holding her muzzle shut.

“The point, Pinkie?” said Applejack as she slowly let go of Pinkie’s muzzle.

“I was getting there, AJ! No need to get your panties in a knot,” Pinkie stuck her tongue out foalishly at Applejack before continuing, “It’s SUPER obvious! It has to be that weird house Dashie saw!”

Every eye was on Rainbow Dash at Pinkie’s insight and she simply shrugged, “That’s as good a guess as any, I guess.” With that, she flew up in a flash and swiveled her head to and fro before pointing and calling down, “It’s that way, not too far from here! Race you there!” A flap of her wings and she was already zooming toward the house.

“GET YER KEISTER BACK HERE, RAINBOW! DON’T DO ANYTHING WITHOUT US!” Applejack called out as she sprinted after her. The rest of the mares simply shared a look that spoke volumes, all of them reading “Let’s just walk like sane ponies.”

By the time Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie made it to the house, Applejack and Rainbow were in full swing in an argument, Applejack’s voice ringing out, “An’ I’m tellin’ you, Rainbow, you can’t jus’ say that it’s a race and fly off, givin’ nopony a chance to even compete. An’ it’s just plain unfair to use your wings before anypony can react fast enough to stand a chance.”

Rainbow opened her mouth to counter, but was interrupted by Pinkie rushing forward, grabbing her hand, and dragging her to the door. Pinkie grinned excitedly as the rest of the mares neared the door, “Fighting later! New friend now!”

Rarity eyed the house with a critical eye, “My, my, once you get past the unique style of the house, it all comes together rather beautifully. Whoever designed this was a true artiste.” She stepped to the front smartly and looked back at her friends with a confident smile, “Let me talk to him first, darlings. I know how to talk to a stallion.” Before anypony could stop her or protest, she gave a delicate, ladylike, but still firm knock on the beautifully carved mahogany door.

Rainbow scoffed at Rarity’s wimpy knock as both Twilight and Pinkie bounced on their hooves, Twilight excited for meeting a new species to befriend and Pinkie excited simply for having somepony new to befriend. After a few moments of seemingly nothing, Rainbow scowled at Rarity, “How do you expect anypony to hear a knock like that, Rarity? They’d have to be able to hear a pin drop a mile away to hear that!”

She pushed Rarity aside, not enough to knock her over but enough to move her and enough to cause her to harrumph indignantly. Rainbow practically slammed her fist into the door hard enough to shake it on its hinges three times. Rarity hissed in her ear, “Rainbow, darling, you don’t have to be rude about it!” The cyan pegasus stuck her tongue out at Rarity before raising her fist to knock again just to spite her.

All eyes shot to the doorknob as it turned, causing Rainbow to freeze mid-knock and the door opened to reveal a frowning, exotic stallion with very striking features. Despite his not-quite-so-tall stature, his presence was tremendous, especially as each mare remembered that he had single-handedly beaten four griffins.

He briefly eyed Rainbow’s raised fist and then spoke in a deep, low tone that told them “I’m not loud because I don’t have to be to be heard.” as he gave Rainbow a reproachful look, “There’s a doorbell. You don’t have to break down my door.” He reached over onto the doorframe and pressed a button none of the mares had previously noticed, causing a very odd and loud buzz to sound from within the house, “Now, uh, what can I do for you, ladies?” He seemed to have a slight Neighponese accent, nearly unnoticeable quite possibly due to time taken to make it so.

Samael felt a little like a deer in headlights as he warily eyed the six very colorful ladies in front of his door, resisting the urge to slam the door in their faces as he saw the nearly identical eager grins on the purple one and the pink one. Before he could truly take in their appearances in any meaningful way, the white one stepped forward with purpose and poise. He realized that she was exactly as tall as he was.

Rarity noticed the stallion’s trepidation and gave him a reassuring smile as she elegantly held out her hand, “No need to be nervous, darling. My friends and I heard of your exploits and of your gorgeous home and we simply had to come and introduce ourselves! My name’s Rarity. And yours, darling?”

As his gaze landed on her hand, she drank in his appearance: a firm, well-managed frame spoke of athleticism, a lack of fur allowed a tanned complexion to show, and sadly his clothes were rather plain-looking but surely he had more stylish ones elsewhere. She then focused on his face, noting his smaller, yet striking amber eyes, his strong jawline, high cheekbones—she held back a gasp at the prominent scars under his left eye—, and simply gorgeous and unique dark mane with that contrasting light streak above his right eye—she noted with slight amusement that half of his right eyebrow was similarly colored, ‘Oh my, they were right. Definitely exotic. Handsomely disheveled on top of that.’

Samael attempted to keep his expression neutral as he made use of the opportunity in front of him, making quick note of her hand having one less finger than a human’s and then focusing past it, ‘Wow, those are some pretty nice tits. And a three diamond insignia over the left one? Classy. And the foppish accent is a nice touch too.’ A quick, practiced visual scan took in her appearance: a white horn preceded her deeply purple, styled hair, her clothes looked designer with the black sleeveless shirt showing her slender arms and outlining her breasts and slender waist nicely, and her midnight blue dress pants emphasizing her rather sizeable hips and slender legs with a curly tail that matched her hair trailing behind her.

Slowly, he lifted his hand to hers, giving a start as he realized he had his SAP gloves still on and quickly pulled the right glove off to shake her hand gently, “Uuh, it’s Ken’ichi Sammuels, but I kind of prefer to be called ‘Samael’. It’s a nickname I kinda picked up and it just...stuck.” His expression gave way to a nervous attempt at an ingratiating smile and he glanced back as he let go of her hand to take off his other glove, “I guess, come inside?” He tucked his gloves into the front of his belt as he turned to walk inside.

Rarity stifled a gasp at his extra finger, but realized that he was definitely nervous, whether about all the mares at his door or that he was just not an extrovert. She blinked as Ken—Samael invited them inside despite any misgivings he may have had and she smiled with satisfaction over her shoulder at her friends before leading the way in behind the seemingly sweet stallion.

Samael kept his breathing steady as he made his way to the living room, noting the sounds of hooves behind himself. His thoughts screeched to a halt as he heard one of them shout out a “Pinkie, don’t!” and then he saw a pair of arms wrap around his shoulders from behind. Every fiber of his being screamed at him that he was being attacked even as he heard “HI! I’M PINKIE—!” With that, he planted his feet, grabbed the arms assaulting him, and twisted, pulling the arms up over his head and sending his attacker sailing through the air in one deft move.

Pinkie let out a squealing “WEEEEE!” as she flew through the air before landing on a comfy couch with her legs hanging over the back and she giggled as she looked at everypony upside down, “AGAIN! AGAIN! That was fun fun FUN!”

‘They’re trying to kill me. Oh, not directly no, they’re trying to give me a fucking heart attack! WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER?!’ Samael desperately fought to bring his heart rate back down to normal levels as he felt all the eyes on his back, ‘Oh shit, oh shit, don’t be mad, don’t be mad.’

The cyan one with the rainbow hair stepped in front of him with a look of excitement, “Dude! That was awesome! I’ve never seen anypony get flipped like that outside of the movies. Good thing you aimed for the couch or else Pinkie might’ve been hurt.”

Samael glanced back and forth between Pinkie, this cyan one, and the rest of their friends, noticing that the purple one was glaring more at Pinkie than him. The orange one was looking at him with frank amazement, and the yellow one was avoiding his gaze by hiding behind Rarity who was also glaring at Pinkie. He then turned his gaze back on the one in front of himself, “Aim?...Yes! Aimed. That is a thing that happened.”

Letting out a soft sigh of relief he didn’t know he had been holding in, the man stepped over to his recliner and sat down, motioning for the rest of them to do the same. A purple glow encased Pinkie, flipping her right-side up and most of them took a seat on the couch with her. Most of them because the cyan one decided that the couch was too good for her and decided to sit in his lap as though she belonged there, boldly wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

The purple one bristled as she noticed her friend’s choice of chair and puffed her cheeks cutely, “Rainbow!”

“There’s no room on the couch, Twilight! Besides, I’m not hurting anything...Right?” asked Rainbow as she turned her head back to Samael, who had been regarding her with an intrigued gaze before she turned her attention on him and simply shook his head as he leaned back into his chair, “Yeah, see?”

“Well, now that we’re all apparently nice and comfortable, darlings. Why don’t the rest of you properly introduce yourselves?” said Rarity as she shot a pointed glare at Rainbow.

Twilight cleared her throat before offering a sweet smile, “Hello, Mr. Samael! I’m Twilight Sparkle, the town librarian and Princess Celestia’s personal student!”

He had to smirk at the honorific before giving her a nod, looking around Rainbow at the purple unicorn. She had on a plain white blouse tucked into a rather conservative black skirt with her dark purple hair and tail straight, a slightly lighter purple stripe and a pink stripe being the only other features. When he had seen her earlier, he noted she was at least three or four inches shorter than himself and while her figure was not as much an hourglass as Rarity’s, it was still a gorgeous one.

Pinkie bounced up and down in her seat, either not noticing or simply not caring that her plump breasts were bouncing with her along with her exceedingly curly, dark pink hair and tail, “OH OH! ME NEXT! As I was trying to say before you sent me on that amazetastic flight, my name’s Pinkie Pie! I bake all kinds of delicious goodies over at Sugarcube Corner! Wanna be friends?”

Samael watched the excitable pony bounce as she introduced herself and blinked at her straightforward question, “Uuh...Sure? I guess?” His answer seemed to please her as she let out an exuberant “YAY!” He had seen earlier that she was even shorter than Twilight, trying to keep his mind off her bouncing by taking in her outfit and general appearance. A light blue t-shirt with a cutesy graphic of a cat clinged to her thick curves and assets down to her white capri shorts that seemed to strain against her generous bottom, ‘Jeeze, I bet if this chick stopped moving, she’d go from curvy cutie over to obese in half an hour.’

His eyes fell on what had been the shortest one as she had easily been five feet tall on the dot, the yellow one with wings and he fought back a snort of mirth as she let out a soft, cute “eep!” before trying to hide her face behind her hands and lengthy light pink hair. The orange one rolled her eyes before drawling out in a Southern twang as she wrapped a reassuring arm around the yellow one’s shoulders, “This here’s Fluttershy, she’s a bit of a wallflower, partner. She’s Ponyville’s best animal handler and vet.”

Fluttershy slowly lowered her hands at the orange one’s encouragement, her hair still hiding one of her eyes and gave him a demure smile and wave. Samael smirked with amusement as he returned the wave, trying not to look as though he were checking her out as he did so. She was slight, but not really what one would call thin with shapely hips and with very modestly sized breasts, barely handfuls. All this contained within a red belly shirt with a matching long skirt.

The orange one let go of Fluttershy to give a genial wave and smile as she sat up then tilted her stetson, “Name’s Applejack. My family runs Sweet Apple Acres and we grow most of Equestria’s apples!” She smiled proudly as she leaned into the back of the couch.

Samael gave her a nod as he noticed that everything about this farmer practically screamed “power”, from her well muscled yet still feminine arms, to her wide shoulders, her defined abs, and her long, firm legs that easily made up most of her six foot height. He felt a great deal of amusement at the fact that she had her blonde hair was a ponytail. As was her tail.

He tried not to compare her to a certain southern belle from that one show in the 80’s, but it was hard not to as she had on the exact outfit that the character had made famous. Except Applejack’s shirt was short-sleeved and barely contained her sizeable breasts and he could practically hear the denim around her large, firm ass screaming as it hugged her tightly.

As all this was going on, the man was too distracted to notice Rainbow following along with the introductions at first, but after brushing up against it she started poking at his ballistic vest with a look of deep confusion. So when he looked down at her and finally noticed, “Uuuh...What are you doing?”

Rainbow jumped at being addressed, but still kept poking, “Trying to figure out what the hay this is.” Before he could explain, she reached down and pulled the bottom of his shirt up to his neck, staring at the vest for a few seconds before looking up at him with an extremely confused look, “What even is this thing?” All other eyes were glued to the vest the moment it was revealed before they all looked at him expectantly.

Samael briefly wondered what he did to deserve this, ‘Oh right, the murders.’ before sighing and rubbing his right temple slowly, “It’s body armor, I wear it almost all the time.” He looked around and noted the varying looks of confusion, along with two excited looks from Rarity and Twilight, “Don’t worry about it. Now it’s your turn.” He nodded down at Rainbow as he pulled his shirt back down.

“What? Oh. Right,” the cyan pegasus let a cocky grin light up her face, ”The name’s Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in Equestria, leader of Ponyville’s weather team, and future Wonderbolt!”

‘There were a whole lot of words in there I didn’t understand, but I don’t even care anymore, I just want this day to be over already and it’s not even noon,’ thought Samael as he continued to rub at his temple before looking down at Rainbow Dash. Where Applejack's musculature was all about power, this one's seemed to be all about speed, ‘Makes sense considering her claim to be the fastest. But I wonder how fast she’d be without those great tracts of land weighing her down.’

It had taken and continued to take a monumental effort not to think about these ladies too in depth enough to let Rainbow feel it having an effect on him, but she really made it difficult to do so. She certainly lived up to her name with her sleek frame and rainbow striped hair and tail. She had foregone a normal top in favor of a navy blue sports bra with spaces for her wings to poke out and the matching basketball shorts did nothing to hide her athletic hips and legs.

Rarity gave a sudden sound of realization, “Oh I just remembered! I didn’t tell you what I do, darling,” and she smiled as she placed a hand to the insignia on her shirt, “I am Ponyville’s premiere fashionista! I specialize in mares’ clothes, but I do dabble in stallion wear from time to time. You should come by my boutique at some point, darling. I’d love to see you in some formal wear. I’m sure I could whip something up that’ll just bring out your exotic features and go brilliantly with your mane!”

“Oh! Yeah! Your mane looks so terrifimazing!” said Pinkie Pie as she smiled widely at the stunned man.

‘Computing. Genuine compliment about your hair. Respond appropriately.’ “Uuuh. Thank you, I grew it myself.” ‘DAMMIT!’ Samael tried not to cringe at himself.

Pinkie Pie tittered as her toothy smile threatened to overtake her face, “That’s funny! Now, what do you do, mister mister?”

‘...Roll with it.’ He considered for a split second before deciding on using his old cover. After all, what better way to hide the truth than to stretch it? “Well, I’ve been self-employed for a while after quite some time of doing some community work. I’m an entrepreneur to say the least.” Well, it was kind of hard to get steady work as an assassin, so he had to run his own “business.” And the crime syndicate he had worked for before he had gotten out had certainly been very community oriented when they weren’t milking it for all it was worth.

Applejack bit back her skeptical remark. That had seemed far too well-rehearsed to be the entire truth, but it did seem to be true for the most part and that was the weird part. What could he want to hide about running his own business? Her mind zoomed into overdrive before finally settling on something highly inappropriate, ‘Oh. Oh, my apples. That would be somethin’ he would wanna hide if it came down to it. After all, a respectable stallion probably wouldn’t wanna be known for owning a call-stallion service. Especially someplace he could get away from it.’

Samael raised an eyebrow as Applejack went from looking like she wanted to interrupt to trying to hide a hard blush, ‘Do I want to know?...Side note, how the hell does someone blush through fur? That is an achievement!’

“Community work, you said, darling? And that odd armor?” Rarity gave a dramatic gasp before looking at him with a wide smile and twinkling eyes, “Were you a guard, darling?”

“I...Uh. Well, I have done some bodyguard work in the past if that’s what you mean, but, uh, if you mean if I’ve been an officer of the law, then no.” Samael squirmed a little uncomfortably underneath Rainbow Dash.

She didn’t even seem to notice as her mind clicked, “Dude! If you were a bodyguard, that must be how you were able to totally beat down those griffins with only a scratch...Hey, what’s this?” her attention span proved to be too much for her as she noticed his right sleeve lift up a bit and she rolled it up to reveal his dragon tattoo.

Rainbow Dash shifted herself so that her friends could see it as well, prompting Twilight Sparkle to speak up with scientific interest, “Oh! Does your species get cutie marks too?”

‘...Did she just...What...WHAT IS GOING ON?!’ Blatant confusion overtook Samael’s face at Twilight’s question before he finally answered, “I...No! I don’t know what a cutie mark even is, but this is a tattoo. More specifically, it’s a traditional irezumi, applied by hand. There’s nothing cute about—Will you stop that?” Rainbow Dash had switched sides again to show his left arm.

She pinned her ears back at the sudden scolding, giving him a deeply apologetic look, “Whoa, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean anything by it, dude!”

Rubbing his temple once more, Samael sighed, “It’s...It’s fine, I just...Just ask next time. Now, if you don’t mind, I really need a drink and I’m sure you all would like one too,” and pushed against Rainbow Dash softly. She nodded in understanding as she stood up to let him walk into the direction of the kitchen.

The eyes of each mare followed his exit, each of them realizing the truth of the statement regarding his lack of tail and that it made it easier to appreciate his backside. The odd thing about it was that unidentifiable device sticking out from under his shirt, seemingly hooked onto his belt. As he disappeared, five sets of reproachful eyes all landed on Rainbow.

“Uuuh...Well, I better go help with those drinks since there’s so many of us,” muttered Rainbow as she nervously laughed before quickly making her exit to follow Samael, leaving the rest of the mares with their thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

“Hard to believe such a shy fella could beat the feathers offa four griffins by himself,” said Applejack.

“Well, darling, what bothers me is that even if he can defend himself against such weighted odds, he’s still here by himself without any support from a nice herd to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. I do wonder if he’s looking,” Rarity smiled as she turned pensive.

Applejack chuckled as she glanced back where he had disappeared, “If he ain’t, I’m sure we can convince him otherwise.”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to politely scold Applejack and to remind her that he shouldn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, but let out a soft squeak as Twilight suddenly exclaimed, “Oh wow! Look at this! What do you think it is?” She was up and examining a big rectangular object made of glass and what looked like a type of shiny black plastic on a stand.

“I don’t know if you should be messin’ with that, sugarcube. I don’t wanna know what Sam sounds like when he’s mad,” Applejack stood up to pull Twilight back to the couch, but stopped in her tracks as Twilight pressed a button she had been examining on the side, the object lighting up with a bright blue light and a bit of yellowish white text in the upper right corner reading “Video 01: No Signal.”

Every jaw dropped as they noticed the very bright color of the television set and Applejack was the first to speak up after letting out an extended whistle, “Well, I reckon the fella’s business musta been a good one! A TV that big is expensive and this one’s gotta be the fanciest lookin’ one I’ve ever seen.”

Meanwhile, Twilight was puzzling out the text at the top of the screen, “No signal? What could that mean? Hmm…” She looked around on the stylish shelf the television was sitting on as she mumbled, “Something here has got to do something about that.”

“Uuh, Twilight? Maybe you shouldn’t be poking around in there. Samael might not like that and he could explain when he gets back…” Fluttershy practically whispered, frowning as Twilight didn’t seem to hear her.

Rarity cleared her throat and grabbed Twilight’s tail in her magic, dragging her back even as the lavender unicorn reached into a hole for an oddly shaped black box, “Darling, you don’t know what all that does, so stop before you break something.”

“But, Rarity! I was just trying to figure it out!” protested Twilight as she struggled against the magic. Applejack picked Twilight up with great ease once she was close enough and placed her back on the couch, where she pouted cutely, “You can’t tell me you’re all not curious either!”

“Of course, we are, silly filly! That’s why we’re here, duh! I’m sure our new friend will want to answer any questions we might have!” said Pinkie as she climbed onto Twilight’s lap to give her pouty friend a friendly hug and nuzzle to cheer her up.

As all this transpired, Samael let out a slight sigh of relief at the momentary peace he had managed to procure, ‘Is this seriously going to be a common occurrence? I’m starting to think I should’ve stayed on Earth, killing people. At least that wasn’t as hard as this is.’ He opened the fridge and went over the drink choices for himself and his guests. The urge to start swearing at the top of his lungs rose from within as he heard a pair of hooves approaching, ‘Of course. How silly of me.’

“Thought I’d come and see if you needed any help in here,” called out Rainbow Dash as she entered the kitchen and she pinned her ears back slightly as she noticed him tense up, “But uh...If you don’t need it, I get it.”

Samael sighed as he stood up straight to regard her in his peripherals, “It’s fine. Sure, yeah, help. I don’t mind. Anything you ladies may want or what?” He opened the door a bit further and stepped to the side to allow her to look too. She wore an excited grin as she stepped up next to him and peered into the refrigerator.

“You got any apple cider —Whoa! What’s this?” asked Rainbow Dash as she reached in to grab one of two big green plastic bottle filled with a fizzy liquid, the other one appearing unopened. She stared at the label curiously, “Sprite?...Is it any good?” and muttered to herself as she continued to read down the label, “Lemon-lime...soda? What’s a soda? Like baking soda?”

Samael smiled to himself at her confusion, ‘And it’s moments like this that make me sort of glad I’m here, to be honest.’ and guided her out of the fridge while she stared down at the bottle, “Yeah, it’s pretty good. And do you know what seltzer water is?” He reached up to the cabinet to begin taking out glasses and raised an eyebrow as she wrinkled her nose a little, ‘Why is that so adorable?’

“Yeah, I know what it is. Pinkie likes to spray everypony with it as a joke and it’s alright when it’s mixed with alcohol. You’re saying this stuff is just premixed seltzer?” asked Rainbow Dash as she handed him the bottle with a curious expression and watched as he poured a little into a glass.

“Sort of, but this isn’t alcoholic. Try some,” he said as she cautiously grabbed the glass and watched as she sniffed it a little before taking a sip. He had to stop himself from laughing as she rubbed at her nose after drinking it all down.

“Wow! That’s actually pretty good. Tickles the snout, but good. I think everypony will love it! Hay, if you find the right pony to give some to, they might even be able to make more,” Rainbow Dash said as she handed the glass back for a refill. He raised an eyebrow at this, but shrugged as he filled each glass.

“So, uh, if you don’t mind my asking, how in the world did you beat up those griffins without anything more than a scratch?” she leaned in to watch him pour and tried not to flinch as he gave her an appraising look.

“The element of surprise and years of training,” Samael muttered as he looked around for a tray to carry all those glasses on and handed her the bottle, waving her over to the fridge.

“Whoa, really? That’s so awesome!” she quickly put the bottle into the refrigerator and turned back to him with an excited look on her face, “What sort of training? Karate, boxing? I’m a black belt in karate myself.” Rainbow Dash stepped over and began to help placing the glasses on the tray after he set it out.

He blinked as she picked up the tray once all the glasses were on as he considered her question, “Well, I do know a bit of karate and boxing, but I’m a Rank 2 Expert in Krav Maga. I would be a bit further up in ranks, but my teacher kinda stopped teaching me after I accidentally broke his leg.” ‘And his arm and his neck. And it wasn’t an accident. He shouldn’t have tried to blackmail me like he did.’

Rainbow Dash flashed a look of confusion at him, “Krav Ma-what? What the hay is that?” She followed him out of the kitchen, carefully carrying the drinks to make sure they don’t spill.

“It’s a martial art made up of all kinds of different other martial arts, but focusing less on flashy moves and more on actual combat. It’s not the only thing I’ve studied, but it’s by far one of the most practical.” he said as he grabbed a glass from the tray and stared as he noticed his TV was on. He shook his head slowly as he sat down in his recliner, ‘Not going to ask.’

Rainbow Dash set the tray of drinks down on the table and grabbed a glass for herself, seating herself back in Samael’s lap with a smile, “Drink up, girls! It’s good stuff. But watch out, it kinda tickles your snout on the way down.” To set an example, she took a lengthy swig, rubbing at her snout afterwards.

“Ooh! It’s fizzy like seltzer!” Pinkie Pie was the first mare brave enough to gulp down this new drink and she giggled wildly as she wiggled her snout around, “Oooh!~ It does tickle! And it’s yummy!”

The rest of the mares exchanged looks before each grabbed a glass and took a tentative sip. Twilight Sparkle gasped before looking down at the liquid with an intensely curious stare of scientific interest, Rarity gave a soft hiccough before smiling with an “Mm!” and taking another lady-like sip, Applejack licked her lips at the taste before downing the glass all in one, and Fluttershy gave a tiny, adorable sneeze after her sip, but then continued to take tiny sips afterwards.

“That’s a mighty fine drink you gave us there, partner! Well, I'd reckon it'd be even better mixed in with some Sweet Apple Acres cid—” Applejack’s voice died off when her stomach gurgled and then she opened her mouth in a raucous belch, “Ahem...Pardon.” Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack herself began to giggle madly at the offended look on Rarity’s face.

“Really, darling! It’s good you excused yourself, but there’s no reason to do that in front of—” Rarity’s remonstrations were cut off by another, much louder and deeper belch.

“Eep...Excuse me,” whispered Fluttershy as her face turned a very bright red which she then attempted to hide behind her mane.

“Well, uh...Better out than in. Especially if it was that much,” said Samael with amusement lacing his tone.

Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat with purpose as she motioned to the TV, “Mr. Samael? Do you think you could tell us how that television works? All I could do was get it to turn on.”

Samael turned his gaze onto the TV, “I was wondering why it was on. But uh...At the moment, all it can do is that, really. My usual service isn’t exactly...Here. But it can still play movies at least.” At their confused looks, he held up his hands to stop their questions before they started, “Listen, I apologize, but I can show you this later, but right now, can we please just move on to more important things?” ‘Like my privacy and getting some peace and quiet for the first time since I’ve been here. And maybe something to eat.’

Sorrowful disappointment seemed to be the common theme of their expressions at the moment before he sighed and said, “That and there’s not a movie in the player. I’d have to get out from under your friend, pick out a movie that you’d all enjoy, put it in, wait for it to play, and it’s just a hassle when we’d just stop it very soon after.”

Rarity was the first to brighten up, “Oh, of course, darling! How about a tour of your lovely home? That should kill some time before lunch. If you want, maybe you could come with us?” She suddenly blushed as he stared at her, “As friends, of course! You don’t have to if you don’t want to, darling!”

Raising an eyebrow at the curious non sequitur, Samael just shrugged and nodded, “Fine, fine, sure. I’m getting kind of hungry anyway.” He nodded toward Rainbow Dash who reluctantly stood up to allow him to do so as well, “Well, uh...Here’s the living room, obviously.” Downing his drink to hide his tense gulp, he set his glass down on the tray and led the mares into the kitchen, “This is the kitchen. I try to keep it well stocked since cooking’s a bit of a hobby of mine.” He stopped as he heard Pinkie Pie gasp loudly and took a slight step back as she practically teleported in front of him.

“Ooh! Do you bake? Do you want to exchange recipes?!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly as she smiled so wide, it looked like her mouth was about to pop off of her face. Samael tried not to flinch as he gave her a reluctant smile.

“I, uh, yeah. Sure? I guess? If there’s something you’d probably like, I’ll let you know,” he said as Pinkie Pie seemed to get more and more excited until she finally threw her arms around him in a firm hug.

‘Excitable this one is, many moments like these I sense in the future,’ Samael thought as he returned her hug briefly, hoping that would satisfy the overly friendly pony and feeling a sense of relief when she let go shortly after.

“Aww! You didn’t throw me this time! That was funnerific! But I guess there’s no place to throw me here where I wouldn’t get hurt or break anything, is there?“ giggled Pinkie Pie as she rejoined her friends with a bounce in her step. While that situation had resolved, the rest of the mares were simply blown away by the advanced appliances.

Yet again, Samael was hit with a torrent of questions, which he answered curtly and succinctly. They all seemed especially enthralled with the microwave and the fact that such a compact device could be used to heat up whole meals in a matter of minutes, Twilight Sparkle bouncing forward with a manic smile on her face. With his hesitant agreement, she squealed with happiness as she would come back later with enough paper and quills to put these amazing devices to print for reproduction.

For the third time that day, he was assaulted with a hug from an excitable pony, ‘Why couldn’t Discord have warned me about this?...Oh right, I interrupted him then the thing happened. Oh well, better get used to it, I guess.’ He motioned for them to follow him back out after she let go. His impromptu tour was stopped by the mares musing over a keypad next to a locked door.

“Hey! What’s the deal with this door and these numbers?” asked Rainbow Dash as she held out a finger to press one of the numbers at random and jumped as his hand closed over hers, pulling it back firmly but gently.

“That’s my basement. I usually use it as a training space, but right now, it’s got a few things down there I need to sort through,” muttered Samael, letting go of her hand once he was sure she wouldn’t try to mess with the keypad, “And those numbers are a way of keeping the door locked in case of thieves. Anyone can use a key if they have it, but only those who know the correct sequence of numbers can get inside this door.”

“Oh! We have spells that do things like this. In fact, there’s one that most ponies like to have applied to lockboxes, doors, bags, and many sorts of things. Sometimes even without the locking aspect because it’s a very easy way to get your cutie mark onto something you own,” said Twilight Sparkle excitedly as she looked at the keypad at every angle she could.

‘Didn’t ask, sweetheart, but thanks for the...Wait, there it is again.’ “Uuh. Cutie mark? What’s a cutie mark?” he asked as he simultaneously dreaded the answer, ‘This is bound to be either very stupid or very boring.’

Twilight Sparkle seemed to gleam with happiness at the chance to lecture and turned her attention onto Samael entirely, “Well, a cutie mark is a representation of a pony’s special talent. It magically appears on a pony’s flanks and shoulders once they figure out their talent. For example,” she lifted the sleeve of her blouse to show off her starry mark, “Mine is magic.”

‘Yep, pretty stupi—Wait. Flanks? Is that their sides or...Wait, no. They’re equines so that means butts. Damn. Too bad it’s on their shoulders too, I imagine there’d be some fun times if they were constantly flashing their asses just as much as they would their shoulders. It’d certainly make this a hell of a lot more interesting,’ Samael nodded his understanding, “Got it. Cutie mark equals special talent. Yours is magic.” Twilight Sparkle beamed with happiness at having taught him something as she let her sleeve fall.

The rest of the mares showed off their cutie marks one at a time while stating their talents with proud smiles on their faces, even Fluttershy. He had listened to each one, making abbreviated notes in his head: Rarity made things pretty, Applejack grew apple trees well, Rainbow Dash was fast, Pinkie Pie liked to throw parties, and Fluttershy worked with animals, ‘I can’t tell if I’d be more or less interested in all this if I were being shown their asscheeks while they went on about this.’

Samael continued the tour of the bottom floor of his safehouse, ‘Ugh, really wish I had Lindsay here to do this. This is so damn exhausting.’ When they came to his office space, Twilight Sparkle squealed with excitement as she looked at the full bookshelves all around, ‘And at this point, Lindsay would be strangling her. Or asking me to do it. So, probably a good thing she’s not here.’

He winced as Twilight Sparkle practically begged him to let her borrow some of his books. He agreed as long as they could finish up this tour and then go get something to eat finally. Yet again, the assassin, a man who made those who knew his reputation piss their pants in pure terror, was pulled into an excited hug, ‘I feel like I’m on Full House right now.’

On the far end of the hallway from the office more often used by Lindsay than Samael was his weight room, his room of zen relaxation. A room that would receive vigorous use in the very near future once he had some peace and quiet. He noticed all the mares had gone quiet for once and when he turned back to them, he was at a complete loss, ‘Alright, what the hell? These chatterboxes can’t possibly be that stunned about weights and treadmills. It’s not that difficult a concept!...Are they all wagging their tails?...’

As his gaze fell on their tails, each mare was taking in the thick, otherworldly masculine musk that hung thick in the air, their nostrils flaring and their tails swishing back and forth rhythmically. He jumped as he heard two distinct *POMF* sounds, looking around before finally noticing Rainbow Dash’s and Fluttershy’s extended wingspans, ’I...What? Why?’

The sounds of the pegasi’s wings jumping to attention were enough to snap the rest of them out of their stupors and at the look of confused curiosity on Samael’s face, deep blushes lit up each mare’s face. He closed the door behind himself as they all made a hasty exit, smirking smugly on the inside ‘Ooh. I get it now. Suck it, Lindsay, these gals like my testosterone...But what was with the wings? Oh well, questions for another time.’

Samael shrugged as he continued to lead the tour on, sighing to himself as they headed upstairs and hoping they didn’t notice that a big stretch of wall was where some rooms would logically be. He smirked with satisfaction as they gawked at the fact that he had a second TV upstairs. Once they were over that, the mares all looked at confusion at the intricate setup of many generations of games consoles in front of the very comfortable looking couch and the shelves brimming with games.

“Look, I’ll show you what those do in the future, but uh. Kinda hungry. We should probably save the rest for later,” said Samael as he ushered them out of the room, ignoring their protests. His patience for this whole situation was already stretching thin and his creeping hunger was only making it worse.

“I...suppose we should get something to eat. It’s been a long day for us too,” said Twilight Sparkle as she smiled appeasingly, making a mental note to ask him why there weren’t so many rooms on the second floor of his home as they made their way downstairs, “But there’s something that’s been bothering me a little bit. I was hoping of a more tactful time to ask or even something that gave us a hint. But...If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly is your species called?”

‘Ah, hm. I was wondering when that’d come up.’ “Well, uh, if you must know, I am—” *KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* Samael was cut off as a three hard, purposeful knocks came from the front door, “—getting a little bit annoyed. Excuse me.” He walked over to the door with an expression of consternation as Twilight Sparkle fumed behind him at the interruption.

Samael opened the door briskly and again began to feel like a deer in headlights as he saw the two mares at his door. Both were pure white and taller than him. One had on the gaudiest armor he’d seen similar to that of the guards he had met earlier, only gold with purple trim and matching purple pants over a full yet firm figure. She had a very surprised, yet curious and appraising expression as she looked down at him from behind her light green mane’s fringe.

While this mare in armor was just as tall if not only a little shorter than Applejack, she did not compare with the Amazon behind her. This one was easily only a foot shorter than the griffins from earlier. She was wearing an elegant stormy gray gown over her luscious figure, what looked like a giant golden necklace set with an amethyst gemstone over her gargantuan yet perky breasts, and her gown did nothing to hide the widest hips he’d ever seen. He tilted his head back a bit to look at the calm and motherly smile on her face before his eyes found her crown in the same style as her necklace.

“Well then, when I was told you were athletic and exotic, they certainly weren’t kidding.” His attention turned back to the guard as she started speaking with a slight Japanese accent, one whose area he could not place, “Allow me to introduce myself. Captain Peace Lily,” said the guard as she gave a polite bow, “And it is my glorious honor to present her royal highness, Princess Celestia. May we come in?”

Author's Notes:

This was fun to write. Please leave any and all errors in the comments, it's greatly appreciated.

If the consensus is that this chapter's on the long side, I'll attempt to bring it down in the future, but if everyone likes it, I'll try to keep it up.

That said, a few things: Samael seems nervous when meeting the Mane 6, but in the Prologue, he was cool, collected, etc. Well, that's because he's been doing what he's done in the Prologue for years. He's not used to the idea that he needs to make friends and if he treated them like business partners, he'd be cold and distant. Not very good for his progress.

He has a ton of video game consoles. Why? Because I like vidja games and he needs a way to unwind and kill time that won't destroy his muscles.

Ponies are firmly around the late 80's-mid 90's in tech including cell phones, with some discrepancies because I like the idea of introducing unique concepts to them. Like soda and pizza. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

And yes, the Captain of the Ponyville district guard is a Japanese Peace Lily because I likes me some Hot Fuzz.

Chapter 2 - Privacy is a Relic of a Bygone Age

View Online

Earlier that morning

Captain Peace Lily rolled her wrist around to work out the cramps after she had finally finished filling out incident and evidence reports. She eyed the phone on her desk warily, having left a message for Princess Celestia to call back at her earliest convenience. Maybe she should have specified? The Earth pony leaned back in her chair, stretching out the kinks in her back.

A bright flash in the room caused the Captain to lean too far back and fall backwards with her chair, a slightly hysterical and familiar voice sounding out when the flash faded, “Captain Peace Lily!? What happened!? Are my ponies hurt!? ARE MY ELEMENTS UNHARMED!?”

Princess Celestia looked around the room frantically until she heard a soft groan behind what she had originally thought was an unmared desk. She peered over down into the pained face of her poor Captain of the Ponyville Guard. A moment passed and Princess Celestia gave the mare on the floor an apologetic smile, using her magic to pick her up and set her on her hooves gently, “Apologies, Captain. I may have overreacted.”

Captain Peace Lily brushed herself off, looking down at her now broken chair forlornly, “Understandable, my Princess. I admit I should’ve been less vague in my message.” She straightened up and saluted Princess Celestia, waiting until she returned the salute to go at ease, “There has been an incident with the Griffin Butcher’s Club, but Ponyville has suffered no damage and neither has her citizens.”

Princess Celestia let out a breath of relief she didn’t know she had been holding in, smiling inwardly at the unofficial name given to those awful griffins, “That is wonderful news, Captain. Those letters of condolence are always so heartbreaking for even the larger herds and especially for me to sign off on them. Your guards must be very proud of themselves for resolving the situation so cleanly.”

“Well...you see, my Princess...my guards didn’t exactly...do much,” said the Captain with a very nervous smile which only grew more nervous at her Princess’s bewildered look. She stepped over to her desk, sorting through the papers before pulling out the relevant incident reports, “You see, we were mobilizing when we heard a filly by the name of Dinky Hooves had been taken on her way into school by four eaglesses. By the time we got there, they were all laid out and broken...by a single stallion.”

The look of sheer shock on Princess Celestia’s face caused Captain Peace Lily no shortage of amusement, even as she held the reports out to the princess. The reports were practically yanked from her grip as the princess tried to push aside her disbelief. Her pink eyes skimmed the reports rapidly for the details, “Split beak, cracked skull...skulls, fractured sternum, broken arm at the elbow, broken leg at the...knee!?, dislocated wing at the shoulder joint…” she absentmindedly flapped her wings slightly at the thought of such a pain.

Captain Peace Lily nodded as Princess Celestia read, “Indeed, my Princess, he really tore them apart. I do have the weapons logged in evidence as well with a few anomalies.” She shuffled through her reports before finding the relevant ones and handing them over.

”So, they were using the smaller ones that don’t shoot all at once,” said Princess Celestia as she skimmed a form before looking up with a confused expression, “Are you certain this is correct, Captain? Because even those of us who have studied these weapons didn’t know they could be disassembled until we’d accidentally done so.” She looked at another form for a moment before turning her gaze onto Captain Peace Lily, “And this tube in evidence? Has it been analyzed? May I see it? And the weapon as well, I suppose.”

“One hundred percent certain, my Princess. The weapon was disassembled to the point where it could not operate without somepony who specifically knew how to reassemble it,” said Captain Peace Lily, taking the forms from Princess Celestia and piling them back up, ”As for the tube, yes, ma’am, it has indeed been analyzed and stored in the evidence locker. If you will, follow me.”

At Princess Celestia’s nod, Captain Peace Lily stepped out of her office and walked towards the evidence room with the princess in tow. She shooed a Sergeant who was simply lingering before pulling two plastic bags from the shelves. She held up the bag holding the disassembled griffin weapon pieces they had gathered, “You see what I meant, my Princess? Nearly completely disassembled and the pieces were spread out to keep them separate. My guess is that the lone stallion I mentioned managed to disassemble it.”

“Hmm. That’s an oddity that will have to be addressed once we debrief him. Now then, this...tube?” said Princess Celestia as her gaze fell upon the other bag and she accepted it as Captain Peace Lily held it out, “Very odd this. Was there anything special about it?” She turned it over in her hands, noting how it seemed to be a hollow tube with holes throughout and odd burn marks on the inside.

Captain Peace Lily simply shrugged while she grabbed the report that accompanied the tube, “We’re not completely sure, my Princess, but there were certain chemical residues our scans picked up. Potassium nitrate, also known as saltpeter which is used in fireworks, and magnesium. We’re not savvy to the exact combination nor the purpose.”

Princess Celestia puzzled over this, her own magic scans giving her the same results and her brow furrowed as her mind ran through the possibilities, “Well, looks like we have another question to ask our mysterious stallion during the debriefing. Do you have any idea where he may reside?” She placed the bag containing the tube with the rest of the evidence from the day’s events.

Captain Peace Lily blushed slightly at the question, “That’s the issue, my Princess. According to my recruits, this stallion is like none they have ever seen before, so we kind of don’t know where he lives. However, I imagine that, by now, the Elements of Harmony have tracked him down and are already bombarding him with an endless stream of questions. Or Twilight Sparkle is at least.”

Princess Celestia let an amused smile take over, “Oh my, the poor thing. We’ll simply have to help him out with an interruption, won’t we, Captain?”

A small amount of asking around and a helpful eyewitness who had seen the Elements of Harmony heading someplace led the Captain and the princess to the strangest, yet most stylish house they had ever seen. Captain Peace Lily looked it up and down appreciatively, “Huh. Rainbow Dash was right. It is pretty weird. Looks good though.”

Princess Celestia smiled as she very faintly heard her student asking a question inside, “Well, Captain? We’re not going to get anywhere just standing around, are we?”

Captain Peace Lily nodded with a smile and knocked hard on the door three times to tell the occupants that a guard was at the door on official business. She silently cursed herself afterwards once she realized that the stallion inside would surely not know the safety measures the town had in place. That’d be something to tackle in the future, however, as very soon the door opened to reveal the stallion she’d only heard about.

Her eyes widened as she studied him for a moment, ‘Oh my. Definitely the tough sort,’ and she shivered ever so slightly as she noticed his gaze scan over her and Princess Celestia, ‘And quick to determine whether or not somepony’s a threat too.’

She noticed his eyes still focusing on the princess’s crown and she cleared her throat softly, “Well then, when I was told you were athletic and exotic, they certainly weren’t kidding.” His attention turned back to her, this time slightly calculating. “Allow me to introduce myself. Captain Peace Lily,” said the guard with a polite smile, “And it is my glorious honor to present her royal highness, Princess Celestia.” She gestured towards the aforementioned princess with a smile, “May we come in?”

Samael looked towards the two mares with trepidation as he debated with himself, ‘That didn’t sound like an order or a demand, so. Am I free to just...Send them packing? I’ve love to see their reactions.’ Soon, he hesitantly nodded, “Uh, I suppose, yes. Come along.” He stepped back inside, leaving the door open for them.

Captain Peace Lily looked back at Princess Celestia with frank bewilderment, sharing with her a look that simply said “Does he not want us here?” before the princess gestured for them to enter. She turned back and walked in carefully, marveling at the sparse decorations, ‘Hmm. Must’ve just moved in or...is he really alone? No herd? I hate to think that even a tough stallion like him would be all by his lonesome.’ A squeal of excitement brought the Captain back from her thoughts as the Elements noticed exactly who had walked into a handsome-looking sitting room.

Princess Celestia smiled at the now bowing Elements, “Hello, my little ponies, I’m glad to see each of you are unharmed from the events earlier today, but please, rise.” An excited Twilight Sparkle broke off from the rest to run up and hug her, excitedly recounting all the day’s events for the princess’s benefit.

Samael simply watched the events unfold with a raised eyebrow, making sure to keep the guard in his peripherals. He may not have been back home, but he still didn’t want the law breathing down his neck, ‘It’d definitely be easy to see her coming though. That armor does nothing but catch the light and doesn’t look like it could stop my fist, let alone a bullet.’

As she listened in on the Element of Magic’s excited chatter, Captain Peace Lily kept half her attention on absorbing the words and her other half on the stallion, ‘Hmm. Definitely doesn’t seem to want us here. Or...All of us? Must be shy, but...Why do I still feel like I’m being considered a threat? Did...Did a guard do anything to him to make him not trust other guards?’

“...And before you two showed up, Princess, Mr. Samael was about to tell us what his species is called!” finished Twilight as she smiled over at Samael expectantly, all eyes shifting to focus on him completely.

Feeling the piercing gazes of all the mares on him, Samael felt the very intense urge to simply drop his flashbang and just sprint into his basement, but that would do him very little good in the long run. He looked around slowly, “Well, uh, as I tried to say before. I’m human,” and he shifted uncomfortably as he felt the tension of the room thicken, the mares’ jaws all dropping, ‘...Did I just say I’m the devil or something? That sort of thing should not be this startling.’

Twilight was the first to speak up with a spluttering, “B-B-But, there’s no way! The only known fossil records of humans classify them as cryptozoological at best! And none of them are consistent with each other at all! And even if they were valid fossils, the last fossils date back to the era of protoponies and thus humans are long since extinct if they ever existed at all!”

Samael raised an eyebrow at this, ‘Man, if I’m cryptozoological, then what the hell does that make you, miss unicorn?’ and shook his head slowly, “Well, I’m sorry you don’t believe me, but, uh...I’m pretty sure that I know what I am.” He felt a great deal of confusion as all eyes shifted from himself to Applejack who seemed to dispel their disbelief with a simple nod, ‘Alright, what the hell is this? Feel like I’m missing some context here.’

When it looked like Twilight wanted to launch into another line of questions, Princess Celestia held up a hand to stop her excitable student, “I realize that this is a very momentous occasion, my dear student, and that will be addressed in the future, but Captain Peace Lily and I really need to debrief Samael here.” Even while he kept his expression neutral, she could feel the frustration emanating off the stallion and she smiled apologetically at him, “I understand that it’s close to lunchtime, Samael, but this cannot wait to ensure that today’s events are still fresh in your mind.” She turned to the other mares in the room, “I would like for our discussion to be private for the time being, my Elements, so I ask that you refrain from eavesdropping.”

Samael tried not to betray his surprise when the mares all agreed without argument at a mere request to not listen in, ‘How the hell? I can’t imagine any John Doe following that request if the President gave it.’

Twilight spoke up with a curious expression, “If you don’t mind my asking, Princess, how long do you think this might take?”

Princess Celestia smiled patiently at her, “I couldn’t tell you, Twilight, but hopefully not too long. I don’t want to take up too much of Samael’s time if it can be helped.”

Samael gazed at Princess Celestia with an intensely curious gaze, ‘Well, at least she’s considerate—’ and his thoughts were cut off by a tap on his shoulder. His head turned to regard a beaming Twilight Sparkle, ‘...I already hate this. I hate everything right now.’

“Mr. Samael, do you think that maybe we could watch one of your films while we wait?” asked Twilight with a radiant smile on her face, “It’d be a wonderful chance to see what entertains humans! We could each pick one as a candidate and leave the final decision to you to decide what would be best for us to see.”

‘...Oh god, no. Why would she ask that? I don’t want to potentially clean up vomit if these innocent gals saw a Quentin Tarantino flick—Wait! Lindsay left her collection here! Disney, save me!’ thought Samael before he nervously smiled, “Well, I, uh, I don’t really see why not. But if none of you pick anything appropriate, I’ll uh, I’ll try to find one I’m sure you’ll enjoy.” He tried not to think too hard about the excited looks on the mares’ faces, turning to Princess Celestia and Captain Peace Lily and noting with amusement that their expressions were sheer confusion, “Uh, I’ll meet you two upstairs, if that’s alright?”

Captain Peace Lily looked ready to protest, but was quickly stopped by Princess Celestia placing a hand on her shoulder. “Of course, we’ll await you patiently. Come along, Captain,” said the princess as she lead the other mare toward, then up, the stairs.

‘Not looking forward to that. At all. Oh well, better let these gals pick out their movies. All else fails, I can just throw in something mindless for them,’ thought Samael. He motioned for the mares to follow him, making sure they were when he stepped into a side room he neglected to show them before. Inside on one side of the room were shelves full of DVDs and on the other side was a very well taken care of grand piano. He certainly had to get a good one to keep his piano wire purchases from seeming too suspicious. That and he certainly enjoyed tickling the ivories from time to time.

Rarity was simply beside herself with glee, even as the other mares browsed the shelves of Samael’s films, “Oh my, darling! That is a very gorgeous piano! Do you play?” She bat her eyelashes flirtatiously, smiling to herself at the light blush on his face.

“Well, from time to time, yes. I had lessons when I was still in school. I admit that I hated them at the time, but they grew on me. But seeing as how I don’t want to keep your Princess waiting, you should really pick out something,” said Samael, pointing towards the shelves.

“Well, perhaps in the future you could indulge me, darling. I would very much love to hear you play,” said Rarity, now turning towards the films with a critical eye and humming thoughtfully before a title seemed to just jump out at her.

Rainbow Dash snickered to herself, eyeing one movie in particular, “So. Whose are these? I feel like these aren’t just yours.” She grabbed the movie with a salacious grin.

“Well, uh, a good portion of these belong to my old...assistant. She had a few different tastes in films than I did, so there should be enough variety,” said Samael, not noticing the odd, perverted grin on Rainbow Dash’s face while looking through the movies himself.

Fluttershy let out a soft “OH!” of excitement when she found her choice. Pinkie Pie giggle-snorted to herself, pulling out her selection with a wide grin. Twilight Sparkle gasped softly when she found one that seemed to be mathematical in nature, at least from the odd title. Applejack simply pulled hers from the shelf.

Samael gathered up the cases that the mares handed him, noting which ones gave him which movies, “Alright, let’s see here. Applejack picked Goodfellas? It’s a pretty good one, but I don’t think you ladies would like it very much.” He shifted the cases around as Applejack just shrugged, “Twilight Sparkle picked...The Matrix?”

“It’s about math, right? I’m sure that with all your technologies that humans know a lot about math! And just Twilight is fine, Mr. Samael,” said Twilight, smiling sweetly.

He shrugged, “No need for the Mister in that case then, Twilight, but...Uh. Not really about math? It’s a film about a dystopian future.” Shifting the cases around again, he looked at Pinkie Pie’s choice for a moment before finally letting out a short mirthful chuckle, “Pulp Fiction from Pinkie Pie. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

Pinkie Pie giggled and smiled widely, “I didn’t think it would! I just got a feeling it’d make you laugh and you looked like you need one! And we’re friends, silly! Call me Pinkie!”

Samael just nodded, looking down at the next choice, “Heat, picked by Rainbow Dash…Nope.” He stared at her, still wondering what was so funny even as the other mares rolled their eyes at her choice.

Rainbow Dash snickered, holding her hands up slightly defensively, “I didn’t expect it to get picked anyway. By the way, just Rainbow.” She winked with a cocky grin.

“Fine. And we have...The Princess Bride? Good choice, Rarity, one of my favorites actually. But, uh. I’d rather this be watched with me in the room to enjoy it too,” said Samael, setting aside the DVD for later.

Rarity beamed at the praise, “Thank you, darling! It just simply popped to me and it sounds like a very wonderful and romantic film! I do hope to watch it in the future, darling.”

He nodded with a slight smile before looking down at the final choice and then up at the fidgeting Fluttershy, “This is a good one, Fluttershy. Think we’ll go with this.” He held up the case to show the rest of the mares, “The Lion King. Part of my old assistant’s collection. She loved movies like this.”

Fluttershy smiled widely, ecstatic that not only did her choice get picked, but it was apparently good, “Oh, that’s wonderful. I can’t wait to see it.”

Samael swept from the room with the movie in his hands, the mares following him closely and all but Twilight sat down on the couch. This was too good an opportunity for the unicorn to pass up in watching this new technology being utilized. He shot her a brief look of annoyance when she got in the way, but set up the film to play for the mares without much trouble otherwise. He gave Twilight a quick rundown to the remotes for the DVD player and TV, namely the pause/play button along with the volume button for the TV and informed her that she really should not mess with anything more than that.

‘Heh. Like a bunch of kids, really. They’re all just downright enthralled by the movie. Good, even if they said they wouldn’t listen in, I trust they’ll want to focus more on the movie than what might come up,’ thought Samael, walking upstairs slowly and gathering his will to prepare himself. He spotted the two mares he had sent up earlier huddled together in a hushed conversation and cleared his throat to make his presence known.

Captain Peace Lily jumped at the noise, but Princess Celestia seemed unfazed as she straightened up with that motherly smile from earlier plastered on her face. The Captain stepped forward, seemingly first in the questioning to come.

“Before we start, I would like to thank you for your assistance in the capture and incarceration of those griffins. You saved me and my recruits a great deal of grief and pain and for that, I...we are grateful,” said Captain Peace Lily, bowing slightly with a warm smile, “That said, I have just one question.” She raised her voice a little, turning very curious and just a little distraught, “HOW!?”

He smirked with amusement, still deciding whether or not to give her the whole truth at this point, “Well, uh. The element of surprise.” His smirk faded slightly as the guard did not seem the least bit amused at his answer, but his attention focused on the princess when she stepped forward slightly and placed a hand on Captain Peace Lily’s shoulder.

Princess Celestia looked down at him with a reassuring smile, “Please, Samael. You’ve done us a great service and I assure you that we aren’t angry. The truth, please?”

He looked between the two slowly, trying to find some sort of deception before nodding slightly. He reached back to unhook the flashbang from his belt, holding it up for the two mares to see, “This. This was the main reason I got the drop on those griffins.”

Captain Peace Lily looked at the odd tube for a moment before recognition dawned on her, “Hey, yeah, we saw one of those at the scene of the fight! What the hay is that?” Princess Celestia studied the odd device with a curious look.

Samael raised an eyebrow at this, ‘Ah, hm. Forgot about cleanup. Dammit.’ and turned the flashbang around to let them get a full view of it, “Uh, well. It’s a stun grenade. Designed to disorient for about twenty to thirty seconds without permanent injury.” He gestured to the pin, “Pull this, throw it out, and what happens is a loud bang and a bright flash of light. And the concussive force behind it can disrupt the inner ear.”

Captain Peace Lily’s jaw dropped at this explanation and Princess Celestia ruminated on the potential uses. Such simplicity and complexity all in one. The Captain reached out for the flashbang without thinking only for him to pull it away. She frowned at this, “What? Don’t trust me?”

“Simply put? No, I don’t,” he said, ignoring her slightly hurt expression. “Look, this is not a toy. As non-lethal as it’s designed to be, it can still be dangerous in the wrong circumstances. I wouldn’t trust anyone with this, unless they specifically knew what it could be capable of.”

Princess Celestia held out her hand with the clear intent of asking for the flashbang, “We understand it’s not a toy, Samael, but I would like to ask to take possession of such a device so that we may study it and reproduce it. If such a device allowed you to take on four griffins on your own with minimal injury when most of my guards cannot say the same for even a single griffin, it would be a wondrous asset to alleviate many casualties in the future.”

Samael just stared at her hand for a moment, clearly still debating on whether or not it’s a good idea just to hand it over before finally looking the princess in the eyes, “Fine. When you get more of these made, though, I want some. That alright?” At her radiant smile and nod, he placed the flashbang in her hand and watched her carefully put it away in a bag he had not noticed earlier.

Captain Peace Lily harrumphed softly before speaking once again, “You only answered part of how you did it. How in the world did you manage to utterly break those griffins? Again, most of my recruits couldn’t boast those capabilities and they’re quite a bit larger than you.”

He scoffed, regarding this bit of information with more than a little contempt, “Listen, sweetheart, size isn’t everything. It’s what you do with what you have that makes all the difference,” and grinned slightly as he realized what he was saying, “It’s the motion of the ocean, not the size of the boat.”

The Captain blushed deeply, even as Princess Celestia laughed behind her hand, “Th-That’s not what I meant! Just answer the question, please.” She shook her head slightly to work out her blush.

‘It’s your fault for getting me on that tangent in the first place, but fine,’ thought Samael, clearing his throat to speak once again, “Well, uh, guess the answer is that I just have better combat training than your recruits.”

The two mares exchanged looks of surprise and quickly turned their gaze back onto him. Captain Peace Lily spoke up first, “What sort of combat training? Why would you need it? I mean. I’m not opposed to everypony learning to defend themselves, but…” she trailed off as she wondered how to put it delicately.

“Krav Maga. A form of martial arts that consists of a wide variety of practical techniques taken from other forms of martial arts. And for why I needed it, I’d rather not say,” he interrupted with a slight scowl.

“But, a stallion like you shouldn’t have to—” the Captain started before the princess stopped her once more with a hand on her shoulder, prompting a raised eyebrow from Samael as he wondered what he shouldn’t have to do.

“For later, Captain. I still have a few questions and while I too am curious, there is a much more pressing question we must ask at the moment,” said Princess Celestia, her gaze turning stern for the first time, “How did you know how to disassemble the griffins’ weapons?”

Her horn glowed, causing the evidence bag with the disassembled weapon to appear to emphasize her question, “After all, we only found out that it could be taken apart by accident. And I find it difficult to believe that this would be your first time encountering such a thing with such circumstances. So please, the truth. Again, I assure you, and I hope you believe this, we won’t be angry. Especially so if you can explain how you did it in the middle of combat.”

‘I was hoping this wouldn’t come up, but I really should have seen it coming. Hell, I should’ve taken the fucking gun with me,’ he thought as he hesitated. For a few moments, he stared at the Luger in the bag, keeping his eyes averted from the mares’ gazes. Rubbing his temple, he finally looked at their expectant looks.

“Guess it had to come out sooner or later. I would’ve preferred later, but…” he said, pointing at the Luger, “That. Is something that humans came up with. That particular one is a Swiss Parabellum Model 1900 Luger. Several decades out of date, but I knew how to disassemble it because I had an interest in one for my collection. The previous owner had taken me through disassembly and reassembly for cleaning purposes.”

The bag dropped to the floor, shock completely overtaking the mares’ faces. Princess Celestia recovered first, clearing her throat and picking up the bag in her magic again, “Well, that is...that is somewhat disquieting. But it certainly makes sense, especially seeing as how nothing like this has ever been on Equus before other than the passing similarity to that of a cannon. Could you perhaps...Show us the process?”

Another evidence bag with an intact Luger appeared to float in front of Samael. He regarded the pistol inside the bag for a moment before looking at them with pure disbelief etched on his face, “Are you fucking serious?”

They jumped slightly at the sudden vulgarity, but their questions died out as he ripped open the bag, pulled out the ammo holder, and pulled back the top of the weapon to cause one piece of ammo to fly out which he caught.

“It was still fucking loaded! What is wrong with you!? I realize you wouldn’t know gun safety at all, but that’s common fucking sense!” he glared at them with sudden venom, sighing when he noticed their ears pinning back, “Look. I...I shouldn’t have snapped like that, but come on! Can you blame me?” He studied the bullet that had come out of the chamber, noting how it was scaled up just like the Luger as he had expected and noting the misshapen nature of the actual projectile.

Captain Peace Lily shivered slightly at the cold glare he had aimed at her and the princess, her ears still slightly pinned back, “I suppose we can’t, but we didn’t know!” She turned to Princess Celestia, “We should send out a memo about that, shouldn’t we?” At the princess’s nod, she turned back and motioned for Samael to move on.

“Well, keep in mind that if you take one of these away from someone, the idea is that you need to make it safe if you’re not going to use it yourself. Taking out the magazine, clearing the chamber, and turning on the safety,” he said, flicking the switch above the pistol grip on the left side, “are a big part of that and it’s usually enough if you separate the pistol from the mag, usually done by throwing them in opposite directions. But in a protracted fight, it’d be easy for an opponent to gather them up again, especially if you’re stunned. In that case, you should disassemble it.”

He made sure they were watching when he pressed his palm against the end of the barrel, pulling down a switch on the left side with his thumb, flicking off the side plate with the other thumb, and pulling the barrel assembly free from the rest of the pistol.

While the princess wrote down all this information, Captain Peace Lily held out the bag and Samael dropped the pieces of the Luger into it. She raised an eyebrow as she watched him looking a piece of ammo over, “That too, sir.”

He shook his head slowly, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep this to study a bit further. I have the ones I was hit with, but I’d rather the whole thing to see exactly what’s going on with it.” He heard a gun hit the floor yet again and he sighed, “Do you think you could stop dropping those things on my floor? It’ll take forever to buff out.”

Samael realized what he had said when he noticed the utter shock and tension that permeated the hallway, ‘Oh. Right. Probably shouldn’t have said I was hit. Shit.’

Captain Peace Lily spluttered out, “You. Hit. How. Not. Wounded. HOW!? Our armor barely even slows those things down!”

“Well, to be fair, I did get grazed on my arm, but the doctor healed that right up. As for how I didn’t get more than a few bruises,” he said before pulling off his shirt to show his ballistic vest. “Some would call this a bulletproof vest, but that’s a little misleading as it’s really only highly bullet resistant to a point. So I prefer to call it a ballistic vest.”

He held up a hand when he noticed Princess Celestia looking like she wanted to ask for it, “And unlike the flashbang, I’m fine with simply handing this over. Especially seeing as how this one’s a bit banged up and I have plenty more for myself.” He unstrapped and pulled off the vest, watching it disappear with a flash of the princess’s magic, ‘Good thing I have guns that can get through one of these easily if the need arises.’

Captain Peace Lily regarded him with a great deal of suspicion, “You’re able to take down four griffins by yourself. You positively broke them, one of them won’t even be able to eat again without a prosthetic. You claim to have combat training and can take apart one of those we-Lugers with ease, claiming to have a collection. Those stunners of yours don’t seem like they would suit a civilian’s needs. And that vest of yours clinches it. What do you do? Really.”

Samael flinched, realizing he gave out too much information especially in front of a cop and he smiled ruefully, pulling his shirt back on, “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

Captain Peace Lily looked furious at this stallion’s uncooperative nature and seemed ready to just outright arrest him for obstruction until Princess Celestia walked toward him slowly with a sad smile on her face.

“Listen to me, Samael. I understand that if your previous line of work was unpleasant, you would not want to openly discuss it, but I truly hope you realize how we cannot fully trust you unless you are completely and openly honest with us,” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders comfortingly, “Anything you tell us, I swear to you, will be held in utmost confidence. If you so wish, the only ones that will know will be myself, Captain Peace Lily, and my sister: Princess Luna. You have done nothing but help us and as long as you continue to do so, we will protect you and your secrets.”

He locked eyes with Princess Celestia’s pleading gaze for a few moments before looking over at Captain Peace Lily, her previous fury gone and replaced with begrudging compliance with her princess’s wishes. His rueful smile returned, “Fine. Fair enough. As long as I have your support...”

At her smiling nod, Samael shrugged off Princess Celestia’s grip to walk over to the blank stretch of wall hiding his gun room, “I’m tired of looking over my shoulder anyway. I’ve had to do it for the past few years.” He opened the panel hiding the keypad, “To put it bluntly? I’m an assassin.”

Captain Peace Lily laughed nervously and spoke somewhat desperately, “Ah-heh-heh. That’s a good one. That’s...You’re joking...Right? You really don’t kill for fun, right?”

After inputting the code, he turned to the Captain to stare at her with a sardonic expression, his tone taking on a practiced and cool professionality that he normally used for clients, “It’s not a joke. And like hell I kill for fun. That’s actually really insulting. It’s never for fun and very rarely personal. It’s all for a paycheck. Think of it this way: If I’m at your door, if I’m there to kill you, chances are you did something to bring me there. You should read some of the files for the jobs I’ve done. They deserved what they got.”

Captain Peace Lily fought down her urge to run when she heard the chill behind his voice, ‘No wonder he’s so awkward normally. I feel like pissing myself and getting the fuck out of here.’ She looked over to Princess Celestia for support and was met with a reassuring, if wary smile. Their eyes were drawn to the wall being pushed along smoothly and their jaws dropped as they spotted his armory.

Samael stepped inside the room, looking around slowly and speaking in that same low tone, “Like I said, years of combat training, though this wasn’t meant to be the end result. I was being prepped by my father into following his lead into the military. It was his way of showing fatherly affection by making sure I could defend myself and potentially my country from danger. Only...my mother’s business dealings were rather...unsavory. And needed some heavy-handed enforcement.”

Princess Celestia hesitantly spoke, “I...I see. That’s unfortunate, but what led to...all this? What sequence of events could’ve possibly pushed you into this?” and she shivered slightly, looking at the much more advanced types of the weapons that had plagued her and her country, even some she didn’t recognize.

He stopped to regard her for a few seconds before turning to the shelf he had been looking for, “It’s complicated. But it all boils down to the fact that I was in a dark place and I couldn’t find my way out. It was at that moment where all I could think was that I really wanted to kill someone. Before that, all it had been was just bruises, broken bones, and intimidation.”

Soon, he found what he had been looking for and pulled a compound bow from the shelf, holding it out to the two mares, “Now, I really don’t like the idea of having to train anyone in gun safety, nor the idea of someone shooting themselves in the face because of one of mine. You’re on your own for the griffins’ guns, just remember to empty them out. But, you need to update yourselves a bit. This is a compound bow, much more energy efficient and accurate than any of your best longbows.”

Captain Peace Lily hesitantly took the bow, “What the hay do you mean by more energy efficient? It just looks—OH!” She had pulled on the bowstring until the pulleys took over, “That was at least forty-five kilos of draw weight to get here and now it’s practically effortless to hold! How did we not think of this?” and she carefully let the string slowly return to its original position, “What about arrows?”

Samael grabbed the case that had rested below the bow, opening it to reveal twelve carbon arrows and a variety of different arrowheads. He silently pulled one out and screwed on one of the arrowheads to demonstrate, allowing them to see the overall effect before taking it back off and placing it in the case once more. He smirked at their gobsmacked expressions, “Take it, I never found much use for it anyway and I’m really out of practice with my archery.”

Princess Celestia gathered up the bow and the case in her magic to send them off to Canterlot and she smiled gratefully at him while the objects disappeared with a flash of light, “Thank you very much, Samael. That is very generous of you.”

Captain Peace Lily cast a wary look at him, “Well, not that I’m complaining or anything, but why are you even helping us? We know next to nothing about you and I’m sure the same applies to you about us. For that matter, where the hay are you from and how did you even get here?”

Princess Celestia looked around at all the weapons on the shelves, “I must admit, Samael. All of these exotic weapons drive home the fact that you are not native to Equestria, so I too am curious of your origins and arrival.”

He let out a soft humorless laugh, “I was wondering when this would come up. The reason why I’m helping you? I’d be a complete idiot not to. Like I said, I’m tired of looking over my shoulder, hoping not to get caught. However, I will say this: I have my morals and while they may be twisted by even human standards, they say that killing someone with whom you can have a civilized discussion to put food on the dinner table is so unbelievably wrong that it needs to be punished.”

Samael waited while the two mares exchanged satisfied smiles at this, making sure their attention was upon him once more before continuing, “As for where I came from, it’s hardly relevant. I could throw out names you’d never understand and it wouldn’t answer your question. For how I got here? I can’t say how, but as long as I’m here, I should probably try to clean up the mess caused by those griffins.”

Princess Celestia, despite feeling that there was more to his answer than that, simply nodded, “I suppose that answers enough. But let me ask this of you...” her voice and expression turned very stern, “How can I be sure that you will not harm my little ponies? I admit you’ve had a good track record thus far, but I do have to look out for my citizens.”

“Well, I took you at your word, so I hope you can do the same for me. I give you my word that I will strive to not harm anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Though if it comes down to self-defense or defense of others, someone is going to the hospital, and it probably won't be me,” he said, staring the princess in the eyes.

Princess Celestia frowned a tiny amount at his phrasing, but nodded, “I suppose that’s agreeable. Just keep in mind that I will not tolerate undue behavior. Understood?”

At Samael’s nod, she smiled, “Good. Of course, there is the matter of your citizenship in Equestria. I’m afraid there’s a bit of red tape there due to current events, but I can have the forms sent over soon to help take off a bit of the time required.”

“That’s fair. I’d actually be a little disappointed in your security if it were easy,” he said, leading them out of his armory on his way out. He made sure they were clear before sliding the wall panel back into place and covering the keypad once more.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to employ one last caveat, Samael,” said Princess Celestia with a somewhat nervous smile, “I know we agreed to take each other at our words, but after a little thought, I think it would be best if you were to allow Captain Peace Lily quarters in your home.”

“...Excuse me?” he said as he turned towards Princess Celestia with a steely glare, “What’s the deal here? Is there some ‘guilty until proven innocent’ sort of thing here?”

Princess Celestia gave him an apologetic look, “No, no, nothing like that, I assure you. I would like for her to be here so that you don’t have to be overly involved in matters of the guard. At the same time, if there are griffins causing havoc, you’ll be informed whether or not you need to be involved.”

Samael stared at her in disbelief, ‘Am I just not allowed any privacy here?...Does...Does that word even have any meaning here?’ and threw his hands up in defeat, “You know what? Fine. I can handle a guest, but she’d better be the only one.”

Princess Celestia laughed softly. “Of course, only her. Captain? I trust you have no objections to this course of action?” she asked, mouthing to her “keep him safe” as soon as his attention was on the guard.

“No objections, my princess. I understand and will undertake my duty to the best of my abilities,” Captain Peace Lily said, quickly standing at attention and saluting, ‘This’ll be a good chance to chip away at that wall he’s built around himself. Maybe get in some...full contact training too.’ She waited for the princess to return the salute before walking downstairs swiftly, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll go get packed, you can show me where I’m sleeping after lunch.”

Samael pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head slowly, ‘Yeah, out in the yard.’ He moved to follow her downstairs, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder, “...Are you serious right now? What now?”

“Oh, just a very minor matter of protocol. I noticed that you have yet to bow,” Princess Celestia said with a teasing lilt to her voice.

He turned around slowly, noting her amused, non-judgmental smile and gave her a smirk in return, “Well, I’m not a citizen yet, am I? Besides, where I come from, a man’s house is his castle and he is king. So...You bow first, sweetheart.”

Princess Celestia smiled playfully, laughing softly behind her hand, “Oh my, how presumptuous of me. My apologies,” and she gave a slight bow with a wink. “Just between you and me, I don’t mind. However, I would definitely recommend following protocol in public. My little ponies are sticklers for that sort of thing and some of them would become very offended if you didn’t,” she said before making her way downstairs.

‘Huh. Well, that happened. Didn’t think that would work, actually. Oh well, bonus. And that “my little ponies” thing? Sounds kinda dumb. They’re not little at all. Well, most of them anyway,’ thought Samael as he made his way downstairs, ‘Though to her, I guess they would be little. But I’ve met heavyweight boxers smaller than her...’

He paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking in on the sitting room from where he was standing and watching the mares exchange parting words with the princess before she followed the Captain out of the house, ‘Glad that’s over, now to try to get the rest of them out so I can get a workout in to get rid of all this tension.’ He flinched as his stomach grumbled out its emptiness, ‘Ugh, that’s right. They want me with them for lunch. God. Dammit.’

Stepping into the sitting room, Samael looked at the movie still playing and sighed to himself as he spotted the timer on the DVD player, ‘And I spent almost an hour playing metaphorical grabass with those two. Would’ve been better spent playing literal grabass, especially with the big one. But oh well, can’t have everything.’ He wondered whether he should attempt to get them out now or just wait for the movie to end.

He was pulled from that line of thinking when Pinkie noticed him, having taken over his chair since he had vacated it. She smiled broadly, hopping up onto one of the armrests and patting the chair to invite him into sitting down. He sighed to himself and shrugged, ‘Might as well. At least I’ll know when the movie’s over so we can eat.’

Making sure to stay quiet so he didn’t disturb the other mares, Samael made his way over to his chair and sat down swiftly. He was barely able to get comfortable when Pinkie giggled and slid off the armrest into his lap. He resisted the intense urge to flinch and shove her away as she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug and rubbed her cheek into his before her focus turned back to the movie.

‘...I think my cheek was just molested. I need an adult...’

Samael rubbed his temples slowly, trying desperately to rid himself of the headache building. Why. Why did he show them The Lion King? Especially with that damnable Hakuna Matata song that Pinkie insisted on singing until Rainbow and Applejack both held her mouth shut to tell her to stop, only to have her start humming it instead. It certainly didn’t help that Twilight had complicated matters with questions about the quadrupedal zebras she had seen in the movie.

How was he supposed to know they too were bipedal here? This also led to a brief discussion over whether or not ponies existed in his world and the resultant shock from the surrounding ponies over his world’s ponies being unintelligent quadrupeds was an all-too-brief reprieve. Pinkie just resumed her very loud humming, which Applejack and Rainbow seemed to deem appropriate so there was no help from those two this time.

Samael jumped when Pinkie decided that a surprise hug was appropriate and before he could react otherwise, she resumed her position at the front of the group. Rarity giggled softly as she noticed the poor stallion’s predicament, keeping pace next to him and leaning in to whisper in his ear, “Pinkie’s a dear, darling. You just have to get used to her.”

He groaned softly, glancing around at all the ponies passing by with their eyes glued to him, “Not just her. I’m getting a little tired of the stares. My old job had me keeping a low profile and I just...got used to it. Enjoyed it, even.” He turned to Rarity, “Are you sure about where we’re going by the way? ‘Sugarcube Corner’ certainly doesn’t sound like it’d have anything sugar-free for a proper lunch.”

Before Rarity could even open her mouth to answer, Pinkie was by his other side, clinging to his arm and already speaking excitedly, “Mm-hmm! Mr. and Mrs. Cake have been trying to expand the business lately! They want ponies to come for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and stay for dessert, dessert, and dessert!” She briefly rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, “I’m not too good at the stuff without sugar, but Mr. and Mrs. Cake have been getting really good at it!”

‘I should’ve put on sunglasses...And another vest, but that’s for a different reason,’ thought Samael as he watched Pinkie hop back to the front of the group, trying to keep his eyes above her waist and off her jiggling backside. He turned to Rarity again to whisper, “Alright, so, she’s done it twice now, what’s with the cheek thing?”

She smiled gently with a refined laugh, “It’s just a friendly show of affection, darling. A nuzzle, to be precise. You’ll get used to it, I’m sure. Ponies love to make sure our friends know that we love them,” and she hooked her arm under his to lean in and nuzzle her cheek into his.

‘...I’m not sure how I feel about this, but it’s harmless enough. As long as they don’t surprise me with it. But they will. I know they will...And will Hansel and Gretel please stand up and run the fuck away?’ he thought, spotting the gingerbread house-like building out of which he half expected a witch to exit and offer to fatten him up. Samael watched Pinkie lead the way into the building and sighed inwardly, ‘Oh, how silly of me. Of course this is Sugarcube Corner. I’m getting a cavity already and I haven’t even eaten.’

Once inside, he found himself being gently led over to one of the larger tables off to the side, grumbling inaudibly to himself when each pony in the place noticed him one by one, ‘Yeah, yeah. Stare openly and constantly. That’s cool. Makes me feel so fucking welcome.’ He seated himself swiftly in one of the chairs that had a view of both the front door and a window to the side, ‘At this point, I don’t even care. I just want to eat and get back to the safehouse.’

Rarity looked slightly put out when Samael had torn himself from her grip, but shook it off as she noticed his look of unease, ‘Oh, poor dear. This must be so difficult for him, but I’m certainly glad he’s trying.’ She sat down to his right with comforting smile with Applejack taking her set to his left. Pinkie galloped off towards the kitchen with a broad grin, calling out for Mrs. Cake. Once the rest of the mares were seated, the other patrons seemed to pull their attentions back onto their meals and pastries, though not without the occasional glance at the strange new stallion among them.

Pinkie came back swiftly with a small pile of menus, “Mrs. Cake says she’ll be out soon to take our orders!” She set the pile down on the table and helpfully handed one out to each of them before taking her seat.

Samael looked over both sides of the menu, noting that the section for actual meals was rather small and added in after all the dessert items, ‘Not very much to speak of here. Well, Pinkie did say they just started doing savory items. Blackened trout? That’ll work.’ He set his menu down just in time to spot the short, plump, light blue mare with a pink mane that looked like what one might find as frosting on a cupcake coming out of the kitchen.

Mrs. Cake approached the table her pad and pencil in hand and smiled warmly, “Good to see you all with appetites after that scare today, dearies. What’ll it be?” She looked expectantly around the table.

Rarity placed her hand on Samael’s arm when it looked like he was ready to give his order, “Well, before we order, darling, be sure to put me and Samael here on the same bill. He just arrived here so he doesn’t have any bits.” Mrs. Cake nodded at this as she made note on her pad, looking at him ready to take down his order.

“I, uhm. Thanks, Rarity,” he said, earning a radiant smile from the white mare in return.

One by one, they gave their orders: blackened trout for Samael, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash; carrot soup for Twilight and Fluttershy; lentil soup for Applejack; and a grilled lettuce, spinach, and tomato sub for Pinkie. Soon after Mrs. Cake left to hand off the orders, she came back with a tray of chilled bottles, placing one in front of each of them, “Here you are, dearies. Berry Punch’s new cranberry and raspberry juice.”

“So, darling,” said Rarity when Mrs. Cake had taken her leave to help with their orders, “I believe you mentioned having an assistant before you came to be in Equestria. I imagine she helped you with your business, but were you two...close?”

Before he could answer, Twilight spluttered into her drink before coughing out, “OH MY GOSH, I FORGOT ABOUT SPIKE!” and teleported away with a flash of purple light.

‘Well, that just happened. Also, goddammit, she can teleport too. I swear, if she starts teleporting into my house, I’ll pick her up, put her outside the door, and tell her to ring the fucking doorbell,’ thought Samael as he stared at the spot previously occupied by Twilight. He turned to Rarity, “She forget to feed her dog or something?”

She giggled softly, patting his arm playfully, “Oh no, darling. Spikey-wikey is Twilight’s assistant dragon. She must’ve told him that she’d be back soon and lost track of time.”

He raised an eyebrow at her nickname for Twilight’s assistant, but shrugged, “Alright, guess I’ll wait for her to get—Wait, dragon? As in…” He trailed off, looking at Rarity expectantly.

“Oh, don’t worry, darling. He’s still a young dragon and not like the feral dragons one might find if one is unlucky. He’s always such a sweet little helper,” said Rarity.

‘...I’m no closer to actual knowledge than when I started. Oh well, humor her,’ thought Samael, just nodding to at least pretend like he understood.

Right as Mrs. Cake came out with some of their orders, she was already looking at Twilight’s empty spot with confusion when she teleported back in with a deadpan look on her face.

“Spike ate my pancakes as soon as I left. But he’s fine and waiting on me to explain everything when I get back home again. After he gets over his stomachache from eating too many sweets,” she said, sitting down and shooting a glare at Rainbow who had been holding back giggles the entire time, but had broken out into hearty guffaws once she’d heard Twilight’s explanation.

“Oh, I hope he’s alright,” Fluttershy breathed out after thanking Mrs. Cake for her soup. “Last time, poor Angel needed three baths to get all the gemstones out of his fur.” She frowned as this only caused Rainbow to laugh even harder.

‘Feel like I’m missing some context here, but I really don’t want to know,’ he thought. He looked around to notice their eyes locked on him expectantly, “Oh, right, my old assistant. Well, uh, yes, she did help with my business and she was great at it, even if she wasn’t particularly in love with the role because it was kind of demanding. As for how close we were? We didn’t really work as more than friends, really.”

Samael flinched inwardly at the mares’ looks of sympathy, ‘Please don’t let them get super touchy-feely-huggy now. I don’t think this chair could take all their weight on me.’ He silently thanked the universe when Mrs. Cake finally finished laying out their orders and their attentions all turned to thanking her with him following suit before she left.

After the meal, a tall, lanky yellowish-orange stallion with an orange mane and a rather distinctive underbite walked up to their table with pad and pencil ready. Pinkie greeted the newcomer with an enthusiastic, “Hi, Mr. Cake!”

“Nice to see you, Pinkie! I hope you all enjoyed your meals. I’ve been tweaking the recipes to get them just right,” said Mr. Cake, smiling genially at the group and standing ready to take their dessert orders.

‘Alright. Not the best, but I'd have it again, maybe,’ thought Samael, simply nodding instead, ready to just leave without incident. ‘Ugh, I’m going to have to get dessert, aren’t I? Pinkie practically sweats sugar, so she’d at least pitch a fit if I didn’t. My poor teeth.’

He reluctantly looked over the menu for the lightest thing he could get while the mares gave out their orders, ‘Oh god, all of this is just a ton of sugar and butter. I can feel the diabetes already...I wonder if they’d give me shit if I just got a single cherry.’ Finally, he found something that wouldn’t send him into an immediate sugar coma just in time for Mr. Cake to turn to him, “I’ll have a small slice of the chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting.” He handed his menu over as he thought, ‘I sure as hell hope that small isn’t code for as big as my head.’

Samael sighed inwardly in relief when the cake turned out to be reasonably sized, at least compared to the larger desserts his companions had ordered. Especially so compared to Pinkie’s half a dozen cupcakes.

Twilight was halfway through her gargantuan slice of apple pie à la mode when her eyes went wide and she swallowed her current mouthful before speaking, “Oh! I almost forgot! Samael, Dr. Saccharine Smile says that you should get back to the hospital sometime! I can get you an appointment for tomorrow afternoon, if you like.”

‘...God. Dammit.’

With their bellies filled and the bills taken care of afterwards, each of the mares aside from Rainbow gave Samael their thanks and farewells. That meant a hug and nuzzle from each except Fluttershy who only gave a quick, shy hug before flying off, hurriedly saying something about her animals. Rainbow threw an arm around his shoulders with a wide grin, “Come on, dude. Let’s get you home. I’ll make sure nopony tries to bother you!”

Samael nodded, allowing her to lead him on, ‘Well, that’s better than a bop on the nose with a hot poker. And goddammit, they’re still staring. Why?’ He looked around slowly before noticing, ‘...Alright, so, why have the only other guys I’ve seen been Mr. Cake and...Does Discord even count? That’s...That’s actually kinda scary. Oh wait. There’s Twilight’s assistant.’ He pondered this even as Rainbow talked about how awesome today had been despite the griffin scare, making note of maybe three or four other stallions in town that he could see, ‘They must all be at work or something. That’s the only sane explanation.’

These thoughts and their tangents were interrupted by them arriving to his safehouse’s door, ‘Finally. Hopefully, I can have at least a little peace and quiet before I have to put up with more nonsense.’

Rainbow looked around a bit as though checking for witnesses before giving him a quick hug and nuzzle, “Seeya later! Gotta go get a nap in before I have to get back to work! It was awesome meeting you and stuff!” and with that, she quickly let go and flew off into the distance.

Samael sighed deeply when he was finally alone with his thoughts, ‘How has today been so damn long and it’s not even night yet?’ He entered his house swiftly, shutting the door behind himself and digging in his pockets for the bullet he had taken earlier, ‘Hopefully I can check this out before that guard gets here.’ He set the bullet down on his coffee table in front of the couch before charging upstairs to his armory.

He pulled a box of ammo from a shelf below his pistols and grabbed a bullet disassembly tool, closing the wall behind himself. He made it halfway to his room to get the bullets he had been hit with when he heard a couple hard knocks at the door, ‘Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!’ He scooped them up and stuffed them into his pocket, heading back downstairs with a scowl. Setting the box of ammo and the tool down on the table next to the griffin’s bullet, he steeled his resolve on the way to the door.

He opened the door to find Captain Peace Lily standing there with her hand up ready to knock again. Before he noticed her suitcase and travel bag, he was momentarily stunned by the fact that she was standing there wearing a sundress of rose pink and royal blue swirled together.

She looked slightly defensive at his disbelief, “What!?”

Samael shook his head silently before reaching over to the side of the door, pointing at the doorbell and then when her eyes were focused on it, pressed it down to let the buzz clearly sound.

“Ooh, I was kind of wondering what that was for,” Captain Peace Lily said shifting slightly on her hooves. “So, are we just going to stand here or what?”

He pulled himself out of his stupor and stepped back inside, ‘Built like a wrestling diva, almost like Applejack, and wearing a frilly dress. I need to stop being surprised at this point.’ He made his way to the kitchen, “Uh, just set your stuff down anywhere for now, I was about to look at that bullet. Keep the door open, I’m going back outside for this.” He dug through his cabinets, finally selecting a pure white plate he would’ve thrown away anyway and grabbing a barbecue lighter.

She looked at him like he was crazy when he returned with a plate and an odd device she’d never seen before, “Alright, I don’t know what you’re doing, but you do know what you’re doing, right?”

“More or less, enough to get on with,” Samael said as he tucked the bullet into his pocket next to the others and gathered up his supplies from earlier. He stepped outside, raising an eyebrow as Captain Peace Lily followed him.

“Hey, I want to see too. It’s kind of my job!” she said, blinking as he piled up the objects he had gathered onto the plate and jumping slightly when he handed them to her. “This isn’t! What am I supposed to do with this!?”

“Just hold onto it for now,” he called over his shoulder, stepping back into his house.

Captain Peace Lily huffed slightly before looking down curiously at what she was holding, ‘What the fuck does this mean? .45...ACP? What even is this?’ She looked up when she heard him coming back, eyeing the odd metal contraption he came back out with “Hey, what are these anyway? And what is that?”

Samael folded out the legs of the small foldable tray table he had pulled from the closet next to his front door, “Table. And those are my bullets.” He chuckled softly when her eyes went wide and looked back down at the objects she was holding. After making sure the tray table was stable, he grabbed the plate and set it down.

“So, by bullets, you mean those metal things that go into and then come out of the...Lugers and the...other things that the griffins have?” said Captain Peace Lily while she warily watched him open up the box and pull out a bullet from inside.

“Yep.”

“...Alright, spill it, what exactly are you doing?”

He closed the box, setting it aside before he looked up at her, “I’m going to take apart this griffin’s bullet and one of mine of a similar size to compare the propellants inside the casings for quality by lighting them on fire. That work for you, Captain?”

“I...guess? Like I said, you better know what you’re doing. And while I’m technically here on duty, I’m not on the job at the moment, so it’s just Peace Lily or just Lily if you prefer,” she said with a light blush.

Samael just nodded, holding up his bullet to the griffin’s, “Got it,” and compared the two bullets. He glanced at Peace Lily around the two bullets, noticing her slight confusion, “Hey, Lily, you know what the griffin’s bullets are made of?”

She jumped slightly at suddenly being addressed, “If I remember right, they’ve varied their metals from zinc to lead and I think they’ve stopped on tin because that’s all we’ve seen lately. Wh-what are yours?”

‘Hmph. Idiots. They had it right with lead. Oh well, tin's not as dense as lead and no lead poisoning to worry about,’ he thought as he eyed her for a moment. “I actually have several different types in several different calibers, but these I have here are jacketed hollow points. Lead cores encased with mild steel,” he said as he placed his into the disassembler, making sure the attachment points were secure before pulling the projectile free from the casing. He then unattached both parts, setting the casing on the plate as he pocketed the projectile.

Peace Lily watched with fascination as Samael worked, still slightly confused at his explanation, but preferring not to interrupt as he pulled apart the griffin’s bullet too. She tilted her head slightly when she looked at the odd red and black device he had brought along with everything else, “And that is…?”

“A lighter. Here, hold this, don’t spill it,” he said as he held out the bullet casing from the griffin’s bullet and dumped the smokeless powder from his own bullet onto the plate. When she hesitantly took the casing, he picked up the lighter and stepped back a little, “You may want to get clear.”

Her eyes widened as she watched him click the lighter to make a flame appear at the tip and she quickly stepped back behind him, watching over his shoulder and making sure to keep the casing in her grip upright. She jumped slightly when the flame touched the powder, causing the powder to light up in an energetic dancing flame with very little smoke, “So...That was yours?”

Samael nodded, studying the plate, “Yep, that’ll be the baseline. Very little if any residue, almost nonexistent smoke. I remember there being quite a bit of smoke off those griffin’s Lugers.” He took the case from her and dumped the powder out onto the plate. He stepped back and lit it, producing a flame obscured by a much larger amount of smoke than his bullet’s powder had produced.

Peace Lily tilted her head and just looked at him with confusion at his mocking grin, “Aaand what did that tell us?...”

“That those idiots don’t know how to make proper smokeless powder and they’re losing a lot of stopping power because of it. I doubt even their best and biggest guns could get through my vests,” he said, looking over the plate and the residue that the powder had left behind. He gathered up a little on his finger and sniffed tentatively, “Sulfur. Which means that they must’ve tried to replicate smokeless powder using black powder as a basis for it.”

“And that means...what?” she said, looking the residue over and hoping he didn’t want to reuse that plate for food.

“Without constant upkeep on their guns, the sulfur will eat away at the metals on the inside and break them down over time,” Samael said, picking up the plate and tray table before he walked back toward his house.

Peace Lily’s eyes widened at this revelation, following him inside, “You don’t mind if I report this to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, right? This sounds like some major need-to-know information.” She shut the door behind them and watched him put away the tray table.

“Uh, well, if you have to, go ahead,” he said, turning the corner into the kitchen and placing the plate in the garbage.

Her brow creased slightly, noticing that his tone had gone from sure and confident if a little cold back down to awkward and somewhat halting, but said nothing while she grabbed her travel bag. She pulled out a small spellfire lighter that Princess Celestia gave her for this, a quill, and some parchment, frowning as she looked down into her bag, “Hey, you got any ink around here somewhere? I didn’t bring any in case it spilled in my bag.”

Samael stepped back around the corner with a look of disbelief on his face, staring for a few seconds at her quill, “I...You...It’s really weird what you all have and don’t have.” At Peace Lily’s look of bewilderment, he just shook his head, “Hold on.”

She debated for a moment following him after he swept from the room towards an area of the house she hadn’t been in yet, but hesitantly sat down on the couch, looking around and taking note of all the familiar and strange objects she could, ‘I guess that makes sense. I’m sure we’ve got things he doesn’t. Just gotta figure out what.’

When he came back and noticed Peace Lily looking around in slight awe, he cleared his throat to get her attention when he neared her, holding out a ballpoint pen, “Uh, I don’t have an ink bottle, but I don’t really need it with this. Just push in the button on top and start writing.”

She looked at him with uncertainty as though skeptical that such a thing could possibly work, but took the pen from him and leaned forward, placing her parchment on the table. Her uncertainty was replaced with stunned awe when she started writing, “How the...? You got any more of these? The eggheads up in Canterlot would love to get their hands on this sort of thing.”

“Uh, yeah, I bought in bulk whenever I could. Hold on,” Samael said. He headed back to the office and snatched up a handful of pens to take back. When he entered the living room again, his attention fell on her hunched form with hers focusing on her letter, his eyes tracing her assets under her dress, ‘Well then. Maybe this quartering thing won’t be so bad if the view is this good often enough.’ He cleared his thoughts swiftly before placing the pens on the table in front of her and sitting in his recliner without another word.

Peace Lily looked up from her writing when the pens clattered down in front of her, “Well, I only really needed one or two more, but that works great, thanks.” She finished up her letter, rolled up the scroll around one of the pens, and lit it on fire with her lighter, causing it disappear in a flash of green flame. In its place, a blue-tinged wisp of smoke appeared to waft through the building.

‘I. What. You know what? I think I hate magic if it’s going to be doing shit like this,’ thought Samael, watching the smoke for a moment before his eyes fell back on Peace Lily who was looking over the pen in her hand. He tilted his head slightly when he spotted her cutie mark on her exposed shoulder, ‘Is that what I think it is?’

She pulled her bag closer to herself, placing his pens and her lighter back inside and turned to him to ask him to finally show her around. Her words died in her mouth, following his gaze to her cutie mark and she smiled softly, “Wondering what my cutie mark is? It’s a—”

“Sasumata. Two of them crossed and a Peace Lily in the middle.”

Her eyes widened, “Wow, almost nopony knows what those are outside of Neighpon and they only ever get the Neighponese Peace Lily most of the time. I’m impressed.” She paused for a moment before her brow creased, “Wait, how do you know Neighponese weaponry? I mean, you sound like you could be Neighponese, but I can’t place your accent as being from one district or another.”

He shook his head with a slight smile, “Guess there are more parallels than just what we’ve made. Because where I’m from, there’s a country called Japan where I lived for quite some time when my mother moved back after...Well, that’s not important. It’s also known as Nippon-koku, or ‘State of Japan.’”

“Very interesting. So tell me, do you speak Neighponese or I guess you’d call it Japane—” she was cut off when he held a hand up with a scowl.

“Yes and I’d rather not. Bad memories, you see,” Samael said with finality, lowering his hand.

Peace Lily’s ear drooped slightly, but she nodded, “I understand. So, uh...how about a tour so I can know where I sleep?” When he stood up, she gathered up her suitcase and travel bag, ready to follow.

Samael led her into the room next to the office downstairs previously occupied on occasion by Lindsay for overnight planning, “Here you are.”

Peace Lily looked around at the rather minimalist design and sparse decorations, “It’s...nice?” and she smiled nervously at him.

He rolled his eyes at her attempt at a compliment, “It wasn’t meant to be nice, it’s meant to be functional.”

“Oh, well. In that case, can I decorate in here? At least until I’m not here anymore?” she said, smiling sweetly and setting down her suitcase.

“Ugh. Fine, just don’t go crazy with it.”

“Thanks!” Peace Lily said. She stepped over to the bed which at least had a very clean comforter, pristine sheets, and two soft pillows, ‘Well, this looks actually pretty cozy.’ Tentatively, she sat down on the bed, yelping slightly when she sank down into the too-soft mattress, “Who the hay slept here before!? It’s like a giant marshmallow!”

Samael smirked with amusement when he saw her sink in, remembering that Lindsay liked her mattresses exceedingly soft, “My old assistant. She liked it like that.” He chuckled to himself, watching her pull herself free. Once she did, he exited the room, “Moving on.”

She huffed to herself slightly and gathered up her travel bag to follow him, “Hey, uh. While we’re going through this, is there anything else I should know or am I going to have to find out the hard way like the mattress?”

He hummed thoughtfully as he stepped across the hall, opening up the door there to reveal a minimalist bathroom with a sink, a mirror above that, and a toilet in the corner, “Well, clean up after yourself, but that’s a given. Uh, if you see something you don’t recognize, ask before touching. Oh…” Turning to her with a slightly grim look, he continued, “I would recommend not sneaking up on me. I get a little...edgy about that.”

Peace Lily felt a shiver run down her spine when his tone changed once more, but nodded to show she understood before stepping into the small bathroom, “Oh, this is nice. Shower’s in another one?” At his nod, she smiled and opened up her travel bag. Digging through her bag, she began to set out mane, tail, fur, hand, and hoofcare products on the sink, practically overcrowding it.

‘...Are you fucking serious right now? Oh well, better here than my damn bathroom,’ thought Samael, looking at the overwhelming amount of beauty products he didn’t recognize. When she seemed like she was done, he just shook his head and stepped towards the end of the hall, keeping his expression as neutral as possible, “Well, if you like to exercise, let me show you my gym.”

‘Oh, stars, I can still smell him. I’ll definitely have to take him up on the exercise. I could certainly get used to this. Especially if I can take his edge off,’ thought Peace Lily, following him upstairs with her eyes glued to his rear. She shook her head from side to side to clear her thoughts once they reached the top.

‘Well, that settles that. I smell good to ponies, gotta remember that...I wonder if I even need deodorant anymore. Maybe a scent neutralizer if I need stealth,’ Samael pondered until they reached the main bathroom. He opened the door to reveal a much larger bathroom than the one downstairs, the frosted glass door shower taking up most of the opposite wall.

She let out a low whistle, looking around slowly, “Why isn’t that other bathroom as nice as this one?”

“...Why do you think? I only got this place instead of just a one-bathroom deal because my old assistant Lindsay needed a place to freshen up if she needed to. Hell, I think some of her makeup might even still be in that other bathroom,” he said.

“Oh, right. I, uh. I kinda didn’t think about that,” said Peace Lily with a light blush. She then dug around her travel bag and pulled out her bottles of Mane & Tail Shampoo and Conditioner, opening the shower door to place them inside.

‘...Of course. This day just keeps getting better and better,’ he thought.

“Well, that should do it for now—What’s that?” she said, her eyes falling on a strange object next to his sink.

“Uuh. Deodorant?”

“Oh, it looks different than what we have. What does it smell like?” she asked, picking it up before he can answer and popping the top off. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, “Ick! That’s nasty! You smell better without it...I MEAN! YOU DON’T NEED IT!” Her face blushed a deep, glowing red.

‘...Alright, no more deodorant for me.’

Chapter 2.5 - Dinner and a Dream

View Online

‘Why did I show her that movie? Her goddamn squeals and questions made the damn thing even less enjoyable than it should’ve been. She hasn’t shut up about it since it stopped. I knew I should’ve said no right when I saw the look on her face,’ thought Samael with a slight scoff while he stirred the cheesy broccoli soup. ‘So glad these ponies eat chicken even if only occasionally. This wouldn’t be right without chicken broth. I’m also glad she shut the hell up long enough to answer that.’

“...Reminded me so much of my sweet, little Nezumi from when I was a little filly! Before my poor little rat was gobbled up by my idiot sister’s cat, if he could’ve cooked, it would’ve been so cuuute! Especially when I helped Mama in the kitchen! Are you sure you don’t need help, Samael?” asked Peace Lily as she watched him work from the small dinner table in the kitchen.

He flinched slightly at her question, keeping an eye on his boiling egg noodles, “Uh, I’m sure I don’t need help, Lily. I’ve done this more times than I can count.”

She pouted behind him, but perked up slightly while the smell of his cooking continued to waft over her, ‘Still can’t believe he can cook. It’s kind of silly to think about an assassin cooking for anypony, even himself. But I do suppose it makes sense from what he’s said about what he called staying off the grid. Kind of sad if you really think about it.’

Samael watched her out of his peripherals, groaning to himself as she seemed to flip flop from sad to happy and back again, ‘Is this going to be every goddamn time I cook?’ He rolled his eyes, “Ugh, fine. The noodles are pretty much done, get them drained, and get a couple of bowls.”

Peace Lily beamed with enthusiasm at this, “Got it!” In a flash, she had jumped to her hooves, made sure the colander was secure in the sink, turned off the burner for the noodles, grabbed the pot’s insulated handles, and carefully poured them into the colander. She placed the pot next to the sink and rooted around in the cabinets for a moment before pulling out two bowls with a radiant smile, “All done!”

‘Congratulations, you completed a mundane task. You must be so proud,’ he thought with sarcasm. He looked over at the steaming noodles, “Alright, good. Set those down and uh, when the noodles are done draining, put them back in the pot.” Turning off the burner for soup itself, he moved it over to an inactive one.

“Sounds like a plan. Say, how about we make a deal here?” Peace Lily smiled over at him, pouring the noodles back into the pot.

“I’m listening. Bring that over here and get ready to stir,” he said.

She pulled the noodle pot over and grabbed the serving spoon from him, stirring as he poured in the soup, “Well, to put it bluntly, I’ve got a wonderful rapport with the community here thanks to my service as a guard. Which means ponies at the market give me great deals, especially when I’m in uniform. So here it is: I do the grocery shopping and you not only let me help you cook, but you come by the barracks sometime and teach me Gray Mega.”

“...Krav Maga. And uh, before I agree, you have target ranges for your bows and crossbows, right?” said Samael, making sure all the soup was poured into the other pot.

“...Yeees? Why?”

“I teach you how to make them safe for gun use and uh, you let me use your range for target practice. Uh, within reason, of course. And you take care of the dishes too.”

Peace Lily hummed thoughtfully, scooping up the mixture and placing an even amount into each bowl. The smell wafted up into her face, making her mouth water, “Mmm, deal. Remind me to go through your recipes to start making lists.”

‘...I’ll have to remember to take out the ones with red meat. That was an unpleasant part of the conversation before. How the hell was I supposed to know that they don’t eat other things with hooves? Oh well, lesson learned. Sucks that they count pigs as part of that too,’ he thought, grabbing his bowl and a spoon before sitting down at the table with her right behind him.

Samael tried not to laugh at the almost sexual moans of enjoyment coming from Peace Lily as she ate, eating his own serving, ‘I would ask for what she’s having if I weren’t already eating it. Lindsay did almost the same thing. Except she knew what she was doing.’

She swiftly emptied her bowl with gusto, “How did you learn to cook like that!?” and she stood up to make her way back for more.

“Uhh, well. Kind of had to. That’s really it,” he said, emptying his own bowl shortly after her and moving to get more, only to be stopped by her grabbing his bowl.

“Here, let me get that for you!” Peace Lily said with a sweet smile, stepping over to the soup.

“...Thanks.”

Once the meal was finished, Samael looked down at the paltry leftovers with a slight frown, ‘Hmph. She definitely eats a lot more than Lindsay. Ugh, if I want more leftovers, I’ll have to start making more.’

Meanwhile, Peace Lily was puzzling over his sink, turning both knobs and getting only cold water before turning them both off and turning to him, “Hey, uh. I don’t know what brought you here, but whatever it was messed up and didn’t hook up your hot water pipes. Either that or Twilight’s assistant Spike used up the town’s hot water again.”

He placed the leftovers in the refrigerator and turned to look at her with a creased brow, shutting the door, “...Are you serious right now? The whole town is on the same hot water!? That’s just inefficient at best. Just leave the left knob on a few seconds and hold your hand under.”

She tilted her head before doing as he asked and turning her head back to him with her hand under the water, “Now wh—what!?” Her eyes widened when she felt the water warming up gradually instead of the normal instantaneous hot water the rest of Ponyville got.

‘I should start keeping score for this sort of thing. But would I count how many times a pony’s been surprised or how many times human efficiency won out?’ he thought, watching her recover from her surprise to begin washing dishes.

“Wow, and here I was worried that there wouldn’t be any hot water for the shower...It goes to the shower too, right?” Peace Lily said, looking back at Samael with sudden worry.

“Uh, yeah. The whole house. It’s an electric water heater, so I just needed the cold water line,” he explained, fighting back a smirk when she just gawked at him before she turned her attention back to the dishes.

“Jeez, you need show Twilight that thing. She’d have kittens over it before she started trying to make more,” she said with a slight giggle.

Once the dishes were washed and put away, Peace Lily looked around slowly, “So, what’s for dessert?”

“...I don’t have much for dessert, so—”

“OH! Sugarcube Corner closes in half an hour and Pinkie usually ends the day with some nice, fresh donuts! I’ll just go out and get us some!” she said excitedly before giving Samael a firm hug and nuzzle and exiting the room.

And before he could even register what she said and did to him, he was snapped out of his confusion by the sound of the front door closing. He stood there for a moment before moving to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of orange juice and then sat down in his recliner to sip at it slowly, ‘...I should just lock her out. WHAT IS WITH THESE PONIES AND SUGAR AND FUCKING MOLESTING MY FACE!?’ His eye twitched slightly, ‘...They’re lucky they’re cute.’

Princess Luna smiled serenely as she slowly walked on the incorporeal “floor” of her Dream Nexus, looking all around at the stars that represented her subjects’ dreams. Her eyes flicked with practiced ease over the stars, diligently on the lookout for the colors of nightmares. She frowned deeply when she came across the blank spots she had come across many times before indicating griffins who had found a way to block her out in her own country, ‘Hmph. Those damnable featherbrains. I need to find a way around this blockade. Not knowing where these griffins are before they can strike...I hate this.’

Her thoughts were cut off when she spotted a brightly lit pink dream, a knowing smile on her face, ‘Ah, youthful hormones. That poor filly’s going to have to change her sheets in the morrow.’ Finally, she spotted an almost black dim gray star and stepped up to it, her vision going slightly out of focus as she stared right at it, ‘Oh, poor colt. Worried about showing up in class in his undergarments and without his homework.’

Luna’s horn lit up briefly, replacing the colt’s dream with something quite a bit more pleasant with his crush in class. She smiled when the star turned to a dim rosy pink, turning to walk once more. In the corner of her vision, a star flashed from dim to an extreme brightness. Her breath caught when she noticed the blood red tinge and sharp white outline, ‘A dream of death tinged with memory? Who…?’

She gave a brief glance around to make sure nopony had anything more important at the moment and quickly moved to the star, staring down at it, ‘What is this?...I can’t comprehend what I’m looking at here. Wait...Sister told me of the human assassin...Could he possibly be remembering…? Hmm, a most propitious circumstance.’

She channeled a series of spells to mask her visual and audible presence and open a way into the human stallion’s dream. The star swirled slowly at first then faster and faster as it grew in size, stretching and skewing until it resembled a glowing red door with a white frame when it stopped swirling. When her spells finally stopped, the door swung open for her and she stepped through.

Luna let out a high-pitched yelp when she had stepped down on a swiftly moving dull gray carriage-like object, moving down an oddly dark path in the dead of night, “WHAT THE FLYING FORNICATIONS IS THIS?!” She flared out her wings to regain her balance before looking down, “Hmph...An odd contraption, this. They must be inside, so…” She breathed out slowly, sinking down into the carriage and her rear found the seating in the back as she appeared to have dropped into the middle of a conversation.

“...Alarm in the back was already disabled, boss. Apparently, they wanted to use that fire exit as an escape route without having the appropriate response teams finding their operations,” came from what was apparently a human mare to Luna’s left. She leaned forward carefully, looking at the mare with deep curiosity and smiling when the mare turned her head slightly to the right which gave her a better view.

‘Oh my, what a gorgeous mare,’ she thought, studying the mare’s pale, smooth skin; straight, thin snout; her bright blue eyes behind horn rimmed glasses; her shockingly red lips which upon closer inspection appeared to be covered with lipstick; her soft cheeks; her wavy dirty blonde mane; and her slightly pointed chin, overall making for an exotically appealing appearance. ‘She would make a wonderful handmaiden, perhaps even a nice bellydancer...Oh my, those are nice,’ she thought when she looked down into the mare’s slightly unbuttoned dark navy blue blouse, spotting her generous bust and the black bra holding them up.

She was shaken out of her reverie at the sound of the mare speaking once more in a pleasantly professional lilt, “The cops have been paid off. At least the ones that matter. The right ones know not to draw against you and they’ll block the doors until they’re told to move, either by you or by their superiors, but we’re hoping it’ll be just you. You’re looking at maybe twenty targets, more if they’ve recruited since last count.”

Luna tilted her head in confusion before a stallion’s voice sounded from her left, the icy chill behind it sending a shiver down her spine, “My KSG’s in the trunk, right? With the shortened Salvo and the subsonic slugs?” She turned quickly to spot the very stallion her sister had described to her, only his mane was much shorter than she had said and was oddly a deep red instead of black with a distinctive stripe, ‘Oh my. Sister was right, he is rather handsome.’

She watched him pull out what in passing looked like one of those Lugers that the griffins had, only much less angled at the handle and fatter around the top part with an oddly long, cylindrical protuberance at the end. The little amount of light streaming through the windows allowed her to see the writing on the side, ‘HK...USP Tactical…’ and she leaned in closer to see the smaller writing, ‘.45 ACP?...Hmm, that was mentioned in passing in Captain Peace Lily’s report talking about the griffin’s...bullets.’

The stallion pulled out the bottom of the gun which she remembered being told was called a magazine and looked down at it. Luna followed suit and tilted her head at the hollow, sectioned bullets, ‘Those...Those are very odd looking.’ She jumped slightly as the stallion turned towards his companion to speak once more, “Pick up more of the Ranger T-Series after we find a new safehouse.”

The mare made a noise of affirmation before speaking once more with a slight shake in her voice, “Boss, are...are you sure about this? The background on this could get some attention—”

Luna jumped when the stallion snapped back, “Of course I’m fucking sure, Moira! These motherfuckers just think I’m just a small business owner they can push around, but what happens when they dig deeper!? What happens when they find you!? I won’t let that happen! They’ve already seen you once and talked shit! Fucking hell, I hated moving my shit out the safehouse and rigging it to blow, but if any of them get out, they’ll come looking.”

The odd carriage slowed to a halt while she thought with deep confusion, slightly taken aback by the profanity, ‘I didn’t understand even half of that, but...This is incredibly intriguing.’ She looked around outside the windows all inside the carriage, noticing that they seemed to have stopped in an area where none could see into or around the carriage very well. She heard a metal sliding against metal after a soft click and when she turned, she saw the stallion reaching underneath his seat for something before looking over at the mare to speak once more, “I’ll radio in with the number. You get ready to call in the dinner reservations and bring the car around when I tell you. If the worst happens, call it in. They’ll help you with my funds.”

Luna’s face was a complete mask of confusion before realization dawned on her, ‘Oh! Most of that has to have been in code! I should find out what all this means with dream empathy. It should be especially strong since this appears to be a memory he’s dreaming of.’ Her eyes squinted, her horn lit up, and her magic permeated herself and the stallion for just long enough for a connection, but not long enough to reveal her presence.

She gasped out loudly as a vast array of complex emotions flooded into her mind, trying to sort her own from the stallion’s. It was easy, seeing as how her main emotions at the moment were confusion and curiosity. But his...his were a controlled and tranquil fury, a cold resolve, and a chilling goal of spilling blood tinged ever so slightly with paranoia and not even a single ounce of fear for his own safety. But underneath it all, a deep concern and an undying loyalty for his companion were driving his actions, along with dread that the mare known to him as Moira on the job and Lindsay in private would have her safety and well-being threatened should he fail.

The stallion, preferring to be called Samael by most except for the mare in the car, exited the car right when the spell connected, so Luna had to scramble to get herself out, still shivering as the emotions filled her, ‘He...He’s not just out to kill. He’s out to protect a dear friend with such definite finality...I can only count a handful of ponies I know who would desire to commit such bloodshed to do the same and all of them are in my guard.’ She followed him closely to make sure she didn’t miss a single moment, watching him look around with purpose and thinking back to what was being discussed earlier. Time seemed to freeze for her as meaning flooded her mind.

There were blackmailers and criminals after his money, believing him to own a successful small business to account for the money he received from assassinations. So, he had decided to put a stop to it immediately, killing the small ring of self-sufficient criminals in one swift, terrible strike. His “safehouse” was a two-story house out in the countryside and it was rigged with explosives as a desperate measure to catch any of those who happened to get away from his strike. Thankfully, he had an associate who could safely defuse the explosives if none of them got away so no unfortunate innocents would be harmed. Those “dinner reservations” were called in to clean up the bodies left behind, thanks to an organization of assassins helping one another out when convenient.

She slowly let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, ‘That...That is remarkably proactive. Brutal, but proactive.’ She allowed her empathy link to continue, pushing his emotions down to feel her own over them, but still keep aware of his just to understand his actions.

Samael moved to the back of the car, as Luna learned it was called, pulling on a full face mask made of a lightweight, but durable metal to hopefully deflect smaller caliber bullets from his otherwise vulnerable face. His style of dress was slightly impractical for his purposes, but he needed the look to strike fear into his enemies. A black suit, charcoal black dress shirt, black tie, black leather gloves, and black combat boots were slightly difficult to move around in, especially with a ballistic vest on underneath the shirt, but she had to agree that it made him look very professional and could pass for a slightly odd civilian should the need arise.

She jumped slightly when the trunk of the car opened to allow access to a hidden case in the top of the trunk holding a type of weapon she had never seen the griffins use. However, due to her link with him, she knew that it was called a shotgun and that this particular one was a bullpup shotgun with a shortened suppressor and subsonic shotgun slug ammo which made it nearly silent aside from a faint pop of escaping gas and the racking of the internal mechanisms. He then reached down into a hidden compartment of the trunk and pulled out a pair of modern Karambit knives in sheaths which he tucked into his belt on both sides. A quick check indicated his jacket pockets contained more shotgun shells ready to load and his belt held a few more full magazines for the suppressed pistol in his concealed chest holster.

With his shotgun held in a retracted low ready position and his finger just outside the trigger guard and ready to enter at a moment’s notice, he walked down an abandoned side street with buildings that looked like they had been commercial buildings, but were now boarded up. She watched as he neared a human mare standing in front of a gate near one of the buildings, her body language exceedingly nervous. Her eyes widened when she noticed that the mare’s face was blurred, indicating that he either didn’t, didn’t want to, or just didn’t care to remember her.

The mare spoke up in an unremarkable and distorted voice when he approached, “Uhh, sir. N-n-none of th-them have left the p-p-premises.” It was then that Luna noticed the badge and uniform, indicating that this mare was a human guard known as a police officer, ‘Despite paying these corruptible officials, they still deeply fear him. With good reason, it seems.’

As if to prove her conclusion, Samael spoke to the mare as he passed, not even turning to look at her, “Good, now stay out of the way. They’re mine. Remember, stay out of my way and you get to go home to your family.” The mare disappeared behind him after he finished, indicating she played no further role in this memory.

Luna followed along, reading his past actions when he started stalking through back alleys out of view of his eventual massacre, ‘Hmm, it seems those criminals were under surveillance by the police and he found out about it through his contacts within their ranks. He paid them to have their investigation report infighting with guns that will be planted later and he knows none of the uncorrupt will look too far into it because these criminals have been a thorn in their sides since they moved in.’

Her right ear tickled slightly, Moira’s voice sounding in her ear just as it did his, “It's done. Move.” A brief moment of confusion preceded understanding as she realized that Moira was informing him of a distraction across town to pull most of the police force there and that he should get started.

Soon, Samael had stalked to a dilapidated building that had been a dance club at some point or another, but was now used as a front for criminal activity. At the front door stood a blurry faced stallion with a poorly concealed machine pistol. Luna knew through Samael that that stallion had one of the few guns that this organization had, seeing as how they were new and preferred melee weapons for intimidation.

As he stared at the inattentive stallion, Samael began taking measured, short breaths while he strapped on his shotgun and tucked it away, making Luna feel the empathy link surge with adrenaline as she watched, ‘Oh, he’s preparing himself for battle by stimulating his adrenal glands with purposeful hyperventilation. That is brilliant. I wonder when he’ll start. This blurry faced stallion tells me that he’s not involved in this mem—

(Music Start (Repeat as necessary/desired))

Her empathy link went wild with murderous intent when he drew his pistol, racked the slide to chamber a round, and aimed his pistol, firing off a nearly silent shot into the stallion’s chest in one swift motion. The only noises that followed were the slightly muted sound of gas escaping the suppressor, the internal mechanisms of the pistol, the projectile hitting flesh, the gasp of the stallion, and the clink of the bullet casing hitting the ground. She didn’t even have time to blink when a second shot followed into the now staggering stallion’s head, ‘...I...He just...I thought…’

Luna shivered slightly at the cold detachment she felt from Samael, ‘That’s why he seemed unimportant...I must admit, I envy his ability to carry this out without seeing them as more than obstacles. Sister might not think the same, but…’ She smiled almost wolfishly, ‘Those griffins will have a very tough time surviving such an opponent. I truly can’t wait to actually meet him.’

His thoughts of numbers flowed into her mind when a twelve ticked down to ten and a zero up to a one, showing her that not only he was keeping track of his shots, but that he was tracking kills. He held his pistol up and ready with a slight slant as he took a low stance and begin moving efficiently into the building, his mind keeping track of his shots even as he remembered the floor plans he had studied. His shotgun was ready to be pulled up once he got out of the narrow areas into the main room.

She followed as swiftly as she could, watching him encounter only two more blurry faced stallions and dispatching them with a headshot each, ‘Ten to eight. One to three. Turn right here. My word, such efficiency, such planning.’ Before she even turned the corner, she heard the muted sound of his pistol firing twice into another body and the numbers changed again, six and four. When she turned, she saw a blurred mare with blood flowing freely from her breast and her forehead, a machete on the ground next to her limp hand.

Luna marveled at the fact that he hadn’t allowed any of them to live long enough to notify the others of his presence, even as one more stallion spotted him. Samael saw him in that same moment and the stallion only had time to open his mouth, not even getting out a sound as a bullet hit his jaw. A second shot to the forehead of the gurgling stallion put him down swiftly and now she was starting to notice that they all dressed similarly, even the mare.

Samael moved to the next corner, lowering his stance slightly and peeking around the corner. Another number was added to the four and five in their minds: five. She stepped around the corner and saw one mare and four stallions standing in the middle of a large room conversing, ‘The main dance floor, it seems. And not enough time to reload after four shots, he doesn’t want to have four shots to come back to in an emergency, and his shotgun would allow them to get off an alert anyway.’

He whispered out to himself, steeling himself for the coming conflict, “Time to kick this shit off. Those goddamn cops had better keep the fucking exits blocked.” He swiftly turned the corner, causing the group to jump in fright. He fired off three shots, two into two of the stallions’ heads and one into the mare’s. Luna was momentarily confused at to why he didn’t fire all four, jumping slightly when one of the stallions sprinted toward the back of the room positively screaming for help and the other sprinted towards the assassin with wild abandon.

Samael ducked down, hooking the other stallion’s leg in his arm as soon as it was within reach, and flipped him with the momentum built up from the sprint, hitting his magazine release with his thumb and immediately after pulling another magazine from his belt to insert with his now-free hand. Her eyes lit up with realization as the number one went up to thirteen, ‘He kept one in the chamber so he could put in a full magazine without having to rechamber!’

That number went back down to eleven when he turned to the stallion he had flipped, one shot to the chest right at the heart and another to the head. The pistol went back into its holster before he pulled up his shotgun and turned around, already aiming approximately where he was sure they’d start coming out when they found that their escape routes had been welded shut. As soon as he saw movement, his eyes flicked to see a wooden club in an approaching stallion’s hand, firing immediately into center mass and calling out, “Do you have any idea who you’ve fucked with!? You and your friends are dead!”

Luna’s jaw dropped as the slug caused a gaping, gushing wound that even the most powerful healing magic would have trouble closing without losing the patient. She watched him pump the shotgun by the vertical grip on the pump handle before another shot found its way into another victim’s head, this one wearing a ratty ballistic vest, ‘Quick to determine armoring and exploit the weakness of such an opponent.’

Her ears rang when a thunderous boom sounded from the other side of the room and she heard the pellets whiz by and embed themselves into the wall, far off target from the assassin. Her eyes found a visibly trembling stallion attempting to operate a shotgun he could barely hold steady before she saw his head receive a new hole. Her mind reeled while he dispatched his enemies with deadly precision, ‘...He’ll be the first to know where those butchers reside should we find them.’

A movement off to the side caught Luna’s attention and she looked over with surprise as this stallion wasn’t as blurred as the rest, meaning he made a significant impact on this memory. A pit formed in her stomach when she spotted the heavy sledgehammer he was holding. She almost shouted out a pointless warning when Samael spotted him as well.

Without enough time to bring the shotgun around, all he could do was jump back as swiftly as he could, the sledgehammer missing the original target of his head. Instead it came down on the end of the shotgun, shattering part of the suppressor, bending the barrel, and knocking it out of his hands with the force of the blow. The strap caught it and caused the shotgun to swing into the assassin’s leg, shock and surprise flaring up briefly before a burning rage overtook him.

Even as he cursed at himself for not watching the flanks, Samael lunged with frightening speed towards the stallion trying to recover from his overbearing swing. She watched the assassin drive his knee into the other stallion’s diaphragm then with a slight twist in stance, he stomped down onto the side of the stallion’s ankle, her ears picking up a faint snap before the pained wheeze.

As the other stallion tried to hobble backwards, a pair of gloved hands closed around the sledgehammer’s handle, lifting it high with ease as one might do with a croquet mallet. With a vicious upward arcing swing, Luna’s eyes bugged out when she saw the hammerhead hit a place she never expected it to go and she swore she heard two little pops before the crack of a pelvis, ‘...Note to self: never enrage this stallion. I don’t want a sledgehammer forcibly inserted into my quim.’

Samael drew his pistol before the stallion’s crumpled form had hit the floor and fired a shot into the back of the violently trembling head, ceasing all movement and the numbers changed yet again: ten and thirteen. She didn’t even notice that he was still keeping track of his shots and kills, being almost second nature now that she had gotten used to it. Thinking back, she remembered the shotgun starting at seven and dropping to four with another seven in the second magazine tube before it was taken out of commission.

Six more assailants poured into the room, one falling to a bullet between the eyes before a thrown club knocked the gun out of the assassin’s grip. Luna gasped out when she saw one of the remaining stallions pull out what Samael identified as a .38 Special. She watched Samael rush forward, drawing his knives in each hand as he moved and the stallion only got off one shot into the assassin’s vest before the curved blade of a knife found its way into the forearm holding the revolver. With a twist of the blade and the slash of another across the stallion’s throat, the most immediate threat was taken out.

His leg shot out at an approaching stallion, kicking him away before he could swing a machete. The assassin’s movements were practiced and swift as he weaved between enemies, flashes of steel and spurts of crimson filling the air. She watched as his form flowed from one stance to another with fluidity and before long, he was the last one standing, a few smears of blood on his suit and quite a bit dripping from his knives.

“Nineteen. Where’s the last of them?” Samael asked himself while he moved into the back rooms holding his knives ready and he was stopped in his tracks by the sound of a gun being cocked behind him. Luna felt her heart stop when she heard the sound, but realized this was still a memory based dream, so he obviously didn’t expire here. Slowly, he raised his hands up to show surrender and she turned to spot a broad-chested, maneless stallion almost as tall as she with a graying handlebar mustache holding a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun, ‘Hmm, he clearly remembers this one as the leader and the one who gave him even a little trouble. Let’s see now.’

“Don’t move or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off, ya fuckin’ twat,” the large stallion barked out with a deep, Trottingham accent, “And drop them fuckin’ knives.” After the clatter of the knives hitting the ground, he went on, “Who tha fuck are you!? I saw it all on the fuckin’ cameras, mate! You come in here and kill my whole fuckin’ gang without a second fuckin’ thought and hardly none of them gave you any hassle!”

“No one of consequence,” said Samael, smirking underneath his mask despite the deadly circumstances he faced. Luna’s eyes widened at his cool resolve, ‘He knows his life hangs in the balance, but...he knows that if he dies, Lindsay will use his funds to finish the job. As long as she’s safe…’

“Don’t jerk me around, you fuckin’—” started the older stallion before the assassin blurred into activity. He couldn’t react fast enough to even pull the trigger when the shotgun was taken from his hands and he watched as it was broken down. He cracked his knuckles, staring down at the shorter fellow with a smug smile, “You shoulda kept the gun, you little shite.”

“And you should’ve gone along with the quote. See, your line was ‘I must know’ so I could’ve said ‘Get used to disappointment.’ That’s what’s wrong with you thugs, no respect for the classics—” said Samael with slight amusement behind his cold tones before a hand grabbed at his mask. His reflexes allowed him to dodge the swipe with ease before he rushed forward, pulling off his tie as he went.

Another punch from the larger stallion hit only air and his wrist was wrapped in the tie as the assassin worked his way around behind his back. When the stallion tried to turn and reach back with his other hand, he found it bound behind his back with the first by a tight, intricate knot. She admired his resourcefulness as the larger stallion attempted to free himself, ‘Using anything and everything to his advantage, not afraid to fight dirty, and deadly efficiency. All traits of warriors of old that I miss instilling into my soldiers. I simply must make him an honorary Night Guard. After I convince Sister that he must demonstrate his abilities to those nobles crying to have him put into a zoo or become part of a travelling circus.’

Samael set his feet in front of the stallion and twisted his hips the way he’d been taught as his fist sailed into his victim’s face. His opponent staggered backwards, only to be followed closely by the assassin who continued to land violent blows to the face and the chest. With a kick to the family jewels, the stallion bent over wheezing with chips of teeth dribbling out alongside bloody saliva. Finally, the assassin bent back the stallion’s head, took aim, and slammed the side of his closed fist as hard as he could into the area where the carotid artery resided next to the trachea.

Luna watched the large stallion stagger painfully around, gurgling as blood filled his mouth and lungs before he finally fell with a meaty thud. She watched as Samael straightened up, panting softly from exertion as the adrenaline faded and he began to rub at the spot where his shotgun hit, finally acknowledging that pain. A mental image entered Luna’s head of the spot when he examined it later: a large, brilliantly purple bruise on his upper thigh roughly the size and shape of a small appetizer plate.

(Music Stop)

As he walked with a slight limp to the front door, he held a finger up to his right ear to speak to his assistant, “Twenty. Let’s go.” She noticed the interior of his dream change with a shimmer only she recognized, ‘Oh no. Memory to nightmare. I might have to meet him early if it’s bad enough. I hope he doesn’t react poorly.’

His mask faded away without him even noticing and he stopped right in the middle of the dance floor as light, slow claps sounded behind him. Luna looked around, only to see that the environment had turned to pitch black with the bodies he had left being the only details otherwise.

Samael looked around to notice the same with an emotionless look on his face which quickly turned to slight surprise when a mare’s thickly Neighponese accented voice sounded from the darkness, “Excellent work, my son. I see your father’s training has been put to great use. I’m so proud of you.”

Luna winced as she felt the empathy link she hadn’t let expire practically explode with rage, turning in time with him to notice a mare walking towards them. She gagged slightly when she spotted the mare, supposing that she could’ve been beautiful were it not for her deathly, cadaverous pallor and the gaping, bloody hole in her forehead.

“Hmph. Your pride means less than nothing to me. You’re a mockery of motherhood and you should get back to filling your grave with your worthlessness.”

“That’s no way to talk to your mother, young man. Now, come give your mother a kiss,” said the mare, smiling coldly with blood-soaked teeth and staring at him with her steely glazed eyes.

Luna shivered at the glares the two were levelling at one another as she debated whether or not to interfere, ‘He’s...he’s still in control, it seems. I sincerely hope he remains so.’ She smiled with slight relief when his control over his dream exerted itself, putting a pistol in his hand and allowing him to fill her with bullets until she faded into nothingness, ‘She still resides in his memories, but he doesn’t allow her to rule them. Good for him.’

“Bitch. I just wish I could’ve been the one to put the hole in your head instead of the cops. Would’ve made me feel a lot better,” he said as the pistol disappeared from his grip.

A deep, commanding voice spoke out in rough Neighponese, letting it be well known that the stallion speaking had always seen himself as superior to the one he addressed, “Well, look at the mutt of a brat. Playing like the man he wants to be and not the dog he really is.”

Luna’s breath caught as a deep, paralyzing terror permeated through the link, ‘...He’s afraid? Who could possibly frighten him this much?’ She heard steps approaching and looked about for the source before finally spotting him. An elderly stallion walked towards Samael with a deep limp as though needing a cane. She noticed his mane and beard framing a lined, wrinkled face, the hair stark white, long, and straight. The Princess of the Night would’ve noticed that he only looked at Samael with one, disapproving eye while the other was a blank and white glass eye. However, she only noticed his dark grey suit caked with blood and the cane this elderly stallion so needed sticking through his neck.

“So, weak little mutt, are you going to bark like you did before you were shown proper discipline?” said the old stallion mockingly, showing his few teeth in a dreadful, leering smile. “Before the years I spent trying to toughen you up. Make you a good successor to my wonderful little princess’s business interests. Bleed out the dirty blood that came from that disgusting American who my daughter deemed appropriate. I think we need to go back to Brazil and get more bullet ants for you. Not just your hands this time either. Everywhere.”

Luna stood there shocked as she mulled all this over, ‘He...All of that...I…’ and her view turned to see Samael standing there stock still, pale as a ghost and trembling. She shook her head roughly to clear her thoughts and glared deeply at the elderly stallion, her horn glowing as she began to channel the spells necessary to dispel this nightmare, turn it into something pleasant, and reveal herself. Her spells died out when she felt his terror dissipate and a smug resolve replaced it.

“No, old man. You can’t do anything anymore. Your empire didn’t take long to crumble after my ‘dirty’ father killed you for what you did to me,” said Samael with a sarcastic smile as the old man scowled before fading.

Luna barely had time to smile for his strength of mind triumphing over this nightmare without her help before the empathy link snapped and she was ejected back into the Dream Nexus, indicating he had awoken.

‘I simply must meet...him...Wait…’ she thought before she registered something, ‘...Why were there so many stallions in that club?’

Samael sat up in bed, rubbing his head slowly and staring at his alarm clock, ‘Mmph, only 3 AM. Wonder if I’ll get a repeat when I go back to sleep...I blame those damnable donuts for that.’

He bent down and opened a drawer in his nightstand, reaching in to pull out the mask he had worn that night and staring down at it with a blank expression. His hand reached automatically down into the drawer once more to pull out a photograph. The only one he had taken and kept from his time working, one that he was now glad he had.

By the moonlight streaming through the window, he looked down at the photo at the smiling face of Lindsay as she hugged him from behind while he deadpanned at the camera, ‘...I hope you’ll be alright without me, Lindsay. I’ll miss you.’

Samael's Mercy

by Myyyystery

Prologue - The Brewing Maelstrom

Chapter 1 - Meeting the New Neighbors

Chapter 2 - Privacy is a Relic of a Bygone Age

Chapter 2.5 - Dinner and a Dream