Max Payne. Bodyguard for a princess
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLtleMSikKk
2:30 P.m.....You wake up in a cold room, a splitting pain in your head, and sad realization that the past 20 years of your life were, in fact, not some horrible nightmare that would scare any self-respecting person to stop in their tracks and contemplate the decisions in their life. You attempt to roll off your bed before you realize you had passed out on the floor and that your headache wasn't just the consequences of a night full of bad choices, but the consequences of a lifetime of bad choices and a heavy fall out of a hotel chair. You pick yourself up slowly and grasp at a half-full bottle of liquor with different colored pills swimming in it. After a few failed attempts you lift it off of the table and shakily raise it to your lips, taking several swigs before heading to the bathroom to make room for more alcohol. As you walk out of the bathroom you hear a knock on the door and a loud voice call out.
"Max Payne. Open the door. We are here to escort you to the castle."
You stumble over to the door, wearing a pair of wrinkled, scotch-stained pants and an under shirt. You swing open the door and are instantly blinded by the sun. It wan't very long after midday, so the sun was shining bright in the sky like some giant beacon to remind you of all the bad choices you've ever made, and that some people are living just fine. You covered your eyes with your hand so you could see three royal guard ponies standing in front of you, all with serious looks on their faces. Each was wearing the standard Royal guard uniform, along with the standard look of smug distaste for you that came with everyone in this city.
"Max Payne. We are here to escort you to the gala where you will protect the princesses at any cost. Am I clear?" said the guard who was clearly the ranking leader here.
"uh...Yeah, I understand. Just, uh,just let me get dressed first alright?" you say back, still drunk and in pain.
The guards nod yes and let you hobble back into your sad little hotel room. You still don't know why they had chosen you for this position. You guess it was just because they wanted an old fool they could sucker into doing whatever they wanted without much effort. Well, they had you here, no point n trying to fight anything. Getting dressed was the challenge now. All you had to do was set out a pair of nice pants, a shirt, a jacket, and a tie. One task. But in between that and a full night of binge drinking the "one task" took a back seat. Hell it wasn't even in the car.... You Scrounged around the hotel for a bit before finding the wrinkled clothes you had decided on wearing the day before. You walked out of the hotel room in the grey outfit and put on a pair of sunglasses before being escorted off the premises by the three guards.
The trip to the castle wasn't short of hate. The entire way there you were forced to listen to the dribble of the mindless idiots who wanted you to be far away from them. The castle rested in the heart of the city, and your hotel was on the outskirts of what they called Canterlot. All the carriages in the city were boycotting your arrival, so you were walking. It took about two hours to reach your destination, only stopping to tie your shoe or to wait for the three guards to push away some raving loser yelling about how much he hated your existence.....Still better than Jersey.
You arrived at the castle around five o'clock in the afternoon, receiving no less dirty looks here than the city. You continued to go about your business of having no business until the gala starts. You are "introduced" to the princesses by seeing them for twenty seconds as they prepared, then you were sent on your way. Once the gala started there were ponies flooding every entrance until soon there was a sea of pastel colors against one, very tall and awkward-looking you. The princesses went about their business greeting everyone that came. It was boring and tedious, but at least the castle designers had the common decency to have built a fully stocked bar by their greeting place. You drank to yourself calmly, listening to all the commotion of the gala mixed with the occasional slur or hateful words directed towards you. You felt more out of place than a birthday clown in fallujah, and half as stupid. All of this eccentricity to show off the castles wealth and honor...At least everything was going smoothly. No mishaps.....Yet.....
