Commission: Scarlet in the crimson color

They had arrived to the scene, wearing their green jackets with pride over getting this mission. The locale they were in was a large warehouse just as they had been briefed. Red had told Spectrum to be on her guards since there were lots of open space and ladders to higher levels of the building for snipers to hide. Hundreds of both big and small boxes covered most corners of the warehouse, followed by shelves placed in a symmetrical order to form dozens of avenues so the forklifts could get around properly.

Swift moves and tempo helped them getting in place while waiting for whoever was going to make the exchange. It was moving to five minutes before the scheduled meeting, and Red took a glance from the cardboard boxes he and Spectrum hid behind.

“They are here...” he whispered and got down to the hard concrete ground again. “Let's move”.

Spectrum was to be right behind Red at all time except when engaging the targets, an order she more than happily followed. As much as she was prepared for what this job gave, she never expected to be promoted so soon. Getting jobs that adventured her life and probably the entire government she now worked for too was a little more than she had asked for. Not that she was afraid, she had just never imagined any of this happening, especially not meeting Red Gear.

He stopped behind another large crate, this one bigger than the previous one. He got up on his hindlegs and looked around the corner. He could now see the targets, but he was not satisfied about what he had been given to do. He sighed in order to tell himself it would be alright, but then glanced at Spectrum who also stood pressed to the crate, only to realize that this could be a serious challenge.

“Alright... there is a pony about your size over there with a brief case”.

“Uhu?”.

“And there is also a minotaur about three times my size guarding him...”.

“Oh”.

“Don't worry” he said and laid a hoof over her shoulder, giving her a reassuring look. “I'll distract the guard while you go for the pony. But we must be synchronized, meaning you have to move exactly at a time after I go, okay?”.

He was giving her that serious look again, but she didn't doubt about it. She trusted that Red Gear knew what he talked about and would follow his own plan perfectly. The only thing she could do was following him perfectly. And thanks to the fact that it was him she worked with... gave her all the confidence there was to get. They took another minute to plan their strategy, and soon they were both ready to get this show on the road. The most important thing was that the targets were to be taken alive. They sealed the deal with a quick smooch, then separated to each end of the crate.

“I go” Red stated and charged around the corner on all four.

Spectrum waited. She heard Red taunt the targets, soon having the minotaur chasing him through the avenues of shelves and boxes. Once she saw him and the large beast disappear, she jumped out from her hiding and scanned for the pony she was to chase down. She saw him hurrying towards the large door just a few meters away from him. Spectrum flapped out her wings, knowing she was faster in the air than on the ground. In a few seconds, she had charged through the air and thus reached the pony before he even noticed her. In a violent collision, she knocked aside the pony. In a split second she touched ground with a hindleg just to build up another momentum, then jumped at him again and used the force to deliver a punch straight into his face.

The pony was dressed in a trench coat and armed with not much more than the horn on his forehead. Spectrum understood that since he was a unicorn she had to knock him out before he could channel any magic. The handgun she had been given as standard sidearm was pulled out from her collar and a bullet was loaded into the chamber. But just as she was about to bash him in the head with the handle, she was suddenly assaulted by the very brief case she had been assigned to get. After a strong hit across her muzzle, she dropped the gun and fell on her back. The unicorn jumped her and pinned her down, staring at her like he was going for a kill. Sparks emitted from his horn.

“Move and I'll electrocute you, commie!” he shouted and pointed his horn at her. Spectrum was locked even though the unicorn wasn't that physically strong, but his horn sure hid more power than what she could see. However, she couldn't give up here, she couldn't fail Red Gear on her second and most important mission so far. By the time she understood it was hopeless to resist, she heard a clatter from the side.

A bunch of boxes blew away as Red Gear landed on the hard floor with a hard thud. He was bruised but not beaten, thus back on his hindlegs to meet his foe. Unfortunately, the minotaur he faced walked out from the mess like it was his scene, cracking his knuckles in an intimidating manner. Red waited for him to move, but was too slow once the muscular thing dashed at him. This beast was much faster than he looked and packed a punch that would send Red Gear to the ground again. Like a flash, he grabbed the green collar and held his overpowered foe up in the air, posing that he was ready to beat him to death.

“Tell me who sent you! Where is Trotsky?!” he roared with his deep voice, trying to get something out from Red, who sadly enough for them didn't plan on saying anything if it so cost him his life.

But somepony wasn't ready for that price...

Spectrum looked at the scene with wide, terrified eyes. She saw Red in the minotaur's grip, hanging like he was already dead from his collar. The loud voice demanding information that never would be told. The pressuring aura, the threat of death, such fading innocence gathered in one place for her to witness. She remembered the scene. She remembered the foals. Those foals that played outside when she was younger. Back in her days when her parents had united in their torment towards her, ending up calling her the worst of thing she could imagine before giving her the beating she never would forget. She was then thrown out after all the years of constant abuse and misery, told never to come back again. But that wasn't the end of it. She was forced to recall her past once she saw them.

The playing foals...

It was all fun and games, imitating what they had seen and heard from a game. A child's innocence to turn it into a hunt for cutie-marks. One was pinned, forced by his friends to tell them how to get their cutie-marks. Spectrum didn't see the game. She didn't see the play. She only saw her own father holding her down for her mother to look at. They laughed at her, mocked her, tortured her, abused her, and finally struck her.

They were dead...

She had barely realized what she had done before she sat in a pool of foal blood. Ripped body parts and cracked skulls surrounded her presence, showing her the work she had pulled through. Their empty eyes stared at her, blaming her for everything she had done. All that once happened in her home was her own fault. They spoke through their cold, silent lips. They still laughed at her for who she was and what she had done. In a last attempt to wrest control of the havoc in her mind, she grabs her head and screams at the top of her lungs...

From the depths of her pitch-black pupils, the monstrous being broke loose and screeched out the echoes of pain. The vibration shook off the sparkle in her eyes and replaced it with a murderous instinct. In an instant, Spectrum grasped reality again and broke free from the unicorn's grip.

He was shocked by the sudden change in her eyes, thus vulnerable for a brief second. However, he was back on track fast enough to unleash the charged electricity in his horn. What he wasn't fast enough to comprehend was that Spectrum embraced his head with her left foreleg and grabbed his horn with the other one. The charge attacked, electrified her with thousands of volt pumping through Spectrum's body. Her fetlock around the horn served as a perfect conductor, but only for so long. The unicorn was sure she'd die withing the next seconds, but he was surprised to see that she struggled without hesitation, grinning like a psychopath during the ordeal. Suddenly, he felt the pressure from her fetlock around his horn. He widened his eyes and started struggling back, understanding that he dealt with a full-fledged maniac who didn't give a damn about herself. But it was too late for him...

In a crumbling snap, the electrified horn broke in Spectrum's grasp. She held it in her hoof and relished in the painful screams from her victim. Blood squirted from his broken appendage, and even more splattered once she swung back a foreleg and punched him like a sledgehammer. Red turned his head toward the awful noise, only to suddenly see a blue pegasus dash like a bullet through the air. With littler remorse and self-preservation, she headbutted the minotaur, lucky that his large horns were on the sides, and followed his downfall by jumping at him with the horn in her grip.

He had barely any time hitting the floor once Spectrum gathered all her hatred in a single stab. The horn she had ripped off plunged into the minotaur's neck, forcing him to yell in pain and shock. The horn disappeared in his blood covered flesh and sealed his destiny by piercing his throat. As much as the magic in the horn was dead, its pointy tip served Spectrum's purpose more than well.

Red got up on his legs, fairly okay minding what he just went through. He then locked his eyes at the scene next to him. Spectrum wasn't satisfied with the impalement, on the contrary, she obeyed the urge to raise her hooves and repeatedly punch the minotaur without rest. She ravaged his face by violently crushing it with brutal strikes mauling his snout into a pulp of blood, continuing like she had all the energy in the world to massacre her victim. His life force drained away for each passing second and soon left him unable to even breathe.

This was exactly what Red feared. The mission was to bring back everypony from the exchange to the safe house, but Spectrum was on her way to ruin it by taking the minotaur's life. But it wasn't that. It was the fact that he couldn't stop her.... wouldn't stop her...

He stood silently and watched in awe at the smoking mare who used all means of excessive force to take the life in her hoof. Her talent for this job was astounding, and he couldn't help but getting turned on by it. Never before had he seen a female comrade excelling in brute force and merciless killing. What was the problem? He was supervising Spectrum Slash, and thus responsible for any of her actions. Sadly, he was unable to resist the turn-on caused by this.

In the end, Spectrum raised her hooves and finished with both of them slamming his skull one last time. Blood spurted from his crushed nostrils, staining the ruthless hooves in a display making it impossible for the murderer to deny her crime. He was dead. And she was damned well pleased with it.

“Spectrum....” she heard from her back while she got up from the dead body. She looked over her shoulder and met the eyes of her supervisor. She was aware of what she had done, so she was sure Red would tell her the sad news that this was most likely her last mission. Yet, he gave her a surprise by the look in his warm, lustful eyes. His deep breathing made it clear to her that he was turned on by the moment. She was utterly grateful she wasn't the only one...

Red closed his eyes, using all of his discipline to focus on the mission. He glanced at the pony Spectrum had knocked out. She noticed that he was quite alive, judging from the painful whimpering and protection of the the stump on his forehead. The brief case was next to him, seemingly unharmed.

“We must finish this mess. Our lives and the safety of our government are at stake...”.