"Hey Remy, we're burning moonlight! Let's go!"
Remy Ledoux, nicknamed Gambit as a nod to the comic book Xman Remy Leboux by his friends. All-star track runner back in school, Remy graduated two years ahead of schedule and planned on following his deceased elder brother's footsteps into the armed services. Those plans were promptly derailed after a massive cover up was brought into light, including the fact that his brother was not killed in the line of duty, but instead murdered by a currently still at large fugitive former military officer.
Instead, Remy followed in his elder brother's best friend's footsteps and joined a mercenary crew at the age of eighteen. Now twenty, he and his fellow crew members are taking a much needed break from the business.
"Yea, I hear you." grumbled back Remy as he pushed his mixture of ginger and light brown hair back out of his face, "And if we're going to a club, I'd expect you to at least want to look half decent for any of the veelas. Or is the great and powerful engineer that is David after a handsome laddie instead?"
David Hoss, all around good guy, and, in fact, secretly gay. He joined the crew eight years back at twenty four. Now thirty two, he likes to keep and eye on Remy, and often times treats him as a kid brother. In truth, David's younger brother, James, was Remy's older brother's best friend, but a mission gone sideways not six months after Remy joining saw the death of James. David doesn't talk about it, but the shared loss made for a firm friendship between the pair.
Tonight was going to be very different for Remy, as it was the first time since joining the crew that they took their traditional break, one every four year, where they do no work, no contracts, nothing but indulge themselves for the next seven months, and it was going to be glorious if the stories of the older crew members were to be believed.
Smiling broadly as the exited the door, Remy couldn't help but cock his head slightly.
"Hey, David, I'm not twenty one yet, aren't I supposed to be barred from clubs and drinking and shit?"
In response, David just poked the patch on Remy's arm, one that portrayed a raven's skull with two outstretched wings behind it.
"Nah, us Blackbirds have been coming her for decades, they won't question you. Anyone asks age, just flash the patch. Hell, even works with the police. Like the boss said, things get too crazy, just stick next to one of us."
Nodding, Remy hopped into the bed of the pristine smoky grey custom three axle Chevy as the diesel engine roared to life. First night out on his first break, Remy knew he had to make tonight something big.
^v^v^v^
"I'm done, I am so fucking done mom!" Star snarled as she pushed past her mother, Twilight Sparkle, "You think that because you were raised by a princess, you are a stupid princess, and that you had these wonderful friends, I would magically turn out just like you? Well guess what? I'm not!"
Twilight just frowned deeply, as it was not the first time her daughter, Evening Star, had come home from school pre-empted with a call from the principal about another fight. Nor the first time Star cussed in front of her either.
"Well, maybe if you tried to look like you fit in more-"
Star cut her mother off with a fist slamming into the nearest wall.
"Oh, maybe if I didn't get magi-marks? Or is it the changing eye colour depending on my mood? The fact that the sides of my head are shaved? Or could it be that since I'm not a damned regular pony, I can't be a regular human?! Noooo, I have to be human with wings and a fucking amethyst stuck in my fucking head that let me fly and do magic!"
Staying calm, Twilight levelled Star with a look that emanated frustration and annoyance.
"You have two amazing gifts that many beings, pony or otherwise, would be absolutely desperate to have. Now, I am trying to be an understanding mother. I have allowed you to... express your creativity through those designs you put on your skin, and I have allowed you to get your piercings and dress the way you want. I have even let you dye your hair black and silver. Unlike any other mother, I let you cuss in my very presence, just because I wish to let you grow up to be who you want to be, but this is getting out of hand."
"Well of course you've let me walk all over you, it's easier that way, isn't it?" Star snarked back.
"Excuse me?"
Giving her mother a nasty look, Star reached out and pulled a fancy looking handmirror from out of thin air.
"As if you don't know. You've been so fucking obsessed with this mirror, even when I was born, that you just tried to make things go away rather than deal with them so you could get me to shut up so you could play with your mirror again! Well, since you seem to have so little care about how I turn out, how would you feel if I crushed this mirror?"
At this point Twilight had finally reached her breaking point. Evening Star was out of control!
"You put that mirror back this instant! Evening Star, you should know better than this! What is wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?!" Star yelled angrily, "What is wrong with me is the fact that for you to actually show some Celestia damned emotion to me is for me to threaten this little shit mirror. Well let's see how much more emotion I can get when I do this!"
And with that Star took firm hold of the mirror in her magic and slammed it as hard as possible into the ground. The resultant explosion knocked Twilight from her feet, and when the woman looked up, her daughter was gone, and all the anger, and the frustration, that she felt immediately fell through into cold dread that gripped her heart.
Twilight screamed.
