Pony by Day, Mercenary by Night

Chapter 8

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"I promise Dad,"  Kad said to himself as he charged through the brush.  A scream could be heard and only grew louder as he grew closer to its source.  He finally broke through the tree-line into a clearing where he found three VERY small horses running away from what looked like a lion with a scorpion's tail and bat wings.  'Shit, if boss' report was correct, then these things are basically kids and are going to get eaten.'  It didn't take Kad more than an instant to decide what he was going to do.

With a mad roar, he charged into battle, tackling the manticore as it was about to pounce. "GET AWAY FROM THEM!"  Kad yelled as he rammed the manticore straight into a tree.  The manticore was surprised to say the least that it had been prevented from consuming its prey by this strange new being, this giant. But this forest was the manticore's territory, and this yellow behemoth was trespassing. It would make an excellent meal, something as big as this could probably keep the manticore fed for days to come.  As the manticore was slammed against the tree, it let out a roar of pain and quickly tried to bite off Kad's head.  Kad would have none of this; he quickly jumped back as the manticore snapped its jaws where his head used to be.  Kad let his instinct take over and punched the manticore’s jaw against the tree full force.  There was a sickening crack and the manticore spat out blood, its jaw clearly broken.  Kad watched as it slumped to the ground, believing it to be dead.  He then proceeded to walk towards the three fillies who were currently cowering in fear.  He was stopped however; by the manticore pouncing on his back.  Kad threw the manticore off his back, and slammed it to the ground.  Kad placed the bottom of his boot at the base of the manticore’s tail and grabbed the tip with his gauntlets.  He applied pressure with the bottom of his boots and pulled the tail.  The sound of bone snapping could be heard as Kad crushed the base of the manticore’s spine.  With a crunching sound, the tail itself came off the manticore, spraying blood in every direction, blood that blended perfectly against Kad’s armor.  Kad then made his way towards the three fillies.

The three fillies, who had been cowering from the manticore, suddenly looked up when they heard the mad roar. When they opened their eyes to see what or who had saved them, they were surprised to see a yellow hulking mass of muscle tackle the manticore into a tree. They could only watch in awe as they saw the monster single-handedly disable the manticore, their mouths slightly agape.  Their expressions of awe quickly turned to fear as they saw the monster trudge towards them.  Their eyes widened as they saw the manticore strike at the monster’s back, a deafening crunch was heard as the manticore was thrown down onto the floor of the forest, the grass cushioning its blow.  What really scared and amazed them, was when the monster ripped off the manticore’s tail, proudly showcasing it as a trophy of its victory.  Their expressions turned to those of pure terror as they saw the giant make its way towards them.

“Sc-scotaloo, w-what do you think we should do?”  Asked a terrified Sweetie Belle.

“I-I don’t know,”  came the response

“Girls, it looks really scary and big, but ah think that maybe it’s not a bad…thing…whatever it is.  If it was bad, then why’d it stop that manticore?”

“M-maybe it wants to eat us,”  replied the orange filly.

The crusaders didn’t get to finish their discussion, because Kad had already reached them and was watching their discussion, amusement splayed across his face.

‘Damn they’re cute.’ the yellow mercenary thought.  He then cleared his throat to garner their attention.  The three fillies jumped in surprise and turned to look at Kad with expressions of fear and surprise.  “I’m right here you know,” he said.

“Y-ya’ll can talk!?” asked an incredulous Applebloom

“Yes, yes I can. Now then, what were you little…ponies… doing here in the forest?”

“Well,” Applebloom began, “we was walkin’ through the forest tryin’ ta get our cutie marks when we got chased by that big maticore over there.  We thought we was gonna get eaten, but then ya came outta nowhere and saved us. Thing is, we’re kinda lost now, that manticore chased us into a part of the forest we ain’t never seen before!  Anyways, thank ya mister, but if ya don’t mind me askin, what are ya?”  She tilted her head as she said this.

‘Oh god, the look she’s giving me is making my heart ache, I don’t think I can take much more of this.’  Kad thought as he averted his gaze from Applebloom’s heart-melting stare.  ‘They’re lost and scared and oh god, what am I going to do? Hold on, I’m pretty sure there was a protocol for dealing with lost civilians.  Oh yeah, article seven section G footnote 39, lead all civilians to outside combat zone.’  “Well, little one” Kad began “I am an alien, that’s all you need to know for now.  Anyways, I’m sure your families are worried sick about you, so how about I escort you to the forest edge?”  They all agreed to Kad’s suggestion.  “Well, seeing as that manticore was approaching you all from over there,” Kad said as he gestured near the tree he had tackled the manticore into, “I guess we should go in the direction it came from. Besides, all the foliage it broke chasing you three kind of left us a trail to follow.”

After trekking for hours, they finally reached the forest edge and Kad waved the three fillies off.  “Oh, yeah, I never got your names girls.”

“Oh, sorry mister.” Applebloom began “Ah’m Applebloom”

“I’m Sweetie Belle.”

“And I’m Scootaloo!”  The orange Pegasus shouted.

“And we’re THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!”  all three said in unison at a near deafening volume.  Kad was on his knees from the pain in his ears; he’d heard artillery that was quieter than these girls! ‘Definitely never forgetting my helmet again, it’s built in noise canceller would have been perfect for saving my hearing.’  He quickly disappeared back into the treeline when he saw a group of six other ponies headed toward the fillies.

“Girls where have ya’ll been!?”  Asked a very nervous Applejack.  The relieved look on the orange farmpony’s face quickly turned to one of anger.  “Ya’ll had us worried sick!”

“Well sis, we were walkin’ through the forest trying to get our cutie marks, but then we ran into a manticore!”  Applejack and friends gasped at this.  “But then we got saved by a big yellow alien!”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo piped up as she buzzed her wings, lightly hovering in the air.  “He was so awesome.  But not as awesome as you Rainbow Dash!”

“Ya’ll shoulda seen him,” said Applebloom.  “He was amazin’!”

“Yeah!!” Sweetie Belle squeaked “He tackled the manticore into a tree!”

“An’ then he punched it!”  Continued Applebloom.  “Then he was comin’ our way an’ we were real scared.”

“But then the manticore jumped on him!”  buzzed Scootaloo. “Then he did some awesome move and threw it on the ground and ripped its tail off!”

“Yeah! It was REALLY tall and walked on two legs!”  chimed in Sweetie Belle

“Now don’t go fibbing Applebloom, there ain’t no such thing as aliens!” said Applejack

“But SIS!  We ain’t lyin’!”

“Come on girls, let’s go home,”  said Twilight.

Meanwhile, back at the camp

“MY LEGS!  MY MUTHAFUCKIN’ LEGS!”  yelled Scorch.

“Scorch, my orders were to break your legs if you tried smoking that shit, and I usually follow my orders,” said Farshot.

“FUCK YOU MAN!  I THOUGHT WE WERE COOL!  I DIDN’T EVEN LIGHT THE BLUNT YET!”

“We are cool, I was just following orders. I was to prevent you from lighting that blunt in any way, shape, or form breaking your legs as you were about to light the blunt just so happened to be the fastest, most enjoyable, easiest, and most easily justifiable method. Besides, you can also think of it as payback.  Remember all those pranks you pulled on me?  Hot sauce in my cereal?  Fuel rods in the toilet?  Laxatives in my ice cream?”

“Yeah, that last one was pretty funny,” chuckled Scorch. “But still, MY MUTHAFUCKIN’ LEGS!  And yeah, we’re still cool. I guess.”

“S-sorry about breaking your l-legs, Scorch,” said Fixer.

‘S’all good, Fixer.”  Scorch calmly said.

Misha was still lying passed out next to the roaring fire Zeta Squad had set up.  He then got up and began singing a song from olden days, over a century old, badly slurring the lyrics as he tried to and failed at a drunken attempt at dancing along to the song.

On my waisht, through my hair.

“Oh GOD NO!  HE’S SINGING!”  yelled Farshot, entering the fetal position and covering his ears, the rest of Zeta Squad quickly following suit.

Think about it when you touch me there

Closh my eyesh, here you are all alone danshing in the dark.

Tell me baby if it’s wrong to let my hands do what they want?

Late at night I pretend we are dansh-dansh- danshing in the dark

dansh-dansh- danshing in the dark

Ooh la la.

Ooh la la.

Ooh la la.

When you work on me,

Open my body up and do some shurgery,

Now that you got me up

I wanna tashte it

And shee those pocket aishes.

I wanna shee who you are.

I got a shex drive to push the start

I got a shex drive to push the start

On my waisht, through my hair.

Think about it when you touch me-

Misha was pelvic thrusting by this point and loudly yelling the lyrics, he  then promptly passed out again

Meanwhile Ghost

“…” he said as he pushed foliage aside, making his way back to camp.

*Squelch*

“…!”  Ghost said as he lifted his boot, his face donning a look of disgust as he saw that he had stepped in something.  He took a whiff of his boot and quickly recoiled as he caught a hint of the stench it was emanating “…!”   He was silently cursing as he finally passed through some more foliage and saw Scorch and Farshot uncover their ears as a clearly drunken Misha finally passed out again in the middle of his song; Fixer was curled up in a corner, whimpering.

“Oh god that was horrible, THAT DANCE!”  Cried a traumatized Farshot.

“…?” asked Ghost.

“He was singing and dancing,” answered Scorch.

“…?’ asked Ghost, an expression of pity splaying itself across his face.

“IT WAS HORRIBLE!”  Yelled Farshot.

Meanwhile, Sev

Sev and Celestia walked through the castle grounds, as the black mercenary finished explaining to the Solar Princess his issues with the armor customarily worn by royal guards. Celestia's response was precisely what Sev was hoping for.

“Very well then Blackfire, you will not have to wear the armor. And please, call me Celestia while we are alone or not in public.”

“So Celestia, what are the plans for tomorrow?”

“Well, first thing is first, we have to get you into some form of uniform so ponies can distinguish you as a member of the royal staff, I can understand not wearing armor, but a uniform is absolutely necessary.”

“Where will we go for that?”

“We can either go to the royal tailors, or, we can go to Ponyville.”

“Ponyville?  Might I inquire as to why?”

“One of the best clothes designers I’ve ever seen lives there. If anypony can make you a uniform, it will be her.”

“So long as it serves for function over form and doesn’t look horrible, it works for me,” Sev said with a snort.

Meanwhile, Rex

“THE NIGHT IS STILL YOUNG PRINCESS!” Rex yelled as he and the Lunar Princess continued to train in magic.

“Blue Cross, thine growth is amazing!!” yelled Luna.

“Well Princess, I do have an amazing teacher!”  Responded Rex.

“We thank you, Blue Cross; regardless, it is rather late, and thou shouldst rest.  Thou hast work in the morning.”

“Princess, I’m used to sleepless nights.  When your siblings get hurt as frequently as mine, you find that sleep will be the least of your concerns,” smiled Rex.

“We understand this Blue Cross, but as thy…friend, we think that it would be best if thou got some rest.  The spells we taught thee should come in useful tomorrow.”

“Very well Princess, if you insist.  Good night,” he said as he made his way out of Luna’s room.

“Yes, good night” She said as sadness slowly crept over her face.

End Chapter

Just pointing out, I'm not a fan of putting lyrics in stories,I feel that it kinda takes away the feel of the story, so from now on, any lyrics will probably be because the character is singing drunkenly.  Oh, and A big thank you to my Pre-reader iSmartman! Oh, almost forgot, current vote status is 2 for stealth, one against, any others?