The explosion was catastrophic. Everything within what was probably half a mile was gone. Nothing but ash. And if it weren't for my reflexes honed to near-perfection from years of playing CS:S, I would have been gone too. But thanks to key binds, Noclip, God mode, and ADHD driven twitchy nerves, I managed to survive the blast. Although, any other living thing in the blast radius, not excluding the city itself, was gone. Nothing but a crater; a memory.

I clipped out of the ground, breathing hard enough to hurt my lungs and make me dizzy. I used what was the last of my energy in my defense. It was my only chance at living. It was them or me, life or death. Had I not done what I just did, the Changelings would have no doubt overrun the city and killed the ponies here. I couldn't let that happen. Not that I cared about them, but if they all died then I had no way home, and it was literally just a matter of time before I too would die.

"Fucking hell," I said, shaking my head. "And I thought M.O.A.B.s were weak. Jesus..." I landed on the ground, wobbling slightly before making my way towards the castle. The castle that was mostly unharmed by the explosion, but seemed to be missing a significant amount of towers and pillars on one particular side. Oops! Did I do that...?

As I walked I kept thinking I heard things, just barely whispering over the dry wind blowing by me. I kept seeing shadows from the corner of my eyes, disappearing from sight when I looked at them. I thought I felt something behind me, staring at me, but nothing was there. There was never anything there. "Fucking ghosts, man," I said to myself quietly.

"Not ghosts," an annoyingly familiar voice said, rage clearly in it. "No, ghosts can't harm you. But I can!"

I turned, assault rifle raised and finger on the trigger. I looked left, then right. Up, down, left, right, behind me, spun, below me. Nothing was there. "Where are you, bitch?!" I shouted angrily. "Come out here so I can kill you!"

The laugh coming from nowhere made my skin crawl, in a bad way. "Why would I fight you when my army can do it for me?" she said, laughing darkly.

"Yeah, let them come!" I said, doing a full circle. If one thing about stupid action movies remained in my head, it was that the villain always waited until you were distracted to come up from behind. "I'll slaughter them like the roaches they are! Just like I'll splatter you under my boot, you buggy bitch!"

"Has anypony ever told you that you're racist?" the voice snarked. "Never before have I heard such disrespect in one sentence."

I felt something just behind my ear. "But you don't hate us, do you?" the voice whispered. "No, I've see that little drone you've taken up with. Quite adorable, if I do say so myself," she said with a laugh. "No, I don't think you hate us..."

I took a breath, remaining calm and keeping a lid on my temper. If I spun around to kill her, I'd be doing exactly what she wanted. "Actually, yes, I do hate you. I hate your race, your species, your people, your culture, your way of life, your voice- oh, especially your fucking voice," I said venomously. "It's like listening to a two-toned chalkboard being raped by rusty nails, while also hearing a cat being skinned alive. That's how annoying you are to me."

The presence behind my ear left, a slight growl of anger following it. "And who are you to call me annoying?" the voice demanded. "Who are you to do anything? You're just a follower of that Sun-loving foal Celestia! Your loyalties will get you nothing but suffering at my hooves, you impudent oaf! Why, even the most idiotic and dense Changelings have more sense and skill than you!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Really now? So far I've seen two kinds of Changelings," I said, slowly looking around me, searching any kind of disturbances in the dust on the ground or movement in the air. "Stupid ones, and dumb ones. The stupid ones are fine and dandy, at least until they go up against somebody like me. The dumb ones, however, are more like you," I said, a tiny fleck of dust to my right catching my attention. It moved, just a hair's width. "They don't know when to shut up, they're ignorant, they're incompetent, but more importantly," I started, turning ever so slightly, "they're butt-ass-ugly. Just. Like. You."

"How dare you-"

I spun so fast I nearly lost my balance, firing my rifle at the same time. Over the roar of the gun, I could make out a shriek of pain and the buzzing of powerful insect wings, like a giant fly. "How do you like bullets, bitch?! Not too pleasant when those go inside of you, is it?!" I quickly reloaded, searching for the telltale signs I knew would be there there. A drop of blood, a stain of color in the air, signs like that.

Buzzing. Buzzing, and roaring. Buzzing, and roaring, and every other kind of sound that an angry being can make and some that they can't.

I turned, my rifle raised skyward. Well, bubble-shield-ward. I saw them. The thousands of Changelings that were still alive. All of the thousands of them that survived the blast. All of the thousands and thousands of Changelings that wanted me dead. "Why? Why is it always me?"

***

I sprinted faster than those Kenyans in the Olympics do. How? I don't really know, but I wasn't about to question a good thing. No siree-bob, I was not! I just assumed it was because I was panicking from the promise of death not one hundred feet behind me.

My AN-94 had long ago run dry, prompting me to delete it to gain a bit more control of myself, and my MP7 was at somewhere around four hundred rounds, counting the ones in the current magazine. My four pistols were still stocked with a thousand rounds between them, which was sadly, not enough. Nowhere close to being enough.

I reloaded.

"Fucking die!" I screamed, half begging. I couldn't run backwards like before, I was just too tired; too worn down. So I was sprinting past full force, blindly firing behind me into the black cloud-like mass that was the Changeling army. Or, what was left of it. I had killed so many of them it just seemed ridiculous by this point. One thousand? No doubt in my mind said that I has passed that number long ago. Two thousand? Again, I had no doubt that I had done it. Three thousand? I was fairly certain that I was beyond even that. Four thousand? I wasn't sure, but tacking on the few hundred I killed after the blast, I could safely guess that I was passed that as well. My guess was somewhere between forty-five hundred, and forty-eight hundred kills. Yay, genocide!

I turned down a street that was half destroyed from the blast, but still had some buildings and alleys that could shelter me. I sped down the street, the Changelings gaining fast. Not even at beyond my normal top speed could I outrun them. In other words, I was completely fucking fucked. Fuck those fucking fuckers to fucking Hell and back! Fuck!

I ducked into a small shop selling curiosities and baubles of all kinds. I knew the Changelings saw me enter, so I also knew I couldn't stay there. Shame. That shop was really cool.

I smashed the back door off its hinges, speeding through the alleyway again. Alleys, oh alleys. How I love thee... I picked up an idea. Break into a shop, leave the shop to get into another shop, then if at all possible, double back to a previous shop. It was actually pretty good, as far as plans go.

Before long, the Changelings were spread out over a mile of city, no longer in a death cloud, but a death cover. They were watching the alleys and streets for any movement, and making sure that I couldn't escape. While they were doing that, a hefty number of them were searching through the buildings, trying to find me. Just like my lifespan, it was only a matter of time.

I was in the third story of an impressive department store that seemed to sell nothing but quills and sofas. Odd... There were actually four stories to the building, but my bomb had taken much of the roof off, leaving the top floor exposed to searching Changeling eyes. The third story, farthest room from the stairs and with the door blocked by every sofa in the room was where I was hiding. Nothing was getting in the room short of an army. Oh, wait...

I sat against the wall, where nothing could see me from the windows in the room. Unluckily for me, I was right in front of the door for doing this. So if anything looked through the cracks, I was done for. I wished I could just Noclip to the castle, but my head was burning so bad I could hardly focus my eyes. My skin was red from the blood streaking through me at lightening speeds, causing my body to radiate heat like a bonfire. I was hardly able to keep myself from passing out, so putting in a command and flying miles through Changeling ranks was out of the question.

I sat against that wall, my head drooping and my eyes trying to force themselves closed. Everything was spinning and tilting and fading at the same time.

I sat on the porch with my crowd of friends around me. Just me and Anthony was left. I was Ganondorf, he was Mario. We were playing Super Smash Bros. Melee. I was laughing and joking as I fought him. We-

"No." I shook my head, clearing away the dizziness. "Not today," I muttered. I kept shaking my head to stop myself from nodding off. If I did, I wouldn't wake back up. I knew I wouldn't. I knew that if I let myself sleep, death would take me.

I sat in my classroom, scribbling down the answers to my test. It was boring, but it was easy at least.

"Hey, retard!" somebody whispered from behind me.

I kept writing, ignoring the insult. I just had to finish and then-

"Hey, retard! Are you deaf, retard?!" the voice whispered.

I sighed and kept writing. I was almost finished. All I-

"Retard, I'm talkin' to you!" the voice whispered, getting snickers and laughs from the rest of the class. "Are you doing your test retard?! Do you need any help retard?!"

I stopped writing, gripping my pencil hard, my knuckles going white. "I'm n- not r- ret- t- tarded," I said evenly, my stutter kicking up from my anger.

Te entire class laughed loudly, fueling my quickly growing anger.

The teacher snapped her attention to me. "What are you doing?!" she demanded.

I turned around in my seat, glaring at the boy behind me. "He k- keeps c- c -calling me r- retard!"

The teacher scoffed. "Just finish your test."

The boy laughed again, giving me a dirty look.

I took my pencil and stuck it deep into his arm, making him scream. The class started screaming too, but-

"No," I growled. It was darker now than it was before. I tried to move but my body refused to listen to me. "Not today... Not today... Not..."

I looked down at my feet as they swung back-and-forth, not able to touch the ground. I was here for my visit with my counselor. I didn't like her because she always just said everything I did was wrong. I shouldn't have hit that boy, shouldn't have stabbed that girl, shouldn't have beaten that kid into the curb. According to her, everything was my fault.

"Dr. Newman will see you now, young man," the old woman working the desk said.

I sighed and walked behind the desk. The office was down the hall and on the left. I walked in and sat down, still staring at my feet.

"And how are you today?" my counselor asked me.

"I'm angry," I muttered, my speech slurred from a split lip.

She sighed. "You can't always be angry," she said flatly.

I glared at the floor. "I feel angry. Some dumbass hit me in school," I complained.

"Did you hit him back?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said wistfully, a smile touching my lips.

She sighed in disappointment. "I told you not to fight them," she said.

I glared at the floor again. "I had to! He hit me!" I protested.

She sighed again. "I told you, they'll get bored eventually and leave you alone. But until then, just deal with it."

I glared at the floor even harder, feeling hot tears leaking from my eyes. I got up and walked to the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked me harshly.

I looked at the floor in the hallway, my tears dropping onto my stained and torn shirt. "I'm going home," I said.

"Is your parent here?" she asked me.

I walked out the door, ignoring her. I didn't have any parents. I had two people that hated each other and used me like a something to gain leverage on each other. I-

"No. No. No. No... No..." I took in a shaky breath, nothing more than a gasp, really. I heard something in the building with me, not far away. I tried to stand, but couldn't. I could barely even lift my gun up to my shoulder to aim at the door.

My teacher droned on about something or other, I wasn't listening enough to find out what. In truth, I didn't care. Nothing I learned in this class mattered anyways, I knew it all. Something about how the body digests food, using up the vitamins and shit like that. I-

"Excuse me, you, in the back!" my teacher called in his nasally voice.

I looked at him with my usual emotionless stare. "What?"

He glared at me. "I was just saying how the body processes nutrients, but since you seem to already know this, maybe you could tell the class." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, young man? We're waiting."

I looked around me. The entire class, two hundred plus fourteen and fifteen year olds, were all staring at me with smirks on their faces. I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. "I don't give a shit how it works, I'm not going to become a doctor," I said. "Nothing in your bullshit class is worth knowing, you dried up, limp-dicked, bald, fat, ugly, moronic, bitch ass, faggot ass motherfucker."

The entire class burst out laughing at my words. However, my teacher's face was red with rage. "Get out of my room this instant! You're getting a suspension! Ten days!"

I snorted and stood up, putting my headphones over my ears and pulling on my backpack. "Suck my dick, faggot," I said as I walked towards the door. "I'm never coming back to this stupid fucking school anyways. I quit."

"N- n- no..." I felt myself getting cold, despite the pounding headache and the burning blood. There was banging hooves at the door. They knew I was in here.

"No."

I scowled, my teeth clenching together painfully. What are you, some kind of faggot?!

"No."

My gun readied itself on my shoulder, waiting for that first Changeling to come through. Are you a bitch?! Huh, faggot?!

"No."

I felt my body heat up. Not burning, but the hotness of anger. I grit my teeth as I tied to stand up. Come on, little bitch! I thought you wanted to live! Do you want to die?!

"No."

I pushed myself up, nearly screaming in pain as my joints cracked and my bones creaked. I was leaning against the wall, aiming my MP7 directly at the door. They're going to fuck you, bitch man! Do you want to be fucked?! Do you?!

"No."

I pulled the slide back, readying the first round. The door was nearly down, and I was ready. Are you going to let them stop you from getting home?!

"No."

Are you?!

"No."

Are you?!

"No."

Are you?!

I sneered at the door. "Fuck no."

The door slammed open, revealing no less then twenty Changelings in the hallway. They all growled and hissed at the sight of me.

I silently thanked God that my favorite SMG was silenced, otherwise the entire army would have been after me that second. I pulled the trigger, the little puffs of sound like music to my ears as I watched the rounds tear through my enemies like paper.

Click! I reloaded.

More came up the stairs. Not twenty, but thirty. Again, they were ripped to shreds by my bullets, their thin chitinous hide doing nothing for them.

Click! I reloaded.

More of them streamed up the stairs, rushing towards me like a wave of death. I was reminded of the allways briefly as their bodies joined the ones littering the floor. Their blood spattered the walls and ceiling, creating one of the most beautiful pieces of art I've ever seen.

Click! I reloaded.

So many of them. Too many. Too many to count. Too many to kill. I made sure that the bullets weren't wasted, knowing that every single piece of hot metal had to kill. Had to thin the lines, or I would be the one painting the walls, and cieling, and floor.

Click! I reloaded.

I had killed over a hundred of them now, just in that hallway alone. The hallway was filling up with corpses. I was pleased to see that the dead were making it difficult for the living to get to me. Now it didn't matter if there were twenty or fifty or a hundred in that hallway. They were stumbling so much from the bodies underneath their hooves that they were practically stuck as I killed them.

Click! I reloaded.

I heard a crash. The shattering of glass. I turned to see Changelings streaming in the room from the windows. It was good that there were only two windows, or I'd have been fucked. Now the room was filling up with bodies, as well as the hallway.

Click! I reloaded.

I held my MP7 in my right hand, and one of my four HK45Cs in my left. Because of how difficult it was to traverse the hallway, I used the pistol for that, suppressing the windows with my SMG. The .45 rounds in the pistol were much bigger than the 9x19mm. ammo in the MP7, so one shot to the head or chest was more than enough to stop the Changelings.

Click! I reloaded.

The hallway was almost to the ceiling with corpses now, the Changelings primary way of getting to me now being the two windows. I mowed them down faster than they could enter, killing a good amount still in the street. If the rest of the army didn't know where I was by then, the bodies around the building would give my position away.

Click! I reloaded.

Nothing would stop me from getting home. Nothing. Not Changelings, not running out of bullets, nothing. I was fixed on getting back to my shitty life on Earth, with my shitty job and shitty friends, and shitty house. Even though it was nothing but garbage made pretty, it was still mine. And by the gods I fucking wanted what was rightfully mine.

Click!

My MP7 was dry. I didn't need it. I deleted it, gaining a bit more focus on the world and my situation. It was because of this focus that I heard it. A distant banging sound, like that of metal on metal way off in the distance.

Click! I reloaded my pistol, pulling a second one from my belt and going akimbo on my foes.

The rounds went through them without trouble, sometimes even punching through my first target and killing or wounding a second one. This helped me greatly. Equestria was different than Earth. Here, if one was wounded, others would break off from the fight to save it, or at least make sure it didn't splat on the ground before continuing to attack.

Click! I reloaded.

Reloading pistols was much faster than anything else, so despite the smaller magazines, I could easily rack up more kills. The bigger bullets also helped this greatly. I think I was getting maybe three more kills per second with akimbo pistols than I was with my MP7 and pistol together.

Click! I reloaded.

I heard the noise, much closer now. But more than that, much of the Changeling army was breaking off from me and going after the sound. I had no idea what it was, but I was praising every pagan god I didn't believe in for the reprieve. That noise may have just saved my life.

Click! I reloaded.

The flow of Changelings was now more of a steady stream than a raging river. The hallway was completely blocked by bodies, and the windows were narrow, only allowing one attacker in at a time. This, combined with the source of noise, let me breathe again.

Click! I reloaded.

I found out what the noise was. It was Viking. I saw him from the window just as a dead Changeling fell from it. He was holding an M249 SAW, swaying it back and forth, spraying into the crowd of Changelings like a madman. When he had to reload, a peculiar Changeling at his side would create a green bubble shield to protect them while he readied the gun for firing. When he was ready, she would drop the shield, and he would continue to wreak havoc on the buggy bastards.

Click! I reloaded.

"Viking!" I yelled from the window, firing my pistols into the faces of various Changelings. "Viking! Up here!"

He turned his head, still spraying away at his attackers. I saw a wide grin split his face. "Hey! I found ya!" he yelled happily over the roar of his gun.

I fired my last bullet into the head of another bug. "Is there a way to get down?!" I called, reloading rapidly.

He nodded, reloading as the green shield went up. "Under you!" was all he said.

I looked out the window, seeing what looked like a little cart of hay. I smiled brilliantly. "IIIIEEEEEEE" I screeched, imitating an eagle cry as I jumped out of the window.

"You're fuckin' crazy!" Viking laughed just before I landed in the cart of hay.

I sat there for a second, contemplating just how awsome that was. I shook my head, vaulting out of the cart and rushing to Viking's side. "We need to get to the castle!" I yelled over the SAW.

The Changeling at his side ignored the danger presenting itself to us, flashing me a dazzling smile. "Love! I'm so happy to see you!" she cried, lifting off the ground to give me a quick kiss.

I grinned back at her, firing my pistols and showering the both of us in a splatter of gore. "I was dead without you, love," I said, barely loud enough to hear. "I was so scared."

She smiled at me, a few tears racing down her chitinous cheeks. "I love you," she said.

I clenched my jaw. I knew why she was saying it. It was the same reason I said it. "I love you too."

That was it. The words were out there, for better or for worse. I'm not sure either of us really meant them in the way they were meant to be used. Her, maybe. But me? I wasn't sure. Maybe... But I do know that I didn't say that just to make her feel better. I said it because I had to, for one very simple reason. There was the very, very real possibility that this was probably going to be our end.

Author's Note

Internet! Oh, thank the Gods you're back! I've missed you so much!
Hello, my beautiful readers, how are you? Good? Good.
So, my internet went out Friday, preventing me from posting this update. But, believe it or not, it was a blessing in a way.
See, normally it takes me anywhere between four to six hours to write a chapter. But without the distraction of the internet, I was able to work much, much faster. So much so, that I wrote the last six chapters to this story from the time I woke up at eight AM to the time I went out to lunch at six PM. After that, I decided to make a nice little surprise as well. Saturday, I woke up at eight again, wrote the first four chapters of what's probably going to be my next story before the show came on. After I watched the show, I read three new stories (The Ballad of Echo the Diamond Dog, Daring Done, and Pinkie Pie's Free Candy Van) all before it was dark out. After that I decided to keep writing, finishing two more chapters of the new story.
Today is Sunday, and thanks to tech services, my internet has been restored! Praise the pagan gods! Praise them or die!
Anyways, the last chapters of this story are literally being pushed through final editing and published as you read this, so if you want to stick around, this story will be done by tonight.
Also, If you're really interested, I'll be putting up a nice little surprise for you lovely fellows tomorrow around 4-5 PM EST. If you want to, swing on by and let your sense of wonder be tickled.
Before I go do the next chapters, I want to tell you something that's actually really fucking important. There SHOULD be an update to my stories EVERY WEEKEND. The only reasons there wouldn't be are:
A. I don't have any active work at that time.
B. I don't have any way to connect to this site.
C. I'm either hospitalized or dead.
I know I'm sarcastic, but I'm not joking with that last one. Every day I walk through gang territories to get home. One of my friends got shot to death on his front porch as he walked out of his house because he knew somebody in the Bloods gang. Another of my friends was killed in a drive-by shooting for the same reason. All of this happened on the very street I walk down. In an obscure way, I'm affiliated with the three largest gangs around my city; the Bloods, Crips, and the Folks. I have friends in all of these gangs. Good friends that would give me the shirt off their back if I asked them to. The way I see it is that either makes me safe, or it makes me a target.
I try to avoid the worst parts, but sometimes I have no choice. If I disappear, there's the very real possibility that something happened to me. I just wanted to let my readers know this because I think of you all as friends, however distant.