“Hey, Anon, wake up its morning.” Mike said to you while shaking you at the same time.

Pushing his hand away from you, you got out of bed and stretched yourself awake and turned to talk to mike.

“Oh my god, what hell is on your face?” You asked him.

What you didn’t expect to wake up in the morning was that his face was covered in some kind of white substance completely covering his facial features.

“Oh, you mean this?” Mike waved his hand around his face to show what he means. “This is to help get rid of unwanted black heads and acne. You should try some, since I can clearly see some starting to form on your cheeks.” He told you.

“Yeah, I’ll pass thanks.” Looking around the basement, you did not see Jonah or Terry in the room, but only Mike and yourself.

“Where are the rest of us?” You asked him.

“Jonah and Terry are with the girls helping with their stuff. Their dropping us four to the gym, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. It might give us some insight on what Iron will’s base is like.”

“Excellent, then I also hope you would like to use proper attire for your work out.” Mike said to you.

“What do you mean? I thought we would just go there and act like we’re exercising, not actually exercising.”

“This is why we need to proper disguise for the job, of course.” Walking to his large trunk, Mike pulled out heaps of clothing on his bed and turned to me with black shorts and a red shirt.

“I’m sure this would be to your liking. It’s simple, breathable fabric, and it’s just the right size for you.” Mike said to you with a smile.

“You just getting your kicks for playing dress up, aren’t you?” You ask him.

“Yes, I’m very much am. Now, hurry up and dress up we can’t keep them waiting.”

[Iron will’s Gym]

“Holy hell this place is huge!” Jonah said when he entered inside.

“Watch your language, boy, what did I tell you about that mouth of yours.” Applejack told her baby brother in a harsh whisper.

“Sorry, Applejack,” He told her. “But you got to admit how large this place is.” Jonah said to her.

You had to admit, you were surprised at how spacious this place is. Good air conditioning, pleasant music, tons of exercising equipment, not to mention tons of humans walking around this place with actual smiles on their faces. In all pretense and purposes, Jonah is right.

“Holy hell indeed,” You whispered to yourself.

“What did you say?” Diamond Tiara said behind you.

“Just wanted to ask why I am still carrying most of your luggage, master, we could have left it at your hotel room.” You told her while still holding two travel bags and one duffel bag hanging on your back.

“I don’t trust the owner or the cleaning attendance and I’m sure I heard them whisper something about me.” She said to you.

In truth, you did hear what they were talking about how your master is a brat with more money than brain cells. Ok, you kind of added that last part about her having too much money, but the cleaning attendees did say she is a brat.

“I’m sure they were just talking about how they are envious of how rich and happy your life is, master.” You said in an emotionless and boring tone.

“Whatever, hurry up with your work out so you I can use you to hold all of my shopping bags. Since I’m here I might as well get something at the mall.” She said while counting her bits in her designer bag from Prance that cost more than all the cloths in Mike’s luggage case.

“Yes, my master. Speaking of work out we have no idea where to start.”

Just as you said that a huge smoke bomb ignites in front of your group, causing the ponies to gasp from surprise and for you and your human companions to still stand straight with no sign of being scared. After all, the four of you have been used to smoke bombs, so you and the other three humans just pretended to be mildly surprised before the entire group could see a huge minotaur appear when the smoke disappeared.

“ARE YOU ALL READY?” He shouted at us while flexing his overly muscular pecs and biceps. “BECAUSE, I”M GOING TO TRAIN YOUR BODIES IN TO PERFECTION THAT YOU DECERVE!” After he said that last sentence another smoke ignited behind him causing him to make a final dramatic pose.

You have no words to describe what happened. And judging by the non-caring expressions from the other humans working out, you can assume they have had this sort of thing on a daily bases.

“Oh Fluttershy, It’s nice to see you again.” The huge minotaur said in a normal voice.

“Likewise, I’m really happy for you and how you’re helping these humans, I think that’s very- eep!”

Fluttershy had almost a little heart attack when Iron will grabbed her son by the head and started to lift him off the air with one arm like he was nothing.

“Is this your human, Fluttershy?” He said while inspecting Terry’s appearance.

“Um… y-yes, he helps me with the animals and is a great house keeper and…… um, can you please put him down now?” She said while trying not to cause a small panic attack.

Putting Terry back on the floor, he was soon grabbed by his mother and the two stepped back a few steps away from Iron will.

“I see some humans already look like they have some muscle on their bones,” Iron will said when walking towards Jonah. “I’m guessing this is the work of the apple family.”

“Damn straight it is,” Applejack said with a smile on her muzzle. “We give our humans a good honest work in our orchards.”

“I see, I see and this human right here,” Iron will’s eyes soon looks to Michael and his appearance.

“Hmm, a nice toned body this one has here.” Iron will said.

“Why thank you for noticing his appearance, I do hate having my human get too much muscle. I just can’t stand that much bulk, no offence.” Rarity told Iron will.
After looking at all three of your companions, his gaze finally set his sights on you. You made sure to puff up your chest to give you a taller look and maybe sucked in a bit of your stomach just to make sure your look a bit thinner too.

Taking a bit of a longer time examining you then the other three, you began to have doubts on what first appearance you’re giving him when he finally spoke.

“Meh.” After he said that he turned around and began to talk to the rest of the group and left you a little bit more glad that you’re going to kill him.

“As you can all see, my establishment hold over hundreds of humans that work on their physical strength and giving them an easier time to service their owners with chores be it indoors or outdoors.” He said.

“We train your humans in self-defense, so they can be an excellent when it comes to securing your home and also protecting their master.” To prove this point he pointed his giant right hand to a center ring with a goat wearing protective gloves teaching a human to jab.

“Umm, a think just a simple work out can do just fine with our human, if it’s ok with you.” Fluttershy said.

“I agree with her, I don’t want my human to leave with a black eye. I prefer to keep him in a clean and non-injured stat, thank you.” Rarity told the minotaur.

“Don’t worry, we have on the clock instructors keeping an eye on the humans to make sure they do not get harmed when getting their daily work outs.” Iron will said.

“And speaking of work outs,” Turning around to face the group again he said, “On my right side is where the humans dress rooms are and on the left is where the ponies dress room if you decide you want to participate in your humans training.”

“Actually, the girls decided that we wanted to try and check around the city for a while. We’ll pick them up around two in the afternoon.” Twilight said.

“Of course, princess, and you don’t have to worry about your humans. I’m sure they will have a fun time staying here. “ Iron will said to her.

You and your team said your good byes to them and walked inside the male locker room. All of you decided to use the lockers at the far left corner where less prying eyes and began to put all of your belongings in your choice of locker.

After the four of you left your stuff in the locker room you, mike, terry, and Jonah were soon greeted again by Iron will.

“Hello, humans! Are you all ready to get ripped?” He asked while flexing his huge muscles over and over again.

All four of you nodded and thus begun your first work out in a gym. After all, since you’re here you might as well try it out a little while.

[Three hours later]

“Come on, Terry, just one more pull.” Jonah encouraged Terry as he was struggling with his final pull up.

“All… most… GAAH!” After on more ounce of strength, Terry lifted his chin above the bar then danged under the pull up bar before dropping down on his feet.

“How much was that?” Terry asked Jonah through his wheezing.

“About fifteen pull ups, good job man.” Jonah said to Terry.

“Alright, my turn,” Reaching to grab the bar, Jonah started to rapidly knock out his pull ups like it was nothing.

For the past three hours all four of you began your work out regiment that was given to us by Iron will. Terry and Jonah’s exercise was to improve their upper body, even though Jonah’s upper body is already muscular enough for a seventeen year old. Terry was starting to begin to get the hang of using the dumbbells and also looked like his efforts were showing in his arms.

As for you and mike, well…

“Dodge!” Mike shouted at you before he unleashed a right hook connecting to your right side of your head.

“Ow, that hurt!” You shouted at him.

“Oh don’t be such a baby; this is just a simple sparing match.” Mike said to you.

It was iron will’s idea to make you and Jonah learn to defend ourselves, even though we already learned how, but the both of us decided to just play along and now you and mike are now in the ring wearing gloves and trying not to get hit from each other’s punches.

“Fine, now it’s my turn.” As soon as you said that to mike you put your fist in front of your face and you closed the distance between you and mike before he could put his guard up.

“Whoa,” Mike’s surprise gave you a good opportunity to land a body blow to his stomach and a jab to his chin. Stepping back, Mike lifted his gloved hands at you and spoke sternly.

“Easy, this is just a sparring match.” He warned you.

“Hey, you started this. Now dodge!” With a quick step forward, you delivered a stomach punch and another jab to his chin, causing him to lose his balance.

“Oof,” Mike was stunned for a few seconds from your two hit combo, but he soon shook it off and dodged your left hook and countered with a right cross that connected to your right temple again.

“Do not touch the face.” Mike warned me. Putting his guard up you decided to give another right cross to his head, but when Mike was ready to block it you made a faint and used your left arm to deliver a liver blow causing Mike to lose his footing again.

Mike unleashed a straight punch to your face, but you did a side step and countered with a two hit combo making Mike duck having only your fists accidentally hitting his ponytail.

"And don't you even dare try and hitting my hair again!"

You were about to finish it with an upper cut to the chin, when you felt a huge force of pain on the right side of your face. Apparently, as you were too focused on mike losing his footing gave him a chance to set a trap by letting you to hit him in order to lower your guard and giving him a good opportunity to land a solid hit on the left side of your head.

Taking a few steps back from each other, you and mike unleashed a barrage of jabs to each other, no longer caring for blocking or dodging punches. For how long you and mike slugged it out was lost to the both of you, but you were certain you were losing a lot of stamina, so you decided to dodge mike’s right jab, took three steps back and conserved all your strength in your last punch.

Seeing what you’re planning, Mike did the same thing and readied his own last attack. With some of your stamina recovered, the both of you dashed across the ring and unleashed your last punch to each other making a cross counter, but that cross counter was soon stopped when two giant hairy hands grabbed you and Mike’s gloved fist.

“That’s enough sparring for one day; I think you caused enough of a scene already.” The minotaur chuckled to the both of you.

Letting your arms swing down to your waist, you and mike went back to each other’s corners and leaned on the rope to get a breather. Looking around the gym, you saw many eyes looking between you and mike, but as soon as they found you staring back at them they stopped staring at the both of you and went back to their own work out.

“I like both of your fighting spirit, but I think this is enough sparring for the two of you. Now, Terry, Jonah, both of you in the ring!” Iron shouted at them.

The first to arrive was Jonah wearing protective brown colored gloves and helmet and the last to enter the ring was Terry who was also wearing green boxing gloves.

“You and Mike should get out of the ring now; they will do their sparring match.” As soon as he said that you and Mike stepped out of the ring. You were about to go get some water from the locker room when Mike grabbed your shoulder.

“Hey, I’m very sorry for my fighting earlier.” Mike apologized to you

“Don’t worry Mike; I’m actually surprised at how you fight. I thought I was fighting a different person on the ring.” You told him.

“Yes, I tend to lose myself when I use my fists. I swear, if my mother saw me fighting like this she would have such a bad breakdown.” Mike told you.

“Speaking of mothers, don’t you think Fluttershy will be worried if her son will get hurt? I mean Terry is up against Jonah, so I’m sure the match will end soon.” You told Mike.

And just as you predicted, you heard the bell ring signaling the sparring to be over.

“See I told you, the winner will obviously be… what?” You were lost for words as what you saw in the boxing ring.

Lying on the mat was Terry, but Jonah while Terry is standing over him. You really couldn’t rap your head around it, Jonah, the muscle in your team, was defeated by Terry the most lightest of the four of you.

“Alright, alright, now that’s what I want to see. Good work out there, Terry, great hustle. Alright, all four of you go get yourself some time to rest you all deserve it.” Iron will said cheerfully.

After Iron will told you that, you helped Terry get Jonah back on his feet and all four of you took you time for a break at the locker room. As all four of you were heading back to your locker you couldn’t help but ask Terry a question.

“I didn’t see you fight Jonah, but you must have some skill if you were able to take him down.” You told him.

“Oh, I’m just lucky I caught him by surprise, if he was really serious I wouldn’t have won with without a few bruises.” Terry said.

“Don’t believe him, leader,” Jonah said to you. “True, I wasn’t fighting seriously, but I still put a lot of effort when I was sparring against Terry. After all, his teacher is the most sadistic and treacherous in the assassin order.”

“Hey, she’s not like that, my teacher is a very kind and peaceful woman.” Terry said to Jonah.

“Don’t be fooled,” This time Mike entered the conversation. “My mentor told me her skills and teachings are the worst and no sane student couldn’t handle it making it impossible for her to get a student, but the only one who survived it Terry being her only pupal.” Mike explained.

“Speaking of teachers, you all never told me about your teachers. I tried to ask my teacher, but she would always brush me off whenever I ask.” You told them.

“Same thing happens to me whenever I ask my mentor.” Mike said to you.

“Mine as well, I guess all our teachers our on bad speaking terms.” Jonah told you.

“Well, when I ask her about her time being on her team she would get a nostalgic feeling, so there must be some good memories.” Terry said while removing his gloves.

After taking you break at the locker room, the four of you went bout at the gym when you all saw a huge line of humans. Curious, you talked to a human from the end of the line.

“Hey, what’s this line for?” You asked her.

“After we do our work out they call all of us for our daily supplement.” She told you.

Thanking her for the information, you and the rest of your group waited in line to see what this supplement is. As the four of you waited for the line to decrease all four of us waited behind the end of the line for about half an hour, when finally you were able to see the counter table offering the drinks.

The first to grab the drink was Terry, then Mike, after Mike was Jonah, then finally you. Taking your drink next to the fountain near the bathroom you were about to take a swig of the elixir when Jonah grabbed your cup that was almost near your lips.

“What the hell, Jonah? I was about to drink that, you know.”

“”Don’t drink it, Terry said so.” He told you.

“How does drinking a cup of what looks like plain water would make Terry so paranoid?” You asked sarcastically.

“Because this doesn’t taste like any form of a supplement, that’s why.” Terry said to you.

“What do you mean, Terry, how can you tell something is wrong with the drink?” You asked him

“My tongue can detect distinct flavors normal humans can’t taste. And my taste buds picked up some weird chemicals in the drink.” Just as Terry was telling you what is in the drink, Jonah grabbed your cup, dumped it in the fountain sink, then replaced it with plain fountain water.

“Just drink this and they won’t notice the difference.” Jonah told you.

“We need to show them we are drinking something, our instructors our keeping their eyes on everyone.” Mike said to the group. He pointed at Iron will and his goat workers keeping a sharp eye on the other humans showing them that they are drinking their daily ‘supplement’ water.

You felt their eyes were about to land on you and your team, so all four of you downed your drinks just in time for your instructors to see your drinking your cups. With a big sigh from your refreshment to show you were done, Iron will and the other goats moved on to the rest of the humans.

“OK, we found what their serving the humans, but we don’t what causes them to go super strong and super bat shit crazy. So, our best bet is to try and again at night where there will be less eyes on us.” You told them.

“But we can’t leave here empty handed, did any of you saved some of the supplement drink?” You asked the three of them.

“Yup, I sure did.” Terry showed you a small vial with the chemical water and hidden it under his shoe.

“Good, now we just need to burn the clock and wait for our families to pick us up.”

As you were telling your team what to do next, Iron will shouted out loud to signal all of the humans that they can all go back to their perspective work outs.

“I think I was wrong, maybe we can see the effects of what this drink can do to humans.” You told them as you watched the rest of the humans start their exercises.

And you were right to assume from the start. Soon after the other humans drank their water they have greatly improved in their performance in their work outs. They added more and more weights to lift, they run longer on their treadmills with no sign being tired, and what’s even stranger is that they started to make a line to decide their turns to use the boxing ring.

“AAarg!” One of the boxers in the ring shouted and swung wildly at his opponent, but at the same time so was the other boxers making each other receive serious blows from each other with no signs of them even caring.

“What can you say about their action, Terry?” You asked him.

“I can tell that whatever is happening to them are exactly the same effects that happened to the precious humans in the report, but what I don’t understand is why we are in the line.” He said to you nervously.

“It could be our only chance and test out how strong they became by experiencing it firsthand.” You explained to Terry.

“I prefer to stay behind the side lines and watch, thank you very much.” He told you.

“Hey, Terry, if you’re not up for it, then switch spots with me.” Jonah said behind you.

Terry was a bit hesitant about wither or not he should switch spots to him, since he badly injured him in their last sparring match, but when Terry heard the bell ring signaling for a new fighter Terry nodded his head and made Jonah be in front of him.

“OK, next match is Johnny and David.” The goat instructor said.

Stepping in the ring wearing his boxing gloves, Jonah was now face to face with his opponent David. The guy Jonah was up against already fought twice and looked badly hurt. He had a black eye, bloody nose, and a couple of bruises all over his arms, but he still looked he was able to take all the damage and then some. He looked so badly hurt you thought the referee would take him out, but instead made him fight some more.

With a quick ring of the bell the two started to trade blows with one another with jabs, heavy punches, and a few quick side steps. In just a few minutes you can see that Jonah was getting more and more injures by David’s punches, but the same could be said to David with even more welts and bruises covering his body.

Jonah inflicted a right hook on David’s head then took a few steps back to guard. It looked like David couldn’t get any more injured the he already is you thought he was going to call it quits when all of a sudden he started to yell and punch wildly at Jonah.

David did not look like himself anymore; instead he looked like he was possessed by some demon that’s making him fight against its will. But instead of a demon its actually the drug Terry mentioned that was in the water they all drank that’s causing David to attack Jonah uncontrollably.

“Hey, coach, ring the bell already!” You shouted at her, but it fell on deaf hears when the coach was just turning a blind eye on the two fighting humans.

Seeing as the coach was useless you shouted at Jonah to tell him what to do.

“Jonah, get out of the ring it’s too dangerous to keep fighting!” You told him. Rather listening to your order, Jonah instead lifted his left arm to defend himself and reeled his right fist like a coil.

“Jonah you’re going to get beaten senseless if don’t get out of the ring!”

“Don’t worry, Anon, Jonah is going to finish this in one punch.” Terry said to you.

“How, you were able to beat him, so how will he be able to win with one punch?” You asked him aggressively.

“True, I did beat him, but that’s because I know his weakness, if I didn’t use it to my advantage then I would have been on the boxing floor rather than Jonah.” Terry said to you while still looking at Jonah.

The more David punched Jonah, the more injured at tire Jonah became making you almost anxious to just dive in there and handle it yourself. Taking this scene anymore you were about to get in the ring when Terry and Mike grabbed both of your shoulders.

“Trust me on this one,” Mike said to you. “Anon, Jonah may not have special skills like me and Terry, but what he lacks in skills, Jonah makes up for it in sheer brute strength, just relax and enjoy the show.”

“AAAAH!” David shouted as he landed a solid hit at Jonah’s left arm causing it to no longer defend and making Jonah defenseless. Thinking that David had won he made one final attempt to give Jonah another hit to the head when his eyes was replaced of the image of a wounded Jonah to the ceiling of the gym and then to the gym floor.

David was confused as to why, but after he was confused his eyes soon blackened making him loose consciousness before he finally figured out that it was Jonah who punched him. If the people in the gym was surprised at you and Mike’s fight then the everyone is now in complete dead silence at what happened.

Before David could land the finishing blow Jonah’s right hand sprang into action and landed an uppercut so strong it caused David to fall out of the boxing ring and land head first on the gym’s hard wood floors.

“U-um, the winner: Jonah.” The rev said. “Anyone else wish to enter the ring?” She asked the humans inline. Not a single human said anything, they were all raving and yelling to go in the ring, but after the spectacle of what Jonah did to David made them just walk away from the ring and do their regular exercises.

Seeing there are no one else to enter the ring the instructor left leaving Jonah and the rest of us alone.

“Holy craps, Jonah, are you hurt?” You asked him. He had minor scrapes and bruises on his left arm, but other than that the rest of him seems OK.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Us apples are born and made tough.” He said proudly.

“See? What did I tell you? What he lacks in skill he makes up for it in strength.” Mike told you.

“Point taken, alright, guys we now know what this place is doing to the humans, now let’s go get dressed in some regular clothes and wait for our families. After that, we’ll leave at midnight and see what’s really happening here.

[Midnight]

“I can’t believe that we’re one assassin short of our team.” You said out loud.

“Well, it’s not your fault that we couldn’t help Jonah hide his bruises from his sisters.” Terry said to you.

After all four of us got picked up our entire group went back to the hotel to unwind and talk about our day. They told us they had a wonderful time talking to some of their friends that was living here and one thing led to another and apparently they resolved another friendship problem. It’s amazing how even when there just visiting a friend they seem to always stumble on a friendship problem.

Either way, we all told them that the four of us just trained on only some weight lifting and some upper body exercise, which was a fat lie and the only pony who saw through that was Applejack. While everyone else was buying our lies she asked her little brother what really happened. And by asking her brother you mean she just straight up ordered him to tell her what we really did.

“Come on, Jonah, spill it.” She said to him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sister.” Jonah said nervously.

“You can’t hide it from your big sister, now I advise you to think what your next sentence is or you’ll have twice the chores for a whole two months.” Applejack sternly said.

Looking at Jonah’s scared face you can clearly see he was about to break under her gaze causing him to rub his bruised arm that was hidden under his long sleeve shirt.

“What’s under your sleeve, Jonah?” She asked him.

“Um, it’s just a-“

Just has Jonah was going to make an excuse for his arm, Applejack quickly lifted his arm and pulled down his arm to see his arm covered in small cuts and bruises.

“What in tarnation? You best be doing some explaining, now.” She said more serious than ever.

So Jonah spilled the beans on how there was boxing ring and that he decided to try some sparing against another human and the end result was Jonah having an injured am in the process. Now to say she was mad was completely an understatement, so as a way to make sure he doesn’t do anything else dangerous Applejack decided to make him sleep with her in her room. You were going to step in and try to protest, but you really wanted to not get chewed out by another mare besides Diamond tiara.

So now it’s just you, Terry, and Mike on a midnight scouting mission to break inside the back of the gym. Mike was on higher ground so that he can cover us while me and Terry slowly approached the back door of the gym.

“Pick the lock, Terry, I’ll cover your back.” You told him.

“Are you sure? Because picking this lock with these tools are king of stupid.” He told you while trying to figure out how to use the lock picking tools.

“What? Your teacher was supposed to teach you how to use them. Here give them to me I’ll show you how to use it.” Terry handed you the tools and you started to pick the lock on the door.

“OK, what you need to do is use this, um, weird ball with a small metal… whatever you call in the lock and then you use this other… metal thing to get the other lock and then… nothing, nothing at all.” You told him while jiggling the still locked door.

“Fuck this,” You threw the pick locking tools on the ground in frustration. “Let’s just go find a window like normal assassins, this locking picking shit is useless.”

“Already found one.” Terry pointed at a window that’s was slightly opened next to a pile of crates stacked on top of each other.

Using the crates as stairs the two of you made your way to the window and silently entered a large vacant room that you assume is the storage room.

“This doesn’t make sense there’s not even a single thing here that could prove Iron will’s crimes. Not to mention there seems to be not a single living soul in this place” Terry said.

“No, keep looking there has to be one thing here that could help our investigation.” You walked to the center of the room to find anything that could help when you felt a drop of water hitting the top of your head.

“What the...” Touching the drop of water that landed on your head you looked at your fingers to see not water, but fresh blood dripping down on your head. Looking above you see a huge metal storage container hanging by several heavy duty chains.

“Anon, what are you staring at?” Terry asked you.

Pointing your finger above you Terry followed your finger to what you were pointing at and stared wide eyed at the giant crate above you.

“OK, Anon, you need to move, now.” Terry warned you.

Taking his advice to heart you tiptoed your way under the steel crate, but as soon you were just two steps away from under the massive cargo the lock picking tools you took from terry fell out of your coat pocket hitting the floor causing a very loud echo resonating in the storage room.

“Fuck. You. Lock. Picking.” You whispered harshly.

As the echo rang across the entire room the large cargo hanging in the air soon rumbled uncontrollably making the chains snap from the constant stress. Before the cargo could reach the cement floor you leaped out of the way right before the steel crate crashed upon impact.

You and Terry backed away and pointed your weapons at what’s inside the storage crate.

“GRAAAAAH!” Out of nowhere out of the blue, a giant beast that almost resembled a human rushed out of the crate swinging his massively bulging arms around it.

“Move, move, move!” You shouted at Terry. With a quick downward swing the monster caused the floor the crack from the monstrous strength it possesses.

“What in god’s name is that?” Terry asked me.

“I think this is the final product of what Iron will was making.”

“How the hell can we stop this thing?” Terry asked you.

“The only thing we can do, Terry, we run like hell!” Making a mad dash to the window where you entered the monster grabbed a huge piece of cement from the floor and chucked it ahead of you cutting of your only exit.

“He cut off our exit now what?” He asked you.

“Now, we have no choice but fight it. Right about now, Mike has probably heard the noise in here and is trying to find a better place to fire his gun we need to buy some time until we can get our support.” Reaching behind your back you pulled out Jonah’s blunderbuss and told Terry your plan.

“You try and distract him while I try and find a good opportunity to get a single one hit kill with Jonah’s gun.”
“I’m on it.” Rushing to the monster head on Terry extended his hidden blades and did a quick swipe to its face to grab his attention and took a few steps back for the monster to retaliate.

“BRAAAAAH!” Making a wide arm swipe Terry ducked under the massive muscle and did a role under the monster’s legs and slashed both of its calf muscles making the monster to scream in frustration.

With Terry having it’s full attention you jumped on the monsters back and held on as tight as you can as the monster jumped and thrashed around to get you off.

“WOOOO! Yippee kai yay mother fucker!” You screamed for no reason. Though, your pretty sure if Jonah was in your position right now he would do the same.

“Hurry and take the shot, I don’t think I can do this for long.” Terry told you while almost getting hit by the monster’s massive hands.

Taking the blunderbuss in your right hand you shoved the muzzle of the gun to the monster’s head and was about to pull the trigger when the hulking beast was finally able to reach behind its back, grabbed you with one arm, and threw you across the room.

“Anon!” Terry shouted. He wanted to go help his injured comrade. But he was to bust not getting injured himself with the monster constantly swinging his arms to hit Terry.”

You tried your best to stay conscious, but all you could do was try and stop coughing blood. Soon, your eye lids grew too heavy to lift and you started to see nothing but darkness and then… silence.

You couldn’t hear Terry screaming your name or the monsters screeching just absolute silence and jet black darkness with only you in the center of it.

“OK, this has got to be some sick joke.” You said hysterically. “This can’t be real.”

“There! We got his signal back he’s not in her influence anymore you need to pull him off the system.” To add further insanity to your dismay you heard a female voice shouting coming out of nowhere.

“We can’t do that; if we do then we have no chance of ever sending him back.” A male voice chimed into the abyss.

“Hello? Is anyone there, God?” You asked out loud to anyone listening you.

“YES! IT IS I AND YOU HAVE BEEN A NAUGHTY BOY!” A loud voice shouted.

“Will you stop that shit and do something about this already?!” A second girl voice said.

“Ow, ow, ow OK I’ll stop, I’ll stop messing around just let go of my ear, May.” What was once a booming in command voice turned into another guy with a childish snobby whine.

“Hello! Pleas tell me this is not actually hell, cause if so, then if I make this out alive I really need to go to church with Terry on Sundays.” You said to darkness.

For what whatever long it took the darkness to reply it all soon changed when the darkness soon became a white landscape with beams of light passing through the ground and sky.

“You’re not dead, son. You’re going home.” The voice said to you before you were engulfed in pure light.

[Real life]

“Ugh, mhmm…” For once in your life you actually wish you were dead so you won’t feel such stiffness and pain that’s coursing all over your body.

“Take it easy, Anon, you need to take it slowly.” You adjusted your eyes to focus on who’s talking to you.

“Where am I? Who are you people? Why am I in a bed? Why do I still feel like death?”

“Easy, easy you just got out of the animus and you need to rest.” Slowly your eyes could make out an image of the person talking to you. The person talking to you had long black hair, bright blue eyes, and a slender face showing the appearance of a woman staring right at you.

“Who are you?” You asked.

She gave you a crooked grin from your question, but gave you an answer to question.

“You’re at the medical wing of the building,” Hey, she at least gave you an answer. “And look, some one here that can answer the rest of your questions.” You looked at the left side of the hospital bed to see a gray haired old man with a clip boards in his hands.

“I think this is my time to leave.” The black haired girl said to you, but before she left she whispered to the old man something you couldn’t hear and then left the room.

“So, how is your day?” He asked you with a smile.

“Are you serious? I just rag dolled by some monster, almost died, and now I am here and have no idea where I am and you just ask how my day is? Its shit, my day has officially turned to shit.” You said in a dead tone.

“Well, Anon, I don’t want to make it any shittier for you, but I guess I can just do this instead.” Walking near a covered window, the old man pulled down the curtains to reveal a giant shining city with most of its buildings destroyed or abandoned followed by complete anarchy down at the streets with humans killing each other. Fire and gun shots could be hard from a far, random screaming and shouting, and explosions appearing in the skies.

Now you need your questions answered, right now.

“Where am I?” You asked him.

His smiling face he showed before soon changed to a sour look that matches his appearance, walked next to your bed, and helped you sit up.

“This is your world, Anon, the real world.” He told you with not a single hint of lying.

“The world you were living in was just a virtual world where everyone can have a second life without the restraints of the real world,” He went on. “It was all going according the programming, but one of our AI’s that were in charge of the program went independent and severed most of the people of earth to be trapped in the virtual world.”

“Celestia,” You whispered other name without thinking.

“Yes, she was just designed to please the people to have their happy lives, but I suppose her programming did just that.” The old man told you while bringing a wheelchair for you to ride in.

“Where are we going?” You asked him.

“For lunch, I’m sure you’ve needed some actual food in your stomach.”
As he told you there was food your stomach immediately roared from hunger causing you to clutch your stomach.

“Ha, ha, ha quite alright the lunch room is just a few doors down.” Helping you push your wheelchair, the both of you strolled down the empty hallway to enter a large cafeteria with no one around.

“You must excuse the odd absence of people there doing their part in trying to keep some order in the streets.” Taking you to a table the old man walked in to the kitchen and came back with two sub sandwiches.

“What do you mean?” You asked him. The sandwich he gave you was just a simple bacon chicken sub, but with one small bite your taste buds cried with pleasure to actually taste real food making you scarf the entre thing in minutes.

“Since most of the population was trapped in the other world, most of the crime rate increased since there has been a decline of police to stop them. Not to mention a huge loss in armed forces being trapped in virtual reality making some countries to try and steal each other’s land and resources.” He gave you his sandwich and you thanked him.

“The people here try and keep some form of peace, but we are losing many lives in the process, which is why we decided to try and cut off the head of the snake that started all of this.”

“The Assassins,” You told him after finishing your food.

“Yup, the assassins were a form of a virus in a way to destroy Celestia, but she somehow became so powerful in the cyber world she was able to change the world in her own image changing the humans to ponies and other creatures making it harder for you all the blend in to society.”

“Then to have further problems, she somehow programmed the NPCs from the assassin program to be slaves to her ponies as a way to further please her little creations.”

“What are NPCs?”

“Non-player characters, the assassin program consisted of many human AIs that resembled the real human counterparts. We thought that all was lost, until some of us decided to risk being plugged in and enter Celestia’s territory.”

“You mean, like me.”

“Yes and not only you. Mike, Jonah, terry, and other people volunteered to enter the virtual world regardless of the consequences. We knew that if you all entered she would know you were all real humans and change you into ponies, so we altered your memories to make you think you were born in that world. We even gave each of you some tragic past to make you even more determined to over throw the solar ruler and what do you know, it worked.” He smiled again before frowning.

“But that was two years ago, and you were the only person able to leave.” He told you.

“T-Two years,” You said to him with astonishment. “I’ve been in that world for my entire life, but in reality it was just two years.”

“Your quite calm after hearing all this, I’m sure if it was someone else it would cause them some heavy discomfort.”

“I’m just; I’m just slowly absorbing all of this.” You said.

“If you want, you can see the rest of your friends right now.” He got up from his seat and was about to push your wheel chair before you stopped him your hand.

“Wait, before that, can I bring a few sandwiches?” You asked him.

[Animus room]

“This is where we pulled you out of your animus after your altercation.”

Bringing couple of sandwiches with you, David (the old man), strolled you to where the rest of your team is.

“Jesus Christ.” You said in horror to what they look like. In virtual life they all looked fit, healthy, and muscular, but here they show this body frames, long growing hair, and even unhealthy pale skin.

Walking next to your team you were about to touch the machines they were using when your hand was grabbed and swatted away.

“Hey, don’t touch the animus, one wrong touch and they’ll be trapped in virtual limbo.” A young teen told you. This teen looked like he barely aged to thirteen and his shaggy hair made is harder for you to see his face, but the only thing you can remember him is that annoying voice he has.

“You’re that guy I heard when I was plugged in.” You told him.

“Yeah, and I’m also the guy that’s trying to save the rest of your friends.” After he said that he went back to Terry’s animus and tinkered with the controls.

“What do you mean, what’s going on in there?” You asked him.

Taking a sigh of frustration from your questions, he pulled out a large tablet out of his satchel, pushed a button, and shoved in your face to see what is happening. You see Terry firing his pistols at the monster while Mike was taking shots to the leg to cripple the monster with no signs of it ever flinching, but what really caught your attention is your virtual body being motionless to what around it.

“As you can see, your body is currently ‘dead’ and the friends are also going to die if I don’t try and help them.” The teen said to you.

“”What’s your plan on helping them, Steve?” Old guy asked.

“I’m trying to transfer some data to help them stop this thing, but if I do then Celestia will take notice and the two years they spent in the animus will go to waste if they get caught.” Steve said with frustration.

“Send me in.” You said to them without thinking. “Just send me in with the data, Celestia won’t notice if I sneak back.”

For a long stretch of silence the two of them was quite, until Steve answered you.

“It’s a long shot, but I’ll see what I can do.” Steve went to action and checked your animus for your return. You couldn’t believe you were about to do this all over again, and apparently neither did the old man.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” He told you with a straight face. “Once you get back in there you will have no second chance to get out, which means if you die again in there then we have no other option then to leave you there if it means Celestia will find out the truth.” He warned you.

After hearing what he told you, you begin to see how grave the situation is, but you still can’t let this all go down without some way of saving your friends.

“I know which is why it’s important for me to get back and help them.” You said to him with no trace of fear.

“Alright, Steve, is his animus ready?”

“Yeah, just lay him on the bed and I’ll install sequence numbers and he’ll be back in his body.” Steve said.

Placing your wheelchair next to your animus you used your arms to push you of the seat and laid down on your back on the animus. Steve attached some wires on your head and a glass window covered your head.

“As soon as I turn this on you will be back in your body with the power I added to Jonah’s blunderbuss. One shot and only one shot can take it down, so make sure you aim right.” Steve told you.

“And don’t tell your friends who they really are, if you do then you’ll destroy two years of trying to hide who they truly are and will cause Celestia to find each and every real human assassin to become ponies with no chance of ever coming back.” The old man warned you.

“Don’t worry old man, I’ll be careful.”

“My name is not ‘old man’, its Phil.” Phil told you before walking away and leaving your field of vision.

With a nod of confirmation, Steve pushed some buttons on your animus and your vision quickly saw numbers and lights coming from the small glass window making your mind feel like it was being transferred to somewhere else.

[Virtual world]

“Mike, take the legs out!” You hear Terry’s voice.

“I’m on it!” Mike said to Terry. After you heard Mike’s voice you heard a loud gunshot causing your eyes to shoot open and making your brain trace back to what happened.

You being sent back, learning the truth, and also finding a way to kill this thing once and for all.

“Ugh, shit.” You grunted.

It felt weird for you to move you’re fake body when it was tossed to a cement wall, but you seem less in pain then you did before, possibly thanks to Steve’s help.

“Anon? Anon, you’re alive!” Terry shouted with relieve.

“Yeah, I’m alive, thank god and all that. How are thing while I was out?” You asked him.

“We tried crippling it, but it just won’t go down it can feel pain!” Terry told you.

“Also, I’m here if you wanted to ask!” Mike shouted while trying to run away from the monster.

“OK, I need you two to distract it again, when you do I’ll get back on its back and I use the blunderbuss to shoot straight towards the head.” You told them the plan.

“Roger that!” With a swift motion of speed, Terry dashed behind the monster and slashed at it’s back causing it to focus on Terry instead of Mike.

Now that Mike was free from the monster’s chase He aimed his rifle at back of the monsters kneecap and fired. The musket round completely shattered the kneecap making the monster loose its balance and fell to the ground signaling you to take to final shot.

Running the monster before it gets up you jumped on its back and made no short time to climb to its head and aim the gun to the back of its head.

“Anon, look out!” Mike shouted.

Switching your focus from behind you see the monster’s massive hands about to reach you and grab you like it did before, but they were soon stopped when two musket rounds hit both hands making you have an open window of opportunity.

“Take the shot, hurry!” Mike shouted while trying to reload his pistols.

You pulled the trigger of the gun and felt the recoil of the gun pushing back and hitting the ground. And just when you felt the floor on your back you heard the monster’s lifeless body hitting the floor and your teammate’s feet running towards you.

“Anon, are you OK?” Mike asked you.

“Yeah, I am. What about the monster?” You asked.

“Terry’s checking the body, here let me help you up.” Mike out your arm over his shoulders and helped walk to see what Terry was doing.

“Terry, is that thing finally dead?” You asked him.

“Aside from you destroying its entire head, I’m pretty sure it’s dead. I’m just taking some samples with before we go back the sun is almost rising.” Pointing his finger to a window you see that the morning was soon arriving.

“OK, we got what we came for, now we just need to go back, recover, make a new plan, and finally end this mission once and for all.” You said.

“Hopefully, Iron will won’t have anything else in store for us.” Terry replied.

“Even if he did, I’m sure we can handle it.” Mike said as reassurance.
“Your right, Mike, we will be ready for anything. Get ready, Iron, will, because you’re going down.”

“Um, speaking of Iron will and his plans, what are we going to do with this thing?” Terry asked about the limp corpse.

“Did anyone bring any alcohol and some matches?” You asked them.

“I thought you did?” Mike said to you.

“Does this mean we have to get rid of this the old fashion way?” Terry said.

“Shit, OK, pick a limb and start cutting, we need to get rid of this thing and fast.” You said to them while have way done chopping of a piece of leg. You just hope that everything in the real world is having a better time then you are.

[Real world]

“How is anon?” Phil asked Steve.

“You mean your grandson? He made in time to save his crew, but are you sure it was a wise decision to send him in without telling him the full story?” Steve asked.

“No, he already has too much to worry as it is, as the head of Abstergo it is my responsibility to handle and no one else’s.” Phil said.

“OK, so long as we can end this damn program before the real assassins arrive.” Steve said and went back to his work. “Now, I need to try and cover our tracks if Celestia somehow found out what we did. Hopefully, we don’t get to have May shouting down at both of us not doing are part of the work.”

“For all our sake, Steve, I hope so too.” Looking back at Anon, Phil walked next to his sleeping form and spoke to his unconscious grandchild.

“Please, Anon, you have to hurry and finish your war in the cyber world, so you can help us finish our war in the real world.”

Author's Note

Hello to those who still remember this story and also an apology for not paying much attention to this story, but i can make it up to you all by having this chapter have more plot development and also more secrets reveled. But i would also need you all to head for my recent blog post since i have some important news for you all.

like always, this is brotherhoof12 saying "Now that school started, i'm just waiting for Christmas to start."