No peace for the weary

Chapters

1: Just another day in Rwanda
Dealing with Death
Mercenaries
What now?
Loss

1: Just another day in Rwanda

Rwanda, 2015, 2200 Hours.

The four men rested on the hill observing the small village. The village had been forsaken by the small team. It was a shame that the people in the village had to die, but it was for the greater good. These people had sealed their fate by killing innocents, so it was not time for them to die.

“Messiah, I need you here stat!” Called out one of the men. The leader of the group, code named Messiah walked over to the teams Marksman. He was lying down prone aiming down the scope of his black and green stripped Cheytac Intervention. He was observing the village and was tasked with reporting anything important to Messiah.

“Sir, we have lots of movement, all are armed irregulars. Orders?”

“Keep watch, don't shoot, we do not want to expose our position.”

“Roger.”

Messiah proceeded to leave the teams sniper. He was then called upon by Heretic, the teams communications specialist.

“Messiah, the Tutsi Rebels are awaiting orders. They want to start the mortar barrage, but want to make sure all innocents are out of the village.”

“Tell them that all civilians have been extracted but wait till midnight before shelling the village. By then most will be asleep and the attack will be more successful.”

Heretic nodded and then proceeded to relay Messiah's orders to the Tutsi Rebel commander on the radio.

Messiah walked over to the teams demolition expert, Lucifer. “How's it going?” Messiah asked nonchalantly.

“I'm getting antsy sir.” He racked the slide on his M240B Light Machine Gun. “We should be taking these guys out, not these Rebels...”

“Listen, this is not our fight. We are here to help these people. The Hutu are doing more ethnic cleansing and our job is to help the Tutsi people fight back.”

“But sir, what's the point of all of this? We don't know these people.”

“We're all human, and it is our duty to protect each other. We only live one life, and all of us here on this hill have devoted ours to making the lives of the downtrodden and poor worth living. A life under a gun is not a life.”

Lucifer just nodded and did a very lazy salute. Messiah never really got why his men would salute him, they were not affiliated with any nation or government. He supposed it was just the habits of a military life.

Messiah then proceeded to lean against a tree. He closed his eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep. Hopefully, this short nap would be enough to keep him awake for most of the rest of the day.

Messiah awoke to the sounds of explosions and screams. The Tutsi rebels had commenced their mortar attack, and from what he could hear, it was going to be quite a success.

As Messiah looked at the explosions going off in the village, he picked up his rifle, a Tavor Tar-21. Frankly he thought it was a little too futuristic looking, but internally the gun was amazing and that is what counts.

Messiah then walked over to his team, all of whom were in a defensive posture. All had their weapons aimed at the village, making sure there would be no Hutu soldiers escaping. As Messiah joined the squad, a mortar landed a little too close to the squad.

“Heretic! Tell the Rebels to watch their fire!”

Heretic was shouting in his radio as mortar fire was getting closer and closer to the squad mates.

“Sir! They aren't listening they ju-” Heretic was cut off as a mortar landed right in front of him, his body was torn apart.

“No!” Messiah screamed. As more mortars started to land around the squad, it seems the surviving Hutu soldiers had noticed where quite a few mortars were landing. They started running up the hill to attempt to take out the squad.

Lucifer started firing madly at the soldiers, laughing as he saw men fall down.

“Ha ha ha! This is what I'm talking about! You're dead! You're dead! You're dead! Ha ha ha!”

In a brief moment of clarity, Messiah realized that Lucifer was probably not the best person to be in charge of the teams demolitions and machine gun.

At the very conclusion of that thought Lucifer took a round to the face and fell down.

The team sniper, Jehovah, was also firing his rifle madly. He was too close to hit much with his rifle, so he gave up on that and pulled out his MP7 and was firing madly with that.

“Messiah! I'm running low on ammo! I don't think we're gonna' make it sir! It was an honour!”

“Shut up! We will make it through this!”

Almost immediately after Messiah's words, a stray round hit Jehovah in the throat. Three more followed into his chest.

Messiah was not even fazed. He had seen more death today, that in the past three years. Messiah himself was firing down the hill, hitting several men. It was pretty apparent that this was a lost cause.

Messiah decided to flee. He ran away from the scene of death at breakneck speed. He did not even look back, he could still hear the mortars hitting the village.

Messiah must have been running for at least a mile before he decided to look back. As he looked back he saw the mortars still hitting the now, empty village. More and more mortars were falling until he saw some thing that took his breath away.

“What the...was that...a rainbow streak? No, I must be going crazy.” Messiah then turned around to continue running away from the violence.

He did not now how long he had been running, but the sounds of the mortars could no longer be heard.

He looked around and decided to sleep under some brush until daybreak. Come daylight he would return to the hill to retrieve some ammunition, weapons and his friends dog tags. Even though they were not in any military, they still had ID and Dog tags worked really well for that purpose.

Messiah checked his digital watch and noticed that is was nearly 3:00 AM in the morning. If he wanted any sleep before the daylight came, he would have to do sow right away.

So after he was able to make up some decent camouflage consisting of sticks, leaves and grass. Messiah fell asleep. He did not dream as he so often did, it was simply black until his eyes opened.

He awoke and immediately checked his watch. It was 10:00PM, he had overslept. Still he had to get back to that hill, the mortars would have stopped by now and the Tutsi Rebels would only reach the village by afternoon. Still, no need to waste time.

With that Messiah broke out into a run. Now that he was not worried about getting chased by soldiers, he had some time to enjoy the scenery. Africa was a truly beautiful continent. It was a shame so much blood had been slip over it.

The sky was clear, and crystal blue. There was a slight breeze and it was not too hot. Overall, it was an amazing day. A shame that he would ruin this day by walking to a hill with his friends dead bodies resting on it.

Messiah noticed that the hill was coming up, there was a small plume of smoke rising from the village behind it.

“I hate war...” He muttered to himself. “But this is the life I have chosen.”

As Messiah climbed the hill, he felt his heartbeat quicken. His best friends, no, they were more than that. They were family. They had lived together, trained together, fought together and died together.

“With the exception of me...” He grumbled.

As he reached the top of the hill, it was much worse that he had seen last night. There were bodies everywhere. The white faces of his comrades stuck out easily enough to find, although they had so much soot on their faces, it was still a challenge to spot them.

Messiah looked for Heretic's body, as he had both the radio and Tar-21 Ammo. Heretic was the one who had convinced Messiah to use the weapon. When he actually found heretics 'body' he had wished he hadn't.

Both of his legs were ripped off, one arm was hanging on by a thread and his chest was so mangled it almost made Messiah sick. As he looked at Heretic's holsters, saw both ammo and the radio.

Unfortunately the Radio had been crushed. The ammo was still okay though. After he finished robbing his comrades body, he snatched his tags. He then proceeded to do the same to the same rest of his small team.

Once he had finished grabbing the tags, he looked down at the burning village. There were bodies everywhere. Fires still raged from last night.

As Messiah's well trained eyes scanned the village, he noticed something strange. He had spotted some thing cyan moving slowly.

“What the...” What could be be still alive in that village? Let alone one that had a colour as vibrant as that.

“Well, lets see what it it then...I have to stop talking to myself...”

Messiah walked down the hill with his rifle raised. You cannot be too careful. As he neared the object, he saw it was not moving, but rather writing. In pain possibly? He would soon find out.

He had finally made it into the village and the smell was overpowering. The combination of dead, decaying bodies, cordite and smoke was almost too much. Luckily, he was used to the smell.

As Messiah moved through out the village, he saw a few still surviving Hutu soldiers. He did the humane thing and shot them once in the head, putting them out of their misery. It was hard, but it was the right thing to do.

But now that blue thing, where was it again? His thoughts were interrupted by hearing a groan of pain. It sounded...female? Female? But the Hutu only have male soldiers. There were more groans and Messiah was determined to find out, if it was female it would be a civilian so he decided to speak out.

“Hello, is anyone here still alive? I'm a friend!” He then remembered that most Rwandans could not speak English.

“H-Hello? Could somepony help me?”

Okay, so not only is there a female but she speaks English? Something is wrong here...and did she say somepony?

“I am here to help! Please tell me where you are.”

“I-I don’t know! T-there a-are bodies everywhere!”

“I know.”

Messiah kept walking towards to voice and what he saw took his breath away. There, was a cyan blue...pony? With a rainbow mane. It was also apparently a Pegasus, although it would not be flying for some time. A large piece of shrapnel had pierced its wing and there was quite a bit of blood around it.

“What the hell?”

The pony looked up and was visibly terrified.

To be fair, she had ample reason, Messiah was not exactly a welcoming sight. He was 6'1ft tall and was incredibly muscular. He was clad in digital woodland camouflage. He had green and black stripped face paint on and a digital woodland camouflage boonie hat. His body armour also made him look even larger. His weapons both in his hands and on his hip made Messiah the very image of intimidation.

“Please don't hurt me!” The pony shouted and then went into the foetal position.

“Y-you just talked! Animals can't talk!” Messiah was flabbergasted. This thing had just talked!

The pony was starting to cry. She was clearly terrified. She had seen a battle and was now seeing a person who was literally ready to kill.

“Hey” He cooed. “ I am not here to hurt you okay?” He started to stroke her mane. “You're not from here are you.”

“Geez” She sniffed. “What gave you THAT idea.” Messiah lightly chuckled.

“ I think the mane gave that away.” He then turned his attention towards the damaged wing. “ That looks pretty bad, come with me and I'll fix it up so it does not get infected.” Messiah then got up and started walking. The pony did not follow right away.

He couldn't really blame her. She had seen so much and was hurt and scared and here some big guy tells her to follow him.

Messiah put on a warm smile. “ I'm not here to hurt you, I just want to help.”

The pony slowly trotted over to him, she had a pretty bad limp. After watching the pony imp towards him for about thirty seconds, Messiah gave in. He went over to her and picked her up.

“Hey! I can do it my self!” She protested.

“No you cannot. You clearly hurt your leg and walking on it is just going to make it worse, besides it's not like you weigh much.”

She lightly blushed at the comment.

“So, what's your name?” Messiah asked.

“I'm Rainbow Dash. And I'm the fastest flyer in Equestria.” She looked at her wing. “ Or at least i used to be.”

“Don't worry about it, we're gonna' fix that right up. My name is....Messiah. And did you say Equestria?”

“Yeah, I'm from this place Equestria. It is NOTHING like here. First off, the colours here are all to dark. And we've never had a war. At least not in my life. But this...” She was pointing towards the village. “ Pain like this is unheard of.”

Messiah just chuckled. “ This is nothing. Stuff like this happens everyday, this war you are seeing, is nothing compared to some of the wars we have had. But lets not worry about that.”

Rainbow looked so shocked at this thing telling her what she had just seen was routine and mundane.

“So Equestria seems nice.” Messiah said nonchalantly

“It really is.”

“You have any idea how you got here?”

“No I really don't. There I was going to do a sonic rainboom. Right when i was about to break the sounds barrier, i saw a white flash and i ended up in that village.”

“Did you just say you could break the sound barrier? That is impossible. No organic thing can go past the sound barrier. You would need a Jet to get that fast.”

“Yes I can break the barrier. I would show you if weren't for my wing being all messed up.” Rainbow shot back. “ And what's a jet?”

“Jets are these big metal things that have rockets at the back. They are essentially rockets with wings to control them. The fastest one we ever made went like 3.36 times the speed of sound. So that's like three of your supposed 'sonic rainbooms'.”

Rainbow's jaw dropped at the idea of such speed. It seems these things were able to not only top her speed, but exceed it. And they didn’t even have wings!

As Messiah walked up the hill with Rainbow, who had not moved to his back and had her hooves wrapped around his neck. Messiah then went into detail about how he was a Human and how humans lived in cities and fought and all of that fun stuff until he heard voices.

As the two of them reached the top of the hill, Messiah saw five soldiers, all holding AK-47's standing there waiting for them. They looked on at the Messiah with surprise but their eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets as they saw the Dash on his back.

Messiah slowly reached for his pistol as the men were transfixed on Rainbow.

“Dash, you might want to close your eyes for this.”

She really wished she had listened to Messiah.

Dealing with Death

A/N: I'm really surprised at how popular this is. I honestly did not expect nearly the amount of favorites as I got. So thank you to all who favorited this story, I really appreciate it.

The first time someone experiences death it is quite often traumatic and will forever change said persons life in many ways which may not choose to manifest themselves for quite some time. While some people find it easy to see death and feel nothing, it seems that Rainbow Dash was not in this category.

A wave of emotions cascaded over Rainbow as she looked at this...killer. He had saved her, he had helped her, he had been nice to her. But he was also a killer. Dash felt a mixture of sorrow, fear, relief and confusion. Messiah took note of her obvious discomfort at witnessing death and decided he had to say something.

“Believe me when I say that If i had not...dispatched those men, they would have killed us both.”

“But you didn't say anything! You just killed them! How do you even know they would hurt us!” Tears were starting to form in the corners of her large magenta eyes.

Messiah pointed at their uniforms. “They have Hutu military uniforms. That means they are the bad guys.” He said blatantly. Not only that, but they also had weapons.” He completed his point by lightly kicking one of the soviet rifles that now lay on the grass.

“I don't care! Killing is never right!”

“Well it seems the universe hates you then.” Rainbow shot Messiah a confused glance.

“You're in Africa. This is the land that people have been fighting and killing each other over for centuries.”

Dash just looked away from Messiah. Here he was rationalizing murder! In Equestria he would be locked up for life! Here he was saying that killing was commonplace here, but it doesn't change anything! Killing is never okay. Dash just really wanted to go home, to be done with all of this violence.

“Listen..” He said as he placed a warm hand on Dash's shoulder. “Killing is not right, I get that. But when it comes to either me and you dying or someone else, I am going to choose the other guys. I...and now you live in a cold, harsh world. I won't lie to you, you'll probably see more of this as we try to leave this godforsaken country. Just listen to me, and we'll make it through this okay?” There was no point in lying to the pony, he might as well just say it like it is.

Rainbow just sighed and slowly nodded her head.

“Now come on, lets get that wing all fixed up.” Messiah said reaching for his first aid kit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a few hours, Messiah had managed to more-or-less fix Dash's wing. He had removed the shrapnel, cleaned the wound and stitched it up. It would have gone well, had it not been for the combination of a lack of aesthetic, and the extreme sensitivity of a Pegasus' wings.

Needless to say that Rainbow was not exactly happy, or quiet during the procedure.

“I hate you, I hope you realize that.”

“You say that now, but if i wouldn't have fixed your wing, it would have gotten infected and it would have had to been amputated. I have a sneaking suspicion that's something you would want to avoid.”

Rainbow was visibly shocked at the apparent danger she had been in of loosing her wing. She then grabbed her wing and held it close to her chest, stroking it. A pang of guilt struck his heart as he saw how terrified the pony was of loosing her wing.

“So where are we going now?” She said, still stroking her wounded wing.

“Well, the original extraction point is about ten miles that way” He said pointing east. “ But we were supposed to meet them there about...” He checked his watch “Ten hours ago, so I doubt that option is still viable.” Messiah then sat in thought for a minute, trying to think of a place he could go. “ I suppose we could try to get to Kigali. We might be able to find a car or truck or...something there.”

“How far is this place?”

“Hard to tell, but if we leave now we should make it in a few days.”

“Sounds good. Not like I can really decide on where we go.”

Rainbow jumped on Messiah's back once again. Her leg was seriously sprained, possibly even fractured, and there was nothing Messiah could do about that. He was only good with lacerations and gunshot wounds. Anything beyond that and he was like a monkey trying to hot-wire a car. Besides it's not like he really cared, she weighed next to nothing and it was kind of cute how she would nuzzle into his neck when she fell asleep.

“So how old are you?” Dash asked trying to find out more about her saviour.

“I'm twenty seven. But I've only been living for five years.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well before i did...this” He said gesturing to his rifle. “ I was going nowhere in life. I had finished university and was looking to live a comfortable life until I eventualy died as a senile old bedridden man.” A slight smirk was slapped across his face. “ While I was looking for work, I found myself with quite a bit of time on my hands, so i started to do some research on the world that I live in.” He took a deep breath. “After a few days of research I was disgusted. I knew there were problems in the world but I never knew the extent or the severity of them. And the worst part was that no one cared. No one cared about the genocides, the famines, the poverty or the disease infested slums that ravage our planet.” Messiah was spitting the words now. His anger and disdain for the apathy of man was easily visible to his equine compatriot.

“So one day I just got up and said ' fuck it'. If no one else was going to help these people, that I would have to do it. No I was not stupid. I knew there would be no way I could do it alone. So i looked around and lo and behold, I discovered The Order.”

Dash shot him a curious glance.

“The Order were a group of people, from all walks of life, who felt the way I did. We took matters into our own hands. We had the money, weapons and resources to help people who needed to be helped. Thats where I met my squad...” His voice trailed off a bit as sorrow laced the words the spoke.

“For five years we travelled across the world, doing what had to be done. We killed rebel leaders in Sudan. Assassinated the president of Syria. Freed countless villages from the grips of warlords. Then we came here and, well you know what happened....”

Rainbow nodded her head acknowledging the loss Messiah had suffered in this land.

“My life was a waste before I joined the order. It was such a waste that I no longer consider it a part of my life. My life started the day I joined the order. The purpose of life is a life with a purpose. And my life has only had purpose for five years. Hence I have only lived for five years.” He concluded with a fake smile. The memories of his dead friends were going to haunt him for a lifetime. The memories of every life he took haunted him, but he had learned to suppress those memories.

The death of his comrades was still too fresh of a wound to properly tuck away into his mind, and it would be for some time.

Dash was quiet for a moment. “I'm fifteen.”

Messiah genuinely smiled at her statement.

“Hey do you like music?”

“What kind of question is that? Everyone likes music.” Dash said

“Granted, but something tells me that my music is very different from yours.”

Some incredibly dark songs came to Messiah's mind almost immediately. While his friends were all metal heads, Messiah had always liked rap. Not the rap about the money and the women. But the rap about deep philosophical issues and social and human injustice. The rapper Immortal Technique came to his mind almost immediately.

“Do you guys have rap in Equestria?”

“Yeah, it's mostly a unicorn thing though.”

“Well when we get to somewhere safe, there is some rap I HAVE to show you.” He said putting over emphasis on the word have.

There a a brief silence between the duo before they started chatting again. Rainbow explained to Messiah that the two princesses controlled the sun and the moon. Messiah just laughed at her. He proceeded to explain to her that the moon orbited the earth and that the earth orbited the sun. Rainbow laughed at his explanation and a heated debate ensued. By the end of it, both were mentally spent and had shouted a bit more that they had liked.

Before long, they day had turned sour and clouds were covering the sky. Messiah really wanted to reach some shelter before a downpour started but he was out of luck. The torrential rain battered both the human and pony.

“I hate the rain...” He said as he wiped water from his face. He soon realized that his hand had a strange substance on it. He turned his palm to face him and he was met with a camouflage palm.

“Dammit.” He mumbled as he turned his face to the sky in an attempt to get all of the facepaint of of him. It really was not going to do much good considering he had a bright cyan pony with a rainbow mare on his back.

Messiah spotted the treeline of the dense jungle and made a a beeline towards it. While tree's were not the best cover, the thick canopy would fare much better than anything else he could find at the moment.

As he sprinted towards the treeline he could feel Rainbow tighten her grasp on his neck. Thunder erupted right above them and it caused Rainbow to jump a bit. Messiah let out a very quiet chuckle.

When Messiah finally reached the Jungle, the sight took his breath away. In front of him was a world of green, untouched by man. The trees had vines crawling up their sides. It was almost impossible to see the ground as there were ferns and bushes everywhere. It was truly beautiful. This is how the world should look. He thought as the observed the pristine landscape.

As the two kept marching they noticed a distinct lack of rain. It seems that the Jungle canopy did a surprisingly effective job at keeping most, if not all of the rain away from the pair. Messiah decided it was now time to start looking for some place to make camp, it was getting dark and both Messiah and Rainbow needed some sleep.

The two walked through the vegetation for about an hour until Messiah found a decent spot to make camp. It was a small dirt clearing that still had enough tree cover to protect the two from most of rain.

Seeing as how a fire would be nice, Messiah set out to try and find some wood that was not too wet to light.

As Rainbow sat alone in the clearing, she started to analyze the situation she had found herself in. Why was this guy helping her? What did he have to gain from this? She had seen him kill mercilessly but here he was, going the extra mile to help something that was not even from his world. Dash decided she would confront Messiah when he returned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How is it possible that all of this wood is wet?! Messiah was seriously starting to get frustrated. The humidity in the Jungle made it so that nearly all of the wood was nearly unusable to burn without some form of fuel. The rain that fell through the holes in the canopy really wasn't helping either.

After searching for about another fifteen minutes, Messiah hung his head in defeat. Mother nature, you win this round. He had some flares he could use to give them some light but a chemical burn simply was not the same as the warm glow of a fire.

Messiah returned to the pitiful camp site in resignation. “ Sorry Rainbow, no fire tonight.”

She was quiet for a moment before finally asking “ Why are you doing all of this?”

He recoiled a bit at Rainbow's question.

“I'm sorry?”

She towards Messiah with a dead serious face “ Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me? I'm not even from this place and you've done everything to help me.”

Messiah mulled over what she had said for a few moments before deciding on what to say.

“Well, I'm not heartless. I found you hurt and scared so i helped. It's what any decent person would do. And after getting to know you, I thought that maybe we could be friends.” Messiah had a warm, friendly smile on his face.

Dash had looked at his eyes the entire time and saw truth in his eyes. He really did like her and he barely knew her.

To Messiah, Rainbow represented the innocence that he had lost at such a young age. He had grown up to porn, rap and internet snuff films. At fifteen years old, young Messiah was more Jaded than his grandfather had been after a war and a long, hard life. Rainbow as none of that. She was young and innocent and had been thrown into one of the worst situations in the world. Messiah truly did like her.

While messiah was still looking at Dash, she got up and hugged Messiah and very quietly said “ Thanks...”

Messiah just smiled rested against a nearby tree. Rainbow just curled up in the clearing and tried to sleep. She was resting her head on her tail but she still looked very uncomfortable as she keep fidgeting and trying to find a comfortable way to sleep on dirt. Messiah knew from experience that she would not find one.

“Hey.” He called out, Rainbow looked up and saw him motion for here to come over to him. She obliged and once she got there, Messiah promptly gestured for her to rest on his lap. Once again Rainbow complied and she soon felt herself slipping into sleep resting her head on Messiah's warm and relatively soft lap.

Messiah just enjoyed the feeling of having something so young and innocent resting on him and he soon felt himself falling asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Messiah awoke the next morning there were two things he noticed right away. The first was that there was a distinct lack of a certain cyan pony on his lap. The other being several men had surrounded him and were all pointing weapons at his face.

“You just can't win out here...” He grumbled.

As Messiah went to grab for his weapon, he soon realized his holster was empty. He looked up to see one of the men smiling sadistically.

That was the moment the butt stock of a rifle had the pleasure of making a particularly painful acquaintance with the back of Messiah's skull.

Mercenaries

Messiah was roused from his unconscious state with the ever pleasant sensation of a boot to the gut.

“Get up.” Said an unrecognizable voice.

Weak and still groggy, Messiah did not heed to the man's commands. This ensued another swift kick to his abdomen. Needless to say Messiah promptly sat t up after that.

Messiah's vision was still blurry and he could not distinguish much other than the fact that there were five men and they were white.

Probably South African mercenaries.

One of the men knelt down beside Messiah and started to gloat. “ Well, well well. Look's like The Order ain't so tough now eh? Fuckin' self righteous bastards. You punks think you can save the world, you think you're invincible. But when you're alone, you ain't got nothin' on blokes like me.”

Alone? Dash must have run away. That's a good thing...right?

“What do you want.”

“What do we want? What do we want! We want yer fuckin' head son! The Tutsi rebels put a price on your head. Five hundred grand. Seems those boys don't like loose ends, and you just happen to be one of 'em.

Betrayed by the people I tried to help. Figures. The human race is a lost cause...

“The fuck is that?” Said one of the men pointing to Messiah's lap.

On his lap were a few strands of multi-coloured hair.

“I don't know.” He deadpanned.

Apparently this answer was not quite up to par for for these men. They chose to make that clear to Messiah by punching him in the face.

“You know,” Messiah paused to spit some blood. “ You are going to regret crossing me like this. I recommend you leave me now.”

“Look at his fuckin' guy!” The man closest to Messiah stated with a huge smirk on. “ You are going to die here, and you think we're scared of you! Ha ha ha!”

As the mercenaries started laughing, Messiah took a look around the camp. He saw his weapons were in a pile maybe five metres away. If they were smart, they would have hidden them. Good thing for me.

“So, General Mubutu sent you boys to get me eh?” Messiah said referring to the Tutsi Rebel leader.

“Yes, he did. Now shut the fuck up.”

All of the men then started beating Messiah.

Messiah just closed his eyes and let the men beat him. Fighting back would be futile, they have their weapons, I do not.

As Messiah was receiving a beating, he had no idea that a certain rainbow maned pony was watching the whole scenario from a nearby cloud.

Rainbow knew she had to do something to help Messiah. These men would kill him and he was in no condition to defend himself from five large men.

There was only one thing she could do, and that was cause a distraction. There was only one thing that could cause a distraction big enough for Messiah to get away, and that was a sonic rainboom.

Rainbow lightly tested her wing and she felt a stab of pain. While it had hurt on her flight up to this cloud, the pain was not unbearable. But a sonic rainboom? I'll be lucky if the damage isn't permanent. Well, its my wing or his life....

With that last thought, Rainbow clenched her teeth and started an extremely painful climb. She was pushing as hard as she could and the pain was almost unbearably. The stitched had opened up and Rainbow was bleeding again.

She almost stopped, but remembering that Messiah's life hung in the balance she pushed on.

Rainbow could feel the cone forming around her body. As she gave the final push and she passed the sound barrier the noise was deafening.

On the ground Messiah noticed the giant rainbow explosion in the sky and could only assume that it was Rainbow giving him a distraction. And a great one at that.

All of the mercenaries had their heads turned up the the sky and Messiah took action. He dove for his equipment and grabbed his rifle. He racked the slide, chambered a round and he unleashed a torrent of bullets on the five mercenaries.

The Jungle was alive with the crackle of gunfire. The green, earthy scent was replaced with cordite. Messiah just kept his rifle firmly pressed against his shoulder. The recoil constantly attacking his shoulder as the rounds left the rifle.

All but one of them men fell to Messiah's surprise attack. The 'lucky' mercenary just took a round in the shoulder, causing him to pirouette and fall on the ground. He clutched his seeping wound and began regretting his life choice. During his brief moment of regret, he did not notice Messiah slowly walk over to his prone form.

Messiah loomed over this now wounded man and lazily pointed his handgun at the man's head. “ You have lived a sinners life. I hope the afterlife is pleasant for you. Although I doubt it will be.” He finished his point by pulling back the hammer on his USP40. The ominous sound struck fear into every fibre of the wounded mercenaries body.

As Messiah slowly depressed the trigger, he closed his eyes and waited for the bark of the gun and the ensuing recoil.

The gun was milliseconds away from firing when Rainbow arrived to stop the execution.

“Stop! Don't kill him!"

Messiah opened his eyes to see the mare standing between the man and Messiah's gun.

“I saved you, so you owe me!” She cried.

Messiah looked at Dash's swing and saw that blood was slowly dripping out of the re-opened wound.

“For you...I will do it.” He raised the weapon and placed the safety on. “ I guess it's your luck day buddy.”

The mans eyes had been closed during the entirety of the conversation so naturally when he opened he was surprised.

“What the hell is that?” He said pointing at Dash.

“That” Messiah said gesturing to Dash “ Is your guardian angel. Now shut up and answer my questions, what is your name?”

“J-jerry. Jerry Muller.”

“Okay Jerry, How did you get here?”

“We drove. Our land rover is back there.” He said pointing to the direction that Dash and Messiah had entered the jungle from.

“Listen and listen well, I will not say this again. You will listen to my ever word and you will never question anything. If Rainbow tells you to do anything, you do it. Her life is infinitely superior to yours in every way, shape and form. You will only speak when spoken to. Do you understand?”

Jerry nodded his head.

“You are scum. If you misbehave, we will hurt you. Keep doing it, and the damage may be more permanent.”

Once again, Jerry nodded.

“Now, say thank you do miss Dash.”

“Thank you miss Dash.” Rainbow gave a smug smile at the forced thanks.

“Good, now lead us to the Land Rover.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the group reached the Land Rover, Rainbow rubbed her bandage. Messiah had wrapped her opened wound rather tightly and it was irritating Rainbow.

Messiah was quite surprised at the vehicle in front of him. The Land Rover was brand new and its black gloss paint was still shiny.

“We're going to stick out like a sore thumb in that.”

Jerry opened his mouth to say something but Dash shot him a glance and he closed his mouth.

“Whatever, It's faster than walking. Jerry you drive, try anything funny, and you die. Dash you're in the back.” He opened the rear door for Rainbow. “ Now lets get a move on.” Messiah then went around the rear of the Rover and opened the passenger door.

The interior was all white leather. “Figures...” Only some merc's would be dumb enough to bring a black land rover with leather seats on a job. Well at least it's comfortable.

“Jerry, You boys have any food in here, Dash and I haven't eaten in quite a while.”

Jerry looked nervous to speak but did so anyway. “ Yeah, there is some Jerky in the glove box and some chips and crackers in the trunk.”

“Seriously? No real food?”

“No sir...We had planned on buying food in-country.”

“Alright whatever.”

Jerry turned the Rover over and idled for a moment.

“Umm, sir?”

“What did I say about when you talk?”

“I know sir, but it's just that I don't know where we're going.”

Messiah suddenly felt quite stupid, Dash had a huge grin on her face.

“Kigali.” Messiah snapped.

Jerry did a lazy salute.

As they started to drive away, Messiah heard some rustling in the back seat. What he saw made him chuckle. Rainbow was shoveling barbeque chips into her mouth.

“Don't eat too many of those, they'll give you a stomach ache.”

“Shut up, they're awesome! They don't have these things back home.”

“Whatever.”

The trio drove for about thirty minutes in complete and utter silence. The only noise was the distant rumble of the Land Rover's engine and the rustling of a chip bag. As they kept driving, Messiah was feeling more and more uncomfortable. The equipment strapped to his thighs and chest was making sitting in the seat quite unpleasant.

“Screw this.”

Messiah unbuckled his thigh holster(with the weapon still in it) and threw it in the back seat, narrowly missing Dash's head.

He then threw his ammo, knife, grenades and med-kit in the back. He also threw his floppy boonie hat in the back. It was the first time it had been off in quite some time. As Messiah ran his fingers through his hair, he could feel the sweat cover his hand.

Gross.

The only thing Messiah still had with him in the seat was his rifle. His Tar-21 was lazily lying on his lap and constantly threatened to fall off with every bump the vehicle encountered. Messiah remedied this by lightly resting his hand on the rifle.

Dash was the first to actually speak up, and it was about Messiah's chosen hairstyle.

“What's up with the hair? I have a friend with hair sort of like that but no where near as short ...or dark.”

Messiah turned to see Dash studying his scalp. He had a slightly grown in Mohawk that was seriously greasy.

“Well, It's not exactly a common haircut. The hair colour is common though.”

“If it's not common why'd you get it then?”

Messiah let out a sigh. “ My friends and I all got them. All those people I came here with, that are now dead, all had the same haircut. It was silly I know, but I liked it, the camaraderie that is.”

“It's not silly, I think it looks pretty cool. One of my friends in Equestria named Zecora has her hair like that...sort of.” She trailed off. “ Sorry about bringing up your friends...”

“Don't worry...Its all good.” The words sounded hollow even to Jerry who had just met this man.

“If you say so...”

As the vehicle motored on, Rainbow started to get bored, and she was not afraid to say so.

“This. Is. So. Boring! Its been like five hours!”

“Four, but I get your point.” Messiah turned around and looked around the back seat for something to distract Dash. He saw his pack and tossed it to her.

“Here find something to entertain you in there. Just don't touch anything sharp or that looks like a gun.”

“Alright.”

Well then, that crises is averted.

That was when Messiah heard the distinct sound of a pin being pulled on a grenade.

Messiah turned around and saw Rainbow with a flash grenade in one hoof, and the pin in another.

How is that even possible!?

“Uh oh.” Were the last words Dash said before the grenade went off.

The interior was as bright as a thousand suns. Okay so maybe not that bright, but you get the idea. The white leather helped reflect the light. The trio were thoroughly disoriented.

And that was just the light.

The noise of the explosion caused Jerry to veer off the dirt road they had been travelling on and drive the rover into a ditch.

Messiah, who had not fastened his seat belt lurched forward and felt his face collide with the dash board.

Shortly after the collision, he slipped into unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Messiah awoke to a rather worried looking Rainbow Dash standing over him.

“Finally! You've been out for like three hours!”

Shit, this cannot be good for my head, I'll need to see a doctor when I get back.

“Well, I’ve been through worse than a little car crash.” He gave a slight chuckle.

Messiah looked around and noticed a distinct lack of a large, black SUV.

“Where are we?”

“I dragged you into the jungle and set up camp here. Were only about fifteen minutes from the tree line.” Jerry said.

“Good thinking, staying by a destroyed luxury SUV in a third world nation would not exactly be...smart.” He cracked a grin.

Messiah sat up and saw that there was a small fire pit in the middle of the camp.

“Good job getting a fire, I don’t want any creatures sneaking up on us tonight, and there’s no worry about more mercs since they probably think you boys are coming back.” Messiah's gaze settled on the seated mercenary sitting infront of him.

“So Jerry, how old are you?”

“21 Sir.”

“That's pretty young to be playing mercenary isn't it?”

Jerry shrugged. “ It was my only option.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I couldn't get into college, my family was broke. I had a criminal record so no one was hiring me.”

“A record?”

“Yeah, I used to scrap all the time. No reason, I just went out lookin' to fight some one. One day some one called the cops.”

“Alright, back to the story.” Messiah commanded.

“Well, a couple of my mates were talking about this company that was looking for young, aggressive guys with nothing to lose. Seems i fit the bill pretty nicely. I joined when I was 18. Some of my mates joined, but they all ditched it once they learned what we would really be doing.” Messiah narrowed his eyes in anger. “They asked me if i would be okay with killing people. I said yes. They said that some of them may be innocent...I said yes again.” Messiah was seething with rage.

How could some one agree to this?

“I had to do it. I had no money and they paid well. I would be able to help my parents and make a decent life for myself. They were also some of the only guys looking to hire a guy with a record...” Messiah calmed a bit realizing that this kid didn’t have much choice in choosing this career.

It was either kill others or starve yourself. Still hate this kid...

“So that's about it. I joined and did a few jobs, nothing big. Then a contract for you came up. After the mortar attack, we had expected you to be wounded. Killing you would have let me leave this life...”

Messiah looked into Jerry's eyes. “ Sorry It didn't work out that way, but I don't intend to die for some time.”

Dash had listened to the whole story without saying a word. She was not quite sure as to how she felt about Jerry anymore. First I hate him, but now I kind of feel bad for him. He didn't really want this, it was his only option.

“Well enough of that.” Messiah looked at his watch it was past midnight. “ We should get to sleep.”

Jerry walked over to a tree and sat up on it. “ Uh Jerry?” Jerry perked up to see Messiah slowly walking towards him.

Messiah then shoved Jerry face down on the dirt. “What the hell?”

Messiah ignored him and took the rope out of his left pocket and tied Jerry's hands behind his back.

“No hard feelings, but I don't trust you yet.”

Jerry gave Messiah an evil stare. Dash just giggled at the sudden assault Jerry had just endured.

Messiah turned around and sat up against a tree closing his eyes. As he felt sleep slowly coming on, he felt Dash slowly and timidly rest her head on his lap.

“Nighty night.” Messiah said to no one in particular.

Dash just let out a happy sigh.

“Fuck off.” Jerry spat.

Messiah smiled at his audacity and Dash broke out into a fit of giggles.

Messiah let all thoughts leave his mind as he slowly fell asleep. One last thought ran through Messiah's mind before he fell asleep.

I didn't eat anything today. Crap.

He was really going to feel terrible when he woke up.

What now?

Chapter 4

A/N: First off lets me say how sorry I am for the wait. It seems that dropping your laptop from five feet will put a significant damper on your writing capabilities. Secondly, I’m thinking about switching this story from third person to first person. This chapter is a bit of an experiment so tell me what you think about it.

Evan Gravelle

I woke up feeling like shit. There really wasn’t a better descriptor in the entire oxford English dictionary that could adequately describe how I felt. I glanced down and was almost startled at the heap of cyan fur that was in my lap. Seeing this innocent creature sitting in my lap felt simultaneously terrifying and amazing. I was terrified by the thought that I now had something that I had to protect, but was overcome with wonder at how this sentient being managed to travel trough worlds and make my acquaintance.

Well, enough of those thoughts, I’m really starting to get hungry.

I slowly and gently picked up Rainbow and set her down on the ground. She mumbled something unintelligible but I assumed it was something akin to ‘five more minutes’. I simply smiled and then walked over to Jerry.

Despite the fact that I shouldn’t have, I kind of felt bad for tying up Jerry last night. His body was all contorted as he lay on the dirt. Evidently he tried to find some way to fall comfortably asleep with his hands tied up. I have a sneaking suspicion that his efforts had come to no avail.

As I looked at his face, I was suddenly impacted at just how young he really was. This was just a kid, looking for a way out of poverty. It’s a shame really.

After checking my watch, I decided it would be best to wake Jerry up. I raised my hand and gently tapped his cheek, just narrowly missing a river of spittle that was flowing from his open mouth.

“Hey, wake up.” I said in a gentle voice.

Jerry snorted and slowly opened his eyes. As his eyes opened up to view the world around him, he looked me dead in the eye’s and narrowed his eyelids.

“Sleep alright?” I added with a sadistic smile.

“Like a baby.” He spat.

“Here, let’s get those hands untied.” I grabbed my knife and slipped the blade in the space between his wrists and the rope. With a single, firm cut, the steel blade slashed through the rope and set Jerry free. He proceeded to rub his wrists with a look of elation on his face. There were large red marks on his wrists.

“I’ll try to not tie them so tight next time.”

His answer was a simple nod of his head. I guess he figured there was no point in complaining about the inevitable. I mean, it’s not like I was going to let him escape in the night. I may feel bad for the kid, but I sure don’t trust him.

Noticing that Dash was still asleep, I decided to wake her as well. I sauntered over to her limp form and rubbed my finger on her…wingpit? The place where her wing meets her body, would be more obvious but I kind of like wingpit. Has a nice ring to it.

The moment my finger made contact with the soft wingpit fur, she bolted up and screamed in shock.

I just looked at her with a look of utter bewilderment on my face.

Catching her breath from the surprise, she gave me a death look.

“Don’t EVER tough that spot on a Pegasus’ wings!”

“Sensitive?” I said with another stupid smile.

“What gave you THAT idea genius?”

I shrugged “The fact that you bolted up and screamed like a little baby.”

“I did not scream.”

“Yes you did.” I turned to Jerry, who was not laughing. “Right Jerry?”

“Oh yeah, you screamed like a little girl...or filly I guess.”

A look of defeat on her face, she gave Jerry a death look then mumbled “Shut up.”

With the conclusion of the mornings antics, I felt my stomach rumble. I really do need to eat, it’s not healthy to be without nutrition for so long.

I walked over to my bag and rummaged around a bit until I found a disgusting, cardboard tasting military ration. I sat down on a patch of dirt and begrudging chewed the ‘meal’ I was having. In all honesty, there was more nutrition in tree bark, but the ration kept my stomach at bay and that’s what really counts. The last thing I need to be is hungry in a gunfight.

As I ate my breakfast, memories of my past flooded my idle, blank mind. I find that whenever I get downtime and I am able to just relax, my mind has the oh-so great tendency to relive all of my worst memories.

I sat there, lost in the memories of my friends, the friends and comrades who I would never see again, the people who I had grown so close to. Friends and comrades were simply not an adequate term for them. No, they were more. They were family. They were my brothers, and I will never forget them.

Lost in thought, I failed to notice that Dash was calling on me.

She walked up and poked me in the chest with her soft hoof. “Hey! You in there?”

I immediately snapped out of my stupor and looked at the agitated pony in my direct field of vision.

“Yeah I’m here. Sorry, I got lost in thought.”

“Whatever. I’m STARVING, don’t you have any food?”

“I have some rations.”

She shot me a quizzical look. I guess I would have to explain. “Rations are ‘food’ that you can keep for a long time and not need to worry about refrigerating them.”

“How do they taste?”

“Slightly worse than tree bark.” I accentuated my point by very loudly biting off a piece of my ration, earning me a loud crunch.

“They can’t taste that bad…Can they?”

I ripped off a piece of my ration and tossed it to Rainbow. She caught it with her hoof in a way that I am not even going to try and comprehend, and placed it in her mouth. She almost immediately spat it out and started rubbing her tongue with her hooves.

“Ack! That was so nasty! How can you eat those?”

“You just kind of get used to it.” I shrugged. “I bet Jerry has eaten his fair bit of rations, eh Jerry?”

“Yep. Rainbow’s reaction was jus’ like mine, except I had a little more cussing.” He chuckled.

I laughed as well. Something about Jerry’s laugh was infectious. Rainbow was glaring at both of us.

“Well, while both of you are laughing, I’m still starving over here.”

Jerry was the first to stop laughing. He looked like he wanted to talk. I nodded at him, giving him the go ahead for whatever he wanted to say.

“Aren’t you a horse? Couldn’t you just eat some grass or leaves or something?”

“Yeah,” I said grabbing a handful of grass. “Eat up.” I tossed the grass in her direction. Dash just deadpanned.

“I don’t like grass.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers now can they?”

“Just shut up.” She said, slowly grabbing some grass to eat. I returned to my ration and resumed the ingestion of this amazing delicacy.

***

We were on the move again, walking down the red dirt paths that lead to the Tutsi village. In all honesty, I seriously doubted the village would be anything less than grim. I clearly saw Hutu military coming from that direction, and when Hutu and Tutsi people meet, it ends with one of them face down in a pool of blood.

The main purpose of going to the village was to find some form of transportation. A car, a truck or something, frankly anything would be better than walking. No matter what we would find in the village, dead bodies or not, Rainbow would be a problem. If there were civilians alive, he would have to keep her out of sight. If there had been a massacre, he would have to hid the village, and its grisly content from Rainbow’s innocent eyes. She didn’t need to see that. She had seen death already, but that was a kill or be kill scenario, and they were combatants. If she saw what the Hutu did to Tutsi, she would be a complete wreck.

No one, pony or not, could see a whole village, hundreds of men, women and children killed and not be changed. It would traumatize most, but I had been through a lot, and this would not be my first time seeing extermination. I doubted Jerry would be all that shaken as well, he had been here and he had seen combat.

I really do love humanity, maybe I should have been a pony and live in that little happy land Dash calls equestrian….actually, scratch that. I like my hands too much to change them for hooves. Even if they could somehow grab things, I would have to ask rainbow about that sometime.

Anyway, I’m getting side tracked. I should be paying attention as to what’s around me. I proceeded to raise my TAR-21 up to eyelevel and scanned the road through the holographic sight.

“Something the matter?” Asked Jerry, anxiety seeping into his voice.

I waited a moment before speaking. “What did we agree upon before Jerry?”

He sighed. “No talking unless talked to.”

I smiled. “That’s right.” I lowered the weapon. “And no, nothing is the matter. I was just checking.”

He nodded, clearly a little shy about me shutting him down. I kind of feel bad for him, forcing him to obey, like a dog. But he was a prisoner, and prisoners had to know their place.

As we continued on our quest to the Tutsi village, I saw something that made my blood run cold. In the distance, I could see a plume of smoke coming from the exact direction of the village.

“Shit…” Muttered Jerry under his breath.

I did not even bother to scold him, as he stole the words right out of my mouth. Rainbow looked at both of us and could evidently notice the solemn look we had plastered on our faces.

“What’s up? It’s just some smoke, probably for cooking or something…”

I looked at Jerry and noticed the surprise on his face. “Uh…yeah. It’s a cooking fire.”

“So why did Jerry swear?” She pointed out.

“Got a cramp.”

“Okay…” She said, putting emphasis on the end of the word, evidently not believing our relatively pitiful excuses.

As I kept looking in the direction of the village, the plume of smoke was becoming less, and less visible due to the darkening of the sky. By the time we would get there, it would be nightfall.

I suppose that could be a good thing, it would make the village less visible and hopefully, Dash would not be able to see what was going on from some hiding spot I would find for her.

That said, I have a sneaking suspicion that she would not stay in some hidey-hole I would find for her, so I would need to think of a way to keep her put.

Whatever, those are problems for later, lets just focus on actually getting to the village. I tightened my grip on the rifle and quickened my pace, I want to get there when its dark, not the next sunrise.

***

The village was just a few hundred meters from us now. There was a hill keeping the village out of view, the road went around it, but I figured since we were on foot, we may as well just go straight up it, it’s not like it’s steep or anything.

When we reached the base of the mountain, I had a plan of how to keep Dash from the carnage that was right over the hill. It was not exactly a good plan, but it was a plan.

I turned to look at both Dash and Jerry. I then took my TAR-21 and removed the magazine and tossed it to Rainbow. “Can you pull the trigger?”

Somehow she did something with her hoof and it made a click. “Ofcouse I can.”

I tossed her the magazine. “You stick that ammo in the gun.” She gave me a strange look. “I’m leaving Jerry here, you are going to guard him. If he tries to escape, shoot him.” She had a look of horror on her face. “…In the knees.” I looked to Jerry and winked, he knew what I was doing.

“I-I don’t want to shoot anyone!”

“Well, if Jerry is nice, you won’t have to. Now, I’m going over that hill to scout, ill be back in about thirty minutes. If I am not back do NOT come and try to find me. I’ll get out of what ever jam I find myself in. Okay?”

Dash nodded.

“Good.” I pulled out my USP40 and the silenced that was in my left thigh pocket. I screwed it on and racked the slide, chambering a round in the gun. I got up to leave and I rustled Dash’s mane, the scowled but I just smiled and ran up the hill.

Like I said before, it was not exactly a steep hill. But when you have body armour, grenades and ammo, it makes the run a little harder than would be expected. Even for a guy with impeccable fitness, like myself if you’ll pardon the extreme modesty.

As I reached the top of the hill, my worst fears were confirmed. Fires raged, bodies were left mutilated and butchered throughout the village. I could still see a few Hutu soldiers, wandering around with machetes, finishing of anyone who was left.

A gust of wind blew over me and the smell of dead, decaying bodies enveloped me in its disgusting scent. I nearly gagged.

I cracked my knuckles, and then my neck as I crawled down the hill. The darkness was complete, but I did not want to make any noise that would attract the attention of the soldiers.

The soldiers would have to be dealt with, and a stealth approach would be far safer and practical. I had both the element of stealth and surprise. The only immediate threat I could see was the various fires that illuminated parts of the village, I would have steer clear of them if I wanted to survive this.

I finally reached the edge of the village, there were bodies literally everywhere. A soldier was lazily patrolling the area, so I was forced to drop prone on top of some bodies. The smell was overpowering and I vomited.

Luckily the soldier did not hear me as he was far too engrossed in lighting a cigarette with an empty lighter.

As he stood, in the darkness trying pointlessly to get a flame from the shoddy lighter, I left my prone position and returned to one of a crawl. I moved my hand ever so gracefully to my right thigh, and unsheathed the seven inch combat blade I kept for occasions just like this.

I could hear him swearing in his native tongue, the noise gave me the chance to move a bit faster.

I was finally directly behind him, a very slowly stood up and was about to go for the kill, but then he shouted. His cigarette was finally lit.

In one swift motion, I took my left hand and wrapped it around his mouth, my right bringing the knife to his neck. I then whispered into his ear.

“Those thing’s will kill you. Let me speed the process up.”

My knife tore through his neck, blood spurting out and a sickening gurgling sound came from his body as he choked on the blood leaving his throat. I held him in that position for another few seconds before letting his limp body fall to the ground in a pool of blood.

I then began the infiltration of the village proper and held my handgun at the ready. At each corner I expected an enemy, only for none to appear. It was tense sneaking like this, no matter how much experience you have at it.

Rounding a small hut, I came face to face with a soldier; he was about to shout in surprise, but a round from my suppressed pistol into his forehead kept him nice and quiet.

As I left the soldiers lifeless body, I decided to take count of how many soldiers there actually were.

There were two roving the village centre, one was in the distance, smoking a cigarette next to a plethora of innocent bodies. And I could hear voices, and a few screams emanating from the village’s church.

I decided to take the two roving guards out in quick succession. I fired a round into each of their heads. My suppressed shots went unheard as the two soldiers fell to the ground, dead.

Noticing that the smoking guard was now making his return to the village centre, I rushed him. I sprinted at him and tackled him, my knife plunging into his heart as he fell. He started to scream but I slapped my hand over his mouth before any noise could escape.

I held the man there for about a minute, feeling his life leave his body with each beat of his heart. Once it stopped beating, I left the body and made my way to the church, four bodies in my wake.

As I walked into the church, the scene that played out before me sickened me. There were many bodies on the ground and the pews had all been moved aside. Two soldiers were naked, and raping a Tutsi woman at knife point. One had his hand over her mouth, but every once in a while it slipped and a scream escaped her dry lips.

I entered slowly, but in the open light the woman saw me. Her eyes shot open and I raised a finger to my lips. The two men kept holding her down and ravaging her, not noticing the surprise on her face.

Slowly and coldly I raised my pistol and my knife.

In a matter of seconds I shot the man holding the woman. The other man was so surprised; he did not even react when I lunged at him with my knife. Pinning him to the ground, I dug the knife into his heart and twisted, killing him much more quickly that the soldier outside who endured a similar fate.

The woman, in ragged, torn and bloody clothes was sobbing uncontrollably now. I cooed and stroked her hair. She was quite young; she could not have been more than sixteen years old. Her ebony skin was flawless, despite the bruises around her hands, mouth and crotch.

“It’s okay, they are gone now. You are safe.”

She responded in her native tongue, and I did not know what she said.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here.” I brought her to her feet and led her out of the church to meet the gore outside.

As I exited the church, Tutsi girl in tow, I saw what made my heart drop.

There, in front of me, was a crying, shaking, bloody Rainbow Dash. I looked to find Jerry and he could be nowhere to be found.

So there I was, in the middle of a decimated village, an incredibly shocked rape victim and an innocent, traumatized cyan Pegasus pony. I do not usually swear, so when I do, it should really reverberate with who ever I say it to.

“Fuck.”

No other word could come to mind at that very moment.

Loss

I looked at Dash, her once cyan hooves had been dyed a deep, sickening crimson. She was shaking and clearly terrified. Tears flowed freely from her large Magenta eyes as she observed the carnage around her. I noticed a distinct lack of both Jerry and my rifle. Needless to say I was more than a little worried.

And that was just me. The Tutsi girl next to me was so surprised at the sight of Rainbow; I could have sworn I heard something snap. Dash looked up at me with teary eyes.

“D-Dash, what are you doing here? I told you not to come; I did not want you to see this.”

She sniffed rather loudly and then began to speak. “I-I s-shot Jerry… I was messing with the gun and I-I shot him…I tried to fix it but then he started to bleed even more and shouted at me to get you.”

“Dammit, come on we’ve got to get to him before he bleeds out.”

Grabbing both Dash and the Tutsi girl, I ran as fast as I could over to where Jerry was dying. It took a good five minutes to get there, and when I got there, it was not pretty.

Jerry had been shot in the gut, a relatively non-lethal wound, but it’s excruciatingly painful and bleeds like a sieve.

Jerry lazily looked at me “Hey Messiah…I got shot by the blue bitch.” He glared at Dash who was looking to the ground in shame. Evidently neither of them was happy about what had occurred.

I grabbed my small med kit and pulled out some gauze, it would help control the bleeding. I then fished for some bandages and wrapped the last of them around his wounded torso.

“There, now no one can get hurt, we’re pretty much out of medical supplies. I couldn’t even clean Jerry’s wound…sorry about that.”

“Whatever, not like I never been shot before.”

“Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been shot, still hurts like a bitch.” I don’t usually swear, but I felt that being colloquial with Jerry might make him feel a little better.

I looked at my small party. There was a wounded South African mercenary, a Tutsi rape victim and a traumatized, innocent blue pony. Rwanda certainly was not what I had expected it to be. Not by a long shot.

“Jerry, you speak Kinya-rwanda?”

“A bit” He grumbled.

I nodded “Okay this is what we’re going to do. Jerry you calm the girl down and just sit tight here for a bit. You’re stabilized and even if it hurts, you’ll live. Okay?”

He gave me a thumbs up.

“Good. Now Dash, you and I are going to go find a vehicle of some sorts to get Jerry and this girl to Kigali. I’ve got a safe house for you, me and the girl, and we can drag Jerry to the hospital. Okay?”

“A-alright…”

Dash was digging her hoof into the ground, staring at the dirt, almost afraid to look up for fear of what she would see.

I got to one knee and raised her head to mine and looked directly into her eyes.

“Dash listen, you have got to get over this, It’s my fault Jerry got shot. I am the one who gave you a weapon that you had no idea how to operate properly. That said I need you to get your head in the game. We are in a hostile country crawling with soldiers who want a piece of us. If you don’t drag yourself out of this funk, you are putting not only you life, but my life at risk as well. Do you understand?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Yes.”

“Good, now let’s get moving, it’s going to be daylight soon and I don’t want to be spotted now that I know there is a heavy military presence here.”

I grabbed my weapon, racked the charging handle and started walking away. Rainbow seemed a little hesitant, but with a motion of my hand she picked up the pace and was soon walking next to me.

We walked in silence for about ten minutes before either of us decided to try and strike up a conversation. It was idle talk at best, nothing with any substance.

“So you like flying?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

“I would assume so.”

I was about to try and strike up another ever so insightful conversation when I heard the low rumble of an engine approach. It was dark, and I could see the headlight from a good distance, giving me and dash plenty of time to hide underneath some large ferns that littered the sides of the road.

As the vehicle got closer, I could see that it was a military transportation truck. The back was filled with soldiers, all holding automatic rifles. It was driving towards the village that I had left filled with the bodies of their comrades. It was also driving towards the girl and Jerry.

“Uh oh.”

I couldn’t really go back, they would decimate me. I had a rifle and a handgun with a few magazines. They had nearly twenty soldiers, all with fully loaded rifles. The only reason I was able to take on as many as I did in the village was I had stealth and surprise on my side.

Despite the logical portion of my mind telling me that it was suicide to go after the truck, another part was telling me to chase after it and help defend Jerry and the girl.

Wait a minute; Jerry is an experienced mercenary who has worked in the jungles of Central Africa for a few years. The girl literally lives here and knows the place like the back of her hand.

They’ll be fine, they will have ample time to see and hear the truck before it even gets close to them. By that time, they will have hidden somewhere.

“What’s wrong?” Dash asked, literally minutes after I said uh oh.

“Nothing, I just wasn’t thinking properly. It’ll all be fine.”

“If you say so…”

It was at that moment that gunfire erupted in the distance. The unmistakable clatter of automatic weapons ripped through the silence that had encompassed the night. More rifles joined the chorus of gunfire as they too started to fire their projectiles.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. Jerry was dead, and it was my fault. The girl is dead, and it’s my fault. My team is dead, and it was my fault for trusting that piece of shit General Mubutu.

“What’s going on, I thought everyone in the village was dead?” Dash asked curiously.

“They aren’t shooting at the village. They’re shooting at Jerry and the girl.” I stated somberly.

Dash jumped up at this, “Well let’s go help them! Come on, let’s kick their flanks!”

I admired her attitude, I really did. But being a glory hound and a hot head got people killed in a place like this. Time to squash this.

I ripped Dash to the ground, “Listen, there were at least twenty men in that truck, all with automatic weapons. I have one rifle and one pistol. In other words, unless you’ve been hiding a minigun, we are going to die if we try to fight them. Do you want to die? I sure as hell don’t! Jerry and the girl are dead. There is no going back for them. We just move on, it’s the only way we’re going to get out of this.”

“Buck that! You saved that girl, and you took responsibility for Jerry!”

“It doesn’t matter, they are dead. There’s no point in going back.”

“Don’t you have any loyalty?”

“Yes, to the living.”

“But what if they are alive?”

“Twenty men against a girl and a wounded man, they are dead.”

“How can you be so emotionless, don’t you care about peoples lives?”

I snapped.

“Yes I do, and that is why I am not going to throw my life away over some dead bodies. Emotions get you killed in a conflict zone. You do your job, you do it well and you don’t let your fucking emotions control you! This is a war! People die! This is not your little happy equestrian anymore!”

Tears were starting to form in Dash’s eyes. Sure I was being rough, but it was time to let her hear it.

“And how dare you tell me I don’t care about peoples lives! Do you know what I do? I risk my life to save people who I don’t even know! I kill people to save innocent ones! I have devoted my entire fucking life to the keeping people as safe as can be! Am I a little jaded, yeah I am, you would too if you’re best friends were all killed in front of your eyes and you’ve killed as many people as I have. This is earth and you better smarten the fuck up or you’re going to end up like Jerry.”

I was breathing heavily; I hadn’t realized how loud I had been shouting. Was I being harsh? Yes. Did it feel good to vent? Yes. Did I feel like crap for taking it out on something that didn’t understand how this world worked? Yes.

Dash was crying now, clearly she had not been prepared for my outburst, and I don’t blame her. I wasn’t really ready for it either.

“Come on, let’s go.”

She sniffed a little and then started to nod.

We started walking in silence again. It was not awkward; there was just no point in talking. I had pretty much vented al I wanted to say, and Dash was probably feeling bad after I tore into her like that.

I thought about apologizing, but I shot that idea down almost as soon as it popped up. I was not sorry; I said what needed to be said. So what if it hurt her feelings? Her friends aren’t dead, and her attitude was going be a problem so I figured I would fix it right now.

The sky had turned from black to a very dark blue; the sun was going to start coming up, and soon the whole country side would be bathed in the warm glow of the sun. I checked my watch, it was 4:00 AM, and we had about an hour or two before we would have to find some cover to hide.

We walked for about and hour without a single word between us. The sun was starting to come up so I had to speak up.

“Come on, the sun is coming up, we’ve got to find some shelter to hide in.”

“Okay…”

I looked around; the jungle was too far west to make it before the sun came up in full force. In the distance, about a mile away I spotted a shack that looked deserted. There were no others around it so I figured it had been abandoned. Perfect.

“We’re going to go to that shed over there,” I pointed at the shed. “Lets hoof it; we want to get there before the sun comes up.”

Dash just nodded.

I jogged towards the shed and Dash flew a few inches above the ground and flew at my pace. I started to sweat profusely; the sun had not come out but it was still insanely hot. That’s Africa for you.

We reached the shed after about fifteen minutes of jogging/flying.

I walked up to the door with my rifle raised. I motioned for Dash to stand behind me. I kicked in the door and rushed in, ready to kill anything inside.

It seemed something had beaten me to that. There were three bodies inside, a man, a woman and a boy. They stank and the smell was overpowering. I had to step out to take a breath of fresh air.

“What’s wrong?” Dash had yet to enter the shed.

“Don’t go in there, I have to clean some stuff first. Go hang out on a cloud for fifteen minutes or something.”

“Okay.” She flew up and lied down on a nearby on a cloud.

While I wanted her to realize the reality of the situation, even the most hardened warrior would have qualms about sleeping in a shed filled with dead bodies. If there had been a single other hiding place, I would have taken it over the filthy, foul smelling shed.

I looked up and saw that Dash was out of sight, she wouldn’t be able to see what I was going to do. I took the bodies and hid them under some rotten hay that lay nearby the shed. With the bodies out of the way, I entered the shed and was once again greeted with the scent of death. Bullet casings littered the ground and I kicked them into the corner of the shed.

There were still some blood stains on the ground and there was nothing I could do about that. At least it was dried, and wouldn’t stain my clothes or Dash’s coat.

I returned outside and called for Dash to come down. She came down rather lazily and I ushered her into the foul smelling shed. She held her hoof to there nose, but made no comment as to the source of the stench.

With Dash inside the shed, I entered and closed the door behind me. I sat in one corner and she sat in another.

“Get some sleep; we’re going to be moving by night now. We can’t risk being out in the open anymore.”

“Alright.”

I closed my eyes and felt sleep creep up on me. As I was on the precipice of slumber I heard Dash speak up.

“I’m sorry about your friends.”

I exhaled loudly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“And thanks for taking the bodies out of the shed.”

I searched for a response, something, anything to say.

Sadly nothing came to mind, and I just fell asleep.