It was a nice morning, a cool breeze blew through redstone’s mane as he flew to cloudsdale. He was on his way to the wonderbolts barracks, for it seemed that another nitwit had stuck a tail in an AC unit or something equaly as silly. It was “unbearable” and he seemed to be the only one who knew enough to flip circuit breakers.
Fixing electrical problems wasn’t exactly his original job, for he was a bomb defusal tech, or supposedly that’s what the winged multi-tool on his flank represented. During his misguided colthood, he spent much of his time screwing with electronics and had a special place in his heart for the ones that went boom. Perhaps the only thing that kept him out of trouble was his good grades and a few teachers that liked him. After surviving finals, (And more than a few close encounters with yikes-they-weren’t-joking-when-they-said-flammable), he applied for the royal guard. They rejected, probably due to his blank flank, although there was no way to prove it. As he moped around to the coffee shop the next morning, Redstone had the very queer feeling about the caution tape he had stepped over earlier when he discovered himself to be the only one in the usually crowded coffee shop.
“Hello?” He called toward the door where the pretty young unicorn that usually served him was supposed to be.
“arsehole.”
Perhaps she was running late, although that wouldn’t explain why the doors where already open. This was the only decent coffee shop in lower canterlot, so it did mildly peak his interest as to were everypony was. He flipped open a playcolt that was sitting on the table in front of him, wondering why this would be in a coffee shop anyway. The second anypony opened it they were bound to get a dozen dirty looks from snooty onlookers. Nopony was here to judge him. He felt his wings press against the chair he was sitting in, which propted him to look over behind him.
“Ooooooohhhhh, that probably has something to do with everything.” He calmly remarked, as one might say when they realize they forget to carry the two in a simple math problem.
He trotted over to the dead Changeling lying face down in a pool of his own green blood. There were a few royal guards standing around levitating an exceptionally large hardened green blob. Their eyes glazing container with utter cluelessness. He met eyes with a guard that now turned to look at him.
“What are you doing here, Scram!” Screamed the guard.
The pieces of the puzzle finally floated together in his mind, He shoved the guard out of the way, and lunged toward the small chrysalis. The first guard immediately blocked him with magic, forcing him back.
“It’s probably a bomb, you morons! You got to defuse it before it levels this whole street!” He raised his voice, trying to convey some sort of urgency to the obviously suborn stallions.
A colossal amount of “wasted” time messing with explosives was about to come very handy. He glanced at the end containing what seemed to be the explosive charge. It was probably enough to kill at lot of ponies, which isn’t a very good measurement because any amount of nearly anything can kill a lot of ponies if you know what you’re doing. While this was a very interesting philosophical topic, Redstone figured it would be better to think about later. He took another lunge at the container, grabbing hold of it in his front hooves, forcing his way past the guards. Restone was now dangling from the box, working the end with the wires open with his mouth. Many perverted things flashed through his mind as he did this. The guard holding the box decided that shaking what could be presumably a bomb was not the best course of action, and grunted, glancing over to the third guard, who, in turn made a look rather like somepony might make after being suddenly being discovered with his hooves between his flanks, before tugging at Redstone’s tail with his magic.
“Overdue blank flank.” he thought to himself with a sneer.
As the feeling now returned to the wings, Redstone put them to good use, flapping hard, reliving the use to his hooves to yank the detonation wires through the now open hole in the chrysalis.
“Click.” Went the bomb.
Click, the sound that the timer made when it tried to transfer an electric charge to the industrial grade dynamite, the kind of stuff Redstone could only dream about playing with. Click, also subsequently the sound the grim reaper’s staff makes in a frustrated tap against the pavement when he know he almost had you. “Almost.”
“We had it under control.” The first guard gruffly remarked.
“Yeah.” Redstone responded. Letting a sigh of breath escape his lungs.
The guards just looked at him for a second, before suddenly stepping back in amazement. At first he didn’t understand what they were looking at until he glanced down. His cutiemark. The guards slowly realized that this wasn’t a joke, because a cutiemark didn’t come for no reason. The really were lucky to be alive because of his quick thinking.
The royal guard accepted him that night.
Well, sort of, for they didn’t really have any particular unit for him, as he was one of a kind.
Anypony who has played more than a few rounds of battlehoof knows that a very specialized class like the sniper is a particularly useful class to have on your team, but more than a few and you’ve got the under hoof. Some might even argue that snipers aren’t even useful at all, and unfortunately, many of these kind ponies were high rank officers for the Guard.
(wip)