My Little Pony: The Phantom Hero

[Location: ???-???]
[Time: ????]

Sunset Shimmer sat in her cell, wondering where it had all gone wrong. 5 years ago, this world's Twilight Sparkle had inadvertently revealed the existence of magic to the whole world during the Friendship Games incident. What had followed was a mad scramble by the entire world to figure out how to harness it. She and Twilight had even helped out, giving as much data as they could to DARPA in exchange for scholarships to MIT. All in all, it looked like the world was moving towards a brighter future, until it all crashed down.

2 years after the discovery of magic, an unknown group had found a way to use magic as a weapon, and supplied it to the highest bidders, such as governments, private mercenary groups, and terrorists. The world dissolved into chaos as various groups took control of various 3rd world countries, and the UN deployed various task forces to stop them. As the dust settled, several Middle Eastern countries and most of Africa belonged to dictators to entrenched to remove. This was followed by various skirmishes by numerous PFs hired by both sides, trying to take control of various regions. Even now, the fighting had spread, as evident by the fact that one of those PFs had kidnapped Sunset for reasons unknown, although none of the possibilities she could come up with were pleasant.

As she contemplated her fate, she heard something from outside her cell. She crawled towards the door and placed her ear on it, and heard what sounded like scraping. However, it suddenly stopped as she heard footsteps take its place. After a minute, the footsteps stopped, followed by muffled voices, followed by a soft thud before the scraping resumed. After a few seconds it was replaced by a click and the door swung open as Sunset scrambled to get out of the way. As she looked back, she saw what she hoped was her rescuer.

He was dressed in a military looking uniform, with a shotgun and pistol on his hip and a rifle on his back. His left arm looked mechanical, probably a prosthetic, and was holding what appeared to be a high-tech set of binoculars to his face. When he lowered it, his face was revealed to be that of a veteran, grizzled and somewhat old and covered with scars, the most notable of which was an eye patch covering his right eye and an embedded piece of metal over it.

"Come on," he said, reaching out a hand, "let's get you out of here."

Sunset took his hand and tried to stand up, but the injuries she had received during her capture made it impossible. The stranger simply swung her up on his shoulders and proceeded to walk out. Sunset was surprised to see that they were in what appeared to be an industrial complex, but put it aside as something slightly more important sprang to her mind, "Who are you?"

"I was hired to rescue you, you can call me Boss."

"So, you're one of those mercenaries huh?"

"I'd like to think I'm a cut above the average merc, but basically yes."

"I think I can believe that," Sunset replied, as they had passed several unconscious mercenaries along the way. After a few minutes, they arrived outside, where a black and red helicopter was waiting, hovering a few feet above the ground.

After Boss had placed Sunset within the chopper and boarded himself, he talked to the pilot, "Radio ahead to Mother Base, tell the medics to stand by."

As the pilot replied, Sunset felt the exhaustion of the past few hours catch up with her, and passed out.

After a few hours, or a few minutes, Sunset felt someone shake her awake. She cracked open her eyes to see that she was still on the chopper with Boss.

"Wake up, we're here."

"Where's here?"

Boss looked out the currently open door and grinned, "Home."

Sunset craned her neck to try and see what he was talking about. They were heading towards an oil platform in the middle of the ocean, it was the only thing visible in any direction she could see. "How'd you manage to get yourself one of those?"

Boss shrugged, "No one was using it at the time, and the previous owner owed me a favor."

"Must have been a pretty big favor."

"His daughter got kidnapped, I rescued her, it's kind of my specialty."

"Can't argue with your track record," Sunset chuckled.

They both shared a laugh as the chopper touched down. Waiting for them were a small squad of soldiers, a medical team with a stretcher, and an old friend.

"Rarity!"

"Sunset! I do hope those ruffians didn't do anything too, distasteful, before we could get you out."

"I'm fine," Sunset said as an orderly helped her onto the stretcher, "just a bit beaten up."

"Well, thank you so much for rescuing her."

"Just doing my job, you paid me to get her out, and I did."

"Wait, how could you possibly afford to hire him?" Sunset asked.

"Well, you know how my, ahem counterpart, has a knack for finding gems? Well, I was able to figure out how to do it. You are looking at the owner of a rather successful diamond mine."

"If you don't mind," one of the orderlies interrupted, "we need to get her to sickbay."

"Oh, my apologies, we'll talk again when you're feeling better."

As Sunset was wheeled off, she looked back at the mysterious man who had rescued her. Sure, he rescued her because he was paid to do so, but she couldn't help but think that there was more to him than just that. The only question, was what?