My name is Quick Trigger, and I am not a normal pony. Sure, I have four legs, a pale blue coat and a close-cropped mane that looks and smells like spent gunpowder, but I was always a little different than the other fillies and colts. Why reality decided to make me this way, I will never truly know. I did know that I wasn't going to mope around absently.
I suppose I should provide some background as to how I ended up in my current predicament. For the first few years of my life, before I got my cutie mark, I spent my time building things in a little workshop. Simple little gadgets, odds and ends, that sort of thing.
Then, I hit a breakthrough. I designed a small capsule, encased with a small amount of incendiary magic, and developed it to be set off by something as small as a pin. It wasn't long before I realized the capsule could be weaponized. I designed structures to hold and set off the capsules.
I started calling the capsules 'bullets' after some Prench word I found. The weapons themselves were harder to name. I ended up using firearms: a shortened form of armaments clashed with the use of incendiary magic.
Still, in all this time, I had yet to receive my cutie mark. I continued to design these weapons. Adapting them for guard use, even finding ways to make them more accurate came easy. I pored myself into this for almost a year.
My cutie mark finally showed up when I tried to design some weaponry for a defensive battle for their capital. Unfortunately, the guards-ponies turned me down. Their shield spell was apparently good enough to repel an invasion of shape-shifting insects.
You would think that a nation getting invaded every other month by some hostile deity would make some ponies nervous, but no. The market for better weaponry than swords and spears wasn't 'practical'.
About six months after the invasion, I started to develop a new business strategy. I advertised to ponies with a bad reputation in the larger cities, showing the power of my arsenal. They were slow to accept, choosing to go for the dexterity of a sword, but after another year, they were beginning to sell.
Most of the models were based off designs from my youth. One of my favorites was an automatic firearm with a wooden stock. It was cheap and simple, and I sold a dozen of them to a stallion in a pinstripe suit for his 'bodyguards'.
While I wish I could've been providing for the police force or the guard, I love my job, and I tend to go a bit overboard. Ponies don't know what these machines of death could be worth, and having a monopoly on their production means a couple bits worth of parts could end up being worth hundreds.
I was cocky, overconfident, and loving every second of it. I felt like there was no power in the world that could stop me. Not one pony could push me off my pedestal.
And then, I heard a knock at my door.
My ears perked up as the sound echoed downstairs. I sighed, removing the pin from an almost-complete weapon. I turned back toward the hole in the wall enclosing my hidey-hole and called out, "I'll be right out. Give me a moment." Shaking my head, I set the weapon back onto the counter, groaning as I forced myself off the project in which I was invested.
I took three steps toward the hatch, unbuttoning my grimy shirt and replacing it with the clean one stashed near the door. Despite the nudist tendencies of most ponies, I felt weird answering the door butt-naked. Stepping through the hole, I grabbed hold of the bookshelf to the left, nudging it back into place while the telekinetic runes activated and pulled it back over my workshop.
I popped the last button, smiling at my horribly cliche bookshelf. The door was pounded on yet again, much harder. "Yeah, yeah! I'm coming!" I yelled at the impatient visitor. I grumbled as I approached the door, wiping my hooves off on the carpet as I sauntered toward the door. The visitor knocked yet again as I approached the door.
I grabbed the doorknob with my hoof, asking "What do you wa-" The door swung open. My pupils shrank. I stared at my visitor with wide eyes.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" Princess Celestia asked jovially.
"I- I- Uhh... Y- Yeah.. Come in.." I mumbled, attempting to discern a cohesive thought.
Not showing an ounce of disdain, however, the princess strode inside, admiring the interior of my home while I tried my hardest not to go into cardiac arrest. "W- What brings you here, P- Princess?" I asked.
The Princess turned into my living room, opting to sit on the couch before answering, "A student of mine had a dinner party. She left a couple minutes in and failed to came back, so I got bored." She shrugged, her face dying into an almost exhausted expression. "Apparently, you're the only other pony here who isn't busy."
I glanced at the clock, not buying her obvious ploy. She wanted me to be comfortable, so I would let something slip. "It's 9:45. Surely, somepony else might-"
"And most ponies are either asleep, or in Filthy Rich's case, too uppity to be friendly with," she mumbled, facehoofing with a grimace on her face. "I simply cannot understand the 'money inherently means happiness' ideology."
I suddenly realized something. I was just given an opportunity, and to hell if I was going to let it go to waste. "You know what else sucks?" I asked, raising my voice slightly, "Having to deal with those types of ponies as business partners!"
"Or government officials," Celestia responded with a smile. "But, you seemed less selfish."
I made a sarcastic look around my admittedly lavish home, choking back a laugh as I answered her, "Are you sure about that?"
She looked at me inquisitively, "So, you didn't donate twenty-thousand bits to a closing orphanage? You didn't organize a food drive in Baltimare last winter? You didn't-"
"Alright, alright, I get the point," I said, waving a hoof to stop her. Hey, I may arm dangerous ponies to the teeth, but I'm not a heartless bastard. Besides, there's only so much you can spend these 'bits' on. "I just don't want you to think of me as some kind of philanthropist."
Celestia rolled her eyes, "Of course, Sir Humility."
Great. She thought I was being humble. Doesn't she know what I've- No! Not the time for self-loathing. Damn it!
I groaned, flopping down in my chair. A brief glance toward the bookcase, and I grabbed a bottle out of the end table.
"So, why did you do all that?" Celestia asked as I poured myself a drink.
"Well, I'd like to think I'm a kind person. So long as those in question are not unkind to me."
She raised an eyebrow to that. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
I sighed, setting the glass back on the table. "Princess, I don't exactly have the best history."
"Do tell."
Why the hell did I say that. "Princess, I'm sorry, but I'm just not comfortable talking about this."
The Princess stared out my window. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I already know, Quick Trigger." I felt my heat beat inside my chest, hoping, praying that I hadn't just heard that. "There is a small force of guards outside this house, but before any of that, I just want to know..."
I stared at the floor. I was discovered. They knew. Who told them, how they found out; it didn't matter. All that mattered was her next word, "Why?"
"I don't know anything else," I answered plainly, "It was my special talent. The guard didn't want it. The others did. It was either that or starve to death."
Celestia sighed, "I just can't understand what would drive somepony to do something like this."
I'm not sure why, but that struck a chord. I scoffed, "Oh, of course you wouldn't understand. You have a cutie mark that says you literally light up everypony's day. Literally! Meanwhile, I get a cutie mark that lets me make weapons, and the good guys don't want 'em."
Celestia narrowed her eyes, "Quick, that's not what I-"
"What did you mean?" I was yelling at this point, "Everypony should follow their special talent, unless, of course, your talent is frowned upon by a benevolent dictator! Hell, why don't I just change my special talent into something more productive? Oh wait! I can't!"
"Calm down, Quick!" Celestia commanded, both of us on our hooves.
"And, you know what? The ponies who buy from me? They have the same problem! A mare I met two weeks ago had a cutie mark for killing ponies. What was she supposed to do? She's a hitmare, Princess! A bucking hitmare!"
"QUICK TRIGGER!" Celestia yelled, her Canterlot Voice ripping clear through my eardrums.
A loud crack echoed through my home, the lock coming off the door as the room was flooded with guards. Golden armor and white fur surrounded me, armed with the crude weapons they were so accustomed to. The Captain stepped forward, boldly stating, "You are hereby charged with aiding in crimes against Pony-kind. How do you plead?"
I was silent for a moment, my rage festering evermore over the statement. I remembered a quote from A Study in Scarlet. I took a deep breath, turning to the princess and answering through gritted teeth, "Guilty, Miss Dictator."
The guards stepped forward, and I stepped back. "But, first. I have one final request."
The Princess turned back toward me, "What could you possibly want?"
I gritted my teeth, staring into her eyes and responding, "To show you my workshop."
Celestia nodded to her guards. Two stepped forward, and I glared at them. "Alone."
"I cannot afford that," she replied.
"You have the magical energy to rip me in half without even straining yourself," I said, a sarcastic smile creeping across my face, "Do you really think one earth pony will stop you?"
She looked to her guards, nodded, and I watched them step into line. My angry smile disappeared. Put my back to her, scowling as I activated the runes on my bookshelf, watching it swing open one last time.
She followed me downstairs, glancing at my other works with what could only be described as fear. I took that as an honor.
I grabbed one in my hoof, a small 'revolver'. I crafted the next few words very carefully. Shaking my head, I listened as Celestia came to a halt behind me.
I sighed, anger and contentedness boiling up equally. "Princess, If I can't use my special talent to help ponies, and I'm not allowed to do anything else with it, then what good is the talent? I suppose I got lucky. My talent gives me an easy out."
I swung the mass of steel toward the princess, clicking the trigger, and sending a bullet straight toward the stalwart Princess. In the millisecond it took, a thick golden aura surrounded the bullet, slowing it to a halt inches in front of the Princess's face.
A second bang, and the princess formed a barrier around her, but nothing came.
Instead, she opened her eyes to a smiling red and blue stallion with a revolver in his mouth.
Author's Note
Well. That happened. Honestly, this story didn't have any direction. For these short stories, I tend to just write whatever comes to mind. Trigger wanting to mentally scar the Princess to prove a point was kinda what came to mind.
Hey, that's what the Mature tag was for.
