Damned Are the Guilty

Hoofsteps.

Punisher's eyes snapped open as he heard the faintest sound of hoofsteps coming from the room above his cell, so faint that if he wasn't on guard for the princess he would have most likely never have heard it. But he was always on guard. Punisher rose out of his bed without a sound and cupped an ear with his hand, listening closely.

'Heavy hoofstep. Not a pony. At least, not one of the ones I've met,' Punisher figured out before he began to think. Whoever they were, they were sneaking around in the castle. 'I've only seen two ponies larger than the ones that have been bothering me. Celestia and Luna. But why would they need to sneak around their fellow princesses castle? What other massive creatures have hooves?'

The answer came to him immediately. Centaurs. Punisher narrowed his eyes as he realized this, his idea making perfect sense. Even though Twilight was focusing most of her efforts on him, she was still an enemy of Tirek and if Punisher gambled, he would wager that Tirek would want Twilight out of the picture as quickly as possible.

Punisher had no love for Twilight, but if she was killed in her sleep and the centaur vanished before the other found them, he had no doubt that he would be the one blamed. Maybe that would be enough to get the ponies to actually kill him. And he wasn't ready to die yet.

With a kick that had caved in many skulls Punisher knocked the loose bar out of the cell and sent it spinning across the room. It hit the wall and made a loud sound, one that made the hoofsteps stop above him. He had two reasons for doing this. First, the being would slow down, meaning that he might get to it before it got to Twilight. Second, if Twilight was as on guard as she said she was, maybe the sound would wake her.

While he couldn't slip through the hole made by the missing bar, Punisher was able to now reach the lock on the outside. He removed a lock pick from his boot (one of two items that Twilight had failed to take from him) and in a few moments had the cell door open. He stealthily slid out of his cell and crawled up the stairs, doing his best to make no sound whatsoever.

'Best chances is for me to take them from behind and stick close. Don't give them the chance to use their magic,' Punisher thought to himself as he pushed open the door to the dungeon, glancing around for a moment to make sure the centaur wasn't anywhere close. When the coast was clear, Punisher pushed the door open.

A loud scream pierced the night followed by the sound of a scuffle, telling Punisher that he might be already too late. He moved into a full on sprint, following the sound of the scuffle as best he could through the castle, which had an annoying habit of making the sound echo. He tracked the sound down to what he assumed was Twilight's bedroom, finding the door blasted off of its hinges.

He peeked through the doorframe to see that Twilight was glaring at a centaur who wasn't much bigger than Punisher. The centaur's back was to Twilight and the two of them were glaring at each other, but there was absolute terror mixed in with the rage that Twilight held. A whimper sounded from beside the centaur and Punished pieced together that the beast had Spike, meaning that Twilight was in a bad way.

"Let him go," Twilight said in a voice that made the castle shake beneath the Punisher, making him wonder just how much power she really held within her body. The centaur shook their head in reply and lifted their right hand, revealing that indeed the beast was holding Spike. He squeezed his fist and made Spike whimper in pain, which instantly caused the fire in Twilight's eyes to cool.

"Not a chance! Lord Tirek has given me the chance to prove myself and I won't let it go to waste!" Punisher bit back a curse when he heard the centaur talk. His voice sounded younger. Not as young as Spike, but he couldn't quite call him an adult. Maybe a late teen. "And I know how powerful you are, Twilight. That's why I've got insurance right here. You won't dare attack me while I've got your dragon."

Twilight's face told Punisher that the centaur was right. With a worry in her eyes that looked similar to a mother afraid for her child, Twilight folded in her wings and gazed at the floor, surrendering silently. She wasn't going to be able to save Spike and Punisher was facing a similar situation. His only weapon was a lock pick. Good for a painful stab, but he doubted he could kill the centaur in a single strike. And if he failed, Spike's life would be the cost of his failure. Punisher couldn't watched another child die due to his weakness. He needed to wait for an opening.

"Why are you doing this? Tirek seeks to bring about the ruin of the world," Twilight said in a whisper.

"No, he seeks to bring down Equestria and the ponies who thought themselves superior to the rest of the world, to the rest of us races," the centaur corrected as magic began to form in his horns, which Punisher noticed where shorter than the others that he had fought. Almost like they were still growing. "And he will. In fact, soon all of Equestria will fall to him. Your precious little castle that sits so high above the rest of us will be brought to earth. Then we'll see who is superior when you're down with all of us!"

"I get it. You're upset at the way we've treated you. As royalty, the blame is mine. But please, let Spike go. He's done nothing to you." Despite being a cold hearted bastard, even Frank felt a twinge in his heart at the desperate pleading in Twilight's voice. Spike was practically her son, according to him. Frank knew the pain she was feeling at the moment. But the Punisher needed to focus or neither of them would make it out.

Yet Punisher took that moment to look into Twilight's eyes and he saw something that he had never seen before. A rage. It was barely there, practically invisible due to the sorrow and fear that was clouding the princesses eyes. But it was a rage nonetheless. A rage he knew well. His rage.

But then the centaur did something Punisher wasn't expecting, something that made Twilight's rage dissipate. He glanced at Spike and for a moment seemed uncertain. "Very well, the dragon will not have to suffer. After all, you're magic is all that Tirek wants." The centaur then lifted a small medal, one that made Twilight's eyes go wide. "That's right, once we've taken your magic and sealed you away, it will be easy to-"

Punisher almost smiled as he heard the centaur roar. Spike, upon seeing his foster mother in danger, unleashed a burst of fire into the eye of the centaur. The beast let out a roar as he dropped the dragon and clutched at his left eye with his free hand. The moment Spike was free he raced to Twilight, who scooped him into her arms. The centaur roared with more pain than fury as he pointed the medal at Twilight, but then another yell filled the room.

"DIE!" Punisher roared as he landed on the back of the centaur, driving the lock pick into the eye that hadn't been burned. The centaur screamed in pain as he lost his other eye, before Punisher wrapped his arms around the waist of the centaur and drove him into the wall. With the precision of a fighter Punisher beat the hell out of the centaur, leaving his face a pulpy and broken mess when he was done punching the beast. He then took aim at the pick with an open palm, knowing that a strong enough blow would drive it through the beasts head.

"Frank..." Punisher turned around to look at Twilight, who was clutching a shivering Spike in her arms. Both of their eyes were on Punisher and both of them looked terrified. Punisher then looked down slightly to see the medal resting in front of Twilight, glowing with an energy that seemed to be sucking the magic out of her. "Don't do it. Please, don't."

"He attacked you in your sleep. Kidnapped your son. Nearly took away your magic. And you want me to spare him?" Punisher asked in a voice so murderous that the centaur felt like his life was being drained away. "You've got to be fucking with me. I'm surprised you haven't ripped him apart with your bare hooves already."

"This...isn't right. This isn't how it should be," Twilight said, her voice shaky even though she tried to sound strong. "He wasn't going to hurt Spike. He wasn't going to kill me. He's just following the orders of Tirek."

"And that makes him guiltless?" Punisher asked in a voice filled with disgust. If this centaur had attacked his kids, they would have been able to carry out his remains in a tin can. "You only have his word that he wasn't going to hurt you or Spike. Maybe he would have. Could you live with that?"

"No. Just like I couldn't live with it if you killed him and I did nothing to stop you," Twilight replied with more confidence as she began to walk towards Punisher, though the medal made her collapse to a knee. "Frank, what would your wife think of your actions? What would your kids want you to do?"

"Wouldn't know. They're all dead because of monsters like this," Punisher replied as he took aim at the pick once more, ignoring the pain filled sobs of the centaur.

"Yes you do. You said you were your daughters hero. What would she think of this? What would she want you to do?" Twilight asked. Punisher glanced back at her, planning on smirking at her. Did she know how many times a hero had tried to pull the "What would your family want?" trick on him? But then he caught Spike's eyes, eyes that almost seemed to be smirking at Frank. That made him pause for a moment. Spike's eyes seemed to annoy him, almost as if he had seen that look before. A look that made him growl.

Then Punisher turned his eyes back towards the centaur, who had made no effort to escape. He was far too terrified to even move. Punisher then moved his face in close to the side of the centaurs head, making sure his mouth was right next to the beasts ear before he spoke.

"How old are you?"

"W-what?" the creature sniveled back.

"This is your only chance. And whisper."

"F-fifteen," the creature whispered back in a sob. Punisher moved his head back and narrowed his eyes at the beast, go over his options. He should kill him. That was no question. Then Punisher glanced back over his shoulder at Spike, who was giving him an awfully familiar look. Then it hit him. Spike was giving him the same look his daughter gave him when he had messed up and was refusing to admit it.

'Ignore it and finish this,' Frank thought to himself as he began to thrust his arm forward...before another idea came to his mind. He snarled at the idea, but instead of ramming the pick through the skull of the centaur Frank slammed his forehead into the bridge of the centaurs nose. The creature fell to the ground without another sound, allowing Frank to glance back at the surprised faces of Twilight and Spike.

"You...didn't kill him?" Twilight asked with a look of disbelief on her face, almost as if she couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. "Why?"

"Because we need him alive to tell us where Tirek is," Punisher replied as he reached down and yanked the pick out of the eye of the centaur, wiping the bloody tool on one of Twilight's curtains. Then he glared back at Spike, who had a look Punisher couldn't read. "And maybe to show you that I'm not as weak as you believe."