The corridor was just like any other in a moderately upscale hotel. Four figures walked quietly along the hallway, looking dead ahead, saying nothing, not even daring to step heavily. They walked in lockstep like mechanical devices, more like windup drones than living, breathing individuals. They all wore the same thing, a charcoal grey-black suit, black shoes, and white button shirts. The leader at the head of them darted his eyes back and forth, taking note of the room numbers as she passed them.

The first two walked to the far side of a door and halted, the leader holding up a fist, prompting the last two to stop.

The first and last looked around, and upon having seen nobody else in view, they gave a thumbs up. The second in the stack listened intently, pressing his ear up against the door. Then he deftly knelt to the floor to look under the threshold. He stood back up. “Light,” he whispered. “Noise, too; she’s watching some shitty sitcom.”

“Is she sleeping?” the leader asked.

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

A second later, a brief burst of real, not canned laughter, dispelled the doubts.

The leader said, “Can’t argue with that.” A couple chuckles. Nobody’s smiles reached their cheeks. One of them, a weedy male young enough to be mistaken for a child looked like he was going to crush his teeth with how hard he was clenching his jaw. “Relax, Private Armor.”

He stood up straight instantly, turning about face to answer. “Yes, ma’am.” he said in that stark, clipped way they taught royal guards in training. He still had that awful flat top soup bowl haircut. He went immediately into parade rest. He stared forwards, instead digging into his wrist hard enough with his nails to make marks.

The leader gave a grim smile. “Excellent bearing. Are you ready to complete your objective, Private Armor?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you love your country?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What will you do for your country?”

“Whatever is asked of me, ma’am.”

“How dear is the command of our princess?”

“Dearer than the cries of my sons, the kisses of my lovers, and the words of my mother, ma’am.”

The officer pointed to the door. “Good, Private Armor. And what of those who threaten our princess and her peace?”

“They shall know her wrath, ma’am.”

“Assuredly they shall, Private Armor.” She ignored his eyes dancing around his skull, darting back and forth along the hallway. She surveyed him up and down like an x-ray scanner. She ordered him, “Dagger.”

The nubile stallion drew a long, triangular blade from a hidden sheath. “For Celestia,” he said.

The officer gestured at the door. “Breach and kill.”

Shining Armor buck kicked the door with everything he had in his right leg.

Hoof met door. The latch gave way.

He was in immediately.

There was his victim, nearly nude on the bed, her legs spread as she boredly was watching the TV. In a split second, he reacted, first acting to hide her private parts. Shining Armor saw pure fear in her eyes. He lowered his gaze to her chest and sprinted forwards, keeping his dagger held low at his side. He crossed the room in a second like a bolt of lightning.

The thestral’s leathery wings burst open in an instinctual display associated with fear. Her mouth opened, but it was garbled. She lifted her hands in supplication, a quiet plea for mercy. There was a naked gold wedding bank on her hand. Before she could say anything, Shining Armor had leapt upon her, seizing her by the throat, throttling her. Eyes bulged wide, then bulged even wider as the unicorn rammed his knife up to the hilt into her lower thorax. Her face strained in a silent scream and he pushed against the unicorn’s chest.

The monster ignored her, instead stabbing her over and over. Shining felt some warmth come over his hand. The flesh and muscle yielded to the cruel steel, the nasty steel. As he punched in with his metal fang, his victim was breathing out, bleeding out.

The thestral gave a choke like a hose clogged by gurgling mud. She didn’t know it yet, but she was dead already.

Her heart pounded frantic. Shining felt it in his vice grip clamp on his throat, the vitality straining against his uncaring fingers. He was going to squeeze, squeeze, and squeeze until he felt the life leave and the body go cold as his dagger. Shining’s fingers slipped with his victim’s struggling and sweat. Just a tiny slip, but it was enough for the scream to go from silent to searing.

He plunged his full weight onto the throat, throttling the screams again as they fell to the floor.

Wet flecks hit his face. The thestral choked and sputtered.

Shining didn’t stop. He kept stabbing and stabbing and stabbing.

His instructors had warned him. Some ponies just did not want to die. This one did not want to die.

The impact on the ground hurt his fingers. His grip slipped. The chest inflated against his knife. The eyes bulged again in agony, shock, and horror. Tears and snot were running like snowmelt. The air of life entered the shredded chest.

Something struck him. Shining tried to ignore the pain as a fist with the wedding band slammed into the side of his head. Then the thestral’s arms came up and started strangling him. Shining choked, stabbing still. His blade went in in in in in in in. Into the guts. Against the ribs. Into the diagphragm. Into the arms. Into the lungs, into the thighs as they thrusted upwards, into between where her legs met. But still his victim did not die. He saw the pain and terror, but yet she did not die.

A blast of air and a blow hit him and he was dislodged. It must have been just a second, but he saw the glint of something in the thestral’s hand and coming his way.

Shining Armor did not even need to think.

A descending stab in the icepick grip was the most stupid, amateur way to try to stab someone who wasn't already pinned and helpless. It wasn’t what trained killers did. It wasn’t something soldiers did. It was some stupid, scared civilians did. It was something ponies just did on instinct. A fighter who tried it was sure to be brutally murdered by the first enemy with half a clue.

He juked his shoulders back, twisting in the direction of the stab. Then, he cut the forearm’s underside, slashing the tendon. The something fell uselessly. Shining Armor slashed again lengthwise, cutting deep as a pulsing spurt of blood flew from the artery underneath.

The victim tried to get away with a burst of speed from his wings, dashing to door, unaware she was an animal in the abattoir. The murderer’s hand seized the wing bone and clamped shut. The dagger slashed upwards, tearing the thing membrane. A second strike came down, landing right on the joint. CRACK! One wing was broken, its owner screaming in pain, trying to flap it but to no avail. He seized the struggling thestral’s other wing with broke hands. He pulled with one hand and twisted with the other. The joint gave way and his stomach lurched as something popped, contorting sickly. It had been in effect ripped off.

But Shining wasn’t done. He put his leg behind his victim’s and pushed from behind his neck.

The thestral fell face first to the ground, still in Shining’s grapple. Shining was atop her, she being completely in the hands of his non-existant mercy. He put pressure on the bleeding, already ruined arm. There was resistant, the victim struggling in pain, but it was useless in the slaughter. Shining just put his shin on it and leaned forward. For a second, his victim tried to reach and kick around, anything to stop him, anything to get out of this bind. But it was all in vain. There was no hope. And the adrenaline was starting to show its limitations as a dark mark began to show from under her. Air hissed and wheezed through her thoroughly shredded lungs. She was weakening. Dead already, but not yet.

With a horrifying, sickening crack that made the murderer grimace, the scapula and shoulder gave way. The arm bent in a way it was never meant to. The victim shrieked in agony. Warm liquid seeped out from under with a distinct reek of ammonia. Shining felt it seep through his pants and onto his knee. He ignored it, instead leaning forward to yank back the thestral’s head by his long mane, exposing the throat.

He brought his dagger forwards. The cruel steel was hungry. The prey was squirming.

“Nnonononono! Please! No! Don’t kill me! I don’t want to die! I have a husband! Children! You can’t kill me! Please! Stop! I’ll do anything! For the love of Celestia, please stop! I’m begging you! CELESTIA! CELESTIA! CELESTIIIAAAAAA!!!!”

Shining Armor hesitated. His grip on the dagger felt numb. But he could not betray his training. Against his own volition, the dagger went forward.

“NONONO! STOP! In the name of Celestia, stop -- FOR THE LOVE OF HER GODDESSSHIP!”

He stabbed deep into the throat. The victim was thrashing. The chest heaved, sobbing. She tried to turn his throat aside, but she was trapped. The meat gave way as metal bit into it like a great fang. Blood bubbled sickly with the failing wind.

Shining Armor sawed back and forth like cutting a tough loaf of bread. He was deep in the neck. He felt the hideous scraping against the spinal column jangle through his fingers. He shivered. He cut back and forth as if working at a steak, carving through the carcass of some animal.

There was twitching, gurgling, wheezing, nameless horror and pleading without words.

He shoved the dagger outward with every push and pull. His hand became slick with blood, snot, and tears. He tasted bile. The throat’s tendons hung on stubbornly, resisting until they snapped like rubber bands pulled a bit too hard by a child’s fingers. Then they gave way.

The resistance was fading, the chest rising shallower, slower, the gurgling’s pitch rising from low to high.

With a few more strokes, the skin tried to stop him, but with a final burst of effort, the dagger burst forth with a tide of blood onto the carpet. The struggling stopped with a final gurgle, even as tears and snot continued to stream down. The breathing was weakening. Weakening. Weakening. The gurgling stopped, no more air bubbled in the rich, dark blood. The piss continued to spread along with the blood. Shining Armor kept the victim pinned, feeling her fade.

But it wasn’t fast enough. She did not want to die. Shining reached up with his dagger and stabbed backward. The blade rammed through the jelly of the eyeball and embedded inches deep in the skull with a sickening sensation.

The breathing weakened. The wheezing through the holes in the chest came less and less. And less and less. And less and less. The arms and legs were still trying to move. But soon that all stopped.

Shining Armor held onto the head, the dagger until it was silent. He got off the slaughtered meat and flipped it over with his foot. He knelt forwards, hit stomach’s content spilling outwards. Acid scolded his tongue.

Like a true hero.

The victim didn’t look like a pony, more like one of those frogs they had to dissect back in school. It was more gaping wounds and viscera than intact flesh. Shining had lost track of how many times he had stabbed. It had been time after time. He didn’t dare count now.

The victim’s torso was home to innumerable stab wounds. It was horrific beyond his expectations. He had seen images in training of the recipients of their craft. He had seen films of operatives in the murder. He had slain so many times in simulation. But… But… But… that hadn’t been… real… Seeing it himself, done for real by his own hands was so different. He saw muscles under the skin. He saw white fat smeared and yanked outside the skin. He smelled the bile and shit stench of intestines torn open. Her breasts looked like torn sacks of pink butter. He felt a stab of pity for the coroner.

He looked into the eyes. They were glassy, unfocused forever until the worms ate them. The tongue was hanging out from between the lips he’d slashed up bad. He could see it lower down through the gash in the throat. All those sights, decades of life, to expire staring six inches from a faux wood cabinet in a hotel room while clogged with tears.

The lips and tongue… their last words had been pleading like a child faced with something bad. Her last words had been begging for her life as she squirmed and pissed herself. No, crying not for her family or husband, but for Celestia…

The goddess whose signature Shining Armor had seen on the death warrant just hours before with the ink still wet.

The arms were a special mess. They’d been opened twice. The cut arm was painted scarlet with blood, but that was now drying into an ugly brown color. It hung unnaturally. He’d snapped it unfeeling as if trying to get the meat off a rotisserie chicken. He saw the muscles and artery underneath. Now he looked at where the hand had dropped that something he’d deflected.

It was a pen, the cap not even removed.

Shining Armor winced as he reached out and held the corpse by the cheeks. He reached further, wrapping his fingers around the back of the head. He tensed up. It was cold. No more pulse. No more panic. It would be silent and still forever. Meat and bone, just brute meat and bone. There were just two more things left to do.

He put away his dagger.

Shining gripped it hard and sucked in air. He winced, screwed his eyes shut, then yanked up and to the side with his legs and shoulders.

There was a crack that made him taste bile and acid in his tongue. He shut his eyes and tried not to retch.

He dropped the head like a burning hot stone and it fell at an unnatural angle. He looked at his specimen before him. Laying in a pool of blood, piss, bile, snot and tears…

Dead. Definitely dead.

Good fucking job.

He produced a small camera from the soaked pocket of his suit jacket. He took a picture, capturing the whole thing. He hoped whoever looked at it too would buckle over and expel their last meal.

And that was it. He stood up straight, readjusted his suit, and walked to the door. He checked his bearing. He stepped out the door. He turned about face and told the officer, “Target eliminated, ma’am. Long reign Celestia.”

“Good job, Private Armor. May you slay a thousand more.”

He saluted.

He felt proud.

He wanted to scream.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. I've wanted to do a military story for a while now. Would ya'll believe my last proper war story was about 5 years ago? Seriously. I wanted to do something properly dark, gritty, and violent. As for what's in the next two chapters, you'll just have to wait and find out.

Anyway, new Velvet coming next weekend. Sorry again for the delay. I'm really serious about getting it right.

Editing thanks to Sparky Brony.