Target is within 60 meters
In the dark, with the cover of night, almost melting and becoming one with the shadows, crouched a man, a killer, a hardened mercenary, Jack Riddek. Armed with nothing but a silenced pistol, a wicked edged hunting knife, and light body armor, he is said to be one of the best and most efficient, making him the most desired to get a job done. Currently, he was on one of said missions, eliminating a certain target for the government of the United States.
The target's name was Curtis Murl. The target is a billionaire who owns a large technology company called Star-corp. In the files gathered by the country, he is known to have a huge hand in selling tech and weapons to known criminals. This came as a small surprise. But, in the secret files given to him by certain government authorities, the man is also a known user of magic. These powers are what he used to aid him in his distributing and creation of illegal tech.
Right now, he was said to be hosting a party at his mega mansion, with hundreds of people attending. As the perfect opportunity, Jack is sent by the government to kill Curtis to both stop the flow of tech to criminals and eliminate the possible threat of dangerous magic.
As he was sneaking along the dark walls of the mansion, the party was in full effect below him, artificial lights illuminating the hundreds of people socializing, unaware of the shadow watching them.
Then, Jack found him. Curtis was talking with two burly men, both parties nodding their heads in agreement. Then, they the three started to walk into the mansion.
'Target moving inside', he found himself whispering in his head.
He then continued scaling the walls, until he came across a balcony leading inside. He climbed his way up, soundlessly landing on the platform. He crouched and snuck through rooms and halls, even going along the ceiling when guests or housekeepers showed up. Slinking through a doorway and into more shadows, he heard the three men again. This time, they were standing on a lower floor around a glowing device connected to the room by a network of wires and tubes. Then, Curtis held his hand up the the device, and a blueish mist seemed to seep out of it, twisting it's way over and into the device, causing it to glow brighter.
'I can't let him do anything else to it.'
Revealing his silenced pistol from a secret opening in his armor, he pointed it down to the lower level and took aim for the two others first.
*PT* *PT*
Two shots and Curtis was the only one left, instantly on guard. Jack once again took aim.
*PT*
This shot, however, did not meet its mark, but instead was stopped by a tendril of blue aura.
Curtis then looked in his direction, spotting the silent killer. Jack then decided to kill him head on. Putting away his pistol, he jumped down, softly landing with barely a sound. Without wasting any time, he immediately surged forward, pulling out his hunting knife and taking a speedy and deadly precise slice for Curtis' neck. Just barely moving in time, Curtis then summoned a large beam of his aura to shoot at Jack. Hitting directly at his chest, the blast... did nothing. That was another perk to being an elite trained mercenary. This wasn't the first time he had to face someone with magical powers or some other arcane knowledge. So, he trained himself to become resistant to magic, should he need to fight more people like that. This came in handy, since he barely felt the blast, let alone causing any actual damage. This confused Curtis, not knowing what caused his power to fail.
"How did you stop that!" he asked.
Jack, who isn't one who explains himself to his enemy during battle, just used the confusion to his advantage. He ran up again, faster than Curtis could react, and sliced his throat. His enemy's eyes widened in shock before he started choking, sinking to the floor. Jack lowered himself to look into his eyes.
"Out of the dozens of 'magicians' I've killed, you were one of the weaker ones." he coldly whispered into his dying ears. Curtis looked up, before smirking on last time and dying. Suddenly, a mass of blue energy shot out of his corpse, before filling the hooked up device. It surged with power, to the point where warnings were going of on nearby monitors. Taking this as a good time to get out of there, Jack turned to sprint out of there. But, before he could, the device behind him blew in a blue explosion, sending a shockwave over Jack. As Jack went flying, the device then began to implode, sucking in various objects and wires along with it. This included Jack, pulling him into a single point. He then felt himself shoot off at a speed so fast, all he saw was every color mixed into one. At this, the speed made him blackout, while he was of what was unaware of what was going to happen next, and how it would blow his mind.
Everfree forest,
Equestria
Deep within the wild Everfree forest, a shockwave pulsed, spreading in all directions. From a single point, both the pulsing machine and Jack came into existence. They appeared above the trees, until gravity did it's job and sent both of them crashing through the trees. As this happened, Jack awoke, just in time to land on his feet. The same couldn't be said for he machine, which crashed to the ground in a shower of parts. Jack started to walk over to it.
'Maybe I could fix it and see what it did to me' he thought as he neared it.
But before he could get close enough, it was crushed to the ground by a large paw. Jack's eyes traveled up the creature revealing the form of a lion, one with a deep red mane. Then, he noticed something different. This lion had wings along with a scorpion-like tail. Through his extensive knowledge, he recognised the creature as a creature of myth called a manticore.
The manticore roared in his face before taking a swipe at Jack's form with his claws. Jack effortlessly dodged, then proceeded to climb onto the manticore's back. The manticore roared in frustration, then tried to pierce him with his tail. Jack saw this coming though, and used his knife to cut a good portion of the creatures tail off. The manticore, who was now roaring in pain, tried to shake Jack off to run away. Jack raised his knife, and plunged it into the back of it's neck, then pushed to cut halfway around. The manticore bled, then died almost immediately. Climbing off it's back, Jack noticed the destroyed machine. It was now beyond repair.
'Guess I can't use that, so I have to get out of the forest.'
As he walked, hopefully towards civilization, he noticed something odd about the trees and plants around him. Closer looks revealed that they seemed to be brighter colors than normal, like from out of a painting or artificial colors. Shaking his head to clear it, he focused on the task at hand, getting out of the forest.
Suddenly, he heard shouting in the distance. Jack decided to check it out, creeping through tree shadows in the light. He soon came up the the area he heard the sounds, finding a good place to observe. It was another manticore, apparently those things were common in this forest. What was even more bizarre was the creatures prey. While the manticore was roaring and fighting, group of six horses were scattering and weaving around it, hitting it every now and then. Jack wasn't sure what to make of this, so he stayed hidden to assess the situation. As the fight went on, he noticed the strangeness of the horses. First, they seemed to be smaller than regular horses, so they must have been ponies. They all had a different bright colored coat, one even had a rainbow colored mane, and all had big, bright eyes. And they were talking. Then, he noticed that some of them had extra parts that shouldn't be on a pony. Two of them had a short horn protruding from their foreheads, glowing different colors, and shooting beams of energy at the manticore. 'Great, more magic'. Three of the ponies had a small set of wings, one of which was flying through the air, swooping to hit the manticore, one was cowering in the back, while one of the unicorns from before possessed the last set of wings. Finally, the last two ponies had neither a horn nor wings, but they too were fighting, one bucking the manticore right in the face with great strength, while the other was... throwing pies at the beast.
'So, manticores, pegasi, unicorns, and a weird hybrid. This place seems to be a hotspot for myths.'
They seemed to be keeping the beast at bay, until it whipped it's tail low, sweeping the group off their hooves. Then, it noticed the cowering yellow one. Apparently noticing that it was weak, it leaped at the small, shaking pony. As it lowered it's mouth to eat the pony, it's friends started to run over to save it. That's when Jack decided to help. Pulling out his silent pistol, he took aim at the manticore and fired.
*PT**PT**PT*
The manticore, who now had three holes in its head, fell over, dead. All the ponies stopped, scared, and looked around for whatever just killed the manticore. Jack didn't have time to get sidetracked with these creatures any more, so he proceeded to walk away, while the ponies all looked in his direction. He heard whispering amongst them, then a whooshing sound. In a split second, Jack turned, and caught a flying hoof thrown by the rainbow one. When he caught it, it created a visible shockwave, indicating that the pegasus was flying fast. At the shockwave, all the ponies eyes widened in shock, especially the rainbow one, while Jack was had a bored expression. Letting go of the hoof, he continued walking away. He then heard a group of hooves, so he turned again and they all came to a stop in front of him. The yellow one was once again hiding in the back, making itself as small as possible, while the others looked at him in shock, curiosity, and fear. Except the pink one, who had a weird smile on its face.
Then, the purple... Pegacorn? Unisus?... whatever, started talking.
"Um... h-hello creature... w-we wanted to thank you for saving us." she had a feminine voice, confirming her as female.
Jack didn't say anything, and just turned around and walked again. He heard her yell "Wait!" before popping into existence in front of him.
Jack decided to talk. "Why are you following me?"
At this, they all seemed to gasp, then whispered among themselves again. Even his trained ears only caught a couple of words, like male and a someone called Celestia. The purple one started talking again.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle, and we are following you because we've never seen anything like you before."
Bored, Jack just said "Cool."
She was persistent though, "It would be great if you could come with us, so we could show you to Princess Celestia."
Whatever happens, Jack knew that he didn't like being shown around like some merchandise at a store, even when others were hiring him for a job, and he intended to show these ponies that.
"Look, your welcome for saving you, but I am not some trophy to be presented by you, so goodbye." He started to go, but as he was turning, he noticed a lot of stares at his lower region. 'Hell no, I'm out.' He walked again before Twilight once again said something.
"But, we need you!"
"For what." he asked, irritated.
She seemed to slightly blush at this. "Well... I can't tell you that, only Princess Celestia can."
Jack shook his head, then leapt into the shadows, doing what he does best. The ponies all started searching for him.
"We can't let him get away girls!" Twilight shouted.
They all searched, passing over him multiple times while he waited for them to leave. Then, the pink pony looked directly at his eyes, making him shiver. He had faced all kinds of foes and death in many possible ways, but somehow her stare creeped him out. Then, she yelled "HE'S OVER HEEEEERE!" and he was promptly tackled by the group of ponies. He started fighting to get out, while they were all trying to pin him to the ground. Twilight's horn glowed, then shot a bream at the center of his head. It made him tired, like he would pass out, but then he just shook the magic away. She seemed to be shocked at this, making Jack almost smirk.
As he threw them left and right like ragdolls, he noticed one was missing. 'The rainbow one.' He looked around, until he noticed her hovering with a huge rock in her clutches. She dropped it, the heavy object hitting his head and instantly knocking him out.
'Those little fuckers...'
