Snowflakes gently flutter to earth, frozen teardrops of a silently weeping city, fragmented and reduced to a hollow husk of its former self by the very creatures that built it.
As Doom forges through the fog and patrols the dead-silent streets of Manehattan, her mind is free to wander along with her. All she can hear are the dull, heavy thumps of her own hoofbeats against the snow-coated asphalt, but all she can picture in her mind... Is his face. His chubby little freckle-dotted cheeks, his dark, piercing brown eyes, usually covered up by his mane.
And all she can think of in her mind is that she never got to say goodbye to him. There were so many things she wished she could have said, and now, all she can do is keep them bottled up in her own mind, regretting having not said those things. Told him how much their friendship meant to her, how much she loved him... And now, he's just... gone. She at least hopes that he didn't suffer in death, but it's a fragile, hollow comfort to think of.
She feels tears welling up in her eyes, where they already begin to freeze, and she shakes her head. All of that is neither here nor there. She has a mission to do, and Faye needed the intel on that agent's whereabouts ASAP. She picks up the pace, and though her thermals light up every obstacle in front of her for 100 yards, she still can't help but picture Spaghetti's face in the thick, choking, blinding fog.
Finally, Doom's focus was shattered commpletely, not just briefly sidetracked by her own thoughts. A bullet impacted her armor, and she felt her heartwrenching sadness ignite as she glared angrily into the fog. Ahead, she could see two ponies standing up from a body, and one of them had fired a shot at her. As she stared, he fired two more from his pistol, and his friend fired a shotgun round at her, which had even less of an impact.
Normally, Doom was quick and efficient with how she fought other ponies. She hated causing more pain than necessary, and she even tried to reason with ponies at times. But right now, Doom's whirling emotions had melted into a hot fire of anger- after all, what if one of these rotten ponies had been the end of Spaghetti?
Doom had a few weapons on her. A light machine gun with 200 rounds in its ammo box, a sniper rifle brought from home, two revolvers, and lastly, a double barrel shotgun. The shotgun was the first gun she had ever bought, way back in 1976. Doom didn't need two hooves to use large weapons like the shotgun. Normal ponies held pistols in one hoof, sitting down to reload. Larger weapons required ponies to sit to operate them, and heavy weapons required a special saddle with the guns mounted to it.
Doom had a machine gun turret asleep on her back, and she also had a tuned-up pulse radio to scan for things around her, though the pulse had been shut off, allowing her to stumble onto the two ponies. Spotting their orange suits, she frowned even further. Rikers, of course. Doom began to walk towards the two ponies, and she pulled out her shotgun. Once she was close enough, she aimed the shotgun for the first pony, and her arm barely flinched with recoil as she fired both barrels into the stallion. His friend fired more shells at her, but none of the pellets even made it through her armor, let alone her bulletproof skin.
As he collapsed to the ground, she shifted her focus to his friend. The other pony ran for cover, and her ears perked to listen as he began to reload his own shotgun, though she could hear him drop a shell or two. As she walked to where he was hiding, she cracked the shotgun, pulling two new shells from her shoulder bag with her mouth. She put them in the gun with her mouth, using her nose to make sure they were in, then she clicked the gun back together. She looked up as the stallion fired another shot- she had to admire his bravery, considering that he still attempted to hurt her while she walked up to him, reloading the same weapon she had blown his friend into next week with.
Was it bravery, or stupidity? She lifted the gun a second time, and another pull of both triggers blasted the second Riker with plenty of lead to make sure he wouldn't ever be shooting his shotgun at anyone else, ever again. This time, Doom sat down to reload the gun, placing it back where she had retrived it from. For a moment, she sat there, staring down at the body in front of her. As the blood stained the snow, Doom's tears briefly stained her snout, turning to ice before they made it far.
Doom was a terrifying force in Manehattan. Guns didn't stop her, fire didn't burn her, electricity didn't shock her, and she didn't even need food or water or oxygen itself. Even magic struggled to do more than annoy her, and yet these groups of ponies, Rikers, Cleaners, whatever... they still held to their rotten ideals. She bristled a little as she thought of those damn cleaners, her least favorite group of them all. Ponies who decided to clean the city with fire, regardless if it did more harm than the virus ever would have on its own.
Above all, Doom increasingly hated herself. At first, she had been hesitant on firing at anypony until they fired at her. But now? If she saw a pony holding a flamethrower or wearing a prison jumpsuit, she did her best to kill them before they even knew she was there. Sometimes, she could wipe out an entire group of ponies before they could even figure out where the shots were coming from.
And she hated herself because she had begun to enjoy it. When she blasted that pony with the shotgun, terror had taken over the second pony's face. As she walked up to him, loading her shotgun, she could see his life flashing before his eyes. And instead of sympathy, she hoped that he died regretting the actions that led him to where she was. She loved setting fire to the tanks of napalm that Cleaners carried around, listening to the whistle as they tried to desperately remove the red tank from their backs. They never got it in time.
Sure, one could say that Doom was doing the right thing. These ponies were murderers, looters, rioters, rapists, tainting the city more than the poison ever could. But did that make it okay that she had begun to enjoy watching their life stain the snow red? She didn't know.
She had visited Ponyville, once. Ponyville had gone into lockdown immediately, erecting a wall around the entire town to keep ponies out. PolariSoft, once a tech company, was now the primary defense for the town. And it made sense. Polaris and the ponies living with him were terrifying forces to contend with. Polaris owned a fully functional tank, he was the father of another tankpony and a planepony, and those ponies still retained their original weaponry unlike Doom did.
Polaris himself had incredible powers with his dark magic, and his daughter, Saphira, she acted as the AI that helped organize all the ponies working for the SED. When she visited Ponyville, Doom had talked to Polaris for a long while. Other ponies didn't understand how she felt about killing, but he did. He had been a gang leader in Manehattan in the 1930s, and Doom had actually met his old rival, Silver Bullet. He had fought in WWII, and Doom didn't really like what he had told her.
"It's going to feel... wrong, at first. But after all this time, I've decided that it's okay to... enjoy killing, if you don't EVER let it become something that you do JUST for the enjoyment" he had said, in a tone that managed to spook the metallic mare, just a little bit. She hadn't just met Polaris, though. She had met Silver as well.
It had been a dark, foggy evening when she met Silver Bullet. Doom had galloped into an alleyway after the terrified screams of a mare, but she was the second pony to arrive. When she got there, the mare was backed up against a wall, shaking. A stallion laid on the ground in front of her, wearing a Cleaner's outfit. Above the stallion, though... a tall mare stood, eyes of pure rage shining out from her shadowy appearence that seemed to suck light into it, never to be seen again.
The mare waved a hoof at the terrified pony next to her, and her voice hissed to life as she spoke. "Go, you are safe now". The mare nodded, galloping out of the alleyway. But Doom stayed, staring up at the other pony. She stepped over the body, walking up to doom. Doom began to wonder if she needed to bring out a gun, and the mare spoke again, staring into her eyes. "I've watched you from the shadows, Doom... and thank you, but do not ever interfere with my work" she had hissed.
Doom found her voice, saying, "I... your work? Who are you?"
The mare smiled, showing off terrifyingly sharp teeth. "Normally, I wouldn't answer that. Silver Bullet is my name, and this is my home... you and your kind fight evil on the surface, I hunt evil in the shadows..." Something about the way she said it made Doom's skin crawl. Doom gave her a weak nod, and Silver took a few steps into the fog. She began to fade, but then Doom found her voice.
"W-Wait" She said softly. "If you ever see a stallion named Spaghetti, please... get him to somewhere safe, if you can?" Silver turned to look at her for a moment, and the smile was gone from her face. However, she nodded. She turned back to the fog, started to walk, then she just... disappeared.
Dark magic users were weird. Doom's radio clicked in her head, and she opened her eyes. She stood up, shaking off the weight of the memories she had been swimming in. Her snout scrunched slightly as she looked to the blood that had leaked onto her front hooves, and she wiped it off in a small snowdrift as Faye spoke, asking how far along on the mission she was.
"Sorry, came up on some Rikers..." Doom murmured, starting to walk once more as she got herself back on track.
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Deep underground, water dripped from the ceiling. Manehattan's subways had grinded to a halt a long time ago, and now they simply acted as dark, cold tunnels to walk from one place to another. A door opened, revealing a small room lit by nothing but the dull red glow of a small heater. A pair of eyes opened in the darkness, and the small, malnourished stallion at the far end of the room began to tremble at what he saw before him, much like the small pilot light dancing in front of the pony who had opened the door.
From behind a fireman's mask, a stallion laughed. "So, this is why they have us patrol the subways, eh? To find little runts trying to hide?" He grabbed the controls for his flamethrower, glancing down to make sure he was holding it right. The subway tunnel behind him was lit by dim, flickering fluorescent lights, but their glow seemed to fade from behind the stallion as his shadow grew, and grew, and grew...
Then, a pair of eyes opened in the darkness above him. Right before he could engage the spray of napalm, the Cleaner noticed his prey look upwards, and somehow he looked even more frightened. As huge, razor sharp claws extended on either side of him, the last word the stallion ever said was "What's...."
To the little stallion hiding in the old maintinence room, it seemed like the Cleaner just... disappeared. He was dragged back into the shadows as the claws sliced through his suit, and the door slammed shut as he screamed with the same terror that he so gleefully inflicted on others. His death was quick, judging by how suddenly the sound of his voice cut off.
The little stallion in the room whimpered as the door opened once more, this time slowly, revealing nothing but shadow. A mare walked into the room, only visible by looking at the outline where the dull red turned into blackness. Then, to the pony's surprise, she spoke. "What is your name, little one?" she quietly said, crouching down to put herself level with him.
The tiny colt still cowered before the mare, simultaneously shivering from the cold and trembling in fright. After a moment, he hesitantly peeked out from behind his hoof, and uncurled just slightly. She didn't show any signs of ill intent, and she had rescued him from a brutal, agonizing, pitiful demise, after all. He let down his guard a little bit, and her ears pricked towards him. And, at last... He answered her, in a hoarse, raspy whisper; "I... Spaghetti..."
Author's Note
I dunno man I just kinda wrote stuff okay it's 6:25 AM and like I went to sleep at 10 cause I wanna do a sleep schedule but then I woke up at 1:40 and couldn't get back to sleep so here I am writing something that isn't porn wow
