High above Santa Ponay, a microscopic equine settlement right on the the border with Mexicolt, the sun was blazing. It was a hot July day, though as any locals would tell you, that was irrelevant because it was always like this.
At this precise moment, Lyra Hearstrings did not know many things. She definitely knew she had a throbbing headache, likely the reason her thoughts were muddled. She knew the reason for this headache was that she had been drinking for the past three hours straight. She knew she was still in the same cheap bar. She knew she had acquired a beam katana of some sort, and that the reason for this was that some rich alicorn lady had offered her the opportunity to get even. She didn’t know what she was getting even with, but she had been told it would involve killing lots of ponies.
“Maybe I’ll enjoy the variety,” she mumbled.
Her first victim was later this afternoon, and so she did the first sensible thing she had done that day and went home, where home refers to a seedy motel.
Then she passed out for two hours.
When she came to again she sighed and headed for the bathroom. Her eyes had a slightly distant look to them, but other than that her previous binge was hardly noticeable. Her white/cyan mane was just as unkempt as before, and was complemented by a similarly-coloured shirt with an artistic (here the narrator would insert a few tactical coughs) depiction of a lyre. And the jeans, of course. Tight enough to make a scene kid, had there been one present, which wasn't the case, cry. She grinned. Maybe it was going to be a good day after all.
She pretended to care about her dental hygiene and then collapsed on her bed again, where she played with her sword in dumb fascination , watching it glow red, then turning it off again, and repeating the process. It probably wasn’t a good idea to stare at a laser directly like that, but who was she to say?
She was so captivated by this activity, in fact, that when her phone suddenly started to ring, she hurled the sword away, where it proceeded to land on the floor and singe the carpet. She swore.
Then she picked up the receiver because the ringing was starting to annoy her. She recognized the rich lady’s voice.
“Hello, Lyra?”
“Uh, hi… lady!”
“Your first ranked fight has been scheduled! Rank 11 is waiting for you at the top of Ponay Tower.”
“You want me to fight on top of a skyscraper? Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”
She heard groaning on the other end.
“…just get there soon, alright?”
“Yessir!” She slammed down the phone and beamed. It was showtime.
When she reached the largely abandoned building, she opted for the elevator. Strangely enough, the panel listed 100 floors, despite there only being 20. The non-functional buttons did, however, make amusing beeping noises.
At the top of this concrete giant (which has never seemed to actually have any purpose aside from being tall), a young mare waited. Her name was Applejack. Perched atop her head was a worn hat, and holstered at her flank was a wonderfully crafted revolver which also doubled as a sword for some reason. In her mouth was a cigar which she hadn't been able to light due to the wind, but which she kept in her mouth because she thought it made her look tough.
It seems appropriate to take a moment to explain how ponies handle guns.
When the first decision to weaponize gunpowder and make it convenient to use was made, design was a large problem, since as even those who have them will eventually agree, hooves are not very useful for tasks that require any degree of flexibility.
The first firearms were mounted on the head, the trigger being vaguely squeezable rubber. Biting down on it would sometimes cause the gun to fire, which meant that members of the infantry were required to develop strong jaws.
(In those days of feudalism, unicorns were exempt from military service, which in hindsight is regarded as a very bad policy.)
The great generals of the Equestrian military looked to their foes/allies of other races- the dragons, the griffons, who of course did not have to bother with things like mouth triggers.
They especially looked at the great apes, who though considerably less intelligent than them, had ridiculously useful thumbs.
So the quest to invent a device which could function like a primate hand was on- the alternative, i.e. teaching the apes to use guns, having been deemed too dangerous.
After another few centuries of bickering about with conspicuous metal finger attachments, the Universal Appendage Simulator was revealed, revolutionizing everything.
The UAS solves the problem of not being to hold anything by, after being fitted to the hoof snugly, simply acting like hands, talons, or another few dozen pre-programmed templates (including, bafflingly, hooves), thus enabling the user to accomplish many things which would not normally be possible, like brushing their teeth.
It is technically only available to members of the Equestrian Army, but as they say, you can buy anything in Santa Ponay.
The coming duel was going to be Applejack's last. She hoped it wouldn't be too exhausting. She had some business to take care of afterwards.
The stairwell door opened and Lyra stepped out. Applejack gave a wave, adjusted her hat, spat out her cigar, drew her gun.
"Well then? We gonna do this or what? I ain't got all evenin', miss."
Lyra chuckled nervously. "Course." She used her magic to press a button on her katana twice. Now it was buzzing, which probably meant it was ready to slash things.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Anytime, sugar." Applejack gritted her teeth.
Then they charged at each other.
Applejack leaped into the air, sharp side of her gun headed in Lyra's direction. If her aim was good, it would wound or at least smack her nicely. Then it was just a matter of jumping back and pumping lead into her. Easy.
She blinked.
The memories flowed.
Out on a farm on the outskirts of town lived a brother and a sister. Though one would expect them to form a close relationship as a result of the hard work they did together, this was not the case, primarily for one reason: the brother (whose name was Big Macintosh) was, by all accepted definitions, an asshole.
As a consequence of this simple fact (and not the other way around), he beat his sister. He did this very often, very violently, and for many, occasionally conflicting, reasons.
He beat her when she looked sad. He beat her when she smiled. He beat her when she complained about him beating her. He beat her when she made mistakes, when he made mistakes, when he had been drinking, when it rained, when it was too hot...
On this particular day he had beaten her because he couldn't think of a reason to beat her.
Applejack had, for the past few weeks, been putting together a simple plan.
The plan was this: she would take the rifle Macintosh owned, put it up to his head while he slept, and blow his brains out.
Tonight she had decided to go through with it.
She had waited until the sound of an inebriated Macintosh stumbling around subsided. Then she waited another half hour, just to be sure.
She climbed up to his room and opened the door very, very slowly. The gun was hung up on the wall.
Things were going rather well, she thought.
She carefully took it down, propped it up next to the bed, and sighed.
Her hoof hovering over the trigger, she gave her brother one last look. Asleep, he looked almost docile.
She knew even if she started taking pot shots at the furniture down stairs she wouldn't wake him up. She had all the time in the world. So why was it taking her so long?
She collapsed dejectedly, eyes beginning to moisten.
Even though he hurt her every day, even though no sane person would ever love him... some stupid part of her still held on to the idea that she could change him, she could make him understand.
Tears streaming down her face, she curled up in a fetal position, deciding she needed some time to think about this.
She lost consciousness.
She was awoken again by a hoof lightly tapping against her head. She groaned, opened her eyes slightly, and saw Big Macintosh frowning back at her.
Then again, what else had she been expecting.
"You awake?"
She nodded weakly, then took a blow to the side of her head.
"Get up."
She gradually did, somehow accepting her fate. It was, after all, her fault, wasn't it?
"Move it."
She went down the stairs, her brother following behind her. He hurried her ahead to the door and opened it, then pushed her out. She landed on her side.
"Come back when you can pull the trigger." He spat at her and slammed the door shut again.
She gave the house one last look.
Then she picked up her hat and ran.
The two assassins' blades were approaching their targets as they themselves got closer to the ground. If their attacks connected just right, this could be it.
Unfortunately for Applejack, she missed completely.
Lyra's weapon, on the other hand, whirred through the air, leaving behind a bright red trail as it cleanly lopped off her opponent's head.
She hit the ground, regained her balance, and turned around to confirm that number 11 was indeed dead.
"Congratulations, Lyra!"
"Shit! What?" She looked around and saw Rich Lady approaching her. "Oh. Hi."
"You are now officially ranked 11th!"
"Great?"
Rich Lady stared at her.
It occurred to her she should probably ask Rich Lady what her actual name was.
"Hey, uh... I didn't quite catch your name last night. Evening. Morning?"
"Ah. My name-" She adjusted her mane. "Is Celestia."
As she tried to make sense of everything that had happened in the past 24 hours that night, Lyra found she couldn't, but tried anyway.
Eventually she fell asleep.
“...complete your missions as soon as possible, or further action on our part may be required.”
“Huh-wha?”
After recovering from the shock of suddenly being awake, Lyra smacked her lips a few times before finally stumbling out of bed. Slowly it dawned on her that the voice had not, as she had first guessed, been a by-product of her overactive imagination, but rather a recording on her answering machine. She pushed a miniscule button and it, surprisingly, actually began to repeat the message.
“Congratulations, Miss Heartstrings. You are now officially the 11th-best assassin in your region. Should you wish to continue your ascent, you will first need to carry out a certain number of tasks, which will be given to you at the address our agent provided you with. Please complete your missions as soon as possible, or further action on our part may be required.”
There was a beep.
Well, that was that then.
She decided to go out and practice her swordplay.
Celestia had in fact given her the address of a job center. She had put audible quotation marks around “job center,” and Lyra could guess what they meant.
She had found a gray concrete building which, although she was by no means an architect, she judged to have been designed by someone with very little imagination. It did, however, have a grinning skull above the entrance, and that was something.
She entered and gasped. It was hard to say what she had been expecting, but it almost certainly wasn't this.
Behind the counter stood what was apparently a large purple sea serpent. It was at present toying with its moustache, and so had not noticed her entry yet. She inched forward.
Suddenly it turned and looked her. She yelped.
“Oh, hello there! I didn't see you come in.”
“I... um...”
“You're the new one, right? Heartstrings?”
“Er... yeah...”
“Presumably you're here because you're looking for some work to do?” it continued with admirable patience.
“I guess?”
“Well then. Here.” It indicated what appeared to be a restaurant menu. “This is your selection of jobs. It's updated as you rank up. Take as many as you like.” It flashed a smile and began trimming its claws.
Lyra muttered a sort of “thank you.”
By the time two hours had passed, she had successfully assassinated a small cult which still actually worshipped alicorns as gods, the last member of Santa Ponay's police force who refused to take bribes, and a particularly off-putting clown. Technically the clown was only collateral damage, but seeing light and metal blaze through it and cause it to disintegrate had brought her great pleasure. She despised clowns.
Having as far as she was concerned fulfilled her duties for the day, she began her journey back to the motel. She had a call to make.
After wrestling the handle off her door, she dialled the number of a friend of hers. This friend knew a lot about astrophysics or nanoengineering or biochemistry or all three of them. Also, her name was Twilight Sparkle.
Lyra figured she might be able to do something with her sword.
"Hey, Twilight."
"Lyra! How are you?"
"I'm great, Twi. Hey, listen, I have something you might like."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"It's a sword. With a laser, I think."
She heard an impressed sort of gasp. "A beam katana? Oh my gosh, I've heard of those but had no idea they actually existed... Where did you get it?"
"Ponynet."
"Yes, that sounds about right. Could you bring it over and let me take a look at it?"
"Sure!"
"Well, what do you think?"
"I've never seen anything like it. The laser seems to get its power from these crystals in the handle."
"Do you have any parts like it?"
"I can try putting something together. The experience would be great."
"You'd do that for me?"
"No, I'd do it for cash."
"...Oh."
When Lyra got home again, she was disappointed to find no messages were waiting for her. She decided to sit in bed and wait for Celestia to call. After a while she decided to instead accept the fact that she wasn't going to fight anyone today and should instead take a nap.
Just before she dozed off, however, the ringing of a telephone stopped her.
The legendary surrealist painter Salvador Poni, incidentally, employed a similar technique for getting inspiration for his works.
For a moment images of purple sea serpents eating each other's tails as they passed through mouths of clowns wide open in terror shone on the ceiling. Lyra shuddered.
She picked up the phone.
"Hello, Lyra?"
"That's me."
"Mr. Magnet confirms-"
"Who?"
"The serpent?"
"...yeah."
"Anyway, he confirms you have completed the required number of jobs and so I have scheduled your next ranked duel."
"Awesome!"
"Quite. Your opponent has his own castle on the outskirts of town. He is awaiting you in the garden."
"I'm on my way!"
"And good luck."
Lyra whistled appreciatively. She had expected a manor, not an actual medieval castle. Who would want to live in one of those anyway? They couldn't possibly be comfortable.
She of course knew there were two near Ponyville, but as far as she was aware they were mostly used as tourist traps or BDSM dungeons.
She approached the gates and took a deep breath.
At the other end, Discord was wearing a bathrobe and enjoying a platter of finely-prepared meats. It was hard finding a good butcher in a place inhabited moslty by herbivores, but he was rather fond of sausages.
That, and the effect they had on his opponents was worth it.
Once, a dragon had come around and they had shared the food before battle.
He didn't tell her she had committed cannibalism in the process until later.
He sighed. It was hard to believe how he had gotten into this whole business in the first place.
Discord and Celestia were, as it happened, lying in bed together. It was a freezing cold December night. It wasn't cold in the house, of course, but they used it as an excuse to huddle closer anyway.
In case the reader hasn't figured it out yet or refuses to believe it, they were a romantic couple.
It was for this reason that Discord was at the moment casually running his claws through Celestia's mane.
The alicorn lazily took a look at the alarm clock next to their bed and shot up in alarm.
"Oh gosh, I'm late for the appointment! I-I'm sorry, dear, I really have to..."
"That's fine! Wouldn't want to get in your way."
"Just one thing."
They kissed.
Discord smiled. "Alright, take care now. And good luck!"
He leaned back and sighed. He wondered what these appointments were all about. Whenever he asked she insisted it wasn't important. She definitely wasn't the kind of mare who would have another partner without telling him, so that wasn't it...
He decided to go into the kitchen and pour himself a glass of something.
On the way there he noticed her jacket still hanging on the wall.
"Celly? You left your-" But she was already gone.
Then he saw one of the pockets was open and something was sticking out of it.
He picked it up. It was a business card. He started reading.
Celestia Candor
Agent and Match Coordinator
United Assassins Association - West Equestrian States Division
At the bottom was a phone number he didn't recognize, but which had the city's area code.
Later that night, Celestia returned, expecting Discord to have fallen asleep. She was surprised, however, to instead see he had set up an armchair just in front of the door and was holding a small white piece of cardboard.
She frowned and looked away. "Look, I cane explain."
"Yeah, can you? Going around helping people kill each other?"
"No! Well... yes. But-"
"But what?"
She sighed. "It's... it's not dangerous."
"I'm sure."
"You can... you can come along if you like."
And that had been that, really. He had watched. He had enjoyed. Pretty soon he was in the middle of it all too. Those were the days. He sighed again.
Where was that damn challenger?
"Hey, dragon! I'm here!"
He looked at where the voice had come from. A unicorn. Wonderful.
"Dragon?" Discord chuckled. "I am no dragon." He removed his robe. "I am a chimera."
He gorged himself on her stare, then lifted up his platter again. "Would you like something to eat?"
Lyra looked at him as if he had just asked her if she wanted to eat meat, that being exactly what he had done.
"I have quite a selection here. This." He prodded at a slice. "This is pony. Illegal, of course, but-"
Lyra cringed as popped it into his mouth and licked his claw clean
"But very succulent, yes."
"Alright, enough with the games, picemeal," said Lyra trying to hide her disgust and failing miserably.
"I was only," he grinned, "offering you something before what will definitely be an arduous fight."
Lyra lifted her beak matana and powered it on. "Come on!"
Discord's claws extended and sharpened noticeably. He flexed them experimentally.
"What, you're gonna scratch me up?"
"Oh, I'll do a lot more than that."
Lyra narrowed her eyes and charged at him. He didn't seem to be doing anything, but that only struck her as odd by the time it was too late.
She moved her sword back for a swing but was suddenly propelled upwards by a slab of stone that had unexpectedly shot out of the ground.
Discord grabbed her in mid-air and slammed her into the ground, then patiently waited for her to get up.
"Wh... what the hell was that?"
He laughed the kind of laugh that started border conflicts. "You see, child, we draconeqii have a rather useful gift." He snapped his claws and a hazy cloud of smoke encircled him. "We can bend reality."
"I'll still cut your fucking head off!"
Lyra did something she rarely bothered doing. She thought or, more accurately, strategized. Attacking head-on obviously wouldn't work. So was everything else, if his abilities were inexhaustible. But didn't all magic-y things need to cool down?
There was only one way to find out.
She brushed her mane back the way she had seen somepony do it in an action movie once. "Well? You gonna do something?"
"Oh, fillies first, I insist."
She scoffed. This was going to take a little more effort.
"You know what you are? You're a coward. You can't fight fair so you use your dragon-eggy powers or whatever."
He began circling her. She followed suit and continued speaking.
"And- and you know what else you are? You're a sicko."
There were a number of words Lyra could have used to describe him at that moment. It was by mere chance that she picked one that had a lot of meaning attached to it for her opponent. She, of course, was unaware of this, and would later on gloat about what a manipulator she was and resolve to mention "pony skills" at any future job interviews.
"Yeah, a disgusting sicko. With your little meat tray, trying to gross me out, like we're on reality TV or something."
He growled and rushed at her.
Bingo, thought Lyra, and raised her weapon in anticipation.
"Sorry I got home late today. I was busy with a client." Discord forced a smile.
Celestia returned it. "Oh, it's fine. I'm sure you were also busy with something... special."
"Er..."
"For a special someone?"
The draconequus stared. "I... don't know what you're talking about, Celly."
She giggled. "That's cute." Her gaze turned cold. "No, seriously. I don't like it when you play dumb."
"I'm... not...?"
She locked eyes with him, triangulating on his very pupils. No, not lying. Damn.
"You mean you actually forgot our two-year anniversary?"
His confused smile disintegrated. He attempted to recover, issuing a nervous chuckle. "O-of course not! I just-"
"You miserable little... you've just been so busy with your little side jobs- nothing else really matters, does it?"
"It's not like-"
"It is exactly like that! I deal with people you every day. You can't fool me."
Discord said absolutely nothing.
"You know what you are? A fucking sicko! A murdering little psychopathic freak!"
"Celly, I-"
"Don't call me that!"
Discord stared at the floor intently, hoping it would yield an answer.
Celestia threw open the door. "There is something for you under the pillow on your side of the bed," she said venomously, then walked out and slammed the door shut behind her.
Dazed and helpless, the chimera stumbled into their bedroom, and lifted up his pillow.
A square black leather case.
No.
He picked it up slowly and opened it. A clean-cut topaz stone greeted him.
An engagement ring.
He fainted.
As Discord's oversized claws whizzed through the air, Lyra expertly (read: desperately) leapt out of the way and slashed away, landing a hit that removed one of her opponent's arms.
As he growled fiercely, Discord's claws shot out a few good feet. Lyra dodged quickly, gasping, and countered with another hit, hearing the other limb fall to the ground with a muffled thud.
She stepped back. Discord was breathing heavily. "Seems as if... my rashness was my own undoing." He smiled, almost gratefully. "You were a worthy opponent, Miss."
She almost thanked him.
"May you... not be as foolish as I was. Good luck."
She raised her sword to the same level as his neck.
"See you in hell, you creep," she muttered before finishing the job with another well-placed slash.
Lyra sighed as she holstered her blade again.
Done.
She began walking towards the exit but her progress was considerably hindered by Celestia, who had inexplicably appeared.
"Hello, Lyra."
"Uh, hi? Since when have you-"
"I heard his last words. You may want to consider them."
"Yeah, whatever."
The alicorn passed by her and knelt beside the remains of the assassin that had previously stood there. Her horn glowed as she focused on a ring that he had been wearing. Lyra hadn't noticed it before.
Celestia laughed quietly, an airy laugh that oft accompanies something treasured long ago you've just found again.
Lyra observed all this impatiently.
"He was a good friend," Celestia said finally.
She shook her head and walked back to Lyra.
"Congratulations. You are now officially ranked 10th. I'll tell Steve- I mean, Mr. Magnet- to upate your jobs."
She vanished as quickly as she had arrived, leaving Lyra standing there awkwardly.
Eventually she too headed back to the motel after the blood stopped gushing.
