The Peacemaker

I entered the small office, the smell of cigar smoke filled my nose and it made me want to gag. I wasn’t a smoker and had no plans to begin smoking. I sat down from an older looking Russian man and he slid over a small beige coloured dossier. “Your targets are an Equestrian military colonel named Wildhorse and his wife, a military advisor for Celestia” the Russian man explained in a thick accent “The wife’s name is Rose Pedal… where the hell do they get ridiculous names?” the Russian man muttered the last part to himself as I looked over the dossier.

Wildhorse was a yellowish coloured earth pony with a red mane. His cutie mark was a sun shining as it came over some clouds, his wife Rose Pedal was a Pegasus with some flowers as her cutie mark. “What’s the pay?” I asked, trying to act professional. The Russian man looked to me “3000 for each… you do this and you will be a rich man Dmitry” he explain and I stood up and placed the pictures of the targets in my camouflaged combat jacket. “Here… I trust that you shall do job well so we pay you in advance… but if you screw us then we will have your balls strung above front door to show people what happens when they cross us” the Russian man threatened as he handed over a stack of fresh paper bills.

“I wouldn’t think of it comrade” I replied, my own Russian accent was thick but a little less manly than his. I stuffed the payment into my jacket pocket and the body guards allowed me to leave.

As I left the small building I pulled out the dossier as I walked over to my truck, which was an old Willis Jeep with an M2 .50 caliber mounted on the rear. I sat in the driver seat and my friend Ivan looked over to me. “How much?” he asked, his accent was Slovakian but could easily be misinterpreted as a Russian accent. I pulled out $3000 my coat and handed it to him. “Wow… American currency… this is some high class shit” he muttered as he counted his money.

“Ivan we have to kill these two ponies… they’re supposed to be located in a place known as Stalliongrad… fuckers have no respect for mother Russia and simply ripped off name from our glorious homeland” I informed him and he nodded, too busy counting his cut of the job to care. I started the jeep and began to drive it to our destination, though the targets where technically in Stalliongrad they actually lived on the outskirts in a more secluded and isolated area.

* * *

I pulled the jeep up as close as I dared to get to the house where the intelligence forms claimed the targets to be. I pulled an SVD Dragunov out of its case and looked to my friend Ivan. “You stay, I go… cover my ass in case ponies come to rescue yeah” I told him and he mounted the M2 machinegun and nodded.

I crept along through the tall grass and eventually came to a hill top that over looked the small house down below, almost 1000 meters away, just out my rifle’s effective range but I wouldn’t dare to try and get any closer.

I laid down in the grass and deployed the bipod on the rifle and set my rifle up gently as I got ready to finish my job.

The wind was blowing slightly but it wouldn’t affect my shot all that much, compensate maybe 3 inches to the right for wind compensation and my shot would be dead on. I began to look through the rifle’s mounted scope and dialed in the range, I could see through a window of the house.

A yellow mare was making supper but it wasn’t right, she wasn’t a Pegasus she was an earth pony. I gasped to myself, had the intelligence been wrong I wondered but then I saw a red stallion and he fit his description except that he was a Pegasus, not an earth pony. “The Intel was wrong… but they are the ones” I muttered to myself.

I slowed my breathing so that my heart was beating very slowly and my hands steadied so much that my rifle’s scope sights stopped wavering. I compensated for wind direction, three inches to the right and lined up a shot with Wildhorse. My mind seemed to blank out as I pulled the trigger, my rifle boomed in my hands. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before.

The 7.62x54mmR round ejected out of the barrel like thunder, the round flew through the air and smashed through the window and struck Wildhorse in the chest. I had never killed a living thing before, minus mosquitos and small insects. Time seemed to slow down as the round devastated his body and sent it tumbling backwards in the kitchen.

I could see Rose Pedal frantically run to his body but as I went to line up a shot she left into another part of the house. “Shit” I cursed, Ivan turned to me.

“What is wrong?” he asked, his face having worry on it. We had been friends since we were little children and when we heard that the military was paying top prices for mercenary work we joined. We had stolen a bunch of old military equipment from an old Russian armoury before we came to Equestria in search of mercenary work.

“One of the targets is hiding in the house” I told him as I lifted my rifle up and set it in the back of the jeep. “What do we do?” he asked curiously as I hoped in the driver seat. I started the truck and looked to him “We finish the job” I told him as I raced the jeep towards the small house.

I kept an eye on the house to make sure that no one left the building. As I pulled the jeep up in front of the house I looked to my friend Ivan. “Cover the front door… make sure no one leaves except me, make sure you confirm your target first before you shoot” I told him and he nodded. I pulled out an old Colt SAA revolver that my father had given me. He told me “Son, this is one of the finest revolvers ever made… keep it with you always” and to this very day I hold on to the revolver and keep it with me always.

I went around to the back of the house and cocked the hammer on the revolver as I kicked down the back door and entered the home. My breathing was stuttering as I neared the body of Colonel Wildhorse. It was so different from the movies, the blood, the smell, the look on his face… it made me want to cry because I had taken his life just for money, I felt guilt in myself.

I knelt down and closed his eyes which were open and looking into the ceiling lifelessly, blood had pooled around his body and the hole in his chest had bled profusely. I tried to breathe more steadily but couldn’t, my breathing became more erratic and stuttered heavily. I quickly remembered my mission but I didn’t know if I could kill another living thing, I had already killed today and was not sure if I could do it again.

I readied my Colt .357 revolver and walked through the house slowly, making as little noise as I could. I heard weeping come from another room and I pressed my body up against the wall beside the door where the weeping was coming from. I steadied my breathing as best I could then spun out and kicked the door down. As I entered the room my revolver led the way, I spotted the yellow pony known as Rose Pedal cradling a baby foal that was wrapped in bed sheet and the foal was crying.

Posey looked to me with tear filled eyes “Please… don’t kill our baby” she cried as she tried to cover the baby. I let my mind slip and with no emotion I lifted the revolver and pulled the trigger, a lone thunderous BOOM filled the house as Rose Pedal’s head was obliterated into a bloody mess, the foal was not harmed but the blankets that covered it were drenched in blood.

I was shaking violently, not able to control myself as my emotions ran out of control and I began to weep. Though everyone on earth said that ponies were evil and needed to be exterminated I don’t know if I could ever kill again in all my days.

The foal continued to cry as I lowered the revolver to my side and holstered the gun. As the foal continued to cry I felt a burning guilt rip through me and I couldn’t bear to just leave this foal after I had just shot its parents.

I walked over to the foal that now laid on the ground in the blood soaked blankets. I began to cry as I picked up the foal and unraveled the blankets, a cute cyan foal face looked to me and stopped crying. It had beautiful cherry coloured eyes and a small mane of rainbow coloured hair. I fell to my knees and began to weep, the small Pegasus didn’t understand what was going on as I wept. The foal began to make infant noises and reached for me with her small hooves.

“I am sorry little one… I cannot undue what I have done… this is like a nightmare… I am sorry little one… I’m so sorry” I cried and my tears dripped down onto the fur of the small Pegasus foal. The Pegasus reached up to me and continued to make baby noises but managed to say “Dada”. “No little one… I am not your daddy… I have” I began but suddenly the thunderous rattle of the M2 machinegun sounded outside along with the small rattling of small arms.

I covered the body of the small foal and covered her ears and within a minute the massive machinegun stopped chugging ammunition and I could hear voices outside. I stood to my feet and cocked back the hammer on the revolver. “No more… no more will I live… I will leave this world and never return” I cried to myself.

As I entered the kitchen I heard cries of pain come from my friend Ivan along with the laughter of several other voices. I peeked out of a kitchen window and saw my friend Ivan being brutally beaten by four large stallions dressed in military fatigues. “Yeah take that you stupid human” laughed one of the stallions as he beat my friend with a club. They brought him up to his knees as an older looking mare with green fur approached with a small pistol that was designed to be shot by ponies.

She brought the pistol up to the back of my friend’s head and shot him mercilessly in the throat and the stallions all laughed as my friend Ivan began to gag in agony as blood spurted out of his throat.

My rage and fury over took me and I lifted my Colt revolver and burst from the front door. The stallions looked to me but they were too late, I quickly lined up my first shot and held the revolver on a tilted slant and pulled the trigger. As the gun recoiled and the bullet slammed into the stallion’s chest I used the recoil of the gun to transfer my aim to the next stallion and quickly shot them all down in a quick sweep, all except the mare who rolled behind the jeep and shot blindly at me from behind the cover of the jeep.

I quickly lept out of the way and cradled the baby foal. The mare lept from cover and I took a quick shot that slammed into her hip, the .357 magnum round shattered her hip bone and she was knocked to the ground. Her pistol slid from her grasp and tumbled along the ground.

I walked slowly over to the mare as she tried to pull herself towards her pistol. I kneeled down and rolled her over then brought my knee down on her chest. “You bastard ah’ll have yah know that yer messin with the one and only Sergeant Smith” she hissed and I brought the revolver up to her head. I knew that I had no more bullets left in the gun but it was simply for the fear factor of it.

I presented her the foal, “What are you doing… answer me you filthy ape” Smith scowled and I holstered my revolver and pulled out a wad of cash. “I am not the father… I killed her parents… please send her to school and give her a better life” I told Smith and her angered face calmed down a little bit. “You… you filthy…” she began but I looked to her with desperate eyes. “Please… I do not think that raising this foal would be the greatest of ideas… please will you make sure she lives a good life” I pleaded and she grumbled to herself.

“Fine… I’ll send her to flight school where she’ll be well looked after but I must warn you… she’ll probably hunt you down one day” Smith warned and I nodded and handed her the foal as I got up and dragged one of the stallions over who had a long rang radio strapped to his back. “Call in a rescue, and for the record I died” I told her and she grunted to herself in pain. “Well where’s your body?” Smith asked and I walked over and pulled an old Russian RGD-5 fragmentation grenade and tossed it into the house.

The grenade exploded as I pulled out a Molotov cocktail and lit the rag and tossed that to into the house. Within minutes the house was burning to the ground and I looked to Smith and nodded, she gave me an angered look as I hopped into the jeep and drove away, crying to myself and contemplating suicide because of my horrible actions. I had just killed multiple living beings and for what? A job? Payment?.