Team Fortress 2: Operation Friendship

Chapter 8

Twilight walked over to the Sniper. She was slightly apprehensive about meeting him. He seemed so distant and cold, and above all else, unfriendly. “Then again, I never anticipated ever liking anybody in Ponyville, but look where I am now. Maybe it won’t be so bad.” she thought to herself.

The Sniper looked her over for a few moments. “Whats your name?” he asked.

“Twilight Sparkle”

“Hmph” He turned around. For a minute or two, he said nothing. Then, without warning, he threw his kukri at her, which landed inches in front of her. “Lesson one, mate: Don’t trust anyone.”

Twilight stared at the sword in shock. “Y-You could have killed me!”

“Mate, if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. Alright, what do you think bein’ a sniper is about?”

Twilight managed to regain her composure, but was still slightly shaken. “Um, is it about killing people with that gun of yours?”

“Wrong, mate. Its about perception. Its about patience. And above all, its about gettin’ them before they get you. Any bloke with a gun can kill somebody. It takes the right kind of person, a sniper, to be good at it. Now, lets get started.” He gestured towards his collection of sniper rifles. He picked up the first one, a simple rifle with a wooden stock and a brass scope. “This is your basic sniper rifle. You will use this during our training. We can get more advanced as you get better.” He looked at Twilight. “Hmm, that might be a problem...”

“What?”

“Ya don’t have hands, mate.”

“Oh, that’s no problem.” Her horn began to glow, and she then levitated the gun up next to her.

The Sniper eyed the magic with distaste. “Alright, mate, take aim at that plank over there, the one I painted a red crosshair on.”

Twilight lined up the rifle and took a shot, which completely missed her target.

“Mate, the thing has a scope for a reason”

“Um, yeah, sorry.” Twilight took aim again, this time looking down the scope. She fired another round, this time hitting just short of the plank.

“Better, but try to control your breathing more. Take a deep breath, and exhale. When your breath reaches the bottom of the exhalation, pull the trigger.”

Twilight took a deep breath. She exhaled and fired. The round hit the edge of crosshair on the plank. “I did it!”

“Not a bad job for your first time, mate, but you aren’t nearly good enough yet.” They spent the rest of the day practicing with the sniper. Twilight was becoming a much better shot, she managed to hit the target about fifty percent of the time. After a while, the Sniper noticed Twilight was fatigued from the hours of concentration used to levitate the gun. “How bout’ you give it a rest, mate.”

Twilight gratefully put down the weapon. “I sure am thirsty.” She noticed a jar full of a yellow liquid. She levitated it to her mouth and was about to take a sip.

“Wait! Don’t drink that stuff, mate.”

“Whats wrong with it?”

“You don’t wanna know...... Here, drink this.” He opened his pack and took out a canteen and tossed it over to her. She took several long draughts from the canteen. After she had finished, she asked, “So how is it you made it on the RED team?”

“Well, when I was a teenager, I dropped out of school. As you can imagine, not many people wanna hire a bloke without an education. Then one day, I met this man. He said he would pay top dollar for rare and exotic game found in the Australian outback. I was on the verge of starvation, so I went out in search of game. I was traveling for days with no luck, but then I found it: a massive emu.”

“Whats an emu?”

“Its a massive bird that can’t fly and is about as high as my knees. It might sound pretty ridiculous, but they can rip you apart with their talons, and are quick as hell. Anyways, this one was bloody huge, almost reaching my chest. I spent weeks tracking it, until finally, I managed to get it. I brought it back to the collector, who in turn paid me a handsome sum of cash. I then started tracking animals full-time. I learned a lot of valuable things during my time in the outback, most importantly that you don’t need to rely on anybody if you never miss. One day, Redmond approached me, said he needed someone with my skills. And I have been working with him ever since.”

“So how do you like Equestria?”

“Its alright. Not everyone here is too friendly though....”

“What do you mean?”

“Whats her name, Celestia. She’s a real piece of work.” he said spitefully

Twilight frowned. “What happened?”

“She’s had it out for us the minute we stepped through the portal. She threw the Scout across the room.  He may have mouthed off to her, but he’s only a kid. And later, during the whole assassin incident, when she Spy shot the assassin, she went straight for his throat, and didn’t even bother looking at what happened.”

“Now that you mention it, she has seemed to be very short tempered with you.”

“Yeah.” The Sniper checked his watch. “Its about time to head back. Go get some rest, and we can continue in the morning.”

“Goodnight.” said Twilight. The Sniper just tipped his hat and walked away. Once she entered the castle, she did not take a right into the bedroom. Instead, she entered the throne room.

Celestia saw Twilight enter and smiled. “How can I help you, my faithful student?”

“Um, Princess, can I have a word?”

“Of course, whats troubling you?”

“Well, I’ve noticed that you aren’t exactly very friendly to RED. You seem despise them.”

Celestia frowned. “I didn’t want to have to tell you this, because it might distract you from your training, but okay. This.....isn’t the first time we have had humans here. The first was a man by the name of Cave Johnson. He was a scientist. We accepted him with open hooves. He stayed a few days, and when I felt that it was time for him to go, he asked us if he could stay a little longer for research purposes. I saw no problem with that, so I did him one better and gave him a laboratory here in Canterlot. About a week later, I went to check on him. He didn’t respond when I knocked, so I let myself in. I found the butchered carcass of a young unicorn lying on his table, surrounded by several research papers. We looked high and low for him, but he somehow managed to get back to his world. It was then that I realized that humans were not creatures of curiosity that Cave claimed himself to be, they were creatures of destruction. I would have never bothered with RED team, but honestly, we stand no chance of victory unless we enlist their help.”

“Thats-Thats horrible!”

“Yes. But don’t let it distract you from your training. You need to learn their methods as well if we are to succeed. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should follow them blindly. The last thing I want is for any of you to get hurt. Now, it’s late and you need your rest.”

“Yes Princess.”

"Goodnight Twilight"

"Goodnight, Princess." Twilight turned around and went to her bunk room, where she spent a restless night thinking about her conversation with the Princess.