Chapter 1: The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails

Dat title... alright guys, ANOTHER new story. This story is going to be… interesting? Special? Completely insane? Yes. Yes it will be. Now, I'd also like to say that this story is not my original idea nor is the main character. Both are property of my friend SoloAcrobat6 who's just too lazy to actually write. So I simply write, he looks over edits, tells me all the shit I'm doing wrong and I fix. So this story is pretty much co-authored. However, as the usual theme between my stories, irrelevant chapter titles based off of songs in my iPod. Anyways have fun trying to understand this story!

I sat up... I glanced towards my clock. It read 4 am.
"Huh... slept in", I muttered to myself. I also realized I didn't have any nightmares... at least not that I could remember. Today was looking up to be a good day. And then I remembered that I had work today. "Fuck..."
I got off my bed and swore again. I walked to my bathroom and swore a third time. After going through my morning routine the same word escaped my mouth a fourth time. I exited my room and for the fifth consecutive time, swore. I made my way to the mess hall swearing left and right. I already lost count by the time I was eating breakfast. I was the only pony in the mess hall at this hour, though to be fair, no pony was awake even when I woke up on time. I ate standard bran cereal and milk. Call me boring or whatever, it was delicious. I swore as I finished. I don't normally swear so much but today just seemed like a day to swear a lot. I put my dishes in the sink and made my way to my boss's office. Ugh... technically he wasn't my boss, more like... my owner I guess. I walked into his office.
"Hey asshole! I'm here to get my job", I yelled at the stallion sitting at the lone desk. On opposite sides of the room were giant vaults. He was in the middle of writing something when I had burst in. He looked up to see me. He glanced at the watch on his wrist.
"You're running late", he mused before returning to his paperwork.
"I'm still earlier than anypony else", I replied. Arguably the weirdest thing about my boss, Royal Masquerade, is that I've actually never seen him sleep. He's working when I go to bed and when I wake up... nor have I seen him eat. But after being around him for the past 15 years of my life, I got used to all the weird things he doesn't do. I sat and waited for Royal to give me my assignment but he seemed to get absorbed into the paperwork, another habit I had grown fairly accustomed to. I summoned my bow with my ice magic and notched a simple magic arrow. I aimed at his head and fired. Without looking, because he likes showing off, he caught the arrow with his hoof that had been holding down the paper. He looked up, noticed the arrow in his hoof and then noticed me again. He then remembered what he had to do and got up. He walked into the vault on my right side and disappeared for about ten seconds. He emerged with a file in his magical grasp. He handed it to me and I opened it to find a picture of a stallion with several papers. I went back to staring at Royal. He glanced at me before resuming his work.
"Right, forgot", he said before setting his quill down again. "Your target this time is a drug lord in Arcoltina. Goes by the name El Droga."
"Really? Droga is a feminine word though", I said, finding it funny that some drug lord used a feminine word as their street name.
"Doesn't really matter, he'll be dead within the next week... right?" He asked me, getting very serious. I smiled at him.
"Who knows, might get distracted along the way", I replied. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his snout.
"If only you spent the same amount of effort on your job as you do trying to make mine more difficult", he muttered loud enough for me to hear.
"Then you'd get bored", I said, grinning. He sighed.
"Just get going", he said, going back to his paperwork.
"What level is this mission?" I asked quickly before he could get going. He briefly closed his eyes and scrunched his nose, looking like he was trying to remember.
"A+" he answered. I had a problem with that.
"What? Then why am I going? Can't you just send someone else?" I asked.
"Well sure if you want to wait around until something S rank or above shows up", he replied. I grumbled a bit, calling him a bitch and a few other unpleasant terms. He smiled and added, "You could always help me with my job."
"Arcoltina right? Should be easy enough", I said, getting up and leaving. Even though I knew that was what he wanted, there was no way I was going to help him with anything. I walked all the way back to my room. It was only 4:30 by now and no one else was awake. I then searched through my room trying to find my only friend. I couldn't find him so I just went with plan b.
"Gecko? Where are you? I got another mission today", I called out. I waited a few moments before a tiny green head popped out of one of my pillows. "... What were you doing in there?"
It blinked both eyes slowly and separately. I understood what this meant of course, having learned the language of geckos a while ago.
"Well I'm sorry. I don't have the funds for that right now", I tell him. He gives me a stare. "... Do I?"
Gecko walked out of the pillow and over to a piece of paper on the nightstand. He gestured to a number that was circled in the middle of the page.
"Oh… I'll get one when we get back", I told him. He blinked one eye. "I recollect no such thing. Come one, let's get going before Royal gets mad."
He crawled off the nightstand before crawling into one of my cloak's pockets. I loved this cloak, it made me look all the more badass. I grabbed my two saddle bags and slung them under the cloak expertly. I briefly did a mental checklist of everything before heading out. Oh but wait! There was one last item. I began setting up booby traps all over my room. They ranged from explosives with the destructive power to easily destroy an entire block in a city to deadly, hoofcrafted nerve poisons that killed one in about a minute… I have yet to develop an antidote for those but I'll deal with that later. I closed my door before setting one final explosive. It wasn't that I didn't trust anypony in the guild, it's just that I don't trust anypony in the guild with going into my room… or at all. So I left with all my saddlebags and gecko in my pocket. On my way out, I almost ran into Solar Flicker.
"Off on a mission?" She asked me. I took the time to nod my head as I continued on my path. While most would find this rude, the ponies of the guild have gotten used to this. The only pony I really talked to was ironically Royal. "Good luck!"
I lightly scoffed at the idea that I would need luck. I was fully confident that I was the best assassin in the guild and I have yet to fail a mission. I made my way out of the guild, which was located in the canopy of the jungle we were in. It was a usual day in the temperate rain forest of Brazil. I jumped from the entry and fell a good 100 hooves and activated an anti-gravity spell to slow me down to where I softly landed on the ground floor.
"Alright gecko, which way to Arcoltina?" I asked. I felt a bit of movement from my pocket and felt a scurry of feet as gecko clambered onto my head. I waited there for a few moments before he made his way to the bridge of my snout and pointed in a direction. I smiled and began walking that way. It was about an 1800 mile walk just to get to Coltdoba. I couldn't teleport there sadly as it left too easy of a trace when teleporting long distances so I could only do it for an emergency. It was a long and arduous walk to Coltdoba. I often entertained myself by shooting ice arrows into various things that caught my eye. Eventually, I got so bored of walking that after several days, I began teleporting short distances to travel faster. I also struck up conversation with gecko between breaks to help pass the time.
"I'm going to kill Royal when we get back", I told gecko. He gave me a blank stare. "I'm being serious. I know I've said it in the past, but I'm going to succeed this time… just need to plan this out thoroughly."
Gecko just looked away. I scoffed at him, "I can so pull it off. There isn't a single pony I've failed to kill so far."
Gecko turned back to face me.
"... Royal is still a work in progress so he doesn't count", I say. One of gecko's eyes blinked. "I mean I've only tried poisons, explosives, choking him using cloth, breaking his neck, cracking his head open with a tortoise, scaphism, mercury… the metal, roasting him alive, sabotaging his chair, lava and death by tripping. What do you think I should try next?"
Gecko blinked the same eye two times consecutively and then blinked the other.
"What? Make him to die from a bladder ailment by forcing him to not go to the bathroom for weeks?" I asked him. He blinked an eye. "That's not what you said at all? Oh I understand, try a normal method. Pffft, there's no way that'd work."
Gecko seemed to sigh before looking forward.
"... Fine. I'll focus on the task for hand", I grumble. It was unnecessary though as was one of the easier missions I'd taken in the past few months. If it was only an A+, then the only hard part should be finding him. But since I wouldn't have to take this too seriously, which I never took anything seriously, I could try to think of funny or ironic ways to kill him. Since he was a drug lord, the most ironic way to kill him would be to somehow kill him with drugs. Obviously, I could overdose him but that almost seemed too bland. I considered asphyxiation via drugs and just shoving them down his throat until he choked and died. There was throwing him into one of the machines and wish for the most hilarious outcome. I sighed. There wasn't much to work with and not much time either.
"What do you want to eat gecko?" I asked my companion. He turned and blinked both eyes together. "Okay, what do want to eat that I can make with the ingredients at hoof?"
It responded with a lone blink.
"Do you know how long it's going to take to catch one of those?" I asked him. He jumped off of my snout and walked through some brush, disappearing from sight. "Oh, real mature. Just walk away like nothing happened."
I kept walking for a good 15 minutes before something hit me right on the snout. I swore and looked down, only for five more things to hit my head. I pulled my bow out, notched a magic arrow and pointed it to the sky… only to watch gecko slowly descend from a tree using a makeshift hang glider of leaves. I watched him until he landed on the ground, which was when I noticed what had hit me from above. On the ground were six Rufous-bellied Thrushs. I looked back to gecko and he was staring at me, unblinking.
"Freaking show off", I muttered as I picked up the Thrushs with my magic and continued walking, hiding my bow back into my cloak. As we walked, I would pluck leaves and fruits in preparation for dinner.
It took me a total of 8 days to reach Coltdoba. I sighed in relief as I began walking along the streets. Now all I had to do was find the most rundown, criminally active, whatever-can-pass-as-a-bar here. Then find the biggest and baddest thug in there and utterly beat the shit out of him and hopefully he knows something about El Drago. If not, I can just keep beating the shit out of ponies till I get some info. I searched around the streets for a while, but couldn't find anything that seemed of value. I looked up at the sun, it was probably only about 5 pm so I'd have to wait for night to fall before the underground activity to begin.
"Where do you think we should go?" I asked gecko. Instead of looking at me, his body shivered a bit. "Good idea."
So we searched around for a safe place to sleep that would be out of the way. I found the perfect place on the roof of a church for something. The only slightly difficult part was getting up there with no pony noticing. Apparently cloaked figures aren't that unusual of a sight in Coltdoba. I spent the rest of my day watching from the roofs of buildings, spying on the civilians to try to see where the most likely place to get information could be. By the time night fell, I had a location in mind. It didn't have a name… or at least the sign had been so badly damaged that I couldn't read the name of the establishment. I jump down to the street below, the cover of darkness shielding me from unnecessary gazes. I strode, full of confidence, up to the doors of the bar. At least it sounded and smelled like a bar. The sounds of ponies talking, arguing and fighting. The smells of cigars, alcohol, sweat and blood.
"You should go back into a pocket", I told gecko, who had been resting on my head. He climbed down under my cloak, opened a pocket and climbed in before closing it. I took a deep breath before opening the doors. As if there were some magical barrier, the sounds and smells that were outside were exponentially amplified as soon as I opened the door. I strode up to the counter, ponies' conversations dying as they turned to stare at me. I got to the counter, where the bartender had been eyeing my coming the entire way.
"I'm looking for El Droga", I said in a loud enough voice to get everypony's attention. Now, all gazes fell to me and the bar was practically silent. An old stallion was snoring in the corner.
"Don't know 'im", the bartender replied, breaking eye contact.
"Oh really? That's unfortunate. I really need to find him", I tell him. It wasn't long before a big stallion walked up next to me and slammed his hoof down next to mine… it was almost cute.
"What's your business with El Droga?" He asked me. I turned and flashed my best smile at him.
"I have normal business with him", I answered, which for some strange reason ticked off the big stallion even more.
"And who are you?" He asked me, his stance getting much more aggressive as a few other stallions surrounded me.
"Just your normal stallion looking for a drug lord", I said. "Would you happen to know where I can find him?"
"Yeah I do know, but I ain't tellin' you", he replied. I glance around at the other stallions.
"Why not? It's nothing bad, I just want to know where he is… pretty please?" I asked, faking puppy dog eyes. That was enough to trigger his drunken rage. He swung at me. I just moved out of his reach and grabbed his head and slammed it onto the counter. Then I used my elemental ice magic to summon a small ice shard about the size of a dagger and stabbed it through his cheeks, sticking into the counter. Without looking, I dodged the stallion's punch from behind me and turned around and bucked his other foreleg, causing him to topple over. I quickly grabbed a near by stool and spun with it, dodging another punch before slamming it onto the third stallion. It burst into a hundred pieces as he collapsed. I noticed the fourth stallion coming in to tackle me out of my peripherals. I extended my hoof to collide with his face and completely killed his momentum. I grabbed his neck and threw him into the second stallion who had just gotten back up. They fell and didn't get back up. I used one of my rear legs to kick the third guy who was still on the ground and in a daze, in the face. He didn't get back up either. I turned to the first stallion who had been trying to get the ice shard out of his face. His eyes widened in terror as he saw me approaching him.
"So… now will you tell me about El Droga?" I asked him nicely. He didn't reply, but his eyes sure as hell said that he was going to comply. I grabbed the ice shard and ripped it out. As soon as it was out though, he tried to run off but my hoof stopped him. "I sure hope you're going to lead me to El Droga."
I said it like a request, but my tone indicated that it was a demand. He simply nodded and walked off at a slower pace, but still briskly. I followed him out, all gazes on me were ranging from surprise to terror to just raw baffle. I had that kind of effect on ponies.
He led me through the dark streets of Coltdoba. It was funny how he kept glancing at me fearfully as if I would hurt him more. The thought was totally absurd, he hadn't done anything to warrant being in more pain yet. I followed him for a good ten minutes and began wondering if he was leading me into a trap or somewhere random until we ended up at a mansion that totally stood out compared to the other places around the area.
"Th-This is where he lives", he stuttered to me. I looked at him and then to the mansion which was completely dark.
"He lives here now?" I asked him.
"Yes. But he's away right now and won't be back till tomorrow", he told me. I glanced at him. My biggest hinderance was of course him now. If El Droga really didn't come back till tomorrow and I waited to get him then, this stallion or somepony else could warn him of me coming which could make things less fun.
"Alrighty then. Thanks for all the help", I told him in fake cheer. He faced me and seemed to hesitate to ask something. I waited for him to find his words.
"Who… who are you?" He asked me. This caused me to genuinely smile… but it wasn't a very innocent smile.
"The question you should be asking is, 'who am I?''" I told him, charging a spell.
"That… that is what I asked", he said confusedly. I looked at him.
"What? No, you asked who I am?" I said.
"Yeah…" The confusion was clear on his face.
"I'm asking you to ask 'who am I?'" I replied.

"... I hear it now. Just… just… shut up", I said and casted my spell, wiping his memory to be blank as scratch paper. He seemed momentarily stunned and then he started looking around.
"Where am I? Who are you? Who… am I? What happened to my face?" He asked me, his eyes showing a mixture of confusion, fear and anxiety.
"See, you asked it", I told him. I began walking away. "Anyways have fun."
I jumped up to the nearest ceiling and began making my way back to the bar. I couldn't wipe the minds of every pony that had been there. When I arrived at a building where I could spy on the bar, coincidentally, the other three stallions stumbled out of the bar. They were limping and supporting each other.
"Hey gecko", I called. I felt one of my pockets open and he climbed up to my snout. I looked down at the three. "Think you can take care of them?"
I got no physical response from him.
"Alright, just make sure not to kill them", I said and he replied with a little bit of a nod. He jumped off my snout and almost floated down to the street below. I began making my way to the ceiling of the church. By the time I reached it, I heard a scream in the distance and smiled. Hopefully gecko wouldn't get too rowdy. I laid down and stared up at the night sky, waiting for either gecko to come back or for sleep to overtake me.
Gecko ended up making it back before I fell asleep. He strolled up to my face and sat in front of me.
"How'd it go?" I asked him. He blinked both eyes twice simultaneously. "Oh how nice of you. Calling the medics for them so they'll be in hospital, or whatever they have here, when El Droga arrives."
He crawled into one of my pockets in my cloak. He shifted around a bit before I was back all alone with my thoughts. I stared up at the moon, just like I've been doing for as long as I could remember. I wasn't admiring it or the night. Beauty had been a concept I had long forgotten about. Eventually, the lure of sleep started tugging at my subconscious. I closed my eyes and felt myself drift off into the darkness of my conscious.
I woke up to the moon drifting down, almost breaking onto the horizon. Light was also starting to filter in from behind me. I guessed that it was probably a little past four. Again, I had slept in late twice in a month. Not to mention today was the fourth day in a row that my sleep went undisturbed with a nightmare. I didn't have time to try to figure out was going on with my sleep as I had a glorious trap to set up. I made my way to the mansion that supposedly housed El Droga. Even though I hadn't sensed that the stallion was lying, I still didn't have concrete evidence. But how could I pass up the opportunity to set up a giant trap inside a mansion?
I arrived at the mansion and quickly found a balcony that had its doors wide open, because ponies really couldn't even consider that assassins just went around doing assassin things. I entered the mansion and quickly found out that there were still servants in the mansion. Some of them just seemed like orphans or such who had been picked up off the streets. Well they were about to find themselves jobless so it's not like I should care. I slinked about the mansion… because slinking was totally a thing I did. I moved through blind spots and even navigated the walls and ceiling to avoid any notice. I configured a mental map of the entire mansion and every room; there were only two stories, the bottom seemed mostly like where the dining took place and where the servants quartered. The top floor housed the master bedroom and bathroom as well as the living room and various other rooms for guests and such. I glanced outside in my current hiding spot and guessed that it was about 6:30. I didn't know the exact time he was going to get back so I didn't have a time frame to set the trap… which just made it more fun. And then there was the added fun of planning a perfect trap around the servants who were currently here so that only El Droga would set it off. My mind went into overdrive as I locked myself in a room and pulled out my sketchbook. I began drawing a blueprint of the mansion from a head-on, left, right and aerial viewpoints along with several rooms that had caught my attention. I spent three hours drawing, erasing and perfecting ideas. Then I had gecko give me his opinion on everything so that took another two hours of editing before we had planned everything to perfection. Luckily he hadn't come home in that time or else I would have killed him out of spite. It took surprisingly only another hour to set up the trap. And then… the waiting game.
So it turns out that he didn't get arrive till nightfall and I had almost fallen asleep from sheer boredom. I quickly double checked the beginning steps of the trap before taking my place to greet him. I hid in a shadow and awaited for everything to go perfectly. The doors swung open and a stallion whose face matched that of El Droga's walked in, greeted by several servants. He simply ignored them and continued walking. My breath hitched in anticipation as the trap would be triggered through a single tile. Yes, I had taken the time to statistically calculate the probability of him stepping on a single tile that nopony else would have stepped on throughout the entire day. And there he was! About to step on it! A soft clicking noise that drew everyone's attention sounded as he placed his hoof down on that tile. Everyone looked around a little confusedly until a crash and a scream sounded upstairs. Everypony began rushing upstairs to find the source of the noise. I strutted out into the now vacant entryway and double checked my looks just to make sure I looked as sharp as possible. Then I cast a spell that replicated a constant breeze that caused my robe to flutter a bit, heightening my badassness by at least a factor of four. I stood there for a good ten minutes as the trap I set up caused them to run around the mansion as various things happened. Most of it was just harmless pranks really, with a few explosives mixed into the bunch to heighten the surprise. It wasn't long before El Droga stumbled back into the entryway breathing heavily. In front of him was the thing that he had been chasing throughout the mansion, which looked like a little brown ball but was secretly an avocado pit… not that I'd tell him. He seemed to notice me now that the avocado pit had rolled to my hoof.
"You? Are you the cause for such destruction in my home?" He asked me. His tone had started off initially as surprise but seemed to descend into anger and was on its way to pure rage.
"Why yes I am good sir", I answered with a smile. This further edged him towards rage.
"Do you have any idea who I am?!" He yelled at me and pulled out a knife… which was weird because he wasn't wearing any clothes. He took a step towards me, only to find an arrow go into the knee of the leg he had stepped forwards with. He collapsed on the ground in a grunt of pain as I took a deep breath.
"Wow, you had me worried. You moved .233 seconds before my calculations and I almost missed. That would have been really embarrassing", I said, wiping my brow to display mock nervousness. I strolled over to him in a purposefully slower pace than usual to look more badass. I also created an ice swords and smiled brightly as I saw fear in his eyes. He stumbled to get back up and tried to exit the entryway but found the door he came in from closed from my magic. He turned back to me, this was were he'd start trying to negotiate.
"Wh-What do you want? Money? I have lots of money! Name your price! Whoever's paying you I'll double it easily!" He sputtered frantically as I was almost within striking distance. I didn't stall at all and kept advancing. "Triple! Quadruple! Drugs! I can give you drugs! Mares! I can give you mares that I had trained! Anything please! Just don't kill me!"
I was practically on top of him by now and was just grinning down to his crying form. I reached with my free hoof and patted his head, causing him to flinch at first.
"Aw, you misunderstand good sir...", I tell him and he looks up to me, some hope in his eyes. Then, in a bone-chilling voice (or my ice magic just causing the temperature to drop for dramatic effect) I continued. "... You're already dead."
I reached down and ripped the normal arrow from his knee as more blood splurted on the ground and he yelled in shock… and pain. It was probably pain.
"What… What are you saying?" He asked me. I put the arrow back into my quiver and I began walking away. "Wait! Where do you think you're going?"
"Well I know I'm going back home because my mission is done here", I answer as I leave. I could hear him try to say something else but before he could, he started coughing violently and the sound of liquid splashed on the ground. I left the mansion and smiled brightly. Poison was always such a fun way to kill ponies because it just was so surprising if used correctly. I looked up at the moon and began heading back home.

Well there we go. Chapter one of this new story of our rogue assassin with arguably the worst name in history. So please don't forget to review and tell us what you thought of this story. I can guarantee if you stick with this story, you will not be able to guess what's going to come in the future. And remember, if you ever want to use this mc, then you're going to have to ask SoloAcrobat6 and not me. If you ask me, I WILL END YOU! Or redirect you to him. Depends on the mood I'm in.
Ha-ha, thanks my friend. This is the lazy bastard SoloAcrobat6, nice to have this thing actually going somewhere. Well hope you all have some sort of feeling for this story my friend and I have put together, otherwise I will have my assassins kill you! Or slap you with disgust. Both if you get it just right! Order depends, so yeah... Bye.