Chapter 2: 4 Words (To Choke Upon) by Bullet For My Valentine

Wow, this story did a lot better than we'd hoped. 3 favorites and 4 follows? You guys are too kind. So thank you Mr. H.R., Nickle7654, thenextnexus, and cloud iconshadow for your support. I hope you all enjoy this next chapter featuring this main character that I haven't actually stated his name yet in the story but I hope it's pretty easy to guess. This is my first upload of college. I'm going to try to update a story at least once a month. Hopefully college will be easy enough for me to keep that schedule.

I woke up, breathing slightly ragged. I checked the time. It was barely three in the morning. I had that 'nightmare' again. It's been plaguing me for a while now. While the image of it was still fresh, I rushed over to my sketch book and flipped to a random blank page. I grabbed a pencil and began drawing. I drew the focus of my dream which was a stallion, adorned in all forms of jewelry. His face and his color scheme were all shadowed out. Though from his figure, which is why I guess he's a stallion and a unicorn, he almost looked like a teenager. Or just really skinny. I drew his cape, which he was wearing wrong and as an expert cape-wearer, didn't make him look badass at all. I drew the background, an ominous sky almost like an empty void. There were swirls of darkness, no stars and no clouds. I drew in the plane which he stood on to the horizon where I cut it off. I drew in shadows of… demons. That was my best word for what they were, all lined up behind him almost like an army. I drew fires and piles of bodies across the plane. I then drew the rain. It bothered me a bit, considering that there were no clouds. Oh, and the rain was blood but… there weren't any clouds. Then I drew what bothered me the most from this dream. In front of the stallion was a book. I had no idea what it was a book of, but if the book was in the foreground then it couldn't be good. I put my pencil down and went over to my light and turned it on. Drawing by the light from my horn was easier for me but it strained my vision. I picked up the picture and used a nail to nail it to the wall. I now had a collection of 47 drawings of this same dream. I studied the new drawing and its predecessor for any signs of difference. I saw it and it came in the form of an extra bracelet on his left forehoof. I sighed at how insignificant it was but maybe it had some obscure, totally vague importance that the universe would somehow find a way to make my life even more of a hell.

If there was one thing however that really shook me up about this dream of death, carnage and other stereotypical things about the end of the world, it was that I was not the stallion. It's like my own mind was telling me to give up on my hopes of getting to kill everypony. But I was not swayed. I had my resolution. And so here I was, talking to myself in my head. It's been a few weeks since the last time I got a mission and I was probably dying of boredom. Wait… yep, dying of boredom. I'd probably only last another week or so before my body just gave up.

I sighed and laid back down in bed. Then, my door creaked open. I sprung up, flung my bow in the corner at myself, grabbed it, grabbed one of the arrows under my pillow and notched it. My door opened slowly and a paper airplane flew in… very slowly. I watched it all the way as it glided to me and hit me in the nose. It fell to the ground, but I grabbed it with my magic. I stared at it, then to the door, back to the paper airplane and then ended on the door. I dropped my bow and arrow, briefly questioning the reason I was alive. I thought about the approximate time it took for the sun's rays to hit earth. How did coconut crabs come into existence? Are stem cells really the answer to cancer? How much literal wood could a metaphorical woodchuck literally chuck, if a metaphorical woodchuck could literally chuck metaphorical wood? If Sally was selling sea shells down by the sea shore to raise money for stem cell research, wouldn't she get attacked by coconut crabs as part of the coconut crab-metaphorical woodchuck alliance in return for their literal wood? None of these questions would ever explain to me how these paper airplanes that Royal sent out opened doors. But then again, my job is to kill others, not question the rules of the world. I grudgingly grabbed it with my hooves and opened it. It depicted an analog clock that had the hands at 3:15. I checked my analog clock. It was 3:06. This was a summons to Royal's office. Which only meant one thing that caused me a brief burst of happiness. It was a mission. And a good one at that. I stumbled out of bed and tripped onto my face. I got up and quickly performed my morning rituals. I finished and sped out of my room, almost hitting the door on my way out. I trotted all the way to Royal's office, kicking the door open just for effect. He looked up from his desk and checked his clock.

"A little early, but oh well", he mused before going back to his paperwork. I walked up to his desk and slammed my hooves gently onto his desk.

"I know you have a mission for me!" I declared boldly. Royal just looked up at me.

"... Obviously. I don't know why else I would summon you here", he said. I flashed him a smile.

"Maybe you just enjoy my company", I said.

"Do you want your mission?" He asked.

"Yes."

"Then shut the hell up", he said, rummaging through some papers. "You have no idea how hard it was to get this mission from the IAGA."

"Wait you went to the IAGA?" I asked.

"Yeah. I've been gone for like a week", he replied.

"What?! You've been gone for a whole week?! Why didn't you tell me?!" I yelled at him.

"Because you would have done something stupid that would have made my life more difficult."

"Exactly! Honestly, so inconsiderate", I said, shaking my head. He just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Can we just get to briefing?" He asked. I nodded, if the mission came from the IAGA's headquarters then it was going to be a fun one. "Good. So you're heading out to Saddle Arabia."

"Wait, I thought you forbid me from going there since the last incident", I said.

"Yes. But this will possibly help pay back the damage you caused the last time for the government", he said. I raised a brow.

"They still have a government?" I asked.

"Barely. It's not stable at all though. Maybe that's what happens when the leader is found drowned… in pudding."

"How was I supposed to know you can't breathe in pudding?"

"Do you have ANY idea how much paperwork and fines I got just from the IAGA?"

"I was just trying to introduce pudding to a pudding-less country! And made the assumption that the best way to do that would be through a room filled completely with pudding to the leader of the government… which sure, in hindsight, wasn't the most thought out plan to introduce pudding."

"You sparked a goddamn civil war between the two main religions in the country!"

"Oh… I'm sorry?"

"Was that a question?"

"Maybe?"

"... You know what, I'm done. Let's just get this over with and have you leave. You're going to Saddle Arabia to take out a growing terrorist faction that's trying to develop a weapon of mass destruction."

"Oh? Is that it?"

"You have to make it look like an accident."

"... What?"

"You need to make it look like an accident. The government nor the civilians can know about foreign involvement in this."

"So I need to take out an entire terrorist group, but make it all look like an accident?"

"Yes. As such, this mission has been given a S+ rank. So not the hardest you've completed but don't fuck up."

"... Royal?"

"Yeah?" I walked up to him and put my hoof onto his shoulder as a lone tear rolled down my left cheek while I looked off into the distance.

"Thank you."

"... Where are you looking?"

"The future Royal… the future."

"Wow… you've really been bored."

"You have no idea!" I said as I flourished out of the room. Yes… flourished. I flourish out of rooms sometimes. Who am I thinking to? Oh right, Gecko. Gecko then poked his head out of my cloak pocket.

"Were you sleeping in there?" I asked him. I got a blink. "Fucking weirdo… oh we're going to Saddle Arabia! Don't look at me like that. It's a mission. Yes, from Royal. I know right! I'm so excited!"

We entered my room where I grabbed my bow and arrows, my saddlebags and set up my traps. I set 37 this time and made a note in my sketchbook about that. I left the guild without anypony else seeing me and made my way happily to the direction that Saddle Arabia was in.

(Timeskip)

So by the time I got to Saddle Arabia, you could describe my mood as ready to bring down a terrorist organization, dethrone a corrupt king, then his son who was a good leader, spark a war between two nations and then kill the all the major leaders in both countries which would leave the citizens in disarray and at war. In other words, I was bordering being pissed and really happy. They were basically the same thing for me. First off, Gecko was a little bitch about choosing a boat. I just wanted to take the first boat that would take us BUT NO! He had to do his research, and his bartering, and do the economic choice, and find the shortest route to make sure that the… boat stallion (whatever the fuck you called him, I don't care right now) didn't rip us off. And guess who's boat was attacked by a Kraken?! Some boat that was like 5 miles away from us. I found it hilarious as the Kraken basically ripped the boat in half. But then the boat stallion started freaking out about the Kraken for whatever reason, and said that unless the Kraken was killed then we wouldn't go any further. So I did the only thing logical… I killed the boat stallion and ate him. Okay not really, I only locked him in the below part of the boat and he ate himself to death. That, or the mountain lion that he had been transporting to somewhere else ate him. Which seemed much more plausible. But eating one's self to death just had a certain flair to it. So the ride to Omane was for free, which was nice. Turns out though, that you can't park a boat on a beach. Who knew? So we lost the boat and walked the rest of the way to Saddle Arabia. Also, the temperature in Saddle Arabia is actually hotter than Brazil. Sure, Brazil is more humid and stuffy but Saddle Arabia was HOT. I actually had to walk around with my ice armor so I could keep wearing my cape. Wait, who am I thinking to again?

"Wait!" I shouted as I stopped walking. Gecko popped his head out of one of my pockets. "We totally forgot to tell the people who seized our boat about the mountain lion we had locked in the under part of the ship that was probably starving… that would have been hilarious to watch."

I'm pretty sure Gecko rolled his eyes at me, but I was distracted when I stepped into shade. I looked at the building that was now between me and the sun. It was maybe only three stories tall but was very long. It was almost too easy to guess that there was a basement or something dumb like that. There were several banners on the outside with whatever the written language here is called. Posters showing ponies being killed. Some kind of symbol or whatnot.

"You think this is it?" I asked Gecko. I didn't get a reply so I just decided to kill everypony inside. I walked up to the doors, which was actually guarded by two stallions that I had failed to notice. In fact, they were yelling at me with swords drawn and walking up towards me. They yelled at me in their Saddle Arabian. From their tone and the way they were flailing their swords, this was clearly a friendly welcoming party. I replied in kind with my formal greeting of an ice dagger to the neck. They didn't seem to take kindly to that. They actually dropped dead. So I grabbed their bodies and dragged them inside. There, I met another Arab. He drew his sword in greeting and got an ice dagger in his neck in reply. Hm, he also dropped dead. Maybe I was greeting them wrong? Probably their culture or something. So I changed my tactics. The next stallion I met, I too greeted him with a sword. But I guess not having a head would make it hard to have a conversation. Making acquaintances with these ponies were harder than I had imagined. I tried many forms of greetings. I tried lightening the mood with this one stallion by sharing my booze. But apparently if you drink whiskey continuously without any breaks for five minutes, you die. So I tried helping a stallion using a toothbrush that actually turned out to be a knife. He was missing half of his head and didn't seem to find that satisfactory if I read his blood squirts correctly. Then I tried acid in a group setting. They didn't like that either. I went to icicle pikes going through the head. Not much reaction there. I hung (hanged?) a guy with his own intestines. Eh, he kind of flailed around but he didn't actually say anything coherent… not that I could understand them.

"Oh my god, I can't even speak Arabian", I said, facehoofing. Gecko then poked his head out and sent me two blinks. "Arabic? Oh. I've been saying it wrong this entire time? Oh that's embarrassing. Thankfully they're all dead. Oh hey, someone new!"

A hogtie and a room on fire later, Gecko popped back out. He blinked twice together, then did each one separate.

"No, I don't think I'm forgetting something", I replied. He responded with a blink, causing me to stop. "Wait… I was supposed to make their deaths look like accidents? Oh shit! I was totally supposed to make their deaths look like accidents!"

I paced nervously back in forth. I had made my way to the top floor by this point and had probably slaughtered 30-40 of the terrorists. Well, there was only one option now and that was to head to the basement floor that this place totally had to have. It didn't take long to find the basement level. It was like a giant cavern. Rock wall on all sides and rock floor and ceiling. But there was only one thing down there. It was like a giant glass tube where there was some kind of glowing purple orb in the middle. It cast an eerie purple hue on everything that I was positive would have made me look totally badass. Now I need a mirror. I was about to begin searching when I found a sword to my neck.

"You… you killed all of my men", a voice growled behind me in Equestrian. Finally a pony I can talk to.

"Who are you?", I asked.

"I am the leader of these brave stallions. The same stallions that you murdered!" He growled. Wow, did I have an accent? I probably did. It was probably as badass as I was.

"How do you know I murdered them?"

"What?"

"How do you know their deaths weren't all accidents?"

"... One stallion was hanged from his intestines!"

"... Maybe it's his turn on?"

"What kind of devil are you?"

"Hey what's that purple-y glowy thing?"

"That is our attempt to make a magical bomb. It's condensed magical energy that we've almost converted entirely to matter."

"So it's still unstable?"

"Yes, but I'd say anoth-" He was cut short by his own scream. The sword was drawn from my neck. I turned around at the sound of crunching. The mountain lion! He had come and saved me!

"Thank you, o' mighty beast", I said, bowing. I got a salute in return as the mountain lion walked off into the metaphorical sunset… since you know, we were down in a cave and it was maybe only 3 o'clock. But the mountain lion stepped on something that went 'click'. He lifted his paw to see what it was and then violently exploded. Well technically, the mine under him exploded but same difference. So there I was, in a cave with a stallion missing a rather necessary chunk from his neck and the scattered bits of a mountain lion.

"Well… I'm just going… to go over here", I said, walking up to the magic matter. It certainly didn't look stable. In fact, it almost seemed like if anything were to touch it then it'd violently explode not unlike the mountain lion. So I walked back to the stairs and pulled out my bow and notched an arrow. I aimed at the giant glowing ball and fired. I then sprinted up the stairs and ran outside. I teleported about a few hundred meters away and didn't look back. Because badasses don't look back at explo-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Holy shit! What the actual fuck was that?! I turned back to see the purple mushroom cloud that was growing into the sky. I quickly flipped my hood on and shielded my eyes as the first shockwave ran over me, the sand pelting my skin like angry bees. Like really angry bees. Like they just realized I had scammed them out of their home… and then found that I had violently destroyed the one and only toilet. There wasn't much of a window for me to breathe again as the second shockwave washed over.

I stood there, the sand still drifting in the air like a fog… a really grainy fog. I put on some ice goggles and looked to where the building once was. Now though, it was literally gone. There was no trace of it. Instead there was just a field of molten glass. I turned around and left, my secret plan of helping the Saddle Arabian glass economy having come to fruition. Yep, totally planned all of this. Wait, who am I thinking to again?

Wow, that chapter was… psychotic. I mean that was seriously messed up. Like going into the darker parts of my mind. That was too random for me… and I wrote it. I hope you all enjoyed it? I'm just going to… stop here I guess. I don't know what to think of that chapter so please review or PM me. Because… I just feel confused. So I'm going now. Solo, please help.

It is SoloAcrobat6, get it right. Anyways that was… wait, you are mocking me in this chapter because I talk to myself sometimes aren't you! Damn it! Well whatever, not much I can do about it now. NOW to the commentary on this bullshit I just helped (minisculely) create, and had no intention of stopping. Good job… Adios.