Third person:

Manehatten…

A finely groomed stallion sat in an office chair, puffing on a thick cigar as he overlooked the sprawling city from his office window. He slowly closed his eyes, exhaling a deep fume of carbon smoke.

The door to his office opened and he sighed before taking another suck of his cigar. “Sir,” a stallion began, waiting for the dressed stallion’s approval to continue.

The stallion slowly swivelled his office chair around, eyes still closed. As he turned to face him, he let out an exhale, all the smoke leaving his mouth with one go. “Yes?” he replied softly.

“Sir, it’s nearing sunrise and our associates at Central Park haven’t seen him yet,” the second stallion replied anxiously.

The first stallion waved him away and he promptly acknowledged the request, leaving without another word. The stallion took one last puff on the cigar before putting it out in the ashtray. “I swear to Celestia…” he muttered as he pulled up his dial phone.

He quickly spun a number and the phone began to ring. Within seconds there was an answer on the other end. “Hello? Who is this?” asked the other end.

“It’s me, yah smuck. Who the fuck do yah think it is?” the stallion replied.

“Sorry sir, it’s just that you told us to clear the line and-“ the other end began but the stallion cut him short.

“Shut up! Get both the prototypes ready,” he ordered and there was a slight pause.

“But sir… they haven’t been tested and-“ the other stallion began but he again cut them short.

“Just shut up and do it. And shoot any bastard that tries to enter the docks dammit!” With that, he slammed the phone into the receiver, ending the phone call. The big stallion rubbed his forehead with his two front hooves.

With that bit of business settled, he spun his chair around, facing the suburbs once again. ‘We should just kill that stupid pegasus,’ he thought nervously to himself.

Evan’s perspective:

Manehatten harbour…

Derreck and I crept through the shadows and approached the harbour. Several towers on the docks had searchlights running, several stallions occupying the towers as probable scouts. The harbour itself had multiple patrols hanging around several points on the docks.

A lot of them had what looked like crossbows, some ponies had nothing, perhaps armed with concealed weapons. Derreck tapped me and pointed up to one of the towers where a stallion stood idle on his hindlegs, holding some kind of object.

“See that?” Derreck asked and I nodded.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to identify the object in his hooves. It didn’t look at all like a crossbow. It had a barrel but had no limbs or string like a crossbow. It looked like no firearm I had ever seen, maybe it wasn’t even a firearm at all. At this distance, I couldn’t make out any further defining details.

“Whatever it is… we don’t really want to get detected until we’re close enough to take him out… looks like a high powered scope on it. So he’ll be able to take us out from a range,” Derreck informed me and I nodded. I guess this was his operation, so I’d just play by his rules.

“Okay… so how do we do this?” I asked and he shrugged.

“Easy, we sneak in,” he replied and I just rolled my eyes.

“Oh? Just sneak in?... You make it sound simple,” I retorted and he nodded.

“Yeah, it'll be real easy. Just follow my lead.” Without warning he scurried across the street then motioned for me to follow. I scampered across the empty street and pressed myself up to a wall just outside the harbour.

He peeked around the corner of the wall and towards the entrance. “Okay… there’s two ways we can do this. We can either both sneak through the front, or one of us will have to boost the other over the wall and wait for him to knock out the guards at the entrance,” Derreck informed me. “Now… the first way will be more dangerous and we’ll be in plain sight, but… if we split up and go the second way, we’ll be separated and we don’t really have an idea of what’s on the other side of this wall,” Derreck replied.

“Decisions, decisions…” I muttered and Derreck nodded before tugging on his jet black shirt, which was previously white. I just rolled my eyes as I briefly remembered how it got its new colour…

I went to leave immediately as Derreck got the information he needed. A hand stopped me. “Uhm… we need to redress for the occasion,” he told me and I rolled my eyes.

“How, I don’t have any other clothes,” I said and he nodded.

“Just give me your pants and shirt,” he ordered.

“Do you want my motorcycle too?” I asked jokingly but he shook his head.

“Nah, just the pants and shirt.” I sighed and did as he asked. Feeling like an idiot for doing so, I removed both my shirt and pants. He took them then paced into the washroom.

I sat on the edge of the bed in just my underwear, leaving my duster and hat aside. At first I just heard the sound of duct tape being unrolled. Then, before long, I heard something that sounded like spray paint. I rushed into the washroom.

He was stripped down to his underwear and was spraying our clothes that he had draped across the bathtub on the curtain rail. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked and he shooed me away.

“Go on, get! it’s a surprise,” he told me and I willingly walked back into the shitty motel room. The spray painting continued for another few minutes before stopping. I waited for over a half an hour before Derreck came out, our clothes now painted jet black.

“What the hell did you do?” I asked and Derreck peeled away duct tape from the chest crest of each of our shirts. The duct tape had saved the fabric underneath and now both black shirts had a big white cross on the chest.

“Now we’ll have matching uniforms,” he stated and I pointed to the white crosses.

“That’s like a frickin’ bull’s-eye painted on our chests!” I stated irritably but he stifled a laugh.

“Nah, it’s like the Christian version of The Punisher,” he replied and I just groaned.

“Jesus Christ,” I moaned, leaning my face into the palm of my left hand.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” he joked and I just sighed. There wasn’t much point to trying to spray paint over the cross, we were running short on time as it was.

Derreck turned to me. “I have an idea,” he told me and I rolled my eyes.

“Let me guess… we’re preachers of god?” I asked but he shook his head then stood up and began casually strolling towards the entrance. He motioned with his hand for me to come with him and I reluctantly followed. ‘WAS HE MAD?!’

The stallion posted at the gate saw us coming and moved to block our path. As we neared he spoke out to us. “Hey buddy, you can’t be here. Authorized personnel only,” he informed us.

Derreck spoke before I could even think about what was going on. “We’re with the union. We heard yah was moving shippin’ without unionized labour. That can’t happen,” he informed the stallion who just grunted.

“Fuck off yah twat,” the stallion snarled.

“We’re just gonna have tah help out, or the union is gonna be pissed,” Derreck replied but got a smack to the face from the stallion’s nightstick. Derreck’s head was twisted to one side, but he casually turned back to face the stallion.

“You hit like a vegetarian,” he insulted before hammering a straight punch into the stallion’s chest. Several cracks sounded from his ribs as he was hurled back from the brute force.

Two stallions closed in on Derreck from both sides. He twisted a haymaker punch to his left, slamming the stallion in the side of the head and knocking him out cold. I swung my right arm out and clotheslined the last stallion.

A spurt of blood spewed from his nostrils as my forearm connected with his snout, snapping his nose out of place. His back thumped to the ground and he was out cold. “Don’t fuck with the union,” I muttered to the unconscious, possibly dead, stallions.

We began slinking through the shadows, completely undetected at the moment. We approached two guards lingering, both smoking cigarettes. I handed Derreck my Bowie knife while I took my remaining, smaller Buck knife.

‘I got the left,’ Derreck mouthed silently. As silent as the shadows that caped our presence, we both snatched our respective stallion, dragging them into the shadows and killing them off silently with a blade to the throat, covering their mouth with our free hand.

With the duo dispatched, we looked to their armament. Both stallions had some kinda… mocked up crossbow. It looked like a regular crossbow… except both had two cylinder things attached. The front drum was just some metal can thing on top of the barrel and the other looked like some sort of magazine system.

Derreck picked it up. “You know… for a peaceful civilization… this place has some pretty wicked shit… and what gives with the bows? I mean, why the hell have they advanced a primitive weapon design so far? These things make the bows back home look like panty waists but… why not… you know?... just build a gun?” he asked and I just shrugged.

“Wanna ask one of them?” I replied with a rhetorical question.

“Nah… I think we’ll just use them. You never know, maybe they’re better than a gun. They’re probably silent,” he informed me, handing back my Bowie knife. We both took one of the bows and checked it over. There was no trigger guard of any kind to cover what I presumed to be the trigger.

The weapon itself was a little clumsy and would no doubt be difficult to shoot accurately. On top of the fact that it had a straight stock and was obviously meant for hooves, not hands, the weapon had no sights of any kind, possibly hinting that it was a close quarters weapon. We saw a nearby patrol coming our way and slipped into a warehouse doorway.

Derreck and I crept through the warehouse. Stacks of crates and other various objects cluttered the place. We stepped through the shadows like ninjas… well, more like rats actually. We stopped as we noticed a red circle of light on one of the crates, moving slowly back and forth.

Derreck looked to me with wondering eyes and I merely shrugged. He stepped forwards and waved his hand between the illuminated crate and light source, the red light now shimmering on his hand in an ominous way.

He pivoted with his eyes wide. “GET DOWN!” he yelled, leaping and tackling me to the ground. A beam of swirly green light smashed through the warehouse wall and into the spot where the light had been, obliterating it in a small explosion. Without so much as a warning, another beam of transient light slammed near us from the opposite direction of the first.

“RUN!” Derreck yelled as all hell seemed to break loose. Beams of green energy erupted all around us, travelling right through the wall like it wasn’t even there, leaving a gaping, melted hole where it entered.

We rushed back from whence we came as eruptions boomed all around us. As we neared the rear entrance, a bunch of scaffolding and work equipment collapsed on us during an explosion.

Third person…

A stallion posted on a scissor lift tapped on his earpiece. “Target eliminated,” he replied, peering through his X-ray styled scope. His railgun still pointed downrange, he got his orders via headset.

“Enders, Jonas, secure the location. I wanna see the corpse!” the headset ordered.

Two scissor lifts, both on opposite sides of the building, lowered. Both stallions trotted along on their hindlegs, holding their mighty weapons in hoof as they travelled the short distance to the warehouse.

Both entered and began searching the warehouse, their red light X-ray scopes illuminated the spot where their shot would hit, almost like a laser sight, but much more advanced. They stepped through the destruction, their hooves creaking weakened floorboards as they moved along.

Underneath the floorboards and on the concrete ground beneath, Derreck shimmied along with Burdy’s iconic pistol, Belladonna, in hand. Both stallions above him stopped. One of them pressed on an earpiece. “Sir, target eliminate-“ He was cut short as Derreck unloaded the entire magazine capacity into the duo from beneath their hooves.

Heavy 300 grain jacketed hollow points ripped through their bodies from below. Splinters of wood burst from the floorboards as shot after shot was discharged. Blood spewed from their bodies as the heavy slugs tore through them, leaving large exit cavities in their wake.

The stallion on the other end of the earpiece yelled. “Enders?! Jonas?! What the hell just happened?! It sounded like thunder!” he yelled but got no response. “Enders, Jonas, come in goddess dammit!” He still got no response from the two stallions.

“Support team, move in!” the leader yelled over the headset. Over a dozen stallions moved in on the warehouse. Pocketing Burdy's pistol, Derreck let out a roar as he broke through the brittle flooring, boards snapping from his might as he arose from the underneath.

The stallions, now in the building, turned to him, crossbows drawn. Derreck reached to each side of his body, grabbing the pistol grip of each of the railguns, one in each hand. The stallions’ eyes went wide as Derreck began to trigger each weapon.

The barrel of each weapon had a large muzzle break that spewed energy fumes as each projectile was launched from the coiled barrel at hypersonic speeds. Beam after beam was shot downrange and erupted in close proximity to the group, shredding them in explosions.

Derreck tossed the weapons forwards then hopped out from the crater in the flooring he had created. Crossbow bolts pinged off metal as stallions from outside began firing at him.

Without further ado, the hulking man again gripped each weapon, stationing the weapons at hip level. He stepped out from the warehouse and into the harbour. Stallions tried to lock onto him as he began wreaking havoc upon them.

Beams of explosive energy erupted against the watchtowers, putting out the spotlights that shone down on him. Derreck swivelled to meet a group of stallions that rushed him. Triggering the rifles, each beam sped out of the rifle barrel with a whoosh, blowing away any that stood in its path.

The energy bolts connected with their targets, sending them hurtling through the air as the sheer kinetic force blew them back. The brutish man in black clad clothing pivoted on his heels, spewing more havoc down upon the harbour mobsters.

Without hesitation, he slowly started backpedaling towards the warehouse from whence he came.

“Sir, target is retreating!” one of the stallions yelled to their commander.

A stallion in a small trailer office peered out the window and to the massacre outside. He pressed on his earpiece. “Eliminate him, no matter the costs!” he screamed.

Evan’s perspective:

I arose from the ruble as Derreck moved towards me, two hulking, futuristic weapons in his hands. He set one aside and helped me to my feet. Blood leaked from a gash in my forehead that dripped into my left eye, stinging and blurring my vision.

“Here, take one. They’re bundles of fun.” Derreck handed me one of the weapons. It was hefty for the size, but not overweight. He handed back Belladonna which he had borrowed earlier. I holstered my hand cannon and heaved up the rifle-cannon-thingy.

Derreck looked at the railgun he had, and then to me. "Strange isn't it? They use such primitive weapons yet they have the tech to build things like these... but never produce them in quantity.”

I rolled my eyes. "Somehow..." I groaned an wiped blood from my face, "I think this world would be better off without a bunch of these things kicking around. I hope these are the only ones in existence," I replied back and he just scoffed.

"Yeah whatever... either way, I want one of these for Christmas," he chuckled with a sly grin.

Different to the automatic crossbows, which we never got to use, these weapons had trigger guards, though very large to accommodate hooves. However, the weapon rested nicely against my shoulder. It even had a recoil pad. Two stallions burst in through a window and fired at us.

Both Derreck and I picked our respective targets and fired one shot each. Both our shots struck center mass, slamming the duo back into the wall behind. I walked over to one as I heard his earpiece going off.

“Nightshade! Dusk! Come in goddess dammit!” screamed a voice over the earpiece; it sounded like the stallion from my phone conversation earlier. I picked it up and spoke into it.

“They’re dead,” I muttered in a blunt yet serious tone. I was answered by silence. I could tell he knew it was me. “Ah’ll be right out,” I informed him. I dropped the earpiece and both Derreck and I slowly walked out of the warehouse. We were greeted by an assault force that had assembled. Over fifty armed stallions pointed their weapons in our direction. “Oh shit…” I mumbled.

Derreck tilted his head towards me, never once looking away from the assault group. “Push the button on the front handle,” Derreck informed me in a calm voice and I glanced to him from the corner of my vision.

“Why?” I asked, curious to what he had in mind.

“On three… just do it, then rain hell down on them,” he ordered. Well… I guess he was the leader thus far.

“One… two… THREE!” Derreck yelled and we both pressed down the front grip button. A red, holographic wall projected itself from the scope, separating us from the large group with just a simple holographic image.

Derreck started triggering his weapon before I, and a hail of arrows flew towards us. My eyes went wide, but before I could sputter even a swear, the arrows were deflected off the shield. Derreck continued to trigger his weapon, bringing hell down on the assault force that had cornered us.

Not one to fall behind, I took the rifle into a shoulder hold and peered through the scope, but there was a red X blinking on the futuristic scope. Derreck muttered to me, still firing upon the group and racking up a large kill count.

“Scope doesn’t work while the shield is projecting, just start shooting!” Derreck said. With that, I leveled the weapon at my hip and began relentlessly firing upon the group. Beams of energy flung stallions back with brutal and deadly kinetic force.

Within seconds the group’s numbers were cut down to a dwindling point. “RUN!” yelled one of the group members and the assault force scattered. Derreck flicked off his scope.

“Turn off your shield, it uses battery power and so does shooting,” he informed me, tapping on a flickering digital indicator of a battery that read he had about half power left. I did as he instructed and we began moving forwards though the large harbour.

As we approached the loading yard, I pressed up against one bin and Derreck pressed up against the other across from mine. We both peeked down the alley between the rows of metal containers. Stallions took cover behind crates, boxes, and whatever else they could use for cover.

Derreck gave me a nod and we both twirled into plain view. Our railguns spewed out energy beams that pierced right through any cover the assailants had. Several of the stallions were simply knocked back from the brute force of the projectiles that struck them; the others were killed in the resulting explosions.

We traversed down the alleys, more skirmishes of fighters trying to stand against us. Derreck and I both held our respective weapons in shoulder positions and rained hell down on them.

Bottles with flaming rags stuffed in the necks were tossed at us. Both Derreck and I lept to the side as the improvised weapons shattered, spewing a trail of fire that blocked our path. Sparks sprung off the ground as a hail of crossbow bolts slammed the ground near us.

We both lunged through a nearby window and into another building. Outside, another force of mobsters formed, tossing flaming bottles of liquor at our position. One began yelling, holding a crate of something.

They popped the lid then lit a fuse. My eyes went wide. “BACK!” I yelled and both Derreck and I lept further back into the building as the sticks of dynamite were tossed at the small warehouse.

Explosions ripped apart the front entrance to the building and mobster stallions aimed their bows at the gaping hole in the building, ready to fire on us the moment we left. The two of us stood up and slowly walked towards the entrance of the burning building.

Both Derreck and I stepped into the open, railguns at hip level. We walked through the flames at a slow pace. I could only imagine what it would’ve been like seeing two well-built bipedal men step out of a flaming building, dressed in all black with a white Christian cross on the center of their black shirts.

Both Derreck and I fired in unison. Beams of energy struck just behind a group that took cover behind some concrete rubble. The explosion sent them flying forwards, all screaming in death.

Our aim began taking separate targets, each covering the other’s blind side. A stallion peered down at us from the top of a crane, looking through the scope of his crossbow. A single bolt shot down and pierced my left shoulder.

I grunted in pain and Derreck looked back at me. Still facing his enemies, he continued firing upon them while backpedaling to me. I let my rifle dangle as I examined the bolt stuck in my left shoulder. ‘Damn… the same place that gun lady shot me,’ I thought silently.

Derreck examined the shot wound. “The arrow’s nearly through,” he said before pulling the arrow the rest of the way through my shoulder. I hissed in pain as blood spurted from my wound.

We darted for cover and pressed up against a container bin. My shoulder stung with pain as blood dribbled out from the hole. “You’ll live,” Derreck muttered in an Arnie voice.

“Thanks doc,” I snarked before we both peered down the alley between two rows of container bins. A group of seven stallions rushed into the loading yard. Derreck popped several shots at them, most striking center mass and sending the stallions flying through the air.

A lone unicorn rushed around the corner, levitating crossbow in his magical grasp. Derreck clotheslined him with his left forearm then drove a fist into his head, knocking him out cold… or perhaps killing him off, I wasn’t sure.

A fiery explosion ripped through the loading yard nearby, massive plumes of flames bursting into the air. My friend looked down to the unicorn on the ground and ripped a shred of his clothes off.

He quickly bandaged my shoulder with the stallion’s fine attire. “Now quit yer whining!” he told me. I shouldered my rail gun once more and we both stepped back into the open. A door to a radio antenna shack slammed open and a stallion with an automatic crossbow stepped out, firing wildly at us, the only real noise from the weapon being that of the bolt zipping through the air.

Both of us returned fire, the resulting explosive energy shots destroying the small shack. The antenna relay sparked viciously before falling to the ground, resulting in an eruption of electric sparks that killed three nearby stallions. A carriage burst into view, being manually pulled by two stallions who galloped valiantly towards us while the six or so stallions in the carriage fired at us with bows.

“Big mistake,” Derreck quipped, lining up a shot and firing from the hip several times. Energy blasts struck the carriage and it erupted from the rear, propelling the carriage into a front flip, flinging the lead stallions to their deaths and killing every occupant on-board.

I caught a glimpse of the gleaming of a scope up on the crane again. I swiveled and spotted the sniper who had shot my shoulder. Rather than waste precious seconds on an aimed shot, I simply fired aggressively at the brace supports of the crane.

Explosive energy bursts ripped apart the legs of the crane and it toppled. The crane slammed down into a nearby docked cargo ship. Sparks of electricity from floodlights on the ship and eruptions of fire became ever present as the crane smashed apart against the ship.

A group of at least forty stallions formed into an assault formation and tried a pincer attack on us, coming from two sides at once. “Shields up!” Derreck ordered. Both of us triggered the shields on our rifles then took a back-to-back stance and began firing upon the stallions assaulting us.

With the superficial rifles, it only took a matter of seconds before the entire group was slain mercilessly. Without the need of a verbal order, we both flicked off our shields, our weapons now running low on battery life.

We pressed on through the loading yards, mobsters now scurrying to band together or run away. Regardless, we still fired upon any who stood in our way. A thought quickly dawned upon me. “What about civilians?” I asked and Derreck shook his head.

“Did you see any civies outside the dock walls?” he asked and I shook my head. “Exactly,” he replied as he triggered his rifle several times, blowing away another group that took cover behind a metal crate.

I reached the loading yard edge, near the mucky harbour water and began rushing along as Derreck took position at my flank. An old classic car horn echoed and we both pivoted. An oncoming motorized carriage raced towards us at increasing speeds. Two stallions stood up from the flatbed of the vehicle. They began firing their crossbows at us as the vehicle sped forwards.

Derreck and I both fired a single round at the engine of the vehicle. The rear of the vehicle jacked up in an explosion as it was propelled into the air, flying just a few feet over our heads in a blazing ball of flame and splashed into the shitty, polluted water.

A stick of lit dynamite rolled between Derreck and I. We lept in different directions as it went off, the explosion sending me hurtling even further. My rifle slipped from my grip and skidded along across the concrete ground.

Groaning, I rolled to my back as a group of mobsters approached me. In a flash, Belladonna was drawn and booming. Trails of vapor spewed just behind the supersonic bullet that whizzed into each target.

Blood squirted from their bodies as the slugs tore through the previously fine attire, shredding it apart. In seconds, my pistol was dry but there were still two stallions that tried to level their sights on me.

In the last possible seconds, beams of energy struck their hinds, sending them hurtling forwards in a series of flips. Derreck rushed up and helped me to my feet. “Hurry, leave your rifle!” Derreck ordered as we rushed to cover, a hailstorm of crossbow bolts raining down on our position.

More stallions rushed through the flames of the destroyed loading yard to try and get us, but Derreck had other plans in mind. With one hand, he fired his railgun from the hip, spraying death upon those foolish enough to stick around.

I could only imagine the death count that would arise from this… Mom was going to be SOOO PISSED! That and the collateral damage was probably severe… unless we didn’t get caught…

I spotted a group of three coming up from our flank. With a fresh magazine in Belladonna, I took aim through the now glowing white, luminescent sights. A faint golden light gleamed from both sides of the gun barrel. On the left read 'Belladonna' while the right side read 'And thy lord shalt set thee free.'

Belladonna roared as she spat out heavy handgun munitions. My mighty hand cannon rocked in my grip, the slide hammering back as each shell was fired and ejected. A ring of fire burst from the muzzle of Belladonna every time she fired, illuminating the night further.

As the assailants fell, the slide locked back, signalling she was empty. I spent no time in pocketing the old mag and loading a fresh one. Thumbing the slide release with ease, I took aim for new targets. The gun worked with an almost watch-like precision in my grip. Everything about the gun just seemed to suit me: the grip, the weight, the slide release... everything.

Two separate groups of stallions assaulted our position, yet again trying a futile attempt of a pincer movement. Time seemed to slow for me as I looked to Derreck. He squinted his left eye while looking seriously with his right. He took an aimed shot at a cargo bin being held by a stationary crane.

The energy blast struck the crane’s chains, sparks flying, and the bin fell onto the group of stallions, crushing most of them. The world seemed to spin as I looked aimlessly around. Death… destruction… a massacre, surrounded me in a deafening roar. ‘This is what they get for threatening my friend,’ my conscience spoke. Time slowly came back to reality as Derreck began to fire wildly from the hip again as he began walking towards a group of enemies.

Beam after beam blasted from the muzzle of the rifle as he walked towards the mobsters. Funny… if Rambo had worn Punisher fatigues and had a futuristic plasma, laser, energy railgun thing, Derreck probably would’ve looked just like him, just a lot bigger and taller.

He suddenly ceased firing. “I’M OUT!” he yelled, leaping behind a container bin, putting it between him and the group of stallions. I knelt and began taking pot shots on the group that still stayed out in the open like fools.

It didn’t take long for them to realize my position, nor for my pistol to run dry. I rolled to the side and behind a crate as I started to reload. The shouting of others neared my location and I crept into the shadows. The limbs of a crossbow came into view and I kicked its broadside, knocking the weapon from the user’s grip.

The stallion looked to me with shocked eyes. My fist hammered him in the face, sending him careening back. The others looked to me but it was too late. I planted my feet then twirled my upper torso to face them and started firing wildly.

The heavy projectiles of Belladonna ripped through their flesh like warm butter, spurting blood out their backsides as they were cut down. In a matter of moments, they were all dead, pools of blood surrounding them.

I ejected the magazine, catching it and pocketing it, replacing it with a fresh one. Screams still echoed in the harbor, but I made my way to Derreck who had a smirk on his face. “Nice shooting,” he complimented and I nodded.

I replied in my best Arnie voice as I helped him up. “Lots of practice.” I turned to see more than a dozen stallions rushing through the fiery shadows. “Come wit me if you want to liff!” I ordered, still cracking wise ass remarks like Arnie.

We slipped through the shadows like rats being hunted. Without our uncanny advantage with the railguns, we were a tad bit outmatched. We couldn’t properly fight until Derreck could obtain a ranged weapon with a large magazine capacity.

Hearing the yells and screams of mobsters behind us, we raced between container bins as fast as we could. Derreck stopped me without warning. “Up!” Without even so much as an explanation, he heaved me up onto a container bin, and then quickly crawled up.

I went to stand but he pulled me down, keeping me low. “Stay down. The shadows and elevation will mask our presence,” he informed me quietly. I watched in silence as over a dozen stallions paced into the walkway we had previously been in.

Derreck unsheathed my Bowie knife and licked his lips. “When I give the signal… take aimed shots, and don’t miss. Make sure they’re distracted.” I looked to him.

“What’s the signal?” I asked, but he merely shrugged.

“I haven’t figured it out yet… but you’ll know when you see it,” he informed me, then silently crawled away.

‘Great! Oh yeah, by the way… I haven’t figured out yet how I’ll signal you, but you’ll know,’ I thought sarcastically to myself. The large group continued forwards and I groaned. If only I had’ve gotten something with a larger magazine capacity… like a Glock.

Damn my luck.

The group met up with a second group that only consisted of three stallions. “Where’d he go?” one of them asked and the others just shook their heads.

“Well he has to be here, spread out. Find him!” the one whom I presumed to be the leader ordered. The group separated and began moving through the passageways between the shipping containers.

Down the way, I spotted Derreck as he loomed above two stallions that were unaware of his presence. He looked over to me then into the sky. He brought the Bowie knife up and reflected the illumination of the moon into my eyes.

“Ow… OW!” I whispered and he kept flashing the light at me. I lifted my left hand into view and flipped him the bird. With that, the flashing light stopped. I looked down. The groups had split up into mostly squads of three or four.

I lined up my first set of targets, deciding to shoot right to left. I lay flat, Belladonna in a two hand grip. Taking a deep breath, I stood into a crouch. The group noticed me and went to yell, but were quickly drowned out by the thunderous report of my gun.

The first gunshot took me a little bit off guard, tossing my aim to the right, rather than the left like I had planned to do. The muzzle flash was tremendous, and was only matched by the carnage that ensued when the heavy bullet tore a canal clean through the stallion’s chest.

Everypony’s attention was drawn to the sound of the gunshot. Quickly adjusting the sights, the second and third shots were off within seconds, each hitting their mark. However, despite my advantage of surprise, the fourth stallion leveled a bow on me and fired.

The bolt pinged off the edge of the container bin, making me flinch into cover. “HE’S OVER HERE!” the stallion screamed. I looked to the distance. The stallions beneath Derreck looked towards me and that’s when he struck.

Leaping down from his shipping container, Derreck drove the large blade of my Bowie knife into the first stallion’s throat, then swiftly pulled it out and slashed the sharp blade across the other’s neck, cutting open his jugular.

Reaching down, my big friend picked up a large crossbow, one of those automatic ones we hadn’t got to use yet. I peeked up and fired two more lousy shots, only one of which struck a target, but merely glanced the stallion’s shoulder.

Ducking back down, I looked to Derreck who slowly stepped towards my location, the crossbow in one hand and at hip level. A group plowed around a corner, scrambling to arrive at my location as fast as possible.

Derreck triggered his new weapon. The bow was stunning. Rather silent, only the small cylinder on the front really making any noise aside from the bolts whizzing through the air... it kinda sounded like a battery operated airsoft gun. It came to mind that the cylinder on the top was perhaps a motor of sorts. With every shot, two arms extended from the motor thiny of the crossbow, pushing back against the string while a new bolt was loaded. It was impressive to say the least.

Wisps of the crossbow bolts flying through the air were quieted by the screams of their victims. Crossbow bolts sliced through the mobsters, causing nearly unbearable carnage. Blood squibbed out from the wounds as bolt heads protruded from the bodies of dying mobsters.

I ejected the nearly spent magazine from my gun and loaded a new one. With their attention turning to Derreck, I aligned several pot-shots. With each pull of the trigger, another mobster fell into a puddle of blood.

Now torn in a crossfire, the stallion criminals broke down, unable to compensate for what exactly was going on. Derreck’s auto-bow rate of fire, probably around two hundred and fifty shots a minute, was slow, but it was enough to get the job done.

The slide on Belladonna racked back and locked. Thumbing the ejector button, I let the magazine drop to the ground as I reached for a fresh mag with my left hand. In an instant, a new set of ammo was ready for my baby.

Tugging down on the slide release with my thumb, the slide snapped shut with a CHING. A stallion burst from cover and lunged at Derreck. Left hand free, Derreck gripped the handle of the Bowie knife I had lent him and drove it into the stallion’s chest, probably piercing his heart.

The stallion’s eyes went wide as the life drained from him. Leaning the gun over the slouched pony’s body, Derreck used the corpse as a makeshift shield. Crossbow bolts dug into the dead stallion but failed to penetrate far enough to hit my friend as he returned fire.

I lept down, landing behind a group of mobsters that were still trying to figure out what to do. I lined up quick shots with their center masses and fired without remorse.

The muzzle flash illuminated my face as time seemed to slow. Bullets splattered the stallion's skulls into mist, ripped gaping holes in their chest... ‘This is for Derpy,’ I thought silently.

Within a minute, the entire group was dead. Derreck dropped the bow and looked to me. Both listening, we couldn’t hear any more stallions approaching. I ejected the magazine in my gun, letting the spent mag fall to the ground, and replaced it with a fresh one.

Walking through the carnage of the docks, Derreck and I spotted a stallion rushing to a motorized carriage. Derreck moved with an almost unnatural speed. I tried to match him but he arrived long before I did.

Tackling the stallion into the carriage, he grabbed him by his hindleg then lifted him over to the edge of the harbor. “Please… oh my goddess please don’t kill me!” he begged. Derreck’s face was emotionless.

“The mare… where is she?” Derreck asked in a deep, booming voice.

A second hadn’t even passed as the mobster squealed like a canary. “Manehattenville! The factory! That’s where they brought her!” He began heaving deeply for breath as Derreck still suspended him in the air. “Please… don’t kill me… just let me go,” he pleaded.

Derreck just smirked and did as he asked, quite literally. Releasing his grip on him, the stallion fell. A squelching sound echoed and I rushed over. Looking down, I spotted the stallion, impaled on several bars of rebar that had been strewn about during the attack.

He gurgled and gagged as he squirmed. I quickly looked away. “Jesus Derreck… why’d you do that?” I asked in mild disgust. That was a pretty brutal way to go.

“He asked me to let him go,” he replied. I just rolled my eyes.

“Well come on! We gotta get to Derpy before they find out what happened,” I told him. Derreck looked down the harbor and began walking. “Derreck! We won’t be able to get there fast enough on foot!” I yelled but he didn’t answer.

After walking a few dozen yards, he retrieved my nearly spent rail gun that I had dropped earlier. “There’s probably a few good shots left in ‘er,” he replied and we both looked over to the selection of motorized carriages.

Third person,

Manehattenville…

Dominic Salvatore, Don of the Gravelli family, sat in discomfort as he watched the news broadcast about a massacre at the docks that happened but a mere ten minutes ago. The news anchor continued her report in utter disbelief. “And with dozens of bodies being retrieved, there is still no word on what exactly sparked this monstrous onslaught.”

“Sweet Celestia…” Dominic muttered to himself. His capo stood beside him and just shrugged.

“Meh… with all that killing, he’s bound to be dead,” the henchpony stated enthusiastically. Both the stallions knew who had caused it. That ape creature that had the vial.

Tapping his hoof against his office desk in thought, he suddenly stood up, trotted outside his office, and into a bar styled room. He sat and poured himself a glass of liquor. His remaining crew members all stood around him, the rest of the crime family absent from the factory.

“He’s dead boss, no doubt,” one of the stallions chimed.

“I think he’s right,” another added in. In response, however, Dominic threw his liquor glass at the wall, shattering it to pieces.

“Don’t think! Pray, cause if he ain’t dead, he’ll be coming here!” the don yelled. He looked around. “Where the fuck’s that mare?” he asked in irritation.

“We got ‘er bound up in the back room… for safe keeping. That and she wouldn’t shut up,” one of the stallions replied. Dominic grabbed a bottle of fine vodka and drank right from the source.

“Kill her… he’s obviously not into negotiations.” Dominic set his bottle down.

“Oh shit…” one of the henchponies said aloud, gulping in fear as he pointed to a security screen. The entire group looked over to the screens and spotted the front gate. A newer styled motor carriage barreled through the gate and crashed right through the factory wall, that certain camera feed cutting out as the carriage smashed the camera.

The crash could be heard from their upstairs office room. A single occupant stepped out of the vehicle, dressed in all black except a white cross on the center of his shirt. The large man walked over and thumbed the button for the elevator.

“Shit!” several stallions muttered at once, grabbing for their weapons. The monitor flickered as the man leveled his gun on the camera and shot it out, the screen going black.

Dominic grabbed a hoof-bow. “He’s coming up the elevator. Everypony cover that goddess damned door!” he ordered and everypony in the room leveled their weapons on the elevator door.

The readout atop the elevator slowly rose as the elevator ascended. Several of the mobsters began sweating profusely, Dominic included. As the elevator reached its destination, a ting sound echoed as the doors began to open.

With the doors barely open, every stallion in the room opened fire. Sparks flew as the metal crossbow bolts bounced off metal while at the same time penetrated the fabricated walls inside the elevator.

“Woah, hold your fire!” Dominic ordered and everypony ceased firing. Stunned and baffled, the group looked to the empty elevator. Dom looked suspiciously then pointed to one of his underlings. “You! Check it out!” he ordered.

The said stallion trotted forward, gulping as he arrived. From what he could see, the elevator was empty. He turned to the group. “He’s not in here,” he informed them. No sooner had he said that, Burdy dropped down from the ceiling of the elevator, having suspended himself there to avoid being shot or detected by the untrained eye.

Grabbing him around the throat with his left, Burdy fired the massive railgun with his right. The destructive gun spewed out energy rounds that blew back any that it hit. “TAKE COVER!” Dominic ordered, but nopony even needed being told.

Rushing for cover wherever it could be found, stallions overturned tables, hid behind pillars, and even lept behind the bar booth. Several shots were fired at the big man, but all connected with his pony shield, killing the stallion in seconds.

Leveling his rifle, he blew off several shots in all directions. The kinetic energy beams blew right through the cover of his enemies, shredding the stallions as debris and shrapnel from their cover eviscerated them.

Taking a wide shooting arc, Burdy fired shot after shot, some not connecting, but overall inflicting heavy casualties among the remaining crewmembers. Without warning, the gun ran out of energy and shut down with a whirring sound.

Burdy looked down at the weapon and simply dropped it, replacing it with Belladonna. His rail gun now useless, the mobsters tried taking advantage of him with sheer numbers.

Dropping his deceased shield, Burdy lept for cover behind a pillar as crossbow bolts sprang at him. Peeking around the corner, a stray shot glanced across his forehead, dazing him severely.

He dropped to the ground as his world spun. “I GOT HIM!” yelled one of the mobsters. Lifting his weapon in a daze, Burdy popped off two shots that struck the stallion’s center mass, sending him hurtling back and into the wall, his blood smearing the steel as he slid down onto the floor in a heap.

Letting his arm swing to the right side, Burdy fired wildly at two more stallions behind an overturned table. The heavy jacketed hollow point ammunition punched right through the flimsy wood and ended the lives of both stallions on the other side.

Sliding himself up against the pillar he had taken cover behind before, he ejected the magazine in his gun before loading a new one. He let out a deep exhale and stroked his wounded forehead that now bled slightly.

A lone stallion fired a shot that glanced of his already wounded shoulder. Burdy grimaced as the stallion yelled out. “I GOT YAH! YAH BASTARD! YER DEAD!” he yelled, probably at the top of his lungs.

Burdy peeked around the corner and fired once. There was a brief silence as the body fell forwards and beside the big man, a pool of blood leaking out from the body.

“You’re a lousy shot… I hate lousy shots,” he muttered in a deep voice that really didn’t sound like him. Two stallions burst around his flank and fired at him, the bolts whizzing way high where he would be if he was standing.

He looked over to them with a serious gaze and fired several shots into them, sending their bodies twirling back. Burdy swiveled around the pillar and continued shooting at the remaining stallions.

Each pull of the trigger boomed out another deadly shot that pulled the life from a criminal. The gold engravings on his pistol seemed to glow with an even brighter holy illumination as he quickly took down each mobster.

A mobster burst from cover and fired a hoof-bow that just barely missed Burdy’s head. Leaping behind a couch, Burdy rolled as several shots pierced into the couch’s fabrics, some zipping right through.

With a new magazine loaded into the gun, the big man leaned over the top of the couch, firing several shots into the aggressive stallion. Blood squirted from several gunshot wounds as he was tossed back and into a lifeless heap.

Rushing to the left, Burdy stopped on open ground just as two stallions tried to rush him head on. Without really aiming, the brute of a man just fired at them, hitting high but still striking a kill shot on each stallion.

He rushed to another pillar, the spent magazine being ejected as he ran. A stallion behind the bar counter lept up and tried to hose him down with an auto-bow. Burdy lunged forwards and into a roll, sliding into a knelt position and shooting the henchpony several times in the chest.

With an iconic scream, the stallion was tossed back into the booze cabinet, glass panes and bottles shattering apart. Two more stallions rushed him from the left. Burdy went to acquire a shot in a two handed weaver stance, but a lone shot winged his left arm again, slicing it open in another spot.

“ARG!” he groaned, pulling the gun up in a single handed style. Emptying the entire magazine into the duo, Burdy quickly sprang for cover as he struggled to load a new magazine. After several precious seconds, the man managed to load a magazine.

Several of the still living stallions took advantage of this and hosed down his position with a hail of fire. Bolts merely bounced off the concrete pillar but still managed to chip away at it.

With a swift roll, Burdy moved his position to that of yet another couch, which was quickly riddled with crossbow bolts. As he crawled along, a lone stallion tried to rush him. Firing two shots, the pony was tossed back and the human continued on. Peeking over the couch briefly, Burdy fired several wild shots, only one of which struck a target while the others ripped holes in the wooden liquor cabinet.

Another stallion with an auto-bow tried to rush him from behind. Burdy fired several shots into the henchpony’s gut, ending his life abruptly as his body toppled over just inches from the man. His main weapon empty and not having time to reload safely, Burdy reached over and retrieved the automatic weapon.

Tipping the weapon’s front end over the couch, he blind fired at the remaining crew. Firing left to right in large, slow arcs, several stallions were caught in the shooting and fell with shots protruding out of their bodies.

The human’s weapon ceased firing and he merely tossed it aside and began struggling to reload his pistol. As he was loading the new magazine, a stallion quickly rushed up to him, hoping to take him by surprise.

This was not the case, however, and Burdy quickly gripped his Bowie knife and flung it at him. The blade slashed into the stallion’s chest, making him scream out a pained grunt as he fell.

Loading the pistol, Burdy rushed forward towards the bar where the remainder of the stallions waited. Leaning up against a post, Burdy narrowly avoided the incoming shots that sparked off the metal post he hid behind.

One stallion tried to rush around and Burdy blind fired in his path, making the stallion back up in fear of being shot. Pivoting around the post, the man fired at the back pedalling stallion, launching his body back.

Burdy, now in the open, fired another two shots towards a second target. The stallion twirled into a cabinet of booze, smashing the liquor bottles and spilling the contents. A third stallion tried to quickly fire from the hip and Burdy rolled to the side, taking a kneel and shooting the stallion several times in the chest, sending him careening back and toppling over the counter in a spray of blood.

Dominic and his lead capo rushed off towards his office and Burdy snapped off several sloppy shots. One of his rounds clipped the capo’s hindleg, collapsing him in pain.

Disregarding his left arm’s pain, Burdy quickly slapped another magazine into his mighty hand cannon, but Dominic was already hiding away in his office. The capo screamed in pain. “ARGH… YOU MOTHER FUCKER! YOU STUPID, GODDESS DAMNED HEATHEN MOTHER FUCK-“ He was cut short as Burdy blew away the stallion’s head with a single point blank shot, blood residue spewing onto Burdy's face.

“Nopony talks about my mother like that,” he told the deceased body. The big man began slowly walking towards the office of Dominic, the Gravelli family’s don.

Inside, the stallion furiously tried dialing the number for the police. “You stupid fuck!” Dom yelled out, trying to buy himself precious seconds as he pulled a bookshelf down in front of the door.

Evan’s perspective…

I kicked down the door, a bookshelf flinging out of the way, and the stallion inside the office looked to me with shock as he scrambled for his weapon. With my elbow slightly bent, I hip fired my gun. Thunderous booms nearly deafened me, but the muzzle flashes did a pretty good job of burning flashes into my sight as well.

The stallion’s body was tossed back and over a desk, blood dripping from several holes in his body. I paced over casually and grabbed a bottle of fine liquor from his table and popped the cork.

Looming over his dead body, I poured the contents onto his corpse. “Fine dining,” I quoted in a thick Arnie accent. Derreck entered the room and smirked.

“Fine shooting cowboy,” he appraised me and I nodded. “Come on, your friend is over here,” he told me, leading me out into the bar room again. As we walked along, he pulled my Bowie knife from the chest of a dead stallion. He eventually led me over to a closet door. I opened it and was greeted by a cowering grey pegasus whom was blindfolded and mouth gagged with several layers of tape.

Derreck handed me my Bowie knife and I cut away the gag. “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!” Derpy cried.

“Sssh… Derpy, it’s okay… I’m here now,” I whispered gently. There was a moment of silence as I sheathed my knife then slowly removed her blindfold. Derpy breathed heavily as she looked upon me.

I gulped then slowly took her into a loving embrace. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner… goddess, how could they do this to you?” I whispered and felt Derpy’s chest heaving heavily as she wept in pain.

“Come on, before the police arrive,” Derreck ordered.

“One thing first,” I told him, standing up. I looked to Derpy and pulled out the vial of goo… the thing that had caused it all. “This… this caused all of this… this senselessness. And who knows what will happen if I give it to the Liotta’s. Derpy… you were right.” And with that, I dropped the vial of goo that had started it all. Stomping on it, I crushed the contents into the ground, making it completely useless.

Derreck looked to me. “You sure that was the best thing to do?” he asked, looking down at the stained floor. My answer was simple and thoughtful.

“If this is what happens over this… this stupid marketing shit… then maybe it’s best if it doesn’t go into anypony’s hooves. Who’s to say they won’t still fight over it…” I trailed off and Derreck nodded.

“Well, okay then… if that’s all, maybe we should be leaving?” he suggested. I nodded, cradling Derpy in my arms as we left. As we arrived outside the factory, several black, high class carriages arrived and armed mobsters stepped out.

Among them, however, was Antonio Leone. “Hey kid… leave anything for us?” he asked.

“Just bodies,” I replied back, in a stern voice.

“What about the vial? Our guy got whacked in the washroom but a bunch of Gravelli scumbags were there too,” he asked.

“The vial was destroyed by some bastard in an office up there, said if they couldn't have it, nopony would,” I lied fluently, pointing to the building. Antonio cursed to himself then looked back to me.

“I tell you kid… I ain’t seen potential like you in a long time. I could use a stallion… er, whatever the hell you are, in my business. Whatta yah say?” he asked hopefully. Derpy looked up to me with teary eyes, fearful of my answer. I looked down to Derpy, then over to Derreck who had an exhausted look on his face. Looking back down to Derpy, I put on a straight face.

I looked over to him. “No chance,” I told him in my most serious voice but... well it ended up sounding a little like Arnie, but just a little. Derreck patted me on the shoulder.

“Well, I’m gonna go my own way. We’ll meet up again sometime. Hopefully on better circumstances,” he told me and I nodded.

Derpy chimed in. “Who are you talking to?” I just shook my head as I watched him walk away into the dark streets.

“Don’t worry about him Derpy, he’s just an old friend,” I informed her. Antonio’s voice caught my attention.

“Well kid… if you ever want something, anything reasonable, just ask. I owe you one for crippling these Gravelli bastards,” he told me and I raised an eyebrow.

“Well… maybe… there is one thing…”

Hours later…
Derpy and I had snuck into the boxcar of a train headed out of Manehatten and towards Ponyville. A gentle and rather sad musical tune played from a junky radio inside the boxcar. Now it was early morning, but the sun hadn’t quite rose yet. I stroked Derpy as the locomotive chugged along.

“There is still no leads into what happened tonight in this massive massacre. With no prior extreme escalation, the motivation of this attack is unclear and undetermined by police.”

I stroked my hand through Derpy’s mane as the train travelled over a bridge that passed above a river far below. “Evan?” she whispered and I listened closely.

“When asked about the incident, the Liotta family organization denied any allegations of involvement in the affair. They simply stated they had no public motivation for such a massacre but said that ‘The bastards deserved every last bit of it’.”

I continued to stroke her beautiful mane. I had wrapped her broken wing in medical bandage when I retrieved my duster coat and hat from the motel just before leaving for the train yard. I planned to get her to the hospital as soon as we got back. “Yes Derpy?” I asked in a hushed tone.

“Reports have come in that a single assailant attacked both the harbour and the dock within the time period of an hour and a half. Further reports state the stallion was wearing all black except a white cross coloured into the chest of his shirt. None of the deceased were dressed in such fatigues and police are still on the lookout for such a suspect.”

“Thank you,” Derpy whispered. “Thank you for rescuing me. I know that I said you were different, but… I don’t think you are,” she whispered, filling my heart with warmth. “You killed them because they were going to hurt me and… you’re still the same stallion… human that I liked before all this happened,” she told me and I smiled, brushing her mane aside so I could see her crisscrossed eyes.

“With emergency crews working strenuously, over two hundred and fifty bodies have been confirmed dead, of which one was the infamous crime lord Dominic Salvatore, the rumored leader of the Gravelli crime syndicate. With bodies still being found, this remains one of the largest massacres in the history of Equestria.”

I gently kissed her forehead. “I love you Derpy, and you were right... I should've never agreed to do this.” I gently stroked the side of her cheeks and she nestled into my chest, cooing softly as she tried to discard the horrible things that had happened tonight. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that Derpy… if I could reverse it… I swear I would,” I told her and she nodded.

“I love you too,” she whispered back. With that, a long silence occurred, in which nothing but the sound of the locomotive engine sounded. Beams of moonlight flashed through the forest trees and into the boxcar as the train traveled through a forest. After a long while, I realized that Derpy was sound asleep, her chest slowly expanding and contracting.

I reached over to some smaller crates of cargo, retrieving a lone pencil and paper, then began to scribble down a letter for my mother/teacher.

‘Dear mother,
Sometimes... sometimes you do something because a friend asks you to but you don’t want to refuse because they’ve helped you in a similar fashion. But sometimes that favour can hurt another friend in a way you wish never happened. And that sometimes can break one’s trust with another. Sometimes doing a favour for a friend can hurt others, even if it was not intended. I guess what I’m saying is that I have to learn to thoroughly think something through before I do it, rather than just charge in without a second thought.

Yours truly,
Burdy’

Author's Notes:

Yes I know, it took forever to get this out, and I'm really sorry. As a token of my apology, I will give one minor spoiler about the next chapter. Twilight and Burdy's 'relationship' starts to go far beyond that of mother and son in the next chapter as Burdy starts to develop deep feelings for his mother. I'll try to get the next chapter out faster... well... actually I have the chapter done it's just being edited.