The first order of business was to knock away the letters that threatened to smash Twilight.

Spike and Dash took care of them quickly before they had to turn their attention to their first attacker: Flutterbutt, who tried to take all of them out in one single swing of his overly long sword.

Spike pulled Twilight to the floor while Dash jumped over the gigantic sword.

Everyone else in the room dodged it blade their own way, except for Gina who held her own sword perpendicular to the cut. The force of the swing sent her flying backwards into the barrier.

"You wanna keep that swing under control," Gina yelled as she got back to her feet and charged Applejack.

"Okie-dokie," the young boy said AS WIND SWIRLED AROUND HIM.

None of the others could believe what they saw: the letters that came from Assassin 100's console swirled around Flutterbutt until they became a tornado that engulfed him and lifted him into the air.

Twilight had thought she wouldn't meet anyone there who could use magic, but it seemed that her assassin was one of those few humans who could. She and all the others watched as the young assassin's tornado began to travel around the arena, sucking them all up and tossing them all to separate areas of the arena.

Twilight landed with Spike and Travis, who both readied themselves as they saw another volley of words came in to SMASH TWILIGHT.

Travis batted them all away with his Blood Berry, and readied himself as another wave of letters were coming.

MINIONS JOINED THE FIGHT TO WEAR THE COMBATANTS DOWN.

"Wait! What does that say!?" Travis asked as he looked around as the letters all landed around them. It came to him when the letters morphed into an indeterminate number of random goons like the ones Travis used to kill before an assassin fight.

He and Spike stood back to back as the armed opponents closed in on the three of them.

The first attacker made his move against Twilight, with a pipe held high to cave her skull in.

He was quickly disarmed by Spike, who crippled the thug with a strike to his knee.

Once the thug was down Spike was targeted by another thug who pulled a gun out of his jacket.

Three shots were fired at Spike, each one deflected by Travis, who then charged the gun-toting minion and cut him to shreds, making him disappear in a shower of blood.

Twilight would have been horrified by the what she had seen if her life weren't in immediate danger by another thug with a baseball bat full of nails.

She caught his hands before he could swing at her, but she was struggling to keep him at bay.

Twilight knew that she wasn't strong enough to hold him much longer and needed to do something.

She kneed him in his stomach and twisted his bat out of his hands, hitting him in the face with the tail end of the handle when she did. She had often attacked other opponents, but never physically. Only ever with her magic. Doing it this way felt different to her, like it was much more personal. She didn't like how it made her feel to hit someone like that, but it was what needed to be done if she wanted to live. She held onto the bat and continued to watch Travis and Spike hold off any attackers, hoping that she wouldn't have to get involved once more.

TO MAKE THINGS INTERESTING, PINKIE WAS PROVIDED COVER AGAINST GLASTITS' GUNFIRE.

Those letters scattered around the area where Pinkie and Glastits landed and morphed into raised walls and blocks for her to hide behind.

Just in time too, since Pinkie dove behind a wall that was tall enough for her to stand behind as a stream of bullets came in to reduce her to a puddle of Pinkie blood.

It was only a short reprieve since she could hear the bullets stop, and footsteps rapidly approach her from the other side of her cover.

She couldn't run, since Glastits would just pursue her with that killer cannon of his.

The only option she had was to find a way to incapacitate him.

Just as she saw him come around her cover, she swung her fist and hit him in his face.

But the assassin was not to go down so easily.

At such close range, Glastits knew that his heavy gun wasn't much good. He dropped it in favor of simply going hand-to-hand with Pinkie.

Glastits thought that his match was in the bag after his first few hits landed on her face. He came even closer to winning when he grabbed her fist and twisted her arm.

But he didn't count on Pinkie being so skilled.

With her face to the wall, Pinkie ran up the vertical surface and flipped her body so her arm was straightened. She maneuvered her opponent to trip him and place her foot on his throat to keep him on the ground.

But the agent was also no pushover.

He grabbed Pinkie's foot and twisted it, sending her off balance and allowing him to stand once more to unleash a chain of roundhouse kicks.

Once Pinkie had been driven back far enough, he doubled back to collect his gun, and immediately fired at his opponent.

Pinkie dove behind another wall, thinking that maybe this wouldn't be as exciting as she'd anticipated.

Dash, Shinobu and Henry all awaited to be attacked by an opponent, but were relieved when they saw that no enemies came with them.

They nearly ran off to assist each of their allies, but they noticed a volley of letters coming in from above them.

They tried to dodge the attack, but each one homed in on and was absorbed by Shinobu.

SHINOBU BEGAN TO FEEL STRANGE, AS HER VIOLENT URGES SURFACED AND TOOK CONTROL OF HER.

"What did that say," Dash asked as she read the attack that assimilated with her friend's body.

She and Henry both stepped back as they watched Shinobu turn to them with her sword ready to attack.

"I'm sorry," Shinobu said quietly before she made a quick draw attack at Dash like the one that almost killed her before.

Dash was ready this time, and blocked the cut.

As she and Shinbobu locked swords, Dash could see in her friend's face that even though she wasn't in control of her actions, she was completely aware of them.

Henry came in and cut his beam katana through Shinobu's midsection, making her stagger backwards.

"How do we snap her out of it," Dash asked.

Henry only shrugged when he gave his answer.

"In my experiences, the best thing for it is a good, sound beatin'," and he charged in to keep up his offensive.

Dash had always thought of herself as a protector of her friends, and to have to fight one severely conflicted with her very nature. But then again, Shinobu had to be released from the control she was under, so by fighting her, she would actually be saving her. Even that reasoning didn't sit well with Dash, but it was all that she could work off of to muster the nerve to do what needed to be done. She charged in with her sword drawn, prepared for the worst to come.

As soon as Dash entered the battle, Shinobu split herself into two phantom copies to hold off both attackers.

It seemed that now Shinobu was under the control of another, she had no inhibitions when it came to using the full limits of her speed and skill.

Dash had trouble keeping up with the acrobatic strikes that assaulted her.

It was when she met with Henry between the two phantoms that she ended up getting the higher ground.

The two coordinated their own team attacks, vaulting over one another to strategically befuddle the two phantoms.

Their attacks brought them closer to one another to the point where they ended up making physical contact to direct each other towards their opponents.

It soon became a kind of dance to them that seemed so natural, as if they were meant to be together like that.

They earned a reprieve when Henry took Dash's hand and spun her so that she could slash both phantoms before kicking them away, ending Dash and Henry pressing their bodies together.

It was now or never. Dash quickly spoke her mind.

"We should go out after this."

"Agreed. Right shoulder."

Taking Henry's cue, Dash spun with a slash to her right, which was blocked by one of the phantoms.

This was going to be great: not only was she going to save her friend and defeat another powerful evil, but she had a date afterwards. All the more motivation to succeed.

Silvia watched on, thrilled with how things were going. There was action, betrayal, and now love had bloomed on the battlefield. Her heart leapt with joy, but not for Dash and Henry. As far as she was concerned, they could both burn in hell for Henry leaving her, and for Dash stealing him away.

Her sentiments were with how she would set up a format for her new assassination program. There were two things that people loved more than anything: drama and blood, and so far both were happening. With any luck, it would keep up until the very end and she would be set for life.

"Now where were we," Peaches asked as she faced Rarity and extended a length of her whip between her hands. She approached Rarity the same way that she had before, slowly, prolonging the kill to be made.

Rarity slowly backed away until she found her back pressed up against a wall. With no way out, she balled up her fists in an attempt to defend herself, but her shaking hands would do nothing to hold off her opponent. \

Both women were surprised when a dagger flew in and barely missed Rarity's head.

"Quit dragging it out and kill her already," Cream shouted as she pulled another dagger out of her jacket.

As she lunged at Rarity, she felt her sister's whip wrap around her wrist and pull her back.

"What the fuck, Peaches!?"

"She will die, but it will be as I see it fit: as quickly and with as little mess as possible," Peaches responded, again in her icy tone.

"Sure, because what's more important? Killing her or making sure your dress stays pretty?" Cream spat back as she pulled her arm out of her sister's weapon's grasp.

Rarity could see that this was going to lead to a long, bitter argument between them. She had done the same thing with her own sister before several times, so she knew from experience that they would be at this for a while and not pay any mind to anypony or anything else.

She discretely reached down to pick up the dagger that missed her, in case she would need it to defend herself and tried to sneak away without the twins' knowledge.

No good though, since the twins came to blows and began fighting one another, putting Rarity in the middle of their fight.

Rarity had to hold up the dagger that she had "borrowed" from Cream to block a swing from Peaches whip.

The excess length of the model's weapon swung around to get Rarity with the bladed tip.

But Rarity found that she was not the target of the attack, as the blade nearly cut her sister's face, who blocked it with her own blade.

Cream grabbed the whip below its bladed point and pulled hard, bringing her sister towards her.

Peaches was brought crashing into Rarity, and the two fell closer to Cream, who brandished a dagger for each of them.

They both barely managed to dodge as Rarity avoided the attack altogether, while the sleeve on Peaches' dress got cut, making both the model and the fashionista gasp.

"You bitch!" Peaches growled as she swung her whip at her sister.

"Ooh, did you just curse?" Cream asked sarcastically as she deflected the whip towards Rarity, "So much for setting an example for your little--sister!"

She threw two daggers as she spoke the last two words.

In the meantime, Rarity continued to try and sneak away, and stay alive long enough to reach one of her combat savvy friends.

Applejack had made no moves during her fight, and the same went for her larger opponent.

She and Gina simply tried to stare one another down once more into surrendering, but once again their equally indomitable natures prevented them from doing so.

"You ain't gonna give up, are ya," Applejack asked her opponent.

"Would you," the former griffin rebutted.

She did have a point.

Applejack acknowledged once that she and Gina were very alike in their personalities, and it was proving to be a problem. She often defeated opponents through sheer intimidation or overwhelming power, but Gina had both to match her own. Maybe even surpass her.

In any case, she was going to honor the ways of an assassin and end the fight with one of them dying, and it wasn't going to be her.

Before she could even move, Gina tossed Applejack her sword.

Applejack looked at it, confused as to why her opponent would relinquish her weapon so readily.

It became clear when Gina dragged her finger across the scar on her neck, daring Applejack to try her luck again at killing her.

Against anypony else, Applejack would have thought they were making it too easy, but she knew that Gina was different.

Putting her thoughts aside, she made her first move by trying to cut her opponent in half.

Her offensive was easily countered when Gina took a blindingly fast step forward and drove her knee into Applejack's stomach.

Applejack reeled backwards from the blow and dodged a massive uppercut from Gina.

She countered with an elbow to Gina's face, and followed it up with a jab combo before swinging her sword again.

This time, she only slightly nicked Gina's arm, which was not enough to falter her.

Gina retaliated by picking Applejack up by her collar and headbutting her into a daze.

She dropped Applejack to the ground, and lifted her foot to stomp her head and crush it.

Applejack dodged the stomp and she swung her sword again.

The sword hit home on Gina's hip, its blade digging into her flesh, this time getting her opponent to yell in pain.

Gina pulled the sword out of her leg and backed off to briefly grieve over her wound.

It was only a second later that she had dodge another cut from Applejack.

She clutched both of Applejack's arms in one of her own and punched her away with her free hand, disarming the farmpony in the process.

Applejack reeled backwards and tried to charge again, but stopped when the claymore was tossed back to her.

So, this was how she wanted to play it?

If that was how she wanted it, fine.

She would just have to play along.

Fluttershy only barely managed to dodge any attacks that came her way.

Despite being half her age, her opponent was vastly more skilled in combat than her.

Every time Fluttershy dodged, it seemed that he had anticipated her movement and struck where she was going to be.

She stopped abruptly when her opponent's enormous sword crashed down in front of her, and tried to backpedal away from it, only to stop once more before the sword cut her in two again.

TO DEFEND HERSELF, FLUTTERSHY WAS GIVEN A WEAPON.

The words quickly shrank in size and converged into Fluttershy's hand. Quickly, they morphed and took the shape of some kind of small cannon.

The look of it reminded her of the one that Glastits used, only it was much smaller and more compact. Also, it was jet black in color as opposed to the agent's garish, pink cannons.

Fluttershy didn't know what it was, but she knew that it was meant to be deadly.

Despite that she had been given a means to defend herself, she had no intentions of ever harming her opponent. Not even the fact that her life was on the line would sway her gentle nature.

She dove to the side as another downward strike threatened to cleave her in two, discarding her weapon in the process.

Only a short distance away were Rainbow Dash, Henry and Shinobu.

If Fluttershy could reach them, they could help her against the butterfly who had been given a second chance to kill her.

She clambered to her feet and ran as fast as she could to the safety of her friends.

Her progress getting to them was hindered as COLUMNS BEGAN TO SPROUT FROM THE GROUND, AS IF TO EMULATE THE FOREST SETTING WHERE THE ASSASSIN WAS FIRST ENCOUNTERED.

Both combatants were knocked off their feet as the ground beneath them shook and warped as tree-like columns came out of the ground, obscuring each other from view.

These proved to be little trouble for Flutterbutt, who cut down a whole row with his oversized weapon and continued hacking his way towards Fluttershy.

This spurred Fluttershy to run away, but her progress was hindered by columns growing in front of her.

She stumbled over one column that was beginning to sprout in front of her and kept running as more and more sprouted before her.

Finally, her foot caught on one of them, causing her to fall.

She grew distressed when she felt it grow underneath her.

Up it went, high above the rest of the battlefield with her on top of it.

When it stopped, Fluttershy desperately tried to look for a way down, before her fear of heights made her cling to the surface at the top of it.

However, a way down had been provided for her.

The column she was atop suddenly jolted as if a quick tremor happened beneath her.

Then she felt a familiar sensation of movement as the base of the column slipped from where it had been cut.

Fluttershy panicked as the column she was on lurched forward, forcing her to make a desperate leap to the next column as it grew up from the ground.

She held onto the edge of it, her fingertips barely keeping her from falling.

She felt the column she was on jolt and tilt forward once more.

Using the forward movement she gradually reoriented her balance and center of gravity so that the further the column fell, the more upright she could walk.

This plan failed once the column actually hit the ground, and the resulting shock took her off her feet and over the edge of her column.

Once again, Fluttershy landed on a column that began to sprout, which brought her high above the battle.

As she rose, she could see that she was only a short distance from her friends. All she needed was the means to get there from her rising perch.

Before she could find one, she was cut down once more.

As Fluttershy fell this time, no more columns sprouted. This time, she was sure she wouldn't survive the fall.

But then she realized something: she had both a means to survive, and reach Dash and Shinobu.

Just as her feet slid off the top of the column, she reached her hand out to grab the edge of it.

She clung closely to the top of the falling pillar, and hoped to Celestia that she wouldn't die when she landed.

With a loud crash, she felt a in impact tremor course into her body, making her let go of her handhold.

When the dust settled, she could see that Dash was on one side of the fallen column while Shinobu was on the other.

"Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy shouted as she rushed into her friend's safe proximity.

As soon as she had reached Dash, Shinobu's phantom came jumping over the column with her sword ready to cut them both.

Dash blocked the cut as Shinobu's phantom gained a foothold on the rounded surface of the column.

"Wait! It's us!" Fluttershy shrieked as she hid behind Dash.

It seemed that her words didn't reach Shinobu, as all she did in response was somersault over them and try to cut Fluttershy.

Once again, she was blocked by Dash.

"Something happened to her," Dash explained as she stepped between Shinobu and Fluttershy to continue their fight, "Henry says we need to beat some sense into her, and she'll be back to normal."

Fluttershy took a fearful step backwards until her back was to the fallen column.

It seemed that she had only stepped out of one danger, and into another. She was then reminded that she hadn't left any danger at all when a giant sword came crashing down where she was standing before.

Flutterbutt raised his sword again to cleave her against the wall to her back, but the boy was bombarded by three familiar energy orbs.

Henry appeared in a whoosh and summoned five more orbs to assist him.

He then parried an attack that came from Shinobu's second phantom as Fluttershy tried to step to a safer distance.

As she did, the giant sword came down again, only to be blocked by Dash and Henry crossing each other's swords. They then both blocked their respective phantom opponents before they were cut in two.

In the background, the gigantic sword swung from one side, forcing Dash to block it and kick Shinobu's first phantom away.

Then it came in from the other side, making Shinobu's second phantom jump over it.

When it came to Henry, he jumped over, cutting his opponent and sending his orbs into her body.

Fluttershy watched on, wishing she could do something to help, and soon her wish was granted.

THE GUN SHE WAS GIVEN EARLIER REAPPEARED IN HER HAND, AS THOUGH BY MAGIC

Sure enough, with a flourish of red, the small, black cannon reappeared in her hand.

Fluttershy looked at the weapon, not wanting to have to use it, but knowing she had no choice.

She held the gun in her shaking hands and took aim at the phantom that was attacking Dash.

Though she had never seen a gun before, she knew that something was going to happen once she pulled the trigger on it. Whatever it was, she knew it wouldn't be pleasant, especially considering that it was going to happen to somepony she recently became friends with.

Once again, she saw Flutterbutt swing his giant sword from the background to cut all four of them in a single swing.

Fluttershy lost all control of herself.

She snapped her aim to the young assassin and closed her eyes tightly as she pulled the trigger three times, each one assaulting her ears with the loudest bang she ever heard, and sending a shock through her hands.

When Fluttershy opened her eyes to see what had happened, she saw the boy on the ground with his hand on his bloody shoulder.

Fluttershy couldn't believe what she had done.

She dropped her gun and ran to the child's aid, not even caring about the fact that she had to dodge the strikes of her battling friends and came to a stop in front of the agonizing boy.

Fluttershy tried to calm him down, telling him that it was alright and that she could help him, even though she herself doubted she could.

The young assassin allowed Fluttershy to move his hand so that she could more closely examine the wound.

When he did, Fluttershy could see that it was a deep wound unlike any she had seen before. She had no knowledge of how to treat a wound from a weapon like the one she used, and he had no first aid supplies with her to at least try.

She took the boy's hand as tears welled up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry..." Fluttershy said as the tears began to pour down her face. Not only had she hurt him, but she failed to take care of him afterwards. Now all she could do was offer her comforts by gently embracing the boy and hope he'd forgive her.

The truth was that she already had, in a sense.

Flutterbutt was touched by how even though she had no reason to do what she was doing, she simply did out of concern for the well being of all others, no matter who they were or what they'd done, without any feelings of spite to be found.

He returned the embrace and joined her in her tears, but their time together was cut short when they both felt a pain unlike any other.

Looking down, they both could see a length of bladed steel between the two of them, protruding from bloody wounds in their abdomens.

Looking over his new friend's shoulder, Flutterbutt could see Shinobu standing behind her, and then slash her sword out through their sides.

Fear gripped them both as they could feel their very lives bleeding away.

"It'll be alright..." Fluttershy gasped as she cradled the boy's head. "E-Everything's going to be fine..."

During their fight, the phantom that was fighting Dash could see the two embracing, and took the opportunity to do away with them both.

Dash didn't even have time to blink before the deed was done.

Without even thinking, she charged towards the second phantom and grabbed its hair as she ran by it.

She smashed its face into the fallen column and ran towards the other phantom, plowing the face of the one she held into the pillar as she ran.

When Dash reached the phantom that had attacked Fluttershy, she threw the one she held into it and the two merged to form one solid being again.

But Dash wasn't done yet.

She swung her sword into Shinobu, over and over, taking advantage of the delay that happened whenever Shinobu's phantoms merged.

Shinobu would not be forgiven for betraying her friends, and Dash would see to it that she wouldn't live to regret it.

With a final powerful swing, Shinobu's head was severed from her body, and landed next to Fluttershy's corpse.

The rage left Dash, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by what had happened, and by what she had done. She failed to protect Fluttershy, and instead of saving Shinobu she ended up killing her.

Dash had seen death before when Travis first killed Glastits all those months ago, and the flood of feelings came rushing back to her. The anxiety, the nausea, the sheer will to collapse all hit her even harder now that it was her who was responsible for the death of another. Not only that, but the death of a friend.

She made sure Shinobu wouldn't live to regret her actions, but now what about herself.

There was no going back from this. In her own eyes, she was a failure.

Dash jumped when she felt Henry's hand touch her shoulder. Before she could even think, her arms were around his neck, and her face was in his shoulder as she cried for her lost friends.

Though he was a total stranger to her, he was the only one who she could lean on in her time of need. The way that he cradled the back of her head quieted her sobbing, but did nothing to ease her sadness.

"We can still save the others," he tried to reassure her. Some part of her knew that he was right. Even though Fluttershy and Shinobu were dead, that didn't mean the others had to die as well.

With an affirming nod, Dash tried to collect her nerves and do what needed to be done.

"I-I'll go to Pinkie...She's not far from here," Dash said shakily as she let go of Henry.

"And I'll get to whoever else is nearest," Henry said before he started to run. But then he hesitated to speak to Dash once more, "I'll try to come back alive for ya."

Dash didn't know how she should take that. She definitely felt something for him, but even so, if he did come back they may end up having to kill one another.

Shaking these thoughts from her mind, she picked up Shinobu's sword and ran off in Pinkie's direction to help her with her opponent.

Pinkie hid behind another wall for cover as Glastits blindly shot around, but lost track of her as the debris flew around and blocked his vision.

"Come on outta hidin'. There's a hot piece o' lead here with yer name on it."

Pinkie could hear him approaching her again. She would have blindsided him again, but he would be expecting that.

She zipped around to the other side of the wall as soon as he quickly stepped around it to her side.

"Ya can't laugh yer way outta this one, darlin'. I ain't some figment y'all can guffaw inta oblivion like all the other scary crap out there."

Pinkie knew that he was right. She learned from experience that not everything can simply be laughed away, but thanks to Travis, she learned how to deal with those things.

"Unless ya get real serious real fast, all that funny's gonna come back an' kick ya in the head!"

Pinkie placed her hand on top of the wall, jumped, and swung her feet into the back of his head, making him drop his gun again.

Before he even hit the ground, Glastits somersaulted to a standing position and didn't even have time to think before he had to defend against Pinkie's manic attacking.

Their fight went on, and the two went back and forth on the defensive.

At one point, Glastits grabbed Pinkie in a sleeper hold to choke her out, but something happened that he never would have expected.

Pinkie simply turned her head and slipped out of his arms like water, slid backwards between his legs, grabbed his ankles and pulled his feet out from under him.

She then executed a powerful heel drop on his chest, but missed when he rolled to his feet and punched her stomach, making her keel over.

Using the momentary stun to his advantage, Glastits quickly recovered his gun and took aim at Pinkie.

Pink energy built up at the front of the gun, signalling that he was about to unleash a devastating attack that nearly killed Travis before.

Pinkie was about to attempt to dodge it, when suddenly Rainbow Dash came in and cut Glastits' with her sword and kicked him away.

"Don't even think about it" Dash growled as she took a defensive stance with a sword in each hand.

"Dashie," Pinkie greeted her friend, "Where's everypony else?"

Her heart sank when she saw the sullen way Dash looked at the steel blade in her hand. One look at the hilt showed that it had distinctive silver engravings, indicating the sword was Shinobu's. What stood out even more was that her sword had fresh blood on the blade.

"Fluttershy and Shinobu...they didn't make it..." was all that Dash said.

Pinkie couldn't believe what she had just heard. She took a second look at the bloodied blade in Dash's hand and tried not to jump to any horrible conclusions. There was no way that Dash would do such a thing. It went against her very role as the Bearer of Loyalty. She just couldn't do it.

"Ain't it a sad thing, losin' a friend," Glastits said as he leaned his back against a wall with a wide smile on his face, "I was the first one who died, so I wouldn't really know, but I'd bet dollars ta donuts my friends were devastated when yer boyfriend cut off my head. 'Course, up 'til now: you gals wouldn't know anything about that either. Y'all just sat and waited all tense 'til yer friends came home for ya ta welcome 'em with open hooves. None o' my pals got that feelin' of relief. An' after so long I'm willin' ta bet they just gave up an' resigned ta dying one after the other. Funny thing is, even if we weren't bein' forced inta this, we still woulda done it."

"Why," Dash said as she clenched her fist around the handle of Shinobu's sword.

"'Cause when yer friends die, all ya have is their memory. So why not honor it by fightin' for them?"

"You mean revenge," Pinkie asked.

Her question made the assassin's smile shrink to a thoughtful smirk.

"Ya might call it that. I might not seem the spiritual type, but I kinda see it as fightin' beside 'em in an existential sense. Sorta like a link between the worlds o' life an' death."

The two women paused when they heard the assassin's words. Sure he was scary, insane, and a general meanie, but he made a weird kind of sense.

Memories of their friends echoed to Dash as she looked at Shinobu's sword one last time before she tossed it to Pinkie.

"Come on, Pinkie. Let's bring 'em back," she said, hanging onto any way to keep her lost friends close.

It seemed that Mr. Crazy-Glass-Tits was right.

As Pinkie charged forward with Shinobu's sword in her hands, she felt as if her white-haired friend was running right alongside her. She took her swing, and could feel the power of the two of them in her attack.

Glastits held up his gun to block it, only to be staggered under the power of her blow.

Next came Dash who cut right into him.

The two friends ebbed and advanced one after the other, and soon felt like victory was upon them, but the assassins always had something up their sleeves.

With a sudden burst of stamina, Glastits fought back with a violent fervor that overwhelmed his opponents, even bludgeoning them with his heavy gun like it was an oversized hammer.

"This must be the phase of the fight where they pull out all the stops," Pinkie thought to herself. She learned from Travis that when an opponent is close to defeat, they redouble their efforts to win. It was the most dangerous part of any fight, but it was also the most crucial, given that at that point victory could go either way.

But it didn't seem like it would be theirs.

With another mighty swing of his gun, Glastits knocked both of his opponents to the ground and charged up his energy beam attack.

Pinkie had no time to react as the energy beam came for her.

Her life didn't even have time to flash before her eyes when Dash pushed her out of the way.

Pinkie landed hard and turned to see if Dash had escaped as well.

The beam dissipated, and Pinkie saw Dash lying on the ground, her face bloody and her clothes torn. She was breathing heavily, which the fact that she was breathing at all was a great relief to Pinkie, but the bastard still had to pay for what he had done.

Pinkie charged once more as another energy beam was shot at her.

She jumped high over it, and reached Glastits just as he adjusted his aim to her.

She landed on top of his gun, pinning it to the ground and swung her sword at him over and over.

With one last cut, she severed both of Glastits hands as he futilely tried to block her cut.

To give him a taste of his own medicine, Pinkie kicked her opponents gun into her own hand and began to viciously beat him with it, returning every ounce of pain he inflicted on her and Dash.

She ended up pinning Glastits against a wall with the front of his gun, eagerly anticipating the pull of the trigger.

Glastits knew that he was just defeated, and once again smiled widely before his impending demise. Before he left to paradise, he offered Pinkie one last piece of advice.

"Times like this, all ya can do is laugh."

He began to chuckle, but as soon as Pinkie pulled the trigger and the bullets started tearing him apart, his light chuckle became a mad cackle that rang in her mind louder than his weapon ever would.

Pinkie let go of the trigger, and watched as Glastits collapsed to the ground.

"Ha...ha...ha..." came his last words as his smile slowly turned to a frown before he died.

Pinkie then became aware of how heavy the cannon was and dropped it to the ground with a loud thud.

"Dashie!" Pinkie said to herself before she ran to her friend's side.

Dash was still breathing, but it was much weaker than it was before.

"Dashie, hold on! I can help you!" Pinkie shuddered. She had watched Fluttershy work plenty of times to try and emulate her first aid practices, but it seemed that Dash thought otherwise.

Dash shook her head 'no' as she reached to her side to grab her sword and deactivate the blade.

With her other hand, she held Pinkie's and placed her sword handle in her friend's hand, then closed Pinkie's fingers around it.

With one last deep exhale, Pinkie saw Dash close her eyes, and felt her hands go limp.

"Dashie? Rainbow Dash!?"

Pinkie held her fallen friend in her arms, crying profusely, and it wasn't her usual hysterical wailing. They were tears for a fallen friend, not something to get a laugh from those stupid watchers past the wall, who did nothing to stop this from happening.

She held Dash tighter, and observed the Nimbus in her hand and understood why it was given to her. Now that Dash was gone, who was going to look after everypony? It would have to be up to her to look after the others now.

"I'll do it, Dashie," Pinkie sniffled as she laid Dash down, "I'll protect what's precious to me."

She stood up and ran to the aid of her friends with a sword clutched in each hand.

Spike had disarmed one of the thugs of the chain he was swinging at him, and wrapped one end of it around his attackers neck to pull him down and punch him in the face.

Two more thugs appeared and charged Spike.

"Catch," Spike yelled as he threw the other end of the chain at the thug furthest from him.

The thug caught it, and the third man who was between the other two's neck caught on the length of chain, taking him off his feet and pulling his allies to the ground with him.

Twilight saw that Spike was now without a weapon. She wasn't in any immediate danger at the moment, so she decided it wouldn't hurt to lend him a hand.

"Spike," she called to him as she tossed him her bat.

The boy caught it and clubbed another advancing attacker in his leg, crippling him.

Twilight's choice to give her weapon to Spike was unwise, because at that moment MORE THUGS APPEARED TO ATTACK TWILIGHT NOW THAT SHE WAS HELPLESS.

"I'm not helpless! I'm just combat deficient," Twilight said as the words morphed into more random thugs.

After cutting three more opponents with a single swing from the Peony, Travis glanced over to Twilight to see how she was doing, and she wasn't doing well.

Enemies were closing in on her, and it would only be a matter of seconds until the got her. He picked up a crowbar and threw it to Twilight.

"Sparks!" He called as the crowbar almost missed its mark and hit a thug in the back of his head. Lucky break though, since it bounced into Twilight's waiting hands.

Twilight took a few wild swings at her approaching attackers, only barely managing to fend them off to give her enough space to reach Spike.

When she did, she helped him to fight off the opponents who were attacking him.

They were almost ambushed from behind, before a blur whooshed past them and cut the three attackers over and over until the finishing cut was dealt, which made them burst into a shower of blood until they disappeared. When the downpour stopped, Twilight and Spike saw their savior to be the man who was with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy earlier.

"You're..." Twilight began before the man finished for her.

"Henry. Travis's twin. Nice to meet ya," he said just before he spun around at an incredible speed to cut another attacker who tried to blindside him.

"Travis has a brother," Spike wondered aloud. He always kind of thought that he was like Travis's little brother, but why didn't he ever mention he had an actual, biological brother before. Maybe they didn't get along as well as he and Travis did.

"We aren't exactly whatcha call 'close family,'" Henry briefly explained as he fought off more opponents, "Just stick with me. You'll be safer with me than ya ever will with Travis."

This got Travis's attention as he finished cutting down another gun-toting thug.

"Oh, would you listen to this guy," Travis proceeded to mock Henry's Irish accent as he spoke, "I'm Sir Henry Mother Fucker. I fight with style and finesse to put me ballroom dancin' lessons to good use. I only had one playable level!"

"There wasn't enough disk space," Henry rebutted as he fended off another attacker.

"Yep, they're definitely brothers," Twilight though as she watched the two bicker.

Then in the distance, she noticed three figures fighting one another. Rather, it looked like two of them, the Parfait sisters, were fighting each other, and poor Rarity was caught in the middle of it all.

Twilight would have gone to her aid, but in this human body, she didn't know how easy that would be. She needed to find a way to stay alive and help her friend, and wracked her brain for an answer.

"Rarity!"

"Oh no," Twilight thought, "Spike!"

It seemed that Spike had seen the same thing that she had and ran to Rarity's aid without a second thought. She almost ran after him, but then hesitated and allowed him to go.

After what she had seen what he was capable of doing, she realized that he didn't need to be coddled as much as she previously thought.

Twilight then had to defend against the downward swing of an opponent's katana before clubbing him in the head.

"Preening snob!"

"Psychotic hooligan!"

"Stuck up bitch!"

"Foul mouthed upstart!"

The Parfait sisters traded insults as they traded blows with each other, all the while keeping Rarity trapped between them.

Poor Rarity was having trouble fending off the two of them, who apparently hadn't forgotten that they were trying to kill her the way that they seemed to be trying to keep her in their sights.

Rarity could see figures far in the distance, and decided that that should be her destination.

She blocked another whip strike from Peaches and ducked under a dagger thrown by Cream.

As much as she hated to do so, she crawled low to the ground and tried not to ruin the dress she was wearing. It really was a lovely dress, and she wanted to replicate it when she got home. But her first priority was to survive this battle and go home.

The battle carried on like that for the longest time to Rarity, who was only just lucky not to get killed after dodging each attack from either sister.

She could see herself getting closer to the figures and from where she was, she could see that three of them were Twilight, Spike and Travis. Now that she was so close, she became motivated to get to them as quickly as possible, by any means necessary.

Rarity saw Peaches' whip swing in front of her and miss hitting Cream, only to have it keep swinging towards her.

The height of the swing placed it at Rarity's neck, and she knew that if it kept coming towards her, it would wrap around her neck until the bladed point dug into her exposed flesh and severely cut her.

Reacting quickly, Rarity grabbed the length of whip, and as soon as she had, a thought occurred to her, "What would Spike or Travis do?"

She remembered watching him and Travis fight the sisters before and the ways that they used objects in their environment to their advantage.

At the moment, Rarity's environment was the whip in her hand, so the answer came to her in less than a heartbeat.

With a strong pull, she brought Peaches toward her, and as soon as she was close enough, grabbed Peaches' arm and pushed her to the ground as she tripped her opponent.

"Sorry," Rarity said quickly before she tried to leave.

Before she could even start, Cream came dashing at her, making Rarity brandish the dagger she had taken from her earlier.

Instead, Cream came to a stop over her sister with one of her own daggers on Peaches' neck.

"This is a long time coming, sis," Cream said with a sadistic grin.

Once again, Cream was going to payback Peaches for all the grief she had been put through, and this time she would feel no remorse for it. Anything that she ever had with her sister was now meaningless, and losing her would be nothing to her.

"No," Rarity shouted as she tried to pull Cream away from Peaches before she could kill her.

Cream stood up and Rarity barely managed to parry the cut Cream sent to her.

"'No,' what?" Cream asked impatiently. "What the fuck business of it is yours if I kill my sister? You should be thanking me, since she's the one who wanted you dead in the first place so that we wouldn't have to kill each other! You can see how that worked out! If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here right now, about to kill both of your high and mighty, pompous asses!"

Rarity slowly backed away as Cream spoke. If what she said was true, then Peaches really was the villain in all of this, and maybe she did deserve punishment. But something that Cream said made a new thought come to her. One that may quell Cream's fury.

"She wanted me dead because she loves you so, Cream."

Cream tightly gripped her daggers and began advancing towards Rarity, making the fashionista fearful for her life.

Rarity continued to try and reason with her assassin.

"I've learned so much from you both since that day in Manehattan."

Cream slowed down slightly, but kept her dagger at the ready.

"When I heard your sister's last words to you, I realized what I must do to keep from becoming like you and Peaches. I learned that I had to show my sister how much I Ioved and appreciated her. If I hadn't done that, she would have drifted away from me and I'd lose her forever the way Peaches lost you. I didn't want her to forget that she and I have a responsibility to one another."

Cream stopped advancing on Rarity altogether at that point, and looked back on her time with Peaches. She remembered how when they were fillies, their parents told them something similar about responsibility and the value of having a sister. But then how over time, Peaches seemed to lose interest in being a sister, and instead chose to treat her more as something that was just there to take along for the ride. She recalled how much it hurt during the process of being phased out as a sibling, until the point came where she felt nothing for her anymore.

All those memories threatened to make Cream burst from the flood of pent up emotions. All of her painful memories brought a myriad of rage and sadness into her being, all because of that stupid Bearer of Generosity.

She had to make the pain go away, and she was going to stop it at its source.

"You talk too much..." Cream said quietly as she brandished her dagger once more for Rarity and slowly resumed her advance.

Rarity thought she had reached her assassin and averted her desire to kill, but it wasn't so.

She clutched the dagger in her own shaking hands, desperately not wanting do use it, but knowing that now it was her or Cream.

The assassin was upon her and Rarity thrust the dagger to Cream's chest, but something happened that thwarted her attack.

Peaches placed herself between Rarity and Cream at the very last moment and had the dagger plunged into her own chest, deep into her heart.

Rarity let go of the handle and stumbled backwards, not believing what she had done.

Cream caught her dying sister before she fell.

"Peaches..." she said with a tremble.

But Peaches put her hand on her sister's cheek to stop her from talking. She knew she didn't have much time, and she had to answer her sister's question."

"Because however different we are, a sister is more precious than anything else..."

And once more, Cream watched her sister die.

Her sister's words echoed in her head, briefly recalling to her how close they were when they were younger. This built a new rage inside of Cream, and it was all for Rarity.

Cream rapidly approached the fashionista, who tried to defend herself with the dagger she held, but it was no use.

"Bitch," Cream growled as she pushed Rarity's weapon away and cut her face.

"Bitch," she said again, cutting the other side of Rarity's face.

The finishing blow was dealt when she took her dagger and stabbed Rarity in her stomach.

Rarity had never felt such pain in her life, but with it came the same sensation when Peaches nearly strangled her to death. The shortness of breath, the fading of her vision.

She felt Cream's blade pierce her back, and then knock her to the floor when she pulled it out. And then another, and another, each one of them slightly less painful than the last, until she felt no more and she knew she would never replicate the dress she was wearing.

Cream continued her brutal fury after Rarity died, but her butchering was cut off by a furious kick to her face.

She recovered from her stunned state, and only briefly saw the human form of the little dragon who gave her and her sister so much trouble in Manehattan.

As he charged again with his baseball bat in hand, she could see the pure rage in his face. It was the same kind of rage that she had for Rarity, and now she had to face it head on.

Cream was able to deflect his first few blows, only to have one strike her leg, the nails in the bat digging deep into her flesh.

Cream retaliated by sticking one of her daggers into Spike's shoulder.

The boy recoiled from the intense pain that nearly put his arm out of commission, but he kept up his onslaught, for the sake of his darling Rarity.

Spike landed a few more hits before Cream put another dagger between his ribs, but once again, it only seemed to further enrage Spike, making him attack faster and harder.

Because of her, Rarity was dead, and he never got the chance to tell her how he felt about her. She was almost more precious to him than Twilight, and now she was gone forever. The assassin was going to pay for this, no matter what the cost.

Spike and Cream traded a few more blows, ending with Spike getting another dagger stuck in his stomach.

"Why won't you die!?" Cream yelled before she felt the bat impact her ribs, and heard a sickening crack.

In a last ditch effort to win, she grabbed Spike's collar and plunged a dagger into his neck.

No good, though, since the boy still had enough stamina in him to swing one last time.

His final swing impacted her head, and the nails lodged themselves into her skull.

Cream's eyes went wide, and with a shuddering breath, she dropped dead.

Spike himself had begun to succumb to his many wounds and nearly died there with Cream.

But that would not be the way he would have it. He still had business to take care of.

Spike needed to make himself presentable for what he was about to do, and painfully pulled each dagger out of his body one by one. He smoothed his clothes and his hair as well as he could and shambled as boldly as he could to Rarity's side. When he reached her corpse, he psyched himself up and knelt down to take Rarity's hand.

"Rarity," he whispered, cursing himself that he only had the courage to speak his heart after she was dead, and he was dying, "...I love you..."

And he fell silently beside her, still holding her hand in his.

Across the way, Twilight glanced over to see how Spike was doing, and saw his crumpled form beside Rarity.

"Spike! Rarity!" She shouted before trying rush to them.

She knew she shouldn't have let him go alone, but she did anyway. He was too young and inexperienced to do it on his own, and now she was paying for her irresponsibility.

Her attempt to reach her friends was cut off by a pair of armed thugs who both tried to kill her.

She fought them off as best she could, before she was overwhelmed by their power and knocked to the ground.

Before they could deal the killing blow to her, they were both cut down by Travis and Henry.

After being saved from death, Twilight once again tried to go to Spike and Rarity, only to be stopped by the brothers.

"You'll get killed if you run off like that," Travis said as he held her back.

Henry cut down an approaching opponent and stepped in front of Twilight.

"He's right. You'll have a much greater chance to survive if ya stay with us," he added.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Twilight knew that he was right. But that didn't sate the fact that she still wanted more than anything to go over and mourn her friends. It was only the fact that MORE THUGS APPEARED TO CONFINE TWILIGHT AND HER FRIENDS TO A SINGLE AREA that stopped her from going to them.

At the furthest part of the room, Applejack wasn't making any recognizable progress with fighting Gina.

Every time she came close to making a killing blow, Gina disarmed her and gave her weapon back.

Applejack's resolve to defeat her opponent grew every time that the sword was handed back to her.

Applejack hadn't landed a single blow on her opponent, who just kept taunting her, trying to goad her into killing her again.

Applejack once again felt Gina's fists impact her face, and her knee in her side.

Instead of recoiling the way Gina meant for her to do, Applejack threw a punch of her own, having grown gradually more resistant to the power of her opponent's attacks.

Gina hadn't expected this to happen, and only barely managed to dodge the attack, with Applejack's fist only grazing her face.

With the distance between them, Gina kicked Applejack's sword hand, knocking it upwards into the air and kicked Applejack to the ground before backpedaling to a safe distance.

Her sword landed between the two of them, its point digging into the ground.

Gina made no moves to recover it, and stood waiting with her hands on her hips, allowing Applejack to get it for herself

Applejack rushed to the sword, motivated by thoughts of going home back to Equestria, back to Sweet Apple Acres where her family would welcome her with open hooves.

Her family!

She stopped short of the sword when it was in arm's reach.

What would she tell them if they asked how she survived the encounter? How would they see her if she had to tell them that she had to kill her opponent, just to satisfy her desire to live by some violent code of ethics? Granny would likely disown her as her granddaughter, and Big Macintosh would probably never speak to her again. And Apple Bloom was so young, and didn't need the mental scar of her big sister being a murderer.

With one last look at the sword, Applejack stepped away from the large blade.

During the whole battle, Gina had taken pleasure in taunting her opponent by allowing her to use her own weapon, but now that she was just staring back at her, she began to grow irritated.

"Aren't you gonna pick it up," she asked, hoping to provoke Applejack into attacking her with it.

"Nope," Applejack said concisely, further annoying Gina, "Don't need it." She realized that by using the sword, she was only bringing herself closer to giving in to her desire to murder her opponent. She nearly lost herself before, and she had not intentions of going to that dark place again. Without it, she had a better chance of ending the fight without a casualty.

Gina almost grabbed the sword herself to cut her down, but then hesitated when she realized why Applejack was doing what she was. She knew that Applejack understood the ways of assassins, but still refused to acknowledge them. Something had to be done about that, and Gina decided that she would have to help her along by playing by her rules. All she needed to do was find what nerve to press.

She cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders before taking an unarmed stance, showing Applejack that she was willing to play along.

"That's better," Applejack thought as she rushed in to attack.

She was able to back Gina against a wall and pummel her nearly to submission before her larger opponent caught her fist, grabbed her hair and smashed her face into the wall.

Before Gina could twist Applejack's arm into a submission hold, Applejack stomped her foot and followed up with a backhanded fist strike.

She decided then to repay Gina for the painful knee strikes she'd been on the receiving end of, and thrust her knee hard into her opponent's stomach.

Once Gina keeled over, Applejack followed up with a knee in her face, which knocked her backwards.

Before she could pin Gina and punch her face to a bloody paste, she felt Gina's heel kick her chest and send her backwards.

The impact of the kick made the unthinkable happen: Applejack's hat fell off her head to be caught by the waiting hand of her enemy.

Gina stood up and looked at the hat in her hand briefly. A glance at Applejack, and she saw how the farmer was eyeing the hat, like she was just robbed of something valuable.

Gina smirked as she realized that she just found the nerve to strike. She put the hat atop her own head, and motioned for Applejack to come and get it.

That was not an offense to be taken lightly. That hat was the only possession of her father's that she had, and if anything happened to it, it was like profaning his memory. The mere fact that Gina was wearing it was enough to make her picture her dad turning in his grave.

No thought was given as Applejack rushed in before the hat even touched Gina's head.

Applejack fought furiously to try and recover her most precious possession, but no matter what she did, Gina would simply counter with her own move, or play a sadistic game of keep away with her.

Gina made a bold move and hovered the hat over Applejack's head, and pulled it away whenever she tried to grab it.

It became too much for Applejack to bear. She could not allow anypony to insult her or her dad this way, and she was going to get it back by any means necessary.

When they got near it, Applejack grabbed Gina's sword and took her swings at her opponent.

She nearly got Gina once, but the swing was stopped by her opponent placing her hat in front of the cut, only barely managing to stop before she cut it.

A new strategy was needed to get her hat back.

Applejack quickly stepped forward, and turned the sword around, knocking the wind out of Gina with the pommel.

Reaching down, Applejack pulled her hat from Gina's grip and placed it atop her own head, but at a terrible price.

Gina was done playing around as well. Now that Applejack was close enough, she could end the fight as the victor. She reached out and wrapped one of her hands around Applejack's neck, squeezing as tightly as she could.

Applejack tried to break her opponent's grip, but she proved to be much too strong. She desperately tried to escape, but there was nothing for it. Nothing but the sword in her hand.

It was all she had, and she needed to survive for her friends' sake.

Applejack did what she knew she had to do. She pulled her arm back and thrust the long blade deep into her opponent's stomach. But even then Gina remained stubborn.

Gina wasn't ready to die just yet, and with her free hand, she reached down to grab the length of the blade that jutted from her stomach. With a pull, she brought Applejack, who still held fast to the hilt, closer to her proximity and wrapped both of her bloody hands around her neck, now squeezing with twice the power.

Applejack strained against the force of her larger opponents grip, trying to pull her hands away, but at the same time something else was giving her pause. She knew that if she ever killed anypony, for any reason at all that she'd never be able to live with herself. This same reason kept her from killing Gina before, but now that she had succeeded, she was warped by her actions and wanted out from it.

Her will to resist grew weaker as her opponent's stranglehold grew stronger. She felt herself gradually growing limp before she blacked out entirely.

With her opponent dead, Gina herself was ready to walk into paradise. She dropped Applejack's still from and crumpled to the floor alongside her.

Henry and Travis were now pressed back to back as they defended Twilight from the various thugs, and the flying letters that tried to literally spell TWILIGHT'S DOOM.

They were both beginning to wonder how much longer they could keep this up as they both could feel their limits being reached. They locked swords with a pair of opponents, who nearly won the struggle, until they were both knocked back in two flashes of silver.

When they rose to their feet, they found their attacker to be a pink-haired newcomer.

"Get! The buck! Away! From my coltfriend!" Pinkie said as she struck the two into submission. She nearly dealt the killing blows herself if Travis hadn't done it himself.

Before Travis could even greet her, Pinkie surprised him with a furious kiss. It still didn't stop them from fighting, since both remained aware enough to cut down advancing opponents.

"Pinkie! What happened? Where are the others?" Travis asked, when he broke the kiss.

"Oh, Travis...Dashie's dead," Pinkie answered on the verge of tears, "And Fluttershy and Shinobu too. What about everypony else," she finished hopefully.

" Brace yourself, Pinkie," Travis said, trying to ease her into the bad news, stopping to fight long enough to hold her steady as Henry took over defending them all, "Spike and Rarity were both killed."

Hearing it all over again made Twilight's stomach lurch.

"And Applejack?"

"Nobody's seen her."

"Then that means..." Twilight began as she did the body count in her head, "We're the only ones left! After these thugs die...we'll have to kill each other!" Twilight finished as her voice gradually became a frighted squeak with every word she spoke.

"We may not have to," Henry voiced his thoughts.

"You're right. There's always a way out of these things," Twilight said, remembering all of the seemingly impossible situations that she and her friends got out of before.

High on the safety of his lofty perch, Assassin 100 was watching the battle unfold on the various monitors he had.

He drank the rest of his green tea and tossed the empty bottle on the floor with the rest of the hundreds of bottle that the fat pig never threw away, having not left his monitor in weeks.

He began to grow bored watching all the little pawns fight, and decided that he had not been meddling nearly enough. Something had to be done to speed up the fight, since there was really only one person that he cared about seeing die.

He flexed his fingers and typed simply that HENRY SHOULD DIE NOW.

The words sprang from the system and down to the battlefield.

Back down on the battlegrounds, the four survivors all tried to formulate a plan to escape alive.

Henry noticed the letters that were coming for him and batted each one away, but it didn't seem to do him any good.

As soon as he did, they regenerated and kept falling to crush him.

He desperately fought for his life, periodically getting help from Pinkie or Travis who took time out to help him in addition to protecting Twilight, despite the fact that they themselves were almost getting crushed in the process.

The more this went on, the more that Henry realized that it wouldn't let up until it had done its work. He was only putting them in danger if he was in their midst.

He slowly backed away from the others, deactivated his sword, and put it on his belt.

"Henry! What the fuck are you doing!?" Travis yelled as he noticed what his twin was doing.

Henry said nothing, but he didn't need to for Travis to realize what he was doing.

"Quit this martyr bullshit and get back here!" Travis ordered as he cut through more thugs to reach his brother.

No good came of his pleas, or his effort to reach him.

He watched Henry dramatically spread his arms as he allowed the letters to smash him into oblivion.

Assassin 100 had taken care of one nuisance and now he had to simply swat the other flies. He would have simply done the same thing he had done with Henry, but his fingers paused, hovering over the keyboard as a new idea occurred to him.

It was sure to make things more entertaining to watch, and it was just what he needed to get a few kicks.

His fingers went to work and typed his message of death.

Travis and Pinkie both worked tirelessly to keep Twilight safe, even giving her tips on how to better protect herself.

Things became heated when finally, Travis became overwhelmed by his opponents.

Pinkie rushed in to save him, even going so far as to kill one of them, making Travis wonder what the hell she was doing before she reached him.

After killing her opponent, Pinkie saw something rushing towards them all. She could see that they were more letters thrown at them by that fat nerd, but couldn't make out what they said.

She readied herself to destroy them, but as they came closer, she could see that they read DIE TRAVIS, and her mind snapped to what had just happened to Henry.

The letters each tried to assault Travis one at a time, but Pinkie would not have this. She was determined to uphold the promise she made to protect Travis, and had no intentions of letting any harm come to him.

As Pinkie continued to swat away the letters, they rearranged their formation to come at Travis stacked beside each other to steamroll him under their power.

The letters grew in size, now larger than any one of them there so that they could maximize their killing potential.

Pinkie had to do something to save Travis, and it didn't matter what. If it meant that Travis would survive, and share the special love that she and him had, no price was too great.

She placed herself between Travis and the letters, and with one last look at him, she conveyed that she truly had no regrets for her actions as the words morphed to spell out DIE PINKIE.

Time stopped for Travis as Pinkie's demise grew closer and closer. He needed a way to avert this situation, and keep everyone safe. He had failed to save the others, but he wouldn't fail to save Pinkie.

He tapped into his latent stamina and focused his mind...

BAR...

"No! Not that! Anything but that one!"

BAR...

"I can't let her see me that way! Don't let her see that side of me!"

BAR...

"Danger..."

Then it came. The monster was out. An epitome of rage and hate for all the world to see but him. His bloodlust set it free, a freak with no morals or limitations or a sense of right and wrong.

As the wall of letters was upon him, Travis swung his katana to destroy it, only to have the whole thing pass right through him, and plow Pinkie into the ground.

The letters disappeared after they had made a bloody streak about fifty feet long, with Pinkie barely clinging to life at the end of it.

Now there was nothing left for Travis. He completely gave in.

He began to work his way to attack the surviving assassins, starting with the one nearest to Twilight.

The man screamed loudly as he tried to scramble away from his attacker, but to no avail.

Travis jumped and swung his weapon, cutting the thug in two and creating a monstrous spray of blood in the process.

In her final moments, Pinkie watched what was once Travis cut through his attackers one by one without even batting an eye at doing so. She knew her coltfriend, and that was not him. What happened to him, she would never know. And it was a heartbreaking question that she would take with her into the next world.

Travis continued to mercilessly slaughter the remaining enemies, each of them screaming in fear as they saw the killing machine approach them.

Their numbers gradually thinned out as Travis killed each one of them in the most horrible, bloody, painful ways that his twisted mind could think of. Soon, they were all dead and only he and Twilight were left. There was only one thing left to do.

"Travis?" Twilight asked fearfully as she saw the way he was looking at her.

There was one person between him and Assassin 100, and she was turning a sickly pale color as he stepped toward her.

Twilight tried to raise her weapon against him, but knew it would do her no good. He was too far gone, and there would be no defeating him. He had lost what was the most precious him, and was determined to take it out on the one who had taken it from him.

She dropped her weapon as Travis seemed to tower over her, no longer the friend she knew and now an evil being who couldn't be stopped.

"Travis..." Twilight whimpered before the blade came down and split her in two.

All it came down to now was killing the fat fuck who was fighting from behind his killer keyboard.

Travis dashed to the force field in front of the impossibly long stairway and whaled on the wall over and over, his strikes amplified by the power of his dark side. But even then, the wall of hard light deflected his blows.

He tried the trick he used to get through in the first place, but AN ELECTRICAL CURRENT KEPT TRAVIS FROM GETTING THROUGH.

Assassin 100 knew that he had no chance against Travis in a face-to-face fight, especially when he was like that. He simply decided that he would wait it out, until he came down from his dark side mode, then he'd let him through. Of course, even then he would make sure Travis never got to him alive. But there was one thing that he hadn't counted on.

The wall was made to specifically hold off Travis, but nobody else.

It seemed that he hadn't quite succeeded in his ploy to kill Henry, who dashed in and opened the wall for Travis.

"Go," he yelled before THE ELECTRIC CURRENT COOKED HIM ALIVE.

Travis didn't even stay to watch Henry's charred corpse fly away from the wall before he jumped through the opening his brother made for him.

This was bad.

If Travis was still in his dark side mode by the time he reached him, Assassin 100 knew he was in deep shit.

He tried to stop Travis's progress any way he could.

MOUNTED TURRETS SHOT AT TRAVIS.

They were cut down.

THE STAIRS GREW HIGHER.

Travis climbed them even faster.

THE STAIRS BECAME A STEEP SLOPE.

Travis used the Rose Nasty to climb the surface.

TRAVIS'S TWO KATANAS BURNED OUT.

Travis jammed his bare fingers into the solid surface to climb ever closer.

It didn't matter what he did. Travis found a way out of anything that was thrown at him, and only increased the speed at which he was approaching.

Now it looked like Assassin 100 would have to quit fighting with his keyboard and attack head on in the real world, something that he always had trouble doing. But maybe, just maybe if he could surprise Travis, he could win.

He looked at the little knife he had on his belt, and decided that it would have to do. He observed the monitor to keep an eye on Travis's progress, and saw that he was just coming over the edge of the stairs.

Travis took the fully charged Tsubaki off his belt and charged to attack as Assassin 100 turned around.

Unknown to everyone present, Jeanne had followed Travis to the UAA building to see if she could do anything to help him. She had done the same thing years ago, but was only a little kitten at the time, and could do nothing that would help, due to her small size. Now she was full grown, and learned a few trick from her years of feline mischief.

That fat guy sitting in the chair was planning something, and she knew exactly what it was. It was the same thing that her Travis did before he turned around to suddenly pick her up and rub her tummy, but she knew that tummy rubs for her Travis weren't in that fat, disgusting gorilla-pig's plans.

In less than a second, Assassin 100 turned around and was on his feet, knife raised to stab Travis, but before he even too the first step, Jeanne rubbed her side against his shins and his foot caught on her, making him trip right towards Travis's waiting blade.

He didn't even have time to scream before Travis cut him over and over.

The first cut had sent him flying back into his chair, and as Travis went to town, he not only destroyed him, but he destroyed the chair and the entire computer system.

Even after he was in pieces, Travis kept cutting until he was reduced to a pile of meat chunks.

With one final cut, Travis cut apart the one who had made life miserable for his friends with a gory satisfaction.

The final assassin had been defeated.

Silvia had taken a service elevator to reach the top of the stairway and watched as Travis slowly repressed his dark side. Once he seemed to be in a reasonable state, she approached him, making Jeanne hiss ferociously at her arrival. Silvia ignored the cat to speak to Travis.

"So, now you see that this is where you belong, yes," she wondered.

No response came from Travis, his face an unreadable mask.

"Now, now, Travis. Don't give me that silent treatment. You know as well as anyone that all you are is a sick killing machine, no matter how hard you try to deny it. I know that when you were killing all those men, and especially when you killed my star client that you felt a disgusting pleasure that only comes from fulfilling your greatest desire."

Travis knew that Silvia was right. He was sick. He was a freak. His greatest pleasure came from killing others, but that wasn't the only reason he did it.

Ever since he went to Equestria, he found that defending others was so much more rewarding than killing for his own personal pleasure, even if he didn't get paid to do it. He learned so much while he was there, which changed him from the human garbage he was before. He was more than a killer now, but without anyone to care about, he was back to nothing.

"Travis," Silvia started, after she allowed her words to sink in, "I would like to offer to represent you as an assassin again. And I want to emphasize that it will come with some very, very good benefits."

As she spoke the final statement, she reached out and traced her fingertips under the belt line of Travis's pants.

It was a very attractive offer, from a very attractive ex-girlfriend, but he wanted nothing to do with her or her business anymore. He'd be damned if he ever killed for anyone else's pleasure again, like some glorified game show competitor. Plus, he had to pay Silvia back for calling Pinkie a ditz.

Travis's fist shot out and connected squarely with her jaw, impacting so hard that if the human eye could perceive things at such speeds, Travis would have seen her jaw dislocate, one of her eyes bulge slightly out of its socket, and one of the vertebral discs in her spinal column slip which would render her a quadriplegic for the rest of her life.

The punch Silvia received sent her spinning through the air until her body hit the stairs, and she went ragdolling down the steps, until she landed unconscious at the bottom.

Travis sat down on the top step, presiding over the slaughter that he was responsible for. Memories of Bishop's death flashed in his mind, but to him, this was thousands of times worse. Not only did his friends get killed, but so did his only living relative and his girlfriend. Not only that, but he was responsible for the death of one of them, and all because of his selfish desire for revenge. As usual, despite his victory, he had been defeated.

He sat for several minutes reflecting on everything that had happened to him since he became an assassin.

It was all one great big, long, bloody ride from start to finish, and he hated every second of it. What was he talking about? There was no finish. Now without any of his friends, what was there? The only thing left for him was to continue his life as an assassin, hoping to one day be killed by someone who was truly better than he was, (like that would ever happen to someone like him).

With a sigh, he resigned to his fate and began to contemplate where he would get more work as a contract killer.

Jeanne had never seen her Travis look this sad before. Every time that he did, she always did her best to help him feel better like any good cat would, but she didn't know if anything she did would help him this time.

Looking over, she saw something lying on the ground that was long, slender and flexible with three metal things on the end. Playing with string always seemed to help her Travis before, so it was worth a try.

Jeanne took the strange thing in her paws and began rolling around with it, getting herself tangled up in its length.

Still no response from her Travis.

She got his attention by letting out a meow, and as soon as Travis turned to look at her, she started rolling around more with the strange string thing.

At first, it seemed her idea had failed, but then she saw his face light up and he reached over to grab the string thing.

Her ploy had worked as Travis dangled the end with the metal parts over her head for her to bat at. The string never failed before, and it still worked its magic now.

"This is it! Jeanne, you've done it!" Travis happily announced as he held the power cable in his hand.

A brief search yielded him finding an outlet to plug it into.

Travis placed the metal prongs into the slots, knowing that every shitty, insane, backwards odds were against him, trying to prevent him from keeping anything dear to him.

At first, nothing happened, then came a quiet hum of machinery working.

One by one, the screens on the computer console lit up, though most of them were blinking or fuzzy.

Good enough for Travis, since all he needed was a working screen and a keyboard.

The keyboard had been slightly broken as well, but still looked functional.

Travis hunted and pecked for each one of the keys to spell out the words COME UNDONE before hitting 'enter.'

Those letters drifted from the screen and down the steps towards the corpses below.

His plan was working, and he began to feel a renewed sense of hope welling up inside him. He would have rushed down all of those steps to be there when his plan came to fruition, but he had a lazier idea.

Turning back to the keyboard, Travis typed in that THERE SHOULD ONLY BE TWO STEPS AND THE ROOM SHOULD BE SMALLER, and the stairs shrank from their grandiose height to a more modest and manageable size. The room became smaller too, now a much more sensible size with only a few steps between any of the corpses.

Travis and Jeanne both watched as COME UNDONE worked its magic first by expanding to cover the entire floor and drifted down on top of all of the fallen warriors.

BUT NOT SILVIA, OR HER FAT FUCK, Travis typed.

Those letters made a barrier that shielded them from the benevolent blanketing of the first statement.

Though he learned in Equestria that everyone deserved forgiveness, he wasn't ready to give his to either of them yet.

Travis and Jeanne both skipped the steps, jumping directly to the floor below and rushed to Pinkie's side. He watched her as the words came down and gently covered her like a sheet, and made all of her injuries go away. Every cut, every bruise, they all disappeared as Travis looked on, his heart growing lighter by the second.

Pinkie moaned quietly, as if she were waking up from a nap. Slowly, she opened her eyes to be greeted by the sight of Travis's smiling face.

"Travis!" She said as she wrapped her arms tightly around him, "I just had the worst nightmare where you turned into a monster!"

Travis rubbed her back to stop her trembling.

"It's alright, Pinkie," he consoled her gently, "It was just a dream. The nightmare's over."

He had no idea just how right he was. All around him, the others healed and began to awaken. As they did, they each looked around, not remembering what happened before they were forced into combat.

"Did something just happen," Fluttershy asked as she looked around, not sensing any hostility in the room anymore.

"We got written back into the story again," Glastits affirmed as she helped Rainbow Dash to her feet.

"Strange," Cream mused, "I should be really mad about that. But for some reason, I'm pretty okay with it." She then helped her sister to her feet.

Everyone else in the room took one last look at each other before regrouping near the stairs.

"So, what happens next," Dash asked as she held Fluttershy who had her arms wrapped tightly around her. Just like everyone else in the room, Dash wanted all of this to be put behind her and hope that something better was to come along.

"Twilight," she asked, hoping that she of all ponies would have an answer.

"Don't look at me," Twilight said with a shrug, "This is all new to me."

She only spoke the truth. In all her years, in all her time defending Equestria, she had never experienced anything even remotely like this. She was glad that everything, and everyone had returned to normal, and was going to start trying to work on a solution. But she was cut off by a sudden gasp from Pinkie.

"Wait! Travis, you just saved us from every assassin! Do you know what that means!" She said in a panic.

All of Pinkie's friends saw exactly where her train of thought was leading. Twilight took it upon herself to relieve Pinkie of her worries.

"Pinkie."

"You have to go back to your own world!"

"Pinkie."

"But I want to keep you!" She wailed as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, "I won't let you go! Never, never, never, never--"

Pinkie stopped abruptly as it seemed that something dawned on her. Apparently, Twilight wasn't going to have to spell it out for her this time.

"Wait a second: you're already home!" Pinkie said excitedly.

She was only half right though.

"We still need a way to get back to Equestria," Twilight said, "And I think I already know a way."

Travis was one step ahead of her. He promptly went back to the keyboard.

AN AKASHIC POINT THAT LINKED DIRECTLY TO EQUESTRIA OPENED UP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS, and it waited to be used.

"Well, I guess this is it," Glastits said his farewell, "Think I'll quit the killin' biz an' do something productive with my life. 'Cept right now, I think I'll take some time out ta treat myself."

He decided that was all he needed to say before he jumped through the akashic point.

After him came the Parfait twins. Cream was all ready to leave through the dimensional doorway, but Peaches stopped to talk with Rarity.

"Miss Belle," she began, a hint of anxiety in her voice, "I know that this situation is a tad unusual, but I would be honored to visit your shop when we return home."

Rarity was surprised at first by what she heard, but it passed quickly, and she gave the model an affirming smile.

"The honor would be all mine." Rarity then turned her attention to Cream, "The shop has also recently been stocked with casual wear, so you're welcome to come along as well."

Cream smiled at the offer, but politely declined it.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I think I want to do some things for myself for a bit. Maybe see if the town has a place to rent sound equipment."

"Scratch and Octavia's music emporium. It can be found on main street," Rarity helpfully informed.

"Thanks," was all Cream said before she eagerly jumped through the akashic point.

Peaches turned to Rarity and motioned to the portal.

"Shall we," she asked.

Rarity nodded and the two stepped through.

After them came Applejack and Gina.

"Hey," Gina began before Applejack cut her off by punching her square in the jaw. Gina rubbed her face, and offered no retaliation. "Guess I deserve that one. Tell ya what: how about we don't see each other for a while before I try to make this up to you?"

"Call it a year or so," Applejack responded, to which Gina accepted before they both stepped through the portal home.

After them came Fluttershy and Flutterbutt, who's hand she gently held.

Fluttershy said nothing to her friends, but in her mind, she was making plans to adopt the boy when she got home. If anything, a boy so young needed somepony to be his mother, and even though it was a very big, somewhat scary step, she had confidence that she could do it.

She was approached by Jeanne, who was happy to see Fluttershy alive again. She picked the tabby up with her free hand, and the three of them went through the portal back home.

"It's been one hell of a day," Shinobu said to everyone before she went through next, "And Dash: sorry about almost killing you...again."

Dash felt a pang of regret at what she had done to her friend, but now that things had been undone the feeling quickly passed and a smile crawled across her face.

"Hey, why don't we make it up over a race through the clouds. Last one in's a rotten egg!" Shinobu quickly finished before she abruptly jumped through the portal.

Dash was about to follow her, not about to be beaten even in something as insignificant as who got home first, but something stopped her.

Looking back, she saw Henry as he walked past her and stopped short of the portal.

"I've always wanted to travel abroad," he said to Dash, "I'm gonna need someone to help me get acquainted with me new surroundin's."

"Look no further," Dash responded with a grin, "It just so happens that nopony makes a better tour guide than me."

She eagerly took Henry's hand and pulled him through the portal with her.

The only ones left now were Twilight, Pinkie and Travis.

Pinkie and Travis hadn't stopped kissing since everyone started to go home, and Twilight wasn't about to stop them. But she did pause to take one last look at Travis, feeling honored that she had ever met him.

She remembered how when she first saw him when he came to Equestria, she never would have believed that he could have been a hero of any kind. She was sure that he was the wrong pony for the job, but in her time with him, he proved that despite his flaws and the horrible things he did, he was everything a hero should be. And even then, he would simply keep it all as quiet as possible, thinking nothing of his actions and act like it was just the right thing to do.

With a smile, Twilight went back home to join her friends and await the arrival of everyone else.

Travis and Pinkie ended their kiss and began walking to the portal to go back home, but Travis hesitated a moment.

"You go on ahead, Pinkie. I have one last thing to do."

Pinkie was curious about what he intended to do, but allowed him to do so anyway.

"Just don't be long," she said sweetly after a short kiss, and left through the portal.

Travis went back to the console and typed that ONCE HE WENT INTO THE PORTAL, IT WOULD CLOSE UP BEHIND HIM, AND THE CONSOLE WOULD SELF-DESTRUCT SO THAT IT COULD NEVER BE REBUILT OR REPLICATED.

Satisfied with his work, he turned to face the portal and jumped into it headfirst.

After the trip which only took a split second, Travis landed hard on the ground and shook any dizziness from his head.

He stood up, delighted to find that he was now back on four legs and had a horn on his head.

A scan of his surroundings showed that he was back in Ponyville, and that it had been completely repaired.

He didn't know it, but his 'Come Undone' machination had worked in Equestria as well, even bringing back all the casualties that happened since the first days the assassins attacked.

But still, something was very off right now.

Where was everyone?

Travis looked left, right and straight ahead, but there was no sign that anyone was living there.

He began to feel slightly bewildered and started to feel panic growing at the base of his spine that began to shiver up his back.

"Turn around, silly," he heard a familiar voice say behind him.

Travis did as instructed, and turned to see the entire population of Ponyville, and the assassins all waiting for him under a banner that read 'Welcome Home.' Everyone he knew from town was there, with his friends all at the front ready to welcome him.

Pinkie stood directly in the middle of the front row. With a burst of streamers and sparklers, Pinkie rushed forward into Travis's hooves, who picked her up as he spun her around and kissed her. They could have stayed like that forever, but Pinkie had a good point to make.

"This isn't just about us. Come on, everypony! Let's party!"

With a shout, the festivities commenced.

Author's Notes:

That's the end of Travis's Equestrian adventure. And everyone is happy, except for Assassin 100 and Silvia. You know: the bad guys.

Sorry if the content was a tad, you know, unsettling, but logically some of them would die in the process of a battle royal after all. And wow, it was uncomfortable to write. I guess I'm just a sensitive person (I understand that Quentin Tarantino is the same way, feeling uncomfortable while writing abhorrently violent scenes).

The reason for the happy ending and all was because if things were left as they were after everyone died, that would really, really, really, really, really suck ass.

I also want to apologize if the chapter was a bit annoying to read either, given the abrupt size changes in the text. If it's not what any of you were expecting for the end, sorry about that, but them's the breaks. That and I started staying up late again to cram in more writing.

Now for some good news: even though the adventure is over, the story is not. After all, you can't have a prologue at the beginning without having an epilogue at the ending.