I was sitting on my bed, talking to myself and thinking about my past when the news reached me. There was a multitude of bangs at the door, and when I opened it Iron Brigade was staring me in the eyes. He was so close I could feel his breath on me.

"Looks like you did a lot to em." He opened up the conversation.

"Who's them?"

"The rebels in Whinniapolis, they surrendered around 3 A.M. this morning. They were hunting down traitors and so half of their force defected over to Equestria. Needless to say we aren't going to hurt them since it's against the Equestrian Organic Life Policy, which states that we can't torture captives. Now this did lead up to something interesting, they're part of the Tehreek-e-Jaferia Yakyakistan. It's a militant extremist group that's been around for a while but has worked primarily under the radar."

"Wait, Yakyakistan?"

"Apparently so, Starlight's just a pawn in the game. Not only that but also she's also being held hostage by the looks of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well you see, we did some more research into Starlight. Before the incident in Whinniapolis got out we couldn't investigate her since we had no probable cause. Well because of that we got full access to her personal encrypted files. She has pretty much nothing to do with anything you've been hunting down. What's been happening is a double."

"You mean that someone is taking her name as an alias since she already quarreled with Equestria before?"

"Looks like it, though the thing about it is that we can't confirm it, but we intercepted messages between two Starlight Glimmers, one of which asking ransom to release the other's identity . We can't put a finger on who this is but we think they're TJY since they do a lot of identity theft."

"Then why didn't she go to the police?"

"Because you're after her, all of this started after you got assigned to do Twilight's dirty work. Meaning that either you getting assigned to kill her is related or that it's all a nasty coincidence. We're working on clearing her of all charges and going after the TJY, problem is we'd need to invade Yakyakistan and you know first hoof how that ended."

A few dots were getting connected, why was her trail so easy to follow? Why would the rich support a communist that hates all inequality? It was like pieces of a puzzle fell together, and I realized in the grand scheme of things I'm not in control, God is. My job is just to bring the ponies in the wrong to him a little quicker.

"Take me to her and clear her charges if you can, you got her personal information you must've been able to track her."

"That's a funny thing for you to say: She's only just on the other side of that mountain that she ran through, there's a little place down there and we already snooped it out. She's completely harmless."

"That's a relief."

"Your job here isn't done though, there was somepony here to recruit all these ponies into fighting for Starlight number two. Which means that somepony must have some information on the terrorist. There's only one last safehouse we know of for these ponies and I suspect he's in there, all the gear you'll need is in the armory, we've already talked over with the armorer on what you need and we got a greenlight to give you tools."

"Understood, what're the tools?"

"Remember what you used in Yakyakistan?"

"The M14 EBR and a MK18 Mod 0."

"Well we picked those, but ultimately we're not in charge of you so take what you need."

This was it, the last one. Nothing to hold me back. I had strapped my vest on back in the bunker, packed my MK18 on my back and my M14 in my hooves, it'd been days since I took off my gloves, and it felt weird to touch things again. But that didn't matter since I had them on once more.

Everything was green through night vision I had on, but I was too far away for it to be of any use so I turned it off. My gear was in good condition. That was what I needed it to be like. I thought about everything I did to kill Starlight, and now how all of the sudden I need to help her. It was crazy at first but it clicked, it was my job to save lives and Starlight was a candid for saving. I uttered a phrase I never thought I'd say for a long time.

I'll get you out of this Starlight. You'll see.

The location I picked was perfect, this had much to do with the fact that the target building was between two hills and that it was in a open field. There was a flag to judge my wind, but it stood still. The location I stood in was a grassy depression in the ground that gave me enough space to deploy my bipod, it also had a few rocks in it so that my suppressor fit in with the background in case anypony came by.

I was about 400 yards away from the location, it was outside the wall, but it was big. It was a two story slum, about 100 feet across and back. The bottom floor looked empty from what I could see through the window, but there was one guard on the ceiling. I took two deep breaths, and held the third. Time slowed for a few seconds, memories flashed through my mind of me behind this rifle.

The lives I took.

The lives I saved.

The families I split.

And the ones I kept together.

I raised it about a millimeter above the targets head, I was aiming for his upper chest, he was facing me and was wearing no armor. I could, however, see a weapon on him. I slowly pulled the trigger, looking down the scope was something I hadn't done in years. The shot rang out and surprised me, I watched the tracer move for a quarter of a second and make impact with his chest, blowing out the other side. The wound glowed from the phosphorous that the tracer left inside his chest. He was rolling but too shocked to speak. He rolled off the roof and smashed into a garbage can.

The sound echoed through the night, not of the rifle since I had slapped a suppressor on it but the sound of the garbage cans. It was like the world went silent. I remembered something from the EMC, 'if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Prepare for everything.' I lived by that quote for the longest time, it hadn't hit me since Yakyakistan. I kept the scope looking at the door, the door opened up and a pony with a AK walked outside, as soon as he was out of sight from the windows, not near the door, and away from the building, I took the shot. It struck him in the chest and he fell to the ground, but he was still conscious. I shot him once more in the head.

His brain matter was splattered across the grass, but nopony would notice. 400 yards is an easy walk for me, so I approached in a bit of a jog, making sure not to attract any attention. I stepped on twigs, leaves, and other nature-y things on the way there, which alerted some wildlife but not enough to get anypony to notice me. As soon as I got to the door, I slowly pulled it open, then I peaked through.

Two ponies, armed with newer AK models like the 74M, were playing poker, while a third dealt. There was an empty chair and I could assume who it's occupant was. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a pony watching TV, he was on the news. I needed to make sure not to make a ruckus in here. I opened the door a bit more and stuck my MK18 through. It too was outfitted with a suppressor but this time it had a Aimpont Comp M4 scope on it. I looked through the red dot sight and found the target, it was the dealer. I needed to take three short and controlled shots into each one to make sure that it didn't alert the pony watching TV.

Then, as if planned, he looked up and we met eyes. He stared, at first in confusion and then in horror. I pulled the trigger and a round flew through his chest. Both of the ponies looked over at him, and they both took a 5.56 to the body. One was out cold whereas the other was gargling on his blood. I must have hit his lungs.

The pony watching TV must've heard that, he turned around and we met eyes. I put three shots through his torso, one of which went right through and hit the TV. He stumbled back and fell to the floor, propped up against the wall. I moved through the carnage, checked the corners, and kept moving.

I got to the stairs that led up to the second floor. There was movement directly above me. I think they heard me. I moved up the stairs slowly, the rifle raised up to my eye. I pulled the fire selector onto full auto as I walked up the stairs. There was no door on the top of the stairs so I was just aiming literally into the next floor. A pony walked by and my heart stood still. He just walked by, and I thanked god that he never looked towards me.

As I walked upstairs there was four ponies all sitting on a couch, looking towards another television set. I walked towards them slowly. One of them turned towards me and I raised my rifle. I shouted in a voice I used to reserve for the EMC when I needed to throw somebody down.

"GET ON THE GROUND RIGHT NOW!"

Two of them fell right on their face, one of them threw his gun down and raised his hoofs. The last drew on me. I shot him twice in the chest and once in the head. The two in the chest stayed in his body after bouncing off bones and the one in the head went straight through, making a clean hole through the middle of his face. I kicked the guns away from the ponies and zip tied their hooves to eachothers back to back so they couldn't move. There was a door near the other end, and I could hear the pony stacking furniture behind it.

There might be a window to that room, which means that they might try to climb out of it. If they do I can't imagine the pony going far since it was a whole story drop. I slammed my body against the door, it didn't give in, so I looked for the door handle. Once I found it I shot it off, and slammed my weight against the door, which still didn't budge.

Well time for last resort. I shot full auto bursts into the other side of the door and then shot a few bursts directly through the door. I pulled the door off the hinges and jumped over the desk that the pony pushed over the other side.

The pony was a young mare, roughly in her twenties, who took a round right in her lower back. It wasn't lethal if I got somepony here within the next 20 minutes. rounded up the new prisoners and carried the mare over my back all the way over to the infirmary.

Author's Notes:

I think I might be making a bad move with this little detail, but the terrorist organizations name I used is a real terrorist organization based in Pakistan.

Yes I'm insane, but I like my details.

I'm probably a serous fucking idiot for doing this but I honestly don't give a shit, don't tread on me.