Stars blurred as the alcohol burnt its way through her system, the sky was cold and harsh like life. She'd solve it though, solve it all. Staggering through the idyllic cul-de-sac her target was finally in sight, a simple house but well known to her. The humiliation...the taunts...the ruination of everything, she felt it all like a flame inside her driving her on-wards. Her 'bag of tricks' held the tools of retribution and its heavy weight was comforting.

Vengeance was coming.

---------------------

"Can I ask you a question ?"

She hadn't meant to sneak up on her unsuspecting friend -- currently busy picking at the frosted cupcakes while the rest of their group mercilessly 'interrogated' Fluttershy-- and didn't expect the reaction she got. It was seemingly normal, but (like all things Pinkie Pie) there was a tinge of odd about it, in this case she could have sworn she saw a giant exclamation mark appear above the girls head when she touched her shoulder. Brushing it off though (always the best when it came to the girl) she repeated herself, this time receiving a vigorous nod from Pinkie whilst she swallowed her latest baked good.

"You know in the world I come fro-"

"Oooh you mean magic horsey land with spells and griffons and that funny dragon that sounds like John de Lancie ?" Pinkie interrupted eyes aglow at the mention of Twilights home , she always seemed to know far more than anyone else which was unusual to say the least...and what was a 'John de Lancie' ?

"Umm yes, Equestria" she coughed just trying to barrel through it all, "Ever since I came here I thought this world and ours were identical, like a...well mirror to be honest."

"Aaaaaaaaaand ?" added the bubbly girl a smile on her face as she invaded Twilights personal space, practically eye to eye at that very moment.

" You see my Pinkie Pie...well I don't really know how to put this but she-"

"This is about Daddy isn't it ?"  the girl in question whispered, her once cheerful appearance melting away to an uncharacteristic dolefulness. It was startling how quickly it changed, even her hair 'deflating' into limp straightness.

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to" she replied hoping to drop the whole thing that her damned curiosity had started. She felt as if she'd  stepped on a hoof-full of Breezies. Twilight internally chided herself, How could she even think to ask such a stupid hurtful question like 'Why do you have no sisters, and a different father!' ? It was so stupid of her.

Toying with her hair slightly the visibly distressed girl shook her head, "No, it's ok, tell me about your Pinkie".

"Well in Equestria I've...I've met her family and they're nice, they farm rocks. Well I say farm but it's more of a natural harvest a- she paused for a second noticing her burgeoning tangent, "Anyway there's you of course and there's Maud but, well,  their were two more sisters and a different father"

"Do they have a mommy still ?" Pinkie asked, her eyes wet and voice cracking slightly.

The penny dropped rapidly for Twilight and the 'feel train' as Rainbow Dash refereed to it had left the station at full speed. "Stupid, stupid stupid!" her mind screamed, this conversation seemed to consist of nothing but her ramming her hoof into her mouth constantly and now it looked as if the seemingly endless spring of happiness that was Pinkie Pie was about to dry up.  "Sweet Celestia Pinkie… I'm sorry...I should of noticed sooner, I’m supposed to be smart but it just...it just never clicked you understand".

Ignoring the usage of their principal as an interjection the girl reached into her straight mop of hair and --somehow-- pulled a handkerchief from it, only after wiping her eyes and blowing vigorously on the cloth did she answer."I-It's ok, I mean you’re lucky I suppose, you came here instead of some weird evil world where we all have beards", she gave a weak laugh at the thought "Daddy isn't my 'real' Daddy though, he died when I was still little,  Mommy said it was some kind of farming accident, so I guess we stayed farmers in your world huh ?"

Twilight nodded, she felt a strange mixture of shame and curiosity at the moment. She hadn't wanted to make Pinkie sad but she was giving up the information on her own right ? That didn't make her a bad friend surely ?

"After Daddy died Mommy couldn't support two babies on her own in the countryside...we didn't really have anyone else you see, so she moved to the suburbs in Canterlot and struggled but survived" the usually vibrant girl said "She never once let anything get her down, Daddy says she's where I get my  'zaniness' from.   Anyway we were a small but happy family, then one day Mommy meets a man, she says he's 'Grumpy but means well' and they begin to see each other a lot. They fell in love, like a storybook she melted his grumpy ice into a warm smile. They were happy and so were we....but then she became sick, very sick. Cancer. Mommy held on as long as she could but she had to leave us and now we've only got Daddy. No sisters, no Mommy . Just me, Maud and Daddy."

Barely holding back her own tears the Element Of Magic grabbed her morose friend in a tight hug, hoping that somehow it'd help. She felt like a monster for causing her to tell what was obviously a painful story and wished that she'd never asked about it in the first place.

"Pinkie darling is everything ok ?" with those words from Rarity the groups attention was dragged from the extremely flustered Fluttershy to the melancholy  girls.

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"Keep it cool," Snake thought as he exited his study, they were just teenage girls, what did he have to be worried about ? Besides abject humiliation of himself and ruining his daughters social circles of course, "Dammit shut up in there!" he railed. Talking to himself was a bad sign. Senility was not on the list of things he wanted to deal with today especially if it caused his daughters to suffer from the reputation of having a 'crazy old dad'.

He slipped down the stairs with all the grace and quiet that came from years of experience and a genetic legacy from 'The greatest solider of the twentieth century'. He even managed to breeze past the two groups on his way to the kitchen, making note of the larger one (his Maud, Applejack and Sunset he was familiar with, the others not so much) and the smaller (his Pinkie Pie and...Twilight Sparkle?) as he went by, both in deep conversation. He'd been tempted to use the box but thought it was a little crowded for that to slide, they never seemed to fall for it when there were large groups. After closing the door for some privacy he pondered on how to interact with such a group (What did girls that age like now days ?) he acquiesced to his hunger first though before continuing his ruminations.  

"Where's the Tuna" Snake muttered rooting deep in his fridge, Pinkie had done it again, overstocking the damn fridge with sugary confections including what looked like a metric ton of whipped cream. It explained where her allowance was going though. Tempted to give up his search and just have a Caloriemate bar (surprisingly tasty for what was basically a nutritional supplement) his patience was rewarded by the sight of the half opened can hiding behind the two-hundred and sixty seventh can of whipped cream.With a grunt he managed to retrieve the fish without spilling more than a third of the cans onto the cold stone floor, quite an achievement all in all.

"What do teenage girls like ?" he muttered absently as he prepared his supper. When he was there age....well when he was there age it was the late eighties and girls tended to like everything disgustingly bright, plastic and with synth. Of course they also liked him but that tended to happen when you were one of the countries youngest Green Berets, the uniform had its perks. A small smile appeared on the old man’s face, tugging slightly at the burn plastered on half of it. He'd had the option for nano based regenerative surgery but had turned it down, after the SOP incident he wasn't going near the damn things again unless he was at gun point.

"Speaking of guns" he thought, his smile narrowing. It was a simple glint from the garden, the kitchen light bouncing off of something in the bushes he'd graced earlier on. Could be nothing, but in his life it was rarely ever 'nothing'. Taking care not to betray his awareness of the possible intruder he opened a cupboard door beneath the kitchen tabletop. Ostensibly it held preserves and pickles, in reality it also held something a tad stronger, a M9 Tranquilizer pistol. He'd secreted several of them around the house in carefully hidden locations in the event some hit man or Patriot sleeper agent decided it was time to remove that pesky 'Old Snake' from the world or worse yet, try and attack his family to get to him. He'd considered live ammunition but decided against it, Pinkie had a knack for finding things and he'd been terrified of the thought of his eleven year old step-daughter hurting herself due to his (admittedly justified) paranoia.

Of course he'd never actually needed them until now, would the anesthetic still work after five years ? He'd just have to go for a throat shot and hope that if it didn't work the shock would hold them off long enough for him to get up close and CQC them. Getting slammed into the ground repeatedly tended to speed up the 'losing consciousness' effect he found. Sliding the M9 into the back of his trousers he calmly opened the back door and walked out, can of tuna in hand.

"Here kitty kitty" he grumbled waving the can about, for all intents and purposes appearing to be a man just looking to get his cat in for the night. He continued further into the darkness, tense eyes carefully looking at everything but the bushes so as not to give himself away.  Within three feet of the plants he struck, dropping the tuna can he made a single smooth quick draw of the M9 and aimed at the glints origins.

"Freeze !"

The response was a very unprofessional whimper. This was either a rookie or the worst assassin he'd ever encountered, possibly both, he'd certainly pissed off enough people in his life time.

"Don't shoot me !" squealed a surprisingly high pitched voice.

"Get out of the bushes, put your hands up !"

Stumbling out from the undergrowth came the biggest surprise of Snakes night. It was a girl, one of his daughters classmates if he wasn't mistaken. "B...eatrice" he thought idly noting her platinum hair, dark blue ensemble and tan shoulder bag, well that and the nearly empty empty bottle of Vodka in her hands. She stank of it and she wasn't just using it as an exotic perfume if the distinctive shade of green and wobbliness she was suffering from said anything.

"P-please don't shoot Trixie" she sniffled falling to her knees, tears freely flowing at the prospect of being gunned down by the scary old man in front of her.

He lowered the gun slightly, wary of putting it away entirely. He'd seen enough teens used as weapons before. "What do you want Beatrice, why did you break into my back garden, huh. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just shoot  ?"

"I...I just…I wanted revenge" she wailed, bottle slipping away from her hand its contents emptying into his lawn.

"Revenge for what ?" he hoped this wasn't the start of some kind of complex double cross, he had enough of that in his work-life and really didn't need it to start seeping into his retirement. At the question of 'what' though a fire seemed to light in the girls eyes, her former blubbering stopping as easily  as if it was a switch.

"For Trixie’s defeat of course ! Her humiliation, her...her ahhh!" she threw her arms upwards in frustration " Two weeks ago your daughter and her pathetic little friends ruined my life, after my loss at the battle of the bands my boyfriend cheated on me, people won’t stop laughing and now  they've even begun to spread rumors that I like girls !"

"So you drank half a bottle of gut-rot and broke into my home because your social life went to shit ?" this was getting far too pathetic for him.

"Not just broke into your home, Trixie will show her superiority over all the Rainbooms with this !" she grandstanded reaching into her bag and revealing a cheap can of spray-paint "Trixie shall declare her superiority in the neon colors of victory !"

Snakes face fell, he'd gone from fighting insane super-powered terrorists to this ?

"How much of that cheap shit did you have to drink before this seemed like a good idea, a third ?" she nodded, "I'm guessing the rest was for courage" she nodded once more. Sighing he put the M9 back in the back of his trousers before retrieving ten dollars from his wallet and passing it to the girl. "Here kid, call a taxi and go home, tagging people’s houses won’t get you 'victory' just a fine...or in this case shot."

A look of righteous indignation formed on the girls face as she considered his words, "Bu-"

"You've got three minutes before I call your parents Beatrice."

She took the sensible option and called the Taxi.

Next Chapter: Can't Say Goodbye To Yesterday Estimated time remaining: 39 Minutes