The next morning,

Sgt. Clare, Canterlot castle, mess hall:

I sat down at a table with a tray of food, Hart trotted over and sat down beside me. “Hey Sarge, almost didn’t recognize you without your guns” Hart chuckled. “It’s my day off, it should be peaceful and relaxing” I said as I yawned and stretched.

“Oh yeah, real peaceful. Don’t have no Smith and Wesson five hundred magnum going off” Hart chuckled. Figures that I wasn’t allowed keeping my weapons during my time off but then again I suppose ponies wouldn’t react too well if they saw a human walking the streets of Canterlot with a Thompson sub machinegun.

I lifted my sandwich to my mouth but I hadn’t even taken a bite when Captain Shining Armor burst into the mess hall. “Sergeant Clare, Luna’s been captured” he exclaimed. I set down the sandwich and let out an irritated sigh “Yeah I’ll be with you in a second” I said as I stood up, “Figures I didn’t even get to eat breakfast’.

I followed Shining Armor as he led me into the war room where Celestia stood with some of the other lieutenants. “This is bad… really bad” lieutenant Daffodil muttered. As I entered the room every-pony starred at me.

“Clare… we have a dire situation. We received a letter this morning from an anonymous writer in an unknown location and he is threating to kill my sister unless we hand over the Crystal Empire to him” Celestia informed me. “Can I see the letter?” I asked and she levitated over a scroll, I looked at it. It looked like whoever wrote it had written it in blood. “Was there an envelope with this?” I asked and Celestia looked to Daffodil who handed her the envelope and she levitated it over to me as well.

“He’s in the Crystal Empire” I replied as I tossed to scroll and envelope onto the table. “WHAT! How do you know?!” Celestia asked, I chuckled and pointed to the envelope. “Yes what about it?” Celestia asked as she looked at it and I shrugged, “It was stamped from the Crystal Empire” I chuckled. Celestia realized that in their panic they had over-looked that tiny detail. “Oh… right. But even so, he threatened to kill her if we sent a large fighting force at him. We have no way of defeating him” Celestia told me.

“Send him a scroll that says I’ll bring him a suitcase of money and sign the deed to the Crystal Empire” I told them and they all gasped. “You can’t do that… it’s absurd” Celestia argued. I smirked “Trust me… I think I have an idea”.

I got one of the other lieutenants to write the scroll while Celestia, Shining Armor and I walked to the armoury. Celestia opened the armoury doors and I walked in, I began to browse through the selection of weapons then turned back to Celestia. “Hey Celestia, can you have one of your geeks make me a new watch?” I asked.

“They are not geeks, they are computer engineers” she scowled, hating the fact that I always called them geeks. “Yeah well anyway, have them make the watch so that it has a poison dart launcher, a grappling cable, a laser gun, a magnet ray… oh and have them set to the right time” I told her. “Why in Equestria would you need a watch like that?” Celestia asked at the thought of the absolutely ludacris idea of such a watch. “Trust me… I’ll need it” I told her then thought for a second and looked to her “And I’ll need a truck… a big one”.

* * *

A few hours later,

Sgt. Clare, approaching Crystal Empire:

I down shifted the F-750 pickup truck, man when I said big truck I meant something like a Silverado 3500 but this thing was just overkill. Celestia had it brought in a while back for examination but said that the large V-10 gasoline engine in a truck this size made it un-economical idea but screw the fuel economy this thing kicks ass.

The truck had no problem driving through the snow which was probably a foot or two high but the truck’s large size allowed it to just drive right through like it was nothing. I approached the border crossing where some sort of freaky looking shadow guard stood with an assault rifle.

I slowed the truck to a stop and he approached the side of the truck but I had to roll down the window and look down to see him. “Are you the one?” the guard asked and I nodded, he pointed to the large castle in the center of the Empire. “Lord Sombra awaits, do not make him wait” the guard hissed, I gave him a salute with just my index and middle finger then drove the truck into the empire.

Ponies where in shackles and walked the streets. This place had a creepy feeling to it like something had taken all the fun away and now there was a grey haze misting through the town.

Ponies would look up to the massive truck in fear as I drove past them. Well I suppose I would be sketched out too if I saw some massive vehicle looking things with grill bars and fog lights across the grill and roof. The truck was painted a dark blue, in tribute of Luna’s shadow guard colours.

I parked the truck in front of the truck in front of the castle and turned it off. I grabbed the suitcase of money as I lept out of the truck and slammed the door behind me. Shadow guards, well not Luna’s shadow guards but they looked kind of like shadow guards, pointed spears at me. “This way human scum” barked a shadow guard and they led me into the castle.

As we entered the castle a stallion butler walked up with a push cart. “Please sir, relinquish all your weapons” the butler ordered. I opened my duster coat, revealing a large arsenal of sub machineguns and pistols. The shadow guards stepped back and immediately readied their war spears. I began to unload all of my weapons onto the cart: Uzis, Mac-10s, M1911s, Colt SAAs, and even a shotgun that was strapped to my leg in a leg holster. Finally I unholstered my Smith and Wesson 500 magnum and dropped it onto the pile of guns that was now overflowing the push cart.

The guards looked in awe as they gawked at the overflowing pile of guns on the push cart. “Uhm… were you expecting a war?” the butler asked fearfully but I shook my head. “No, that’s how I usually arm myself on my day off. You should see me when I’m pissed off” I lied, I had purposely armed myself with a ridiculous amount of weapons just to install fear into my enemies because I knew they’d want to disarm me.

“Uhm… right… please follow me this way” suggested a guard, no longer barking orders like he had before. They led me into an upstairs office were a stallion sat, smoking a cigar. “Ah… Mr. Clare, so good of you to join us” said the stallion. He nodded to the guards and all but two left. The two remaining guards kept there sub machineguns pointed at my back.

“Please Mr. Clare, have a seat” the stallion offered as he pointed to the seat across from himself. I sat down and thumped the suitcase on the table. “What have you brought me?” he asked rhetorically as he spun the suitcase around and popped it open, his eyes went wide as he gazed upon American $100 dollar bills, still in the wrap.

“Oh my… this is quite a bit… how much?” he asked. “7 million” I replied, just saying a random high number, I wasn’t sure how much was in there but it probably wasn’t much over one million.

“Oh my… well Mr. Clare I apologize if I seem a bit rude but you must understand that we have to execute you now… we can’t have loose ends” the stallion told me. “I still need to sign over the rights to the Crystal Empire” I reminded him. “Oh that’s right… here” he said as he tossed me a piece of paper, “Just sign at the bottom”.

I reached into my coat and I heard the guards ready their sub guns. I slowly pulled my hand out of my duster coat, revealing a pack of cigarettes. “Ah, the final smoke, enjoy it. It’ll be your last” the stallion snickered. I patted my coat in search of a lighter then hit myself in the head, making it look like I was irritated.

“Fuck, hey listen I left my lighter at home. Don’t suppose you could light me up?” I asked, the stallion nodded and pulled out a beautifully engraved zippo and leaned over the table to light my smoke. I leaned forward to but as he got within range I blew into the cigarette and the cigarette expelled knock out gas into his face.

He shook his head quickly and soon fell over onto the floor, unconscious. The guards behind me didn’t know what to make of it. I spun around and pointed my watch hand forward then pressed a button on the watch, it shot out a deadly neurotoxin dart into a guard’s neck. The poison immediately affected his esophagus and he began gagging as his throat closed up from the neurotoxins that now coursed through his body, the other guard was stunned from the sudden change of events and froze up in shock long enough for me to charge over and break his neck silently.

No-pony knew what was going on yet but I had a feeling that things were about to get very noisy. I walked over to the suitcase, pushing the money aside as I opened the secret compartment in the suitcase and pulled out a Glock 18 along with a 100 round drum magazine. I slipped the magazine into the gun and pulled back the slide, loading a round into the pistol. Yeah, I think things were about to get ‘really’ noisy.

Author's Notes:

GAHHHH SHIT... dammit I have school tomorrow and work after school, I should really go to bed... nope gotta find out what happens, gotta know what happens, writing more tonight