Don't worry, Reaper will get his part of the story later. For now, I'm focusing on John. Anyway, ONWARD! TALLY-HO!

III

Forced Confessions

POV: John

The road fell behind us as Reaper and I ran to City Hall as fast as we could. We reached the center of the town after about ten minutes, because the total distance was one mile, and we practically broke down the front door we were in such a rush. I'm not even kidding when I say that I could hear the hinges on the door pop out of place. The secretary looked up at us like we were the fucking craziest two guys she had ever seen, and I don't blame her for that. "We need to see the Mayor ASAP" I told her straight out.

"She's got a lot of work to do right now" the secretary replied skeptically. "I'm afraid you'll have to come back later."

I bent down next to Reaper and whispered to him "you mind if I yank out my gun?" He put a hoof to his face and stepped forward.

"Look, lady" he snapped. "You need to let us through here. We've both saved Equestria, meaning your sorry ass! We've got business with the Mayor of Ponyville and she never has work to do!"

The secretary certainly looked intimidated. She simply pointed to the door on the other side of the room from the entrance and we walked over there without another word. You could tell that there was something going on here just by the cold, unusually guilty atmosphere hanging around Mayor Mare. "Mayor?" I said, interrupting her gloomy stare that was directed at the empty desk in front of her.

She looked up to see both of us. "Reaper! John! Good to see both of you!" she spouted happily. "What can I do for both of you?"

"Mayor, we know something's going on" Reaper stepped up. "John's friend Connor is dead and so is a young Pegasus filly named Scootaloo. We were told that Connor was found dead at City Hall, so obviously, you'd know something!"

"What are you talking about?" the Mayor asked in confusion.

"Don't pretend you don't know" Reaper continued. "There's something you know that we don't. Connor's death was linked to Scootaloo's death wasn't it?"

"I don't know who Connor is!"

"Bullshit!" Reaper yelled. "You can't hide this forever, Mayor! You know more about this, so you're gonna tell us!"

"I'm gonna call security" the Mayor said reaching for the intercom. Reaper leapt over and tackled her. I helped him tie the Mayor to her chair. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO!" she yelled.

"Not until you tell us what you know!" Reaper repeated.

"I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS CONNOR GUY GETTING SHOT!" I gave a devilish little smile as the Mayor realized her mistake. "Damn" she mumbled.

I pulled out my M1911 and pointed it at her head. "You know shit, now spill it!" I shouted in her face.

"FUCK YOU!" she screamed the secretary burst in the door. It caught me of guard so I pulled the hammer back. I swung around and blew a shot through the secretary's head.

"JOHN! OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!" Reaper gasped in astonishment at the random discharge of my firearm into somepony's face.

"Sorry, it was instinct!" I apologized.

"I'll be back in a second" Reaper told me, bouncing over to the file cabinets. He started digging through files until he pulled one out… one labeled "Scootaloo Death" with a giant HIGHLY CLASSIFIED stamped over the file's front. "I got the file!"

"Bring it here and let's find out" I said, cracking another devilish smile, this time directed at Mayor Mare. He hopped over and handed me the file folder. I flipped it open and the first and only thing in there was a report from Cloudsdale. It said that Scootaloo was reported to have been killed after failing her flight test. I gulped because it sounded familiar to a story that reaper had told me about. I ignored the feeling and just continued with our investigation. "Is this all you know?"

"It's all they would give me" the Mayor sniffled, now crying because she knew that I was actually able to kill her in the blink of an eye. "I know for a fact that it is REALLY highly classified information. That's why they killed your friend." Reaper leapt back over and untied the Mayor.

"I'm so sorry about your secretary, Mayor Mare. She caught me off guard." I apologized.

She took a breath and nodded. "I understand" she said. "She scared you and you acted on instinct. It happens to everypony."

"Thank you Mayor Mare" I laughed. "Not like you had a choice, but…"

"Please, just leave" she frowned.

Reaper and I left as the Mayor asked us. "So, Reaper" I spoke up. "What should we do now?"

"Maybe the Princesses know something we don't" he suggested.

"That's not a bad idea."

"I mean, they rule the entire place" he continued. "Don't you think they should know what happens here?"

"I guess you're right" I agreed. It was getting late, so we both went back home for the night so we could sleep as well as get prepared. I decided to arm myself to the fucking teeth, because I was guessing that we would be going straight to our destination after Canterlot. I only got 1 or 2 hours of sleep the entire night. I was up from 6 to 6 making my own weapons. It was the fastest I've ever worked with the exception of when Connor and I were repeating the making of the M4A1s for the Equestrian military.

By the end of it I had 2 new toys… they weren't tested though. It was a chance I had to take though. They were both guns I weren't used to making. First was the Italian close-range classic combat killer, the SPAS-12. Second and probably my favorite modern weapon, The Belgian Hand-Held Swiss Cheese Factory: The P90. I also managed to find my grandfather's old .44 caliber Magnum. Sure it brought back some fucking terrible memories (Jason), but I thought it would help to have something as powerful as a .44 caliber revolver.

Like always, the train ride to Canterlot was boring as hell without fire. As soon as the 3 or 4 hour train ride ended, we got off the train as soon as we had the chance, as we both felt like we were about to kill ourselves out of boredom, and we had the weapons to do so, too! Canterlot looked a lot better since I had last been here. It was really busy with Ponies and several Humans who you could tell were tourists by the merchandise that they apparently started selling. I didn't see all of this before because I was always in such a hurry to get somewhere that I never stopped and looked around.

The air smelled like the Equine cuisine that I was forced to live with for a while. To my surprise, people were actually enjoying the herbivore diet. Normally, Humans wouldn't eat a flower if they were starving to death! I ignored it, and continued on my way towards the castle. Reaper trotted up to walk beside me. "Certainly looks a lot different from last time I was here" he spoke up, looking around.

"Same here" I agreed. "The only difference is that the last time I was here, everypony was staying inside as much as possible and there were armed guards EVERYWHERE!" I looked around to see that Canterlot had established their own little police force. Nothing like a Human police force, as these ponies were still wearing guard armor, so it was more like the police force in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It looked pretty weird with the guards in medieval-looking armor while carrying around M1911s.

We approached the castle at a decent pace, as we still were looking around and noticing a lot of things that were totally new to us. It was amazing how much everything had changed. We didn't know how long we were in conservation, so at the same time it wasn't surprising… I'm confusing you, aren't I? Whatever. We walked up to the front gate of the castle where there were two royal guards, both with M4A1s that were suddenly pointed at us before the guards realized who we were. "Mr. Jack! Reaper!" One of them gasped as if he were starstruck or something.

"Oh shit!" the other guard spouted lowering his gun. "I'm SO sorry! I didn't mean to threaten either of you."

"It's okay, boys" I laughed.

"Why so jumpy?" Reaper asked. "We're just to guys."

"JUST TWO GUYS?!" the first guard burst out. "You two are the heroes of Equestria! Then again, not many people know about Reaper. He's more of a story that's slowly been passed around."

After the whole conversation between us and the guards ended, Reaper and I rushed inside so we could talk to the princesses. I walked into the throne room to see both princesses looking out through the window. "Princess Celestia" Reaper called. "We need to know if you'd happen to know anything about the death of a filly named Scootaloo."

"No, I don't" Celestia replied with a glare, as if she was suspicious of us. "Why?"

"We need to find out what happened to her" I answered. "Apparently she died after taking the Cloudsdale flight test. From what we've found out, she failed the test before she died."

Luna turned around and spoke. "Maybe thy search would end faster if it began at the location of the incident."

I gave a small nod and smiled saying "Thank you, Princess Luna."

She smiled and looked down, thinking about… I don't know and chances are that I don't want to know. Reaper and I left the castle and started to walk towards our destination of Cloudsdale. We agreed that when we were directly under the city, Reaper would give me a lift up there. After that we started talking like old times.

It was oddly quiet along the way there. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, Reaper tried to make conversation. Reaper asked me what my favorite sports video game was, because I had talked a lot about how Jason and I would play a lot of video games together in my spare time and I had also mentioned how Jason loved sports games to no end. My response was. "Atari 2600 sports games were my favorite because that was when sports games were fucking sports games! Look at the titles! "Baseball", "Basketball", "Football;" not that "Madden" shit. Just plain-ass, normal, everyday, no question about it, no NFL, no year; not named after a player, not named after a coach, not named after the referee's pet goldfish; no quarterback, dime-back, Nickelback, simple, ordinary unembellished, unmistakable, crystal clear, as frank as Frankenstein, as blunt as an atom bomb, one compound word: it's mother fucking, God damned, sons-of-bitchin', fuck-fuck-fucking FOOTBALL!... And it's one of the worst games I've ever played in my life." (If you get this reference, go haves yourself a muffin!)

Right after that I heard the angry voice of Spitfire up above us. "PIPE DOWN!"

Me and Reaper looked at each other. We nodded in unison and I hopped on his back as he tried his best to get to the fluffy floating city above us. It was only moments before we had reached the gentle and soft surface of the clouds. "Oh, hi there Mr. Jack!" Spitfire smiled. "It's good to see you're alive! Who's your friend?"

"This is Reaper" I introduced. "He's saved Equestria twice."

"I doubt it" she chuckled. "Anyway, why are you two in Cloudsdale?"

"We're here to investigate a murder that was recently committed" Reaper explained. "Surely the leader of a team as great as the Wonderbolts would have an idea on where to start."

Spitfire blushed "why not try the hospital."

"Thanks Spitfire" I said, turning around and heading towards the hospital. I looked down at Reaper who was once again walking beside me and asked, "was that really necessary?"

"Who knows?" he responded. "It never hurts to make sure, right?" He had a point.

And so, we continued on to the hospital to continue to unravel the truth… The truth that I was at this point, a little afraid to find out.

Chapter title based off of the song "Unholy Confessions" by Avenged Sevenfold