Testing 1...2...3
I stabbed the pony with a syringe and took a large sample of his blood which was a muddy black colour with dots of red here and there.
Then I brought my gun around and blew his head off at point blank range. Let's just say the room got completely covered in the foul smelling blood and everything became very quiet and somewhat eerie.
"Red, is he dead?" I asked quietly my breathing echoing around the room. "I think so" she responded which really put my mind at ease. "Only one way to find out" I murmured as I edged slowly towards him.
His brain tissue was everywhere and his foul smell cut through the air like a knife. He wasn't moving at all and by the looks of it wasn't planning on doing so either.
"He's dead" I said wiping the blood off my head with a hoof. "Thank the maker, the job is only half done though Asimov" said Red. "What!?" I asked her ludicrously. "You need to check his pockets for things my scanner might not pick up".
I coughed as I looked the dead scientist up and down. "Red what if he's still alive" I said as I picked up the spear and gently prodded the body. "Easy answer, kill him again" she responded and with that shut off.
I wiped my head again and edged closer, I poked the dead pony with my spear hard enough to cause pain and waited for a response, I found nothing so continued forward. I reached into his pockets and felt around for anything of value.
I found an antique coin, a copy of the U.A regulation manual which was slightly burned and what looked to have been a gun once but with the handle completely melted off. "This may come in handy" I muttered to myself as I pocketed the broken gun.
I then moved his body off the sword and over to the other bodies. I clapped and shouted "Red wake up and stop blanking me we have work to do"! "Okay stop yelling" she said coming back from the land of standby.
"We have to create an acidic solution out of the Green Emerald Ruby and water so that they are completely erased and then we have to work out what happened to that pony that should have been dead as my sense of humour"!
"Ok you get to work and hook me up to that scanner and put the string in the holder" she said. I inserted some pins at the end of the scanner into Red's box and she interfaced with the portal scanner. Then I put the string between into the scanner and began my work of moving five bodies into a large stone basin.
After I had moved all the ponies into the stone basin (no easy task) I took a large green Emerald Ruby from my backpack and stared at its beauty. "Amazing Red, these things power our technology, aid our warfare and are part of upper class dress fashion and if my history lesson in my 6th year of training is correct then dragons used to eat them believe it or not" I said remembering back all those years.
Red looked up from the scanner she was pretending to look at even though her processor knew exactly what was going on inside it. "What do you mean by lesson"? I looked up at her and was about to grin but stopped myself and kept the mono voice "oh they only gave us one lesson because it was mainly about the history of war not so much about the history of Equestria" I said trying very hard to suppress emotion.
Red nodded at me and went back to her work. I looked around the room and found some water pipes on the sealing which probably ran all over the castle. I sheepishly slashed apart the pipe as if it were a P.P.R wing membrane and watched as the pipe gushed pure water into the basin with the bodies of all the ponies.
Once it was mostly full I pulled my gun from my holster and shot the pipe a couple of times until the metal fused together and the pipe sealed itself. "Not the best plumber in the world I said as I tossed the Emerald ruby into the basin.
It began to bubble and boils the second It entered and turned a green, sickly yellow colour. The dead ponies began to smoulder and dissolve as the acid I had created began to eat into their tissue and break everything down.
I brushed my hands and looked over at Red who was concentrating really hard by the look of it. "Come on Red these guys will smell really bad very soon and I don't want to get a taste of it so finish your scan and we'll discuss it elsewhere".
"Asimov these results are...incredible" said Red awestruck. I moved on over to her and looked at lots
of little microbe things join other little microbe things which made one big blob. "What is it?" I asked. Red looked at me and started to explain "It seems that the normal cells of a pony have been bombarded with some new form of smart virus which like the Organelle Mitochondria creates energy but in a different way by using the hosts blood as a source of supreme energy, what I don't is that it produces an overhaul of energy which without new blood could sustain the host for years". "It activates the lower brain functions so instinct is active but the grey area of the brain seems to be defunct but the possibilities for these microbes are phenomenal if we can somehow...".
"Hold it Red!" I said forcefully "We are not keeping this monstrosity"! "Captain this is a great leap in the fields of science, gruesome and primitive sure but think what could be achieved if we refined this strain!" said Red excitedly.
I looked at her and at the syringe and had to agree that it was pretty amazing and having an endless supply of energy would help immensely in any fight.
"Ok Red, I'll keep it in my vial case, but I don't want anything to do with it until Luna's safe" I told her. She nodded as I packed up my stuff and slipped her onto my belt. I left the bubbling slime of ponies and headed back up to the main parts of the castle.
I walked up to the top of the tower I had previously fought the first two assassins on and saw a lot more guards stationed there now. I looked out over the city which looked grand and spectacular beyond anything from my time, the sun just began to set as I saw Luna her sister and Shining Armour walk into a small secluded area of the gardens.
I turned away from the city's beauty and focused on the task at hand. I jumped off the tower and glided with my jet pack down to a tree close by them.
"How on earth did you do that" said Shining Armour, voicing the thoughts of the other two. I clambered down from the tree with my rifle on my back and answered him "a lot of technology in my time is focused on doing things like that, but enough we need to discuss Luna here" I said getting to the point.
"What would you have us do Captain" said Celestia. "My plan is to leave Canterlot with Luna and take her high into the mountains surrounding Ponyville, It will throw future assassins off track and by the time they realise what has happened I will go somewhere else it's just time isn't relative by that I mean it can change like I hope it has changed now, if so then the war, the death, the assassins everything will stop and my mission will be complete" I said dully.
They all looked at me and Shining Armour asked "you want to take the Princess away from all my guards, fortresses and protection"?! "I know it seems mad but yes, these places are too predictable and as was shown earlier an assassin can be hiding anywhere" I replied.
"I don't know if I should leave, I feel like I am betraying my people by leaving which I don't want to do that again..." she replied glumly. I was about to put a hoof on her shoulder and tell her it would be alright but I restrained myself and told her sternly "you are the future of Equestria and are not abandoning your people but saving them instead so I need you to do this". She sighed and looked at her sister who nodded in agreement at my proposal. Shining Armour to say the least was not as pleased and began to stammer over his words of protest which Celestia quickly waved away.
Pleased that they trusted me so I told Luna "pack light and say goodbye to your sister we need to leave immediately". "Why immediately?"Asked Luna. "The more time we spend here the bigger the chance somepony is lurking behind a rose bush or fountain" I told her doing a sweep of the gardens.
Everyone seemed to get edgy at my paranoid view of absolutely everything and it involuntarily spurred them into action. "I will go and pack" announced Luna. She left with Shining Armour accompanying her whilst I was left with Celestia in the dark gardens bathed in the smallest amount of moonlight which peeked above some clouds.
"My sister may have been trapped for over a thousand years but her mind is still young so I warn you now Asimov that if you hurt her... you will wish you had never been born" she said in a steely tone. "I don't need to wish your majesty, I will never hurt Luna as long as I live and breathe you have my word" I said dutifully.
She seemed content with my answer and nodding adopted a happier look as she strode away from me. I sighed and sat down next to the tree I had climbed down from and rubbed my still healing legs.
"This is all messed up Red, I am one pony against possibly hundreds and granted I have many benefits but if the future doesn't change soon then I will be overwhelmed and killed" I said in exasperation. "Well let's hope for the new and pray for the worst" said Red.
"You're right" I said standing up "now is not the time for despair but preparation". I began striding back to the castle but was met by Shining Armour at the entrances. "Greetings Captain Foundation" he said trying really hard to smile at me as he said those words. "I just cleared something with Celestia who agreed that it would be an excellent idea".
I stared blankly at Shining Armour and asked "where is this going"? "Well you see sending two ponies, one a princess and the other a complete nutter off into the wilderness is from many perspectives completely crazy so Celestia let me add some insurance in case you concocted this whole scheme to kidnap the Princess" Shining Armour told me.
I stared at him with a mixture of unbelieving and dumbfounded accusation. "I thought we were really beginning to get along Shining Armour". "That's Captain Shining Armour and it is my job to be paranoid when it comes to the safety of Canterlot and its rulers" he said with passion.
I thought back to my early days in the war and thought this was exactly what I was like, devoted and with distinct purpose which hadn't been worn down yet by years of bloodshed. "So be it Captain, what is this… insurance you speak of"? "Well if you can just follow me to the barracks I'll show you" he said beginning to stride away without asking me to follow him.
I followed him quickly but he didn't have a limp in his leg which meant he wasn't so tired when we arrived at the barracks which I had rarely been in when I was undercover.
Armour and sword lined the walls and a line of about twenty ponies was all that mad up the room apart from me and Shining Armour. They were all strong and gallant looking and almost identical.
"This is insurance, pick at least one of these men, they're all strong and highly skilled warriors which I… handpicked myself" said Shining Armour. I blinked and looked at Shining Armour "you want me to take one of your guards with me so he can watch me"?!
The line seemed to waver slightly and I looked up at them. "Well is that what you were ordered to do then!" I yelled at them in a commanding tone. They seemed to shudder briefly and I looked over at each one of them before yelling "none of you would last a second in a real battle"!
Shining Armour furrowed his brow and called the first on over. "Test him if you like for he won't disappoint" he told me.
I looked up and down at the pony and told him coarsely "grab a sword"! He jogged over to a weapons rack and pulled a shorts word away and came back over. I shouted at him almost immediately "defend yourself"!
His eyes furrowed in confusion as my hoof slammed into his face, knocking his head back and flipping his entire body over. He rolled onto his back and shakily got up and warily held up his sword as if expecting another attack. I wasn't even close; I had simply remained in the same position as before.
He kept edging back in forward on his toes and I watched the other ponies fix their eyes on anything but my own. I looked back to the fight a said "you know the best defence is attack". He leapt tame in attempt to catch me off guard but I simply sidestepped and pushed him into the ground using his momentum.
He collapsed and a snigger erupted from somepony in the line and I looked up to see a very scared looking pony trying to cover up his mistake.
I looked down at the guard pony who was still trying to get up and told him "that's enough thank you; please return to your ranks". He seemed very relieved and much shaken by my order and still kept his eyes on me all the way back to the line.
"You, I pointed to the pony who had laughed at the other pony "go and get a crossbow off the wall"! At this he seemed to relax and Shining Armour smirked "that there is Jerald, the best marksman in the entire guard. At this I huffed and strode over by him and also picked a crossbow from the wall.
I strode to the corner of the room and told him to stand opposite me in the other corner. I felt the eyes of every pony in the room on us and Jerald seemed to be losing confidence as I stood there in complete silence and just looked at him with the most menacing expression I could muster. He seemed to hold my gaze for a few moments but I quickly broke him however and he looked away in defeat at our stare contest.
"Well done" I said loudly so that it echoed around the room. Everypony looked up in astonishment as I began to clap and they all seemed to be genuinely pleased for him as he strode towards me in giddy shock some patting him on the back as he went.
I acted cheerful and held out my hoof in congratulations as if he had passed some hidden test. He took it and I began my real test. "You have about ten seconds before I shoot you so before then you need to shoot me" I whispered in his ear. He looked at me questioningly, unable to see my leg as it kicked his crossbow across the room whilst I crushed his hoof with mine. His reaction was a mixture of shock, confusion and from what I could detect fear….
"10…9…8" I started to count aloud as he attempted to free his hand from my iron grip which was really getting close to crushing his bones. "7…6…5…4" I continued raising my own crossbow and pushing it against his head just before he finally pulled his boo from mine and began furtively scrambling backwards for his crossbow. "3…2" I counted pointing my crossbow straight at him just as he reached his and raised it upwards. "1" I whispered as he pulled the trigger and the crossbow jumped forwards as a bolt was unleashed at stunning speeds for a primitive weapon and travelled for about two seconds before it smashed through a nearby window.
I looked at the window and then at the pony lying on the floor panting in fear. I looked at him and raised my crossbow, I aimed and fired. The bolt sliced about half a millimetre across his cheek causing a slight amount of blood to flow from the wound.
Jerald wasn't taking this all well and he cried out as if he'd been mortally injured and fainted. "Good job with the scare technique" said Red as I strode towards Shining Armour whose mouth was hanging open in sheer astonishment the rest of the guards seemed to also be in a state of shock but took it a lot worse than Shining Armour.
Some of them also fainted but in general a lot of them began to edge further away from me even though i was on the other side of the room which suited me fine.
"I think I've made my point Captain" I said as I picked up my rifle and began to stroll out of the barracks. "Not so fast Asimov" said Shining Armour sternly. "The princess demands that you pick one of these ponies and I don't think that you want an argument just before you set out so pick a pony in this room to go with you and we can all go back to our lives".
I sighed and prepared for some good old verbal combat when a side door opened and in stepped the perfect pony for the job.
OK so I looked at reviews and the one with take shoot and take sample seemed good so I used it...yeah...