>>38626656
He can keep on watching; for if he's even the slightest bit bothered he's hiding it like a champ. But then again, given the well-documented closeness of the criminal duo, it is entirely possible that Carnage has some manner of unique nanomachine specifically created to allow her to drink Blowhard's wine without shitting herself inside out. That does seem like the sort of thing he'd do, all said and done...

>>38636235
Blowhard nodded to her in a curt, professional way. He took another sip from his "liquor" and greeted her in an equally business-like fashion.

"Lady Echo. It has been too long. How have you been?"

>>38636308

Echo. Asanna paused for a moment before even turning her head to acknowledge the pony who'd called her by that name. "Ah yes, my code name... back when I thought such a measure would conceal my identity." She picks at the lacquered wooden beads strung loosely about her neck. "Forgive my suspicion, but did you mean for this even to be a purely social gathering?"

>>38636308
Smoke reads the orange mare's silence as rejection of the drink, and he sets it on the table. "Your loss," he says, and takes a generous sip of his own drink. The coarse burning, as always, makes the unsubtle antics of those around him seem slightly more bearable.

Candor drinks freely enough. Didn't take a master manipulator to catch the other stallion's slip by the door; Blowhard hadn't had any more contact with Carnage than he had. The odds of them staging something like that were low.

Unless the slip had, in fact, been an act. But Blowhard wasn't much of a three-level player.

>>38636235
"Asanna." Smoke nods to the shaman, who he had long ago decided not to have killed on the grounds he wasn't entirely, 100% positive he wouldn't suffer some sort of divine retribution.

Guys guys, please, I really am going to post here but I really am busy with other stuff too.

I.E work, other canons, etc...

So please be a little patient with me okay?

>>38636342
>>38636308
>>38626656
Carnage ignores the glass which had floated in front of her. She didn’t really care for these mundane theatrics and her expression said as much. With a gaze as hard as steel, she scanned the room along with all her previous all her previous “friends”. Taking in the way they had all grown a little fatter, a little older and most importantly…a little softer. That made her smile, that strange and peculiar smile Carnage produced, one who was more like a shark’s bloodthirsty grin then a mare’s smile. Something about this whole scene made her want to just…laugh.

She grabbed the bottle from which Smoke had poured the potentially poisonous drink and took one, two, three deep swallows from it. She then moved on the the first bottle, the one Blowhard had claimed to be laced with arsenic as she repeated to process. Having done this, she turned to face Smoke, with that very same dangerous smile of hers. Where they really that pathetic? Had they really grown so soft in so short of a time?

“Aren’t you the big strong boy, trying to pass off poison to the ladies to make sure it’s safe to drink yourself. You sure haven’t changed Smoke, you’re still the same pansy-ass mother fucker I remember you to be. Do you still dress up as a mare? Oh man I hope you do, that was the best part of being on a run with you.”

Laughter barked past her lips as she underhanded the wine bottle to Smoke, her ferocious, almost psychotic grin plastered on her face.

“If Blow wanted you dead, he’d pull out a gun and give you a new asshole. As far as I know, he hasn’t grown soft enough to have to resort to poison to kill his enemies yet.”

And then, something changed in Carnage. Her smile cracked and her eyes hardened. There was more to that statement, an accusation that hung in the air, something left unsaid that she dared anyone to complete. They had grown soft, both of them, and she hated them for it.

>>38638976
Blowhard took a single, protracted sip of his drink. Inwardly he was laughing like a hyena at this--not only was she quick to condemn their mutual bitch, she was happy to level blows at him as well. The twin fires yet burned brightly in the darkness around them: her fury and her awkward, working in a glorious scarlet tandem: the fires lit by a gentle hoof and stoked by a cruel and bloody world, just ready to catch anyone and everyone in the blaze.

The year hadn't changed her a bit. He took another sip and chuckled.

"You did it again, I see."

Yet again, she'd cheated death and left him playing the part of the grieving. At this rate, one of these days he was going to watch her get shot to jelly before his very eyes, and she'd show up the next week. The sight of her lit an old spark inside him--it stirred a hungry beast, to use an unduly elaborate metaphor. He wanted to rip the pistol off his belt and burn the world to the ground; he wanted to feel the beautiful sting of bullets and knives ripping through his flesh; he wanted to feel force shake his bones and fire wash over him; he wanted to hear the screams of his enemies; and more than anything else, he wanted to make sure such a pretty tail never left his sight...

For the first time in eighteen months, Blowhard was truly awake; and while he wasn't calling the shots just yet, it wouldn't take anything more than a good sock to the jaw...

"You were dead."

>>38638976
"Lively as ever, I see," Smoke comments. "Though I'm not sure what you're talking about. If I wanted to risk someone else's life in order to test the deadliness of a beverage, well..." He looks significantly at Revanor. "You wouldn't be at the top of the list."

Candor decides Blowhard was right: Carnage really hadn't changed a bit. Whether this is good or ill has yet to be revealed. But then, he was pretty sure that so long as she cared for Blowhard and Blowhard found Smoke entertaining, she wasn't liable to kill him for no reason.

>>38639153

Well. At least this would be interesting.

Sicarius finished his cigar and looked around his home. While, for the most part, the others had turned to rich, decadent lives, he still carved out his living in the same neighborhood as before.

His eyes looked over the cracked and stained wall in front of him. Why hadn't he turned to a fancy life? Was it because he'd lived in the slums for so long that the rich life was too alien? Was it some twisted form of nobility, where he would live in the slums as long as other ponies suffered so the upper crust could live their decadent lives?

He sighed, something the others would have found odd due to his usual emotionlessness. The one thing he'd bought for himself, a higher-grade emotion modifier, had allowed him to enable and disable emotions at will.

A message popping up on his AR display broke him from his deep thoughts. He looked at the sender, causing him to raise an eyebrow. He remembered the name from an op he'd done over a year ago. Checking his accounts via his AR display, he saw that he was starting to run a little low on funds.

"Guess I'd better see what he wants," he said to himself as he donned his signature coat and started on his way to Blowhard's, toggling off his emotions along the way.

A short while later, he was nodding to the doorman of the building in Blowhard's message. He found the apartment and, seeing the door open and the gathered ponies, he stepped in and looked at those assembled. He focuses his emotionless gaze on Blowhard. "I got your message. What is it you want?"

>>38639153
>>38639828
“Oh yea? Thought you’d gotten rid of me that easily hun? Well too bad for you buster, because nothing less than a full blown nuke will ever bring me down!”

She barked with laughter once more, that maddened grin on her face growing fiercer and fiercer as she swindled the bottle of wine in her hoof, downing half the content before swinging the bottle at the nearest wall and watching as it left a red stain were it landed.

“Fuck, is this all you have Blow? This weak ass booze isn’t any stronger then piss! How the hell am I supposed to get drunk like this?! God damn it man, get me my usual on the double before I start blowing holes in those fancy bottles you got over there!”

Then, turning back to Smoke, Carnage leaned into him, her front hoof wrapping around his neck in a sort of friendly macho embrace as her head shook from side to side a little whilst she kept on grinning like the maniac she was.

“Now Smokey baby, we’re friends right? We’re palls! So for that reason, I won’t blow off your head for implying I was an absolute moron. But you know, if you keep on pushing, I might just see if those cocktail dresses you wear can block live ammo as well as they hide you shame. Because if they don’t…
In one flawless and graceful movement, Carnage drew out the right-most part of her soul. A slender, steel colored Baretta M92 custom. One of a set of two, the second of which was currently resting inside the second holster on the inside of her dirty bullet-torn leather duster. After a dramatic second, to pause, and offer Smoke the chance to see just what was going on, Star Fall fired at the the single bottle enshrined at the very top of the bar, a bottle, which she assumed, could not be worth less then a small fortune. The bottle exploded and its precious content was sent flying everywhere.

“[i]Just like that”

She said, releasing him from the friendly embrace she had gifted him with yet another bark of laughter.

“HEY DRUMBASS! MY DRINK READY YET OR WHAT?!”

>>38640667
Smoke reacts with... Absolutely nothing. It's almost as if he'd had someone threaten to shoot him before. Shocking, really.

>>38640365

Instead of further indulging the orange pegasus, he decides to address the blue one. "Sicarius. Well the more the merrier I suppose." He takes another sip of his drink, but this less generous than the last. "How have you been holding up?"

>>38640667
Blowhard sighed and rubbed his temples. Not this shit again...when he spoke, his voice was monotone, and calm as the grave. And, also much like the grave, it served only to remind you that many, many, many ponies had lost their lives to gunfire.

"Carnage? You can shoot Smoke all you like, but you will stop waving guns around my home."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, openly switching the safety off of his trusts revolver as he did. God willing, this was a simple display of machismo: Carnage asserting her dominance, like the rabid dog she was. If this wasn't, he was going to reach up her ass, find whatever forest-dwelling vermin had died up there, pull it out, and skip rope with it.

He waved a hoof dismissively at Revanor, Smoke, Asanna, and at the newly-arrived Sicarius.

"You four. Antechamber. Carnage and I have business."

The slumbering devil in Blowhard's head was whispering to him--and perhaps, on the high from that forbidden tempter, he did something that could only be described as amazingly stupid. He fixed Carnage with an icy stare and growled:

"And you can get your own drink."

>>38640734
Sicarius turns his head to look at Smoke, his gaze just as emotionless as it had been before. When he speaks, his voice is just as devoid of feeling as his eyes. "I have been living the same life as I always have. How have you been?"

>>38640749
He looks back to Blowhard and nods. In his head, beyond the emotional toggles, he was curious as to what he'd been called for and what this business between Blowhard and Carnage was. However, he was smart enough to know not to screw with either of them, so he stepped into the antechamber without a word.

Asanna jumped at the sound of the gunshot, a field of magic glowing to life around her. But of course-- Carnage was involved, and in Asanna's limited experience that meant casual violence and brandishing of guns that were both inappropriate for the social occasion and utterly excessive in deadliness for anything less than hunting animals that had a reputation for wearing body armor.

The force-field encasing her body dispersed as she strutted off, as instructed.

>>38640749
He gives a nonchalant shrug. "Come now Revanor." He picks up the bottle of whiskey and tops off his glass: they seemed to have a good amount of business to discuss. "It's not polite to listen in." He sets the bottle back down, then departs for the antechamber.

>>38640797
Sicarius is just as dull as he had been before. Ah well. "I've been well. A little richer, a little safer." He considers, then decides against, talking about his work. He doesn't think the pegasus is the sort to sabotage him as he himself had so many executives before him, but it never hurt to be careful.

>>38642704
"You were saying what now?" Said Revanor with confusion. He had been trying to see if the local pantry was anywhere near his current location in hopes of securing some minor speck of nutrients.

"Do we have something important to do now?" He said as he picked up the whole bottle of whisky to himself. He proceed to follow Smoke to their relative destination.

"Will there be food there?" He managed to ask. It was apperant that he was somewhat hungry.

>>38640797

"Oh hello Sicarius." He greeted Sicarius casually as he walked past him with a bottle of booze with him. "Say if you find some food will you?"

>>38642704
He turns his head to look at Smoke with that same cold, unfeeling gaze and nods. "Noted," he says. He pauses a minute before asking, "Why is it that many of the others have chosen to live more decadent lives, when the so-called 'lower class' lives seem to be more efficient?" He had been unable to figure out a rational answer to the question, and decided that Smoke would be an acceptable second opinion on it.
>>38646266
He looked at Revanor and nodded in a greeting. "Hello, Revanor. Will do." he said in his usual emotionless voice.

>>38646330
Smoke snorts. "Efficient at what? Reducing overhead?" He gestures to their surroundings, the plush comforts and elegant design. "Properly implemented (Not that I'm saying Blowhard is capable of doing so, mind), these surroundings are worth their weight in silver. They impress the weak into following, ease the powerful into associating. I spent an unseemly number of bits on my aquarium floor, you know. Vibration-diverting material is... Well let's just say it is expensive. And yet..." He smirks. "I believe the sight of electric eels beneath their hooves has garnered me far more clients than my resume. There are other benefits, as well: I do not need to worry about cleaning the remnants of some junkie from my security system's kill zone, I do not need to keep an eye out for muggers when I walk home, I do not need to waste time sneaking through or walking around some gang war on my way to work. Aside from all that..."

He polishes a hoof on his insanely stylish and costly suit. "It just feels nice to see your hard-earned bits put to use."

You should join the Skype.

>>38646403
"Yeah I totaly have those things too!" Added Revanor to the conversation. "And my uhhmm.....security guys have...uhmm...helmets with lazrers in them! And oh boy are shark tanks hard to get by these days! I have three, but I totaly would cope with only two! Hehe he....." He laughed nerviously. Act cool now or else....
"But anyhow should we move on now? Our host will get anxious soon for sure!" He said fast while taking a swig from the bottle of whiskey he had grabbed.

>>38646403
I will at some point
"So it is feeling that compels the others to spend on such frivolities. And while your reasons appear sound, it is apparent why I was unable to find an acceptable conclusion," he says, his expression as devoid of emotion as his face. "Rather than greatly increasing the efficiency of others around them, they only marginally increase their own efficiency."
>>38646490
He regards Revanor with his cold eyes. He considered call his bluff, but decided not to in case he would need to work with him later on. "I see no reason to move right now. He said for us to go to the antechamber, and we are there already." he says.

“Psh. As much of a ladies man as ever. No wonder your worthless ass can’t get a date to save his life, you can’t even get a girl a descent drink!” Carnage exclaims as she makes her way towards the bar, opening the doors to the wooden cabinet with a bang and pushing aside bottles until she found her prize. “Ah-hah! Knew there had to be a good bottle in here, if even because this is the same one I left at your place last time I was over.” The mare exclaims as she retracts a bottle of dark green liquor, a worn out label not really indicating whatever the particular substance was. “Fucking stuff is hell to find these days on the streets” She says, moving over to the ice crushing machine at the bar, and then moving over to the strawberry syrup. Thus completing the drink of Carnage’s own invention, the Atomic Strawberry. The manliest girly drink known to ponykind.

“So I get the impression you wanna talk about something that might be against our agreement. You mind taking this outside then? That way I won’t have to gun down your guests on the off chance they heard something. Not that I mind really, but it’s a pain having to waste good ammo like that you know?”

>>38673228
And it's a pain in the ass to dump a body in this town...
"Fucking crazy girl. Can't believe I ever wanted a piece of you."

He made that remark just loud enough to overhear: what they didn't know wouldn't make him hurt them, or so the thinking went. He jerked his head to the outside balcony and took his place there. He dutifully waited for Carnage to arrive; and when she did, he spoke in a hushed tone.

"I was getting worried..."

>>38646403

Asanna straightened her beads, listening in on this conversation with an unreadable expression-- not that it was normally a simple matter to read griffin expressions.

>>38647047

"Your definition of efficiency is sorely shortsighted," Asanna cut in. "There is a reason low lifestyles are spurned by those who can afford better. Security, health, social opportunity, are real advantages that should not be underestimated. This is aside from the fact that in Smoke's line of work, putting on appearances is vitally important."

Her eyes dilated imperceptibly as they rejected the physical world and showed her Sicarius' soul.

Augmented. Naturally. And not a friendly sort of aug either... an insidious, nervous-system level mod. This pegasus hadn't just taken steps towards giving up his wings, his birthright-- he dared to tamper with the very fire that animated his body...

When Asanna flicked back to the physical world, it was with a flattened head-fringe that communiated... something, along with her narrowed eyes and slightly flexed stance. "Perhaps your usual employment requires a different form of so-called efficiency."

>>38673573
"Yea, I bet you were."
Carnage said, sipping from her drink as she said so. Her gaze scanning the city from that lay beyond and below the balcony they stood upon.
"Do you have any idea why I did it?" Carnage asked, her tone of voice pregnant with a seriousness she seldom ever showed for it contradicted the Carnage persona she so adamantly held up to the public. A persona she wished could become who she really was but failed to despite her darnedest efforts to do so.

>>38711423
"Part of me wonders if you just needed to get away. Be yourself."

Blowhard took another sip, inwardly kicking himself in a way that only Carnage would be able to diagnose on sight. "I missed you", "Be yourself"...he was turning into a wuss, at this age. Or maybe...who was he kidding? He'd never be cold enough to turn her away--or at least, he sincerely hoped so.

"After all. Not even I will be here forever..."

He sighed and set the glass down. He tried to ignore the tingling in the back of his head--that was just the old thrill being around her brought, and nothing more. At least, he hoped so...

"But no. I don't.

"Why?"

>>38711478
Carnage gripped her glass tighter between her hooves as her face scrunched up with a mixture of anger and frustration born of the subject matter.

"I left, because I was getting soft!"

Carnage spat out, her eyes burning with the vivid awkward of an electric storm.

"Being rich, having the rep and guns...
Everything was too damn easy! I was getting slower, softer. I didn't want to kill kids or mares anymore, I didn't want hurt anypony, I didn't..."

Carnage fell silent once more, the glass she held shuddered with the strength with which Carnage held it.

"Weak, so fucking weak. I was so pathetic, it was only a matter of time before some punk-ass with more balls then brains started taking pot-shots at me. And you know what? He might have even gotten lucky."

She said, her gaze turning back to blowhard. Gone were the fierce flames of hate and malice. Instead, they were replaced with the tears of a sad lost filly. Tears, that had not fallen or been seen in a very very long time.

"And I can see you going soft too Blow. How long until someone gets lucky? How long until..."

Carnage can't finish the sentence, the words chocking themselves in her throat as hot tears fell down her cheeks.

"That's why I left, I had to become strong again. Had to toughen up before someone tougher showed up to take my place."

>>38711691
Blowhard nodded quietly for the most of her explanation, but little by little his resolve broke down. By the end he could barely string two thoughts together over the oppressive noise in his head.

Blowhard, having the tastes that he did, would never be able to have a child of his own--but oh, did he want one. For years, he'd wanted to be a father; he didn't know why. Perhaps it was instinctual, or perhaps he was just good with kids. The fact of the matter was that, when Carnage had come into his life all those years ago, she was everything he could've ever asked for. Losing her, twice now, had torn him apart: and each time, having her returned made him whole again. He kept running long after he meant to stop, just to keep an eye on her--she may as well have been his own flesh and blood, in his eyes.

As such, anything he might have said about discipline, or restraint, or pragmatism, was swiftly overridden by one thought, and one thought alone:

Someone had hurt his daughter.

He wouldn't say it out loud, of course--for someone might be listening--but that was all he could think of at the moment. Carnage was crying--and more than that, she was crying over something he had every say in. It wasn't a stretch of the imagination to see what he saw then:

He had hurt her.

He silently wrapped a foreleg around her and gently wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Shh...easy, Carnage. It's alright..."

He wouldn't have been caught dead this intimate with anybody; and more than that, he wouldn't have dared use her name, outside of right here and now. He gently patted her back.

"You're right. You're so, so right. But it's okay. Things are different now. We own the world, girl...we don't have enemies anymore."

He pulled away after a moment, letting his gaze (and a momentary nuzzle) provide all the assurance he could give.

"This is over. No more high rolling, no more champagne and politicians. It's you and me now. And nobody can touch us."

"Nobody at all."

He was a wahaHA!. But he didn't mind.

"Wait...wait a second."

His ears twitched. There was that tingle on the back of his neck: the feeling of being watched, by someone with malicious intent. The killer's survival instinct, in vulgar terms.

"...Do you feel that?"

>>38674229
He turns to look at the griffin with his cold, emotionless gaze. "My definition of 'efficiency' does not include such comforts as those, because rather than furthering oneself along and only slightly increase their own efficiency, one could instead work to improve the efficiency of many others using that same amount of currency." he says, mentally noting various things about her.

Asanna's stance, eyes, and flattened head fringe failed to elicit even the slightest hint of emotion from Sicarius. "You are correct about that. My usual line of work does not require socialization of any kind, outside of communicating with allies." he adds, his voice as even as ever.

>>38711847
And just like that…the magic was gone. The tears disappeared as though they had never existed. And though the pain would not fade, Carnage had learned a long time ago that her favored mask was and would always be anger. Pulling her rage around her, Carnage called upon the cloak she used to hide herself from the world. To keep her heart untainted by this disgusting world, Star Fall smothered herself with an insatiable thirst for blood that would make her forget the pain. If even for a little bit.

”Yea, I feel it alright. Seem’s like we got some uninvited guests Blow.”

She grinned then, that same bloodthirsty maniacal grin the world knew her for. A grin that was so perfectly crazy that it almost made you forget that this same mare had been crying a few moments ago. Almost.

”You ready to turn this place into a clusterfuck?”

>>38751248
"Does a bear shit in the woods?"

Across the street, in the darkness of the spires, doors are flying open and armored ponies are pouring into apartments. Tables are turned over, windows are thrown open, and terrified ponies are forced out of bed and to the floor. Phone lines are cut, generators are knocked out, and the wireless is quietly suppressed: for a block in every direction, the city falls silent.

On the streets, the scene is similarly grim. The traffic lights flash red, as ponies in police colors deploy row after row of spike strips and barbed wire. The few vagrants and night-lifers dumb enough to stick around are silenced with a quick blow to the head and unceremoniously removed from the scene.

In the apartments below the penthouse, the strange force continues. The receptionist is knocked unconscious and cuffed, his computer appropriated: the elevators are discreetly jammed, one in every ten tenants is shot down while they sleep, and dozens upon dozens of immaculately-trained ponies buckle down for a fight. As the engineers plant their bombs, a single unlucky pony, chosen to fire the shot heard 'round the city, approaches the flashpoint.

For the magical, for the unnaturally mechanical, or for those who simply know the city as few can, it is as though nine whole blocks hold their breath in anticipation.

*Ding-dong*

A knock at the door, followed by a jovial proclamation.

"Pizza's here!"

>>38798638
Carnage giggled then, the sound somehow sounding more disturbing than anything else this world has seen for quite a time. For the expression that Star Fall wore then, was something to be feared and admired, the expression of someone who would never function in a correct society, the expression of someone whose goal in life was naught but to kill and kill and kill some more until finally, one day, she drew her last breath in the dirty gutters of the city. It was the expression of a monster.

Carnage didn’t turn to see if Blowhard would follow, she already knew he would. Drawing her pistols from her duster, Carnage stood before the shut wooden door and smiled. She smiled and smiled and smiled some more. Like the world was the biggest joke ever told, she stood there grinning like the maniac the world had shaped her into.

And then, following some unheard cue, Carnage ran towards the doors at full speed and jumped forward, her hind legs carrying the door off its hinges and onto the pizza boy. And while she rode the door down to the ground, she began shooting.

BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!

>>38798638

The corner of Smoke's lip peels back in dissatisfaction when his various information feeds go dead. He maintains them for a reason, damn it, and he doesn't like it when a shitty block's network coverage impedes him. Except he's not in some low-city slum. He's in one of the city's best neighbourhoods, actually. Yellow alert is officially raised when the 'pizza' arrives: he didn't recall Blowhard ordering pizza, but it was hardly outside the realm of possibility. Time to proceed with caut-
>>38798874
Or that. Only one pony he knows has their balls and their brains switched in the right proportion to pull that sort of stunt. Of course that person happens to be a mare, so perhaps the metaphor is inapt. Giving her some credit, though, it's unlikely even the quite-apty-named Carnage made that sort of mistake. And giving her more credit, she offers an excellent distraction. With the other two's attention focused first on each other and then on the noise, it's likely even they don't notice him slip into an Unnoticeable state.
Slinking to the back of the group, he waits for more straightforward fighters to start taking the heat.

>>38798874
Four armor-clad ponies, who had been ready to breach the room, fell dead.

Ah--that was the sound he loved so much. It had, in retrospect, been far too long since he'd been within visual range of a death by shooting. He missed that roar, that moment of screaming, that wet staccato spult, that final thump. Just the thought of it was sweet; and watching it happen for the first time in so long sent the blood rushing through his heads.

The room leading up to the penthouse was shaped much like a bong: with a circular area just outside the door, which narrowed into a short corridor, which ended in a flight of stairs: two doors, on either side of the hallway, served as coat closets and places where Blowhard's assistants would conduct business with those he didn't care to deal with himself. Tactical advantage to him and his, of course.

With a little laugh, he clipped his pistol to his bracer: and as the four officers fell dead, he stood in the doorway and nodded to Carnage.

"Eyes up, C. Nine and three."

The door was immaculately polished, and the hallway carpet was ridiculously fuzzy. When he gave the fallen door a mighty kick, it was enough to send Carnage gliding down the hallway at a cantering pace, just as eight other agents stuck their heads out of the quartet of doors around the corridor.

>>38799802

Gliding down the hallway at rocket speed, Carnage levelled her guns towards the oncoming assault force.

“I HOPE YOU BOYS BROUGHT AN UMBRELLA BECAUSE I’M ABOUT TO MAKE IT RAIN!”

Carnage screamed moments before she opened fire upon the poor sods. Laughing all the while with that bone-chilling laughter of hers as her bullets ripped through faces, burst kneecaps and repainted the walls of the once fancy looking estate with the blood of the police force.

Revanor almost choked to the whiskey he was drinking when the shooting started. While the pizza boy was about to meet his untimely demise, Revanor had already positioned himself tactically behind a sofa.

After the smoke had cleared from the apartments doorway, Revanor dared to take a peek from his hidy-hole. What he saw was not pretty....

His two bags of luggage, which he had left next to the doorway, were now rent open by the explosive force of the doors demolisher. Their contents now littered the floor with most of the rags shredded and random items broken.

"My stuff! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Revanor exclaimed as he swiftly crossed the sofa. He moved to the doorway, and began to take stock of his destroyed possessions. "Oh nooo! My stuff is destroyed completely!" He whined even as the hot,bullet ridden action was reigning beyond the door.

>>38799895
A whole eight of the attackers fell dead, then. As their bits and pieces splattered against the walls, the entrails complimented the spotted-red wallpaper eerily well; those were, in all likelihood, not the first murders to occur within those walls. As the door tipped over the stairs and began to glide down towards the arboretum, two more armor-clad ponies emerged from the waiting rooms and took aim at you--only to be swiftly gunned down by Blowhard, who knelt next to them and scowled.

"Carnage? When you're done, come see this."

He pried the bullet-riddled helmet off the body and turned it up to get a look at the inside. His scowl only grew angrier.

>>38799709
Elsewhere, the communique went out, as a scout alerted his commander.

A moment later, that familiar itching came--the itching that comes with a large number of very angry spellcasters working their damndest to break your spell over their proverbial knees. It would serve you well to get out of the line of fire, when they succeed.

>>38803092
Carnage hopped off the door and made her way towards Blowhard. Pausing momentarily to stare at her blood-drenched surroundings in the same way a small filly might look upon a fantastic dream-land.

"Too take me out they have to fight like real men..."

Carnage sang jovially, wearing that ever so disturbing death head grin of hers.

"And these fuckers proved to me that they can't"

"Watcha got Blow? One of these guys owe you some money or something?"

>>38803163
He grunts noncommittally and tosses her the helmet. While it had been all-but-spaghettified by her shots, it was easy enough to make out the shattered remains of its elemental components. The shell was a glimmering-white hard plastic, overlaid over a single millimeter of steel. The obvious design trouble this poses is counteracted by two millimeters of sponge, which are wrapped up in a cheap fabric meant to serve as a satin substitute; and rounding off the whole proud, loud, and slightly garish display, the visor was made out of a translucent scarlet plastic.

Despite the care in its design, it wasn't quite ready for a face full of five-hundred. The bullet tore right through both walls of the helmet; and with the coverings popped like a five-cent balloon, it's plain to see that it's wired like a dozen drug busts. The visor, at one point, possessed heavy AR augmentation, as well as a high-class squad communication rig. No way these guys are run-of-the-mill thugs, or even SWAT officers.

"Look at that, C. Does that look like any thug to you?"

Blowhard, with some small amount of effort, pops the right fore-shoulder pad off of the uniform and holds it up. It's made from black hard plastic, with a white outline: in fact, the entire suit is monochromatic in such a way, with a strong white preference. In place of the standard rank and precinct insignia, or even a recognizable corporate logo, there is only a stylized bright-red eye.

"Never saw these clowns when I was CorpSec..."

This reflection is punctuated by a shout of surprise as the door hits the bottom of the stairs; and that cry is, in turn, followed by the distinctive sound of several people readying their guns far more loudly than they need to.

"...Sounds like...four at the base, more in the bushes? Guess we better get moving."

>>38804103
You know..."

Carnage said, her tone slowing down a little as she considered the goof-balls who ended up getting a facefull of door while they were huddling up together at the base of the stair-case like a bunch of scared fillies, waiting to see who would have the balls to see what the fuck was going on upstairs.

"I kinda feel bad for whoever paid for their gear. Spent a fortune one some sweet gear only for it to be wasted on incompetent idiots who don't even know which side of the gun is the loud one."

She explained as she pulled out a standard frag grenade from her duster, casually pulled the pin and tossed it down the flight of stairs.

"After all, it dosn't really matter how pretty of a dress you wear, if you can't dance for shit then the contest judges are gonna rip you to pieces..."

Loud panicking sounds can be heard at the bottom of the stairs only to be swallowed up by a loud explosion.

BOOM!

"...just like that.

>Smoke hides

>>38804283
"Hm..."

Blowhard frowns and wrenches the weapon from the dead soldier's body. He slips the strap over his shoulder and holds the weapon up for her to see: it, like the armor, is painted bright white and emblazoned with a bright red eye logo. The gentle humming it exudes can be heard very faintly in the aftermath of the detonation.

"...Do you see this?"

Anyone with Carnage's degree of weapons experience could easily place it, down to the very last component: it was a RedSea Arms Reaver-Pattern Automatic Shotgun--known as the "Widowmaker" by the classy and uncreative, and the "Cockshredder" by the scatalogically-inclined. It was something of an iconic design among black ops circles: eighteen-inch barrel with six inches of muzzle brake, fully-automatic nine-shell magazine, magnetic pylons inserted at strategic points along the barrel to allow the user to switch between a back-mounted stance and a hoof-grip stance at a moment's notice: it even had a grip for anyone with a finger aug.

That wasn't what made it famous, however: the Cockshredder's claim to fame was what it spit out the other end. It had been pioneered back during a particularly nasty spell of rioting, back when the laws and customs took second fiddle to just keeping the rebellion down. It used a special line of shells that were roughly two and a half inches wide: after firing, instead of launching pellets, it launched a pellet wholesale much like a grenade. After impact, a small explosive in the tip of the shell would discharge eight superheated flechettes into its poor target, which would in turn cook off their own micro-explosives. Suffice to say, what was left after it clicked wasn't pretty.

The Cockshreader was innacurate and difficult to use, but it was the undisputed God of short corridor-clearing.

It was also so amazingly illegal that you weren't even allowed to look at one unless you had more military pins than you had legs.

"Who the hell can get their hooves on..."

He shakes his head and stands up, collecting the fallen pony's ammunition pouch as he goes.

"Well, guess I always wanted to use one of these."

He stands at the top of the stairs, mounting the shotgun on his saddlebag grip, and nods towards Carnage.

"Hey, C. You remember the carousel?"

"The carousel" was a name he used to euphemistically refer to a stylish, amusing, and rather unsafe maneuver: where she would leap onto his back and he would gallop around the place screaming bloody murder, sucking up fire while she got a clean shot at anything and everything.

So called for obvious reasons.

>>38808157
"...Weird. He's not even trying to stop the jammers."
"Open fire."
"Roger."

"Hiding", such as it is, is something of a fickle practice. It requires being out of your enemy's sight--generally accomplished by cowering behind an opaque (preferably thick) object and sitting very still; keeping the noise you create to a minimum (again, generally accomplished by keeping still); and keeping your bowels under control so that you do not betray yourself with an errant fart or a burst of terrified urine (this does not always require standing still, but it is advised all the same).

But, of course, that is only the act of sneaking, which encompasses but one of the many facets of hiding. Another such facet is the time-honored art of disguise, which is something you have some amateurish degree of skill with. To disguise yourself is to pretend to be someone else, which enables you to hide without being quiet or ducking behind objects or much of anything at all, terribly. To disguise oneself is to assume the identity, you see, of another: and it involves mimicry of the highest magnitude. You must wear the clothes, mimic the voice, imitate the accent, and master the specific walk of your enemy: and in this way, you might assume his place.

Of course, hiding goes beyond that.

"Hiding" can simply be telling a lie--concealing the truth via sleight of hoof or a well-chosen word, that others might accept your reality and substitute their own. Stage magicians, are liars; children are liars; politicians and moneylenders are accomplished liars, more often than not. "Hiding" could mean stealing the cookie from the jar and framing your brother, or secreting away an aggressive interest policy within the fine print.

Given that you are not stupid enough to attempt and lie yourself away (at least, not twice), and disguise will serve little use, sneaking served you best--at least it did, right up until a high-powered sniper bullet hit the sofa you were hunkered behind, distorting the metal frame and causing the steel to "punch" you squarely in your ribs.

>>38808512
>Smoke grunts
"Ow."
>He makes a doppelganger then casts unnoticeable on it
"Show time.
>They run in different directions

>>38808965
Wedgies*

>>38808512
Carnage glared at Blowhard then in a rather indignant fashion.

"I do, but do you remember why we stopped doing it? Because I do, it involved a bar fight and people mentioning how much they wanted me to ride them when I had some free time."

Carnage turned her glare down the staircase where she could make out the sound of armored hooves coming up the stairs.

"Use you new toy Blow, I'm not burning down another neighborhood just so you can relive a bit of embarrassing nostalgia. It's just too damn messy."

The first of the soldiers came around the darkened corner of the stairs then, managed to get off a few words of warning before being silenced with very quickly and with extreme prejudice.

BANG!

"Besides, it's a lot more fun to watch them die from this angle."

She said with a quiet giggle. Then taking the time to calmly take a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her duster and placing one in her lips.

"Say, you got a light Blow? I lost my lighter."

>>38812391
"Oh, fine..."

He disinterestedly watched the bodies hit the floor, and slipped a shell from the pouch and rolled it across the floor to her.

"Use this."

He moseyed down the stairs, possessed of a cruel and cold casual air that stopped just short of arranging the bodies in dirty positions and widdling on them. The arboretum was a garish collection of orchids, ferns, palms, roses, and anything else that pulled double-duty as eye candy and actual candy. Between the gleaming white shelves, the floral-pattern vases, and the neon flowers, he'd rather loathed it; and as much as he appreciated his gardener's rabid diligence, he was, on some level, reveling in the chance to rip it apart.

The Cockshredder in action was a rather distinctive sound. The click of the trigger, the whoosh as the gun discharged the shell, the gentle thud of impact, and finally the distinctive sound of eight small blades ripping through flesh and bone. It resembled a cross between a grenade launcher and a squeaky toy, and it was hardly the sort of thing you'd expect to herald horrific death-by-shredding.

He fired twice.
Swit-pumpfsthk
swit-pumpfsthk

Each was followed by the soft, restful thud of a body hitting the floor. Each shot had landed right on the upper-torso; the heart, lungs, and throat would have been pierced at once, and the victims wouldn't have felt anything other than surprised.

As he stepped off of the stairs and onto the charred and bloodstained tiles, another would-be assassin made his move: this one was more lightly-armored than his compatriots, and had traded out a rifle for a small submachine gun and a pair of gleaming-sharp combat claws. He emerged from behind the stairs, talons raised and crackling with electricity; only to be rewarded with a swift flowerpot to the face and a bullet into the throat.

With a small grunt, Blowhard threw himself up against the corpse before it hit the ground, and pivoted it just in time to shield him from a burst of fire from across the room. With a single deft motion he snapped the merc's machine pistol to his own bracer, kicked the body away, and sent forth a stream of gunfire that rapidly reduced the area in front of him to a cloud of potting soil and red mist. He didn't stop shooting until it clicked; and when it did, he let the weapon fall to the floor.

He shouted up the stairs to Carnage.

"C! That's all clear down here!"

He moseyed his way on down the central aisle of the arboretum. He stopped some six paces down to help himself to a bite of an unmolested rosebush--and with a contemptuous lack of attention, he sank a single slug into the head of the last man standing.

He finished chewing, and swallowed.

"These guys are a distraction, you realize."

>>38817326
Sicarius, who had been somewhat-silently moving just behind them, finally said something.

"Obviously. Any idea what they are distracting us from, though?"

His goggles have a slight glow to them as they feed him various data through an AR overlay, the most notable being a crosshair for his linked twin submachine guns. Having already marked Blowhard and Carnage as allies, it was in near-constant motion, actively scanning for targets. The rest of the data was for various other things, such as environmental conditions, newsfeeds, and a scan of nearby wireless signals.

He takes a look at a few of the bodies, then says, "I believe they were supposed to distract us for longer than they did."

>>38829370
"Obviously they imagined they'd find crippled man-children in wheelchair's because that's all these worthless sacs of crap could have slowed down for more then a second or two."

Carnage announced loudly as she stood next to one of the corpses who had been ripped apart by Blowhard's Widowmaker. Taking the time to glare at it and kick it solidly in the head. Spitted that she had her tender, if embarrassing, reunion with Blowhard ruined by the pathetic amateurs.

"Common boys,I'm curious to see what it was they were supposed to distract us from. Whatever it was, it has to be more entertaining then washing the floor with the dickless maggots."

She announced with a cackle, marching her way towards the main exit.

>>38829701
Revanor, as usual, had kept himself out from most of the fighting. He had used whatever peaces of cover he could find to hide from any enemies and to protect himself from stray bullets. He was now hastly following the other members of the group as they walked forward.

"Quite the contrary, actually. The poor chaps earlier provided me with enough entertainment to last the whole week!" He said while brandishing his miniscule pocket pistol. It might have not been as cool as the big guns that others used, but he always could claim that he wasn't compensating for anything when he was wielding it.

"We'll see what is so disruptive that it needs to distract us!" He said blatantly as he walked along. He didn't really know if he sounded convinsing or not but that didn't matter. What mattered tough was that he still carried the bottle of whiskey that he had stolen from Blowhard's service tray. It could have very well been second rate whiskey, since the man himself hadn't noticed that it was missing or simply didn't care about it anymore. This too didn't matter much to Revanor, since the occasional swigs from it gave him the much needed courage and will to fight on and continue onwards.

>>38830692
"Well I guess that's where you and me are different Ravy."

Carnage exclaimed, a grin spreading over her face as she placed herself at the exit's door frame.

"I don't get "amused" by assholes storming my party and shitting on my lawn."

Her grin grows wider and wider

"I get amused when their bodies are eviscerated and hanging from a nearby lamppost.

>>38833459

Revanor smiled awkwardly. "Yes Uhm... That's very...nice...then." He said while keeping the awkward smile on his face. That girl be crazier than he remembered! "Well moving on...." He stated hastly.

Revanor placed himself to the opposite frame of the door that Star was using with a clumsy but swift rolling move. "So we ready to do this?" He asked nervously, for no doubt there were more enemies wating for them behind that door.

Then Revanor realized that he would be the second person to enter the breach in case of potential door-breaching manoeuvre. "Aw hell. I've seen this movie before! Somepony switch places with me!" He said while jumping back from his previous post.

>Please don't die this soon!