Beta’s eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright in bed “APPLE!” his arms reach out forward trying to grab his mate. He panted then whimpered when he found nothing in his arms. He looked down at his empty bed. He and Alpha agreed they should not sleep together while around the troops. He was regretting that around now. All he wanted to do was to grab his mate and hold him as tight as he could, or Alpha.

Beta just needed to hold someone who loved him. Alas he was alone. He wasn’t going to bother Sigma or Alpha simply because he needed ‘his binkie’. Beta shook his head and decided to just take the watch and let whatever pony was outside goto sleep.

Beta met Fallen Bloom in the middle of camp who was already half asleep. When Beta tapped his flank to ask him if he wanted to goto sleep, Fallen just grunted, dropped his spear and walked very sleepily to the tent Beta had just been in and passed out immediately. His snores could be heard across the camp. Beta smiled and chuckled quietly as he tended the embers of the fire.

Looking around the camp Beta saw splinters resting. The Middle head was snoring lightly. the left head was clearly having a dream,where it looks like he was shaking rabbits or something. Beta smiled at the simplicity of the universe. The right head, however, was half asleep and chewing on what looked like a tree! Beta shook his head. ‘strange creature.’

On the other side of the camp was the frozen body of the poor heffer they had found earlier. It was on a stretcher so they could drag it around without damaging the body, even though Sigma and Dazzling sparks had been very thorough in encasing it in a solid block of ice. Beta wasn’t sure, thinking about it further, that Briar Rabbit was responsible. They had found where the heffer had been butchered, however it was a rather small amount of body fluids. It was as if she had died on her hooves and he had just taken advantage of her death to lay the trap.

Alpha had assured him that the meat wasn’t poisoned and that the baby was fine. Beta shook his head in disbelief. He was going to be a father… possibly two times over as long as Apple Berry’.... Beta paused in thought again as he looked into the forest. He had to stop thinking about her. It was affecting his performance. It was distracting him. It was keeping him from seeing that Briar rabbit was right there in the forest and had been watching him for a good minute now.

A moment later Beta is gone in a flash. Half a second after that a kunai slammed into the log he was sitting on at the moment.

Hiroshi was running for his life. He didn’t understand his own actions. It was clear to him that Bet was a man of honor, just as his master had told him. ‘Why am I still trying to kill him?’ he wondered for the umteenth time. ‘He is an honorable man who is looking after his warren.’ he thought consideringly, after all a warren is how a rabbit refers to it’s herd, or pack. He felt this of compulsion to kill his master’s killer… but it wasn’t as though his master was killed by a gun from a far. He was killed, fairly in a proper duel. He wondered if his creator had placed deep subliminal programming into him.

Hiroshi knew his master would have preferred that Hiroshi had lived out his life happy, possibly in the furry underground back on Earth. ‘Earth… home… it seems so far away now’ he maligned. ‘I don’t even understand where I am or how I got here… but here I am.’ He had still to know the name of the land was Equestria. He had always had problems learning english and their strange, scratch-like writing called Romanji in Japanese.

He wondered if he could actually kill Beta. He had seen Beta reach his limit when he was following him earlier. Hiroshi decided to test this. He paused to land sideways on a tree trunk, mid flight. The pause was all Beta needed.

Before Hiroshi could move to grab his master’s old sword beta had pulled it easily from it’s sheath after slicing the rope that kept it bound to the sheath (known as a peace bond) with his claw. Momentum and inertia kept them standing on the tree trunk, vertical, as if it were the ground for several seconds. Beta holding the sword to Hiroshi’s neck.

“Only a honorable man should own such a beautiful sword” beta began in flawed Japanese. “So why do you have it?” He was angry this little rabbit had threatened his family’s lives. He was angry that this little bastard was in one piece. No damage, no life threatening slices to the gut, no… life long series of traumas.. just the one it seems.

However gravity and Mr. Newton can be held back forever and after Beta’s Question gravity began to reassert itself.

Both trained assassins lept to and landed comfortably on the ground. Beta was breathing harder than the young rabbit ‘damn him for that too’ Beta thought sourly. After they landed Beta held the sword back up and towards the boy. “Anata wa nani ka?” who are you, Beta asked again in flawed Japanese. “Sore wa Nakamura ka?” You are with the Nakamura?

“Hai” Hiroshi answered with as much venom and hate as he could for this.. this… assassin of his beloved master and grandfather. He then shook his head. ‘Where did that come from?’. he wondered yet again.

Beta heard the venom, but then seeing the rabbit shake his head, recognized the signs of programming. He then did something incredibly stupid, he move with lightning speed, put the sword back into the sheath and stood back, paws up in the air.

“Let me help you” he said in his flawed Japanese. “I think I can.. please. If I fail you may cut me down.” he added. In truth he had no intention of failing… or letting this kitten (young rabbit) cut him down.

Hiroshi had only blinked and his grandfather’s katana was back in its sheath. Even Though the effort was clearly costing Beta, he was fast… much faster than even he was. Hiroshi also wanted these conflicting drives gone, so he lowered his head and replied “hai”. He had just accepted defeat and not a single punch had been thrown.

Beta approached Hiroshi very slowly and carefully, ready to move at any sign of betrayal, for at this point it was Hiroshi’s honor that was being put to the test, not Beta’s. Beta gently put a paw on Hiroshi’s head, closed his eyes and concentrated hard.

What Beta ‘heard’ seemed to be two voices. One that was Hirohshi, and another that was commanding him. ‘latent commands’ he figured. most likely he had been created as a revenge weapon to kill anyone who took out the old man. Beta smiled as the beautiful simplicity of it all. ‘Well it’s time to turn off the program’ Beta thought. ‘It seems like they’re ... ‘ then he stopped and realized the reality. “fuck” he said quietly. “my nanites...:” he said in annoyance.

Some years before there had been a leak in security at the lab. What had been stolen was a large number of nanites, including their source code.

‘Well at least this'll be easy’ Beta thought as he looked at Hiroshi. “Nanite Command, master password  Alpha Six Five niner, Respond!: Beta said forcefully. but nothing happened. “shit” bets swore. ‘Of Course, it’ll be in Japanese. He reasoned.

“Nanito Komando! Sempai Password! Ichibarro Roku Go Quuuuuu! Yokai!” he said, hoping his bad japanese would be sufficient.

A moment later he was rewarded with “Nanite override command accepted. Hello Beta” Hiroshi has spoken it, but the voice was more like a computer. This was a programmed response, they obviously never thought to try and change… since no one knew about it. Unlike most of the code Beta had used, the override commands were buried so deep in the code you would literally need to know machine language. ‘And since most thieves are lazy, they never thought to look, they just knew it worked.’ Beta thought as he smiled grimly.

Beta then gently pulled the rabbit forward, and put their foreheads together. A minute later Hiroshi pulled back violently in shock. The minute’s actions finally catching up to him.

“What the hell did you do!?” Hiroshi asked… in plain english.

“Simple” Beta said “I got rid of your subliminal programming by telling it that you had succeeded. Hopefully you don’t have any more like that.” Beta concluded. “Because it was a bitch to get rid of!” He then smiled. “fortunately you’re talking to the guy who programmed your nanites.” he finished with a flourish and a bow.

“Whoever made you used stolen tech that I had developed for.. well.. myself.” Beta began to explain, but Hiroshi just looked at Beta, realizing that they were both speaking english… a language he’d always had had problems with as well as never really learned, he spoke fluently.

Seeing the confusion on Hiroshi’s face Beta added “I also uploaded english into the language part of your brain. No point in you speaking Nihongo here.’ Beta said with a shrug as if this was normal.

Hiroshi just shook his head in horror. This was all too much for him. No longer wanting to kill Beta was one thing, but speaking another language, nanites in his brain, being controlled so easily by a simple phrase, the speed and skill Beta still had over him… it was too much asn Hiroshi reached into his bag of tricks, and before even Beta could react threw down a smoke bomb and disappeared.

“You didn't even let me thank you for the steak…” Beta said weakly when the smoke had cleared. He wasn’t worried for his safety. He could see it in Hiroshi’s eyes, for he now knew his name… and his history.

Beta turned to return to camp. At least now he was fairly sure he was safe. He missed the other shadow in the trees that had been watching them.