No Turning Back: An Assassin's Story

My name is Sketch, a seventeen year old pegasus pony, assassin, and most wanted criminal in all of Equestria. I am currently living in a empty apartment trying hard to keep my sanity. Every pony in my life that I have ever cared for has either died,  abandoned me, or been used against me. This is my story. But before we begin, allow me to tell you how I got here.

I was born in Manehatten into a seemingly perfect pegasi family. My dad, Trueshot, was a member of the Royal Guard, My mom, Artrista, was a successful artist, my older sister, Ember, was a bratty little filly who constantly picked on me, and I was an innocent little colt with a genetic disorder with my eyes. We were a very happy family before all this started.

I was a little pegasus colt. I had a unkempt black mane and tail, dark grey coat and bright red eyes. My eyes were naturally red when I was born. It was due to some really weird genetic disorder that effects the pigment of the eyes, it basically made your eye color different than it was originally suppose to be. Mine just happened to make me look like the foal of the pony devil himself. I was feared and picked on in school due to my unnatural eye color and didn't have any friends because of it. I was one of those colts who sat at the lunch tables alone and was either avoided or picked on by others because he was considered a freak. I didn't mind this though. After all I had my big sister, Ember.

Ember was the only friend I had, she defended me at school and was always there for me whenever I needed her. Ember was a pegasus filly who was about three years older than me, her coat was a light yellow, her short straight mane and tail were red with a pink stripe, her eyes were amber like mom's, and her cuti-mark was a finish line with a checker flag. Her special talent was racing. She was good at other sports and enjoyed them all as much, but she seemed to be the best at racing. No filly nor colt in the school could beat Ember in a race, no matter if it was on the ground or in the sky. I was very envious of my sister, she was better than me at almost everything, I wanted to be good everything like she was.

When I finally got my cuti-mark at age seven I was disappointed, it was a pencil with a sketch book which showed my special talent was drawing, this added to my envy of Ember thinking I would never be as good as her at anything. But she showed me it wasn't all that bad by proving how bad of an artist she was, showing me that there was something that I could do better than her, it definitely made me feel a little better about myself.

My father was middle aged pegasus stallion, with a dark grey coat, black mane and tail and green eyes. If I had to guess where most of my traits from, my answer would be him. He, as I said before, was a member of the Royal Guard. Sadly, this meant that he was away from home most of the time. But the income he made kept us afloat and he still spent as much time as he could spare with us. It was good enough.

My mother was a middle aged pegasus mare with a yellow coat, straight lightish red mane and tail, and amber eyes. If you put Ember and mom side by side, Ember would almost look like the young filly version of mom. My mom, also as I said before, was an artist. She made beautiful paintings of different objects, environments, animals and other ponies. She did a painting of me once, it was a based off a picture of me playing with a toy sword. I thought it was pretty damn awesome when I first saw it, I would say cute now if it weren't for the red eyes, but awesome none the less.

Everything was perfect, I had a loving mother and father, an awesome big sister, and a great childhood. Well, that was until everything went straight to pony hell. When I was eight years old, my father was discharged from the Royal Guard after being falsely accused of accepting a bribe. This put all the financial pressure on my mother who ended up working day and night, barely making ends meet, as my dad was desperately looking for another job. My dad couldn't find a job due to his false "criminal past." So, out of desperation, he became one.

Our financial conditions improved and we began to live normally again, but almost every other night my dad would come home battered and bruised. It didn't take long for mom to put the pieces together and figure out what dad was up to. They argued and screamed at each other with their different points of views. Dad arguing they don't have any other options at this point and mom arguing that it was a bad influence for me and Ember to have a father who was a criminal. At this point mom and dad began to grow distant over the next few years.

When I turned eleven years old everything went into absolute chaos. My mother had another argument with my dad and hurtful things were said. My mom stormed out of the house, my dad stayed in the house to calm down a bit before going after her. Neither of them returned home for another three days, leaving my sister to take care of ourselves for the time being. My sister was more pissed off, more than I had ever seen her before in my entire life, when dad finally came home. She scolded him for leaving us like this without even saying a word. She then notices mom wasn't present. She then demanded to know where mom was. Dad didn't answer us, he went and locked himself in his and mom's room. My sister, becoming increasingly upset, continued to demand answers until she finally got tired of screaming and decided to wait for him to come out. At the time I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but everyone seemed to be extremely upset and I felt it best to stay out of it. Despite not wanting to be apart of it, my sister continues to quietly vent her frustration to me, telling me how much crap this all was.

Dad finally came back out after 3 hours. My sister was ready to scold him again about not telling us what was going on. Dad stopped her before she began. He told me to go to my room so he could talk to my sister alone. I left to my room, went to my bedroom, lied down on my bed, and waited for permission to leave. I heard talking in the other room, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. I lied in my bed for another minute before my sister busted into the room, briskly trotted for her bed, and buried herself under the covers. She seemed upset. Concerned, for I had never seen my sister like this, I jumped off my bed and trotted to my sister to ask her what was wrong. She didn't respond, just stayed under her covers. I looked over to the door to see my dad standing there in the door way, he looked as upset as she was. Without another word, he sighed and closed the door.

It wasn't until the next day my sister told me what dad told her. Mom wasn't coming back. She had been killed in an "accident." I only later learned that she was murdered and the murderer was a rival of my dad's current boss.

My dad began taking me and my sister out to teach us how to defend ourselves. He had became increasingly paranoid ever since our mother's death. He taught me and my sister a few tricks in hoof to hoof combat that he learned while he was in the Royal Guard. My sister picked it up rather quickly while I was a bit slow. I figured out the basics easy enough but I wasn't good at it. When he had me fight against my sister I lost almost every time. She did have the advantage over me being bigger and older than me, but in all honesty I just sucked at it all together. My dad notices this and tries training me harder than my sister, but he simply couldn't make me as good as my sister.

However it turns out I did have one strong point when it came to combat, range. When he started training us with a old crossbow he had in his year of the guards, I turned out to be a marksman while my sister couldn't hit the side of a barn. I could hit a bullseye 100 yards away while my sister would be lucky if she hit the target from 40. My dad was satisfied with this. This training continued for three more years before he disappeared.

Before he disappeared he was acting more paranoid then usual. It went from using the back window as the new front door to moving constantly to new apartments every month or so. At this point me and my sister thought we understood why, but it was really starting to scare us. At first we took everything with us when we moved, including personal items such as old toys, photo albums, old dishes, stuff like that. But, slowly and surly, we began to destroy and leave stuff behind every time we moved. The painting of me that mom made, the photo albums, and our old toys were among the things that were destroyed.

We continued this until we were down to basic necessities for living, things such as sleeping bags, food, water, equipment, and weapons that my dad owned. The only personal item I was allowed to keep was my sketchbook, for my sister it was the last surviving picture of our family.

The day before dad disappeared, we had a mysterious visit from a strange mare covered completely with black. Dad told us to hide before answering the door. Me and my sister hid in a position where we could still see who it was. Dad did not look happy to see her. He followed her outside and closed the door behind him. A harsh conversation occurred and the mare left. Dad walked back inside, it looked like something was bothering him. He walks up to my sister and tells her something I couldn't hear. My sister looked confused and somewhat concerned. He repeated himself loud enough for me to hear this time. He said that we were to pack up all our things and move to an empty apartment upstairs. He then said he would meet up with us tomorrow. Dad then left the apartment. My sister walked up to me and repeats what he said to me. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't tell what. We moved in to the apartment he told us about and waited for him.

It took us three days to piece together the fact that he had no intention of returning to us. There was already food stocked up in this apartment, there was a bag of bits that was enough to buy necessities and pay the bill for a few months, and finally there was a letter from dad. The only thing that letter said was "I'm so sorry. Don't try to find me. I don't want you two involved in this." He had abandoned us. I am not sure about my sister, but I felt betrayed. It angered me that dad took care of us this long after mom's death just to drop us when thing got tough. I still haven't forgiven him for that.

We lived in that apartment for 2 months, further confirming that that dad was not coming back. The bits were depleting quickly and we needed to find jobs if we here going to continue to live here, at this point we didn't know what else to do. I was only fourteen years old at the time, so I couldn't get a real job legally, it was up to my sister to support us. She ended up searching for four weeks before finally getting a job as a waiter for a restaurant. It definitely wasn't a job suited for her special talent. but it was the only job she could find. The problem was it wasn't going to be enough. if she was living by herself perhaps, but with me in tow it wasn't going to be possible. I wanted to help. She assured me that we were going to be fine, and that may have been true. But being the stubborn colt I was at the time, I sneaked out and wandered the streets to see what small jobs I could do for bits.

I looked around for several hours but I couldn't find any pony who was willing to give me a small job, it was probably because of my appearance. As it started to become very late I began to head home. As I was walking I notice a stallion running a fruit stand watching me. He waves me over and asks me if I wanted a job. I trot over to without a second thought, I wasn't suspicious of him at the time. All I was thinking was that he offered a job and I was going to claim it and help my sister with the rent. I stopped in front of him and asked what kind of job it was. He smiles and tells me they needed a new cleaner since their last one quit. I was completely oblivious to what a "cleaner" actually was and he knew it. When he asks for my name I told him. He raises and eyebrow and gives a unsettling smile. I become nervous at this point and slowly began backing off, it became apparent that I had unknowingly just told him something he wanted to hear. He then says he knows someone who would like to speak to me. At that same time some pony came up from behind and hit me in the back of the head with a bat before I had a chance to run. The last thing I heard before blacking out was...

"Was that really necessary?"

I woke up in what appeared to be a warehouse. The only thing that illuminated the room was a few small lights around me. In front of me were 5 ponies, only two in in which I recognized. The strange mare in the black cloak and the stallion at the fruit stand, still wearing that unsettling smile. I soon realized I wasn't bounded by any restrains besides for my wings. I stand up and face the ponies who were all staring at me.

The one in the middle speaks up and tells me why I am here. He tells me that I am here because my father ran away and disappeared and now I was here to replace him. At first I try to deny the fact that I would be any use to them, but the mare in cloak claims to have already seen me use a crossbow. She says that my skill with it was above average and that I would be a perfect replacement assassin. At this point I was trying to fight a losing battle. My last attempt was to refuse. At his point they warn me of the consequence of refusing, they threatened to kill Ember.

The anger inside of me began to boil. I wanted to hurt them in the worst ways possible for threatening my sister, but I knew I couldn't do anything about it. Even after all the training our father gave us, there was no way it would help me and Ember's situation now. So I told them I would accept, but only on one condition. They would leave Ember out of this.

They agreed but explained there were conditions in which I had to meet to guarantee Ember's safety. I am not allowed to use my real name anymore, my name now was Darksky. I was not allowed to reveal any of the identities of my "employers" nor the identities of any I "work with", If I did, the deal would be off and they would kill us both. I was not allowed to leave Equestria unless told to do so. Lastly I was not allowed to see my sister again, to ensure I didn't warn her of what was happening. I was to become their slave, their tool in which they would use to kill whoever they may please.

They proceeded to fake my death so Ember nor any other pony could find me, they did this by firebombing the apartment we lived in while Ember was at work. A investigation was launched by the Royal Guard to find out the cause of the fire. With a few bribes and the help of a few of their contacts inside of the Royal Guard, The investigation was closed with me being declared killed in fire that was due to a complete accident. I could only imagine what my sister was going though at the time. She had just lost the last of her family. It was difficult to accept the fact I was never going to see her again, but I had to. If not for my sake, then for hers.

This is how I got here...

This is why I am alone...

This is why I do this...

This is why there is no turning back...

This is where my story begins...