West leaned heavily on Celestia, his left arm wrapped around her shoulders, as they walked their way to the royal bedchambers, followed by a somber Luna.

The Sun was back in its rightful place in the morning sky, leaving almost every trace of Nightmare Moon’s presence destroyed. West still gripped the red amulet, the one he’d taken from Luna, in his right hand.

They hadn’t spoken since they’d left the throne room, letting West and Luna recover in peace. Luna was shaking slightly, from being forcibly possessed by Nightmare Moon, and West was cringing with every step, fresh blood welling up from his many open wounds.

The guard ponies stationed outside Celestia’s bedroom looked up in alarm as they saw the group approach. When Celestia leaves in the morning, she almost never returns before moonrise, giving them plenty of time to relax, or maybe goof off.

The guards hurriedly stood at attention and pulled open the doors, letting concerned looks through their normally unchanging features. No guard liked seeing one of their own injured, even if he was human. Leaving a blood drop trail from the direction he came and bloodstains on the Princess’ white coat are not ways to appear healthy, after all.

Luna was the last to enter the bedroom, and after she did so, Celestia took the door from the guards with her magic, wrapping it in a warm, golden glow and slamming it shut.

West groaned as he sat on the side of the royal bed. He was only half conscious from the loss of blood and adrenaline.

“Sorry about the… carpets, sheets… and your coat,” he mumbled to Celestia, slumping down in his place.

“Hush, you,” she ordered. “Get out of that armor so we can treat your wounds.”

“You know how to treat wounds?” He mumbled with mild surprise as he pulled off his gauntlets. He would’ve started with his helmet, but he never grabbed it the day before. It was still sitting on a table in his quarters.

“When you’ve lived for thousands of years, you tend to pick up a few useful skills, especially when you’ve been at war,” Luna answered, the first words she’d spoken since West had freed her.

“How do you feel, Luna?” West asked while in the process of removing his pauldrons.

“S-Shaken… and numb,” she replied honestly, and West could see her trembling. He glanced at the amulet, having dropped it on a table. He'd have given her a hug, but he was very indisposed at the moment.

“I’m sure the feeling will pass in a day or so,” Celestia reassured her with a nuzzle to her cheek. West grunted as he pulled off his breastplate and other body armor. He then pulled at his bloodstained white cloth shirt, which he hissed at whenever the bloody parts stick to his wounds.

It took some wriggling and pain before he passed the shirt over his head and sat, bare-chested and bleeding, on the bed. He bent forward, cringing at his side, as he tried to reach for the greaves on his legs. Celestia gently pushed him back, straightening his back and using her magic to, with Luna’s help, clean the wound on his side, apply a healing salve and spell, wrap the wound in white, cloth bandages, and finish with additional magic into the wound for extra safety.

Luna had taken the liberty of removing his greaves, boots, and pants, leaving him sitting in a pair of black boxers. They ignored the blush on his face and set about treating his other wounds. The cut on the palm of his left hand, the puncture wounds on his upper right arm, and crossbow bolt caught in his right thigh. It took all his concentration and willpower to keep himself from screaming as they yanked the bolt from his leg. They also treated his right ankle after he drew attention to it.

“I hate to ask this, knowing that you probably don’t want to talk so soon after it happened, but… how did he trick you?” West asked softly after they finished treating his wounds and had requested he lay back on the bed to rest.

“We had finished the negotiations for the day,” Luna replied as West complied with their request. “We should have just left, but that gryphon said he had a gift for us. Next thing I knew he was wrapping that amulet around my neck and swallowing some pill…” Her voice trailed off, not pleased or comfortable with what happened.

Celestia continued where her sister had left off. “After he grew huge, he’d knocked me to the side, saying something along the lines of I was in the way, or something. Nightmare Moon gloated about being free, before that gryphon began laughing with her. He boasted that they’d make a great team, but she quickly refused his help, saying she would rule Equestria alone. He’d pulled out a second amulet and caused that red aura to appear.

“Not long after that is when you appeared, and well, you know the rest. Speaking of which,” She glanced at West, lying on his back on her bed. “What was that all about?”

“You’ll have to be more specific,” West answered apologetically.

“All right, let’s start with that gryphon guard… Vena, was it? What’s her story?”

“Ah, well, before I tell you that, did Shining Armor, or Cadence for that matter, come to see you yesterday?”

“No, they didn’t. Why?” Celestia asked.

“An assassin tried to take Shining Armor’s life. I was with him at the time, so I was able to fight the gryphon off, but I ended up taking his life. The reason why I was gone yesterday was because I had to sneak out of Canterlot with a dead body over my shoulder. I didn't want anypony seeing me. After I made it out of the city, I’d walked to a faraway forest and paid my respects to the gryphon. It was there that I met Vena.”

“Paid your respects? How?” Luna wondered.

“With a funeral pyre,” West shrugged, or at least he would’ve, if he wasn’t lying on a bed, bandaged. “Vena had been ordered to assassinate me, by that gryphon from today, Geoffrey. But, being the personal guard to the Gryphon Empress, Vena thought that killing me would be contrary to what Empress Grizzleclaw would wish for the relationship between our countries. We talked for a little while, while the pyre burned its way to the ground, and once I was satisfied that all the flames and embers were gone, and wouldn't potentially start a forest fire, we walked back to Canterlot.

“When we arrived, I didn’t want to disturb you during your negotiations, so we entered through the Royal Gardens, though we were attacked by five assassins after Blueblood’s… blue blood. Don’t worry, he’s fine. No doubt he’ll be filing a complaint, or just coming in to complain to you, sometime in the near future. Two of the giant gryphon assassins are still alive, and they should be in the custody of the royal guards. There should be two more gryphons, one giant and one not, in the custody of Shining Armor and Cadence. When Vena mentioned traitors, she’s most likely going to turn in any gryphons who modified their DNA.”

“Modified their DNA?”

“Yeah, those pills they swallowed to turn huge, were Genetic Modifiers, at least that was the information Vena and I were able to accrue from one of the gryphons.”

“Ok, we’ll be sure to round them up later,” Celestia murmured, making a mental note. “But what was that whole, ‘Nightmare Moon is my mistress,’ thing about?”

“Heh,” West chuckled nervously. “I only said that because, through a technicality, it was true.”

“What do you mean? I'm not mad, mind you, but I honestly want to hear your logic.”

“Well, when I saw Nightmare Moon standing in the throne room, I remembered back to the Equestrian history I had to read up on for the Royal Guard exams, and well, I remembered that Nightmare Moon was a part of Luna,” he glanced at her apologetically. She was looking down at the floor, trying to hide her face. “After I saw the amulet and heard what Geoffrey said…” He trailed off, thinking of what to say. “After I heard him speak about making Nightmare Moon his puppet… I grew furious. Because by extension, he’d be enslaving Luna, and I won’t allow something like that to happen, or someone like that to live. She was Luna, with a different personality, but still Luna. As I am your guard and Luna’s guard, that’s why I said what I did. I just used a fancy term for my position.”

“That explains your dialogue, but what about your movements?” West glanced down at her quizzically.

“My movements? I’m not quite sure I understand…”

Celestia elaborated. “As you probably know, I was observing the whole scene.” West nodded his confirmation. “I saw you enter the throne room and I saw you shoot forward when you sliced through the gryphon. What I was wondering is why you didn’t make it a straight, clean cut through his body to the amulet?”

West was silent for a while. “I don’t believe your ankle was bad enough to throw off your aim that badly. You purposefully ripped through his side. All I want to know is why.”

Again a pause, West sat up and looked down at his hands, resting in his lap. He spoke something, but he muttered it under his breath, much too quiet for either Princess to hear.

“Could you speak up?” Luna asked.

“It… It was a side effect… of my past, my… childhood,” West spoke with his left hand against his forehead. “I was trying to get all that blood inside his body… out.” He stopped, and shook his head once slowly. “I guess I should start at the beginning…”

He breathed in, gathered his thoughts, and sighed. “I was a quiet birth, I was told, and I was apparently quiet throughout most of my toddler years. My parents were… Assassins. And when I turned five, my father took it upon himself to teach me how to fight and kill, while my mother schooled me in other fields of study at home. I took my first life when I was six. Back then, my father would bring people who needed to die to an underground arena in our backyard, where they were flung against me. My dad rated me not only on how I killed the target, but also on how much of the arena I could drench in the enemy’s blood. He had a bit of an obsession, and he passed it on to me… mostly. I’ve been trying to control it for a while now.

“Anyway, when I turned eight, I was given my first contract and time limit: Infiltrate a certain manor, murder the Duke inside, and escape, within three days. It took me barely an hour. After seeing my monumental success on my first contract, he gave me more and more, but usually only one a day, or night, I guess. I carried out assassination contracts for six years. Having known no other upbringing, I thought I lived a normal life…

“I was roughly informed otherwise a few days after my fourteenth birthday. On that day, one of my father’s friends was visiting, a fellow Assassin. It had started like any other day, but suddenly our house was awash in flames. I was too slow to stop myself from getting trapped under some flaming debris. My mother, father and his friend had stepped out of the house for a while and they ran in when they saw it in flames. My parents tried to move the debris from on top of me, but my father’s friend shot them both…

“He murdered my parents right in front of my eyes. He taunted my helpless state, saying he wanted my family to ‘take the fall for him,’ as it were. He very nearly killed me, had the army not arrived and killed him on the spot.

“I’m not sure if the officers who raided my house were aware of the fact that I was an assassin or if they just didn’t care, but they pulled the debris from off my back and brought me to my feet.” He took a breath before continuing. It was painful remembering his past.

“I had no future at that point, so I grasped at the only option I saw available: Joining the Army; the United States Military. The officers were surprised at the request, but they let me take the entrance exams.

“I passed the physical portion with flying colors. As for the mental section… While I was lackluster in several subjects, they passed me with the requirement of meeting with a tutor every week.”

“Sounds a lot like the process for joining the royal guard,” Celestia commented.

“It was. I was surprised. Anyway, I trained with the army and eventually joined the Sniper Core. After that, I was deployed to the nearest warzone that needed soldiers… I fought in the army for upwards of twelve years. With almost no rest, I might add.

“But I, along with one other sniper, were suddenly transferred from the Army to the Navy, where we both served aboard the S.S… Libra, I believe it was, for two years. The last day on the Libra, we were escorting a valuable Russian passenger, when I found him near the escape boats with the other sniper. He laughed at me, and boasted about planting a bomb onboard the ship, saying he wouldn’t be caught dead here in twenty seconds. He shot her, letting her crumpled body fall to the ocean below. He would’ve continued his monologue, but I put a bullet between his eyes. Seven seconds later, the entire ship went up in a giant fireball.

“The last thing I remember is swimming over to a piece of wreckage, a tiny section of the ships hull, and pulling myself up onto it before passing out. When I next opened my eyes, I was still on the wreckage, but I was in the middle of Ponyville Lake. And you know pretty much the rest…” He looked up. Both Princesses had listened intently to his story, and had quite shocked expressions on their faces.

“What about your sword?” Luna asked, indicating the blade leaned against the far wall. “I don’t remember you mentioning it. Or how much skill you have with it.”

“That katana,” he murmured, glancing over to it. “It was a gift from one of my friends, a fellow child Assassin, for my tenth birthday. I haven’t seen her for… Damn, I think it’s been fifteen years since I last saw her. I treasured it and kept it close all those years. Some of the other soldiers sneered at me and saw it was impractical and to leave it behind, but I kept it at my side the entire time.” He turned his gaze to Celestia. “By the way, with the sudden sky darkening, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Princess Twilight shows up.” Turning to Luna, "As for skills... I never really took any standard 'path,' or skill tree. I was just good at killing people. The way my father talked about it was that as long as the target died, I wouldn't need fancy techniques to get it done. My mother, however, taught me 'the way of the Quickdraw.' This skill path is what I used this morning, holding the sword at my side as if it were in its sheath and rushing forward with one strike. My mother had me become a Quickdraw Master, so the Rush Strike, as I call it, is just one of my skills."

“Do you love that sword?” Luna asked.

“No!” He yelled out, way more forcefully than he intended. “Sorry about that… I treasure that katana above everything else in both worlds… but I cannot love it.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No, it is not. If my past experience has told me anything, it’s that people and things I love, get destroyed. My family and life as an Assassin? Murdered and taken from me. My… friend and life as a soldier? Executed and destroyed. I do not wish to see it destroyed, so I can’t love it.” His heart ached from his words. “Or you two.” He whispered, lying back in the bed and closing his eyes, not wishing to talk anymore.

Celestia was about to ask something else, when Luna came around the bed, a bright blush on her face, and shook her head no once. She indicated the side door, and gestured for her older sister to follow, not trusting her voice or blushing face.

The last thing West heard before drifting off to sleep is the sound of the side door clicking closed.

Author's Note

West has an interesting backstory to say the least, being a former Assassin and former member of the military.
Assassins not like those from the popular game series, so no hidden blades.

Also, I added the Alternate Universe tag, because even with my very minimal knowledge about how the U.S. Military works, I'm pretty sure they don't allow 14 year old kids to join, and I don't know if you can just get transferred between the branches of the Military.

Comments are always appreciated.