Immortality's End

As I write this, I am sure that historians will debate my actions for hundreds of years. However, I will not stop, stalled by the objections of a future generation I will likely never live to see. I am untouchable from reprisal but from that more powerful than me while I am alive, and there are few whom can hold claim to that title. Even the mere mention of my name, after these last few crimson-soaked months, has the virtue of sending a shudder down the spines of the most hardened Royal Guards. The blood freezes in the hearts of every pony I pass at the sight of the silver sword I bear. By right of the blades I hold, nothing is beyond my reach. Power is an interesting thing, as Avelli has told me many times. I am glad to be one of those who wield it. *-From The Recovered Writings Of Ouroboros Indigo, First Keeper***

There was silence on the battlefield outside the castle. An awkwardly-splayed ring of four dead ponies surrounded a single cerulean-blue unicorn, some of them still holding their cards from the game they were playing before their deaths. There were two guards left, but as they turned to run towards the castle gates, the unicorn teleported forward in front of them, his expression mocking. "Now, colts, no running to mommy. Stay and fight like big colts."

With this, the unicorn attacked, cutting one guard down before he could react and engaging in a heated swordfight with the other remaining guard. The sound of metal against metal filled the still air, and the participants focused entirely on the fight at hand. At one particularly powerful blow from the unicorn, the guard grunted and fell back slightly. The unicorn pressed his advantage further, and with a sweep of his foreleg, knocked the guard's hooves out from under him.

As the unicorn approached, the guard began to inch backwards, fear in his eyes as he glanced at the bodies of the soldiers he once commanded around him. "Indigo, please! You don't have to do this! Celestia will be just to you, I swear! Please, free yourself from the influence of this demon; it only seeks to hurt you. Don't you remember?"

Indigo tapped a hoof on his chin, pretending to think. "Let me see... No." The unicorn raised his sword for the killing blow, and brought it down with a muted grunt. The guard went still around sword sticking out of his barrel, and a pool of blood began to seep from the wound after the unicorn had removed his blade from the corpse. "Hm. Pity, that." Indigo muttered as he turned to face the door to the guard tower, inset to the walls of marble which surrounded Canterlot Castle. "The guards sent to apprehend me before they knew whom I even was were better than this... And they whined less."

Indigo sighed and, with a thought, he cast a spell, spinning up a spiral of magic from his horn which struck the port, ripping a hole through the gold and wood as if a pickaxe through particularly annoying stone. Beads of sweat had appeared on Indigo's forehead from the magical exertion involved from cracking the door like this, but he wiped it off, more slowly and more lethargically than before. Killing the guards and breaking the door had taken their toll.

The guards inside were ready and waiting for him, and as soon as he had walked in, stepped out of the shadows to surround him. The lead guard raised his sword to point at Indigo, a self-satisfied smile on his face. "Lay down your weapon, and no harm shall come to you until you have been convicted to death by jury. Otherwise, we will be forced to destroy you. Look around you; do you truly believe you could win?" The guard made a sweeping gesture with his hoof, indicating the five guards which now surrounded Indigo.

A slow smile spread over the unicorn mage's face. "Of course not, sir. Why would I dream of such a horrific thing?" At this, he dropped his sword to the side, the metal bouncing slightly before falling still. The guards edged closer in the sudden silence, and it was then that Indigo attacked. He twisted to the side, shifting along the flank of an earth pony guard, and ducked just in time for the sword thrust that was meant for him to bite into the guard's throat.

Horrified, the offender stared dumbstruck at her friend, and Indigo took advantage of this to swing her head around - accompanied with a sickening crack of bone - to be used as a makeshift shield. Casually, Indigo threw the now-dead guard to the side and picked up his sword from where it lay just in time to parry a strike from another Royal Guard with a resounding clash of bronze against silver. Indigo twisted to the side barely in time to avoid another sword stroke from one of the three remaining guards, and swung the sword around to cut through the first guard's foreleg.

While that guard was incapacitated, Indigo flipped the sword in his aura, batted the other guard's sword away with the edge of his blade -receiving a scratch on the collarbone in the process - and sank his sword to the hilt into the guard's chest. The guard he had amputated before had risen shakily to prop himself up against the wall of the tower, and attacked now before Indigo had time to turn fully. The blade whispered by the top of Indigo's head, severing several strands of dark grey mane, which seemed to hang in the light for the briefest instant before the moment was shattered by the sound of breaking bone as Indigo bucked the guard full force in the chest with both hind legs.

The guard collapsed, wheezing for breath, and Indigo turned to stand above him, by some virtue of the light appearing to tower over the dying guard. Indigo briefly considered something witty to say, but decided against it, opting to simply and brutally separate the Royal Guard's head from his neck. The head fell to the floor with a muted thump, followed by the body a moment later, and Indigo turned to look for his final target- which, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

Inside Indigo's mind, Avelli cursed. Get after him. If he rings the alarm, so much for at least some element of surprise! Indigo growled a terse Fine in response, and galloped up the stairs, bulling by the left-open door, which smashed into the stone wall. As he reached the top of the tower, he was only just in time to see the guard commander haul back on the bellpull rope, sending the bell clanging with what was likely a magically-enhanced din. The other towers' bells joined in the general alarum, and both the Elder God and Indigo inwardly facehoofed. The guard turned, and his sigh of relief was abruptly cut off as he viewed the blood-spattered unicorn standing in front of him, and his eyes widened in horror.

"Oh Celestia, no...." The commander turned and ran, just in time for Indigo's sword -thrown with telekinetic power- to implant itself in the back of the Royal Guard's neck, snapping his head forward with bone-breaking force. There was an abrupt and sharp snap, and then the support of the guard's hooves left him as he tripped forward, only to fall awkwardly into the bell. It sounded a mournful peal as the corpse hit it, and inside Indigo's head, Avelli smiled at the sheer irony of the sound. Outside, there was a distinct rise of activity as the alarms sounded, and ponies began to scurry around below the towers. Indigo sighed deeply. See, Ouroboros? This is what happens when you don’t pay attention, Avelli admonished.

Indigo’s lips thinned, and he went quiet, though some element of his irritation was evident over the mental link. After an awkward moment, he said tersely Don’t we have a deity to assassinate? and swung himself over the guard tower’s railings to the castle battlements, slipping quietly down a flight of stairs. A patrol of guards went by, their armor shining in the lamplight and their hooves pounding on the stone in measured lockstep. Indigo froze against the stairwell, hoping nopony would notice him; his wish was granted. The guards were too focused on whatever their goal was to pay attention to what seemed like just another stairwell, but from that point on, Indigo stuck to the shadows almost religiously.

A few minutes later, he came upon the door to the courtyard, and stepped through it. Outside, all activity stopped to stare at the interloper. With feigned calmness, Indigo took a cloth from within his cloak and began to clean his blade, the iridescent red droplets turning the pristine white cloth a mottled pink. As he trotted into the middle of the courtyard, his hooves clicking on cobblestone, the sound of over twenty ponies galloping at full speed could be heard, along with shouts of orders and the clanking of armor against weaponry. Indigo sighed slightly, rolling his violet eyes, and assumed a defensive stance; the sword that he had used on the prior guards outside and in the tower was now sheathed, and his hooves were empty. Damnit, he said, of course they were expecting me.

Inwardly, he cursed at his own arrogance. However, his horn shimmered with a corona of indigo light, and a shape began to take form in the air around his hooves as the guards poured into the courtyard, swords and spears already drawn and at the ready. As the first few of them charged, golden armor shimmering in the sun, the shape took full form and became a long-bladed amethyst sword, shimmering with Indigo's aura. His magic held the fiber-wrapped hilt tightly, and he experimentally swung it around as if getting used to the feel. Meanwhile, his enemies rushed ever closer, and Indigo still stood, as implacable as a mountain. The guards sped up further, intending to impale him with their blades, and it was at that critical moment that he struck.

Flipping into the air over the first soldier as he went by, Indigo used his peculiar blade to strike downwards at the top point of the parabola, stabbing the soldier through the top of the skull. As the blade contacted the golden armor, a shower of golden and purple magical sparks was released, and the sword's tip seemed to hang in midair, repelled by a ward enchantment, before it finally sunk in. The unicorn landed behind the newly dead Royal Guard, holding the now-bloody crystal blade behind him. The three other guards who had charged turned, their faces in nigh-identical expressions of surprise, as Indigo turned to face them again, sword held high.

Around the group of four, the rest of the guards hung back, as if waiting for somepony. The unicorn, facing the remaining three guards, spit on the cobbles contemptuously. "Come on! What are you waiting for, me to serve you tea on little lace doilies?" The guards turned to each other and then nodded, as if making an important decision. This time, instead of charging him, they went to flank him on either side, one with a spear and the two others with a sword, carefully edging around Indigo, who watched them with an amused expression.

He raised a single eyebrow as he considered the situation, and then abruptly made his choice. Swinging out the blade in his aura, he cut the shaft of the first guard's spear in half, then spun it and stabbed it backwards to impale the soldier through the throat, where his armor didn't protect him. Withdrawing the sword, Indigo brought it back just in time to parry a strike from the second guard. The unicorn gave ground before the guard, inciting the latter to perform more and more aggressive strikes, all of which were parried or dodged with feigned slowness. Finally, as the guard raised his sword high for a cleaving strike, the unicorn simply bucked him in the chest with his forelegs and then decapitated the guard while he reeled.

The third and final guard had hung back, unwilling to strike while the possibility for hitting his friend was so high, but now he attacked, a cry of "For Equestria!" tearing itself from his throat. Indigo watched, his mouth curling into a contemptuous smirk, and let the guard's own momentum and anger work against him. As the soldier charged, Indigo smoothly sidestepped and stabbed him in the flank as the guard ran by, unable to stop himself in time.

There was a sudden silence, broken only by the clatter of armor clashing against stone as the guard's body fell, and then, after a few tense moments in which the waiting guards looked ready to step forward and finish Indigo themselves, the flap of massive wings and the clack of hooves alighting on stone could be heard behind the unicorn. He turned to face the direction of the sound, and while his expression had once been calm readiness, it was now almost disgusted as he faced the blue alicorn which had appeared, and whom the guards had now-obviously been waiting for.

Tauntingly, he said "So, Luna, your sister sends you to die in her place? How appropriate; nopony needs the night anyway. You know she thinks th-"

The princess cut him off before he could continue. "'Tis not that Our sister hast sent me in her place, but that she dost not deem thine skills worthy of her presence, Keeper Ouroboros. Our sister reserveth her power for true villains, not two-bit assassins like you."

Indigo raised an eyebrow, beginning to be more amused than annoyed. He held his sword in a offensive position, point forward and tracing a spiral pattern in the air. "Now, Luna, surely you wouldn't harm silly old me? After all, I'm just one of your poor little subjects, and certainly couldn't challenge one as powerful as you." The sarcasm practically dripped from his voice, and Luna flushed slightly.

"I... We hast..." The princess paused for a moment and continued. "Nothing to say to thee but to wish thee a fine trip to Tartarus. If We wished to converseth with thee, We wouldst have sent Our herald, nor would We have wished to speaketh with a traitor to Equestria like you."

With this, the princess performed the same spell as Indigo had before, except that her blade was a beam of moonlight made solid, the edges wavering with black energy instead of Indigo's amythyst crystal. He whistled, impressed, and Luna adjusted her stance to hold the blade in the same offensive position as his. With some degree of self-satisfaction, Luna said "Not many ponies are able to see the Moonlight's Radiance, assassin. You should be pleased that a longsword so storied shall be the blade to end you."

The field was eerily reminiscent of a fencing match - but with real blades, real magic, and real death for whoever lost. The guards shuffled in their surrounding circle, anxious for the battle to start. However, Indigo seemed content to take his time, slowly making his way towards Luna, but edging to the left as well. Luna noticed this, and her eyes narrowed, her aura gripping her blade tighter in preparation.

They struck at the same moment.