Over the years I have been called many things. Assassin, rogue, thief, murderer, stalker, the ghost, and once I even heard some crazy zebra call me the shadow of nightmare moon or something like that. Well, that last one is partially true. When ponies think of me, they think of fear, pain, torment, and death. No matter how hard I try, they never associate me with what I truly am. They know not of what I truly hold above all else: courage, honor, sacrifice, and loyalty. Especially loyalty.
My name, is Prince Skylervaros. Long names aside, most call me Skyler for short. You’re probably thinking “Skylervaros? Aren’t you a pony? Shouldn’t your name be Skystorm or something?” and you would be right. My name would be Skystorm if it weren’t for the fact that I was raised in Equestria. My mother… Princess Luna as you know her, bore my sister and I in secret, and then went off on a “diplomatic convoy” to the northern icy mountains to inform my father, King Sombra, that she had finally given birth.
Where exactly I was born still remains a mystery to me. However, where I grew up gave me my name. Me, being a little prince and doing all things stupid, decided on one day that I would go wandering into the woods. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. While gallivanting through the EVERFREE FOREST MIND YOU, I saw a pony shaped shadow and followed it, stalking it through the undergrowth. Little did I know, several more were stalking me. Turns out it was a Zebrabwain recon party. Somehow, I managed to impress them, so they knocked me out and took me with them. Lucky me. I was about 400 years old or about 10 if I was mortal by the way.
They took me to the capitol and I seemed to find favor with the chieftain he took me in as his own and gave me my name, Skylervaros, for my sometimes stormy personality. Skylervaros, in Zebrica, their ancient naming language literally means “Star child of stormy death”. Isn’t that just an endearing name for a young, extremely self conscious, white and blue foal? Anyway, he had his best hunters train me in the art of stealth, illusion, and combat. In addition, I painted black stripes on my coat to better fit in. In the end, I learned how to completely live off the land, make over 300 different poisons and remedies, stalk like a living shadow, and fight with several different Zebra martial arts.
I would find all of these skills very useful… eventually. My brutal and often savage fighting style helped me live up to my name. One day, while there, I met the tribe’s Shaman named Zebawa. The rhyming zebra never ceased to amaze me with her elegant wordsmithery. I had begun to visit her whenever I got a chance. Many of the zebras often wondered since I was the Chieftain’s adopted son, why I didn’t pull rank or haughtily flaunt around, to which I simply answered “If you were a zebra colt in a strange land, would it make me, as the normal inhabiting species, hate you more or less if you were an arrogant brat on top of it?”.
That shut them up quickly, as well as get a few admiring stares from the adults. As I learned from the Shaman, she began to teach me in the art of elemental magic, a form of magic which could be used by all species of ponies, and was passed on by a tribe of elemental ponies over 2,000 years ago. I thrived in the sacred art, eventually getting my cutie mark in it. Not just in one element, but in all seven. Ice, Fire, Rock, Terra, Arcane, Necromantic, and Sky elements and everything in between became the mark I bore on my flank with pride.
Just when everything was going well my luck caught up to me. I was feared, respected, and admired throughout the tribe. I had even managed to catch the eye of the shaman’s young assistant named Zeniwa. Even though she tried to hide it, I could see her stealing glances at my now muscular shoulders. I said nothing about it however and appeared oblivious to her stares.
One day, out of the blue, a zebra war tribe from another clan got the bright idea to attack us. Shortly after, our tribes were in full blown war. Those that could, like Zeniwa, fled, leaving the rest of us to fight for our lives. We could only hold out for so long before we were destroyed and scattered.
After doing a little mercenary work, I raised enough coin to take a ship back to Equestria. I skirted around the countryside, taking assassination contracts and the like from various underground agencies. About 1000 years of this later, and I am still running for my life… most of the time. Which leads me to where I am now. Once again in the Everfree Forest, hiding from a manticore. It has been said that history repeats itself. I didn’t know they literally meant it.
I crouch down, turning off my steath cloak which was concealing my form as the large and very pissed manticore charges the ground I stood not a moment before.
“Well, great” I mutter.
Glancing around, I notice the manticore standing and looking puzzled.
“Alright, time to end this” I say as I slip my dart rifle out of it’s sheath on my back.
Gingerly slipping a clip of 3 of my darts spiked with powerful paralysis poisons, I proceed to cock the spring lever. Aiming down the sight, I prepare to fire all three rounds into the creatures backside when I see a butter yellow blur fly forward and start talking to the thing.
“No freakin way” I breath
The manticore stopped looking angry and started acting like a child. Apparently the mare calmed it down and sent it scampering back to its house. The mare turned towards where I was crouching and flew over, a scowl on her face. Out of instinct or some other reflex, I aimed my rifle at her and fired a dart. ‘Well, crap. She’s so dead. There’s enough poison in there to stop a charging buffalo.’ I thought glumly before looking down and realizing, thankfully, that I had grabbed the wrong clip. These darts had minor sleeping powder in them. I turned on the invisibility setting in my cloak and rushed forward.
I flopped the coat over both of us to check her pulse, but hear a swooshing sound overhead and stop.
“What the buck?” I hear a slightly gruff, feminine voice exclaim in confusion.
‘Oh, could this day get any better?’ I think ‘the second she lands to take a look at where her friend disappeared, a dart’s going through her flank’
I hear her land and her wings stop flapping. Like a snake uncoiling, I spring off the body of the previous Pegasus and fire straight at the cyan mare. To my surprise, she dodges managing to only get clipped by the dart. ‘hopefully, that will be enough to knock her out, but I need to get her blood pumping to more evenly distribute the powder. I spin on my heels, running up one tree and flipping onto the branches of another with practiced ease.
“Hey!” she shouts, “Get back here! Your going to pay for what you did to Fluttershy!”
Jumping from tree to tree like a spider, I dodge her clumsy attempts at grabbing me. Obviously, this mare was not combat trained. I could easily end her pursuit here, but what would be the fun in that? After running through the maze of vines and branches for about 15 minutes, the mare began to tire.
“And this, is where I get off” I tell her before reactivating the invisibility cloak and jumping into the treetops.
She hovers in the center of the clearing for little bit, trying to find me again. I spring forward, curling back my hoof for a fatal strike to the neck. The world moves slow motion as she turns her head towards me and her quite dazzling magenta eyes lock with mine, widening with fear. Something in those eyes causes me to pause for a second. Conflicting thoughts slam into my head from different angles and my eyes cloud over. When they clear, one thing is certain, I am not going to kill this mare.
The world returns to it’s normal speed and I shove my hoof away. I am careful not to skewer her with my invisible horn as we collapse in a heap on the ground. I recover quicker and bring both of my gauntlet clad hooves down on her wings, trapping her. ‘well, what now?’ my mind asks as it races for an answer to my predicament. The mare, after recovering from her daze began to struggle
“Hey! Let me go” she yelled as she thrashed about in my iron grip.
A noise to my right caught my attention. The roaring manticore bursts out of the trees, its menacing scorpion tail swinging wildly.
“Wonderful!” I exclaim as I reach for one of my sheathed blizzard knives. The silver blade with the blue inlay shines with unnatural light, sending what looks like flashes of blue electricity along the length of the blade.
I yank it out, the blade spinning in my hoof a couple of times before stopping, pointed at the beast. “Now tell me” I say to the thing, looking it in the eye “How do you wish to die.”
The manticore let out an earsplitting roar and charged forward. I hit the ground and rolled left, slashing out and catching the thing in its paw. It howled in agony and slashed at me with its poisonous black scaled tail. I lunged backward, the hood of my cloak flinging backward. Thankfully, the invisibility spell I had placed on my horn persisted. I slammed my hoof into the ground and a crack in the earth arched towards the thing before a spike of stone shot out and impaled the creature’s uninjured paw. My ears rang as another sonic roar broke through the air. I spun my left hoof around in the air as an orb of fire formed in the air.
When it reached the size of a hoof ball, I sent it flying towards the manticore. It burst, setting a forth of the monster’s fur on fire. Its tail shot forward again, sinking deep into the earth mere inches from my hooves. I breathed on the blizzard knife, and the center of the blade sparkled blue with frozen energy. Reversing my grip on the blade, I sunk it deep in the tail. A circle of blue light appeared where I had stabbed the appendage, quickly turning to white before amputating the limb in a pop of flesh and blood. Roars and howls echoed through the forest like bomb sirens. I sprinted forward, running up the impaled leg and jumping on top of the creature.
I smashed a hoof into it’s right shoulder blade before jumping off and rolling on the ground. I opened my eyes wide and extended a hoof towards its face. Two words escaped my mouth almost without me saying them.
“Vita Ictus”
Immediately, the light of life began to drain from his eyes as my eyes turned to black, luminous orbs inside my head. When the life tap was done, the manticore slumped to the ground, dead. My eyes snapped back into focus, and I gasp as my heart rate returns to normal.
“Mother dang it! I hate using necromancy!” I mutter before remembering that I was being watched.
“That… was… AWESOME!” The mare exclaims
I briefly considered teleporting the heck out of there, but that would just raise her suspicions more. Instead, I shucked my head forward, throwing my hood over my head again before menacingly walking towards the Pegasus. She took a step back and the fear crept back into her eyes. I easily towered over her. She continued to cower back until a shrill cry broke our mental battle of wills.
“RAINBOW DASH!!!!!”
