The Steel Gray Mask

Flash Sentry woke up with a start. As he looked around he noticed that he was in a hospital bed,and that he had a raging headache. He brought a hoof to his temple and upon impact the pain worsened exponentially. He gasped out and thought Bad idea! Bad idea! He then lowered his hoof and spoke aloud to himself. "What happened?" He stood up and gray spots filled his vision. "Woah! Take it nice and slow, Flash. You can do this." Slowly, but surely, Flash Sentry got up on his four hooves. Just then a light blue Unicorn stallion with a graying mane of brown walked in.

"Mr. Sentry, you really must sit! It is not good for you to be up so soon," The Unicorn stallion said with a jump. Flash, reluctantly, sat down on the bed. "Alright. You are probably full of questions, but I must give you a basic examination before the doctor gets here. That okay?" Flash Sentry nodded in response. "Good. My name is Nurse Life Support and I am going to check you for a concussion right now." Flash got a good look at the stallion and noticed his wrinkles. The Nurse had soft, hazel eyes and a equally soft smile likely gained through age.

"Okay, but before we start, I have to ask, how long was I out for?" Flash Sentry asked.

"About three days," Nurse Life Support said.

"Oh that's fine. No bi- THREE DAYS!" Flash Sentry's face had shock written all over it.

"Oh dear."

"If Twilight knows she is gonna kill me!"

...

Twilight was currently holding her BBBFF (Big Brother Best Friend Forever) in a magical vice grip on his ear as she lectured him on leaving her out of the loop. "How dare you do this to me again?!"

"A-again?" Shining Armor asked in fear of his sister's superior magical skill display.

"First the wedding and now this! You have been leaving me as a side thought and didn't even tell me of this!" She released him and turned to him, but what got him is that she looked hurt, not mad.

Shining Armor bowed his head in shame. "I'm sorry."

"I know you are, but I just feel that we aren't as close as we used to be. I get that siblings detach after time, but I came to terms with that. I just wish that we were a little closer. More accessible to each other." Twilight sighed.

"I get it Twily. I really do. What kind of a BBBFF am I? I couldn't even tell you when your coltfriend joined me on a dangerous mission."

Twilight put a hoof on Shining's shoulder. "First of all, you are an amazing BBBFF and nothing could change that." Shining Armor and Twilight shared a smile and then Twilight blushed while turning. "Secondly, I don't have coltfriend. Flash is merely a stallion and a friend, not a stallion friend, but a friend. So as Princess it is my profession to deal with friends and care for them. As friends. Professionally." Twilight flustered in her speech and trotted at a quicker pace to Flash's room, while Shining Armor snickered behind her.

...Meanwhile in the Figure's cell in the dungeon...

"At ease guards" Princess Celestia said. The guards nodded and opened the cell in the dungeons that held the Figure. Princess Celestia walked in and they locked it behind her. She looked towards the center and saw the Figure, whom donned his cloak and signature steel gray mask. He was at a steel table under the only light in the room. He was in chains attached to the floor with enough leeway to eat and sleep rigidly.

"si tira ti vucot batobot vi wanotreyxkaiv ornla lead vin interrogation," the Figure said.

"axun, coi ui shocking," replied Celestia with her stern face.

"You speak Draconic?" The Figure asked.

"You speak common?" Celestia replied back.

"Touché."

"Apparently Prench too."

"Ha ha," The Figure deadpanned.

"Well, from earlier I can tell you know who I am, so why don't we talk about you?"

"I see, straight to the point. Fortunately for you I had no plans of resisting. What would you like to know?"

Celestia pondered for a second. "I had heard of you from the witnesses, so I can tell what your motives are, so I would really like to know more about your life and how you acquired that motive, but we should start with a simpler question. What is your name?"

"If I have ever had a name I do not know it. I have constantly only been referred to as Silit."

"I may know Draconic, but I am a bit rusty, care for a translation?" Celestia asked.

"In your tongue, the word would translate to slave," The Figure said.

"What? How could you not have a name? If you did have an owner how did they not name you?" Celestia maintained her stern look, but confusion crept in it.

"I have been a slave since my hatchling years and in the plantation I worked in they referred to me only as silit 15B, but unless 15B counts as a name to ponies then I am nameless."

"This simply won't do. I need to be able to refer to you somehow. How would you feel if I gave you one?"

The figure cocked his head slightly left. "You would name me? Sure."

"How about..." Celestia looked him over and noticed his goldenrod scales. "Golden Edge?"

The newly named Golden Edge put a claw to his chin. "A pony name? I don't think it would work."

"Right, my bad. How about just Edge?"

"Warmer, but I am not feeling it. How about I tell you more about me before you try to name me."

"Okay. What was the plantation like?"

"Seriously?" He deadpanned, but Celestia's stern face stayed. "Fine. As with most things there were good and bad parts to it. Our master was harsh, but the lashings hardened my scales for future tribulations. It also taught me the importance of hard work. If we weren't adequate, then we received lashings. Life was bad, but tolerable to a degree as I did have a girl whom I loved. We laughed together and we promised each other that we would get out of that place together and we did. When the minotaur raiders destroyed everything. They killed most of us, but they left 6 of us alive. Including her and I. In the raiders' group they noticed my race and tried to make me a warrior."

"Wait a second, your race?" Celestia said. "Sorry, I don't know much about Dragons."

"Of course, but I am not a Dragon, but a Draconian. Specifically an Aurak Draconian. We are a race characterized by our lankiness, out height, our winglessness, and our proficiency in-" The Figure raised his claws and they were enrapt in a hunter green aura as his chains opened and closed back up "- magic."

"Interesting," Celestia said. "Please continue."

"Well, the raiders came when I was 8, but I stayed there until 19. I was trained by a cruel and vicious master who praised finesse and brutality. Choosing when to strike, but when attacking going for vitals with strength."

"That explains your murders."

The figure grew offended under his mask, but did not show it otherwise. "One night my love came to me sobbing and she had told me my master had raped her, so I held her that night and she made me promise to protect her from them. I challenged him to the terms that if I won she and I would be freed and if I loss I would die and he would no longer have to train me. I managed to beat him using my magic slightly to mind controll his moves to miss and for him to be hit. He still managed to wound me though. Before you ask, mind control is a special power my kind are quick to pick up. I had defeated him and won my freedom in Minotaur tradition. My mistake was leaving him alive. When I wasn't looking he stabbed her in the gut and I killed him in rage. As I held her dying form she made me take a new promise in light of my broken one: To protect others who can't do it themselves. So I travelled far and wide doing as she told me. I did so for 12 years, perfecting my skills, and here we are today."

"Thank you for telling me, that was most likely a difficult to share," Celestia said as she stood up. "I thought up a name for you. It's Duulo."

"May I ask a question?" Duulo asked.

"Of course."

"What fate awaits me?"

"You are Duulo now, you can make your own fate." Celestia walked out and told the guards to keep the door open and to unchain him. They did so hesitantly, but when they did Duulo stayed inside in his seat. Celestia looked back and saw him stand. He approached her while staying inside the cell.

"I choose to accept my punishment for killing those ponies." Then Duulo walked back inside and took off his cloak and mask and Celestia saw his face for the first time. He had a hunter green eye and his second eye had a gash over it, rendering it blind and white, which crossed his nose and rested under his left, and working eye. "This was who I was, now, I am Duulo and ready to look towards the future, even if it turns out short."