Nightcore

A red stallion quickly sprinted across the tiled rooftops, making no more noise than a moth as he confidently leaped along the tiled surface. He had been doing this for years and had never had any mishaps before, so he had no reason to expect tonight was going to be any different. In fact, this had to have been the easiest hit he'd ever had to pull, so much so he let himself get lost in thought for a bit. As an assassin for hire, no one had ever met Nightcore face to face and lived. That was his way and he liked it that way. He hated other ponies with a passion. Who were they to judge him? They were the ones who led him to start. And once his blood lust had begun, he soon found that he couldn't stop. That was the past though. Now it barley fazed him when he took another life. The money was good and he didn't have to live with others mocking him for who he was. Who was this master killer you ask? He asked himself the same thing countless times over his long life. He was an abomination, a byproduct of what happens when an adolescent dragon rapes a mare.  He was a killer.

Nightcore looked just like every other pony, but bigger, with large leathery draconian wings, and a set of seemingly useless fangs. But those were easy to hide, what really made him stand out was his blood red scales. He had been born with the beautiful green fur of his mother, but soon it started to all fall out as the red scales of a dragon started to manifest across his skin. He was a disgrace to his family name so they threw him into the nearest body of water hoping he would die.  After his family had left him to drown, there was a rustling in the nearby bushes. A light blue mare poked her head out and scrambled to see what kind of valuables were in the bag. The mare opened the bag expecting something of value, but was horrified to find it was a foal of some kind with bat wings and scales along its body.

The mare, known only as Ipsy Twitch, felt compassion go out to the little thing as it shivered in the cold, crying out to the world for comfort. She also felt a dark hatred for the horrid monsters that had tried to kill it. So, without much thought, Ipsy took the babe home to rear as her own. Ipsy lived with a roaming band of gypsies and they all took to the babe as fast as the mare did. As the child grew older, the band taught him the ways of their craft. At the time, the noble families shunned gypsies, labeling all of them as thieves, murderers, and just plain filth, so they learned to conform. Nightcore was taught to blend into his surroundings to hide from prying eyes, meld with the shadows and master disguise in order to escape from the law.  He was also shown the art of the blade so they might earn a few bits with a mock fight in a town square.  He also learned some things that his band of family did not wish to teach him, like how to pick locks, pick a pocket or two, and the hatred of the rich, which all beggars are endowed with.

As Nightcore grew, it became obvious that he had also inherited the long life span from his dragon blood, and soon he was the only one left alive from his childhood. The others had died from either starvation, disease, age (which was least common) or the gallows. He felt his long life was a curse, for he had witnessed far too many of those he held dear be publicly executed. Every time he saw the life leave the tear stained face of someone he knew, for the sole reason they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, Nightcore would feel his blood boil and grow an unyielding need to exact revenge. Ipsy had been the only one who could calm and comfort him after each death. But now even she was gone from his world and he was left alone to the cold, shunned and persecuted for his looks.

The first time Nightcore had taken a life was burned into his memory and haunted his dreams. Nightcore had joined many other bands of gypsies as he aged, but one held above all others because of her. He never found out her name, but her beauty entranced him from the start. She was very tiny for her age and was constantly mistaken for a filly. She had beautiful light green fur, a gray mane with a white strip and a tail to match, and piercing red eyes. He fell for the tiny beauty the first time he had laid eyes on her. This was why her end was his beginning.

The town where his career started was coincidentally his place of birth. And unfortunately, his older brother was stll alive and knew that the abomination had their blood pumping through his veins. When he saw Nightcore dancing in the town circle with the little green mare, he panicked. Night was supposed to be dead, yet there he was dancing and being very much alive. Fearing that the beast knew what they had done and he was going to retaliate, Nightcore’s brother decided to act first and set a bounty for 500 bits for anyone who found any of the gypsies from that fateful day.  Nightcore was able to escape, but the mare didn’t.

She didn’t cry when the town beat her in the square. She didn’t cry when the executioner walked out with an axe in his black magical aura. She didn’t cry when her head was rested on a wooden block. No, she did not cry as she faced death. Her tears were meant for the lone red stallion who watched from the front row, just bearly noticeable under a huge brown monks robe. Just before the axe took off her head, she implanted her thoughts into Nightcore’s mind. There, she told him who he was, why the upper class wanted their family dead and, most importantly to him, how much she loved this stallion who she never got to know. This time, Nightcore lost it. There was no holding back. This time, ponies were going to pay. And pay dearly!

In the end, after his family had mocked the little abomination whose only crime was being born, Nightcore was the one to have the last laugh. He succeeded where they had failed. When Nightcore left his hometown for the last time, not a single member of his family lived. As the sun rose the next morning in the town of Ponyville woke to the horrific screams of a filly Granny Smith. For the house of her best friend was littered with the decapitated limbs of every member of the house, even the servants were found dead. After that horrific day in the start of the young settlement, the gypsies were left alone, for Nightcore had left his mark in blood.  It read: You killed my family? Well, now I’ve killed yours.

Nightcore quickly shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. It was time to get back to work. When it was all said and done, he felt kind of sad. He had hoped for more of a challenge. The idiot had been so chalked full of steroids he had bludgeoned himself to death to “prove his stallionness” to Nightcore’s shadow. No matter how disappointing the kill was, Nightcore was never one to turn down free money.