It was a regular evening in Fillydelphia. Ponies getting off of work, young fillies and colts out of school for a couple of hours now. Yes, it was quite a peaceful evening indeed. For most.

A small adolescent friend group, consisting of two colts and one filly, had found a dead end alley close to where they all lived, and had been going there to hang out most evenings for nearly a year and a half. They would usually just chill and shoot the breeze, talking about whatever drama or personal problems they had, or just telling jokes. However, this evening was anything but usual.

The three were standing in the alley. One of the Colts and the Filly were standing in the very back of the alley, facing the sidewalk ahead. The other colt was standing in front of them, facing them and the brick wall behind them. They were at that point talking about a certain filly that they weren't too fond of.

"Yeah, I still can't believe that bitch broke the window with that buckball and then blamed it on us," the colt standing by himself had said.

"Right?" The filly replied. "I'm just glad the school let it slide as an accident."

"Yeah, I don't want to even think about what my life would be like right now if I got suspended over that shi-"
The same colt had said back, his thought getting cut off at the end. His eyes suddenly went wide, before his breath hitched. He stood frozen, shaking a little.

The other two just looked at him for a moment in confusion, but quickly realized that something was wrong. Very wrong.

"What the fuck?" The other colt had asked, unsure of what was happening.

"Cloudy, are you alright?" The filly said, starting to become worried.

He continued to stand there, frozen. He was barely breathing now, and his eyes slowly started to lose color. The other two were beyond concern now, starting to become frightened. His eyes closed a little, and his body seemed to lose tensity as it was seemingly drained of most color. A black flame of sorts began to rise out of his back. The flame slowly expanded and grew, floating upwards as it went. As it continued to grow, it contorted and shaped, morphing into a pony-like figure, before it finally disconnected from the colt, his now severely greyed-out body falling to the concrete, barely twitching. The other two were beyond terrified now, almost going into a full blown panic, their backs pressed against the wall, trembling. The black figure moved towards them, opening it's mouth, and a trail of black flame started slowly seeping out from right between each of the young ponies' eyes, their eyes and coats slowly starting to lose color as well.

However, it ended as quickly as it began. After hearing a metallic sheen, and a sound akin to a kitchen knife being plunged into a watermelon, the two ponies quickly returned to normal. Opening their eyes, they saw the black creature. It had a look of surprise on it's face as it stared downward. Following it's gaze, the ponies looked down to see the blade of a rather large-looking sword sticking straight out of it's neck. The creature made a sort of choking noise, before it began to disintegrate from the sword edges out. After this a streak of black flame flew out from the creature, turning gold as it neared the colt on the ground. It made it's way back into him, and after a moment, his color returned, and he sat up.

The creature finished dissolving and all that was left was the sword. As it floated up and straightened out, the colt on the right of the filly got a better look at it. The sword itself was huge, however the blade was decently thin. It seemed to be some sort of lightened variant of the old Clydesdalian Claymore swords from the medieval era of Equestria, if he wasn't mistaken. (That certain colt happened to pride himself on his knowledge of history.) The blade shone silver, with glowing jade-green runes carved down each side of the blade. While these runes were illegible, (to the colt anyway,) across the bottom of the blade, right above the hoofguard, there was a number. The number read 1,336. The colt watched as suddenly the number glowed brightly, before it changed to 1,337. Baffled, he decided he’d just look at the rest of the sword. The aforementioned hoofguard of course was of standard Claymore descent, it had a very wide hoofguard, enough to fit a stallion’s hoof under each side, and there were four circles making a sort of clover shape on each end of the hoofguard. The handle itself was for the most part standard. It was long enough it could easily fit into a normal stallion's mouth with some handle to spare, and wrapped in light tan leather, actually a rare occurrence with ponies, considering that they very rarely butchered anything to get leather, which meant that this was an extremely custom-made sword. The very bottom of the handle also had a clover shape made of slightly bigger rings.

The sword floated up, in a green aura, and into a reddish-brown leather sheath, accented with brass embellishing on both the sheath entrance and the tip at the bottom. Said sheath belonged to a Stallion. This stallion had a dark grey coat, with very spiky dark green hair, which was outlined with a bright neon green, and sat over his right eye. His cutie mark was an odd sight. It was some sort of strange skull, with wings folded around it and a sword going down through the top. He wore a set of belts around his waist and hindquarters, the sheath attached to the belt on his right hindquarter. There was also a place for a sheath on his left hindquarter that had nothing present.

Those weren't really of the biggest concern to the colt, however. The real kicker was that he had wings just like a pegasus, but right in the middle of the forehead, was a longer-than-average Unicorn horn.

Another pony jogged up, a Pegasus mare. She also had a grey coat. However, it was significantly lighter in shade than the stallion. She had very fluffy-looking hair, that was light blue at the top and faded to pink, which was draped over the left side of her face. She had two black, horn ring sized earrings on her visible ear, and she wore a black beanie that covered the very back of her head. On the right side of her belt and sheath she wielded a shotgun. While guns weren't uncommon in Equestria, it was rare to see them anywhere except in competitions and the like. She immediately went up to the colt who had gotten his color drained previously.

"Are you alright?" She asked the colt, earning a nod.

"Yeah, that was pretty intense, but I think I'll be ok," the colt responded.

"How about you guys?" The stallion asked the other two by the wall.

The filly replied, "I think we just had heart attacks or something but other than that I think we should be good."

The colt to her right then said, "now the real question is, who are you guys?"

"And better yet, what was that thing?" The filly replied.

"I'm Grey Scale," the stallion said.

"And I'm Dusk Shade," said the mare.

"And those things," Grey added, "are called shadows. They roam Equestria, invisible to the normal pony eye. As far as we know, me and my partner here are the only ones capable of seeing them. That is, until they become powerful enough to drain a pony’s life energy, an event in which they will become very visible. Usually a shadow that’s transforming from their invisible state into what you saw there won’t have the power to outright kill a pony, but after they have drained that first one, they have the power to drain any other pony to the point of death. Which is why we hunt them, so they can’t get to that stage.”

After the colts and the filly took in for a moment that they had just almost died, they sat back, and continued to listen.

Dusk continued for him. "And our work with killing them is top secret, so you abolutely can NOT tell anyone about what happened here or who we are. If everypony found out about the things we hunt, it could cause mass panic. Understood?"

They were all quick to agree and said they'd never tell anyone about what had transpired, and left it at that. Afterwords, two cloaks for the pair magically appeared, courtesy of Grey. He put the cloak on, and magically shrank the sword so it would fit inside it. Dusk put her cloak on and Grey used the same spell on her shotgun. With that, the two headed out of Fillydelphia and back to their campsite just inside the forest, happy that they'd been successful in getting one more shadow off the face of Equestria.

20 YEARS EARLIER

It was a dark evening on the outskirts of Ponyville, around 8:00, and there could be heard yelling from a not-so-happy colt from one of the few houses.

“You’ve done nothing but try to get me to be your little clone since day one! I’m fucking sick of it! You have no respect for me or my privacy, like seriously, mind your own damn business for once! I can’t keep living like this!” A very angry young Grey Scale was full-force yelling at his parents.

Grey hadn’t had a very good upbringing. Sure, his parents were good ponies, but they had a habit of treating Grey like their little robot, which caused quite a division between him and his parents. Sure, he was only eight at the time, but he’d grown up very fast. Besides having his parents to deal with, he was also the only one at school not to have his cutie mark yet, and beyond the constant blank flank teasing was of the course all the fillies and colts calling him “oldie” because of his mane and tail.

The young pegasus' coat was dark grey, and his mane and tail were a rather odd sight. His hair, mane and tail were white at the ends, but they made a greyscale from black at the bases of his hair to white at the ends, hence his name. Because of this white hair, he had earned the rather unpleasant nickname. However, Grey wouldn’t take shit and let it slide, as he had no problem getting violent. Something he actually rarely did considering his height. He was abnormally tall for a colt his age, and usually once he stood up in front of some teasers and they saw him towering over them, he’d get left alone. However, there had been a few instances where the teasing had continued, and we’ll just say that one of those instances ended with a colt missing a couple of teeth.

This instance however, was much different. He had been a rebellious, but quiet soul for a good while, but he had never blown up at his parents like this. Alas, a conversation at the dinner table had finally pushed him over the edge, and the dam broke.

“Grey Scale! Where in Equestria did you learn to speak that way!?” His mother had replied, as stereotypically as any other parent.

“Besides that, how dare you say such blasphemy!? I should ground you for a month!” His father chipped in.

“You know what!? No! Don’t even start with that shit! For one thing, grounding me never works, and you know it, and for another, every word I said was true! I’m absolutely fucking beat to death with being you two’s little puppet! I can’t do it anymore!” Grey, responded bitterly. Tears were starting to form in his eyes.

His parents could only stand there, staring. They were beyond words now.

“I need some air,” Grey said agitatedly, before storming out of the front door.

“What have we done?” His father said quietly.

Grey walked along the edge of the Everfree Forest. His neighborhood was right on the edge of town against the forest, so if he ever went out for a walk, it was typically along that route. He paused for a moment, taking out his cherished MP3 player from under his wing, and tucked his earbuds into his ears. He hit play, and Just Like You by Three Days Grace started playing. Huh. My favorite song, how fitting, he thought to himself.

He continued walking his usual path, finally getting to the spot he always stopped. It was a burned down residential house, the charred remains had sat there for a couple of years. There was at one point caution tape surrounding the entire site, but Grey had taken down some out front so he could sit on what was left of the porch. He sat down on the top step, facing towards the darkness of the Everfree. He looked up and he could see one of the forest's usual wild storms brewing. While most ponies found it unnatural and disturbing, Grey loved to watch Everfree storms. There was something about their wild and free nature that reminded him of himself.

However, something odd happened at the moment he looked into the sky. He was looking at one of the black storm clouds when a green glow streaked across it. "What in the...? That's... Different," he muttered to himself. He paused his MP3 player and took out his earbuds, tucking them back under his wing. He continued eyeing the clouds, hoping to see the glow again, but after a few minutes of lying in wait, nothing happened. He was still in the middle of watching when he was interrupted by the snap of a branch in the treeline.

As he got up to investigate, he thought to himself, this evening just keeps getting weirder and weirder, huh? He approached the forest, and he had thought he heard the sound of multiple sets of hooves running away, but he couldn't be sure. he continued looking for signs of movement, but didn’t see anything. Right as he had given up and turned around to begin walking back to the porch, the wind picked up, and he heard a great crack! He looked towards the sky and saw the green glow in the black clouds, now directly over him. The next moment for Grey happened in a blur. There was a nearly blinding flash of bright green, and then everything went black.

Grey's parents had been quick to leave the house, knowing where Grey would be going. They had been walking down the path, quietly talking to themselves, when they heard a loud crack!

"We had better find him quickly, this storm seems to be picking up. And that green glow couldn't have been good, not even the Everfree tends to be this unusual," Grey's father said.

"I agree. Come on, he should be just around this next corner," Grey's mother replied.

Around that corner they went, however what they were met with was nothing short of horrifying.

They turned the corner, and saw Grey standing in the path looking directly up into the huge black cloud above him. Suddenly, there was a massive boom! The pair watched as a white-green bolt of lightning streaked down from the sky and struck Grey directly in the forehead! For a brief moment, he was surrounded by a blinding bright green aura, and then as quickly as it came, it imploded, creating a shockwave that knocked the two ponies on their backs.

As soon as the initial trauma of the blast wore off, Grey's parents were by his side in an instant. However some things were very different. His mane and tail were now dark green, bordered with neon green edges. His hair had also more than tripled in spikiness. However this was not the biggest change. They watched aghast as a sparkling light green sizzle of magical electricity moved from the tip of his tail, through his body, up his neck, through his head and up through the tip of a rather long horn that matched his coat color, before popping at the end of his horn with a little crack.

He had a horn. Along with the pegasus wings already attached to his body.

He was an Alicorn!

His parents began freaking out. "Sweet Celestia, our son has a horn! A HUGE horn!" His mother stated, practically losing it.

"Y-yes he does," his father replied, simply breath-taken at the sight before him. "Come on, let's try and wake him up."

After a few minutes of being shaken, and having his name called repeatedly, Grey woke up. His eyes fluttered open, and as they did, his now lime green eyes, which previously had been blue, gave off a bright glow.

"Oh goodness! Grey, your eyes, too?" His mother had said quietly, looking into the glowing orbs.

"M-mom? Dad? I-is that you?" He asked, still very weak from the strike.

Despite their anger from the argument had earlier, Grey was still their son, and they would always have that care for him. With this in mind, they were quick to apologize about all the things that they had talked about earlier. They made promises never treat him they way they did again. Grey was very surprised at how quickly they had seemed to change at first, but after a few minutes of recovery, and listening to what they were saying, he could tell that they were being genuine.

"Just try and keep it that way, okay?" He said, hugging them.

"Oh Grey, we'll try our best," his mother replied.

He continued the hug with his parents for a few moments, relishing in what could be the start of something better. That moment didn't last long however, as he saw the silhouettes of two darkly colored ponies walking down the path toward the group. "What the-? Who are they?" Grey had muttered. his parents turned around to look as well. “Huh? Uh, there’s nothing there bud. You sure you’re ok in the head?” His father had asked but Grey could still see them getting closer. Grey tried to do something before something could happen, but they were upon the scene faster than he thought possible. Before Grey could do anything about it, they opened their mouths. Grey saw as streams of color started leaving his parents. They looked struck, as suddenly their color started to drain from their bodies. His parents realized something was wrong and shoved him away. He watched as the silhouettes behind them became more full, and darkened in color. They slowly started looking more like actual ponies, except for the fact that they were all black, had no cutie marks, and had curved horns. His parents slumped to the ground, appearing to have almost no energy left. Their eyes were so greyed out he almost couldn’t see them.

"Grey..." his father wheezed out, "...run!"

As Grey stepped away reluctantly, his mother looked him in the eyes. “We love you Grey. We’re sorry...”

He then watched as the two ponies looked between each other. "Trade?" one asked the other in a horribly raspy and dark voice, and then they both smiled. They both opened their mouths again, however this time, the flow of color coming from each of his parents went towards the opposite pony to which they were each being drained originally. Grey watched as the last of the color left each of their bodies, their eyes each going completely white. Both of his parents' bodies fell limp. Grey watched in horror as he realized they were both gone. Tears began welling in his eyes.

The one on the right turned to the one on the left, licking his lips. "I'd have to say that was a pretty decent meal, eh, Caligas?"

"Hah! I'd say! However, Umbrus, I would say that even better is how it feels to have finally materialized!" The one named Caligas said before giving a cackle.

The one apparently called Umbrus gave a chuckle, before smiling. "Yes indeed, brother. Yes indeed."

"Now the question is, what about the small one?" Caligas replied.

"Ha! Leave him. We need not be unbalanced in power at any given time. Besides, nopony will believe his story," Umbrus answered.

Tears were flowing down Grey's face now, as he stood, head lowered to the ground. "You..." He muttered.

Both of the dark ponies looked toward him. Caligas smiled wickedly. "Ha! Looks like the runt is actually up off of the ground. Honestly brother, to Tartarus with it! Let me drain him."

"Now wait just a minute brother. I suddenly get a strange feeling from this one," Umbrus replied. But it was too late. Caligas was already approaching the colt.

Grey was shaking now. "You, you-" he sputtered, barely able to keep it together.

"What was that?" Caligas asked with a cackle.

"YOU FUCKING MONSTERS!" Grey finally screamed, as he looked up, tears streaming down his face, nothing but pure, unbridled rage across his features.

"Uh oh.." Umbrus muttered, backing away slowly.

"Oooh, looks like the runt is mad!" Caligas said with another loud cackle.

However, he looked back at Grey, and saw it. His wings were flared completely out, and the long horn on his forehead that he'd just now noticed was glowing bright green. Suddenly, Grey's eyes flashed that blinding green color, and his horn charged, adding a magical aura to his hooves. Caligas’ smug look of arrogance wavered slightly, before he said, “you do realize that no matter what kind of aura you put on yourself, your hooves will just pass right through me, right?” With an evil grin and a look of pure hatred in his glowing eyes, Grey replied, “why don’t we find out?” Caligas tried backing away, but it was too late. With an ear-splitting cry of rage, Grey lunged forward, striking Caligas across the jaw with a force that would have shattered a regular pony's.

Caligas spun in a full 180, his chin hitting the ground. Dazed and confused, he reached a hoof out towards his brother. "Umbrus, help me!"

Umbrus, however was too horrified to do so. In a split-second decision, he ran for the Everfree. "Sorry Caligas, you're on your own! I don't know how, but he has the magical capabilities to be able to actually damage us! I don’t dare trifle with that!"

Grey saw the creature making a run for it, and tried to hit him with a magical blast, but he missed, and Umbrus leaped into the forest. Grey turned back towards the one he currently had at his hooves. He grabbed the thing and flipped it over. Caligas looked into the glowing green eyes that were staring him down from mere feet away. He tried crawling backwards to get away, but it was too late.

Without any remorse, Grey brought his hoof down on Caligas' face. He switched hooves back and forth in a pattern from right to left, punching him repeatedly. Grey couldn't stop, as rage overtook him. He struck again and again and again, beating the thing to death with his magically enhanced but otherwise bare hooves, until finally his face was a shattered, broken mess. The creature tried to utter some last phrase, but it was unintelligible. With one final rear up, Grey brought down both of his hooves on Caligas' head, crushing it completely. A wet splat could be heard as what was left of his head turned into black paste.

With a sudden bright white flash, Grey rose up off of the ground, and then fell back down, and watched as a small image formed on each of his flanks. It was some sort of strange skull, with folded wings around it, that had a small sword stuck down through the top of it. He had finally gotten his cutie mark. “What the-? Some damn special talent this is,” he muttered to himself.

He looked back down to watch as the creature's body started to dissolve from the neck down, and a trail of golden magic started to flow back to where his mother's body lay.

However, right as the magical flow was about to reach her, Grey was struck in the side with two rear hooves. He fell to his side in pain and watched as Umbrus intercepted the flow, and sucked it up into his own body. A white sheen came over him for a moment, before he returned to normal. With one final look at a sputtering, wheezing Grey, he said “at least I won’t trifle with it yet,” before he leaped back into the forest. That was the last thing that Grey saw before finally falling unconscious from the magical overload.

When Grey woke up, it was around midnight, the storm having cleared completely, the moon with the dark unicorn emblazoned into it shining brightly down upon the path. Grey was slow to stand, and he had a pulsing headache, along with a side that was killing him. He was thoroughly convinced that he had several broken ribs. He made his way to where his parents lay, hoping to see something out of them, but nothing. He checked for pulses and breathing, but still got nothing. Finally, after a long period of doubt, grief, and regret, he decided to bury them. And so, he used what little he remembered of his magical ability to blast out graves on the edge of the forest. He used the same blast spell on some trees to create makeshift headstones for them. They simply said his parents’ names and some “In Loving Memory" inscriptions on them. After sitting for a while at the site, and thinking over what he would do next, he finally decided to head home, and gather a few belongings.

Finally, he got his saddlebags full of the items he felt he needed most, donned a dark cloak, and then limped his way to the train station. He waited carefully for the nearest train to Canterlot to arrive, and then snuck on to the caboose to hitch a ride. There was only one pony he could think of that might be able to help him now.

It was early in the morning, about eight o'clock, and Celestia had risen the sun just a few hours prior. She was sitting on the throne, preparing for the daily duties, when the door suddenly burst open. A rather young green-haired dark grey unicorn colt, with an oddly long horn at that, had barged into the throne room, dripping blood from somewhere underneath the cloak he was wearing. He had managed to evade earlier guards, which were now catching up to him, however the in-room guards had their spears on him in an instant.

"P-princess!" He managed to wheeze out, coughing up some of his own blood in the process, before collapsing to the floor with his hoof reaching out to Celestia. He then fell over, which caused his cloak to fall away from his body, revealing the wings and the cut open spot in his side where a bone was sticking out. He lost consciousness seconds later.

Every pony in the room, especially Celestia, stared in awe at the fact that there was an unknown Alicorn in the throne room.

"I believe I will have to skip my duties today, everyone," she said simply, with wide but curious eyes.

Grey had been rushed to Celestia's personal medical ward in the castle. After hours of work, the doctors finally patched Grey up. A few weeks later, after making decent recovery, he had told Celestia about the entire ordeal. And so, Celestia realized his overwhelming magical potential, and enrolled him as one of her personal students in the School For Gifted Unicorns. He also later on took training form the royal guard on how to fight, and later had his sword crafted. Eventually Grey made it to a high-level magic class, and this introduced him to a certain lavender-coated unicorn that wasn't really all for making friends. Somehow, though, Grey made a connection with that pony that would have a profound effect on his life later on.

Author's Note

Well, that's chapter I of Grey Scale the Shadow Hunter! Be sure to let me know if I missed any errors or minor details, I might pride myself on my writing but everyone misses stuff! Constructive criticism is also accepted as well. Other than that I hope you've enjoyed it so far, and hopefully chapter II will be coming soon!