Canterlot Knights

       The night was late and almost finished, but it wasn't cold. Canterlot nights were never cold. They were always just right. No pony ever noticed though, especially not the pony running from half the royal guard that night. Three months. For three months whispers have been circulating around the less posh districts of the city. A pony, faster and stronger than anypony should be, beating down other ponies left and right. The most amazing thing was that no pony has even seen his face or even knows his name. They said he springs from the shadows and dissipates like fog just as quickly. 'Until now,' thought the young guard captain, 'now we've got the bastard.'

Shining Armor was specifically told by Princess Celestia, "Vigilantism shall not be tolerated, especially not in Canterlot." Shining thought the situation couldn't have been serious enough to warrant his transfer from the Crystal Empire back to Canterlot. Shining didn't realize how difficult it was going to be to catch him. He had dozens of undercover guards combing the streets for information. After a while Armor thought they were never going to find him, that it was pointless to waste so much time and effort searching for one pony. Every time they got close he just barely slipped away. One guard even lodged a spear into his back and it didn't slow him down. This time Shining was more determined to succeed than ever before.

Two guards spotted him fleeing the scene of a mugging and soon after about seven were trying to chase him down into a trap. They were going to box him in a try to take him alive. Each night they waited in the districts where he was most commonly spotted and they would wait for an opportunity. Some of the guards fired bolts of magic to steer him in the right direction as Shining Armor waited with a few dozen other guards. They saw him turn the corner and Armor shouted "Freeze!" Almost without hesitation the pony ran into the closest alley. Armor and the others gave chase. The alley looked like a dead end. Suddenly, the pony leaped onto the right wall, then pushed off to even higher on the left wall, and again and again, then back flipped onto the roof of the right building.

Armor and the other unicorns teleported up, and the pegasi also closed in. As soon as he got up there, Armor saw the pony taking down his guards. It looked liked mostly quick hooves to their throats, but also under the legs and on the lower backs. Anywhere the armor didn't cover. He was so fast, ducking the magic, dodging charging pegasi, and hitting them each in just the right spot, but sometimes that wasn't enough. They were the Royal Guards after all, and when they saw an opening they took it. After he struck a guard across the face another came up and hit him hard in the back. The pony staggered, but he quickly recovered. They were all down by the time Shining Armor began to charge. The pony then got on his fore legs and bucked Armor right in the chest, sending him flying to the edge of the roof.

Saying Armor got the wind knocked out of him was an understatement. He couldn't form a breath for a good few seconds. He leaned up and saw the pony simply walk off the other side of the roof. Shining Armor ran to the edge and looked down, seeing only a couple dumbfounded guards in the alley below. He sat down and breathed deeply. Another guard walked over to him. "Is he gone?" the guard asked.

"Yes," Armor replied. He looked at the moon, which was setting, and the sun's light starting to rise over the eastern horizon. "The Princess is not going to be happy about this."

*    *    *    *    *

The night was late as Splitting Saber ran across the rooftops of Canterlot. He thought it was funny how for almost three months he had hardly been using the roads or sidewalks to get around anymore. He stopped on the edge of a building to catch his breath. 'Okay,' he thought, 'ten blocks before having to catch my breath. That's a new record, for me at least, but will it be enough?' He sat down on the edge, his back hooves dangling off the side of the building.

He thought back to why he was doing all this, and how he was even able to do all this. He thought about his family, his mom and dad, and his little sister. Splitting Saber was a part of one of the single richest families in Canterlot. His family had roots stretching all the way back to before the three races even settled in Equestria. It was believed that his family had the purest line of unicorns in all the land. Well, it was believed until Saber was born an earth pony. His mother swore that she had remained faithful to the family, so no pony knew where the gene pool became muddled.

This cast Saber as the black sheep from the get go. He seemed out of place in the family, and in the upper class as a whole, so he tried to overcompensate. He went to parties and on vacations all the time, he bought droves of things he had no real use for, he went to the fancy boarding schools, blew through dozens of relationships with mares (and even the occasional stallion, but those were just experiments to prove something, but he wasn't ever sure of what), and above all be a prick to those who weren't as well off as him, which was basically everypony. Everypony but his sister. Still, he tried so hard to fit every description of the Canterlot pony stereotype.

It was all an attempt to be the pony he thought his parents wanted him to be. In reality they just saw him as a slip up. They were overjoyed when his little sister came out a unicorn. With Saber, they just ignored him mostly. Even his name was a joke. When she was pregnant with him his mother would say that his "horn" made it feel like he was trying to cut his way out with a sword. After he was born they couldn't tell what caused all the pain, but they called him Splitting Saber anyway. That was confusing for him, and he didn't even get his cutie mark until...

Saber fell back as a nearby scream took him away from his thoughts. He sprinted across rooftops until he was looking down at a young mare being mugged. She was being held against an alley wall by a fairly large stallion who, Saber noted, was very ugly. 'Oh good. I thought I wasn't going to get any practice tonight. Although, he doesn't look like he'll be much of a challenge.'

Saber remembered how the Royal Guard had recently started staging crimes like this in an attempt to catch him. He wasn't going to fall for that a third time. The two times he did fall for it were very important learning experiences. First of all he learned that he was fast enough that they still hadn't figured out who he was. Second, he can recover from a spear to the back. It didn't matter now though, as he could tell this wasn't staged.

The stallion looks awful, and the mare isn't very dressed up and fancy while walking around in the middle of the night. Saber waits and watches. If he just steals her money it's not really a concern of his, as he has more important things to be doing. Okay, he didn't. He just wanted a better reason to take down the pony than him stealing a couple bits. If it goes further, he can use the situation as practice for later on. The stallion took the money, then a sickly grin began to spread across his face. 'It's going further,' Saber thought.

Saber jumped down to the alley and dashed towards the stallion. The pony could only react by swinging his foreleg in defense, and Saber was knocked back. However, that hit barely registered. Of all the things he struggled to teach himself over the course of a few months, taking a punch came the most naturally to him. Saber slammed the pony against the wall and quickly snapped his neck. The stallion died, and Saber noticed that the mare had already fled the scene screaming. 'So, I think I've got the quick take-downs mastered.'

"Freeze!" yelled the two Royal Guards standing at the end of the alley. Oh shit. Saber ran through the alley with the guards on his tail. I just had to live in Canterlot, where instead of normal police ponies, we have Royal Guards everywhere. He dashed out into the surprisingly empty street as now about seven guards chased him. The unicorns blasted their magic at him, but missed each time. Saber wasn't even dodging them, which meant they were missing on purpose.

Saber turned a corner and saw dozens of guards waiting for him with their captain shouting at him to freeze. Without even thinking Saber just kept on running and headed into the nearest alley. He ran to what seemed like a dead end. He had to move, and fast, as the guards would be on him in seconds. He jumped on the wall of the right building, then he pushed off it with his back legs. He pushed off the left building, then the right, and again and again until he could push off the left wall enough to backflip onto the right building's rooftop.

At that point pegasi and unicorn guards surrounded him, but the roof was a much more open space than the alley. Here he could fight them off for as long as he needed. He didn't want to kill any of them because they were the good guys. He didn't mind injuring them because they were trying to take him down and frankly, being assholes about it. A pony just doesn't forget a spear to the back. Granted, he was committing murder technically, but they were just criminals. You'd think the Royal Guard would give him a medal or something.

Saber had read books on different fighting styles and techniques and, in an attempt to create the perfect fighting style, just sort of mashed them all together. Anypony who had time to really watch him fight could tell how incredibly sloppy Saber was, but his strength and speed made up for that. After that night three months ag, he also noticed that his reflexes were heightened too. More reading, this time of pony anatomy books that told all about weak points in the body, and Saber was quite the force to be reckoned with. Fortunately for him he had so far only fought ponies who simply couldn't take his onslaught.

A few hits to their throats, stomachs, leg joints, and old fashioned hooves to the face and most of the guards were down. Saber hit a guard in the face and another almost immediately got him in the back. Even with his strength and speed Saber had significantly less training than the guards, and the only way he could remain uncaptured by them is to strike fast and get out as soon as possible. The young captain ran straight at Saber, and he simply bucked him to the other side of the roof. Once all the guards around him were on the floor, Saber decided it was time to go before more showed up. He walked off the roof and kicked against the wall on his way down. He landed in adjacent alley and didn't stop going.

Saber ran and ran. He went to rooftops, to the street level, back to rooftops, all the way to the other side of the city. He only stopped when he was certain the guards weren't following.'Wow,' he thought, breathing heavily, 'I beat my record.' He collapsed onto his flank, extremely tired. 'I'm getting pretty tired of ponies thinking I'm some sort of "vigilante". Would they think it funny that it's not what I really care about.' His breathing slowed as he began to get his strength back. 'Yeah, I think I'm ready'.

Splitting Saber watched the sun rise over the horizon, and he thought back to what just happened with the guards. "Well," he said aloud, "the princess is not going to be happy about that."