Chapter 1
“You’re leaving?”
Twilight sparkle stands in front of the royal throne of her long time mentor and ruler of equestrian Princess Celestia. The purple unicorn was summoned to the castle to discuss a matter of extreme importance; little did she know just how dire the news was going to be. A look of worry and absolute concern dawns on her face as she looks to her mentor for answers “but princess, why? You’ve never left equestria before”.
“Actually twilight, I have” Celestia calmly regards her faithful student with a gentle look “over 100 years ago, given your studies; you should remember the reason why”.
Twilight pauses for a moment and thinks to herself, it then dawns on her causing her to blush with embarrassment “oh, right…the treaty that united the Dragons, the griffons and the ponies together in peace. You had to travel to their separate territories to meet up with their leaders, how could I have forgotten that?”
“Please don’t be too hard on yourself” Celestia says giving her a comforting smile “you have accomplished much in your short time in ponyville, a little lapse in memory will not make me any less proud of you”. She looks off out the window at the setting sun and her smile fades a little “the peace between our kingdoms has relied on not only the peace treaty but also the visits that come with it. It is a show of how much we truly care about the equality and unity of our worlds”.
“But how long will you be gone for” Twilight says.
Celestia was a bit hesitant at this point even though she hides it well; she knew how anal twilight can be. The news of her princess leaving was perplexing enough, wait until she heard for how long “Twilight, I will be gone for 6 months”.
Twilight stands there, frozen with shock “I’m sorry, uh…I thought you said 6 months”.
“Yes twilight, I did” Celestia observes her reaction and becomes worried “are you alright?”
“Oh yeah sure” Twilight says “just contemplating how it would feel to be plunged into 6 months of darkness without our beloved ruler to raise the sun for us, that’s all”.
Celestia gets up and walks over to twilight deciding to calm her pupil down before the poor thing faints “Equestria will be fine, I…will have a replacement take over my duties while I am gone”.
“Replacement?” Twilight says “you mean there’s another pony out there with your powers. But how is that possible?”
Celestia walks towards the door leading out of the throne room with twilight trotting beside her “it is a centuries old story that I’m afraid I have no time to explain to you right now. Just know this my faithful student; I will need your help to prepare him for the responsibilities at hand. He will need a partner, an advisor, a mentor if you will and with your help equestria will thrive”.
“He?” Twilight says “so I take it this mystery pony is a stallion, who is he?”
Celestia stops walking and a bright smile grazes her delicate features, she turns her head allowing her multicolored mane to flow around her seeming to mirror her delight in remembering her a special somepony from long ago “this mystery stallion…….” She looks directly at twilight “is my godson”.
Meanwhile in Manehattan
A chubby gray stallion rushes through a crowd of ponies; he was looking for somepony, his star client. The Goliath Garden Arena was the cities top venue for the USF, Ultimate Stallions Fight, this was the event of the season, a no holds bar blood bath where anything goes. The rules were simple; there were none, three rounds, three different opponents, one winner of the 20,000 bit prize. The gray stallion was the proud agent of a champion, at first everyone laughed at him, mistaking his size as a weakness. But after he wiped the floor with about 10 opponents at least twice his size, they were rolling in dough ever since. Now the gray stallion couldn’t find hide or mane of his client, especially not through an entire stadium of ponies waiting to see a good show. He makes his way to the back area of the stadium where the dressing rooms are and gallops fully down the hall “FLARE, HEY YO FLARE, you’re on”. He bursts into “Flares” dressing room and stands there stunned at what he discovers “what the hay are you doing?”
An orange unicorn stallion sits at his dressing room table folding a piece of paper with his hooves. His cutie mark was a small version of the sun with a fireball shooting out of it. His mane and tail was supposed to resemble that of a bonfire with its different shades and hues of red, orange and yellow. But due to the messed up dye job he did to himself, it came out looking like a dark red mane with a blonde streak in the middle of it. That would be the first and last time he would ever try to dye his own mane and tail. Right now however, his main concern was entertaining one of his biggest fans, a small brown filly with a curly black mane named jubilee. He concentrates on folding the paper into something cute and interesting for her, while doing this he speaks to her in a soft tenor tone “my mom taught me this a long time ago when I was your age, and my godmother taught me the history behind this ancient Japanays art”.
“Art?” Jubilee said, she sat on her haunches right next to him in mild fascination; she originally came for an autograph but was surprised when he actually spent a little time with her. The whole experience made her feel special “what are you making?”
“It’s a surprise” The orange stallion smiles at her “This is the art of Origami, ori meaning folding and gami meaning paper. It started back in the 17th century but became truly popular in Japanay in the mid 1900’s”.
His agent rolls his eyes at the scene “kid, we don’t have time for this”.
The orange stallion finishes folding his paper “there’s always time to make a child smile, Scam”, he nudges his creation towards the little filly “check it out, I made a crane”.
“WOW” Jubilee says excitedly picking up the crane with her hoof “thanks Solar Flare, sir”.
“Call me Sunspot” The orange stallion said “Solar Flare’s my stage name”.
Scam grimaced “well damn flare, why don’t you tell her what you had for breakfast this morning? Since you’re getting so bucking personal”.
Sunspot frowns at him “take it down a notch scam, there’s a kid present”, he looks past Scam at the door and notices an older brown mare walking into the room.
Jubilee smiles and trots over to her mother “mommy look, it’s a crane, he made me a crane”.
The mother smiles down at her “oh that’s so pretty, and look he autographed the wing”, she looks gratefully at Sunspot “thank you so much, Mr. Flare”.
“His real name is Sunspot” Jubilee says cheerfully “isn’t that cute?”
“OK” Scam interrupts and begins to escort them both out of the room “how about we not let that bit of news leave this room, aye little one? We do have an image to uphold”.
Jubilee ducks between scams two front hooves and looks over at Sunspot “hey Sunspot, are you going to win tonight?”
“Well, I’ll certainly try” Sunspot smiles at her “with you rooting for me, how can I lose?”
Scam sighed and pushes the two out the door gently “ok fillies the champ needs to warm up, thanks for stopping by, later”. He closes the door and walks over to his client “hey look, I know you like to connect with the fans, but how about connecting a little less with the kids; ponies might think you’re weird”.
“How is liking little kids weird” Sunspot says, he puts on a bright red mask with orange flames drawn around the cheek areas on it.
“You’re a grown stallion who likes young fillies and colts” Scam said “not every pony will think that’s normal”.
Sunspot trots up to him with his mask on and a red vest “I don’t see where you’re going with this”.
“Never mind” Scam says escorting him out the door, he will have to explain the ramifications of having ponies think his client is a pedophile a little later. Right now they have a match to fight “alright you have one last opponent tonight, they call him the Kraken”.
“The Kraken?” Sunspot says following Scam out to another area where they are able to view the entire arena from a balcony booth. He catches his first glimpse of his opponent in question, the stallion was huge, at least a good foot taller then the average stallion. His fur is light green and his dark green mane whips around his face as he roars at the crowd. His dark green tail also whips around and coils all over the place like a group of frenzied snakes and his he has the cutie mark of a broken leg bone on his flank. Sunspots eyes widen as he looks at the enraged creature “oh…..the Kraken, well……uh, he looks like a bowl of fun”, he says sarcastically. A black mare with a wine bottle for a cutie mark pushes a tray on wheels up to where scam is and presents the drinks on top of it. Without paying attention to her scam picks a drink from the tray and downs it.
The mare then smiles and pushes the tray toward sunspot “would you like a drink sir?”
Sunspot quirks an eyebrow at her, wondering why she would ask him if he wanted anything to drink and not ask Scam that same question “um…no thank you I’m good”.
“As you wish” the mare smirks at him before leaving with the tray, Sunspot watches her curious as she leaves, he didn’t know why he was being so aware of her, he just was.
“You need to be fast and bloodthirsty” Scam says observing the Kraken and drawing sunspot’s attention back to him “he’s a killing machine on four legs, so you need to be an absolute maniac”.
Sunspot rolls his eyes “oh please, look at him Scam; he’s putting on an act for the crowd. Nopony’s that homicidal, I’ll use a submission move on him. He’ll tap out, I’ll win and we both get to go home early and relax for the rest of the night”. He is about to move away from his viewing spot when he notices something, the Kraken seems to have found a victim to occupy his time before the match. An unfortunate referee was cornered close to the edge of the ring by the larger green stallion. His tail wraps itself around the referee’s body and lifts him off the floor. Sunspot tenses a bit “what the hay is he doing?” To his horror as well as the shock of every other pony in the audience, he slams the other pony into the ground and bends his head down. He then bites off the poor colts ear and spits it at the crowd, he ignores the screams of pain coming from the other colt and dips his hoof in the blood pooling a little on the floor. He then streaks the blood across his cheeks laughing like a maniac.
Scam cringes “yikes, I hear this guy’s on steroids, totally bucked with his brain, then again that doesn’t say much for some stallion whose special talent is breaking bones….” He looks over to the side and notices Sunspot is missing “uh..oh”, he sees that the other stallion has leapt off of the balcony and was heading for the Kraken’s head.
“HEY ASSHOLE” Sunspot shouts as he lands on the Krakens head forcing him to dip down a bit “GET THE BUCK OFF OF HIM YOU BULLY”. He bites the back of the Krakens head jerks it towards the ground putting his whole weight into the motion. The Kraken lets go of the referee who takes that moment to scurry out of the ring. The Kraken jerks his head back and forth throwing Sunspot off of him and turns around to face the smaller colt properly, he roars his frustrations out at sunspot and the two size each other up. Sunspot’s mane and tail light on fire as a mixture of anger and adrenaline overtake his senses completely. His horn glows and a large fire ball shoots out rushing straight at the Kraken, the other stallion deflects it with his tail. In that split moment Sunspot leaps forward hitting him in the neck with his front hooves, he knocks him down and the orange colt slams his head against the arena floor. The kraken wraps his tail around the other colt to try to pull him off; Sunspot latches onto his ear with his teeth. He refuses to let go clenching his teeth around the green stallion’s ear, he then uses his right front hoof to repeatedly punch the beast in the face. The Kraken gets up on his four hooves and tries to shake the smaller colt off but is repeatedly bombarded by the unrelenting assault on his face.
Scam watches from the balcony cheering him on “YOU GOT HIM KID, YOU GOT HIM, HIT HIM WITH YOUR LEFT, YOUR LEFT”.
“Excuse me”
Scam looks behind him and sees a blue unicorn stallion with a white mane and tail staring back at him. He notices that the colt is clad in gold armor and grins at him “renaissance fair ain’t for a week pal”. He sees sunspot rip the Krakens ear right out of the side of his head. The green stallion roars out in pain and his tail unravels from around the orange stallion’s body. Sunspot jumps up and hooks his back legs around the stallion’s neck and he bends backwards flipping the stallion over him and slamming him onto the floor on his head. Scam gets excited again “great strategy, aim for the throat and the head, cut off his air supply and FINISH HIM”.
“Excuse me?” the serious blue stallion stares at him impassively “I’m looking for…”
Scam frowns back at him “don’t give a shit, piss off”.
The blue stallion gets serious “I am princess celestia’s royal messenger…..”
“Sure you are kid” Scam says with his eyes still glued to the match below them “and I’m Luna’s royal ass cleaner, BUCK OFF KID, go cosplay somewhere else”.
The messenger gets agitated and grabs scam by the neck pressing him against the wall “AS I WAS SAYING, I’m princess Celestia’s royal messenger, and I seek out the one called Sunspot”.
“Oh….oh…why didn’t you just say so” Scam stutters nervously, the messenger lets him go and he falls lightly back on his hooves on the ground. Scam rubs his neck a little and stares at him warily “geez, you royals are no joke huh? He’s right down there”. At this moment sunspot has now grabbed the kraken by the neck with his teeth and flips him over slamming him onto the ground again. He then wraps a hoof around his neck and presses down on his windpipe trying to force the larger stallion to submit.
The messenger looks on at the scene with a mixture of shock and confusion; it was the oddest thing he had ever seen “that stallion is at least 5 times his size, where is all of his strength coming from?”
“He’s a freak of nature” Scam says proudly “from the depths of the inner hottest core of the sun itself, a violent vicious killing machine; he……is…SOLAR FLARE”. He turns to the messenger “so how much can I put the princess down for?”
The messenger gawks at him “what?”
“The bets” Scam says getting annoyed “we ain’t doing shit for free around here, not even for royalty. If she wants to place a bet the lowest we go is 30,000 bits, my clients a guarantee win. All we ask is for 30% of all the winnings”.
The messenger instantly has him by the neck again and lifts him up off the floor “her royal majesty does not under any circumstances partake in such a lewd activity as gambling. You will not disrespect her name in such a way, IS THAT CLEAR?”
“C…crystal” Scam chokes out once again and once again the messenger lets him go allowing him to fall back to his hooves.
Sunspot adds more pressure to the green stallion’s neck “you give up, or am I going to have to snap your neck in two”. He notices that his opponent seems to have gone limp; his back legs twitch and kick weakly as the lack of oxygen gets to him. Sunspot lets go of his neck and trots quickly to the other side of the ring, he then climbs up on the ropes and greets the crowd while standing straight up on his hind legs. He raises a hoof in the air and the crowd goes ballistic, he then flips backwards. In mid air, he directs all four of his hooves at a certain spot on the Kraken’s abdomen, he lands right on top of his diaphragm. This turns out to be the end of the match because the Kraken stops moving all together. The referee slowly gets back in the ring dawning a newly bandaged ear, he goes over to the kraken and checks his pulse. Sunspot climbs off of him and waits for the ref’s verdict, the older colt looks over at him and grins while nodded his head, the kraken was still alive but unconscious.
The ref grabs his hoof and raises it “FILLIES AND GENTLECOLTS PRESENTING THIS YEARS USF CHAMPION, SOOOOOLLLLAAAARRR, FLARRRRRRRREEEEE”, the crowd cheers and goes wild.
The messenger’s shock expression doesn’t go away “this can’t be the princess’s god son”.
Scam quirks an eyebrow “what now?”
“It’s classified” The messenger says “The message must be delivered directly to Sunspot, as soon as possible”.
“Yeah, yeah” Scam says “keep your iron panties on, I’ll lead you right to him”, he moves on ahead of the other colt and the two make their way to the lower level.
Sunspot takes off his mask and his mane and tail return to normal, he gallops up to Scam grinning like a foal who just found some candy “Scam, I won, we got ourselves 20,000 bits, we…..we…..” He notices the messenger and freezes “uh….who is this?”
“Yeah he got some kind of message for you” Scam says defeated
The messenger observes the orange stallion closely, he finds himself more baffled then before. This guy was shorter then the average stallion and the same height as the average mare if not a foot taller. How could this little guy defeat a full grown, muscular stallion. His eyes connect with sunspots brown ones, who looked up at him unsure and a bit worried “I…uh… have a message for you from Princess Celestia”.
Sunspots ears turn downward, he looked a little bit like a sad puppy dog, as he feared the worst from the messenger “is everything alright? Is….is she alright?”
The messenger moved back a bit surprised, that expression was unexpected given what he had seen from the guy no more then a few minutes ago “um….uh..No...I mean yes”. He blushes wondering what was coming over him “her majesty is fine, she wishes to see you regarding a very important matter”.
Scam steps in to interfere with the conversation “well shit, you didn’t tell me you knew royalty”.
“Well, technically we’re not related” Sunspot says “it’s a long story, but right now I have to go”.
“Go?” Scam says getting worried “wait just a minute kid, you just won the USF championship, you know how much publicity and shit we could rake up. Photo shoots, personal appearances, the gorgeous mares at those playcolt parties, you know how I love the bitches sunny”.
“Yeah, I’m sorry Scam” Sunspot says sincerely “I don’t mean to interfere with your love of the bitches; I know how important that is to you. But the princess wouldn’t have called me unless it was something truly important. I have to go, look we’ll split the bits now and you can just tell everypony that I’m going on vacation until further notice”. He walks away with the messenger but turns around and smiles one last time at Scam “oh, and tell the bitches I’ll be back too, ok?” he trots up to the messenger to keep in step with him “I’ve been saying the word bitches a lot lately, I’m starting to have fun with it”.
The messenger gives him a serious look “never utter that word in my presence again”.
“Like I said” Sunspot says nervously “ugly word, never say it so much as even dream of thinking of saying it. Totally will never ever say it again”, he chuckles nervously hoping that sudden turn around would at least make him smile. It didn’t.
Scam scowls at their retreating figures and sighs “Now what?”, suddenly the black mare from before passes by his way and flashes a smile at him. He notices her flank and smiles back “hey there gorgeous, how about I become your cutie mark for tonight? Plastered to that sexy flank” The dark mare wordlessly picks up the pace and trots away with scam following behind her “you can run sexy, but you can’t hide”.