And I thought we were normal. How wrong I was.

   My eyes slowly open to embrace the light of the bright black sky and the great purple sun overhead with the clouds slowly drifting by.

I sigh, "This is unusual." as I shift slightly, feeling the soft grass underneath me.

   I sit up to see the vast expanse of oaken forest before me, stretching on without a conceivable end. I'll bite; who refurnished? I think, noticing the lack of pillars, water floors and deadly spirits.

   I stand up and stretch my cramping arms, yawning into the 'fresh' woodland air. I look around for a moment at the forest before turning to see what lies behind me. Behind is just more of the same forest continuing on and on into oblivion.

   To my surprise however, I look down in front of me and nearly vomit at the scene before my eyes. A pale white unicorn, looking to have been quite old due to his balding mane and tail, body lies on the grass with his arms sprawled out as if he had been running. My eyes go down his body, still clad in robes like those of a Buddhist monk, to see the large gashes on his back and, even more dreadful, the lack of legs with flies in a frenzy around the rotting wounds.

"Dear god." I mutter as I back away from the corpse with haste.

"Sorry about that; I didn't have much time to clean up." I hear the voice of a familiar scarlet changeling from above.

"I'd rather know why there's a fucking body here!" I yell back at the scarlet mare above me.

"Ah yes; the grand question. To be frank, the old prick barged in here and tried to kill me. Our birdie friend was and still is asleep; so I took care of him after he managed to give me a good punch." She informs me and drops down from the branches, one of her eyes having a large blue ring around it.

"But how did he get in here in the first place?"

"You're the one who brought him here. Sometimes stealing a pair of glowing clothe has negative affects you know." The mare crosses her arms and I notice the red clothe weaved around both of her hands and going up her arms some distance, barely short of her elbows.

"Those wraps were how he got in?"

"Yes; you see in this world there exists certain entities called spirits, the dead souls of ponies stuck between the fabric of life and death; ghosts if you will. These spirits can only directly be killed by other spirits. At times however, they will latch their souls to an object and become infused with it until a compatible, and living, host comes to be." She begins before pointing at the corpse, "That was one of those few spirits capable of doing so. When bound to the object any magical powers they hold are amplified and then channeled into the object, making it seem as if it were enchanted. You were the first worthy host he came across. Through invading your soul he could kill you from within and seize control; effectively passing as you indefinitely and getting a free shot at another life."

"But how does this not happen more oft-" I try to say but she cuts me off.

"However, very few ponies are capable of being possessed and your favorite princesses tend to keep such things under control. Because of this, possessions of that sort only tend to happen once every thousand years or so. To avoid this though, I killed him myself; causing the object he was bond to, to come under my jurisdiction."

"So why did my changeling features go away?" I ask. In all honesty I had assumed something bad had happened.

"The enchantment he had bound to the fabric included a range of illusions and slight transmutations. With those I made your plating and teeth undetectable to a naked eye. Sadly that twerp didn't have much as far as offensive prowess goes, defensive was o.k., but the strong suits were illusions."

"And the blades, and the revamp in here?"

"That's where the disadvantages came into play. He had the intellect to do two things before death. That being, he broke your blade related instincts or rather, he destroyed the parts of our brain and soul that held your knowledge and instincts regarding small blades. Second, he caused a rupture in the energy frequency we had with your daggers, causing the energy distortion to break them. To make a long story short, you don't know shit about fighting with short blades anymore and you're not going I be able to for quite some time."

"How is that even possible?" I call bullshit on her.

"How is it possible you have a Phoenix and a Changeling living inside of you? How is it possible you had a natural excellence for using small swords? Why did I call it our mind? He didn't have much power, but for a final he destroyed the entire section of our soul and mind bound to daggers, which is why we're now in this part. What you saw before was the area devoted to everything dagger related as far as you using them went; that part is now gone along with any chance of you being effective with them. This is the part devoted to fist fighting. Thankfully it was your second best fighting style so we're not back at square one." She lectures. "The point is that for somepony like that removing a skill set was possible. You're literally missing a small chunk of your brain where that information was."

"How am I still cognitive then?"

"I said a small chunk, literally only a hair bigger than the eye of a needle. I compressed all of it down, thinking something like this might happen."

"But how can I fight without blades?"

"A better question at this point would be 'how can I fight with blades?', but you're going to have to learn some fist fighting from somepony. I don't care if you're using an 'open palm' style or boxing; just find a way to fight with your hands. I really don't want to have to move to shooting, heads-up; you suck at shooting." She laughs.

"Just what exactly are you?"

"I'm just a simple wanderer who happened to start freeloading here, but we're out of time." She says simply and my vision begins to fade to black.

"What the hell?"

"We're already out of time. You got back at 4:20 so morning came relatively fast. Remember; find a tutor." The changeling reminds me as the darkness engulfs my vision.

~\o/~

   I open my eyes slowly and I stare into the darkness for a minute or two before sitting up in bed and illuminating the room on the soft blue light from my horn. Using some energy, I toss a small cardboard box from the corner to the light switch with my magic to turn on the regular lights.

   Taking a deep breathe, I slide out of bed and stretch out my arms with a yawn. I take the now red wraps and set them on the nightstand. I guess the colour change is expectable if she's in control now. I think before going through my morning routines.

~\o/~

   I straighten my vest as I enter the main room; still wearing the wraps which now stretch up to the base of elbows rather than just around my hands, but the shirt covers most of that from view.

   I see Uefi sitting down on the couch with a rather meager looking plate of burnt scrambled eyes in front of him and I sigh. Nice to see his cooking skills have improved. I think before levitating an apple over to myself.

"So what's the plan for today?" I mumble between bites of the juicy fruit.

"Last time I checked, you made the plans, but I think I'm going to just laze around here for today; maybe take a walk in the woods." He tells me and I nod.

'I guess I'm on my own then. I'll be in town if anything comes up." I say, putting my free hand in the ladder, "See ya."

"Yeah; see ya later." I hear the pegasus mumble back and I climb the ladder to the open world.

   Taking care to close the door behind me, I exit the forest on the road into town with the occasional shadow of a bird flying overhead or a rabbit running past, one of which I try to pounce on, but the damn thing got away. Of course what would I have done with it if I had caught it?

   Within the hour, I arrive in town and it becomes immediately apparent that word about the break-in spread quickly. I walk past a local newspaper vendor and grab a copy of the report on my handiwork before tossing the vendor a coin for the payment.

   The article doesn't say anything about what stole, but, according to the information they gave out, they do know that it was a unicorn working with another unknown pony that broke into the mansion and made free with some select items from the mansion before escaping as guards opened fire on him. No description besides race is within the report and I sigh in relief.  I'm glad to see nopony got a good look at me.

   I role up the page with the article and keep it in hand before tossing the rest of the paper away. I'm think I'll hang onto this as a memento of my first heist. Who knows; if I become a big deal this may be worth money in years to come. I keep my wishful thinking to a minimum though.

   As I walk into the plaza, all I can seem to hear is ponies talking about the robbery, some in fear for their own possessions, others condemning the action, condolences to the family on occasion and the majority criticizing the guards for being incompetent. After haggling with a street vendor over a deal on a box of cabbages, I proceed upon my journey to the apple farm to see a large red pony, with large, almost scary, red arms about turning my comparably small, none frightening, arms into usable tools of the trade.

~\o/~

   After finding my way into the newly renovated farmhouse, I slip into the kitchen; being as I've usually been able to find at least one of them there every time prior.

   As I enter the kitchen, I see the red stallion I had been looking for sitting at the table reading over the newspaper with his youngest sister. As if the universe simply wants me to remember and relive what I'd done, they're going over the report of the theft.

"Good morning Mac, Applebloom." I greet them respectively as they finish the article.

"Mornin'." The little filly returns the pleasantry to me and looks up from the paper.

"I wasn't expecting to see you today." Mac says in mild distaste and taps on the paper a few times. "So what do you think of this whole thief business?" You just couldn't make this easy on me; could you Mac?

"It's a shame for the owner, but, from what I've read and heard, not much was stolen." I lie through my teeth and I can see the humor in his eyes.

"And what of this thief? What do you think of him?" He eggs it on.

"I can't really agree with what he did obviously, but I'd like to think there's a good reason for it."

"But why would he take things from ponies?" Applebloom pipes up and Mac nods.

"Yeah; why would somepony take things from other ponies like that?" Shut-up Mac. Please? For me?

"Well I'd like to say that he's just down on his luck and made a bad decision, but it's a bit more likely that it was greed or spite. Sometimes ponies just do bad things." I try to explain to the little one without sounding as if I'm defending myself.

"Uh, I thought you'd say something a bit fancier." The ignorant filly remarks.

"Why is that?"

"'Cause ya' always talk fancy like."

"I wasn't aware that I did so, how uncouth of me to not realize my own mannerisms." I joke with her; trying to sound s but profound.

"See; like that." The yellow furred pony says and Mac stifles a grunt.

"Why don't you run along Applebloom? I don't guess that Mr.Sonata came here just to talk about fancy talking." He tells her, saving me the trouble of trying to dispel the filly's presence.

"I'm hardly worthy of being called a 'mister', but he's right; I need to talk to make alone for a bit." I concur as the youngest of my company leaves the room. "You kind of threw me under the bus there Mac."

"What? You can't expect me to not take advantage of good comedy."

"Whatever, but I needed to ask your advice on something."

"Fine, fine. What do you need?"

"I need somepony to teach me how to fight unarmed."

"I thought you were a blade freak." He stands up to face me.

"Something came up and I can't use them anymore. So now I need somepony who can teach me how to throw a good punch." I glaze over any details.

"Well, I can teach you a thing or two I guess. After all, it's a lot easier to avoid killing with fists than blades." A smirk runs across his face.

"What's the catch?" I ask him, knowing the meaning of that evil smile.

"I want a favor when spring comes around; just leave it at that."

"Why spring?"

"You'll know when it comes around." He taunts me and I sigh in defeat.

"Fine; you teach me fighting and I'll help you in the spring." I deal with the devil-coloured colt and we shake hands.

"I'm looking forward to it."

~\o/~

   I take a detour around the town center, not wanting to hear more of the 'merciless and dishonorable deeds' of the duo of thieves, and after a good hour and a half trip I finally make my way back to my home and drop down the chute to the common area.

"I'm home." I call out upon landing before looking up.

   I see a distraught looking Uefi standing in front of Berry who holds in her hands a suitcase and a piece of paper, which she holds in front of his face and I can see his eyes glide over it.

"Good; you're here. Now I don't have to trust Rosey here to tell you." The mare looks to me and my brow rises subconsciously.

"Tell me what?"

"You two are going to be on your own for a while." She answers simply as I stand up.

"On our own?"

"She's leaving for some sort of griffon nation thing." Uefi breaks his trance to speak.

"I got a contract from one of my more lucrative contacts to take out a few choice individuals in the griffon nation and there's also more than a couple of things that I need to wrap up there. I won't be back much before spring." She elaborates and I can feel my jaw drop as Uefi's did.

"Spring? That's a whole three months! How much are you doing over there?" I ask with irritation seeping through my words. She just plans to run off for three months?

"15 assassinations, four of those I have to frame a few ponies for, two of the four needing to be done in the same night and I need to restock our supply of gems. You can't have an overnight coup d'état in the world anymore."

"A coup d'état?" I mutter, wondering just who this contact is.

"Yeah; the griffons can't seem to go a decade without one. I'm not sure if they just like the chaos or if they just can't get along. I've been expecting it ever since word came of a revolutionary army. Seems they're tired of having a monarchy so now they're going to try and switch to an oligarchy, not that I give a damn; pay is pay." She finishes before tucking the paper into her pocket.

"Well what are we to do while you're gone?"

"I'm going to have Thunderback relay any low tier jobs to you, but other than that; I expect you to be a four ring unicorn when I get back and I expect Flowers to flying a hell of a lot faster."

"So this is what you meant by a hands off way of teaching." Uefi groans as the mare walks past me to the ladder.

"Not exactly, but I'm not a fan of hand holding. I left some bits on the countertop and if you run out then you just have to steal stuff you need."

"You just live life day by day, don't you?" I ask without looking back.

"Long term planning isn't my strong suit. I just take jobs as they come. Now you two get along and I'll be back in a few months." She climbs up the ladder and I hear the door open and close moments later.

"She's terrible at goodbyes." I smirk.

"Just who did you get us involved with again?" My pegasus friend groans.

"A group of criminals and more specifically the most relaxed assassin I could think of." I laugh before sitting down on the couch. "Looks like our lives are going to be pretty relaxed until spring."