//------------------------------//
// II: The Great Dark Mark 
// Story: A Pony's History of the Snow Ponies and Thestrals, and their Role in Equestria Today 
// by Lost_Kitten 
//------------------------------//

Killjoy squealed with delight as he offloaded a bag filled with loot onto his compadre's back. He and six picked ponies had just picked over the Royal Bank of Manehattan, and were escaping to their headquarters. As he banked into the sky, flashing his grotesque sinewy wings for all to see, he saw the few ponies foalish enough to be out this late in this part of town recoiling in horror. He faintly heard screams, which had been sounding off ever since the improvised explosive device they'd planted had rocked downtown Manehattan, but they were largely drowned out by the whooping shrieks of his goons. As he gloried in his moment of triumph though, a mare caught his eye. A simple but elegant one, with blemish and beauty. As all the ponies around him either whooped for joy or screamed in terror, she was silent. She was staring at him.





"For many moons now we have plotted. Though many abandoned us when the Princess returned, the faithful remnant..." Killjoy paused and looked around, acknowledging everypony in the brashly firelit grotto, "remained true. We doubted that Luna's return would see the enfranchisement of our kind, and we were right." The fire illuminated his face even as the smoke from it trailed all around his massive stallion's form, obfuscating it somewhat. He paused again, for the dramatic gravitas of the moment, but found himself thinking again of that mare. Why had she been so puzzled? Surely she could just rationalize it as another Bat Pony criminal, right? No, she hadn't. She had seen the real him. Shaking off these troublesome thoughts, he continued his speech before the thirteen ponies who made up his organization.

"It is, and has always been our call, the call to action. We are ponies not of vain words, but great deeds." He spoke with a fire in him that rivalled the one burning before him. "Until now, our deeds were small, but today we have accrued the capital to expand our operations extensively." He paused again for a cheer to rise from the ranks of his ponies, and it did. "When I was barely a stallion, and I founded this solemn brotherhood with my kin and friends, we were reduced to provocative graffiti, petty theft and arson to get our point across. But we dreamed, and we knew that one day, targeted assassinations, bombings, and like today, bank heists, would be our fare." Another cheer went up, and he paused to allow it. 

"It was that day, brothers, that I received my cutie mark," he flew up into the air, flying circles over the fire, just avoiding scraping his wings on the ceiling of the grotto. He pushed out his flank for all to see his cutie mark, a solar eclipse. "And so it was that day, that this organization was dubbed for it. The Great Dark Mark!" Everypony cheered loudly now, and he flew back down to his seat. 

This speech had been important to rally the newer members, who had observed the heist of the Manehattan Royal Bank but not participated. They were conscripts, really. Fresh, but untested. They were also uneducated about the Mark's history, and that had now been rectified. Killjoy hefted two money bags, one in each front leg, and spilled them out around the fire. Bit coins had originally been made from pure gold, but with the return of Princess Luna, a durable gold-silver alloy had replaced it. The fire was bright and hot, but not enough to melt the newly minted treasure. He dumped two more bags in this way, and then, over the course of nearly a minute, twenty more. Nearly the entire floor of the grotto was covered. He addressed the assembled Thestrals and Snow Ponies again. 

"Take of this share whatever be your need. We are professionals now. There is no need for side jobs unless they help our mission directly." The only mare in the cave, a Thestral single mother of three cheered loudest of all. Her cutie mark was a paintbrush covered in red paint, symbolizing her talent for using art to make bold statements. She had been working odd jobs as best she could, because in a town like Manehattan, only inoffensive art pays. She had been his most active participant by some measures and was jumping for joy at no longer needing to work herself to the bone to support her foals. Her name was Lilac. A Snow Pony stallion in the corner, who was the only one of his tribe in the Great Dark Mark, was called Victory. He was the strongest of the group, save perhaps Killjoy himself. His mark was a net full of fish. Fishing had been his occupation until recently, when cheaper workers had been brought to the docks from the countryside, following recent agricultural advances that saved labor. Victory had made it for some time as a dockworker, but it hadn't been the life for him, and he'd been subsisting on saved money for months now. 

Killjoy thought of his brothers, his blood brothers, that was, as his comrades tossed about heaps of coins and showered each other in them. How Ecstasy and Gutfire would have loved to be here for him. Too bad they were instead serving lengthy, but pleasant sentences in the Equestrian criminal reform program. Killjoy would visit them, and update them on the situation on the ground as often as he could. They in turn, would update him on their efforts to establish a chapter of the Great Dark Mark in the prison system. 

He spared one more thought before joining in on the whooping chorus that echoed out in the cavern. He spared a thought for that mysterious mare. Why had she been focusing so intently on him? Her eyes had been filled with so much. With curiosity, but not a morbid curiosity, with desire, which was something that frankly made Killjoy uncomfortable, and with, most confoundingly, understanding.