Kat ruminated over what she was going to do for breakfast. So many options, so many options...
Settling on a nearby doughnut shop, the filly entered and grabbed a couple of the treats in her magic before disappearing out the store. She then began making her way through the town, ignoring the odd looks while throwing plenty of dirty looks at those who would stare. So she was different? So she had herself covered in magi-marks? Her magi-marks meant a lot to her, a way to never forget her mistakes or her triumphs. If they didn't like them, then fuck 'em!
Tracing one distinct line on her side, the filly followed it down to where it covered her cutie mark. Her cutie mark itself was simple. Nothing one would find special. Quite simply, her cutie mark was a blood drop surrounded by magic. Best she could reason was that magic was just in her blood, as she'd had it since she could remember.
Under her midnight blue and crimson red magi-marks was a pale 'old parchment' hued coat. Thin trace outlines of older magi-marks as well as darkened eye-liner brought out her moonlight gold eyes, and her black mane was shaved at the sides into a wide set mohawk-esque style that she had pulled back into a short spiky ponytail. Her ears both had multiple piercings, as well as a piercing in her left eyebrow. Finally her tail was braided in a tribal like pattern.
As she enjoyed the doughnuts, she reached out and touched the mind of her closest acquittance, Jack. Jack came loping out of an alley and quickly perched on her shoulders.
"What's up Jack? Chewed up any mice or rats in my alley?"
The cat purred and darted forward, biting a piece of doughnut before Kat could do anything. The filly didn't care too much though. Jack was her wing-cat, a black sphynx that seemed to understand her better than anypony else. They weren't 'friends', or at least Kat didn't think so, but they had a mutual understanding of each other since leaving Manehatten. Jack maintained his perch until Kat shook him off outside her new school. The cat protested loudly.
"I know, fucking hate establishment like this....still, I have to appear normal or they'll find me, or at least appear normal until I have the bits to leave again." Kat grumbled to the cat. Jack just darted off in search of a bird and left Kat to walk into the school with no clear distinction on when she'd show back up.
<^>
Twilight was on her way out from Sugarcube Corner, leaving Rainbow to try to console Pinkie. From the best they'd understood from the pink mare's broken explanation, somepony came in for something, and when Pinkie tried to say hi they threw her against a wall and screamed at her. Now Pinkie was locked away upstairs, her hairs straight and lifeless, leaving Twilight to try and figure out who would hurt her friend.
<^>
Trotting sullenly up to the door, Kat gave it a fierce kick that caused it to slam open. As she looked inside, she noticed the teacher she'd 'talked to' staring at her in shock, as well as many of the students looking at her. Kat quickly glanced about to see who seemed the safest to sit next to.
The first two ponies she saw were a pair of young stallions, one gangly and acne ridden, the other rather portly. After that was a colt sitting towards the front with a bandanna on that didn't look like too much of a threat. Following her sweep, Kat noted three more ponies, all fillies, of which only one, a white mare with a cotton candy mane, was actually paying attention to her. The other two, a yellow furred earth pony and orange coated filly, had their back to her. Then the final pair...
"Oh....my....Celestia....what the hay is wrong with your body?! Ugh, that is so disgusting, you're all covered in those marks!" snarked the silver furred filly. Her pink friend was quick to join in.
"I agree, my daddy says only two bit whores get marks like those."
Kat just narrowed her eyes and teleported, much to everypony's amazement, into the desk furthest from both the door and everypony else. For her it just meant she didn't have to walk past the stuck up sluts that she already wanted to hit....really, really hard. Appearing next to her chosen desk, she kicked the chair into a corner and seated herself, eyeing the other colts and fillies staring at her.
Cheerilee quickly called the students to attention and took five minutes to finish her lesson before sending them off for lunch. Kate took the longest to get to the door, and Cheerilee hesitantly drew her attention.
"Um...K...Kat, I just wanted to say....you were late today..."
"And..." growled Kat, "I made it perfectly clear. I'm not here for an education or to be nice and follow the rules. I'm here because going to school seems like a good way to hide. I will pass and I will be counted present everyday. I hope I'm understood fully, because I won't be putting up with your shit, and if you give me away, I will kill you."
Twin bursts of magic had sparked across Kat's fur when she'd said 'will', and it was enough to have Cheerilee nodding quickly.
"Good to see you understand. I don't hate you by the way, but I can't have you getting in my way."
<^>
The gryphon stood firm as he went over the map before him. He had jet black feathers covering all but the right side of his face, which was a patch of burned skin. His shrewd red eyes scanned over the map repeatedly, moving from marking to marking as he attempted to piece together a proper trail.
"I'm going to find you Subject Seven, and vhen I do, I'm going to beat the insolence out of your hide before I drag you back to vhere you belong."
Just then a second gryphon came in with a stallion.
"Sir, this stallion says he has information!"
The stallion stammered a few time before stating that a pony matching Subject Seven's heading out from Manehatten by train.
Grinning evilly, the jet black gryphon faced the stallion.
"I take it you vish to receive your revard?"
When the stallion nodded, the gryphon grabbed him by the neck and drove a knife through the pony's eye and into his skull.
"No vitnesses, now find me Subject Seven!"
<^>
Kat laid idly up the tree she'd decided to take a nap in. Sadly sleep didn't come easy for her, it hadn't in a long time. Grunting in frustration built up from exhaustion she turned over and slugged the tree. As she stared down from her perch, slowly slipping into sleep, she noticed a red ball...
...floated in the bag above her. It had a tube that led to her leg, and it hurt, but the bigger ponies wouldn't let her up or make it stop. They said it was their greatest accomplishment so far, and that she just had to make sure she didn't mess it up. Her leg hurt so bad where the tube went in, and she jerked a leg free to pull it out...
Jerking back awake, Kat rubbed at a small scar on her foreleg. Giving a slight shudder Kat rolled over to face away from the foals with the beach ball and began closing her eyes. The last thing she saw was a small colt standing over another...
...as she watched blood pool out underneath the prone foals form. She felt her lunch come up, and she quickly spewed it across the ground.
"Still you show weakness Subject Seven? You will fight until you are no longer weak! Send in another!"
Shooting to a sitting position, Kat rubbed a hoof across her eyes and saw it came away damp. Angry at this, the mare's temperature shot up until steam rose from where her tears should have fallen. Leaping from the tree, Kat delivered a massive roundhouse to its base, shattering bark everywhere.
"Whoa little filly. You should totally cool your jets."
Spinning about, Kat found her faced with what appeared to be a mare, but upon closer inspection was a rather feminine stallion.
"Seriously, no reason to get angry, I'm sure whatever that tree did, it didn't mean to."
Rolling her eyes, and praying that the stallion was making a joke, Kat spat back her answer.
"Tree didn't do anything...I'm just mad and it was here for me to kick."
The stallion, pink with yellow tips to his ears and hoove-tips with a flowing seafoam mane, just shrugged.
"Sometimes you just have to let it out, I get it dude. Hey, you ever need to like, talk about your problems or something, you should definitely come give me a holler, 'kay dude?"
"...and how did it make you feel?"
"Awful!"
*Crack*
"NO! HOW DID IT MAKE YOU FEEL?!"
"Good, it made me feel good!"
"WHAT MADE YOU FEEL GOOD?!"
"Please...no..."
*Crack*
"Killing the foals! Killing the foals made me feel good! Please! No more, please!"
"Dude, you okay? You totally, like, zoned out and stuff. You look tired dude, probably need to go hit up the sack, you know?" droned the stallion, "So catch ya on the flipside, and remember, you can totally talk to me dude, name's Surfboard."
Rolling her eyes, but taking the stallion's name to heart, Kat started off towards her alleyway to bed down for the night.
<^>
Dinky struggled against the silver furred hoof that held her face in the mud while Diamond Tiara went through her bag. She probably shouldn't have, because all her struggling earned her was a nasty kick to the belly, causing tears to well up and start sliding down her cheeks.
"Oh look, the retard's daughter is crying." laughed Diamond as she found her prize, Dinky's treasured art pad. Truthfully, Diamong thought that the art made by Dinky was amazing, but then again it was Dinky, so who cared?
"Ahhh, how cute, you drew a picture of your retard mom and your orphan sister, how lame."
Dinky was forced to watched as Diamond Tiara threw her pad down in the mud and stomped on it a few times. The filly was so distraught she managed to get loose from Silver Spoon and dart towards her art pad only to have Diamond Tiara slap her harshly across the face.
"You won't tell anypony about this, do you understand?! Because if you do th-"
Diamond's words were cut off as she was thrown into a nearby fence, cracking a few boards loudly as her body connected. Dinky stared in awe as Silver Spoon made to rush at her friends attacker only to be lifted up and slammed into the mud as well. The both of Dinky's tormentors were lifted up into the air by magic. It was then that Dinky could see her saviour, a strange looking pony covered in odd markings. That wasn't what got her attention the most though. No, what drew her attention was the undeniable look of unfiltered hate and malice that poured from the new pony's eyes as she lashed out, breaking the noses of both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
"You won't tell anypony about me, do you both understand?!"
Diamond and Silver both just whimpered pathetically before the newcomer dropped them into the mud.
Then she turned to Dinky.
<^>
Sparkler had just gotten home and sat down from her day working with her boss Pop Float when a knock came from the door. Since her mum, Derpy, was making lunch she got up and trotted through the house to the front door.
"Who is it?"
"It's me sis..." came back the muffled reply. Sparkler immediately knew the tone in her sisters voice and threw the door open to find her sister sporting a nasty bruise on her cheek and covered in mud.
"Dinky! Was this Diamond Tiara?! I swear when I get my hooves on her..." Sparkler growled before moving to usher her younger sister in. It was then she noticed a second pony, a filly about her age, standing a bit back from the door.
"Dinky, who's this?"
Dinky's eyes suddenly brightened up.
"Oh, this is Kat! She came by and made Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon go away, and when I said I could take my art pad to Twilight and have her fix it, she said she was free tomorrow and would do it for me!"
Sparkler just nodded as she took in the very 'bad news' looking filly before her.
"Head inside and get a bath before dinner Dinky, I think I want to talk to this filly."
As Sparkler turned to face the strange pony again, she found the filly trying to leave.
"Hey, come back here!"
Tossing a wearied look over her shoulder, Kat shrugged.
"Why, so you can tell me to keep away from your younger sister? So you can make sure I keep my troubles away from your family?"
Sparkler was taken aback by the frustration in the filly's voice, but realized that she was right, she was going to say that... Why the filly knew she was going to saw that bespoke that such things had happened before. And the thought of having a filly her age turned out on just looks....
"No, I wanted to know if, as thanks for helping my sister, maybe if you wanted to come in for dinner?"
Kat's eyes lit up for a moment, but she shook her head.
"I'm fine, not hung-*Grraghh*"
The magi-marked filly froze as her stomach betrayed her and Sparkler tried not to laugh.
"Come on in, I'm Sparkler." smiled Sparkler as she held the door open.
"Kat..."
<^>
Celestia sat idly with her sister enjoying lunch when her top informant entered the room. The green pegasi stallion came to a halt before the sisters and gave a nod of his blue maned head.
"I have tracked the one you have wished for me to find. She is in Ponyville as we speak."
Celestia nodded affirmation.
"Gather my sister's night guard elite and await my arrival in the courtyard. Sister, come, we must speak."
<^>
Dinner was just wrapping up a Kat found herself both very full and very uncomfortable. She had both had an amazing meal, but was also lavished with praise and thanks from Dinky and Sparkler's mother, Derpy. As the table was cleared Kat excused herself and left the house.
She found herself walking past the spot where she had dropped the two fillies from before.
Their imprints still showed in the mud, and there were darker, redder spots that denoted where their noses had bled. As she looked at the ground the words from Dinky and Sparkler's mother rang through her ears.
"Self defense and helping others is nice, but undue misery hurts everypony."
As she looked down at the blood stained ground, she thought back to another time she had struck down somepony that she had thought deserving of what she gave them.
"Bastard! You gave them the drugs that hurt me!" Kat screamed as the building around them burned.
"I'm sorry, but I had no choice! They made me!"
"LIAR!"-
A shudder went down Kat's spine as she remembered the first pony to take her in. He was a soft spoken stallion, nice, but very fearful and shy stallion by the name of Lily Butter.
"I understand what it is like." Lily sighed, "To be alone, some stallions came by eight years ago and took my father. I never found out what happened to him. He said he was going to protect me though...he never came back..."
Kat took the offered picture from Lily Butter and nearly dropped it. There stood the stallion that had made the drugs and medicines...the stallion she'd murdered in her escape...
Spitting angrily Kat stormed off to her alley and went to sleep
<^>
Sparkler watched as the magi-marked filly disappeared into the alleyway, just as she figured she would. Giving a somewhat sorrowful smile Sparkler decided to wake up extra early and plan a 'incidental' meet up tomorrow and take her out for breakfast. After all, Derpy had done something similar for her before adopting her.
'And she's kinda cute, in a roguish rebel way.'
Turning and heading home, Sparkler started making plans for the next day.