Of Capes and Robbers

by Jet Kusanagi

Lord Tirek

Taraville was no longer the wonderfully dreadful place that Cloak Nefarious Dagger thought it was. Now it was just dreadful.

It had only been a month since Sunset Shimmer had tricked him out of all of his money. After that, she had kicked him off of the building they were on into a dumpster below. He had gotten out with nothing worse than a few scrapes and bruises, but now he didn't have a single bit to his name.

Ever since then, his luck had changed. He had tried many times pull off a few jobs like he had been doing, but word seemed to have gotten around about the pony in the cloak selling cloaks. Even with his shadow magic, he ran into too many close calls and made too few sales. After a month, he had only three bits to call his own and those weren't even from selling cloaks. He found those in the spot from where he had crashed into Sunset on the street. All the rest had been taken by passersby, he guessed. After that sad discovery, he returned to his old stand. All of his cloaks had been soiled and muddied. There would be no way that he could sell them to anyone, even at a discount 10 bits. He kicked over the stand in anger and frustration and left it behind.

He had no idea how things had gotten so bad for him. Not to say that he had never been in a slump before, but had always been able to count on his abilities as a salespony and trickster to get him out of it. It was as if there was some God of favor that he had fallen out with when he met Sunset Shimmer. She had to be the cause of his problems somehow. She said that she had mastered shadow magic too. Maybe she used it to put a curse on him somehow?

That was a bit farfetched. Even if it was true, there was nothing that he could do about it. He sighed and moved on to one of the many abandoned buildings that he now called home.

Cloak pulled at the door, but it wouldn't budge. Jammed again. He turned around and kicked at it with his back hooves. He was no Earth pony, so it took him a few tries to get the door down. The door cracked and crashed to the ground. He coughed as the dust flew into his face and walked inside. It was a five story building with an attic. There were shelves of old books and peculiar items. Cloak figured that it used to be some sort of bizzar. He went upstairs, careful to avoid the missing step that had caused him to almost break his leg a few weeks before. The 5th floor was full of junk and broken, worthless things but it also had a bed...or a mattress to be more specific. He figured that he had gotten all of the mites out of it days before.

He went up to one of the windows in the small room. He pulled back the moth-eaten curtains and looked out at the town. Taraville used to be his town. Sure, he wasn't the mayor or a city councilpony, but it was his town in other ways. He could sell to anyone and rip off everyone. He was able to trick ANYPONY into thinking that his cloaks were the best and that they needed to buy them. But now...

Cloak tried to close the curtain, starting to feel depressed. Instead, the curtain got caught on the bar that it was hanging from and refused to move. He pulled and pulled on it, but it did not budge. He gave it one final tug, succeeding only in ripping the entire structure off the wall. He cursed to himself and kicked the thing out of the window. He walked to the bed, ready to put this entire day and the rest of the month out of his mind. He reached for the blanket but then pulled back suddenly. Something was not right.

There was a groaning sound coming from under the blanket.

He jumped back immediately and reached for the closest lethal thing he could find. He picked up a broomstick without the broom on it and pointed it at the mattress. He walked quietly over to it and reached for the blanket. He gingerly held it and then pulled them back quickly, hoping to catch whoever it was under there off guard.

He gasped. It was not a pony, though he looked as small as one. He had a head of a goat and the body of a horse, like a centaur of some sort. He was red and black and had small, yellow horns. Something was wrong with him though. Cloak had never seen a centaur before, except in the books he had read as a child, but he knew that he was not supposed to be this small. He looked shriveled up and atrophied. His breathing was shallow and hard to hear. He had not even opened his eyes.

Cloak gently poked him with the broomstick. “Hey...” he said, whispering for some reason. “Are you okay?”

A few seconds passed before the centaur's eyes flickered open. A twinkle of something flashed across his eyes before disappearing. “Un...icorn...” he said in a voice, barely loud enough for Cloak to hear.

“Yes...yes, I'm a unicorn,” Cloak confirmed. He figured that the centaur must have been starving from the ribs showing on his torso. He did not have any food to give him. but he knew that he had to do something. He stepped backward, a smile on his face. “Hold on, my friend. I'll be right back.” He raced down the stairs and out of the door.

He came back a few minutes later, out of breath but smiling broadly. He held the glass over the centaur's head so that he could drink. “Here, friend,” he said softly. “You look thirsty.”

The centaur's fluttered open. He looked up at the glass and opened his mouth slightly. Cloak slowly poured the water, careful not to do it too fast so that he would choke or spit it back up. After the glass was empty, Cloak set it down. “Feeling better?” he asked. “Where did you come from?”

The centaur looked up at him and reached out to him. His strength looked like it was coming back to him, but his arm fell to the side of the mattress. He started shivering and convulsing. “S-s-so c-c-cold...” he said through chattering teeth.

Cloak looked down at him. There was no way that he would be able to get anything out of this pitiful creature. Besides, what kind of pony would he be if he tried? He was a scoundrel, but trying to rip off a malnourished, sick and helpless being such as this was beneath even him. Not to mention that tricking ponies had not worked too well for him in the past few weeks. Maybe it was time for him to try something different. There was only one more thing of practical value that Cloak had left to give to him.

He knelt down next to the mattress and removed the only thing he had left to his name: the old, tattered cloak on his back. He placed it over him and smiled. “You know...I have never gotten cold when I wore this,” Cloak mentioned. “My customers have sometimes asked me why I have this old thing when I have so many new ones to sell. To tell the truth, this is the only cloak that I would never sell. It was the one that gave me my cutie mark. When I found it in the street after I was abandoned by my parents, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I knew what I had to do.” Cloak chuckled. “I guess sometimes even destinies can be wrong.” He smoothed it out. “There. It actually looks pretty good on you, friend. My name is Cloak Nefarious Dagger, by the way. What's yours?”

The centaur grasped the cloak firmly and looked up at him. “Cloak...” he said in a raspy voice. “Please...come closer...”

Cloak knelt down further and came close so that he could hear him better? “Yes? What-”

The centaur immediately grabbed him by the shoulder. Cloak looked at his eyes. He recognized that look because it was the same look he had given to so many other ponies before. “You...chose the wrong...day to be kind...” the centaur said.

“What do you-” Suddenly, Cloak felt his strength waning. All of a sudden, he found that it was difficult to breath and impossible to move. He tried to stand up but his body would not respond. He looked at the centaur. His mouth was open and he saw a colored stream coming from him and going into the centaur. All too late, Cloak understood what was going on.

The colored stream disappeared and Cloak collapsed fully to the ground. He tried to crawl away, but it his strength was completely gone. He attempted to cast a spell to vanish into the shadows, but he had no magic left. Everything was gone. It took everything he had just to look up at the centaur. He was now standing up and looked slightly larger. He was smiling triumphantly. “You're...you're...Lord T-Tirek...” Cloak realized.

“Yes...yes I am,” he answered with a smile. “I was beginning to wonder if my escape from Tartarus would be all for naught. But thanks to your kindness, it wasn't.”

Cloak had never felt as badly as he did now. He had been tricked again and this time, he did not even have the cloak from which had gotten his name. “Why...why me?” Cloak said, beginning to tear up.

Tirek took him by the ear and started walking. “Do not despair, my little pony,” Tirek said with mock sympathy. “You are the first of many that will fuel me so that I can take my rightful place as the ruler of this pathetic land.” He dropped him in front of the window. “As a show of thanks, I will be merciful towards you.”

Cloak looked down. It was a long way to the ground. He sobbing freely. “Please...please, my lord! I-I don't wish to die...!”

Tirek smiled. “Say hello to Hades for me.” And with that, he pushed him out of the window.

Cloak was no fool. He knew that he was not immortal. After all, all ponies must die. He had believed that he would probably die at the hoofs of a disgruntled customer or another brigand. All his life he had done nothing but steal and rob and connive to get by and never before had he had to suffer any negative consequences. But the one time that he had tried to do something nice for somepony...

Despite his circumstances, Cloak couldn't help chuckling at the irony. The last thing he thought about was how useless trying to be a good, upstanding pony was before he finally hit the ground with a sickening crunch. And this time, there was nothing but the cold, hard cobblestone ground to break his fall.

Author's Note:

I might need to change the comedy tag...