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Turn to face the strange....

Graveyard Shift.
By TDR

Turn to face the strange....

A warm breeze blew over me, bringing the sweet scent of some sort of tropical flower, I couldn't name it if I tried. The crash of the waves on a shore line fills my ears, along with the rustle of a thick tree canopy and the distance sounds of birds. I can easily detect the smell of salt over the strong scent of the flowers adding credence to the sound of waves being what I heard. The warm sun beat down from above in a cloudless sky and heats the sand against my back.

Clearly I am dead and have moved on to Elysium. Praise Faust and all that.

I lift my head to look around.

“BUCK!!!” I scream out as the slight movement sends a torrent of pain along my body and fills the air with the thick coppery scent of blood as I reopen a wound .

“ Faust be damned...Okay, shit,... not dead,.... ow ow ow ow and again ow.” The rest of my pained rant turns into little more than a whimper as I then try and do my best to make like a log, and not bucking move anything.

Judging by the position of the sun it was getting close to evening. I didn't think I had been out here this long, but I must have blacked out and slept a number of times. Given I was a mess of burns and bruises it was little surprise I blacked out, it was more a surprise I ever woke up from the blackouts.

My scream had at least helped me in a way, The seagulls filling the air with the cries as they circled me were startled, and took wing further along the shore. Yay I get to keep my eyeballs for a bit more before they start fighting over them, damn sky rats.

If I wanted to survive this, and I was still debating on that part, I needed to focus on something else other than the pain.

This was a problem as all I could focus on what how I got into this mess..

My name is Stigma. And I'm the best there is at what I do.... did.

If something was needed, I got it, if some one needed to vanish they did. My success rate was rather impressive if I do say so myself and I do. I'm not fond of killing, but sometimes a foal napping just wasn't in the cards. If my boss had a problem, I was the one who fixed it, just like my master before me did and their master before them. I was trained by the best, to be the best, and I was.

I had my quirks of course, the same ones my master developed and passed on from his master.

No foals, no pregnant females, all others were fair game, Don't draw out the kill, quick, clean, and as painless as possible.

Simple rules. On the procurement side of things, it was a take nothing that would harm the one to lose it.

Priceless family heirlooms did not count as that, someones blood pressure medication however, did.

It was a strange balance of life and death that I walked. Sometimes what I stole caused issues, sometimes it was to the betterment of everyone involved, the same could be said for my targets.

My Boss didn't use my skills often. She didn't like the killing either, but at times she knew it was unavoidable. If someone were to discover us, well that would be the end for us.

Strange that the end came not from discovery which everyone feared, but from some one who should have been trusted.

Another in my bosses position, she ran another settlement further inland from ours. She was one that we had dealt with numerous times, the trades and deals were always favorable and we had a number of projects both sides worked on for the betterment of all. This time however, it seemed she had gotten greedy and wanted what my boss had.

The attack, when it came, had been brutal and violent, scorched earth policy type stuff. Nothing salvaged, nothing spared.

We weren't attacked because they wanted something we had, we were attacked because we were in the way. In the end my boss, myself and her personal Guard were the last ones left. We had all pulled back to a fortified position, thought hat barely slowed them down.

Our whole settlement, from the little ones to the elderly, cut down. Even the scant few pets, they killed everything. Including my dog. Daisy.

The attackers burst into the room, soldiers, not simple defenders, real warriors cut down every one save my Boss and myself. Then the traitor stepped in, clearly she left my boss alive so she could gloat for a bit before killing her, real super villain stuff you know, acting like this was a comic book or some theatrical crap.

My blade nearly ended it there.

She noticed me as I dropped down from where I was hiding above them. She managed to rear back and avoid my killing blow that would have taken her head. Instead I'm pretty sure I managed to take her left eye, and even if I missed that she's going to have a scar running ear to chin that she's never going to forget.

Still my miss meant it was over, I was blasted in a instant. The soldiers with her gutting my Boss as I was blown through a wall, the entire side of the structure blasted out as I was flung into the river at the base of the tower. My body still smoking as I hit the water.

Not sure how far I was carried, but I survived that and wound up at the beach. Probably washed into the out flow of the river and had the current and tide carry me here.

I'm never going to forget the one who did all this to me. And if I survive this, I'm going to do more than take your eye next time.

Chrysalis... I will have your head.

She probably thought I was dead. But even taking that shot I remained awake long enough to see the river and make myself change to grow gills before I hit and was swept away. The underground river probably dumped me at it's outlet near the border of the Griffon and Pony lands a few dozen miles from the remains of Bosses hive.

At this point I could barely move and it was going to take some sort of divine intervention for me to even survive the night on this beach. I had no fantasy's about something from the sea or the jungle I was near coming out to scavenge a meal.

Seems I was doomed after all.

It was at that point I noticed a shadow had moved over me. Opening my eyes I expected to see something that would ensure I wouldn't make it even to nightfall.

What was looking back at me however , was a blue alicorn.

Author's Note:

title song.

So then here's another chapter.

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