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Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, or any of the ideas or characters related to it. I do not own Marvel or any of its ideas or characters. I really wish I did though. I make no money from this writing. I really wish I did though.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Rebirth

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A forgotten town
Suffers through outlaw hardship!
Let the heroes come.

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The ancient, rusted steam train thundered to a rolling stop. It shuddered and groaned from the strain of moving itself. There wasn’t much life left to it. The train disgorged its earth pony passengers into the lower half, the poorer half, of Appleloosa, former frontier town, former host to vast fields of apple trees, former pinnacle of earth pony resilience. Now it was a poor shell of its former self, reduced over the centuries to a near-ghost town on its last legs, no longer growing or living, only surviving.

The newcomers to the town, ponies with bad histories and nowhere else to go, escaped the dust-choked streets and hard, scrutinizing eyes of the town’s citizens into the saloon right next to the train station. It was a three-story building, the only building in town wealthy enough to achieve such a feat. The tables were rickety and the alcohol watery, but the place was always busy just the same. There was always money to spare for drinks.

“It seems all things do nowadays is get worse,” said the wrinkled and brown earth pony piano player to his bartending twin brother, taking a break between songs to gulp down shots of whiskey on the house. The piano player was Cinnamon Cider. The bartender was Apple Cider. They were the Cider Brothers, the last remnants of the Apple family in Appleloosa. “Crops don’t grow. Buffalo disappear. Lowlifes of all sorts roll into town. Refugees without a bit to their name flooding in from Neighpon. Way Ah figure it, we should all be expecting the ground to just cave in under hooves and take all of Appleloosa with it.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” said Apple Cider, cleaning a shot glass with a rag barely cleaner than the glass. “Things can always get better. And we’re doing pretty well ah figure. We’ve got plenty of booze, plenty of customers, plenty of money coming in to us. Ah don’t see what you’re complaining about.”

Cinn huffed and downed another shot. “As if the quality of customers we’re getting is better’n no customers at all. Not a single bit or penny earned through honest work, ah tell ya.” He swept an arm toward the room, earning glares from those close enough to hear him. “Low-lifes, scumbags, robbers and crooks, and worst of all, miners. And that bird thing in the corner! Always buying the most expensive stuff, always tipping the waitress; I don’t trust her. Trustworthy people don’t wear concealing robes like that!”

Before any more could be said on the matter, a body flew through the double-doors at the front of the saloon and crashed atop an occupied table. All sounds in the saloon stopped. The trio of diamond dogs playing cards at the table leapt up from their seats and stared for a moment at the bruised earth pony mare lying there, and then looked at the figures standing in the doorway.

The dogs beat a hasty retreat.

“Oh no,” said Cinn. “Them again.”

Beside him Apple Cider attempted a grin he just couldn't feel. “Oh no, Kitty.”

Cinn elbowed his twin brother in the gut. “Shut it, you fool.”

“You shut it!”

The gang of six minotaurs in leather armor strode into the saloon, shoving any ponies standing too close away. At their sides and across their backs they carried revolvers and rifles, bandoliers of ammo crisscrossing their broad chests. Their horns were sharpened to stabbing points. Some even carried big blades on sticks. Naginata, Cinn had heard them get called some refugees from nearby Neighpon who had the misfortune to be passing through on one of the monthly visits the Minos Gang paid to Appleloosa.

The leader of the group, wearing red leather armor rather than brown and, bizarrely, a good head shorter than any of the other minotaurs, snorted and stomped a hoof against the floor, sending cracks racing through the floorboards. “Cinn Cider, Apple Cider, you no-good, low-down, dirty, rotten, cutesy-wutesy, bumbling, fumbling, tumbling, flea-bitten, flat-hooved, buck-toothed, ornery, lily-livered, stupid, smelly, drunken, wrinkled, unpleasant to look at, little horsies! Boss Silver’s tired of waiting for his protection money from y’all, and I’m aiming to collect!”

Cinnamon Cider dropped into a hidey-hole he’d built under his piano and slid the rickety floorboards back into place. No way was he sticking around for this, brother or not.

Apple Cider tried his best, least-shaky smile. His fore hooves worked on autopilot, setting down shot glasses made especially for such large guests and grabbing an unopened bottle of wine straight from the minotaur homeland. “Gentlemen, please, perhaps I can interest y’all in a drink to calm your ner—”

A bullet shattered the wine glass, sending five hundred bits worth of alcohol splashing to the floor. Apple Cider didn’t flinch, but he felt like crying. And not just over the lost money. “Right, how silly of me. I should have known such fine, adventurous folk as you wouldn’t want something from the homeland. Maybe I could suggest—”

The lead minotaur grabbed the mare on the table, by that point thankfully unconscious, and threw her full-body at the bar counter. As everyone in the saloon knew he would Apple Cider jumped up, letting his grand-niece slam into him rather than glass bottles lining the wall behind him.

Despite the pain from the hit, Apple Cider cradled the young mare in his fore legs. She was light grey, with a brown mane and tail and with a cutie mark of a half-open door. “Oh Kitty, what’d they do to you?”

The gaggle of minotaurs stomped toward the counter, the leader growling and brandishing a revolver. “A child’s slap compared to what we’re gonna do to you if you don’t give us our money! Now where is it!?”

Something snapped in Apple in the wake of this base, sickening threat. All his life he had tried to be the optimist, the idealist, the peaceable one, no matter what the world threw at him. This, living some dead-end job well past retirement age, in a dying town, his brother a coward and an ugly minotaur yelling at him inches from his face, was the breaking point.

“Well just kill me then!” Everyone who hadn’t slunk out the swinging doors once the threats started flying froze and stared slack-jawed at Apple Cider. Even the minotaurs seemed taken aback by the ferocity. He couldn’t care less. “Come on then! I’m an earth pony, and proud! You can steal from me, wreck my home and livelihood, hurt my friends, but you can’t threaten me anymore! So chop my head off, or smash my face in, or shoot me in the heart, or whatever you damned killers planned to do. Just get it over with and go! I’m not scared of bullies like you!”

The minotaur leader stared at him a moment, looking perhaps for any trace of fear in the old stallion’s face. He found none, and that seemed to frighten him. Frighten him a great deal. For if one old pony could get brave….

“Boss Silver’s going to be angry about this, but if that’s the way it’s gotta be, that’s the way it’s gotta be.” The leader drew a knife from his belt. “I’ll just have to—”

Whoosh, and an arrow knocked the knife from the leader’s hand.

Before anyone there could so much as blink at what just happened, the hippogryph in the corner, the so-called bird thing in the concealing robes, leaped into the midst of the minotaur gang and began tearing them apart, a blur of precise yet savage motion. Apple Cider could only watch in shock, fear, and awe.

The battle was short, but furious. Too closely grouped together to safely use their guns, the minotaurs resorted to sloppy, uncoordinated close combat, too slow to come close to hitting the blur of swirling robe and flapping wings. Talons raked through tendons vital for movement. Arrows turned to stabbing instruments, taking out kneecaps. A bow turned to bludgeon, cracking skulls and breaking jaws.

Nothing lethal, but by the end of it the six minotaurs, reduced to broken heaps on the saloon floor, wished they were dead. The minotaurs still conscious, at least.

She stood at the center of the downed bodies, cloak discarded, the red, grey, and blue hippogryph a blinding splash of color in the browns of the saloon. Her breathing steady and controlled, one gryphon-like hand grasped the neck of the lead minotaur, holding him up to look her in the eyes. “Beating up young girls is one thing I hate. Threatening the elderly is the second thing I hate. Care to hear the third thing I hate right now?”

The doors swung in and a blue and red pegasus in metal armor walked in. “Hey Kyrie, I finished getting out suppl-Great Caesar’s Ghost, what’d you do!?”

Kyrie ignored Lancer and tightened her grip on the minotaur’s throat. He really was a scrawny minotaur, close up. She could feel him shaking in her grasp. “I heard you talking, so I’m only going to ask once before you personally discover how sharp these talons are. Where. Is. Silver Samurai?”

*
Beyond the desert
Samurai steel clashes!
The past will haunt us.
*

Many years ago, in the southern mountains of Neighpon, the head of an earth pony samurai clan took on two orphans as students and heirs of his weapons. The first orphan, a hippogryph named Kyrie, abandoned for her hybrid nature; the second orphan a minotaur, his coat pure silver.

The ancient stallion, strong as the stone on which they worked, spent years teaching the two all he knew, from swordsmanship to archery, and paid others to teach them what he could not; history, the sciences, politics of the world. That is, the tools to survive the world, whatever path through it they chose.

The hippogryph, taking the lessons for granted, left home on bitter terms after the death of the leader, uncaring of whatever happened to the clan or her fellow orphan left in unexpected, but long desired charge of it.

It wasn’t until many years later, after she had faced starvation, imprisonment, friendship, treachery, and heroism, that her mind finally wandered back to that long-forgotten home in the mountains.

“Now, the past has come back to me, I guess.”

Kyrie stood at the entrance to the rock-strewn canyon, eyeing the craggy cliffs and sheer walls to the left and right ahead of her. It was more of a narrow crevice really, hardly wide enough for a minotaur turned sideways to get through. Little cover from above, an entrance that could be easily blocked with nearby boulders, caves in the canyon sides housing quarray eels perhaps; a perfect place for an ambush if Kyrie had ever seen one. That didn’t worry her too much.

“You don’t have to go in there alone,” said Lancer, who stood several paces behind and to the left. He hefted Mjolnir and thunder rumbled. “We can take him together.”

Kyrie shook her head. “It’s my past. I need to face him on my own.” She examined the canyon a few seconds more, and thought instead that those caves could be housing far more than mere quarray eels. “If the rest of his bandits join in though, feel free to fry them.”

“Very well.”

Kyrie nodded to him, then turned away and started down the winding canyon. Within half a dozen yards the canyon made abrupt turn, taking her out of her friend’s sight. But then came the feel of a shadow over her and Kyrie looked up. Far above the canyon Lancer covered her, flying short and slow circles to keep pace with her and keep a lookout at once. This set her at ease some. Anything could still happen, but he’d be there with her through it all. It gave her the strength to keep walking to what she knew and feared lay ahead for her.

Minutes passed by. Tens of minutes. Half an hour beneath the blistering sun, hooves and eagle talons on the blisteringly hot, broken earth, stumbling on loose gravel and thorny vines hidden in the dust. There came no breeze through the narrow crevice to cool her. The bow and quiver of arrows felt like anchors on her back. Somewhere, a crow cried out for its next meal. Kyrie’s belly grumbled for the same.

“Just keep moving, just keep moving, just… keep moving….” Her words fell heavy and dead in the oppressive atmosphere, and she quickly abandoned the mantra. Not a place for talking.

Suddenly noise, movement. Rocks clattered down the stone wall a dozen feet ahead and to the left. Kyrie stopped and drew her bow, drawing an arrow taut as she looked to the source of the rocks.

A jackrabbit stared back at her, frozen in place in the face of imminent death. Absolutely terrified.

Kyrie released the breath she held and relaxed the bow, sliding the arrow back in the quiver. “Any other time and you’d be dinner, Bugs. Get lost.”

The rabbit hopped off.

Kyrie continued her way.

The sun passed above.

“Hmmm… there’s someone sneaking through my home. Someone who shouldn’t be here. What does the little bird want, I wonder?”

Kyrie followed the deep, booming voice down a side path, several twisty bends leading her out to a wide and barren plain. The size of the racing stadium up in Cloudsdale, rocks walls rising to thirty feet or more all around, lined with tents and crude stone dwellings, gave the area the appearance of a gladiatorial arena. She focused on the immediate danger ahead of her.

A platoon’s worth of minotaurs stood halfway across the arena, males and female, all heavily armed and armored and all with heavy glares leveled at her. This wasn’t what held her gaze. For on a stone throne behind the gathered minotaurs sat an exceptionally tall minotaur, armored from horn to hoof in silver samurai-style armor. Yellow eyes stared at her from beneath a heavy brow. Across his lap lay two katanas, one fit for someone his size and as long as Kyrie’s body, the other just short enough for Kyrie to wield, if she could get ahold of it.

“Hawkeye.”

“Silver Samurai.” Kyrie walked farther into the arena-like gorge, confident with Lancer’s shadow on her back. “You’ve grown bigger.”

“You’ve grown older.”

Kyrie stopped walking and stared, nodding, acknowledging this truth. She was no kid. “I never expected to see you again.”

“Nor I you.” Silver shifted in his throne, eyes flicking up to the distant speck of Lancer in the sky, then back to her. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself these many years since you left. Traitor, villain, hero. More the traitor to me.”

Kyrie rose into a hover, the better to ready her bow and an arrow. “I’ve paid for my mistakes. And I travel now with a friend to further atone.” She nocked an arrow. “So that’s me. What are you doing here? Why are you so far away from Neighpon, from home? Why terrorize the locals?”

The glower in those yellow eyes darkened. With a wave of his hand the minotaurs began encircling Kyrie. “I have you to thank for that, my old friend. Four months ago, the very day after the Canterlot invasion, earthquakes and tsunamis the likes of which I had never seen before swept through Neighpon and the neighboring minotaur islands. The destruction was absolute, the death toll... staggering. Absolute. Only the strongest of us survived while Equestria, Neighpon’s closest ally, busied itself with its own reconstruction efforts, pitiful in comparison to the damage we’d suffered. They did not send ships or aid to us until the waters had already subsided, and by then it was nothing but a joke!

"I watched mares and stallions, fillies and colts, float down rivers where streets had once been. Temples turned into tombs, gardens into graveyards! Innocent lives snuffed out like candles under Namor’s wrath. I left that graveyard of a country the moment I could, gathering followers as I went. Now to them my word is law."

"Namor," said Kyrie to all this after a moment of thought. "Namor, prince of the seaponies, must be responsible for this. From what I’ve heard he’s always hated those above the water. Your attacks here are against the innocent!"

Silver snorted and slammed a fist against one of the thrones armrests, standing from it and hold one of the katanas in each hand. "I don’t care who’s guilty or not guilty! What matters to me is strength, and the lack of it! Again and again ponies have proven themselves unable to live up to the lofty titles they have given themselves. Protectors! Guardians! Examples in friendship and caring for the rest of us to follow! Well, their failures have proven to me that their time, the ponies' time, is nearing its end."

Kyrie shook her head, refusing to acknowledge the words that so closely echoed her own fears and terrible thoughts. It wasn’t true. The failure of Loki’s plan was proof enough. Wasn’t it?

Silver stepped down from his desert throne, smaller katana raised to Kyrie. "Come Kyrie, join with me like the old days. You’re not a pony. Not at heart. Let’s let Namor and the rest of pony kind fight it out. Then we will rule!”

Kyrie stared at her estranged brother then, frowning as she felt that too familiar urge to give in, to give up, to betray for the stronger power. It led her away from home. It led her to imprisonment by shield. It led her to Loki. Had it led her to this as well, in the end? A final betrayal, one way or the other?

The sudden feel of a shadow passing across her back made Kyrie look up to lancer, circling the scene high above. The sight of that eternally loyal pegasus swept away the doubt gnawing at Kyrie’s mind.

"I’m sorry, Silver, but no thanks. I can’t work with you as long as you’re hurting innocent ponies. That’s not who I am anymore."

"then who are you, Hawkeye?"

"I’m Kyrie. I’m a crusader."

Silver roared. "You’re a traitor! And you always will be! Kill her!"

The surrounding minotaurs all bellowed at once and, weapons raised, charged at Kyrie. She got off two arrows before taking flight, narrowly avoiding getting bisected by a katana the length of her body. Tip of the tail to tip if the beak.

"have at thee, foul foes!" lancer flew in, sending minotaurs flying with swings of his mighty Mjolnir.

"lancer, no killing!" Kyrie swooped between two minotaur behemoths, stabbing arrows into kneecaps. Barrel-rolled out of the way of an iron mace, rear hooves smashing against her attacker’s chest. Flew high, swinging her bow with both hands into another minotaurs face, sending teeth flying. "just teach them a lesson they’ll always remember! And Silver Samurai is mine!"

"Hawkeye!"

She spun toward the voice, training overriding better judgment as she swung her bow like a club at the charging minotaur in samurai armor. Silver cut it in half with a swing of his larger katana, driving forward and stabbing at Kyrie with the smaller.

Not fast enough. Kyrie dropped the remains of her bow and fell back, propping herself up with her wings and slamming both rear hooves into silvers gut even as his full weight bore down on her. Steel buckled, driving the breath out of him with an explosive "oomph!"

Her enemy stunned, Kyrie wrestled the smaller katana from his grasp and rolled out from under him. In one movement she rose to kneeling, blade arcing up for decapitation.

"Kyrie, no!"

At Lancer’s shout she paused, talons trembling, blade a hairs breadth from thick minotaur neck. She couldn’t do it, not in front of Lancer.

The peace was momentary. Silver shot back to his full height, knocking Kyrie’s blade aside with his own and going back to the offensive. Slashing and stabbing blindingly fast, staggeringly powerful, he drove Kyrie back, down the narrow pathway she had come and away from Lancer and the rest of the fight. She all-too-willingly let him push her back, mind focused for an over-extended slash, a sloppy stab, anything for her to take advantage of.

Yet as Lancer and the rest of the minotaur horde disappeared from sight, no openings came. Shallow nicks and cuts started collecting on her body, deep enough to bleed and slow her down. She began to think he toyed with her, like an adult playing with a child who pretended to greatness.

"Your skills are rusty, Hawkeye! While you have become master of the bow, I have honed my skill with the katana through battle after battle, from ponies to dragons! You have no hope of winning! No hope of surviving!"

As far as Kyrie could tell, this was true. Silver Samurai was stronger, more experienced, and she couldn’t use flight for advantage in the narrow, uneven canyon. Every strike she blocked with the katana she’d taken shook her limbs and rattled her bones. She could not keep this up for much longer.

"You ran from your home! You ran from your responsibilities! Now there’s nowhere left for you to run!"

Kyrie’s back hit rock and he spun. She squatted and watched Silver’s decapitating cut instead cleave through the canyon wall like the rock was warm butter. Her eyes widened. Even with his minotaur strength, that should have been harder.

"That’s-"

"Exactly."

Silver buried a fist in Kyrie’s gut. Knocked her sword from her hand. Body slammed her to the wall. Held his blade to her throat. "Adamantium blades. Each cost a fortune to forge, but they can’t be broken, can’t be bent, can’t be dulled, and can cut through anything. Like your throat, for instance."

He pressed the blade closer, slicing flesh, drawing blood. Kyrie gagged, hardly able to breathe for fear of cutting her own neck, hand struggling to slide behind her to her quiver. "Now, any last words before I do what a traitor like you deserves?"

"Ar... arrows."

"Wha-Augh!" He staggered back, left hand grabbing at the arrow buried deep into his side between two armor plates. "You rotten, dirty… cheat!" Blood seeped from beneath his fingers.

Kyrie fell to her knees and took deep lungfuls of breath. A shaking left hand grabbed her katana from the ground. It took all her strength just to lift high enough to point the tip at him. Her other hand she clasped to her throat. "Cheat, maybe, but not murderer." blood seeped from beneath her fingers.

The two combatants stared each other down, one on his hooves, the other on her knees, both wounded, both tired, neither willing to give ground.

Clouds passed overhead. The two enemies crossed glares, sword tip to sword tip.

"Ready?"

"As I’ll ever be."

A crow cawed and a howling wind swept through the canyon. Seconds passed by... then with a sudden battle cry the minotaur lunged at Kyrie, katana forward like a spear. From where she sat on her knees Kyrie leaped up to meet him with all her strength.

"Gllkkk!"

Pain blossomed in Kyrie’s chest. She looked down at the blade sunk deep into her, straight through and out her back into the rock wall behind. Then she looked up to Silver towering above her. Blood trickled from between his lips. It gushed from where her katana pierced his throat.

"Silver...."

"Kyrie...."

Their eyes met. His eyes filled for a moment with pain, hate, sorrow, regret. A million thoughts and questions crowded into those eyes, never to be asked, never to be answered.

Then there came darkness, and one last word echoing through her mind.

“Kyrie!”

‘Lancer… I’m so sorry....’

Nothing.

*
Childhood fades away
Like pink petals from a tree
Heralding the fall.

*

Plump white clouds floated across the bright summer sky, dragging their shadows across the sunflower-filled field. A winding river ran through the field, and on the western edge of the river sat a grove of cherry blossom trees, petals falling gently in the breeze.

Filly Kyrie lay at the roots of one sakura tree, wings folded behind her head like a pillow as she stared up at the blue sky through the branches. The soft light streaming through the pink petals, the scents of the surrounding flowers, and the nearby sounds of the river kept her hovering pleasantly at the edge of sleep. She would have drifted off completely, if it weren’t for the silver-coated minotaur colt her age beside her on the ground. As always, he seemed unable to keep his mouth shut for long.

“Kyrie, want to go fishing tomorrow? Dad taught me how to fly fish, which doesn’t involve as much flying as you’d expect.”

Kyrie stifled a yawn, trying not to come across as disinterested to her adopted brother. “Maybe. I don’t know. I never really think that far ahead. Too bothersome.”

“That far ahead?” Silver rolled onto his side to better look at Kyrie. “It’s tomorrow, not… you know, the future. What’s there to bother about?”

She shrugged, having never given much thought to her feelings. She was just a kid, after all. “I don’t know… I guess it’s just that we’re different people in the future. Tonight I could do something, or you could do something, or Dad could do something, and in the morning we’d treat each other different because of that thing we did. You know?”

Silence for a moment, and then, “You’re weird.”

Kyrie punched Silver in the shoulder. “You’re weird! But I love you anyway. Hey, wanna see this new archery trick I came up with?”

“Yeah, sure!”

*

Kyrie woke up to the smell of alcohol and the near-yet-indistinct sound of hooves on wood. The bed she lay in was a little on the small side for her, but it was soft and had more than enough blankets. Orange evening light filtered in through a trio of shuttered windows a few feet to her left, a door led off to who-knew-where across the room in front of her, and above a fan turned in lazy circles, barely creating a breeze.

Memories rushed back to Kyrie, hurting worse than any stab wound. She was here, wherever here was, and Silver wasn’t. That meant she’d done it. She’d truly done it, and he was dead. She wasn’t sure why she felt so certain of this, but she did. He was dead. She missed him already.

Kyrie lay still a minute, watching the blades of the fan make their progress around the center, before pulling the dust-brown blankets off her body and reaching a numb hand to her chest. She felt bandages stretching all across her chest, and beneath the bandages, where it hurt to touch for long, the beginnings of flesh knitting back together. She imagined there was a matching spot on her back.

Questions rose to prominence. “Where… am I?”

“You’re back at the saloon, ma’am,” said a young girl’s voice far too chipper for how Kyrie felt. “That dreamboat of a stallion brought you in a couple days ago, heehee! He looked seriously freaked out!”

“The saloon….” Kyrie remembered the saloon in all its old, poor, scum-filled glory. “Back where I started, then.” She looked right, in the direction of the voice, and saw a young earth pony mare, couldn’t have had her cutie mark for more than a few years, with a light-grey coat and dark-brown mane and tail. Her cutie mark was of a half-open door. Brown eyes watched her with a mix of concern and curiosity. “You’re that… girl from earlier. The minotaurs roughed you up.”

The young mare blew a raspberry. Aside from a black bruise around her right eye, she looked fine. “I could have taken them, if they hadn’t snuck up on me. I’m tougher than I look. Oh yeah, the name’s Kitty. Kitty Pride. You’re Kyrie, right?”

Yep, far too chipper for how Kyrie felt. With a grunt of effort she pushed herself up into a sitting position, wincing as her chest twinged with sharp pain. Kitty hurried over and pressed a hoof to the bandaged area. “Careful there! You could have reopened your wound. That was the nastiest thing I’ve ever had to work on.”

Kyrie grunted and leaned against the bed’s headboard, offering no resistance as the mare forced a glass of water to her beak. She drank it down, suddenly thirsty, and then sighed. “Medical training then, okay. How long was I out?”

Kitty refilled the glass and forced Kyrie to drink that down too before answering. “Almost a week. Your friend Lancer paid for a whole month of rent, so don’t feel in any rush to leave, now.”

That didn’t sound right to Kyrie. Working through the pain she sat up straighter and looked the earth pony mare straight on. “That was expensive of him. Where’s he now, I need to talk with him.”

Some of the smile left Kitty’s face. “Uh, right. Well, you see... okay.” From a satchel hanging from her neck she took out a folded piece of paper and held it out to Kyrie with her mouth. “Here, take thish.”

Kyrie took the note, unfolded it, and began reading Lancer’s rough hoofwriting.

“Dear Kyrie,

“These many months since the Canterlot Invasion we have traveled together to many places and seen many great sights, performed many great deeds. But I now feel it is time we part ways. My journey takes me to Quest’s End in the Attilan Mountains, in search of my family. Your journey, I feel, goes elsewhere. It is time to stop running. I have faith in you, my dearest friend.

"I don't care about your past. I don't care where you came from, or whatever terrible deeds you have and might have committed. You are my friend, and nothing will ever change that. I never give up on my friends.

“Love, Lancer.

“P.S., She will beg and plead to leave Appleloosa with you. I know from experience. Please, have some pity on the girl.”

Tears dripped onto the paper. Kyrie let them fall, folding the note and setting it on the bedside table. It felt good to cry, like letting go of a heavy burden. Lancer was right. Their paths, though connected by friendship, split apart for the moment. Better, she knew where her path would lead her next.

“Ma’am?”

Kyrie looked back at Kitty and saw her holding out a sheathed katana. Her, Kyrie’s, katana now. “He left this for you too. And uh, you weren’t hit anywhere too vital, see, so you could probably travel in a day or two. Immediately, if you brought along someone with medical training.

Kyrie could have laughed, if not out of fear of pain. Taking the sword, she set it down on the bed beside her and looked back at Kitty. She put on her most serious face. “It will be dangerous. The fight a week ago was a depressingly common kind of occurrence for me.”

Kitty grinned, almost bouncing in excitement where she stood. “I can take care of myself, really! And you could make me even better, ma’am!”

Kyrie saw the truth in that. And if she wanted to leave Appleloosa immediately, and she did, she did need a nurse of some kind. Clever girl.

“Fine then. Go ask permission from whoever if you need to and pack whatever you want to bring. And stop calling me ma’am! I’m not that old, blast it!”

“Yes ma’am, ma’amdy ma’am, ma’am ma’am!” Kitty Pride threw up a mocking salute and, before Kyrie had a chance to vent her rage, floated down through the floor and out of sight. Like a ghost.

Kyrie blinked, rubbed her eyes, blinked again. Tapped the spot of floor her new friend had disappeared through with the tip of her sword. Blinked a third time, then finally flopped backward into bed. “A mutant. Oh joy. Well, at least life will be interesting.

“Hawkeye won’t do anymore. No bow, only a katana. Lancer’s gone too, leaving me on my own. Masterless. A masterless samurai, wandering and righting wrongs. Well, there’s a superhero name right there.”

Grabbing her katana, Kyrie stood up from the bed and took a fighting pose. Holding the sheath in her right hand and the handle in her left she slowly unsheathed the blade, holding it up to gaze at her own reflection in the unbreakable metal. The tears were still there in her eyes, and Kyrie knew they wouldn't go away for a long while.

“Like Silver Samurai, only I won’t make the mistake my brother made. I swear it. I, Ronin, swear it.”

*

Sun sets on friendship
As two friends go their own ways.
Shadow on the mscropbgsubsxsd.sfmnc.x—
I’M NOT THAT BRUTISH.

Description
Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, or any of the ideas or characters related to it. I do not own Marvel or any of its ideas or characters. I really wish I did though. I make no money from this writing. I really wish I did though.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Rebirth

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A forgotten town
Suffers through outlaw hardship!
Let the heroes come.

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The ancient, rusted steam train thundered to a rolling stop. It shuddered and groaned from the strain of moving itself. There wasn’t much life left to it. The train disgorged its earth pony passengers into the lower half, the poorer half, of Appleloosa, former frontier town, former host to vast fields of apple trees, former pinnacle of earth pony resilience. Now it was a poor shell of its former self, reduced over the centuries to a near-ghost town on its last legs, no longer growing or living, only surviving.

The newcomers to the town, ponies with bad histories and nowhere else to go, escaped the dust-choked streets and hard, scrutinizing eyes of the town’s citizens into the saloon right next to the train station. It was a three-story building, the only building in town wealthy enough to achieve such a feat. The tables were rickety and the alcohol watery, but the place was always busy just the same. There was always money to spare for drinks.

“It seems all things do nowadays is get worse,” said the wrinkled and brown earth pony piano player to his bartending twin brother, taking a break between songs to gulp down shots of whiskey on the house. The piano player was Cinnamon Cider. The bartender was Apple Cider. They were the Cider Brothers, the last remnants of the Apple family in Appleloosa. “Crops don’t grow. Buffalo disappear. Lowlifes of all sorts roll into town. Refugees without a bit to their name flooding in from Neighpon. Way Ah figure it, we should all be expecting the ground to just cave in under hooves and take all of Appleloosa with it.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” said Apple Cider, cleaning a shot glass with a rag barely cleaner than the glass. “Things can always get better. And we’re doing pretty well ah figure. We’ve got plenty of booze, plenty of customers, plenty of money coming in to us. Ah don’t see what you’re complaining about.”

Cinn huffed and downed another shot. “As if the quality of customers we’re getting is better’n no customers at all. Not a single bit or penny earned through honest work, ah tell ya.” He swept an arm toward the room, earning glares from those close enough to hear him. “Low-lifes, scumbags, robbers and crooks, and worst of all, miners. And that bird thing in the corner! Always buying the most expensive stuff, always tipping the waitress; I don’t trust her. Trustworthy people don’t wear concealing robes like that!”

Before any more could be said on the matter, a body flew through the double-doors at the front of the saloon and crashed atop an occupied table. All sounds in the saloon stopped. The trio of diamond dogs playing cards at the table leapt up from their seats and stared for a moment at the bruised earth pony mare lying there, and then looked at the figures standing in the doorway.

The dogs beat a hasty retreat.

“Oh no,” said Cinn. “Them again.”

Beside him Apple Cider attempted a grin he just couldn't feel. “Oh no, Kitty.”

Cinn elbowed his twin brother in the gut. “Shut it, you fool.”

“You shut it!”

The gang of six minotaurs in leather armor strode into the saloon, shoving any ponies standing too close away. At their sides and across their backs they carried revolvers and rifles, bandoliers of ammo crisscrossing their broad chests. Their horns were sharpened to stabbing points. Some even carried big blades on sticks. Naginata, Cinn had heard them get called some refugees from nearby Neighpon who had the misfortune to be passing through on one of the monthly visits the Minos Gang paid to Appleloosa.

The leader of the group, wearing red leather armor rather than brown and, bizarrely, a good head shorter than any of the other minotaurs, snorted and stomped a hoof against the floor, sending cracks racing through the floorboards. “Cinn Cider, Apple Cider, you no-good, low-down, dirty, rotten, cutesy-wutesy, bumbling, fumbling, tumbling, flea-bitten, flat-hooved, buck-toothed, ornery, lily-livered, stupid, smelly, drunken, wrinkled, unpleasant to look at, little horsies! Boss Silver’s tired of waiting for his protection money from y’all, and I’m aiming to collect!”

Cinnamon Cider dropped into a hidey-hole he’d built under his piano and slid the rickety floorboards back into place. No way was he sticking around for this, brother or not.

Apple Cider tried his best, least-shaky smile. His fore hooves worked on autopilot, setting down shot glasses made especially for such large guests and grabbing an unopened bottle of wine straight from the minotaur homeland. “Gentlemen, please, perhaps I can interest y’all in a drink to calm your ner—”

A bullet shattered the wine glass, sending five hundred bits worth of alcohol splashing to the floor. Apple Cider didn’t flinch, but he felt like crying. And not just over the lost money. “Right, how silly of me. I should have known such fine, adventurous folk as you wouldn’t want something from the homeland. Maybe I could suggest—”

The lead minotaur grabbed the mare on the table, by that point thankfully unconscious, and threw her full-body at the bar counter. As everyone in the saloon knew he would Apple Cider jumped up, letting his grand-niece slam into him rather than glass bottles lining the wall behind him.

Despite the pain from the hit, Apple Cider cradled the young mare in his fore legs. She was light grey, with a brown mane and tail and with a cutie mark of a half-open door. “Oh Kitty, what’d they do to you?”

The gaggle of minotaurs stomped toward the counter, the leader growling and brandishing a revolver. “A child’s slap compared to what we’re gonna do to you if you don’t give us our money! Now where is it!?”

Something snapped in Apple in the wake of this base, sickening threat. All his life he had tried to be the optimist, the idealist, the peaceable one, no matter what the world threw at him. This, living some dead-end job well past retirement age, in a dying town, his brother a coward and an ugly minotaur yelling at him inches from his face, was the breaking point.

“Well just kill me then!” Everyone who hadn’t slunk out the swinging doors once the threats started flying froze and stared slack-jawed at Apple Cider. Even the minotaurs seemed taken aback by the ferocity. He couldn’t care less. “Come on then! I’m an earth pony, and proud! You can steal from me, wreck my home and livelihood, hurt my friends, but you can’t threaten me anymore! So chop my head off, or smash my face in, or shoot me in the heart, or whatever you damned killers planned to do. Just get it over with and go! I’m not scared of bullies like you!”

The minotaur leader stared at him a moment, looking perhaps for any trace of fear in the old stallion’s face. He found none, and that seemed to frighten him. Frighten him a great deal. For if one old pony could get brave….

“Boss Silver’s going to be angry about this, but if that’s the way it’s gotta be, that’s the way it’s gotta be.” The leader drew a knife from his belt. “I’ll just have to—”

Whoosh, and an arrow knocked the knife from the leader’s hand.

Before anyone there could so much as blink at what just happened, the hippogryph in the corner, the so-called bird thing in the concealing robes, leaped into the midst of the minotaur gang and began tearing them apart, a blur of precise yet savage motion. Apple Cider could only watch in shock, fear, and awe.

The battle was short, but furious. Too closely grouped together to safely use their guns, the minotaurs resorted to sloppy, uncoordinated close combat, too slow to come close to hitting the blur of swirling robe and flapping wings. Talons raked through tendons vital for movement. Arrows turned to stabbing instruments, taking out kneecaps. A bow turned to bludgeon, cracking skulls and breaking jaws.

Nothing lethal, but by the end of it the six minotaurs, reduced to broken heaps on the saloon floor, wished they were dead. The minotaurs still conscious, at least.

She stood at the center of the downed bodies, cloak discarded, the red, grey, and blue hippogryph a blinding splash of color in the browns of the saloon. Her breathing steady and controlled, one gryphon-like hand grasped the neck of the lead minotaur, holding him up to look her in the eyes. “Beating up young girls is one thing I hate. Threatening the elderly is the second thing I hate. Care to hear the third thing I hate right now?”

The doors swung in and a blue and red pegasus in metal armor walked in. “Hey Kyrie, I finished getting out suppl-Great Caesar’s Ghost, what’d you do!?”

Kyrie ignored Lancer and tightened her grip on the minotaur’s throat. He really was a scrawny minotaur, close up. She could feel him shaking in her grasp. “I heard you talking, so I’m only going to ask once before you personally discover how sharp these talons are. Where. Is. Silver Samurai?”

*
Beyond the desert
Samurai steel clashes!
The past will haunt us.
*

Many years ago, in the southern mountains of Neighpon, the head of an earth pony samurai clan took on two orphans as students and heirs of his weapons. The first orphan, a hippogryph named Kyrie, abandoned for her hybrid nature; the second orphan a minotaur, his coat pure silver.

The ancient stallion, strong as the stone on which they worked, spent years teaching the two all he knew, from swordsmanship to archery, and paid others to teach them what he could not; history, the sciences, politics of the world. That is, the tools to survive the world, whatever path through it they chose.

The hippogryph, taking the lessons for granted, left home on bitter terms after the death of the leader, uncaring of whatever happened to the clan or her fellow orphan left in unexpected, but long desired charge of it.

It wasn’t until many years later, after she had faced starvation, imprisonment, friendship, treachery, and heroism, that her mind finally wandered back to that long-forgotten home in the mountains.

“Now, the past has come back to me, I guess.”

Kyrie stood at the entrance to the rock-strewn canyon, eyeing the craggy cliffs and sheer walls to the left and right ahead of her. It was more of a narrow crevice really, hardly wide enough for a minotaur turned sideways to get through. Little cover from above, an entrance that could be easily blocked with nearby boulders, caves in the canyon sides housing quarray eels perhaps; a perfect place for an ambush if Kyrie had ever seen one. That didn’t worry her too much.

“You don’t have to go in there alone,” said Lancer, who stood several paces behind and to the left. He hefted Mjolnir and thunder rumbled. “We can take him together.”

Kyrie shook her head. “It’s my past. I need to face him on my own.” She examined the canyon a few seconds more, and thought instead that those caves could be housing far more than mere quarray eels. “If the rest of his bandits join in though, feel free to fry them.”

“Very well.”

Kyrie nodded to him, then turned away and started down the winding canyon. Within half a dozen yards the canyon made abrupt turn, taking her out of her friend’s sight. But then came the feel of a shadow over her and Kyrie looked up. Far above the canyon Lancer covered her, flying short and slow circles to keep pace with her and keep a lookout at once. This set her at ease some. Anything could still happen, but he’d be there with her through it all. It gave her the strength to keep walking to what she knew and feared lay ahead for her.

Minutes passed by. Tens of minutes. Half an hour beneath the blistering sun, hooves and eagle talons on the blisteringly hot, broken earth, stumbling on loose gravel and thorny vines hidden in the dust. There came no breeze through the narrow crevice to cool her. The bow and quiver of arrows felt like anchors on her back. Somewhere, a crow cried out for its next meal. Kyrie’s belly grumbled for the same.

“Just keep moving, just keep moving, just… keep moving….” Her words fell heavy and dead in the oppressive atmosphere, and she quickly abandoned the mantra. Not a place for talking.

Suddenly noise, movement. Rocks clattered down the stone wall a dozen feet ahead and to the left. Kyrie stopped and drew her bow, drawing an arrow taut as she looked to the source of the rocks.

A jackrabbit stared back at her, frozen in place in the face of imminent death. Absolutely terrified.

Kyrie released the breath she held and relaxed the bow, sliding the arrow back in the quiver. “Any other time and you’d be dinner, Bugs. Get lost.”

The rabbit hopped off.

Kyrie continued her way.

The sun passed above.

“Hmmm… there’s someone sneaking through my home. Someone who shouldn’t be here. What does the little bird want, I wonder?”

Kyrie followed the deep, booming voice down a side path, several twisty bends leading her out to a wide and barren plain. The size of the racing stadium up in Cloudsdale, rocks walls rising to thirty feet or more all around, lined with tents and crude stone dwellings, gave the area the appearance of a gladiatorial arena. She focused on the immediate danger ahead of her.

A platoon’s worth of minotaurs stood halfway across the arena, males and female, all heavily armed and armored and all with heavy glares leveled at her. This wasn’t what held her gaze. For on a stone throne behind the gathered minotaurs sat an exceptionally tall minotaur, armored from horn to hoof in silver samurai-style armor. Yellow eyes stared at her from beneath a heavy brow. Across his lap lay two katanas, one fit for someone his size and as long as Kyrie’s body, the other just short enough for Kyrie to wield, if she could get ahold of it.

“Hawkeye.”

“Silver Samurai.” Kyrie walked farther into the arena-like gorge, confident with Lancer’s shadow on her back. “You’ve grown bigger.”

“You’ve grown older.”

Kyrie stopped walking and stared, nodding, acknowledging this truth. She was no kid. “I never expected to see you again.”

“Nor I you.” Silver shifted in his throne, eyes flicking up to the distant speck of Lancer in the sky, then back to her. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself these many years since you left. Traitor, villain, hero. More the traitor to me.”

Kyrie rose into a hover, the better to ready her bow and an arrow. “I’ve paid for my mistakes. And I travel now with a friend to further atone.” She nocked an arrow. “So that’s me. What are you doing here? Why are you so far away from Neighpon, from home? Why terrorize the locals?”

The glower in those yellow eyes darkened. With a wave of his hand the minotaurs began encircling Kyrie. “I have you to thank for that, my old friend. Four months ago, the very day after the Canterlot invasion, earthquakes and tsunamis the likes of which I had never seen before swept through Neighpon and the neighboring minotaur islands. The destruction was absolute, the death toll... staggering. Absolute. Only the strongest of us survived while Equestria, Neighpon’s closest ally, busied itself with its own reconstruction efforts, pitiful in comparison to the damage we’d suffered. They did not send ships or aid to us until the waters had already subsided, and by then it was nothing but a joke!

"I watched mares and stallions, fillies and colts, float down rivers where streets had once been. Temples turned into tombs, gardens into graveyards! Innocent lives snuffed out like candles under Namor’s wrath. I left that graveyard of a country the moment I could, gathering followers as I went. Now to them my word is law."

"Namor," said Kyrie to all this after a moment of thought. "Namor, prince of the seaponies, must be responsible for this. From what I’ve heard he’s always hated those above the water. Your attacks here are against the innocent!"

Silver snorted and slammed a fist against one of the thrones armrests, standing from it and hold one of the katanas in each hand. "I don’t care who’s guilty or not guilty! What matters to me is strength, and the lack of it! Again and again ponies have proven themselves unable to live up to the lofty titles they have given themselves. Protectors! Guardians! Examples in friendship and caring for the rest of us to follow! Well, their failures have proven to me that their time, the ponies' time, is nearing its end."

Kyrie shook her head, refusing to acknowledge the words that so closely echoed her own fears and terrible thoughts. It wasn’t true. The failure of Loki’s plan was proof enough. Wasn’t it?

Silver stepped down from his desert throne, smaller katana raised to Kyrie. "Come Kyrie, join with me like the old days. You’re not a pony. Not at heart. Let’s let Namor and the rest of pony kind fight it out. Then we will rule!”

Kyrie stared at her estranged brother then, frowning as she felt that too familiar urge to give in, to give up, to betray for the stronger power. It led her away from home. It led her to imprisonment by shield. It led her to Loki. Had it led her to this as well, in the end? A final betrayal, one way or the other?

The sudden feel of a shadow passing across her back made Kyrie look up to lancer, circling the scene high above. The sight of that eternally loyal pegasus swept away the doubt gnawing at Kyrie’s mind.

"I’m sorry, Silver, but no thanks. I can’t work with you as long as you’re hurting innocent ponies. That’s not who I am anymore."

"then who are you, Hawkeye?"

"I’m Kyrie. I’m a crusader."

Silver roared. "You’re a traitor! And you always will be! Kill her!"

The surrounding minotaurs all bellowed at once and, weapons raised, charged at Kyrie. She got off two arrows before taking flight, narrowly avoiding getting bisected by a katana the length of her body. Tip of the tail to tip if the beak.

"have at thee, foul foes!" lancer flew in, sending minotaurs flying with swings of his mighty Mjolnir.

"lancer, no killing!" Kyrie swooped between two minotaur behemoths, stabbing arrows into kneecaps. Barrel-rolled out of the way of an iron mace, rear hooves smashing against her attacker’s chest. Flew high, swinging her bow with both hands into another minotaurs face, sending teeth flying. "just teach them a lesson they’ll always remember! And Silver Samurai is mine!"

"Hawkeye!"

She spun toward the voice, training overriding better judgment as she swung her bow like a club at the charging minotaur in samurai armor. Silver cut it in half with a swing of his larger katana, driving forward and stabbing at Kyrie with the smaller.

Not fast enough. Kyrie dropped the remains of her bow and fell back, propping herself up with her wings and slamming both rear hooves into silvers gut even as his full weight bore down on her. Steel buckled, driving the breath out of him with an explosive "oomph!"

Her enemy stunned, Kyrie wrestled the smaller katana from his grasp and rolled out from under him. In one movement she rose to kneeling, blade arcing up for decapitation.

"Kyrie, no!"

At Lancer’s shout she paused, talons trembling, blade a hairs breadth from thick minotaur neck. She couldn’t do it, not in front of Lancer.

The peace was momentary. Silver shot back to his full height, knocking Kyrie’s blade aside with his own and going back to the offensive. Slashing and stabbing blindingly fast, staggeringly powerful, he drove Kyrie back, down the narrow pathway she had come and away from Lancer and the rest of the fight. She all-too-willingly let him push her back, mind focused for an over-extended slash, a sloppy stab, anything for her to take advantage of.

Yet as Lancer and the rest of the minotaur horde disappeared from sight, no openings came. Shallow nicks and cuts started collecting on her body, deep enough to bleed and slow her down. She began to think he toyed with her, like an adult playing with a child who pretended to greatness.

"Your skills are rusty, Hawkeye! While you have become master of the bow, I have honed my skill with the katana through battle after battle, from ponies to dragons! You have no hope of winning! No hope of surviving!"

As far as Kyrie could tell, this was true. Silver Samurai was stronger, more experienced, and she couldn’t use flight for advantage in the narrow, uneven canyon. Every strike she blocked with the katana she’d taken shook her limbs and rattled her bones. She could not keep this up for much longer.

"You ran from your home! You ran from your responsibilities! Now there’s nowhere left for you to run!"

Kyrie’s back hit rock and he spun. She squatted and watched Silver’s decapitating cut instead cleave through the canyon wall like the rock was warm butter. Her eyes widened. Even with his minotaur strength, that should have been harder.

"That’s-"

"Exactly."

Silver buried a fist in Kyrie’s gut. Knocked her sword from her hand. Body slammed her to the wall. Held his blade to her throat. "Adamantium blades. Each cost a fortune to forge, but they can’t be broken, can’t be bent, can’t be dulled, and can cut through anything. Like your throat, for instance."

He pressed the blade closer, slicing flesh, drawing blood. Kyrie gagged, hardly able to breathe for fear of cutting her own neck, hand struggling to slide behind her to her quiver. "Now, any last words before I do what a traitor like you deserves?"

"Ar... arrows."

"Wha-Augh!" He staggered back, left hand grabbing at the arrow buried deep into his side between two armor plates. "You rotten, dirty… cheat!" Blood seeped from beneath his fingers.

Kyrie fell to her knees and took deep lungfuls of breath. A shaking left hand grabbed her katana from the ground. It took all her strength just to lift high enough to point the tip at him. Her other hand she clasped to her throat. "Cheat, maybe, but not murderer." blood seeped from beneath her fingers.

The two combatants stared each other down, one on his hooves, the other on her knees, both wounded, both tired, neither willing to give ground.

Clouds passed overhead. The two enemies crossed glares, sword tip to sword tip.

"Ready?"

"As I’ll ever be."

A crow cawed and a howling wind swept through the canyon. Seconds passed by... then with a sudden battle cry the minotaur lunged at Kyrie, katana forward like a spear. From where she sat on her knees Kyrie leaped up to meet him with all her strength.

"Gllkkk!"

Pain blossomed in Kyrie’s chest. She looked down at the blade sunk deep into her, straight through and out her back into the rock wall behind. Then she looked up to Silver towering above her. Blood trickled from between his lips. It gushed from where her katana pierced his throat.

"Silver...."

"Kyrie...."

Their eyes met. His eyes filled for a moment with pain, hate, sorrow, regret. A million thoughts and questions crowded into those eyes, never to be asked, never to be answered.

Then there came darkness, and one last word echoing through her mind.

“Kyrie!”

‘Lancer… I’m so sorry....’

Nothing.

*
Childhood fades away
Like pink petals from a tree
Heralding the fall.

*

Plump white clouds floated across the bright summer sky, dragging their shadows across the sunflower-filled field. A winding river ran through the field, and on the western edge of the river sat a grove of cherry blossom trees, petals falling gently in the breeze.

Filly Kyrie lay at the roots of one sakura tree, wings folded behind her head like a pillow as she stared up at the blue sky through the branches. The soft light streaming through the pink petals, the scents of the surrounding flowers, and the nearby sounds of the river kept her hovering pleasantly at the edge of sleep. She would have drifted off completely, if it weren’t for the silver-coated minotaur colt her age beside her on the ground. As always, he seemed unable to keep his mouth shut for long.

“Kyrie, want to go fishing tomorrow? Dad taught me how to fly fish, which doesn’t involve as much flying as you’d expect.”

Kyrie stifled a yawn, trying not to come across as disinterested to her adopted brother. “Maybe. I don’t know. I never really think that far ahead. Too bothersome.”

“That far ahead?” Silver rolled onto his side to better look at Kyrie. “It’s tomorrow, not… you know, the future. What’s there to bother about?”

She shrugged, having never given much thought to her feelings. She was just a kid, after all. “I don’t know… I guess it’s just that we’re different people in the future. Tonight I could do something, or you could do something, or Dad could do something, and in the morning we’d treat each other different because of that thing we did. You know?”

Silence for a moment, and then, “You’re weird.”

Kyrie punched Silver in the shoulder. “You’re weird! But I love you anyway. Hey, wanna see this new archery trick I came up with?”

“Yeah, sure!”

*

Kyrie woke up to the smell of alcohol and the near-yet-indistinct sound of hooves on wood. The bed she lay in was a little on the small side for her, but it was soft and had more than enough blankets. Orange evening light filtered in through a trio of shuttered windows a few feet to her left, a door led off to who-knew-where across the room in front of her, and above a fan turned in lazy circles, barely creating a breeze.

Memories rushed back to Kyrie, hurting worse than any stab wound. She was here, wherever here was, and Silver wasn’t. That meant she’d done it. She’d truly done it, and he was dead. She wasn’t sure why she felt so certain of this, but she did. He was dead. She missed him already.

Kyrie lay still a minute, watching the blades of the fan make their progress around the center, before pulling the dust-brown blankets off her body and reaching a numb hand to her chest. She felt bandages stretching all across her chest, and beneath the bandages, where it hurt to touch for long, the beginnings of flesh knitting back together. She imagined there was a matching spot on her back.

Questions rose to prominence. “Where… am I?”

“You’re back at the saloon, ma’am,” said a young girl’s voice far too chipper for how Kyrie felt. “That dreamboat of a stallion brought you in a couple days ago, heehee! He looked seriously freaked out!”

“The saloon….” Kyrie remembered the saloon in all its old, poor, scum-filled glory. “Back where I started, then.” She looked right, in the direction of the voice, and saw a young earth pony mare, couldn’t have had her cutie mark for more than a few years, with a light-grey coat and dark-brown mane and tail. Her cutie mark was of a half-open door. Brown eyes watched her with a mix of concern and curiosity. “You’re that… girl from earlier. The minotaurs roughed you up.”

The young mare blew a raspberry. Aside from a black bruise around her right eye, she looked fine. “I could have taken them, if they hadn’t snuck up on me. I’m tougher than I look. Oh yeah, the name’s Kitty. Kitty Pride. You’re Kyrie, right?”

Yep, far too chipper for how Kyrie felt. With a grunt of effort she pushed herself up into a sitting position, wincing as her chest twinged with sharp pain. Kitty hurried over and pressed a hoof to the bandaged area. “Careful there! You could have reopened your wound. That was the nastiest thing I’ve ever had to work on.”

Kyrie grunted and leaned against the bed’s headboard, offering no resistance as the mare forced a glass of water to her beak. She drank it down, suddenly thirsty, and then sighed. “Medical training then, okay. How long was I out?”

Kitty refilled the glass and forced Kyrie to drink that down too before answering. “Almost a week. Your friend Lancer paid for a whole month of rent, so don’t feel in any rush to leave, now.”

That didn’t sound right to Kyrie. Working through the pain she sat up straighter and looked the earth pony mare straight on. “That was expensive of him. Where’s he now, I need to talk with him.”

Some of the smile left Kitty’s face. “Uh, right. Well, you see... okay.” From a satchel hanging from her neck she took out a folded piece of paper and held it out to Kyrie with her mouth. “Here, take thish.”

Kyrie took the note, unfolded it, and began reading Lancer’s rough hoofwriting.

“Dear Kyrie,

“These many months since the Canterlot Invasion we have traveled together to many places and seen many great sights, performed many great deeds. But I now feel it is time we part ways. My journey takes me to Quest’s End in the Attilan Mountains, in search of my family. Your journey, I feel, goes elsewhere. It is time to stop running. I have faith in you, my dearest friend.

"I don't care about your past. I don't care where you came from, or whatever terrible deeds you have and might have committed. You are my friend, and nothing will ever change that. I never give up on my friends.

“Love, Lancer.

“P.S., She will beg and plead to leave Appleloosa with you. I know from experience. Please, have some pity on the girl.”

Tears dripped onto the paper. Kyrie let them fall, folding the note and setting it on the bedside table. It felt good to cry, like letting go of a heavy burden. Lancer was right. Their paths, though connected by friendship, split apart for the moment. Better, she knew where her path would lead her next.

“Ma’am?”

Kyrie looked back at Kitty and saw her holding out a sheathed katana. Her, Kyrie’s, katana now. “He left this for you too. And uh, you weren’t hit anywhere too vital, see, so you could probably travel in a day or two. Immediately, if you brought along someone with medical training.

Kyrie could have laughed, if not out of fear of pain. Taking the sword, she set it down on the bed beside her and looked back at Kitty. She put on her most serious face. “It will be dangerous. The fight a week ago was a depressingly common kind of occurrence for me.”

Kitty grinned, almost bouncing in excitement where she stood. “I can take care of myself, really! And you could make me even better, ma’am!”

Kyrie saw the truth in that. And if she wanted to leave Appleloosa immediately, and she did, she did need a nurse of some kind. Clever girl.

“Fine then. Go ask permission from whoever if you need to and pack whatever you want to bring. And stop calling me ma’am! I’m not that old, blast it!”

“Yes ma’am, ma’amdy ma’am, ma’am ma’am!” Kitty Pride threw up a mocking salute and, before Kyrie had a chance to vent her rage, floated down through the floor and out of sight. Like a ghost.

Kyrie blinked, rubbed her eyes, blinked again. Tapped the spot of floor her new friend had disappeared through with the tip of her sword. Blinked a third time, then finally flopped backward into bed. “A mutant. Oh joy. Well, at least life will be interesting.

“Hawkeye won’t do anymore. No bow, only a katana. Lancer’s gone too, leaving me on my own. Masterless. A masterless samurai, wandering and righting wrongs. Well, there’s a superhero name right there.”

Grabbing her katana, Kyrie stood up from the bed and took a fighting pose. Holding the sheath in her right hand and the handle in her left she slowly unsheathed the blade, holding it up to gaze at her own reflection in the unbreakable metal. The tears were still there in her eyes, and Kyrie knew they wouldn't go away for a long while.

“Like Silver Samurai, only I won’t make the mistake my brother made. I swear it. I, Ronin, swear it.”

*

Sun sets on friendship
As two friends go their own ways.
Shadow on the mscropbgsubsxsd.sfmnc.x—
I’M NOT THAT BRUTISH.