Twilight Sparkle was at a loss. This stallion, who was likely relatively new as she knew pretty much everypony in Ponyville, had just trotted in and-and... She didn't want to come to terms with it, didn't want to have to accept what she had just witnessed but she knew it was real, that there was no denying that five stallions had just been murdered in front of her and they were still lying there. Unmoving, not breathing, there blood on the ground and just... dead.

"He...he slaughtered them" Rainbowdash said, tears flowing down her face, which was a rare sight indeed. Twilight just nodded, unable to take her eyes off the scene in front of her... right when she thought she was getting through to him he-he... The last few moments of his presence played through her mind; he dropped stallion down like he was going to spare him, then he did...what he did. The thing she couldn't understand was why he did it. She looked over at Derpy Hooves and watched her intently, trying to read her expression but couldn't get anything from it, she just seemed blank (except for those wacked out eyes). She trotted over to her.

"Derpy ar-"

"Ditzy."

"What?"

"My name is Ditzy Doo not Derpy Hooves" the grey Pegasus told the purple unicorn; she had none of her cute clumsiness in her voice, or about her at all.

"Oh, ok. I'm sorry, but that's not why I'm here" Twilight responded, genuinely surprised; she had always thought her name had been Derpy Hooves, considering that was what pretty much everypony in Ponyville called her.

"I know" she responded in a deadpan tone, her mane casting a shadow over her eyes "and before you ask, yes what I said happened, happened" she told the unicorn. Twilight cast her gaze down, not finding the strength to look at the grey Pegasus.

"I'm-I'm sorry but I have to ask" she took a steadying breath "do you know that stallion?" Twilight had to know who that pony was, had to find out what such a murderous stallion was doing out in Ponyville. Better yet, what he was doing outside the Canterlot prisons.

"I don't, but I'm going to find him and thank him."

"Thank-thank him, what do you mean by that."

"I mean what I say Twilight; that stallion, who you probably call murderer, I call saviour. I know you don't what to admit it but he helped me when I was in trouble."

"I don't have a problem with him helping you. What I do have a problem with is how he did it, killing those stallions was not the way to go about it" Twilight argued, not wanting to admit that the stallion was in the right at all.

"What would you have done" Ditzy snapped, looking Twilight directly in the eye, so she could see the tears threatening to spill, though they weren't there because of pity or remorse to the now dead, but the fact that she was stood in the middle of a group of ponies that knew she had just been…used "love and tolerate them for what they did to me" the grey Pegasus spat before she flew off.

"Ditzy please, wait!" Too late, the Pegasus flew had already left.

"The poor dear, I-I take it that it's true, what she said" Rarity asked from besides Twilight, who sighed and hung her head in defeat.

"She had no reason to lie, besides didn't you see her…flank" the unicorn replied, giving a small shudder as she remembered the stains on her rear end and tail.

"So, um, what are ya'll gonna do, y' know, with the bodies" Applejack asked, just a little scared of the corpses and blood on the ground.

"I don't know, we'll let the guards deal with it but we have to find out what happened to that stallion" Twilight announced.

"WHAT" Rarity exclaimed, losing her ladylike mannerism for a second.

"Hold up there sugarcube, why are we goin' after 'im? Didn't ya'll just say to let the guards handle it" Applejack asked with as much panic in her voice as Rarity.

"I really hope I heard wrong, 'cause I think I just heard you talkin' about trying to find that-that assassin" Rainbowdash added, butting into the conversation.

"Yes, Rainbowdash you did, because that's what we're going to do" Twilight told her, new vigour in her voice.

"Well Twilight, Applejack's question still stands. Why not let the guards deal with this" Rarity pressed.

"I-I don't know why I just...just don't feel right letting them deal with this." Twilight wasn't lying, she felt a strange presence about the stallion, something she couldn't put her hoof on but one thing was for sure it definitely troubled her. "Besides; together we defeated Nightmare moon, Discord, King Sombra and Queen Chrysalis, what's one stallion with a sword?"

"I'm sorry darling but I just don't think the elements of harmony would work against…that kind of pony, if you can call him that" Rarity told her solemnly.

"She's got a point there, sugarcube; ah don't like that feller one bit, we should leave this to the professionals" Applejack admitted.

"I'm with Rarity on this one Twilight, that guy looks like he's out of even MY league" Rainbowdash agreed, though not sparing them the boast. Twilight couldn't believe what she was hearing; Applejack the pony everypony could always count on and Rainbowdash, whose loyalty to Ponyville is what literally made her who she is.

"So your just gonna trot away from this" she asked unbelieving, her mouth agape "after everything we've all been through your letting a stallion with a creepy voice get to you."

"N-no, nothing like that we just…uhhh" Rainbowdash couldn't finish her sentence and Twilight knew she'd hit a soft spot; Rainbowdash portrayed herself as brave and heroic, she was also the kind to rush headlong into trouble without second thought be it through stubbornness, pride or the need to protect her friends. Twilight didn't want any of her friends to do anything foolish or dangerous but she knew that she couldn't do this without them.

"Ah think what Rainbow's trying to say here, Twilight, is that ya'll shouldn't be takin' all a' Ponyville's problems on yourself, its jus' not necessary to be dealin' with this yourself" Applejack told her in a caring fashion. It was no secret that Applejack was more protective of the group of friends, and that she wasn't about to let Twilight rush off into anything stupid, not without telling her some wise words first anyway. Twilight suddenly noticed something, sat behind three of her best friends; Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy sat still weeping. Rarity, Rainbowdash and Applejack followed their friend's gaze and saw the depressing site. After a brief pause, Twilight spoke.

"We've got to give them some kind of closure with this, we can't just let this be their only memories of this" Twilight told them, her voice sad as she looked over at the two ponies. Her friends seemed to agree. Pinkie Pie sat, holding Fluttershy in her fore-hooves cradling the sensitive pony that was crying uncontrollable into her chest; Pinkie's hair had its unnaturally straight look to it that only happened when she was sad or not thinking straight, her eyes had a steady flow of tear flowing from them as they continued to stare at the battlefield in a horrified manner. Fluttershy seemed worst for it; she had seen the bronze stallion's head get take off and would most likely be most affected by this, as she had never been involved in anything violent in her life, nor had she ever been overly fond of blood.

"Y-your right Twi, we can't be letting him get away with this, not afta' what it's done to ah friends" Applejack conceded "but ah gotta know, why won't you let the guards deal with this."

"Well, think about it, he's obviously got combat experience and he's killed before. I get the feeling that guardponys just won't be able to deal with this" Twilight admitted. She always had faith in her big brother's guards but no matter how good they were they didn't stand a chance against what she had just witnessed.

"Alright fair 'nuff" Applejack submitted, relaxing her neck in a defeated fashion "but what a' we gonna do in the mean time?"

"We have to get Fluttershy away from here, get her away from all of this" Pinkie Pie spoke up for the first time in a while, her voice deadpan and as void as emotion as her mane "can we please just go" the pink party pony pleaded in an out of character fashion.

"Yeah, come on girls, let's get out of here" Twilight agreed. If she were honest, she'd say she was feeling about the same as Fluttershy right now but felt she had to stay strong for all their sakes. The purple unicorn looked around, many of the ponies had left either to cry to themselves or fetch one of the few guards that patrolled Ponyville. Some stallions and mares went to the bodies and started to wail louder.

'They must be their parents or something' Twilight concluded as she watched the stallions try to pry away the mares that were hugging the corpses, before three golden armour clad guard ponies arrived at the scene. One of them, a light grey earth pony, immediately threw up when he saw the dead stallions. Twilight pitied him, he looked young and new to the guard profession but she had to look after her friends first, so with Applejack carrying a still crying Fluttershy on her back and Rainbowdash with a wing over Pinkie Pie, whispering something that seemed to be cheering her up, indicated by her small giggles (Twilight had no idea how the rainbow coloured mare managed to do it but it probably had something to do with pranks or cupcakes). The six elements of harmony made their way to Twilight's home. Inwardly Twilight was dreading her return to the golden oaks library, as she knew she would have to explain today's events to Spike and she knew there was no getting out of it, all's he would have to do is look at the tear streaks going down all their faces.

The library seemed eerily quiet as the six mares returned, Twilight leading the way. Pinkie Pie's mane seemed to have regained its 'poof' and she seemed to be able to smile again, albeit a little weakly. Fluttershy, impossibly, also seemed to be doing ok again once they got to the library within the tree. Spike was busy cleaning and Twilight was glad for it; she didn't want to tell him about today until necessary.

"So, we want to track this guy down right" Rainbowdash said as they all sat in a circle in the middle of the library.

"An' jus' how do we go about doin' that? Ya'll saw the way he left, that stallion is as sneaky as a snake in tall grass" Applejack remarked. Twilight Sparkle was looking through a small portion of the library; the segment Twilight was searching was home to dark, thick and heavily bound books, which were obviously about something dark and ominous that gave the purple pony the same sensation as when she had seen and used King Sombra's black magic; an eerie presence at the back of her mind, like there was a shadowy figure just in the shadows and just out of sight. Just like the sensation the memory of the hooded stallion gave her.

"What are you looking for Twilight" Rarity asked from the circle mares as she watched the bookish unicorn levitate books from here and there in the library.

"I'm looking for a book" she replies bluntly.

"Well duuuh, which one?" Rainbowdash flies over to where Twilight was stood, levitating books in front of her, reading the title and throwing them away impatiently.

"It's a book about really old magic, magic that was supposedly banned outside of academic study since just after the banishment of Nightmare moon" Twilight explains as she continues to go through her books, feeling she is getting closer.

"What type a' magic are we talkin' about here Twi, I still don't get what that stallion did when he got away" Rainbow asks, having now flown up to the higher shelves to find something, not having a clue what it was.

"I think it was called…" Twilight paused, hitting her head with her hoof a few times trying to recall something she had glanced over once in her studies "shadow magic, yeah that was it, shadow magic" she tells them looking over books with greater speed, now that she had a better idea what she was looking for.

"Found it" Pinkie Pie cries out from under a small pile of books. Twilight turns her head so quickly she nearly pulls something.

"What" she yells, once more astounded at the party pony's ability to find things "let me see" she says, already lifting the book over to her with her magic.

"Lostnocturnalmagicvolumethreechapterthirteenpageone-thousandandthirty-threetoone-thousandandforty-nine" she told Twilight, who was now flicking through the book, astounded once again at the pink pony's ability to speak so fast, to said page.

"Pinkie Pie, I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret this but, how did you do that" Twilight asks bracing for a massively long-winded answer.

"Oh that, I saw the page as it flew past me when you threw it in to the pile when you were done with it" she told Twilight while wearing an overly large grin. Twilight simply blinked at her before shaking her head a few times to rid herself of the thought

'Just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie' she thought to herself looking back over the book she held, now at the correct page.

"Here it is" she paused as she read a few passages, before her eyes bulged slightly as she got to grips with some of the finer points of the very advanced magic. Her friends noticed the look on her face and looked between each other in worry; they all saw Twilight as the resident expert of magic in Ponyville and to see her apparently impressed, worried or confused was always cause for concern when it came to magic.

"W-what is it Twilight" Rarity asked somewhat timidly, sensing the panic emitting from Twilight.

"I-it's nothing just... this is some pretty advanced stuff" she read a little more of the page before looking up and addressing all of her concerned looking friends, she took a deep breath before continuing.

"It's called 'Umbra Linguam' or shadow language. It involves 'the control of shadows to ones will, in a fashion that uses at set of four simple words, such as: walk, attack, hide, defend, see, hear or learn'" she told the quoting the book directly "I-I've never heard of magic like this" she told them her eyes narrowed in thought.

"Shadow magic? Like King Sombra" Applejack asked rubbing her chin in thought.

"Yes...no…kind of, King Sombra was an exceptionally powerful uhhh" she consults the book, her eyes moving back and forth over the page before looking back up "'shadow speaker' but I don't think he was using the same words as the stallion we're dealing with."

"So this guy can use shadow magic then" Rainbowdash summarized "how does this help us again?"

"Well, did you see the way he escaped, like the shadows latched onto him and he…became them. So now that we know what he can do, we also know what he can't do" she tells them triumphantly.

"Which is" Rainbowdash urges as she leans in.

"Well, the book says that although the magic is powerful and advanced, it does have its disadvantages; the first being that only four spells can be used because only four words can be learned, the power of the spell depends on the ability of the castor, like most other magic, and it has to be directly related to the word. For example; if the pony had the word walk in their…uhhh, the book calls it an 'umbra vocabulary' then they would be able to move as a shadow" Twilight explained as she trotted back and forth "the second weakness is that for the spell to be at full power then there needs to be shadows around the caster, the book says that this can be countered by having 'shadow' in the pony's vocabulary but, obviously, this uses up one of the words available. Normally all of these speakers would have a simple spell that would help them learn that consists of their shadow reaching out a few meters, this helps them practice without using up a word as well as allowing them to make their spells stronger when there not right next to shad-" Twilight's head suddenly snapped up and her gaze met the book for a moment before she lunged at it and tears it open, causing her friends to gasp in a startled fashion, as she read the book, gripping the book violently in her fore-hooves as she looked over the page. When she was done she raised her head, her eyes lingering on the book and her face a strange mix of relief and confusion.

"Wh-what is it Twilight" Fluttershy squeaked from beneath her mane.

"I-it's this thing about the absence of shadow; it also says that the casters shadow must be distinguishable from the shadow their drawing power from."

"Sooo, what does that mean" Rainbowdash inquired.

"Well, the book doesn't go into much detail about it, but from what I can tell it works something like this; if the unicorn casting the spell is covered in shadow, say by the shade of a large building, the spell wouldn't work. The only reason it gives is that the shadows powering it causes it to 'short circuit' due to the amount of power being pumped directly into the spell."

"So…what, that means we have to over load this guy with shadows by fighting him in the shade of Sugarcube Corner" Rainbowdash put together with a slight 'are you kidding me' look on her face.

"No" Twilight said to herself more than to the ponies in audience "but what it does mean is that" she paused as if figuring something out, looking over the results, figuring it out again and checking again to be sure, before looking up at the five mares in realisation "all's we have to do is find him at night, that way he won't be able to use his most powerful available magic" she smiled, now more confident about the inevitable confrontation.

"Now wait ah minute sugarcube, how does that work? When it's night-time, shadows are everywhere, ya'll should know bein' up so late all ah the time" Applejack counters.

"Exactly, if the shadows are everywhere then the stallion's shadows can't be told apart from the other shadows, so he won't be able to cast his spells" Twilight tells Applejack, who shakes her head as though the unicorn is not understanding her.

"Nah, what ah mean is that I've seen many a night when I can my shadow when its cast by the moonlight, don't that mean he can use his magic still" Applejack clarifies. The earth pony knew she was no expert in the art of magic but she knew day and night well enough that she knew how shadows worked at different times of the day. Twilight had opened her mouth and raised her hoof in argument but nothing came out, she looked back at the book in vain to try and get some more answers from it but all's she got was a few users of this type of magic. Twilight frowned in confusion; most spells known to unicorns were created by Starswirl the Bearded or either of the princesses, and were all supposed to capable of being learned by anypony. Having a list, a short list at that, told the unicorn that this was more complicated than she first thought. She noticed that the names had small sketches next to them, when she got to one in particular her eyes widened.

"Uhhh girls, come look at this" she tells her friends as she turns the book to the advancing mares. Twilight sees the recognition in her friend's faces, as well as their reactions; Rainbowdash and Applejack look at each other in confusion, Rarity's face is drawn back from the page in fear, Pinkie Pie's face loses its immense grin as she recognizes the face looking back and Fluttershy nearly faints. The page held an image of a stallion, his hood casting a shadow over most of his features, even in the sketch, but the eyes that peered from beneath the shroud were unmistakeable. Twilight recognized the 'flash sketch' spell; a spell that produced an image of the target in a similar fashion of the camera, the main difference being that the spell came out looking like an actual drawing while the device looked like an exact replica of the desired scene. Spell or technology aside, the image was quickly recognized by the six mares. From the menacing eyes, to the scar on his face it was clear that this was the pony they'd seen earlier today. The five mares looked to the right of the image and found a name, written in sharp and jagged letters that somehow had the ability to be intimidating and scary. Blood Moon.

As he was more than ten-thousand years ago.

Author's Notes:

Comments are life. Comments are love. Comments are truth.

You get the picture.

I'm glad to see people enjoying The Assassin's Song and I'm equally glad to see those favourites adding to the list. It would be nice to hear you thoughts on my story so far and whether you liked it or not, why/why not, ect.

Either way, thanks for reading this instalment of The Assassin's Song.

Productive faffer out.