Allow me to introduce to you, dear readers, a World. This is no ordinary World, though, not as us on earth would define it. No, for this World, so much like our own yet so different, is a world of magic and secrets. Of heroes and villains. A world rife with conflict in the shadows. This World is Earth. But not just any earth, no, this is Earth 227; a world of assassins, heroes, villains, and just about everything necessary for said heroics. Including superhuman abilities.

And here comes the subject of this wondrous tale: a young man, not even legally allowed to drink, dressed rather peculiarly in terms of the weather.

Oh, right. The setting. Ahem. Currently, dear readers, we observe our young man as he stalks through the streets of his hometown, Los Angeles. This young man is moderately tall, six feet in height not counting his perpetually windswept, spiky, black hair. This youth, in the words of his few friends, has a fetish for black; he never wears anything that doesn't have some sort of black on it.

Unless it's a dress uniform. He makes special exception for those. Socks too. And underwear, but we don't need to know about that, now do we?

Also curious is his pale complexion. Normally, this wouldn't be much of a problem, but given how much time he spends in the sun, it is a marked curiosity. And then there’s his eyes: a very vibrant gold, some would say they even glow in low light. The boy is currently wearing a pair of black slacks (he hates jeans), a red t-shirt with a black crow insignia upon its front, a black hoodie with the same insignia printed on the back (white this time), and a nice pair of black running shoes. And white socks.

He's carrying his school bag, also black. His hands are covered with black, leather, fingerless gloves.

He has just finished school and is heading home for evening practice and dinner.

His name is Cameron "Crow" Murder, and he is one of the better assassins on the planet. And he's only eighteen years old.

One might wonder exactly how an eighteen year old assassin would be able to juggle school, friends, and the job, but Crow is special.

Crow is a metahuman. A teleporter, to be exact. And one with an extra ability forged from his teleporting. See, Crow's teleportation comes with him leaving behind a cloud of feathers at both ends of his journey, so that he is provided a smokescreen with which to disguise his movements. The most useful part of this cloud of feathers is that Crow is able to manipulate them so as to be more discreet when necessary, normally only creating a few, quickly disappearing feathers.

And then there's the fact that each feather are both razor sharp, and capable of exploding with enough force to rip a man's face off. And Crow can forge bladed weapons from them. As well as launch them at near-bullet speeds. Pretty obvious how he's one of the better assassins now, isn't it?

Ah, here we are, the most important part of the story so far: Crow has returned to his home (he lives alone; his 'clan' likes to do that) and changed into his assassin's attire.

Again, almost all black. A long coat with a fur-lined hood, sweeping around his ankles. A pair of cargo pants, filled with useful supplies. Light, full-body armor and a utility belt. Steel toed combat boots with velcro for ease of use. Another crow-emblazoned shirt, long sleeved. Another pair of fingerless gloves, this time with armor plates on the back. And to finish the ensemble, a pointed visor, complete with ear pieces and a full, holographic HUD readout. Also: several games, a music library, a magic battery, and internet accessibility. Like the Google Glass, except much, much better.

But today's objective is not assassination; no, today is for practice. One's skills only atrophy when not under constant use, and Crow hasn't had a mission in weeks.

Adjourning to the secret training area far beneath his home, Crow began, striding to the center of the large room.

"Training Sim: Level Six," he spoke, no emotion tinging his words.

And he was off, disappearing and flashing around the arena in a flurry of feathers.

Ability: Flurry

User teleports with a concealing smokescreen of feathers

The combat droids floated into view, standard flying orbs with machine guns mounted on the sides. Crow cut through the lot of them as they fired, some managing to clip his form, though it did nothing but cause him to Flurry even faster.

Ability: Auto-Flurry

User involuntarily Flurries in response to any impact slower than mach 3

After five minutes of uninterrupted carnage that would send any robot screaming about a mass murderer, Crow finished his warmup.

“Sparring Droid, level seventeen.”

Ah, here we are, the most important part of the story so far; the droid. Standing six feet tall and weighing at just under a half ton, this metal monstrosity was built with the ability to proficiently use just about any martial art ever invented- so long as it could be replicated with the droid’s body type, that is. The custom built droid also had a very strange power source: a large chunk of crystal, unknown in composition, but undeniably magical in nature. This crystal emitted great amounts of energy, enough to keep a sparring droid active for hours at a time.

It was also very, very unstable- though nobody knew that. Remember that part, because it’s very important.

With the hissing of pneumatic seals being released, the metal beast sprang forth from its holding cell, already in the midst of what would commonly be called a “Dynamic Entry”.

Crow met the deadly flying kick with an attack of his own, a massive ring of blades flaring into existence around him and spinning fast enough shred the air into a ringing hum.

Ability: Orbit Shredder

User manifests a spinning ring of knives that orbits their person like planetary rings. Can be used to shred anything from flesh to tempered steel.

Impacting each other, Crow automatically Flurried behind the robot, inflicting massive damage and, unbeknownst to him, damaging the crystal power source ever so slightly.

This is important, remember this, dear reader.

As the spar continued, both parties attacking with ever increasing ferocity and martial ability, the droid began to take damage faster than its repair systems could handle. And then it stopped, mid punch, as it began sparking with a rainbow of color. Crow paused, unable to comprehend the strangeness of the droid's actions.

Cut him some slack, the guy's a highschool senior, not a robotics genius.

"I... What?" Crow began backing away slowly, clearly recognizing the danger. He knew his house would be fine- the training room was built far enough down to double as a bomb shelter.

And then the malfunctioning machine started to glow with a rainbow of colors.

"Oh shit."

And with that oh so eloquent phrase, Crow Flurried out of the room as fast as he could, but he was too late. The robot and the crystal inside detonated with a thunderous roar and a flash of every color unimaginable, the explosion catching up to Crow in mid-Flurry, mingling the magics involved and royally fucking Crow over.

With a popping sound that was quickly lost in the explosion, Crow was flung out of his homeworld and straight into, well, given the nature of this story, it should be obvious, shouldn’t it?

Let us now journey, dear reader, to a world much like the one our hero has just left. This is a world of sorcery, however, not technology. Welcome, gathered friends, to the planet of Equus. This is a land torn by strife and danger, though the latent harmony of the land is such that the peoples of the lands are still united in peace. This is a world without true war, though there is a neverending war on crime and the like.

Welcome the Elements of Harmony, a group of six young women tasked with defending the nation of Equestria from threats such as the one they were facing currently.

Lord Tirek. The Magic Eater. The King of Centaurs. The Demon Scourge. The Most Metal Centaur in the Universe (His favorite title).

Our heroine, so far as the current scene is concerned, is none other than Equestria's newest crown princess: Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship. She was currently locked in a mighty battle with the demonic centaur, trading magical blasts back and forth as if they were mere candy.

Side note: Who the hell made that phrase anyway? It's a horrible phrase.

As the battle grew ever more furious, the blasts coming down faster and harder, Princess Twilight charged up the most powerful beam she had used yet; a beam so powerful that it tore a small hole in spacetime with its mere presence.

This is important.

"FOOLISH GIRL! DO YOU REALLY THINK A PUNY THING LIKE YOU COULD DEFEAT ME!?"

With a mighty scream, one fit to shake the heavens asunder, the purple pony Princess released the blast from her hands, warping spacetime even further and pounding the weakened centaur into the dirt.

And then she dropped, spent from using all of the magic that she had been gifted by the other three Princesses (Well, except the part that let the sun, moon, and Crystal Heart keep working and not destroy the world with their absence).

Collapsing to her knees, unable to make even the smallest attempt to stand, Twilight nearly gave in; she knew that Tirek wouldn't have been taken down by that attack, powerful though it was.

Gasping for breath, she made a silent prayer to someone, anyone, that help would arrive. Seconds passed, and though she could sense her friends drawing nearer, they would not arrive before Tirek recovered and drained her magic dry....er.

The rubble shifted and Tirek broke free of the earth's stony grasp with a triumphant scream.

A scant hundred meters away, Twilight could only grit her teeth and pray harder; pray for a miracle that seemed unlikely to ever come.

And with a sound of distant thunder, a miracle appeared.

'Are these.... Feathers!?'

Indeed, the air was filled with hundreds of black feathers, each one resembling a feather from acommon crow. But these feathers were special. These feathers reflected no light and sent small jolts up her arms whenever she touched on. They also heralded a large flash of energy and a large black thing skidding to a stop right next to her.

And as Twilight looked up at the figure, she couldn't help but to be completely shocked at the sudden appearance of this human male, still an adolescent no less, in the most menacing clothing she'd ever seen on any person, human or otherwise.

Crow had arrived, singed and smoking, but otherwise completely fine.

As our hero looked around, he noted the being kneeling beside him, obviously worse for the wear. She was also one of the strangest humanoid beings he'd ever seen, a cross between a purple unicorn and a human, with a pair of wings stuck to her back to top things off. And she was also absolutely adorable.

Crow was distinctly nonplussed, a rare feat when the afflicted is an assassin in a world where toxic waste would turn the proper person into a sixty foot tall monstrosity made of radioactive feces.

(And yes, he actually saw it happen once.)

Back on track, Crow also noticed the twenty foot tall uber-death-metal-esque centaur bursting from a pile of rubble a few hundred feet away. Looking down, he spoke:

"That red guy the one who did all this to you?"

The purple one nodded weakly, still too tired to speak.

"Want me to... remove.... the problem?"

Another nod.

"Then you might want to look away. My methods are quite... Messy."

Twilight's only response was to pass out in the dirt, finally succumbing to her exhaustion.

And Crow sprung into action, Flurrying in disorienting patterns around the recently recovered Tirek, who tried futilely to swat the human from the air. As Crow appeared in random positions around the centaur, he formed a pair of katanas from the feathers around him, one with a crossguard shaped like a crow's beak, the other's crossguard a set of outstretched talons.

Construct: Midnight

A pitch black katana with an open crow's beak as a crossguard. Faint feather impressions can be seen upon inspecting the blade. Allows for more stab damage from the barbs along the back.

Construct: Dreary

A pitch black katana with a set of outstretched bird talons as a crossguard. Faint feather impressions can be seen upon inspecting the blade. Allows for more slashing damage due to the finely serrated blade.

And with a wordless cry, faintly reminiscent of a crow's harsh caw, he flickered out of visibility as clouds of feathers and alternating stab and slash wounds appeared sporadically around his body.

And for those of you that wondered, yes, that did include Tirek's massive pair of equine testicles.

After a scant few seconds of this assault, Tirek collapsed, screaming like a little girl at the pain all over his body... But especially his groin.

Seeing that the assault did little more than castrate Tirek, Crow decided to switch tactics, launching his Orbit Shredder ring at the villain.

Ability: Purge Shredder

User launches the ring of an Orbit Shredder with explosive results.

The resulting explosion was much stronger than Crow had anticipated, and thus both were launched back, Tirek a considerably shorter distance. Unfortunately, Crow drew the short straw and ended up crashing through a conveniently placed rock. Yes, through. It was a thin slab. Only six inches thick at most.

Now woozy and covered in lacerations, Crow mused that his Auto-Flurry was a horrible ability since it only covered impacts that didn’t hit his entire body. Still, he had to keep fighting, if only on principle.

Summoning the last vestiges of his strength, Crow Flurried onto Tirek’s head and, taking a moment to dry heave a little and dodge the centaur’s furious swipes, Flurried again, this time taking Tirek’s head. And only his head.

Needless to say, this ended up being very, very messy.

And then, somehow, Tirek’s corpse exploded, sending Crow crashing into a considerably thicker slab of stone and knocking the tired teen straight into dreamland.

End Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

Ahem. Yes. Let's go with this. Ahehehe....

Yeah, this is the Crow that Umbra turned into. Except his own person instead of just a disguise.

Yes.