18th December, 69 BNM
Late Afternoon/Evening
North-Eastern Equestria
Salty Basin badlands
Copperfield crater outskirts

His eyes burning, he crawled from the edge of the crater, to clearer air. There was still dust about, but the invisible gas that burned his eyes and throat, that killed the others, was much less here.
Shuffling onto the flat ground, he gasped for air, uncertain if it was the fumes or grief that caused the tears in his eyes. Just a few minutes ago he'd been with his siblings outside his house, playing a hoofball game in the cooler evening sun. The town had been bustling here on the flats as usual.
But then rumbles came from the mine. The complete collapse as the earth swallowed the town in a plume of dirt and noxious fumes arrived almost instantly afterwards.
He'd been only half buried, but his family and friends not so much.
Silent, he clambered up the slope still, his ears ringing from the noise still.
He swore he saw flashes of green, the echoes of a sword, in the distance, through the haze of the smoke and dust.

Mountain slopes, atop collapsed mine

Dust swirled as it settled elsewhere, the clouds finally starting to clear from the catastrophic collapse. But he didn't pay it heed.
His severed tail half had already begun healing, but Chack was overwhelmed by his opponent too much for his liking. She was cunning and ruthless, a dangerous combination.
He swung out his katana, but saw his blade pass through her harmlessly. An illusion clone.
A green flash sounded behind him, and Chack felt the green crackling energy with his sensory skin. There was no such thing as sneak attacking a Salamander, certainly not a warrior trained one.
Ducking and rolling sideways, Chack dodged Teal's energy with little room to spare. But she was upon him swiftly, her scorpion legs turning a bright green hue as she reared up over him with her lethal lower body.
Again and again she stabbed down, 6 spear sized legs plunging with toxic green magic around them into the ground, missing the Salamander as he rolled about. Slashing out his sword, the blade clashed with each leg as it began to pull out, the hardened shell by flesh and magic rattling as if he were striking another blade every time he parried them.
Kicking upwards, Chack yelled out as his leg hit the very hard carapace body armour of her underbelly, while Teal shot a claw down to take off his head. Ducking down as he grit his teeth, the Salamander ripped out a smaller knife he had and plunged it into the soft flesh between her pincers.
Screeching bloody murder as the knife went between her claws, Teal leapt away like a gigantic cricket, wringing her claw with her ape hands prising the knife out soon after she landed.
Standing shakily on his bruised leg, Chack raised his sword to the creature as she stood now 30 feet from him, her claw shaking itself to cool the pain as her ape hands balled into fists, one of them having hurled aside his small knife in irritation.
Glancing around the slowly dissipating dust clouded slopes, Chack saw a glint of green, the enchanted blade Everfree gave him lying there where it fell. Reaching out his webbed hand, the Salamander hissed slightly as he focused. A second later, after quivering slightly, the sword began to fly towards him.
Seeing the blade coming to him, his enemy reacted. Teal Quirt violently slashed out a green tendril whip of pure magic, wrapping itself around the blade. But the moment she seized it, her eyes going wide with relishing defeat and seizing his better weapon, she suffered for her quick thinking.
The magic she used, laced with darkness Everfree had crafted the blade to counter, reacted badly. Electrical arcs flew along her magic tendril, electrocuting her with the scorpion/ape hybrid writhing on the ground as her screams rang out. Her magic ceasing as she was blasted backwards by the shocks, the sword resumed its flight to Chack.
Catching the blade in his hand, the Salamander charged forwards into the dust, leaping off a rise of rock and dirt towards where he knew Teal Quirt had landed.
He saw her, still coming to on the ground, and he landed behind her in a rolling manner, his green sword flying upwards as he raised to strike her down.
Her gaunt face, wracked with smoke from the electrical shock she'd received moments earlier, flared its green eyes once. As he brought down his blade, a small lump of dirt turned to mud, enveloped his heel, and then dragged him sideways as if he'd suddenly been tied to a runaway carriage. Chack's battle cry swiftly became one of outrage and shock as he was pulled away by the heel.
He was pulled free of the dust cloud, out into the clear, before he lashed out his sword, smashing the green hued rock clamp to pieces in one stroke before he scrambled to his feet. His eyes locking onto where he'd seen her, Chack heard the noise of charging magic, and a green glow inside the last dust to disperse.
His green sword shifted in his hand, becoming a new weapon, but one he knew how to use. The green hued bow he formed felt metallic, but usable in his grip. Pulling back, the Salamander briefly stared at the crackling green energy spell 'arrow' it formed, but quickly regained his focus as the light inside the dust cloud flared up suddenly.
Out of the cloud, a green shockwave surged forwards like a giant sword coming towards him. But he was prepared for this, as he saw where the wave had come from. Loosing the energy arrow, Chack saw the tiny bolt soar into the dust, right as he began to form his weapon's internal magic into a shield, instinctively shielding his face and chest with his arms.
Blown backwards, burnt by the energy attack, Chack went rolling further down the slopes, coming to a crashing stop against a wrecked mineral ore cart lying amidst the rubble. A distant groan, feminine and monstrous, echoed from the diminishing cloud of dust, and the creature he was certain he'd somehow hit.
Things went quieter now, as Chack struggled to his feet, blood red armour coated in brown dust, along with his normally black slimy skin.
Glancing about, he realised the state of the environment around him. The mine was obliterated, its destruction an afterthought as Teal continued to endure in the fight. But as he glanced about, the hardened gaze in his green eyes faltered.

Copperfield crater outskirts

The splinter shaped cracks in the ground from where the underground collapses occurred had trashed the town, the ground swallowing it as if it turned to liquid in its now sunken state. The stench of the released gases hung like a thin musk in the air, dispersed as the evening winds had blown it and the dust away. Ruins of house frames, a few collapsed wagon wheels, and the odd hoof and leg protruding from the rubble.
Over the rim of the collapse area, a solitary figure walked slowly, his armour coated in the dust from earlier.
There, having crawled from the crater's edge, a small earth pony colt weakly lay against a wooden support beam, upended during the collapse of the town's grain silo.
The colt blearily glanced around, delirious, shocked, and weakly coughing as the burning gas that had filled the town during the collapse had nearly claimed him too.
As the warrior, a Salamander met his gaze, the colt's eyes were drawn to the green glowing weapon he held.
He recalled the green flashes amongst the debris cloud. They had caused this.
The boy's expression turned cold as he saw the Salamander slowly approaching, a ghost amidst the land as the dust was finally gone. Further up the slopes, towards the collapsed mine hills, the dust clouds slowly moved away, but there was no body of the other creature he'd been fighting.
Even if there had been, he found his attention drawn to other matters, as the hot fires of battle and revenge against her simmered in the aftermath he was now witnessing.

Chack saw the colt propped against the wooden beam, coated in dust, barely moving as he seemed to stare at him with a blank, icy expression.
The evening sun was cooling the badland and hillside surroundings, but the scarred landscape as a result of the underground gas fire and collapsed, those that consumed the town, spoilt the normally pleasant evening sunset.
Slowly coming to a stop, Chack saw the colt shuffling away from him hesitantly, the cold suspicion still on his face. Scowling slightly, Chack glanced around, his half severed tail now throbbing slightly as it had already begun crusting over to heal. But the state of the crater, where the town had once been, and the last traces of the dust cloud thrown up by its collapse and the mine's blowout, only diminished the rush he'd felt at being on the cusp of slaying one he'd hunted for two years.
Carefully, gulping slightly, Chack's expression turned softer for a moment as he asked the blankly staring colt a few feet from him:
"Have you, ...seen any others who escaped?"
As Chack asked this, the cold look on the colt's dust covered face didn't move at all. He almost looked dead by how still he was glaring at the Salamander. Only the movement of the hardened eyes conveyed life. His hardening, angry eyes turned to the green sword on Chack's belt.
Glancing down, Chack saw the colt's expression turn the coldest yet, as a small, choked voice croaked out from his lips:
"Why?"
The question rang like the loudest gong in Chack's mind, as he didn't know whether it was just the colt who spoke it, or also a part of him he'd often buried or been deaf to. That part that he was taught to, as a samurai, to ignore when duty required it to be. Yet here, by his actions, by his pursuit of her, that creature, he by some consequence of the dangers of mining anywhere, had killed more than was necessary.
The Colt's silent anger bored into him as fiercely as the gaze he sent the Salamander, who could only quietly murmur back as he turned away, staring at the shallow crater which had swallowed the town and the colt's family. The twin swords he carried suddenly felt heavier on his armour.
A shifting by the wooden beam surprised Chack, as he saw the Colt shuffle where he lay to spit in his direction. There was blood in the saliva as it flew in his general direction, and the colt's expression was cold as ever as he tried to shuffle to his feet. Still reeling at his internal conflict, Chack quietly pleaded as he took a step forwards, a webbed hand outstretched as he tried to explain himself:
"No, please, she was a danger, ever since he...since I..."
Trailing off, Chack was overcome by a rush in his mind, as he saw truncated memories running through his mind.
His hand went to his old katana, and then it came rushing through his mind.

Hundreds of deaths, be it other samurai, guards, civilians associated with warriors he had pursued outside of battle. All deaths he'd granted when there was no need. Among them though, there was the flash of a Unicorn mare, an emissary's escorting mage who happened to be in the way as he fled a vengeance fuelled rampage, shortly before coming to Equestria. Her horn went flying as his sword rang through the air.

His hand went to his green blade, a sword by default, gifted by Everfree.

Only one must be slain.
"Why not kill more of us?"
"To be fair I see no reason to kill only one of you..."
His sword unleashed the magical curse, with Everfree's spiritual aid telling him what to cast, inside the digestive interior of the creature, before he began cutting himself out. He saw a vision of the slow death by the poison curse that happened later, the second to die. And then, he resumed hunting them anyway, even after the worst had been averted with more then one dead by now.
In Ave-Dol's grief, he was unconcerned, he encouraged Starswirl to murder her out of spite for her inaction, and in turn, part in Siral's plans. Her pained form was enveloped in Siral's twisted games, and what he spat out was the monster she became.
He had no stake, only personal grudges at killing the Queen on his watch, against the one he'd pursued here.
And now, with the toxins of war and his surroundings around him in the dark, triggered with the clash of his blade against his enemy's defence, he saw a flash of fiery light, and a town lying buried in a crater of earth.

"Chack, she is coming."
As he stared out at the ruins of his cruelty without cause beyond personal pride, against creatures he had played a part in quelling as a collective threat long ago. Everfree's warnings, emanating from the blade he held in his right hand now, cried out in his mind unheeded.
"Chack!"
As the Salamander stood there, as blank faced as the unnamed colt was, the latter began to slowly shuffle up, the look of anger on his face evident as he began to limp aggressively towards the Salamander so much older and more dangerous then he.
Slowly, both swords, the green blade, and his old katana, began to slip from his webbed hands, Everfree's voice ringing out in warning and disbelief at the sudden change of heart as the blade fell to the floor.
"CHACK!"
The colt's high pitched cry as he leapt towards the Salamander went unheard, as he was caught off guard by the colt knocking him to the ground, and mercilessly began to pound, somewhat ineffectively, against his samurai armour.
Before the colt, tear streaked and rage filled, could land any more blows, Chack seized him by the scruff of his neck, the colt about two thirds his size, and shoved him backwards enough to send the colt sprawling onto his back.
"Don't child, you-!"
"You took everything!" Utterly livid, the colt, his name unknown still, seethed as he then noticed the two swords the Salamander had dropped. The normal katana blade remained closer to the Salamander, but the green blade, glowing oddly, glowed a tantalising toxic colour, its surface shining enough for the colt to see his eyes in.
Walking over, the colt, unsteadily so, picked up the green blade in his mouth.
"Chack, you can call it to you, before he uses it!"
As if calling from the sword, Chack heard the cries of Everfree in his mind. But the colt remained adamant in his desire, as he approached the still floored Ronin. Chack could only remain sprawled on his back, sat up in exhaustion and inner turmoil.
Everfree's cries rang hollow, as Chack could only blink wordlessly as the Colt approached, his outraged expression evident as he raised the larger then suitable sword up to take a swipe at the Salamander. At the last moment, the voice of Everfree rang out in warning as the Colt began to swing down, and Chack's eyes shut in shame.
"Chack, there's-!"
Instinctively, Chack shifted sideways as he saw the colt swing the sword down. But at that instant, something green flashed off to the side, and a crackle of energy came their way.
A beam of energy flew out towards him. The beam, aimed at Chack's head, was on target, but the target had moved. As the colt swung down, the green blade rang as it impacted the ground beside Chack's scrambling leg, the Salamander rolling to avoid the colt's strike. But his eyes glimpsed the beam as he spun, right as it met with the Colt, who had staggered forwards under the weight of the blade he'd angrily tried to use on its user.
The colt had no chance, the beam blasting through him with enough force to vaporise him. No blasting away, the beam penetrated a burnt hole right through the colt's chest enough to kill him instantly.
The colt's swing carried through, as he collapsed on the ground, the green sword clanging as it fell from his hoof, the colt's chest smoking from the apple sized hole in his chest. Behind the colt's body, Chack's eyes shot towards the figure limping, towards them.
Her claw outstretched, still smoking and green, Teal ape shoulder was burnt by the magic attack Chack had blindly launched into the dust before their fighting ceased temporarily. But her magic was strangely acting up now, no more pure green, but now laced with dark black magic as well.
"You will not beat me so easily as before, cretin."
Teal's utter venom laced in her tone stung Chack deeply, as he slowly stood to his feet shakily, not bothering to pick up either of his blades as he spoke remorsefully to her:
"Your power is not your own."
"He made me strong, and then I broke free of him."
At Teal's words, Chack's mind was at work now, as he jabbed a webbed hand towards her as she came to a stop about 20 feet from him, her scorpion legs shaking slightly as she recovered her strength:
"No. He didn't make you. He only took advantage of what state you were in. What... I made you into, by who I was."
At this, Teal's expression shifted visibly, before it reverted to her cruel glare as usual, one of her scorpion claws clicking slightly as she hissed towards him with her 4 head horns glowing with magic:
"Don't think I'll fall for this. You haven't changed, nopony can change who they are. The boy who attacked you just now, I regret that he got in the way, he would have understood my cause against you. Who says I am the monster?"
"I know..."
Chack's admission came in a tone softer then expected from the Salamander, as his webbed hands balled up into fists as he admitted more to himself then her:
"I know, there are too many I have killed and maimed needlessly, I have no cause or reason for you to not wish me dead. I understand that rage, that drive. But, if you have become so powerful, why do you pursue Alicorns you need not fear?"
"Because they are dangers, they don't deserve their power."
"Only if you attack them with intent to harm, and they in turn attack to defend. Who is more cruel? Those who attack first, or those who need to retaliate harder for defence?"
At Chack's words, the dark magic wreathing around Teal seemed to pulsate with the thinking she did, but she rebuked quite viciously to him as she readied a magic attack for the Salamander, the creature widening her scorpion body's stance as she did so:
"What does this have to do with anything?"
"You want to kill me. But why did you waste time for two years pursuing Alicorns instead. You deny it, but you are in the thrall of Siral still. And I harmed you in a way that made you vulnerable, like the others..."
"Your change of heart won't stop me. Once I am through with you, I will go, and ensure Siral is finished off, whatever remains."
"Even if it involves killing yourself? He said it, if even one remains."
"No, I will find, another way."
Teal's hesitation, and the fluctuation of dark magic as it seeped into her wounds to heal her, spoke volumes of the lies in her voice, involuntary ones at that. Chack was silent, but he focused his mind and body as he saw Teal becoming more and more unstable, in denial of his unwillingness to actively seek to kill her.
"I, I know I can! You, you're trying to trick me for a killing blow!"
"No. But you are corrupted. By my hands before Siral had his way."
Chack spoke with an air of finality to him, as his hand shot out to the green blade to summon it to his hand, as he swiftly lunged sideways to pick up his old katana.
But as he stood up, he sheathed the green blade, and raised his old sword, the katana he wielded for decades, and readied his stance.
"Bushido code requires I take responsibility for my actions."
"You haven't changed at all, I was right."
Teal's words were spoken with a smirk, but what happened next caught her truly off guard.
Taking the sword into his hand blade first, Chack hurled it forwards, the blade clattering to the ground before Teal's feet. The Scorpion/Ape hybrid centaur looked at the sword, the same one that was used to mutilate her horn when still a normal unicorn, with confusion she didn't expect. The dark magic around her usual green dispelled slightly as she saw Chack now standing more at ease.
The Ronin stared at her, remarking:
"Bushido involves justice. I wronged you. It is only fair, that I give you what you deserve. I cannot apologise enough to make up for my wrongs to you, to those I unnecessarily killed in my own desires. But, in this way, the sword I used can become a tool of justice as it was forged to be so long ago."
"If killing me would alleviate you from my wrongs to you, then, so be it."
With that, Chack merely knelt down, and waited.
Staring across at him, Teal Quirt's form shook slightly as green light enveloped it, her body shrinking down to a much smaller form. The Unicorn mare he saw was definitely the one he duelled over the river, and before that, the one he wounded in his escape in Salaman decades earlier.
Staring at the calmly waiting Salamander, Teal's expression hardened, a dark glint entering her eyes as her green laced magic picked up the Katana, hovering it before her as a smile of anticipation took over her face. She limped on her back leg, a hint of her true hybrid form's injuries, but she was determined.
The sunset was obscured by the dust as she advanced, the sword rising higher as the winds suddenly seemed to die down, the crater remnants of the town bones on their battlefield casualties in the background.
But Chack spoke one last thing before she acted.
"If you do this, you must be sure you are truly free to choose after this, for your own sake."
As he said this, Teal paused as she held the sword in her green magical grasp, the Unicorn pausing as she wrestled internally. Her eyes shifted from their normal green to a darker shade as she battled internally, her breathing becoming erratic as she did so.
Chack waited calmly, seeing what fate had in store from his would be killer here of his choosing.

Teal Quirt's mindscape

He's bluffing. I am free, I made sure Siral is subdued, destroyed.
But you still endure, as does Gaudium somewhere. Two reasons he would still.
Then I'll solve that.
Your death and his are the only way.
No, I don't want to die, I will live free.
And so will Siral. Your desire to exact revenge against Alicorns is the same as Siral's.
But killing him is all me.
Is it? You cannot be sure.
Why would Siral wish to kill him?
Because he has killed at least one other, and helped with others. Siral has taken the one vengeance that was once yours, and made it uncertain if it is truly your own desire and not his as well.
I cannot spare him, nor let him live.
As more fall, he will grow angrier. You had a hoof in luring Golmov and Odi to their deaths, and in turn Ave-Dol unintentionally. His desire to control you is stronger then ever. He wants you to kill the Samurai because he can kill others who tie him to life.
No, I want this, NOT HIM!
What you want, is what I WANT. YOU ARE MINE, IN SPITE OF YOUR TREACHERY!
You do not command me! YOU WILL NEVER COMMAND ME!

Copperfield crater outskirts

With a shriek, Teal Quirt recoiled slightly, the sword dipping in her magical grip as green and black magic seemed to writhe from her with visible fumes, both toxic colours but of differing shades. Her Unicorn form reverted to its scorpion/ape hybrid shape, as her hands rushed to her forehead to clench at her 4 horns in utter agony.
"I'm, he, NO. I won't, he, NO!"
As she lowered the sword in her magical grip, Teal stared at Chack, who merely waited with a hung head, but eyes drawn to her as she weakly spoke with the black magic inside her winning out:
"I want this, but not this way."
As she lowered the sword, Chack felt a wave of uncertainty overcome him. She wanted him dead, he understood, but there was something inside him he felt. A feeling of, pity, and remorse, for a mare he knew he'd delivered into the evil that now enthralled her.
And to think the same one who corrupted her had been mistreated by another cruel individual, Geldrath, who in turn was cruelly mistreated for radical ideas.
It seemed indeed that cruelty was a vicious cycle.
But as she sighed in frustration, Chack saw that maybe, maybe, there was a way to break it.
But alas, her willpower had no endurance for the corruptive forces that made her as powerful as she was.
Chack's eyes widened a fraction as he saw her eyes turn pitch black, and her horn's green magic turn an even darker shade. The sword he offered her soared upwards, enveloped in black magic.
As the dark Being of Envy raised his own sword up, the sunset glinted off it in dust hued red, the crater absorbed town, a casualty of his cruelty, loomed behind him. Chack shut his eyes, as he knew that somewhere, deep down, he would alleviate the pain of one he had wronged, a relief in the suffering she was surely still trapped in.
The sword swung down as Teal's dark pitched warcry rang out, ringing in the air as it sliced down to the Salamander's body, kneeling down in a calm stance that showed the peace he tried to make, and had achieved for himself.
The sword rang as it flew down towards Salamander flesh.

18th December, 69 BNM
Evening
Nokotaford, Royal Palace
Starswirl's offices

He filed the reports, some essays he had the princesses write.
The hollow feeling that accompanied the everyday drek of teaching the few ponies he truly cared for nowadays, mixed with the usual bad news of those cantankerous mules waging their pointless war, did much to wear on Starswirl's mind.
Yet as he walked over to reach the next batch of scrolls, he suddenly felt light headed, as a rush he had not felt in a very long time overcame him. A rush of satisfaction, and euphoria, as a cryptic voice rang in his head for the first time in decades, one of virtuous ideals:
A Cruel One, for you and they to learn of True Kindness.
When he came to moments later, he was keeled over, light headed, as he realized what had happened.
Somehow, somewhere, how he didn't know, Chack had fulfilled his destiny. 43 years after he had met Starswirl. Better late then never truly applied here.
"Chack..."
For the first time in a while, a ghost of a smile crept across Starswirl's face, as he realized this meant not everything he thought had been for naught.
But immediately, he mind turned to other matters.
"What happened to cause this?"
He knew he had to find Chack, wherever he was, fast.

Author's Notes:

Ending on a razor's edge. [insert punchline drums here]
Kindness is defined as compassion, understanding what is needed to help someone. And really, some people NEED a form of payback, a form of justice. But at the same time, Chack's game forces Teal to confront whether she is as truly free as she wishes. Such forceful kindness takes the expression 'cruel to be kind' into consideration.
Frankly, kindness is one of the most open to interpretation virtues there is.