AUTHOR'S NOTE: This time I tried indenting to see how it turns out. Please tell me if you like this format or if i should still with the original. Nearly 50 chapters! I thank you all for reading, you are truely my inspiration and motivation to keep writing. Enjoy the chapter!

My hoof grasped the wooden doorframe as I pushed myself into the Assassin Hideout. The shuffling of materials, work, and talking ceased as I entered. The door slowly closed behind me with a scratchy creek, it echoed across the room in its chilling silence until the door was firmly closed.

I took a few steps forward and collapsed onto the carpet of the floor. No matter how soft that carpet was, I was in pain. My eyes closed during the fall and they reopen to see everypony’s worried expressions circling above me as I lay flat on the floor.

“I… I think I might need Fluttershy or Dr. Mareio to help me with this,” I said playfully with a smirk but my expression changed to one of discomfort and agony, as my chest wound throbbed in pain realeasing a groan from my mouth.

Fluttershy quickly inspected me and said, “I need to change the bandages and apply more medicine.” She then pointed a hoof to Mareio, “Shadow needs something to keep up his strength, but nothing that makes Shadow… uh…. well what usually happens, understand?” she said with assertiveness.

“OKIE DOKIE!” Mareio shouted with vigor as he pulled out a bright red mushroom from his sleeve and shoved it into my throat which got stuck considering how big it was.

“MAREIO!” Everyone shouted.

“What? It was a my lunch! Not every mushroom has to be a magical mushroom, this is a regular shroom!” Their faces felt relief but immediately they cringed as Mareio pushed the mushroom down my throat even more.

“I’MMA DOCTOR I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!”

After that ordeal I felt the insides of my chest get slightly better considering there’s a half digested mushroom sitting in line with my wound. Fluttershy came back and removed the bandages to my chest. My grey fur was turned a dark crimson and my robes slightly were too. It looked bad but considering I got this yesterday it could have been worse.

Fluttershy took out a small bottle of green spray and looked anxiously at me, “Shadow before I put this on. You should know that this is going-”

“To sting like a stab wound being covered in acidic disinfectant?” I gave a sigh and closed my eyes, “Just do it, get it out of the way.”

Fluttershy nodded her head and aimed the bottle at my chest.

*Spray*

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! HOLY CRAP! THAT REALLY HURTS!
NOT BENE, NOT BENE!”

I squirmed around as my body writhed in pain until the medicine did its work and the pain dulled leaving me at a loss of breath. “Fluttershy… *gasp* … next time…. let’s see… if Mareio has a magical mushroom that... doesn’t affect this…. otherwise just pour the whole bottle next time I get horribly stabbed by a deranged accountant. So we... may never use it again...”

Fluttershy looked horrified but left my side for a moment to prepare the new bandages that were to be placed but Applejack saw just how uncomfortable I looked, “Hey Rainbow, do you mind to help me move Shadow from the floor to the bed?”

“Sure, it looks like he’s hurt just lying there anyways.”

“Wait what are you two talking about?” I asked wearily as I couldn’t hear their conversation well due to this pain blocking most of my senses out.

They each grabbed a pair of my hoofs and lifted them up.

“ARGH! Stop, STOP! Put me down!” I shouted as the intense pain of being lifted was too much to bear and they quickly dropped me back to the carpet with a thud.

Ow…

“So we can’t move him?” Twilight asked while I recovered on the ground.

“It’s fine everypony. I’ll just sleep here,” I said to them with a light chuckle and gently put my head back on the floor.

I am so glad this carpet is incredibly soft. Every Assassin hideout should have one of these.

Party like it's $19.99 on well crafted flooring!

They gave me an ‘are you serious look?’ but I quietly ignored them as Fluttershy came to wrap the new bandages on.
A few more minutes of standing later and everyone was unsure of what to do next but Le Duck was the one to break the silence.

“Well…. shouldn’t we be out working on how to get some Templars?”

“We can’t Uncle. Not with Dave still out there. Until we deal with him I’m afraid we aren’t getting past anything getting accomplished, even Balthazar’s long overdue death.”

“I agree, but how are we going to catch him? He just seems to go wherever and whenever he chooses. He knows what we’re going to do even before we do it,” Twilight gave her analyzed view on the glum situation.

*Ahem*, Le Duck gave a small clearing of his throat to get our attention once more.
“I’ve dealt with Dave longer than all of you, he might say he’s unpredictable but he’s wrong. I just need some time to figure out a plan we could use against him.”

“A Counter-Plan for Dave? Uncle that’s genius!” I said with surprise.

This made everyone give their own cheers and Mareio a small laser lightshow with Pinkie.

Seriously. That’s what glowing shrooms are for. Mareio and Pinkie never seeks to amaze.

“Don’t celebrate just yet. I still need TIME. I doubt that Dave is just going to let us stay here peacefully without some kind of intervention from him. So everyone be on your guards.”

“Alright ponies! You heard my uncle, continue with your work and let’s make sure the Templars understand the true power of the Assassin Order!” I raised a hoof from my spot as they all raised theirs.

*HUZZAH*

“..... and then I just remembered that I can’t do anything like this for now. DOUBLE THE PAPERWORK FOR ME TOMORROW! Har har ha!”

“Oh wait darling, you never did tell us what happened in Canterlot,” Rarity said, immediately everyone but my uncle’s faces shoved closer to mine making me feel somewhat uncomfortable.

“Since I’m going to be lying down here all day I guess I have no choice…”

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I told them how I was able to escape the cell using my faint-starvation plan along with a thief named Lucky Bit. He told me of a secret passage leading to a cave system underneath Canterlot, as I got through it I found the seal which I showed to them receiving surprise and a slight eye shift movement from Le Duck. I finished by how I got to the party of Templars Balthazar was hosting and the events that transpired there. Such as Dave stabbing me and how I was blasted with the Piece of Harmony.

“YOU GOT HIT BY THE APPLE!?” Pinkie said with shock to which I nodded. “Oh Shadow, why didn’t you tell us sooner? Are you alright; are you hurt, do you want me to make a get well cake?”

“Pinkie…. I have a stab wound in my chest and Mareio shoved a whole mushroom down my throat………………….. maybe later.” This brought a happy smile to her face as she skipped over to her workstation and pulled out some cake mix.

“Wow, no wonder you were off in such an angry mood when you left, sorry Shadow,” Applejack said with her eyes down but I quickly gave a small pitying laugh for myself.

“No, it’s not anypony’s fault. Rather it should be mine….. it always was after all…” I said sadly but quickly brought up the mood, “Anyways we all have some work to do so let’s get to it!”

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After a couple of hours with the 6 mares saying their goodbyes I was still laying back-first on the carpet. My uncle trotted over next to my head and said with his caring voice, “So, how are you really feeling Shadow?”

“Le Duck. I failed. What else more is there to it than that?”

Le Duck sighed and rolled his eyes, “If you’re going to lie to me at least try to make it sound convincing. Shadow, listen. I know what you’re going through-”

“Oh really uncle? Do tell me how the second time in a row you failed to kill the Templar leader ending up to be dragged back home nearly dead with a stab wound. Did you ever get blasted by the Apple? Its power is strong, too strong. I could feel it going through and out me as if I was being struck by lightning, but worse… much worse.”

My eyes locked with his and his vision shifted to one of remorse. He went ahead and pulled up a chair as he positioned it next to me. He sat down and crossed his fore hoofs over one another as he hunched over.

“Shadow, do you happen to have that Seal you mentioned on you right now?” I was stunned by this but I quickly reached into my right-side pocket and pulled out the white crystalline seal I’ve gotten in Canterlot. He took it from me and examined it for a while before saying, “Believe me Shadow. I’ve done far worse than you have. Whatever happened, the mistakes you made are less in comparison to mine. Take the difference between what happened in Gerpony and my situation of what happened in the Pondiratic.”

“Gerpony was wiped out, just like Ponitaly-”

“True but not completely. The citizens lived, they can rebuild. Actually they are all living in a nice town that formed during when Gerpony was originally made. It’s called Germane from what I remember from my younger days,” this brought a smile to his face but it disappeared as quickly as it formed.

“As for what I told everyone about the Pondriatic… no pony from my team made it back. All the ponies and backup support from my ‘Red Fox’ legion either drowned or died pitifully. We didn’t even make it to the nuclear station in the middle of the ocean without losing a hoof-full of good ponies. I know for a fact, that Dave was the one that done it. Damn accountant.” he sighed and my uncle shifted to a more comfortable position and brought his voice down lower to almost a whisper.

“This attack was top-secret and the enemy were ready for us when we showed. Some of the backup crew were reported to be murdered in the backlines. Whether it was Dave or a group he sent to flank us, I don’t know. Without the backup our main forces were shredded to pieces. Somehow I managed to work my way through the guards to the missile silos and destroy it from there.”

“But Le Duck, how did you know it was Dave? I mean you could have had a spy in there the whole time,” I questioned him.

“Because I saw him. Right before the explosion…”

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“EVERYPONY! BACK TO THE SHIPS! SHE’S GOING TO BLOW!” Le Duck shouted at his soldiers as he ran across a metal railing and tossed a nearby enemy guard overboard.

A dark green pony wearing a red bandana on his arm and carrying a war axe shouted back to the crew, “You heard what the Red Fox said! This nuke is going to blow!” He was about to fall back with the retreating rebels but an arrow wised in the air and struck him in his shoulder.

“Argh, come on Mercutio! We need to get out of here!” Le Duck shouted angrily as he hauled him up onto his back.

Le Duck was slower with the added weight but was gaining on in speed with the retreating party. He brought his hoof out and stabbed a nearby guard in the head with his hidden blade as he worked his way past a squadron of guards. His running speed increased as he bunted a spear laying on the platform with his hoof and pierced a guard’s chest straight through the center.

He could see it now, the stacks of ships that were brought to invade this place.

“MORTAR!”

“Oh cazzo!” Le Duck lunged backwards and covered him and Mercutio as a large bomb-like object shot down from the sky lighting everything a bright orange and directly hitting the ships stationed, blasting them to mere wooden splinters.

“Sir, leave me. You need to get out of here!” Mercutio said to Le Duck as he shoved him aside.

“Mercutio, I’m not leaving you!”

“Please Red Fox. I’m dead already, go, save as much as our ponies as you can. For one to die so that many shall live… that is our creed,” he said reciting the Assassin line, being a member of our creed.

As much as Le Duck hated it, he knew he couldn’t save him. He gave him a pat on the shoulder for his final goodbye and quickly ran back to the smoldering wreaks of the ships just as Mercutio lifted his axe and charged straight into a mass of guards with his war cry.

Le Duck scanned the burning fires and shattered pieces of wood across the water. “Come on… just need one boat…”
He found one, it was small and looked a bit dingy but he didn’t have any other choice.
Nine ponies he found were left he could save; he rushed them to the boat and immediately took off to the open water.
Despite his avid steering to dodge them from the falling mortars, one landed next to them and a pony ended up with a large wooden railing stuck through her throat.

“Man the ship,” Le Duck said as he went to inspect the mare. She gagged and then life fell away from her eyes.

“Requiestcat in Pace, bella donna,” he closed her eyes with his hoof.

Just then a pony came up to him, “Red Fox! I think we’re far enough from-”
He stopped midsentence with his eyes in shock as he fell to the ground.

A pen was wedged in his back.

Furious, Le Duck looked at the platform the fair distance away and could see an ice-white unicorn wearing accounting clothes waving at him. He stopped and looked at his watch, a smile so wide even Le Duck could see it. Immediately Dave snapped his hoof and disappeared into a portal of his.

“Oh no…” Le Duck suddenly whispered under his breath at the sudden realization of what was about to happen, “EVERYPONY GET DOWN!”

As soon as he said that a large series of explosions sounded from the nuclear platform followed by a mushroom cloud eruption of the nuke being detonated. The large white sphere expanded closer and closer to their ship before turning the world white.

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“And you survived that!?” I exclaimed, I was so shocked from my uncle's story I somehow got myself up from my back before falling down once more in pain.

“I admit. That explosion was the easy part. As soon as I awoke, 4 more were gone from the blast. But I wasn’t. We were all holding onto parts of driftwood from our ship. I told the three remaining that we weren’t about to get saved anytime soon so we had to paddle. Psh… some celebration for taking down a Templar nuclear facility.” Le Duck placed his head in his hoofs and rubbed his face wearily before continuing.

“Sharks, Shadow. They are nasty predators of the unforgiving sea. I managed to stab a few with my blade but one pony wasn’t so fortunate when a massive creature of the deep grabbed him in its mighty jaws, he never stood a chance.”

“As for what happened with the other two, oh Celestia rest their souls….”

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“We’ve been paddling for 3 days… I.. I need to take a break,” a light green mare with a long wet green mane said with exhaustion as she coughed out a gallon of seawater.

“Alright, Emerald. We’ll wade here for a bit, but we need to get to land as soon as we can,” Le Duck said resting a hoof onto his wooden plank next to a dark purple colt with blue and white stripes in his Mohawk styled mane.

“I can’t believe it. All of those ponies we went to battle with, GONE!” the Mohawk pony slapped a hoof in the water.

“I know, but we can’t waste energy, or else none of us are getting back alive from this infernal ocean.”

“Hey Emerald? How did you wind up in all of this?”

“I was a pony finishing up my university education, I was originally going to be a geologist… but then I discovered my mother was murdered having left a bloodstained note of her hoofwriting only to go on. Without thinking, I galloped as fast as I could to our house but the killers were still there. They... kidnapped me... and I awoke later in a dark place. For days I would try to figure out who they were, why they did this, why I was here. They treated me like dirt but kept me alive, apparently I was a ransom after overhearing their conversations through my prison wall. I thought after a week that no one would answer my plea and that I be killed because I was worthless. But then… the Red Fox himself showed up.”

“All I could hear from my locked room was somepony saying they brought the ransom. I heard hoofsteps coming towards the door until I heard screams and shouts short after, the clash of metal, smashing of furniture and struggle sounds. Everything went quiet after a few seconds. The door opened, I gasped once I saw this pony I never seen before in my life, covered in tattered orange robes and that red insignia on the bottom. He helped me out of my cell and I saw that he was the only one here to save me. On the ground lay four ponies, dead as if they weren’t even a challenge for him.”

Emerald adjusted herself on the board, “He told me who he was and asked if it would have been a pleasure for me to work for a larger cause. I said yes. I’ve been here ever since, at least… until now…”

“Hey don’t worry, we’ll get there Emerald. If I die along the way, feel free to use me as a life raft,” Le Duck joked before turning back to the direction they were heading in, a grim demenor of exhaustion left his lips “I guess we should continue…”

*** *** ***

A few hours in and Emerald was lagging behind Le Duck and the mohawk pony.

“I…. I… can’t go any further…” she said panting nearly going under the water but gripping onto the board as she sputtered a lungful of water.

“Emerald no! You need to keep paddling!” the Mohawk pony shouted behind him.

Emerald let out a long breath before quietly saying, “I’m sorry mother, I never became a geologist." Her hoof released the board and she sunk below the depths of the waves.

“EMERALD!” he shouted but a chestnut hoof stopped him from swimming out to save her.

“What are you doing!? We need to save her!”

“There’s nothing we can do for her… we would die if we tried.”

Le Duck forced himself from leaping straight into the ocean after her. He didn’t want another pony to die, especially one he really cared for, truth be told ever since that day rescuing her, he noticed just how beautiful she was He would have done anything to save her, go to Tartarus and back for her. But he couldn’t.

Le Duck squinted his eyes in frustration holding back a salty tear, he quietly said to the mohawk pony with determined grit, “We need to keep paddling, don’t let Emerald’s passion and drive be worth nothing.”

They left Emerald behind; Le Duck couldn’t shake the feeling of regret from himself. A day of paddling and the night storms took place. Waves crashed across another, lightning torched the sky, and rain pelted relentlessly on their backs.
The two were being mercilessly swept in the water, Le Duck’s head dropped in the murky deep to gasp for breath once he re-emerged. He couldn’t see the Mohawked pony anywhere. He waited minutes for what seemed like hours, nature was throwing everything at him.

“Damn it.”

There was no time to mourn the loss of the last pony to accompany him as a large wave overtook him and brought him deeper under the water.

--------------------------------------------------------------

………………….

*Cough*

*Cough*

Le Duck made it to solid ground, a beach. He crawled up as much as he could to escape the pounding waves from splashing him. He made it to a reasonable distance before flipping onto his back and nearly blacking out.

Strangely after all this chaos his mind was clear; Dave sabotaged their plan to take down the facility. The ponies that accompanied him died the ones that didn’t make it off the platform perished. The ones who didn’t make it on the escape died.

Le Duck noticed more slapping of water against the shoreline and glanced over to see what it was. The purple Mohawk pony washed up on the shore. Le Duck laid his head back down on the moist sand and soundlessly whispered to himself in quiet regret.

“I am the only one left.”

----------------------------------------------------

I was dumbfounded; I couldn’t believe all that happened to Le Duck, this was incredibly recent I can't believe after all that he still showed up here to help me. Who knows how many more hardships he had to endure from similar experiances. Some might have been worse, I shuddered at the thought.

Being an Assassin was never meant to be easy. I'm such a fool.

“Well enough about my story then, take heart the lessons I have learned. You should get some sleep Shadow, I will put this seal onto your table for you,” Le Duck said getting up from his chair.

“Uncle, wait… I never knew all that happened. Here I am complaining on my own failures," I pitifully said to myself in disgust.

“We all have our untold stories lad, someday I hope…. ah… nevermind. We have our own problems to deal with now, especially with all this nasty Accountant stuff we need to handle swiftly.”

“Dave..... do you really think he would attack that soon? He usually goes for a bit of mind tricking around our little group, the worst he's done was sending that Griefer after us but luckily for Ponyville it was in the Everfree."

“Well he knows I’m here, he perceives you as a threat if you didn’t already know from before. I’m particularly on the same skill level as him, without the magic obviously,” he said flapping his wings.

Mages. I never really liked them. Twilight and rarity are good to have around, but it’s the enemy unicorns and magic users that really grind my gears. Dave makes them want to grind every last piece of hate I have for him.

By Celestia that accountant needs to die.

“I also know more about him than any other pony, in fact he might have already figured out that I can form a plan against him. All I know is that we don’t have much time before this village gets… a 'message' from Dave.”

“Really, that soon?” I asked with surprise, but considering he can do what he wants when he wants it seems possible.

“Meh, I would give him about a day.”