“Quite frankly I don’t know what a performance duo and a Diamond Dog can do for me, but I’m looking forward to at least the duo doing something interesting. If I need to do some mining you’re going to be right there with me Rover.” Sitting before Rarity were the three prospects that wanted to be hired. “Honestly it might help in the long run if you become the morale expert; you certainly know how to read a mood Trapeze and you’re acting is quite splendid when you did your performance before the princesses… and Chrysalis. What I’m trying to get at is that all of you are hired, provided that Rover doesn’t mind working with you Trapeze.”
“Rover can work with pony easily, apex predator is more worrying.” Rover pointed to Bernard who just smiled at him.
“Wait, Lagotorphins are apex predators?” Trapeze seemed a little confused about that and so was Rarity for that matter who motioned to the dog to speak up.
“Yes, false rabbit very dangerous.” The Diamond Dog shivered and looked away from Bernard’s innocent looking smile. “Rover does not seek to upset him or even wish to.”
“I’ll have to agree as from what I remember Greta telling me about a Lagotorphin I know about taking out several large monsters by himself during the whole thing on Ewesen.” A rabbit sized intelligent being that Rarity remembered hearing rumors of taking down multiple Voragers on his own, made her wonder why he was friends with someone as innocent as Fluttershy. Then it occurs to Rarity that Angel is probably a big game hunter and uses Fluttershy as much larger bait when his pet rabbit wouldn’t get him some stupid beast to snack on, Fluttershy was a popular SNUGGLES member know for her love of animals and being around especially dangerous ones at that. Given that Rarity could kind of see Angel’s reasoning as to why he’d follow the shy mare around and be so friendly towards her. “Knowing that that particular Lagotorphin took out creatures three times his size, I can say that Bernard can be as dangerous as that despite his appearance saying otherwise.”
Bernard just let off a friendly sounding chirp as he took to standing on Trapeze’s back, which made Rarity realize that he was probably doing the same thing that Angel was with Fluttershy. Ponies who traveled got into trouble easily, ergo he’d protect his chosen pony who was going to travel around to possibly dangerous locations with equally dangerous creatures to eat… she’d have to watch out for Bernard if they go anywhere near a nature preserve. Lagotorphins were nowhere close to being an endangered species and could probably count as sifter drifters themselves.
-
“Are you sure this is her? She looks pretty awful.” Coco poked the ragged looking Pegasus in a torn and ratty looking jacket and breathes that smelled of cheap alcohol and was likely covered in grime from head to toe. Her faded green dusty coat was probably a lot brighter once and the matted orange mane of two various shades didn’t look too healthy and she was using used newspapers as a blanket and bedding as she was curled up in her cardboard box. On top of that there was a nearby jar filled with liquid that had the label of ‘toilet’ on it. If any mare really needed help it would be this one. “Maybe this is a different pony.”
“That’s the cutie mark that Hops drew. I can kind of see why he recommended us to her first, she looks like she needs help and Rarity wouldn’t say no to us being good people by giving her a good home with hiring her right?” Greta started to poke at Lightning Dust’s mane and it was as dusty as the rest of the Pegasus who looked to be down in hard times. “This has to be Lightning Dust, this is the alleyway that’s the adress.”
“Hmm… look I’ll pay rent; you know I’m good for it. I always get the money on time you know that.” Muttered the Pegasus who woke up sleepily, she wasn’t all there and her scratched and distorted voice sounded as bad as she looked. This mare probably needed a doctor or at least some time in medical bed.
“You actually pay rent on a cardboard box?” Anyone would look horrified at hearing that, Greta tried to keep a cheerful smile on her face despite that. “I thought Hops was just joking about that.”
“Huh… you’re not… no doesn’t matter.” The mare sat up and shook her head, this action caused several scars to be revealed along her chest, wings and flank. She glanced at them blankly and with something approaching contempt. “Yes, I pay rent on this box; it’s either that or get downgraded to the less waterproof version. Having a waterproof box when you’re as poor as I am is something of a miracle.”
“Yes, well, we were directed to you by…” Coco started off before she had a hoof held up to her face, Lightning popped her spine and stood up.
“Doesn’t matter, I know Hops sends job bringers my way often enough to know why you are here and so far the odd jobs I’ve been getting are barely keeping me fed. I don’t care what the job is, I’ll take it. Wildly has a good sense of decency that I can trust.” Lighting shook her head groggily and then sharpened her focus on Coco, she was horribly thin and she looked to be physically weak as if she hadn’t flown in an entire year. “Whatever you need me for, it can’t possibly be any worse than my current living arrangements. As you can see I only have a box and a jar of piss to my name, selling my pee helps me get something to eat every now and then. Don’t ask about who buys it or what they do with it. You don’t want to know and neither do I. If you need me to turn tricks I’m willing to go there, heck I might even end up taking the changelings up on their offer of joining them at the brothel. They are among the few around here that still care.”
“Well then, I can see you’re going to be interesting to talk to…” Suddenly there was a loud beeping noise, Greta quickly pulled her data pad out from underneath her wing and looked it over. A look of shock crossed Greta’s face as she finally took in what she was looking at in full. “Holy crap… what hell is Gilda building up there to come up with something like this?! This thing… hmmm, let’s see. She needs to change the setup here, here and here, move these wires over to this position. Change the power coupling here or else it’ll overheat and explode on her after being used too much. I swear this is the only reason why you keep me around Gilda… a few tweaks here, add four heat sinks and there! Now it’s completely viable and will only cause a few problems. Adding a few notes to the design about said problems, sending it now. Gilda you’re a genius, but sometimes I wonder if you plan so many flaws like this on purpose.”
“What did I just agree to?” Lightning asked out loud looking slightly tipsy after watching Greta go to town on her data pad, she hoped she just didn’t sell her body to science. Maybe she would be a pretty good lab rat if that were the case.
“Nothing yet, but we hope to at least give you some food and a clean bed as part of the job we came to offer. Maybe we can talk to you over some food?” It was here that Coco was starting to consider Rarity’s generosity contagious or maybe it was the unkempt and unwashed winged pony before her that needed help. She needed a lot of it by the looks of things. “You look like you really need it.”
-
“Yep, Greta still has the right stuff for the job and she improved my schematic by a mile.” Here Gilda smiled at the changes on her schematic and a few notes she paid absolute attention to, Greta wouldn’t make note of something without there being a good reason for it. Greta didn’t waste words on things Gilda could have probably figured out by herself. “One of the reasons I keep her around, efficient and quick when put to the task. Hey now, I never would have thought of that… for a walking gay bar you never cease to amaze Greta.”
Gilda started to work immediately, with Greta giving her schematic a quick once over and double checking the figures herself with a nod. She was ready to start building this particular part of her project properly thanks to Greta; she’d have the whole thing done before the week was out.
-
“It’s getting pretty late, I hope you three don’t mind but I’m going to the art museum. Get to know each other better and work out what you’ll do between yourselves. You won’t have much to clean up to start off, but you’ll have plenty of free time until then.” Rarity grabbed a few of her things before heading towards the door. The contract had been signed and she now had three more crew members to worry about, the expenses for these three and whoever Coco and Greta brought back would put her on a barely stable ground. She still had some room for error unless Shining Jewel blew up and it was a well armored ship, so something catastrophic would have to happen before it went down. “Oh and tell Coco and Greta I’ll be back late if they get back in before I do, please don’t cause any trouble for me and here’s some money to pay for room service if you get hungry. ”
“Don’t worry, I’ll hold the fort and make sure my new associate doesn’t do anything dumb.” Trapeze tipped her hat to Rarity as she stood at the door. “I have nothing to worry about when it comes to Bernard; I know he can take care of himself.”
“Rover is not being dumb, Rover is just not being smart at the right times.” Huffing audibly at the disrespect, Rover looked slightly offended. Sure he may not have been big on words, but he understood food and a place to call his own to sleep. Plus it would be his first time being in the big hole, which was what space was known as by Diamond Dogs and he’s heard how dangerous it was. Rover was still alive because sometimes stupidity finds a way to survive all the odds and he at least understood he was somewhat lucky to be alive at this point. He knew that you learned best when you did stupid things, then you learned to not do those things ever again if it wasn’t fatal the first time.
“Right then, I’m off.” Rarity hoped the Diamond Dog would eventually prove his worth, gem digging would be much simpler and she could make a tidy profit off of it without too much expenditure. The Caravel Boutique would need to refuel its variable thrusters when they go to Ponyville. She was dreading that because she knew that Sweetie Belle and her parents were going to undoubtedly be there. So far she had been lucky to avoid them and her luck could only go so far if Opal’s calculations were to be believed.
She stepped out into the late night air in the middle district and looked around, Canterlot during the day was glorious and even at night the lights and buildings were quite beautiful. However looking towards the lower district, Rarity hoped Greta and Coco didn’t run into any trouble, where would she be without her shy workaholic friend and the friendly griffon that makes a few sly passes at every female member in her crew at one point or another? Greta certainly knew how to compliment a mare and certainly had an appreciation of beauty that Rarity didn’t mind as long as she stuck to chasing after Gilda.
Looking at the bright night lights, hearing the sounds of harps being played to the wind and the beauty of the architecture all came together here in Canterlot, a great city that had a lot of opportunities and was equally beautiful day or night. Rarity thought the princesses ran things well enough, but the more rich people there were around, the greater the number people in poverty or in service of said rich people. Those numbers seem to always coincide with one another.
Slavery existed whether or not people like to admit it, but the manner of that slavery was either set in cruelty which was always the first thing that comes to mind when such a subject was brought up. The other type of slavery was that made by necessity as the thing that exists constantly in proper society. The difference being that slavery by necessity means that you were only a slave so long as you were paid to be one by the one who was giving you the job that you are being paid for, you could free yourself and walk away from your obligation if you didn’t want to be a slave to said persons whim. It was quite hard to do when it meant that you’d quickly lose a lot of the conveniences and comforts of society unless you can find another place of employment. As such societal slavery wasn’t nearly as bad as the cruelty version of slavery where everything is forced upon the slave. It’s just that people never stop to consider that they are slaves to their paychecks when it came to being employed to someone else’s whims within a specific range; Rarity learned this much when she was a waitress. At least the cruelty version of slavery was definitively outlawed in many places.
As she approached the museum Rarity considered how human society could get away with a make believe system of money they have that was built entirely on trust that the money actually meant something, that it could be exchanged for goods and services and would always remain so. Apparently it was quite a common thing to crop up in many civilizations that the money could become worthless in an instant and as such Rarity wanted to be rich enough that no matter what happened the wealth she had would always mean something, something she would share with her friends of whom she didn’t order around very much. She only asked them if they could do things, she wasn’t forcing them to do their jobs and they were probably better mentally for it that she didn’t ask much of them.
The thing to be said about money from Rarity’s current perspective as it is given? Money was only worth as much as the value other people put into it, it was the notion of worth and that the money had it that made it as such. If you were the only being left in the universe with all the money, what would you do with the useless pile of nothing you now found yourself sitting upon? Rarity humorously thought of making a castle entirely out of bits to live in for the rest of her lonely life at that point, it wouldn’t be luxury without someone to make food for you and or at least keep the plumbing in your home working.
Stopping Rarity thought she saw a costumed figure prowling around on the ledges of the museum, the swish of a cape that might have just been a bird swiveling around a corner. She didn’t think much of it at the time and continued.
Shaking her head at the image she thought she saw, she walked up to the counter and paid for entrance into the museum, knowing full well that her money was well spent as it went into the preservation and upkeep of the museum. Like money, Rarity knew art was only worth as much as a beholder declared it to be. Could you nail a wooden plank to a canvas and sell it for a thousand bits? It was apparently worth that much to someone to have someone else nail that wooden plank to the canvas and signed their name on it.
Rarity wasn’t going to complain about how silly that sounded, given it actually happened. Why ‘The Plank of Somber Regrets’ was a popular piece, in fact it was the first one she saw as she walked off to the left, she was going to take the entire museum in a clockwise and upwards manner. This art museum in particular was opened day and night, with a rotation of constant guards making sure nobody tried anything funny.
The worth of that plank of wood nailed to a canvas and encased in glass was a lot, despite Rarity simply seeing it as only worth a plank of wood, a nail and some canvas which wouldn’t even exceed twenty bits by her mental calculative standards. It did intrigue the mind how someone managed to sell it for a thousand bits, at least someone had to have been rather generous to buy something like this for even that much. Rarity was able to appreciate the minute thought provoking issues, especially with the fact that she had been staring at a chunk of wood for the last minute or so before moving on to the next painting.
“Oh what would my friends say if they found out about me staring at wood and actually considering it art? Well it is, but that doesn’t mean it's good art to everyone.” Talking to herself made Rarity feel less lonely, she should have brought someone with her to enjoy this. Someone who tended to enjoy the finer things in life, maybe some pony that would look at her and tell her that she wasn’t trying too hard and that they found her to be an exquisite work of art herself.
Sighing Rarity continued her tour of the twenty four hour art museum, the art work was starting to inspire Rarity about clothing designs she wanted to try. Her job was about making functional and visually pleasing clothing, something you could use and behold at the same time. That was what Rarity could get behind. She worked for people to behold her wares and think them worthy of a moderate cost she presented and as such she was no different from that of an artist.
Only art didn’t have much function aside from adding aesthetics to a room and Rarity could almost appreciate beauty in any form it came in, her eye for detail helped her take the paintings in visually and get an idea of what the artist was going for when they made them. More likely than not Rarity knew she would be wrong because it was her own assumptions and perspective. She could not accurately speak for the artist as no one should be able to, especially not the one that did this masterful work of the ‘Mare of the Moon’. There were however reasons why artists stayed quiet when someone spoke for them when it came to trying to interpret what the artists was going for, they made more money by not stating their intentions to make money by being mysterious, bonkers and daffy after all.
Insanity certainly had its own worth and value, but only the truly insane could get away with selling it. Owning the paintings of an insane pony must be an interesting topic of discussion to bring up at garden parties. Is becoming rich or wealthy the dream of an insane mare? Rarity had a lot to consider as she stared a painting that tried to capture Discord’s essence that was labeled ‘Discords Other Tooth’ and she left it looking horribly confused. That was probably the true goal of that particular painting and Rarity smiled hopefully that she at least understood one of them perfectly well; it was definitely chaos incarnate in the form of a painting.
-
A costumed figure slunk around the wall on a ledge and looked for a window, breaking into the museum wasn’t exactly a good thing to do. Still, it was a necessary thing for the masked pony, who had been tracking the unicorn criminal Mind Field. Said unicorns last known location was right here. They had to be wary of illusions and traps, so avoiding a scuffle with the royal guards until they could find him was paramount. The figure looked through the windows as they climbed around the outside of the building trying to discern if there was a pony hidden under illusions stealing paintings, because why else would Mind Field have come here?
Vigilantes were both romanticized and frowned upon in equal measure. Heck many ponies couldn’t believe a pony could resort to violence so easily, but this masked figure had their reasons. Things like not getting fried alive by Back Draft for one. At least the figure took down one of the more lethal members of the Caballeron Cabal and was trying to capture the more elusive intelligent one before going after the muscle, which was going hurt a lot when they did and the bruises would be very hard to hide in everyday life. This pony wanted to protect the innocent from scum and wouldn’t pull punches to stop the criminal element around here from doing whatever it was they were planning. It was something big to be sure with the increase in changeling activity, they were looking out for something dangerous and this costumed pony wanted to put that danger to a stop before it could get off the ground.
This figure was Mare-Do-Well as they’ve been calling her; she would have preferred The Mauve Mare-auder even if she could never truly live up to that particular legend. Instead this pony wanted to be her own legend, doing something so far beyond the scope of her own cutie mark. This kind of stuff wasn’t even close to being this pony’s special talent and they were in it to do good deeds without recognition, it certainly meant finding out was happening here in Canterlot since it became her new home. The costume made it hard for others to discern her gender, but it was generally considered that she was a mare and they were right to believe so. However they still hadn’t figured out what she was, Pegasus, Unicorn, Earth or even a rare elusive Alicorn Pony. In the end it didn’t matter as she worked her butt off to defy what her special dictated she would be doing for the rest of her life, still her cutie mark might have had something of a symbolic meaning as to what she was doing now.
She saw a white furred mare with purple hair come up the stairs and start looking at paintings, checking the technological lenses on her mask with a hoof she saw no illusion when the magic filtering effects came up. So it had to be a civilian just coming to appreciate the museum, she had to find Mind Field and soon. She also needed to keep innocents out of the crossfire and take him down before he could get away with his prize, whatever it may be. She turned off the magic filtering sight on her lenses as it was quite disorienting. The lenses in her mask made it hard to move while keeping them active in any alternative visual mode, they were definitely going to help in the fight with Mind Field even if she would be fighting disorientation as much as Mind Field himself the entire time.
-
Something flickered by the window causing Rarity to turn her head towards it where she saw something like a cape swish out of view. She shrugged and turned back to the painting of a mare with a rather glorious mane, it was based on a popular series of interactive comic books and the painting made the mare look very realistic. The mare in the painting was beautiful, but she didn’t like the color of her mane. Though green seemed rather fitting with the purple colored fur, maybe it wasn’t such a bad color after all. Still wouldn’t be her favorite color and would stay near the bottom of the list just above brown.
Things were quiet and there were a few other ponies around exploring the art as well as herself, though going up another set of stairs brought her to a very strange scene. From an outsiders perspective it was weird to see several ponies staring at empty spots on the wall, whereas a stallion with multiple paintings was smiling to himself as he just idly levitated another painting away from the wall.
After a moment the stallion looked to her and noticed something very important, Rarity was looking at him. Directly at him, Mind Field, a unicorn who specialized in illusions that affected every pony in a general region and using his abilities he could get up close to you to stab you without you noticing it before it was too late. Provided that you couldn’t see him like Rarity currently could, her keen eye for detail led her to seeing through his illusion entirely. While such an ability might have been good where Vera was concerned, at this place and time it was a really, really bad thing to notice a known criminal as he was in the act of stealing several paintings that he sat on the floor next to himself.
“Well now this is a surprise, someone who can see through my illusions. I can’t leave a loose end like you just sitting around. Who knows, you might help the guards try and apprehend me.” Mind Field had orange hair and black fur with red eyes, he just sent a glare directly at Rarity who eyed the paintings he calmly set down and then looked back at him. Several knives levitated out of his saddle bags and with a flash of his horn he smirked. “Did you know I once tried to assassinate Celestia? I failed obviously, who knew she could see through even my illusions. To think those nobles couldn’t have the foresight warn me about that before hoof, they now have rather bright smiles… in their necks. I barely escaped her wrath for that you know, but you are not Celestia now are you? Scream all you want, no one is coming to help you now. I so do hate ponies that can see me under the illusions I put in place, so don’t worry your pretty little head. You’re going to die here lady and there’s no running from me once I got my mind set on it.”
“Seriously now, can’t you just ignore the fact that I saw you and let me go?” A knife whizzed by Rarity’s face at an impressive speed, what was more impressive was that she managed to move her face out of the way in time and stumble back. She quickly levitated out one of her energy pistols only to have it knocked away with a second blurring knife that went back immediately as the gun went skidding out of her levitation range. She had to dodge the first knife from behind as it went back to Mind Field with an intersecting course set for her spine, Rarity was thankful that it only nicked her shoulder and caused her to start bleeding.
“No, you’re going to have a nice smile in your neck soon too. You know, changelings sometimes get blamed for the things I do and I enjoy that society is pointing their hooves in the wrong direction. The hypocrisy of our world amuses me to no end.” The wicked smile widened on Mind’s face as Rarity started frantically backing away from him and he knocked her other pistol away when she tried to pull and fire it as well. He was quite fast with those knives of his, who was it that said knives were useless in a gun fight? Well they probably hadn’t met a unicorn with long range levitation skills. He slowly sauntered forward at even pace and even had a smug look on his face. “You know, it’s quite nice being me. I can get into any place and have sex with any mare I want to, just so long as they can’t see through my illusions as I’m coming or going. You however, you happen to be a big threat to that. Nobody can hear or see you right now and I believe I will be the last stallion to hear your screams one way or another... you should be happy that I find you appealing. So submit now and I just might actually make your death a quick one.”