In Rarity’s search for Blueblood she had determined who Jet Set and Upper Crust were, most of it was hearsay about them by other nobles who were working with or against them in particular areas. Quite frankly Rarity wasn’t into her title of Baroness for the politics of it, she mostly wanted the title for the recognition that it would bring to her and considering all these other nobles operated that could be defined as having negative connotations. Some of the nobles here were entirely ignoble and would stab someone in the back if they had enough reason to.
What Rarity has heard was thus about the two pony’s she had been warned about was that they were rather egotistical at times, plus she knew what they looked like now.
Jet Set was a noble who put his money into the industry of investing, improving and making pony based spaceships, he made a lot of money on it and having his money backing the recent improvements to the military P-Wing Fighters put him in some good books with Pegasi and other ponies who were fighter pilots. Now if only Jet Set wasn’t so smug about it or so said a noble within Rarity’s hearing range. He was apparently the dark haired pony, blue eyes and grey fur with the three jets marking his flank. He was quite rich and a somewhat higher tier of a low born noble, he wasn’t exactly like a high born noble even if he acted like it.
Jet Set’s wife on the other hoof was all about glamour and expensive things, basically she was a trophy wife even if nobody would tell her that too her face. She was a bit crueler in her words and actions, but she really did love her husband. As far as her nobility went, she was barely a noble before having married Jet Set, which did have the side benefit of strengthening her position among the other nobles. It wasn’t the reason for their marriage; it was mostly a bonus side effect to them being in love. Upper Crust was a yellow furred unicorn with light purple hair that had a white stripe running through it; her cutie mark was three symbols for money as her special talent was effectively spending money and or using money to great effect, as such she was something like a banker or a statistics analyst in the business of investing into businesses. What was more interesting than anything was that she detested anything considered to be from commoners, having almost become one due to issues before marrying Jet Set which again that might have incidentally been Chrysalis’s fault. She was one of the nobles that would rather starve to death than eat commoner or in other words cheap food; she has an expenditure rate that almost outpaces the money both she and Jet Set earn.
Of the two ponies, they each had one glaring issue and that was bending their ears to peer pressure. They were bad on their own, but if they accidentally bad mouth a high born noble then they were going to quickly retract any statement they made as they were also quite the kissers of flanks when it came to keeping their social status intact. If they knew anything of Rarity’s friends they probably wouldn’t like her as they were nobles in it for the extravagance of it all.
It was probably thanks to Rarity avoiding the two and her anonymity that they didn’t try to approach her or even take notice of her avoidance. Rarity figured she may be able to get along with Upper Crust as she had a taste for trendy things and she was a noble by earning her title, but once it was found out that Rarity was born in Ponyville all bets were off and she would definitely rip into her.
Of the things Rarity knew of nobility was that being born into it seemed to matter more than actually earning it for many of the nobles here, she had earned her title by right that she owned enough land albeit in the form of a large spaceship and having a niche market in her business of the fashion industry. She’d more than likely fit in with nobles that had actually earned their nobility, but those were hard to find here and they were more than likely to be friendly to someone who worked hard to get their positions. Fancy Pants was born a noble, but he had certainly earned his nobility and was the friendliest high born noble to boot.
There were laws set in place by Celestia so that the nobility had to eventually marry someone who wasn’t nobility, as inbreeding was a problem in some noble houses. Rarity wasn’t about to bring up that topic with a ten foot pole with most of the ponies in this room that were probably cousins by ancestors several generations back.
Feeling a tap on her shoulder Rarity turned to a smiling face that waved at her, it was Vinyl and she could see her wife Octavia taking up the stage with what was a musical band that started practicing a bit of classical music. It was still early in the night and the entertainment had arrived.
“Hello Vinyl, I see your wife is setting up.” Rarity received a nod from the mute mare and a bright smile. “Did you need something?”
The mare nodded and motioned towards herself in a gesture of follow her. As Rarity was lead over to the snack table, she saw the rather interesting sight of Greta getting along with several nobles along the way. Rarity still wouldn’t get over how ridiculous Han Gar sounded in her ear as being a part of her barony and turned back to Vinyl. Still though, it was surprising that a grease monkey like Greta could perfectly blend in with the other nobles. Was there something Rarity didn’t know about her?
Vinyl came to a stop and held up a hoof to halt Rarity and then made a motion to the stallion that tilted his head quizzically at them.
“You want me to talk for you, is it because your wife is busy?” The stallion reeled back in shock and then he looked to Rarity upset before he turned to Vinyl, Vinyl smiled at Rarity in what was obviously thanks and nodded.
“I am so sorry; I didn’t know you were married Misses Scratch. Though I did recognize and know you better as being DJ-PON3, I didn’t exactly mean to upset you by hitting on you.” The stallion looked to have a blue grey fur color and almost looked like he could be the brother of Jet Set; he had three stars on his flank. Vinyl gave him a side to side hoof flip meaning that it didn’t bother her all too much. “I’m Neon Lights or more commonly known as Rising Star by my fans, I’m a big fan of your work and that’s something I’m sure most of the nobles here would never say.”
“Yes, well I think Vinyl brought me over because she knew exactly what I would say. I’m afraid the poor dear is quite mute and needed me to say something for her, I guess I said the right thing.” Rarity’s attention was grabbed by Vinyl and she nodded her head rapidly with a big smile and she started shaking Rarity’s hoof happily because she understood her need. “Anyway did you say you were a noble?”
“Yes and who is it that she brought over here to talk to me if I may ask?” Neon had a similar spiky hairstyle to Vinyl’s.
“I’m Lady Rarity Belle, baroness of the Shining Jewel estate… oh don’t look so surprised Vinyl. Yes, I am a baroness legally and no I don’t understand how I’m exactly translating your wildly gesticulating hooves so well at this moment.” It was even a surprised to Rarity that she could understand Vinyl’s wildly waving legs at all, Vinyl made a few more gestures and all Rarity had to say to that was a single word. “Quite.”
“I’m a low born and darn proud of not being one of the snobbier ones, but judging by Misses Scratch’s surprise you’re one of those who earned that nobility and quite recently it seems.” Here Neon looked a little thoughtful. “So that means it has to be through business practices or a higher noble gave it to you. So what kind of business do you run? I know it’s that because I haven’t heard a noble raising ceremony.”
“I’m in the fashion industry, I can make clothes for anyone provided I have the materials to make what you want. Though as an exception, I will not work with leather or anything like it.” It was to Rarity’s fine judgment of his character, that he was by far one of the friendlier low born nobles she has seen all night. “I’m both cheap and extravagant as Vinyl here will tell you… she is after all wearing one of my lovely dresses. I do specialize in dresses and EVA suits but other forms of clothing are open to me.”
Vinyl blushed and looked at Rarity in a slightly angry manner, she didn’t like wearing the dress but for her wife she would do just about anything. She didn’t take action however as she knew Rarity had a rather mobile business and needed to work up some notoriety and she understood notoriety perfectly well.
“Can I find a little more information on your business? I would like something made for me in particular and might have need of your services Lady Belle.” Levitating out his data pad Neon waited for Rarity to do so with hers and they shared some information, Neon was not a very well liked noble because of the profession he chose to pursue in life and that was a loud and noisy profession of being a DJ like Vinyl was. “The design of Vinyl’s dress is quite good and most nobles wouldn’t be able to tell that you are from humble beginnings with that kind of work, you might want to keep them in the dark about that.”
Vinyl nodded along to Neon’s advice, she kind of detested nobles but this Neon guy seemed cool to her even if he wasn’t exactly on her level in music he was pretty good. Nobles were her dear wife’s target audience and she couldn’t be upset with her wife for it, she loved Octavia’s music and hated the audience that the music was meant for. Why if any noble were to boo or neigh anything negative at her wife she’d definitely beat them to a bloody pulp, she was a more physically fit unicorn.
“I’ll take that under advisement like with Fancy and Fleur told me about Jet and Upper, but I’m sure the nobles will find out sooner or later that I’m an upraised commoner.” Rarity wasn’t about to declare the fact that she was beginning to like commoners she spent time around more than these rude and nasty nobles “Until then of course I’m going to be quite anonymous and mysterious in my nobility.”
“They warned you about Jet Set and Upper Crust? They must like you then, right I’m definitely going to looking forward to your services now. If you can make friends with Fancy then you can make friends within his circle somewhat.” Neon seemed to warm up to Rarity quickly after saying this, before he looked a little uncertain about her. “Fancy and Fleur are the friendliest high born you’ll meet here, however it would be a bad idea for you to approach any other high born, especially Blueblood. Never a more egotistical stallion than that one, he believes he’s the center of his own universe for being vastly distantly and beyond many greats related to Celestia and Luna, neither of which has ever had children but they did have a lot of cousins. One of which was from Princess Platinum’s line which Blueblood hails from.”
“Seriously now, he can’t possibly be that bad, can he?” Rarity received two concerned looks from both Neon and even Vinyl. Vinyl made some motions and then gave her a horrified face while framing it with her hooves. “Well that much I can understand. He can’t possibly be as bad as the rumors say he is.”
“Well if you really want to get to know him for yourself, then he has just arrived apparently. Just don’t expect him to do nice things for you, he has no ounce of chivalry in him and expects everything of everyone.” Neon pointed out the blonde stallion with the pure white fur, of who just walked into the room and smiled brightly as if he were the life of the party. “Trust me, you don’t want to try and become friends with him. If you have plans to attract him as a partner, then drop them immediately as he will show you in one night why he doesn’t have many friends. Plus you can’t say that I didn’t warn you even if you do try, but you can count on me to be a friend of yours at the very least after you’ve spent some time in his company. Trust me, it is not worth it to try and date Blueblood.”
“Well then, I’ll just see about this myself.” Rarity marched off and Vinyl made a move to stop her, but she was held back by Neon.
“No, no, she has to learn this lesson by herself. Are you open for a discussion about music… well as much as a discussion as you can have?” Neon saw Vinyl look in Rarity’s direction slightly upset, but after a moment she turned to him and nodded before making a square motion and a motion of holding something to write with. “Well my night isn’t going to be full of dull boring conversations and politics at the very least, let me find something to write on so that we can converse. I think a portable dry eraser board would be to your needs Misses Scratch.”
Vinyl Scratch had never thought of using a dry eraser board before, but now that she thought of it, it would be far easier to use than pen and paper. Mostly because the only time she saw a dry eraser board was in school and she was asleep through half her classes anyway, music class being one of the few things she bothered to be awake for. She wasn’t exactly the smartest mare in the world, which was entirely her wife’s thing. Given that her wife understood everything she said so far through various amounts of body language without it, she had never really needed to write something down for Octavia to understand just how much she loved her.
-
“Opal I have to say, you are not normal. In fact you are very abnormal, even for an Artificial Intelligence if you are still one to begin with. Normally artificial intelligence's aren’t aware of when they are turned off as without power they aren’t a running program.” Vera’s session with Opal had led to a lot of things, but one was better friendship between them. Currently the white digital cat with the long pink hair was lying on an equally digital couch with her hair free flowing and wringing her paws looking a bit weary of what Vera had to say now, Vera who had a drone pointing manipulator arm at her constantly to keep her in sight in the medical room where she spent plenty of time watching over Sassy’s body. ”As to you on the other hoof, I believe you are actually something else and I in fact have a theory about you. I think I might know what you could be, but that can’t exactly be proven yet and there is no method to do so. I don’t think you’re an AI now, even if you were one previously and I can assure you rampancy has nothing to do with your current state of mind if I’m right. Please don’t ask about my theory yet, but if you have to ask me anything else… do so now.”
“Well… hold on a minute. Something’s happening down there, sending information real time data to Trap Bar’s people and anyone else who can confirm what I’m seeing.” Opal was about to ask something and then sat up and her eyes narrowed and a blaze of coding came into life and passed in front of her eyes. “Would you mind if we came back to this discussion and my need for a shrink later? I see trouble brewing.”
“Your ability to multitask is another thing that we will need to discuss at a later time. Actually, if I’m right that might be a part of it…” Vera muttered something else, but she looked to a patiently waiting Opal. “Well get on top of it, this session was coming to a close anyway.”
Opal didn’t need to be told twice when a bunch of armed Hands of Midas thugs were setting up communication jamming devices around the city at fixed intervals. Whatever was going to happen, it would certainly be a sure thing that it would occur within the next few hours. Hopefully somebody could disable those devices by then.
-
Rarity wasn’t going to try the love at first sight angle, she wasn’t even trying making a move on Prince Blueblood and most of all she just wanted to do was try and be his friend to start with. All it took was ten minutes of his self aggrandizing nature for Rarity to come close to losing it in his very presence. He was so boorish and rude that Rarity was very close to snapping out her energy pistol to shoot both his eyes out and then promptly geld the stallion with a rusty butter knife.
This guy was clearly making her night all the worse, meaning she really shouldn’t have approached Blue Balls at all. Even Greta was certainly having a better time than she was as she managed to get a dance with a nice mare who didn’t mind a one night fling of romance for a short while.
“So I am quite clearly the most important pony in all of Canterlot, well aside from auntie Celestia and Luna. Even then I deserve to be revered for everything that I am!” Blueblood thought that he was so important; it was a known fact that any effort to befriend him was time entirely wasted. From the way he thinks, having everyone bowing before him and serving him in any capacity was the highest of privileges someone could get. The reality of it was that he was quite delusional about how well he was liked and he had some level of intelligence, but that was clearly set to random.
“Yes, well I wish something interesting would happen right now.” Something inside Rarity made her wish that she had said that far sooner, as eight figures slammed through the windows shattering them.
As per usual in a terrorist offensive there were screams, several shots fired into the nearest ceiling to attract attention and the taking of important hostages while gathering the rest to a specific spot. Of the aggressors that came into the room there were two unicorns both of which were male, two Ahuizotl, one male and one female, three griffons, two male and one female, and lastly a female human. The female human fired something at Discord that caused him to convulse and be incapable of using his chaos magic, it looked like some kind of fancy metal collar and Fluttershy looked really worried about him when he went down with a spasm.
They were all particularly well armed Hand of Midas guys and girls. The two unicorns had quickly knocked Thorax to the ground and he seemed happy about this predicament he was in and seemed to welcome the quickly coming death. The other one taken hostage was much to Rarity’s relief as she was roughly pushed towards the rest of the nobles with several guns trained on her as she joined the rest of the people being rounded up. It was Blueblood that was taken hostage and Rarity couldn’t have been happier.
“So you're Chrysalis, tonight is certainly your unlucky night as we were sent to kill you. No hard feelings I hope, so any last words?” The human put her foot on Bluebloods panicking neck as she placed her plasma shotgun to the side of Bluebloods head after having knocked him to the floor.
“What! You think I’m the horrifically ugly bug pony with the flat butt! When my aunt Celestia hears of this…” He was cut off with a whimper and he was summarily smacked across the face with the butt of the human’s gun, she was about to shot him when someone stopped her much to Rarity’s disappointment.
“Hold it; the scanners say he’s a pony.” The Ahuizotl male spoke up sounding like he was kind of confused about that read out of the device he was holding.
“Wasn’t Chrysalis going to take Prince Bluebloods place as our informants said she was?” The confusion took hold of the armed guys for a moment, there were no royal guard currently coming so they had obviously been taken care of before the gala had been crashed.
Rarity looked about for Greta and didn’t see her anywhere; looking up at the chandelier she saw something quite bizarre. It was that very bizarre thing that Greta was staring at as she hovered above everyone. How in the world did Hard Throb get into the room without being noticed?
Hard Throb was in a wheelchair and the full body cast Rarity and Greta had previously seen him walking around in. It was impossibly absurd that he was even managing to balance on top of the chandelier in a way that it didn’t move at all due to his weight and was busy readying a machine pistol with his magic.
The absurdity of the situation had Rarity and Greta blank out the next two minutes, they didn’t notice when Hard Throb finally made a move to start shooting or that Jet Set jumped out of the crowd while pulling a gun out. Jet Set gunned down the guy holding down Thorax immediately which was followed by several more shots that took three other Hands of Midas people out in quick succession. Hard Throb took down the other four and they didn’t have time to react to it all, there was no cover in the ballroom to begin with anyway from Hard’s vantage point.
With a flash of green fire, Jet Set transformed into Chrysalis and she smiled deviously. All the nobles leapt away from her as if she were nuclear explosion about to go off, some were even speaking Holy Scripture hoping that she was a demon that could be taken down by such a thing. Upper Crust was certainly horrified that her husband was Chrysalis and Blueblood pupils shrunk as she marched her way up to him with a smirk.
“I don’t mind being called ugly because that’s just my most endearing personality trait, but don’t you ever call attention to my butt again or I will actually shoot you next time instead of saving you. Goodness knows every mare in this room wants me to do that.” Chrysalis said in a cheerful tone. “So… is anybody going to thank me for…”
Then a second group of Hand of Midas charged in and shot Chrysalis through one of her legs making her fall down hitting her chin on the floor, another shot a chain on the chandelier dropping Hard Throb on the floor where there were several sharp snapping sounds as his body fell from the wheelchair onto the sharp pointy bits of shattered chandelier. Several shots were fired at Greta who landed in the crowd of nobles next to Rarity and they quickly ceased firing upon her.
“At least… it wasn’t… my fault this time…” Hard Throb croaked out before he passed out from his injuries that were not accidental for once.
“Oh, you are so going to pay for this!” Chrysalis muttered as she tried to stand up and was swiftly knocked to the ground with a strike to the face from one of the twelve new Hands of Midas people to invade the gala.
“Says you, we knew you’d try and ambush us. We’re the elite unit; there was no way you could have seen us coming.” The Griffon that spoke to Chrysalis hovered closer to her and just about put the plasma cannon to her head and she just started laughing. “What’s so funny?”
“Two quick questions, how many of your people were in the first group?” Chrysalis looked quite smug before saying loudly as she could. “How many of them are currently accounted for by the way?”
On the balcony five guns rose up from it and they took aim. The minotaur in the second Hands of Midas wave was shot in the kidney by a energy rifle, the two flying griffons took multiple pulse rifle rounds to the wings and bodies, a plasma rifle ripped into the two unicorns and two humans up with crippling shots that took out their legs, one of the two Ahuizotls lost the hand from their tail and was subsequently hit in the spine with a material rifle that was firing chunks of lead and the last Ahuizotl took beam rifle round that tore a hole into his front right leg. The last of the group was a male human that had already been taken care of with a material pistol fired by Thorax that sent a golf ball into their intestines that they were currently too busy trying to keep in their body to return fire.
Looking up to the balcony Luna was seen walking up to it and she looked down at the one hiding up in the balcony. While everyone was busy looking at Luna, the injured Chrysalis went up in a flash of fire and turned into Deep Throat who chuckled as she slowly limped her way over to Hard Throb, she was unsure as to how he managed to get into the position that he did for this double ambush.
-
Up in the balcony wearing a blindfold and leaning against the wall of the balcony was Chrysalis who was surrounded by four knocked out bodies, of which were two minotaurs, a griffon and a human beaten and bloodied by Chrysalis’s bare hooves.
“So did I get them all Luna?” Chrysalis said as she held out her left hoof to Luna.
Luna rolled her eyes and looked at the held out hoof and the cheeky smile on Chrysalis’s face.
“Did you actually keep the blindfold on the entire time?” Seeing the smug smirk, Luna had to further ask. “Even with your back to them without even having your body pointed in the right direction?”
“Cast a truth circle spell on me Luna.” Chrysalis felt the magic flow around her; Luna was currently feeling disbelief and why wouldn’t she? “Yes I did all that and I even took these four guys down without using my guns that I carried with me the entire time.”
“It seems you speak the truth.” Luna was completely flabbergasted that Chrysalis managed everything that she did. “Did you get what Celestia wanted to know from the nobles?”
“Yep, I’m certain Celestia will see to it at dawn when I give her the information. Well, once she’s done being indisposed that is, the mare does like her beauty rest and cake before bed.” Chrysalis didn’t remove the blindfold and she kept her hoof out until something dropped into it. She had a bag of bits in her hoof judging by the weight, she lifted a portion of her carapace and stored them away for later use. “It’s nice doing business with you Luna, though you really shouldn’t bet against a Changeling when it comes to ambushing opponents.”