//------------------------------// // Hearthstone Breakers, Epilogue // Story: Twilight Gets a Puppy, Season 5 // by TDR //------------------------------// Twilight Gets a Puppy Season 5 By TDR Hearthstone Breakers, Epilogue [Canterlot. Three days after Hearths Warming] Princess Celestia sighed and sat back in the replacement throne. It had been an alright few days since the meeting with the Sparkle family. She and Luna had exchanged gifts, both of them having to go rather out of the way to find something the other didn't have. That was one of the more fun things for the holidays. She had found an old game system and a number of retro games Luna didn't have. Well as much as a system only five years old could be retro. Luna had found her a unreleased copy of the new Double Moon novel, this one oddly focused on the love between a crystal pony and a dragon. Who ever that writer was they managed a number of odd pairings that were beautifully written. Due to budget constraints after all the fighting with Chrysalis, She had to go a little cheaper than she liked with some gifts. Sunset was given a gift box from a Griffon deli that contained bacon among other things she could always share with Rahs if she didn't want them. And Sombra was gifted some rather rare ore that he could smelt and forge. Both she and Luna had been surprised that Sombra had sent a card to them. It was more than he usually did for Luna. Celestia expected Rarity was involved in it, though Luna's reaction to it had been fairly heart wrenching. Still all that was a few days ago and aside from the usual pile of gifts from admirers, suck ups, and foals wanting to write her a card, many of whom wrote Luna this year as well, she was back to holding court to deal with the after holidays build up. Though she expected most of it was going to be complaints about places not taking back various horrid gifts. She didn't know why ponies came to her, she didn't have any say over any stores return policies. “Princess.” Raven stated. Celestia looked to her assistant to ask her about how she fared for the holidays before noting the look on her face. “Oh No...” “I'm afraid so Princess.” Raven frowned more. The doors to the throne room burst open with a slam and a large navy blue furred moon dog strode in like he owned the place. Flanking him was a purple alicorn mare, and a purple and green teen aged dragon. “HELLO PRINCESS CELESTIA!” Twilight called as they advanced towards the throne. Celestia watched them approach her lips pressed together tightly. “Nope.” Celestia stated flatly, vanishing in a teleport. [Canterlot. Two days before the New Year.] In a nondescript building on a nondescript street, in a some what run down section of Canterlot that lay by the airship ports and was nearly always in shadow thanks to the mountains peak, was the head quarters of the thieves guild. While the location was not really a secret, the owners and operators of this particular building were the sort of legitimate business ponies that made a proper Guard feel oily just from speaking with them. No matter how many raids, investigations or stake outs were preformed, nothing could ever be brought up that was enough evidence to shut them down. The thieves guild had go so far as to mock the Guard by naming their building, Exuberant Annexation group, or as it said on the building in large red letters EA. On the legitimate side of things they ran several insurance companies, a few freight transportation companies, and even a small number of private investigators who specialized in the recovery of items you seem to have misplaced, or had walked off on their own. They also owned the local stadium, which was obvious if you thought about the average price of game tickets and the bags of peanuts sold at the concession stands. On the not so legal side of things they delved in foal napping, robbery, muggings, petty theft, jay walking, and a protection racket that they called a 'season pass' which a payer would be certain not to have anything stolen from them for at least a year, though those terms changed at a whim. They also had something called a Preorder bonus, in which your unborn foal would be guaranteed not to have candy stolen from them for at least two years after birth. They were also known to dabble in assassination, though that was rare, and very very costly as Princess Celestia herself had had a word with the last assassin who had been caught trying to take out a member of her court when another noble wanted them gone. That word was very much the last word that particular assassin ever heard. Though the guild was spared the cost of cremation at least. On this particular bright sunny day, because deals done in the dark or in the rain made the guard more suspicious and no one really wanted to still be up at night just in case a highly caffeinated Lunar Princess and her rather educated ax stopped by to see what all the activity going on in her night was about. They had been forced to claim they were setting up a new club due to her arrival at one point right before a break in. They then very quickly put one together which unfortunately became the Princesses favorite club in Canterlot which forced several members of the guild to go legit just to run the place to keep up appearances. The EA Headquarters however was were several of the higher ranking members of the thieves guild met with a mare who had a job for them. Kingpin was a well dressed older stallion. He had been running the thieves guild for close to thirty years now. The white coated stallion had gone gray years ago, though he had yet to start to sag, keeping him self fit despite his rich lifestyle. His secretary, a light gray mare named Moonlighter, who had retired from her house breaking after an injury years ago, let the mare into his office. It was hard to tell much about her from the thick gray hooded cloak she wore to cover herself, but that was often the sort of pony who came in for a particular service they could offer. Kingpin looked up as two of his guards shifted in the back of the room, making their presence known to the mare in case she thought to try anything. Kingpin wasn't particular on who came to offer a job, but he wasn't dumb enough to think some of them wouldn't take offense at the prices he gave. “Greetings miss. What brings you to my desk this fine day?” Kingpin questioned. He already knew of course, the mare had been asking questions had led her to him rather quickly. She didn't seem stupid as she had hunted down a thief to question about this location. She had also taken down a number of non guild cut purses and muggers in her search, so she was nothing to trifle with. “I have a job for you or at the very least I want information on who I need to contact to have this job done.” the mare stated. “Well then right to brass tacks. What is the job?” Kingpin questioned. “I need you to kill someone.” “Really... Well I can't speak from experience, but such a thing is not cheap I would expect...” Kingpin trailed off as a massive sack of bits was dropped on the desk before him from the mare. “Fifty thousand now, Fifty when the job is done.” Kingpin stared at the bag, then looked to the two guards, one of them cast a quick spell that ran over the room, there was a faint crackle before the guard nodded and Kingpin let out a sigh. “Well then. You are quite direct. I suppose I can indeed find some one who would take your job. Though I will need to ask, who is the target?” “Twilight Sparkle.” There was a moment of silence as the three thieves in the room stared at the mare before all of them burst out laughing. “And what is funny about that?” the mare growled. “Alright first off, this is no where near enough money to even try for the princesses former student.” Kingpin chuckled slowly regaining his composure. “Second Twilight Sparkle is an alicorn, a god, she can't be killed any way, not at least without doing something that would change the entire world, which would be eliminating whatever her portfolios are. The bits you're offering MIGHT be enough for us to find out what those portfolios are, maybe.” “Fine then target her brother, the dog cat thing. Kill him.” There was another laugh, from Kingpin and one of the guards, though the other guard, a large scarred earth pony, only shuddered, he recalled how his first attempt at foal napping went and he still had nightmares about the teeth. “Lady. The Sparkles, ALL of them are off limits. They are so off limits even the town they live in is off limits. As a foal Twilight fancied herself a junior detective and busted six of our major businesses before she got bored. An attempt at foal napping her turned three of our best into frogs, and not even big frogs, little pond frogs that if I'm not mistaken are still enjoying eating flies on lily pads in the palace gardens. An attempt to snatch Rahs resulted in the horrid mangling of several guild members, and the one who tried to grab the dragon became the first pony to survive being turned to ash. He was dropped right in front of the princess who was at the time touring the guard training facilities. The less said about what happened to a group that tried to mug Shining Armor the better. And even the parents are to be feared. The mother systematically broke every bone in each leg of a bruiser who tried to rob her when she was gravid with Twilight, all while naming the bone as she broke it and lecturing the poor fool about what part of the body it supported. A group that broke into the royal observatory while Nightlight was on duty were never heard from again.” Kingpin listed off. “They are the only family that is in our little red book of do not mess with, EVER. There is no pay in the world worth even trying.” “Don't forget what happened with the Red Chief incident.” the unicorn guard stated. “Yeah but that was the Crusaders more than Spike, and those two were stupid.” Kingpin stated. “Point is miss. No one here is going to take any job that might bring them in contact with the Sparkles for any price.” “Ricky might.” the burly guard offered. “Yeah but we trained Ricky wrong as a joke. I want him to go mess with somebody in the red book so he can be shown as an example to everyone else of why we have the red book.” Kingpin sighed. “So you are all useless then.” The mare sighed.” I should have known better than to trust a group like yours. I would have thought that a group professing to be very skilled in what they do might actually be able to do something. It seems I need to do it myself.” The mare rose reaching for the bag of bits only for Kingpin to slap his hoof atop of it with a grin. “Well see that's not very nice of you miss. After we gave up some of our valuable time to hear you out.” Kingpin offered. “And you think laughing at me like I was joking counts as valuable time?” “Hmm you do make a good point. But on another point you did just trot right into a den of thieves with a big sack of money and expect to walk out again with it? Sure you've taken down a few mooks to get here, but only the best get this far up in the guild.” “Really?” “Consider it a consultation fee, and of course it's not like you can go to the Guard, cause trying to hire an assassin? Well. That's a bigger crime than a bit of price gouging.” Kingpin explained. “Hmm, you have a point I suppose. I didn't think this through as much as I should have.” “Smart mare.” “Still for the record, you have been a rather lousy host, you never even asked my name,” “Really? And would that matter?” “Doubtful, but it would have been polite.” “Alright, so what's your name then?” Kingpin blinked as the mare grinned under her hood. The warehouse district by the airship docks was known by most of Canterlot as the shady side of town, literally, to be fair. It was also one of the places that was mostly unharmed during the attack by Tirek. Given the centaur was the God of Thieves, this was cited by several Guards as proof that the who area should be swept clean and everyone rounded up and questioned. Tirek had actually gone out of his way to avoid this section of town, and only a few ponies who stayed in that area had been drained. The centaur had even looked at the EA building and chuckled before continuing on towards the palace. With so much of the rest of the city destroyed and so many hurt, that this area of town was untouched pissed off a lot of Guard. Particularly now during the holiday season, where the number of shoplifters, muggers, purse snatchers, and burglaries was at an all time high as gifts ponies got were easily stolen while they celebrated. As such it was, there was no small amount of glee on the faces of a number of Guards when the EA building exploded. Before the last bits of the building even started to fall back to the ground, the Guard was mobilized en masse to the site. Not only to rescue any survivors, but to sift through the wreckage to see what evidence they could find before any one could hide it. A chunk of wall was pushed aside and a coughing white pony pushed his way out of the rubble with a groan. His two guards lay in a heap off to the side along with a large number of others he had called in when things got a bit heated, his secretary was half buried under her broken desk on the other side of the rubble. Scanning the area he saw the Guard surging towards the location and groaned. “Miss Moonlighter.” He stated clearly, though he coughed up a bit of smoke. “Sir?” Came the pained reply from under the desk. “Please add the name, Starlight Glimmer, to our red book.” Kingpin offered before he fell over.