//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Colt 1911 
// by BradleyFries 
//------------------------------//

	Let me just note that I have trouble editing my own writing and apologize for any grammatical errors that may have occurred. I’m not sure if I like this so far so it would be nice to hear feedback both positive but mostly any negatives (you learn from mistakes more than triumphs).



Colt 1911



A hooded pony, accompanied by a large earth pony, walked down the dirty street of an almost abandoned town, with not a soul to be seen. That wasn’t surprising though anypony not working was inside, for it was a dangerous place to walk at any time of day. The darkest nightmares of Equestria would rather live anywhere but here, Old Appaloosa, its streets paved with grime and lined with waste. No one lived here besides the poorest of ponies and the dirtiest of criminals and thugs. Had it not been for the towering mass of muscle that was his bodyguard there might have been a shiver down the hooded ponies back... maybe.
The skies are covered in clouds of pollution that blocks the sun so that almost all the light in the city comes from the sparse street lamps scattered about the city. Taxes from around Equestria were used to put them in but they didn’t last long once the rampant hooligans began to vandalize them for the ounce of copper in each bulb.
It just so happened that the individual he was looking for was in the process of unscrewing the last of the light bulbs on this street. The creature was about the size of a normal pony upon another glance one could see that its hide was comprised of decaying black leather. It also had wings that were filled with so many holes it was a wonder it was hovering high enough to reach the light. It also had a horn made of a black bone, but unlike a unicorn it couldn’t perform magic in the usual sense.
“Do you have any idea how much us respectable ponies pay in taxes to keep this garbage heap of a city alive, let alone well lit?” the hooded pony spoke.
The small pony-like creature gave one last tug at the light bulb before it came free; it turned and gave a small smile at the hooded pony then smashed the bulb between its hooves.
“Do you have any idea how much I care?” the creature replied in the exact same voice as the hooded pony.
You could see the edges of a smile beneath the pony’s hood. “Good then you are just the pony…. Um... thing, we are looking for.” Then the hooded pony motioned towards his bodyguard. The large earth pony opened his saddlebag to reveal the shining bits inside. “I have a job for you.”
The creature walked a little closer out of the shadows. His skin then began to bubble and shift, slowly turning from its leathery black to the same shade of deep brown fur as the large earth pony’s coat. Not only the color and texture of his coat was matched though but also his size and body features. When the creature stopped changing he was an exact copy of the hooded figures bodyguard, down to the small scar that adored his front left kneecap.
The earth pony gave his double a smirk and a chuckle then went back to looking fearsome. “Any simple minded fool can tell that those are fake bits, what are you trying to buy with your steel disks?” said the creature.
The hooded pony knew what few others would ever know, that that was the exact voice of his bodyguard, but that didn’t seem to surprise him.
“The mint markings may be easily dismissed as fake by one with a keen eye, but the coins are of genuine gold and you may  smelt them down if you choose to do so. The garbed figure tossed a coin to the lookalike who caught the coin, fumbling with his overly large hooves. 
Biting the coin and seeing that it bent easily and that it was in fact solid gold, not just gold plated, the bodyguards double put the coin in a small coin pouch on his flank.
“I’m listening… for now.” He gave a menacing smile.
“Good then, now that we have that settled, I want you to break into the royal castle and kill Prince Blueblood.”
The copycat turned towards the hooded figure and began to bubble and shift once again, this time when he was done he was an exact copy of the hooded figure. “That’s quite a lofty request from a man wearing a ragged cloak in a dark alley.”
The hooded figure was a little taken aback, hoping that this creature couldn’t reveal what was below his hood.”It should be an easy task for someone of your caliber.” 
“Call me Ruger, and I didn’t say I couldn’t do it… just implying that I hope that’s not the only gold you brought.” He gave a little chuckle, then proceeded to laugh manically.

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

It has been a couple months since I was last in Canterlot, nothing has really changed. The streets are still crowded and the ponies were still as frivolous as always, everypony still wore extravagant clothes, walked with their muzzles up and completely ignored everypony else. That was what always surprised me the most, their complete lack of attention for everything around them. Having walked on these busy streets over a month ago I could easily recognize faces of ponies I didn’t know but had walked past on previous visits. How differently would they look at the world if not for the constant sacrifices of the royal guard and the queen’s agents?
The only reason I was even out and about was because of me drawing the short straw on who had to go out for supplies. The dark hotel room where my team and I were holed up for our visit was far more welcoming than the swarm of ponies I encountered on the streets. The game was probably rigged but it felt nice to stretch my legs and I guess a little fresh air wouldn’t kill me either.
All the usual venders were out today, and it was Tuesday so the Sweet Apple Acres cart was selling their wares, I could greet them all by name but although they knew me by face there weren’t too many ponies that could call me by my actual name.
“Would you like one bag or two?” 
“Hhmmmm…?” I turned looking for the gruff voice obviously intended for me.
A large, green coated, pegasus stallion cleared his throat “I was wondering if you would like to purchase one bag of oranges or two Mr. Ummmm… what was it today? 
“Tarterus”
“Yes, yes Mr. Tarterus, how could I forget?”
“Just a single orange for the road I suppose” I already had plenty of oranges back at the hotel room, they happened to be a particular favorite of mine.
“It’s on the house today for such a good customer as yourself Tony.”
I thanked him and grabbed one of the smaller oranges that still had a little green on it, I liked when they were a little sour it gave them a little kick, not that my stomach agreed. It wasn’t unusual that he didn’t remember my name, I gave everypony I met a new one. Both my team and i didn’t have names in the usual sense, when we were drafted into the Queen’s Guard we were given numbers. Mine was 1911, and since I was a colt at the time my name is Colt 1911. There were only a few ponies that knew my number and only a few of those called me Colt. 
The day was starting to warm up as Princes Celestia brought the sun over the horizon, seeing the orange sunrise made me remember the orange in my saddle bag. I got out the orange to take a bite, almost losing a few teeth in the process. The orange was made of a hard metal, which I would have never noticed if not for biting into it, it was seamless and perfectly crafted, not a single mark to show the fact that it was manufactured by somepony.  I was about ready to throw the orange away when it started to shake and buzz as gears slowly came to life inside.
A crackling voice came from inside the orange like device “You and the rest of the queen’s agents are to report to the Canterlot palace Royal Hall immediately for a new assignment. This orange device will self-destruct in ten seconds… Out”
I calmly walked over to the orange device and caught it as it fell to the ground. Searching the orange I found inscribed on the bottom “SPARKLE TECH INDUSTRIES” it sounded familiar but I couldn’t place where I had heard the name before. 	Memories were something that seldom slipped my mind, this would haunt the back of my mind until I knew where I had heard it before. Tossing the orange over my shoulder into a small garbage can I walked away, unsurprised by the dull thud as the garbage can expanded then settling quickly to the ground spilling its smoking contents on the pavement.
It was a little bit of a walk to the palace so I didn’t have time to go back to the hotel room for the others, I was going to have to assume that they would get similar notice. The thought caused me to laugh until I realized that an explosion would most likely leave us paying for the damages and our funds were not as hefty as some ponies might think. 
The streets were just starting to get to their busiest and it was hard to push through the mob of ponies that were trotting about the royal grounds. As difficult as the task was I finally made it to the bottom of the steps to the royal hall. No pony went up these steps unless there was an event happening so it was just me climbing the large marble steps.
I already know who is seeking my presence, the Prince of Canterlot Blueblood, he always summons me here because of my old knee injury. He holds a particular grudge over the Queen’s Agents because Princess Celestia picks us before his royal guards, he likes to think he is there commander in chief. And ever since he seen me struggle to climb these steps because of an old knee injury on my back leg he always calls me to this particular spot while Luna and Celestia will meet with me anywhere else for the particular reason of sparing me the discomfort.
At last the steps come to an end and a particularly comfortable looking catches my attention, and I slump over taking a seat hoping to rest my leg for a minute, just a minute.

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

These steps were put in at a time where time wasn’t so precious and everything was seen as having to be larger the more grand. She always hated having to climb these steps even though Celestia was in fact an alicorn and possessed wings it was considered rude to us them on royal grounds, even more so for her. Not that she minded the walk too much, it gave her some time to think about things other than her duties though that usually never happened anyway.
At the top of the steps she now thought she understood the sort of summons she had gotten for there sat the pony that had been occupying her mind for a couple days now, Colt. When she saw him he was sitting there sleeping quite deeply even going so far as to be snoring. She watched him for a minute watching his dark gray coat heave as he breathed heavily, she couldn’t even see his black mane so he must have cut it back to its usual one inch length. Celestia gave a little chuckle as she noticed how peaceful he looked, she seldom seen her Agents taking any sort of break even though she prompted them to do so frequently.
Might as well wake him he wouldn’t come this way unless it was important. Her highness walked over and gave Colt a gentle tap or the hoof, his eyes shot open and Celestia took a step back frightened by the sudden jolt. The stallion calmed down when he seen who it was who had awoken him.
“I’m sorry Celestia to have dozed of like that.
“It is quite alright Colt, I just wanted to make sure you were awake for the meeting. It pained me to wake you from suck a peaceful slumber, you really look like you need it.”  She could see that both his mane and tail were beginning to turn grey around the edges. He wasn’t old enough to be getting grey so she assumed it was due to her agents overworking themselves as always. 
As Celestia watched him get up she noticed that he hobbled on his back knee a little. She really needed to pay more attention to their wellbeing.
“I wish you would take it easy, that knee looks terrible”
“Doesn’t look half as bad as the griffin who gave it to me.” Colt gave a small grin to hide a wince of pain.
Celestia sighed, she couldn’t condone most of their actions but they got the job done and they didn’t really listen to her anyway. At least he didn’t treat him with the fearful obedience that most ponies gave to her, that may be one of his best features.  She walked over to the large oak doors of the royal hall, the only part of the building that thankfully wasn’t constructed entirely of stone. The etching on the door depicted a scene of Celestia and her sister Luna, one of the few relics that actually lasted the thousand or so years since her imprisonment. This particular picture showed the creation or the night and day rather than the usual murals of the two that always showed Nightmare Moon’s defeat at the hooves of the great Celestia.
Tilting her head she opened the doors using her magic, something she was allowed to do on castle grounds without causing ponies think poorly of her. As the large doors opened silently on well-oiled hinges she gave a glance towards Colt, a smile came to her face as she seen his limp had gone away now.
“I guess we should find out what awaits inside.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The royal hall was the single largest room in equestria, it was usually used to hold gatherings that had guest lists in the thousands. The polished marble floors were adorned with a single red velvet carpet that spanned its length up to the royal throne.  Bothe sides of the carpet were lined with enormous pillars wider than a full grown stallion from head to tail. These went all the way to the ceiling which was painted to look like the night sky with all of the constellations drawn out and named. It wasn’t uncommon to have the Wonderbolts preform above the guests during a party.
“Ahh my beloved sister, it seems you have finally arrived.”
I turned to see Princess Luna approach out of the corner of the room floating on here wings, it seems she was waiting for us to arrive perhaps she had summoned us? She landed quietly in front of Celestia giving her sister a smirk.
“But I can see why your late, being with such good company.” Luna gave me a playful grin.
Ever since I rescued her from the pack of diamond dogs I couldn’t help but notice how her gaze lingered a little too long on me.
Celestia looked a little confused “Did you not send for us?”
“I had thought you sent for me dear sister.” Luna raised an eyebrow.
Both their faces drooped along with their posture as they rolled their eyes and said at the same time in a mocking tone “His Royal Highness.”
They were cut off by the loud trotting of a white stallion, his dirty blond mane and tail were tied back in an elegant tie and he was walking with his head held high looking at the ceiling.
“It was I who summoned you here along with the rest of his team.” He pointed a hoof at me while scoffing in the other direction. It was then that three other ponies appeared out of the shadows behind me. I hadn’t even known that they were there, I guess they were trained by the two finest ponies that I knew.
“Oh my!” Celestia jumped at the sudden appearance of these ponies out of thin air. Then Luna began laughing hysterically at her sister.
“The best ten bits I have ever spent! Just to see them scare the wings of you dear sister!” Luna had to kneel on the floor to keep from falling over she was laughing so hard. She must have paid Lance to appear next to Celestia, he always liked to have a little fun with people.
“Ahk-Hem!” Prince Blueblood stomped his hoof for attention. “I have summoned you here to discuss a very important matter concerning my safety as well as all of your safety also!” he directed the last part at Luna and Celestia.
It was never a good thing to be summoned by Blueblood, he always had some sort of meaningless task for us to perform. At least neither Celestia nor Luna would allow the waste of our time while in their presence.
“So could you tell us what is so urgent that we need to be summoned so early in the mourning then, nephew?” Celestia smiled and stood a little taller in front of the prince, though she already was taller by two heads.
“While it is true that my blood relation to you is as your… nephew, I would prefer that you address me by my proper title Prince Blueblood.” The prince stood as tall as he could almost on the tips of his hooves, and punctuated the sentence with a flourish of his head and then looking if into the distance.
I almost burst out laughing, had it not been for a sturdy kick in the back of my injured knee I would have made a scene. Instead I ended up wincing rather harshly from the pain. Somepony was going to pay later though, most likely Lance again. 
Celestia took a few steps towards Blueblood so that he had to look up at her. “And I would prefer to call you my nephew…”
She gave him a warm smile, but her close presence forced Blueblood to step down from his high throne and give in. though he still tried to keep an air of superiority. Blueblood looked at the floor before continued.
“On my recent visit to the Griffon High Council they continued to refuse acknowledgement of the problems that were sure to occur if the recent actions of violence committed by the griffon race continued unchecked. This is to be expected because they have given us no indication of doing such in the past but now that the riots and hate crimes against ponykind are increasing in numbers and severity instead of increased awareness they are giving more and more defense to the griffon’s actions.” Blueblood strolled over to the window with his back facing all of us.
Blueblood was tasked with relations with the Griffons and has been for a couple months now. I wasn’t impressed to learn this since the prince can be particularly sneaky and a bit xenophobic, I wouldn’t put it past him to ruin our already feeble relations. Luna used to be in charge of the relations but when the griffons refused to budge on anything for years the responsibility was given over to Blueblood. The Griffons got along a little better with him anyway, they probably shared their dreams to rule over Equestria with each other instead of trying to agree on foreign policy.
Celestia and Luna were looking intently at each other apparently deep in thought, it was rumored that they could talk to each other without words but I think they just had enough experience as sibling to know what the other was thinking. They both turned to look at Blueblood again and Celestia addressed him.
“While it is somewhat disturbing that the Council is starting to agree with the rising number of Griffin acts of violence it still is the same casual ignorance that we have been seeing from them for years now.” 
“Yes but that is beside the point anyway, the acts I am more concerned about is that upon exiting the High Council’s chambers I was shortly thereafter greeted by two Griffins who then proceeded to attack me and my bodyguard.” Blueblood said this while still looking out the window, he seemed a bit too calm for the moment though Celestia didn’t notice as she suddenly sprang to her full attention and began to assault Blueblood with questions.
“Why did they attack you? What happened afterwards? Where is the bodyguard, is he alright?” Celestia was starting to panic.
The situation with the griffins was escalating and this kind of violence wasn’t some random griffin with a grudge, this was a planned attack from the sound of it. If they were starting to gather into groups of followers then war was just around the corner and this was something I needed to tell Celestia and Luna as soon as possible.
My knee was a little stiff from standing so long and the kick it had gotten earlier as I turned to look at my team. They needed to go and check this information out and who knows how long ago this attack happened or if it even happened at all. Celestia would probably tie me up with talk for the next couple hours but the least I can do is get a head start.
“This is starting to look bad and there is some answers that need finding I’ll be stuck here but you need to sneak out now. Meet me at the same place we met last time in two days, but be careful we don’t want to stir anything up.”
They all nodded and backed off into the shadows before disappearing. Except for lance, he looked a little concerned. 
“Colt I knew the bodyguard that Blueblood had with him….” 
“Oh… I’m sorry to hear that, I bet he went out with honor though.” If lance was chocked up then this guy must have been a good friend.
“It’s not like that Colt, he was scum of the earth if I ever seen any, it’s just that I knew of him and if just two griffins could take him down then they got some good training from someone.”
“That is a little disheartening, I want you to look into that on your own. If it takes more than two days we can meet at the den in four.” Lance gave a little salute and then he two melted into the shadows.
I turned back to the room and Celestia was still asking Blueblood questions about his encounter and Luna had joined in as well. Until  Blueblood notice me standing alone in the corner.
“Where did your team go, this meeting was not finished. I still had questions to ask and assignments to give you.” Blueblood was raising his voice now as he started to lose his composure from the constant onslaught of questions.
“I sent them to do their jobs as I should be doing mine.” That was sure to piss him off enough to push him over the edge. Not something wise to do but it would get him out of here faster and every minute here was a minute wasted on formalities. 
“YOUR JOB! Your job is to listen to ME and that is your ONLY job! If you don’t want to do that I’m sure I can get you a JOB cleaning shit from the streets of old APPLELOSSA!!! Yup that set him off, he gets really sore when reminded we are not his personal guard. He then did his personal favorite thing to do, the ‘storm out of the room and slam the door’.
Celestia raised her eyebrow at me then gave me a shrug. “You shouldn’t provoke him like that you know he will find more than a few ways to make your life miserable. Anyways It shows me that you really want to get out of here so I will only take a little bit of your time.”
I shouldn’t have doubted Celestia, of course she would know better than to hold me up here for a couple of hours. Hopefully she can lend some of her intelligence ponies to help me out on this one.
As if reading my mind “I want you to get on this as soon as possible but I need you to go and see one of my best minds. She will be able to help you in more than just intelligence and she has been bugging me to help with some of my more serious problems. You will be able to find her in Ponyville so you may as well head there first.” 
“Ponyville is a bit out of my way back maybe I could see her on the way back, I’m meeting one of my teammates there in four days.” Ponyville happened to be on the opposite side of Canterlot and would mean that I wouldn’t have time to go see my informants and make the rondevu with my team.
“I am sure that it will be more than worth your while to go there first.” She gave a little grin and turned to Luna “Perhaps when Colt returns with some information we should pay the council our own visit?”
“I too have some ponies that I need to talk to, so if I am back by then I will certainly go with you beloved sister.” With that Luna took off and flew out through an open window.
Celestia gave a sigh “How she can have so many informants between coming back from banishment and now I will never understand, It has taken me a thousand years to have the few Informants I have and that’s nothing compared to the amount you two can accumulate in mere hours. Too much has happened today, I will see you in the future and may the fortune be with you.” She then also flew out the window after Luna, something she normally refused to do because of the snobby unicorns whining about her having wings while they must walk.

--------- I think the Chapter should end here but I would like to know if I should add more---------------