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// In the Cards 
// Story: Rising Star 
// by NPP6 
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	It had been six months since Inkwell had come to this world. He had long since given up on being able to learn to cast magic, but in the months that had passed he had managed to combine his relatively new perspective with Starswirl’s experience and his counterparts own research notes to make a great deal of progress. He had even managed to solve several of his counterpart’s problems with a single magical invention, and he was quite pleased with how it was working. On the whole he was mildly proud of the progress he had made in his magical studies.
Today was in fact the final test of his current project, and it was holding up beautifully under the pressure. Today was the town’s market day.
So far, nopony had noticed anything odd about the Pegasus stallion, and the actual amount of magic used by his creation was low enough that it didn’t even set off the magical artifact detectors at the town’s gates.
“Anything yet?”
Inkwell turned with a smile to face the Pegasus colt sitting next to him on the low brick wall just outside of a small shop. That was another new thing about this world; his counterpart still had his family around. Moreover, he apparently didn’t appreciate what that meant, the fact that his mother and brother and the one sister were still alive, his father hadn’t left before even that happened, that the younger sister hadn’t run off two years ago…
He had made things quite clear to them when he had first arrived; they knew full well that he wasn’t the Inkwell they had known for years. He had lost his family once; there was no way in Tartarus that he was going to let it happen again because of his own actions.
On the whole, he seemed to have a better relationship with these ponies than his counterpart ever did. Go figure.
Featherdancer especially had latched on to Inkwell, his opinion of this new, slightly adventurous version of his brother who took the occasional risk bordering on hero-worship. He had also shown interest in the project and had managed to give Inkwell some help in making sure that it worked right, even inspiring one of the slightly more useful details. Overall he had been enough of a help that Inkwell just hadn’t had the heart to keep him out of this final test.
“Nope, nopony seems to have noticed it, I’d have to say it works.”
“So what’s next?”
“Well, we proved on the way into town that I can still fly, and nopony including the guards with the artifact detectors has said anything, so I’d say that the stealth and subtlety test is a pass. All that’s left is to see if those… secondary functions work and we can call this project a success.” That said, he took a bite of the sweet apple he had purchased for his lunch. He had forgotten how good these were. He really needed to get into town more now that he was done with the project. Of course, now that he didn’t have to worry about finishing the project, he could come into town more…
He finished his apple and was considering going back to buy another. Ordinarily he was slightly thriftier, but today was special and he felt a small splurge would be acceptable. Yes, as he went to stand up he truly thought that his life was now perfect.
This thought lasted for exactly 3.275 seconds before all Tartarus broke loose.
“Get away from her!”
That shout would haunt Inkwell’s dreams for many years to come. There would be times where he would curse and bless that scream in the same breath. He would try on several occasions to forget it, force himself to remember at least once, and never be able to completely purge it from his memory.
Allow me to sidebar her to give a small lecture on fate and destiny. To begin with they are not, contrary to popular opinion, the same thing. They are not fixed either. Fate is a set of choices that we will one day inevitably be forced to make; our special somepony, how we follow our callings in life, the ponies that we choose to call our friends and family, how we face obstacles, and many others.
Destiny on the other hand is rather more fickle. It is the role that we fill. Mother, princess, warrior, mentor. Each individual’s destiny is unique, because each individual will be called upon to fill different roles, and those roles are, when combined, what define our destiny.
Destiny also has another aspect though, one that does heavily involve fate. Think of it this way; at birth, every foal is dealt a number of tarot cards from an unmarked deck. They are dealt in a perfect circle, with the foal sitting at the exact center. Some ponies get more cards than others, but they all get at least a few cards. They are all facedown.
The cards are set. The foal is determined. Their Destiny is decided. But there still remains one question: What order do we reveal the cards in? The cards may be on the table, but until the order of occurrence is determined, a pony’s destiny is still very changeable. There is only one pony with the ability or right to choose the order, and that is the pony in question.
Continuing with this analogy, every pony has defining moments in their lives, moments that can change their entire world, or ensure that it remains the same. Moments where they are, in effect, told to pick a card.
This was one such time for Inkwell. With that scream, Destiny began gathering together the hand he had been dealt at birth.
We now return you to the unbridled chaos of the moment.
A strange sight graced the market that day, one which everypony saw as the cry of rage attracted the gaze of the entire crowd: A flying unicorn.
Specifically a unicorn that was flying upside down across the street out of a small side alley.
He crashed into a fruit stand as its owner dove out of the way, causing the entire thing to collapse in on him. Meanwhile, his attacker made herself known. A tan unicorn mare, maybe seventeen, early eighteen at most, whose sky blue mane and tail each had a single streak of gold running through them, stepped out of the alley, the glow of her horn not yet completely faded, and took a wide stance between the two stalls that flanked the entrance to the passage she had just exited.
At this point the unicorn stallion she had just thrown bodily at least six times his own length stood up from the wreckage of the fruit stand. Using magic to send the peach impaled on his horn flying off into the distance. He gave a dark chuckle, “Missy, you have no idea what you just did…”
“Oh believe me, I know exactly what I just did. I. just. Don’t. Care. She’s just a filly! Even if she was willing, you are way over so many lines! I don’t believe you. Ponies say that the street rats are bad, well at least we have rules! At least ponies don’t have to worry about one of our colts trying to MOUNT a FILLY!”
Dead silence. That was the only response.
For the first time Inkwell noticed the small white shape shivering in the shadow of the mare. A filly, no doubt the one in question, who appeared to be slightly younger than Featherdancer. He turned examined the unicorn stallion with a new level of disgust. The unicorn stallion. The armored unicorn stallion. The unicorn stallion in Discord’s armor. His eyes widened as images played out in his head. The mob. The lynching. The backlash. And then…
Inkwell’s general opinion of ponykind took its most severe blow since the night he had arrived in this world.
Nothing happened. Ponies had fire in their eyes as they turned to glare at the unicorn, and then that fire died as they saw his armor. As they realized what it meant. And then they averted their eyes.
They looked away.
It wasn’t that they didn’t care; it was just that they were scared. That some nameless filly wasn’t important enough. It just wasn’t worth it.
The guard pulled a whistle out of his armor and blew it. There was the sound of a door slamming open, and then two of the Poneekinn drones that served as the bulk of the city guard marched down the street from where they were stationed in the base of a statue at one end of the street.
The mare’s eyes widened as the full implication of what was about to happen hit her. She looked back at the filly behind her, and then down at her own forehooves. Inkwell saw her close her eyes and smile, and then she looked straight at the guard, and her smile became a practiced smirk.
Then something happened that nopony saw coming. A single stone flew through the air, ricocheted off of three separate building’s walls and one metal awning support beam before there was an explosion of wood as the stone met with the guards, shattering the head of one and the main body portion of the other.
Before anypony else could react, Inkwell threw himself backwards without even bothering to look, turning in midair as he tackled his brother, dropping them both behind the wall. His eyes locked onto his brother’s face. Time might as well have frozen in that instant, Inkwell taking in every detail of the scene around him.
Destiny may as well have walked right up to him in that moment. Pick a card.
Inkwell closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he sighed. He made his choice and opened his eyes. He put his hoof on his brother’s shoulder. “Featherdancer, listen to me very carefully. I need you to do something for me. There’s a white filly in that alley that the mare just came out of. I need you to get her and go back to the tree and tell Starswirl what’s going on, he’ll know what to do. Take my bags, and make sure that the guards don’t catch you.”
“But what about you?”
“I’ll buy time until you can get back with the artifact we need, but I won’t be able to do a whole lot, so you’ll have to hurry and get yourself and that filly to the tree so that you can get back here as soon as you can.”
“But what am I getting?”
“It’s a special set of tools that can shut down the Poneekinns with next to no effort. There’s no time to explain any more though, now hurry. Go!”
Featherdancer gave a single nod and dashed down the alley heading for the next street over, carrying the saddlebags that Inkwell had quickly removed three small items from. He quickly slipped a thin piece of curved crystal over his left eye, blinking as the adjustment was made, even as he slipped a small metal circle out from between the feathers on his right wing. He tapped the small item to the inkpad he had removed from his bags, before stamping his own body with the ring. The entire exchange and set of preparations took less than six seconds.
When he stood back up he had already slid both inkpad and stamp into the niches between his feathers on either side. The gaze of the entire marketplace fell on the black colt with the deep blue mane that was just swinging himself up to sit on the short wall. He was tossing a small black orb into the air with one hoof while throwing a cocky smirk towards the mare who was the only pony not picking her jaw up off the ground. “What can I say, I didn’t like the odds.”
Three shrill blasts echoed from the guard’s whistle. The base of the statue of Discord at the end of the street opposite the one that the Poneekinns had come from swung open. There was an echoing rumble, and then they stepped into the light. More Poneekins, these ones armored. City Guards, stronger than the Street Guards that Featherdancer had just shattered, came with armor, weapons, and lethal force. They were normally only used in the city’s defense.
They were now marching down the street, out of the underground tunnel system that transported them around the city, in formation. Five wide, at least twenty deep if it was the full company that the triple blast was supposed to signal. The ponies still present scattered, ducking into stores and homes, diving down side alleys, pegasi even taking to the air, everypony bolting, anything to avoid getting caught in the coming storm.
In the panic, nopony saw the slight glow in Inkwell’s left eye as his gaze flitted over the street, finally settling on the abandoned log balcony of one building. There was a slight pause in his motions as he timed things and followed the angles, and then his left eye flared, a white light spilling from it as the cherry pit that had been directly in front of it flew out, striking a rope on one of the balcony’s support beams just as the front line of the column of guards was about to pass it.
The rope snapped, broken ends flying as they whipped around the post, spiraling in opposite directions before there was a loud crashing sound. One log swung away from the balcony. Then as it reached the middle of its arc, hanging out over the street, it stopped. The whole thing hung there for a moment, suspended. And then the entire balcony came down.
Right on top of the armored Poneekinns.
The whistle fell from the guardpony’s mouth, clattering on the cobblestones. For a brief moment it looked like Inkwell and the mysterious young mare might have just gotten away with their attacks. Then there was a flash from within the pile of rubble, and a burst of blue light flew into the air, exploding in a shower of sparks.
The tramp of marching Poneekinn City Guards came from the first statue. Then from the next street over behind Inkwell. And then again from the direction that the first group of City Guards had come from. Soon the sound of wooden hoofsteps moving in unison echoed from every direction.
The guardpony began to laugh maniacally as the wooden drones came down the street from both directions, the group from the one end climbing over the wreckage from the collapsed balcony. He was silenced by a ceramic flowerpot to the head. The pale green earth pony mare who threw it jumping down from the rooftop she was perched on to land in the middle of the street.
Inkwell and the unicorn mare came out to join her in the road, the colt giving the new mare a nod before the three ponies turned to face away from each other. “So this doesn’t look good…” The smirk he was throwing was half playing the character and half seeing a pair of small figures, one white and the other sky blue making good their escape. 
The Poneekinns began to pour from the alleyways at either end of the street, marching towards the three ponies standing in the middle of the road. And then at about a hundred yards out, they stopped, keeping the ponies trapped, but drawing no closer. There was a low rumble, and then the ranks opposite the rubble strewn across the road parted, allowing a large wood and metal construct that bore a striking resemblance to a three-headed dragon to walk down the aisle that had been formed. It reared back, as if to strike the three ponies, and then things got really interesting.
A single glowing cloud appeared in the sky, literally from nowhere. It compressed in on itself, and then spat out a bolt of lightning that blew the wooden dragon’s right head off, even as a rather expensive looking carriage (minus the connecting rods that had once allowed it to be pulled by pegasi) clipped the left one and then spun out, flying over the defiant trio before hitting the ground and sliding away, smashing through the Poneekinn ranks.
A white unicorn stallion with a broom strapped to his back, a picture on his flank of a cloud with a branched lightning bolt coming down from it, and his horn still glowing the same color as the cloud stepped out of one of the stores. At the same time, the door came flying off of what remained of the carriage, and a pale blue pegasus with a silver mane and tail stepped out, followed by a mare with a deep maroon coat and an orange mane and tail. They walked over and joined the ponies in the middle of the street.
Inkwell smiled. “So, just out of curiosity, who all am I going out with today?”
The first mare smiled at him. “Sunbeam.”
The green earth pony nodded as she identified herself as “Lotus Blossom.”
The unicorn stallion gave a mock salute. “Contrail.”
The pegasus mare motioned to herself and then the earth pony behind her. “My name is Moonchaser, and this is Dust Runner.”
The pegasus colt nodded at their introductions. “I’m Inkwell.” He looked over his shoulder at the recovering army and then turned to face the five ponies in front of him again. “One thing before we do this…” Before any of them could react he had struck, tapping each of them in quick succession. By the time they stopped blinking he was already tucking the stamp and inkpad back into the niches in his wings.
He almost burst out laughing at the confusion on their faces as they took in the fact that their color schemes had just been changed dramatically, as had their cutie marks. In short, they might as well have been five completely different ponies. “Disguise magic, so that they can’t identify us. Just on the off chance that we manage to make it out of this.”
The pegasus mare slowly nodded. “And so they can’t go after our families if we don’t.”
Inkwell blinked and dipped his head at her. “Yeah, I’m sure we’ve all got somepony to protect…”
There was a roar behind them as the construct of metal and wood began to recover. The right head was little more than a smoldering stump, and the left was broken and hanging off at an odd angle, but the middle one was rearing back again and charging up to fire off a blast of chaos magic. A single feather flew into the dragon’s mouth, even as it prepared to fire. The explosion that followed engulfed the dragon, several dozen Poneekinns, and a large portion of the street.
As if it was a signal, the six ponies charged the army.
Three hours, seven city blocks, and almost eight hundred Poneekinns later, all six ponies had been subdued, and were loaded up into a prison cart. Featherdancer arrived just in time to see the pony that only he could recognize as his brother look out one of the windows and give him a small mock salute and a sad but genuine smile.
He sat down hard as the awful truth hit him. Starswirl wasn’t being obstinate and unhelpful, he was just doing what Inkwell had wanted him to. There had never been any weapons. It had just been a ploy. Inkwell was just protecting him.
Tears began to soak the cobblestones between his hooves as he came to the end of that train of thought. His brother was going to prison, maybe even to his death.
And it was all his fault…