//------------------------------// // 1: Set the Stage // Story: Friendship is Deception // by Your Antagonist //------------------------------// Friendship is Deception By: Your Antagonist (VegaKS03) Edited by: TheWattsMan Act I: Re-introductions Chapter 1 - Set the Stage         Nothing is ever quite as it seems. You think you know someone, but have you ever really? It’s like the reflection in a mirror: When you see it you’re almost certain you know exactly what it is, but where does it go and what does it do when you’re not there? A better way to describe it is looking at the forest and not seeing it for the trees. What is it that is hiding in plain sight?         She was staring at a word. It was rather hard to make out what it was, or even if there was just one. She'd had this dream a thousand times, and yet she still couldn’t make out this word. It didn’t help that the world was flooded in red lighting that continually strobed and pulsated, or that she was trying to read with her face covered in something wet, she’d have to assume it was water. The red of the room made it nigh impossible to make out anything, and the more she wiped and wiped the harder it became to see and the wetter her face became. She turned and her foot bumped into something. She looked down to see what it was, but now she was faced with a newer problem: the world became unbearably bright all of a sudden, and her eyes began to burn. She chanced a glance at the wall but could only make out a few of the symbols: Y..U D..M… T..AI..OR. It was getting too bright to recognize anything else, her eyes burned harder as the light intensified, and the red broke away in flash.         The crimson world broke away as Celestia’s sun rose for its routine trek across the Equestrian sky, its golden rays signifying the arrival of a new day, and a new page in the life of Twilight Sparkle. The writing on the wall would have to elude her for another day.         She came to slowly, and took in the sight of her sleeping friends, who were sprawled across her room from the slumber party the night before. She grinned as an unconscious Pinkie Pie rolled into a bookcase and mumbled something about eating cactus pie. Pinkie Pie is so random, Twilight thought to herself whilst rolling her eyes.         She averted her gaze and surveyed the mess that was her room; at least this time no giant trees crashed through my bedroom, she mumbled to herself with a sigh. This mess was going to take forever to clean, but at least the night beforehand was a blast.         She rose out of her bed and nudged a small lump wrapped in blankets that slept at the foot of bed, “Come on Spike, get up. I need your help”, she cooed to the lump, and was rewarded with rustling followed by the annoyed grunting and moaning of her purple dragon assistant. He blinked a couple of times before focusing on Twilight. “Come on, Spike we need to start breakfast and get this mess cleaned up so we can start our work for the day.” Spike looked quizzically at Twilight and was ready to remark that since it was Sunday the library was closed, but then recalled the red scroll he’d burped up from last night and shut his mouth as quickly as he’d opened it. Twilight gave him explicit instructions never to talk about or open them, and he certainly didn’t want to be chastised this early in the morning for asking questions with obvious answers, so he crept around the snoozing ponies that littered the floor and made his way down to the kitchen. Twilight now turned her attention to the mess at hand, trying to work a quietly as possible to clean up without waking them, using her telekinesis to move and sort the various pillows, apple cores, pastries, books, and unsent letters to the princess that had gotten splayed across the room during the course of the night. As she worked, her friends came to slowly. Rainbow Dash awoke to find that she had unconsciously snuggled up with Fluttershy and proceeded to push her away frantically her face turning scarlet even though her azure coat. She searched around frantically hoping that no pony saw, but only caught smug grins from Twilight and a newly awoken Rarity who proceeded to chuckle softly while rising to her hooves and contributing to the clean-up effort. Applejack had risen to the sound of Fluttershy frantically apologizing to Rainbow for some reason she’d clearly missed and didn’t care to understand quite frankly. “Mornin' y'all, an' goodbye…” she mumbled as she stumbled groggily towards the stairs. “Applejack, aren’t you going to stay for breakfast?” Twilight called after the cowpony. “Golly Twi’, Ah’d love to stay, but Ah’ve got to get back to the farm. We’re expectin’ some visitors around noon.” Applejack replied while adjusting her Stetson hat. “More relatives from out of town?” The Lavender mare inquired. “Nah, nothin' like that, just some fancy business ponies from outta town. Cain’t trust Big Mac to take care of 'em on his own so Ah got to get down there quick 'n early like.” She stopped for a moment and looked around at the mess “Sorry about the mess sugarcube” she said sheepishly. “Don’t worry about it, if anything I’ve got the others to help me out so you go on.” “Thanks Twi', Ah’ll make it up to you later” Applejack said as she sauntered off to the lower section of the library. Dash looked at the mess around and gave Twilight a pleading look. Twilight merely rolled her eyes and sighed out “Fine Rainbow, we’ve got it from here.” To this Rainbow shouted “YES!” and in a flash of color had made a Beeline through an open window. “Darling I’m afraid I’ll have to decline as well. As fun as last night was, I’ve got an appointment with a very important client in a few hours. After I’m done here, I’ll simply need to be on my way.” Rarity explained while sorting some of the junk on the ground. “Umm… Twilight…I don’t want to seem rude; I don’t think I can stay either… If that’s okay…” Fluttershy proclaimed softly. “I... uhhh… Have some things that… need to be taken care of, if you don’t mind…” “No, it’s fine girls, I’m sure Pinkie will be more than glad to help me finish off breakfast when she wakes up--” As if on cue Pinkie jerked awake, glanced at the sun and gasped out “Ohmygosh, Ohmygosh, Ohmygosh, I’m late, I’m late!!!” And in a pink flash she was down the stairs and out of the library. Twilight sighed “Well, never mind you two should be on your way, I can handle it from here.” “Are you quite sure darling?” Rarity asked “I could… you know... finish up here… if you want” Fluttershy replied meekly “No, no, it’s fine. Spike and I have some things to get done ourselves. I’ll finish up here, and there’s not that much anyway.” The Ivory unicorn shrugged “Well if you insist. Thanks again, I had a wonderful time last night.” Rarity turned and walked down the stairs and was followed by Fluttershy who waved goodbye in her demure manner. Twilight finished cleaning her room, and after a bath, went downstairs to see Spike, who had whipped up and was chowing down on a comically large quantity of raspberry pancakes. It was shame that these pancakes would go mostly uneaten, but there were more pressing matters at hand. “Spike,” The baby dragon turned and locked eyes with Twilight, the usually warm expression of the unicorn was replaced with one of freezing apathy. “it’s time. You know where to bring it.” As though to punctuate her sentence she disappeared in a puff of purple smoke Spike wordlessly jumped up from the table and produced a rather thick encyclopedia about pony anatomy from the shelves. He opened the massive tome to reveal that it had been hollowed out (most ponies in town would argue that Twilight took impeccable care of her books, but this one was clearly exempt from that rule,) produced the Crimson scroll from the night before and proceeded to run it down to the basement. Spike had never liked this basement. It always creeped him out, since it looked like a mad scientist lair with a hint of Zecora’s hut, and he avoided going down unless he was specifically instructed to, which thankfully wasn’t often. He approached Twilight, who was facing a table and fiddling with something he couldn’t and most likely didn’t want to see, being that it was red scroll day and all. “Just leave it there Spike, and here, take the day off.” Twilight tossed him a small pouch that contained 15 bits and a Ruby. 15 bits was more than he needed to assist rarity a carousel boutique, a task that often involved his body being used as a pincushion while he stared adoringly at her. Twilight waited until she heard the sound of the basement door close behind her, and checked around one last time before hesitantly rolling the scroll open to reveal the various glyphs and incantations that formed a small circle on the page. She then simply touched her horn to the paper and willed some small amount of energy that gave off a small burst of green smoke as a reaction. When the smoke cleared there was a tiny cloaked figure that seemed to being staring off into nothing at all and it began to speak. Twilight listened intently to the ghostly green figure on the paper. “Agent Sparkle, your services are required by the crown. Your assignment is to observe, interrogate, and eliminate seven high priority targets. We only have aliases as the agency possesses little information at the moment, but we will keep you informed as we get new information. Proceed with caution, your targets aliases are: Seed, Chronos, Viperfang, Blink, Cross-eyed eagle, Manic, and Arachne. These individuals are highly experienced in assassination and counter espionage, and we suspect there may be some links to the criminal underworld. Your first two targets have been identified and a Dossier will be provided on this document after the code has wiped itself. The Agency will sustain contact using your ‘Violet Page’ alias. Good luck Agent Sparkle.” The ghostly figure dissipated into a cloud of dust, and the paper began to burn blue taking all of the red coloring and incantations with it, leaving 2 smaller documents in where it once lay. Twilight walked over and began to study the documents: The first had a picture of a brown earth pony colt, the Cutie mark was that of an hourglass; She had seen this colt around Ponyville multiple times, but never figured he’d be wrapped up in such a grim business. His alias read ‘Chronos: Time Killer’, after scanning for more information it seems that this colt was suspected in at least 23 equestricides, but could never be convicted because the time of the victims death and location never matched with his whereabouts. He always had an airtight alibi and several witnesses. The second sheet had no picture, but the rest of the information painted a picture of a killer who would be difficult but not impossible to track down: A grey Pegasus mare, typically operates from long ranges, most likely uses a rifle of some sort, no accompanying conviction record. Why would they call her cross eyed eagle though? Twilight pondered. It seemed that between her description and this alias, it would be an uphill battle to find her. The lavender unicorn sighed and placed her head in her hooves. How long have I been doing this? How much blood will I have on my hooves before I can just walk away from all of this? Twilight shook her head and proceeded further into the basement to in search of a certain trunk. Just looking at it brought up so many memories, the grand majority of which she’d care to forget, but now wasn’t the time to get wrapped up in nostalgia and regret, there was work to be done. She produced from the trunk: a long black cloak, a shoulder holster, a small book, and a jagged dagger. Any other time she would have chuckled at her literal approach to a cloak and dagger operation, perhaps as a coping mechanism for the acts she was about to commit in the princesses’ name, or maybe once upon a time she legitimately enjoyed her work as much as she loved books, but as of recent she had grown tired of this business. She donned her attire, grabbed the dossiers off the desk, and proceeded to leave the library. Once outside she stopped to lock up the library, then looked up at the sky. It was a ritual for her, she always saw the sky as innocent and uncaring, which was something she envied about it. With one last sigh she looked forward, donned her hood, and proceeded to sink into a crowd in search of her targets. Chapter 1 end