Chapter 1: Secret Society
[/hr]
Twilight perched Trixie down on a stool near the bar countertop, the tent-like cover above the establishment prevented rain from pouring down on the patrons. “Trixie, are you okay?”
Trixie nodded her head weakly in response. “Fine, but out of all the places we could have visited, we picked a bar?”
Twilight’s nose began to tickle from the cold air. Her nostrils flared up and green mucus shot out of her nose. The mucus landed unceremoniously on the bar counter as the bartender grabbed an old rag and wiped down the counter, wiping the mucus off. “Hello ladies, what can I get for you?”
Twilight answered for them, “Just water for me, thank you. My friend would like a lemonade martini.”
Trixie slumped her face down on her hoof, trying to contain her enthusiasm in front of her former rival, “Thanks, Twilight. Do you... get the strange feeling that this world is a bit peculiar?”
Twilight had to agree with her on that. An alternate universe of Equestria was one thing, but this world had a strange, vague feel to it. She nodded her head and began to answer, “I’ve noticed it as well, Trixie. We are in a time period where Clover the Clever, Starswirl the Bearded, and Princess Platinum are still alive. I don’t know the current whereabouts of Celestia and Luna though.”
Trixie scratched the back of her head. “We could pay them a visit then. Just need a map, that’s all.” The bartender placed the lemonade martini and water down on the counter, Trixie paused for a moment and sipped from her lemonade martini.
The sour taste of the martini touched Trixie’s tongue. Trixie savored its texture as she swallowed the martini. “This thing is not half bad. Though it could use some stylish flair,” she chuckles at herself, “now I sound like your fashion-obsessed unicorn friend, Rarity.”
Twilight chuckled along with her, taking a sip of her water. She didn’t prefer to drink alcoholic beverages at a public place like this. Most of the time, she stayed away from bars, as they would interfere with her late night studying when she was a student in Canterlot.
“Where are we going to find a map anyway?” Twilight asked with a shrug of her shoulders, confused as to where one could possibly locate a map at a time like this.
The bartender’s ears perked up as he overheard their conversation. Trotting over, he withdrew a map from beneath his white apron and slid it to them. “This map can lead you to wherever you need to go on your journey. Good luck.”
Twilight cleared her throat and corrected him, “Actually, sir, we’re not on a journey together. My friend and I just so happened to stumble into this universe thanks to a time spell I was testing out... for scientific reasons, of course.”
The former antagonistic foil to Twilight tapped her on the back repeatedly, giggling as she was doing so. “Oh Twilight, you don’t have to hide your feelings from me. Sure my skills in the art of magic are a sliver compared to your prowess, but I do know when you’re hiding something.”
A rose-like blush appeared on Twilight’s cheeks and she scrunched her nose in an effort to hide her embarrassment. The sound of rain pattered against the cover above the bar as Twilight secured the map in her ethereal purple grasp and remembered that she had forgotten her saddlebag. “Trixie, do you have a saddlebag on you?”
Trixie checked around her stool for any sign of on, her face lighting up as she picked up her saddlebag, which was adorned with a star-shaped wand, custom to her cutie mark, on the cover. “Got it right here, Twilight. So… you propose that we go out on this journey, find the Canterlot Castle, locate Celestia and Luna, and ask them to kindly bring us back to our universe?”
Twilight knew the plan was farfetched, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. “Pretty much, yeah. Did you have another idea in mind?” She narrowed her eyes at Trixie, wondering if she had something else to say.
“At the moment, you can’t blame me for having limited options in an unfamiliar setting. Let’s go with your plan and see how it goes.” Trixie smiled sheepishly.
Twilight dropped the map into Trixie’s saddlebag. The old, grainy parchment solely depicted Canterlot. “Strange. Judging from this map, Canterlot is the only part of Equestria on the map. No other parts of Equestria are even visible or mentioned on it... is this even a real map?”
The bartender crouched behind the counter, his head buried between his hooves and hind legs. “The map only has Canterlot on it, because it is the only part of Equestria that has been discovered.”
“Who is in charge at the Canterlot Castle?” Trixie asked curiously, heading towards the double doors of the bar.
Twilight and Trixie leaned closer to the counter, the bartender got up off of the floor and began to tell them the royal dignitaries who are in charge. A tall, grey stallion with a curly black mane that was drenched by the rain, wearing a red bandana that masked his face stormed through the two doors of the bar, hurling a spear directly at the bartender’s neck and spiked through his throat.
His head dangling from the spear, bobbing back and forth pinned up against the wall. “Hooves up in the air, now!”
Twilight and Trixie stepped off their stools with their hooves raised up high. The stallion held onto his bandana covering his muzzle, his emerald eyes stared deeply at the unicorn and alicorn. “Just come with me and nopony gets hurt.”
“Technically, that line would imply that if we go with you, I’m absolute certain that you’d have us commit heinous acts for your own personal gain.” Twilight racked her brain around this mysterious stallion.
Trixie twirled Twilight around and whispered in her ear, “I got a plan, but you have to trust me.”
Twilight’s eye began to twitch and she flailed her forearms dramatically, “If you know what you’re doing against a stallion who threatened us, be my guest.” She stepped over to the side, allowing Trixie to take on the attacker.
Trixie and the stallion stood across from each other face to face as the unknown stallion bolted over to the showmare, who was in her defensive fighting stance, he twirled a small knife and lunged forward with the knife. The azure unicorn dodged the oncoming knife as she leaped on the top of a flat table and jumped over to the opposite side of the table, she pulled the bottom of the table down towards with her magic sending the table flying at the stallion.
The stallion grunted in pain from the table careening straight into his stomach, his body pinned against the wall. “Is that the best you’ve got?” He said arrogantly, squirming through the table and clenched his stomach.
“I’m going to show you more,” Trixie walked along the bar counter, that was now covered in blood, she jumped on the back of the stallion as he started to rotate his shoulder to knock her off his back. But to no avail, Trixie clung onto his head and wrapped her forearm around his neck with his head trapped under her forearm.
“Now start talking, why did you kill the bartender?” Trixie demanded, crossing her hind legs around his waist and locked her grip firmly.
“I don’t have to tell you anything!” He roared, gritting his teeth at her.
The stallion felt the immense pressure of the hold that Trixie planted on him, dropping down to one knee on the ground. He panted with bated breath as his face started to turn blue from the forearm locked around his neck. “Alright, I’ll talk.”
Trixie waited for an answer, stretching her right foreleg around his neck. “Start spilling the beans, or I’ll make you pass out faster than you can say, dead on arrival.”
“You… wouldn’t dare.” He called out to her, claiming that her threat was a bluff.
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Trixie stood by her threat and wrenched his forearm straight up, bending the bone back in which he screamed out in agony.
“Ah, okay, okay. I’ll start singing, just let me go.”
“Gladly,” Trixie released the strong grip around his body as the stallion dropped down to the floor, his head laid down at her hooves. She looked down at him and raised an eyebrow, tapping her hoof impatiently.
“I was sent here to keep the secret of Equestria hidden. I’m a part of a secret underground society where we plan out things in secrecy to overthrow the government,” He said solemnly, he felt his bones aching in pain.
“Take us to your hideout. We swear not to tell anypony about this, and that I was inches away from incapacitating you.” Trixie pressed her hoof against her chest.
“Fine, come with me.” He walked out to the two double doors, opening the doors as they swung open and brushed against each other. Cracking his limbs on his way out, he felt lighter on his hooves and limped slightly to the downpour of rain outside.
“Come on Twilight. Wait, you were drinking the rest of my martini while I was fighting that guy?” Trixie’s eyes stared blankly as Twilight sipped the remains of the martini, letting a huge belch before excusing herself.
Twilight’s nose scrunched up and her eyes wandered off, “No. Come on, we should follow that guy.”
Trixie snickered, following Twilight on her pursuing of the stallion. “I still question why, Celestia made you a princess. The consumption of alcoholic drinks and cake will go straight to your flank.”
[/hr]
They followed the stallion closely to a brick wall with a poster attached to the wall, the stallion applied the pressure from his hoof against the poster. A red button popped out of the wall and he pressed the button, as the wall started to open and stairs lead down to a secret passageway down below with well-lit torches attached to the wall. “Swore to secrecy?” The wall reclined behind them, it slammed with a thud.
Twilight and Trixie crossed their hearts, Twilight unfurled her wings while Trixie pretended that she had her wings, then the pressed one hoof to their eyes, without poking their eyes out.
“Very well then, let us proceed.” He walked down the stairs, dirt and grime covering the bottom of his hooves as he proceeded down to the last step.
“Still can’t believe that you have wings, the end is neigh!” Trixie shrieked, ringing a golden bell.
Twilight was not amused, her eyelids drooped down for an annoyed expression. “You’ll never get over it, will you?”
“Not in the slightest.” Trixie said honestly, shaking her head.
They approached a stone wall with a scanning device on the right of the wall. The voice command of the device spoke, “Password identification please.”
“Resistance is Futile,” He spoke into the device, the device scrambled through a list of passwords and chose the one he uttered.
“Password accepted.” The voice command responded.
A rumbling noise caused the stone wall to shift upwards, they stepped away from the wall and slid under the wall as it came crashing back down.
“Phew, that was a close one.” He wiped the sweat off his brow and flicked the light switch on the wall next to him, the lights illuminated the entire room in its bright glow. Practice dummies, graffiti on the wall, and posters of the current Canterlot royalty spread all across the room with red crosses stamped on them.
Twilight’s mouth hung open before Trixie closed her mouth. “What is all of this? I understand that you want to overthrow the government, but this is taking it too far.”
He scoffed and ran around the room, brushing the edge of his mane. “Oh, this is just the beginning. The society also assigned me to assassinate one of the royal family members, they gave me a list of instructions and two names came up.”
Twilight swallowed her spit and her pupils shrunk to the size of ping pong balls. “And what would those two names be?”
Trixie’s pupils shrunk as well, glaring at the stallion.
“Those two names are, Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever,” He pointed to the two posters at the top of the wall, each poster was crossed out to signify that they were assassinated by him, all except Princess Platinum and her associate.”
“There is no way that you could pull it off.” Trixie snapped at him.
“Oh contraire, you feeble little unicorn.” Chains emerged from the wall behind them and restrained them to the wall, he watched as Twilight and Trixie were fighting away at the chains. He grabbed two rings from a small crate in the corner of the room, slipping the rings on their horns as the ring reached the bottom of their hair.
“You won’t get away with this!” Twilight stretched her wings out, but the wings were restrained to the wall, as well as her hooves.
“I will. In the meantime, I can’t leave you two all alone.” An elevator came down from the wall as the wall opened and the doors of the elevator slid open. Four mares dressed in latex suits emerged from the top of the elevator, all of them wearing the same red bandana as him. They jumped off the top and landed on the floor, standing straight up on their hind legs.
“Goodbye for now,” He waved goodbye while he stepped into the elevator, moving downward to the sewers.
“We’re so bucked now.”