Only a Year...
City of Guilds
Chapter 8: Only a Year…
“Now, what is the rule?” shouted Shining Armor.
“No one is a hero!” the Legion shouted back in response.
“Right, you all just need to distract Borborygmos long enough to allow me or Trixie to use the Shackles; no one needs to die over this.” Shining Armor stood in front of a group of Boros, prepping them for tomorrow’s mission, the capture of Borborygmos.
“Captain Shining Armor, sir, may I ask a question, sir?” asked a cadet loudly.
“Of course,” Shining replied.
“Are you sure that we can trust Izzet machinery, especially with the success of our mission?”
Feather stepped in, her arms crossed, “Do you trust Izzet machinery to run your electric shaver, your lamps in your home, and the water treatment facility so that you don’t end up drinking last night’s piss?” The various assembled Boros nodded their heads approvingly “Then we can trust it to capture a Cyclops.”
Shining smiled and saluted Feather, and all the others followed suit. “Well then, I’d like to thank all of you for volunteering for this. You all have the rest of the day off. Get some sleep and prepare for tomorrow.” Cadence walked into the room and sidled up to her husband. “Morning, sweetheart,” Shining said, greeting her with a kiss.
“Good morning. You know, I have to say you really are a born Captain. Whether on Equestria or on Ravnica, you command respect,” Cadence said, returning the kiss.
Shining looked nervously over to Feather, who just smiled at the two of them. “I don’t mind the two of you making goo-goo eyes at each other. I actually think that it’s kind of cute.”
Cadence giggled as Feather led the group to the dining hall, where a decent sized feast was laid out for the group of volunteers. Feather led them to three seats near the end of the table, one of which was decorated gold and was adorned with the symbol of the Boros Legion. “One of the advantages to being the guildmaster,” the angel stated, “a really nice chair.”
The three sat down at the table and began devouring the feast laid before their eyes. Cadence looked over the golden armor that Shining was wearing; after a while he noticed her wandering eyes and asked, “You like this uniform better than my other one?” he joked.
“You know it isn’t the uniform I like. It’s the stallion underneath,” she replied seductively. Feather barely repressed a hearty laugh, and Shining blushed a bright red. “But I was wondering, how did you get in touch with the Boros? I mean, you aren’t a species that anyone on Ravnica is familiar with. So how did you initialize yourself into the world?”
Feather, after calming herself, spoke up. “All a coincidence. When a bunch of fish people sprout from the undercity and tell you that a huge planet-wide river runs underneath your home, a talking horse seems downright normal.”
“Pony!” Cadence shouted.
“I get it,” Feather laughed.
“So,” Shining interrupted, “you want to know how I got mixed up with the Boros?” Cadence nodded in response. “Well I can tell you that it’s a fairly simple story, but it started the second that I got to Ravnica…”
A bright blinding light was the last thing of Equestria that Shining saw. He appeared in the center of the Transguild Promenade, his Canterlot armor shimmering in the sunlight. Various creatures all around him looked on in awe, and a few humans began running off out of the park.
Shining Armor stood up, and blinked his eyes several times. Once he could see again, he took account of his surroundings. While he was looking around, hoping that this was still Equestria, numerous creatures began to talk about him.
“Where did he come from?” asked a human.
“Is it intelligent? Can it speak?” asked another.
“What the heck was that anyway? That felt like blue mana, but what cast that spell?” an elf questioned.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Shining muttered. A few glances were thrown his way from those close enough to hear him speak. The elves in the immediate area continued to stare at Shining, especially after hearing him speak.
“He’s like an intelligent horse, but how is that even possible?” a human wondered aloud.
Shining, not taking too kindly to the idea of having his race’s close relatives being called unintelligent, stomped over to the human. “Yes, I am intelligent. Yes, I can speak. No, I don’t know what caused the spell that brought me here.”
A group of four Boros humans flanked by a Minotaur entered the promenade; swords raised, they approached Shining Armor. The unicorn held his ground and called out to them, “Excuse me, I don’t know where I am. What are you, and can you help me find my way back?” The Boros looked at each other and back to Shining Armor, eyes widened and mouths agape.
“Y-y-yes,” spoke a lieutenant. “We of the Boros League would be glad to help you out, just come with us and we’ll take you to the guildmaster.” The other privates looked at him strangely, but one by one they began to sheath their swords.
“Good, perhaps then I can figure out where I am,” Shining remarked as he began to follow the Boros legionnaires.
“Well, we can tell you that much,” the Minotaur said in a deep booming voice. “Welcome to Ravnica! My name is Trostheim, Boros Captain, what’s yours?”
“I am Captain Shining Armor of the Canterlot Guard of Equestria,” Shining replied.
“I suppose that explains the armor, and the name,” joked Trostheim. The Minotaur was dressed in large golden armor, with the symbol of the Boros Legion in the center. On his back was a large hammer, also emblazoned with the symbol, with one side being flat like a hammer, and the other a sharp spike. “So then, I heard you yelling that you don’t know what brought you here, but you got any clue, any whatsoever?”
“Nothing at all,” Shining replied. “I was just going to see my sister in a place called Ponyville, and then a bright flash, and then I was here.”
“Troubling,” the Minotaur curtly replied. “But I suppose that we’ll just have to hope that Feather knows something.” The Minotaur continued to lead Shining towards a large marble archway, decorated with the same symbol that he wore on his chest. A few minutes passed without anyone speaking. Finally, though, a few of the privates began to mutter amongst themselves. The reverie was shattered, however, by a series of screams coming from nearby. “Damn, alright two of you bring Mister Armor here to Feather. I’ll take the others to investigate the cause of the disturbance.”
“Let me help,” Shining demanded. “I’m a royal guard where I come from, I can help.”
The humans began to move for the direction of the screams, but were stopped by Trostheim. “I can’t let you put yourself in danger, sir. I don’t know what the rules are in your world, but…”
“Then at least let me help anyone who is injured. I can do that much at least,” Shining interrupted.
Trostheim smiled. “All right, you grab the injured and we’ll all make a dash for the Boros HQ. You can recognize it by the symbol on my armor.” Shining nodded, and the group made a break for the direction of the screams.
Once they arrived on the scene, the group noticed a group of Rakdos attacking a family. The four Rakdos humans were all covered in spiked chains and wore black masks that covered their faces. A spike was driven through a man’s heart as his wife cowered to the side with two of the Rakdos bearing down on her. The Boros group began to attack the Rakdos.
One of the Rakdos that was gawking at the dying man noticed the oncoming Boros with their swords drawn. He threw his chain, lodging it in one of the Boros humans’ neck and killing him almost immediately. Another Rakdos threw his chain at Trostheim, who blocked the chain with his blade. The other two Rakdos that were menacing the woman turned and rushed for the Boros. Shining Armor noticed that off to the right was a little girl who had a wounded leg. Shining made a mad dash for the little girl, hoisting her onto his back and running back the way that he and the Boros had come from.
While running, Shining glanced at the little girl on his back, or more specifically, her wounded leg. A large gash ran along her left calf, blood flowing all over her leg and onto Shining’s back. After running for several minutes, Shining stopped for a moment, letting his passenger off for a second and taking a look at the wound. He tried to use a basic healing spell; he closed his eyes and strained his magic to the breaking point. Once he opened his eyes he noticed that he had barely begun to close the wound. “Why isn’t the spell working?” Shining cried.
The unicorn nearly collapsed, but he forced himself to stand. He thought back to what the humans said back at the Promenade, something about ‘blue magic.’ Shining had never heard of magic like that. Unicorns had always just had magic. He thought back to his magic classes; he was taught that when he couldn’t perform a spell, he should concentrate and try to feel the magic.
Shining closed his eyes and began to meditate. He reached out and tried to feel magic, and he did find the magic he was looking for. He felt what he would later find was called ‘white’ magic, which felt very strict, very ordered, but powerful. The other that he could easily feel, what he would learn was called ‘red’ mana, felt chaotic and strong.
Shining tried to summon the white mana, finding it much easier to use then his natural magic. He tried to form it into a basic healing spell, which succeeded in closing the girl’s wound.
“Are you a Wojek?” the girl asked between pained gasps.
“What?” Shining asked in response.
“Are you a Wojek? You know, like the others who rescued me.”
Shining responded quickly, “I am kind of similar, I am a guardspony that helps people like you.” The little girl chuckled at Shining. “What? What’s so funny?”
“Guardspony,” the little girl replied, still in pain but smiling. “It’s just a funny term.”
“Why do you think that’s funny?” Shining joked. “You want to know where I’m from?” The girl nodded in response. “Canterlot.” The little girl laughed more. “And my sister lives in a place called Ponyville.” The little girl continued to laugh, her smile replacing the pained frown.
A grunting noise from behind the two alerted the unicorn to the presence of one of the Rakdos approaching from behind. Shining once again pulled into the same pool of mana, and tried to summon up some kind of a defensive spell. The chain-wielding Rakdos threw the chain at Shining, who was scratched along the side of his torso. Shining summoned up an arrow of light and shot it at the Rakdos, blasting him through the head.
As the Rakdos human fell, Shining’s eyes grew wider. His heart dropped into his stomach as blood began to drip from the wound. Trostheim and his remaining three soldiers ran into his view, running towards Shining and the girl. The two humans grabbed the girl and began applying more magic to her injured leg. Trostheim grabbed the motionless unicorn and slung him over his massive shoulder.
They started towards a building off in the distance bearing the symbol that Trostheim wore. Shining started to mumble to Trostheim, “It was an accident.”
“Hmm, what?” Trostheim asked.
“I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to… to…” Shining trailed off.
“Do what?” Trostheim asked.
“I mean it!” Shining yelled indignantly.
“I seriously don’t know what you mean,” Trostheim replied.
Tears began to stain Shining’s snow-white coat. The image of the Rakdos member falling to the ground continued to replay in Shining’s mind. The same couple of seconds, repeating into eternity. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” he whispered.
Trostheim started to open his mouth but closed it and thought. “You’ve never killed before?” the Minotaur asked.
“Of course not!” Shining shouted back. Trostheim dramatically rubbed his ears. “Sorry.”
“I’m going to assume that killing is a big crime on your plane?”
“Yes, and I just…”
“Saved two lives,” Trostheim interrupted. Shining stared at him through a growing veil of tears. “That little girl and her mother are only alive because we stepped in, they got out of this scuffle with minimum physical injury because we acted fast, and to do that we had to kill.”
“But we could have done this without killing anyone!” Shining argued.
“Maybe,” Trostheim admitted. “But here, on Ravnica, there are some truly despicable people, and they don’t stop just because the guard or the Boros or whoever arrive.”
“That makes us the monsters though,” Shining said.
“Sometimes you have to play the monster in order to save someone from something far worse.”
“This place is horrible,” Shining muttered. Trostheim scoffed, causing the unicorn to snap, “You know just because you live with it on this Celestia-forsaken plane all the time doesn’t make it right! On my world ponies don’t kill one another, never…”
“You do realize that you were the one who saved that girls life, with magic you got from here,” Trostheim replied. Shining looked at him, confused. “You used white magic, would you have been able to heal a wound like that completely without scarring on your plane?” Shining shook his head. “Just because we have our problems doesn’t make us all horrible, a plane shouldn’t be judged by the actions of a small few, it should be judged by the happiness of its people.”
“You’re saying that I should look at the big picture?”
“Precisely,” Trostheim replied. “Can you really guarantee me that in all corners of your plane people are free, and they don’t do anything wrong?”
Shining started thinking about those words, and about what it meant to be a guard. On Equestria things were simple: ponies were good, and others were good or bad depending on the individual. He remembered reading that once upon a time ponies were forced to kill in order to protect those that they cared about.
The question, he realized, wasn’t whether killing was bad, it was whether or not he would have done so before now. In Equestria would he have killed changelings during the invasion if the shield didn’t work? If he had the chance, would he have killed Chrysalis? What was more important to him, his values, or the safety of his friends? He realized that this was a question that would have to be held off. As long as he was on Ravnica he would have to find a way to keep himself fed and under a roof of some kind.
“Hey, Trostheim, who would I talk to in order to become a Boros Wojek?”
The Rakdos Theater in the Seventh District was abuzz with activity. The planned performance tomorrow was to be quite the important day. Borborygmos had been informed of the performance and its planned tribute to Scognor. Pinkie Pie had spent much of the morning meeting with a variety of performers. Dancers, chainers, and various others had been lured to perform with the promise of a slightly higher paycheck than normal.
“Still don’t understand why you have to sacrifice your paycheck so that these losers can have bigger ones,” Smoky said to Pinkie Pie. “You have more talent in your pinkie, or hoof I guess, than they do. All those humans can do anyway is screw like rabbits, how is that worth more?”
“I don’t feel right being paid to sell out my friend, Smoky,” Pinkie replied. “I would do the same for any other moment where I was forced to sell out a friend.”
“Well, I hope you cleaned them out. The Boros have quite the bounty fund.”
“I didn’t ask for money,” Pinkie replied. “I simply asked to stay here on Ravnica.”
“Aww, Pinks ya schmaltzy gal you.” Smoky wrapped Pinkie Pie in a hug. “You know what this means?” Pinkie shook her head. “Party! We have to have a ‘Pinkie Pie is sticking with her new friends’ party!” Pinkie gave Smoky a concerned look. “Not a Rakdos party, just a good old fashioned cake, beer, karaoke, more beer, and more cake kind of party.”
“Alright,” Pinkie said with a smile. “I guess I could go for a little partying right about now.” Smoky fist-pumped and ran off, screaming directions back to Pinkie Pie.
“You have a pretty good friend in him, don’t you?” asked a deep regal voice from behind Pinkie Pie. Princess Luna walked up to Pinkie Pie and looked over her Surprise makeup. “You didn’t have that symbol on you before, is it a new addition to your costume?” Luna asked calmly.
“No, it was there from the beginning, but I had to get rid of it for a while.”
“But you have brought it back.”
“Yes, since I get to stay here, I want to really start living as a Rakdos. I want to show that I'm proud to be a Rakdos.”
Luna’s eyes fell to the floor, but quickly she attempted to change the subject. “So, you were friends with Scootaloo, and I’m assuming this creature that is her adoptive parent?”
“Yeah, don’t be fooled by what everyone says about Borborygmos, he’s a real sweetie when it comes to his daughter,” Pinkie said. “He’s real sad about what happened, so he’s really glad that I’m going to say a few words for her tomorrow.”
Luna smiled a bit, “Perhaps I was quick to judge you. You may have changed, but the Element of Laughter lives on within you.”
“Thanks Princess,” Pinkie replied with a hug. “You know, you said that you met with Dashie, how is she? Is she okay?”
“A little,” Luna replied. “She is quite loyal to this leader of hers, someone named Zegana. Come to think of it, I haven’t met your leader, or hers.”
“From what I’ve heard Zegana isn’t seen very often, and Rakdos is… incommunicado.” Luna gave Pinkie a perplexed look. “He’s been sealed for quite a while, and the only one who knew how to revive him is dead and buried in the central Rakdos home, Rix Maadi.”
“I do have one question, though,” Luna said. “Why did the people of Ravnica accept you and the others so quickly?”
“That was all luck and coincidence,” Pinkie replied. “At the time the people of Ravnica were also meeting the merfolk for the first time. They had apparently been living in the lakes and such that run underneath Ravnica, and so they met us and just kind of accepted it. You can only question what you know about natural life so much, you know.”
“Actually, while I’m asking questions, you never did tell me, what drove you to live a life of murder?” Pinkie gave an annoyed look to Luna who shot back, “I’m being open-minded, there was no other way to phrase that inquiry!”
Pinkie laughed. “I know, I know.” She patted Luna on the back. “It was a joke, I do that.” The pink pony stopped her laughter and grew more serious. “Well, I told you that I had always had a few… darker thoughts. I don’t know what caused me to think like that, but it’s always been there. So I guess you could say that I was born a Rakdos. But what caused me to give in to my desires, well it began when I first arrived here…”
Pinkie Pie’s arrival on Ravnica was similar to Shining Armor’s, with the notable change of her lack of clothes. Pinkie was summoned in the lower parts of the Seventh District, unknowingly just a few miles from Scootaloo at the time. Pinkie’s first reaction to arriving on Ravnica was normal, at least for Pinkie Pie. She was initially enraptured by the sights and sounds of a completely different world than she was used to. The stares of the humans did nothing to bother her; however, she did capture the attention of a human wearing a Rakdos robe.
“What in Agyrem?” the man muttered. More than likely he was confused about the fact that a creature that he had never even seen was naked in the streets. A realization hit him and he ran up and greeted the pink pony. “Hey there, what are you doing out here?”
“Oh, hello!” Pinkie replied. “I don’t know what I’m doing out here, I was just baking cakes and then I was here,” she said with a smile.
“Must have been some damn good cakes,” the man replied. “I’m Simon; my brother Joson works for a produce shop in the Market District. What’s your name?”
“Pinkamena Diane Pie, Pinkie Pie for short.”
“Nice to meet you. From your lack of dress I’d assume that you’re from the local Rakdos chapter.”
“Rakdos?” Pinkie repeated. “What is that?”
Simon looked at her perplexingly. “Well I guess it’d be better to just show you, come with me.” He led her through winding streets and back alleys, and eventually to the Seventh District Theater. The human led her inside, although the seats were already filled with humans, devils, merfolk, and other creatures. “Sorry, looks like you’ll have to stand.”
“It’s okay, what is this place like anyway?” Pinkie asked.
“It’s alright, you’ll see when the party starts up in few minutes.”
“Parties! I love parties!” Pinkie replied.
“Then sit tight and you’ll get one great party.”
Pinkie Pie did as she was told, taking her place against the wall. She didn’t have to wait very long before the curtains raised. Onstage were two females with the symbol of Rakdos painted onto their stomachs. The reason that the symbol drew Pinkie’s attention was because it was the only thing that the ladies were wearing. The two ladies sat on the stage, their naked bodies thrust outwards for the audience to admire. Pinkie also noticed that they had the same eye color, hair color, and generally looked like identical twins.
After the curtain had risen a spotlight shone down on the two girls they began to kiss. They pressed their bodies together at a V-shape, allowing the crowd a full look at their front sides while they kissed. This was met with thunderous applause, and screams of obscene suggestions from the audience. The girls began to comply with perverted action suggested while the audience continued to howl and hoot.
Pinkie Pie simply stood there, mesmerized. This wasn’t something she had ever seen, or even heard of, back on Equestria. Sexual actions like these were supposed to stay secret between partners, not be performed on stage! There were some places in Equestria where kissing in public was frowned upon; those ponies would probably faint if they were here.
And yet she couldn’t take her eyes off them. This display of sexual carnality had Pinkie’s complete attention. They seemed happy. They were probably having a blast. “They’re free,” Pinkie muttered to herself. As the girls continued their debauchery, Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but feel that she was missing out on something simply because of the fact that she hadn’t done anything like that.
Back on Equestria she had always felt like a something was missing in her life. Like she had been missing out on something, and she had tried to fill that hole in her life numerous times. She tried casual sex in college, she tried clubbing, she tried skydiving, camping in the Everfree forest, exercise, spicy food, everything. But no matter how much she tried to deny what she wanted, it was always there, in the back of her mind. As she snapped out of her reverie the dancers had finished, several times in fact, and were leaving the stage.
A small devil with smoky black skin walked out onto the stage. “Hello my fellow freaks, weirdos, perverts, and troublemakers, how’d you all enjoy our lovely twins?” The crowd responded by cheering the twins’ names loudly. “I see, so 7/10 somewhere in that range?” Pinkie snorted a little and joined the crowd in cheering their names louder to appease the smoky devil. “Well your old pal Smoky has a little something that he’d like to share with all of you, the very first time that we need a helper from the audience.” The curtain opened to reveal an Orzhov collector strapped to a chair. Smoky scanned the audience, all of whom were jumping out of their chairs to get up on stage. But Smoky’s eyes fell on one naked pink pony that was leaning up against the wall. “You!” he shouted pointing at Pinkie Pie.
“M-m-me,” Pinkie said with a stutter. Smoky nodded and motioned for Pinkie to come up and join him. In her head the pink pony wanted to run the other way, but the crowds shouting pulled her forward to the stage. The crowd stared at her as she walked up to the front.
“Alright what is your name, little miss?” Smoky asked.
Pinkie’s general cheeriness kicked in. “Pinkie Pie!” she said in a cheery voice.
“Well Miss Pie, would you like to have the first slice?” Smoky handed her a sharpened blade, blood stained across it. Pinkie Pie was repulsed by the bloodied blade, hesitating to take it in her hoof. “Now listen,” Smoky whispered, “you just have to give them a nice show alright, slice him up pretty good, crack a few jokes, you know, have fun.”
“Isn’t he going to get hurt, though?” the pink pony asked pointing to the human strapped into the chair.
“Nah, we use this drug, Lotus Nectar, to dull the pain, basically completely. People find it difficult to enjoy an execution if the person is screaming their head off and crying.”
The pink earth pony shuddered at the mental image before recomposing herself. Pinkie put her hoof to her chin in thought. “Well, who is this guy anyway? I don’t know anything about him.”
“He’s a collector for the Orzhov,” Smoky replied. Pinkie Pie stared back at him with a blank expression. “You don’t know what that means, huh?” She shook her head. “Alright, well, he’s a tax collector of sorts…”
With that, Pinkie nodded and strutted over to the Orzhov with blade in hoof. “Well, hello there, mister tax collector person, what’re you in for today?” The Orzhov mumbled a response, spitting all over himself. “Should I take you drooling all over yourself as a compliment?” Much of the crowd got a chuckle from this, including Smoky. “You know your hair is getting long. We’re going to have to take a ‘bit’ off.” She started to cut at his hair with the blade, but Smoky interrupted her, bringing a pair of scissors. “I thought that would knock em’ dead,” Pinkie whispered frantically.
“That was a joke, about what?” Smoky asked.
“Money! You know, take a ‘bit’ off,” she replied.
“Did you mean zinos? I don’t know what currency is where you’re from, but around here we pay in zinos.”
Pinkie slapped her forehead, “You should have told me earlier!” she whisper-yelled. She tossed the hair off to the side, revealing a now mostly bald Orzhov collector. “Zino for your thoughts?” Pinkie said as she started cutting into the man’s scalp, earning nothing but more drooling from him and genuine laughs from the crowd. The pink earth pony chuckled along with the crowd and walked back to Smoky. “So do we call the ambulance, or do you guys not have those?”
“Ambulances? No we have those but that isn’t how this works.” Smoky put his claw on Pinkie’s shoulder. “Look you gotta go back in there and finish him off. You know kill him.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened at the idea, “I can’t do that!” The crowd began to murmur amongst themselves at Pinkie’s absence. “Gimme a moment folks, it ain’t easy to improv a whole performance.” She turned back to Smoky with a worried look, “I can’t kill people, that is just not cool.”
Smoky rolled his eyes, “Look the guy is gonna die anyway gal, you are on a roll, just finish it.”
Pinkie stopped, she bit her lip and contemplated her options. The man was going to die anyway. It wouldn’t really matter if she was the one to do so. She shook her head, she shouldn’t think like that. She started to walk onstage and wanted to make a run for it. But as the crowd began to cheer her on she started to get into the moment. “Well it has been fun all, but I think the party is getting a bit ‘lifeless’.” The crowd ripped and roared screaming for more. “But I never like to leave a party without knocking em’ dead.” She quickly inhaled and stabbed the man in the back of the head. As the crowd screamed in approval Pinkie runs off the stage and exits the building.
She didn’t know whether to be revolted or impressed by what she had just done. On the one hoof she had just killed a man, but on the other she had never felt more at peace. “Hey there, Miss Pie!” Smoky called from behind. The little devil carried with him a sack of money, and handed it to Pinkie Pie. “We usually don’t pay guest performers, at I don’t think that we do, but with how much the crowd was rip-roaring at your performance I figured that you deserved it.”
“Oh, well thank you,” Pinkie Pie replied.
“You know you could work for the Rakdos, a girl like you could pull in customers by the truckload, good at murder, nude, cracks great jokes…”
“I don’t know about that, I’m… well I’m not from around here and where I come from… stuff like this doesn’t happen.”
“Oh come on,” Smoky countered. “What, they don’t have parties from where you’re from?”
“They do… just not like these.” Pinkie Pie felt that the creature and his attitude should repulse her; thinking about killing like it was a party. But part of her was screaming for the chance to keep going. “There is no killing where I’m from.”
“Well if I may,” Smoky said smugly, “you ain’t where you’re from right now, right?” Pinkie nodded. “Well then I don’t see the harm in getting a job with us.”
Pinkie Pie didn’t waste a moment. “You know you’re right, and I could use some money while I’m here.” She held out her hoof for Smoky to lead her to Rix Maadi. “But I’m not willing to keep killing, at least not yet, or all the time or anything.” Deep in her mind she knew that just because she was somewhere else didn’t make killing okay, and that Smoky’s talking about it as a party was to persuade her to join the Rakdos. Whether she simply didn’t care or honestly didn’t notice, she didn’t think about it very hard. She just allowed the 3-foot tall devil to lead her deep into the undercity, where she would find her new family: the Rakdos.
Twilight Sparkle was laser-focused on the array of wires that was laid before. The red, blue, yellow, magenta, purple, white, black, brown, silver, gold, and cyan wires were representing stunning success and stinging failure. A few beads of sweat rolled gently off of her forehead, falling to the ground to join their brothers and sisters.
“Sparkle.”
In a complex machine like the ones on Ravnica were built by wires. Wires were God; they were what made a machine sputter and fail, or what made it fly like a bird in the summer sky.
“Sparkle.”
Twilight used her magic to grasp the magenta wire and began to merge it with the silver wire. The wire began to sew together with its mate. Their metaphorical coitus spurring progress as the engine of the device roared to life…
“Sparkle!” Trixie shouted.
Twilight Sparkle snapped out of her mildly erotic fantasies and turned from her machine. The Vedalken Shackles, as she had come to term them, was her strongest device. Capable of detaining even the great Borborygmos… in theory. “Yes Trixie, I do have ears,” Twilight sarcastically retorted.
“You clearly don’t use them,” Trixie countered. “I was sent to pick up your device and bring it to Shining so that we could bring it to the theater.” Trixie stared past the purple unicorn and took a good look at the device. It looked like two large discs with small mana coils surrounding them. The coils were separated into small rings, and each hummed a bright blue.
“Those coils that you are looking at are for storing the blue mana needed to power the machine.” Twilight magically lifted the device and twirled it around, showing the device’s 22 small blue indents. “Based on my research it should give you three shots, but I would assume two, better to be prepared.”
“Three should be about perfect!” Trixie replied energetically. “So why aren’t you coming with us tomorrow? We could probably use guns, lots of guns.”
“I have to work on these coils, Niv-Mizzet is working on some secret project. He needs me to help him to repair these things!”
“Right, well, I suppose that we can do without.” Trixie moved to leave before turning and asking, “By the way, I never asked, how did you get mixed up with the Izzet league?”
“Well, I suppose that I’ll skip the parts I’m assuming that we all went through, finding out that nudity is a taboo and all that…”
“I found that out when I went to an alleyway behind an Orzhov church, what about you?” Trixie asked.
“I appeared in one of the mana coil facilities, so I learned pretty quick.” Twilight levitated a cup of coffee to her lips and took a long sip. “I also learned that apparently running into a room naked is a great distraction technique.”
Trixie chuckled. “Alright, but what about what happened after that? What eventually led you to work for Niv-Mizzet?”
“Well, after I learned how differently magic works on Ravnica I decided to head back into the mana coil facilities. I figured that if these things were creating and using magic I could use some to go back home…”
Twilight Sparkle slowly stepped between hissing pipes, carefully inching herself towards an Izzet insignia on the other wall. If her theory about being able to get home with the mana from the mana coils was correct than she had to choose a big one. So she had begun wandering through the underground corridors below what she would later find out was Nivix. After getting to the other side, she looked into the nearby room to find the room filled with three humans conducting experiments. Two were hunched over a hissing pipeline, using magic to stimulate the steam. The other was further away with a heavy rifle, watching the other two work.
The lavender unicorn sent out a lightning bolt at the rifle-wielding one off to the side before charging at the other two. She planted her hooves under one of the humans’ chin, while turning and shocking the other with another blast of lightning. With all three humans down, Twilight sifted through their backpacks, pulling out some greens that she hoped were edible.
She grabbed her new dinner and ran deeper into the compound, continuing to follow the hissing pipes. She was content that she was well out of sight of her victims, who would probably be waking up about now. She had made sure that her magic would only stun them, not kill, not even seriously hurt, just stun long enough for her to get past. Other unicorns would have had difficulties adapting to a new form of magic. But then again, most unicorns weren’t the Element of Magic.
Twilight sat down in the middle of the barely lit corridor. The pipes spewed steam all around her, heating the air. She wiped the sweat from her brow and dug into her mildly disgusting meal. Having a little time to herself, she decided to study the effects of her newly found affinity for blue and red mana. The first thing she did was summon the beginnings of a lightning bolt and fed more energy into it carefully.
The magic of this world seemed to work more based on the quantity of magic fed into the spell instead of the spell itself. A simple fireball could destroy almost anything with enough mana. Twilight closed her eyes, feeling the mild shocks of the bolt’s residue falling all around her. Another thing that she began to slowly understand was the concepts of ‘colors’ of mana, or at least how they worked. While the lavender unicorn couldn’t fully utilize all the different colors of magic to their fullest, she did have more access to them than others would.
Based on her experiments, the mana color known as ‘green’ could be used to stimulate growth or life where none or little existed, or even where plenty exists if you wanted to make a weapon of it. ‘Black’ magic was magic used to do the opposite to corrupt or destroy life. ‘White’ had similar functionality. It could destroy or rebuild, grow or eliminate. But the last two were Twilight’s favorites; ‘red’ mana was more unfocused destruction, more chaotic, but had a multitude of applications. You could easily control the weather, summon a bolt of lightning to destroy what you wanted, or summon a storm of fire to do so as well. And finally of course, ‘blue’, the magic of logic, of technology, of thought. They may as well have called it “Twilight’s Magic”.
Twilight opened her eyes to see that her bolt of lightning had nearly encompassed the room. It was just out of reach of the pipes, a dangerous level of expansion, but she knew what she was doing. She closed off the supply of mana to the bolt, letting it die down. After finishing the various greens she had ‘borrowed,’ she walked over to a small box of wires and switches. One aspect of blue magic that Twilight hadn’t been able to fool around with was the concept of alteration: being able to change the way that the electricity was flowing through the wires, or even control it on a more sophisticated level. The lavender unicorn pressed her horn to the box and switched the polarities of the electrical flow. This caused the pipes further down the way to begin to burst and spew burning hot steam, which closed off the passage behind her.
“That’ll slow them down… I hope.” Twilight hoped that this race had as much of aversion to getting burned as she did. With the path behind her closed, the lavender unicorn ran further down the hallway, which twisted and turned around and around.
Eventually the hall came to a stop at an elevator. Twilight, without many options, went into the elevator, which closed automatically and began moving up towards an unknown destination.
Twilight sat patiently in the elevator as it went further up. Since the hall had ended in it, it was clearly the only way deeper into the facility, but since it went up on its own… “Someone found me out.” Eventually the elevator came to a stop at the top floor of Nivix. Twilight walked out to see a dragon waiting to meet her.
“So you are the mysterious naked terrorist.” The dragon spoke in a booming voice. “I must admit, you are not what I expected.”
Twilight swallowed her fear and answered back, “And you are?”
“Oh, you must forgive my manners, I do not entertain unwanted guests often,” the dragon responded sarcastically. “My name is Niv-Mizzet, the smartest being on Ravnica, and one of the strongest if I may say so, leader of the Izzet League.”
“Okay… so you control these coils then?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, and I employ the people that you have blasted with lightning or kicked in the face.”
“Oh, sorry,” Twilight sheepishly apologized. “I’ve only been on Ravnica for two days, so I hadn’t known that people are supposed to wear clothes. Also, your people attacked me first…”
“Did you say two days?” Niv-Mizzet boomed.
“Yes, why?” Twilight asked.
The dragon stroked his chin and snorted a puff of blackened smoke. “Can you show me your magic, the magic that you have repeatedly used against my men?”
“I said that they attacked me first!” Twilight replied indignantly. “But yes, I suppose that since I did sneak in here that I could accommodate you.” The lavender unicorn channeled red mana into her horn and lightning began to spark around her. Niv-Mizzet looked on with interest, and sent a small bolt of lightning towards Twilight. The unicorn quickly expelled the red mana and jumped back, channeling blue mana into a counterspell, which negated the bolt. “Why did you do that?”
“Not only do you have an understanding of red mana, but also of blue, and so quickly. I have men under my command that still, after training and modifications, cannot perform a proper counterspell. And yet you can perform one in two days, albeit yours is unrefined, wasteful in terms of the amount of magic that you use, but still you grasp the fundamentals rather quickly.”
“Back on my world I am known as the Element of Magic, and I was the apprentice of the princess herself. Of course I would catch on quickly. Not to brag or anything, I mean.” Twilight blushed slightly but cleared her throat and addressed the dragon more forcefully. “I was snooping around the mana coils because I wanted to find a way to send me and my friends home, do you have any ideas how to do that?”
The dragon paused for a moment, his face becoming unreadable. After a few moments he spoke up again, “That is planeswalking magic. That is beyond even my power, currently at least.” Twilight looked downcast for a moment before the dragon continued, “However, I could use someone smart like you in the Izzet League, and perhaps someday you will discover the secret to artificial planeswalking.”
“You want me to join this league of yours, why so soon?” Twilight asked.
“You clearly pick up magic quicker than almost anyone currently working for me, why wouldn’t I want that kind of power on my side? Besides, we both have a similar goal, discovering the secret to planeswalking.”
“There is some kind of secret to it?”
“Currently only powerful beings known as Planeswalkers can do so; it is a magic that you are born with or without. But, I ask, why must that be the case? Why should some be above others simply by birth? The gifts bestowed on someone by chance should be replicable, and planeswalking is the one thing I cannot replicate, yet.”
“Are you asking me to work with you on this?” Twilight asked.
“Not yet. You cannot simply join a guild as prestigious as mine and then expect to be handed the opportunity to work with the smartest being on all of Ravnica. I will assign you a few other projects and allow you some time to look for those friends that you mentioned…”
“How did you know that I don’t know where they are?” Twilight quickly interjected.
“If they were with you, you would have had a few infiltrate my beloved Nivix with you, no? It is only because I felt your presence and forced you upstairs that more of my people were not harmed.”
“You did that, but how…” Twilight thought a moment before smacking her head with her hoof. “You seem to have an affinity for machines, so the building is a giant machine with movable parts. You just have to use your magic to alter the structures around the pipelines, that is why I didn’t notice, you did it while I rested!”
“You catch on quick, equine. So what do you say? Join me, possibly learn a way to get off this world, or do whatever you were doing before?”
Twilight thought for several moments; the choice before her seemed simple, but she couldn’t help but feel that something was off. But there was no other way; she had no way off of Ravnica even if she did find her friends. But with the Izzet, she may find one, even if there was something about Niv-Mizzet that she couldn’t quite place. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll join the Izzet League.”
“Fantastic,” replied Niv-Mizzet, a toothy grin crossing his face.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Old rakdos mechic
2691984 Yes, I said in a blog post a while back that I was creating personalized mechanics, and using some old ones, for some of the faux cards. Hope you like them, and more importantly the way that the story is advancing.
The cover art reminds me of the Imperium of Man.
2913473 What is that, sounds pretty cool.
Also thanks for the comment and follow.