Disappear

by ShimmeringStallion

No Strings Attached

No Strings Attached

Rarity was glad to have brought Derpy and the fillies to the Castle. It was close to the Wedding Hall, but they were safe from anypony who posed a threat, given the number of guards that surrounded the castle both outside and inside its walls. Princess Celestia walked with her to their destination, having retrieved what she had sought to give to Rarity: The Six Elements of Harmony, used to imprison Discord and used to ‘save’ her sister. The Elements were far from predictable. Princess Celestia used them on the dreaded Nightmare Moon, and with her own power, sealed her away in her lunar prison. Yet when the six ponies that represented the Spirits of the Elements of Harmony utilized their power, they were able to banish the darkness in Princess Luna’s heart, which had transformed her into the Wicked Mare of the Night.

“Princess, are you sure about this?” Rarity couldn’t help but feel nervous. “Gather seems to be adept to collecting things, and his power seems to be natural unicorn magic. I don’t quite see how the Elements can help us.” Though Rarity had her doubts, Princess Cadance walked over, placing a hoof of assurance on Rarity’s back. “Rarity, Princess Celestia knows what she’s doing. It’s for the good of the Kingdom of Canterlot. Just have a little… W-What in the name of…”

Noticing the massive trail of guards leading into, as well as leaving, the Wedding Hall caused Princess Cadance to pause in shock. Fluttershy chirped up, with something else having caught her attention. “L-Look at all those bags…” Fluttershy wasn’t drawn to the guards, but the massive burlap sacks that they were carrying with their magic. The ponies ran forward, noticing that the guards were severely disgruntled. Princess Celestia heard shouting and laughing from inside the Wedding Hall, as she and the other mares walked into the reception room before it, knowing exactly who was responsible for this.

Walking through the open door, she saw colossal bags of burlap lining the walls of the Wedding Hall. Towering as high as the hall itself, the precariously stacked bags appeared to be looming over them, as they turned their attention to the turquoise stallion in the center of the room, shouting orders at the guards. “Stack more over there! I had to haul these from Baltimare and store them below Canterlot, so you worms should have no problem with one at a time!” Gather noticed the ponies at the front door of the Wedding Hall. “Ah! Welcome to my temporary vault, mares! Care to bask in the beauty of all these bags of bits? Ha ha ha ha ha!” Gather had been given permission to use the guards, and he was certainly enjoying the power that had been ‘bestowed’ upon him by the Princess of the Sun.

Princess Cadance stepped forward, demanding answers. “What is going on, Gather!? Where is Vanish?” The last of the bags had arrived, completely lining the walls of the Wedding Hall, leaving only enough space for some moonlight from the windows, as well as artificial light from the chandelier above. The space where those who are related to the bride or groom were to sit, were removed. All that remained were pillars, flooring, wall, windows, ceiling, and the large bags. The ice blue eyes of the stallion gazed upon Princess Cadance as he saw fit to respond to her questions. “Oh, you mean my mercenary? He’ll be here soon. He hasn’t shown up yet… Ah, or so I thought.”

Princess Luna led the remaining ponies into the Wedding Hall, backing up as soon as she saw the looming towers of burlap surrounding the Hall. It felt very claustrophobic in there, as anypony would agree. “WHAT, IN THE NAME OF EQUESTRIA, HAS BEFELLED THE ROYAL WEDDING HALL!?”

Gather laughed maniacally at Princess Luna’s screams, as the bags seemed to shake ever so slightly from the echoes of her shouts, and his laughing. “AHAHAHAHA! AHA! AHA! HA! Oh-ho-ho, D-Do you always talk like that!? I’ve got to say, that’s hilarious!” Vanish walked past the stunned Princess Luna, and placed his saddlebag by the front door of the preceding room. He looked at the bags, attempting complex calculations in his head. Twilight, herself, looked at the bags as she spoke to the gray-maned stallion. “V-Vanish, is all this…”

Vanish ignored Twilight's stammering, as he spoke to Gather directly. “You have done well, client. This appears to be everything we agreed on, assuming you aren’t considering a sudden act of betrayal, that is.” Vanish saw his client smirk at him. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. You want bits? I’ve got all your bits, right here. I won’t even dock your pay for not getting the wings of that blue one; that one Wonderbolt. Consider it a ‘gift’, or ‘severance pay’!” Rarity looked at the massive bags, shock resonating in her voice. “T-THIS… is A HUNDRED-THOUSAND BITS!? There’s no WAY! This is FAR MORE than that!” Vanish lowered his head in shame. “That’s right, I had never told you everything. This would be the presumed amount, if you wanted to buy out the original contract: one million bits.”

The ponies were awestruck. They had never seen so much money before in one place, even in Canterlot. Pinkie Pie was especially ecstatic. “Whoa! One million bits!? That’s, like… like… hold on, give me a second… One MILLION tomatoes, down at the market! Assuming they’re priced fairly, of course. Or like… w-wait, lemme think it over… HALF A MILLION cherries! Well, again, assuming the stand owner is being nice that day, and had that many cherries to begi-…” Pinkie Pie rambled on, trying to think of how much money ‘one million bits’ was, as Twilight walked forward to speak to the dark, dark blue pony. “Vanish, you told us that the contract was a hundred-thousand bits!”

Vanish turned around, lowering his fedora over his eyes, not wanting to smile during this serious situation. “I said that the original contract was for a request of my services, for a hundred-thousand bits. You see, I never explained that there was a certain ‘penalty’ that I had placed, due to my client’s actions after the contract was formed.” The ponies looked at each other, completely lost with regards to what Vanish was saying, but Applejack believed she understood what he meant; only asking for the sake of clarification. “Hold on, so yer telling us that Gather did somethin’ to make him have t’pay MORE!?”

“Traitor's Fee.” Gather spoke up to get the attention of the various ponies in the Wedding Hall, having taken the time to climb up the makeshift staircase of burlap-covered coins, and run along it. “That’s what he calls it anyways, it's in the contract!” Gather was playfully running on the bags without a care in the world, confident in how things would play out for him, as Vanish turned his attention to the other ponies, raising his fedora up and using his magic to bring the contract from his saddlebag to his eyes once more. “My client sought to betray me through the act of attempting to steal my magic in order to complete his request by himself prior to us reaching Ponyville. As a result, he was fined ten times the amount of the original contract, and given three months to get the money together.”

Scoffing, Gather explained his actions, almost with a tone of boastful pride in his voice. “Yeah, but I only took a couple of weeks, tops. I was a Gold Merchant and Jeweler in Baltimare, so I just needed to sell enough merchandise to make the bits!” Vanish moved the contract back to his saddlebag with his horn's magic as Gather ran down the bags, stopping in front of the ponies before continuing. “Took a while, but I’m as grateful as I am sour about it. See, I was able to fill every hole in my original plan while waiting; spent a lot of time in the Canterlot Archives, too. Keeping to myself, reading everything I could about Equestria, I even saw the princess a couple of times while studying. Besides learning about you chumps, I also learned plenty about the Elements of Harmony!”

Princess Celestia looked at Gather nervously as he glanced at her. “And I learned a great, great deal about you, dear ‘Princess’, as well as your sister, and your 'student'. Even learning about past threats, to make sure I would succeed where they failed!” Gather used his magic to produce the wings of one of her guards. “You can’t beat me, Celestia. You, and everypony else, will bow before me and my New Order for Equestria.”

Gather flapped his wings, laughing at the ponies in the room. “Ah, now then, I suppose it’s time for you to get to ‘gathering’, wouldn’t you say, Vanish?” Vanish closed his eyes, contemplating something. Gather wasn’t amused by this pause, though he was even less pleased with what he heard once Vanish spoke. “… No. Not yet.” As several of the ponies in the room smiled, The turquoise stallion thrust himself forward with the wings he was using in order to confront the brown-eyed mercenary. “WHAT!?” Vanish raised his hoof. “Considering how you already tried to betray me once, did you think I would trust you so easily?” Gather was scraping his hoof on the ground, ready to charge right through the well-mannered stallion. “I will count the bits myself, to confirm that you have paid the appropriate amount. If you have not, there will be consequences.”

Foam had begun to emanate from the mouth of Gather, while his eyes seemed set on piercing through his 'contract stallion'. Vanish grabbed one of the burlap bags from the top of the piles with his own magic, and turned his head to speak directly to Gather. “I’ll be counting them in the reception hall, removing them from the Wedding Hall in the process. I am unaware of how long this process will take, so all I can ask of you as my client, is to be patient.”

Sitting in the reception hall, Vanish used his magic to levitate the bag to his side as he used his hoof to toss his fedora over to his saddlebags. Carefully, he turned the massive burlap bag upside down with his magic and untied the rope that sealed the bits within, using his mouth. The bits poured onto the floor beside him like a waterfall of golden coins as he began to count every bit that was there, one by one, stacking them one at a time. The other ponies knew that Gather had no other option but to comply, and they could have just as easily let Vanish go about doing what he sought to accomplish while they came up with a plan, possibly even attacking the two right away, but Twilight truly felt bad for the dark blue stallion; with his short term memory loss, he’d never be able to do this right if he wasn’t efficient.

Twilight turned to her mentor. “Princess, I’m sorry. I need to help him.” Rarity shook her head. “Twilight. This could be the chance we’ve been waiting for! Let’s just let him count, and we ca-” “ARGH!!!” The sudden scream of frustration by Vanish was accompanied by his use of magic to topple the pillar of bits he had made, and start over. He lost count because the other ponies had been talking, but was too proud to blame them. He began again, and Rarity paused for a moment, observing the clearly frustrated pony who had begun counting anew. Princess Cadance stepped forward, looking into her husband’s eyes. “Honey, let’s help him.” Shining Armor looked at Princess Celestia, who simply watched Vanish try counting the massive number of bits, before he responded. “Well... Y-Yeah, alright.” Rarity walked up to Vanish, ceasing his counting as she took the time to explain how he could do so in a much more efficient manner. Vanish sat and listened to her idea, nodding and smiling at her explanation, admitting that the simplicity of her plan was something he had never considered.

Joined with Twilight, the five ponies worked together in order to count the massive number of bits that had been moved to the Wedding Hall, prompting Gather to burst into hysterics over the sight. “Look, I know you’re eager to see my New Order of Equestria, but please! You’re helping your enemy! Are you ponies really this dense!?” Twilight turned around, looking to Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, yet not sharing a word between them. In her eyes, the princesses saw and understood everything. As Twilight walked over to Gather, the two princesses replaced her spot in counting the bits in the room before the Wedding Hall, as Princess Luna brought another bag over to the reception hall.

Twilight shoved the turquoise stallion back, as her friends stood behind her while she spoke. “Gather, I don’t expect you to understand, if you think that we consider Vanish our enemy. We know who our enemy is. More importantly, we know who we consider our friend. Vanish is far from our enemy. Just because he’s obeying a contract, doesn’t make this personal. I realize that, now.” Twilight looked at Vanish, who seemed to be enjoying himself as the piles of bits became golden towering pillars that formed along the wall of the massive atrium that they were standing in. “We’ll help Vanish, because he’s our friend.”

Comments

[ponybrony]

it's so touching...

[ShimmeringStallion]

2274472 Aww, thanks for saying that!