Thorax stood still as Rarity worked on his tuxedo and it was coming along nicely, which is why Thorax was lamenting his time at the gala. He’d rather be as unapproachable as possible, but Rarity was not willing to commit a crime against fashion for him as she didn’t know him well enough.
“Please stop fidgeting Mr. Thorax.” He certainly did, it was going to be white tuxedo and red bow tie combo, Rarity was still working on the stitching for Thorax’s gala garb while Coco got the accessory ready. “I can say you certainly look handsome in this tuxedo so far.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of!” Plentiful Thorax said with a slight pitiful whine in his voice. He admitted that the white tuxedo went well against his black fur covered chitin carpace.
The Caravel Boutique was currently docked in the spaceport found in Canterlot, Coco came back down from the Shining Jewel wondering if she should tell Rarity exactly what Gilda was up to. Instead of worrying about it, Coco decided to let it go so long as Gilda didn’t blow up the ship.
“Well the bow tie is finished; do you need some help with the tuxedo Rarity?” Coco did specialize in accessories and was quickly done with the few things she helped out with. “Do I need to make him a hat too, I think he’d look adorable with the one I have in mind.”
“Go ahead and do it dear, we’re going to make Thorax shine on the night of the gala!” Rarity was taking it easy and wasn’t walking around too much.
“Can’t I just sit ignored in a corner like a wallflower with a bottle of Hell Mare Exquisite wine to nurse?” Hell Mare E was a strong fruity tasting wine, it’d definitely get a pony buzzed after a few glasses and it’d be just as effective on Thorax.
“With such a finely crafted suit as this, I doubt you’d go ignored dear.” Rarity was being paid to make this tuxedo and she didn’t care how much Thorax complained, would deduct the hat and give Thorax his change before he left.
“Would it be too much ask that you kill me before I can go to the gala?” Thorax asked feeling very suicidal all of the sudden; he looked deeply into Rarity’s unconcerned eyes. “Also that can you make it look like an accident?”
Rarity breathed in through her nose and then spoke. The customer was not always right in Rarity’s eyes, even if she would give them some amount of leeway.
“Yes it would be too much and no I’m not killing you, I don’t think I’d be capable of such an atrocity.” And Rarity would be right about that, not that she’s known Thorax for long. She knew enough to know that he at least got around in more ways than one and not for the reasons people would expect. “You’re being quite overdramatic about this.”
“You could have fooled me by making me a nice suit to attract enough mares and stallions to me to make my death slow and torturous. I’ll bet that I’ll see a few mares I’ve met before and things will most certainly not be pretty when they start banding together.” Well not pretty for Thorax in the very least when several mares would decide to drag him off to a bedroom to slowly kill him in the most ironic manner a Changeling could die.
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating; besides aren’t stallions like yourself supposed to like a lot of attention?” Rarity received the weakest death glare in the history of death glares, it just made Thorax look more adorable. “Look at it this way, you are going to get a suit and you’re going to like it. Your queen is paying for my services and you’re going to go along with it!”
Thorax sighed sadly and then looked at the floor; he probably needed a hug and a long soul cleansing cry into a friends shoulder, unfortunately the only friends around were the ones currently causing him to cry.
Greta for her part just sat off to the side playing games on her data pad, she wasn’t a fashion master and she didn’t think a wrench wench like her would be good at anything having to do with clothing. Put a broken microwave in front of her and she’d be able to fix it, give her an ancient VCR and she’d make it stop blinking twelve and it would actually tell time alongside being able to cook popcorn from the broken thing she took out of the microwave. On top that previous stuff, if you were to give Greta a pair of roller skates, three data pads and a few chunks of metal and a gallon of high octane oil, she’ll be able to create a working jetpack that’s good for one use and only the one use. The jetpack would get you somewhere up to twenty miles away in five minutes if you were wingless, forty if you had wings to help compensate for the acceleration and the fall when the fuel ran out. As for Greta’s entire idea of being fashionable or even clothing in general? She just went with what works, because otherwise she was hopeless in that department and that’s coming from a genius like her.
Unfortunately the mare that approached the relaxing griffon didn’t know that, but it really didn’t matter as Greta could probably get along with her anyway and it wasn’t like the mare could ask Greta for a miracle.
“Um, excuse me?” Saffron’s voice made Greta pause her game and look up at the unicorn before her, the griffon thought she was rather attractive mare and the eyes were certainly a good feature on her.
“Hello, welcome to Caravel Boutique where everything is fashionable or made to order at the least! The boss lady is busy with a client over there and I’m not a fashion designer or even a clothing maker, I’m just a fixer with nothing to do at the moment.” The mare turned to look at who Greta pointed out before turning back to her.
“Yes, I can see that, I didn’t want to disturb them and if you’re not busy can I talk to you while I wait?” Saffron asked nicely and wondered why the griffon eyes were roving her body; the griffon seemed particularly pleasant to be around given her smile seemed genuine as could be.
“Sure go ahead, the name's Greta; I’m the technical engineer of the boss lady's enterprises. Apparently we’re going to do more than just sell high quality clothing at cheap prices.” Greta turned back to her data pad and cancelled her game. “We recently hired on a few new crew members if you want to talk about them, two performers, a diamond dog of dubious history and a down on her luck pegasus who was selling her own pee to get by. Is there anything you wanted to talk about in particular?”
“Yes, it’s about the prices of the stuff your boss is selling, are you aware of that at least?” Saffron wanted to know a little more about this Rarity’s character, she looked at Rarity who had several stitches running along her legs and neck quite visible for anyone to see. She stared at them a moment before realizing she was being very rude and looked away.
“Yep, that I can tell you about, all prices are within that range to be cheap and affordable. I do assist in manufacturing some of the products Rarity is selling when I’m bored. Mostly to make sure there are no technical issues, but there isn’t a call for anything like that at the moment.” Greta received a tilted head and a questioning look from the mare with nice eyes; she was definitely a mare to ogle. “You know things that require a more technical touch like the Pinpoint Puller, Impulse Saddle and maybe the helmets for the EVA suits once or twice. I may not do clothes but technology is definitely my jam and the stuff we sell is approved by the local governing body for sale. So Rarity’s Rarities can make you whatever you might need if its clothing or something among the minor utilities we sell.”
“She sounds like a good mare...” Saffron started off before holding out a hoof to Greta, as if she were considering something and wanted her to continue the thought.
“Because she is a good mare, generous to ridiculous extremes that it’s hard to believe that she wants to be rich and famous. Personally I believe power, wealth and fame can be fleeting or at the very least temporary depending on how you use it, but friendships can be forever and go above and beyond.” What could Greta say? She was a romantic at heart and her bingo card had Gilda in first place for most attractive being in existence even if she wouldn’t look it to anyone else. “Anything else, you need?”
“Well yes, I’m a bit curious about the Pinpoint Pullers. How do they work exactly?” It had been one of the more interesting things Saffron saw listed in the sales menu, as was the battery pack utility for the impulse saddle labeled coming soon. Heck it was even wondrous that the impulse saddle and EVA suit were also quite viable underwater.
-
Chrysalis crawled her way along in the shadows, she was practically a ninja. No… she was the shadow of the ninja, the easily forgettable and unseen. A master of stealth of her own accord in a race of stealth specialists, her current mission was quite important and she hoped that she wouldn’t mess it up. For whatever reason, any plan she took personal part in had a decent failure rate because of some unforeseen foresight on her part and or her getting ahead of herself.
So she didn’t tell a soul about what she was doing, then she broke into this noble pony’s house. There was plausible deniability and all that to worry about if she was caught. If Celestia didn’t even catch a hint or a wind of what she was currently doing, much less her own Changelings, then this plan couldn’t fail if she did it right. However if it did fail, the failure would be spectacularly explosive and a blow to Pony and Changeling relations.
Sitting perfectly still, the queen looked up from her position and narrowed her eyes. She had been following this guy for the past few days and only stopped to get a rundown of any news that might have been considered important by her contacts. Which led to a rather interesting conversation with an AI involving Mind Field, her Changelings were definitely going to get their pound of flesh and she had a prosecutor lined up to get Mind Field into a truth circle. The prosecutor would be aiming for a life sentence and having his horn amputated with a full nerve detachment when he goes to court. Then she would go with the AI’s suggestion of poisoning him, he would die naturally but he would suffer up until that point and would be watched to make sure he was entirely incapable of suicide. She would revel in drawing out his suffering until his mind became so fragile it snapped like a twig, Mind Field has been on her list for a long time and now was a perfect time to make him pay.
Shaking her head, Chrysalis had to get it in the game as her target was coming out of the room and everything was moving slowly. She silently pulled a tiny blowpipe out of her carapace and inserted an equally small dart the size of a toothpick. If anyone were looking at where she was, they’d be surprised to see a Changeling with a drinking straw that had a toothpick in it sitting on the high ceiling in a corridor. The poison on the toothpick was derived from a tree frog and a scorpion tail that was manufactured with several other things into a nice and completely safe psychotropic drug that would disable her target before they even knew what had happened.
Taking careful aim Chrysalis blew into the straw and the tip of the toothpick punctured the targets neck close to the heart where even a minimal amount of poison would pump through their blood stream at a quick rate. They swiped at the toothpick knocking it out and onto the floor where it would be missed completely, the target would think it nothing more than a mere mosquito getting a bite in. They took out a mirror to get a look at their neck. They panicked slightly when they saw a small welt in their neck and they galloped about three steps before stopping and that was when the drug started to filter into the target's system a bit.
The first symptom would be dizziness, then the thankfully short hallucinations of dancing muffin men. That was to be followed by in order: running around like an idiot in tight circles chasing your own tail like a dog, talking to the nearest inanimate object and having a highly one sided yet very intellectual conversation, nausea, vertigo, declaring love to a potted plant and wishing to marry it, crying when the potted plant rejected you outright on the principle that you are a crazy person, then you simply declare yourself to be a humpback whale in love with a cat and finally the greatest delusion of grandeur of all… imagining yourself stuffed into black cauldron and calling a kettle awesome while believing you are the universe itself before passing out.
“Yeah, that’s disorienting no matter how many times I see it performed and I even lived through it once.” Well Chrysalis had to build up immunity to her poisonous cocktail that causes the same specific symptoms every time it’s used somehow. She didn’t quite know why it repeated the exact same symptoms every single time and didn’t care in the slightest.
Changelings were generally adaptive in what they could resist and Chrysalis more so because assassins have poisoned her drinks so many times that she actually knows what arsenic tastes like. She even kind of liked it despite how dangerous it was to ingest for anyone else, it wasn’t even filling to ingest. Thankfully arsenic was as ineffective where a Changeling’s bizarre biology was concerned, as much as anything else that was tried on Chrysalis specifically. Someone even got her to drink an entire bottle of rat poison without losing her cookies on a dare. She also remembered the basilisk venom incident that had her slowly turning to stone that required a rocs feather to cure; she became immune to that happening again and that was probably the best attempt on her life ever devised. What doesn’t kill her only makes her more ridiculous to kill and she certainly lived by those words. Heck the reason why she became the eponymous ‘Changeling Queen’ in the first place was because of her tendency to be a utter jerk that her race liked for some reason.
Chrysalis made sure nobody was around as she silently floated down to the floor using her wings; thankfully her target didn’t alert anyone when he started crying about a ficus rejecting them for being too rich, famous and sexually arousing to any sex of any species whatsoever. Chrysalis could gag on her own vomit later as she had a target to replace and a body to hide. Now where could she put the body?
She could put the target in the hospital and have Nurse Four Play fudge some documents to have him on nutrients and constantly sedated under a pseudonym while she took his place. Of course that would be hard to get away with and she would have to actually alert someone partially to the plot she had going; she would also have to somehow smuggle them into the hospital. Just after that thought an idea came to mind, she could tell just Four Play it’s extremely important but she wouldn’t explain why it is until after the fact. After some careful consideration, she decided that she was up for a challenge of getting an unconscious body across a city unseen.
First order of business was that she couldn’t leave any evidence behind, so she stashed her trusty drinking straw away then picked up the toothpick and popped the poisoned end into her mouth cheekily and sucked on it like a lollipop.
-
It was a day later and Rarity was out in the gem fields with Rover, Greta and surprisingly Bernard who apparently wanted to go hunting for big game. She was giving Rover a test run and using her gem finding spell, Bernard went off to do his own thing and promised to share the meat of his kill with Rover which made him appreciate the highly dangerous fake rabbit a little more.
The spell Rarity was using require almost no magic at all and almost allowed her to have X-ray vision, it made her wonder how far she could push her ability to see the unseen like Vera and or Mind Field. She shuddered and tried not to think of that sleazy stallion.
The gems were plentiful and would be helpful for some of the ideas Rarity had and Rover was proving to be quite a quick digger when it came to getting to the gems Rarity pointed out. Rover would get his fair share of the gems for whatever reason a Diamond Dog would want with them. Greta was sitting next to the quickly filling cart to keep watch of this current mining operation that wasn’t going to go too deep, the Caravel Boutique didn’t sit too far away and Rarity had avoided going to Ponyville on the assumption that Sweetie Belle would be there and more importantly her annoying parents.
Meeting Saffron yesterday had been interesting to Rarity, she might check out the restaurant The Tasty Treat to see if it was good. It was on Restaurant Row so it had to be delicious in some capacity and the chef was a friendly mare who had quite a sense of fashion and was quite decisive about what she wanted and let Rarity put in her own creative spins. Greta thankfully kept Saffron entertained until they were done with Thorax who lamented his oncoming death for looking so good. Thorax did look really dapper with his hat, bow tie and tuxedo, Rarity would say that Coco outdid herself on the exquisite hat for such a nice gentle Changeling like Thorax.
“Is there any way that things could possibly get better?” Rarity said that with a smile as she was getting quite a haul of gems and jewels, she wondered if the superstitions about questioning your own luck were true.
“Rarity is that you!” Came a familiar high pitched voice to Rarity’s ears that had them wilting as she turned around and immediately raised her ears so as not to give her little sister the wrong idea. Sweetie Belle the little filly approached Rarity who quickly brought her sister into a hug and gave her a good nuzzle. “Yeah it’s you, why didn’t you call and tell me you were in the area?”
“You do realize that mom and dad would have saddled you with me again and what I do is more dangerous than one would think.” Yes, because the world of fashion was a cutthroat place and Rarity was a friendly face in the middle of it all. Being friendly in the world of fashion would get you brutalized by the media if you didn’t have the teeth for it as that, at least, was something Rarity could say she had.
“How dangerous could your life be Rarity, you went off to start making clothing for a living.” Thus it was up to someone to tell Sweetie Belle everything she knew and that would be Greta’s job.
“I’ll field this one boss lady, continue giving Rover directions. Hello I’m Greta and I work with your big sister, who is the boss lady of me.” Said Greta in a more cheerful tone than necessary, she was always mostly cheerful and she was crouching down to get to eye level with Sweetie Belle. “Let’s see… Rarity’s been nearly killed by whiplash, voracious monsters of varying species, terrorists, pirates, explosions and there was just a lot of other highly traumatizing things your sister will likely never discuss with you. Like how she got a giant spider in the face the size of a large dog.”
“I think I’ll stick with our parents or go to Applin Five to live with Apple Bloom’s family.” Sweetie Belle wasn’t an idiot and felt like she made a really good call there. While she really loved her big sister and looked up to her, she didn’t want to get into all the dangerous things Greta just listed off. Almost getting successfully sold into slavery was enough adventure for her, that and her monstrous cooking maiming said captors. Without bad influences or much in the way of close friends, Sweetie Belle was a smart little filly.
“Glad to hear it, but what are you doing here Sweetie Belle?” At least Rarity was happy to see that Sweetie Belle wasn’t too entirely upset with her.
“Oh… well… I was kind of coming out here to dig in the gem fields for some treasure and maybe buy something with the gems I get. Maybe end up with a treasure hunting cutie mark.” Since her sister was already digging up treasure Sweetie Belle didn’t think it was going to be getting her cutie mark today and Rarity’s mark was practically a treasure hunting cutie mark. Sweetie Belle scuffed her hoof along the ground and Rarity walked over to her to put a hoof on Sweetie’s back.
“The mark will appear when it appears Sweetie, even ponies traveling around out there in space found a special talent eventually and you know I found mine on another planet. Also remember to at least bring someone to look out for you the next time you go out by yourself. A place like this could be potentially dangerous.” Turning to her professional digger, Rarity barked out and pointed with her hoof. “Over there Rover, it’s a pretty big vein right there. No, no, a little more to the left and… stop right there, now straight down!”
“Rover is having fun and feeling very useful to pony boss lady.” Digging was a pastime, sport, lifeblood and religion all of its own in the Diamond Dog culture and Rover was enjoying himself. He hoped he could keep the bones he just dug up; they look like they could use a good chewing.
Sweetie Belle stuck around to play with Rover and he was completely cool about playing games with a filly. He was acting like nothing more than a big dog that was slightly more intelligent. Eventually Rarity had to bid her sister goodbye and to stay safe, she watched as Sweetie Belle walked away with a wagon load of gems. The haul they had was pretty good and Rover got a good forty percent cut which honestly surprised the dog, but he did do most of the work aside from Rarity finding the gem and jewels while complaining about the dirt getting on her hooves.
Eventually Bernard came back dragging a large leg that obviously belonged to some manner of avian beast; said beast had to have been at least five times his size at least judging by the size of the leg he dragged back for Rover. Rover was having a good day and he couldn’t sing his praises enough for the boss lady.
-
Mare-Do-Well sat in the shadows of the buildings and made another death defying leap while spreading her glider cape out. She was on the hunt for the other Caballeron Cabal members; she needed to find out what was going to happen soon and Lead Chunk was a dangerously strong Earth Pony criminal that had to have her lead. The guy was not pure muscle, because he also had enough intelligence to back up all that muscle. He could rip her apart easily if she let him get his hooves on her, one of his crimes involved ripping a stallions rear leg off and beating them to death with it.
The costume crime fighter that Mare-Do-Well happened to be had the rather dubious and unenviable task of figuring out a way to subdue Lead Chunk, which is probably best done from a good distance away. She couldn’t think of anything aside from tranquilizers and she’d need at least enough of the stuff to drop a whole herd of elephants. Even then it wasn’t likely that would keep Lead Chunk down for longer than three seconds provided that she could get all of that into him all at once, he had an excessive healing speed even among Earth Ponies to match his stupidly tough hide. His only weakness was that he was quite slow and heavy, but let him gain momentum and no one could stop him from moving in a given direction. Back Draft had a glass jaw and was an easy take down and Mind Field was definitely not easy to find or catch unless you could see through his tricks, Lead Chunk however was a different level of danger as he was practically a tank on legs.
There was a reason why Mare-Do-Well had to move fast. It was because of Arcane Keeper Yearling, also known as Daring Do, who showed up in Canterlot recently and she would definitely go after the cabal without trying to get the information on what was going on in the shadows. Daring was mostly action and of little thought as to what those actions could lead to, basically Daring got results and was a dangerously loose cannon that worked for Celestia. In fact she was Celestia’s best agent in anything having to do with ancient artifacts that could destroy the world, said artifacts of doom were left laying around for some dark hearted person to come along to use at their whims. The ancients had to have been related to Chrysalis, that or they were really bad at making traps that couldn’t be easily circumnavigated with a single throw of a pebble.
There was something else concerning Mare-Do-Well, the Changelings have been congregated around the city and that was normal enough for Changelings. What was concerning was that they were moving crates loaded with high end weapons around and the requisite boxes of ammunition for said weapons, with the help of the Royal Guard no less.
-
“So what will this puppy of yours be capable of once it’s finished?” Lightning asked Gilda who seemed to work nonstop on her project and was impressed with what she was building in the hangar.
“Oh it’ll be capable of a lot, though it’s going to be a bit resource intensive to use.” Giving Mr. Welder a workout was putting it mildly as Gilda bent and shaped metal on the almost finished structure. “You’re going to test drive this so called puppy, but I think puppy is demeaning for a Great Dane like this.”
“I can’t wait to try it.” Lightning was smiling devilishly, she was eager to see Gilda’s project in action.
“Neither can I and I’m almost done, just have to make sure that everything is sound after that and then we’re in business.” The smile was hard to wipe off Gilda’s beak as she chirped a merry tune and continued doing the things she loved. Gilda seriously doubted Rainbow Dash would ever be as cool as she was when it came to things like this, building something amazing that you could take complete pride in. Rainbow would probably just let others do the building and repair work for her.
-
“Soon, I will bring down the corruption of the nobles and the Hands of Midas shall rise to prosperity with our golden touch!” A shadow paced back and forth knowing that the day of reckoning was coming and no one would be able to predict what she had in store for Canterlot. “Why I’m even sure to achieve my goal! In that I will not bend to the whims of the princesses, nobles or that blasted queen who is prowling around who knows where. I have everything planned out and now all I need to do is have a perfect time to execute it and then all my pieces will move in to take Canterlot. Then, then I can finally be happy with you and nobody will be able to say a thing about it.”