//------------------------------// // I. // Story: Supermare: The Rising // by Alsvid //------------------------------// MANEHATTAN! The strong and rich eastern port city of Equestria, home to gleaming silver skyscrapers of steel and glass and concrete, clawing their way into the blue skies and white clouds, surrounded by the grey asphalt roads...and behind the facade of wealth and power, wherein the moneyed ponies live, the dark underground where the less-fortunate scrape out a meagre existence amidst poverty, drugs, and crime. Manehattan sits at the edge of a harbor, which gives the city control over a great deal of marine shipping, and it is also home to two of Equestria's stock exchanges, cementing its status as a major financial hub of the monarchy. The Manehattan Advocate is one of the most prestigious newspapers of the city. Some wags like to make jokes about 'its liberal Manehattan slant', but it sells well and covers most pressing issues. Its headquarters are in one of the skyscrapers in the Upper East Side district of Manehattan. --- In one of the offices of the Manehattan Advocate's building - a cramped little room with a desk, a task chair, filing cabinets, bare grey walls, a sharp fluorescent light that gave a hard, unwelcoming glare, and ugly brown carpeting, Applejack pushed a pen around her cluttered desk and sighed. The only good thing about her office was a nice, large window that offered an excellent view over the city skyline. "I wonder what Applebloom an' Granny Smith an' Big Mac are up to..." The blonde-maned, attractive, green-eyed, orange-coated Earth pony stopped playing with her pen, and picked up a picture of her family - all of the Earth pony race, looking at it. Applebloom, a young, slender, light-yellow colored filly with a shiny red mane done up in a bow, Granny Smith, an elderly green mare with a grey mane, and Big Macintosh, a tall, heavily muscled stallion with a red coat and a short light-orange mane, were all smiling back at her brightly. Applebloom was waving. On the bottom right side of the picture was written in black marker: "Hope the new job goes well! We're all rooting for you! - APPLEBLOOM xoxo" Just looking at Applebloom's big, round handwriting made Applejack even more homesick, and she put the picture down before she began to cry. "I can't deal with this...I'm gonna go for a walk." Applejack stood up and stretched. Even the new clothes she had to wear for her job got on her nerves. She hated wearing this stupid grey-and-white pantsuit and the glossy red high-heeled shoes were difficult to walk in. She especially felt odd without her Stetson hat. Applejack barely got into the hallway before another mare swooped down on her - one of the typical Manehattan city slickers who talked at a breakneck pace and seemed to have an opinion on everything, Applejack reflected to herself bitterly. It was one of her co-workers, another young attractive Pegasus with bright green mane-hair, maliciously glittering purple eyes, and a powder blue coat, wearing an excessively tight red-and-black suit that hugged the curves of her hip and chest. "Hiya, Stellaria," Applejack said, not really wanting to talk, but she forced herself to go through the effort anyway. Stellaria began to talk without really listening to her. "Hey there! Going to go stretch your legs? Sweet! So, like, if you're going outside, coulja stop by the Starbucks on your way there? Me and the other girls are, like, simply _dying_ for a Pumpkin Spice latte, and it's that time of the year, so if you could just grab a few on your way out there, that'd be really great! Okay, we're gonna get back on proofreading this article so I'll let you go, but don't spend too much time out there or Mrs. Graph is probably going to dock your pay again and I'm sure you can't afford that right now. All right? All right! See ya! Don't forget those lattes, AJ!" She squeezed Applejack's shoulder in a very rude and familiar way, and then dashed off back to her office, slamming the door. Applejack heard her giggling behind the door. "Who was that?" a very firm, masculine voice, obviously that of a stallion, asked. "That new girl from the country. I got her to get me and the other girls some drinks while she's wandering around. You know these country types. So weird! Ugh! Anyway, where were we?" "Lie down here and be quiet for a moment," the stallion in Stellaria's room said. Applejack strode away scornfully without stopping to listen further. --- In the depths of Manehattan's ghetto, in one of the dilapidated brownstone tenement apartments, three ne'er-do-wells - a young, wild-eyed Zebra mare, a strong young Male human, and an athletic Pegasus colt - were watching a tablet computer's live video feed. A stern-looking Pegasus mare with iron-grey hair, sharp red eyes, and eyeglasses was relaying information to them. "...I've already prepared everything for you, so all you have to do make your way to the Financial district." "Great! I can't wait to put paid to some of those rich, privileged bastards, Professor," the Zebra mare declared. She was wearing a tight black bodysuit that accentuated the curves of her slender female physique, leather boots, a leather bomber jacket, and fingerless gloves. A facial veil hid her muzzle and her coarse black-and-white mane. The Professor - for that was what the severe Pegasus mare was called - glared at the Zebra mare irritably. "Damn you, Alsvid, it's just a heist operation, not a bloodbath! Control yourself! Why I even assigned you to this team is a mystery unknown even to me." "I'm the best driver you've got," Alsvid boasted. "Plus, I'm a crack shot. Any police officers get in my way, I'm going to blow the accursed pig bastards to smithereens." "There's no need to do that, Alsvid! They're normal ponies with lives and families...." Shadow protested. "Yes, Shadow, I know that. They're also frontline soldiers of the oppressive upper classes and traitors to our cause, as well. If they really loved their families, they wouldn't do a scummy job like being a damn pig officer. Besides, don't you think the ponies that get hurt by the police have families too? You should tell the police that...or don't. You'd get hurt, or killed," Alsvid said. "Seriously. They would kill you just for saying something to them, and then scream about how you were threatening their lives. Don't actually do the thing I said." "Would...would they really?" Shadow said, sounding unsure. "Leo, would they really do that?" he said, turning to the human male. "You're damn right they would," Leo said, unsmiling. He radiated danger and raw power, and was merely watching the banter between Alsvid and Shadow with an ominous silence. "I've personally encountered them doing that." The tall, muscular human male with short, raven-black hair reached out with one hand and ruffled Shadow's mane. He was wearing a black leather jacket and nothing else over the hard, muscular topography of his upper body, displaying the raw energy of his sharply defined abdominal and pectoral muscles. The red jewel in his chest - about the size of a handspan - gleamed. Below, he wore blue jeans that barely seemed capable of confining his strong thighs, and brown leather boots. "Silence!" the Professor growled, interceding in the discussion. "And, remember, if any of you squeal, I'll kill you myself. I don't need to tell the rest of you, but you're new here, Shadow, so I'll give you fair warning." Shadow, the athletic Pegasus colt, shrugged. "Hadn't even planned on doing it. I'm not that kind of pony, anyway. I've got more principles than that. The one thing I pride myself on is my loyalty." He was wearing a form-fitting black compression t-shirt that clung to his bicep and abdominal muscles, leaving the rest of his arms bare, short grey workout pants, and "AIR PEGASUS" shoes in blue and black. "Good. I'm counting on you, Shadow. The rest of you, be careful. You're no good to me dead. I'll speak to you later." The Professor disappeared from the tablet's screen.