//------------------------------// // Breadcrumbs // Story: Cause and Effect // by MoondustIsPoison //------------------------------// "I don't mean to rain on your righteous parade but we still have no clue where to start, and you're already planning a large scale uprising," It had been about a day since i arrived in equestria, and I'd gotten information reporters would die to get their mitts on, media wise it was probably gold, but in terms of solving the mystery at hand it was essentially useless. Most of the information was on the subject of human treatment in equestria, the ones that 'weren't fit' to he converted were put in P.O.W. camps or sold into indentured servitude to ponies, this information being spouted had caused a pretty large discussion on what various places did to humans, and in turn sparked Gwendolyn to start scheming to bust out all of the war prisoners and go in guns blazing amd over throw the government. "You're probably right, it just pisses me off to no end how a people we once called friends were so quickly turned into enemies, what's that mottow the Princess Purple and her little group uses? Oh right, Freindship is magic..... Where's the friendship now bitches!?" Gwen was getting pretty flustered about the subject again so we let her regain her cool before continuing. "I think all of us can agree on that but we still need to figure out why it happened so we can effectively take who or whatever caused this out without a huge loss of life." I looked to everyone else as we all silently nodded. "Why don't we just poke around canterlot for clues? 'seems like the easiest way to start." cirrus pointed out before returning to quiet contemplation. Cirrus turned out to be the little group's strategist as well as 'tech' specialist, ponies do have computers, although the method of operation is much different, aka magic based computing which i have yet to fully understand. "Seems like the best plan we've had all day, lets try it, we still have a couple of hours till the visibility is too low to fly so we could do it tonight even... Does everyone agree with that?" Aurora spoke this time. She was the 'president' of our little group, considering it had been in existence for barely 6 months it still had no official name and only 5 members total. Everyone else agreed on the plan so we got to work making teams and gearing up "Ill take copper and search the city for clues, Rusty and Gwen will search the network of underground establishments in the canterlot foundation, and Cirrus will provide any maginet assistence she can....sound good?" the room filled with a general noisenof agreement and we all geared up. "Rusty" was the nickname Copper had given me once she caught wind of the pony form I had gotten, I decided to run with it, since I hadn't come up with anything better. Copper was somewhat less talkative but she did have a knack for being very good at melee combat, at least by the information I had gotten from the rest of the group. My arsenal was composed of homemade and black market guns, the rifles fired equestrian E-12 ammo, which is a 12 mm copper core bullet with a case similar in size to a 762/39, the "E" stood for enchantable. My gun was eerily similar to a shortened Czchech AK variant, copper got a homemade blowback pistol, Gwen got 2 12mm smg's which fired a the P-12 ammo which was a pistol calibur 12 mm cartridge, and aurora armed herself with a pocket revolver. Everyone packed up their gear into duffle bags and left for the nearest quiet place to leave from. I activated my disguise and realised that I had no clue how to fly. "Uhh, not to be a downer but i dont know how to fly..." "It doesn't take long to learn, converted pegasi, what everyone calls new foals, usually learn within a couple of hours of attempting part of it is instinct, the other is just figuring it out, you should do fine... If ya fall we'll grab ya before you become a splatter on the ground. "Well I guess ill try..." I flexed my new wings a bit to make sure I knew how to control them then I flapped, within 10 minites I coild comfortably hover while holding my bag, not great but a start, and it was suprisingly less strain inducing to fly than I thought it would be. Once we got under way I eventually got the hang of flying at higher speeds and altitudes, I wasn't very fast but i could at least keep up. **** After a 1 hour flight we 'landed' at canterlot, by landing I mean everyone else landing and me awkwardly hitting the ground and falling flat on my face. I also figured out that I was now extremely hungry and thirsty, So I got up and walked back to the group, which we still needed a name for. Soon we split up and Gwen and I headed for the underground portion of the city, and from what id learned on the flight here, it was apparently a cheaper place to live and work for Canterlot's middle and working classes, good for me because I didn't have much cash, only 20 bits, which was probably around 10 US dollars based on the exchange rate before the war. The city was quite beautiful while it lasted, when we went underground there were only tunnels, we found a place to have sandwiches and sat down to discuss our next move. The food was cheap and tasty, even though as a human i never would have thought of flowers as tasty, I ended up getting 2 footlong ish sandwiches one was vegetarian the other had bacon and turkey, a large soda, and some chips, which I somehow ate which was a suprising revelation because as a human I could barely eat one footlong, much less 2, AND extras, my stomach was physically bloated and somehow I felt i could probably eat 2 more sandwiches no sweat. I had no idea how the meat would react but i didnt care as long as I could still eat bacon.t "Hey Gwen?" "Yeah?" "How the hell can I eat so much?" "Most pegasi can eat a lot because of a mildly stretchy throats and guts and a crop to store more food in, kinda like a bird. You could probably eat, 6 more sandwiches, if you put the extra 4 in your crop, like the flying youll figure it out," "Well thanks for the bio lesson, but we do need to get going" "Agreed, lets try looking for the more obvious clues, like suspect propoganda, or asking around if anyone thinks the princesses have been acting weird," "Sounds good, lets also try asking around in the bars, because its more likely that someone will tell us something useful. "Oh! By the way, if you want to know more ablut yourself, just borrow a pegasus biology book from the library. "Got it, lets get started. **** 3 hours later we had'nt gotten much information, but we decided to regroup with the others to figure out what they got. My incompetence had gotten me some pretty weird looks but Gwen lied that I was just recently converted and was still figuring things out. I also figured out that pegasus metabolism was variable, when I was running or flying i would be hungry again within under an hour of eating, but when i was walking I could probably go for a week without any food or water before feeling the effects of dehydration or starvation. Id also figured out my crop and other pegasus physiological quirks, the main one being the lack of getting sore from exerting myself, I just got slightly tired and hungry. ***** We regrouped back home and discussed our findings, which turned out to be pretty limited. "So what do we have? Other than the realization that this is going to take a lot longer than we thought." Gwen made a dissapointed face as she said that. " we grabbed some propoganda posters, and gleaned what we could from word of mouth, but unfortunately neither of those are really very useful." Aurora and copper laid out what they had on the table an then Cirrus piped up " I found some online leads, nothing super concrete, but it's a start" "Dig a little deeper, if you find anything promising we'll go from there, but for now I suggest we get some help." Aurora finished her sentence and drank some hot coffee, we had all been worn out by the constant walking and fruitless looking. "Why dont we make a long term plan, because we aren't going to get anywhere quickly" aurora set down her coffee and pulled out a map. ***** It was now pretty late in the evening almost 4 days later, we had been discussing long term strategies to solve this mystery, the humans and ponies had apparently come to a stalemate when the humans formed militias to take out the covert agencies in human territory, so we weren't in much of a rush to unearth the cause of this conflict, but as few lives wasted as possible would be preferable. Our current plan was to put me in close proximity to Princess Twilight and her clique to gather information, the rest of the gang would stay in cloudsdale and continue their work. I would move to ponyville under the name Rusty Cogs and try to become friends with one of the 6 to gather information on behavior, their point of view pertaining to humans, and possibly formulate a plan to stop this madness. Money was obtained from Cirrus's bank account, because she was apparently pretty Rich, she also provided one of her older computer rigs form me to use for communication and research. "Well... Seem's good enough, ill get my stuff packed, and get some plans put in place to move." I grabbed my coat and slung it over my shoulder, adjusted my shirt and ascended the stairs. I had remained in pony form almost exclusively, for fear of discovery, I was almost caught when Copper's parents showed up unexpectedly, I was in my room at the time but walked out and was almost seen by them, so id resolved to just remain in this form unless there was some pressing need to do so. I heard some more discussing downstairs as I got my stuff together and packed it all into an old Griffin made pickup that used to be owned by Gwen, it was rusty but seemed to still work well enough to serve my purpose. I would leave tomorrow and hopefully find a house in ponyville by next week. ******** I was sad to have to leave these ponies and griffon, id barely known them but at least I could stay in contact through mail. Gwen looked the most sad. "Well, Ill see ya later, ill write about what I find" I started the truck and felt it jitter a bit before pulling itself up. I saw Gwen come up to the side of the truck, she took one of her scaly talons and turned my face towards hers with it, then she kissed me....really passionately, how she could pull that off with a beak baffled me. "Daron.... I think I love you, I know its a bit sudden but I do," "Uhhhhhh, wow.... I....I never knew....Ive had crush on you since I first met you...but I didn't think you felt the same..." "It was similar with me, im not sure what it is but I just do, please don't get caught.... I want to see this through" "I do too, Hopefully this can work.... Anyway, Ive got to go, see ya later!....Ill write" I had no idea Gwen liked me, but it was pretty welcome considering that I hadn't had a girlfriend since highschool, Today was a good day.