Count Privilege wanted to rule Manehatten, but he didn’t actually want to live there. It was far too crowded and dirty for his personal liking, so he lived just outside the city borders in an opulent, marble-columned mansion. There, he figured, was safe. There he was alone and private and nopony could reach him unless he wanted them to. The views were splendid and wide through the elegant tinted glass. Looking to the east, there was a view of the endless ocean. To the west, there was Manehatten, rising upwards to the sky forever.
And it was in his own splendidly furnished bedroom, nearly asleep, that he heard something at the door knock three times.
Knock knock knock.
“Countie…” His wife rolled over next to him in his bed. “Could you get that?”
Apparently, she didn’t know the rules that he had put in place after his experiences with his previous wives. In his house, it was Count Privilege that told others what to do. Grumbling something that would have been very rude to her if she had heard him say it clearly, Count Privilege threw the blankets off of him and fell out of bed onto the floor. He clicked a nearby lamp into existence and the yellow light threw illumination to the small room. After he checked the mirror and smoothed his appearance, thinking it was some official at the door, he opened the door of his bedroom and made his way to the front of his house.
It took some time; his house was rather large. But once he finally got to the front entryway and turned on some lights, and went to the front door and opened it, the light shed itself on a revolting sight: a griffon with a hastily-bandaged wound in his thigh. The instant the door was opened, he burst inside the house and went to the couch and threw himself upon it, taking deep breaths.
Count Privilege turned around, looking on him with a sigh of regret of having ever opened the door, and went into the kitchen, opposite the room they were in. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m Kevin,” the griffon said in between breaths, examining his wound. It was stained a dark red through the sterile white of the bandages. “You talked to me and a few others in secret a few days ago for robbing the Manehatten public bank, remember?”
Right. That. “Well, what are you doing here?” Count Privilege asked, getting a bottle of wine out of his fridge and a wine glass out of his cupboard.
“The Night Terror,” Kevin breathed, turning towards the Count in the kitchen. “He was there. He... he killed everyone else there.”
Count Privilege wasn’t surprised. He knew perfectly well that Ironheart would show up at the city bank. It was his intent to set the operation underway so that these griffons and the ponies that worked with them would die, for they had outlasted their usefulness--and to get the media’s attention away from his own corrupt deals with Client 24--and to distract them from looking into the way he was manipulating the Senate to select him as a candidate to run for mayor of Manehatten--and to get the Night Terror out into the open and show who exactly he was. But he didn’t dare say any of that out loud. “He was there? What did he do?”
“Well,” the griffon said, sitting upright. “He showed up, and he used his feathers to cut us down-”
“Hold on,” Count Privilege said as he set the refreshments down on a table. “Did he use guns?” He was more afraid than ever that Client 24 had finally broken their secret deal.
“Why does that matter?” Kevin asked. “He used this weird electrical sword, but he also used something that could spray fire like water from a hose. And he used it to burn others into ash.”
Electric sword? And a flamethrower? How in the world could he do that? “Did you see what he looked like?” Count Privilege asked. So far all he had known about him was from the eyewitness accounts in the papers--that he was winged and large and terrifying.
Kevin’s expression turned uncomfortable. “Count?”
“Yes?”
“Can you believe in the impossible?”
“I’m a unicorn.” He tapped his horn irritably. “I do the impossible.” Magic, of course, but also the other kind of impossible--he had managed to fool everypony in Manhattan.
“Ironheart…” Kevin looked dead into Count Privilege’s diamond-colored eyes. “He’s a machine.”
Count Privilege almost laughed out loud. What? A machine was the one destroying his shipments of guns and killing criminals and protecting the commoners of Manehatten? What was this, some kind of Power Ponies comic strip? But as Kevin continued to look into Count Privilege’s incredulous eyes, his disbelief faded. “You’re serious?”
“He fired a harpoon into my leg!” Kevin indicated his hasty bandages. “He reeled me in like I was a fish! He held me off the ground! He screamed in my face, Count! He-”
“All right, all right, shut up,” Count Privilege snapped at him. He turned away. Well, at least things were going to be clearer on what to do. Now that he knew that the supposed “Night Terror” was nothing more than a bunch of metal, it was obvious on the course of action to take. Find some way to destroy metal and use it against Ironheart. The only problem was, they had used crossbows, bullets, explosives, and crushing force. And none of those had worked. What did they need to try now? “He held you off the ground? Did... was he bipedal? Did he have fingers, is what I’m saying.”
“Yeah,” Kevin said, adjusting his bandage. “He had those fingers, all right. And he had bladed feathers. And he could fly. And he had an electric sword. I’m telling you, he’s invincible!”
“Nopony’s invincible,” Count Privilege retorted. “Ironheart’s no exception.” But how could he be destroyed? And because the Count knew Ironheart had guns from previous knowledge, it was even more confusing for him to comprehend. How was it possible for him to have guns in his own body if Client 24 had sworn he had not sold him any? They were built into his body! How was his existence physically possible?
To distract the griffon, and to continue the conversation and prove that he was the one in control by steering it away from a topic he was uncomfortable being on, he suddenly asked, “Why are you even here?”
“Hm?”
“Why did Ironheart spare you of all the griffons there?”
Kevin sighed. “He said I needed to deliver a message to you. If it’s your intent to wage war against him, then he was okay with it. If you want to go and continue with the games you’re playing--like sending us into open battle to fight the unfightable, or blackmailing us to do your will, or trying to become the mayor and betray us all and throw us all in prison--then Ironheart will fight against you with all of the breath he has in him.” Kevin’s stare became harder. “Count Privilege, you’re trying to kill me.”
Count Privilege only let out a soft chuckle. “Whatever gave you that idea?” But inside, he felt a clamor at his stomach as he described exactly everything that he was doing in Manhattan.
“Oh, I don’t know, Count. Maybe it’s the fact that you sent me and my friends to go and do what you could have done! You knew that Ironheart would go and apprehend us! And now my friends are dead because of you!”
Count Privilege went to the table in the center of the room and poured out a bit of waiting wine into the stemmed wine glass. He raised it into the air with his magic and indicated Kevin. “Want some?”
Kevin stuttered for a second, then said, “Are you serious? I’m talking to you, and you decide to-”
“You’re normally not even important enough for me to even look at, so I’m doing you a favor here. Do you want the drink or not?”
Kevin stood up, wincing and clutching at his own leg. He hobbled over to the wineglass and snatched it out of the air. He looked Count Privilege dead in the eyes and hurled the glass to the ground, where it shattered into dozens of pieces, spilling the precious drink. “Why should I ever accept anything from you ever again, Count? You make these promises of wealth, but do you ever follow up with them?”
Count Privilege smiled. The glass was a shame, of course, but he had plenty like it in his mahogany cupboards. Let him express his rage. Let him show just how much lower than the Count he really was. “That was unnecessary.”
“And so are you to me.” The griffon went to the other side of his well-furnished home. “And so are all of these other things you have, in your opulence and your splendor, and in your marble home. Do you need so much of this? You relax in this obscene place, while me and my friends and family all have to stay in lousy apartments and in the sewers! What’s fair in that?”
“It means that I deserve it more than you do,” Count Privilege said callously. “I need this all because I need it, and you griffons... well, you’re accustomed to being raised in poor conditions, so it’s okay for you to be there on the streets. What’s so different from Griffonstone in the streets of Manhattan?”
Kevin wheeled around. “Don’t you dare start on my home! I was raised there! My mother loved me there!”
“My mother gave me money,” Count Privilege said nastily. “Which mother loved their child more, hm?”
“Are you trying to make me fight you?”
“Well, try to. There’s nothing you can do against me.”
“I’m done doing your dirty work for you, Count. You betrayed us all. I’m going to find a line of work that doesn’t involve robbing banks or committing a few petty murders.”
“How?” Count Privilege asked smugly. “You have a criminal record. Nopony will hire you. But if you apologize to me right now, I’ll allow you to continue to work for me.”
“If a criminal like you can hold a public office, how much harder is it for me to find a job as a store clerk or a construction worker?”
“You might want to stop your line of thought right there. I’m already making plans to transfer all the bits in your bank account to myself.”
Kevin swallowed, then mustered his courage. “Do it, then,” he said, his mouth dry. “Those are my life savings, but it’s also blood money. If you take it, that’s more atrocities put upon your head, Count.”
Count Privilege shook his head, chuckling. “My word, what prompted this sudden turnabout?”
“Ironheart made me realize something.” The griffon kicked uselessly against the magnificently elaborate walls. “That I can be better than you.”
“Nopony can be better than me,” Count Privilege declared in a moment of fueled passion.
“No, you’re wrong. I can be better than you and you know it. I can be independent from you. I can fight against you. I should be grateful to Ironheart telling me that you were a piece of rat-soiled filth dressed in the most haggard rags in Equestria."
“Grateful?” Count Privilege threw his head back and burst into laughter. “You should be grateful to me, Kevin, for giving you money in the first place! I gave you a second chance! I gave you a chance to live a good life! And I gave you an opportunity to prove your loyalty to me!” He pointed mockingly at Kevin, angry at him and annoyed by his self-asserting statements. “What would you be without me?”
Kevin looked Count Privilege dead in the face. “An honest griffon.”
That was it. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, KEVIN!” Count Privilege screamed in his face. “NOW! AND IF I EVER SEE YOUR TRAITOROUS FACE AGAIN, I’LL KILL YOU!”
Kevin recoiled from the sudden open hostility and hurriedly limped away from him. He clutched the doorknob, swung the door open, and slammed it closed as he disappeared.
As the door slammed shut, Count Privilege slumped tiredly into a velvet armchair and let out a groaning sigh. He rubbed his temples. Clearly his night wasn’t going to be as restful as he had anticipated. Now he was wide awake, and no amount of Nyquil would shake it off, knowing that Ironheart was out for him personally, and that he and his armies of criminal scum were going to go to war with a machine.
Ironheart’s heart was not made of iron. Iron wasn’t the best conductor for electrical power, which fueled his body with the help of processed synthetic blood that ran in his veins of strengthened and augmented copper; Infinisteel was better at conducting electricity, and stronger than iron, as well.
Why, then, was his name Ironheart? Well, for one, when Bright Mind was working on the construction of him, he didn’t want to have the name Infinisteelheart. The ugly name hurt his ears. But also because iron was colder than Infinisteel, and it was heavier and weighed down on him. And that suited who he felt like, and so that was what Bright Mind had decided on before he chose to become his own invention. A cold and heavy heart, weighing him down, dense and unfeeling, dangerous and harmful.
What was weighing him down was recent events. Dr. Brainstem had cut himself completely off from him. Would that not hurt anypony? To have somepony you trusted and tolerated say to you, “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see your face ever again.”
Ironheart let those thoughts stir in his head as he tinkered and modified and made last-minute adjustments with the device in front of him. It wasn’t as grand as the Manehatten Project, only a few meters away in the center of the white cavernous space in the Ultraground, but it was still essential to his grand scheme of things.
The device itself looked like a bizarre wedding of a TV monitor, a radio transmitter, a security camera, and a satellite dish, with cables, wooden bases, and antennae sticking out of it in seemingly random places. The device, with a bit of cutting-edge help from Ironheart himself, was connected wirelessly into every radio and every TV and every method of electrical communication in the city. Ironheart knew exactly what was happening in every section of the city, in every home and every building and every street and every single corner of the lives of every individual. All he had to do was transfer how he recieved that information into the strange device.
The device was nearly as large in stature as Ironheart’s Manehatten project, but not nearly as complicated. Ironheart was able to assemble it in only a few days and with a few common materials, as opposed to spending over four years on the Manehatten Project and with delicate, hard-to-find elements like uranium.
The uranium itself was all inside the atomic bomb by now. Only a few kilograms were needed for the bomb to work, but Ironheart had decided to use all of it.
Ironheart stepped back, exhausted but satisfied with the work he had done, and sat down on the simple green striped couches on one side of his home. His mind then reflected on his strange feelings of fatigue; could a machine grow exhausted? Maybe if the soul of another pony was inside the machine, it could exhaust the soul--but could souls grow exhausted? The thought intrigued him. Souls couldn’t grow weary, but flesh could. And Ironheart wasn’t flesh.
A long time ago, he was. A long time ago, he had life. He had once had soft flesh, and a mane of real hair, and he had eyes and a mouth and a tongue and a stomach and muscles of meat and organic cells. He had living deoxyribonucleic acid in his genes, and he had chromosomes that he could pass on for future generations, and he had lungs that absorbed oxygen and converted the oxygen to carbon dioxide. He had an immune system to protect himself from outside diseases, and he had a digestive system that transformed food into poop and pee. He had once had all of the novel things, all of the distinctive markings of a living creature that most living creatures had but never acknowledged. Once he was a remarkable living being.
But not anymore.
He could not sleep; robots and machines did not need to sleep. He could not eat; he did not need the water and nutrients and proteins that the pitiful beings made of flesh and blood and mistakes and heartache required in order to go on living. He did not need to breathe most of the time; he could store oxygen in spare containers in his body that could sustain him, should the need arise. And he could not cry. This was the advantage that he valued above most others. Because there was no bodily fluid inside of him except for the synthetic electricity-charged oily blood buried deep in his endoskeleton, there were no tear ducts behind his eyes. There was no shame to leak out, no sign to give the enemy that he was broken and defeated, no way to show the others that, deep inside, he was still a living being…
He took the lightning sword off of his flank and examined it closely. That particular weapon was a work of art in itself. By focusing electrons along a thin bar of platinum, modifying the electrons to match the power they used in orbiting an atom of Infinisteel, and coating the platinum in a secret mixture that he had burned the recipe for, he was able to create a weapon that could cut through virtually anything it touched. It was the only weapon that he knew could actually harm him. One time he had let his finger slip and catch the tip on the blade, and he had examined it to see that the finger was shaved off; less than half an inch. Just a little off the top, please. As a result, he had resolved to be a tad more careful in the future. His finger still had that little bit off there to remind him.
How many lives had the sword taken, again? Ironheart lost count a while ago. Anyway, why should he keep count of his enemies? All it would do is remind him of the despicable ponies in the world. Ironheart wanted to focus more on who he would kill later on, rather than dwell on past successes. And at the moment the sword was calling out and crying the name of a despicable, filthy-rich piece of weiner lint.
“Who’s going to love you?” Ironheart crooned softly, slowly, reassuringly, stroking the sword from pommel to ignition emitter. “Who’s going to cry on your tombstone?”
And then he realized; could the same be said about him?
Could it be that nopony would ever love him? The common citizens didn’t; he was waging war on their turf. Dr. Brainstem wasn’t; he had already expressed distaste for his actions. And along with that went Twilight and her other friends; they were pushing the agenda of friendship and peace to everyone else, and were abdicating goodness, not justice or retribution. There would be nopony else.
Good.
He liked working alone.
But even though he appreciated the space to himself, and that the thoughts he had were private, and that he could say and do anything he wanted without fear of losing a friend because of it, he often got so unbearably lonely…
He wanted to be alone, but at the same time he wanted somepony to talk to, somepony to get his thoughts off his chest, to debate points of interest with, to tell each other of their ambitions, of their plans, of their dreams and visions and their future. It was a confusing kind of feeling, but one that he had grown accustomed to over the course of several years. Now, however, knowing that there were other ponies that he was allied with, it pierced him to the center.
“I’m... so... lonely…” Ironheart murmured aloud, just to say it and hear the words in his ears. It echoed around the cavernous room, making the immense sudden loneliness intensify.
There was little other noise, apart from the churning of the machines in the corner spitting out guns every two hours and the whirring of the machines deep, deep, deep under the Manehatten project, keeping it charged and ready to fire at a moment’s notice. There was another level underneath Ironheart’s initial lab space. That level was a chamber used for storage of spare material, and it contained a special little room in the back that would be used for keeping a certain vile little prisoner that he intended on keeping alive.
Ironheart remembered what Dr. Brainstem had asked him. What is your goal in life? And Ironheart had tried to respond then and there, but he wasn’t sure of how to go about doing it and had responded with some shoddy, hasty, and crappy answer.
What did he care about? Who did he care about? Who was essential to him that he couldn’t live without? Living without friends had made him independent and always right in every decision he made, because if there are no criticizers of every single little thing he ever did, then it was okay, no matter what he did, because who will argue with you when you have the only power that really matters?
He twisted his face into a snobbish attitude. “But Bright Mind, it isn’t the power to kill! It’s the power to love your enemies, and to not retaliate when somepony gets in your way! So give up now, and turn yourself in! And cut your losses! Please, stop killing theeeeem!” He relaxed his face. “No, Twilight. I will not give up now. And I am strong in the face of adversity. I became strong enough to hurt the scum of the earth back.”
Wait, he still hadn’t answered the question. What did he care about? He’d have to think about it sooner or later, but he pushed the thought aside for the moment. Because he was looking forward to what he would do the next day--to Count Privilege, and his reign of blackmail and corruption. By this time tomorrow, Count Privilege would be left at the mercy of Ironheart.
Ironheart glanced over to the side. The gun machines were still hard at work, unaware that there would be no more guns that he needed to redistribute to the common filth of Manehatten. And they were unaware that they were now useless and bulky and stupid.
Standing up in a sudden fit of rage, Ironheart stomped over to the production lines at his waist level, flipped his right arm into a powerful flamethrower with a deep chinka chinka chink and aimed it at the gun production lines. With neither a look to the side or a blink, he fired.
Torrents of flame blossomed out, enveloping the three separate conveyor belts and the machines craning over it. Within only half a minute of spraying flame, the three lines were ablaze, crackling merrily. He then went to the side of the wall, where the conveyor belts entered into the side of the white stone, to a wide control panel. Amidst the lines of flame at his waist height, he flipped a few switches, pulled down a lever, and slid a control the wrong way, and the sounds coming from the wall stopped. The machines working on the guns from behind the wall had ceased their purpose.
Let them die. Let him be the only one in the world that has guns.
“Nothing,” Ironheart breathed, the glare from the fire creating a hard glint in his red irises, “will stand... in my way.”
But he corrected himself mentally; of course other things would stand in his way. Not a lot of ponies would agree with him, and consequently prevent him from accomplishing his goals.
Or, at least, try to.
“Nothing...will stay...in my way,” he whispered deeply, serenely, slowly, as the flames ascended higher to lick the top of his head as he bent over the burning gun production lines. “And the entire traitorous, filthy world... shall bow in my shadow.”
The final members of the royal entourage had dispersed at last, the doors to the Canterlot throne room were shut, and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna trudged their way across the length of the long hallway to their private chambers. It had been a long and arduous day dealing with a trade deal between the griffon and pony overseas embassies around a huge table, and all either of them were looking forward to was a long period of rest in their specially-ordered extra-floofy royal beds.
“It could be said,” Luna yawned, stretching out a hind leg, “that that was a trying ordeal for any mere mortal. By the fifth hour, I felt like I could faint into the fruit plate in front of me.”
“Are you kidding?” Celestia said, facing Luna. “I’m exhausted! I don’t know if I can raise up the sun tomorrow morning!”
“Do us all a favor and don’t raise the sun at all,” Luna said. “I want my bed, and I’m not getting out of it until the end of the world.”
“Watch your hyperbole,” Celestia warned.
“What dost thou mean?”
“Well, not raising the sun could cause the end of the world,” Celestia explained. “Destruction of the crops, freezing the oceans, icy deaths by the millions, that sort of thing.”
“”Thou hast a point there.”
“I hope that this trade deal can make Griffonstone rich and bountiful once more,” Celestia said gravely. “Otherwise all of those hours we spent in the negotiation room would have been for nothing.”
“Art thou concerned about if the griffons become a threat to Equestria, assuming they become rich and powerful once more?” Luna asked.
“No,” Celestia said with complete certainty. “Griffonstone will need to raise its GDP by a rather substantial amount before it’s wealthy enough to attempt to raise up a sufficient military force. But even then, we will have established ourselves as an ally of Griffonstone, and by so doing, dispel the threat of Griffonstone rising up in rebellion. This can be the first step towards reconciling the two kingdoms and lowering the crime rates of vagabond griffons in major cities.”
The comment made Luna frown. “Thou... art concerned for Twilight, yes?” Luna asked after a moment.
Celestia nodded. “Perceptive, sister. I can’t help but feel like a mother worrying over her daughter when she goes out and does something on her own. She’s dealt with plenty of other threats, but this new one that’s risen in Manehatten may be more than even she is capable of handling.”
Luna looked grave. “Because of the callous way this Night Terror disposes of his prey?”
“Yes,” Celestia said. “And I haven’t heard any word on the situation except for what they choose to include in the Manehatten newspapers.”
“You collected those papers like you were hungry for the updates,” Luna remarked.
There suddenly came a familiar noise of a sparkling spiral that made Celestia freeze all of a sudden. Into Celestia’s view came a swirl of green that materialized into a sheet of paper.
Luna stopped as well. “Is that--”
“A letter,” Celestia finished. “From Twilight.” Her previous exhaustion had deserted her. Almost hungrily, she picked it up with her magic and held it up to her face to read. At first, her face was joyous. As her eyes scanned back and forth down the letter, however, her face creased into one of concern, then worry, and then finally a face that made Luna freeze. It was a face she could not remember Celestia having.
It was fear.
Celestia lowered the letter after a few moments of reflection. “Bad news from Manehatten,” she reported.
“What happened?” Luna asked, coming to her sister’s side quickly.
Instead of allowing Luna to see it, however, Celestia explained it herself. “The situation has grown out of control in Manehatten. The terrorist…” She looked at the letter for clarification. “A pony by the name of Ironheart... has killed dozens, maybe hundreds of other ponies and griffons. He’s a self-proclaimed vigilante that resorts to deadly force to carry out his methods. But...the threat is even bigger than that.”
“What can be more grave than a dangerous beast with the most destructive weapons known to ponykind?” Luna asked in bafflement.
Celestia looked with all of the seriousness she could muster at Luna. “He’s building--or has already built--a weapon capable of destroying the entire city of Manhattan.”
Luna’s eyes dilated until they had become pinpricks. “B-but how can this be? How can a single weapon do such catastrophic damage?”
“I have no idea, sister,” Celestia admitted, looking over the letter once more. “But I know that Twilight would never lie to me.”
“So what do we do?” Luna asked. “Retract Twilight from Manhattan?”
“No,” Celestia said firmly. After a few more moments, she said, “Contact Princess Cadence and Shining Armor and notify them of the situation. And wake the soldiers in the barracks and alert every guard not on standby duty. I will send word to Twilight telling her of our arrival.” She lifted her head up. “We’re going to Manhattan.”