Chapter 11
The Crusaders were herded back home to Aunt and Uncle Orange shortly after Applejack ran off. Sunflower had wondered if she should go to the police or contact the royal guards about this, but then considered her cousin’s reputation and decided to just obey her and take the girls back.
For once none of the Crusaders made any protest - Sweetie Belle seemed quite happy not to be involved any longer and Apple Bloom started to grill Babs on foals she’d met in Manehattan who were interested in crusading for cutie marks. Scootaloo though, did hang back, deep in thought. She hadn’t had a chance to speak that much with Snow Heart at the diner, especially after the topic had gone to Vanilla Cream and Tango’s reaction to the name.
The young pegasus hadn’t really told anyone, but after seeing that Snow Heart lived nearby, she had hoped to speak a little with her about her mother. She had overheard her parents speak quietly about her - turned out Parasol was trying to find out when her old childhood friend would be eligible for parole, but got no information about it at the time.
Then Snow Heart had just disappeared. She was on parole, but again there was no information about her location. There was no doubt in Scootaloo’s mind that Parasol still viewed the unicorn as a friend, hence why she had tried to stop Barricade when he appeared to be going to attack.
Scootaloo looked over her shoulder and slowed down on her walk until she came to a full stop. The whole business with Caballeron also bothered her, especially the fact that Snow Heart had known him before and he showed interest in her.
Applejack is going to warn Barricade, but who is going to warn Snow Heart? she thought and eyed the others who had already walked bit of a distance from her. Then Scootaloo spotted an entrance to the subway.
Somewhere
“My unwilling pawn keeps trying to resist me, but that is to be expected. The pawns are going in the right direction. I’ll soon see what I need to see and if need be, I have a tool to change things in my favor,” a dark voice spoke, in a dark space that was impossible to tell if it was a room or a cave.
The only thing illuminated was an ancient table and on it a chess board. Already several pieces were moved about. Then a second voice spoke, a female with a haughty, sly tone to her.
“You play a good game. I must admit, I missed playing with you.” The female voice then chuckled softly.
“And I have missed you in many ways. I must thank you again for the service of getting my pawn. The less his escape can be traced to me, the better,” the dark voice said. A bishop was illuminated by a red glow as it moved into position.
“You’re welcome. You do know though, that it comes at a price,” the female voice said and any unseen observer could have almost felt the nasty grin crossing her lips. A green glow formed around a pawn that moved to intercept the bishop.
“Have no fear, my dear. My plans and your plans do not interfere with each other. You have nothing to worry about regarding me. In fact, your plans even make a nice distraction from me for now I must not be observed. I am just simply not ready,” the dark one responded. A knight was moved into place, threatening the pawn.
“I do not see your interest in these particular ponies, though. They are not even Celestia’s champions. They might as well be background extras in one of those ridiculous movies ponies have started to make,” the female snorted, moving another pawn to protect the other one.
“Ah yes, the nobodies, the extras, the ones you pay no attention to. Curious thing isn’t it, how sometimes the ones you pay no attention to, the ones you think are of no significance often can change things simply because they are unseen,” the dark voice said, suddenly moving a pawn that threatened the king. “I believe that’s check.”
“What?” the female voice gave an indignant shout. She scrambled the king out of the way, only for the dark-voiced person to move a rook across the board so the king was trapped.
“Check again,” he chuckled darkly.
“I can’t believe…” the female hissed. Seeing no way out, she flipped the king down. “I wasn’t even…”
“Paying any attention to the pawn because it didn’t seem to pose any threat to you? Just moving along as it seemed to be going on a suicide mission, then distracted by what appeared to be the bigger threats moving in. This is why I am interested in those two. Let’s not forget that it was the most insignificant member of Celestia’s little group that was so instrumental in my second defeat. If there is one thing I do well, it’s learning from past mistakes,” the dark one snorted.
The female moved, leaning forward until the illumination from the table faintly revealed her jet black face, crooked horn producing from the forehead and the sickly green, transparent mane as she narrowed her eyes at her opponent.
“I learn from my mistakes as well, just so you know,” she growled. “My plan has anticipated every contingency.”
The dark one leaned forward as well, revealing a dark gray head with mane so black it actually melded into the darkness, a curved red horn produced from the forehead. He was smiling.
“I am sure it does, my dear,” he chuckled softly. “And watching your plan in action will certainly be a learning experience, if not somewhat entertaining. I wait with anticipation to see what you have in store for Celestia and the rest.”
The whole chessboard was suddenly illuminated in a red aura and the pieces began to rearrange into their starting position. Then the aura disappeared and the dark stallion disappeared back into the darkness as he leaned back from the board.
“New game?” the dark voice inquired.
The mare narrowed her eyes before glancing at the board, then she smirked and also disappeared into the darkness as she leaned back. A green glow surrounded a pawn as it was moved forward.
“Your move,” She chuckled.
“Oh come on, why would she do this?” Sweetie Belle groaned as she and Apple Bloom raced to the nearest subway exit.
“If Ah knew, we wouldn’t be trying to catch up with her,” Apple Bloom responded.
The two crusaders, Babs and Sunflower, had just arrived at the street the sister’s apartment complex was on when the three fillies suddenly noticed that Scootaloo was not with them. Sunflower hadn’t though just yet.
Apple Bloom could only guess that Scootaloo had snuck off to go back to Hoofington, but not why. Babs told them they had passed a subway exit not that far away from there. They could still catch up with her and stop her while Babs distracted her sister while the two crusaders went to get Scootaloo.
Thus the two Ponyville crusaders snuck off as Babs struck up a conversation with her sister, making sure Sunflower didn’t look back, expecting her cousin and her friends would be gone only a short while.
The fillies made their way into the subway station that thankfully was not packed with ponies, but a subway was at the station already, closing it doors, preparing to leave. Apple Bloom looked around, but saw no sign of Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle however spotted an orange pegasus.
“She’s already in the subway,” the little unicorn squeaked, pointing to where Scootaloo’s head could be seen from one of the windows.
“Dag nabbit!” Apple Bloom growled and would have charged forward if not for the ticket gates. They didn’t have a ticket or any money to buy them.
“Come on! Babs once ran to Hoofington. We can too,” she declared and rushed out of the subway station with a groaning Sweetie Belle following her.
The two fillies quickly started to make their way through the maze of streets that were Manehattan, Apple Bloom with a determined look on her face and Sweetie Belle wondering what ever happened to what was supposed to be a fun vacation.
However, it soon became clear that Apple Bloom had absolutely no idea where they were going. They had taken the subway to and from Hoofington last time and they didn’t have Babs with them to show the way.
“Yep, we are lost,” Sweetie Belle dryly remarked when they passed the same street sign the third time.
“Ah…uh…” Apple Bloom halted and went in a circle to try and get her bearings. “Ah think it’s that way?”
“We should have just gone straight back to Sunflower when we saw Scootaloo in the subway,” her friend pointed out.
“Say, are you sure it was Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom glanced at Sweetie Belle. Now that she thought it over, she could have sworn that orange pony was actually a stallion. The other crusader blinked as she herself went over what she saw.
“Uh, it kinda looked like her?” the unicorn offered, unsure.
Apple Bloom would have face-hoofed herself if an orange blur hadn’t collided with them. The fillies shouted out and soon there was a tangled mess of foals on the sidewalk, wiggling to get free of each other.
“Hey, get off of me!” Scootaloo shouted as she managed to pull herself free. As she rose, the filly blinked when seeing her friends in the process of rising up after untangling themselves. “Guys? What are you doing here?”
“We could ask you the same question,” Apple Bloom remarked, glaring at her friend.
“We thought we saw you in the subway,” Sweetie Belle said, rubbing her sore backside.
“Oh no, I didn’t have money for a ticket, so I tried to run to Hoofington, but I got lost,” the pegasus rubbed the back of her head and with an embarrassed look on her face.
“Oh is that all,” Apple Bloom started to say cheerfully, before dropping into a serious tone still glaring at her friend. “Why were you going to Hoofington again? Aren’t we in enough trouble already?”
“Sorry girls, but with Applejack going to warn Barricade about Caballeron, I couldn’t stop thinking about Snow Heart and Tango, especially since Caballeron was interested in them, too. I wanted to go warn them,” the pegasus explained, cringing a little when seeing how unamused her friends were.
“They live in the same building. Applejack will surely warn Snow Heart as well,” Sweetie Belle pointed out while angrily waving a hoof.
“Oh yeah, forgot about that,” Scootaloo grinned sheepishly, which did not ease the unimpressed looks from her fellow Crusaders.
“Ugh, Applejack will have me cleaning the pigsty for a month. We better get us unlost and go back to Uncle and Aunt Orange,” Apple Bloom snorted and started to look around. For the first time the fillies noticed that no pony was around. They were in an empty street. Then they heard a whisper.
“Trail? Trail are you here?”
The Crusaders looked at each other puzzled before sneaking closer to the whispering voice. Peeking into an alleyway, they saw a teenage pegasus filly looking furtively around.
“Ugh, dammit dad, I’ll hate you forever if you made me late and he had to bail on me!” she whispered, glaring around.
“Who is that?” Scootaloo wondered.
“Ah dunno, but she mentioned the name of that colt we saw with Caballeron,” Apple Bloom whispered back.
“You don’t think this is Cara?” Sweetie wondered. The other Crusaders looked at her shocked, remembering what Paper Scribbler had told them.
“Whose there?” Cara suddenly turned around sharply, staring suspiciously at the alleyway entrance. “Trail? Is that you? I don’t have much time before I have to go back!”
“No it’s not Trail.” Apple Bloom decided to risk it, at the very least Cara could tell them how to get back to Hooflyn. She entered the alley with Scootaloo and Sweetie Bloom following.
“What are you kids doing here?” Cara grunted when seeing the Crusaders.
“Uh, we’re kind of lost,” the earth filly told her. “We’re trying to make our way back to Hooflyn.”
Cara eyed the Crusaders half-suspiciously, she was a little bit on edge at the moment. If her father heard she had snuck out on her sitters to meet Trail, he would ground her for life. She didn’t have much time. She had intended to quickly sneak to the meeting spot, explain to Trail they would have to make another arrangement before going back and pretending she had just gone up to her apartment to get some things. Trail not being there had not been part of the plan.
“Hooflyn starts a few streets away. You need to go down this street, then take a left down a few blocks, turn right on Main and then straight on,” Cara decided it was best just to give the fillies directions and get them away so Trail wouldn’t get spooked.
“Wow, sounds so simple,” Sweetie Belle muttered.
“You kidding me? We are only few streets away from Hooflyn?” Scootaloo just couldn’t believe it. She felt like she had run much further than that by now.
“It’s easy to get lost here, kid, now scram I’m meeting somepony,” Cara snorted and pointed towards the entrance of the alleyway.
Sheesh, not very friendly is she? Apple Bloom thought, hesitating to walk away. “You waiting for Trail?”
Cara blinked when hearing the filly say that name. She quickly looked around before looking more hopefully at the Crusaders. “Yes. You seen him?”
“Few days ago, yes,” Apple Bloom answered. Cara groaned in frustration.
“Yeah and he was with ponies that nearly killed a pony and threw him in a dumpster,” Scootaloo added.
Now the teenager blinked and looked shocked for a moment before scowling. “What? No. He said he stopped doing stuff like that!” she protested angrily, stomping a hoof and flaring her wings.
“It’s true. We saw it happen,” Sweetie Belle insisted. The Crusaders backed away when Cara approached them, still looking angry.
“Oh, so it wasn’t a rat we heard after all.” A foreign-accented voice addressed them, stopping the teenager in her tracks. Looking back revealed Caballeron standing there a little further in the alleyway. The crusaders cringed and turned to flee, but the entrance was now blocked by his henchponies.
“Who are you?” Cara asked, eyeing the new arrivals warily.
“I’m an old business associate of your father’s. You might even say that he used to work for me. And you my dear are going to help me convince him to come back,” Caballeron said with a smug smile, before giving a signal to his lackeys.
Before the Crusaders could do anything or Cara could fly away, the other ponies had already produced big sacks and threw them over the fillies, then everything went black.
End chapter 11