//------------------------------// // The Assassin // Story: A Just Cause // by GJT_Productions //------------------------------// Captain of the Guard Gibraltar, Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor and their pegasus Guard Upper Class escort start down the gently sloping ramp revealed by the secret door in the back wall of the heavy equipment building. Both Gibraltar and Shining Armor were levitating with unicorn magic brass lanterns that illuminated the walls of the narrow passageway. "I had no idea there were so many tunnels in the Canterlot mountainside, sir." the pegasus escort comments, his words echoing in the tunnel as he speaks. "The mountainside Canterlot was built on was once mined extensively for the ores it contained." Captain Gibraltar begins to explain. "The mining had mostly been played out by the time Princess Celestia moved her residence and seat of government here from the Castle of the Two Sisters. In her original decree establishing the city, she deeded the hollowed-out tunnels to the batponies that had once served Princess Luna 'as a perpetual residence for them and their descendents'. Unfortunately, the batponies never fully surveyed the interior tunnel network, and what surveys were done are very out of date now. These deficiencies, plus the presence of small tunnels that were never documented to begin with, have allowed all kinds of illegal things to happen there. Including the operations of the Agents of Chaos." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The weight of the last words Gibraltar spoke lingered in the echo of the tunnel as it took a left turn and then opened up into a small cavern. The three stallions felt the whispy brush of a natural air circulation and saw the light of their lanterns glinting off glassware of varying shapes and sizes. "Woah, this place reminds me of a classroom Twily had a class in with her Canterlot friends as a little filly!" Shining Armor exclaims, referencing a common chemistry class Twilight Sparkle had with her old Canterlot friends Moon Dancer, Minuette and Lemon Hearts. "So this is a lab of some kind? Somepony made stuff in here?" Captain Gibraltar asks, carefully moving his lantern around to catch a glimpse of the assembled glassware on the stone "benches" around him. "I would guess so, sir..." Shining Armor trails off, also carefully moving a lantern around to better see what was inside the small chamber. His eye catches a small piece of parchment and he begins reading, vaguely aware the Upper Class pegasus had started trotting to the far corner of the chamber. "Did you find something, Shining?" Gibraltar asks when he looks back to see what Shining Armor was doing. "Sir, this parchment has writing on it!" Shining returns, which prompts Gibraltar to carefully turn around and make his way to a spot beside Shining. The Guard Captain stares down at the same parchment Shining is reading, and his eyes go wide as a result of what he reads! "This is a formula!" Gibraltar exclaims breathlessly. "Let's see... mixing all those compounds together, all of them very dangerous on their own... and then applying a spell to have innate magic energy to prevent them from being neutralized... this must be for the supposed unbeatable..." "Sir! Over here, we have a pony down!" the Upper Class pegasus interrupts, drawing attention toward his corner of the chamber. Gibraltar makes sure to carefully roll up the parchment piece with the "unbeatable poison" formula and tuck it away in the saddlebag he was wearing before following Shining Armor over to the far corner of the chamber, both lanterns hovering over the whole scene... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This stallion is dead, sir." Shining Armor reports as Gibraltar rolls over the large light grey earth pony from a face down to face up position. As the Guard Captain does so, an almost empty flask and two different parchment rolls are revealed underneath, and Shining Armor levitates all three items up using his unicorn magic. The first thing that strikes Gibraltar is also the first thing he says: "This is the Head Groundskeeper! See the uniform he's wearing, the collar pin shaped like an evergreen tree? He's not even supposed to be in the city right now, never mind dead in a hidden laboratory!" "What do you mean, sir?" the Upper Class pegasus asks, as he looks down at the grey earth pony stallion, which is wearing a version of the E.U.P. Guard dress uniform. "The Head Groundskeeper elected to use a week of vacation time starting the day of the Gala. According to everything he said, he should not be in the city, never mind the castle grounds!" Captain Gibraltar answers. "I think that was a cover for something else, sir." Shining Armor interjects, putting aside the flask with a residue of blue liquid and unrolling one of the parchment rolls as he speaks. "What's on that roll, Shining?" Gibraltar asks as he sees the parchment roll being unrolled, and Shining temporarily put aside the other parchment next to the flask. "Hang on... I think this is a suicide note, sir!" Shining exclaims in response, eyes squinting to read the text in the low lantern light. "What does it say?!" Gibraltar anxiously asks again, attention now completely riveted on Shining. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining Armor clears his throat and begins slowly reading the scrawled text on the parchment: "'To whoever finds this note, these will be my last words as a living pony, and all I can say is "I'm sorry". I'm sorry to everypony my actions in life caused injury or death or other harm to. And I'm sorry to everypony that will criticize me for listening to the empty promises of the Agents of Chaos. For here, in this secret lab with ingredients stolen from storage during the winter season to be replaced later, I made the poisons the Agents of Chaos used in their attacks. I am certain I have the blood of dozens of ponies on my hooves, but by the time I realized the words about prejudice against earth ponies were lies it was too late to escape their trap. Troilus found this lab somehow, but promised that he would keep the secret safe if I supplied the poisons to his cause. I was to join his campaign, but after delivering my poison supplies to him I was told my services were no longer needed. Since I am sure now I will die for what I have done, I have decided to swallow one of my own creations and leave this note along with my copy of his campaign map. Maybe, in this way, somepony can help stop him from taking other lives..." Captain Gibraltar and the Guard Upper Class pegasus just exchange shocked glances after hearing the note while Shining Armor puts the suicide confessional aside and unrolls the other piece of parchment, which reveals a map of the area southwest of Canterlot, heading toward Las Pegasus and Applewood. "This must be the plans of 'Hornpoint', sir." Shining Armor comments in a very heavy tone, flipping the map around so that Captain Gibraltar can see it for himself. Gibraltar takes a moment to look it over himself, then pronounces his judgement in breathless horror: "Two different assaults against two different fortified positions... that is utter madness! It won't be a battle but a slaughter! Troilus is leading them to their deaths!" "Then what do we do, sir?! What can we do to stop this before more innocent lives are lost?!"