//------------------------------//
// Two days before the riot 
// Story: The Triumvirate 
// by Fedora71 
//------------------------------//

Triumvirate Chapter 8


Two days before the riot.

To anypony walking by the library, they would assume nothing different was going on. They’d be a little confused at the sight of the bubble surrounding the library. Then, every window in the library would blow outward in a plume of brown magic.
“Stigandr, are you alright?” Twilight asked, as the unicorn picked himself up from a fairly explosive teleportation.
“Yeah, except I think my spleen and my heart switched places,” Stigandr chuckled before coughing up a cloud of smoke.
“Well actually that’s highly unlikely, nearly impossible. Short distance teleportation spells don’t disassemble you as much as just pop you there by tearing a hole and opening a new one,” Twilight stated, searching her spell book for an easier teleportation spell. “Why do you have to learn this spell now, and why long distance?”
“I need to get to Canterlot,” Stigandr stated, powering up his horn again.
“Well, you said that, but why don’t you two just take the train?” Twilight asked.
“Don’t have the money for the tickets.” His horn powered up further as Stigandr visualized the other side of the library, and let the magic loose. He opened his eyes and was on the other side of the library.
“Maybe I should see about getting you some tickets,” Twiliight said.
“What are you talking about, it worked that time.” He stood up excitedly, then wondered why his back hurt so much.
“Not really.” She pointed out the path of destruction from where he started to where he ended.
“I’ll clean that up.”

“Ow!” Scott shouted, taking another swing at Rainbow Dash, who easily side stepped and bucked him in the arm. “Ow!”
“Wow, Stigandr was right,” Rainbow Dash said, half mockingly, half making conversation. “This is therapeutic.”
Scott was going to kill Stigandr. He knew he wasn’t in shape, and he knew he couldn’t fight worth a damn, but he didn’t believe getting the crap beat out of him by a lesbian pony (San check passed) was going to help. Yes, it was practice, but it was painful practice.
“Glad…you are…enjoying…it,” he gasped, already out of breath.
“Do you need a drink or something?”
“Yes.”
Scott landed next to Applejack and thought, 'great, I’m already learning their bloody names'. He went for a swig of apple cider, but had his mug taken away.
“Yer friend said to make yaw work fer it,” she said, pointing at some apple trees with her hoof. “You need to apple buck those trees.”
“What?”
“Applebuck,” she repeated, and walked over to the tree and bucked it with no apparent effort. There was a slight rumble as the motion traveled up the tree, and all the apples fell into the preplaced barrels. “Jus’ like that.”
Scott looked skeptical as he approached the tree. He turned around and kicked that sucker as hard as he could. They heard his yell all the way into Ponyville. 

Ancro’s eyes opened as he felt the presence disturb his slumber. He immediately recognized it as Celestia, not Shiny, coming to recharge his shield. The door opened, and in walked the regal alicorn. He reflexively squinted, but then found his eyes no longer burnt when looking at her. He rolled his eyes as he realized he was fed yesterday, and thus could block out the pain.
“You seem to be feeling better, Ancro,” she said 
“I’m feeling much better,” Ancro said cordially, bowing. “However may I be of assistance to you your highness?”
“I just want to ask some questions,” she said, just as cordially.
“About what?”
“Well, there’s a lot we do not know about changelings,” Celestia stated, kneeling down in front of the shield. “I was hoping you could enlighten me?”
Ancro fought to resist the urge to tell her ‘join the club’, but he decided that since she most likely had something to do with Cadence’s decision to feed him, he decided to keep up being polite. “If I can answer it I will, but I have to warn you there’s a lot I don’t know.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s complicated,” he said with a shrug, not wanting to be silenced by the simple fact that he wasn’t able to talk about it for inter-dimensional reasons beyond his understanding.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could’ve sworn he saw Discord looking on in amusement.
“Is there any way you can simplify it?”
“To put it bluntly your Majesty, I don’t even understand it,” Ancro said, trying to keep tiptoeing, “All I can tell you is that I only know slightly more than you.”
“Why would that be?”
“I can’t say,” he said, being quite literal for once. “Trust me.”
“Very well then,” she sighed, seeing fit to leave the subject for now. “What were you looking for in the library?”
“A book,” Ancro replied smart-assedly, then noticed the glint of anger in her eyes and quickly revised his statement. “A book about inter-dimensional transportation, or inter-plane travel.”
“Excuse me?”
“A book about traveling to another plane of existence,” Ancro said, feeling relieved that he had been able to get that out without being silenced.
“Why would you be looking for that in the royal Library?”
“Well, we figured that if a book of spells like that would be anywhere, it would be there.” Ancro shrugged, then noticed Celestia’s expression. “It wasn’t there, was it?”
“Ancro, magics such as the ones you speak of have been lost to us since the days of Discord,” she explained, still maintaining the dumbfounded expression on her face.
“Well, drat,” Ancro said, slightly disheartened by the discovery of this information. “Does that mean I can go?”
“No,” She replied. “Why would your queen be after such a book?”
“I didn’t know she was after such a book, considering I was the one after it,” Ancro replied. He should’ve known that she didn’t fully believe him, or trust him.
“Why were you after it, then?”
“I can’t say.” He glanced, and saw Discord rolling on the ground in laughter. He didn’t let it bother him, Ancro was too busy hoping Celestia would connect the dots. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out.
She apparently didn’t, and Ancro was forced to accept that such a concept as interplanetary visitors was alien to the ponies, an irony he had to laugh at.
“What’s so funny?” Celestia asked, slightly agitated.
“Nothing…Do you know how to play chess?” Ancro asked through his laughter.

Ancro levitated the pawn of his chess board to take Celestia’s rook, a move which amused her. Ancro still wasn’t in any condition to fight. He could just barely levitate the chess pieces and maintain his blocks. Somepony said something about a breakout while he was incapacitated. At least he thought so, he wasn’t entirely sure. The princess moved her queen up, putting him into check. The changeling recognized the look in her eyes and the layout of the board. Etiquette said he should topple his king at this point. Ancro wasn’t one for giving up, though. Even while she was interrogating him, he still fought for every inch.
“I’m curious your highness,” Ancro said moving his pawn up to stall for time, “why the Crystal Caverns as your prison? Seems slightly…ironic?” Ancro struggled coming up with a better word to fit the description.
“It makes perfect sense when you know the workings of it,” She said moving her next piece, “The crystals prevent teleportation and its secluded enough that escape is very difficult to impossible, giving us a better place to rehabilitate those sentenced here.”
“Others are down here?” Ancro asked somewhat surprised.
“Yes, you don’t think we would have one prison dedicated solely to you do we?” She asked, “There are also other ponies down here, disturbed ponies, which are being helped and rehabilitated.”
“Now I feel less important,” Ancro said trying to add humor to a suddenly darker situation. It appeared to work. Now he was vulnerable though, and it was her turn to ask a question, she had started off generalizing them then steadily shrunk down to more personal levels, questions he was willing to answer for the most part because of the low risk involved with their answers even when combined would give the princess next to nothing.
“So tell me about your friends,” Celestia asked. He couldn’t help but smile at her clever ploy of baiting him with idle conversation.
“What do you want to know about them?” He replied evenly, hiding his delight. This was more his chess anyway. Not that he didn’t like the game, he loved it, even if he lost most of the time. He liked the thrill of the fight, winning and losing didn’t matter.
“I’m just curious, you seem to miss them.”
“I do, but I’m sure they are perfectly alright without me.” He smiled, “At the moment.”
“Do they not get along?” She asked in concern, levitating the next chess piece.
“No, they get along great; it’s just without me they can lack a bit of a push and cohesion.” Ancro chuckled, countering the princess’s move the best he could. “One can be overly cautious, the other can be frightened into inaction.”
“They sound like an interesting group.” She put Ancro in check again.
“We are,” Ancro corrected, moving to counter. Five moves until checkmate. 
“Even though you are no longer among them?”  Celestia asked, trying to probe deeper, moving her bishop to trap one of Ancro’s pieces. He knew damn well what she was doing, eventually she’d trap him to where he had to tell the truth casually.
“Stayed best friends with one of them, even though he was gone for well over a year,” Ancro stated. He gave her some useless information, other than gender. He moved his rook into position against the bishop.
“Wow, that is a strong friendship.” She moved her queen to cover the bishop, while it also blocked off his king’s escape.
“Yeah, didn’t think it would last for a bit there,” Ancro stated, moving a pawn to cover his rook to threaten the queen.
“Really, why is that?” She moved her queen to avoid losing it, but lost the angle on his king.
“That’s irrelevant and personal,” Ancro stated lazily. Then standing up and walking around to the side of the board he asked, “I’ve talked about myself enough, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself, there’s a lot I don’t know about your history and I would find it very enjoyable to learn something.”
“Why do you want to learn about me, Ancro?” She chuckled, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, it’s always been a personal thing of mine to talk to a creature that has lived such an exceptionally long time,” he said, moving his knight to take a pawn. “History has always been one of my favorite subjects.”
“Really, and how do I know you won’t use this against me in some way?” She asked casually, moving her rook to prevent the move Ancro had intended three moves later.
“If it’s just general history, there’s nothing I know that can be used against you.” He moved his king back one space. “Besides, if you tell me what I want to know, I’ll have fewer problems telling you what you want to know.”
“Very well, what do you want to know?” She asked, moving her knight forward and saying the phrase he heard out of every game with his dad and Stigs. “Checkmate.”
“Let’s start with Star Swirl the Bearded.”
Celestia smiled, “Now, that’s going way back. When I first met him, it was…”

“How’d it go, Scott?” Stigandr asked the weary looking griffin. He had been reading up on some beginner spell casting. Also, next to him lay an assortment of other beginner books. He had a lot to catch up on.
“I want to die,” he groaned, flopping limply onto the ground face first.
“Scott, you know that the floor is wood, right?”
“I know…now,” he said as Rainbow Dash and Applejack stepped over him.
“How’d he do?” Stigandr asked, looking up from his book.
“He uhm... well, he…”
“Was awful, he has no stamina, no speed, and well... No real strength,” Rainbow Dash said plainly, rolling her eyes as Scott told her to shut up.
Stigandr chuckled, somewhat amused.
“That was true; he couldn’t hardly buck any apples out of the trees,” Applejack stated. “Out of curiosity here, ya’ll don’t have tah answer if ya’ll don’t wanna, but why are you trying to get him into shape?”
“Because he needs to be in better shape.” 
“No I don’t, I’m in perfect shape as I am.”
“Scott, you could barely buck any apples from the tree,” Stigandr said in mock disappointment. In reality, he knew Scott was in no physical shape for the kind of stuff they had him doing. To him, it was mixture of amusement, and a reminder that he needed to get into shape.
“Shut uuuup,” he whined. “How’d your teleporting go, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Explosively bad,” he responded, still feeling sore from when he was sent flying across the room. “We’re taking the train.”
“Why don’t you guys just fly to Canterlot?”
“Because, sugar cube, in case you fergot, the pegasi have a massive storm planned for the next two days,” Applejack said, looking towards Rainbow Dash with some level of confusion. “You were telling me about it last week.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right.” Rainbow Dash said rubbing the back of her head with her hoof, the anatomical impossibility forcing a minor san check on Scott.
“Besides, coming from Canterlot is a downhill flight,” Scott added. “Going to is uphill, and to be honest, tough enough. Not to mention hauling him.”
A whistle blew, signaling the arrival of their train. Twilight had gone ahead to the train station to await her brother’s arrival. Stigandr closed the book and levitated it into his saddlebags. He asked before hoof if he could borrow them on the way to Canterlot, and Twilight said it was alright, she didn’t need them anyway. Stigandr looked down at his ticket and realized he still had a bit of time until the train left for Canterlot. He smiled at Scott, then Applejack.
“Why don’t we go to Sweet Apple Acres?” Stigandr said smiling. Scott groaned because he knew what was coming, Stigandr was going to one up him, horribly.

Shift walked down the hallway as a patrolling guard, getting the entire pattern of all the other guards down. He was being as thorough as possible, because he and his sister may only get one shot at grabbing the changeling. He rounded the corner and bumped into another guard. He nearly fell over.
“Sorry about that.” Shift said in the deep voice that accompanied his façade.
“It’s quite alright,” the guard answered in an equally deep voice, and dusted himself off. Then Shift noticed something that nearly made him shed his skin. The eyes glowed green. If only for an instant, they gave off a green glow. He was about to ask what he assumed was his sister, when he lowered his blocks and realized he had never felt that presence before. Things just got a lot more complicated and dangerous, he thought, very much more dangerous. He calmly dusted himself off and saluted the other ‘guard’, then continued his patrol. He had to keep up the act so the other guard didn’t notice him. That was the most important part.

(Going to thank my editor/artist, Sara (shaya.laperro@gmail.com) for doing her wonderful language magic to make this story readable and my friends, also going to thank my friends for letting them portray them in such a manor. Also updates on my awesome factory job…I don’t have it anymore they fired me saying I had poor work ethic and they’re the ones killing ponies to make rainbows so what does that say about me. Anyways guess this means I get more time to type my stories…unless I’m doing the mountains of yard work that has to get done as a result of me not having a job. Anyways enough about my life thanks for reading if you fav it like it, comments and feedback is always accepted in hopes that I can make this a better story for your enjoyment.)