The best laid schemes of mice and mares often go awry. How true!
After having been awake over a day, having been awful to Sunset Shimmer to bring Running Mead to justice, having earned my cutie mark, having confronted Celestia with all the ruin she had brought to my life and to Equestria's, having burned through splendors of my magic teleporting to escape Canterlot Castle, also escaping from the city was too much to ask.
All my hooves dragged, not just my right rear one, by the time I reached the corner of Alicorn Way at Ponyville Way. I blinked up at the News Building, lit brightly, a hive of activity as ponies realized something had prevented the sunrise. I could see that the giant printing presses had literally been stopped.
Little did the reporters know that the most newsworthy pony in town stood right across the street in a growing daze. Maybe it was common sense, not entirely exhaustion, creeping up. Celestia hadn't chased me, yet, but neither had she raised the sun.
I hadn't kept my freedom this long by being stupid. I needed a plan to keep from being caught. A slug-like target, with fluorescent green stripes in her purple mane, trotting down the switchback of the Ponyville Incline would be like a flare at midnight.
I glanced at my flank. Even the auroras in my newly-minted auroras-and-stars cutie mark glared a harsh ionized-oxygen fluorescent green. The abomination moved and conformed to my flesh as I walked. It seemed surreal. Maybe I was dreaming?
No. Celestia had sent Running Mead to Tartarus for stalking Sunset. Should have, at very least. From what I'd learned of her, perhaps worse.
I remembered the elation when I'd magically gelded the crime boss. It felt so right, like deciphering and manipulating cutie mark magic was what I had wanted all along.
Destiny?
I was so demented! The flapping mark controlled me, now. I stomped a hoof. No! Not happening!
Tartarus! My tail and mark were both flares in the morning twilight!
Celestia would search the Incline, would doubtlessly pack the train station and the airship terminal with royal guard and undercover constabulary. Without wings, or the skill to repel down the shear walls of Canterlot Mountain, there was no other way to leave Canterlot.
Oops, sorry—there was the taking an illegal barrel ride over the cataracts! Not happening.
I stationed myself under an awning before the Toque Blanche bakery. The smell of fresh yeasty bread beguiled me as I tied my mane and tail into colt buns, stuffing my green streaks from view. I hadn't eaten dinner yesterday, because that was when the sting operation went down, nor had I had the appetite for lunch, knowing I faced Sunset's ruin. My stomach gurgled loudly. A stallion in the glass window paused with a Prench bread in his magic to regard me with his blue eyes and a smile.
I yawned as I trotted around the corner. I desperately needed sleep but once again homeless, short of sleeping in the park for all the constables to see, I wasn't getting any.
I shuddered. Fellows. I'd forgotten his threat to arrest me. He'd likely issued an all agencies alert for somepony that looked like me! Even if Celestia threatened to pardon me, I didn't want to experience the humiliation of being caught, or worse, giving her the satisfaction of pardoning me and making me feel obligated.
One impossible task at a time. I would succeed, or learn something about myself.
The sun hadn't risen and most retail hadn't opened yet. I needed fur and mane dye, styling gel, and make-up. A sewing kit. And scissors. Definitely scissors. Short tail, short mane, overalls to hide my flank. I could make myself into a yearling colt, given an hour to work and a secluded alleyway to work in. It was after 7:00 AM, however, and I sensed I needed to be anywhere but in the open.
Right! I remembered from my previous visit to Canterlot. Back then I had failed to learn where Sunburst had gone because to do so, I would have had to enroll in Celestia's School because of privacy concerns about a random filly asking personal questions about a student. I hadn't had emancipation papers. I had required permission, which meant Proper Step or Celestia. I had run away from home for a reason: to learn magic. Celestia's money paid for Proper Step, who said learning magic wasn't lady-like. I hadn't known it was a setup. I'd left the city totally shattered, but I had had one good experience on the way out: Donut Joe's!
I trotted faster, glancing at the sky. Purple and deep blue, still. Clouds danced around the higher snow-capped peaks. I could still see the brightest stars to the west. Thankfully, I saw nothing more than a pegasus flitting uptown.
Likely, you've visited Donut Joe's if you've stayed in Canterlot. Diners with neon outlines and white Formica tables were much more common in Baltimare, and the other eastern cities I'd spent the previous few years in, so I felt a welcoming glow approaching it this dusky morning. Apparently, so did a hundred other ponies. The place was packed, which suited me fine. More camouflage. You know that special scent of cooked sugar, caramel, seed oil, and coffee. It hit me, along with moist warmth and the scent of ponies as I opened the door, letting two in business suits step out.
A hefty tan pony with tea cups and a coffee pot in his magic called out through the din, "'Low!" as I pushed in. No chance I was getting one of the crowded, shared tables for myself, nor did I want a place at the standing bars that faced the three windowed walls. Like putting a target on my back. I waited and noticed a mare in a red blouse beginning to stand near the middle of the front counter. I scooted her back in my magic, and stepped in before anypony could even think to move. Yeah, rude, but I'd gotten used to living in Baltimare where eastern ponies were rude and in your face all the time—and it served my purposes.
Soon multiple teabags of Earl Greymare steeped in front of me. Donut Joe dropped a still warm peanut butter stuffed chocolate donut and a pink frosted rainbow sprinkle donut on a little clattering plate before me. I counted over my coins. I'd still have plenty for the cosmetics and clothes, and train fares, but was happy the sugar I poured was free.
With bergamot scent filling my nostrils and my spoon stirring in my magic, my tea rapidly turned into brown-black syrup. I'd been up twenty-six hours. This pony's batteries needed recharging!
I sipped, burnt my lips, then flagged down some ice because I needed a caffeine infusion in a vein, and drinking fast was the closest substitute. I looked at the paper tea bag wrapper as I drank. Who was this Earl of Greymare, anyway? Had she, or he, been forced into service by a tyrant princess also?
Slowly, my energy ramped up, while I reviewed the notes I'd taken about the princess' cutie mark. I kept my position at the counter by ordering progressively cheaper donuts. A chocolate cake curler, then a sugar-frosted. Finally, realizing none of my observations in the library would help me fight her, I closed it and sighed. The big red stallion beside me noticed I looked over at his stack of newspapers. The Inquisition had a large politics section, but little sports, so I rarely bought it. Seeing my eyes, he slid over the sports section.
"Thanks."
"Wonder what's keeping Celestia?" he muttered, before sipping coffee.
I ruffled to the prizefighting results and said—loud enough to be heard over the clatter of plates and din of the crowd—"Dunno. Maybe her protégé got caught up in a sting operation last night, and this morning the replacement she'd been cultivating for a decade refused the invitation and spat in her face?"
"That's kind of specific."
"Would be interesting if true."
He nodded, sipping coffee, turning the page.
I'd burnt a good half-hour and, by the clock, if I left soon I might be able to trot right into a store when it opened—
"Is that Princess Celestia?" a few ponies on the east and south facing windows asked, one standing precipitously and splashing tea on another pony.
My heart leapt into my throat, nearly choking me.
I glanced right. True, without actual sun, you don't get strong shadows. But with orange light on the horizon and lots of street lamps still lit on a main thoroughfare, light does get interrupted noticeably.
A winged shadow too large to be a pegasus swept by going north on Ponyville Way.
I gulped down my tea and stuffed the last of an apple fritter in my mouth. "Thanks," I told the stallion beside me, catching a spit crumb, slipping back into the crowd.
My nemesis had flown north. My destination, Vaquera's Secret, lay south of Alicorn Way and east to Chestnut. I pushed toward the west window, turning toward the entrance. I found an area relatively free of ponies and cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear. With nopony looking specifically at me, ducking down was enough to effectively disappear without anypony noticing or caring in the morning rush. Most diners were stationary as they ate, and with my current sugar rush, I could play a hoof ball match. I played dodge-a-pony only three times before I slipped out the closing glass door.
Traffic wasn't heavy, but I could easily step between other ponies in the crosswalk. I trotted to the corner, ready to cross with the other ponies, watching as a couple of wagons of boxes and crates rolled on by, leaving an opening for hoof traffic.
Having dealt with aerial attacks both in the arena and real life, my body reacted before my awareness. I flashed back to a certain griffon attack before my ears alerted me to the sizzle and hiss of feathers under pressure as something closed on me. I twitched, butting the mare to my right as my ears pivoted around and I glanced north.
"Hey!" the mare complained, but the descending sound had reached others' ears and she didn't notice I wasn't there. Gulping, heart racing, I looked where everypony else looked, while side-stepping south in preparation to gallop. I kept hold of the spell—the digits until then like unnoticed floaters in my eyes, spinning and on fire—confident I remained unseen.
Princess Celestia thumped down with bent knees in the middle of the cobblestone boulevard—hard enough to crack the matrix holding the cobbles in place and rattle the windows of Donut Joe's—five pony lengths behind me. I had no doubt the earth pony part of the alicorn chimera was as strong as her other aspects. She wore her golden peytral and crown, and furled her white wings with a feathered thwack.
Her snowy equine perfection—slightly pink in the gaslight and colored predawn, combined with the mysterious flow of her mane and tail—inspired awe. Like puppets, everypony went down on bended knee; even the oncoming traffic halted and bowed, including eight stallions harnessed to a purple and white city bus whose drover applied the brakes heavily, eliciting an appropriately ominous groan for the tableau.
I backed softly from the crosswalk, not trusting the Don't Hear clause of my spell. Celestia didn't look my way, but she did the familiar thing: She waved her pike-like horn back and forth... until she pointed it at me. As she stepped my direction, other ponies looked there.
One pink mare gasped, green eyes centering on me. In a cascade, the verisimilitude dissolved and all eyes alighted on me and widened. Ponies pointed, muttering how I'd suddenly appeared. Most importantly, Celestia also broke through the spell.
Purple eyes speared me.
Of course she'd found me. She was the headmare at her school. The proctors reported my test result. They'd copied Arches Bald's spell from my annotated notes for her. The clauses talked only about not looking, not seeing, and not hearing. It still took copious splendors of magic to cast, and like myself, Celestia could sense the flow of magic and see the numbers with her horn, even if tricked by the illusion in the particulars. She'd been flying around, scanning for magic.
My magic.
Had I stayed in Donut Joe's, I'd have remained hidden.
"Shoot!" I said. I let go of the spell, spinning up Levitate, straightening and checking the tightness of my colt buns as an innocuous way to keep my magic spinning as I gathered my wits.
I backed away.
The great alicorn stepped closer with a far greater stride. I got an education as to how huge she was. I could see under her barrel without dipping my head much. While relatively slimmer than most ponies, her body, neck, and head towered three pony heights, and her deadly sharp horn higher. I understood why the interior of most buildings had high ceilings, if for no other reason than to prevent embarrassing gouges in the plaster.
In her place, I would have stunned me, not let me analyze how to attack.
She said, "Everypony, clear the area." I backed faster. "Not you, Countess."
Most of the ponies stood and trotted away, watching over their shoulders, looking confused. Ponies reversed their vehicles. A couple of bright mares galloped away, understanding the dynamics of the threat. Ponies packed the window at the diner, lacking imagination to conceive violence, and annoyingly limiting my options lest I hurt somepony.
"Some ponies won't take no for an answer," I returned, ticking off in my head what I could and could not do.
I couldn't teleport without her reading my vectors and following. Levitating and throwing the alicorn was as effective as throwing a pegasus; she'd simply fly away. I didn't have the muscular strength to physically throw her down without her charging me, but I might physically sweep her if she didn't dodge or flutter up. Her pain points for physical attack were her front knees, back canon bones, her ears, and her wings—which were furled and barely accessible, but entirely my best target.
She really ought to have stunned me.
That aside, I expected to be pushed magically to the pavement, but since the force of Levitate transformed to Push spread out from the apex of the apparition conically, I could likely worm free due to edge dissipation. Force could kill me, but that wasn't her goal.
Nor was it mine.
Only Princess Celestia could raise the sun. She had to live. I wasn't stupid, besides which, it had been me that had accused her of regicide. I wasn't about to become one myself.
I suppressed a smile. I swear, I heard the clack of heavy magnets snapping together in my brain as my plan manifested. I stopped backing and lowered my forequarters as she continued to approach.
One of the first things I'd learned in conventional physics (not violation physics) was simple machines. Wedges and levers magnified force and helped you overcome inertia. Celestia's mass represented inertia, and I had to overcome it.
I transformed Levitate to Force.
Celestia smiled. "I'm glad you didn't think to take hostages."
I scoffed, waiting for her to take the next step. Lowly, I said, "I didn't kill a princess."
Her gait slowed. Her face darkened into a frown. I lowered myself further, tensing my haunches.
I added, "Was it the thestral queen of the Crystal Caves, or perhaps..." What could really get her goat? "—your sister, regicide?"
She flared her wings on cue, and lit her horn.
I had by then already leapt into my charge, head down, almost into a gallop as I closed the five pony lengths between us. I'd spent my mid-teens training to become more and more physically fit, not something a unicorn typically did because, well, not an earth pony. I'd won the seven-league Baltimare Celestial Race (unicorn class), won a championship as a prizefighter (maybe stretching the rules a bit), and had been a bodyguard retrained to fight dirty to protect a mob boss. I felt Celestia slap down her magic, but she only winged my rump, actually squirting me forward.
Startled at my speed, she reared as I triggered my Barthemule transform, having reached my maximum velocity. The apparition bloomed out as it forced me to continue the calculations, its lozenge shape smacking me into and under the alicorn where her ribs and belly met. She coughed. Like a wedge, it shoved the huge equine up on the pivot of her hips, then levered her further up as the spell popped. Any spell I cast broke at the moment it might seriously injure another, but I reared while spinning up Levitate out of my queue. My rear hooves landed; I stumbled slightly but found purchase, channeling my momentum into my forequarters as I connected with her barrel. I shoved with every muscle connected from my rear hooves through my back, stomach, chest, and forelegs.
Tartarus, she was heavy!
Muscles across my withers went sprong! But it was too late for her benefit. Celestia tipped past 90º. Flailing her wings wildly to balance, unable to take off, I managed to dodge her pedaling forelegs as I circled around her left side while transforming Levitate to Grab.
I reached for her primary feathers.
From my experience as a prizefighter, I knew wrenching long feathers hurt, and would earn you a life-long enemy. A pegasus who had worked for me had wing-clipped himself twice (a long story), so I knew I didn't have to pull out many to do the job. Celestia could raise the sun without flying.
She jerked free.
Growling my annoyance, I instead reached for her wing joint. The spell would break before I could wrench it hard enough to injure, but it would hurt.
She wiggled right, and free. A down-wash of air nearly batted me away as I positioned myself near her dock as she fell back.
I wasn't the first to think to attack her wings in hoof-to-hoof combat! Silly me.
I didn't think my wimpy Stun could do the trick on somepony her mass, so I reinvigorated Levitate with more splendors and scrabbled for a farther target. At that moment, I succeeded in stepping on her tail. Her flank connected with my shoulder and I shoved, redirecting her momentum, keeping from being crushed.
My muscles screamed and, this time, something in my left rear haunch pulled. I lost my hoof-hold on her tail before I could pull her tail out of joint, but I nonetheless had my leverage and pulled-free long hairs, which like thin snakes flew through the air as she whimpered.
A pony in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force.
Instead of letting her land on her back, I'd flipped her further over in a backward somersault. She caught herself, and my shove as paltry as it was, instead slid her toward the curb.
Across cobbles.
Ouch!
She furled her wings to protect them as she bounced and groaned. I spotted what I wanted to grab: Her crown, which had ejected on its own trajectory.
I caught it, screaming, "No means no!", and whirled it around in an elliptical trajectory.
Before she could recover her balance, with just a few bruises and lost dignity, I swatted her ear with the gold ornament.
Again, my magic would not let me gravely injure a pony. After all these years, I did understand this: Unicorn magic granted wishes. However, I did say the crown was gold. Twice as dense as lead. Three times as dense as iron. I struck her ear. It hurt!
She instinctively balled up, protecting her head with her fore hooves.
For a few seconds, her attention could not possibly be on my magic.
I wheeled away. Around me, a street full of ponies gaped at my audacity, while others startled by my swift attack, or my gaze, galloped screaming for their life.
I was now definitely a criminal. One impossible problem to solve at a time!
I cast Teleport, before one very angry alicorn could think to read the vectors in my magic, translocating myself two blocks south on Ponyville Way.
I had had one shot at effectively using physical violence against Celestia. Realistically... that had been it. Too bad I hadn't grounded her. Two minutes after I'd left the lunch counter at Donut Joe's, thirty seconds after she had landed, fifteen seconds after I'd attacked, I appeared between a postbox and a newspaper machine.
A unicorn in a puce pinstripe business suit flinched, spraying his open bottle of Sunny Daze OJ, splashing it in my the face. I jerked, wiping my eyes with a knee and bashing my right rear sesamoids into the postbox, which caused me to gasp loudly.
That got early morning commuters looking at the weird unicorn with frost steaming from her. Some even jumped back noticing she'd suddenly appeared. From the orientation of ponies and traffic, I could tell that the brouhaha two blocks north had not yet filtered here. Celestia couldn't have a direct line of sight to where I stood. I hadn't. Her sense of magic, I hoped, would be similarly blocked. I had cast hoping statistically that the remembered tight spot would still be empty enough to allow my spell to succeed.
I wasn't at an intersection. I looked into a bustling Spot O'Tea, and the still closed law offices of Weasel, Shark, and Loophole, and a clothing shop whose sign had burnt out. I looked further up the street for a likely destination to quickly go to ground.
What I saw was the News Building. The top, actually. I saw a blue pegasus wing, which drew my attention to the glassed-in oversized crenelations. They published The Canterlotter magazine up there. High enough to be above all the other buildings, the relatively bright oranges and reds of the stalled dawn illuminated it, and bright lights inside helped clarify a clear landing site. I'd been under it less than an hour ago, so I thought I understood the vectors.
Any port in a storm!
The startled business pony with the spilt OJ, said, "—you're going to buy me a new one." It didn't seem to matter that sticky fluid dripped from my muzzle. "Are you listening to me?"
"No," I said, and teleported twelve stories up and two blocks down.