"The New Lunar Republic?" Christan asked, grabbing his coat as he followed the cops out the door, "Whatever do you mean by that?"
"Here I thought you were a true brony," the female cop chuckled, "Not many know that our republic is based on the fanfiction army that Princess Luna founded to fight against her sister, Princess Celestia, after her return to Equestria. Ever since it was announced that there were two sides anypony could take people have taken to creating the factions on Earth itself, in the off chance that ponies began to pop up across the world.
Sure enough we were correct in our preparations, seeing how Discord has emerged and has declared war on the rest of the alicorns. We know that the Solar Empire is searching the globe as they search for Princess Celestia, who has yet to arrive as far as we can figure out. Though we have some news that not many know about; Princess Cadence, Queen Chrysalis, and Lord Shining Armor have already arrived somewhere across the United States."
"How are you so sure that the three of them have already arrived?" Christan continued, locking his front door as they loaded Nightmare into what looked like a police van, "We haven't seen anything about their arrival on the news."
"Both factions are keeping the news of their arrival a secret for now," the female cop continued, "With the arrival of both Princess Cadence and Lord Shining Armor means that the Crystal Empire's forces are bound to take action and join us. As such Queen Chrysalis' arrival signals the arrival of the Changeling Empire. Seeing how so few have already arrived might mean that more will be joining them eventually, but there is one pony we think that wont come until later on."
"Whose not supposed to arrive just yet?" Nightmare asked, as if the news that more ponies had finally caught her interest.
"King Sombra." the male cop said, checking the mirrors before pulling out of the driveway, "We're afraid that if he arrives he'll join Discord in the fight against the Princesses. So we're hoping to take Discord down before that happens so we can easily shift our focus to the next target with ease."
Christan was amazed; here was two cops, in the presence of Allen and Nightmare, who had yet to arrest his roommate and were, instead, taking the alicorn to where Discord was located. He had learned that there were two factions keeping the arrival of the royal ponies a secret from the rest of the world. He was painfully sure that something was going to happen in the near future, but whatever it was he had no idea. For now he was going to get in the van and find out what the hell was going on with the world.
Maybe he would even figure out how to reverse people becoming ponies and fix the world.
-Seattle, Washington, ten minutes later-
Nighttime, the familiar part of the day where people often grew wary of the alleyways and the inhabitants that called the dark alleys home. It was the time of the day where most people returned to their houses for the night, leaving the thieves and lowlifes to do as they wanted. During the night there were times where thieves were caught red handed and arrested on the spot, cleaning the streets of the city one step at a time. But there was only so much the police officers could do when some of the thieves were crafty and tended to only target places they were sure they could rob.
Jackson Smith was one of those types of thieves who liked to only target places that would amuse him or places that would provide him with a challenge. He stole items, whatever his employers wanted him to steal, and in his downtime he scouted areas that his employers might consider stealing from. Right now he was just awakening from his nap, something he had time to do while he waited for his employers to contact him. He yawned and bit down on his lip, somehow breaking the skin and drawing a small stream of blood with ease.
"Son of a...wait, what's up with my voice?" he spoke, finding that his voice sounded like a growl of some kind, "I don't remember my voice being that rough."
He lifted his hand to his mouth and instead of feeling a finger brush against his teeth he felt something metal bump right into his nose. Strange, he didn't remember wearing anything that was made of metal when he decided to take his nap earlier that day. What was even stranger was that whatever he was wearing ran into his face sooner than what it was supposed to do, which made him think that he might have gotten drunk before his nap. He was only twenty-two, so he hadn't developed the taste for beer or wine and he doubted that he had gotten drunk.
He popped open his eyes and was assaulted by pure darkness, which was strange since he usually turned on a light when he decided to take a nap. Then, as if something else was playing its hand in his suddenly blindness, the darkness eased up and eventually he could see his apartment. Hanging in front of his face was what appeared to be some sort of iron gauntlet, like the type he saw in the movies and television shows, but there was something odd about it. It was rounded off like a horseshoe and it was being worn by what appeared to be some gray colored limb.
"What in the Nine Hells is going on?" he growled, using his own style of cursing as he tried to get up, "And why am I wearing this freaking iron clad horseshoe?"
That was before he rolled to his left and hit the ground, the sound of a large body of metal hitting the floor in the process. He groaned and looked down at himself, finding that he had some sort of giant metal plate necklace around his neck and that his body was working in all the wrong ways. He pushed himself onto his feet and found that his feet had been replaced by hooves, gray limbs wearing the same iron clad horseshoes as his hand. He looked up at his twelve inch flat screen television and was shocked, to some degree, with what he saw in the blank screen.
He appeared to be a strong bodied stallion with a gray coat, one that was covered by what appeared to be a lush red cape with a white trim. His hooves were all covered by the strange iron clad horseshoes he had discovered and his entire neck had some sort of metal brace. His hair, his beautiful light brown hair, was now a vile black mess that seemed to flow as if it was made of darkness, like the same darkness that was flowing out of his now green eerie eyes. Eyes that had a red center that seemed full of hatred while an iron crown sat on his head with a horn piercing part of it.
"What in the Nine Hells am I?" he muttered, surprised to find himself in the body like this, "There is no way I can do heists in such a form. Television, turn on the news."
His television turned on and flickered through the news, allowing Jackson to scan through the collection of news articles before choosing the one that caught his eye. He selected an article that was settled in Dallas, Texas that seemed to be about some strange weather patterns that no one has ever seen in the history of the world. According to what he saw it appeared that Discord, the Spirit of Disharmony from the show My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, had appeared out of nowhere and spread his chocolate rain around.
So it appeared that characters from that one show were beginning to manifest themselves in the real world and one of them was waging an all out war with the other demigods and gods of the show. As far as the public knew there had been no sighting of either Princess Luna or, more importantly, her sister Princess Celestia. There supposed sightings of Princess Cadence and Lord Shining Armor somewhere in the middle of the United States and Queen Chrysalis was supposed to be in Florida. There was something about the names Cadence and Shining Armor that made his blood boil and his hatred rise.
Jackson knew his ponies as much as any other person did, so if there was any pony who reacted negatively towards the royal couple he knew who it was. He had become King Sombra, the Crystal Tyrant of the Crystal Empire before his fall at the hooves of Princess Celestia and her sister Luna. That explained the lush cape and the crown and all the rest of the equipment that came with being the vile ex-king. If he could harness the dark magic of Sombra then maybe he could help the Princesses when they actually arrived.
Or he could take over the whole of Seattle with his dark magic and submit the citizens to the power of Sombra's crystals and assemble an army that Discord might respect.