//------------------------------// // Crisis and Choices // Story: Right Behind You // by BleepBloop2 //------------------------------// [Present] I made my way back to the throne room, ignoring any bows or salutes I got from servants or guards, but noting where they were on my mental map of the castle. When I reached the throne room, I found it empty. Frowning, I turned to a guard and said, in my most arrogant voice, “Where is my sister?” The guard saluted before replying. “Princess Celestia is currently speaking with the Elements. I can have somepony lead you to them, if you wish.” I nodded, and he turned to a guard, and gave her her orders. This other guard saluted, then started walking, holding open the door for me. I followed her, taking the opportunity to watch the way she walked, how modern ponies held themselves, how they spoke. Most conversations died as I came near, but they started up again not long after I passed. Eventually, the pony I was following stopped outside a door like every other one we’d passed. I gave her a small nod. “Return to your post.” She saluted and left. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and went inside. There were seven ponies inside. There was her, sitting at the head of the table, smiling at me like she actually cared, making me want to strangle her with her own intestines. The other six were nothing special. Two of each type, in enough colours to make want to shield my eyes. One of them was neon pink, another had a rainbow mane. Not the first one of those I’d seen, though I’ve only been around for a few years. Celestia, the bitch, motioned to a place next to her, and I reluctantly took it, doing my best to look like I wasn’t planning on murdering her a thousand different ways. “Good, you’re here. We can begin now.” I just nodded, not wanting to speak to her more than necessary. The whispering started up almost immediately. Celestia turned to the normal ponies - all mares, I noticed - and addressed them. I took a good look at each of them as she spoke. “Now, I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve summoned you.” A chorus of nods. Six ponies, six elements, one for each. One of the unicorns was magic. I was putting my money on the all-purple one, purple’s just more magicky than white. The others, though, were basically impossible to tell by looking. “To be blunt, we have a crisis.” Oh, I was a crisis? Cool. Should really be a catastrophe, though. The earth ponies and the blue pegasus all had some muscle, avoid them in a fight. The other pegasus was trying to hide behind her hair, try not to underestimate her. The Elements wouldn’t choose someone that was too scared to wield them. The ponies expressions all differed after that bitches words. The purple unicorn and the orange earth pony with the hat - note: take that hat - frowned, but didn’t seem afraid. The scared pegasus let out a frankly disgusting squeak and tried to fit more of her face behind her mane. The white unicorn looked afraid for a few seconds before she got it under control. The blue pegasus just grinned. Purple broke the silence. “What kind of crisis?” Celestia gave her a smile, and Purple grinned and failed to hide it. But then Celestia stopped smiling and got down to business. “An old evil from the reign of Nightmare Moon has broken free of his prison, and I believe it will go after you to ensure the Elements cannot be wielded against him.” Blue snorted. “C’mon, what’s the worst this thing could do to us? I doubt anything could be worse than Nightmare Moon.” She glanced my way and added a belated, “no offense.” I waved it away. Arrogant, that one. Celestia answered, her tone gently reprimanding, her smile condescending enough to kill a man at forty paces. “He could kill you.” That got their attention. They hadn’t been expecting that. Was the Everfree forest not a thing anymore? Did death stop while I was away? Celestia continued. “This creature, whom I know only as Spy, is an assassin and a spy of the highest caliber. He is bipedal, as tall as I am, not counting my horn, and wears a red suit that would not be out of place at the Gala. Despite this, he can sneak across a battlefield, into the commander's tent disguised as a pony, and would not hesitate to strike while their back is turned. I do not exaggerate when I say he could be almost anypony. He is capable of true invisibility,” she added, directing that towards the unicorns. Both their mouths dropped open. “And that is without magic; he can vanish even within a null field.” They were boggling now. Purple spoke again. She seemed to be the leader, or at least the face of the group. “Princess, I don’t know how much help we’ll be against whatever this Spy is.” “The Elements, Twilight. I’m not exactly sure what they will do to him, but anything they can not take care of themselves, they generally remove until somepony else can.” So, Purple was Twilight, the one Celestia mentioned before. One name down, five to go. “To that end,” Celestia said, her horn glowing slightly, a box flashing into existence a foot above the table. The whispering voice fell silent for a moment, then began muttering. It didn’t urge me to kill Celestia, only to leave. When the box opened, it fell silent. “Your Elements,” Celestia said, floating a gaudy golden necklace to each of the ponies. Except Twilight, who got a tiara. It was still gaudy, though. They put them on. Celestia looked at me. “Is there anything you wish to add, sister.” I wonder what would happen if I choked someone to death with an Element? Probably nothing, but it would be worth a try. I cleared my throat before speaking, trying to remember how Luna spoke. “Yes. You should remain together, as a group, or at least in pairs, unless with myself or my sister. You will be given a set of rooms to stay in, and it would be best if you stayed in them as much as possible.” Blue huffed at that. “Can’t we just go to Cloudsdale or something? I mean, he can’t walk on clouds, can he?” Celestia looked at me. Luna, looked at Luna. I honestly had no idea. I’d never had need to try. Probably not though. I shook my head slightly. “We do not know that he has ever tried. But we must remain here, to run the country, and if you are out of reach he would just come after us, so it is best if you stay nearby.” “Aren’t alicorns like, super powerful or something? Could he really do anything to you.” Celestia nodded, wings twitching. “Tell them, sister.” She glanced at me, and I was pleased to see she didn’t look happy about that. “They have a right to know what they are up against.” Celestia sighed. “Over the course of the two years during which Spy worked for Nightmare Moon, he killed over four hundred ponies, that I know of, and is suspected to have killed many more. He also killed me one hundred and ninety eight times.” Not grinning at that was difficult. Very difficult. Nothing like being told how amazing you are. Of course, the ponies had different reactions. They gasped, but then, when they actually realised what had been said, they frowned. Orange spoke up this time, adjusting her hat. “Eh, no disrespect meant, Princess, but did you say he killed you? As in, you were dead?” Celestia started to nod, and then stopped. “Alicorns do not die very easily. However, we can be rendered discorporate, without a body, though that is still difficult. When I say the Spy killed me, I meant he delivered a blow that would have killed me, had I not been an Alicorn.” “H, how did he do it?” Yellow asked. I’m honestly surprised I heard her, she was so quiet. “From reports I received from witnesses, he uses a knife and kills with a single blow to the back. Have you anything to add, Luna?” I nodded, thinking. What is the most amazing thing Luna has seen me do? It didn’t take long. “Are you familiar with Ursas, Major or Minor?” The six of them nodded, grim expressions looking incredibly out of place on their colourful faces. “An Ursa Major had wandered near the Nightmare’s camp during the war. Spy had himself teleported onto its back. He killed it with a single blow.” Even Celestia’s mouth dropped. Just wait, bitch, it gets better. “He leapt from the beasts back, landing unharmed only to have the Ursa collapse on him. He appeared a few seconds later, seemingly unharmed.” I didn’t get hit by it, of course. I was checking the time on my pocketwatch when the thing clipped me, sending me flying into a tree. Thankfully, the Ringer still worked, and I wasn’t reduced to a bloody pulp. I wasn’t expecting the thing to go all ‘timber’ on me. As for why I was checking the time, eternal night makes it hard to tell when breakfast is, and my watches are much better than the bells ponies used to keep time. [One thousand and two years ago] Luna was an ungrateful bitch. Apparently, killing a nigh-immortal goddess of the sun regularly is not enough to get room and board until I had to do it again. No, of course not. I had to go and sabotage the enemy camp some more. Which is why I was currently disguised as a normal pony, one without wings or a horn, and ambling around the enemy camp. I made sure to keep a small smile on my face even as I went about wrecking things. It was surprisingly easy to get into places with a smile and a wink, and when that didn’t work I would just act like I suddenly had to be somewhere else. Either these ponies are really trusting, or I’m really good at this. Probably both. Still, it shouldn’t be this easy. I guess they were still hadn’t gotten used to Celestia not being here? Well, they had better get used to it soon. I didn’t do anything big, or explosive. I just went around making ponies days a little worse. Messed with the food being cooked, adding salt to everything - why salt was locked up, I don’t know, but it was. Had to pick two locks to find it. I wasn’t looking for salt, it was just a happy find, but I couldn’t let those door stay locked, now could I? Anyway, sabotage is fun. Messed with the food, changed names around on schedules, stole a myriad of small items and planted them on other ponies. Everything was going fine until the alarm went up. “Incoming pegasi!” Well, time for me to skedaddle. I turned away from the centre of the camp and started walking, only to be stopped by a frankly massive red normal pony with a very nice cowboy hat. Looked brand new, to. “Where d’you think you’re going?” he asked - the voice was too deep to be female. “I need to find somepony,” I said, definitely not nervously. Kinda racist, the word ‘somepony’ considering there are non-ponies in both armies. Celestia has eage-ponies, and Luna has bat-ponies, and there are some gryphons in both groups as well. “It c’n wait ‘till after th’ attack.” The alarm stopped. “Enemy pegasi are retreating! Repeat: enemy pegasi are retreating!” The red stallion glanced around. “Well, I’ll be. C’mon, I’ll help ya find this pony yer lookin’ for.” Shit. I wasn’t looking for anyone. He turned his back on me. I glanced around. Noone was looking, and even if they were, I don’t think they would see anything. I felt a knife fall into my hand. I wasn’t sure where they went when I wasn’t using them, and I really didn’t want to know. When they appeared, they were always cold, much colder than they should be, and they smelled of mold and decay and blood. The smell of blood seemed to follow me around, now I think of it. Noone else seemed to notice it. The pony turned to me. “You alright? Wan’ me t’ get a medic?” I let the knife vanish. Giving him a small smile, I said, “I’m fine. I can find who I’m looking for myself, I’m sure you have work to do.” “Ye ain’t wrong there. With the Princess gone, everypony’s runnin’ around like chicken that’ve seen a fox, tryin’ t’ find out what happened.” A bell rang out, this one signalling food instead of an attack. I was dragged along by the crowd that suddenly appeared and made its way towards the mess tents. I went along with it, it’d be too odd to leave now. I could slip away from everyone later, claiming to need to use the john, and just never come back. And free food was free food. Also; beer rations. Possibly the two best words I’ve ever heard, even if the beer was shit. The meal started out passable, for vegetarian fare, but slowly got… crazy. Even though everyone got maybe one or two mugs of beer max, they seemed to get really drunk as they ate. The only thing I noticed about the food was that it was really salty. With the way salt was locked up, it’s almost like it was a drug or something. ... Ah shit, I’ve drugged the lot of them, haven’t I? Time for me to leave, I guess.