//------------------------------// // Pilot Piece // Story: Prop Hunt // by MonolithiuM //------------------------------// The throng of alicorns, nobles, and guards stood around a large oak table, all with grim expressions of varying degrees etched across their faces. The candlelight splayed their shadows across the room, which was just a few shades from black. Luna rose from the somber group first, glaring coldly at the pure white candlesticks. "Twilight, if you would?" the Princess asked quietly with just a hint of suspicion in her voice. The much younger alicorn cast a spell from her horn, and with but a minimal twitch in her facial expression, scanned the candles and papers upon the table for the interloper. When her spell detected nothing, Twilight Sparkle nodded to Princess Luna. "Thank thou, Miss Sparkle." "Now, as thou mayst know, which We would assume thou do, an infiltrator hast taken its home within Canterlot Castle." Luna shifted her gaze from one pony to another, passing over nobles and guards alike. Many of these ponies now grew annoyed or worried expressions at the mention of the enemy. Celestia stood on her hooves next, choosing to carry her sister's speech to the rest of the gathered group. "This infiltrator, to our knowledge, is no changeling, pony, griffon, zebra, or minotaur. Simply put, it is nothing we have ever encountered before. However, it has proven itself to be adept in the arts of escape, sleight of hoof, and disguise." "For six days now it has tormented this castle and all of us who dwell here. Nine of my personal cooking staff quit when a cake threw itself into Luna's room and then mysteriously disappeared. Three Night Guards retired from their duties early when one of their own spears beat two of my guards into submission. Prince Blueblood is distressed due to the vanishing of his precious family heirloom." The sad, fetal form of Prince Blueblood sat in a dark corner of the room, blowing his mucus into tissues. As soon as he heard of his priceless gold egg, which had been in his family's possession for nearly a century, he burst into inconsolable bawling once again. "He still has not recovered," Celestia noted sadly. Slamming her hooves upon the table, Princess Celestia stared down all of her most trusted guards and nobleponies. "We will catch this shapeshifter, I swear it. By my title of Princess, with this crown upon my head, I hereby decree war with the Prop!" Instead of staring directly into her face, everypony was gazing at the top of her head. Celestia went stock still, and Blueblood opened his mouth with a shocked stare. "Auntie Celestia..." Celestia slowly looked up, and as she did she swore she heard music. There, on top of her temple, was her crown, spinning about in a calm manner. Nopony dared move, lest the Prop dart off. Twilight in particular wanted to seize the form-changing nuisance the most out of anypony in the room. With this goal in mind, and with a burst of magic from her horn, Twilight teleported directly above Celestia. "Hyaaa!" The crown was off like a shot, landing on the table before bursting away across it. Twilight untangled herself from her mentor and extended a hoof at the offending headpiece. "Catch it!" Twilight screamed from atop Princess Celestia. The guards and nobleponies, emboldened and shocked out of their stupor, immediately lunged for the Prop. With a slew of angry ponies darting out to meet it, the Prop quickly formulated a half-baked plan within its panicked mind. The Prop quickly changed directions and sped toward Twilight and Celestia, leaving a pile of raging ponies behind it. Luna lit her horn in an attempt to cage the fiend, only for the Prop to swerve in and out of her complex magical constructs, causing the Princess no small amount of insensate anger. The music, in response to the ponies' desperate attempts to capture the Prop, grew even louder, drowning out the absurd shouts and warcries within the room. The Prop dodged around magical blasts and thrown projectiles with ease, further inflaming the ponies around it. With a final taunt of "ATATATATATATATATA" that slowly faded into the background as the Prop sped out of the room and into the halls, it lost its pursuers in exhaustion and fury. All of its pursuers sans Princess Twilight Sparkle. With a determined roar, she leapt over the piles of her fallen pony comrades and burst out into the hall to prolong the chase against the Prop. Instead, she found something rather puzzling. A chalkboard with two columns, one labeled 'Prop' and the other 'Chumps', sat dead center in the bright, gilded hall. Under the word 'Prop' were eighty seven tally marks. Under the word 'Chump', zero. Twilight narrowed her eyes at this chart, already filing away the information away in her mind to be used against the Prop. "So it is aware of the situation," Twilight Sparkle said aloud to herself. The Prop had just proven it was capable of written language, and it considered the hunt posed against it as some trivial game. The fact that it called royalty 'chumps' was just an insult to all of Equestria. "Immature little..." Twilight brought her hoof to her chest and breathed in, beginning her breathing exercise to calm her burning nerves. Closing her eyes and listening to her breathing and the slowing of her heart, Twilight began to slowly calm down. "Relax, Twilight, you'll capture it soon enough." When she opened her eyes again, the chalkboard had moved several paces forward into her personal space. "Ye ye ye ye ye, ha ha ha ha ha! Lolololololololololololololooooooo!" Twilight yelped as the chalkboard made its hasty escape down the hall, reveling in its most recent victory. The newly-coronated alicorn Princess grit her teeth together violently, cursing the Prop to the bowels of Tartarus for frightening her. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she mosied back to the dark room, practically dragging her hooves across the polished marble. "Any luck, Twilight?" Celestia asked from underneath a pile of guards and nobleponies. Twilight Sparkle glared at the table, where the scattered files of past incidents with the Prop lay. "No, Princess, no luck at all." Picking up a file in her magical grasp, she groaned and slammed her head onto the table. "The Prop wins for now."