//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: A Fear that Came to Pass // by ChingKittyCat //------------------------------// Manehatten wasn't the most green place in Equestria. It was one of the most gray ones, when it came to the amount of concrete that could be seen within the city. While concrete was abundant, most cities or towns refrained from using it. Due to the high cost of the material, and how ugly it looked, crystals were becoming the better building material. Some places in Equestria have already been using the material. Ordering it from the slave-labor powered city in the north. While this may seem cruel, the crystals, when taken away from the empire, turn a pure cyan. Canterlot has banned the crystal distribution already, for some pretty obvious reasons. That doesn't stop the Crystal Empire. The Crystal Empire is very wary of it's customers. Very, very wary. They have to be. Crystals are usually exchanged for food goods, seeing as how remote the empire is. "The crystals themselves are actually more than just building materials. Our alchemists have been experimenting with the things, and have revealed a pleasurable aspect to the crystals. Within the minerals, specifically the blackest crystals that can be shipped out, can have dopamine located in the innerwalls of the crystals. This dopamine causes addiction to the crystals, meaning a drug-like effect to eating these crystals. Further effects can be found if the crystal is smashed to dust, then snorted. This sets up a need for the crystals. Further crops and food goods are traded between the empire and the southern part of Equestria, Within recent news, the takers of the crystalline drugs slowly turn into zombie-like slaves due to a strange and foreign chemical that has never been seen before. This chemical effects the entire nervous system of the brain, and after scans of activity, the most active place of the brain was the reward center. Everything else was either not active whatsoever, or showed minimal activity. Due to this, the drug users offered themselves up as slaves for the Crystal Empire's picking, in exchange for mining the crystals, and an abundance of the drug. Those who could not get the crystals would go through withdrawals. Crying, shuddering, spasming.. One thing was for sure. One thing was a constant. Each pony addicted, when going through withdrawals, would mummer a poem. A cursed poem, that even when recorded, would utterly destroy the audio. Turning it into silence. Any attempt to get the audio to decode itself was failed. Who knew that all of this could happen within a four-week time period? Schools are trying to get the children away from the minerals, while teenagers blankly took the drug without a second thought. Thinking it was cool that they were doing some evil thing that made them feel good. Even adult ponies were stupid enough to take the drug. Only ones with previous addictions, obviously. Treatments have been set up. While most ponies were smart enough to stay away from even talking about the northern hemisphere, the treatments were routinely full of ponies. All suffering from the lack of crystals. They could not even speak a single word other than the ones in the poem. The poem-" Twilight had heard enough. She turned off the television. It had been about three weeks since she had arrived in manehatten. The group had been scrounging for bits, and they had managed to get a small hotel room that had only two beds. Most ponies slept on the floor, while Twilight slept at the end of one of the beds. The rooms was not the best looking, but it was better than sleeping on the street. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls, the carpet was dirty from all the hooves passing in and out of the room. Twilight was responsible for most of the dirt that littered the carpet. She had a thing for pacing. She was extremely worried. Why wouldn't she be? Sitting in one place for this long? Her friends could be dead, and she was sitting here, watching television. Well, the tv was off right now, but still. Her point still stood. Apparently, the group NEEDED Rose Dust to turn up, or else they were completely lost. Twilight felt pity for them, and she just could not leave them alone. She was the current leader. She didn't know where to go. Rose Dust didn't leave any notes behind. She didn't leave behind anything to go off of, other than 'go to manehatten, and go find the contact'. Who the Tartarus was this contact anyways!? Twilight can't read minds! Actually she could, but she didn't have time to scan Rose Dust's mind when they were escaping from troops. Twilight had been fiddling with magic to pass the time. Other than watching television. Twilight found that she couldn't access the dark magic when she was calm. Which was a bit strange. Though, Twilight was actually less than calm. She was paranoid. Either way, she couldn't fool around with Dark Magic. She couldn't even get a flicker. It was peculiar. Maybe it had left her magical system? That would be great if it just poofed out of existence for no reason. She knew it wasn't that simple, though. While she had been sitting in this hotel, Twilight had been putting some magical puzzle pieces together. Mental ones. A real puzzle would be good, right about now. She was a bit bored. Twilight figured this. Dark Magic couldn't be used when Twilight was calm or happy, because it was powered off evil feelings. Well, not so much evil as they were negative. They were now nicknamed evil, because they related to Dark Magic. Even though that wasn't really evil either. Those emotions were the following. Blood lust and anger. She knew that blood lust was apart of dark magic because she was able to use Dark Magic when she had fell that colossus. Twilight also knew that anger fueled Dark Magic due to the fact she had used dark magic to open that nightmare door in the Crystal Empire. She had been frustrated with the door, and Dark Magic just took hold. Those were the only two appearances of dark magic so far. Twilight didn't know what else Dark Magic was made out of. Just evilness, she reckoned. Either that or cruelty. That could be a source, actually. Who knows. The master of Dark Magic did, obviously. "I'm going out. I'll go see if I can get some bits." Twilight announced as she slid off the front of the bed. The remaining members of the group dismissed the lavender mage exiting the hotel room. Twilight closed the door behind her as she exited. The hotel room's door lead directly outside, out onto the hotel's concrete pathway. Which showed off all the doors and rooms on the floor. Twilight trotted down the pathway, ignoring all the sounds that would come from the other hotel rooms. They were awfully obnoxious, with that blaring music. It was complete garbage, this modern music. Twilight sighed in annoyance, wearing a grimace as she turned the corner. The exit. In the previous hall, the area to her right was blocked off by a wall. Now, there was no wall. Just a street. This was the entrance and exit to the hotel. The lobby was just off to the left, now. Twilight was not interesting in checking out of their room that they had basically lived in. She needed to go to the library. She wasn't actually going to go and find bits. She needed to read away her boredom. Her worries. Twilight had gone to the library everyday, and it seemed to be helping, slightly. She had been just reading everything she could find in the local library. It didn't matter what. As long there was text written in paper, Twilight would read it. Wether it be crappy romance novels, or crappy stories in general, Twilight would read it. She would read anything. Anything. She needed to dive into another world, to get her mind off the real one. The crappy world, that only loaded her up with grief. Twilight had actually thought of turning to drugs, but that wasn't exactly the smartest idea with this new found knowledge of crystals drugs. Also, she didn't have any bits for drugs or alcohol. It was for the best that she used books as a way to escape. It was the cheapest, and least addicting way. Twilight made her way down the street, passing the routine scouting of guards. They have been all over the place since the second week of being here. It seems like Celestia is finally getting her royal plot in action, and is actually trying to fight the threat, unlike all the other times she didn't. She just left EVERYTHING for Twilight to do. Well, it was her problem at the moment. Twilight just had to wait until Rose Dust got here. Who the Tartarus knows why she was taking so long. It was aggravating, honestly. Twilight had made a limit to how long she was going to stay in this concrete city, and it was well past succeeded. She needed to get out of this place, or it would be the end of her. Maybe she could just follow the guards out onto the battle field? No, that was too risky. Celestia would probably just nab her and throw her back to where she started, in Ponyville. Either that or lock her in a cage so she couldn't fight her own battles. This was a serious issue, and Twilight needed to help deal with it. Her friends lives were on the line here. Twilight glowered as she passed some civilians. They didn't exactly look very happy either. This whole 'Equestria needs more soldiers, so you're getting drafted into war' business wouldn't make one very joyful. Twilight had not been drafted. She kind of wished she was drafted, though. It would give her complete access to the Crystal Empire. No contacts. No waiting. Just there. Just go. Just go in. Just fight. Just win. Twilight knew she wasn't going to. Celestia wouldn't allow her student to go to war. Though, when the changelings attacked, apparently that was an incredibly different deal. 'Go get the elements', blah, blah. One side is going to die in the end, and that's the tragedy. In this case, it won't be a tragedy. She hated her enemy. A lot. For all of the sins that the Crystal Empire committed, Twilight would not allow any oppressors left breathing. She wouldn't tolerate it. That seemed a bit harsh, but Equestria needed that entire empire destroyed, turned to dust, burned, then left to float away in the wind. Twilight pushed open the glass door of the library. Entering the familiar area once more. This was the second time today. The floor went unpolished, but it's tan checkerboard floor looked very nice. The center of the library, just ahead, was populated by old and antique tables. Their value was decently high. They were lined up horizontally. Lamps stood up on the tables, waiting idly to be turned on by a reader. Around the library, towered large book shelves, made of oak. Books organized properly. Organized, and reorganized by hers truly. She had put them in shelves, according to their genre. The books were decently dusty, some so dusty that their titles could not be read. Twilight had not gotten around to organizing the second floor of the library, but she needed to give the librarian some work to do. It was their job, after all. Twilight took a seat at one of the tables, pulling in a chair as her horn's aura grabbed a nearby book off a shelf. She received a book in the 'Warriors' series. Twilight had read one of the books in this series before, just yesterday. It was rather interesting, but all of the other books were checked out. Presumably gone. Twilight floated the book back onto the shelf, plucking another one that was right by it. It was a gray book. After placing the book down on the table, Twilight noticed how.. Monotone and small it was. It had an old, bearded pony on the front, and that was the most noticeable feature. The book was called 'The Giver'. Twilight had read this book before, and it was about a kid in a dystopian future, who becomes a receiver of memory. Which causes a bunch of stuff to go down after he starts to receive some messed up memories.. Yeah. Twilight had heard there was movie coming out about this book. Which was cool, she guessed. Though, the movie was sort of postponed due to the war. Twilight looked around the library. It was so unfortunate how barren this place was. It seemed like everypony was transferring over to televisions to keep them entertained for long periods of time. Also, movies. Other than the librarian, there was nopony else in the library. Scratch that. The door to the library had just opened. Twilight turned, to see who it was. There, at the door, was Quill Scratch. He was holding some sort of large paper in his blue aura. Once he was noticed, he smiled, trotting up to Twilight. Sitting on the opposite end of the table. "So, I was looking through all of our stuff, for that materials list you said to make.." Quill Scratch rolled out the paper on the table, as it seemed like a simple map. Except, it had a few additions onto it. There were notes over at least every single town. They were written decently neat. There were also a bunch of red paths leading to every town. It seemed to "I found this inside of your saddlebag. I think Rose Dust must have stuffed it inside of there before we escaped from Hollow Shades. I think this must be her plan." Quill Scratch pointed out, tracing the path with his hoof. They were currently in Manehatten. What was written was 'Meet with Light Nova'. Below that was 'Go to Fillydelphia'. Obviously, that was the plan that Rose Dust had left. Why hadn't she asked Quill Scratch to do this earlier? "How exactly are we going to find this contact?" Twilight pondered out loud, as Quill Scratch turned the map around. On the back, in very faint, yellow ink, were a bunch of names. Why it was written in extremely hard to read yellow ink was beyond her. Twilight's horn took hold of the map, changing the yellow ink to black. She had learned that spell in Celestia's School for Talented Unicorns. This was the only spell she seriously doubted she needed in life. Apparently, it was useful. The entire backside was now literally covered in names. Each name had a small list underneath it. Twilight looked upon the list. Surprisingly, she found her name. It was crossed out. There was a bunch of stuff under her name. Location, and how to get herself to join the group. Though, it was all crossed out. Nothing was readable. How disappointing. Twilight browsed the other names, eventually finding Light Nova, who was right underneath Sugar Heart. Twilight looked over Light Nova's description. Light Nova Male, Pegasus Manehatten Cheerful Lizard Tavern 1. Talk to bar owner. 2. Tell password. 3. Pay 5,000 Bits. 4. Receive Bag of Unknowable Happiness. 5. Steal Feline's Translator. "Rose Dust wants us to get a stupid bag? This can't be right. How does she expect us to get five thousand bits? This plan has so many flaws.." Twilight complained, looking down the list of other ponies. A bunch of them involved the aforementioned stupid bag. Maybe Twilight should have checked that stuff first before stating the stupidness of the bag. Why they needed these pony's help was beyond her. Couldn't they just go to the Crystal Empire and wreck the place? "I have no idea, but five thousand bits could be pretty useful." Quill Scratch pointed out, as Twilight couldn't disagree with that. They could buy a lot of weapons with five thousand bits. Those weapons could be decently useful. Like, canons, catapults, other stuff.. It was also help if they got magical armor, so that way they wouldn't be utterly slaughtered every time they encountered a soldier from the enemy's side. "I've been reading the news, and there's a bounty of ten thousand bits set on this unicorn in Fillydelphia. Apparently she stole a bunch of valuable stuff that belonged to the mayor." Quill Scratch continued. Twilight pondered over how much stuff could be stolen to get a bounty of ten thousand on your head. Unless it was just one thing. Twilight never heard of something so valuable in Fillydelphia. Maybe they got an import or something from the Griffon Kingdom. "Ten thousand bits could be really useful.. Go tell the rest of the group we're leaving for Fillydelphia tomorrow." Twilight stated, as Quill Scratch nodded, before taking off. Pushing his seat back into the table before leaving the library. Twilight looked at the book. She might as well get reading, while everypony else got prepared.