Hostage Situation
The cool breeze of air passed silently through Ponyville as everything was finally at peace with the world and gave the residents of the town time to calm down and finally rest. The recent development between the giant metallic monster and Discord had brought out a full blown battle between the two that for a moment seemed to be eternal. Ponies really didn’t care as they were just two monsters killing each other, but what they did care was the nonstop ruckus created during the fights which made even nap experts like Rainbow Dash have trouble getting a few minutes of sleep.
Now though the world was finally resting, Discord was probably twisted like a pretzel around a tree, and the Spartan had returned a little more dented than before. This night though, something else was happening. As all of the citizens finally succumbed to exhaustion from the week long battle a few shady figures managed to enter town and without much fight took certain ponies from some households. The rainbow one had managed to break the jaw of one of the agents and the farmer proved somewhat difficult to manage once she woke up. But in the end all of them were muffled, chained up, and imprisoned. The final touch to the whole plane was a single innocuous note gently pasted to the front door of the Golden Oaks Library.
Twilight Sparkle had woken up the next morning to the sound of multiple frantic knocks on the door to the library. When she walked downstairs she found Black Mist barely up from bed as well, the Spartan was reading a book whilst ignoring the commotion outside, and Spike could be heard growling as he was forcibly woken up from a dream that must’ve involved Rarity.
“What’s going on?” Twilight asked.
The Spartan simply shrugged and returned to his lecture which elicited a huff of annoyance from the librarian. She trotted directly up to the door and opened it in order to find multiple frantic faces in the small crowd in front of her doorway.
Standing in front her were not only the cutie mark crusaders but also other ponies like Big Macintosh, Granny Smith, Rarity’s parents, and the Cakes. Before she could ask anything a note was pushed towards her as she began to read an alarming message.
Dear Ms. Sparkle,
As you may have or have not noticed, your friends the Elements of Harmony are no longer with you this day. This is because we have taken it upon our hooves to make sure that Equestria’s future is bright. Unfortunately you have become a hindrance to that goal of ours and are now threatening with taking down our dream for Equestria, thus we had to reach such rash actions. In the name of The Order of the Dark Phoenix we hereby demand you to give yourself up to us without protection in exchange for the other Elements of Harmony. You must show up alone in the Everfree Forest at the castle of the two sisters alone, unguarded, and unarmed in order for the exchange to take place. If those requirements are not met the Element bearers will be killed. This meeting will take place in two days’ time at midnight, for every hour you keep us waiting one of the Element bearers will be killed. Those are our demands Ms. Sparkle, we await your response.
Sincerely,
The Order of the Dark Phoenix
Twilight had to re-read the letter a few times to believe what it said. She looked up only to see the haggard and miserable looks the families of her friends were giving her. Some of the other families weren’t even notified yet. Twilight didn’t even answer as she ran inside the library and brought Spike down from upstairs.
“Spike I need you to write an urgent letter, immediately!” Twilight said as a flurry of books and multiple maps began to float around her. In the commotion nobody noticed the Spartan standing up and going downstairs into the basement.
Black Mist came into the library to see multiple ponies that quite frankly looked like crap speaking with each other while Spike wrote a letter frantically and Twilight enveloped herself in a cocoon of information.
“What in the world is going on? It’s not even noon yet, there should be a rule against this,” Black Mist said which earned him quite a fierce glare from the family ponies. They really weren’t much of a threat to him, excluding Big Macintosh; that stallion would probably break anypony in half.
The day unraveled and, with the visit of two very important princesses’, chaos finally opened up. More and more the families needed to be calmed down and re-assured that everything would be fine. Some of the fillies downright cried as they imagined the notion of something going wrong. The families eventually had to be led out to their homes as the royal guard took care of the problem.
Twilight had been fervently looking up tracking spells and scrying spells in attempts to find the locations of her friends. Sadly all were turning up with no results; whoever had taken the girls had done so with meticulous effort and good planning. Twilight didn’t notice the shadow behind her as Celestia reached down with her hoof and grasped her shoulder.
“Twilight, are you okay?” Celestia asked with worry.
“I’m fine Princess it’s just… I just can’t seem to find anyway to do this without reaching a bad outcome. They don’t seem to be joking around. What should we do?” Twilight asked with hope that her mentor would be able to offer some insight on the situation.
“Twilight, in moments like this one has to keep a cool head and logical mind. I suggest we wait until something comes up, maybe a new development will shed light into this and open a new set of options for us. The one thing I’m sure of it that we must not oblige to what they ask Twilight, whatever they are planning to do with you is obviously something bad enough to place the lives of five ponies on the line, if not more.”
“So you are just telling me to wait? When the lives of my friends are on the line!? I don’t think I can do this Princess, there’s got to be something we didn’t consider! Maybe something we overlooked!” Twilight said frantically.
Celestia was about to reply when her sister Luna called for her from the kitchen, “Excuse me, Twilight, it seems something important needs my attention.”
Twilight simply turned around and delved once more into her books.
On the other side of the library though Princess Luna had an ongoing argument developing.
“What do you mean just strike them down!? Luna do you understand how delicate the situation is!? This is a national crisis, the bearers of Equestria’s most powerful weapon are not only being held hostage and under the threat of death, my protégé and bearer of magic who is in line for the throne of Equestria is what this organization wants! We can’t just go down there with our horns flared and blast them all to Tartarus!” Celestia said.
“And why the hay not sister!? Back in the day such nuances and dirt like those ponies would be dealt with immediately and with the wrath of gods for their idiocy at standing against us!” Luna said quite angrily.
“Luna I understand how things might seem from your point of view but things have changed in these past thousand years. This is an extremely delicate situation. One wrong move and it could mean the death of somepony. I suggest we plan this ahead and wait for new developments, it would be better to organize the guards to infiltrate and take down the insurrectionists from inside,” Celestia said as she walked over to the kitchen table that had a map of the Everfree as well as specified diagrams of the Castle of the two sisters.
“And here I thought you were saying I was the one with the bad ideas. Seriously, Celestia? Sending the guard to deal with this? You must have rammed so much cake in your mouth that the frosting finally creamed your brain. Those incompetents you have as guards would get themselves killed before they were of any use down there. Back in the day the guards of our time might’ve been a good idea but your simple overshined action figurines you have walking down the corridors weren’t even able to handle a simple invasion to the capital! Might as well send the insurrectionists to just kill off the Elements bearers,” Luna said.
“LUNA! I WILL NOT HAVE YOU INSULTING MY GUARDS! Besides they aren’t that bad, they just need some more training,” Celestia said.
“And cojones,” Luna said.
“What was that?” Celestia asked she threw Luna a stink eye.
“Nothing…” Luna said before both sisters returned to talking about multiple strategies that might work.
During all of this guards moved around town asking ponies if they knew anything about the recent events or had any clues. Black Mist had been working around the clock to get a lead on the missing mares. He had looked for hoof prints and anything left behind. If you were to ask him why he was overworking himself for mares he had near to no connection with he would reply to you with some made up speech about duty and honor as well as sprinkle some loyalty to make it shine. The real reason though was that he hoped that if he found the mares and somehow saved them, he would get a promotion and therefore be re-assigned. Living as the custodian for the Spartan really didn’t work out as he thought. Originally he thought he would be some sort of mentor about honor and social interaction as well as dependability while sprinkling some loyalty to make himself shine to the Spartan.
Instead Black Mist had been hurled towards ponies, walls, and exteriors. He had been tazed, gassed, stomped, kicked, and dressed up in different outfits. And to make matters worse, he had begun hearing ponies calling him the Spartan’s pet pony he won in a bet against Luna. Such a degrading job was slowly killing his drive, and he had to get out. The only good thing was that the Spartan hadn’t caused a scene while this whole thing was going on; Celestia knows the situation didn’t need more stress because of him.
The day had gone by quickly and sadly no new developments or plans had been found that could change the tide of the requests. The princesses reluctantly had to go with the royal guard plan as anything else would be too risky. With a few perception altering spells they were capable of making the guards near invisible. The plan would entitle Twilight showing up at the entrance of the castle and she would wait for the culprits to show up before being taken down by the guards and securing the safety of the Element bearers.
The plan quite simply was absurd and too risky in Twilight’s opinion. Having to think of all the scenarios and possible ways in which one pony could approach the problem she arrived to a conclusion. She would offer herself up regardless of what the Princess thought. She was only one single measly pony in exchange for the well-being of five ponies. One sacrifice for the good of the many seemed like a perfectly logical explanation for her mindset.
After feigning going to sleep and later on waking up on whilst the other rested Twilight sneaked out under the veil of the night in order to find and rescue her friends by trading herself with the kidnappers. Maybe if she found them before everything happened, she could avoid unnecessary bloodshed just for her.
“I’m sorry Princess, but I just can’t let my friends suffer because they’re connected to me,” she whispered while looking back at the treehouse and walking right into the Everfree forest. Things inside seemed restless as the sound of the night creatures clawed at Twilight’s head. She couldn’t avoid feeling the odd sensation of being watched.
Twilight eventually made it to the castle right at the bridge where Rainbow Dash was almost tempted by the Shadowbolts into leaving her friends behind. The warm memory made Twilight’s resolution stronger than before as she took a step onto the bridge to close the gap and bring this stupid situation to an end.
Sadly as soon as she stepped onto the bridge a sharp pain came instantly from behind her head as the world around Twilight blurred and she lost consciousness. Her body lied limply at the start of the bridge as a shadow grabbed her by the horn and dragged her away.
Twilight groggily woke up only to find herself tied up to a metallic surface as well as having all her extremities restrained by rope. Twilight tried using magic but failed as she recognized the feeling of something crucial to her almost missing. She didn’t need to look in a mirror to figure out that multiple magical inhibitors were placed upon her horn.
“Look who woke up,” a deep gruff voice said from a shadowy corner of the room. Twilight couldn’t give the voice a form as the shadows and haze of her mind impeded her to rationalize the events that had transpired and therefore any response she could have made never came to her mindset.
“You see what happens when ponies don’t follow the rules Twilight Sparkle? Now you are captured and you’re friends are captured as well. What a nice little outcome you helped create, and now the whole of Equestria will suffer because of you, I hope you’re proud.” The voice said and with its accusations Twilight’s grogginess lifted quickly.
“W-wait! Where am I!? Who are you!? Let my friends go, we had a deal!” Twilight pleaded as she realized the implications.
“I think it’s time for me to leave, I hope you know what this means.” The voice said as Twilight thrashed in her bindings before a piercing pain scaled on the back of her head and everything went back to black. Her body laid limply on the metallic surface before the steps of her captor announced him leaving the area.
(Spartan)
Since the start of the whole thing he knew it would become a pain in the ass. He could only thank God that the ponies somehow were so shocked about the event his presence went completely over their heads and tried to solve the matter themselves instead of asking for his help.
It would been a great few days for him to relax and take it easy while reading in the basement working with a few of his projects for a while but sadly things were not meant to be because apparently the universe hated him more than he thought.
The signs Twilight showed immediately set of red flags for the Spartan, she would stubbornly investigate alternate ways to save her friends and she even flared her temper towards her mentor and Princess while expressing that the only possible way to save her friends was by relinquishing herself to the enemy. Clearly her judgment was clouded; multiple ways of taking down insurrectionists in search of a ransom were available but the time limit and stress of the situation clearly didn’t let the ponies find alternative methods. The Spartan would have simply sent a decoy and the second the bastards showed themselves he’d place a bullet (or arrow in this technologically impaired world) in each of their faces.
So of course having seen the signs and assessed the situation it was obvious Twilight would be doing something utterly stupid and tell no one about it so they could reach god-tier fucked up status of emergency for the nation. The Spartan knew that when this happened he would need to be ready so he began reading everything he could about the Everfree forest and memorized the map they had laid out in the kitchen when no one was looking.
After he prepared himself, it was just a matter of playing the waiting game. Twilight Sparkle would inevitably fuck up and he would have to pick up the pieces. Of course if she died the possibility of him being let go because of his assignment being incomplete would render him free. Yet again it would be a stain in his record of a failed mission which was unacceptable and utterly shameful to having lost to pastel colored marshmallows. Also the idea of dealing with a hostage situation was somewhat good practice as he feared he might get rusty and too used to being on standby.
Eventually as predicted Twilight snuck out of the library and went into the Everfree forest, she was actually going to turn herself in and trust the word of the kidnappers.
‘I swear these fuckers are all born with a mental deficiency, every time I turn around I find them playing with gasoline and fire,’ the Spartan thought as he slowly and gently snuck towards Twilight. She had almost made it to the bridge that went towards the castle when the Spartan acted out and downright knocked her to lala-land. Dragging her body all the way back to the library was easy. Sneaking her inside was easier. Dragging her down into the basement as each of the steps clocked her in the head was priceless.
Once in the basement the Spartan simply nullified her magic and strapped her tightly against his metal work bench while dimming the lights of the place so she was unable to recognize where she was. Sadly she somehow woke up before he gagged her and he had to hide in the shadows before he knocked her right out once more. He gagged her in order to keep her silent should she wake up and grabbed a few new projects of his for a field test before turning the lights off and leaving the basement. If the Spartan played his cards right he could play a little game with the purple alicorn and keep his speech impairment for a little while longer.
Dealing with insurrectionists was easy, the Spartans had been originally made for that very reason so he had therefore been trained for every kind of situation that arose. And the only thing that could come to his mind as he made his way through the thick forest was, “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” The Spartan liked that idea and he was going to follow through with it.