//------------------------------//
// False Flags III 
// Story: A Circle Has No End: Volume I 
// by Gladi Writes 
//------------------------------//

Wildcard spent the rest of that day disguised as Velvet Glove, as Trotsky breathlessly explained his recent exploits, having moved the conversation into a small study. He had been going far and wide, gathering a force of "fellow free thinkers". This friday he would put this to the test, for a mass protest to coincide with a speech by the mayor of Ponyville. Wildcard got an idea from that, and grinned at the thought. 

That protest would be Trotsky's last. 

Trotsky paused, and noticed his smirk, “Do you see it as I do? That town has known peace and plenty for so long, while others have starved. I’m going to make them pay for their gluttony, I’m going to make sure they can never sleep again. Remember Baltimare, Velvet. Remember how innocent we were, and how thoroughly we paid for it. Remember Manehatten, and remember everypony we've lost. I'll see justice done for them, justice for them all,” he said, and suddenly turned away.

“That is a story for another day, however. I’ve had your regular room prepared and waiting for you, and I do hope this time you’ll stay,” he said, and glanced back.

“Perhaps… permanently?” 

Wildcard fluttered his eyes at his host, “perhaps, perhaps not. I’m starting to grow fond of you, Trotsky. You know what you want, and you have the means to get it. I find that attractive in a stallion.”

“Oh I will take it, just you watch. With you at my side, we’ll rule this country. Finally, leadership with a vision! Leadership that won't let innocent ponies die while they sit on a golden throne!” he shouted.

“My vision!” Trotsky shouted, and then clutched his head, "Ugh, I need to save that for the rallies."

"A vision we can all look up to..." Wildcard said, and nuzzled Trotsky's mane, "I'll see you in the morning."

Trotsky nodded distractedly, and pulled a bottle of painkillers out of his desk. Wildcard thought nothing of it- he had a similar bottle- and disappeared out into the hallway, and started to explore the household.The estate was vast, but nearly every room was locked, and the doors were incredibly dusty. The carpeted corridors were mirrored on each of the four levels, about ten rooms deep. It seemed to have once held a great family, but now the only tenant was a crazed aristocrat and his few servants. Eventually, in the upper levels, Wildcard found an unlocked door. He opened it, and apparently found his room. Posters preaching revolution and obscure musical groups lined the walls, contrasting heavily with the gilded golden bedposts and posh carpet floor. A side door led to a bathroom that could probably house a family, and a closet full of elegant dresses could probably have clothed it. 

Wildcard shut the door, and with a sigh of relief, lowered his form. He had been holding it for quite some time, but not nearly as long as his record. There were ways to keep a disguise semi-permanently without much effort as well, but that required a serious intake of magical energy. There were several ways of doing this, the most obvious of which he really hoped to not  use. He shuddered at the thought, and suddenly felt unclean. So he decided to have a nice warm bath, and soaked himself for a while before flopping down on the bed. He locked the door telekinetically, and drew the curtains before allowing himself to sleep. It hadn’t been a very long day, but he was certainly tired. Quite tired, moreso than he had any reason to be.

Perhaps it was the weather.

After a dreamless sleep, he awoke, and groggily pulled himself out of bed to find it was still in the late night. Returning to Velvet’s form, and covering himself in a night gown, he decided it was time for some sleuthing. Perhaps he could find documentation of some serious crime, or better yet a connection with Mezza Luna. So he returned to Trotsky’s study, and quietly began to search through the room. To the side of a large desk was a long bookcase, which was mostly loaded with political treatise and books on rhetoric. There was also a collection of poetry, with one of the books very, very, worn. Wildcard pulled it out, curious.

“Elementa Trotsky: A compilation.”

Wildcard hadn’t done any research into Trotsky’s family history, which he realized had been an error. He should have known that ponies that well educated don’t just appear out of thin air- he must be part of a long line. Odd then, that he was so alone. Wildcard opened the book, and on the first page was a dedication. 

Further odd was his apparent dropping of his first name, perhaps it was pride.

“To my son, Adamas. May you forever know the peace I did.” 

Wildcard turned the first page to a simple poem.

“Fly fly, my earth son. Even with no wings your spirit knows no bounds, even with no magic your mind knows no limit. Make for the sky, my son, you deserve no less.” 

He shut the book and put it back. This was painting a strange picture, but that wasn’t what he was here for. The desk was his next goal, and he rummaged through the drawers for anything incrimination. The top drawer was filled with financial reports, and other than a little bit of semi-legal accounting, there was nothing serious there. The second drawer yielded better results, and Wildcard keenly read through what appeared to be a series of factory transfers. The corporations listed he had never heard of, yet had bought enough ammunition and steel for a good sized army. If these corporations were, as he suspected, fronts for Mezza Luna’s Night Guard…

Wildcard smiled, and pocketed the documents. He looked through the third drawer as well, and to his absolute delight found what was apparently a personal journal of Trotsky’s. He read it eagerly, but found he was apparently too smart to leave anything openly incriminating. Flipping through at random however, he found a seeming disconnected between his writing recently, and long ago. His writing now was full of vitriol and errant, constantly raging at the Princesses; but only months ago it was more focused, and only concerned with business affairs. Wildcard hunted down the point of crossing, and landed in early August. That entry he had to sit down to read, and finally understood.

“Today, the griffons came. I barely escaped with my life, but I was separated from the rest. I assume they’ll be fine, but all this running has made me tired, and I think I’ll await them in Canterlot. What frightens me more is what I’m hearing about Manehatten, apparently there was some sort of attack, and the damage is catastrophic. Mother and father are there, I fear for a world without their guiding hand. I can’t take over everything, I can barely keep the factories steady! I have faith in Celestia though, she saved us in Baltimare after all. We lost our city, but we kept our lives. It was kind of her to allow us to move to Manehatten.”

There was a break in the document, as if somebody had come in and he had stopped written all of a sudden, and then started again. It was nearly scribbled, it was so rushed and seemed almost hammered into the paper.

“God is dead. My parents, my sister, they are all gone. Celestia let them die, she let them die and did nothing. She started this war, through her own folly! I can see it now, she sacrificed Baltimare just to give her chosen people another few days of peace, and now she has given Manehatten up for more of the same! God is dead, and we must fight for ourselves.”

Wildcard shut the journal, and slipped it back into its place. It all came together then, and  he really understood what he was dealing with. Trotsky was a pony with nothing to lose, and revenge on his mind. This was even worse than he thought. Power was one thing, but a rational person after power isn't suicidal. A man after revenge isn't rational. Wildcard made sure everything was as it was before, and then left with the stolen documents. He made his way back to his room, and stowed them under his mattress. The sun would be up soon enough, and he took the extra time to make a call. Silver was on the other end, and answered immediately.

Wildcard ordered that a rifle be placed in a room with a good view of the Ponyville town hall, and for that room to be littered with Trotskyist propaganda. He had a plan, and had one week to ensure it was successful. 

Trotsky arrived later, with breakfast. Wildcard couldn’t help but feel charmed that he brought it himself, but he was a stallion underneath his cover- he knew what the end game was here.  Nevertheless he wasn’t going to let a free breakfast go to waste, and happily filled his belly while Trotsky rambled on about his plans for the day. Today he was going to give a speech in a beer-hall, which should prove interesting. When he left, Wildcard dressed himself in the most attractive dress he could find- something he was sure to accentuate the curves of “her” rear, and met Trotsky in the lobby.

Trotsky looked him over, and Wildcard felt a surge of energy flow out of the stallion. He was in love, deeply in love.

So he was vulnerable. Wildcard drank enough of this energy for the day, and smiled at his host, who suddenly reached for his forehead, and grimaced with pain.

Wildcard, afraid he had somehow taken too much, quickly came to his side and kept him steady.

“Trotsky? Are you alright?” He asked.

Trotsky nodded weakly, “It’s… just another migraine,” he said, and reached in his jacket pocket for a familiar bottle of painkillers.

He swallowed a hoof-full, and sighed with relief. “I’ll be fine, just as long as you’re by my side,” he said, and kissed his love on the cheek.

Wildcard pulled him down and planted on the lips, perfectly timed, “I wouldn’t dare leave,” he whispered.

They left the Trotsky estate with arms intertwined, and a pair of armed guards took their flanks as they strode off to wherever this place he was going to be speaking at was. 

____

While Wildcard spent the day by Trotsky’s side, doing what was expected of “her”- look good, his wife was busy with actual work. She had received a note from the mayor, and arrived at her home with her thestral guard in tow. The ponies ambling outside immediately parted, and allowed Head of State First Class to stride through them to the house, holding her head high. The soldiers standing guard outside- an unfortunate part of life in war-time- saluted at her.

“Minister!” they spoke at once.

“At ease soldiers, I’m just here to speak with the mayor. Is she in?” she asked.

The two soldiers glanced at each other, as if fighting a telepathic war over who was going to speak next. The smaller one, to the left of the door, apparently lost. He cleared his throat, and couldn’t help but stare at the thestrals.

“Well get on with it you two, they need more soldiers down south you know,” First Class smirked.

“She’sillandcan’tseeanybody!” the soldier squeaked.

“What?” 

“She is ill, and can’t see anybody,” he repeated.

First Class shook her head, “Like hell she is,” and moved for the door. 

They clacked their pikes together to block her, which began to shake when her thestral guards drew their own arms. 

“If you wish to continue breathing, get out of my way,” First Class growled.

“Oh buck this, Mayor Mare doesn’t sign our paycheques,” the shorter guard said, and removed his pike.

The other followed suit.

“That’s what I like to see,” First Class said, and pushed the door open. Her guards stayed outside, and she entered the house. It was a cozy enough home, decorated with furniture and rugs that probably went back generations. A grandfather clock, probably as old as the town itself, chimed three times. First Class took a closer look at it, and then heard a sniffle from the room over. 

First Class sighed, and trotted over, “We’re at war, and she’s held down by a cold?” she muttered, and strode into a room with only a fireplace, and a few dozen sitting pillows. The mayor, and a doctor, sat before the warmth of the fire.

“… a weeks bed-rest, and you’re not to see anypony for four weeks. I won’t have the entire town out of work- I’ll get a house arrest order if I have to,” the doctor said, while First Class watched curiously.

“I… *sniff*… understand.”

“Good, you’ll be fine. Pony flu is contagious as can be, but it’ll just knock you out for a few weeks,” the doctor said, and stood up. 

“Pony flu?” First Class asked?

Mayor Mare, and the doctor, both shot up in surprise.

“M… minister of state?” Mayor Mare asked, “how did you get in *sniff* in here?”

First Class smiled. “I go where I want, Miss Mare. Now, what’s this about the pony flu?” 

The doctor strode over, and glared at her. “It’s a rather contagious virus, and you’ve just broken quarantine! I told those guards not to let anypony in! Dammit, you politicians don’t have any respect for medicine, do you?” he ranted.

First Class glared back. “I was unaware of any quarantine. Now, you are sure the mayor is ill enough to be confined to her bed? She asked?”

The doctor nodded, “quite, but more pressing is the risk of a pandemic. We can’t risk the loss of working days, not now.” 

First Class sighed, “agreed, but somebody has to speak Friday, it’s an important tradition around here,” she said.

“I guess it’ll be me.”

_____

For the next few days Wildcard kept by Trotsky’s side, and continued his seduction. Every day the stallions love grew, and every day Wildcard escalated in turn. He also continued his search into Trotsky’s life, and discovered that the stallion was nearly bankrupt. His families fortune had utterly disintegrated over the last few months, as he spent all their wealth in order to purchase the factories that gave him his political sway now. Said factories were already locked into government contracts, and by the end of the year he would have to start selling them off again to keep food on the table. He had gone all in, and was trying to bluff the other players. 

Nonetheless, he was a threat. Whatever his reasons, whatever his history, and whatever it took, Wildcard would ruin him. If he was as desperate as he seemed, then that only spurred Wildcard into driving his plans forward to counter it. That Friday, after spending a night together with him for the first time, they came to Ponyville. Trotsky brought his finest with him- a group of anarchists from all over the country. Wildcard had argued for him to arm them all, "just in case."

Ponies will go to extreme lengths for love, and Wildcard knew that as he assembled his rifle, in a room of a book depository across from the Ponyville town hall. With a loud click, he inserted the magazine, and then set the gun on the windowsill to steady his aim. Looking through the scope past the crowd of ponies, to the empty stage, he slowly zeroed in his target, and waited. Trotsky was holding a protest across town simultaneously, while Velvet Glove had disappeared to “take care of something.”

Wildcard waited, his hoof on the trigger, to do exactly that. He waited, and breathed calmly as the sound of the protest grew from the distance. It was timed so that he would be passing by the town hall when the mayor took the stage, and was hoping to prod the townspeople into a fight. 

Out of the corner of his scope, just as the sound grew to a crescendo, a blurry figure stepped up on the stage. Wildcard’s heart stopped, as did the sound of the crowd, as he saw his own wife take centre stage with two thestrals at her side.

There was silence.

There was a single gunshot.

There was chaos.