//------------------------------// // A Diffrent Type Of Cufflink // Story: The Suit, The Umbrella, And The Mare // by Wangan //------------------------------// To Princess Twilight Sparkle, Packaged with this letter are some of the research notes and personal journal of Wax Stamp. I’m entrusting this valuable evidence to you for your opinion. While I personally wanted your involvement in this case to begin and end with your role as the element of Magic, I’m afraid that the investigation into the purpose of the spell that he used right before being turned to stone has, for now, stalled. A great deal of his notes were encoded. The ones that I have sent are some of the few that could be deciphered at this time. The researchers my sister and I have assigned are making slow but steady progress and we have a select few professors from my school analyzing the results. While we don’t know the purpose of the spell he used or it’s effect it may have on the nation as a whole but we hope to find out what he was planning to do. Twilight, know that I hate to put this back in front of you after the goosechase that we went through to capture him but any insight you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Yours, Princess Celestia P.S. I should also mention you not to stress yourself out over this. We can handle it. I’m asking this as a friend, not as a ruler. If I hear from Spike that you’ve locked yourself away or that you’ve started talking to your reflection, I will personally come down there and take back the evidence I gave you. “I’m not that bad.” Twilight mumbled from her throne, trying her best not to blush at the post script as Spike finished reading the letter. “Really?” Spike rolled up the scroll and tucked it under his arm before giving the purple alicorn a flat look. Okay, yeah. She didn’t believe what she said either. “Do I have to bring up the ‘Maze’ incident?” This time Twilight was certain she blushed. She definitely felt her eye twitch at that disaster being mentioned. “No. You don’t. I get it.” She tried to get annoyed by the baby dragon’s smug grin but she knew both he and the princess were right. Had that note at the end not been added she probably would have done just that verbatim. Sure there would have been a slow progression but it would have happened until sompony snapped her out of it. Spike put what came with the letter next to her and with a quick ‘I’ll go see how the library is coming along’ left the room. She looked at the folder on her armrest and the small red cover book on top it. Wax Stamp. On the pony himself, she had no idea what to really think of him. He had once been a professor at Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, a published author which she personally enjoyed-she had read his Theorem of Thumatic Layers several times-and if memory served he even taught her classes once as a substitute. According to friends and family, he was happy and he was successful. Even they couldn’t figure out what provoked the insanity that led to him breaking into the Royal Canterlot Archives and stealing several scrolls from the Starswirl Wing, something that hadn’t been done since her time travel debacle a few years back. A crime that would have lead to a few weeks in the dungeon at worst but things went crazier from there. A month long chase through every small town and off the beaten path bit of wilderness there was, ended with him using the very fabric of what made up the planet to do...something. She hadn’t gotten a proper look at whatever symbol he had been drawing when they caught up with him and it disappeared right after he activated it, moving away far too fast to trace. That had been a week ago. Whatever it was meant to do… She shook her head and opened the file. This would be simple. Just look through what she was given and write a letter back on what her thoughts were. She could do th- “TWILIGHT!” “TWI!” Twilight jumped at the sound of her name as Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash respectively came running into the throne room. The latter of which had a large burse swelling her left cheek. "Oh my gosh!" The alicorn was on her hooves in seconds, hurrying toward the pair. "Dash, what happened?!" "Somepony sucker punched me is what." The flyer growled. "Actually somezebra." A voice corrected. Twilight looked past Pinkie and Rainbow to see Rarity walking in, looking like she had tried and failed to run the Falling of the Leaves in a full sprint. "I came to see if you were alright, Dash. After what I saw-" "You saw that?" The pegasus' cut in, eyes going wide. "How?" "I was heading to Quills and Sofas. Practically the whole market saw it, dear. It was not hard to miss." While Rainbow groaned, the white unicorn took a few deep breaths as she pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket. "Oh my, I forgot how fast you and Pinkie can be when you want to." "Wait!" Twilight focused back on Rainbow. "Zebra? Are you telling me that Zecora did this to you?" Pinkie shook her head. "Nope. My Pinkie sense told me somepony new was was going to be in town and I took a break from Surgarcube corner to see them. I saw a zebra I had never seen before. I thought she might be related to Zecora so I was about to pull out my welcome wagon for her when..." The usually excited earth pony faded as if unsure how to finish her sentence. However Rainbow Dash quickly finished it for her. "She nearly clocked Pinkie in the face!" She half-yelled before hissing and clutching at her swelling face. "Then got me square in the cheek when I tried to stop her." For Twilight, she was hearing an impossibility. Somepony attacking Pinkie Pie? For no reason? Again her thoughts were brought up short. "I can attest to that, Darling." Rarity confirmed with a nod. "Plus I know for a fact Zecora was not in town today. Applejack told me she scheduled a meeting at her hut. Something about a potion for Applebloom's sore throat." She then coughed and tacked on at the end. "And...she was dressed rather nicely considering Zecora's usual attire." "Of course." The blue Pegasus groaned in exasperation. "That would be what you noticed." Twilight cut off Rarity before she had a chance to respond. "So is she still in town?" "No she isn't. Took off out of town after sucker punching me." "Which direction?" There was a moment of heavy silence before Rainbow's eyes widened slightly. "Towards...Fluttershy's house." No sooner had the words left her mouth that her eyes narrowed in anger. "Then I suggest we check up on her. Just in case." Twilight said turning to the white unicorn. "Rarity, could you stay in town and keep a look out for this mare?" Rarity nodded. "I can." "Pinkie, Rainbow. You two come with me. We'll gather up the local guard just in case." Twilight finished. Rainbow Dash flared her wings in response, ready to take off at a moments notice. "Alright." "She looked so scared." The words that left Pinkie's undercut Twilight for a moment and she looked back at the party pony. Even Rainbow's wings drooped a bit in shock. "What do you mean?" "When I saw her face, she looked scared. Not the Nightmare Night fun scared but the facing down a dragon kind of scared. Like I was going to eat her." Pinkie's voice lowered to a mumble. "Nopony's ever looked at me like that before." ~~~~ If there was one thing Hollywood got right in Apocalypse movies, it was that fear was one of the keystones in humanity's destruction. When you tell a huge population of people that they’re going to die and nothing they can do will prevent it....the worst elements of humanity WILL come out. Especially when people are scared and I couldn't be more terrified than I was right now. I sprinted like my life was on the line all the way back to my car. I threw open the door in the backseat and all but jumped inside, slamming the door shut behind me. I shake as I pull my cellphone out of my pocket. It's so bad that I can barely make out the 'No Service' where my bars should be. "Fuck!" I tap the side of my glasses and static greets my ear when the radio inside activates. "Merlin?" I practically beg, as if my plea will suddenly cause bald brilliant bastard to suddenly pick up and say 'Hello.' I tap them again to turn the radio off. In the midst of my breakdown a disturbing fact comes to me, out of all the colors of horse people I saw, I didn't see anyone like me. I was the only one with black and white stripes. I didn't see a single other zebra there. A small town, that looked like a time capsule from the 1800s. No zebra around. My mind began to make disturbing parallels between my world and this...place I was now. Zebra live in Africa and maybe...just maybe history was similar here too. The thought sobers me up from my panic real fucking quick. For all I know, there is now either a lynch mob or slave hunters coming after me for striking a regular citizen. My stomach gives a violent flip again. I need to hide. Quickly, I get out of the car and begin grabbing every bit of free foliage I can from my surroundings and begin camouflaging my car. It's only just behind the thicket of the forest and the canopy offers enough shade but I can't take any chances, if I do get captured I want to know exactly where everything is when I escape. I use a few spare branches to sweep away the hoofprints leading to my position. Once the car is hidden enough, I pop the trunk, grab the sniper rifle, and take a knee behind the nearest bush. I aim towards the town, looking down the scope to observe the road that had been my escape route. Just in time. I see movement crest the hill and...I'm in trouble. There is a line of seven pure white horse men and women, decked out in gold-looking armor. It can't be real gold because that stuff holds up to a bullet slightly better than tinfoil around a baked potato. My stomach flips as they get closer and I get a better look at them. They look very official. I'm guessing military police, at the very least. At the head of the group are three horse women, two of which I recognize. Pink and Blue, skipping and hovering respectively, are followed by a type I didn't notice in town. She is a light shade of lavender, dark purple hair with a pink stripe parting her bangs. She had both wings and a horn. Judging by the way the guards held a close formation around them as they march, its clear that all three are very important. Which means that I have royally screwed the pooch, if I struck and threatened, not one but two instated officials. I do think this is payback for my father. The bigoted asshole that he was. His thinking was so backward, he might as well been a manual stuck in reverse with the clutch missing. Shit. If I'm right and this is some kind of fucked up familial karma, and I pray to God I'm not, I will curse that man even more than I already do. The fact that the law enforcement is all white, doesn't help things either. I'm actually tempted to start picking the guards off from here but then I'm reminded that they could very well comb this forest for me if dead bodies started to pile up. I need to gather information first before anyone started dying. I quickly go back to the trunk, remove the scope, tuck the rifle away, and get my umbrella from the backseat before heading back to my spot by the road. At this point they're close enough, that I can see their faces. Pink looks like, she's on some kind of field trip, Purple is turned to her in conversation and Blue...that bruise is swelling up quite badly. And by the sour look on her face, she, out of anyone, won't be forgetting me any time soon. I watch them pass, deep in conversation as they walk. I wait until they're a ways in the distance before I make my way back towards town, keeping close to the tree line. Walking, the path I carve along the border of the forest curved away from the main road. To the east, the canopy above has grown in so thick that the forest floor is in a perpetual twilight. To the north, strange, reddish trees clash with blue flowers all varieties of colored lichens. I decide to keep my distance from the fauna. My allergies are bad enough without extra aggravation. Finally, I reach an area where I can truly see the town and surrounding area. Close enough to make observations but far enough away that I won't be easily seen. I pull the scope out of my pocket, as well as a notepad and pen out of my suit, and begin to take notes. First thing that's clear to me is the castle smack dab across town and from the glittering I can tell that isn't stone. Crystal maybe? If it is that thing must have taken a lot of tax dollars to build. That and millions of hours of labor. Damn thing looks like it was carved to make the castle seem like it was growing out of a tree. But for a castle, the rest of the area is...underwhelming. The village is quite small. I would think a place considered important enough to have a castle that expensive built there would be a bit more developed. More city like at the very least. I take note of the much smaller buildings and the people around them. The place seems to be built around a central area. The second largest building must be important. Maybe town hall? I would have to figure that out later because I can see the flying ones moving clouds with their hands. Moving clouds. With their hands. And further examination of the town makes clear to me that I was indeed not hallucinating. The horned ones can indeed levitate things around them. Or there is a bad infestation of poltergeists in this town. Guess which one sounds the most sane? "Sane' being the most general term I can use right now. Lots of mathematics are being broken over these horse people's knees right now. How I don't have an aneurysm right then is a miracle unto itself. I stuff the scope in my pocket and sketch out a vague map from what I observe. It's crude as crude gets but it will have to do until I can get myself and actual map. I finish and tuck everything away only to be bent double as my stomach churns. A single dry heave turns into a cough and that cough doesn't stop. I hack and wheeze into my hand for a solid thirty seconds nonstop and when I pull away, the fluid covering my palm feels too thick and looks far too red to be phlegm or saliva. Snap. Oh shit. Oh, you've got to be fucking joking. The noise behind me sounds exactly like he last thing I need right now. I turn around to see, just behind me, another horse girl. Orange this time with freckles. Wearing jeans and plaid and a hat pulled right out of a Clint Eastwood movie. Yeah, okay. She looks at me confused at first but when she leans in she must get a better look at me because her face get pale and she gasps. My appearance has unnerved her no doubt. Hell, it was probably my coughing that attracted her. She has to swallow before she speaks. "Asi...esi hoiy a'geh?" Well, I can't understand her. No surprise. What is surprising is the fact that her accent is thick. Southern like mine when I loose my temper. Never thought I would hear another language paired up with that voice. It gives me something before my stomach kick starts the coughing again. This time though everything is burning. My belly, my chest, my throat, even my goddamn ears are burning like fire ants under my skin. I hear the woman say something else but the pain is just excruciating. I don't have the brain cells to devote to agony and someone else speaking. The coughs don't let up and it gets harder and harder for me to breathe. By now most of the coughing source is from this cycle of breathing in some of the blood I can't get out of my mouth fast enough before the next inhale. The ground begins to list sideways. I pass out before I hit the ground.