//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1- Just what is The Nonary Game? 
// Story: The Nonary Game 
// by CresentMadness 
//------------------------------//

 Prologue 
A game.... A games only meant to be played right? But what about this one? This one does seem like an interesting game to play? Just what is this game about? The Nonary Game.... People are specially selected for this special game and not many come back to tell the tale of it.  It's a mystery to a lot of people. Rumors say that people go missing because of it. It's even made the paper of these missing people. I wonder.. Just what is The Nonary Game?

 Chapter 1 

Manehatten, December 18th, 2028. Equestria.

It was a bright sunny day in Equestria, Princess Celestia had raised the sun high in the sky and the clouds just coated the skies showing it was time for the snowflakes to fall to the ground, to coat the sweet grown grass and flowers to put the ground to rest for a few months. As Solitaire wondered around the snowy white path holding her bags on her back with her magic and trotted onward making her way to her College. It was the last day of term and she had planned to meet with a few friends later after college.

"Blasphemy! My friend isn't dead! I saw her! I saw her get kidnapped!" A pony screeched at the police, struggling to get into the doors of the station. From what Solitaire had just saw, this stallion was being held back by a few other stallions, royal guards, the ones that protects the royal princesses of Equestria.

"It was a masked pony it tell you! She was drugged and taken away! Why wont you listen to me!? Let me see the princess! I need to see her!" the stallion continued to screech at the royal guards more, waving his forelegs and flapping his wings madly. The royal guards gripping tightly onto the stallion to push him back were getting tired of his same old ramblings over and over again.

Now Solitaire wasn't known to eavesdrop, but this stallions story or hollering had caught her attention and it seemed quite interesting to her, seeing the stallion continuing to struggle and writhe from the royal guard's grip, shouting at the top of their lungs "I hope you all will be put in The Nonary Game! Then you will know my pain!"

Solitaire quickly turned her head and continued to walk down the street, thinking about what this pony had just said... well screeched angrily and headed to her class. She had computers in the class so she could get information about this so-called "Nonary Game"
"Just what is The Nonary Game?" she thought in her head, climbing into a computer seat and started to type in her usual log in. She clicked on a few things as she researched what this game was all about, it didn't take long for her to get annoyed with her futile work.

"Why!! Come one there has to be something about this? Missing people reports... newspaper articles anything!" she growled looking around at the classroom,Just seeing the tables and chairs sprawled out across the room.  Ponies were just heading home, coming and going through the door and some even packing their stuff up.

Hours later, Solitaire finally grew tired of trying to research about The Nonary Game and place her head on the desk, tapping her hind leg against the floor "Why? Why can't I find anything about this, this annoying game? Is this even a game or a thing?" she thought in her mind, trying to think hard on what this was. "I'm a fool for even thinking that that mad pony was talking some sense... now I feel just as bad as that very pony" she muttered looking at the screen.

She soon felt a soft hoof on her shoulder and a soft voice "Solitaire? Is everything OK? You seemed to be annoyed about something, perhaps you would like to talk about it?"

She turned her head slowly to where the voice had come from and saw her teacher, Mrs. Mist. She smiled weakly and nodded slowly letting her teacher take a seat next to her as she sat up in a slight slump. "Sorry Purple Mist, I just thought I had something to use as a good story but I can't find anything about it, all my research is futile about it... and now I know that this isn't going to end well because of the deadline to the college papers" she sighed, tapping her hooves together in annoyance.

"Well what have your heard about it so far? And may I as what you are researching about Solitaire?" Purple looked at her in slight concern, she never saw one of her students in this much of a trouble over a simple article for the newspaper.

Solitaire looked at her with sad eyes, slowly taking her green top hat off with her forehoof , showing her sprawled messed up, grey and blue tinted mane "Well I heard that a pony was kidnapped by a masked pony when I was walking down the street from here. He kept rambling over something called The Nonary Game. It turns out the stallion was the ponies friend who was kidnapped, but when I try to find anything about this game I hardly find anything, it's proving to be a pain in the neck. Ah.. to think this would be a good scoop that would get people to read about" She grunted rolling her eyes "I feel like a fool."

Purple ruffled Solitaire's mane a little with her hoof and smiled sweetly "Well think about it Solitaire, sweety. In my opinion you have just the right amount of information there to write about your small story, maybe you can produce one of your best stories yet. Don't get down over the small things" she chuckled and smiled at her before gently taking her hat from Solitaire's hooves and placing it on her head "Now you pack your things up and get going home, its getting late and college is going to close soon"

Solitaire giggled and glanced at the clock, it was about 5 PM "Wait its that time already?" she thought and stood up, turning to the computer, saving what she had found and turning it off. "Thank you Mist, you really helped me there. I'm sure I'm going to make this my best work yet" She grinned happily and grabbed her bag using her magic and trotted out the class room in a hurry.

~~~

She looked up to the sky and saw the clouds had started to form more, covering the stars that had poked out from behind them. Night time had came so quickly when it comes to winter. Night time had became so beautiful to the ponies around the town and they had the elegant princess Luna to thank for that.  Her hoofsteps began to get quicker as she saw her bus drive past the main street, to her surprise it was the only vehicle she had seen since she had got out of her college.

A sudden chill soon ran down Solitaire's spine, ruffling her lilac colored fur coat, something in the air felt different to her, like fear had entered at a terrifying pace. Things didn't seem right it, almost sickening  for Solitaire to be outside in the cold on her own. Solitaire shook her head, holding onto her green top hat as her mane became more messy and tangled thanks to the soft breeze that the pegasi was making with their wings. Thinking it was nothing Solitaire braced herself and carried on walking, her eyes being cautious as she looked around the streets seeing if any other pony would be around at this time when she remembered about the bus "Oh damn it I'm going to miss the bus!"

Her hoofsteps changed their pace making their way into a gallop as she found herself running, the air was sickening like it was strangling her, getting to her and she didn't like it one bit, becoming frantic she gasped as if she needed clean air. To another pony it would seem that she wasn't running from something but Solitaire knew, somewhere in the back of her mind she was being followed by someone or something. She darted straight forward using her forelegs to give her a boost of power and speed and turned her head behind her. She saw nothing at first just the Manehatten buildings and the streetlights flickering ever so slightly, then a shadow appeared, a shadow of a tall pony that was slowly edging closer to her one hoofstep at a time, the features of the pony soon stood out, it was grey, wearing a cape as black as the night could be, its body shaped as a stallion. She tried to change her pace, her mane flowing behind her as she held onto her prized hat with her magic. 

"This can't be happening, I thought it was just a story... I thought it was...!" she yelped with a neigh, rearing onto her back legs and throwing out her forelegs in a frenzy breaking herself back into a gallop her ears pushed back as they flicked a little from the breeze that had seemed to carry on from the sudden meeting of the shadowed stallion. Was it the Masked pony she had heard of?
She soon turned her head to look behind her seeing the pony had seemed to have moved closer to her, Solitaire couldn't make out it's face. Did it even have one?

"Ah fudge! I have to get away now!" Solitaire shouted "I need to get help!" she turned quickly to the right running down an alleyway that she knew was the shortcut to the police station when she tripped, her face slamming onto the cold pavement.She felt a warm substance drip from her muzzle, as it slowly trickled onto the floor. She was dazed and pushed her front hooves in front of her, pushing herself back up shakily, falling back down again from one of her hooves slipping forward. 
"Not now, you have to get up. You have to run" she mumbled to herself and slowly picked herself back up, she was panicked and scared for what was chasing her.

Just as she was about to start running a cold cloth was stuffed over her muzzle causing her to breath rapidly, her eyes slowly began to get heavy as she struggled to get out of the ponies grip that was holding onto her foreleg and pressing her back against its cold leather like outfit. Seconds soon felt like minutes and she found herself dozing off from whatever substance was on that cloth and blackened out.