//------------------------------// // Chapter One: Supply & Security. // Story: The Manehatten Project // by Ddraigtanto //------------------------------// The Manehatten mayoral elections had been a landslide, nearly the entire city had come out in force, and the new mayor had won quite an amazing majority. It brought him a new office, a new job, and all the perks of being a mayor... "Ha ha!" Otto chuckled, looking around the new office in Manehatten City Hall. "This office is huge! It makes my old office feel like a toilet cubicle." He cantered around the room, unable to contain his excitement to his entourage, one of which was Janine, holding a bottle of champaign, a little celebration for his election win; with her was his brother, Theo Cratic; Brass Tacks, a well-built stallion who served as Theo's bodyguard; and Fleetwood Mac, Otto's personal errand runner, his second most trusted underling (behind Janine); and a number of ponies from the press and the office. "This has been quite the turn of events, I think it's time to crack open the bubbly, don't you think?" The cork on the bottle was popped by Janine and the crowd cheered. "Thank you everybody, I couldn't have done this without you. I assure you, you've made the right decision voting for me as mayor. Big things are coming, my little ponies. Big things..." It was an ambitious vow to make, he was very much aware of this truth as he clinked glasses in a toast with his companions. He had work to do: He had big plans for Manehatten, but he couldn't draw the attention of the Royal Princesses, or worse still, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, or these newfound, bizarre transformations he'd heard they'd acquired in the place of the elements. If that happened, and they descended upon him, he was finished, and everything would be lost. He was NOT prepared to let that happen, and so, he had one score to settle before he could begin: Tying up a loose end, and securing an opportunity... A few days had passed since Otto's ascension to mayor, and life in Manehatten had returned to normal, nobody batting so much as an eyelid at the change in administration: That was exactly how he wanted it. If the ponies in the city resented his rise, or too many eyes were laid upon him at once, it would only make his job harder. In this instance, a degree of breathing room was important: He was meeting a pair of very important 'clients' from 'Fifallmm General Trading Ltd.' It was a front, of course, an idea cultivated between Otto and the clients to protect their anonymity. Of course, he knew who they were. He'd waited until night for his meeting, the cover of darkness would make it easier for them to enter his office undetected, for everyone had gone home already (even Janine, she was young, after all, far too young for Otto to keep her up this late!). He then planned to down so much cider that it would scramble his brains and make his dreams utterly incomprehensible: Who would've thought that the best way to keep Princess Luna from spying on your dreams was binge drinking?! Otto knew, but he learned that the hard way... Drinking heavily had its other problems, it was a good thing he lived only down the hall now! Two tall, beige stallions trotted into the office, cheery faced, greasy red maned stallions entered, dressed in white and blue striped waistcoats and straw hats: The Flim Flam Brothers. They were excellent at turning over a quick bit, and seemed to be able to make money from almost anything, but they were tricksters, and had scammed people up and down Equestria with all manner of different schemes, from drink, to miracle cures, they'd even managed to con Prince Blueblood into buying a suit made of the finest 'invisible silk' from Saddle Araba. Before they had the chance to speak, Otto jumped in first: If they were allowed to start the conversation, it would inevitably turn into a sales pitch, and HE was the one in control here, not them! "You got my invitation then? Did you bring it like I asked you to?" "Sure we did. Show him, Brother." One of the two ponies (which damn brother was which was almost impossible for Otto to tell) spoke to the other. The other nodded, pulling out a letter from a saddlebag with his horn. "I'm going to need that letter back before we begin." The mayor continued. The other brother smirked. "Oh really? What's it worth to you?" Otto frowned, he'd expected this. "Well, I was hoping you'd ask that, because I indeed have an offer to make you, but not for the letter." He smirked. "Your shoes were... Definitely something." "Ah, those red beauties." Left-Brother (Possibly Flim if they always stood Flim-Flam, and didn't move about). "They're keen. You put them on and you'll dance like you never danced before." "They like to run away with you though." Possibly-Flam mentioned. "But I'm guessing, mayor, you know that already?" "I do." He scowled. "The pony I gave them to died hours after she put them on." The pair fell silent. "She danced, of course, she twirled and pranced to make the princesses jealous. But, then, they danced her off the side of her yacht, and she drowned. It was in the news if you recall... And I still have proof that you sold them to me." "But wait here a cotton picking minute!" Possibly-Flim protested: "That can't be right! They've never killed a pony before! Our great Uncle Swindle made the mistake of making the shoes irremovable, the poor filly had to have her hooves cut off! We made sure they could be taken off!" "Yeah, killing ponies is bad for business..." "Like nearly convincing an O.A.P to dive into a pie dish of water thanks to a tonic?" Otto snorted. "You've got track record. So how about you give me that letter back, and we start talking REAL business? Or else, when they come to lock you up, I'll ensure you're sent to seperate prisons." They both blinked, the room going deadly quiet. "You wouldn't." Flim spoke. "I would." Otto spat. "Try me." "But you knew exactly what you were buying when you bought it. You'd get into just as much trouble for giving the old mayor magic shoes as we would!" "I've been friends with Mayor Goldstreets for nearly 10 years. I can claim plausible deniability, do you want to take that risk?" Silence befell the room again while the two salesponies whispered to one another. After a while, they sighed, and the letter was floated over to Otto. "Fine, you win." One of the two brothers spoke with a huff. Otto, not done yet, beckoned them over to a UV lamp on his table. He placed the letter underneath its blue glow, showing something which, judging by the looks on their faces, they hadn't checked for: a sign of authenticity, the seal of Manehatten, designed to show under the proper lights. "Awww, shucks! I knew we should've checked for that!" Flim groaned, as Flam watched Otto float the letter away, and burst it into flames with his magic, disintegrating the paper, and destroying the record. "Now, I'm a merciful pony." The mayor continued. "And you two get results. You could somehow find an industrial cider press the size of a steam train for Celestia's sake! ...I need ponies like you, someone I can use to acquire things for me, should I need them. If I need more shoes, you'll get me more shoes. If I need spellbooks, you'll get me spellbooks. If I want magic weapons, you'll find them for me. I'll pay, cash, very generously, but nothing gets traced to me. If I go down, you go down with me. If I'm successful in my plans, I'll give you all the farmland you want..." Have their already nefarious name dragged through the mud, or get cosy with the mayor of Manehatten? It was not a difficult choice. Otto still wasn't sure if he could trust the duo just yet, but he was at least confident he'd bought their silence for a time, he just had to find the best way to profit from his investment. For now though, he was hoping to rest, grab a bite to eat, and plan his next move... "Listen, I know it's late, but I'm the mayor for Celestia's sake. I need that toaster repair pony, now! So as Celestia is my witness, get that little pipsqueak here ASAP, or there's going to be one hell of a fallout if I have to buy a new toaster!" Otto hung up with a sulking pout upon his face. He had a secret love for hay bacon toasties, and he always seemed to have his best ideas while eating. However, it seemed his toaster was on the fritz, and that put him in a bad mood. He paced up and down his kitchen, grabbing a crystal bottle of scotch from a cupboard with his telekinesis, floating it, and a small glass, with his magic as he flopped into a chair, miserably drinking down the glass in an instant, refilling it, and repeating the process with a sigh. He wasn't getting his toaster fixed until tomorrow, it was far too late for it to be fixed tonight, he knew it to be true, even being mayor wouldn't change that. A fireplace crackled warmly near his chair as he floated several books over, and setting them down on a nearby table. One such book, The Haycart Method: How NOT to Get Lost in a Good Book, was of particular interest to him. A study aid, on the surface of it: A spell talented unicorns could learn to literally lose themselves in a book, becoming a picture on its pages, fully conscious and able to move, and able to positively swim in the book's lines in a way one can't quite put into words. A pony upon the page could see... strange things: Dimensions of the page and the real world could be seen, if one looked properly. He smirked, flipping through the pages: This was a RARE book... And a mess, pages were missing, words were worn. As much as he'd gained a theoretical knowledge of Haycart's method, he couldn't copy the spell for himself, nor could he teach it to others with the book in this state... ...This was the first task he'd given the Flim Flam Brothers: He'd asked for them to go and find a complete copy of the book, and had offered a generous reward if they did as he told them. He wondered if they'd try to con him again, the thought amused him. Maybe they'd find some similar looking book and try to pass it off as the thing he'd sought; maybe they'd find some old copy, and tried to fill in the blanks themselves, or not; maybe, maybe they'd be smart enough to know that Otto would see such scams from a mile away, and would pull their horns off if they tried it. On the flip side, to them, he hoped, they would just see a book, and lack the magical ability to use it themselves, though they might try. After downing a few more drinks, he climbed into bed and slept. He liked to have alcohol in his system when he went to bed, still under the belief that Princess Luna kept had trouble visiting the dreams of drunken ponies, or simply abstained from even trying. He had no way to test this theory, and indeed, how was he to know if any dream was his own, or a construct of the princess, or indeed, if her apperance was her visiting his dreams, or his own subconscious imagining it. It kept him up at night sometimes, a train of thought which could end up landing the mayor in paranoia if he wasn't careful... * * * "That bucking snooper." Otto snarled to his brother, clutching his head as his hangover bit into his brain. "That interfering nocturnal princess, gah, my head..." "So you saw her? Princess Luna, in your dream?" Theo asked, looking at Otto with a look of worry and amazement. "Damn right I did." He answered. "She just sat and watched my nightmare haunt me, perhaps she even made it so. She sat from the top of the Trojan Square Building. It was like that damnable horse head was her, watching me. I bucking hate that building..." "What happened in the dream, you haven't told me yet." "Wolves. Timberwolf, chasing me... But..." He winced. "The damn thing was made of bones, pony bones... And... It was wearing shoes, red ones." He winced. "You know, Paver's. On the night she died." Theo winced. "You can't blame yourself, brother." He comforted, unaware that Otto very much could blame himself, and should. "You couldn't swim, and even the ones who could couldn't save her, her dress was too heavy, and she'd put a spell on it so it couldn't just be cut off. All the range for making them durable, but awful if they're weighing you down, I suppose." "Still, it scared me, and the damn princess did nothing..." Otto scowled. "...I guess, I truly can't rely on the princesses to help me here. I must help myself." "What are you going to do...?" Otto smiled. "I think, I have an idea..." 'Always carry plenty of bits. The griffons are sure to help you as long as you share the wealth.' This was a mindset which had prevailed through the reign of King Grover. He'd brought Griffinstone onto the brink of a Renaissance and a seismic shift towards becoming a better people. What a wasted opportunity. Otto found it hard to believe that a treasure could change a people. No, it was Grover: It was no coincidence that the death of King Grover, and the loss of the Idol of Boreas saw the demise of Grover's dream: Two tragedies befalling of such scale befalling a nation in such quick succession would break the spirits of anypony. But it DID present him an opportunity now. During his reign, King Grover had two sects of personal guards, much as the princesses' did: The Groverclaws, his royal guards. But then, there was the Ravenclaws: A secret sect of spies, assassins and agents for the king. Together, they'd made the most ferocious and powerful fighting force of griffins in all of Equestria and beyond. Without a king though, they were drivided: Many held the ideals of their king, leaving the declining Griffinstone, and becoming some of Equestria's first griffin families. Others, however, succumbed to the mercenary nature of Griffin society, and became mercenaries themselves. "Does Manehatten really need this much security?" Janine asked, nervously watching the army of heavily armored griffins. "They're kinda scary, sir." "Yes, we do. Remember Tirek." Otto snorted. "We don't know what threats might befall Equestria, and the princesses clearly lack the power to stop him without Twilight Sparkle's intervention. And I don't want to rely on Twilight Sparkle. We are Manehatten. And them? They're griffins. How many griffins got hunted down and had their magic drained by Lord Tirek? None. Either he couldn't drain them, or there was no magic in them to drain. Either way, those buckers are so tough, I'll bet even the Royal Guard might think twice about a tussle with them." He smirked. "Besides, my dear, these griffins are soldiers at heart. There's nothing they'll love more than having a proper job in military service again." It was comforting words, and Janine seemed relieved. Of course, she didn't know that he was paying the Griffin's captain, a griffin by the name of Adrienne Ashfeather, a gray griffin with a small tuft of cotton-white feathers at her breast, she was paid to serve Otto, not necessarily Manehatten. They made a fine personal guard and... Enforcement, if ever needed. But Otto's intentions were only for the good of Manehatten, so it made no difference in his mind. ...There was plenty of room for people to worry, though. The griffins had refused to adopt the thin, gold-plated armour of the Equestrian Guard, and had instead chosen the black, red and gold heavy plate armour of their native Griffinstone, as well as their coat of arms: A branch over a weighing scale, upon a black/gold/black bicolour shield. The griffins, it seemed, were very proud of their heritage, even if they had forsaken the values of their old king in the process. Ponies were easily frightened, and these battle-hardened, scarred, hulking griffins might well scare some softer fillies and colts, but this was but one small worry to the Manehatten mayor: If all lay well and Celestia allowed it, the griffins would eventually blend into the background as ponies became used to their presence, and all would be well.