//------------------------------//
// Chapter II: Modern Equivalence  
// Story: The Sons of Discord 
// by Gapeagle 
//------------------------------//

"C'mon, hurry up."

I watched with boredom as the gallons of gas slowly rose on the meter. We were out of Manehatten and the unmarked white van was low on gas, so we had to stop to refill it. It was a little embarrassing for a bunch of would-be thieves to be sitting at a lonely gas station along the highway, but that's what happens when the van only gets 8 miles per gallon.

As I waited, I looked down at my phone. There was no website on it or any text messages, but a long list of people. Names, private information, salaries, and other tidbits were all there for me to read. The cashier of the convenient store that accompanied the gas station was a young man named Hunter Skies. He was born in Cloudsdale and moved to Manehatten to attend Sun's University. The poor guy fell into debt and failed his courses, so he dropped out. Was arrested for cocaine possession about eight years ago. Still had student debt and was being paid minimum wage. 

Another was Sandra Hook. She was standing by a silver sedan, also waiting for her car to be filled up. She had three boyfriends. From the images on her phone, she had been screwed by each guy at least once. Hm, one of the dudes was pretty handsome, but he seemed too shallow  by his social media pages. I had the ability to expose her cheating to these guys, but I decided not to. Let their drama deal with them.

The gas pump clicked as it was finished. I looked up at the price. 60 bits? Nah, I wasn't paying for that. I accessed Sandra Hook's credit card number and punched that in the machine. From her accounts, it seemed this particular credit card only had 20 bits left on it. Whoops. Well, she'll soon know she overdrafted. I wanted to feel bad, but she was a cheating little jerk.

I finished the payment and took the receipt. When I was all done, I opened the door to the van and entered the back seats. The music was roaring from the stereo up front. Vinyl and her hard rock from thirty years ago. As I buckled myself, she was busy doing a dorky air guitar. In all her years of living, she probably did know how to play the guitar, but I only saw her composing dubstep and electronic tunes, so I didn't know for sure.

"Let's go, Vinyl," I said.

Like always, she made the van lurch as she pressed on the acceleration. As the van went up a ramp to get back on the highway, I reached for a rifle that was resting beside me. It was a pretty modern rifle too with a grip in the front, scope, and several other accessories. I pulled out the magazine to see to 5.56 mm caliber rounds. It was a powerful rifle meant for the military and it was just sitting in my hands. I put the magazine back in and set it down. I then picked up an ammo vest and started to put it on. We were thieves in this mission, but we always prepared for the worst.

"From the look of things, the driveway is from the north. That's where the gate would be," Scoots informed us as she inspected her phone.

Bobbing my head to the radio's music, fashioned the night-vision goggles to my head. After a quick test to see if they worked, I I reached back and pulled my hood over my head. 

"We'll plan not to go loud and proud, Akay," Vinyl told me. "Don't pack too heavy. We'll probably need to do some climbing."

Fair enough. I checked my sidearm pistol and then activated my two hidden blades. Yes, they were still in use by the Assassins. I had a pair of my own before I joined the Sons of Discord, but they were as ancient as the Bearers of Harmony. Vinyl decided to give me new ones of the modern design. Simple and effective. 

"From Neon's instructions," Scoots began, "the shard is deep in the mansion. It could even be guarded by a vault. From the looks of its location, it's in the basement on the east side."

Vinyl chuckled. "A vault shouldn't keep us out, even if it's non-electric." She tapped on Scoots' twin swords.

"Hehe, yeah," the other replied.

I leaned back. It would be a lie if I said I wasn't nervous. Sure I was used to danger and situations of violence, but the stakes felt much higher. I didn't have the guidance of the Bearers of Harmony. I didn't have the Elemental powers save one that I could barely control. I knew it was odd thinking, but I didn't feel as safe with a gun in my hands as some mystical crystal.

"What'll we do with the shard when we get it?" I asked.

"Easy, we'll stash it in our HQ in Ponyville," Vinyl answered. "Discord likes the shards going there. And if he doesn't need it, well, we'll give it to someone we could use."

"You'll just make someone a shard user?" I was unsure. "That sounds dangerous. I remember Octavia's tales. How Apathy, Doubt, and other shards turned decent people into monsters."

"True," Vinyl looked back at me through the rear view mirror. "But those shards were just nasty to begin with. Also, there's a technique to fighting shards. Just because you have one doesn't mean your mind is gonna be altered. The Sons of Discord know this well. I've seen plenty of shard users come and go and never change because they fought the will of the shards. It's not hard actually."

"Still doesn't seem like something we should risk messing with," I shook my head.

"Well too bad. Ahuizotl Industries use shards whenever they can get them. Well, except this one apparently, which probably means it's not a good one."

I wasn't convinced. I had seen too much of the shards for my life time, and I had never even encountered one. These small magical pieces of crystal had minds of their own. Users, as we liked to call them, could have their minds affected by the shards. It could turn a joyful woman into a nihilistic killer or make a doubtful Assassin into a crazed lunatic. However, Octavia the Assassin was a shard user and she seemed fine according to her writings. That and Scootaloo's twin swords were forged with the shard of Wrath, which gave them magical abilities. So maybe they weren't all bad.

With a sigh, I leaned back and closed my eyes. Tonight was going to be a long one. The old rock was still blaring, but the current song had a soothing melody that made me drift off slightly. I never actually fell asleep though. We rode onward to our destination. Right now, I had to prepare myself mentally.





"We're gettin' close."

I leaned forward to look out through the windshield. We had turned off from the highway about 20 minutes ago and were heading down a two-lane street that had rich houses on both sides. Each one had tall fences surrounding it and each had their own fancy gates. Of course, none of these gates were an obstacle for us as they mostly were electronic. The worst gates would be the ones that had to be manually opened, but we brought tools for that too. 

"We're take a right up at this stop light. From there, it should lead us right to Cinch's mansion," Vinyl told us.

"They'll have guards at the front gate, won't they?" I asked. 

"Templar are protective," Scoots agreed. "But we're use to that stuff. It ain't gonna be a problem."

"We won't go guns blazing," Vinyl said. "We're take out any guards tactically. We may be Chaotic , but we are professionals."

She took the right turn she had talked about. I saw Scoots putting on a silencer for her rifle and so I did the same with mine. As I did so, I started to wonder how the Sons of Discord paid for all its equipment, but then I remembered we didn't really need to pay for any of it. That was for other people to do. The perks of clever identity theft.

"Let's park here. Before anyone go out, turn out the street lights and any cameras."

I nodded at Vinyl's orders. With a few touches of the buttons, we disabled the lights in the streets. The rich neighborhood became pretty dark after this. Another click allowed us to hack the street cameras and any cameras from the rich neighboring houses. All we needed to do was have them loop old footage. Once that was done, we opened the doors and exited the van.

"Now, that's Cinch's mansion," Vinyl pointed at a large mansion at the end of the street. 

The mansion was much larger than any other house. The fence was made of brick, so it was actually a wall. In the darkness, I could see faint outlines of two guards standing in front of the wall's massive gate. None of the other homes had such protection. 

I then remembered the night vision goggles. With a slide of my hand, I put them in front of my eyes, making the world turn a whole different color. Vinyl and Scoots were front of me. Together, we crouched low and approached the Templar mansion from the sidewalk.

There was still light from the other homes, so we had to keep to the shadows. However, we were Assassins, so this wasn't a problem. The years of experience given to me by the Bearers let me keep close to Vinyl and Scoots' movements. The two guards were suspicious about the dead streets, but they held their places. It was a decent distraction for us to get close to them.

"As we get close, ready ya blades. I'll flood their headsets," Vinyl whispered.

Scoots and I separated. She went across the street in a swift and quiet motion. Vinyl went off to my left. I went directly to the closer of the two guards. The only thing that was hiding me was the darkness as I moved through the middle of the street. If any wandering car came by, I would have been screwed, but fortunately, the street remained empty.

Scoots and I were close to the guards. They were chatting about something I didn't care about. I extended my hidden blade and readied myself. The next second, they were screaming and clutching her headsets. I could ear a high-pitched ringing coming from them. While they fought to free their ears, I took my target by surprise and stabbed him in the back. I covered his mouth as I did so and he fell limp in my arms. Scoots did the exact same to the other one and we promptly dragged their bodies to a bush where we dumped them.

We then gathered at the gate with Vinyl. She was looking at her hacking device and making sure everything was in place. 

"Alright, I'm gonna cut all power from here," she told us. "We won't have all the time in the world after that. Once we enter the home, we go straight for the basement. All targets inside are fair game."

She didn't wait for Scoots and I to acknowledge her orders. She instantly started to make the gate slide open and when it was wide enough for us, she made all power in the block go off. All home lights were shut down immediately, leaving the whole neighborhood in complete darkness. It was shocking just how dark it became. 

We sneaked in through the small opening and ran across the wide yard. Vinyl gestured for me to go up. I understood what she meant and strapped the rifle around my chest. It was climbing time. With a running start, I ran up the mansion's brick wall and jumped to a window. The window had no blinds and so I could see inside. The coast looked clear, so I used my hidden blade to open the window by cutting the lock. While one hand held me up, I used the other to open the window. With a grunt, I threw myself inside.

The mansion was one complex place. Stairs and stairs and more stairs. I was on the second level of what seemed to be four. That wasn't including the basement. The design of the place was of an ancient era, probably 400 years ago. This place was old but newly refurbished. However, I could not stand by and admire the place's furniture or wallpaper.

I was inside so that I could open the front door. Damn conventional locks. They were so loud. The place where I stood was not far from the front door. All I needed to do was climb over a banister and jump down to the main hall. I was about to do just that, but the world became a faded blue. The Elemental Vision had taken over me once more. 

Red outlines of armed figures filled my head. I could see them through the walls. I could hear their faint cries as they panicked about the power outage. One guard was coming towards me. He was on the other side of a door and was about to open it. I raised my rifle and shot several times through the door. I saw his red outline fall over and fade away. My vision went back to normal right after.

"Aw, damn..."

Without wasting anymore time, I jumped down and unlocked the door for Vinyl and Scoots. The three of us started to sneak about the mansion. I was a bit shaken up by just how close the guard was to me. Well, if he was a guard. I tried to not let it stick with me as I followed my two companions. 

The Elemental Vision flashed once more, letting me get one quick glimpse at the locations of nearest guards. None of them were ahead of us, so I kept silent and let Vinyl lead us on. We went through a tight hallway that led into an open room full of glass cases. My goggles could make the images of paintings on the walls. It was like we stepped inside a museum. My history-buff side wanted me to stop and see what artifacts and pieces of history were here, but I couldn't stop. 

We went silently passed this room and deeper into the mansion. Vinyl stopped us before we entered a hall that went perpendicular to the way we were heading. A blinding light was in the hallway and I couldn't see anything. I lifted my goggles up to simply see that a guard was in the hallway with a flashlight. He was also talking on a walky talky.

"What cut us off?" he said with a Baltimarian accent. "Is it just us?"

"Nah, whole block's down," the guard on the other side answered. "These things happen ya know."

"Yes, but we can't take any chances. Those Chaotic bastards could be doing this!" 

"Fine. Hunter Squad inbound."

"Good."

He let go of the walky talky and was reaching for something in his belt. Vinyl extended her blade and rushed him. Before he could react, she pounced on him and stabbed him in the neck. His flashlight fell on the hard floor with a loud clang. I was quick to pick it up and turn it off. Vinyl cursed under her breath, but in the quietness, we could still hear it perfectly.

"Shit! We gotta hurry. Guns free."

We started moving through the mansion standing up. We would point our rifles down every hall to make sure it was clear before moving on. Finally, we reached some steps that went to the basement below. With haste, Vinyl led us to the bottom where it opened up to a large completed room. Not much was in it, save for some furniture with white drapes over them and a few sitting paintings. There, on the other side, was a shut vault.  

I ran over to it and tried to open it. It was still locked despite the power shut down. This meant that there was no way to hack into it, so we had to bust it open. Scoots pushed me out of the way and drew her swords out from her back. The intense light that came from them made Vinyl and I remove our goggles. The twin swords began to heat up to a ridiculous temperature. They looked like they had been sitting in a furnace for hours. I had to block the heat with my hand, but even that wasn't enough, so I took several steps away.

"Make it fast, Scoots. The light's only gonna attract them," Vinyl said.

Scoots nodded before drawing the swords back and then stabbing them into the vault. The powerful magic of the broken shards in the handles made the swords melt through the hard steel. Scoots still grunted as she pushed them in, but it was clear they were penetrating the vault with relative ease. She started to slice through it slowly, making one large circle. It wasn't a quiet process. The sounds it made reminded me of a welding torch. 

"Almost there..."

A couple of seconds later and she had completed the circle. She withdrew the blades and triumphantly kicked the metal circle, opening the hole. I physically cringed at the loud noise the whole thing made. There was no doubt the guards in the mansion heard it. 

"Get it and let's scram!" Vinyl ordered.

I looked inside the vault. There, on a stand, was a glass case with a single shard in it. It was a pinkish color. Scoots reached and took the whole case and we turned to escape the building. We could hear the footsteps of the guards above us. Vinyl reached for her hacking device when we reached the bottom of the steps.

"I'll overload their communications. It'll give us a little time. If ya see one, kill him," she said.

With a press of a button, I started to hear the faint ringings of their headsets. Their screams of pain followed swiftly. It was a sort of signal to us that we could proceed up the steps. At the top there was a guard who was fighting to take the headset out of his ears. We quickly shot him down and moved on. 

"You know what? Prepare your eyes, girls. It's time to bring the light back in," Vinyl pulled her phone.

I took my goggles off and squinted my eyes. It was like broad daylight the next moment as all the lights turned on. We took shelter behind an overturned table and waited. We had to leave soon. Once it was clear that no guards were coming at that moment, we took off down a hallway. 

"They're in here somewhere!" a guard shouted.

"Sergeant's down! Found two dead in the bushes!"

As we went down the hall, another guard popped up. He raised his rifle, but he did not get a shot off as his head burst open from Scoots' bullets. In the light, I could see the Ahuizotl insignia on his shoulders. Vinyl spat on the guard's body as we went by.

"I'm cutting the lights out again. This constant change will mess with them."

Vinyl turned off the power again and I had to get my goggles back over my eyes. We went by the open room with all the historic artifacts. After that, we were soon to the exit. It was unspoken that we weren't going to leave by the front door. Instead we climbed up to the second floor where I entered. Without slowing down, we jumped through the open window. A guard had spotted us with his flashlight and started firing, but we were out of the window unscathed.

I rolled upon hitting the grass. There were two guards outside. As they turned around to face us, Scoots tossed the shard into my hands and pulled out her swords. Two blindingly bright blades ran at the guards with furious speed. Scoots impaled them both at the same time. As the blazing swords stabbed through them, their bodies went up in flames. 

I carried the shard and its case from then on. Guns fired at us from the windows of the mansion. The whole neighborhood was most likely terrified. We ran with all our might down the street to the van. The van's lights turned on and its old engine roared as Vinyl turned it on with her phone. 

"Get in! Get in!" Vinyl yelled with a shrill voice.

Some bullets flew by me and hit the back of the van. I opened the back and basically threw myself inside. The goggles on my head were ripped off by a bullet that barely missed my head. With one valiant heave, I close the doors and kept myself low. Vinyl entered the driver's seat and we took off with a burn of the tires.

The gunfire ceased then and the loud noises were replaced by the sirens of a police car. I looked back through the van's back door windows to see an Ahuizotl armored van come after us. This was no doubt the Hunter Squad that was called in. The hair on the back of my head stood up on end.

"Vinyl! They're coming for us!"

"Yeah yeah! I know!"

"Why can't we get a faster vehicle?" I complained. "This thing is like thirty years old!"

Vinyl growled back. "This van's my baby!"

"Well, it sucks!" I told her.

"Back then, these vans were all the rage..."

"Back when hippies drove them!"

"Oh shut it!"

The van's engine growled as we flew down the street. The armored vehicle closed in on us. A soldier hung himself out of a side window and began to fire at us. I returned fire, but my aim was off and only cracked the bulletproof windshield.

"Any ideas?" I panicked.

"Yeah! Just watch, kid!"

She took a hard turn and we sped down another street. Cars that were obeying the speed limit seemed like they were standing still to us. The Ahuizotl van swerved around the slower cars like we did and easily kept up with us.  Bullets flew by us and around me. I changed magazines as I emptied one clip. I finally hit the Ahuizotl scum that was shooting at me. His body flew out of the window and was lost. 

Suddenly, I realized we had entered a intersection. All the cars were entering it. We hit one small sedan and brushed it aside. As the intersection crowding with more cars, the Ahuizotl van stormed through and hit a speeding pickup truck. The truck was flipped over and smashed onto another car. The Templar van was stopped dead in the center of the intersection. My eyes widened as a horrid crash developed behind us. 

"You asshole!" I shouted. "Vinyl, you did that, didn't you?"

"What's ya problem?" Vinyl asked back. "It got the Templar off us. I'm sure those unfortunate blokes are jus' fine."

"You just used innocent people!"

"For a good cause! Akay, we aren't Assassins like the ones that you read about. I ain't like Tavi, and I certainly ain't like the Bearers. This war has changed, alright? In this modern age, we gotta use everything ya got. I was jus' usin' my resources. Turning all the lights green is a nice and easy trick to get some sods of ya tail."

We were in the clear now. Everything seemed peaceful once more. I sat back down in my chair and tossed the shard in the air absently. All this for a little crystal that could be completely useless to us. With a sigh, I leaned back and rubbed my eyes. The heist was not as long as I thought it would be, but my notion that it was going to be a long night still stood. I wondered how many were injured or how many died in that crash. It wasn't noble and it certainly wasn't Harmonic. However, that was the new war, like Vinyl said. Innocent blood was always on the table, whether I liked it or not.


~