Rise From Betrayal

by Diokno44

I-A Plot Uncovered

Downtown Canterlot, the seedier portion of the noble city. While a majority of the ancient town is the pinnacle of equine civility and nobility, there exist a small bastion, filled with cutthroats, addicts, and criminal scum. A light flickers on the second floor of a shoddy looking establishment. The stench of cheap booze and sweat emanate from the old bar. The Prancing Pony, once a respected gentlestallion's club, is now the main headquarters of the criminal underworld. Outside, a stallion, his form covered by a dark grey rainslick, trots to the building, he has a purpose at this den of inequity.

Upstairs, in a shadowed window booth, a group of ponies sit. Three stallions, and two mares. Half-empty tankards of spiced cider sit before them. The head of their group, an alabaster Unicorn, his coat freshly combed, as was his golden mane and tail, shimmer off the flickering gaslight. His face, noble and calm underneath, his hidden behind a mask, resembling a wolf's visage. A simple disguise, but an effective one, to hide the identity of Prince Blueblood the 300th, many-times great grandnephew of Princess Celestia. He coughs into a hoof, "So, are the weapons ready, Sir Gallant Heart?" He asked the stallion sitting across from him.

Solar Guard Lieutenant Gallant Heat, his left eye having a thin scar running from the top of the upper eyelid, to the bottom of the lower eyelid was his most distinguishing feature, nodded. "Yes, I've stashed them in a few hollowed out spaces, the floor beneath my desk, underneath your bed, Blueblood, etc." Blueblood nodded in satisfaction, taking a small sip of his drink. "Ivory Shell here has been planning out any and all escape routes." He hooves some rolled up scrolls to Blueblood. "Sadly, Lords Cosmo, Greengrass, and Vice fell ill for this meeting, but, here, are the mapped out routes, and, thanks to some careful snooping, the patrol routes for later tonight."

Blueblood broke the seals, and began looking over the notes, a thin smile gracing his lips. "Excellent work Gallant, your help, as always, is invaluable." He slapped his hoof against the shoulder of the lieutenant. "With these in hoof, all of Sparkle's plans to give power to...commoners." There was a collective shudder of disgust from the assembled group. "And allow filthy non-equines to live with us, will die with her." He raised his mug, as did his fellows, "Par le sang, la paix" The others repated their oath, Through blood, peace, a Prench phrase Blueblood had come to love.

Meanwhile, from a booth across from theirs, a stallion rose, his cloak swaying about him. Tossing a few bits on the oily wooden table, he began galloping away from the seedy bar and brothel.

If one looked closely, one could see a glint of golden armor hidden beneath the rain slick.

----X----

Twilight mumbled, turning over in her bed. There was a loud knocking at her door. Smacking her lips, and rubbing her eyes, the Princess of Friendship slowly trotted to her bedroom door, and opened it. She found a familiar blue maned stallion, her friend-with-benefits, and former coltfriend, Flash Sentry. "Flash? It's..." She glanced at her clock, "10:44, what is it?" She asked.

Flash panted, catching his breath. "Twilight, I followed Blueblood to downtown, I overheard him and a few others talking. I-I think they may want to kill you." Twiliight's eyes widened, as she took a step back. "T-they said they wanted your plans of social reform, to die with you."

Twilight began to hyperventilate, trying to focus her breathing. "When?" He pointed to the one on the clock. "A-alright, I might have a plan, you know that mirror image spell I showed you and Sunset last time she visited?" He nodded, from what he recalled, it was an illusion spell, one allowing an exact duplicate of a pony to be made, that was when it hit him. She smiled, her horn glowing. A shimmer of pulsating, violet light appeared over where had been sleeping. A beam of light slowly went up and down, as it slowly made a copy of Twilight, who, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be sleeping. Flash nodded, and trotted back to his room. Carefully pulling the covers over her doppelganger, she slipped under the bed, a mini scrying portal in the corner of the ceiling, barely the size of a common house fly. Breathing slowly, she waited, as the clock ticked in rhythm with her exhales.

Hours later, just as she was about to doze off for the the second time, she heard the door slowly creak open. Turning her eyes to the scrying spell, she witnessed several ponies, their faces obscured by masks, daggers glinting at their side, approach her bed. She held her breath, watching as they raised their knives over her double. With the sound of metal wetly hitting flesh, they dug into her, artificial blood staining their murderous blades. The deed done, the first assassin, who, from turning his head to congratulate his fellows, was revealed to be none other than Lieutenant Gallant Heart lit his horn. The assailants vanished in a flash of light, as the sound of a guard's enchanted hoofguards clattered closer to her bedroom.

The guard, a recruit by the looks of her, no more than a mare fresh out of college, came into the room. She gasped, her spear, acting as both a traditional melee weapon, and a projectile launcher, clattered to the floor. Her face, for the disguise enchantment had failed in her shock, made her copper coat turn as pale as when disguised, was twisted in horror. She fought back the urge to vomit, and immediatly raced down the hall, "Alert the guards! Princess Twilight Sparkle has been attacked! Princess Twilight Sparkle has been attacked!" She yelled. Twilight felt bad for the young recruit, but still stayed hidden, waiting for the opportune moment to reveal herself.

Minutes later, Princess Celestia, her beautiful, radiant marefriend, entered the room, accompanied by several of her guards. She rushed over to the duplicate, cradling it in her gentle forehooves. It pained her heart to do this, but all would be well soon. She covered her eyes, as an explosion of magical healing energy washed over the area, bathing it in light. If Twilight had to guess, you could see the blast from Manehatten.

"Twilight, Twilight...d-don't leave me. Please." Celestia pleaded to the heavens, tears streaming down her face. She laid a gently kiss on the lips of the lavender double, tears splashing against its artificial skin, and trailing down its body.

That was when Celestia looked closer. The artificial blood that spell creation bled was not entirely red, it had a violet tinge to it, a result of Twilight's magic. That, and the lips she had tenderly kissed, which normally tasted of vanilla and lavender, tasted like warm ash, and ice. Slowly, Twilight crawled from under the bed, and was immediately enveloped in the warm embrace of Celestia. "You're alive!" She muttered, burying her face into Twilight's chest.

"I know Celly, if Flash hadn't warned me..." She trailed off, as the castle staff began removing the blood stained sheets. She gently squirmed out from other the large Alicorn's body, groaning. "We have to make Gallant and the others," She showed her scrying recording to Celestia, who growled. "think they succeded. I'll write a letter to my friends and family to let them know I'm alive." She quickly began gathering materials. "I've have to go dark, disguise myself. If I can try and get the reforms passed, then we can have some unity, and nab them when we know who else was part of the plot." Maybe she had been reading to many mystery and spy novels, but it was all she had to go with.

"After that, would we reveal you're alive?" Celestia asked, sitting on her haunches. Twilight nodded, as her horn glowed dimly. Her coat began to change color, turning from the beautiful lavender Celestia loved, to a lush forest green. Her wings slowly, but surely, became invisible, starting at the tips, and descending, until she looked like any old Unicorn. Her mane gained a bit of a curl at the end, and the part closest to her face became curled as well, turning into a fiery red color, with a light yellow highlight. Using a bit of illusion magic, and some quickly colored paper, her Cutie Mark changed to that of a rolled up scrolls interlaced with a quill. "Though I prefer your usual look, this should work Twily." She nuzzled her marefriend.

"Thanks Celly, and, when we're in public, its Forest Scribe." Twlight smiled, then turned to the simulucrum of herself, its forelegs folded over its chest, as if in prayer. "Well, I guess we should prepare "my" funeral, but first..." Grabbing a fresh quill, parchment, and some ink, she began writing notes to her friends, her parents, her brother, Cadence, and anypony else she deserved to know the truth, that she was alive, but not to tell a single living soul outside of each other. Smiling, she gave the letters to a Flash, who promised to deliver them. "Hmm, I'll need a cover story." She thought aloud, as some of the guards began carrying "her" body to the Royal Mortician, a mare by the name of Quick Stitch, a former seamstress.

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, "Well, since I won't be using my old chambers for some time, can I sleep with you?" She asked coyly. Her curled tail swayed against the floor.

Celestia chuckled, "Of course "Forest." She winked, as the two trotted to Celestia's bedchambers, hoof in hoof.

Meanwhile, in Blueblood Manor, Prince Blueblood and a few of his noble friends were toasting, to a plan carried out, an assassination successful. At least, that's what they thought.

Comments

[TyrakatheDragonFan]

Interesting. I'll follow this to see where it goes.

[sexy nightmare moon]

now this is a nice spinoff to the other one

[lordofmyth]

Aka, if luna acted like an actually intelligent character and realized 'wait a second, i'm a fucking demigoddess and a ruler!'

i immensely do not like that story when it turned into just a stupid conspiracy that makes no sense.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

Letting her nearest & dearest know she isn't dead is merciful, but is it wise? How good will they be at faking grief? I think it would be smarter (if crueler) to let everyone think she is dead until they're sure they've caught all the conspirators.

[Kairee]

Interesting opening, however this author has a tendency to create openings of stories, go a little way, and then abandon the story to never be finished.

I'll hope that this one proves an exception.

[SuperPinkBrony12]

6509612 Agreed. It just became really contrived by the time we got to "Ponies must get jobs depending on their cutie marks" and "The nobles are all greedy, corrupt, and power hungry, except for Fancy Pants." And now we're supposed to believe these ponies actually have a leg to stand on, and are provoking a civil war? In reality, it might make sense, but against characters that are basically gods, it's not possible without hitting said characters with the idiot ball.

[NebulaNyx]

It could use some work, but for now I am curious to see what you do with this.

[lordofmyth]

6509951 in reality it works because no one has the capacity to blast down a door, let alone having entities that are bsaicalyl god like.
and even then it only works so long as you can convince other people not to kill you.

AT the very lesat my issue is that it was sooo easy for them to save Twilight as thigns are. Luna could have even done what happened in this story, fake twilights death.

[Jet Lignite]

I can finally sleep well let go of my anger... for now anyway. I have to ask, did you have permission to write in this universe or is this in your own universe?

[Iron Sky]

Compared to the original, this feels like it has a more solid premise, but also too fast paced with little emotional impact.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

6510289 I can say he didn't. I had tp work hard to get Rated Blessing to a future story on this subject.

[Diespitris]

It's nice to see an alternate story to the original. What bothered me about the original story was not only the presence of the orichalum, but the bullshit conspiracy theory going on as well.

(This small complaint is filled with spoilers for the original story. Beware!) "Oh, the only thing in Equestria that's capable of killing an alicorn is this incredibly-rare metal, which just so happens to be owned by the Pie Family. Drama!" I'm sure Princess Celestia would know about and keep tabs on stuff like that, like a law requiring reports on any and all orichalum deposits/storages. Even if ponies faked them, she'd somehow know about it. She's responsible and smart enough to not let something that goddamn dangerous to her and her fellow alicorns go unaccounted for. I know there's such a thing as "suspension of disbelief" when it comes to fiction, but it's just too much of a plot contrivance for me to handle. There's also too much bullshit about the conspiracy for me to rant about, so I won't...

[Diokno44]

6510477 I did get permission

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

6510655 okay. I just know I had to work hard to get my story going so if Rated is okay with this not going to press.

[Black Hoof]

A bit too rushed, superficial feelings for my tastes. And an out-of-the-blue-for-the-sake-of-it-adding-nothing-to-the-story shipping, just so they can kiss...

[Cander]

6510655 This would indeed be an interesting turn of events in the story. Glad you got the permission from the original author to do this. Can't wait to see what transpires in this.

Does feel a little rushed but at least it doesn't feel like wading through unnecessary details. I would rather have a quick read that gets the point across than one that feels too long. Got to say though that I would avoid any Twilestia here. Have "Forest" be her hoofmaiden and emotional support be her reason to be sleeping in the same room. This coming from a fan of Twilestia. It just doesn't feel right in this one with what happened in the last one.

[BatPonyBrony]

I was looking towards to this, really - the original, while a superbly emotional read, always felt like it had some holes and flaws, especially after it tried to bring the larger conspiracy in to what should have remained an emotional exploration of how various people reacted to Twilight's violent death.

Then my ability to take this one the least bit seriously evaporated when Flash was retconed out as Twilight's significant other so that she could make out with Celestia. Just ... no.

[Diokno44]

6512200 I will still play this as seriously as possible, TwiLestia or no.

[DreadedCandiru2]

Great. You've equipped her with Spy's Dead Ringer. Why not go all the way and hand her the Eternal Reward?

[Lunastar2099]

6512263 seriously way twilightxcelestia its so wrong i see her as a second mother to twilight and there not lovers in the acutel fic

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Hmm... You have my attention...

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

Meanwhile, in Blueblood Manor, Prince Blueblood and a few of his noble friends were toasting, to a plan carried out, an assassination successful. At least, that's what they thought.

Blueblood is so screwed.