The Stone Chisel Way

by King Genesis

A Ticket to the Gallows

Arc III - Chapter IV - A Ticket to the Gallows

They were right.

Suddenly, Tabloid gets out of his apartment, helped by Blister, the orange dragon, and looks at a huge amount of police colts and mares throwing out of the building's entrance door a grey colt with a ripped-off tunic filled with bruises. He also has a cut ear. "Woah, woah!" he shouts. "Wait... wait!"

But no. They don't want to hear his words, they are angry because they have already recognized who is.

Stone Chisel.

Oh, yeah. Stone Chisel. They can't believe he actually did it. Why is he here? Where are his parents? Where are the others? Are they in danger?

And most importantly... where is Tenebris?

At that right moment, Ink Pot appears in the scene, running like a bullet to his partners. "What the...?"

"Where were you?" asks Blister once he sees him. Tabloid, on the other side, does not say something, he looks, right above in the sky, at a couple of pegasi with someone else. That carriage he saw minutes ago... turns out he was right. It was actually one of those royal carriages he saw in his youth. The smallest ones...

"I... I tried to take a breath... what happened here?"

"We saw two mysterious colts on the building and I called the police," replies the dragon. "And... look, there's the other one!"

The pegasi cops stomp the other tunic colt against the ground and start attacking him, taking off his mask.

It's Stolen Bag. "ARRGHHH--- ARRGHH!" he shouts. "STONE CHISEL... I'M GOING TO... KICK YOUR ASS!"

"WAIT! WAIT!" Chisel keeps begging for some time to talk, but one of the colts grabs him and crashes him against a wall.

But one of the cops keeps punching him in the face. "YOU PRICK!" he says. "Tell me... tell me! Where did you get the freaking carriage, huh? HUH? I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"STOP!" shouts another cop, getting him out of the scene. "If you keep punching him, you will become the bad colt!"

"The bad colt?" he asks. "For punching this piece of crap? Who helped the ram?"

"No!" replies the robber, trying to hide his face with the frayed tunic. "I didn't help the ram!"

"Yes, you did! YES, YOU DID!" shouts the angry cop.

"I swear, dude!" he says. "He went crazy! Killed everyone in the Crystal Empire!"

"I won't fall in your game, piece of filth!" says another cop. "Nopony of us will!"

"He killed Tirek, Cozy Glow, Chrysalis!"

Tabloid, Ink Pot and Blister look at each other. Everything he's saying it's actually true... and at that right moment the old journalist nudges the dragon's tail with one of his hooves. "Go..." he whispers. "Go and grab the card."

"What?"

"Just do it."

"But..."

"Do it," he says. "Ink Pot and I will take charge of this."

Ink Pot looks now at Tabloid. "What did you just say?"

He raises an eyebrow. "I said we are going to take charge of this."

His gesture changes suddenly. "Hell no!" he whispers. "Of course, I'm not doing that."

"You will."

"No."

"Yeah."

On the other hand, while Tabloid and Ink Pot start arguing with each other and Blister gets in the apartment to look for the card, the police are in another plane, letting Stone Chisel know who are the ones who rule over the city. "Shut the hell up!" shouts one of the angry cops. "Tirek? Cozy Glow? Chrysalis? Dead? Do you think we will fall in your stupid lies, whiny, stupid filly? Tell us the truth! Where are those monsters, huh? Are you sure you want to get a ticket to the gallows?"

"Actually he's right."

"Tabloid! You stupid sack of potatoes!"

All of the cops turn around and look at Tabloid trying to get nearer the situation. One of the cops, a light-blue-skinned mare with cyan hair, recognizes Ink Pot and frowns. "What are you doing here?" she asks. "We told you this was private!"

"We've received a letter from Princess Celestia regarding this situation," replies Tabloid. "What he is saying is true and has happened. Sadly..."

"No, no, no, no!" interrupts a cop. "If you want to defend this one... If you want to defend this beast... I swear... !"

"I'm not defending him," he says, while Blister gets out of the apartment with a scroll in hand. "I'm only saying the truth."

"There it is! There it is!" Blister the Dragon unfolds the letter and shows it to several cops, who start reading it in silence. Stolen Bag, on the other hand, still trapped on the ground, turns his head back and looks at Stone Chisel with pure anger. He tried to hide... and his partner literally took him in. To the gallows. The robber, being grabbed and trapped by pony cops only bites his lips and raises his eyebrows looking at him.

The cops stop reading the card, but one of them shakes his head: "This can't be. This can't be. We don't know if you are lying or not."

"It looks like the Princess' handwriting," replies another cop.

"But..." says another. "If this is true... then this means... they are...?"

And in the middle of the awkwardness, three cops pass by the building's entrance door holding that mysterious object Tabloid and Blister could see. Turns out there was something... someone. All of the cops' mouths open widely once they find out what was inside the cloth. "We found her on the roof," says one of the cops. "They left her alone."

"NO!" shouts one of the police colts, looking at Flurry Heart sobbing and crying while the cloth is magically folded and taken out of her. "NO... YOU...!"

"I saved her," replies Stone Chisel, about to get crushed by another cop.

"Saved her?" shouts a pony. "From what?"

"Tenebris the Night Ram."

"BULLSHIT!" shouts a cop and directly punches him straight in the face. Other cops look at Stolen Bag and begin to attack him on the ground, while others try to calm down the whole situation. Tabloid, Ink Pot and Blister are right in the middle of the chaos. Everything goes straight downhill and so out of control Stolen Bag manages to escape, but this time to attack Stone Chisel.

"NO! NO!" shouts Blister. "WAIT! WAI... wai..." The dragon kneels on the street, feeling a lump on his throat one more time, touching his chest. Ink Pot tries to help him, but suddenly... "Arrgh... aaahh..."

BURP!

The burp is heard on the street, surrounded by a wave of fire, giving a card to the world. Stolen Bag and Stone Chisel, who are still fighting, get quickly separated from each other. The letter falls to the ground and everyone looks at it. Blister grabs it, raising one hand in silence. "What's it, Blister?" asks Ink Pot. "Is it...?"

He opens the letter while his hands are trembling and reads the card's first paragraph: "Yes. It is."

He flips the card over and shows who is writing to him to the cops:

"Blister:

I'm writing this to tell you we decided to stay in Canterlot. Our city needs to be protected. We still haven't found either Flurry Heart or Discord or Stone Chisel and decided to bury Shining Armor and Cadence in a special ceremony. We still don't know what we are going to do with Tirek, Cozy Glow and Chrysalis' bodies.

I remind you and beg Mr Tabloid and Mr Ink Pot to let Manehattan know what is happening regarding Tenebris, who also hasn't appeared yet. We're scared of what he may do after.

Just in case you need to write a letter back, we'll take our time to answer, due to being very busy in the Kingdom right now.

- Princess Celestia."

---

Stone Chisel tries to say something but a cop interrupts him: "And is this true? Is there a way to verify it?"

"I'm telling you," says a pony. "It is Celestia's handwriting. I... I remember reading a letter from her a time ago."

Another cop raises his eyebrows and looks at the pony. "Really, Golden Badge? When?"

"I had to interrogate a student of hers... don't you remember?"

The stallion who asked that question simply shakes his head: "No..."

Flurry Heart is now the main subject of this. The letter says Tirek, Cozy Glow and Chrysalis' bodies, so that means they are actually dead. Shining Armor and Cadence have also passed away... and Tenebris is just gone. Golden Badge, the mare who recognized Celestia's handwriting starts reading the letter and gasps while analyzing the first paragraph, about to fall into tears. "Oh my..." she whispers. "Is this...?"

Tabloid is some pony apart, though. He approaches Stone Chisel, being secured and escorted by police colts, and whispers something without even looking at him.

"How did you survive?"

"No, no," says a cop, getting in the middle. "No."

The journalist bites his lips. "Just a minute."

"No minutes."

However, despite the cops doesn't want Tabloid to talk to him, Stone Chisel shakes his head and opens his mouth anyway. "He tried to kill me," he says before the cops turn around and look at him. "He pushed me with his powers... and I landed in a river and the waters drove me to my partner..."

Tabloid turns around and looks at Stolen Bag. "Him?" he asks. "Stolen Bag?"

"Stop," says a cop again. Stolen Bag, still squashed and trapped by other police ponies, now has his attention on what is happening right there.

"Hey, you," shouts Golden Badge, turning around and looking at Stone Chisel. "You... Stone Chisel... how did you survive?"

Tabloid decides to speak: "He has just said he---"

"I'm not talking to you."

Awkward silence again, and Stone Chisel gets some space to breathe, with all the cops around him suddenly trotting away, but not looking at another thing rather than just him.. "Um..." he says. "He tried to kill me and... uh... pushed me away with his powers... with some kind of beam... and I landed on water... a river... and that river drove me to..."

"Don't you dare to say it," says Stolen Bag. "You bitch. Don't you dare--"

A cop punches Bag in the face, and Badge shouts: "Say it, Stone!"

However, the robber, biting his lips, looks at his partner. "Stolen..."

"Don't talk to your partner! I'm interrogating you, not him!"

Chisel gets dizzy while looking at both Stolen and the cop, and finally lets it go: "Drove me to a place with hills... where my partner Stolen Bag was staying and hiding from the Kingdom."

"You son of a gun!" he shouts. "That was the only place we had to hide after this!"

"You think you were going to hide after this?" asks Tabloid. "Of course not, you stupid. We're condemned, you too... there's no place to hide."

"Yes!" shouts Stolen Bag. "I agree... now there's no place because he has just said where is the only secure pla---"

"Really?" asks Stone Chisel. "You think we were going to get out of this?"

Silence. Stolen Bag closes his eyes and takes a breath. "Screw you."

"Screw you back."

"Ok, Ok!" interrupts Badge. "Stop, please!" Stolen Bag swallows his anger. "And what happened to your allies? Tirek, Cozy Glow, Chrysalis?"

He shakes his head. "Those weren't my allies."

"Whatever, answer the question..." she says. "What happened to them?"

He shakes his head. "Dead," he replies, and that only makes the police colts feel much more shocked. "He killed them, along with his soulmate, another night ram called Rushkwa."

"Another night ram?" asks another cop. "Are you sure what you are saying it's true?"

"It is," he says, standing up and facing the cops. "And look... believe it or not... I may have a way... it's not the best one, and I don't know if it may work, but if we do it on time... there's a slight possibility this way can help us to face Tenebris."

He expects the cops to shut him up, but no one says anything. The cops look at each other, then at the journalists, until Blister the Dragon, who grabs the letter from the pony cop, innocently raises his hand: "Which way?"

"I have to talk to somepony."

"Who?" asks a cop.

"Somepony who lives in Canterlot."

"Canterlot?" Badge asks, while her partners start shaking their heads.

"No," says another. "No to Canterlot. The Princesses are there."

"No, no, no..." says Chisel. "We have to go to Canterlot and talk to this mare."

"Mare?" asks Golden Badge. "Why don't you tell us who are you talking about? We can talk to this mare for help---"

"No!" he shouts. "If you talk to her everything's going downhill then. I have to be the one who has to talk to her..."

"And are you sure you don't want to do something else in Canterlot?"

"What?" he says, raising a hoof. "Of course not! I won't do anything else! For what?"

"For what, you say?" exclaims a cop. "Are you sure you don't have anything under your nose, jackass? With that magical fog, you had?"

"What? Hell no, I can't use that fog anymore, jackass!"

"Ok, ok," interrupts Badge, looking at the angry police colt. "Just before this leads into another stupid, chaotic battle... we are going to do something."

"What?" asks another police colt. "Let them go?"

"No," she says. "Both of them are going to get hoof shackles."

"Hoof shackles?" shouts Stolen Bag, the robber's partner. "Is this some kind of joke or what? Don't make me laugh."

"No, it's not a joke," she says. "Whether you like it or not, you'll have to get arrested and escorted..." then, she deviates her sight to Chisel. "And you... are you sure you have a way to stop the monster?"

"I do." Golden Badge approaches him and snorts.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Um..." he stutters. "Yeah."

She nods her head and whispers: "I know... I recognize when colts like you lie, huh? I'm not a moron."

"And you think I've been lying to you all of this time?"

"Uh..." she shuts her mouth, coldly looking at the robber's eyes. She bites her lips, looking at her partners, trying to answer.

"Looks like I shut your mouth," he says, with a tiny grin that tries not to shine.

"Shut up," she says. "Or I'll put a gag on your mouth."

"But tell me... do you think I am lying to all of you?" he asks, this time angrily. "I've been telling you the truth since you attacked me and pushed me right down the entrance door. See the baby, huh?" now he points at Flurry Heart. "Think about it... if it wasn't for my partner and me, who knows what could have happened to her... did you think about that? I mean..."

"No."

"No what?"

She shakes her head. "I don't think you're lying."

The cops around her feel surprised at hearing that. "Really, Badge?" asks a police colt. "You said that?"

"He is not, partner," she says. "I listened to every word he said. Every one of them, and look... he sounds scared, worried... I've been interrogating and recognizing gestures and sounds for almost ten years, partner... you can't deny what I say."

The cops look at each other, and then at Badge. "And what are we going to do, huh? With these? We can't leave them alone with those shackles."

"I know, I know..." she says. "And I know what could we do, guys... uh... but I think we have to talk with the Commissioner about this..."

Another police mare gets in the middle. "And what's in your head, Golden Badge?"

The police mare looks at both robbers still getting escorted by a stampede of Manehattan cops. "Somepony's in my head."

---

Cold. It's cold outside, and the wind only worsens the feeling.

However, for Tenebris and its community, this is not something bad. Their fur is keeping them from freezing on the mount.

The Mount of Nowhere. The Mount of Death.

They didn't even have to deal with climbing the most extreme mountain on the lands, due to the ram's new powerful abilities. He can play with reality now.

He has already won.

However, in that small cave where the Bewitching Bell stays, there is still something they've got to get rid of.

It's cold... but it's not perfect, Tenebris thinks about it when he doesn't even say a word while holding, touching the bell with his hooves. The first one to acknowledge this is Maior, the young night ram. "Something wrong?" he asks to the beast.

Tenebris shakes his head, carrying the bell. "No," he says. "I've been thinking about something during the whole trip."

"Really?" asks his soulmate Rushkwa, from behind. "What? Were you thinking about our lands...?"

"No, no, no... uh... I was thinking about something that never came into my mind..."

"What?" asks Maior, while all of the other young rams stay next to him.

"I remember thinking about this a long time ago... but never had the power to do that... and now... now... we could say... I can do it."

"But what, Tenebris?" says Risu. The elder night ram turns his head around and eventually chuckles.

"Come with me."

"Where?" asks the young night ram. Maior looks at her and Tenebris, without answering, starts slowly trotting to the mount's mouth. He's about to get in the freezing blizzard. "Wait! Don't leave us here!"

"Don't worry," he says. "I won't leave you here. I just want you to look to the sky."

Once he says that, the young rams get out of the cave where the Bell was kept and look at the blue sky. However, they don't want to look at the sun due to being very bright. "Ouch," innocently says Sanguis. "The sun is brighter than I thought."

"No problem, Sanguis," he says. "We can fix it after my plan."

Rushkwa then comes by and approaches her soulmate, confused. "Which plan?"

The ram chuckles. "The one I've been thinking since we got into this mount... and I've been keeping it on my mind."

"And why are you keeping it?" she asks.

"I don't know..." he replies. "Maybe I was... I was just fooling around trying to think about something better... but you know, Rushkwa... I realized it's foolish to think about something better when you can control everything as you want..."

"So?" she says. "What are you waiting for?"

"Yes, say it!" shouts Mors, chuckling. Sanguis also does the same, while Risu and Maior stay in silence.

"Children..." he says. "It's time to... it's time to think about what is above us."

"Above us?" she asks. "Which thing is above us?"

The ram turns his head and looks at her, raising an eyebrow. "The moon, Rushkwa... it's obvious."

"And what do you want to do with it?

"You see..." he whispers, approaching the children which are trying to get closer due to the cold winds. "Both of us know, Rushkwa, the Moon is controlled by something else... it can't be controlled by itself."

She raises her eyebrows and looks to the sky. "Yes."

Tenebris gets next to the young rams, and suddenly they stop feeling that annoying cold they had seconds ago. The ram is protecting them from the blizzard. "Now... that we know how to deal with everything that's around us..."

"What if...?"

"Yes... you said it."

She turns her head. "I said it?"

"You did say it."

"What?" asks Maior. "What did she say?"

"Is it related to the Moon?" also asks Risu, something that makes Rushkwa release a small chuckle.

"I know what you are trying to say, Tenebris..." she says aloud, so the ram blinks before taking a breath and looking right at her eyes.

"Then say it."

She smiles. "You're trying to get the Moon... I mean, our Moon."

"Of course... because she... he... it... whatever the Moon is... it's in the wrong hooves, Rushkwa."

"And why?" asks Risu. "Why?"

"Think about it, you child... we are trying to get rid of those who banished us from where we were and what we were... and suddenly, one day, you find out the God you were worshipping all this time it's just... controlled by a pony."

"Filthy ponies," answers Maior, stomping his hooves against the snowy ground.

"Filthy pony! Filthy pony! Filthy pony!" shouts both Mors and Sanguis. "Filthy pony! Filthy pony! Give us our Moon!"

Everyone laughs at Mors and Sanguis' reaction, except for Tenebris. His eyes, his pupils widen while thinking about it.

His God. What can he do to control his God? To look at the sky and think he can be able to control his God, the Moon, any time he wants? Can he cover the Sun with it?

...

Can he kill the Sun with it?

Comments

[GrandAdmiral MitthRawN]

havoc everywhere!

[King Genesis]

10669955
Hell yeah!

[GrandAdmiral MitthRawN]

10669975
Although I feel sad about our trios passing.
Is this the end of them or do you have a twist planning?
just hint ambiguously to avoid spoilers :)

[King Genesis]

10669979
Sssshhh... the only thing I can say is that the story is not finished yet... everything can happen.

[GrandAdmiral MitthRawN]

10669987
I will explode!! thank you :)

[King Genesis]

10670013
You're welcome!

[Pete100]

Tabloid, Ink Pot and Blister look at each other. Everything he's saying it's actually true... and in that right moment the old journalist nudges the dragon's tail with one of his hooves. "Go..." he whispers. "Go and grab the card."

Card?

I'm writing this to tell you we decided to stay in Canterlot. Our city needs to be protected. We still haven't found either Flurry Heart or Discord or Stone Chisel and decided to bury Shining Armor and Cadence in a special ceremony. We still don't know what we are going to do with Tirek, Cozy Glow and Chrysalis' bodies.

Just bury them.

"It is," he says, standing up and facing the cops. "And look... believe it or not... I may have a way... it's not the best one, and I don't know if it may work, but if we do it on time... there's a slight possibility this way can help us to face Tenebris."

I wouldn’t even help them, honestly.

She smiles. "You're trying to get the Moon... I mean, our Moon."

They own the moon or something?

"Of course... because she... he... it... whatever the Moon is... it's in the wrong hooves, Rushkwa."

And who are the right hooves? You?

"Filthy pony! Filthy pony! Filthy pony!" shouts both Mors and Sanguis. "Filthy pony! Filthy pony! Give us our Moon!"

Great, now there’s a chant.

[King Genesis]

10726108

Card?

Celestia's letter, although I think letter is a better word to describe it. I'll change it.

Just bury them.

They own the moon or something?

They don't own it but control it thanks to Luna.

And who are the right hooves? You?

Great, now there’s a chant.

[Yubella]

I seriously would've killed all the cops for their idiocy