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Prologue: The Forest596 words
The Trial2,620 words
Tabloid's Articles, #1: A Chiselled Cage594 words
A Cage For Me2,750 words
Jailbreak6,288 words
Impromptu Interview1,348 words
Rushkwa5,106 words
Finding Out the Truth1,386 words
Tabloid's Articles, #2: Gems on Fire804 words
Prisoner's Mule3,496 words
No Strangers & Pupils3,917 words
A Pegasus' Farewell3,309 words
The Sacrifice4,256 words
Viscera3,661 words
Tabloid's Articles, #3: Scoop - Tenebris is Back675 words
Crying Under the Moonlight4,131 words
Bleeding Hut3,473 words
Surigate5,108 words
Black Magic4,172 words
Clamoris, the Nightcrawler2,550 words
Crystal Tears8,587 words
Aftermath3,688 words
The Little House at the End of the River3,627 words
Manehattan Blues6,125 words
Tabloid's Articles, #4: Names410 words
A Ticket to the Gallows3,479 words
To Give In5,177 words
The Stone Chisel Way (Part 1)5,079 words
The Smoke160 words
The Stone Chisel Way (Part 2)5,918 words
Crimson Flower - The Prayer of Destiny85 words
Community3,190 words
Death8,568 words
The Celestia Way2,442 words
Zero (Part 1)6,627 words

A Cage For Me

Arc I - Chapter II - A Cage for Me

The smile that was shown on Chisel's face is now gone. They told him he didn't know anything about friendship, as if he was stupid or something like that. Do they think he doesn't know what that is? What? Do they think he is a kind of monster instead of a normal earth pony which knows what friendship is in a way? It looked like they were considering him as a dumb stallion, and he's anything but dumb.

"What's the matter, Chiz?" shouts Flash Sentry, behind him, taking revenge for that awkward moment minutes ago. "Where's that smile of yours?"

Chisel, on the other hand, doesn't want to hear him. "Hey, Flash, why don't you shut up? You sound like a filly who's just got her cutie mark."

Flash now gets next to Chisel and even trots faster. "You know I won't shut up, Chisel. Since the first time I met you when we locked you up in Canterlot a time ago, the only thing that I dreamt every night was your face inside a cage in the Tartarus, and now... that day has come." The Leader chuckles while nudging the robber's loin with one of his hooves. "Just think about it, this is the last time we will see each other before you get locked up on the Tartarus."

"Sir Sentry," interrupts one of the guards. "Princess Celestia said he would get locked up for an undefined time, not for eternity."

"Yeah," he replies. "But I reserved a special cage for him. Just right in the middle between Tirek's and Cozy Glow's. He won't survive this."

Chisel now makes a small, almost inaudible growl. He doesn't want Flash Sentry to laugh at his anger. Now, that he knows they reserved a cage for him in the worst place he could have ever imagined, he starts thinking about how can he escape from there, because, as Flash says, it is not an easy place to stay. Tirek is an evil lord... and what about Cozy Glow? He remembers hearing the news about the evil filly who tried to handle the School of Friendship by her own hooves. Nope, it won't be easy to be there. It won't. Will his special thing work? It didn't work when he tried to escape from the Everfree Forest.

"Flash Sentry!" is heard from behind, which makes the Royal Guards stop with Stone Chisel. Twilight Sparkle, flying along with Rainbow Dash and Spike stop in front of them. "Wait," she exclaims, looking at the prisoner. "I need to settle things with Stone Chisel."

Now what? He thinks on his inside, vaguely looking at the alicorn princess with resentment. The Royal Guards decide to make a gap for Twilight Sparkle, and the last one to get out of the way is Flash Sentry with his golden armour, whispering Chisel some threatening words: "If you dare to touch the Princess..."

"I prefer to kick your butt rather than the Princess, so shut up," interrupts Stone Chisel. "And what do you want now? I already told you I don't want to be your student."

"I strongly want you to reconsider your decision," says Twilight Sparkle. "Starlight Glimmer has grown up for the better thanks to me and has learned what friendship means on Equestria. Why don't you want to follow the only way that may get you out of the Tartarus?"

Chisel takes some time to answer, burying his mocking attitude under the ground and finally deciding to say something: "Ms Twilight," says Chisel. "I already have a master."

"She's not talking about being your master, Mr Chisel," interrupts Spike. "She wants you to be her friend, with the main objective of being taught about friendship... for you!"

"What?" interrupts the offended thief. "You think I don't know what friendship is? I've already said it in that trial, don't make me mad again."

"I'm not trying to make you mad," says Twilight again. "I'm telling you what you need. I'm telling you the truth."

"The truth?" shouts Chisel, now getting angrier. "I'll show you the truth!" The robber tries to jump onto the princess but Twilight, being cautious, surrounds him with his magic and puts him back to the ground again. The robber, now being angrier than before, says: "I know what friendship is! Do you think I'm stupid? I may be a thief, a robber, but I'm not a dork!"

"Then," interrupts Rainbow Dash. "Explain to us what friendship means."

"Are you kidding?" says Chisel. "It's a word which has an abstract meaning!"

"Then explain what it means to you!"

Dash put Chisel on the stage, exposing him. Instead of answering Rainbow Dash's question, Chisel turns his head around and shakes his mane. "I deny your offer, Twilight Sparkle. I'd rather rot in the Tartarus than become another student of yours."

Twilight takes this very personally and she, getting completely shocked by Chisel's statement, dares to say: "You prefer being locked up in a cage rather than being one more stallion in Ponyville?"

However, Chisel doesn't answer her question back and gets carried by the Royal Guards again to his personal jail. "I'm still waiting for your answer, Mr Chisel!" shouts Dash, but Stone Chisel also doesn't answer her. The ponies and Spike look at the guards fading away in the paths of Ponyville. "Pff... silly," whispers Dash. "I asked him what friendship meant to him and he didn't even dare to answer me."

"What..." asks the Princess to herself. "Did I... did I do something wrong? Why doesn't he want to accept the offer?"

"It's not your fault, Twilight," corrects Spike. "It's Chisel's decision, and it's not because of you. He may have decided this because of something personal, of him, Twilight."

"But..." says Twilight, turning around. "I don't understand. It's a once-in-a-lifetime offer, Spike... one chance to get forgiven... why would he reject that?"

Spike raises his shoulders while Dash gets to the ground. Behind them, the remaining manes appear. "Did he accept the offer?" asks Rarity.

"I don't see him 'round here," replies Applejack. "Did the Chisel...?"

"He rejected it," says Twilight, with a disappointed tone. "Why would he...?"

Applejack nudges her friend's loin while Fluttershy starts talking low. "He may be in a midlife crisis, Twilight." A phrase which makes Dash and Applejack laugh.

"Midlife crisis, Fluttershy?" adds Dash. "He made that decision three times. I think he has an opinion on his head."

"But he didn't tell us what friendship meant to him," interrupts Spike.

"It may be his crazy head with opinions, so leave him alone, Spikey Wikey," says Rarity, nudging one of his wings with a hoof. "Leave him alone."

Now, Flash Sentry and his guards escorting the robber stop on the small bridge of the town, which offers a whole view of Ponyville from far away. "Do you like it?" asks the leader of the Royal Guards to the robber. "We brought you here because it may be the last time you will see Ponyville from here."

Stone Chisel gasps. "I've been waiting for you to open the freaking portal for an hour. Would you fuckin' open it or not?"

The Guards get surprised and start laughing because of Chisel's question. "Watch your language, you!" shouts Flash Sentry, smiling. "I've heard Cerberus doesn't like to listen to cursing stallions."

"I don't care about Cerberus," replies Chisel, approaching Sentry in a really bad way. "And now... would you open the portal now? Because I can't stand looking at your stupid face and mane for more than a second."

Now, Flash's smile disappears and his gesture is serious. He looks at a unicorn guard, who nods his head and uses his magic to open a round portal to a dark place. "I think the same, Stone Chisel," replies Flash while turning his back to the robber. "I can't stand looking at you but... I've got to admit I'll miss you. You escaped from us so many times, playing this stupid hide-and-seek game, that I realize I'll miss playing the cat and the mouse with you. It was a fun ride."

Chisel, who is now in front of the intimidating portal, chuckles. "I think the same, Flash," he answers. "But I laugh because all of you were idiots trying to get me... but you never got me."

"Until now," answers the leader, and then he approaches the robber. "You reminded me of something I want to settle," he whispers in the robber's pierced ear. "Don't call me crazy but when we caught you, you were shouting some kind of gibberish which, in my opinion, sounded like a strange spell." The robber laughs but Sentry keeps whispering: "What was that?"

Chisel, who keeps laughing, just enters the portal, escorted by three guards. "It was an idiom in ancient Equestrian. Do you know what that meant?"

Flash raises his eyebrows. "What?"

"Screw you," replies the robber, in a burst of laughs, while entering the portal with the three guards.

"Hello, neighbours." That's what Stone Chisel said when he got locked up in a small cage between Tirek and Cozy Glow. The little filly, which seemed innocent a time ago, gets angry on the inside when somebody dares to interrupt the only way to communicate with her friend Tirek. The Lord, on the other hand, doesn't care. He's still trapped and that's the only thing that matters. However, once he finds out the new neighbour is just an earth pony, with neither wings nor a horn, as Cozy Glow has, he dares to ask.

"An earth pony?" says a weak Tirek while the Royal Guards close the Portal. "In Tartarus?" Stone Chisel thinks he is going to show respect, but Tirek, however, starts laughing. "Pathetic!"

"Someone who does not handle magic in a cage, who dares to interrupt my personal space with my best friend?" shouts Cozy Glow, trying to get out of her personal jail. "How useless are you!"

Stone Chisel, feeling offended, dares to answer. "Hey! Don't insult me! The Royal Guards spent more time trying to get me rather than getting you, so shut up, I'm more intelligent than you."

Now both of them try to get out of the cage. "Don't you dare to insult me, pathetic pony!" shouts Tirek, offended. "If I were in my best form, I would have consumed you with just one of my hooves!"

"But you are not on your best form, dude," says Stone Chisel, now laying on the cage's floor. "You are old, weak, locked up in Tartarus and also that beard on your chin looks stupid... Now, would you let me sleep?"

Tirek, now getting furious, points at the earth pony while touching his beard with his other hoof. He clearly didn't like that commentary. Cozy Glow doesn't say anything but gets surprised at how this stupid earth pony is being so impolite to her friend, the intimidating Lord Tirek. "You... you know who I am?"

"I know," replies Chisel. "My mentor told me about you." The robber gets up and starts running around his cage. "Lord Tirek, the tyrant! The goat who consumed the magic of all the ponies of Equestria, yes! And was defeated by his own brother, lucky Scorpan, yeah... my mentor told me everything about you." And then, he turns around to look at the other prisoner. "And you... you are Cozy Glow... aren't you? Hahaha! You wicked filly."

"And who are you to talk to my friend in that way?" asks Cozy Glow, angrily. The robber smiles now.

"You... you are friends? What? Uh... well, this clearly was expected, though. What could you do locked up in this place?"

"Answer my question!" shouts the filly while looking at her friend Tirek, who is still touching his beard.

"My name is Stone Chisel, filly, and don't you dare shout at me."

Cozy Glow swears she heard that name somewhere, one day, but she doesn't anything. On the other hand, Tirek now laughs and stops touching his beard. He clearly knows something. "Stone Chisel..." he says, chuckling. "Hmmm, as a tyrant, I've heard your name once... which reminds me of something... that mentor you were talking about... is he a kind of master? Or what?"

"He's a master," replies Chisel.

"And who is him, then?"

The robber now turns around to look at the tyrant. "I think he knows you, Tirek."

Chisel's phrase makes Tirek laugh. "Everybody knows me, pony."

"I mean... he knows you personally."

"So? Tell me who's this pony, because I think I've already got someone on my head."

"Say it, then."

Tense silence between the two prisoners while Cozy Glow is just observing what is happening. Tirek, smiling, gets his head out of the cage, touching an approaching Chisel with one of his hooves. "I know it," he answers. "A pony who handles chaos magic, isn't it? A chaos wizard..."

"Yes."

Tirek now starts thinking. "Hmmm... no, it can't be... no, no... I got it. I got it," he whispers. "Shadow Star."

Chisel laughs. "Are you kidding me? Shadow Star is dead."

"Is he?" exclaims the tyrant, shocked.

"Yes, he passed away like decades ago..."

"So... who is it? I already know it's a chaos wizard."

"Chaos wizards?" interrupts Cozy Glow, something that stops the conversation between Stone Chisel and Lord Tirek. The earth pony turns around and lies on the floor, only to reveal one last name.

"My mentor is Black Magic LaCrowley." Chisel says that because he is already in that cage, why would he hide a secret now? Besides, he knows he wants to escape and get out of here and also leave these ones, but he has recognized his master plan didn't work so well while trying to escape from the forest, why would it work now? The earth pony expects Tirek to get shocked, but instead, the tyrant starts laughing.

"Pathetic," replies Tirek. "Black Magic LaCrowley? I've seen him when everyone got caught in Tartarus. He is the scraps of the scraps... of the scraps of Shadow Star. He is hardly a chaos wizard as those like that crazy nomadic unicorn.

"You met chaos wizards, Tirek?" asks Cozy Glow. "What did that name mean, at first?"

"Ponies who handle chaos magic," answers the tyrant.

"Or more like... ponies who hated unicorns because they had horns and decided to get fake horns," interrupts Stone Chisel. "That's a better definition."

"What?" says the filly, now paying full attention to this. "Which kind of chaos magic?"

"Well," replies Chisel. "My ment--"

"I'm not talking to you," she interrupts. "I'm talking to Tirek."

The robber, now angry, turns around. "Screw you," he says and closes his eyes, trying to sleep.

Cozy Glow laughs, while Tirek sighs and starts speaking: "Well," he says. "Chaos magic existed way before me, and there were some creatures who were jealous of others, such as earth ponies with unicorns and this, because they couldn't handle magic like them, so a couple of creatures of all Equestria found the existence of this dark, black magic who could manipulate everything, even more than normal magic, and that's how the Wizards of Chaos were born."

"And you met some of them?"

"Yes," he answers. "Lots of them were imprisoned in Tartarus, along with Shadow Star, who became an alicorn thanks to it and was locked up because that magic was illegal. I talked to some wizards of those but we never had quite a good relationship... they thought I was not able to consume dark magic... hahaha... they never knew about how powerful I am. Oh," he adds, looking below him. "I forgot Tenebris is down there, petrified."

"And did you consume their magic?" she says, looking like a small girl who is listening to a fairy tale.

"Uh... I never thought about it. I was in---"

Flash. A black mist surrounds both of them and they eventually disappear, leaving Chisel alone. The robber, still with his eyes closed, smiles. "Finally you shut up, you neighbours... huh?" However, he has no answer at all. "Hey! If you want to ignore me, please tell me. Whoops, I forgot you are ignoring me," he adds, but at the moment he opens his eyes, he realizes there's no one with him. Neither Tirek nor Cozy Glow is next to him, something that bristles his fur. "Hey... um... What?"

In that cold cave where he is now alone, Stone Chisel finds out Tirek and Cozy Glow are gone.

Author's Note:

Ok, if you arrived here... I think you did it because you liked the story.

These four chapters were something I came up with one day and I wrote them impromptu. Originally, I planned some kind of knot and outcome (I actually have the fifth chapter, almost completed) but I'm not 100% sure how I'll continue this story. If it has good feedback and you like it, I'll keep going with the story then. If not, I'm afraid I'll leave this on a hiatus and make something better with it.

Thank you for reading.

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