Pretense
---
“Dammit!” A vase flew into the wall. “Dammit DAMMIT DAMN IT!” A bookshelf fell, its contents already strewn around the room. “Bucking flaming horseapples IN TARTARUS!” A table upended, pasting the fruit and glass upon it into a spiky mush.
Shining Armor watched as his sister vented. The meeting with the Princesses hadn’t gone as planned; she had stalked up to her reserved room the minute the doors had slammed open, a fire in her eyes threatening to burst forth any moment. She was very rarely in such moods, and the best he could do was to observe and make sure she didn’t hurt herself. Her horn glowed again, and the portrait of Celestia that graced the area above the mantel was ripped from its fastenings and brought in front of her. Twilight glared it down, apparently expecting the image to try to either calm her or make her angrier, and when it stayed the same as it always had, she threw it into the fireplace. Shining’s eyes were not on the rapidly-carbonizing painting, however: They were watching the steam rise from her ears.
“Oh, here we go.” He muttered.
Then Twilight was on fire. Floating in the air, coat turned white, expression pure rage as the flames of her mane set the chandelier’s candles aflame for a few brief seconds before they completely melted under the onslaught of heat. Shining had seen this before a few times as well, and he knew that she could only keep it up for a short while before –
Foom “Ungh…”
Ah, there we go.
“Feeling better there, Twily?” Shining asked, stepping around the floor’s debris to reach the singed unicorn in the room’s center. She glanced up at him, tears in her eyes, before flinging her forehooves around his neck and crying into his shoulder. He sat down beside her, bringing one forehoof up to calmingly brush her mane as she cried herself out.
“I just don’t know what went wrong…” she muttered after several minutes.
“What did the Princesses say?”
“Say? They didn’t say anything that justified their complete rejection! Celestia was worried about how the Draconic Kingdom and Gryphonia would deal with the changes to the political system, and how much of a fuss the nobility would put up! The nobility, the very ponies that the Charter is designed to limit the power of to prevent her from needing to worry about appeasing them!” Twilight snorted. “And Luna? Luna basically said ‘It’s a nice thought, but it seems like you’re trying to limit our power.’ Which is a completely unfounded fear, she would have seen that if she had read the thing! Then she said that the wording of the document seemed to exclude non-pony races from having any equality rights!” Twilight took in a breath, trying to remain calm. “ ‘We fear that the election of representatives by the citizenry, and the varying causes behind them, will cause unneeded chaos and disharmony under our rule,’ Celestia said! How can giving the downtrodden a voice in how they’re governed be a bad thing?!”
Shining sighed, running through her rant in his head. “Twily, you know that the Drakes and the Gryffs are both breathing down our necks over which side we support in whatever brouhaha they have going on over there, if the nobles get peeved then half the workforce goes unemployed before the Charter can take effect, putting more ponies into governmental positions will limit the power of the Princesses simply through increased gumming of the works and ‘interpretations’ of their orders, and having five-hundred ponies vote on every single issue that passes to the Princesses, even if they just have suggestive ability and no actual say in what happens, is going to make the bureaucratic process more complex and chaotic. The equality thing probably just has to do with a wording problem.” He watched as she blunk at him several times. “I like what you’re trying to do, but you’re going for too much too fast. Give Celestia and Luna a little bit to mull it over, then send them a letter requesting another audience to discuss their grievances with the Charter. See if you can’t modify it to something that you all agree on without compromising too much. It’s been done before.”
“Since when did you turn into Mr. Political Analyst?”
“I ain’t so dumb as you think I look, sis.” He said. Both chuckled, then were silent for half a minute.
“Ugh, I know you’re right about all of that, and most of it I should have seen coming, but it’s disappointing getting the big red X right out the gate, you know?” Shining nodded, and Twilight continued. “I mean, I have almost all of Ponyville supporting me. How do you think they’re going to take ‘Hey, they didn’t like any of it, so I’m going to go back and talk to them for who-knows-how-long and cut who-knows-how-much out so that they don’t have to worry about the nobles throwing a fit’?” She shook her head. “By Faust, so many ponies are going to be so sad. Lyra and Bon Bon – they’ve been together for eight years, not able to get married because the nobles think ‘the gay’ is bad, and I come back and tell them ‘Sorry, we’re probably going to need to cut out the Civil Marriage section so the rich ponies don’t turn into a bunch of nags’. Pinkie and Rainbow, and Rarity and Applejack, too. Four of the bucking Elements of Harmony can’t be legally happy together because some blueblooded soft-hoofed ingrown-horned MORON thinks two mares kissing is icky.” Another sigh. “So many of them were so excited, and now this… I’m worried about how they’re going to take it.”
“Don’t be, Twily. Sure, some folks’ll take it hard, but this is Equestria. They should know how to deal with themselves, and if a few get rowdy, just send for the guards.” Shining stood up, patting his sister on the back. “This isn’t the end of the world, sis. Everything’ll be fine.”
---
“…and then you packed the things you brought and went back to Ponyville.”
“That’s how this whole thing started?”
“That is the absolute beginning, yes, unless you want me to delve into the writing of the Charter, a process that I have no knowledge of other than that it took about two years.”
“That sounded like it ended peaceably, though. What happened that, um, kicked off the Revolution?”
“The Ponyville Riot.”
“…Can we hear about that, then?”
“It’s not a nice story.”
“The Princess wants a full record, Broken. That would include the… not-nice stuff.”
“Just warning you.”
---
The chariot hit the ground hard. Shining didn’t notice. He leapt from the vehicle the minute it touched dirt, quickly followed by the rest of the squad. Behind them, the second chariot and the pegasi guards landed. Shining didn’t notice. Smoking piles of burnt flags and wooden detritus sprawled around a charred tree. Elsewhere, larger plumes of smoke billowed into the clouds, and the low roar of a violent mob could be heard. Shining didn’t notice. He bolted from the landing zone, towards the tree, bucking the door open and nearly off, to see a scene of chaos inside; books littered the floor, several standing bookshelves had been tipped, broken glass lay in scattered groupings near the empty windows.
And a purple mare sat in the middle of it all.
“TWILY!”
She looked up, at and past Shining, her eyes unfocussed. Strips of parchment lay at her hooves. A small gash left a red line across one cheek. Then she blinked several times, and her eyes found his. He trotted up to her as she slowly stood.
“Are you alright?! Did they hurt you? Where’s Spike?”
“They, they were angry, I told them and they got so mad, and they started throwing things and breaking lampposts and burning the flags…” She shuddered. “They were shouting things, horrible things… they were all angry, they didn’t listen, they started running to the Town Hall…”
“Twilight!” Shining yelled. She looked at him again. He repeated his questions.
“Spike went to try to control them, AJ and Rarity went to the Boutique and Pinkie went to Sugarcube Corner in case the mob tried to break in…”
“Are. You. Okay?”
“They tore up the Charter… they wanted to hurt the Princesses…”
“Dammit!” Shining turned to his two lieutenants. “Charge, find the mob and try to work with Spike to herd it. It’s probably split up, try to keep them separate but get them to one area! Cloud, grab a few unicorns and pegasi, try to put out any fires the mob started.” The two nodded and ran off. Shining turned back to Twilight. “Twily, Twily, sis, I need you to come back, okay? I know you’re freaked out right now, I am too, but I need you for this.”
Twilight actually seemed to focus on him while he was saying this, a small recognition in her far-away eyes. Then the earth shook, some more books fell to the floor, and he lost her to staring at the floor. Shining cursed, about to simply pick her up and drag her to the mob so that she could try to calm them down. Then he noticed that her eyes were moving, very quickly, looking at each little piece of parchment haphazardly spread around her. Her lips moved, almost imperceptibly, forming small shapes that, had they been given voice, would have formed small words.
And he made what he would later decide was the worst mistake of his life.
Turning and walking out of the library, he gathered two of the ponies left behind and ordered them to under no circumstances let Twilight out of their sight. Then he ran off to help his guardsponies.
“Please remain calm. This is a guard action. Do not attempt to assault the guards or anypony else. You will be allowed to go free when it has been determined that you have performed no illegal actions. Violations of the law within the perimeter will be dealt with forcefully and swiftly. Please remain calm…”
The Standard Riot Action Detention Speech. Shining had been forced to memorise it during training, but it hadn’t been used in over thirty years when the instructors brought it up. Actually having to perform the speech, and with the required tone and magical accompaniment for those ponies that relied on sight more than sound, was a more daunting task when faced with five-hundred passionate and angry ponies rather than three instructors.
That said, the twenty-foot long dragon helped to keep things calm quite well.
“Twilight tell ya what happened?” Spike asked. Shining kept his eyes on the crowd.
“I got a bit of it. She was really out of it, Spike. I’m worried about her.”
“You’re telling me. After we landed, everypony was in front of the library within minutes. She actually had to get me to say what happened, there was so much buzz.” The adolescent dragon ran a claw along his neck spines. “Everypony went quiet for about ten seconds, then… it was like a roar. Just this giant sound of anger and letdown rolled into one wave. Ponies started knocking over lampposts, grabbing the flags and tearing them up, I saw two Earth Ponies just straight up kick a cart through a window. There was a whole bunch of shouting, me and Twilight just trying to calm things down, then some moron decides to rush the stage and bring along ten friends.” Spike’s eyes took a glint. “That wasn’t very smart. They got the Charter and tore it up a bit before I… waved them off, but I managed to get Twilight inside. Then I wrapped myself as much as I could around the library to stop them from burning it up, because setting fire to the Charter’s author’s house totally makes sense when you’re angrily protesting the Charter’s refusal, right?” He sighed as a few more ponies were allowed out of the perimeter. “Anyways, that’s when they started migrating to the Town Hall, so I coughed a message up to Celestia and tried to hold them back a bit.” His eyes flicked to the smouldering crater that had once held the government of Ponyville. “Didn’t work so well.”
“Don’t beat youself up, Spike. Celestia knows I’d’ve had about a tenth of your results if I’d been working alone. So long as nopony got hurt in there, it’s an easy fix.”
“But ponies did get hurt.”
Shining stiffened. His eyes turned to the dragon, who was busy glaring at a cobblestone. The stone appeared to blacken under Spike’s stare.
“Yeah, ponies got hurt.”
“How many?”
“…five dead, including two young fillies. Twelve injured. Most after the Hall got set on fire, from trampling during the whole big stampede away from the heat and flames.”
Spike slammed a claw into the ground, sending several sharp stone fragments flying as the road gained deep fissures under his fist. A tear flowed out of his eye and hit the ground with a boiling sizzle. He glared into the crowd, smoke rising from his nostrils.
“Hey, hey! Calm down, Spike. We don’t need an angry dragon after all this…” Shining cautioned. Spike turned his glare towards the guard.
“Calm down?! Five ponies, innocent ponies, were just killed in my town, and you have the ponies that did it right in front of me, and you want me to calm down?!” Despite the barrier separating them, the ponies nearest Spike began to shuffle away. “I could probably smell the blood on their hooves… if you let me in there, I-“
thk-BOOM
All eyes, pony and dragon, guard and rioter, turned to face the direction of the massive sound. Spike’s eyes widened, his pupils pinpricking.
“That’s Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie. The Cakes. Not again. No more!” Spike bolted off, claws making deep grooves in the road before he leapt and let his wings catch him. Shining wondered if the dragon had run anywhere before when he was this size; none of the roads had been damaged before today.
“Dammit!” Shining spat again. “Cloud, are you sure we got everypony?!”
“Yessir! I had my best spotters do three flyovers after we gathered these ponies. If any rioters are left, they’re very good at hiding, sir!” Shining gritted his teeth.
“Charge, keep the ponies moving. Cloud, you’re with me!” The unicorn and pegasus sped off after the dragon.
Left, right. Three blocks, left. Around the curve. Right. He dashed up the street, Thundercloud behind him. Right. One block.
As Shining ran, he observed. No fires, graffiti, broken windows or torn-down flags. The street, every street they’d been on
since leaving the square, had had no signs of mob activity. The rioters had apparently avoided any paths that directly lead to Sugarcube Corner. There was no sound of a mob, either; the low din that marked a large group’s presence anywhere was absent.
Thk-Whum-krsh
“RAAAGH!”
Another gigantic sound, as though thunder was setting off at ground level. A huge plume of dust and smoke shot into the air as the roar came. Shining ran faster.
No rioters, what the buck was that then?
As this question ran through his mind, a purple mass flew from around the corner of the street and hit the building across with a wet crunch. As the purple dissipated, Shining found himself staring at a stallion in gilded armour, his head turned backwards, shocked but dull eyes looking over his back and tail at the guard captain. It took Shining a few seconds to notice that the stallion wasn’t breathing, that his neck had actually been broken rather than simply turned around.
Thundercloud vomited. Shining kept moving, rounding the corner to see what could have done such a thing to a guardspony.
The first thing he saw was a wall of dust. As this cleared, however, he began to make out shapes. He saw a mound of something, rubble, only discernable due to its lower height compared to the surrounding shadows. The dust cleared more, and he saw a group of pony-shapes on the ground a distance away from the rubble, one of them rising higher than the others, discernable in the sea of dusty brown by her bright pink coat. As he walked further into the cloud, details began to be easier seen. He saw a red streak painted across several buildings, ending in a crumpled mass. He saw a long purple and green mass winding from out of the debris. He saw a purple unicorn digging frantically at the rubble, magical bins reaching in and moving huge mounds of wood and stone.
These last two signs set off warning bells in his head and froze the lump in his stomach.
“Cloud, see if the survivors saw anything!” He yelled, not bothering to see if the guardspony had heard him. He bolted straight for the rubble pile, horn already alight. The guard captain slid in beside his sister, lifting away huge chunks of detritus. Here and there, purple scales and green spines began to show through. Another ten seconds, and a snout came into view. Shining tossed some plaster dust in front of it; the powder fell without much deviance. He began working faster, but soon stopped; Despite how he wished it wasn't, Shining knew it was a lost cause.
“Spike, Spike, you’re gonna be okay, Spike, I’m here, you’re gonna be okay…” The purple unicorn muttered in a somewhat sing-song voice. She had ceased lifting massive piles of rubble when the snout came through, instead brushing debris away from the rest of the dragon’s head in an almost gentle fashion. When the entire head was in view, she stopped using magic entirely, simply wiping the remaining dirt and dust from around his spines and protruding scales. She rubbed along his brow, his loosely-closed eyes opening very slightly as the skin pulled up. “I need you to wake up, okay Spikey? Little Spikey-Wikey, Twilight needs you to wake up, okay?”
Shining had never seen his sister mourn before. She had been too young to remember when her grandmother and partial namesake had died, and since then she had never lost any family or close friends. He watched, uneasy, as Twilight slid herself partially under Spike’s head, shifting herself back and forth in an apparent attempt to gently rock the dragon awake. He was about to do something (though he had no idea what to do) when a slightly greener-than-normal Thundercloud trotted up to him.
“The, ugh, the ponies over there ar-er, were, that is, the owners of this building. The Cakes, Cup and Carrot, and their two foals are the ones that are huddled together, and Pinkie Pie – Element of Laughter, I believe you two have met, sir – is the one who’s watching… this.” He gestured broadly to the scene in front of them. “All three adults say they were inside the shop when a bolt of magic shot through the window and exploded inside. The building began to rumble – a load-bearing wall was apparently damaged in the explosion - and they heard yelling outside, and then the dragon leapt into the building and began holding it up so that the ponies could evacuate. The Cakes went up to grab the foals, then another bolt shot into the building, apparently hitting the dragon. He roared, the ponies ran, and the building collapsed behind them. Apparently Twilight and the guardsponies were in a physical engagement when the building collapsed, though the Cakes lost sight of them when the dust hit both groups. And yes, sir, the streak over there leads to the other guard. Dead, sir.” He coughed.
Shining let out several curses under his breath. “They didn’t see any altercations?”
“Beyond the guardsponies attempting to restrain Twilight? No, sir.”
“Do they know why she was restrained?”
“No sir.”
Shining sighed in frustration. He turned to his sister, who had stopped moving, simply laying her head across Spike’s brow.
Gentle, Shining. Remember how to handle guard widows and widowers. Gentle, firm—
Then Twilight lifted her head, her eyes open and gazing into Shining’s.
They were dead eyes.
“Twily—“
“Out.”
Shining blinked. Twilight’s voice had been heavy, but not in grief; it was a timbre, one caused by heavy magic usage. As he looked higher on her head, he realized that he couldn’t see her horn. There was an extremely bright light blocking his view.
“Twilight, what are you—“
”YOU KILLED SPIKE! YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE! GET OUT!”
Then Twilight exploded.
A great burst of magic shot out in all directions from her horn. A barrier, much like the one Shining had used with Cadance to remove the changelings, began to balloon out from the unicorn. Shining stood, stupefied, until the barrier reached him.
Then there was nothing but darkness and pain.
---
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Here comes Chapter Four. The first flashback, giving the very start of the reason Broken wants to literally rip Twilight's head off.
Had Thanksgiving weekend, and managed to finish this and get completely through Chapter Five as well. I'm rather proud of myself.
This chapter actually had the reverse problem of Ch. 3: I wanted it and Chapter Five to go together initially, but found that they worked better seperately. Nice how that works out, huh?
Anywhosle, hopefully this actually updates tonight instead of taking hours to go through like 3 did.
I wonder what could have caused Twilight to kill the two guards?
I hope we find out, but either way, I love this story!
I wonder how the rest of the elements play in to the revolution. Cant wait for ch. 5
1411139
*Glances at Spike's corpse* Yeah, wonder what could've made her do that.... thanks for the comment!
1411705
I'll be expanding on their roles a bit later on; Broken should be giving an idea of who did what in through chapters five, six, and seven, and the flashback that more openly states their roles should come in around eight or nine.
I wonder what's up with the riot, since there's apparently so little damage.
As for the bolts of magic... I dunno. Maybe the guards, maybe some posh royal.
Anyway, can't wait for the next chapter
1413071
Most of the rioters are from Ponyville, so they don't really want to damage their home turf too much; they focused on government things, like the flags or the Town Hall. Plus, they're ponies, and violence isn't exactly first nature to most of them.
On the magic, that's actually a plot point coming up soon. So I can't say much on it yet.
Thanks for the comment!
ohh Nice development! i see that spike died but at least he saved the cakes and Pinkie pie T_T and traumas begin
........
1415705
Trust me, it gets worse.
Thanks for the compliment!
Spike....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
1418631 My avatar has the spike sweater..... would you like to over to my house for a "visit"
.
So this all started because some ponies in Ponyville had a riot and attacked the pony they had least reason to.
Burn it to the ground.
But actually, that's just tragic.
Oh, yeah. I can see how Spike's untimely demise could drive Twilight off the deep end.
Yeah, this is just getting too ridiculous. I can't see Twilight losing her shit that badly about the Charter getting rejected on the first pass. And after the riot, Twilight would more likely be so disgusted with everypony involved that she'd refuse to take a side at all, than ultimately side with the rioters that killed foals in her town.
So the guards thought that Spike was attacking the bakery and killed him? That's what I got out of that last part of the chapter, namely because Twilight said that the guard killed Spike. Please clarify if I am mistaken.