Twilights Mane Passion

by Darkonshadows

85

The griffon approached the tied down cowering Fluttershy with the scissors. A shadow flitted in through the higher portion of doorway and narrowed its glowing eyes at him as he grabbed a mass of the shy mare’s mane.

A chained and barren of hair Fluttershy was pushed out of the room, led by the guards towards her next destination. As she kept her head down, she smiled slightly revealing fanged teeth.

Back in the room, the griffon stood there blankly for a moment before falling over revealing the real Fluttershy who was hiding behind him struggling to lift some heavily overloaded saddlebags. She quietly poked her head out of the entrance to the room and watched as the guards turned the corner with Chrysalis. The changeling winked back in her direction before disappearing entirely.

Fluttershy started following them cautiously, she thought Chrysalis’s intervention was amazingly well timed. Having her hide behind the unconscious griffon was a stroke of genius. The changeling had transformed to appear as if she were a fully processed Fluttershy after dealing with the griffon and followed that up by calling the guards into the room using his voice while holding him up with her magic. Chrysalis had even injured herself slightly to make it believable, much to Fluttershy’s consternation. Whatever magic that was affecting the guards had to be messing with their sight, as such they failed to spot the changeling that snuck into the room.

Now that they had traded places, Fluttershy had her medical kit among the other supplies in the saddlebags. She had to be careful as getting in was the easy part, getting to the slaves without getting caught was going to be difficult as she was slowed down by the weight placed on her back. She would have to give Chrysalis a thank you hug with lots of love later for making sure she didn’t have to go through something that would have been somewhat traumatizing. She was pretty sure Twilight’s hair growth formula would have fixed the problem, if she had bothered to bring some along.

While the thieves, brigands and the like were too busy watching Fluttershy, they didn’t notice Chrysalis tailing her with the medical supplies, water and food. The two hoped they could get some useful information from the slaves and said slaves wouldn’t be stuck for much longer under the vizier’s cruel hooves.

Chrysalis was going to be sneaking in as much stuff as she could for the slaves after she was done leading Fluttershy right to them. The shy mare would proceed to patch up the sick, wounded and otherwise mares that were hurt by the grand vizier while avoiding the guards.

Elsewhere meeting with a camel and a stallion, Ballad Din was talking to the stallion and camel in a hushed tone as Tress and Daring Do stood by watching their surroundings.

Tress, given her general height, could have anyone mistaking her for a Saddle Arabian native that didn’t talk much and was wearing masculine clothing. She hoped Fluttershy and Chrysalis were doing well with their part of the infiltration scheme; thus far she had yet to see any sign of the genie or jinn. She was with the team that were all going after the lamp specifically. Finding out what, if anything, the Vizier had to control all those guards that just forced Fluttershy into the palace was a small side objective for every team.

“Just tell Abyss Maul, that Ballad Din will come seeking the information and he will get it one way or another.” Ballad turned away and led his companions towards his home in Neighgraba. On the way he explained that Abyss Maul was a thief who was stupid enough to try and steal anything, even the lamp that the vizier had under his hoof. Ballad only stole what he needed to live and was an honorable quick witted stallion, but now he was going to put his thieving ways to use in saving the city he loved.

They were basically the group focused on the less friendly aspects of Neighgraba. If Abyss Maul was as stupid as many thought he was, he would be planning to steal the vizier’s power for himself. If anybody knew where it was, then it would be Abyss who would have a half decent idea of where to look. It would be a while before they set out for his hideout to steal his plans, but for now they would just eat some dates.

“So when Twilight said you were dangerous. Did she mean you can walk into a room full of armed thieves and walk out without injury?” Daring was skeptical of Tress’s combat prowess, she wasn’t skeptical of Tress’s hair products as that stuff felt good to bathe with. Daring personally could do it, only she’d get a few bruises here and there as she’d mostly be looking out for knife wounds. Ballad Din could just dance circles around them to the point that they were beating themselves up. Tress was the one Daring was unsure of as she hadn’t seen her fight yet.

“I’m ready when Ballad is. Besides I’m itching for a brawl and I can’t wait until Twilight and the troupe make their grand entrance, because that’s when we move out right?” Popping another date in her mouth and chewing it thoroughly, she knew that didn’t really answer Daring’s question. She instead swallowed and decided to ask. “So who’s going to be left behind to watch the ship again?”

“Rough Heed, Jasmine and Pinkie Pie. Pinkie looks to be kind of attached to the idea of having her own little restaurant and it scares me as to how clingy to it she is.” Even Daring was wary of leaving Pinkie Pie alone to her own devices, who knew what the wild card would do.

An hour and thirteen minutes later the three of them were in the seediest part of town; all three of them were good in a fight. They stood outside the hideout which was located in a bar, Tress smiled and haughtily trotted in not waiting for the other two to scout it out. There was no better time to start a bar brawl then right now, she missed doing this in Appleoosa because the ponies there were boring.

Boldly walking in caused every thief in the hideout to turn towards Tress. She simply moved to a corner lifted a table above her head and then threw it into the den of thieves as hard as she could into the largest mass of bodies she could see.

“What is she doing, we have to… what?” Ballad was pulled back by Daring as an unconscious body flew from the hideout passing through the space he was just standing.

“I don’t think she needs our help, let’s sneak around and steal from Abyss’s personal stash while she keeps them busy.” Daring approached the doorway only to stop as a pair of hooves appeared scrabbling hopelessly for the exit. The poor Saddle Arabian camel was dragged back inside screaming incomprehensible expletives. “Then again maybe we can wait while she deals with this; it looks like she has a lot of aggression to get out of her system and this certainly answers my earlier question.”

“If that were me in there, I would have beaten them all without attacking them once.” Ballad grumbled as a griffon flew out with two black eyes and bounced twice before coming to a rest.

“Yes, but her solution makes sure no pony will ever talk about this, can you imagine an entire guild full of thieves getting their butts kicked by one mare? This is priceless.” Chuckling Daring looked in to see more than twenty bodies strewn around the room, with parts on them bent at varying painful angles. Tress was just dusting off her hooves as she stood in the middle of the room. “Are you quite finished yet?”

Tress bucked out her left hind leg breaking a thief’s jaw like it was made of glass, just as he was about to stab her in the back too.

“Yeah, we’re done here. Abyss really didn’t fortify his hideout very well.” Tress preened at the attention she was getting from the thief and the treasure hunter looking on in awe. She might have caused a bit of a mess, shattered some ancient urns, ripped up expensive looking art and a smashed a few ugly looking sculptures. That wasn’t even the half of the damage done to the entire room.

“Actually this was fortifying it to the highest level he was capable of.” Ballad’s words were relayed by a laughing Daring Do as the two set out to search Abyss Maul’s stashes. They were looking for his plans to steal from the vizier and anything else that could have been usefully specifically. Abyss always had a plan; they were never any good though and were just good for informational purposes.

Anyone that tried to follow an Abyss Maul plan usually ended up worse off than when they started. Only Abyss can follow his usually insanely suicidal plans and come out even, never ahead and never behind. Anyone else got the short end of the stick, though it wasn’t rare that Abyss got his comeuppance. Sure he may not have been the best thief in the world, but he wasn’t the worst and he has yet to be permanently caught by anyone. That shows that Abyss, despite his seemingly bumbling nature at times, usually knew how to survive whatever horrible thing ends up aimed at him.

While the Treasure Hunter and Thief cased the hideout room by room, Tress leaned back against the bar and relaxed a bit. She had never had so much fun beating the tar out of lowlifes. Not that she had previously gone around beating up lowlifes before this.

“So, any of you want to go for another round?” A chorus of groans sounded out in defeat at Tress’s question and she cackled insanely. “No then? Okay, I’ll just wait for my friends to be done stealing your stuff; ah it feels good to let the inner evil out once in a while. Now all I have to do is just sit here and look pretty.”

“You know you could be helping us look for the plans this guy has!” Daring shouted down at Tress from an upstairs room.

“No can do. You’re the minions, you do the work. I just beat up a room full of thieves, what have you done that was important lately?” Tress knew she was being slightly lazy, but she deserved to kick back for a minute or two. “I swear you would get too lazy if I did all the work for you.”

“I think I’ve found it, let’s get out of here.” Ballad Din and Daring were heard rummaging and stuffing something away upstairs and they quickly came down. As the two exited the den of the thieves they witnessed an explosion of fireworks in the distance. “Our friends seem to be keeping the general public very busy, let us make haste back to my hideout to look over what we’ve found. We’ll join them again later tonight with our discoveries.”

“Come on Tress, let’s go.” Daring watched as the mare lazily stood up stretched out and slowly before she sauntered out the front door without a single injury. Never had the explorer ever seen a mare that could fight so well while wearing a robe and shawl, there were only three small tears in the robe from near misses.

Thirty or so minutes later Abyss Maul, a slightly tubby and short Saddle Arabian stallion, arrived at his hideout. He walked into the room and blinked owlishly at all the throwing knives impaling the walls, the destroyed stolen merchandise and the mangled thieves still lying around.

“What do I pay you guys for; Ballad Din couldn’t have been that tough. He was just one guy!” Abyss Maul was positively angry at having his hideout destroyed. Sighing he made his way to his stash of plans and information, he quickly found that a lot of it was stolen. “Ah great, there goes all that time sending in perfectly good patsy’s to get that information on where the Vizier was getting his power from. I swear I don’t know why I tolerate you guys.”

“Sure it was just one guy, that’s who took us all out.” The stallion that spoke would never admit that he brought low by what was probably the most vicious mare he has ever seen. When he was approached by Ballad Din earlier today after that weirdly colorfully dressed mare was taken by the vizier, he didn’t think the thief could be very threatening. Oh how wrong he was, they didn’t even make that mare bleed and she wiped the floor with their entire den of thieves in less than ten minutes.

“I swear you just can’t good help these days.” Abyss Maul just shook his head at his minions scattered about and bloodied.

This was going to be one of the more horrific memories of the thieves who were beaten to a bloody pulp today by one crazy mare. Not like Abyss Maul hasn’t already caused them problems with his horrible leadership. The reprehensible thieves would forever remember the red and green eyes of that mare in their nightmares

Back at Ballad Din’s hideout, the three ponies poured over the stolen information until they found the answer to their lamp problem.

It was unfortunate that the lamp was currently placed in the catacombs beneath Neighgraba and protected by a variety of traps both magical and sadistic in nature. It was apparent that several hapless thieves sent to gather this much barely survived to escape with even as much information as they were seeing here.

Animated skeletons, a monster called a Slumbergath and plenty of references to bladed traps, poison darts and the other usual stuff that Daring and Ballad were used to dealing with. This was nothing new to the adventurous mare; only it was going to be really dangerous.

None of them had any idea as to what a Slumbergath was.

Comments

[raw666]

Hope you update more soon and get more viewers.

[Darkonshadows]

4356282

Two hundred thousand words special, two chapters in rapid succession written back to back.

[RC]

Epic. And as for tres...godammit you overpowerd buck!!
Yall just have to one up my best dontya?

[Darkonshadows]

4363117

Yes, it is.