> The Mystery of Breakwater Island > by Plumage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prologue: The Rarest Thing in the World. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mystery of Breakwater Island Prologue: The Rarest Thing in the World Written by Feather * * * Looking out from her refuge point, she smiled. This island was the smartest thing she had ever invested in. Soon, everypony would come and she would start work. The ones who had volunteered would be paid in decent food. She'd needed to cut costs wherever she could. The 'attractions', the 'brochures', all of it would come together. Elaborately. Perfectly. Soon she would be rich. And then how would Blueblood like her? "Meesus Rarity?" The Marexican manager's voice sounded from the doorway. "Yes, Stefan?" "The first night stay is ready." "Good," she said. "Find ponies nopony will miss. Find what their cutie marks are. Bring the list to me." "Of course, Meesus Rarity." She already had a disposable phone number to use. Obviously she couldn't use a real phone number, or the police would track her here and find out what she was going to do. She would call all the the little ponies, tell them some lie about how great they were, and then she'd put down after saying their prize was to come here. And they'd come. Eager to win. And they'd see the truth. But it would be too late. From the sky it looked like an innocent resort. No pegasus would dare fly here anyway. It was just inside the Bituda Triangle. If a boat came it would see an island resort. Everything here looked like the real deal. But of course! It had to. Otherwise... She stopped...she'd forgotten the animatronic pets. She needed cats, dogs, chickens and maybe a peacock. They were the most important part of the island! How could she have been so thick? The resort was scheduled to 'open' tomorrow! She would need Stefan to organize that straightaway. But right now... She walked to the mirror, admiring her own beauty. Those beautiful blue eyes, that purple mane, that shiny white coat... Everything would be fine. The resort was perfect. Flawless. What could go wrong? "Oh, aren't I the smartest...most beautiful creature in all of Equestria?" she whispered to the mirror. Of course she was. And this was her best idea yet. Rarity knew nothing could go wrong. > ~Under the Shadow of a Sombrero. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mystery of Breakwater Island Chapter One: Under the Shadow of a Sombrero Told from the memories of Chentella Amigo Sombrero Written by Decembuary * * * Nothing interesting ever happens in Manehatten, the city that never sleeps. It's all normal, the city lights, the drunken parties, the phone ringing... Wait, the phone ringing? I got up from my lumpy mattress and went to answer the phone. Anyway, anything was better than lying here watching the rain drip through the leaky roof. One of the...'bonuses' of having a low-budget, top-floor apartment. I pick up the phone. "Hola?" I really hope it isn't the airport calling to say my visa's expired. "Hello, this is Mr Stefan Forging. I've rung to tell you you've won a trip to the tropical island resort Breakwater Island. Pack your things up and go to the Manehatten shipyard at nine AM sharp tomorrow. Thankyou for your time." He hung up. It sounds more like an order than a request, but I'm not complaining, who in their right mind wouldn't go on a free trip to a tropical island resort? It didn't even pass my mind that I hadn't entered any competitions. I guess I was just really glad I wasn't being deported. * I hardly got any sleep at all, and when I woke up the next morning, I realized it was already eight-thirty. I better get up. At eight-forty-five I start to head down to the shipyard. There are quite a few ponies here. I don't recognize any of them. They're all lined up by a pretty big and fancy-looking boat. It's got the name 'Harmony' written on the side in flowing script. When I finally do get on the boat, the doors slam shut behind me. I guess I'm last on. I hear a click from the door. With a panicky gasp I whip around. I tug at the door. It's been locked! "he-hem," Looking up, I see a big and flower-adorned stage. Standing on it is a beautiful unicorn, white with an indigo mane. "Welcome to the Breakwater Island Resort Cruise," she says in a posh voice. "Once we arrive at the island you will not be allowed to leave." > ~Tied to a Ribbon's Heart. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mystery of Breakwater Island Chapter Two: Tied to a Ribbon's Heart Told from the journal kept by Ribbonetta Samantha Hearthus Written by Feather * * * The crowd murmurs in surprise. I must have heard wrong. The unicorn coughs. "Umm - I mean, you won't be allowed to leave the fun! Because if you did, then it would be boring, and wouldn't that be horrible?" Nods from the ponies. It would be kind of boring. "My name is Raritellen Lily Elliseve, but you all can call me Miss Rarity. I'm the top head around here, so if any of you have any problems with the island please speak to me about it." The doors around the room snap open again. The pony behind me, an orange pegasus with a red and green mane, yellow eyes and a pair of maracas for a cutie mark, looks very relieved at this. Maybe she doesn't like being cooped up? Miss Rarity smiles. "Your rooms are just down the hall from this room. This room is the Entrance Hall. Make some friends tonight! Enjoy yourselves." She sweeps her front hooves out in a dismissive gesture. "Go, my ponies!" Slowly, the crowd disperses. I walk down the hall to the second-to-last door at the end of the hall. 139. I find the door and push it open. The apartment is lush and it looks like it is very expensive-looking. I look around. There is long velvet couches, lots of clothes, plush carpets, even a four-poster bed. I nearly salivate as I examine what I suppose is my quarters, thinking, It's almost as if this room came out of the Princess's castle! I step carefully into the room, as if my normalness will dirty the poshness in here. I walk over to be vanity mirror. And gasp. The mirror is adorned with ribbons. My special talent. Beautiful, beautiful ribbons. Red ones, blue ones, pink ones, yellow ones. And then I see the ribbon carefully laid out above the mahogany. It's a pastel blue, but there's a sheen to it that suggests it was sparklier than it is now. I share that sheen. I know exactly what it means. This is a Crystal Pony's ribbon. I look up into the mirror and a baby blue pony with both light and dark pink in her hair looks back. She has ultramarine eyes. I grin at my reflection guiltily. I'm mostly Crystal Pony. When King Sombra reigned over the Empire my mother was one of the few to escape just before his downfall. She was a Crystalli, a very pure and true Crystal Pony lineage. The Crystallis were stewards to the queens and kings before Sombra. She crossed the Arctic and came to Canterlot, where she met my father, Lyon James Hearthus, a unicorn with a talent for photography. Then they had me. I'm a unicorn, but I have really, really weak magic and I frequently forget the fact that I have a horn. I have the Crystal Pony sheen, like my mother. My special talent is manipulating ribbons. I use two in my hair, although it looks like only one. The Crystal Sheen wears off outside the Empire, but there are two conditions: One is that we still have a slightly shiny or metallic sheen. Crystal ponies outside the Empire are always a pale or light colour. My mother was a rosy pink. I'm a pastel blue. Two, if we come in contact with any gem or crystal we will turn crystal again, and it doesn't wear off for forty-eight hours. My parents were fine with me coming on the cruise and that they were thinking of going away for a little while anyway. So here I am. Strangely, the Crystal Pony ribbon seems like a threat. I don't know why, but it seems hostile in some way. So I leave it next to the mirror and put my own dark blue ribbon on my bedside table. I snuggle down into the covers and I'm as good as asleep when - "Uh - Hello?" I open my eyes a crack. "Mf?" "Hola! Bonjour! Salutations! Konnichiwa! Kia Ora!" The voice is unmistakably female, very bright, and hard to understand because of the speed of which she speaks. "Just hello is fine," I mumble. "Hi!" I sigh and my eyes drift shut again. "Wait - don't go to sleep! I want to ask you a question!" "Mff." "Do you think it was a bad idea coming on this cruise?" "What?" I mutter. "What on earth are you talking about?" "Never mind," she sighs. Cranking one eye open I see the pony in the doorway is the orange pegasus from before. "I'm Sombrero," the pegasus says brightly. "What's your name?" "Ribbon Heart," I mumble. "What was that?" "Ribbon Heart." Not much louder than before, but oh well. "Cool name! I'm in the room next to yours if you want to - " "Goodnight Sombrero," I interrupt her. "G'night, amigo." I wondered briefly what an amigo was before falling asleep. > ~With the Shake of a Maraca. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mystery of Breakwater Island Chapter Three: With the Shake of a Maraca Told from the memories of Chentella Amigo Sombrero Written by Decembuary * * * And then I'm back in the pretty pony's room. I knew there was something I was forgetting. "Ugh," Ribbon says, not bothering to open her eyes or even finish the sentence. "Yep! I thought I'd warn you that we're probably going to be at the island in four hours, thirty-four minutes and twenty-two seconds. Actually it's probably thirty-three minutes now. Bye!" I leave the room. Ribbon probably didn't pay any attention to what I was saying. Great. Since my neighbour obviously wanted to sleep, I'm stuck with nothing to do for four and a half hours. I didn't have another roommate - 140 was the end of the line. With nothing better to do, I head back over to my room for a one-pony siesta. * I wake up a while later, without even realizing I had apparently fallen asleep. It's a few minutes after twelve. We should be nearing our destination. I get out of my incredibly comfy bed and look out the window. What I see is quite a surprise. The coast of Marexico. I run into room 139 to see if Ribbon can see what I'm seeing. She isn't awake. She would be soon. "Wake UP!" I yell. "What now?" The annoyed and half asleep unicorn growls. "We're nearly there. Well, we should be anyway. Did you know the resort is near Marexico?" "But Marexico is gryphon territory," Ribbon mumbles. "Incorrect, señorita. Gryphon territory is above Marehico." The boat stops. "We must be at the resort!" I say. "Let's go!" I run out to the boat's exit, then impatiently wait in line to get off. An extremely bad-tempered Ribbon is behind me. * Breakwater Island is the opposite of what the expect a topical resort to be. There's a fancy mansion where we get of but apparently we aren't allowed inthere. Miss Rarity leads us to a ratty tin building. "This is where you will all stay," she says. The stallion next to me calls out, "Is this a joke?" "Oh, I can assure you this isn't a joke. Go on in," We all hesitantly go inside. Inside the building is just as disgusting as the outside. It smells like somepony's peed in here, there's cigarette butts and other rubbish all over the floor and we don't even get beds. Instead there are piles of old blankets with numbers beside them. I flop down on the one on the end with 140 written on it. It feels like I'm lying on a particularly prickly curtain. "This is either a really cruel joke," Ribbon says, pushing away the blanket with a disgusted look on her face, "or we've all been tricked into coming here by that stupid unicorn." She looks at the ground and bites her lip. She puts the blanket back after a thorough search for any other nasty surprises. "Let's hope it's all a joke." I reply. > ~Trying to Untie the Bow. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mystery of Breakwater Island Chapter Four: Trying to Untie the Bow Told from the journal kept by Ribbonetta Samantha Hearthus Written by Feather * * * "Is this a fashion statement?" I ask the next morning, waving around the ribbon tied elegantly to my hoof. I don't know where it came from or why its here. Maybe its from the guards, like a welcoming present or something? Sombrero laughs. I look at her. "How is that funny?" I ask. She shrugs. "Just is." "Well." I say, looking down at the yellow ribbon. "I don't like it." I bend down to take the ribbon off. Sombrero does the same. "It's really tight," Sombrero says between her teeth. It is. It must have been made strong with magic! Unfortunately for the jerkwad who put this thing on me, I manage to undo it easily. My special talent is that one thing. Ribbons. But I've untied knots harder than this amateur's. Within thirty seconds I've untied the bow and thrown the ugly yellow ribbon to the ground. "How'd you do that?" Sombrero asks, still pulling at the ends of her intact bow. "It's easy," I reply. "You just..." And I undo her bow. I'm quicker this time; I know how to do it now. "What're you guys doing?" Asks the brick-red stallion who wanted to know whether it was a joke yesterday. "Leaving, I guess," Sombrero shrugs. "Great idea!" I say. "Let's go." We're halfway out the door when I turn to the stallion. "Can you cover for us?" "What - " "Cover for us. Say we're in the toilet or something. I dunno." I say. He grins. "Sure. See you around...?" "Ribbon Heart. And you?" "Brickwork," he replies. "See you. Maybe." I grin. "See you." I turn, follow Sombrero out the door. "Where are you two off to?" Spanish. I can tell. The guard behind us is Spanish. "Hola, amigo..." says Sombrero uncertainly. "We, ah, need to pee." I say quickly. "Wait - where are your ribbon bracelets?" The guard is really suspicious now. "Run!" I say to Sombrero. "Hemi!" The guard is obviously yelling for backup. Now I can hear hooves behind us. "Keep running," pants Sombrero. "Maybe we can outrun them." "Get back here!" Gemane-accented English. Sombrero spreads her wings and flies up directly above me. She's about to grab me when she falls with an uff onto my back. She's been shot. Oh Celestia she's been shot. She's probably dead, and if she's in shooting range then I am too. I begin to zig zag through the trees, dodging around bushes and shrubs. Maybe if I keep moving they can't target me. But I'm slowing down, I'm so tired. The dart comes in my back left leg, and I plow straight into the mud. * I come to in a sterile white room. The curtains are shiny. Shiny?! I bolt backwards, knowing what that means. With a thud, I hit the oak headboard behind me. "Ow," I moan. I use a pillow to push open the crystal curtain. I'm in what looks like a hospital dormitory. Then it hits me. Aren't I supposed to be dead? "Sombrero!" I gasp, remembering the shot. A groan to my left. "Ribbon?" "Where are we?" I ask. "I don't know," Sombrero replies. I try to get out of the bed, trying hard not to touch the curtains. It almost doesn't work, and at one point I shut my eyes and grit my teeth, waiting for the warm feeling that means I'm crystal again. But I doesn't come. I'm safe...this time. How do these ponies know so much about my past?! I turn around. And see it. The crystal ribbon from the boat cruise was laid beneath my pillow. > ~A Shot of Tequila. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mystery of Breakwater Island Chapter Five: A Shot of Tequila Told from the memories of Chentella Amigo Sombrero Written by Decembuary * * * Being shot hurts. It's an experience I wouldn't recommend. Ribbon sneaks through to my bedside. She does it strangely, like she's trying to avoid the curtains. "How are you?" She asks once she's through the gap. "Ugh...awful," I reply. I shift to give her room on the bed and a jolt of pain shoots through my body. Ribbon looks down at the bandage. It's made from the same stuff as our bedding. It's itchy as anything. It's a greyish green, probably made from the inside of a sack. Blood is seeping through the top layer. It looks horrible and unwashed compared to the sterile white room. "I don't think I'll be up to escaping anytime soon," I say. "Well, at least you can still fly," Ribbon sympathizes. "Yeah." We hear hoofsteps outside and Ribbon sneaks quickly back to her own bed. "Well, well, well." It's Miss Rarity. "You two tried to escape didn't you? Oh, that's not good." She sounds like she's talking to a puppy. "The ribbons didn't work. That means I'm going to have to use this." The unicorn picks up a long and vicious-looking syringe with a clear fluid in it. She walks up to Ribbon and injects half the formula into her arm. Ribbon struggles, but she's asleep in seconds. She walks over to me. I try to move away but every time I move my leg is sending stabbing pains up my body. I feel a small prick and darkness clouds my vision. > ~Tied Up in a Crystal Plot. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mystery of Breakwater Island Chapter Six: Tied Up in a Crystal Plot Told from the journal kept by Ribbonetta Samantha Hearthus Written by Feather * * * When I wake I'm back in the ratty building. What was that fluid Rarity injected into us? Why are we on this island? And most importantly, will we get out alive? "Ah, she's awake," Brickwork says. "Yay"s from all round. I look up at them all. Tired, sweaty mares and colts with exhausted smiles on their faces. "You're a hero, darl," says a filly with a Western drawl. "If you escaped it means we all can." "But we didn't escape." "You weren't far from it." I smile. "We need a plan." Most of the heads turn to a surveillance camera in one corner of the room. "Outside there are guards," somepony says. I think for a moment. "I have an idea." * Sombrero's the first one to know the plan when she wakes up. The other ponies will be told in the mines. Brickwork and a few other stallions are going to cause a distraction in the gem mines, while Gem Rod, Lucky Dreams and her crew will make a ruckus on the peanut plantations. We've removed all our ribbon bracelets and replaced them with normal ones from my cruise cabin. It took nearly two months to get them all, slinking in and out of the cruise ship while nopony was looking. Anyway, once the guards rush off to see what has happened, me, Sombrero and everypony else will make a run for the boat. Once we get on, Steer Wheel, Port and Starboard will pilot us far enough away so that the guards can't reach us. We'll then steer over to the East Dock to pick up Brickwork, Gem Rod and their teams. This has gone round the mines like wildfire. Since there are no cameras or guards in the mines (only Rarity comes to visit and gloat once an hour) it's the perfect place to discuss things. I whisper the plan to Lucky Swirl one evening and she takes the news to the peanut plantations. * Tomorrow the plan will come into play. Right now we're down in the mines. Usually all the mares are up in the plantations, but because rebellion has been a problem Rarity has had to send some 'naughty mares' down into the mines. It's horrible here. The only light comes from the rare torch or lantern. The rock we're mining is cold and damp. The air is freezing cold, clammy, and worst of all, full of the screams of workers as they are caught under falling rocks or mine cart accidents. I met Gem Rod down here. She is a good pony. She knows a gem-showing spell that shows us where the nearest gems are. She doesn't know that I'm a Crystal Pony, nopony does, but I think she's intelligent enough to guess since I don't lay a hoof on any gem. * Tonight will be out last night here. Glad for the brief respite in work, I don't pay any attention to the little parties (which have to be quiet enough to avoid Rarity's wrath) and just roll over, shut my eyes and sleep.