//------------------------------//
// Chapter Eight: Escape From Saddleopolis 
// Story: Rising Star 
// by Argonaut44 
//------------------------------//

“This is a ridiculous plan.”
Standing atop the roof of a skyscraper, above the smoggy clouds that hovered over the city of Saddleopolis, were Dust Bunny, Jackpot, and Elodea, all shivering from the chilly high-altitude air. Starlight Glimmer was lying on the ground near one of the roof’s air vents, still unconscious from her recent Princess Luna-related injuries. The other three were standing near the edge of the roof, several stories above ground level. In one of Elodea’s hooves was a live grey pigeon, and in the other was a rolled-up letter, a letter that had just been penned by Jackpot, seeking the help of a friend in Vanhoover. Elodea was currently struggling to tie the letter to the pigeon’s foot, while the other two stared on, doubtful the plan would work. 
“We shouldn’t be out in the open like this…” Jackpot muttered, nervously scanning the sky for a particular alicorn princess. 
“It will only take a minute,” Elodea said, as she finished attaching the letter.
“There!”
She pet the pigeon’s head and tossed it into the air, where it took flight, heading south, at a reasonable speed for a pigeon. 
“Fly! Go on! Fly!” Elodea yelled. The other two shared a look of mutual uncertainty. 
“Alright, now that we’re done being morons, let’s get back inside,” Jackpot said, picking up Starlight from the floor, with Dust’s help. 
In the hotel they were staying at, the ponies were in conflict over the plan to get out of the city, before Luna and the royal guard inevitably located them.  
“We need disguises,” Jackpot said. 
“That’s a bit much,” Elodea replied, finding disguises to be childish and embarrassing. 
“They know what we look like now, right?” Jackpot said. 
“All I’ve got is some sunglasses,” Elodea replied, as she put the pair of sunglasses on and smiled. 
“Look, I’m unrecognizable,” Elodea teased, carelessly. 
“There are guards at every exit of the city, and they’re bound to be doing inspections,” Jackpot said.
“Forget about the inspections, you guys are missing the big problem. Her.” Elodea said, pointing at Starlight, who was lying on the bed. 
“I’ll get a cart to dump Glimmer in. I don’t want to be carrying her tens of miles to Vanhoover.”
“They might not recognize us, but they’ll definitely recognize her.” said Dust. 
“So….we’ll hide her. I'll go get the cart, we’ll hide her, and we’ll be fine...Don’t worry so much, Dust, I’ve got everything under control,” he said, standing up to leave and go buy a cart. 
“Under control!? We’re national fugitives! Nothing is under control!”
“Not with that attitude. Now stay here and watch her, and your miscreant friend,”
Elodea stuck her tongue out at him as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
“Your friend’s an idiot,” Elodea said, chewing on a wad of pink bubblegum while lounging on a chair in the corner. Dust was still watching the door Jackpot had just left out of, longingly.  
“I know.”

Jackpot returned some time later, having bought a sizable wooden cart. They dumped Starlight inside, covering her in bedsheets and pillows they had stolen from the hotel room. 
“That’ll do for now,” Jackpot said, as he began dragging the cart down the street, the other two walking along beside him. 
Elodea brought them to a vendor's district, full of exotic ponies selling exotic things. 
“Alright, everypony get some new clothes, and some random shit to throw in the cart.”
Dust found a black brimmed hat and a matching jacket, which she wore over top her black dress. Returning to the cart, she saw Jackpot, wearing a sort of grey cloak wrapped around his head, and Elodea, who hadn’t bought anything. 
“El!”
“What? Sunglasses, remember? I’m covered.”
Dust shook her head in disapproval, while Jackpot dumped some newly bought wooden chairs, some tables, and a dresser drawer in the carriage, accidentally smacking Starlight in the face with a chair leg in the process. 
“So what exactly are we telling the cops? We’re...furniture salesponies?”
“Delivery ponies. Tell ‘em somepony ordered all this,” Jackpot said, making up the story on the spot. 
“Got it,” Elodea said, chewing on her bubblegum, seemingly completely unphased by their desperate situation. Dust, against her instinct to trust her friend, found Elodea’s disinterest rather suspicious, as if she already knew she had nothing to lose. 

The three ponies walked towards the edge of the city, and located a crowd of merchants, all talking amongst themselves, trying to get through the city’s south gate. Near the end of the line, the trio shuffled past ponies of all shapes and sizes, all selling a variety of goods. 
“Dust, act natural.”
“What?”
“You look too suspicious. You’ve got to be more natural.”
“Suspicious?! How exactly do I-”
“Damn it Dust! Lower your voice, you’re attracting too much attention.”
Dust rolled her eyes as they inched forward in the line of merchants. Dust glanced into the cart, barely able to see the outline of Starlight’s head beneath all of the junk. 
‘We’re gonna get you out of here, I promise,’ she thought in her head, though without Starlight to protect them, she felt extremely vulnerable, particularly since she was in a completely foreign place. Not to mention, she was apparently wanted on the federal level, for crimes she wasn’t even aware of.  
When they had made it to the gate, Jackpot nodded to Elodea to let her do the talking, while he tried to avoid eye contact with the customs officials, doubting his ability to keep his cool. 
Elodea approached the officer, who seemed about as lively as any other pony in the city. As Elodea made her way to the officer, Dust, for a second, wondered if Elodea was about to rat them out, right then and there, and get a lighter sentence in exchange. She prayed their friendship would pull through.
“Hello, officers,” Elodea said, an innocent smile on her face. 
“Cargo?”
“Miscellaneous.”
“What kind of miscellaneous?”
“Just some furniture.”
“Where’s it going?”
“Where do you think? Vanhoover,” Elodea said, unable to prevent herself from showing attitude. 
“Don’t get smart with me,” the officer said, glaring at her. 
“Sorry,” Elodea said, though clearly didn’t mean it.
The officer stood up straight in his chair, insulted by Elodea’s tone.
“You don’t mind if we take a look?”
“Can you get us on the way back? We’re on a tight schedule here, you know.”
“No, I think we’ll do it now,” the officer said, ticked off. 
Elodea bit her lip in frustration as the officer was joined by another pony, the two of them stepping over to take a look inside the cart. 
Jackpot was sweating beneath his cloak, nervously looking at Dust, who was trying to maintain her composure. 
The cops rifled through the cart, knocking the furniture about, for at least ten seconds. Yet, Starlight was buried so deep beneath the sheets and pillows that finding her wasn’t easy, and, even after minutes of prowling, the officers came back with nothing. 
“Alright then, proceed,” said the first officer, still suspicious of a still-smirking Elodea. 
The trio began moving forward, until the distinct sound of Starlight groaning in pain from inside the cart made them all freeze.  
“What was that?” said one officer, who began approaching the cart again. Jackpot, not knowing what else to do, kicked him square in the face, and began sprinting away towards the still-open gate, dragging the cart behind him.  
“Don’t let them escape!” 
While two guards pursued Jackpot, another ran to the customs booth, and pressed a button on the table, which activated the gate to begin closing. Jackpot ran with all his effort, as he watched the gate slowly close. He didn’t look back, even for a shred of a second, desperate to save himself and Starlight. Miraculously, he made it, and quickly slipped into the dense crowd of merchant ponies, safe from the pursuing guards, who made it to the gate just after it had closed. 
Dust and Elodea, meanwhile, were backing away from some other guards, who had joined the scene after hearing the commotion.
“You’re both coming with us,” said one, slowly approaching them. 
“Dust?” Elodea muttered, as they backed away into a nearby alley. 
“Yeah?”
“Run!”
Elodea spun around and began running away, Dust wasting no time in following. They ran down an alley, towards a fence that would lead outside the city. 
When they made it to the fence, Elodea shook it incessantly, to no avail.
“There’s no way through it…”
“Over it?” Dust asked, as she nervously checked back and saw the officers in hot pursuit towards them.
“I’ll give you a lift!”
Elodea squatted down, and let Dust jump on her back and shoulders. Grunting with Dust’s weight, Elodea slowly stood up, until Dust was able to successfully jump over and land on the other side. Brushing herself off from the scrapes and bruises she sustained from the fall, Dust grabbed the fence, desperately.
“What about you?!”
Elodea’s head swiveled back and forth between the fast-approaching officers, and a wide-eyed Dust. 
“I can’t follow you this time, kid,” Elodea said, regretfully. 
“El!”
Unable to stop her, Dust helplessly watched Elodea climb over a nearby dumpster into another alley, avoiding the officers just as they arrived. The two shared one last look before Elodea disappeared out of sight.
“Cut that fence down!” yelled one of the officers. Dust waited for a few moments, hoping that Elodea would come back, though she knew it wouldn’t happen. She ran off around the corner, and sprinted towards the caravan, which was still nearby. 
Now out of the city and hidden in the crowd, Dust believed she was safe, subtly making her way past ponies until she saw one stallion with a recognizable head of orange-brown curly hair. 
“Jackpot!”
Jackpot spun around in shock, at first believing Dust was a cop. When he saw it was her, he wrapped his arms around her, relieved. 
“Oh, thank Celestia…”
Dust hugged him tightly, partly out of joy to see him alive, but mostly to console herself after losing Elodea for the second time in her life. 
“You’re both alright?” she asked, slowly breaking away from the embrace.  
“Fine. Those cops must’ve missed leg day...Where’s Elodea?”
“She...she stayed behind,” Dust said, her voice quivering. 
Jackpot shook his head, remorsefully.
“Pity. I was just starting to like the junkie.”
The two remained close to each other as they traveled with the caravan, south towards Vanhoover, now with only each other and an unconscious Starlight to keep company. 





Twilight’s eyes were locked on Savoy, their colt guide, who was leading the group of ponies through the dense jungle of the Forbidden Forest, in search of Queen Chrysalis. Twilight didn’t trust the colt at all, especially since he had already tried to run away. Twice.
Rarity and two of the soldier ponies had stayed back in the town, while the others all departed into the forest. 
Twilight was nervous, perhaps the most nervous she’d been this entire journey. She felt a strange sense of uncertain danger as they trudged deeper into the heart of the jungle, the dark green of the forest becoming darker and less friendly the farther they traversed. The terrain was difficult to navigate, with bushes, sticks, and mud haphazardly covering the forest floor. Savoy seemed to know where he was going, though Twilight, naturally, feared he was leading them into some sort of trap. Still, it was arguably better than having no guide at all. 
“If Starlight is up north, why are we even wasting our time here? This is all probably just some trick,” Rainbow whined, flying in the air near Twilight, dodging the occasional low-hanging branch.
“She can’t be two places at once,” Twilight responded, tired of arguing.  
“Can’t she duplicate herself?” Spike pointed out.
“On opposite ends of Equestria? It’s unlikely she could have the strength to pull that off.”
“Not impossible,” Spike retorted. 
“What’s so special about that thing she’s after anyway?” Pinkie asked. 
Twilight shook her head.
“It’s been a while since I read about it. It’s a longshot to try and find it, too. It’s been hidden for thousands of moons.”
  “Whatever it is, it better be something special. I didn’t think we’d be taking a tour of Equestria when we left,” said Rainbow, who would much rather be asleep in the comforts of her own home than lost in some devilish jungle of misfortune. 
Suddenly Savoy stopped, and Twilight responded by flashing her horn a luminescent purple, expecting him to try and pull another trick again.
“Something is wrong,” he said.
“Oh. Right. Nice try. Go ahead and run again, kid, you won’t get very far,” Rainbow threatened.
“It’s not that...This part of the forest, it’s too quiet...The small animals have scattered...All I can hear are insects and…” he trailed off, sniffing the air for anything suspicious. He then realized what the problem was, springing forward and taking off deeper into the jungle, unexpectedly. 
“Hey!” Twilight yelled. 
“He’s gettin’ away!” Applejack said. 
Rainbow, without any instruction, took off at a high speed into the jungle after him. She smirked as she came close to catching him, until she ran face-first into a surprise tree branch. She fell hard to the dirt ground, her head in a whirl.
When the others had caught up, Rainbow grunted and pointed in the direction Savoy had gone off towards.
Following him, the ponies soon began smelling the same scent he had picked up, which got stronger the further they went through the thick brush. The ponies cringed in disgust at the terrible smell, which resembled burnt flesh and a city’s worth of smoke. 
Then, they came to the edge of the ridge, which descended downwards into a low-sitting grassy plain, that gradually inclined upwards into a hill. There were houses all along the ground and up the hill, or rather, what remained of those houses. The whole valley was desolated, black with ash and smoke. Every building had collapsed, every tree burnt to a crisp, and every blade of grass shriveled up and disintegrated. 
Savoy was staring at the carnage from the edge, just as shocked and horrified as Twilight and the others. Among the ashes were bones and ghastly charred red innards. There were patches of fur ripped right from the muscle, ripped-open organs, and shredded tendons that were still on fire, burning small flames along the ground as if it was a candle vigil. 
“...What happened here?” Fluttershy asked, horrified, and yet unable to look away. The body count was certainly above a hundred, counting only those who still resembled bodies, that is. 
“I did this…” said Savoy, who was hyperventilating with a sense of terrible guilt. 
“I brought her here…I thought...I thought he would kill her...I thought he would end it all…”
“Who?” Twilight asked, even more suspicious of the colt now. 
“Comrade, he...I would bring him ponies, ponies he thought were guilty and deserved to die...and in exchange, he would give me protection...I just wanted it all to end...I just wanted Glimmer to die.”
“She did this? Starlight?” Cadance said, shocked. 
Twilight exhaled deeply, enraged and saddened at the sight of so much senseless death and destruction. 
“She couldn’t have gone far. There’s no point staying here.”
“Twilight...shouldn’t we...bury all these ponies, or something? We can’t do anything about this,” said Applejack.
Twilight turned away from the destruction, her face bludgeoned by the impact of the great, agonizing sense of loss. Her eyes were cast down at the dirt, wondering how a creature could be able to commit such evil on such a large scale. It wasn’t fair, and yet, as long as Chrysalis eluded her, it would only continue.
“We’ll bury them when we’re finished. The longer we take to find Chrysalis, the more time she'll have to….to do more things like this to more ponies,” said Twilight, struggling to keep her composure. 
The others hesitantly agreed, and slowly began shuffling back into the brush. Eventually it was just Savoy and Twilight left, both still taking in the unforgettable, terrible sight. 
“If we find her...you have to kill her,” the colt said, his guilt slowly being replaced by a vengeful hatred. Twilight blinked a few times, and simply smiled, a delightful, cruel, half-delirious smile. 
“Oh, I’m going to kill her.”





Miles away in the same jungle, Chrysalis and her newest temporary accomplice, Violet Heirloom, had finally taken a rest break, after hours of walking through the incomprehensible endlessness of the Forbidden Forest. 
They hadn’t spoken a word to each other the entire journey. Chrysalis, for one, hated ponies of any kind, and was only keeping the unicorn around to watch her back in the hostile jungle. And Violet, meanwhile, still only believed Chrysalis to be yet another villainous pony, completely unaware that the ‘Starlight Glimmer’ she had met yesterday was really the dreaded queen of the changelings. 
“Stand up,” said Violet, talking to Chrysalis, who was sitting on a large rock near a stream, resting her legs. Mass murder sure was exhausting. 
“Excuse me?” Chrysalis fired back.
“Just stand up!”
Chrysalis scowled and stood up to her hooves.
“I knew it! I’ve seen that rock before! It’s got that divot in the center! We’re going in circles!”
Chrysalis hadn’t even realized it until Violet pointed it out, and then noticed that indeed, their surroundings did look rather familiar.
 “Great. We’re lost.”
“I’ve been lost since I first got here...” Violet said, looking around the forest for any other memorable landmarks. 
“Well? Have you got a plan?” Chrysalis asked, unable to think of a course of action herself.
“If there’s a stream, it leads towards civilization,” Violet said, pointing at the nearby stream.
“I don’t intend on returning to civilization quite yet. There’s a place I need to find, in this jungle.”
“Gee, that narrows it down.”
“If I had it any narrower, I’d have found it by now.”
Violet rolled her eyes, and sat herself down on a rock of her own, her legs dangling over the running stream. 
“What do you think it looks like?”
“The last place I was at, was a sort of tomb…”
Violet looked around the forest sarcastically, before staring blankly at Chrysalis.
“Hm. I see...trees, trees, trees, ooh! More trees!”
Chrysalis scowled at her bothersome traveling companion, sitting back down on her rock, facing away from her. 
For a few moments, they just sat there silently, both worried they’d be stuck in this forest for the rest of their lives. Chrysalis wondered how long she would have before Twilight finally wised up and located her. If she didn’t find that Queen’s Jewel sooner, she’d miss her chance for world-domination forever. Violet, however, was only concerned with escaping this forsaken jungle in one piece. The longer she spent here, the more likely she was to be killed, by an concerningly wide assortment of means. 
Caught off guard, Violet jumped to her hooves at the sound of Chrysalis screaming. When she turned around, she saw a snake, at least a foot wide and at least 18 feet tall, its tail wrapped around Chrysalis, tightening every rotation, cutting off airflow rapidly.
“Vi-ach!-olet!!” Chrysalis croaked, as her throat closed from the pressure of the snake’s grip. The snake, black in color, with red, demonic eyes, appeared to be smiling down at Violet, who couldn’t help but be intimidated by its monstrous size. Violet watched Chrysalis struggle, unable to focus her magic to cast a spell to save herself while she struggled to intake any air. Violet considered leaving Chrysalis for dead and fending for herself, her natural selfish instinct.  
“Any….time….now!” Chrysalis squeaked, until she lost the ability to speak entirely, as she felt her breath completely give out, and her bones creak from the tightness. 
Just as the snake began moving to snatch her up, Violet’s horn glowed bright red, and fired a blast of energy so hot, and so focused, that it tore a hole straight through the snake’s head, end to end. The snake immediately fell to the ground, dead, its tail giving out around Chrysalis, who fell to the ground, gasping for breath, her lungs depleted of oxygen. Violet fired two more shots into the snake’s head to make sure it was dead.
“That thing was huge….” Violet muttered, never having witnessed anything so monstrous in all her years alive. 
“You sure took...your time...with that rescue,” Chrysalis said between her panting, glaring bitterly at Violet.
“That’s a strange way to say thank you,” Violet said, smirking. She waited for Chrysalis to catch her breath, no even after a minute, she was still wheezing.  
“Would you pull yourself together? I think we’ve learned our lesson about taking rests in this jungle. We’ve got to move.”
“You almost let me die!” Chrysalis yelled, enraged. 
“But I didn’t, did I? Now you’re alive, I don’t see what you have to complain about. Are you coming or not?” 
Chrysalis took one last deep breath before fully recovering. Her body ached from the tightness of the snake’s grip, red streaks imprinted across her legs and chest. She couldn’t deny that she was scared, helpless to die, powerless in an unknown location, without glory or honor. For a second, she had felt what it was like to be the prey, instead of the predator.  
“Let’s go.”
The two set off into the forest again, hopefully this time more aware of their surroundings.