City of Guilds

City of Guilds
Chapter One: The City of Guilds

Princess Celestia paced around the cobblestone war room, the soft glimmer of the morning sunlight feeding in through cracks in the walls. The room was filled with ponies, all anxiously awaiting the spell the princess had planned. Celestia looked around at the, as of the last year or so, very familiar faces. A year ago, many of these ponies had come to her to inform her that members of their friends or family had gone missing. A series of strange teleport storms had apparently whisked several ponies away to another plane. What made this a far more immediate issue was the fact that several of the ponies that were teleported away, were the Elements of Harmony. Along with all six elements, Shining Armor, and Scootaloo were known to be missing. She stood with her sister Luna and her niece Cadence as they addressed the crowd.

“All right, here’s how this should work,” Princess Celestia said loud and clear. “The three of us,” Celestia motioned to the two alicorns at her sides, “will send our magic out into the Aether, and hopefully we’ll be pulled to the plane where the eight missing ponies are located.” The three slowly nodded to each other and began the spell. Their magic swirled from their horns and twisted together amidst a collection of objects in the middle of the room that would, hopefully, lead the magic to the ponies that they were looking for. The magic began to ebb and flow and became a large hole in the middle of the room, and the three alicorns became engulfed in its light, traveling across worlds to find their lost subjects.

Princess Cadence was blinking the sun out of her eyes when she realized something. “We did it.” Cadence looked all around her, unable to turn her head without laying eyes on something that she had never seen before. All around the three alicorns were buildings that seemed to pierce the sky. Creatures of various shapes, sizes, and colors walked the paved streets, seemingly uninterested in the sudden appearance of three alicorns.

Celestia tilted her head towards the sky, the bright light of the sun momentarily blinding her, before a thin layer of smog covered the the bright globe. "Well, is everypony alright?"

"We are fine, yes," Luna responded. "Though the world we have found ourselves in seems... odd."

"It's amazing!" Cadence squealed. "So many interesting sights to see, so many new pon-I mean... things to meet! Oh, I just can't wait to meet some of the people of this new place in person!" Cadence started to approach a few human passersby when a loud voice rang out.

“Halt, in the name of the Boros guild.”

Coming from the direction of the voice was a trio of humans in gleaming armor with the symbol of a fist radiating light on them. In the middle of the group of humans, however, there was a unicorn, coated in gleaming white armor with the same symbol of the fist done in gold. The unicorn was also white as snow and his mane featured various shades of blue.

Cadence's eyes lit up as she asked, “Shining Armor?”

“Cadence?” Shining Armor rushed forward and hugged his wife, sending a look back to the humans who backed off. "It really is you. How are you? How's Equestria? How did you find us? Did you find 'us' or just me?"

Cadence planted a kiss on Shining to silence him. "We can answer all of those questions later. For now though why are you dressed like that? And why did they yell 'halt,' are we in trouble?"

“Sorry, you guys just appeared out of nowhere so the Boros were called in," Shining responded. "I just so happened to be in the direct area.”

“What are these Boros that thou speaks of?” Princess Luna inquired.

“The Boros are one of the guilds… Oh right, you’re new here.” Shining put a hoof to his chin in thought. “I’ve got it, I’ll take you three to the Transguild Promenade, it’ll be easy to explain there.” He motioned for the three alicorns to follow him, “But first I’d like to welcome you three to the wonderful world of Ravnica!”

Shining led Celestia, Luna, and Cadence to the Transguild Promenade, a large park that contained ten arches that represented the ten guilds of the world. Shining motioned for the three to sit down on a bench located under the symbol he wore on his armor. “The Boros Legion, the protectors and police of Ravnica.” He puffed his chest out proudly and motioned to the symbol on his armor. “This is the mark of the Boros guild, the golden armor shows that I’m a captain.”

“How very interesting, nephew,” Celestia said softly. “But we’re here looking for the other missing ponies as well, so that we can take you and them back to Equestria.”

Shining pondered for a few minutes. “Well, I know where a few of them are at least.” The three alicorns began giving Shining expectant looks. “Only a few, I don’t know how many of us were sent through the portal.”

“Start with the Elements of Harmony, okay sweetie,” Cadence said softly, giving her husband a loving look.

“Well...” Suddenly an explosion occurred off in the distance. the alicorns jumped to the ready as they saw an entire building collapse. Shining simply sighed, “Again?” The alicorns looked at him as if he suddenly sprouted an extra head. He pointed to another one of the symbols in the promenade, a symbol of a dragon, colored in blue and red, spreading his wings menacingly with what seemed to be a crown floating above him. “The symbol of the Izzet league, led by the dragon Niv-Mizzet. They’re the scientists of Ravnica.” His voice and face dropped. “It’s also where Twilight is.”

“Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic, is a member of this Izzet League?” Celestia’s voice was beginning to lose its motherly tone, becoming darker and her words more deliberate.

“Yeah, she’s one of his head scientists.” Shining looked off towards the location of the recent explosion. “Stuff like that happens all the time when Izzet experiments go awry.” He looked to Celestia. “If you want to find the missing ponies, I’d start by checking out the guilds.” He motioned to another symbol on the promenade, this one looked as though it was a maze inside of a triangle. “The Azorius Senate, lawmakers of Ravnica.” He motioned to another symbol this one was the shape of a large tree, “The Selesnya Conclave, last time I heard Fluttershy was located in their main guildhall, the tree Vitu-Ghazi.” He motioned to another symbol, a circle containing the head of an insect, “The Golgari Swarm, mostly just insects and reanimated corpses but still you might want to check.”

“There is no way that one of sister’s subjects would lower themselves to such a place.” Luna was practically seething at the implication.

“I’m just saying that you might want to check out the guildhall," Shining Armor countered. "Meet with the guild’s leader Jarad, he’ll know if there are any equine in his guild.”

“Pony,” Cadence interjected. “You said equine, it’s pony.”

“Right, that’s just what the citizens of Ravnica call us.” Shining laughed softly and motioned to another guild symbol. This symbol was of a black pointed sun, “The Orzhov Syndicate, a bunch of mobsters, thieves and miscreants that masquerade as a religious organization.” Shining’s tone was coarse and venomous, even more so than when he was talking about the Golgari before. The next symbol down from the Orzhov was a symbol of a burning tree; Shining caught the three looking at the symbol. “The Gruul Clans, not much to say, really just a bunch of brutes.” The next symbol was one that looked like a tree bent in the shape of a wave of water. “The Simic Combine, you’ll find Rainbow Dash at the guildhall or in the skies above us, breaking as many laws about speed and public safety as she can.”

Luna pointed to one of the two remaining symbols. “What is that guild’s name?”

Shining looked at the symbol, a fractured burning skull; his face fell and his eyes narrowed. “The Cult of Rakdos. monsters, killers, psychopaths, they’re responsible for at least fifty percent of the murders on Ravnica.” His tone fell. “Go there at your own risk, just know that some creatures are beyond redemption.” Luna and Celestia shared a look.

“Sweetheart, what is that final symbol there?” Cadence was pointing to the last archway, the one with the spider whose body was a large eye. “An old legend, the House of Dimir, the lost guild, the tenth guild, the shadow guild.” Shining laughed. “They’re something of a bedtime story used to scare kids into being good.” Shining took on the voice of an old spinster. “If you don’t eat all your veggies then the Dimir will come to get you, whooooo,” he punctuated these last words by standing on his back hooves and waving his front ones up and down.

“Captain.”

Shining snapped back into a standing salute. “Yes, guildmaster Feather.” An angel hovered in the air above the group, her skin was a light tan, rather drab when compared to her flaming red hair. Much like Shining, she also wore armor that was decorated with the symbol of the Boros. She flew down next to the Shining and looked over the three alicorns.

“You should come with me Armor, there was a murder nearby.” Feather’s gaze was once again drawn to the three alicorns. “And the three of you are?”

Shining dropped the salute. “Oh, these are the rulers of Equestria, the plane that I’m from, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.” The alicorns bowed their heads to Feather who returned the gesture. “And she,” he added, throwing his forehoof around Cadence’s neck, “Is my wife, Cadence.” Cadence bowed to Feather as well, who returned the gesture with a smirk. The unicorn captain turned to face his aunts. "And this is the guild leader of the Boros, the angel Feather."

“A pleasure," Feather responded with a midair curtsy. "Well, they should probably come too,” the angel said curtly.

Princess Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Why do you need us?”

Feather flapped her wings powerfully to ready herself for flight. “Well I figured you’d want to be there, considering it was one of your equines that was murdered.”

Shining Armor’s disbelief at the prospect of a pony being murdered was only dispelled when he got to the crime scene. At the edge of the Transguild Promenade there was a statue dedicated to the five fallen paruns. The statue featured Razia, the archangel who led the Boros guild before Feather. The statue bore a striking resemblance to the current guildmaster, since Razia had made all of the other angels in her image. The second part of the statue was actually a small group of people, the original Azorius court, who died nearly five hundred years prior, in a time that the citizens of Ravnica call the Dissension Crisis.

The next part of the statue was of an elf woman named Fonn, one of the champions of the Selesnya guild. She was pictured riding atop her wolven steed, with her weapon raised. Next to her was the image of another elf, though he was clothed in a long robe, with glasses resting upon his nose. His name was Momir Vig, the previous master of the Simic Combine, killed by his greatest work in the Dissension Crisis, but still memorialized for all of his followers.

But it was the fifth statue that, even though it was mere stone, managed to permeate an air of darkness. The fifth parun immortalized in the stone was the former leader of the Dimir, the vampire Szadec. Shining shivered as his gaze fell upon the vampire's statue, the stone eyes drilling a hole in his skull. It was beneath the imposing figure of Szadec that a dead pony, with orange fur and a purple mane, rested.

“Scootaloo, no.” Celestia’s voice cracked as she turned away from the body.

Shining had been part of many murder investigations during his time as a Boros mage and even more now that he was a captain, but seeing a child’s death wasn’t something that one easily gets over. Shining’s human assistants were already sketching the scene. “This was brutal.”

Scootaloo’s body was mangled, ripped and torn. Cuts and bruises dotted her forelegs and hind legs. Her limp corpse was lying on its belly and her mane and tail were messily lying limp. Shining used his hoof to prod at her hair. “Wet.” Cadence and the others looked at him, “Her hair, it’s still wet.”

Feather approached him. “Blood, sweat, or other.”

“Seems to be sweat, that and the bruising indicate struggle.”

One of the humans scoffed, “Gruul job cut and dry. She got into a fist-fight with something bigger than her.” The humans caught a dirty look from Captain Armor and went back to their work.

“You’ll want to look at this!” shouted one of Shining’s human assistants as he threw a pony-sized cape down at their feet. That cape happened to feature the symbol of the Gruul. “Found it on the other side of the statue, looks like it was the victim’s.”

“No.” Feather grabbed Scootaloo’s body and flipped it over, revealing more stab wounds on her lower body, but more importantly revealing a circular scar near the base of her neck. “She’s Scognor, dammit!”

Princess Luna spoke up. “Her name is Scootaloo.”

“Maybe where you’re from,” Feather shot back, “But around here she’s called Scognor, the adopted daughter of the Gruul guildleader, Borborygmos.”

“Rules out Gruul involvement,” Shining stated matter-of-factly. “No Gruul sect would be stupid enough to willingly piss off Borborygmos.” Shining ran through the facts in his head. The Gruul being involved was highly unlikely, Rakdos was the next likely suspect for a crime of this brutality, but the blood splatter seemed off. “Wait.” Shining scanned the area, noticing that there wasn’t any consistent blood splatter. “She’s been moved.”

“Rules out Rakdos as well then," Feather replied. "They don’t move bodies, so who does that leave, Armor?”

The humans both blanched as one of them managed to form words. “The Dimir.”

Feather’s wings flared at the mention of the guild of shadow. Shining, however, simply snorted and laughed. “You three have been reading those legends far too much.” His laughter died down before he spoke again. “They may have existed once, but they haven’t existed in years, hundreds of years. Szadec hasn’t been seen or heard from in that timeframe either, he’s still in Agyrem.” Princess Cadence looked at him quizzically. “A place of ghosts, where many of the dead of Ravnica reside.”

Feather calmed herself, she looked to Shining. “Alright, get this crime scene secured, and then bring the girl’s body back for analysis, and you three.” The three princesses stumbled back from Feather’s commanding tone. “I suggest that you find whoever else from your world came here, they may not be safe.” She flared her wings as she began to leave. “Call it a hunch.”

Shining immediately noticed the grim expression painted across his wife’s face. He slung his forearms around her in a hug. “It’s alright, it was probably just the Orzhov, maybe she owed money to them.” His aunts looked at him grimly, he responded to the question he knew was coming. “I’m staying until this investigation is over, I’ll ask Feather if I can have this case, I’ll find who murdered Scootaloo.” He released his wife from the hug, “For now you really should check the guilds to see if the others are with any of them. I’ll come back here later tonight at seven so we can meet up again.”

Celestia's face was crestfallen; to see a young filly brutalized in such a manner was horrible. The horrible scene only served to steel her resolve to get her little ponies back home. The sun alicorn had initially sensed eight ponies when they arrived on Ravnica. If Shining Armor and Scootaloo were two of them, then the others had to be the elements of harmony. “All right then, today I’ll investigate the Izzet for the missing elements. Luna investigate the Rakdos, and Cadence look into the Azorius.” The other two alicorns nodded to her. Shining gave the three directions and Celestia flew off to Nivix where her student supposedly lived and worked.

Twilight Sparkle was having a good day. Only two of her experiments blew up today, the amount of property damage she had caused this year had been reduced by nearly four thousand zinos (the currency of Ravnica) and Niv-Mizzet, the master of her guild, had asked to meet with her. As she passed other scientists, alchemists, and chemists of the Izzet league headquarters, she could feel jealousy radiating from all of them. The purple unicorn soaked in the jealousy of her fellow guild mages as she took the elevator to the top of the Nivix.

Twilight giggled incessantly all the way up the elevator to top of Nivix. She had met Niv-Mizzet twice prior, when she first arrived in Ravnica, and when she became a member of the Izmundi, his personal council. But neither time did she fully understand who she was dealing with. Niv-Mizzet was thousands of years old and one of the smartest creatures that she had ever met. When Twilight talked with Niv-Mizzet she was talking to something even smarter than her, she was a student again. Twilight enjoyed the days of study, and the new techno-magicks that she was exposed to on a daily basis reminded her of how much she loved to learn new things. As the elevator reached its destination at the top of the Nivix, Twilight stepped out only to be face to face with somepony that she thought she would never see again.

Princess Celestia ran up to her faithful student and embraced her, seemingly unaware of the pair of large dragon eyes looming down at the scene. Twilight broke from the hug and bowed to Niv-Mizzet. “Hello, Niv-Mizzet sir.” Niv-Mizzet was a towering dragon whose scales were colored blue and red. Celestia’s face visibly darkened as she heard her student refer to this dragon as ‘sir.’

“It’s alright, Sparkle," the dragon replied. "I am aware that Celestia is also your master.”

“Teacher," Celestia stressed. "I am Twilight Sparkle’s teacher.”

Niv-Mizzet simply scoffed, “Whatever word you choose, it means the same.”

Twilight nodded and hugged Celestia back. “It’s good to see you again, Princess.” Princess Celestia smiled, the warm memories of teaching Twilight magic flooded Celestia while she hugged back her faithful student.

Her expression soon turned serious. “Twilight, I’ve come to take you back to Equestria.” Her students face dropped and the dragon listened intently. “You have been trapped here far too long.”

“Is Equestria in peril?” Twilight said as her eyes grew the size of dinner plates.

Celestia giggled “No my faithful student, but your families miss you and I think you have been away from home for far too long.” She pulled her gaze away from her student and towards the dragon in the room. “I trust you will not have a problem with this?”

Niv-Mizzet erupted into laughter. “A student like Twilight Sparkle may only come along once a millennia, but I have plenty more of those to wait for another.”

“Well actually, Princess, I was wondering if I could stay a little longer, I have a few experiments that I want to complete, then I can bring them back to Equestria and just think of all the advancements I could make!”

Celestia’s expression hardened, “No," she shouted. "You must come back with me today!” Twilight winced as mentor slipped into the royal Canterlot voice.

Niv-Mizzet looked on in puzzlement. “Why are you trying to force my student to go back to your plane so quickly?”

Celestia shot a heated look at Niv-Mizzet. “It has been a year since she and her friends disappeared.”

“But surely now that you know that she’s safe, she could stay and finish her experiments?” the dragon argued.

“She isn’t safe,” Celestia curtly replied.

“What makes you say that?” Niv-Mizzet asked with mock-interest.

“There was a murder!” Celestia shouted

“Happens all the time,” the dragon snorted back.

“That’s what I’m afraid of," whispered Celestia.

“Your student managed to survive this far, has she not?” prodded the dragon.

“The murder was a pony like her!” Celestia shot back.

The room grew silent at Celestia’s words. Niv-Mizzet smiled lightly as he remarked, “There’s the truth.”

Twilight looked at her mentor with sunken eyes, “Who?”

“Scootaloo," the alicorn responded. "A young filly from Ponyville.”

Niv-Mizzet was visibly trying not to laugh. “Oh, I see, the adopted child of Borborygmos.” Twilight let out a breath of relief. While she was still sad about the death of Scootaloo, she was afraid that it was one of her closer friends.

“Perhaps it was the Orzhov,” Twilight suggested.

“Your brother is working on the case, he doesn’t believe that,” Celestia lied, her face turned from Twilight's.

Twilight ran through the various possibilities in her mind. The Gruul were unlikely, Shining didn’t believe that the Orzhov were involved, the Dimir were a myth. “Perhaps it was the Golgari.” Niv-Mizzet nodded his head in agreement. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Applejack was kidnapping people, I mean ponies, to resurrect with Jarad.”

“What?” Celestia’s royal Canterlot voice, which dwarfed even her sister’s, erupted through the room. “What do you mean Applejack, and this Jarad?”

“Well," Twilight squeaked, "Applejack joined the Golgari and has become a personal envoy to its leader, Jarad.”

“Please Twilight, consider going back to Equestria, in the meantime I will go and free Applejack from this Jarad.” With that Celestia flew out of the topmost chamber of Nivix, oblivious to the screams to stop and not go to the Golgari base from her student.

Princess Cadence had arrived at the central Azorius guildhall, New Prahv, for information on the missing Elements of Harmony. The Azorius guildhall was more extravagant than even the castle back at Canterlot. Large blue banners with golden trim hung from the marble ceiling. The banners and the ceiling held the symbol of the guild. Columns of polished stone rose up from the beautiful marble floors. People of various races wandered through the halls in long silvery robes, some carrying staffs with the symbol of the guild on top of them.

Cadence followed the throng of people into a large circular room filled with large chairs formed in a semi-circle around a huge stage with a podium on either side. On one side was a large blue creature and the other was a Goblin. In the middle section of the stage, cloaked in a long flowing golden robe and a headdress made to resemble a pair of golden birds, was Rarity.

“This court has decided that a payment of three hundred zinos to Amelia the Vedalken, from Gorky the Goblin, will be the settlement,” spoke Rarity.

Most of the courts erupted in cheers for the large blue creature on the left, with very few siding with the poor goblin Gorky on the right. The goblin was escorted out of the room by a pair of guards wielding sabers as Rarity stepped down from the center of the stage and began to walk after them. Cadence summoned up her magic and teleported down in front of Rarity, who was startled by the sudden appearance of the princess of love.

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, you startled me, how did you find Ravnica, are the Princesses here with you as well, oh how is Sweetie Bell?” Rarity sputtered. Cadence put a hoof to Rarity’s mouth and embraced her. Rarity returned the embrace and began to settle down. “Terribly sorry, kind of high-strung today, that was my first solo judge duty; oh, do you think I did well, alright, superb, mediocre?” Rarity looked up with pleading eyes to Cadence.

“Sorry, I only caught the end of it.”

“Oh that’s alright," Rarity waved off. "It was only a seven minute court case.”

“Only seven minutes?" Cadence asked, shocked. "But he was charged so heavily.”

“The goblin is a member of the Izzet league, his experimentation with mortars that use liquid fire caused a substantial amount of damage to the markets and so the Vedalken Amelia was representing the markets.

“The Izzet," muttered Cadence. "Twilight hasn’t been here has she?”

Rarity stopped short and her eyes became pinpricks. “Twilight Sparkle, she is responsible for nearly 500,000 zinos worth of property damage in the year that she’s been here.” Rarity continued to seethe. “And worse of all she never denies it! She just says ‘sorry’ and pays it off and goes to cause more havoc, honestly the Izzet are more troublesome than the Rakdos.”

Cadence breathed in. “Rarity, I believe that you and the others need to go home tonight.” Rarity looked at her quizzically. “There has been a murder, Scootaloo. Shining is working on solving the case and wants the rest of you to go home.”

Rarity’s expression sunk but she smiled, “I’m afraid that I cannot leave yet then Princess.” Now Cadence looked at her quizzically, “I cannot leave knowing that one of my sisters friends was killed here, without first passing judgment on the one responsible.” Cadence smiled. “But you should go visit Fluttershy at the Vitu-Ghazi, the giant tree of the Selesnya, she would probably jump at the chance to go back home.”

Cadence nodded. “Alright, I’ll tell Shining Armor to expect help.” Cadence left the giant building and flew off towards the city tree of Vitu-Ghazi.

Princess Luna had been searching for almost two full hours for the location of the Rakdos home base. Eventually she found that there was a huge performance going on at a local Rakdos theater today and that one of the missing ponies would be there. The Princess wandered into a large theater with long red banners on the walls. The banners were coated in the symbol of the Rakdos and were colored like blood.

The curtain on the stage rose revealing a small red creature with black splotches with a small horn and spiked tail. “Hello Ravnica, it’s your favorite devilishly handsome host, Smoky.” The boos and hisses from the crowd told a different story than Smoky’s claim. “Alright fine, ahem, ladies and gentlemen I present to you the pony with a heart of blackened stone and a coat of glistening white, though soon it’ll be pretty red, Surprise!”

A white earth pony walked out on stage and from stage left a goblin on a stretcher was wheeled out. ‘How odd,' thought Luna. 'I was told that this was some sort of circus.’ The white pony was met with a hail of cheers from the crowd. Luna ran over to the devil Smoky as soon as he got off stage. “Excuse me, Sir Smoky, I am looking for a meeting with that Pony.”

Smoky scoffed, “You and every other nutter on Ravnica, she ‘inspired’ you as well.”

Luna was taken aback. “This circus inspires people, how interesting, we should have come earlier to see the other acts.”

Smoky stared in disbelief. “You don’t know what we do here, yet you know Surprise?”

Luna nodded. “Yes we are her princess of the night, from Equestria, the land from which she hails.”

Smoky’s red and black face turned positively white. “You come from Equestria?”

“Yes,” replied Luna.

Smoky gulped. “Well, just know that what’s about to happen is all legal, and you really shouldn’t interrupt the show.”

Luna was taken aback. “We wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”

“You will,” Smoky muttered under his breath.

Luna didn’t hear him, however, and turned her utmost attention to the mare onstage. The crowd shouted and cheered as a cart full of various cutting materials was brought out and placed in front of her. “This goblin,” the mare said in a high-pitched squeal, “is a member of the Izzet league. he works as an electromancer so he should be used to being ‘shocked’.” The mare giggled as she pulled several high voltage wires from the cart placing them in the goblin’s hands. She turned to a lever on the cart, and much to Luna’s horror she pulled the lever.

Electricity sparked from the machine as thousands of volts of electricity coursed through the goblin in the chair as its screams filled the theater and the audience clapped. “You know it’s ‘surprising’ how high that voltage goes.” The audience laughed and hollered at the joke as the goblin lay there twitching with blackened hands, a goofy smile adorned his face. “This goblin is a lot more cooperative than most of ones I get so I guess I’ll give him a ‘cut’ of the profits.” The audience laughed more as Surprise took a large knife, nearly half a foot long, in her hoof and stood over the goblin. “Everyone in the audience give him a hand, he’s gonna need one.”

Luna looked away as the mare brought the knife down and chopped off the goblin’s hand to the uproarious laughter of the audience present. Smoky tried to sidle away from the moon princess, but had no such luck. “What is her name?”

Smoky gulped, and responded, “Surprise.”

“Tis a stage name," growled Luna. "Give us her real name.”

Smoky looked back to the stage where Surprise was continuing her act. On the one hand his loyalty was to Surprise and to the Rakdos guild. On the other, he was fairly certain that this pony could blast him to bits if he lied, so he said, “She goes by Pinkie Pie.”

Luna’s heart sank, she was one of the elements, the Element of Laughter. Luna sat through the rest of the performance waiting for her chance to see Pinkie Pie. Smoky ran over to her once the performance was done. “Well done, as always.”

Pinkie Pie simply grinned. “I know everyone was smiling and happy.”

“Except," Luna interrupted, "for the goblin that you just murdered.”

Pinkie Pie looked in the direction of the voice. "Princess Luna?" she asked. “How did you get here?”

“That is not important child," Luna said sweetly. "You must come with us back to Equestria, this place has harmed you.”

“No, this place helped me.” Content with the silence of the moon princess Pinkie continued, “I always had these urges to do these terrible things, but I was told that they were wrong. So I lived like a normal pony, the way I was told I should live.”

“That is the right way to live child," Luna said, still maintaining her calm demeanor. "You hurt that creature up there.”

“Only a little," Pinkie argued. "The Lotus Nectar numbs the pain after a while.”

“What does pain matter when you killed him?” Luna asked angrily.

“He went out smiling didn’t he?” the party pony argued.

“How do you think that makes what you did okay?” Luna growled back.

“Because the Rakdos think it is," Pinkie replied. "The people who come to my performances think it is, and by the way, goddess of the moon, I’m not going back to Equestria.”

Luna snapped, “You. Will. Come. Back.”

Pinkie Pie looked her straight in the eye. “No.”

Luna stared back. “This place and these people have tainted you.”

“Why?" the white party pony asked. "I’m still making people smile and laugh, in fact I’m doing more than throwing a birthday party that people forget about the next day, I’m a sensation that brings joy and laughter all over Ravnica.”

The moon princess shook her head. “To all the wrong people.”

“Who are you to decide," Pinkie snapped back at her. "Besides I’m not the only one who’s gotten their hooves dirty, Dashie has quite the kill streak herself.”

“Loyalty and Laughter," Luna muttered. "Equestria is doomed if they ever discover what you have become.”

“All the more reason for me to stay," Pinkie Pie said as she started walking away, Smoky following behind. "Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an after party to attend.”

Pinkie and Smoky wandered off leaving Luna alone with her thoughts. “Two of the elements have betrayed us, what are we to do sister?” She sat and sobbed for a while before deciding to go after Rainbow Dash, and hope that there was still some loyalty left in her.

Cadence found herself flying amidst the skies of Ravnica looking for something that Rarity referred to as “the city-tree.” The world of Ravnica was sprawling in all directions, a cityscape that covered the entire world. Cadence had been surprised to find out that the city she found herself in covered the entire planet, but Rarity had assured her that it was more beautiful than she could imagine. The city skies didn’t disappoint in this regard. The sky was beautiful, even if it was full of clouds, and the people of the city below bustled to and fro like small worker ants below Cadence as she swerved around the buildings spires as she made her way to her destination.

Vitu-Ghazi, the city tree, certainly lived up to its name. The tree was the size of a mountain with branches holding up entire towns and cities sprouting out from all sides. From the top of the tree sprouted a large series of branches that all curled around each other and held up a gleaming marble colored cityscape.

Cadence flew down to the city and was met with a large number of glances by various races. Half human, half horses trotted around casting glares at Cadence whilst tree-creatures locked eyes on her as she walked along. Cadence walked inside to be greeted by an enormous tangle of roots collected in the center of a large room. In the center of the roots was a collection of three women cloaked in green whose lower bodies were made of roots. As Cadence walked in she could also hear birds singing and a familiar voice.

“La, la, la, la.” There was a pause before the birds mimicked the voice. Cadence listened as the voice and the birds continued to sing. “La, la, la.”

“Who wishes to speak with the Trostani?” the green-cloaked women called, silencing the voice.

Just then a butter-colored pegasus flew out from behind the bushes accompanied by various birds. “Princess Cadence?”

“Fluttershy," Cadence remarked, "thank goodness you’re okay.”

“Fluttershy," asked the woman, "who is this?”

Fluttershy flew down and bowed before the tree-woman before speaking again. “Oh, of course Miss Trostani, this is Princess Cadence from Equestria, the land where I was born, and Princess Cadence this is the Trostani, the dryad who speaks for the Selesnya Conclave.”

Cadence bowed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“And you, however you should know that more specifically than simply speaking for the guild we speak to the Selesnya conclave on behalf of the parun Mat’Selesnya who speaks from the Worldsoul.”

Cadence stumbled back, earning a chuckle from the dryad. “I’m sorry Trostani, but I only just arrived in Ravnica.”

“I understand; the Selesnya Conclave’s purpose is to sow the seeds of unity amongst the people of Ravnica; the word parun is to describe the founder of a guild. Mat’Selesnya was the parun of this guild, and of course the Worldsoul is where all go after death.”

“I see, while the history of your guild is interesting I came here for a purpose.” The Trostani quizzically arched an eyebrow at Cadence. “I’ve come to invite Fluttershy back home.”

“Oh, well thank you so much Princess Cadence ma’am but well this is the really busy season," Fluttershy whispered back. "Oh by the way I work here as a caretaker to Vitu-Ghazi, where a lot of Selesnyans make a pilgrimage here from all over Ravnica so I’m really needed here if you don’t mind me staying for a short while longer.”

“I’ll have none of it,” the Trostani yelled. “Fluttershy is an important piece of the Conclave, the needs of one do not matter when compared to the needs of the many, that is the purpose of the Selesnya Conclave.” Fluttershy cringed at the Trostani’s shrill proclamation.

“I believe that it is Fluttershy’s choice, not yours Trostani, and I believe that I didn’t finish." Cadence waited a few seconds, to make sure that the dryad wouldn't interrupt her. "The reason I want her to come home is that one of the other ponies teleported here was murdered.”

Fluttershy blanched. “Who?”

“Scootaloo," Cadence responded. "But the people around here seem to call her Scognor.”

Fluttershy looked near tears but the Trostani simply laughed as she remarked, “The daughter of Borborygmos, so the Gruul have gotten what’s coming to them for their brutish ways.”

Cadence glared at the Trostani. “I don’t care what you think of the people of the guild she was a part of, but a death is still a death.”

“The death of a Gruul is not a day of mourning, ‘princess,’ it is a day of celebration, that there is one less destructive monster stomping around Ravnica, and more of their land can be reclaimed by the Conclave.” Trostani calmed a bit before speaking again. “Besides, I do not see how this affects Fluttershy.”

Cadence stomped forward, “The body was brought to the Transguild Promenade and left there as a message. She could be in danger while she is here.”

“Fluttershy stays here in the Vitu-Ghazi at all times," the dryad replied. "We have others bring food and water to her so that she can be constantly tending to our gardens; she is in no danger while she is here in the world-tree.”

“How do you know that she will be safe here?" Cadence asked. "How do you know that it wasn’t someone here that murdered Scootaloo in the first place?”

The Trostani backed away in disgust. “How dare you claim that someone in my guild would stoop so low as to become a common murderer?”

“You said yourself that the death of a Gruul was worth celebrating," argued Cadence. "If you weren’t rather ‘attached’ to this place I would suspect you.”

“Enough,” Fluttershy screamed. “I’m sorry, but really Princess I don’t think that a member of the Selesnya would do such a thing. On the other hoof, Miss Trostani, I do think that one of my friends’ deaths is a day to mourn not celebrate.”

Trostani smiled. “Your kindness is a blessing and a curse Fluttershy.”

“It’s what makes her who she is," Cadence shot back. "More than you could possibly know, Trostani.”

With that, Cadence flew off back to the promenade where hopefully the other alicorns had more luck than her.

Princess Luna had been flying for hours after her meeting with Pinkie Pie, searching the skies for signs of Rainbow Dash. Her conversation with the corrupted element scared her, it scared her that the Elements of harmony could be so easily corrupted and turned into pale shadows of their former selves. However the night skies of Ravnica calmed the alicorn somewhat. The cool and crisp night air, the moon off in the distance, and the only ones that she had to share this beautiful sight with were the other nocturnal animals.

Luna’s night reverie was shattered when she saw a large skeletal monster flying towards her. The creature was bone, only bone, even its wings only contained loose strands of sinew connecting the various vertebrae. Luna slowed as she approached it, not wanting to anger the flying beast. It was at that point that Luna was greeted with the familiar sight of a rainbow trail approaching the creature.

Rainbow Dash flew at the beast at full speed slamming into the flying skeleton straight in its midsection. The creature let out a shrill wail as it tried to right itself after the blast. Rainbow turned around and flew through several clouds in the distance before swinging back around and flying past the skeleton again leaving a trail of lightning coursing through the skeletal monstrosity.

“Rainbow Dash?”

“Huh?” Rainbow turned her head around and locked eyes with Luna, which is when Luna noticed that something was strange. Rainbow’s normally magenta eyes were now a sharp teal and shaped in slits. Her wings were now sharper and the feathers were almost completely gone, replaced with sharp metal. “Princess Luna?”

“Rainbow Dash, we have found thee.” Luna flew over and embraced the pegasus. “Thank goodness, we can bring thee home to Equestria.”

Rainbow Dash broke from the hug. “Wait, I can’t go home yet Princess.” Rainbow motioned for the Princess to follow her. “Zegana has a few assignments for me to finish around here.” Rainbow thought for a moment, “Then again it’ll be kind of difficult to get back otherwise. Here I’ll show you where you can usually find me.”

The two eventually flew to a spire coated in ivy and the symbol of the Simic guild. “Rainbow Dash," Luna began, "you are a member of this guild?”

Rainbow nodded. “Yep, and look at my new enhancements, they made my wings even sleeker, lowers wind resistance so the longer I’m flying in one direction the faster I get, and it’s a pretty convenient weapon too.”

Luna’s face dropped. “Yes well, we heard from Pinkie…”

“That psycho," Rainbow dismissed. "Yeah, anything she says is probably just a lie.”

“That you had been killing other creatures," Luna repeated. "Possibly for this guild that you belong to?”

Rainbow stopped and her expression fell a little. “Well okay, yeah a little I guess.”

Luna fell into using the royal Canterlot voice, “So what she says is true?”

“Well yeah, but it’s not like I’m as bad as she is, I mean come on her ‘Surprise’ act is pretty disgusting.” She paused and looked at a picture hanging on the wall of the spire, which appeared to be a bedroom of some kind. “I only do what Zegana wants me to do.”

“Zegana?” Luna asked.

“Yeah she’s the leader of the combine," Rainbow Dash said while pointing to a picture on the wall depicting a merfolk woman. "And she’s the one who helped me get these great additions that made me better than I could ever be, so yeah what she wants done gets done.”

Luna shook her head, “What could possibly be so important that it could drive you to murder?”

Rainbow flashed her new wings, “You want to know the only dream I ever had Luna?” Luna kept silent simply staring at Rainbow. “I wanted to join the Wonderbolts ever since I was a filly, all I wanted was to prove that I was better than what everypony else thought.”

“Rainbow Dash, you are the element of Loyalty, a far more important position than a stunt flyer.”

“Not to everypony else, when I was a kid I was constantly put down by kids all the time. Then I move to Ponyville get a fresh start but that isn’t what I wanted.” She paused. “I wanted to prove that those kids who made fun of me were wrong.”

“And artificial enhancements fix this problem?”

“They aren’t artificial,” Rainbow screamed. “They’re real, they’re extensions of myself, an alteration of what I was, to what I could be. My wings are sharper, they let me fly faster, much faster; my eyes can see in darkness and foggy weather; I’m more sensitive to sudden weather changes so I can alter course during weird weather shifts easier.”

“None of those things are natural Rainbow Dash, you are an artificial flyer, I don’t believe that the Wonderbolts would accept you in your current state.”

“They are natural, the Simic believe in advancing natural evolution to make things better faster, these are natural evolutions it just took an afternoon to make them happen as opposed to generations.”

Luna’s heart sank; it was true the element of loyalty had been corrupted just as the element of laughter. “This seems like a moot point considering your current decision but there was a murder, of a pony like you, Scootaloo.”

“So the little Cyclops went and got herself killed," Rainbow Dash said with a noticeable amount of venom in her voice. "Life sucks.”

“How could you speak in such a manner?”

“The last time I saw the kid she was acting just like you are now, then when she realized that ‘old’ Rainbow Dash wasn’t coming back she vowed revenge against me, said that when she grew up that she’d be the one to kill me.”

Luna stopped at the window to the spire. “While it may not be very Princess like to say, I can see where she was coming from.” With that Luna flew off into the night sky heading back towards the Promenade where she sincerely hoped that her sister or her niece would return with at least one of the elements.

Princess Celestia was left with an unenviable task, searching the undercity of Ravnica for the Element of Honesty. There are not many, if any, nice things to say about Ravnica’s undercity. It was the home of the Dimir guild when they still functioned; it was the current location of the guildhall of the Rakdos, Rix-Maadi. And of course, the Golgari swarm made their home in the sewers and graveyards.

But it wasn’t just the people who made their homes down in the undercity that made it unpleasant. The undercity is covered in grime and wastes, thus it is universally considered a smelly and horribly disgusting place to be, let alone live in. Of course there are people who do live down there, those who are the lowest of the low of Ravnica’s society have to live down here. Many of the people who didn’t belong to the guilds had to begin living down here once the guilds regained power, and of course many of the poorer members of Ravnica society began living down here, and some even began joining the Golgari or the Rakdos.

Celestia slowly trudged through the undercity searching for Applejack. She had been told that the Golgari swarm made their home near the graveyards of the undercity but the best advice that any passerby was able to give her was ‘follow the bugs.’

Celestia found her way to another graveyard in the undercity with a small wooden plank reading, “Resting place of the Guildless.” Celestia could barely look at the ad-hoc graveyard, the graves were poorly dug, clearly in a hurry, they were marked with small pieces of wood with pictures on them instead of proper gravestones with names carved in. But in the middle of this graveyard was a familiar Stetson hat being worn by an unfamiliar sight.

“Who are you, why are you wearing that hat?” Celestia shouted.

“What do ya mean," asked back a voice with a very thick accent. "It’s mah hat, who are...? Princess?”

“Applejack?”

The Princess couldn’t believe her eyes, in front of her stood the Element of Honesty, but she was different. Applejack’s orange fur had turned grayish, and her eyes had turned a sickening green. Her legs were surrounded by swirling mass of green vines entering and exiting her body. Applejack’s already quite muscular body was even more toned and muscular, and along her back was a long scar haphazardly sewn together. Whatever this creature was, she wasn’t the Applejack that the Princess knew and remembered.

“Well Princess howdy, how are ya, actually how’d you get here?" Applejack giggled. "I mean we’re a little out of the way.”

The Princess was dumbfounded, she talked like Applejack, she wore the same hat, but she wasn’t, no, she couldn’t be. Just as Celestia was about to respond to Applejack’s inquiry an elven creature entered the graveyard.

“Applejack," the other creature hissed. "How long does it take to acquire a few guildless corpses?”

The creature had blackened skin and numerous sewed up scars across his torso. He wore another creature’s skin as a cloak and what seemed to be bear paws as gauntlets. The elf stank of death and decay and was surrounded by numerous little bugs and scavengers. The staff in his right hand glowed a soft purplish and emanated darkened magicks. Celestia’s horn flashed a harsh white, and she pointed it at the monster that pointed his staff at her in return.

“What are you? And what have you done to Applejack?” Celestia’s eyes flashed with a heated fury.

“I resurrected her, brought her back from the horrid curse of mortality," responded the rotting creature.

“You monster!” The princess prepared to charge the beast, but Applejack stood in her way.

“Stop, Princess this is mah boss Jarad," Applejack said while waving to Jarad. "And yes, he resurrected me.”

Celestia’s eyes went from blazing fury to watering with tears. Applejack had never been one to lie, she meant it when she said that this Jarad was her ‘boss.’ “What… what do you…?”

“Well I work for the Golgari," Applejack explained, "Cause Jarad here brought me back from the brink, or well past it.”

“Necromancy is wrong!” Celestia shouted.

Jarad broke out into raspy laughing fits. “So you consider a second chance at living 'wrong,' goodness.”

“Now Jarad," Applejack responded. "She’s immortal so it only makes sense that she doesn’t really get it, let me explain it to her.”

Applejack walked over to the stunned solar princess who looked at tears. “Princess, when I came through that portal to Ravnica ah didn’t last very long.” Celestia looked up at Applejack, who, despite the zombification still had a very warm smile, a smile that told anyone who saw it that everything would be okay. “I wanted to find the others as soon as possible, but in the end I got myself killed," she said with a whisper to her voice. "Just like mah parents.”

“Your parents?” Celestia questioned.

“Yeah, mah parents died when I was a little filly you know, a farm was on fire and apparently somepony was still inside, they went in, never came out.” She sighed. “They died protecting others, but I always wondered why, why did they have to be the ones who were killed instead of somepony else? Somepony else who wouldn’t have been mourned, like mah mom and dad.”

Celestia embraced the element of honesty. “It’s normal for ponies to have those thoughts Applejack, but in the end everypony has to die.”

“Except they don’t, because I didn’t, and I won’t.” She broke from the hug. “Jarad brought me back and has been teaching me how to bring myself back should I need to.”

“Applejack, please come back to Equestria, we’ll find some way to fix what’s wrong, I promise.”

“Alright, Princess, you win," Applejack responded with a warm smile. "Just one thing before I go.”

“Anything!” Celestia screamed.

“My ma and pa," the undead farmer said silently, "I want to bring them back.”

Celestia’s heart sank she saw the words coming but at the same time she didn’t want to. “No, you know I can’t say yes to that.”

“Why not?" Applejack asked politely. "What’s the upside of dying anyway, why is it so necessary that everypony dies?”

Celestia shook her head. “It’s a natural part of the life cycle.”

“But it isn’t!" Applejack pleaded. "Look at me, would you consider me unnatural, princess?”

Celestia couldn’t say it, she knew she had to, but the words refused to form. “Yes.”

Jarad stood in front of a crushed Applejack brandishing his staff, “You’ll excuse me for saying, I believe then that this conversation is over and the two of us should be on our way.”

“Please come back Applejack," Celestia begged. "It isn’t safe here in this world.”

“I can take care of myself princess," Applejack responded coldly. "Jarad made sure I can.”

“Perhaps Scootaloo thought the same way,” the alicorn said under her breath.

“Scootaloo," Applejack repeated, concern slipping back into her voice. "She… what happened?”

“She was killed and her body was left at the Transguild Promenade," Celestia replied. "Shining is looking into it now.”

Celestia turned to leave and took one last look back at the zombified mare. Applejack’s eyes were tear-filled, the last vestige of normality left in what used to be a stand-up member of pony society. Celestia focused her energy to teleport herself back to the Promenade; she couldn’t bear being near the graves any longer.

Princess Celestia’s signature teleport signaled her re-entry to the Promenade. As the light from her appearance died down, it was replaced with the blackness of the night. The Promenade, which that morning had been filled with various creatures, was now empty and lifeless, filled with only the chirping of bugs and the three alicorns who agreed to meet there, in front of the statue where they had found the body of Scootaloo earlier that morning.

“Sister!” Luna’s voice called out, but upon seeing her sister her voice sank. “You didn’t have any luck either then.” Celestia shook her head and quietly embraced her sister. Cadence flew in as well, also alone.

“So, not one of them decided to come back. We really don’t have the best of luck, do we?” Celestia tried to add a humorous tone to the last sentence but her cracked voice betrayed her true emotional state.

“Well, Rarity said that she wants to help Shining with the investigation so those two will come home once we have that all finished up," Cadence recapped, "Also Fluttershy agreed to come back once she’s finished with some big tourist season at the Vitu-Ghazi.”

“Cadence, my dear, you have had far better luck than me. Twilight Sparkle, my dear student, now serves a dragon and refuses to come home," Celestia added, tears welling in her eyes. "And the element of honesty now serves the undead under the leadership of a man named Jarad.” It took all the self-control that Celestia had to not break down into sobbing fits at the mention of the new residency of one of the elements.

“We have suffered similar luck, sister,” Luna commented. “The elements of laughter and loyalty have both become murderous psychopaths. Pinkie Pie is a murderer/circus act and Rainbow dash is apparently working for the Simic under the leadership of someone named Zegana.”

Celestia sighed, “Perhaps we should simply leave them to their fates.”

Luna was taken aback. “What are you saying sister? That we simply abandon these ponies to this world?”

“If they do not wish to be rescued then there is nothing that we can do,” Celestia said solemnly.

“No,” Cadence answered simply. “Shining, Rarity, and Fluttershy do want to come home, just not yet. I’ll wait here and return with them once the investigation is complete.”

“Yes, we will stay as well,” Luna confirmed. “With a memory wipe spell or the like Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie could possibly be salvaged.”

“I can’t stay here.” Celestia’s eyes were now flowing with tears. “I can’t watch my little ponies become these creatures, it-it is too much.”

“Then go home sister, let us handle things here, we shall return with as many of them as we can save.”

Celestia nodded. “Eight, I sensed eight of them when I came here… if Applejack is undead and therefore she wasn’t one of the eight I sensed then there must be at least one other we did not meet with.”

Cadence also nodded. “Yes, and if Scootaloo was murdered before we came here then there might even be one more that we didn’t see.”

“Please, bring my little ponies home.” With that Celestia departed in a bright flash, leaving her sister and Cadence to the world of Ravnica.

“We shall stay with Rainbow Dash for tonight, to see if perhaps we can convince her to abandon her new leader.” With that Luna also flew off leaving Cadence, who also knew where she would go next. She silently flew off towards the Boros barracks to meet with her husband. Tomorrow he would begin investigating Scootaloo’s murder, and that meant that he was one step closer to coming home.

Lawmakers and Lawbreakers

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City of Guilds
Chapter 2: Lawmakers and Lawbreakers

Shining Armor walked around the Boros mess hall with a big smile on his face. How could he not, after all? He had woken up this morning next to his beautiful wife, and soon he would be going back to his own beautiful plane. All in all, life was good, even as he ate some of the just-add-water pancakes at the barracks. He should have been growling and unhappy because just yesterday a murder occurred, and it happened to be a pony like him, but he was happy that he could spend some time with his wife, so happy that the image of the dead filly only hovered in the back of his mind for a short while.

One of Shining’s human assistants ran up to him in the mess hall. “Captain Shining Armor, Feather demands your presence immediately in her office.” And with that, the human was off to take his place in line for the barely edible pancakes that Shining had just eaten. Shining stood up and began the walk to Feathers office. While most in the Boros guild considered her to be a kind and fun angel, it wasn’t wise to keep her waiting when she changed her orders from ‘requests’ to ‘demands.’

Shining kept a brisk walking pace as he climbed the stairs leading to Feather’s office on the tenth floor of the Guildhall. Despite the fact that the guildleader of the Boros usually made their offices at the top of the guildhall, the sixtieth floor, Feather insisted on having this one office, saying that it held sentimental value for her. It made directing people to her office a pain in the flank, but whatever kept Feather happy. Finally Shining reached Feather’s offices and went inside. Feather kept the office looking rather bland, with a standard brown desk in the middle of the room and simple decorum along the walls. The one thing that stood out was the picture of a human male on her desk with the words ‘Argus Kos, savior of Ravnica’ under the picture.

Feather stood up from her desk as Shining came in. “Captain Shining Armor."

“Feather,” he responded curtly.

Feather wore a frown across her delicate features. “I imagine that you know I didn’t call you in here for idle chatter.”

Shining's expression grew downcast, “I do, it has to do with Scootaloo doesn’t it?”

“You’re too close to the case," Feather spoke up. "You know that if I let you have jurisdiction, the Azorius will be screaming my head off about protocol and personal connections and all that other stuff that they really don’t know anything about.”

Shining wanted to get indignant and say that he had a right to be the head of this case, but he knew that she was right. The Azorius would consider Shining’s involvement a conflict of interest, and even if all of the evidence matched up, they’d still want to have the case reassigned and all of the evidence reinvestigated, essentially adding another couple of months to the trial.

Feather smiled and said, “And that’s why I’m giving full jurisdiction to you.”

“I understand…" Shining started saying. He paused upon reconsidering Feather's words. "What?”

“Shining,” Feather said as she wandered over to the window behind her desk, “I believe that we as the Boros legion should serve Ravnica, and we do need rules in place to prevent emotions from becoming verdicts.” She paused. “But this is a special case. The murder of Scognor is bad enough, but putting her on display in the Promenade...” Shaking her head, the angel continued, “So Shining Armor, solve this case, find her murderer quickly. You have my permission to use the full force of the Boros Legion in order to find the culprit and bring them for judgment.”

‘Full force of the Boros’ essentially meant that he didn’t need a warrant or anything of the sort. He was allowed to do whatever was necessary in order to end this case as fast as possible. “I don’t know what to say… Thank you Feather, I promise that I won’t let you down.”

“I know," Feather mentioned with a smile. "Also, to make this investigation go faster I’ve decided to ask for help.”

“Sure," Shining responded happily. "From who?”

“Well I guess you’ll see soon enough," the angel said with an evil smile. "Go to the cathedral near the upper district, she’ll meet you there.”

The unicorn raised his eyebrow quizzically. “Why am I meeting a partner at an Orzhov church?”

“Well, she said she couldn’t help until she finished conducting the ceremony.”

Shining stood outside the church with a certain degree of trepidation. The Orzhov weren’t known for being charitable. If one of them was offering to help in the investigation, then Feather was offering her something. Shining inwardly winced at the thought of something that the Orzhov would want in return for aiding in an investigation.

The church itself was a large stone building, imposing and dark looking. The obsidian walls emitted a sense of the true darkness of the Orzhov church. The spires pierced Ravnica’s sky as gargoyles and ghosts circled the towers, fulfilling their life-debts to the Orzhov.

Finally, people started to funnel out of the church, eventually followed by a blue pony with a white mane and a pointy wizard hat. “Thank you all for attending, Trixie expects to see you next week!” Trixie’s statement was met with bows and thanks as the people left the church. Trixie definitely seemed fancy enough to be an Orzhov minister, as aside from her pointy hat and matching cape she had a golden necklace that featured the symbol of the Orzhov on it.

“So, you’re the partner that Feather paired me with?” Shining asked with a low growl.

Trixie nodded heartily, “Yes, the great and powerful Trixie has agreed to help the Boros in exchange for an item which her guildmaster, Teysa, holds in high regard.”

“What do we have that you want?” Shining questioned.

“Something called a Scry Tome," Trixie responded enthusiastically. "Allegedly, it is an item that can allow the user to fully communicate with the spirit realm of Agyrem.”

Agyrem... Shining knew very little about what really happened to produce Agyrem. A sort of plane between planes where the ghosts of Ravnica’s past eternally stayed. Shining was aware of the Scry Tome, but it seemed relatively useless when the Orzhov had numerous ways to contact ghosts and spirits. “Why would the Orzhov want an item like the Scry Tome?" he asked. "You can already contact ghosts.”

Trixie sighed. “Yes, Trixie is aware of her own abilities, thank you. However, you clearly weren’t listening to Trixie. The Scry Tome allows one to not simply communicate, nor simply reanimate, nor merely summon a ghost, but to channel them. If one channeled them completely, one could access their magic, even if it is colors of mana that one could normally not access, and can even access the special talents and powers of souls channeled through the tome.”

Shining shivered. “Interesting, so I suppose Feather offered to buy you one for your birthday if you helped.”

“Your sarcasm annoys Trixie; there are only five Scry Tomes in existence. One controlled by Niv-Mizzet, who allegedly helped create them, and the others were given to the Boros, to safeguard.”

Shining made a mental note to investigate the Scry Tome in more detail later. “All right, so, Great and Powerful Trixie, how do you plan to help the Boros investigation?”

“Please drop the formalities, Trixie has agreed to help as a partner, an equal. Trixie has a few underground contacts that owe Trixie. Trixie will alleviate their debts if they give substantial information about the death of Scognor.”

“Scootaloo.”

“Hmm.”

“Scootaloo, her name was Scootaloo.”

“What she called herself does not concern Trixie. She is Scognor, daughter of Borborygmos. Now come, we must make haste to the Tin City markets, Trixie has many contacts there.”

The walk to the Tin City markets was fairly silent. Trixie didn’t feel she had anything more to say to Shining Armor, who also didn’t feel like getting chatty with an Orzhov minister. The Tin City markets themselves were well known on Ravnica as a veritable melting pot of various guilds and people. The various different species of Ravnica tittered around the markets talking with family, shopping at the various vendors, and eating at local cafes. Tin City was considered to be “the place where your crest doesn’t compensate.” The markets were filled with people of various guilds, guildless included, who set up shops and tried to make a living selling various goods to all of Ravnica. The Tin City markets were essentially a city within the city of Ravnica, and it was the size of Manehatten, Cloudsdale, and Canterlot combined.

Shining always marveled at the sheer size of the markets and how no matter whom you were you were equal within these markets. Trixie led Shining into a local bar, where the smell of smoke and beer permeated the air. The bar was filled with goblins, humans, and Viashino. The bartender was a human with a long black beard, a bald head, and beady yellow cat eyes. Several patrons turned to look at the two ponies entering the bar but others, particularly a table full of rowdy goblins, couldn’t care less.

As Trixie and Shining approached the bartender, Shining could feel many of the patrons eyeing him evilly, probably because he was still wearing his Boros armor. Trixie trotted over to a bright blue bar stool that was lower to the ground than the others, and sat down.

“Trixie," the bar tending human called out, "what can I get you, madam? I have quite a few nice wines for a lady of your tastes.”

“Trixie appreciates your improvement since her last visit," the Orzhov minister responded, "but she is here on business.”

The bartender gulped. “Well, you know I’m always happy to see you here for any reason.”

“Trixie would like to make you a proposition." Trixie leaned in close to the bartender and whispered. "You give Trixie information and Trixie will… alter the books so that payment you missed will disappear.”

“Information?" the bartender asked. "About what?”

Shining stepped up to the bar, “I… We are investigating the death of Scognor, and need to know if anyone here saw anything strange the past few days.”

The bartender looked to Trixie, who nodded in response. “Information, that’s it?”

“Yes, adequate information," Trixie clarified, "and Trixie pretends that you paid her last week.”

“Well," he whispered, "I heard some rumors that the Dimir were behind it.”

“Information, and facts," Shining said while rolling his eyes. "Not rumors, and not Fairy tales.”

“The Dimir are not Fairy tales," Trixie replied in a huff. "Trixie knows that the Dimir still exist and had a suspicion that they were behind the attack.”

"I heard another rumor that you might want to know," the bartender continued. “The rumor has it that some equine, like you two, was wandering around the Undercity...”

“Applejack is a Golgari, Pinkie Pie is a Rakdos, both of whom frequent the Undercity,” Shining responded.

“Wearing a black cloak that hides their face and clutching a curved dagger,” the bartender finished.

“Wouldn’t put it past them,” Shining responded rudely.

“Trixie insists that you take this investigation seriously, both for your sake and for Trixie’s. All signs thus far point to the Dimir being involved, and you refuse to even entertain the notion.”

“A children’s fairy tale did not come to life and kill a pony. I’m going to question some of the other patrons.” Shining walked to the end of the bar where he started to question a particularly drunk goblin.

“Trixie apologizes for the Captain’s behavior. Consider your debt paid old friend.”

“Thanks Trixie," the bartender responded with a smile. "But honestly, I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, it ain’t much to go on I’m afraid.”

“Not at all, my friend. If it is the Dimir, then I would start to suspect you if you knew anything more,” Trixie said playfully.

The bartender laughed as he handed a full glass to the Viashino in front of him. “Yeah I suppose, by the way if it ain’t too much trouble, those goblins over there have been scaring away my customers with talks of bombs and such, you think you could ‘take care of em’?”

Trixie laughed. “Trixie laughs at such a simple task, I shall teach these goblins exactly why they should not do such things in an Orzhov bar.”

Trixie walked over to the eight goblins in the corner still screaming about bombs and explosions. “Ahem, Trixie would like to inform you that your choice of conversation is rather displeasing…”

The goblins responded “Shut up” and “We ain’t hurting nobody” or other more ‘colorful’ expressions. But this simply made Trixie smile.

“As you wish.” Trixie’s horn flashed a blinding white as an ethereal glow surrounded her. The glow hardened and became a mostly solid mass. Trixie had summoned a ghost spirit called a Searkath, a ghostly spirit cloaked in fire wielding a sword, supposedly the dead spirits of Boros guildmages. The burning apparition attacked the goblin to the farthest right slicing him in half with its blade.

Two goblins stood to fight the creature, throwing their beer glasses at it, succeeding only in making it angrier and dousing its flames in fresh alcohol. The flames of the Searkath blazed with an even greater fury as its flames engulfed the two goblins, burning them to a crisp.

Two more goblins tried to escape but found Trixie blocking their path. She flashed her horn again summoning a lance comprised of dark magic. She swung the lance low trying to sweep the goblins who jumped over her, seeing this she adjusted the lance and jabbed upwards piercing the goblin between its legs and spearing it through. The other goblin abandoned its friend and tried running for the door but Trixie simply launched the spear at it piercing the goblin through the chest.

The remaining three goblins stood at the ready facing the Searkath. The Searkath swung its blade at one goblin that managed to back away so he only lost his arm. The armless goblin started to blast the Searkath with electricity, but the ghost dove at him and speared him through the chest with its blade.

The final two goblins charged at the ghost with electric spears and managed to destroy it. Their victory was short lived, however, as Trixie blasted one of them with against the wall with shadow magic, bursting him into pieces. The last goblin ran at Trixie with his lightning spear, but Trixie sidestepped the goblin and bucked him in the face sending him careening into a bar stool, and causing his neck to snap backward with the impact, killing him.

“Well, now that Trixie has had her fun, we had best be going.” She motioned for Shining to follow her as she left. Once they were safely away from the bar, Shining berated Trixie.

“You couldn’t leave one goblin out of eight alive for questioning," Shining said. "It just wasn’t possible, huh?”

“Trixie doesn’t know why you’re upset, you didn’t help Trixie. And besides, have you ever tried explaining anything other than explosions or basic bodily functions to a goblin? If they did know anything, they wouldn’t know how to say it.”

For the next hour or so Trixie and Shining went from place to place in the Tin City markets and tried to find out anything about the recent death of Scognor. The response was almost all the same; everyone believed that it was the work of the Dimir. Only a few said that it might have been the work of Rainbow Dash, claiming that they had heard that the two were enemies and that Scognor had been planning to kill Rainbow Dash, so they assumed that the rainbow-maned pegasus killed her instead. That still didn’t explain why the body had been left at the Transguild Promenade, however, as leaving it there seemed to be a message of some kind, and if it really was Rainbow Dash, what would she be trying to say?

Eventually, as the day was winding down, the duo decided to head for the Boros guildhall. “Trixie cannot believe that the Boros would go back on their promise to Trixie.”

“We aren’t, we said that we would give you the Tome once the case is completed," Shining responded. "We went out and all we heard was nonsense about the Dimir.”

“The Dimir are the most likely suspects," Trixie retorted. "They only have one purpose according to the guildpact and that is…”

“To try and destroy the guildpact," Shining finished. "That is true, but they haven’t been seen or heard from in quite a long time. The theory that it was Rainbow Dash is far more likely.”

“Trixie must remind you that when Trixie asked why Miss Dash would leave the body in the Promenade, you didn’t have an answer.”

“So I haven’t figured out the exacts yet," Shining admitted. "I’ll figure it out soon enough. Why are you so insistent that it has to be the Dimir?”

“Trixie believes that by immediately dismissing the existence of something you open yourself up to an attack by that thing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Trixie," the unicorn captain responded with a sigh. "I’ll keep in touch about the investigation.”

Just then, a human with a pale white face ran out of the building and stood at attention to Shining Armor. “Sir, there was a break-in, sir.”

“What?” Shining asked.

“Trixie warned you," the minister remarked. "Trixie said that when you claim something doesn’t exist it comes and bites you on the ass, but did you listen to Trixie? Nooooooo.”

“Scognor… I mean Scootaloo’s body has been stolen.”

Shining face fell, but then was teeming with anger and resolve. “It was stolen.”

“Yes sir," the human responded. "We currently don’t have any leads but we’re scouring the nearby area, and we’ve sent teams to local guildhalls to see if any of their members may have done it.”

“Trixie believes that this may shed some light on the killer’s intentions.”

“I don’t think that whoever killed Scootaloo took her body.”

“Why, sir?” the human assistant asked.

“Because if they wanted to send a message by leaving it at the Promenade, what message could they possibly send by stealing it back?”

Rarity had awoken that morning expecting good news. She expected the investigation into Scootaloo’s murder to already be underway. She hoped that it would be a simple investigation, and she would be judging the one responsible within the week. However, she instead awoke to find that the investigation was halted, and that the Azorius weren’t going to be helping the Boros with catching this killer. Worse still, Rarity hadn’t been informed of this personally by her mentor Isperia, but by a secretary of another guildmage who mentioned it casually in conversation.

Rarity stomped into New Pravh with the intention of getting Isperia to agree to Azorius involvement in the case. She stopped by the ladies’ room first to check her makeup and attire in the mirror, however. Her long golden robe and her matching judge’s headdress were fitted perfectly on her head. Once she was sure that her makeup was fitted perfectly on her face, she walked back out and continued to the aviary where Isperia spent much of her time.

Isperia, the guildmaster of the Azorius, often spent time in the aviary with various birds and owls keeping her company, as well as the occasional sphinx. Isperia was a great sphinx, large and grand, her coat shimmered a whitish gold, her paws were always freshly manicured, the feathers on her wings were preened every other day and they also accentuated her natural beauty. But Isperia was more than simply a beautiful creature; she was also the head judge of the Azorius. She was known as Isperia the Inscrutable, one of the smartest creatures on Ravnica, and Rarity’s teacher.

Rarity stepped out into the aviary and saw Isperia surrounded by her owls. Rarity frequently met with Isperia out in the aviary for training as a judge, even so the sheer enormity of the room, meant to encompass a sphinx that even in their youth reach the size of a large building, still struck her as did the physical presence emanated by her master.

“Rarity, I could be wrong, but I believe that you had the day off today for such a spectacular performance at yesterday’s trial.” Isperia had a voice not unlike Celestia, commanding but motherly. However, Isperia was quite a bit larger than Celestia and thus her voice was far more booming.

“Oh well, I didn’t think I was that amazing, was I?” Rarity asked politely.

“Of course," boomed Isperia. "You made the right call and did so in a timely fashion so as not to waste anyone’s time. Niv-Mizzet has already been informed of the outcome and he should be paying up within the week.”

“Of course, master.” Rarity often wondered if Isperia had a grudge against Niv-Mizzet with how often any case that involved a member of the Izzet was considered to be ‘right’ as long as the case went against the Izzet. She also wondered if Isperia hated wasting time, why the book of rules of the Azorius was a six-volume series with each book being a size that even Twilight would blanch at.

“So, why are you here today, Rarity?" the sphinx asked in a low motherly tone. "I know that you wouldn’t show up for no reason. You want something, yes?”

“Right to the point then, master.” Rarity cleared her throat. “Why are the Azorius not aiding the Boros in their investigation of the death of Scootaloo?”

“They refused to do things the right way,” her master responded simply.

Rarity arched an eyebrow. “Right way, master?”

“Yes," Isperia continued, "the investigation of the Promenade continued for two hours after the discovery of the body, which is clearly in violation of rule 667 sub-rule 13 that the Promenade is supposed to be cleared of guild activity by 8:00 so that the guildless may enjoy some of Ravnica’s natural beauty.”

“Why do we have that rule?" Rarity questioned. "The majority of the guildless live in the undercity, and are completely unaware that they have any place in the Promenade.”

“The guildless weren’t always so secluded child, once they lived like any other Ravnica citizen.” Isperia cleared her throat, “Also there were three Boros privates, one coroner, one captain, and Feather herself all in the Promenade; this is a clear violation of rule 668 that the Promenade is for all members of Ravnica and no guild should show a dominating presence in it.”

“No one follows that rule either,” Rarity stated rather matter of factly.

“Oh, but those are just the rules that they broke at the promenade." Isperia was beginning to sound more irritated with each word. "They also assigned Captain Shining Armor to the case.”

“What could be so wrong with wanting an experienced captain like Shining on the case of a murder of this magnitude?” Rarity asked indignantly.

“Rule 34,” Isperia said matter-of-factly.

“Pardon?” Rarity asked.

“Rule 34: The Boros may not assign a captain to a case in which he has an emotional investment. The death of one of his fellow ponies is certain to drive Mr. Armor to make some calls that he shouldn’t be making.”

“They want this investigation quick," Rarity defended. "Shining is one of the best investigators that the Boros have.”

Isperia smirked. “Rule 43.”

“Conspiring with a suspect?” clarified Rarity.

“Shining had been spotted today in the Tin City markets at a bar with one Trixie," Isperia remarked, "a minister of the Orzhov church.”

Rarity stepped back and asked, “Why is Trixie considered a suspect? Does she have any motivation for the killing?”

“This early in the investigation, everyone is a suspect.”

Rarity stopped and sat down at a nearby bench, she needed to think this through. “There is something that you aren’t telling me.”

Isperia raised a massive eyebrow. “What makes you think that dear Rarity?”

“All these minor infractions," Rarity pushed, "Particularly in a case of this magnitude.”

“Why do you think that the infractions are minor compared to the case at hand?” Isperia asked.

“Scootaloo… Scognor, her death will cause some problems amongst the largest Gruul sect out there.” Rarity stood up as she made her realization. “It will cause untold upheaval to all the citizens of Ravnica if this news reaches the eyes and ears of Borborygmos, that must be why her body was left out at the promenade; the killer wanted Borborygmos to find out about her death.”

Isperia chuckled heartily. “You are a knowledgeable woman, I mean mare, Miss Rarity, one of the reasons I decided to take you under my wing as a judge.”

“So Isperia, with all of that on the table," Rarity continued pushing, "what is the real reason that you refuse to allow Azorius aid to the Boros?”

“I told you…” Isperia began.

“And I told you I don’t buy it.”

“Rarity, I wouldn’t take that tone with your guild leader.”

“Then tell me, honestly I might add, what is it about the investigation that makes it different, why won’t you let us help them?”

“It matters not," Isperia said dismissively. "Besides, it isn’t like they were doing a good job.”

“The investigation has only been on one day, how could they be doing a bad job?”

“The body of young Scognor was stolen earlier by a Golgari guildmage that’s how. Now please, if you are done interrogating me...” Isperia responded, the motherly tint in her voice now completely gone, replaced with an imposing boom.

“Oh yes, so sorry Isperia, I mean Madam Isperia, I’ll be going now.”

Rarity hastily exited the aviary and ran down to the lobby of New Pravh. The last words rang in Rarity’s ears. ‘The Golgari stole the body.’ That was interesting information, but how did Isperia know that so quickly after it happened? According to all of Rarity’s friends, she had been in the aviary all day. ‘Someone had to have told her, but how did they know, why did they tell Isperia’?

As Rarity pondered these questions, she came upon a Boros guildmage in the main lobby. “Greetings, to what do we owe the honor of the Boros visiting our guildhall?” She greeted the man with gusto, perhaps he could tell her something about the case that she didn’t know.

“The body of Scognor, given name Scootaloo, was stolen today from the guildhall," the Boros man said. "We’re looking for any clues as to who did this.”

“You don’t know who stole the body?” Rarity asked.

“No ma’am, if you have any clues...”

His voice trailed off as Rarity pondered the meaning of this. ‘If it isn’t common knowledge, in fact it’s not even known to the Boros themselves, then Isperia had to have someone watching the Boros throughout the day and told them only to report back to her about what was going on’.

“Excuse me, ma’am," the officer said, snapping her out of her reverie. "I was wondering if you had any clues?”

“Oh, excuse me darling, I trailed off in my own head there sorry.” She coughed and straightened herself, “Well according to… sources of mine the Golgari are the ones responsible for the theft.”

“Thank you, ma’am," the Boros guildmage thanked her enthusiastically. "This is the first solid lead we’ve had all afternoon.”

“No problem darling, just keep me anonymous and give this info directly to Shining Armor, immediately," Rarity ordered. "He’s the only one you can tell who gave you this information to as well, something tells me he’ll want to investigate this himself and he’ll trust my word.”

Shining was trudging through the undercity towards the Golgari guildhall, Korozda, the second that Rarity’s tip was delivered to him. While he was curious where the unicorn got her info, he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth when the case was this important. Once he finally reached the underground castle of Korozda, he used a blinking spell to teleport himself inside, only to be faced with numerous trolls and guildmages.

“Intruder!” screamed one troll. “Meat!” screamed another. The two charged at Shining, who shot a beam of light from his horn, disintegrating the first troll. The second brought down a large club, but Shining was able to dodge to the side and blast that one into oblivion as well. A third troll started bearing down on him as one of the guildmages chanted a spell to wrap nearby vines around Shining’s legs pinning him to the spot. The troll’s blow connected, giving Shining a serious bruise on his face, but also putting him right in Shining’s line of sight and the path of another beam of light.

A fourth was about to attack the pinned Shining as well while more guildmages continued to chant their magic and cause more vines to surround Shining when a booming voice called out. “Enough!” The troll stopped its death march and the guildmages released their hold on Shining, who quickly stepped back and looked around trying to identify the voice. “Ah expected the Boros to come at us with an army, thought those trolls’d last longer than that too,” a voice called from the shadows. “It’s alright though, ah’ll improvise.” Applejack jumped down from the rafters and immediately the guildmages backed away. “Ah guess I can give you a chance to explain why you’ve come down here.”

“I’m looking for the body of Scootaloo," Shining Armor declared. "I was told that the Golgari stole it.”

“The Golgari take in a lot of bodies in a day Shining," Applejack drawled. "It ain’t mah job to learn their names.”

Shining Armor sneered. “Perhaps you remember the ones you steal from Boros guildhalls.”

“Hmm…" the undead farmer put a hoof to her chin sarcastically. "Nah.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Applejack.”

“Are you really in a mood to argue Shining? You come in uninvited to mah home, start blasting my poor troll to bits, and demand something from me in return. Sugarcube you’ve got one heck of a sense of humor.” She started laughing heartily and her guildmages and trolls joined in.

Shining was about to launch an attack against Applejack when the scuttle of bugs near his hooves startled him. The bugs swarmed towards the back of the room as a Devkarin elf walked in carrying the body of Scootaloo.

“Master Jarad, sir.” Applejack bowed to her master as he passed her by and stood in front of Shining Armor, who in turn readied a spell.

“Relax Captain, I used to have a friend in the Boros legion," the devkarin rasped. "Although it was a long time ago. I’m returning the body to you now.”

“So you have your flunky steal her body and then you wait for me to show up just to give it back," Shining shouted back. "Afraid I’m not seeing much logic in your actions.”

“I had Applejack take Scootaloo’s body so that I could perform some tests on the body," Jarad clarified. "Tests you probably wouldn’t have agreed to if I asked nicely.”

“Why, what did you want to know about her body, except what can it fertilize?”

“For example," Jarad answered, "how about the fact that her body actively resists reanimation.”

The room went silent only for Applejack to speak back up. “You can’t reanimate her?”

“Yes, her body actively resists any form of reanimation, spirit summoning, the works. Give this body to an Orzhov, a Golgari, and a Dimir and they’d still leave the room scratching their heads.” He placed the body gingerly on Shining’s back and helped strap it down for transport, “Whoever killed her wanted her to stay dead. I suggest you look for extra help on this one Captain, whoever you’re dealing with has a vast grasp of magic, more vast even than mine.”

Shining nodded and turned to leave. As he walked through the undercity, Jarad’s words struck him more and more. He would need help, and he knew of only one mare that was brilliant, crazy, and reckless enough to help him with this investigation.

His sister.

Brute force Science

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City of Guilds
Chapter 3: Brute Force Science

An Izzet Vedalken noticed Twilight Sparkle coming towards him in her traditional robes. “Twilight Sparkle of the Izmundi, we’ve been expecting you,” he said.

Twilight stood before the entrance to one of Niv-Mizzet’s Blistercoil facilities, adorned in her traditional formal Izmundi wear. She wore lightweight armor covered by a flowing red and blue cloak, and on her back were a collection of various materials like pipes, connector tissue, electricity coils, and a bottle of concentrated blue mana. “Well, let’s get this over with, what seems to be the problem?”

The Vedalken led her inside the Blistercoil, allowing Twilight a look at Niv-Mizzet’s firsthand work. Niv-Mizzet had commissioned the Blistercoils a few years back, but no one could figure out why. When production wasn’t as quick as he hoped, he used his magic to build them himself. The inside of the Blistercoil facility was much like the inside of many other Izzet facilities: steamy. Large pipes and vents constantly belched steam as they produced more power for various areas of Ravnica. The corridors of the Blistercoil facility were tightly packed, as it was meant more for cramming a large amount of power into a small space than being easily accessible.

“Well, Miss Sparkle, the Blistercoil was attacked recently, and Niv-Mizzet said to inform members of the Izmundi if that happened," the Vedalken clarified. "And, well, you are considered to be rather close to Niv-Mizzet.”

“All right, I get it.” Twilight was rather annoyed at having to investigate the Blistercoil rather than working on her latest experiment. She was designing a new blaster rifle for the chemisters of the Izzet league and was scheduled to perform tests against captured trolls today. On the one hoof she was glad that Niv-Mizzet trusted her so much, on the other she wished that the job was more exciting.

The Vedalken finally brought her to the central Blistercoil generator. The central generator was housed in a large circular room, wedged between hundreds of pipes and vents. The generator had been ripped to shreds with pieces strewn all over the floor of the room. Small hand-made axes jutted from the generator walls and the symbol of a flaming tree was etched into their handles.

“The Gruul did this?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, Miss Sparkle," the Vedalken confirmed. "We believe that it was the tribe belonging to Borborygmos.”

Twilight went to work surveying the damage. Replacing the coils alone would cost more zinos than she dare dream, not to mention a section of the city would be running on older backup generators, which would cause some complaints against the Izzet for ‘laziness.’ Overall this was a costly attack; Borborygmos wouldn’t have done this for no reason, not even Rakdos would cause this much damage to the city’s infrastructure on a whim.

“Alright, I’m going to see what I can do to get this thing generating power again," Twilight said with a huff. "You can leave me for now.”

“Of course, Miss Sparkle.” The Vedalken walked away, leaving her to her devices.

Twilight used her magic to scan the wreckage for any trace amounts of mana she could use to rebuild the generator. Magic worked a lot differently in the rest of the multiverse than on Equestria. Rather than magic being an inherent ability in certain segments of the populace, it was something that anyone could do, provided that they knew spells and could siphon mana.

Mana itself came in five distinct varieties. There was Blue mana, which was useful for the knowledgeable and intellectual, Red for chaotic passion, White for order and morality, Green for nature magic, and Black for ambition and death. Twilight, being a member of the Izzet league, specialized in blue and red mana, and could use them to repair and build technologies with her magic. She found trace amounts of blue mana and started stringing them together to rebuild parts of the generator. Suddenly Twilight was blasted back by a sudden surge of mana.

“What was that?” Twilight reached out and grasped for the strands of blue mana, only to find large quantities of blue and red mana floating around the generator. “Why is there so much mana floating around a dead generator?” The lavender unicorn continued to scan the generator but couldn’t find any reason for the mana that had collected around it. Defeated, she continued to rebuild the generator when she located a few pieces that weren’t in the original designs.

“What are these buffers doing here? With these connected to the chemister coil, and then fed through the cables power line.”

Twilight continued to mutter to herself as she repaired the generator’s extra parts. Eventually she managed to reconnect the extra bits and get them working again. “Now it’s time to figure out what is going on.” After scanning the coils once again, Twilight finally found where the coils power was going: it was generating more mana than the coils should be generating, but it was sending the energy somewhere else. “Nivix.” With that, Twilight ran out and headed back to her mentor’s aerie.

Shining Armor paced back and forth in his room, mentally debating whether or not to go through with his plan. The plan was to ask his sister, Twilight Sparkle, for help in the investigation. She had access to more sections of the city, probably wouldn’t ask for anything too dangerous in return, and was a powerful mage with plenty of great ideas that could find a way to find the killer and catch them too.

“Sweetheart, why haven’t you sent the letter yet?” Cadence called from the other room.

“I-I well…” Shining stammered.

“Sweetheart," Cadence cooed, "she’s your sister and I’m sure she’ll be more than willing to help.”

“Well yeah, but...” Shining knew that Cadence was right, not just because she was his wife. He knew that Twilight would agree to help with the investigation, so why didn’t he want to ask her? Back on Equestria he would have had no problem asking his little Twily for help, so what changed that?

It wasn’t like he expected his little sister to always be his little Twily forever, but here she was… different. Many considered Niv-Mizzet to be rather batty, or just interested in experimenting for no discernable purpose. If that was the case, Twilight must be his long lost daughter, because it seemed that all she did now was experiment and make weirds and various other monsters.

“She’s just not the Twily that I remember.” He paused, unsure of what he should say next. “She’s so focused on her experiments and everything, you know she doesn’t care who gets hurt or how just so long as she gets some visible results that she can put on some report for that dragon.”

Cadence walked into the room and put her arms around Shining. “You can’t just avoid her, you have to accept that she’s changed. Do you really want to lose your little sister?”

The thought struck him like a ton of bricks. Of course he didn’t want to lose his little sister, his little Twily. He finished writing the note and handed it to an owl outside. “Give this to a gryphon for transport, and make sure that Niv-Mizzet gets it before noon.” The owl cooed in response and flew off. “There, I have to meet with her now.”

Cadence hugged him again and kissed his cheek, “You won’t regret this Shining, I promise.” Shining hugged his wife back. “I hope so, I hope so.”

Twilight walked into the aerie of the Nivix with some trepidation. Whatever was going on with the Blistercoils had been kept a secret for a reason, and she was certain that Niv-Mizzet didn’t design those extra mana coils on accident. What did he want kept secret, and why?

“My student, is something the matter?" bellowed Niv-Mizzet.

Twilight stopped in her tracks when she realized she had walked into the middle of the aerie without actually saying anything. “Oh, Niv-Mizzet sir, I’ve come to report on the Blistercoil situation.”

“Good, I thought that you just sleepwalked in here.” The old dragon chuckled. “So, who damaged my lovely generators?” the dragon asked while looking at various dials.

“Well, considering the damage, remnants of weapons, and symbols carved into the metal," Twilight robotically listed off, "it’s a confirmed Gruul attack.”

“Any knowledge of the sect that committed it?” asked the age-old dragon.

“Borborygmos definitely, the shape of the axes was consistent with his tribe." Twilight paused a second. "Also whoever wanted these things taken down knew what they were looking to break.”

“Explain.” Niv-Mizzet always spoke little when dealing with issues. Despite being the leader of the guild he treated problems like these as though they weren’t his to deal with.

“Well, I was unable to immediately repair the generator due to the condition of numerous key pieces," Twilight explained. "Taking into consideration the normal intelligence level of a Gruul, the only one I know of that could have done this would be Borborygmos.”

“A satisfactory answer as always, Twilight Sparkle. I will send word to Borborygmos to cease his attacks and find out what he wants.” The dragon began to turn his back to Twilight.

Twilight inhaled; she still had to confront him. “There was one more thing.”

The dragon turned back to Twilight. “Yes?”

“I found a piece of the generator that wasn’t in the original plans, a kind of second generator.” The dragon’s eyes narrowed, almost daring her to continue. Twilight swallowed, moment of truth. “This second generator seemed to be producing an explosive amount of mana, all of it being funneled here to the aerie.”

The dragon smiled, flashing his teeth to Twilight. “And?”

“And I want to know why that mana is being channeled directly into your chamber. I think I deserve an explanation after I fixed that part of the generator for you.”

Niv-Mizzet looked genuinely surprised. “You? Fixed the Manacoil?”

Twilight smiled. “So that’s what they’re called.”

“Well, it’s none of your concern what the mana is for, but I’m collecting it for an experiment of my own.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up like a Hearth’s Warming Eve tree. Niv-Mizzet was considered the smartest being on Ravnica. He formed a guild devoted to collecting the other greatest minds of Ravnica and having them advance Ravnican technology. But even so, he almost never did anything himself.

“You’re working on something? What is it? How will it revolutionize life, machines, etcetera? Do you need an assistant? Secretary? Courier? Baker?”

“Twilight,” his voice boomed, cutting off her rant. “This is a personal experiment. Your concern, while appreciated, isn’t needed.” He readjusted himself, lying down on his perch. “Now, is there anything else that you need Twilight?”

“No, sir," Twilight stammered. "I’ll be going now.”

“Actually, there was a message for you earlier," the dragon quickly added. "You’re needed at Pivlic’s bar in Tin City.”

“Why am I needed there?” Twilight asked.

The dragon flashed a toothy grin. “Your presence was requested by the Boros Legion. Apparently, they want you to help with an investigation.”

“Well they can kiss my…”

“And the one who requested your presence was a certain equine captain,” Niv-Mizzet clarified.

Twilight stopped, the curse stuck in her mouth. She sighed. “Alright, I’ll meet him there.”

Shining sat at the bar, the one that he had been to yesterday, waiting for his sister. Cadence had convinced him that he needed to talk to her, but he was still apprehensive. For one, the Boros weren’t exactly popular amidst the Izzet League, probably because it’s illegal to explode various populated areas of Ravnica. Twilight herself had to be arrested by him on a few occasions.

“Are ya going to order anything, ‘captain’?” The bartending devil today seemed a lot less patient with him than the human one from yesterday.

“Alright, I guess I’ll order something," Shining responded, annoyed. "What would you recommend for a guy who’s about to ask his sister, who he put in jail once, for help?”

The bartender nodded slightly before mixing together a foul looking, and smelling, concoction and setting it in front of the captain. The drink looked as though it was made from thick black ooze. “Troll Tonic. Made from Troll blood, liquor, and scorpion venom, distilled of course.”

The bar looked over at Shining with expectant faces. Any other time Shining would have declined or asked for something less… icky. But Shining Armor was a desperate pony. “Alright, bottoms up.” He gulped down the mystery drink, which tasted just as awful as it looked, and seemed with just that to earn the respect of the bartender.

“Good job, Captain, not a lot of folks can stomach a drink like that.” A few drunken humans clapped for Shining, and one viashino patted him on the back. “Another?” Shining simply nodded his head as the bartender brewed him another.

“Starting the party without the guest?" a female voice echoed from the door. "You’ve certainly lost a little chivalry since I saw you last, BBBFF.”

Shining twirled around to see the visage of a mare in the doorway to the bar. Twilight was wearing traditional Izmundi robes and several bags and patches containing scraps of metal, cords, wires, and various other sundries. “Twilight, come here. I need to talk to you.”

“Oh I know, Niv-Mizzet told me that you wanted the help of a–hmm, what did you call me last time we talked?–insane tinkerer, explosion obsessed nutter, mad scientist, and my personal favorite, you called me a dragon’s mistress,” Twilight said, the smile on her face betraying the venom in her tone.

Shining sighed. “I am aware that the last time that we were together, I didn’t mince words.”

“No, really,” Twilight deadpanned.

“But I want to start this conversation by apologizing and asking that we start with a fresh slate. I need your help with this case, and I want my sister back. I don’t want to lose you, Twily.” Shining’s voice dropped with that last statement.

Twilight smiled a little and gave a big hug to her brother. “I’ll forgive you, I get it, alright.” She used her magic to combine some of her various materials into a small, pony-sized barstool and sat herself down next to Shining. “So, should we start with the case?”

“No, I want to get to know the new you, my new sister.”

“Okay," Twilight said, sort of confused. "So, who should start, me or you?”

“Well, why don’t you start? Just tell me what happened yesterday or the day before after Celestia went to visit you.”

“Well, I’ve been working on a new blaster rifle for the chemister class of the Izzet. Yesterday I finally got the size of the chamber right and the balance between the mercury and mana levels, and after mixing in a dash of petroleum and solid transduction fluid into the mixing chamber, which shortens the blast time but sharpens the blast so as to increase the lethality of the round…”

“Okay," Shining interrupted, "I got about one third of that.”

“Ah got even less," the bartender casually responded. "Miss, would you like a drink?”

“Oh yes please, just a simple beer.” The bartender nodded and handed her back a simple glass and passed Shining the second Troll Tonic.

“Never took you for a beer person, Twily.”

“Well, the first time I successfully completed an experiment, adjustments to the collectors on most Izzet generators to absorb and reuse stray mana, the other guys in my section invited me out for a drink.” She took a swig. “Needless to say, it being the first time I had drank period, I was horribly drunk by the end of the night.”

“Twily, I have a serious question about that evening.” Twilight nodded and looked him in the eyes. “Did you sleep with anyone that night?” After a pause, Twilight and Shining burst out laughing at the accusation. “Should I take that as a yes?”

“No, no, I don’t think so anyway." Shining couldn't tell if she was joking or not. Twilight continued, "So I decided to become a better drinker and started ‘rewarding’ myself for each semi-successful experiment.”

“Spike always did tell you to get out more.”

“I know, he’d be so proud.” The two siblings laughed jubilantly. “So what did you do yesterday? I mean, besides your wife.”

Shining snorted. “Wow, never thought I would hear jokes like that from you, Twily.” He took a swig of the tonic, causing his stomach to churn. He was unsure if he was already drunk, or if his stomach, like him, could smell how bad the drink smelled. “Well, almost immediately after Scootaloo’s death, we were contacted by the Orzhov who wanted to help with the case.”

“Well, I guess that’s okay, since you said that they weren’t suspects.”

"Actually" Shining clarified, “I did think that they were suspects.”

“But Celestia said…” Twilight trailed off, questioning whether or not Celestia just misheard Shining.

“Well, anyway,” Shining said, taking another swig of the repugnant tonic, “as it turns out the Orzhov wanted to help out in exchange for something called a Scry Tome.”

“The Scry Tome?" Twilight questioned. "That thing that Niv-Mizzet has in the aerie?”

“Apparently we at the Boros have a few others. Actually, what was stranger was that I checked the storeroom after Trixie told me…”

“Wait, Trixie, the Great and Powerful?" Twilight asked.

“You know her?” Shining responded, shocked.

“Back in Ponyville, yeah, how was she getting along?” Twilight asked with genuine worry in her voice.

“She’s fine, collector/minister for the Orzhov," the pony captain stated. "Anyway, she said that there were only five of these things and that the Boros had the other four, so I checked and you know what… I still don't know why she wants one so badly,” Shining said as he took the final swig of his drink.

“That is strange, I’ve never even seen Niv-Mizzet use his before I just figured it was some piece of junk, the Orzhov were willing to help a Boros investigation for access to one of these things?” Twilight might not follow interguild politics that much, but she did know that the Orzhov didn’t very well like the Boros. The Orzhov pretended to be a church, but they made their money on underground trading and black market dealings, things that the Boros would arrest people for.

“I know. So, Trixie was helping me out with the investigation and so far we have two really, really bad, hole-ridden theories.” He sighed and pushed the glass away, “One, Rainbow Dash killed her.”

“That can’t be…” Twilight started to object, before Shining cut her off.

“Hear me out Twily, Rainbow Dash could have killed her because, apparently, Scootaloo was planning on fighting Rainbow because the two of them had a grudge or something.”

“It’s out of character for Rainbow Dash to do something like that. If she was going to fight Scootaloo, she would fight her she’d make it as splashy as possible," Twilight said. "There would be storms in the sky that made arrows pointing to the fight.”

“Yeah," Shining admitted, "and leaving her body in the Promenade doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either.”

“That has to be your weakest theory right?” Twilight took another swig of her beer. “Right?”

“That’s the problem," Shining began to sheepishly admit. "The other theory is that it was the Dimir.”

Twilight burst out laughing again, “The Dimir, really, that’s the scientific conclusion you’ve reached?” She laughed harder and harder, soon being joined by Shining.

“It’s the best we’ve got, what do you want sis?”

“Something better than that. It’s the murder equivalent to ‘my dog ate my homework.’” The two laughed for some time before finally calming down. “I know that we shouldn’t be laughing at somepony’s death, but wow.” She finished her beer, placing some zinos on the bar and breaking her chair back into component parts and putting them into her bag. “I haven’t laughed like that in ages, big brother.”

“Yeah, not in years.” Shining paid for his drink as well and got up. “So, now you see why I need your help; I’m grasping at straws here. Not to mention,” Shining added, “yesterday Rarity gave a tip that Scootaloo’s body, which was stolen that afternoon, was taken by the Golgari.” Twilight’s previously cheerful expression soured; she hated hearing about stuff like this. “According to Applejack, who stole the body for Jarad, Scootaloo had strong enchantments and curse magic on her that prevents reanimation.”

Twilight tried to mentally process what he had said. “Prevents… reanimation. T-t-t-t-that kind of… the sheer amount of mana it would...” She was having trouble with basic thinking at this point. The insane amount of mana it would take to pull off such a trick was beyond what even she could do. And the absolute mastery of black mana that it would take to be able to prevent reanimation by the Golgari! “Whoever you’re dealing with, you’ll need more than just you and Trixie to fight this… thing.” She straightened and calmed herself. “I’ll do what I can, and I’ve got your back, BBBFF.”

Shining smiled. “Good, then let’s head down to the guildhall! I’ll catch you up on the way.” With that, the two walked out of the bar and back into Tin City proper, only to hear screams come from further down the district. “What the… the screams came from down that way.”

The duo ran down the streets of Tin City searching for the origin of the screams. Eventually they found a group of humans and goblins in Boros wear being assaulted by two ogres and three centaurs with hand-axes. The ogres rushed the humans, throwing them into walls, splattering their guts across the walls of the buildings. The centaurs looked and noticed Shining wearing his captain’s armor. “Captain Boros, Captain Boros, kill, kill.” The centaurs and ogres started readying themselves for battle, chanting all the while.

“Shining, looks like you’ve got groupies, what would Cadence think?” Twilight began to use her magic to merge the various parts in her bags to form two blaster rifles.

“Well, I’m a one mare man, so I guess I’m gonna have to let these guys down.” Shining readied a charge of his magic. “Nice and easy.”

The first ogre charged at Shining, who blasted it back with a charge of light magic. However this didn’t kill the ogre, just irritate it. After being knocked back somewhat by the blast, the ogre rushed forward again to attack Shining. Not having much time, Shining tried to sidestep the attack, only to be stunned by the ogre’s fist connecting with the solid ground next to him. Seeing an opening, Shining charged a smaller blast of magic and shot it point blank at the ogre’s face, blinding it somewhat. One of the ogres now blinded momentarily, Shining turned his attention to the other ogre who was already bearing down on him. Quickly Shining raised a barrier to block the ogre’s attack. The barrier repelled the ogre’s fist but still hurt Shining with how much magic he was using.

Twilight was doing better as the three centaurs charged her with the axes. The first ran near her just as she finished her first rifle, which she pointed at the centaur and fired. The blasts of mana ripped through the centaur’s flesh, and he collapsed to the ground writhing. “No better tests than field tests.” She smiled and fired at the second centaur in line and killed him. The third charged with his axe and swung at Twilight’s head. She ducked and slid under him firing all the way. The last centaur collapsed to the ground dead.

Shining dodged around the second ogre, trying to blast it with more light magic. The magic seemed to stun the ogre but didn’t kill it, possibly because of how intoxicated Shining was. Shining managed to blast the ogre backwards, whereupon it was set aflame by a flamethrower being used by Twilight. The second ogre, the light spell now having worn off, rushed at Twilight who was shielded by Shining’s barrier spell. “You have my back and I have yours, Twily.”

Twilight repositioned the flamethrower and fired at the second ogre when Shining dropped the shield. “Show off.” Shining put the barrier back up once the ogre had been set on fire. The two huddled behind the shield as the ogre burned to death before leaving the safety of the barrier and analyzing the bodies. “Based on the shape of the weapons, they’re from the Borborygmos sect of the Gruul.” She started looking through the bags of the centaurs.

“Why would they be this far away from Skarrg?” Shining took the tags from the dead bodies of the Boros. “Why would they be attacking Boros legionnaires?” Shining looked over the body of one of the goblins and saw that he was dressed in Izzet garb and was clutching a letter in his hand.

“I think we have a problem.” Twilight pulled out an animal skin with words written in blood across it saying, “Until she is avenged, Ravnica will suffer with me.”

“Borborygmos, this all connects back to Scootaloo.” Shining took the letter from the goblin’s hand and read it. “’Borborygmos, we of the Izzet league demand that you cease your attacks against our property such as the Blistercoils.’ He’s attacking all of Ravnica?”

“Yeah, I was investigating the Blistercoil attack this morning, and he clearly isn’t willing to talk if he decided to kill the messenger.” Twilight rolled up the animal skin with the Gruul message on it and placed it in her saddlebag. “We should focus our attention on stopping Borborygmos. It’s a more immediate threat than the mysterious killer.”

“Considering how lame our leads on the killer are, I have to agree with you there. So, Miss Scientist, what is your brilliant plan?”

“Hmm.” Twilight put a hoof to her chin. She had to find a way to get Borborygmos alone, away from Skarrg, and be able to sneak up on him. The realization hit her and caused a shiver. “Oh goodness.”

“What, you have a plan?”

“Yes but its gonna require a little more… help.” Twilight gulped. “Well, Borborygmos wants to hurt the Boros because he believes that they aren’t doing their job with catching Scootaloo’s killer.”

“So, I’ll be bait.”

“Yes, but we still need a place, and I thought of that as well.” Twilight gulped again before continuing, “We need somewhere that has a place set up for a sneak attack by you, me, and Trixie, if she’s still on board, and something that will be a good distraction until the sneak attack is ready.”

“Just spit it out, Twily.”

“Well, we could talk to Pinkie Pie and host a Rakdos performance near Skarrg, leaking the information that you’ll be there.”

Shining didn’t skip a beat. “Alright, then tomorrow we’ll try and convince Pinkie Pie to help us.”

“Wait, really?”

“Twilight it’s my job as a Boros captain to help the citizens of Ravnica. I refuse to let those citizens down, for any reason, no matter who I have to deal with as a result.”

“Alright, as I said, I’ll help in any way that I can, so I guess that means we have to talk to Pinkie Pie.”

The two left for their respective guildhalls unknowing of the pink pony nearby who twitched a little before saying, “Tomorrow’s gonna be fun, Pinkie sense is never wrong.”

Pleasure makes perfect

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City of Guilds
Chapter 4: Pleasure Makes Perfect

Pinkie Pie woke up on the floor of the Rakdos performance hall of the Sixth District. The floor wasn’t cleaned last night, and she thus awoke with her cheek resting in a pile of blood and milk; at least, she thought it was milk. All around her, other performers started to stir. She got up and prodded the demon next to her. “Smoky, get up.”

Smoky started to wake up, smacking his lips and standing up. “Morning, Pinks.”

The other performers all got up and started filing towards the local Rakdos Ringleader. The Ringleaders were the organizers of the Rakdos performances, at least as much as the Cult of Rakdos would allow organization. They paid the various performers after each show, scheduled the following shows, and did all the things the other members considered ‘boring.’ The performers crowded around the Ringleader as he passed out payment to them, all of them giving sideways glances and glares to Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie was used to it by now, though. Ever since she had joined the Cult of Rakdos, many of the other members didn’t trust her. She assumed that it had something to do with her coming from a land of peace and harmony. Coming from Equestria naturally made her comrades a bit nervous as to whether she actually believed in what she did or if it was all a ruse.

But Pinkie did really enjoy what she did for the cult. She constantly practiced the jokes and mannerisms of her Surprise act. Granted, she didn’t practice the killing aspect outside of the clubs, though others did. She felt it was stupid to kill outside the club; if you did so in the club then you were safe from Boros and Azorius jurisdiction.

Pinkie walked up to the Ringleader and received her payment of one thousand zinos. This made some of her fellow performers somewhat upset, as she was paid quite a bit more than them. “Thanks boss.” Pinkie accepted the money quietly and began walking off when Smoky stopped her.

“They’re just jealous of you Pinks, they know they couldn’t do half of what you do.” Smoky patted her on the back. “Just remember those of us who work for minimum wage ‘kay babe.” Pinkie rolled her eyes dramatically and gave one hundred zinos to her best friend. “You are the most generous, awesome, sexy, superb-” Pinkie put a hoof to his mouth.

“Don’t strain your limited vocabulary on little old me, Smoky, just go and have some fun before tonight.” She winked at him. “You do remember that we have another show in the third district near Skaarg today, right?” Smoky nodded dramatically and Pinkie patted him on the head. “Good, see you then.”

“Wait, where are you going?” asked Smoky.

“Shower, errands," Pinkie Pie listed off, "you know, daily stuff.”

“Alright, well let me know if you need someone to help you party hard with that delicious pile of cash you got there.” With that Smoky left, not seeing the drop in Pinkie’s step after the mention of the dreaded ‘P’ word.

“Yeah, sure.” Pinkie sighed and started to head for her apartment.

Pinkie Pie lived in the Undercity, not too unusual for a member of the Rakdos guild. However, whereas most of them either lived in small apartment complexes that Pinkie liked to call Sorority houses or in Rix-Maadi, Pinkie lived further away. Pinkie lived in an apartment owned and operated by guildless, the lowest class of Ravnican society. In exchange for her staying there, she offered a generous sum of rent that kept the building going.

Pinkie trudged through the Undercity heading towards her apartment when a human female stopped her. “Miss Surprise, please come quickly, come quickly please.” The woman screamed and screamed over for Pinkie to follow her, so Pinkie agreed and followed her to a sewer grate where a large scorpion was attacking a human boy. “That scorpion is going to kill my boy!” The woman kept screaming as Pinkie approached the scorpion, her Surprise makeup still on.

“Put up your claws, this is a ‘sting’ operation.” Pinkie rushed in and kicked the scorpion in the head, allowing the boy time to get away. The scorpion stumbled back and refocused its attention on Pinkie, “Hey, you’re armored, that’s ‘chitin’.” The scorpion brought its tail down repeatedly where Pinkie was as she dodged to the side and jumped on top of the scorpion. The scorpion brought its stinger down towards Pinkie. At the last moment she dodged out of the way, causing it to sting itself. Pinkie stood on her hind legs and shouted “FATALITY.”

The child clapped at Pinkie’s achievement as the mother hugged her child close to her. It was times like these that reminded Pinkie Pie of home, of Equestria. She shook her head as she wandered away towards her apartment. “I can’t go back there, I’m not meant for that.” Pinkie finally reached her apartment and walked inside where she was greeted by the landlord, a human named Callun.

“Pinkie!” Callun shouted happily.

“Callun!” Pinkie hugged the short brown-haired human and tossed a bag of zinos onto the table.

“Pinkie," Callun said softly, "that’s quite a lot of money.”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “I know.”

“So, why are you giving it to me?”

The party pony smiled. “Because you need it more than me.”

A group of children ran into the room and started to crowd around Pinkie Pie. “It’s Surprise!” “Surprise!” “Surprise!” “Surprise!” The children danced around Pinkie Pie before being stopped by Callun.

“Now children, stop attacking Miss Pie." Callun smiled and said, "Tell you all what, I’ll tell you all a story.”

“Oh boy, strap in folks, it’s Exposition Time!” Pinkie Pie grabbed a box of cookies from the nearby kitchen and sat down.

“Right. Well, this all began quite a while ago.” Callun sat down and propped a few of the kids up on his lap. “This story is about a monster known as Szadec.” The kids all gasped in unison. “Szadec was the ruler of the guild of shadow, the Dimir, who all allegedly lived in the tower known as Duskmantle right here in the undercity.”

“If they lived in a big tower, how come no one knew they existed?” one of the kids asked.

“Hush, boy. Anyway, Szadec had only one purpose, one purpose that he lived his entire life for.” He paused for effect. “The destruction of the Guildpact, the symbol of peace of all of Ravnica.”

“Why would he do that?” the children asked.

“Because the Guildpact was written to have a purpose for all of Ravnica, including someone who would try to destroy the Guildpact.” The children oohed and aahed at the revelation. “And eventually, despite the attempts by many of the other guilds, he succeeded.”

“That’s when the Dissension crisis happened right?” the children asked.

Pinkie Pie patted one of the little kids on the head. “Yep, and the Centurial celebration is in two weeks! The Dissension crisis was what fractured the guilds for a time as well. After they drew up a new, non-magical Guildpact, the guilds disbanded for a while, but Ravnica missed them.”

“Some of Ravnica,” Callun intoned. “As much as I love ya, Miss Pie, I really don’t enjoy having to bar these young kids inside whenever your guild comes to town.” Pinkie frowned a little. “But I ain’t judging, just saying.”

“Alright, well, I have to go and take a shower before I can go shopping. If you need anything from the market district, leave a shopping list or something on the counter and I’ll get it for you.” She kissed Callun on the cheek and bounced her way upstairs into her room.

Pinkie’s room was fairly simple. It was a small drab room in a small drab apartment. The walls were black, the floors were black, and the ceiling was black. She had a small bathroom to herself with a shower and toilet, but other than that her room wasn’t too different from any other room in the apartment. All she had in terms of furnishing was a small, one-person bed and a dresser. She tossed her bags onto her bed and stepped into the shower, turning the water on.

The chilly waters splashed Pinkie as she scrubbed her body-paint off. She scrubbed away the white paint and various other fluids with a repurposed human hairbrush. Pinkie’s thoughts began to turn to her old friends from Equestria. Despite how many times she reminded herself that she enjoyed working with the Rakdos more than she did baking cakes all day, she did miss her old life sometimes. Previously she woke up every day to a town of people who loved her. Now she woke up to a world that hates her and feared the people that she stuck around with.

“Stop thinking like that,” she told herself. “It’s not like you’re the only one that they don’t like.” She knew that was a flimsy excuse, but she didn’t care. Applejack was a Golgari, a scavenger; Ravnica hated them just as much as the Rakdos. Not that she hated Applejack. Applejack was one of the few who still accepted her; in fact, she actually attended one of Pinkie’s performances! Pinkie also knew that Twilight wasn’t exactly getting parades thrown for her in the streets. Twilight was a great scientist, but she was also rather explosive. Very few people were hurt during Twilight’s experiments, but that didn’t mean that they escaped unscathed. Many had tried to sue her for destroying their homes accidentally. Oftentimes she’d just pay the money and call it a day, something that gave her little love amongst the Boros and Azorius. And up until her death Scootaloo was feared; Scognor they called her, dragon’s heart.

“But none of them are murderers, not like me.” She splashed her face with the water to try and eradicate her bad thoughts. Trixie was an enforcer for the Orzhov. They may masquerade as a religion but are essentially Ravnica’s mafia. But again, she rarely outright killed. “Except for that time two chapters ago, but that’s kind of rare.” Rainbow Dash was probably the closest to her in terms of perception, but she wasn’t bothered by it. She didn’t care that people didn’t like her; she just did whatever Zegana wanted her to do. Pinkie liked to pretend that she didn’t care either, but that was a flat-out lie. She was still the element of laughter, at least in her mind; she wanted to be friends with everyone again. Sure she still made people smile, but not her friends.

‘No that’s not true, I have new friends that love me.’ Her thoughts drifted to Smoky, the one who had saved her. He was the one who got her on that stage and got her to… ‘Oops, you aren't supposed to know that yet.’ She finished her shower and took out her various paints. She started to repaint her fur with the white paint. The slick white paint covered her fur, allowing her to become Surprise. After allowing the paint to dry, she stepped out and grabbed her bags again. Once she was downstairs she saw that Callun was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her, a sad look on his face.

“What’s the matter, Callun?" Pinkie asked with a chipper smile. "We’ve got to turn that frown upside down…”

“Pinkie, the Boros were just here.” Pinkie’s smile turned to a frown as Callun continued. “They were looking for you, and I didn’t tell them you were here, but…” He was clearly struggling. “Why would they be looking for you?”

“I… don’t know Callun.”

Callun slammed his fists onto the table. “You don't know!” He had never raised his voice at Pinkie like this before. “I’ve got guildless kids here, many of whom have to steal to live and aren’t protected by the laws of the guildpact. They will be killed in prison if they get sent there, and usually they aren’t because the Boros and the Azorius don’t come down to the undercity unless they are looking for someone important.”

“I haven’t done anything unusual, Callun!” He stopped yelling but his face still wore a look of fear and disgust. “I don’t know why they would be looking for me.”

Callun dipped his face into his hands. “Pinkie, some don’t feel safe around you, but I vouch for you because of the money you give to this house.” He stared back at Pinkie. “But I’m warning you, you put these kids in danger, and you’re out of here.”

Pinkie ran out of the house as fast as she could. She never wanted to hurt her friends but her guild-association made that more difficult by the day. No one really liked the Rakdos guild before, but recently there had just been one problem after another. ‘It’s all 'her' fault.’ Pinkie remembered the first time she met her, the massacre girl. She was well-known contract killer that had recently become the most wanted anything on Ravnica. Pinkie used to have the symbol of the Rakdos guild painted in red on her side, a tribute to the glorious demon who freed her. But once the massacre girl became public enemy number one, anyone with a Rakdos symbol was attacked in the streets, refused service in the markets, or just dragged into Azorius court for ‘possibly being an accomplice to the massacre girl’ so she had to remove it.

Pinkie shook her head, silently walked out of the undercity, and went to the markets. Pinkie always enjoyed going to the markets on Ravnica. People always claimed that they weren’t biased against certain guilds, but it was only in Tin City where that was remotely true. Pinkie looked over her shopping list, making a mental note to get something to cheer Callun up.

“Miss Pie, do my eyes deceive me?” called a voice to Pinkie’s right.

“No, your eyes do not lie,” Pinkie responded in a faux-aristocratic tone. The one who called her was human named Joson, a former Rakdos. Joson had been born into the Rakdos guild but left a few years prior to become a shopkeeper, and surprisingly he succeeded. “So what’s fresh?” Pinkie looked carnivorously at the assortment of vegetables laid out before her. Carrots, apples, and pre-made salads adorned the shop table.

“Well as you know…” Joson said, taking on a businessman tone. “That all of our products are one-hundred percent brand-new and fresh. Farmed with only the most modern techniques in order to preserve flavor.” He took a small bow as Pinkie clapped. “But in all seriousness, the apples today are pretty good.”

“I’ll take five apples then,” Pinkie said, handing some zinos to Joson. “Heard anything interesting through the grapevine, Joson?”

Joson’s expression dropped slightly. “Well, a few days ago they found the body of somepony in the Promenade.” Pinkie’s expression hardened. “Though no one thinks that it’s the massacre girl, in fact the Rakdos aren’t under any suspicion at all.”

Now Pinkie thought that was just plain weird. Being a member of the Rakdos, she was used to people accusing them of murder. It was as daily an occurrence to her and her fellow guild members as waking up in the morning. “Then who do they think did it?”

Joson swung his head from side to side, checking for eavesdroppers. “The Dimir.”

Pinkie snorted. “Who’s the accomplice then, Santa?” Joson raised an eyebrow and sighed. “What? You really expected me to take that seriously?” He nodded. “Come on, I mean I know that I belong to a guild that worships a demon that hasn’t been seen or heard from in hundreds of years but that doesn’t make me gullible.” She waved as she turned to leave. “Thanks for the apples.”

“Wait,” Joson said, grabbing Pinkie by the shoulder. “I know that you and Scognor were friends, you taking it okay?” He felt Pinkie’s shoulder tense up. “You have any ideas?” She shook her head. “Okay. Tell you what, when and where’s your performance tonight?”

“You’ll come?” the pony asked tentatively.

“Yeah," Joson responded, "you look like you could use company.”

“Third District Theater, at seven,” Pinkie Pie said enthusiastically.

“Okay, you’ll see me there," the human said softly. "I promise.”

Pinkie walked away quickly to finish her shopping. She didn’t know anything about Scognor’s death, but she knew more than most about her... because Scognor, Scootaloo, had been one of her only friends on Ravnica.

Scootaloo was more excited than she had been in her whole life. After weeks of pleading, Borborygmos agreed to let her go into town to a Rakdos performance. It wasn’t like she was interested in the kind of weird stuff that the Rakdos enjoyed, just that she wanted good fight practice. She had been fighting Gruul in sparring matches for the past few months. But even with all that she didn’t see herself as ready, not for what she wanted. Scootaloo’s target was much more powerful than the average Gruul pit-fighter. ‘I idolized her for a reason,’ she thought.

She walked into the Rakdos Theater and took a deep breath. The smell of smoke and sweat assaulted her. ‘The smell of a true warrior’s den,’ she thought, ‘I knew it was a good idea to come here.’ Once inside her eyes were drawn to the middle of the theater, which had been converted into an impromptu slightly raised fighting ring. The rest of the Theater was fairly standard for the Rakdos: it was dark, covered in black and red banners, and smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. In the center was a human of above-average size and stature. His muscles bulged and his veins seemed to protrude from his arms. He was clothed in ratty rags sloshed with blood. And upon his head was a simple stone helmet, with only holes for his eyes. At any other time Scootaloo would have loved to fight a man like him. He was bigger, brutal... everything that made a good opponent. But at the time a pony, much like her, was besting him.

The pony in the center was covered in white paint with the symbol of the Rakdos painted on her side in red. Her mane was a bright pink and looked almost like balloons. “Pinkie Pie?” Scootaloo couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Pinkie Pie, a baker, was beating up what looked to most people like a slab of meat that gained sentience. The brute swung his massive fists down at the pink pony. With a small movement she managed to dodge his strike and jump on his back. This prompted the huge human to snap himself back to an upright position. Pinkie simply landed on the ground and in one motion kicked both of her hind legs squarely into his lower back. A sickening crack rang out and a muffled cry came from the man before he collapsed to the ground.

“K.O.,” Pinkie screamed. The whole of the Theater screamed with her. A few smaller human men walked into the ring to retrieve their fallen comrade. “Thank you, thank you, here till Thursday… you know, actually, I’m here quite a bit longer than that.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. Pinkie had always been quite a bit random.

“Come one, come all,” called an arena attendant. A few humans walked into the ring and all around them betting commenced. Pinkie jumped off the ring and Scootaloo approached her.

“Amazing, you might even be cooler than Rainbow at this point Pinkie.” Pinkie turned around an inhaled sharply when she saw Scootaloo. She grabbed Scootaloo in a big bear hug. “Hey, come on now.”

“Scootaloo? No way!" Pinkie shouted. "How are you doing, cause I'm doing great! Oh I hope you're doing okay! You know when I saw you I thought ‘This can't be Scootaloo she's too big but…’” Scootaloo put a hoof in Pinkie’s mouth before she could continue her incredibly loud rant. “Sorry.”

She thought to what Pinkie said, and quickly inspected herself. It was true that she had grown a bit since coming to Ravnica; she was probably the size of a teenager at this point. And she was quite muscular for her age for her species. The orange filly returned the hug. “It’s no problem.” She lightly punched Pinkie’s shoulder. “Besides we ‘bad folk’ should stick together.” Pinkie gave a sad little smile and returned the friendly shoulder tap.

“Yeah, we should.” Scootaloo noticed the sad look in Pinkie’s eyes as she said this. Scootaloo had always been more of a loner before she met the Crusaders. She didn’t have trouble changing herself to fit Ravnica and the Gruul. But Pinkie had always been the center of attention, the life of the party. For her to be ridiculed by the entire plane as a member of the Rakdos, it must kill her on the inside. “So, what brings you here?”

Scootaloo made a mental note that not giving her the ‘kids shouldn’t be here’ speech had given Pinkie extra cool points. “I’m here to challenge the best warrior here to a battle.” She puffed her chest out and gritted her teeth. “As the daughter to Borborygmos, I want to better myself through battle.”

“Oh…” She gave a theatrical gasp. “So you’re a princess then.” Scootaloo’s face blanched. She looked as though she would throw up. “Just kidding.” Pinkie burst out laughing, and Scootaloo joined in. “Though, really, you’re here to fight the best of the best in this ring?”

Scootaloo nodded her head. “I have an opponent in mind, but I’m not on her level yet. Actually, after seeing that fight I kinda want to fight you now.” Scootaloo asked her next question pensively, “So how’d you get in with the Rakdos?”

Scootaloo had expected Pinkie’s face to fall. For there to be some sad story behind it all. But Pinkie kept smiling and sat down. “Well I guess you could say that I just belonged here, even before I came to Ravnica.” Scootaloo sat next to her; she knew better than anypony how it felt to feel like you don’t belong, like you aren’t wanted. Pinkie draped her arm over Scootaloo’s shoulder. “But if you want to fight me, the rules are that you have to beat someone else first.”

“Aw come on, can’t you make an exception just once?” Pinkie shook her head. “Hah, fine, I’ll enter the next bout. I’ll kick ass and then I want to fight you.” She said pointing her hoof at Pinkie. Pinkie returned the pose by standing on her hind legs with her front hooves in front of her in a boxing position. The previous bout ended and the losers were dragged away. Scootaloo jumped into the ring eagerly. Humans quickly filled three other spots and they, while not as beefy as the one Pinkie beat, were certainly tough looking.

All around her, people murmured about the pony that had just entered the ring. One of the Rakdos goblins walked up to each of the contestants in turn and asked for their names. The goblin came to Scootaloo last. “What is your name and affiliation?”

Scootaloo didn’t hesitate to answer, “Scognor, of the Gruul.” The match began and two of the humans dove for her. Scootaloo rolled to the side out of the way of the first man’s attack, causing him to slam into the other one. Scootaloo attacked the first guy by slamming her fore hooves on the man’s head. His friend collapses on the ground and tried to back away. He backed into the only other competitor left in the ring besides him and Scootaloo, who knocked him out. The last human turned to try and fight Scootaloo, only to find she dove under him. She bucked him hard in the chest, sending him back out of the ring.

“We have a winner! Scognor of the Gruul guild!” The Theater erupted in uproarious applause. Scootaloo drank in their praise and admiration. Pinkie Pie stepped quietly into the arena, a long chain wrapped around her body. The chain ended in a hook that Pinkie held in her mouth, with the other end wrapped in a loop around her back left hoof. Pinkie’s entrance silenced the Theater.

“Bravi! Bravi! But now you must face me…” Pinkie paused, “the Spiker, Surprise!” The crowd once again erupted in applause. Scootaloo dug her hooves into the ring, and made sure to keep her eyes on Pinkie Pie. Scootaloo had heard of Rakdos Spikers, she knew that they were warriors from each ‘ring’ of the guild. Beyond that she knew that they were very, very dangerous. “Would you like a weapon, Scognor?”

Scootaloo shook her head, “The only weapon a Gruul needs is their own body.” The goblin went around collecting bets from the audience. Scootaloo was proud enough to hear some of the Rakdos guild members actually betting on her. “So Pinkie, are you ready to face the daughter of Borborygmos?” Scootaloo was starting to get the hang of this whole playing to the crowd thing.

Pinkie put a hoof to her chin in a sign of mock thought. “I think the question here, Scognor, is whether you should be fighting a Spiker without a weapon.” The crowd’s murmurs confirmed that maybe Scootaloo should’ve taken Pinkie up on her offer.

“Well, I think that you should know what Scognor really means.” The crowd seemed confused. Scootaloo held her head up high. “Dragon’s heart, it is a name only given to those with the courage of a dragon, and a dragon does not need a blade to win a fight.” Pinkie nodded and readied herself by spreading her legs out and letting the hook in her mouth fall closer to the ground, leaving only part of the chain in her mouth.

The goblin that had been taking bets walked up to the side of the arena. “And now we have Surprise vs. Scognor, begin!”

Pinkie Pie made the first move, swinging her small chain around and around before tossing the hook towards Scootaloo. Scootaloo dodged the hook; rolling to the side, she flung herself forward at Pinkie. Pinkie kicked her back left hoof, causing the chain to retract back to her. She caught the hook back in her mouth and sidestepped Scootaloo’s assault. Scootaloo stumbled as she tried to turn and face Pinkie. Once she turned, she took the blunt edge of the chain to her face, knocking her back a bit. Noticing her chance, she dove for Pinkie again, tackling her. Pinkie, not having enough time to retract her spike, reeled back from Scootaloo’s frontal assault. The two locked hooves. They pushed back and forth until Scootaloo got the upper hoof and pushed Pinkie Pie to the ground.

Pinkie used her non-chained hoof to kick Scootaloo’s midsection as she went down causing her to stumble. She rolled away from Scootaloo and propped herself back up. Scootaloo was already prepared, though, and started to rush at Pinkie. The two dodged and danced around one another, Pinkie trying to retract the spike, and Scootaloo making sure that she couldn’t. The two kept fighting without noticing that Borborygmos had entered the theater as well.

Scootaloo kept at Pinkie, Making sure never to give her even a moment’s reprieve. After making a lunge at Pinkie, Scootaloo noticed an opening and went in for another attack. Pinkie simply smiled and slid underneath Scootaloo. Pinkie thrust herself upwards, knocking Scootaloo off balance. Pinkie used this momentum to retract her spike and thrust it near Scootaloo’s throat.

“The match is over, Surprise is the winner!”

The crowd’s screams and cheers echoed through the theater. Scootaloo slinked off of the arena and into the crowd, where her surrogate father stood waiting. Borborygmos was one of the largest Cyclopses on the plane of Ravnica. He stood nearly 8 feet tall, even taller if you counted the large horns that protruded from his head. He clothed himself in various types of animal skins, almost all of which were red, so as to match his one big eye. The crowd’s screams and cheers stopped as Scootaloo and Borborygmos faced each other. “Hi, dad,” Scootaloo squeaked.

“Scootaloo’s dad, did you see how good she did, I mean seriously she almost had me there for a second, man that was awesome.” Pinkie Pie had somehow appeared between Scootaloo, and her adoptive father and started ranting. Scootaloo wanted anything just for Pinkie Pie to shut up. She knew that Borborygmos didn’t take second place very well.

“I did,” he spoke with a booming voice. Even though he was still speaking in what Borborygmos considered an inside voice, it still bellowed through the theater. “And I was impressed to a certain extent.” Scootaloo looked at her dad with a sad expression. “I didn’t let you go to this theater as some kind an endorsement of your ‘quest.’” He paused as Scootaloo hung her head in shame. Her father expected her to fail. “I was well acquainted with Pinkie Pie’s abilities, and I knew that if anyone could make you realize that you aren’t ready to fight Rainbow Dash, it would be her.”

“I guess,” Scootaloo muttered.

“So from now on you will be allowed to come to this theater whenever Pinkie Pie is in the area and she’ll help you train.” Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “I know that I cannot stop you from trying to kill Rainbow Dash, but I can help you train yourself so that you’ll be the winner of that fight.” Scootaloo started to tears up as she ran up and hugged her adoptive father.

“Thanks dad, I will win, I’m going to show her and everyone else, no one messes with the Gruul.”

Pinkie stopped reminiscing as she came to the same Rakdos Theater that she had trained Scootaloo in, the Third District Theater. Her memories both saddened and comforted her. It was horrible that Scootaloo was gone now, but at the same time Pinkie loved the time that the two had spent together. Pinkie walked inside the Theater not expecting any surprises. She certainly wasn’t expecting to see Shining Armor, Twilight Sparkle, and Trixie hanging around with Joson. “Joson?”

“I’m sorry," the human apologized quickly, "but they said that they just want to talk.”

“And that’s exactly what we want,” Shining answered. “So let’s just cut to the chase, Pinkie Pie…”

“Surprise,” she responded indignantly.

“Fine, Surprise, we need your help.” Shining's words caused Pinkie’s expression to harden. “Borborygmos is causing a lot of trouble, destroying a lot of property in the search for Scootaloo’s killer.”

“If you’re asking me to sell out a friend then you can just leave now Shining, because I won’t,” Pinkie responded.

“We just need to keep him locked up for a little while so we can explore some leads in the case without distractions,” Shining commented.

“Oh yeah, the Dimir, yeah you guys are so close that if you just locked him up you could solve the case in a few days, tops!” Pinkie said in a sarcastic tone.

“Trixie said that she wouldn’t cooperate,” Trixie remarked.

“You expect me to care when all you guys have is the Dimir?” Pinkie shouted. “Seriously, how stupid do you really think that I am?” Just as she finished that statement Pinkie was hit with a combo. Her body erupted in spasms and flutters of seemingly random activity. As it subsided Pinkie recognized the combo. ‘They might be onto something, that shouldn’t be possible.’ She straightened herself out. “Okay, let’s say that I did want to help, what exactly would your plan be?”

Twilight stepped up. “The plan is for you to hold a performance here in a few days. Shining and Trixie will be waiting to capture Borborygmos and take him in. We do promise that nothing will happen to him, in fact we actually want his cooperation.”

“Why not just ask then?” Pinkie asked indignantly.

“Trixie is insulted that you think that we did not think of that already,” Trixie responded, "Borborygmos has repeatedly killed the messenger of peace and sent back a message saying that he refuses talks of any kind.”

Pinkie didn’t think that they were lying. In the time that she had known Borborygmos, she did know that he was prone to fits of a complete lack of logic. “Well then what’s in it for me? I’m betraying a good friend of mine; I expect that you’ll make it worth my while?”

Shining stepped forward first. “The Boros can offer you complete immunity and a hefty sum of two thousand zinos in bounty money in return for your aid.”

“Hmm, nah,” Pinkie responded. “I make more money than that for just performing.”

Trixie stepped up next. “The Orzhov and Trixie can offer you several Orzhov contracts; they are eldritch in nature so you would be able to acquire new victims quite easily.”

“Close but no cigar, Lotus Nectar does that just fine.”

Trixie grumbled something unintelligible as she stepped back and Twilight stepped up. Pinkie jumped up and gave Twilight a kiss on the cheek. ‘You know, fan service!’ She whispered into Twilight’s ear, “Get Celestia to let me stay on Ravnica. You do that and one other thing for me and I’ll help.”

Twilight stumbled back as Shining rushed forwards. “What exactly is this ‘other thing’ that you’re talking about?”

“Simple, there’s this apartment complex in the undercity, I think you know it since I live there and all.” The group nodded as Pinkie continued. “Anyway, just keep your Boros minions away from it and give limited immunity to its patrons and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Shining didn’t even flinch. “You’ve got a deal, Surprise. When can we expect this performance?”

“Alright, you get me a response from Celestia guaranteeing me the ability to stay here, with no problems, and I’ll be able to set it up a few days after that.”

“Alright, we’ll contact you again when we have our confirmation. Should I expect that we can get in touch with you at your place of residence now?” Pinkie nodded in response. “Good, then I’ll be in touch.” Shining turned to leave, with the two girls following him.

Normally Pinkie Pie would have just headed to the backstage and started setting up, but something tugged at her. She walked over to where Shining and Trixie were talking and, hiding behind a nearby pew, began listening in.

“Trixie cannot believe that you still refuse to give Trixie her Scry Tome!” yelled Trixie.

‘Scry Tome?’ thought Pinkie Pie.

“Trixie, I promise that once we have Borborygmos in custody we will hand over the Scry Tome,” Shining responded. With that Trixie started to walk away in a huff, prompting Pinkie to follow her.

Pinkie followed Trixie by hiding behind nearby trash cans and whatnot as Trixie angrily stomped into a nearby alleyway. ‘What does she want here?’ Pinkie slid herself as close as she could. Trixie’s horn glowed as a ghostly apparition of an imp shimmered into being in front of her.

“What’re ya calling me for?” the imp yelled.

“Trixie of the Orzhov calls you for information regarding Agyrem.” The imp motioned for Trixie to continue. “Trixie requires more knowledge regarding the possibility of Szadec returning from Agyrem.”

‘Again with the Dimir, do they really think that he could come back from the dead?’ Pinkie pondered.

“Well ya should already know about the Scry Tome.” Trixie nodded. “Then ya should know that it’s possible for him to come back, ah’m assuming that’s what scares Teysa?” Trixie nodded again. “That Scry Tome can contain the magic of any soul contained within, it’s powerful stuff.”

Pinkie’s head snapped to attention. ‘Any soul, all their magic?’ Pinkie ran back towards the Theater and rushed inside to the backstage where Smoky was waiting.

“Heya Pinks, what’s the matter, what ya running for?” Smoky asked. Pinkie was starting to wonder if all devils and imps talked like that.

“Smoky, I have a question.” He nodded. “Do you know where they keep Lyzolda, the former guild parun?” Smoky’s eyes widened. “There’s a spell I want to try.”

Old scars, new wounds

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City of Guilds
Chapter 5: Old scars, New Wounds

Shining Armor stood in Feather’s office with Cadence. The two ponies waited as Feather shuffled through paper after paper, doing the absurd paperwork that came with being a guild master. Finally she set the papers down and gave her attention to Shining and his wife. “This had better be good news, Armor, I’m having a bad enough day as it is.”

Shining stood at attention. “Well, I discussed the issue of Borborygmos with an outside source, Twilight Sparkle.” Cadence seemed pleased by his admission, Feather not as much.

“So we have a problem with a force of destruction, and your idea was to get the help of someone even more destructive.” Shining blushed. “Good idea, good to know that the stress ain’t getting to you.”

Cadence stepped in. “My husband’s sister is a paragon of magic in our realm; you should show a little more respect.” Shining’s face turned even whiter as Cadence stepped even closer to Feather. “She’s not the one I’m worried about, perhaps you should be worrying about the Mafioso who’s helping because you promised her a toy for Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

Feather closed her eyes and breathed in and out slowly. She was really trying to be nice here, but these ponies… “Listen, I’m keeping an eye on the Orzhov alright, but this sister of his, she’s one of the most destructive members of the Izzet League, a guild known for being destructive idiots.” She pushed her face closer to Cadence, who stared back unblinking. “The Izzet are smart people who do dumb things. They want to test a generator, so they place it in a civilian area and let it blow up. Tell me how am I supposed to protect this plane when my trusted generals are teaming up with criminals?”

“Twilight actually came up with two good plans, both of which are already in motion.” Shining’s voice called the two out of their staring contest. Shining allowed himself a sigh of relief that he got the two women to back off. “Her plan for catching Borborygmos so that we can request his aid is actually restrained, for an Izzet.”

Feather relaxed back into her chair. “Go on.”

“She plans to use an invention of hers that she calls ‘Vedalken Shackles’ in order to restrain him once we get him by surprise.” He inhaled sharply before continuing. “We’ve made a deal with Pinkie Pie in order to hold a Rakdos performance to lure out Borborygmos.” Shining looked into Feather’s eyes and saw her distrust. Any plan that began with ‘deal with Rakdos’ was a plan doomed to fail in the eyes of most Boros.

“What are her terms?” she whispered through gritted teeth.

“There is an apartment in the undercity that she wants us to leave alone. It’s an apartment for guildless apparently, and there is one more thing.” He looked over to his wife, hesitant. “She wants Celestia to promise to leave her here on Ravnica, and she won’t help unless this request goes through.”

Cadence’s expression darkened. Those were words that she hoped she wouldn’t have to hear. “I understand, I’ll return to Equestria and talk to Celestia; maybe she’ll understand.” She gave Shining a short-but-loving kiss on the lips before she vanished.

Feather sighed before going back to her paperwork. “Well, you seem to have everything under control to a certain extent. I’ll just assume that you have some leads on the murder of Scognor; you’re dismissed.” She started to wave him out, only to notice that he hadn’t budged. “You have something else, Armor?”

Shining shifted slightly in place and inhaled before continuing. “I wanted to know about the Dissension crisis.” Feather placed the papers back onto her desk. “My partner and to a certain extent myself are starting to believe that the rumors of the Dimir, aren’t as unfounded as we originally thought.” She turned the picture of the human man to herself and looked straight at it, a small smile gracing her lips. “I need to know, who is this Szadec? How was he stopped before?”

Feather pushed the picture over to Shining. Grasping it in his magic he looked at the picture of the human man. He was tall, brown-skinned, and wore a similar style of golden armor to Shining himself. “Argus Kos,” Feather muttered. “He started and ended the Dissension crisis.” Shining gave a quizzical look to Feather. “Szadec was bound by the original guildpact; his purpose was to attempt to destroy it, and Argus denied him that purpose, which ended in the destruction of the guildpact.”

“So how was he stopped?”

“All of Ravnica came together. Everyone knew that we were under attack, and everyone came to arms.” She sighed and opened her desk up, revealing another small trinket. The object she held was a burned piece of cloth. “Everything collapsed, the Dimir and the Simic tried to destroy everything, but in the end the destruction was stopped, and Argus Kos made the call to be the warden of the Dimir.”

“The warden?”

“When Szadec was banished to Agyrem, no one was naïve enough to believe that it would last forever.” Feather continued to fiddle with the small piece of cloth. “He was far too powerful, and we all knew that without a sacrifice he would return sooner rather than later. So Argus Kos offered to become a ghost warden. He died and sealed himself in Agyrem to stay and watch over Szadec, to watch and wait for the time when he’d try to escape.”

“So you honestly think that Szadec could escape? Even with all of these precautions and preparations?” Shining scoffed and placed the picture back in front of Feather. “Have more faith in him and in us, there is no way that Szadec will get by us, he will not make it to Ravnica.”

“That’s the thing, Shining,” Feather muttered. “I’m afraid he already did, and we just didn’t notice it.”

A human burst in through the doors, panting and clutching a scroll in his hands. “Captain… captain,” the recruit wheezed. “Problems… problem…”

Shining placed his hoof on the recruit’s back. “Get a grip on yourself!”

Feather responded in a more annoyed tone. “What news is so bloody important?”

The man placed the scroll on the table. “Another murder.” The captain and the angel exchanged a look. “Another major figure.” He took a deep breath. “Myczil.” He had barely finished saying the name before Shining was already running out the door. “It was at the promenade,” the human screamed back at him. Shining had already guessed that part.

He ran towards the Promenade screaming for people to get out of his way. Shining knew about Myczil, and he knew the political shit storm that was about to hit once the various parties he was a part of arrived at the Promenade.

Myczil was born a devkarin, a dark elf. The devkarin were normally associated with the Golgari guild, but there is an exception to every rule. Myczil was the exception as his guild was the Selesnya. There was a reason for this disparate pairing, and that had to do with Myczil’s heritage. His mother was Fonn, one of the Selesnya heroes of the Dissension crisis. But his father was Jarad, current guildmaster of the Golgari guild. In the end he decided to become a servant of the Selesnya guild, but retained a healthy enough relationship with his father. Hence why both guilds coming together and making trouble was certain at this point.

Shining finally arrived at the Transguild Promenade. And much like the last time that he was here, all four days ago, a crowd surrounded the body in the center of the Promenade. The body of Myczil hung limply from the statue of his mother Fonn. He was a tad more muscular than the average elf, basically an average human in terms of muscle mass. His darkened skin, which marked him as a member of the devkarin race, was covered in blood. While some of it was the grayish blood of the devkarin, there was also a decent concentration of normal red blood. “Out of the way, investigation in progress,” Shining yelled, dispersing the crowd.

Pushing through the crowd, Shining stood in front of Myczil’s body. The body was stabbed multiple times, much like Scootaloo. The wounds seemed eerily similar to those of Scootaloo’s as well. ‘No doubt about it, this is the same killer.’ Shining allowed the humans already there to take care of the preparations for the body as he stood pondering. ‘Scootaloo’s body could be chalked up to a grudge. The Gruul aren’t exactly well-loved. Myczil was a good guy though. Despite his heritage, a lot of people liked him.’ The humans removed Myczil’s body from the statue, causing many Selesnya patrons in the crowd to begin chanting something.

A loud voice called Shining out of his reverie. “Make way for a Jedav of the Selesnya guild.”

This was followed by a whisper of, “umm, if you don’t mind.”

Two forms pushed their way through the crowd. One was a particularly loud elf, and the other was a butter-colored pegasus. “I have come here with the Selesnya garden keeper, Fluttershy, to claim Myczil’s body.”

“What is your claim over his body?” called one of the humans that had gotten the body down. “We Boros require the body for autopsy; we believe it to be part of a serial murder.” The human was basically reading from the Boros handbook at this point.

“He is our great ancestor Fonn’s son. We of the Selesnya wish to bury him in the Worldsoul.” the Jedav responded. “It is our right to bury our heroes.”

“Except that he ain’t just yours!” screamed another voice in a familiar Southern drawl. Applejack, having no problem getting people to step aside, stomped her way to the body of Myczil. Once she reached his dead body, she bowed to it and dipped her hat in reverence.

“Get that weed away from him!” screamed the Jedav.

“Weed?” Applejack giggled. “Ah reckon they don’t teach comebacks in yer fancy Jedav School?”

As much as Shining didn’t want to, he laughed. The Jedav shot him a glare, which would have had more impact if she wasn’t blushing. “My ‘comebacks’ aren’t the important thing here,” she said.

“Thankfully for you,” Applejack responded.

The Jedav’s hand immediately went to her sheath. “Stop,” screeched a voice behind both of them. Fluttershy stood between Applejack and the Jedav. “It’s an insult to Myczil to fight like this; we both have an equal claim.” The crowd murmured amongst each other, clearly diagreeing. “He was both our ancestor and her guildmaster’s son.” The murmuring amongst the crowd continued.

The Jedav stepped in. “We cannot stay long, for we must prepare a burial rite before the Centennial Celebration.”

Applejack walked forward, pushing her face pushing against the Jedav. “Well then ya’ll can leave, and I’ll take the body back for Jarad to bury him.”

The Jedav once again reached for her sword. Vines circled around Applejack, spanning from her body outwards. Shining and Fluttershy stepped between the two, Shining’s horn glowing with white magic. “The Promenade is a place of peace. You will not engage in battle here.”

Fluttershy snapped to attention and ran to Applejack. “I know what we can do; we’ll ask for an Azorius judge to decide!” Fluttershy seemed excited over the idea, Applejack less so. “Won’t that be great?” she asked aloud.

“A fantastic idea, madam, and surely they will side with us, and allow us to bury our dead,” the Jedav added smugly.

“Now wait, it isn’t set in stone…” Fluttershy added.

“Yeah, yah don’t know that they’ll side with you over me,” Applejack interjected. “Jarad is just as deserving of burying his son than you are, more so even.” Applejack turned to leave. “We’ll see if the Azorius can have a trial set up for tomorrow.”

“Yes, until then the Boros can hold onto his body, just to make things fair,” the Jedav added, going to follow Applejack.

Fluttershy started after the Jedav and Applejack, turning back to Shining Armor. “I’m really sorry about all of this, Shining Armor.” With that she ran off, probably to New Prahv to request an immediate audience. Shining did notice however that she left with a certain amount of sadness in her tone and posture.

Shining, on the other hand, was pleased as punch. The argument hadn’t resorted to violence, it was going to be resolved by someone other than Shining himself, and as an added bonus he actually would have some time to analyze the body before it had to be handed off. Shining hopped on the cart that the humans were using to carry Myczil’s body.

The trip back to the guildhall was uneventful. The thought at the forefront of Shining’s mind was the Centennial Celebration. He hadn’t really been thinking about it the last few days, but now that he had been reminded…

“Shining Armor,” Feather’s voice called, snapping him back to reality. “Report.”

“Right.” He saluted his guild parun. “The body has been confirmed as Myczil of the Selesnya. The arrival of a Jedav with Garden Master Fluttershy complicated matters somewhat.”

Feather face-palmed. “And I suppose that Jarad also made his presence known?”

“Actually no, Applejack did.”

“Huh.” Feather looked to be contemplating whether this was better or worse. “How much trouble?”

“None, they agreed to allow the Azorius to settle it tomorrow; until then the body is ours to look over.”

Feather laughed heartily and slapped Shining on the back playfully. “Good, finally some decent stroke of luck found us.” She gave the stallion a small wing-hug and unwrapped Myczil’s body. “Alright.” She slapped her hands together and began chanting a spell. Light shone from her fingers and spread throughout Myczil’s wounds.

The humans who had brought Myczil in descended from the cart. “So we really think that this’ll give us the lead that we need?”

Shining nodded. “Yeah, if we locate what the magical signature is that is preventing reanimation on the body we might be able to figure out the caster.” He watched as Feather’s magic enveloped the body more thoroughly. “If someone is powerful enough to prevent reanimation, then we might be able to figure out who’s responsible. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do that with the body of Scognor.”

“Why not?” the human inquired.

“Two reasons,” Shining responded. “One is that the Golgari got there first, so we wouldn’t be able to tell what was their magic and what was the killer’s magic. Second is that Scognor was a pegasus; where I came from that means that she doesn’t have as much natural magic, so we would’ve gotten a weaker signal than from a dark elf.”

Feather removed her hands, and her magic, from Myczil. “Odd.” She looked to Shining, who seemed dissatisfied with her one-word answer. “I’ve never seen magic like this, but at the same time I have. I know it can’t be her, partly because she’s dead, but this magic reminds me a great deal of Savra.”

“Jarad’s sister?” Shining questioned.

“She had a great deal of magical power, particularly in the field of necromancy. Specifically, she could cancel a necromancer’s ability to regenerate.”

“Whoa,” the humans responded in unison. “So she could beat any necromancer in a fight, huh?” asked one of them.

“Not necessarily,” Feather continued. “She tried to take over the Golgari, ended up killing Svogthir, the parun, and the sisters of stone death, but was killed herself.”

The realization hit Shining like a mountain of bricks. “The Scry Tome.” Feather smiled, she always knew that Shining was a good detective. “If the Scry Tome can utilize the magic of any soul trapped in it, then that means that someone could use Savra’s magic.”

“Yep, they wouldn’t even have to have a connection to black or green mana, they could be an Azorius and still the spell would work. Before you ask, Shining, I did look into the whole Scry Tome mess.”

“And?”

“My personal tome, the one we owe Trixie, Niv-Mizzet’s, and one of our back-ups are accounted for; one of them is missing.”

Everything clicked. Someone had stolen the Tome and had been using it for murder. They had somehow gotten a hold of Savra’s soul and were using it to prevent reanimation in their targets. Only one question, aside from who was doing it, remained in Shining Armor’s mind.

“Why these targets?” he asked. “Why Scootaloo? Why Myczil? Why the Promenade?” As much information as the body of Myczil had provided, it only served to make the investigation more complex. It didn’t need to be voiced that the remote possibility of Rainbow Dash being the killer was kicked to the curb. Aside from the logistical questions regarding her access to the Scry Tome and how to work it, she had no feud with Myczil.

The possibility of the Dimir was now growing into a full-on truth. The Dimir were known, when they were still operating, as a guild of information. They knew everything about Ravnica, everything. There was little, if anything, worse than fighting a Dimir, especially one who knew about something as dangerous as the Scry Tome.

“Shining.” Feather snapped him back to reality. “You’ve been zoning out for a while there, got any leads?”

“Well…” he began. “Unfortunately, I see no other possibility than the resurgence of the Dimir guild.” He gulped. “Clearly someone with an insane amount of magic as well, we aren’t dealing with common vermin, we’re dealing with…”

“A new guildmaster,” Feather finished. The implication of a new guild guildmaster for the Dimir, either working for or independent of Szadec, was a terrifying prospect. A shiver shot down Feather’s spine. Shining’s muscles tensed and he gritted his teeth. “If this is true, then we aren’t just talking about an interguild incident…”

“We’re smack-dab in the middle of a new Dissension level crisis,” Shining finished. “And we’re the only ones who know anything about it.”

Applejack had finally returned to her home in the undercity. She and the Jedav had managed to get the Azorius to break protocol and set them up a trial tomorrow. Her gaze fell upon the mutated tree house that she called her home. In terms of structure it seemed similar to Twilight’s old home on Equestria, however only in the broadest terms. The bark was gray and lifeless, the branches had long since wilted, and leaves hadn’t grown on the tree since long before she came to Ravnica.

On the inside Applejack had a decent living space but not much beyond that. She had a small one-person bed, missing most of its springs but still intact. A small couch also adorned the small living space, beyond that a simple bathroom; that was all that Applejack needed. Jarad provided everything else in exchange for her services. Applejack threw herself onto the bed and let out a dramatic sigh.

“I take it that things didn’t go well,” a voice called from her backroom. Jarad stepped into the living space, clothed in his usual rotted leather cloak. Applejack couldn’t bring herself to even look the devkarin in the eyes. “It isn’t your fault.”

“Nah, it’s them,” she muttered. “Trial tomorrow, decides who gets the body.” Jarad nodded solemnly. Both of them knew this couldn’t mean anything good. While the Azorius prided themselves on being the untainted law of Ravnica they were just as susceptible to profiling as anyone. It was pretty well understood that when it came to rulings the Azorius favored people like the Selesnya or the Orzhov that followed, or at least pretended to follow, their rules. Meanwhile anyone in the Izzet, Rakdos, or Golgari guilds were often fined higher, charged harder, and arrested quicker.

“I understand that you’ve done your best, and I hope that you’ll continue to do your best when you represent me tomorrow at the hearing.”

Applejack jumped off of her bed and bowed before Jarad. “Ah want to thank you for yer trust in mah abilities.” Jarad put a rotting, bony hand on her head. “Ah just wish that we had a better chance.”

Jarad laughed a sinister laugh. “Yes, but that isn’t the only thing that we have to worry about.” Applejack stood, and Jarad handed her a slip of paper. Using the vines coursing through her body she grabbed the paper; it featured Myczil being followed by an equine. “As you can see, we have more things to worry about than just my son’s death; as much as I would love some time to grieve, having a Ravnica to grieve on is a tad more important.”

“Yah really think it’s Szadec?”

“Absolutely, and I have a theory about the anti-necromancy enchantments on the bodies, but I’ll need your help with this.” Applejack perked up. “I need you to, after the trial of course, look into something called a Scry Tome.”

Trial and Error

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City of Guilds
Chapter 6: Trial and Error

Rarity was lying down on a plush pillow, enjoying a morning tea prepared for her by some of Isperia’s personal assistants. Rarity was unsure of why Isperia would offer such things to her, but she wasn’t about to deny the chance to indulge herself. The white unicorn greedily sniffed the tea, and the sweet taste to come filled her senses. A sigh passed her lips as she brought the teacup to her lips. However, she was stopped by a loud yelling coming from down the hall.

“Judge Rarity!” screamed a Vedalken servant as he ran through the halls of New Prahv. “Rarity, Judge Rarity.” The Vedalken, named Vix, burst into the room in which Rarity was having her tea. “I-I-I’m terribly sorry, madam.”

Rarity arched an eyebrow quizzically, but then she remembered that she had yet to put on her clothes. While she had no problem with nudity, as it wasn’t an issue on Equestria, on Ravnica it was considered a taboo. So she normally walked around the districts or the guildhall in her extravagant judge’s clothes. But whenever she could, read: her morning tea, she enjoyed lounging about, without having to worry about her absurdly long train catching on something.

The Vedalken was standing at attention, its hands behind its back, facing out the door. “Milady, Isperia has requested that you preside over today’s trial.”

The unicorn judge sighed dramatically before replying. “Well I suppose that if Isperia herself requests it, I should go, so tell me, what shall I be presiding over?”

“The trial to decide ownership of the body of Myczil. On one side, the Selesnya Conclave, represented by Fluttershy. On the other, the Golgari Swarm, represented by Applejack.”

Rarity nearly choked on her tea. “Where is Isperia?”

“She is in her private garden. Why, Milady?”

With a speed that would make Rainbow Dash jealous, Rarity threw on her Judge clothes and galloped out the door heading for her mentor’s private chambers.

Isperia was lazing around her personal garden. One of the benefits of being the leader of a guild was that anytime you wanted vacation time, you could just take it. It helped that Isperia had Rarity as a protege. As if on cue, said protege burst into the room panting and wearing her headdress backwards.

“Rarity dear,” Isperia cooed, “what has you so frazzled?”

“Today’s trial.”

“It’s the trial of the century. I would think you would be glad to be presiding over something so... important.”

“I have to decide between two of my friends!” Rarity yelled, “Both of them have good reasons for wanting Myczil’s body; I can’t possibly...”

“You can and will,” Isperia’s voice echoed through the chamber. “You are an Azorius judge. You will not back down from a case of this magnitude.” Isperia stopped and breathed in and out from her large nostrils. “Besides,” Isperia cooed softly, “this is a fitting last test before I appoint you the official head judge of the Azorius guild.”

“H-h-h-head judge!” Rarity squealed. “That means that I... that I-”

“Would receive a larger living accommodation, significantly larger salary, and numerous other bonuses,” Isperia said sweetly. “Why you would live like... a princess.”

The words washed over Rarity like a wave; promises of wealth and royal fantasy played out in her mind. The fantasy came to an abrupt end, however, when she remembered that in order to achieve it she would be forced to betray one of her friends.

The unicorn started to slink away when Isperia called back to her. “Rarity, if you do not wish to preside over this case I can always find someone... less involved.”

“No,” Rarity responded. “With no disrespect to my fellow judges, one of the members of this case is a Golgari, and I know that she won’t be heard out by anyone else.”

Isperia chuckled, “Someday you will have to learn, my prodigy, that certain creatures are undeserving of your generosity.”

Rarity stood at the podium of the main judgement chamber of New Prahv. The central podium where she stood was carved of solid gold and made specifically for Rarity’s height. The rest of the room was pristine, pearl-colored stone. The benches where the onlookers for the day’s trial were sitting was made of varnished wood with blue plush seating. The two podiums in front of Rarity were also pony-sized. One was the old podium that would be set up for Rarity when she was presiding over a case; the other was crafted after the fourth time in three months that Twilight had been to New Prahv. A banner of the Selesnya symbol was draped over the right podium, with a Golgari banner thrown haphazardly over the other.

The double doors at the back end of the room opened and a throng of people came through. The various people began taking seats at the back of the room. Not just Azorius, Selesnya, or Golgari, but people from all guilds took seats at the back. After all of the bystanders for today’s trial sat down, Fluttershy entered the room. Clothed in a simple green and white dress, the yellow pegasus walked nervously over to the Selesnya podium and took her seat. Applejack, clothed in rags, sat herself down at her podium as well. The Jedav from the previous day, accompanying Fluttershy today as well, began to snicker at the undead farm pony.

“Ah suppose ya ain’t impressed with mah choice of dress?” the Golgari muttered through gritted teeth.

The Jedav’s snickering broke out into a chuckle. “If you can consider that a dress, then I suppose that the trash in the bin the corner is technically food, isn’t it?”

“Now that wasn’t very nice,” mumbled Fluttershy.

“Ah see that you’ve improved your sense of humor; still sucks, but at least you can pretend that you’re clever,” Applejack countered. Rarity barely managed to silence her own growing laughter at the proceedings. The Jedav muttered something unintelligible and took her place in the audience.

Rarity walked over to Applejack, earning her a dirty look from the Jedav. “Before the trial begins I would like a chance to converse with my friends, I’m sure that you believe that this will not impact the outcome of the trial; you don’t think me biased, do you?” Rarity said with smug smile. The Jedav silenced herself and started muttering prayers under her breath. “Hello Applejack, it is a pleasure to see you well.”

“It’s good to see you too. Sugarcube, and good to see that one of us hasn’t changed, still as fancy as always,” Applejack said with a smile.

“Well,” Rarity responded with mock hurt in her voice, “better to be dressed fancy than to be dressed in rags.” She ribbed. “Honestly dear, where did you find that outfit? The trash outside of a tannery?”

Applejack gave a hearty laugh before redirecting her sight towards the Jedav. “Ya see, that is how its done.” She laughed a bit more before regaining a more serious composure. “Seriously though, Jarad said that I’d have a better chance if I went clothed, but I don’t really have any money... at all.”

“Well it is true darling, the people of Ravnica are far less accepting of free-spirited things like that, but still, you could have asked...”

“Nah,” Applejack quickly rebutted, “I needed to do this myself, I can’t just go running to my friends when I need help.” Rarity opened her mouth to argue, but Applejack continued, “besides, you would’ve gotten in trouble for helping out a participant in the trial, specially a Golgari.”

Rarity sighed. “Alright, you win, but,” she added quickly, “I will take you shopping after this is all over. I think that we could both use a little catching up, especially in the wake of the princesses wanting to take us back home...”

“Ah’m not going back.” Applejack stared back at Rarity. “Ah can’t, the princess won’t take me back like this.”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by Vix yelling to Rarity, “Judge Rarity, it is time for the trial to begin.”

Summoning up all the professionalism she could muster, Rarity approached the podium with her head held high. While the idea that one of her friends would be unable to go back home scared her, there were matters that, while not more important, were more currently in need of her attention. “This is the trial for the rights of burial of the body of Myczil, son of noted heroes of the Dissension crisis, Fonn and Jarad.” Getting a good look at the audience Rarity noticed that the room was packed with people of all guilds; all different kinds of creatures, from goblins to merfolk, dotted the seats.

“Judge Rarity,” whispered the Vedalken.

Rarity snapped herself out of her stupor. “On the one side, we have the Selesnya who wish to bury Myczil’s body with the body of his mother, Fonn, at the base of the World tree of Vitu-Ghazi, so that their souls may join the Worldsoul.” Murmurs of agreement echoed throughout the hall, and more than a few Selesnya mages began chanting about the Worldsoul.

“It looks as though the audience certainly knows who they wish to have the body,” the Vedalken servant muttered.

“And on the other,” Rarity shouted, “we have the Golgari, represented today by Applejack, who wish to have the body for the guildmaster, Jarad, Myczil’s father, to be buried as he wishes.” Rarity took a second to readjust her headdress before continuing, “We shall start by hearing the summation of the arguments from each side; we shall begin with the argument from the Golgari representative, Applejack.”

Applejack stood up to her podium. “Thank ya kindly, miss judge, I would like to start by saying why I’m here instead of Jarad.” The undead farmer cleared her throat. “Jarad sent me because he thought that having a guildmaster in the proceedings would tip things in his favor and wanted this to be a fair and honest trial.” As she spoke, her accent grew less and less pronounced. “Ah, I mean, I was chosen to represent him instead, and so I would like to start by arguing that Myczil is his son.”

“But he is Ravnica’s hero,” shouted the Selesnya Jedav accompanying Fluttershy. “His body should not be hid away in some filthy, smelly corpse-pit, it should be celebrated with a statue and feast.”

“Both of which can be accomplished without the physical body, miss...” Rarity chimed in.

“Ane is my name,” replied the angry Jedav. “And should you really be taking her side so early in the trial?”

“I am taking no one’s ‘side,’ I am merely relaying that the current argument path you are pursuing is rather weak.” The unicorn turned her eyes towards her shy, butter-colored friend, “Also if memory serves, Fluttershy is supposed to be the one defending your side.”

Ane sat down quietly, and gave a not-so-subtle look to Fluttershy. “Umm, well, umm.” The butter-colored pegasus breathed in deeply, and exhaled loudly. “Well, I would argue that he was a member of the Selesnya guild at the time of his death, which balances out the advantage of the Golgari having a living relative,” she robotically intoned.

Applejack grumbled. “Ah understand... I mean, I understand that,” the undead farmer gulped and attempted to recomposed herself. “But I would also like to say,” she began, her accent feeding back through, “ah know that you Selesnya don’t have much respect for us, but mah master wouldn’t dump his son, his son, in a corpse-pit like some common garbage...”

“‘Common garbage?’” Ane responded furiously. “Is that what you think of the average Ravnican citizen who gets thrown in one of those?” The crowd muttered amongst itself, giving dirty looks to the flustered farmer.

“Ah didn’t mean it like that!” Applejack quickly denied. “Ah was... ah mean, I was just trying to...”

“That is enough,” Rarity yelled, slamming a gavel against the podium. “You will not continue to engage in such underhanded practices as twisting somepony’s words to try and change the verdict!”

“You Golgari are all the same,” Ane continued, heedless of Rarity’s complaints, “just a bunch of undead monsters; you probably just want to bring the body back to life so that you can continue to play undead pretend, not tied to mortality like the rest of us.” The crowd began shouting along with Ane at this point, screaming slurs against the Golgari in general.

“Enough!” screamed Fluttershy. “Selesnya Jedav Ane, how you could try and use shame and twist words to get the trial to go the way that you want?” Ane was instantly silenced and bowed. “You would insult the guild, all for one trial? I will not allow that; you will stay silent for the rest of the trial.” Fluttershy seethed for a few more seconds before slipping back into herself. “Please, keep quiet and let me handle this.”

“Thank ya kindly Fluttershy,” Applejack bowed. “Would ya like to speak for now, make a point for yourself?”

Vix stepped up and cleared his throat. “Well, since Miss Rarity is the judge…”

“I don’t mind,” Rarity quickly retorted. “I’m actually quite impressed that the two are monitoring themselves.”

Fluttershy cleared her throat. “Well, I believe that, as he committed himself to living as a Selesnya, in the spirit of his mother Fonn, that the body of Myczil should be given to the Selesnya guild to be buried at the Centennial Guild Celebration.” The crowd muttered contentedly amongst themselves. “We of the Selesnya guild wish to honor the passing of Myczil with a tribute to him and his accomplishments during the celebration. I understand Jarad’s wish to bury his son himself, but I believe that it would benefit us both if we came to a compromise; we may have his body during the Centennial Celebration and afterwards he will be given to Jarad to be buried as he sees fit.”

“Fluttershy!” Ane cried. “Trostani gave us very specific orders; we cannot stray from these orders. The body must be ours and ours alone.”

“But Jarad is just as much a hero as Myczil,” Fluttershy retorted. “He helped in the banishment of Szadec, and it would be disrespectful of us to demand the body of his son for our own purposes.”

“That’s because your guild just don’t like Golgari,” Applejack stated matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” Ane responded similarly. “For the same reason that a gardener dislikes a weed in the midst of their flora.”

“Ane!” Fluttershy reprimanded.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy, but I’m not here for compromise either,” Applejack said softly, “Jarad doesn’t trust Trostani, and I don’t trust her either.”

“As you can see, Fluttershy,” Ane whispered in the butter-colored pegasus’s ear, “the hatred between our guilds is mutual.”

“Ah have a good reason,” Applejack retorted. “Ya’ll know that Ah’m a Golgari, and that I personally serve Jarad.” Ane and Fluttershy nodded. “Well Ah happen to know that Trostani is a liar.”

“I object to this statement, Judge!” screamed Ane. “This is defamation of character of the highest order. I demand that this Golgari wench be removed from this hallowed courthouse.”

Rarity winced and turned to Applejack. “This is a very serious accusation, Applejack. If you do not have proof then I will have to remove you.”

“Ah do.” Applejack smiled. “Like Ah said, I am a servant of Jarad, and occasionally I tend to the corpse-pits.”

“Please get on with it,” Rarity asked politely, noticing the hostile stares from the crowd. It wasn’t as if Applejack was insulting her opponent, nor even the Jedav that was berating her. On Ravnica it was a criminal offense to defame a guildmaster, particularly to try and use that as evidence in a trial.

Applejack nodded. “Ah happen to know that ya’ll aren’t burying devkarin like Myczil in your garden, because several devkarin members of the Selesnya have shown up in our pits.”

The devkarin in the crowd gasped and all turned to Ane and Fluttershy, anger in their voices and confusion in their eyes. This confusion was seemingly mirrored however by Fluttershy, who looked oblivious to the claim. Even the non-devkarin in the crowd began to shoot unpleasant looks towards Ane and Fluttershy. Fluttershy looked around the room in a frightened manner, Applejack giving an apologetic look back.

“Damned monster,” muttered Ane. She leaned over to Fluttershy and began whispering in her ear. “Madam Fluttershy, do not let her change the conversation.”

“But,” Fluttershy whimpered, “why would we do that? Why wouldn’t we simply bury them properly?”

“Why do you doubt Trostani?” asked Ane.

“Applejack would never lie,” stated Fluttershy “I know she wouldn’t! She’s the Element of Honesty!

“Perhaps when she was alive,” Ane said with mock sorrow. “But she has been corrupted by undeath; you cannot let her win the body of Myczil. Trostani is counting on you.”

Fluttershy steeled herself; she gulped down her fear and her apprehension. Trostani was the reason that she had survived this long on Ravnica, and she had to repay her. “I may not know anything about this accusation. That would be a question for Trostani herself, but I do know that it doesn’t have anything to do with the current case.”

Applejack stared back blankly at the butter-colored pegasus. “What are you talking about? Myczil is a Devkarin!”

“He is also a hero,” Fluttershy retorted. “The idea that we would treat a hero, of any kind, the same way that we treat anyone else is a silly prospect.” Applejack’s jaw dropped, stunned by the frankness that her formerly pathologically shy friend exuded. “Furthermore,” Fluttershy continued, “I find it difficult to buy the sadness of a father that refused to even attend the trial.”

“Ah told ya, he didn’t want to…” Applejack attempted to say.

“Scare us,” Fluttershy finished. “Or try and push the trial in his direction; that much I do buy.” Fluttershy waved a hoof towards the audience. “But he should have at least showed up.”

The audience of the trial began to mutter amongst themselves, searching for the absent guildmaster. Rarity wanted to slink back into her room. She wanted someone else to take over. Vix tapped her shoulder. “Madam, perhaps you should retire to make your decision; I don’t think that there could be any more evidence.”

Rarity nodded, and slammed her gavel as hard as she could into the podium, startling Fluttershy into a prone state. “I shall retire to my office. I will look over the evidence as it stands and will come back with a verdict.” She looked pleadingly at both of her friends. “Is there any other piece of evidence that could tip the trial?” Fluttershy nervously shook her head; Applejack, holding back tears, shook hers as well. As quickly as she could, Rarity exited the courtroom, dashing for her room. She burst through the door and began ransacking her fridge for her white chocolate.

“You seem...” Vix muttered as he finally caught up with the judge, “frazzled, more so than earlier I mean.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Rarity said through a mouthful of chocolate. “I knew that it would be hard to have to rule in favor of one friend against the other, but not like this.”

Vix tapped his chin, searching for the words to cheer Rarity up. “Well, you have done this before,” he stated. “Miss Twilight Sparkle was also a good friend of yours if I’m correct, and she’s in her almost every other week. I mean, one of the podiums that your friends were using was made specifically for her.”

“Yes, that is true,” Rarity conceded. “But it isn’t palpable to this situation.” She swallowed her mouthful of chocolate, burying her head in the sky-blue pillow of the nearby bed. “Twilight always admitted to whatever she was accused of; there was never a decision. She would turn up, hand a bag of zinos over to the person that accused her, and then just leave.” Tears began to fall down Rarity’s face, and a sniffle began to fill her voice. “But I want both of them to be happy. Neither of them did anything wrong.”

“I wouldn’t exactly agree,” Vix muttered. “I mean, no offense to your friend Applejack, but a Golgari isn’t exactly a paragon of society, and...” He paused and shuddered. “I never thought that the Selesnya guild was just as cruel.”

“There is only one choice here,” Rarity sniffled. “Fluttershy is the only reasonable choice; even after the revelation about what the Selesnya do to devkarin, she is right. He’s a hero. They wouldn’t dare to treat him that way.”

“But you don’t want to let Fluttershy win?” Vix asked.

“It isn’t that,” Rarity assured him. “I don’t want either of them to be disappointed, but if I do give it to Applejack then the Selesnya guild will most likely say that I’m biased, and then someone else will be brought in, someone who won’t even give the time of day to Applejack.”

“I hate for this to sound selfish, but you need to think about how this affects you as well, Rarity,” said Vix. “It is very noble of you to think of your friends before yourself, but this isn’t simply about them. If you side with Applejack, and they try to accuse you of being biased, then you’ll be out on the streets as a bonus.” Rarity looked sadly at Vix. “I know, Judge Rarity, that you are a good person, but perhaps you need to be a little selfish today.”

“But Applejack will hate me,” Rarity said through the veil of tears. “I don’t want any of my friends to hate me.”

“It must be hard,” Vix replied. “But it’s important that you are able to continue living first, and I believe that it would be rather difficult to continue your investigation into the Scry Tome without your current position.” Rarity’s head shot up. “Don’t worry, madam, I will keep your involvement in the case a secret, but Shining Armor will probably find it difficult if he’s down one inside woman, or mare in your case.”

“Yes, you’re correct. As much as it pains me to go against Applejack in this case, I must; it’s for the good of all of Ravnica,” Rarity said loudly to herself. She used the golden comforter to begin wiping down her tear-stained face. “As much as it pains me to side against my friends in any circumstance, it must be done.”

Rarity began walking slowly down to the courtroom, with only Vix’s hand on her shoulder stopping her from bolting the other way. Finally the white unicorn reached the doors to the courtroom and, after a sharp inhale and exhale, she gulped back what tears remained and walked back into the room.

Immediately all eyes on the room fell on her, all of them pleading for her verdict. Applejack’s eyes were the only ones that showed concern; once Rarity made eye contact with Applejack, the farm pony wore a look of defeat. “I have made my decision,” said Rarity. She paused, mostly in an attempt to keep herself from crying as she saw her undead friend begin to tear up. “In the name of the Azorius guild, lawmakers of Ravnica, I hereby turn the body of Myczil over to the Selesnya guild.” The audience of the trial seemed quite a bit smaller than it was when she left, but those still there cheered with praise for the Worldsoul. The Jedav, Ane, wore an insufferable smirk on her face. Fluttershy simply smiled and turned to face Applejack, who was already leaving the courthouse.

“Applejack!” cried Fluttershy as she exited the courthouse chasing after Applejack with Rarity and Ane in hot pursuit. “Wait please, I’m really sorry about all of this.”

“Stop, Fluttershy, ah don’t want to hear it!” Applejack screamed back. “This was mah one chance to pay back Jarad.”

Fluttershy’s expression grew dark, “Do you mean that you have some kind of contract with him, because if so you should have told me...”

“No!” Applejack screamed back, scaring Fluttershy into a prone state at the base of the steps to the courthouse. “Ah’m tired of people and ponies thinking that I’m some brainwashed zombie. Jarad saved mah life. I’d be burnt to crisp if not for him. Ah wanted to repay him; Ah always have, but Ah can’t even do that.” Tears were now flowing freely from the undead farmer;s eyes. “Ah just wanted to repay him for what he did for me, so I don’t want to hear some patronizing apology from the servant to a bunch of lying plants!”

Ane drew her sword and stepped closer to Applejack, who responded by twisting some of the vines in her hooves into something resembling a claw. “You will not disrespect our guildmaster. If you continue to say such things, then prepare to say your last words, Golgari scum.”

Applejack stared back into the Jedav’s eyes, a twisted smile on her face, “You call us the monsters, when you throw your own people into corpse pits; screw you Ane, and screw your guildmaster as well.” Ane flung herself at Applejack, heedless of the warnings of Fluttershy. The undead farm pony swung her massive vine-arm towards Ane, who nimbly sidestepped. Applejack just kept moving though, using the momentum to launch herself upwards, dodging Ane’s strike. The Golgari quickly sucked the vines back and sprung them back outwards, wrapping Ane back in the vines and used them to snap her neck.

Fluttershy went white, and Shining Armor burst out of the courthouse just as Applejack was running away. Rarity started back into the courthouse, only to see Cadence walking over to her husband. “How did things go with Celestia?” Rarity heard Shining ask.

“She won’t agree to Pinkie’s demands,” Cadence said. “Celestia said that she plans to wipe Pinkie’s mind and possibly Applejack’s as well. She won’t accept allowing the ponies here any longer. She wants them to return and plans to...”

Rarity couldn’t hear anything else, as she was ushered back into the courthouse by Vix, and she made a mental note to inform Applejack about Celestia’s plan.

White Lie

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City of Guilds
Ch. 7: White Lie

Shining Armor awoke in his bed at the Boros guildhall. Despite the moon still hanging in the sky, and despite the cries of exhaustion from his limbs, he just couldn’t stay asleep. His thoughts drifted to Applejack and her casual murder of a Selesnya Jedav, something that he was going to have to explain to Feather at one point. The Selesnya guild now had the body of Myczil, even though Fluttershy was rather perturbed as she left the site. But most importantly, there was his aunt-in-law’s plan. Celestia planned to wipe the memories of everypony that was sent to Ravnica and bring all of them back.

Cadence pulled the captain’s head to her “Still thinking about what Celestia said?”

Shining shook his head. “Thinking about how we’re supposed to get Pinkie to help us now.” The captain nuzzled his wife affectionately, and she returned the gesture. “Pinkie Pie really doesn’t want to go back and, frankly, I doubt that Applejack and Trixie will be too keen to return either.” Shining shuddered at his next thought. “Celestia could end up starting a war. Applejack is really important to Jarad; and I doubt that he’ll just let her go.”

“Auntie Celestia was pretty emotional when I met with her,” Cadence said softly. “She probably hasn’t thought this through and just wants to return things to normal.”

“Can things be normal again?” Shining asked “This world has changed us. For better or for worse, it has changed us.” He sat up against the bed frame and scanned the pictures that lined his wall. “This place made me realize my full potential, being a guard on Ravnica is a lot harder than being a guard in Canterlot, so I adapted.”

Cadence got up from the bed and began straightening her mane. “I guess, but what about Applejack, or Pinkie Pie especially?”

“Depends on your perspective.”

“You mean, they think that they’ve been changed for the better, even if we don’t?”

“Precisely,” Shining responded. “Applejack probably loves being an undead. She probably thinks that it opens up so many doors for her, and who can definitively say that she’s wrong?”

Cadence, hearing a knock at their door, hastily threw on her princess dress. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Your husband’s boss, still waiting on a report!” Feather responded from beyond the door.

Shining hopped off the bed and quickly donned his captain’s armor. “We’ll be out in a second, Feather,” he shouted back. The captain finished dressing himself and stepped out into the hallway, where Feather stood impatiently. “Sorry for not coming to you yesterday with Celestia’s response, but with the murder of Ane, and it was late at night when we finished, so you know, just went to bed.”

“I get it,” the angel responded curtly. “But now I would like that report. What did your queen say?”

“Princess,” Cadence corrected. “Celestia is a princess. Less imposing title.”

“Whatever, she can call herself Baron of Bananas as far as I care, what’s important is what she said,” Feather curtly replied. Shining and Cadence gave each other a sad look. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say it isn’t good news,” the angel said with a sigh.

“She plans to take us back by force,” Shining responded. “She’ll use a mind wipe spell to erase our memories of Ravnica.”

“No shit,” Feather replied dryly. “I assume that if any one of you refuses, then she isn’t going home empty handed?”

“Empty hoofed, but you are correct,” Cadence replied. “She’s ready to engage in battle with whatever guild opposes her.”

“What about the Golgari?” Feather asked. “She can mind wipe as much as she wants; it isn’t going to change the fact that she’s dead and has plants growing out of her.”

Cadence averted her eyes and nervously shuffled “Well, what she plans to do with everypony else, I suspect…” she said, trailing off.

Feather gave a small smirk. “Captain Armor, is your wife usually this dishonest?”

Shining locked his eyes with his wife’s. “Please, what is she planning?” Cadence closed her eyes, a single tear falling down her face. Shining asked her again softly, “What is Celestia planning?”

“She’ll kill her,” Feather replied for the pink alicorn. “There is no way to turn her back to ‘normal’ so she’ll just kill her. I assume that the same thing will happen to Rainbow Dash as well, because of her Simic enhancements?”

Cadence nodded. “Celestia told me not to tell anyone about that. She said that it was important to restore the status quo and that normality had to be restored.”

“Then she should let her stay here!” Shining shouted. “Why kill her? Why kill Dash? Tartarus, why take any of us back if that’s the case? Why not leave us here and tell our families we died?”

“Planeswalkers,” Feather replied. “She’s scared that one or more of you will turn into Planeswalkers.” Shining looked at Feather with an arched eyebrow. “Planeswalkers are creatures that can travel between planes through magic.”

“You mean like alicorns can?” asked Shining.

“Possibly,” Feather replied. “I’m not quite sure how your species works, but it is possible. Planeswalkers are born with natural magic and are very powerful.”

The realization hit Shining like a brick. “But if that’s true, then what’s to stop us from becoming a Planeswalker in Equestria?”

“She probably thinks that she can control it,” the angel said with a shrug. “She just has to bring you all back there and can make sure that none of you show signs of becoming a Walker.”

“She did mention something about that,” Cadence confirmed. “She said that she’s met Planeswalkers before and doesn’t like the idea of an Equestrian citizen becoming one.”

“She wants to return everything to her idea of peace,” sighed the angel. “But if war destroys, peace corrupts.”

“Why are there so many bugs?” Rarity shrieked. The unicorn used her magic to conjure an illusion, which drew the bugs to it. The unicorn shivered in terror as a bug crawled its way out of her shawl. The bugs surrounded the hazy blue illusion, which simply stood there and allowed them to congregate beneath it. She had hoped that she would be able to contact Applejack through some other means, but no one had seen the undead farmer since yesterday.

Rarity gritted her teeth as she slowly trotted her way around the bugs and entered the graveyard. The snow-white unicorn looked all around the graveyard but found no trace of Applejack. Perhaps it was a stereotypical to start the search for her undead friend in a graveyard, but even if Applejack herself wasn’t there, she should’ve been able to find some Golgari who could point her in the right direction.

“I do believe that you aren’t dressed for an expedition of this nature my dear,” muttered a raspy voice from nearby. The guildmaster Jarad slipped out from the shadows, a group of beetles scuttling around his ankles.

Rarity swallowed her terrified screams before responding. “I believe that one must be fabulous looking wherever she goes.”

“I see,” Jarad responded dully. “So, what are you doing in my neck of the woods?”

A single sniff caused Rarity’s nose to shrivel as the smell of death filled it. She swallowed back the bile growing in her throat and responded, “I wish to speak with my friend.”

The devkarin frowned. “Why should I let you see her?”

Rarity made the mistake of inhaling through her nose again, this time causing her to throw up next to the gate bordering the cemetery. The unicorn blushed slightly and coughed a few times to dislodge the rest of her bile. “I apologize… for appearing so… unladylike.”

Jarad waved the incident off. “Being a corpse has its disadvantages.” He simply stood there as Rarity tore a few small sections of her dress and stuffed them in her nose. “Are you alright now?” Rarity nodded. “So why should I lead you to my apprentice?”

“Well,” Rarity started, stopping to make sure that she wasn’t about to vomit again, “she is my friend, and I wished to speak with her about something private.”

“Last time I checked, she didn’t want to speak to you after yesterday.” Jarad stood to the side defiantly.

“It is important,” Rarity stressed. “This is something that needs to be said to her directly, no offense.”

“None taken,” replied Jarad. “But it might help me to know at least the general idea of why you need to talk to her.”

“It concerns her safety,” Rarity responded. “Celestia is planning something, and as much as I would like my old friend back, I have to accept that she may not want to.”

Jarad smiled, “I know what you mean. Perhaps you could walk with me for a while, and we might discuss a plan of action.” He motioned back the way he came, where off in the distance a dull green light shone.

Rarity sighed dramatically, “If I must, but I don’t see what you could hope to accomplish. Celestia plans to erase her memories and take her back to Equestria.”

Jarad turned and asked, “Only erase her memories? I suppose that when Applejack called Equestria a nation built on peace she meant it.”

“Yes, though I suppose that she may have some other plans, considering Applejack’s lack of life.”

“I met your ruler in person. I’m fully aware of the power that she wields, and I have no doubt that plans something else,” Jarad continued. “But if I am so inclined, I could help to protect her…”

“I know that you will,” Rarity interrupted. “I know that she isn’t in any danger as long as she remains your student. I wanted to meet with her to tell her to avoid the surface, in case Shining Armor decides to help Celestia with her goal.”

“What makes you so sure that I’ll help her?” Jarad said with a perplexed grin.

“I am a fairly good judge of character, and I believe that you are a far nicer person than you let on.” Rarity sidled up next to the necromancer, a knowing smile across her face. “I could see worry in your eyes when I said that Celestia planned to bring her back, I know that you care, I’m just not sure how much.”

“Alright, you caught me,” Jarad said, throwing up his hands. “I gave her new life at first out of interest; she was a new creature that I had never met, and I wanted to see what would happen. Then I learned how she died. My interest turned to admiration; for someone to give her life out of selflessness, it reminds me of someone I knew a long time ago. Then I suppose that along the way my admiration turned to a kind of parental affection. In many ways she reminds me of my son: headstrong, honest, and a burning desire to help others, even at the cost of their life.”

Rarity wiped a tear from her eye, “I suppose that the feeling is mutual. Between the two of you, I mean.”

“If you are speaking of her parents, then I suppose that is a possibility; she told me about them, but obviously I can’t speak for her feelings.” The two reached the source of the dull green light, a small Golgari gateway. The gate was a brilliant limestone entangled by vines and the symbol of the Golgari laying the center of the archway. “Now, I brought you here to ask you to investigate a certain matter for me, one that would allow me to more easily help your friend and the rest of Ravnica.”

“You mean in regards to the murders?” asked Rarity. “I will admit that I believed that a Golgari could be a suspect, particularly you, no offense.”

“None taken, I’m not exactly a paragon of society, but I can assure you that neither me nor Applejack are responsible for this. In fact, the two of us have been looking into ways to stop it.”

“What have you come up with, then?” asked the white unicorn.

“Well, I have determined that whoever is doing this must be doing so with the aid of the Scry Tome, and channeling the spirit of my dead sister.”

“Goodness, your family is quite the rogues gallery. You are the head of a guild, your son’s death becomes the trial of the century, and your sister is an unwilling accomplice to several murders,” Rarity joked.

Jarad chuckled. “Yes indeed, but my sister is quite dangerous. She has the ability to suppress the regenerative qualities of necromancy. Basically, if she kills you, you stay dead, its how the previous guildmasters and our Parun were killed.”

The cheery atmosphere provided by Rarity’s joke had quickly dissipated. “So, someone has access to her magic\ and is using it to kill people.” Jarad nodded in response. “Then that only leaves one more question. Why are they doing this?”

“Two questions actually, as we still don’t know why they target the people that they target.”

Rarity squinted her eyes in thought, perusing her mind for any speck of information that the Boros could have overlooked, anything… “Children,” Rarity spouted. “Children of guildmasters.”

“Well that is true of my son, but what about Scootaloo?” Jarad asked.

“She was considered the adopted daughter of Borborygmos, so I suppose being adopted counts in this psycho’s head.”

“Perhaps, I suppose we will know when there is undoubtedly another murder, but that was a tangent; there was a specific reason that I wanted to see you. I want you to steal me a Scry Tome.”

If Rarity had been drinking tea she would have done a spit take. “You want me to steal an artifact from the Boros, are you mad?”

“I was going to have Applejack do so, but after her outburst yesterday regarding the Jedav, not that I’m upset…”

“She killed someone in cold blood, which clearly threw a wrench in your plans, and you aren’t even the slightest bit upset?” Rarity asked.

“Normally I would be, but then again Ane was an absolute cretin. As far as I’m concerned, Applejack did Ravnica a favor by killing her, but obviously she can’t go topside without attracting attention, so I’m now asking you to go in my stead.” Jarad said with a small but toothy smile.

“How exactly is this going to help, anyway?” Rarity asked.

“If I had one of these things to study, I could figure out some kind of countermeasure, some way to force the soul out of the Tome. Again this is all speculation, but it is the best that we have at the moment.”

“Well, I suppose that I can look into the Tome’s for you. I know Shining Armor and perhaps could get him to part with one…”

“You cannot tell him that you were sent by me.” Jarad said sternly. “Why do you think that I need a go-between instead of doing so myself? I am still considered a suspect by the Boros guild; if I asked for such a thing, they would undoubtedly refuse, and it would simply raise more suspicion on me. You must acquire it… quietly.”

“And in return, perhaps you can be persuaded to let me see Applejack later, I still wish to apologize for siding against her.”

“You seem to be every bit as friendly as Applejack described you, but I don’t quite see the prissy, drama-queen that she mentioned.”

“I’ll admit, I can be somewhat overdramatic at times, but I refuse to let dirt, bugs, or anything else get in my way of helping one of my friends.”

“Even if it means that you’ll never see them again?”

“That’s what being best friends is, even if I’m not sure that Applejack would use those terms to describe our relationship, I would.”

Shining Armor trotted back and forth outside the Rakdos Theater. Trixie also shuffled nervously around and carried a drawing of the device that Twilight had been building. Shining spoke up, “So, we know what we’re going to say?” Trixie nodded in response. “Good, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this without your help.”

“Of course, Trixie said that she would help, and she meant it,” the blue unicorn replied. “Trixie simply wished that she wasn’t also in danger from being brought back.”

“You don’t want to go back to Equestria?” Shining asked. “Why not, is the money you get as an Orzhov minister really that important?”

“It isn’t the money… entirely,” Trixie replied. “Trixie would have potentially returned after this whole business was done with, but currently Trixie’s guildmaster has need of her and the Tome you still refuse her.”

“I told you that you would receive it once this investigation is over, not a day sooner.”

“Of course not,” Trixie bitterly replied. “It might only help.”

“Look we can’t argue about this right now…”

Pinkie Pie jumped between them and said, “Now kiss.”

Shining Armor jumped back charging his horn. “Pinkie Pie, how? Where? Never mind.” Shining shook his head, and motioned to Trixie.

“Right, Pinkie Pie, we received a message from Princess Celestia, in regards to the possibility of you staying here,” Trixie began.

“Really, so soon? Awesome, what did she say?” Pinkie asked, eyes aglow.

Trixie looked into Pinkie’s eyes, and in that moment she didn’t see a monster. She didn’t see the killer that Pinkie Pie had become. It hurt to lie to her like this, but regardless Trixie knew what had to be done. “She is going to allow you to stay here. She wasn’t happy about it, but she realizes that it’s your choice.”

Pinkie looked happy enough to jump out of her skin. She jumped up and down, screaming ‘Yay’ and ‘yippee’ over and over again. “This is fantastic! Alright, you guys want a performance you got one. The day after tomorrow, at the seventh district, and I’ll make sure that Borborygmos knows about it.”

Shining’s jaw nearly fell, “Two days?” he screamed. “How are you going to put together a performance in two days? Hell, how are you going to guarantee Borborygmos going there?”

Pinkie’s smile fell a little as she said, “Because it will be a performance dedicated to his daughter, that’s how.”

Trixie muttered an excuse and ran out of the building, bumping into Twilight on the way out. “Oh, hello Trixie, what’s going…” Before Twilight could finish her question, Trixie continued running, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

Pinkie Pie bounced out of the Theater, her cheeriness plainly visible as she whistled a happy tune. Shining walked out of the theater after her, meeting with Twilight. “Well,” he began, “she’s decided to help us.” Twilight opened her mouth to say something but Shining countered, “I know that you don’t want to lie to her, but this is important; we don’t have time to come up with another plan.”

Twilight sighed. “Alright, tomorrow tell Trixie to meet me at the Blistercoil facility in the sixth district, it’s where I’ll be working tomorrow, she can pick up the Shackles there from me.”

“You aren’t going to be at the performance?” Shining asked.

“No, I’ll have the device charged and ready, but that means that you’ll only get one shot, remember that, as the device is charged using blue mana, which you three don’t use at all.”

“So why won’t you be helping us?”

“Because I need to be fixing the generator. Besides there are two of you, plus any Boros or Orzhov that you can wrangle together, and as a bonus you have the element of surprise. You’ll be fine.” Twilight started walking off, but turned and said, “I just hope that you know what you’re doing, BBBFF.”

Pinkie Pie couldn’t be happier. She had gotten to meet with some of her friends in the past few days, like Twilight, who she hadn’t seen since she got to Ravnica. And now she was going to get to stay! She continued to bounce her way through the crowded streets of Ravnica, with most people stepping out of her way. For the first time in months she had begun wearing the Rakdos symbol on the side of her coat with her Surprise colors. Normally she would be afraid of being taken in by the Boros, but today it wouldn’t matter, since she was heading there anyway.

“I’ll just apologize once I’m done with it; they won’t notice one Scry Tome gone.” Pinkie bounded her way over to the Boros HQ, only to find it currently under attack. A few cloaked individuals wearing Dimir insignias were attacking the Boros. A few human Boros ran out of the HQ, chasing after another individual, who was carrying one of the Scry Tomes.

Pinkie ran beneath the legs of one of the Dimir, knocking him down. She ran for the door and burst her way inside, barreling through the Boros. Behind her she noticed that the Dimir were using a spell to summon magical chains to restrain the Boros fighters. She continued to run through the lobby floors, passing numerous Boros by.

Pinkie dashed up the stairs towards the upper floors of the Boros HQ, weaving through the floors, searching for the Scry Tome location. Eventually she reached the armory and saw two of the Tomes sitting on a table at the far end. Clutching one with her mouth, Pinkie dashed for the window at the end of the hall, jumping out and onto the roof of the building beside the HQ. A smile crept across her lips. Fun was going to be had.

Author's Notes:

Feather, Boros guildmaster 3RRWW Illusory puppeteer 1U
Legendary Creature - Angel Warrior M Sorcery U

Flying, haste Put an 0/1 blue Illusion token with

"All creatures that can block this creature
When Feather, Boros guildmaster attacks must block this creature." Sacrifice the token
choose target creature or player, deal 1 at end of turn.
damage to that target creature or player,
you gain 1 life, for each creature attacking "Now you see me, and only me."
on your side of the field.

5/4

Only a Year...

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City of Guilds
Chapter 8: Only a Year…

“Now, what is the rule?” shouted Shining Armor.

“No one is a hero!” the Legion shouted back in response.

“Right, you all just need to distract Borborygmos long enough to allow me or Trixie to use the Shackles; no one needs to die over this.” Shining Armor stood in front of a group of Boros, prepping them for tomorrow’s mission, the capture of Borborygmos.

“Captain Shining Armor, sir, may I ask a question, sir?” asked a cadet loudly.

“Of course,” Shining replied.

“Are you sure that we can trust Izzet machinery, especially with the success of our mission?”

Feather stepped in, her arms crossed, “Do you trust Izzet machinery to run your electric shaver, your lamps in your home, and the water treatment facility so that you don’t end up drinking last night’s piss?” The various assembled Boros nodded their heads approvingly “Then we can trust it to capture a Cyclops.”

Shining smiled and saluted Feather, and all the others followed suit. “Well then, I’d like to thank all of you for volunteering for this. You all have the rest of the day off. Get some sleep and prepare for tomorrow.” Cadence walked into the room and sidled up to her husband. “Morning, sweetheart,” Shining said, greeting her with a kiss.

“Good morning. You know, I have to say you really are a born Captain. Whether on Equestria or on Ravnica, you command respect,” Cadence said, returning the kiss.

Shining looked nervously over to Feather, who just smiled at the two of them. “I don’t mind the two of you making goo-goo eyes at each other. I actually think that it’s kind of cute.”

Cadence giggled as Feather led the group to the dining hall, where a decent sized feast was laid out for the group of volunteers. Feather led them to three seats near the end of the table, one of which was decorated gold and was adorned with the symbol of the Boros Legion. “One of the advantages to being the guildmaster,” the angel stated, “a really nice chair.”

The three sat down at the table and began devouring the feast laid before their eyes. Cadence looked over the golden armor that Shining was wearing; after a while he noticed her wandering eyes and asked, “You like this uniform better than my other one?” he joked.

“You know it isn’t the uniform I like. It’s the stallion underneath,” she replied seductively. Feather barely repressed a hearty laugh, and Shining blushed a bright red. “But I was wondering, how did you get in touch with the Boros? I mean, you aren’t a species that anyone on Ravnica is familiar with. So how did you initialize yourself into the world?”

Feather, after calming herself, spoke up. “All a coincidence. When a bunch of fish people sprout from the undercity and tell you that a huge planet-wide river runs underneath your home, a talking horse seems downright normal.”

“Pony!” Cadence shouted.

“I get it,” Feather laughed.

“So,” Shining interrupted, “you want to know how I got mixed up with the Boros?” Cadence nodded in response. “Well I can tell you that it’s a fairly simple story, but it started the second that I got to Ravnica…”

A bright blinding light was the last thing of Equestria that Shining saw. He appeared in the center of the Transguild Promenade, his Canterlot armor shimmering in the sunlight. Various creatures all around him looked on in awe, and a few humans began running off out of the park.

Shining Armor stood up, and blinked his eyes several times. Once he could see again, he took account of his surroundings. While he was looking around, hoping that this was still Equestria, numerous creatures began to talk about him.

“Where did he come from?” asked a human.

“Is it intelligent? Can it speak?” asked another.

“What the heck was that anyway? That felt like blue mana, but what cast that spell?” an elf questioned.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Shining muttered. A few glances were thrown his way from those close enough to hear him speak. The elves in the immediate area continued to stare at Shining, especially after hearing him speak.

“He’s like an intelligent horse, but how is that even possible?” a human wondered aloud.

Shining, not taking too kindly to the idea of having his race’s close relatives being called unintelligent, stomped over to the human. “Yes, I am intelligent. Yes, I can speak. No, I don’t know what caused the spell that brought me here.”

A group of four Boros humans flanked by a Minotaur entered the promenade; swords raised, they approached Shining Armor. The unicorn held his ground and called out to them, “Excuse me, I don’t know where I am. What are you, and can you help me find my way back?” The Boros looked at each other and back to Shining Armor, eyes widened and mouths agape.

“Y-y-yes,” spoke a lieutenant. “We of the Boros League would be glad to help you out, just come with us and we’ll take you to the guildmaster.” The other privates looked at him strangely, but one by one they began to sheath their swords.

“Good, perhaps then I can figure out where I am,” Shining remarked as he began to follow the Boros legionnaires.

“Well, we can tell you that much,” the Minotaur said in a deep booming voice. “Welcome to Ravnica! My name is Trostheim, Boros Captain, what’s yours?”

“I am Captain Shining Armor of the Canterlot Guard of Equestria,” Shining replied.

“I suppose that explains the armor, and the name,” joked Trostheim. The Minotaur was dressed in large golden armor, with the symbol of the Boros Legion in the center. On his back was a large hammer, also emblazoned with the symbol, with one side being flat like a hammer, and the other a sharp spike. “So then, I heard you yelling that you don’t know what brought you here, but you got any clue, any whatsoever?”

“Nothing at all,” Shining replied. “I was just going to see my sister in a place called Ponyville, and then a bright flash, and then I was here.”

“Troubling,” the Minotaur curtly replied. “But I suppose that we’ll just have to hope that Feather knows something.” The Minotaur continued to lead Shining towards a large marble archway, decorated with the same symbol that he wore on his chest. A few minutes passed without anyone speaking. Finally, though, a few of the privates began to mutter amongst themselves. The reverie was shattered, however, by a series of screams coming from nearby. “Damn, alright two of you bring Mister Armor here to Feather. I’ll take the others to investigate the cause of the disturbance.”

“Let me help,” Shining demanded. “I’m a royal guard where I come from, I can help.”

The humans began to move for the direction of the screams, but were stopped by Trostheim. “I can’t let you put yourself in danger, sir. I don’t know what the rules are in your world, but…”

“Then at least let me help anyone who is injured. I can do that much at least,” Shining interrupted.

Trostheim smiled. “All right, you grab the injured and we’ll all make a dash for the Boros HQ. You can recognize it by the symbol on my armor.” Shining nodded, and the group made a break for the direction of the screams.

Once they arrived on the scene, the group noticed a group of Rakdos attacking a family. The four Rakdos humans were all covered in spiked chains and wore black masks that covered their faces. A spike was driven through a man’s heart as his wife cowered to the side with two of the Rakdos bearing down on her. The Boros group began to attack the Rakdos.

One of the Rakdos that was gawking at the dying man noticed the oncoming Boros with their swords drawn. He threw his chain, lodging it in one of the Boros humans’ neck and killing him almost immediately. Another Rakdos threw his chain at Trostheim, who blocked the chain with his blade. The other two Rakdos that were menacing the woman turned and rushed for the Boros. Shining Armor noticed that off to the right was a little girl who had a wounded leg. Shining made a mad dash for the little girl, hoisting her onto his back and running back the way that he and the Boros had come from.

While running, Shining glanced at the little girl on his back, or more specifically, her wounded leg. A large gash ran along her left calf, blood flowing all over her leg and onto Shining’s back. After running for several minutes, Shining stopped for a moment, letting his passenger off for a second and taking a look at the wound. He tried to use a basic healing spell; he closed his eyes and strained his magic to the breaking point. Once he opened his eyes he noticed that he had barely begun to close the wound. “Why isn’t the spell working?” Shining cried.

The unicorn nearly collapsed, but he forced himself to stand. He thought back to what the humans said back at the Promenade, something about ‘blue magic.’ Shining had never heard of magic like that. Unicorns had always just had magic. He thought back to his magic classes; he was taught that when he couldn’t perform a spell, he should concentrate and try to feel the magic.

Shining closed his eyes and began to meditate. He reached out and tried to feel magic, and he did find the magic he was looking for. He felt what he would later find was called ‘white’ magic, which felt very strict, very ordered, but powerful. The other that he could easily feel, what he would learn was called ‘red’ mana, felt chaotic and strong.

Shining tried to summon the white mana, finding it much easier to use then his natural magic. He tried to form it into a basic healing spell, which succeeded in closing the girl’s wound.

“Are you a Wojek?” the girl asked between pained gasps.

“What?” Shining asked in response.

“Are you a Wojek? You know, like the others who rescued me.”

Shining responded quickly, “I am kind of similar, I am a guardspony that helps people like you.” The little girl chuckled at Shining. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Guardspony,” the little girl replied, still in pain but smiling. “It’s just a funny term.”

“Why do you think that’s funny?” Shining joked. “You want to know where I’m from?” The girl nodded in response. “Canterlot.” The little girl laughed more. “And my sister lives in a place called Ponyville.” The little girl continued to laugh, her smile replacing the pained frown.

A grunting noise from behind the two alerted the unicorn to the presence of one of the Rakdos approaching from behind. Shining once again pulled into the same pool of mana, and tried to summon up some kind of a defensive spell. The chain-wielding Rakdos threw the chain at Shining, who was scratched along the side of his torso. Shining summoned up an arrow of light and shot it at the Rakdos, blasting him through the head.

As the Rakdos human fell, Shining’s eyes grew wider. His heart dropped into his stomach as blood began to drip from the wound. Trostheim and his remaining three soldiers ran into his view, running towards Shining and the girl. The two humans grabbed the girl and began applying more magic to her injured leg. Trostheim grabbed the motionless unicorn and slung him over his massive shoulder.

They started towards a building off in the distance bearing the symbol that Trostheim wore. Shining started to mumble to Trostheim, “It was an accident.”

“Hmm, what?” Trostheim asked.

“I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to… to…” Shining trailed off.

“Do what?” Trostheim asked.

“I mean it!” Shining yelled indignantly.

“I seriously don’t know what you mean,” Trostheim replied.

Tears began to stain Shining’s snow-white coat. The image of the Rakdos member falling to the ground continued to replay in Shining’s mind. The same couple of seconds, repeating into eternity. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” he whispered.

Trostheim started to open his mouth but closed it and thought. “You’ve never killed before?” the Minotaur asked.

“Of course not!” Shining shouted back. Trostheim dramatically rubbed his ears. “Sorry.”

“I’m going to assume that killing is a big crime on your plane?”

“Yes, and I just…”

“Saved two lives,” Trostheim interrupted. Shining stared at him through a growing veil of tears. “That little girl and her mother are only alive because we stepped in, they got out of this scuffle with minimum physical injury because we acted fast, and to do that we had to kill.”

“But we could have done this without killing anyone!” Shining argued.

“Maybe,” Trostheim admitted. “But here, on Ravnica, there are some truly despicable people, and they don’t stop just because the guard or the Boros or whoever arrive.”

“That makes us the monsters though,” Shining said.

“Sometimes you have to play the monster in order to save someone from something far worse.”

“This place is horrible,” Shining muttered. Trostheim scoffed, causing the unicorn to snap, “You know just because you live with it on this Celestia-forsaken plane all the time doesn’t make it right! On my world ponies don’t kill one another, never…”

“You do realize that you were the one who saved that girls life, with magic you got from here,” Trostheim replied. Shining looked at him, confused. “You used white magic, would you have been able to heal a wound like that completely without scarring on your plane?” Shining shook his head. “Just because we have our problems doesn’t make us all horrible, a plane shouldn’t be judged by the actions of a small few, it should be judged by the happiness of its people.”

“You’re saying that I should look at the big picture?”

“Precisely,” Trostheim replied. “Can you really guarantee me that in all corners of your plane people are free, and they don’t do anything wrong?”

Shining started thinking about those words, and about what it meant to be a guard. On Equestria things were simple: ponies were good, and others were good or bad depending on the individual. He remembered reading that once upon a time ponies were forced to kill in order to protect those that they cared about.

The question, he realized, wasn’t whether killing was bad, it was whether or not he would have done so before now. In Equestria would he have killed changelings during the invasion if the shield didn’t work? If he had the chance, would he have killed Chrysalis? What was more important to him, his values, or the safety of his friends? He realized that this was a question that would have to be held off. As long as he was on Ravnica he would have to find a way to keep himself fed and under a roof of some kind.

“Hey, Trostheim, who would I talk to in order to become a Boros Wojek?”

The Rakdos Theater in the Seventh District was abuzz with activity. The planned performance tomorrow was to be quite the important day. Borborygmos had been informed of the performance and its planned tribute to Scognor. Pinkie Pie had spent much of the morning meeting with a variety of performers. Dancers, chainers, and various others had been lured to perform with the promise of a slightly higher paycheck than normal.

“Still don’t understand why you have to sacrifice your paycheck so that these losers can have bigger ones,” Smoky said to Pinkie Pie. “You have more talent in your pinkie, or hoof I guess, than they do. All those humans can do anyway is screw like rabbits, how is that worth more?”

“I don’t feel right being paid to sell out my friend, Smoky,” Pinkie replied. “I would do the same for any other moment where I was forced to sell out a friend.”

“Well, I hope you cleaned them out. The Boros have quite the bounty fund.”

“I didn’t ask for money,” Pinkie replied. “I simply asked to stay here on Ravnica.”

“Aww, Pinks ya schmaltzy gal you.” Smoky wrapped Pinkie Pie in a hug. “You know what this means?” Pinkie shook her head. “Party! We have to have a ‘Pinkie Pie is sticking with her new friends’ party!” Pinkie gave Smoky a concerned look. “Not a Rakdos party, just a good old fashioned cake, beer, karaoke, more beer, and more cake kind of party.”

“Alright,” Pinkie said with a smile. “I guess I could go for a little partying right about now.” Smoky fist-pumped and ran off, screaming directions back to Pinkie Pie.

“You have a pretty good friend in him, don’t you?” asked a deep regal voice from behind Pinkie Pie. Princess Luna walked up to Pinkie Pie and looked over her Surprise makeup. “You didn’t have that symbol on you before, is it a new addition to your costume?” Luna asked calmly.

“No, it was there from the beginning, but I had to get rid of it for a while.”

“But you have brought it back.”

“Yes, since I get to stay here, I want to really start living as a Rakdos. I want to show that I'm proud to be a Rakdos.”

Luna’s eyes fell to the floor, but quickly she attempted to change the subject. “So, you were friends with Scootaloo, and I’m assuming this creature that is her adoptive parent?”

“Yeah, don’t be fooled by what everyone says about Borborygmos, he’s a real sweetie when it comes to his daughter,” Pinkie said. “He’s real sad about what happened, so he’s really glad that I’m going to say a few words for her tomorrow.”

Luna smiled a bit, “Perhaps I was quick to judge you. You may have changed, but the Element of Laughter lives on within you.”

“Thanks Princess,” Pinkie replied with a hug. “You know, you said that you met with Dashie, how is she? Is she okay?”

“A little,” Luna replied. “She is quite loyal to this leader of hers, someone named Zegana. Come to think of it, I haven’t met your leader, or hers.”

“From what I’ve heard Zegana isn’t seen very often, and Rakdos is… incommunicado.” Luna gave Pinkie a perplexed look. “He’s been sealed for quite a while, and the only one who knew how to revive him is dead and buried in the central Rakdos home, Rix Maadi.”

“I do have one question, though,” Luna said. “Why did the people of Ravnica accept you and the others so quickly?”

“That was all luck and coincidence,” Pinkie replied. “At the time the people of Ravnica were also meeting the merfolk for the first time. They had apparently been living in the lakes and such that run underneath Ravnica, and so they met us and just kind of accepted it. You can only question what you know about natural life so much, you know.”

“Actually, while I’m asking questions, you never did tell me, what drove you to live a life of murder?” Pinkie gave an annoyed look to Luna who shot back, “I’m being open-minded, there was no other way to phrase that inquiry!”

Pinkie laughed. “I know, I know.” She patted Luna on the back. “It was a joke, I do that.” The pink pony stopped her laughter and grew more serious. “Well, I told you that I had always had a few… darker thoughts. I don’t know what caused me to think like that, but it’s always been there. So I guess you could say that I was born a Rakdos. But what caused me to give in to my desires, well it began when I first arrived here…”

Pinkie Pie’s arrival on Ravnica was similar to Shining Armor’s, with the notable change of her lack of clothes. Pinkie was summoned in the lower parts of the Seventh District, unknowingly just a few miles from Scootaloo at the time. Pinkie’s first reaction to arriving on Ravnica was normal, at least for Pinkie Pie. She was initially enraptured by the sights and sounds of a completely different world than she was used to. The stares of the humans did nothing to bother her; however, she did capture the attention of a human wearing a Rakdos robe.

“What in Agyrem?” the man muttered. More than likely he was confused about the fact that a creature that he had never even seen was naked in the streets. A realization hit him and he ran up and greeted the pink pony. “Hey there, what are you doing out here?”

“Oh, hello!” Pinkie replied. “I don’t know what I’m doing out here, I was just baking cakes and then I was here,” she said with a smile.

“Must have been some damn good cakes,” the man replied. “I’m Simon; my brother Joson works for a produce shop in the Market District. What’s your name?”

“Pinkamena Diane Pie, Pinkie Pie for short.”

“Nice to meet you. From your lack of dress I’d assume that you’re from the local Rakdos chapter.”

“Rakdos?” Pinkie repeated. “What is that?”

Simon looked at her perplexingly. “Well I guess it’d be better to just show you, come with me.” He led her through winding streets and back alleys, and eventually to the Seventh District Theater. The human led her inside, although the seats were already filled with humans, devils, merfolk, and other creatures. “Sorry, looks like you’ll have to stand.”

“It’s okay, what is this place like anyway?” Pinkie asked.

“It’s alright, you’ll see when the party starts up in few minutes.”

“Parties! I love parties!” Pinkie replied.

“Then sit tight and you’ll get one great party.”

Pinkie Pie did as she was told, taking her place against the wall. She didn’t have to wait very long before the curtains raised. Onstage were two females with the symbol of Rakdos painted onto their stomachs. The reason that the symbol drew Pinkie’s attention was because it was the only thing that the ladies were wearing. The two ladies sat on the stage, their naked bodies thrust outwards for the audience to admire. Pinkie also noticed that they had the same eye color, hair color, and generally looked like identical twins.

After the curtain had risen a spotlight shone down on the two girls they began to kiss. They pressed their bodies together at a V-shape, allowing the crowd a full look at their front sides while they kissed. This was met with thunderous applause, and screams of obscene suggestions from the audience. The girls began to comply with perverted action suggested while the audience continued to howl and hoot.

Pinkie Pie simply stood there, mesmerized. This wasn’t something she had ever seen, or even heard of, back on Equestria. Sexual actions like these were supposed to stay secret between partners, not be performed on stage! There were some places in Equestria where kissing in public was frowned upon; those ponies would probably faint if they were here.

And yet she couldn’t take her eyes off them. This display of sexual carnality had Pinkie’s complete attention. They seemed happy. They were probably having a blast. “They’re free,” Pinkie muttered to herself. As the girls continued their debauchery, Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but feel that she was missing out on something simply because of the fact that she hadn’t done anything like that.

Back on Equestria she had always felt like a something was missing in her life. Like she had been missing out on something, and she had tried to fill that hole in her life numerous times. She tried casual sex in college, she tried clubbing, she tried skydiving, camping in the Everfree forest, exercise, spicy food, everything. But no matter how much she tried to deny what she wanted, it was always there, in the back of her mind. As she snapped out of her reverie the dancers had finished, several times in fact, and were leaving the stage.

A small devil with smoky black skin walked out onto the stage. “Hello my fellow freaks, weirdos, perverts, and troublemakers, how’d you all enjoy our lovely twins?” The crowd responded by cheering the twins’ names loudly. “I see, so 7/10 somewhere in that range?” Pinkie snorted a little and joined the crowd in cheering their names louder to appease the smoky devil. “Well your old pal Smoky has a little something that he’d like to share with all of you, the very first time that we need a helper from the audience.” The curtain opened to reveal an Orzhov collector strapped to a chair. Smoky scanned the audience, all of whom were jumping out of their chairs to get up on stage. But Smoky’s eyes fell on one naked pink pony that was leaning up against the wall. “You!” he shouted pointing at Pinkie Pie.

“M-m-me,” Pinkie said with a stutter. Smoky nodded and motioned for Pinkie to come up and join him. In her head the pink pony wanted to run the other way, but the crowds shouting pulled her forward to the stage. The crowd stared at her as she walked up to the front.

“Alright what is your name, little miss?” Smoky asked.

Pinkie’s general cheeriness kicked in. “Pinkie Pie!” she said in a cheery voice.

“Well Miss Pie, would you like to have the first slice?” Smoky handed her a sharpened blade, blood stained across it. Pinkie Pie was repulsed by the bloodied blade, hesitating to take it in her hoof. “Now listen,” Smoky whispered, “you just have to give them a nice show alright, slice him up pretty good, crack a few jokes, you know, have fun.”

“Isn’t he going to get hurt, though?” the pink pony asked pointing to the human strapped into the chair.

“Nah, we use this drug, Lotus Nectar, to dull the pain, basically completely. People find it difficult to enjoy an execution if the person is screaming their head off and crying.”

The pink earth pony shuddered at the mental image before recomposing herself. Pinkie put her hoof to her chin in thought. “Well, who is this guy anyway? I don’t know anything about him.”

“He’s a collector for the Orzhov,” Smoky replied. Pinkie Pie stared back at him with a blank expression. “You don’t know what that means, huh?” She shook her head. “Alright, well, he’s a tax collector of sorts…”

With that, Pinkie nodded and strutted over to the Orzhov with blade in hoof. “Well, hello there, mister tax collector person, what’re you in for today?” The Orzhov mumbled a response, spitting all over himself. “Should I take you drooling all over yourself as a compliment?” Much of the crowd got a chuckle from this, including Smoky. “You know your hair is getting long. We’re going to have to take a ‘bit’ off.” She started to cut at his hair with the blade, but Smoky interrupted her, bringing a pair of scissors. “I thought that would knock em’ dead,” Pinkie whispered frantically.

“That was a joke, about what?” Smoky asked.

“Money! You know, take a ‘bit’ off,” she replied.

“Did you mean zinos? I don’t know what currency is where you’re from, but around here we pay in zinos.”

Pinkie slapped her forehead, “You should have told me earlier!” she whisper-yelled. She tossed the hair off to the side, revealing a now mostly bald Orzhov collector. “Zino for your thoughts?” Pinkie said as she started cutting into the man’s scalp, earning nothing but more drooling from him and genuine laughs from the crowd. The pink earth pony chuckled along with the crowd and walked back to Smoky. “So do we call the ambulance, or do you guys not have those?”

“Ambulances? No we have those but that isn’t how this works.” Smoky put his claw on Pinkie’s shoulder. “Look you gotta go back in there and finish him off. You know kill him.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened at the idea, “I can’t do that!” The crowd began to murmur amongst themselves at Pinkie’s absence. “Gimme a moment folks, it ain’t easy to improv a whole performance.” She turned back to Smoky with a worried look, “I can’t kill people, that is just not cool.”

Smoky rolled his eyes, “Look the guy is gonna die anyway gal, you are on a roll, just finish it.”

Pinkie stopped, she bit her lip and contemplated her options. The man was going to die anyway. It wouldn’t really matter if she was the one to do so. She shook her head, she shouldn’t think like that. She started to walk onstage and wanted to make a run for it. But as the crowd began to cheer her on she started to get into the moment. “Well it has been fun all, but I think the party is getting a bit ‘lifeless’.” The crowd ripped and roared screaming for more. “But I never like to leave a party without knocking em’ dead.” She quickly inhaled and stabbed the man in the back of the head. As the crowd screamed in approval Pinkie runs off the stage and exits the building.

She didn’t know whether to be revolted or impressed by what she had just done. On the one hoof she had just killed a man, but on the other she had never felt more at peace. “Hey there, Miss Pie!” Smoky called from behind. The little devil carried with him a sack of money, and handed it to Pinkie Pie. “We usually don’t pay guest performers, at I don’t think that we do, but with how much the crowd was rip-roaring at your performance I figured that you deserved it.”

“Oh, well thank you,” Pinkie Pie replied.

“You know you could work for the Rakdos, a girl like you could pull in customers by the truckload, good at murder, nude, cracks great jokes…”

“I don’t know about that, I’m… well I’m not from around here and where I come from… stuff like this doesn’t happen.”

“Oh come on,” Smoky countered. “What, they don’t have parties from where you’re from?”

“They do… just not like these.” Pinkie Pie felt that the creature and his attitude should repulse her; thinking about killing like it was a party. But part of her was screaming for the chance to keep going. “There is no killing where I’m from.”

“Well if I may,” Smoky said smugly, “you ain’t where you’re from right now, right?” Pinkie nodded. “Well then I don’t see the harm in getting a job with us.”

Pinkie Pie didn’t waste a moment. “You know you’re right, and I could use some money while I’m here.” She held out her hoof for Smoky to lead her to Rix Maadi. “But I’m not willing to keep killing, at least not yet, or all the time or anything.” Deep in her mind she knew that just because she was somewhere else didn’t make killing okay, and that Smoky’s talking about it as a party was to persuade her to join the Rakdos. Whether she simply didn’t care or honestly didn’t notice, she didn’t think about it very hard. She just allowed the 3-foot tall devil to lead her deep into the undercity, where she would find her new family: the Rakdos.

Twilight Sparkle was laser-focused on the array of wires that was laid before. The red, blue, yellow, magenta, purple, white, black, brown, silver, gold, and cyan wires were representing stunning success and stinging failure. A few beads of sweat rolled gently off of her forehead, falling to the ground to join their brothers and sisters.

“Sparkle.”

In a complex machine like the ones on Ravnica were built by wires. Wires were God; they were what made a machine sputter and fail, or what made it fly like a bird in the summer sky.

“Sparkle.”

Twilight used her magic to grasp the magenta wire and began to merge it with the silver wire. The wire began to sew together with its mate. Their metaphorical coitus spurring progress as the engine of the device roared to life…

“Sparkle!” Trixie shouted.

Twilight Sparkle snapped out of her mildly erotic fantasies and turned from her machine. The Vedalken Shackles, as she had come to term them, was her strongest device. Capable of detaining even the great Borborygmos… in theory. “Yes Trixie, I do have ears,” Twilight sarcastically retorted.

“You clearly don’t use them,” Trixie countered. “I was sent to pick up your device and bring it to Shining so that we could bring it to the theater.” Trixie stared past the purple unicorn and took a good look at the device. It looked like two large discs with small mana coils surrounding them. The coils were separated into small rings, and each hummed a bright blue.

“Those coils that you are looking at are for storing the blue mana needed to power the machine.” Twilight magically lifted the device and twirled it around, showing the device’s 22 small blue indents. “Based on my research it should give you three shots, but I would assume two, better to be prepared.”

“Three should be about perfect!” Trixie replied energetically. “So why aren’t you coming with us tomorrow? We could probably use guns, lots of guns.”

“I have to work on these coils, Niv-Mizzet is working on some secret project. He needs me to help him to repair these things!”

“Right, well, I suppose that we can do without.” Trixie moved to leave before turning and asking, “By the way, I never asked, how did you get mixed up with the Izzet league?”

“Well, I suppose that I’ll skip the parts I’m assuming that we all went through, finding out that nudity is a taboo and all that…”

“I found that out when I went to an alleyway behind an Orzhov church, what about you?” Trixie asked.

“I appeared in one of the mana coil facilities, so I learned pretty quick.” Twilight levitated a cup of coffee to her lips and took a long sip. “I also learned that apparently running into a room naked is a great distraction technique.”

Trixie chuckled. “Alright, but what about what happened after that? What eventually led you to work for Niv-Mizzet?”

“Well, after I learned how differently magic works on Ravnica I decided to head back into the mana coil facilities. I figured that if these things were creating and using magic I could use some to go back home…”

Twilight Sparkle slowly stepped between hissing pipes, carefully inching herself towards an Izzet insignia on the other wall. If her theory about being able to get home with the mana from the mana coils was correct than she had to choose a big one. So she had begun wandering through the underground corridors below what she would later find out was Nivix. After getting to the other side, she looked into the nearby room to find the room filled with three humans conducting experiments. Two were hunched over a hissing pipeline, using magic to stimulate the steam. The other was further away with a heavy rifle, watching the other two work.

The lavender unicorn sent out a lightning bolt at the rifle-wielding one off to the side before charging at the other two. She planted her hooves under one of the humans’ chin, while turning and shocking the other with another blast of lightning. With all three humans down, Twilight sifted through their backpacks, pulling out some greens that she hoped were edible.

She grabbed her new dinner and ran deeper into the compound, continuing to follow the hissing pipes. She was content that she was well out of sight of her victims, who would probably be waking up about now. She had made sure that her magic would only stun them, not kill, not even seriously hurt, just stun long enough for her to get past. Other unicorns would have had difficulties adapting to a new form of magic. But then again, most unicorns weren’t the Element of Magic.

Twilight sat down in the middle of the barely lit corridor. The pipes spewed steam all around her, heating the air. She wiped the sweat from her brow and dug into her mildly disgusting meal. Having a little time to herself, she decided to study the effects of her newly found affinity for blue and red mana. The first thing she did was summon the beginnings of a lightning bolt and fed more energy into it carefully.

The magic of this world seemed to work more based on the quantity of magic fed into the spell instead of the spell itself. A simple fireball could destroy almost anything with enough mana. Twilight closed her eyes, feeling the mild shocks of the bolt’s residue falling all around her. Another thing that she began to slowly understand was the concepts of ‘colors’ of mana, or at least how they worked. While the lavender unicorn couldn’t fully utilize all the different colors of magic to their fullest, she did have more access to them than others would.

Based on her experiments, the mana color known as ‘green’ could be used to stimulate growth or life where none or little existed, or even where plenty exists if you wanted to make a weapon of it. ‘Black’ magic was magic used to do the opposite to corrupt or destroy life. ‘White’ had similar functionality. It could destroy or rebuild, grow or eliminate. But the last two were Twilight’s favorites; ‘red’ mana was more unfocused destruction, more chaotic, but had a multitude of applications. You could easily control the weather, summon a bolt of lightning to destroy what you wanted, or summon a storm of fire to do so as well. And finally of course, ‘blue’, the magic of logic, of technology, of thought. They may as well have called it “Twilight’s Magic”.

Twilight opened her eyes to see that her bolt of lightning had nearly encompassed the room. It was just out of reach of the pipes, a dangerous level of expansion, but she knew what she was doing. She closed off the supply of mana to the bolt, letting it die down. After finishing the various greens she had ‘borrowed,’ she walked over to a small box of wires and switches. One aspect of blue magic that Twilight hadn’t been able to fool around with was the concept of alteration: being able to change the way that the electricity was flowing through the wires, or even control it on a more sophisticated level. The lavender unicorn pressed her horn to the box and switched the polarities of the electrical flow. This caused the pipes further down the way to begin to burst and spew burning hot steam, which closed off the passage behind her.

“That’ll slow them down… I hope.” Twilight hoped that this race had as much of aversion to getting burned as she did. With the path behind her closed, the lavender unicorn ran further down the hallway, which twisted and turned around and around.

Eventually the hall came to a stop at an elevator. Twilight, without many options, went into the elevator, which closed automatically and began moving up towards an unknown destination.

Twilight sat patiently in the elevator as it went further up. Since the hall had ended in it, it was clearly the only way deeper into the facility, but since it went up on its own… “Someone found me out.” Eventually the elevator came to a stop at the top floor of Nivix. Twilight walked out to see a dragon waiting to meet her.

“So you are the mysterious naked terrorist.” The dragon spoke in a booming voice. “I must admit, you are not what I expected.”

Twilight swallowed her fear and answered back, “And you are?”

“Oh, you must forgive my manners, I do not entertain unwanted guests often,” the dragon responded sarcastically. “My name is Niv-Mizzet, the smartest being on Ravnica, and one of the strongest if I may say so, leader of the Izzet League.”

“Okay… so you control these coils then?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, and I employ the people that you have blasted with lightning or kicked in the face.”

“Oh, sorry,” Twilight sheepishly apologized. “I’ve only been on Ravnica for two days, so I hadn’t known that people are supposed to wear clothes. Also, your people attacked me first…”

“Did you say two days?” Niv-Mizzet boomed.

“Yes, why?” Twilight asked.

The dragon stroked his chin and snorted a puff of blackened smoke. “Can you show me your magic, the magic that you have repeatedly used against my men?”

“I said that they attacked me first!” Twilight replied indignantly. “But yes, I suppose that since I did sneak in here that I could accommodate you.” The lavender unicorn channeled red mana into her horn and lightning began to spark around her. Niv-Mizzet looked on with interest, and sent a small bolt of lightning towards Twilight. The unicorn quickly expelled the red mana and jumped back, channeling blue mana into a counterspell, which negated the bolt. “Why did you do that?”

“Not only do you have an understanding of red mana, but also of blue, and so quickly. I have men under my command that still, after training and modifications, cannot perform a proper counterspell. And yet you can perform one in two days, albeit yours is unrefined, wasteful in terms of the amount of magic that you use, but still you grasp the fundamentals rather quickly.”

“Back on my world I am known as the Element of Magic, and I was the apprentice of the princess herself. Of course I would catch on quickly. Not to brag or anything, I mean.” Twilight blushed slightly but cleared her throat and addressed the dragon more forcefully. “I was snooping around the mana coils because I wanted to find a way to send me and my friends home, do you have any ideas how to do that?”

The dragon paused for a moment, his face becoming unreadable. After a few moments he spoke up again, “That is planeswalking magic. That is beyond even my power, currently at least.” Twilight looked downcast for a moment before the dragon continued, “However, I could use someone smart like you in the Izzet League, and perhaps someday you will discover the secret to artificial planeswalking.”

“You want me to join this league of yours, why so soon?” Twilight asked.

“You clearly pick up magic quicker than almost anyone currently working for me, why wouldn’t I want that kind of power on my side? Besides, we both have a similar goal, discovering the secret to planeswalking.”

“There is some kind of secret to it?”

“Currently only powerful beings known as Planeswalkers can do so; it is a magic that you are born with or without. But, I ask, why must that be the case? Why should some be above others simply by birth? The gifts bestowed on someone by chance should be replicable, and planeswalking is the one thing I cannot replicate, yet.”

“Are you asking me to work with you on this?” Twilight asked.

“Not yet. You cannot simply join a guild as prestigious as mine and then expect to be handed the opportunity to work with the smartest being on all of Ravnica. I will assign you a few other projects and allow you some time to look for those friends that you mentioned…”

“How did you know that I don’t know where they are?” Twilight quickly interjected.

“If they were with you, you would have had a few infiltrate my beloved Nivix with you, no? It is only because I felt your presence and forced you upstairs that more of my people were not harmed.”

“You did that, but how…” Twilight thought a moment before smacking her head with her hoof. “You seem to have an affinity for machines, so the building is a giant machine with movable parts. You just have to use your magic to alter the structures around the pipelines, that is why I didn’t notice, you did it while I rested!”

“You catch on quick, equine. So what do you say? Join me, possibly learn a way to get off this world, or do whatever you were doing before?”

Twilight thought for several moments; the choice before her seemed simple, but she couldn’t help but feel that something was off. But there was no other way; she had no way off of Ravnica even if she did find her friends. But with the Izzet, she may find one, even if there was something about Niv-Mizzet that she couldn’t quite place. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll join the Izzet League.”

“Fantastic,” replied Niv-Mizzet, a toothy grin crossing his face.

Welcome to the Show

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City of Guilds
Chapter 9: Welcome to the Show

Shining Armor paced back and forth across the small balcony in the Rakdos Theater. The foul-smelling, cramped, and very hot room would be bad enough if it was just him, and not also filled with ten Boros and a very unhappy Orzhov. Trixie radiated steaming discontent, the sweat on her brow dripped malevolence. The group was stuffed into the disused balcony, as it was the perfect vantage point from which to spring their surprise attack. But that didn’t mean that it was going to be pleasant while they waited. “One day, Sparkle,” the blue unicorn muttered. “One day I will have my revenge.”

“I thought that you weren’t going to hate my sister anymore,” Shining retorted. “Something about positive thinking.”

“That was for past grievances. The book doesn’t say anything about new ones.” Trixie began magically fanning herself with a self-help book entitled “Forgiving All Your enemies: Making Peace with Yourself.”

“I understand that this isn’t the best experience, but how is it my sister’s fault?” Shining asked.

“She made Trixie take the Shackles and refused to come here and help us. It was as if she foresaw this horrid fate and made steps to avoid it.” Trixie used her magic to fan herself harder with the book as the show started up.

Shining attempted to continue the conversation in an attempt to distract himself from how hot he was and how disgusting the room smelled. “So you told me that you and Twily used to be rivals, how did that come about?”

“Disgusting,” Trixie muttered. Shining followed her gaze to the stage where the first act was starting up. The two human females were dressed in a thin satin fabric draped across their breasts. A small skirt clung to their hips as the only other layer of protection to the elements and the gawking stares from the audience. “To think that they are called ‘performers.’ Titillation is not a difficult art to learn; investment is the true key of a performance.”

“Little envious are we?” Shining asked.

“What do you mean?” Trixie inquired, steam practically coming out of her ears now.

“You just know that if you were the one up there then the crowd wouldn’t be cheering as loud, or at all.”

“For your information,” Trixie nearly screamed, “I would have them begging for more, and do you know why that is?”

“Ponies in the audience?”

“No! Because I have flair, I have dramatics, any true performer knows that trumps any meager amount of attractiveness!” Trixie exclaimed with her face just inches away from Shining’s. Trixie chuckled a little under her breath and turned away from Shining. “Damn, you were just pushing my buttons weren’t you?”

Shining started to laugh a little himself. “Yeah, but it got us to forget the heat for a little while, right?”

“I suppose, but still I am hotter than them,” Trixie finished, deadpan.

“Actually,” Shining quickly interjected, changing the subject, “I have heard that there is some kind of feud between the your guild and the Rakdos. Why?”

“Simple,” Trixie responded. “Lotus Nectar.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“Lotus Nectar is a powerful black market drug, almost completely annihilates the user’s nervous system.” Trixie moved closer to the edge of the balcony, motioning for Shining to do the same. Probably not something that she enjoyed talking about in the face of Boros legionnaires, at least not ones that she mildly trust. “Needless to say, it is a junkie’s dream drug. It makes you silly and stupid and no negative side effects. But the Rakdos somehow managed to corner the market on it. So they only give it to high level Rakdos members or mixed with other drugs to people who volunteer to be part of their show.”

“Get people doped up and ask if they want to be tortured. Almost too smart for the Rakdos.” Shining watched as the two dancers finished their performance, and two large men dressed in just as few clothes came out with swords in their hands. The men faced each other and began to spar. Once one was hit, they stepped back and, the one who was hit would cut into his own arm. This earning cheers from the audience.

“Yes, Teysa has suggested to me that is a possibility. The idea that somehow they are being corralled by someone smarter; the question is who?” Trixie asked. “Who would help the Rakdos corner the market for a drug? From all accounts the funds appear to all be going to the guild, not to an outside investor.”

“Maybe whoever it is took a job with the guild in order to get the money from their scheme without leaving a trace. If they just work as a performer and get paid like anyone else, then we couldn’t easily trace it.” Shining pondered this further as the two muscled men onstage continued to battle, one managing to shatter the other’s blade.

“So we would then be forced to investigate every member of the group who earns higher than the average.” Trixie watched on as the man whose blade was broken bit off a part of his shoulder. His opponent threw his blade to the side and the two began to fight bare fisted. “Except that there are many of those kinds of people in the Rakdos; in fact Pinkie Pie is one of them if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yeah,” Shining replied. “But Lotus Nectar was around before we came here, the market was only cornered shortly after we arrived. Not enough time to consider Pinkie a suspect.”

“Unless she is somehow far smarter than we give her credit for.”

“She’s smart, in her own way. But no way did she manage to do something like that.”

The fight continued on until finally a winner was reached. The man whose sword was broken managed to snap his competitor’s neck and stood victorious. A couple of medics came out and pulled him offstage to treat his wounds. Pinkie Pie came out and introduced the next act. The curtain pulled back to reveal a large chain crisscrossed across the lighting rig which hung thirty feet in the air. A man held a pig’s head in his hand and began to walk across the chains, while blindfolded people below him walked along the stage, trying to avoid the dripping pig’s blood.

“What could Sparkle be doing right now that is more important than capturing Borborygmos?”

Twilight Sparkle was knee-deep in wires. Offering to Niv-Mizzet to fix the damaged mana coils was something that she probably should have considered first, but… “Any way that I can get a look at those mechanisms feeding power into Nivix again.” She scanned the Blistercoil for any points of mana leakage, which she was to immediately rewire to be fed into Nivix.

“Madam Sparkle, do you need any help?” Twilight’s Vedalken assistant stood off to the side holding a bunch of tools. Niv-Mizzet had also briefed him on the situation, which he accepted without question.

“Answer me this,” Twilight remarked. “Why don’t you care about what Niv-Mizzet needs with all of this mana?”

“Because he is the guildmaster. What he says is law,” the Vedalken replied without a trace of emotion.

“But seriously, he’s been gathering all of this mana for however long for whatever reason. This doesn’t bother you? At all?” Twilight asked.

“To attempt to comprehend Niv-Mizzet is a dangerous affair,” the Vedalken robotically intoned. “He has given us a mission. We will fix these coils, then we will be rewarded. That is the way that we work. Now I ask again, do you require any assistance?”

“So we can’t even try and comprehend what he does? That is crap, and any creature as intelligent as you claim to be would understand that.”

“Your attempts to get me to question Niv-Mizzet’s orders through petty insults against my brainpower fall on deaf ears, as the saying goes.” The Vedalken stopped briefly before continuing. “As a retort, I would reference the fact that you needed my help creating the restraint mechanism on the Shackles that are currently being used on Borborygmos.”

“We’ll see if that works. I’m not so sure that routing the mana through a single focal point is more effective than my original method.”

“Routing the mana through two separate conduits would double the amount of mana needed for restraint.”

“It would also mean that the magic is folded on top of the other. It would be easier to seal him that way. If one of the shackles, if we were using my original design, were to be clamped on his wrists, then it would restrain him enough to get the other on the other arm, no problem.”

“But it would mean that there would be a far smaller room for error. And the possibility that he would break free is doubled.”

“In theory. In your theory all he would have to do is break one of them to shatter the conduit, but that is just a theory; we were never able to prove it…”

“Because we don’t have a test subject as strong as Borborygmos. But your theory that the mana interfering with his natural mana flow and suppress him is also based solely on conjecture.”

“Borborygmos, master of the Gruul, could not possibly have a sense of awareness to be able to resist the mana flooding. The blue mana would interfere with his normal mana balance. In the same way that introducing a lack or overabundance of gravity would change an internal sense of direction or movement.”

“All conjecture.”

“I’m aware. I did go with your version for a reason, and it wasn’t compromise.”

“It was because you wouldn’t be there to use the Shackles yourself. They have to be used by someone else, someone who doesn’t use blue mana. Thereby it needs to be able to hold a larger charge.”

Twilight grudgingly mumbled a yes and went back to her work, the rhythmic clicking and hissing of pipes and gears calming her, giving her a sense of tranquility. Science was just like magic, at least to Twilight. With magic you used mana combined with a specific understanding of how to apply that mana to achieve an end. With science and machines you built a machine that ran on a power source, usually mana, that is set up to accomplish a task based on the input of its user and the mechanisms involved in its creation. It was because of this that Twilight had easily been able to adapt to life on Ravnica as an Izzet engineer.

The Vedalken Mex had been her partner for a while now, and while he was useful there was one thing that really ticked the lavender unicorn off. The Vedalken had no ambition, nothing to strive towards. This made them incredibly useful when testing but not so much for brainstorming. It upset Twilight because she had grown to a realization that it was vision and intelligence that shaped a plane. She took strides to be that way herself, inventing the things that people wouldn’t have thought to invent. So it annoyed her to see a creature with all the intelligence that she had, but no ambition, no vision…

“Ms. Sparkle, you’ve stopped working. What is the matter?” Mex asked.

“It’s nothing, just get back to work. Maybe we can finish this relatively quickly, maybe even get to see the tail end of the performance,” Twilight responded.

Vex smiled. “You really do care for her, even though she is a murderer, you still care for her as you would have on your world.”

“Firstly, her killings are technically legal so they aren’t murder, which is illegal. You’re a smart guy; use proper terminology. Second, yes, Pinkie is still my friend, no matter how much changes. She would still, somewhere, somehow, still be that eccentric mare who greeted me with a welcome party before she even knew my name. I’ll never forget that, no matter what happens.” Twilight hurriedly went back to work, sealing wires together to fix the broken generator.

“How odd,” Mex stated. “It appears that Borborygmos may not have been the only one with a vested interest in this place.”

“What is it?”

“A strange pendant, no guild insignia, but I am detecting blue mana in large quantities,” Mex handed the pendant over to Twilight who eagerly examined the strange object. “Any purpose?”

“I think…” Twilight began, “that this is a listening device, meant for long distances. It appears to be transferring some kind of information from here to somewhere close by, and I can’t really imagine another function that they could do with something this small.”

Mex suddenly looked concerned and hastily grabbed the pendant. “How far away do you think it is?”

“Can’t be that far, I mean there is no way that this small pendant can go that far; maybe if we journeyed down the pipeline we could find exactly where it originates…”

“Then I’ll take it and go looking for the source. You put the finishing touches on the device,” Mex demanded.

“Well, I would think that this sounds like a demand, but I’ll go along with it, just be back soon, okay?” Twilight let the Vedalken walk off and continued to pore over the wiring in front of her.

Shining Armor and Trixie had managed to survive the sweltering heat of the small projection booth, and now the performance was nearing its end. The previous act, a woman who swallowed a whole yard of barbed wire, left the stage and Pinkie Pie, dressed as Surprise, came onstage. “How have you guys enjoyed this so far?” The crowd cheered and loudly applauded, halted only by Pinkie raising a hoof.

“I’m glad that all of you have enjoyed yourselves, and I know that many of you want to see me eviscerate someone while cracking puns like a baker cracks eggs, but I have something to say first.” The crowd grew quiet, and their attention was drawn to the area directly beneath the projection booth that Shining and Trixie were in. Shining watched as from below them stepped Borborygmos, the Cyclops. He was huge, so huge that Shining could reach out and hit his head without having to leave the balcony.

“Many of you probably already knew about this, but in case you didn’t, Borborygmos recently lost someone, someone that was important to the both of us: his daughter, Scognor, but I always knew her by Scootaloo.” Pinkie loudly gulped, swallowing her tears. “When I was in Equestria, I never talked to Scootaloo all that much; she was a kid and had her own little circle of friends. I talked to her occasionally, but it wasn’t all the time. But once we came to Ravnica, this world, our respective guilds changed us. Some think that these changes are negative; I never have.”

“Scootaloo never thought that way either. She cherished coming here, and even if she wasn’t always direct about it, she was in her rebellious years, she loved her dad.” Borborygmos nodded solemnly as Pinkie continued. “Back on Equestria, Scootaloo was an orphan. No one knows how or why; she just showed up at Ponyville orphanage one day, and no one could figure out where she came from. Worse yet, she was bullied in school a lot, because she couldn’t fly.”

“But then she met Borborygmos and joined the Gruul and through a ‘grueling’ training regimen.” Pinkie sniffled and shook her head, “Sorry, trying to lighten the mood, but the point is that eventually she did learn to fly. Doctors back on Equestria told her that she wouldn’t gain sustained flight until her teens, and yet there she was, flying to this very theater every Saturday, so that she could train with me.”

“The reason she trained was to fight Rainbow Dash, another old friend of mine, because she was told by the Simic to destroy a Gruul encampment. Now Borborygmos knows that I think that he’s a big ol’ sweetie, but I can’t condemn Dashie, she is a friend, not was, is.” Borborygmos nodded, which Pinkie reciprocated.

“But Scootaloo, back on Equestria, she idolized Rainbow Dash, thought that she was the most radical, coolest, most gnarly thing since scooters. But she still chose the Gruul over her idol; she was prepared to get revenge for her new home. But it wasn’t Rainbow Dash who murdered Scootaloo, that almost would have been laudable, like at least she lost to her rival, a worthy fate for a warrior, and one that her dad would have been proud of if it had been a good fight where she fought valiantly to the last second.”

“But it wasn’t a fair fight, it wasn’t even a fight as far as the Boros can tell. She was murdered by someone, just stabbed and left in the Promenade. I cannot believe that, and I kill for all of you to laugh at. But I don’t leave bodies in a public place to make some kind of twisted statement. I do this to make everyone laugh, not to instill terror in the people of this world. So I have a message for whoever did this, the perp who thinks that they’ve gotten away…”

Twilight stood up from her work. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. All of the wires were magically sewn back together, and it was producing magic exactly the way that it was supposed to. “Mex, we’re finished here,” she called. No response. “Mex?” She started walking down the hallway when, as she was nearing the exit, she heard the familiar sound of two metallic objects colliding. She quickly turned the corner and saw Mex.

Mex was lying on the ground dead, a small knife wound seeping blood on his chest. And standing over him was a pony. The mare was about Twilight’s height and had short silvery locks, which complimented her dark blue fur. And in her mouth was a small dagger dripping with blood…

Pinkie looked up at the balcony, tears in her eyes. Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion. Trixie began to summon ghosts of some kind, and Shining powered up a spell while attaching the Shackles to his armor. The various guards began rushing downstairs to flank Borborygmos, who stood across the way from her. He saw nothing wrong with his current situation; he was just looking at her, clearly trying not to cry. He was a friend. A friend that Pinkie had just betrayed. “Get ready for a Surprise.” And the trap was sprung.

Performers

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City of Guilds
Chapter 10: Performers

The trap was sprung, and Borborygmos found himself being pelted from all sides by blinding flashes and small spears of light. After that initial wave had finished and the brute was stumbling, blinded, a second wave of Boros archers took to firing into his back, merely annoying Borborygmos. Trixie summoned a group of wailing ghosts and wraiths that began circling the beast. The long-dead souls began pelting the Cyclops with fire and slashing at him with blades.

Shining began charging the Shackles and watched as the Cyclops regained his sight long enough to slam his massive fist into the wall behind him. The shockwave shook Shining and caused many of the archers to lose their balance and fall underneath Borborygmos’s heel. Then one of the Boros made a split-second decision and fired a hostile beam of light straight at Borborygmos’s eye.

A large serving dish flew in the beam’s way and was blasted to smithereens. Pinkie screamed at the captain, inadvertently giving away his position to the angry Cyclops. “You said that he would be brought in for questioning, not killed or even seriously hurt! That was the deal!” This brought Borborygmos sight down upon Shining’s hiding place, and the Cyclops wound up a punch aimed straight at the captain. Shining finished preparing the Shackles and attempted to use them, only for the Cyclops to be knocked aside. One of Trixie’s conjurations was instead grabbed by several blue tendrils of mana and was wrapped by the massive Shackles. Trixie destroyed her servant and the Shackles fell to the ground.

Borborygmos, now fully recovered from the initial assault, snarled at the blue unicorn next to the Shackles. Shining jumped from the rafters in front of Borborygmos and fired a blinding beam at the creature, blinding it momentarily. The brutish Cyclops stomped around, forcing the Boros to scatter from their initial ambush positions. “I had him!” Shining yelled at Trixie.

“And he had you! We came here for a victory, not a draw!” she yelled back. The blue unicorn grabbed the Shackles in her magic and mentally commanded her remaining spirits to usher the angry crowd back towards the stage. “Trixie suggests a switching of roles.” Shining nodded and charged at Borborygmos, firing more flaming bursts at the creature.

“Come on, you big brute, let’s take this outside.” Shining fired lightning bolts at the Cyclops, making use of the contained enclosure.

Trixie giggled behind his back, “’You big brute,’ really?”

“Not the time, Trixie!” Shining kept firing at the Cyclops’s eye, but a single stomp of the mighty monster’s foot to the ground sent him flying back. Borborygmos flew an arm back and smashed the wall behind him, stepping out into the Ravnican evening. He stood at the ready, prepared for Shining to run out after him. Shining smiled and charged his horn. The unicorn teleported onto the top of the building and fired another blinding beam the Borborygmos.

The Cyclops was able to avoid much of the blast, only losing his vision for a moment. This moment was enough for Shining, however, as he leapt from the theater to the nearby Rakdos barracks. Borborygmos swung his massive fist at Shining’s previous location, stopping just short when his vision cleared.

The giant creature let out a furious roar and adjusted his aim, punching the side of the other building. The shock shook Shining but he shot another blast of lightning at Borborygmos’s already smoldering fur. The blasts seemed to do little more than anger the already quite angry Borborygmos. The Cyclops patted his back, the sheer force of which put out the accumulating fires. Shining saw his chance, and a crazy, risky, and amazingly stupid idea, but he went for it. Shining jumped on Borborygmos’s head, using his magic to summon a flaming lasso to wrap around one of his horns.

Twilight simply stared at the earth pony in front of her as time seemed to slow down. As the mare looked up from her kill, Twilight noted that her eyes were blank, with no pupils. The dagger being carried by the mystery mare was jet black and seemed to have weird inscriptions on the side. The long cloak she wore obscured much of her, leaving only her head visible. But with a quick glance Twilight noticed a small signet on the base of hilt of the mare’s dagger…

“Dimir…” she muttered slowly.

The mare leapt from her victim and straight at Twilight. The unicorn quickly erected a barrier the size of the hall, which the mare stopped just short of. Twilight grinned, but the mare simply smirked back at her. Twilight watched as the mare seemed to simply melt into the ground. In a state of shock, Twilight lowered the barrier and tapped her hoof repeatedly on the patch of metal where her opponent used to be standing. “Earth pony… magic?” Before she could answer that question, she heard a light tapping and turned to see the vanishing mare charging at her again.

“Eep!” Twilight threw up another smaller barrier, but again the mare stopped just short of it and adjusted herself. She leapt to the left using her right legs to bounce off of the vents and straight at Twilight. The unicorn jumped back, only some of her hair was cut by the dagger, she teleported behind the attacker and started running. Twilight had only been running for about a minute when her attacker jumped out only a few feet in front of her. She quickly shot lightning at the charging mare, who used her back legs to move herself out of the way of the blast, although some caught her cloak.

The mare adjusted her head slightly and leapt out of her cloak and faded once again into the darkness. Twilight stopped dead, gasping for breath as she turned around and around searching for the attacker. The purple unicorn grasped at as much blue mana as she could and scanned for any magical residue. She managed to calm her breathing and closed her eyes. In a state of forced sensory deprivation she would be able to sense and see nothing but mana.

She waited for only a few moments before some of the blue mana shifted, almost as if a small wormhole was conjured in a spot next to her. Twilight opened her eyes and bucked in the direction of the hole. Her kick connected to the mare, who flew back a few feet before flipping back onto her hooves. The purple unicorn quickly turned and got a good look at her without the cloak. The dark blue fur she had seen already, but what was interesting was the girl’s cutie mark. One could barely notice where it started, as part of it was a small black cloak, and seemingly coming from inside that was the undeniable hilt of a dagger.

“Who are you? Why did you kill Vex?” The pieces all fell into place. “You’re the killer?” Twilight got it; of course she had managed to kill Scootaloo and Myczil. With her weird teleportation she could come right up behind them and slit their throat without them reacting. The mare once again smirked at Twilight and melted into a dark hole in the ground. Once again Twilight started scanning for magic residue, now knowing exactly what to look for. After waiting for a full minute she realized that her opponent was nowhere to be seen.

Twilight paced back and forth in the hall checking around every corner. The pony that was attacking her, Twilight knew that she, wouldn’t just give up on her. “Okay, so she’s an Earth pony who can teleport for some reason.” Twilight gulped and continued muttering to herself. “She killed Vex and more than likely she was the one who killed Scootaloo and Myczil. More than likely, if she is their killer, she was just about to drag him off to the Promenade when I showed up. She won’t stop hunting me until I’m dead. I’m a witness after all, and now that I know that she’s a pony…” Twilight shuddered to think about what Celestia would do if she found out about this. Any thoughts to her allowing Pinkie a free pass would be gone completely.

Twilight stopped and held her breath, listening closely. All the purple unicorn could do was wait, her magic primed. The vents spewing steam created a consistent harmony of sound. Twilight magically scanned the floor for any vibrations and felt them from the next hallway. She primed her horn with a powerful stun spell. The spell could put the mare in a coma for a few days, but at this point that would be better than making the spell less powerful just to be able to question her quicker.

The mare jumped around the corner, and Twilight shot off her spell. But once again the mare’s reflexes proved too good, as she swung the blade at the spell, using the blade as a shield. Once she landed she leapt again at Twilight, all within the blink of an eye. Faced with very few alternatives, Twilight jumped to her side, shoving her body against the steaming hot vents. The mare missed her mark; the purple unicorn peeled herself from the vents, a shriek of pain filling the tunnels. She tried to quickly fire off a blast at the mare, but her target ran off into the room where Vex was located.

Twilight rushed back, only to find the room was completely deserted. “She teleported.” Twilight smiled a little; as much damage as she had done to herself, she had proved a new fact about her teleportation. It wasn’t completely immediate, and considering she felt the need to hide in order to teleport, it could more than likely be interrupted. “If I can get outside, then I’ll have the advantage.” As long as she was in the Mana Coil facility, she was tightly constricted in terms of where she could go and whether or not she could dodge her attacker’s strikes. But out in the open, where she could unleash a little storm magic on the shadowy mare… Twilight started running off in the direction of the exit, ignoring the searing pain in her side.

Borborygmos swung himself wildly around, trying to dislodge the pony on his head. He grabbed at his fur, but Shining merely hopped to his back, tethered by the flaming lasso attached to one of his horns. Borborygmos reached back, only for Shining to swing to his front, biting fur as a way of stopping. The unicorn launched another blinding spell at the Cyclops’s eye, but the beast shut it at the last moment, lowering its effectiveness.

Borborygmos opened his eye, his sight reduced to that of someone with their contacts in wrong. Thinking fast, he ran at the building in front of him, slamming into it at full force. Shining bounded upwards and gripped the Cyclops’s horn. He jumped off and landed on top of the performance hall. The white unicorn fired off another blinding beam at the Cyclops. Borborygmos simply turned his head, causing the blast to hit the back of his head ineffectively.

The Cyclops kept his head low, avoiding any surprise attacks from the persistent unicorn. He noticed the Boros attack squad leaving the building. A sinister grin spread across his face as he rushed forward and grabbed one of the men, bringing him up to his mouth. Searing pain spread through Borborygmos’s back as Shining landed in front of him, firing blasts of light into his face all the way. Borborygmos staggered back, dropping his prey. The massive beast grabbed a large tree trunk and let out an ear-piercing scream. While Shining grunted, his face contorted in pain, he looked up only just moments before the tree collided with him.

While Shining was sent careening backwards by a large tree, Trixie exited the performance hall and began firing her own blinding beams at the Cyclops. Trixie fired the Shackles at Borborygmos, who began screaming and pressing against the closing restraints. As the Shackles began to twist and close in on the brute, he continued to push against them. Trixie stepped back defensively and summoned her dark spear, only for one large beam of light to blast the Cyclops right in the eye, causing him to submit to the Shackles.

Trixie looked behind her to the tree that slammed into Shining. The unicorn was laying there, blood dripping from his snout and nose, one of his legs contorted so that it pointed straight to the sky, but he was alive. “Shining! How?”

“I managed to throw up a small shield before it hit me. Not big enough to do anything more than soften the blow, but I only broke one leg rather than all four so… that’s a plus.” Shining began to sink into unconsciousness as Trixie started shouting for a medic, and the troops began to approach the captured Cyclops.

Twilight collapsed against a wall, completely drained, gasping for air. By now the pain in her side from the burns was a dull throb, possibly because of the adrenaline rush. Her eyes darted distressingly back and forth, searching for any sign of her pursuer. The people of Ravnica spoke of the horrors that the Dimir were capable of… and now Twilight was beginning to understand why. This Dimir was a pony like she was, which meant that she had to have been brought here the same as them, and in only a year, she was this powerful.

Twilight’s breathing steadied, and she began to pull blue and red mana from the area. She began to mix together elements in the air, summoning a weird. The weirds were an Izzet creation of humanoid shape formed from the combination of two opposite forces, like fire and water. As the weird was finished, it stood back against the wall opposite to Twilight. “Scout forward, keep checking behind you, anything that isn’t me you attack.” The weird nodded in understanding and began moving forward into the tunnel with Twilight following behind it slowly.

The two eventually reached a junction that split into two roads ahead. Twilight lit her horn and channeled blue magic through the weird, ushering it down the path that led to the surface. The weird began moving slowly forward, stopping every few steps to check behind itself for any sight of its creator’s unseen nemesis. The Dimir pony leapt from the ceiling and stabbed its black dagger into the weird, which tumbled over dead.

Twilight leapt from the shadows and jumped for the mare. The assassin noted this and another her seemed to run out of herself. Twilight leapt on top of the original and sprayed fire at it. The body that Twilight had jumped onto dissolved, but the other body that had seemingly jumped straight out of it disappeared into shadows. “Clone…” The purple mare grinned a little, she had used a spell to make the Weird look like her, a clone spell variant, but her opponent used the same trick against her.

A noise from further down the tunnel alerted Twilight. Considering how far away the mare was teleporting, she seemed scared. “This is probably the first time that her prey has put up this much of a fight,” Twilight thought. She started running down the corridor as fast as she could, hoping that if she could get far enough that the mare wouldn’t be able to track her.

Even as her breathing became raspy and her legs burned in pain from overexertion, she kept running, she was just a minute away from the exit. The mare dropped from the ceiling only a foot away from Twilight, who inwardly cursed herself. “The sound, she was following the sound of my hooves,” she thought. The purple mare threw up a blue barrier around her neck, where she assumed the assailant would aim. Sure enough, the shadowy mare thrust her black dagger at Twilight’s throat just as the barrier spell went up. The blade bounced right off, knocking the mare back somewhat.

Twilight just kept running, inches away from her goal. Finally close enough to the exit, she teleported for the street. Since arriving on Ravnica her pony-related magic had diminished, albeit not entirely. She materialized a foot off the ground, as she didn’t have much time to prep the spell. The purple mare tumbled onto the street, rolling into an Izzet scientist. “Help!” she squeaked. “Get me back to Nivix… quickly… have to warn…” The scientist nodded and started shouting into the nearby crowd for a Boros to give them a ride to Nivix. Twilight looked in the direction of the entrance grate and saw the cover open slightly before closing again. Content that she had evaded her pursuer Twilight, allowed her eyes to close.