White Lie
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.
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love to point out that you gave feather a lot of red abilities and is very similar to Angelic Skirmisher
2485928 Actually she is more focused in white, as Lifelink, Flying, and pro-black are all primarily white abilities, and the similarity to Angelic Skirmisher are intentional. All of these faux-cards at the bottoms of the chapters are cards that would pop up in my version of a set based on this story, and she's basically a -still playable- less draft/sealed destroying version of Skirmisher.
Take it from someone who played her in an Orzhov deck at the prerelease, she can win games, very easily.
2486042 sorry meant white abilities as well as it has been stated by wizards that the guild leaders cost are two of each color of their guild and has to be related to the guild style
2486055 Again this is based on my personal version of the set, as though it was designed by me. This, and one other reason that will become apparent later, is also why some guilds have both their master and champion in the same set.
In this case I decided that my version of the guild masters (if enough people want it I'll work in my versions of all of the others as well) would be one of one color and two of another, with their abilities focused on the color that they cost two of.
Feather's ability will make sense when you see her in combat several chapters from now, and she's the first one that I changed because most of the others haven't really been that important yet.
2486084 this is about you ignoring half their identities by doing that and the champions and guildleader is part of the point of the guild, a public authority and an example of what a normal guildmage should be like, not the god like figure of a guildleader.
2486107 Perhaps the new version is better to your liking.
2486134 new effect is the right colors not the boros style as it is to support her allies or large scale damage to enemies the boros is attacks as a large group and overrun their enemies
look at the new rakdos it support attacking with no defense
2486157 That gives me an idea. A Lightning Helix variant that doesn't suck.
Feather 3WWRR
Flying, Haste
When Feather attacks deal 1 damage to target creature or player for each creature on your side of the field that is attacking. Gain that much life.
2486589 now that is boros fun fact they planed to return lighting helix for gatecrash it was two powerful
2486897 Of course, its only a GOOD burn spell. God do I remember the days when "burn" meant Lightning Bolt, not Warleader's Helix.
Also I actually have to thank you for calling me out on it, being forced to revaluate the card eventually caused it to go from generic to kind of awesome. I would play my version of Feather
2487160 I have found that attacking a card makes one want to defend it why is that card legendary can it be a mythic instead does it feel like what colors it is how about how it fits into the area they are the first version of Feather you had was more white it didn't represent the boros it was a mythic rare angel in innistrad for what it did
2686029 Thank you very much! My editor also deserves huge props for improving the first 4 chapters with me! Look forward to an update soon.