Soarin and his squad rushed through the forest, firing at the retreating rebel forces, their shots being blocked by the trees. “Alright stallions! Fan out and eliminate any remaining rebel forces! Take no prisoners! Kill them all!”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
The soldiers separated into groups of three and four, listening to their earpieces for the locations of fleeing rebels.
“Soarin, you got 3 on your right!”
“On the right?” Soaring and two soldiers following him turned to their right, and spotted two rebels, who ran upon realising that they’d been spotted. “Gotcha!” Before he could fire, a barrage of bullets from behind caused them to immediately run and take cover behind some trees. “From behind?...A trick!?”
One of the soldiers was hit, and fell to the floor. The other was hit, but was able to keep moving. Soarin was quick enough to reach cover without being hit.
“Lord Soarin! It’s an ambush! We’re surr- AAAHHHH!”
“Ricardo? Ricardo, respond!”
“My lord, we need backup! It’s- AAAHHHH!”
One by one, Soarin received similar reports from his fellow soldiers. Reports of the enemy attacking all of a sudden, before the signal died out.
“What the hell? Who’s leading these terrorists!?”
Before he could check to see if anypony was still alive, Soarin heard footsteps coming from behind him. He was ready to leap out and point his gun at the incoming foe, but a voice stopped him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Soarin.” Soarin recognised the voice. It belonged to none other than the infamous terrorist mastermind Mare Do Well. “I simply wish to talk. Come out with your hooves on your head, now. And that goes for the soldier over there, too.”
Soarin, seeing that the enemy had surrounded him whilst he was taking cover, decided that he had no choice. He dropped his weapon, and emerged with his hooves on his head. The other soldier that was with him did the same thing. Soarin looked towards the masked figure, who was holding a gun pointed straight at him. “Mare Do Well…How are you here? I thought you were attacking the Detrot outpost.”
Mare Do Well walked closer to Soarin, along with a few of her followers, who were dressed in similar attire to her, but without the mask, hat, or cape. They were Mare Do Well’s loyal followers: The Black Nights.
“Yes, well, information is easy to manipulate…If you have the right connections.”
“You mean…A spy within our military!?”
“That’s right. I just need to plant a few of my ponies in there, and I can arrange for whatever kind f situation I want. That’s the key to winning any game: setting the conditions to your favour.”
Soarin awoke inside of a jail cell, his eyes taking their time to adjust to the light. He looked at the guards outside, who were standing vigilantly to ensure that Soarin does not escape. ‘That’s right…Two days ago…I killed her. I killed…No!’ Soarin stood up suddenly, and punched the wall next to him with his hoof, so hard that his hoof began to bleed.
‘It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me that killed her! It was her! It was that Mare Do Well…Twilight Sparkle, and her despicable Geass power!’ Soarin sat back down, and allowed himself to get lost in thought, not really having much else to do. ‘Geass…The power to control a pony, and then erase their memories…If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. It explains everything! How Mare…How Twilight was able to kill the Prince so easily, why many of our finest and most loyal soldiers turned traitor all of a sudden, and…Why I…’
Soarin raced through the field as fast as he could. The soldiers were hot on his trail, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to outrun them forever. He had to shake them off somehow. If he could just make it to the forest.
Somehow, he managed to not only reach the forest, but he managed to get deep enough that he seemed to have lost the pursuing soldiers. He allowed himself some time to catch his breath, before pointing his gun towards a rustling in the bushes. He expected to see a soldier, or maybe a villager just passing by, but instead, what he saw was…
“T…Twilight Sparkle!?” Twilight Sparkle emerged from the bush, her mask off, and her face on full display. She grinned at Soarin as he stared at her with a mixture of insanity and rage. After a few seconds, he smiled, and chuckled to himself. “Well well well. I have to thank you. You’ve made getting my revenge that much easier!”
“Hold on, Soarin. I merely wish to talk to you…”
“Hmph! The last time I heard those words from you, my entire life was flipped around! I once had it all! A beautiful wife, friends, a home, and a position of authority! But you…You took all of it away, and made me your pawn! You and that accursed eye…”
“So you do know about my Geass power…And you knew about my identity too…Tell me, who told you about my Geass?”
“I’m not telling you anything! The only thing you’ll do…Is die, right here and now!” Before he could pull the trigger, another rustling in the bushes to his right caused him to turn and point his gun at their new guest. However, when he saw who it was, he started to lower his gun, a look of horror and confusion stuck on his face. Twilight allowed a small chuckle to escape her. “S…Spitfire? W-What are you doing here?”
Spitfire pulled out a gun, and raised it slowly. Soarin expected her to point it at either him or Twilight. However, she instead pointed the gun at her own head, ready to pull the trigger at any second. Soarin’s mouth hung open, but when he saw the redness in her eyes, his look of rage returned to him. He knew what was going on. He pointed his gun back at Twilight.
“You BITCH!”
“Ah-ah-ah…” Twilight kept her own gun pointed at Soarin, and waggled her free hoof in front of her. “That’s a bad idea, Soarin. If you kill me, then Spitfire will also die.” Her grin grew wider as Soarin lowered his gun in defeat, his rage building with each passing second. “There, that’s a good boy. Now, how about you go ahead and tell me who the other witness was?”
Soarin hesitated, but one point towards Spitfire from Twilight was all he needed to speak up. “I don’t know…” When Twilight nodded to Spitfire, Soarin reached out and told her to wait. She allowed him to continue. “I don’t know her name, but…I can tell you what she looked like.”
“Go on, then.”
“She was a blue Unicorn, and had a long, silver mane and tail. She wore some kind of purple cape, with a star pattern on it. And…That’s about it…Oh, yeah. And her eyes were purple, too.”
It didn’t take Twilight long to build a mental image of who the other witness was. ‘Trixie? It does match her quite well…Anyway, this is the only lead I have right now…But, then if it was her, I would have expected her to have revealed my identity straight away…So, maybe it wasn’t her after all?’
“Is that all?”
Twilight shook her head, and continued. “Where is she now?”
“How would I know? I’ve been imprisoned for the last three days, remember!?”
“Hmm…True…Alright, one last question. Who told you about my Geass power?”
Soarin hesitated again, but continued after looking over at Spitfire one more time. “It was…A young colt…He called himself V.V.”
“V.V.?” Twilight repeated, putting her free hoof to her chin. “I see…I don’t suppose he told you much besides what my Geass does, right?”
“He didn’t.”
Twilight looked into Soarin’s eyes for a few seconds, and, after determining that he wasn’t lying, decided to end her little interrogation. “Well, those are all the questions I had. Oh, and thank you for not revealing my identity, though I suppose you couldn’t anyway, when you weren’t allowed to speak…”
Soarin placed his hand at the shock collar around his throat. It was broken now, but when it was functioning correctly, the collar would prevent him from speaking out. The Empire’s policy was that all criminals were trash, and trash was not allowed the privilege of speaking freely.
“Now, I just need to erase all of the witnesses…”
Soarin’s eyes widened at this, and he raised his gun quickly, attempting to shoot Twilight. But before he could, he heard a loud bang, and felt a sharp pain running through his chest. He dropped his gun, after losing his grip on it, and turned his head towards his wife, Spitfire. She was pointing her gun at Soarin, her face completely void of all emotion, and a small trail of smoke was leaving her gun. He collapsed to the ground, unable to even speak, as the world grew darker and darker with each passing second. Soon enough, he drifted away into death. ‘Spitfire…Why?’
“Good work. And now, there’s but one more task at hand.” Twilight said, grinning at Spitfire, who nodded and answered in a monotonous voice.
“Yes. After shooting Soarin, I am to kill myself.” Spitfire brought the gun to her head, and pulled the trigger, killing herself without a moment of hesitation.
“Was it really necessary to kill them both?” C.C. asked as Twilight took off her Mare Do Well outfit, and placing it into her special hiding place in her room, to make sure that nopony would stumble upon it.
“It was.” Twilight said coldly and she finished putting away her outfit. “Even if Geass affects her memory shortly before and during its use, she still remembers me from before I used my Geass on her. And although it’s a very small chance, if the soldiers talk to her and discover my identity…”
“That makes sense, but why did you go to the trouble of breaking him out when you could have just killed him in the jail cell?”
“Because if I did that, an investigation into his death would have opened up, and then the chance of the soldiers stumbling upon something that I missed is presented. All it takes is one little piece…And then the Empire may very well find out about me…And that I am Mare Do Well.”
“So you made it look like he broke out whilst you were rescuing your Black Night followers? But what about when they find the body? Won’t that cause an investigation to open up?”
“Yes, but that will be resolved quickly. There was another reason I controlled Spitfire the way I did…” Twilight’s grin returned to her face, and C.C., suddenly realising what she was talking about, let out a small chuckle.
“I see. Spitfire, whose loyalty towards the Empire is legendary, discovers that her greatest love, Soarin, is actually a traitor. In a fit of madness, she kills him…And then herself. Is that it?”
“Indeed. An overused story, but it gets the job done. One look at the ballistic marking on the bullets will show that they both came from the same gun. Spitfire’s gun.” Twilight’s grin grew larger as she started up her laptop. “And of course, there will only be one set of hoofprints on that gun.”
“Hmm…You learn something new every day…”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, until now…I didn’t realise that there were demons living in Equestria.”
Twilight began her nightly routine of looking through the list of new Black Night applicants. “And until I met you, I didn’t realise that witches existed, either.” She turned around and faced C.C., her face changing to a more serious one. “And by the way, C.C., we need to talk…This V.V., you know him, right?”
C.C. turned so that she was lying on her back, and kicked her hind legs in the air. “Can’t say I know much about him, but I can tell you all what I do know…If it is part of your reason for living.”
