Broken 4th Rule

Chapter 4; The Chase in the City

The guard were still trying to catch whatever it was that was in there. As patients visitors were funneled outside doctors and nurses tried their best to check on everyone and keep them calm.

"Hey Thrashion," he jabbed at my side. "Let’s slip away when nopony notices. Let’s disappear into the woods. "

"Yeah, that sounds good, dude."

We ran, bumping into other ponies mesmerized by the chaos unraveling in the hospital. We made it into the nearby woods and were soon out of sight.

We waved in and out of the sparse woods that were around us until we were near an old-looking church. Spooky and I were hiding in the bushes outside what we agreed must be a monastery because there were monks with robes moving around outside. We watched as the monks were washing and hanging their laundry, mostly brown robes. We observed them in silence.

"What do you think Thrashion?" Spooky finally asked, breaking the silence.

I picked up a loose branch and tested against my other hoof. "Wondering if beating a holy pony would get me into hell?"

"Dude! I mean, do you think that's a good idea? I mean, I can make good disguises from them, but seriously?"

"Once again... beating a holy pony..."

"I can grab them. I'm fast enough," Spooky interjected flatly.

We watched as the monks finished hanging up their robes and went back inside. I watched as Spooky backed up and in a simple breath he sped out of the bushes. He grabbed an armful of robes, pivoted on a wolf-like heel and in another half-second he was back in the bushes.

“Got them,” he said with a smile. “Now I can work on them. I just need to some time.”

I shook my head. “You and your freakish knowledge of sewing.”

Brody was getting scary good with using his new body. I could barely lift my wings, not really fair.

“And don’t forget cooking, we’ll need that later,” Spooky added as he worked.

With the robes Spooky made us both useful disguises. He made a dress that covered my wings and flank as well as a floppy hat that covered my horn. While his disguise was a peso-dog suit, he looked like a living mop type.

The two of use followed road into Baltimare, damn pony pun. The city was definitely crowded and it reminded me a lot of a human city, but with ponies.

“OK, first we need money. Then we need to get out of here. Plus, we can’t go any where near Canterlot, PonyVille, Manehatten, Cloudsdale, or Appleoosa.” Spooky said quietly as we walked along.

“OK, getting out of here is a good idea since they’ll be looking for us here. You said that Canterlot and PonyVille are part of the show, so you're probably right. It’s good idea to stay away from them. But Clowsdale, Manehatten and Appleoosa?”

“Clouds-dale, C-l-o-u-d-s-d-a-l-e.” He corrected me. “Is a cloud city that makes weather for all of Equestria. Flying types are the only ones that can live up there, and I don’t have wings. Before you ask: Manehatten is this world’s New York, and Appleoosa is a small settlement in the desert. Both places are where Applejack's relatives live. We should stay away from area that the main characters and their family may be. We should hide out in areas that were talked about in the show but only in passing. Los Pegasus, or Neigh Orleans would be good. Maybe area where not even talked about at all.”

“We’ve got a plan, but how do we make money? I mean, I look good and I think there are those that would pay for a time with a princess, but I can’t exactly...”

“Dude!” Spooky hissed loudly. “We can sell thing other than what you’re thinking,” he finished, looking at me crossly.

”I was joking, seriously. Like what?” I pressed.

Spooky reached into his costume and then several gems, the size the of a human baby’s head dropped to the ground. “I picked these up on our way here. I thought that they might come in handy. Normally bigger shops hire ‘people’ to collect gems for them, but we can sell these to a smaller shop and get some money that way.”

“Oooh.”

Well we did that, and -- of course -- came away with money in “hand”.

“Gold, solid gold. These things would be worth a small fortune in our world,” I whispered to my friend.

“Funny, since the exchange rate is roughly: one bit to 3.99 in our money. At the same time the gold exchange rate is... Yeah... I don’t know off the top of my head. Of course I also heard that a bit is like 1/18th of a dollar or something like that my not sure. But don’t forget to haggle for the best price.”

As we went to about buying our supplies, well... that’s when things went from bad to worse, sort of. As I finished my last transaction I felt a figure start to rub against me. Surprised I turned slightly to see, to my horror, it was a white unicorn stallion. It was the unicorn Stallion from the DVD cover, Shining something or other!

“Hey, honey what’s with the get up? Is this just one of your little role playing things again?”

“Excuse me,” I began trying to make my voice sound different as I could. “I’m afraid you have the wrong per... pony.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is?” He started in a sultry tone. “Well, Ms. I’m afraid I’ll have to take you in. You seem very suspicious to me. That is unless you convince me otherwise,” He finished with in a playful tone. I could see the lust in his eyes as his voice became more... I don’t even want to start to explain it.

I tried to avoid his eyes. I sprinted towards the door, trying to get away, but he stopped my escape. “Like I said: I don’t know you, so could you please step back or I’ll call the authorities. Too bad for you,” He started in a quitted singsong voice. “I am the authorities. Now why don’t we go somewhere and you can spread 'em.” He finished forcefully.

He started to rubbing up against me again, pushing harder against my flank. He kept pushing harder and harder. The minutes crawled by and I was really starting to panic. My eyes darted around to try and find a way to escape or at least stop him.

Must suppress the urge to kill! I thought to myself. I knew that Spooky wanted to help but he was effectively neutralized. I mean, seriously, he was dressed as a dog. What could he do?

That’s when I saw a purple unicorn mare with a darker purple main with a single magenta stripe running down the middle of it. Next to her was a little purple lizard, thing with green spines on his back. They saw us they were both speechless the lizard pointing a claw at us.

“Shining!” The unicorn shouted.

The white unicorn stopped and turned towards her. “Oh Twily, just hanging out with Cadence here.” He chuckled nervously. “We were just...”

I didn’t want to hear the ending, so I started to back away slowly, but also as fast as I could.

“Shining, she has no cutie mark!” The purple unicorn yelled to the white.

“What?” The white one called back.

“Check her flank, it’s blank!” She shouted back.

Before I could get out of reach. The white unicorn tore my dress away, revealing my blank flank. I quickly shoved the hat into his face and ran. His face changed into one of rage and anger. “Guards!” Two more unicorns with armor came to his side. I continued to gallop away.

“Thrashion, duck!” Spooky shouted as he tore off his disguise.

I ducked as Spooky let out a cone of spiders. The black swarming spiders covered the three unicorns, until they were completely pinned to the ground. The black spiders were biting into their victims and I could see colored auras being drained from them. But I didn’t just stand there, I started to run way.

“Hop on, Thrashion!” Spooky yelled to me.

I leapt onto my friends back and we were off. Looking back I saw a group of gold armored pegasi and unicorns now following us.

“Great, sorry man, the groom…,” I started.

“I know,” He broke in quickly. “But you should know: he’s also the head of the Equestria’s military.”

“Perfect, what else can go wrong?”

“Don’t say that! Shining Armor is good with powerful shield spells. Good enough to cover mount Everest. He could stop us in our tracks.”

“Wonderful,” I said sarcastically

As bolts of energy came spiraling past us, some of the pegasi tried to dive bomb us. Spooky leapt into the air and started to climb up the side of a building. He quickly launched himself off the side, spun around and let loose a voile of tangled white masses. On impact with their target they exploded into a tangling net, binding the pegasi which dropped into the pursuing unicorns.

“What are you Spider-Dragon?” I joked.

“I don’t know, I just followed my new instincts. Kind of cool!” He shouted.

"Well just keep doing it, we're almost out of here!" That’s when I saw a magenta spire skyrocketed into the air. It exploded into a sheet of shimmering, magenta glass. “Let me guess, shield spell,” I groaned.

Spooky nodded. “If we can get out before it closes then we’re home free.”

The glass sheet picked up speed as it began to drop faster, but my bud Spooky was faster still. I bet we were clocking 60 mph. Just as it was about to close us in we slid under it and we were free.

Until...

I felt myself lifted into the air as Spooky was on the ground, hog-tied by magic. That’s when I noticed the purple unicorn come up to us. “Spike, send a letter to my brother. Simply put, we’ve got them.”

“OK Twilight.” He started to write on a roll of paper, when finished he burned the paper to ash with a puff of green flame.

“While we’re waiting, I’ll just check a couple of things out.” She said as she lowered her horn towards us. Magenta light swept both of us, up and down. The light stopped and a confused look crossed her face. “What? That can’t be right,” her face twisted into utter frustration. “That’s not possible.”

I knew it! She could see what we really were. She looked at Spooky. “You're what I thought you were, some sort of dragon. But…,” She looked over at me. Pointing her hoof at me, with a panicked look in her eyes. “You can’t be, you just can’t be!” she started to pace in circles mumbling to herself

“Twily! You got 'em! That’s good.” The white unicorn said, guards in tow.

“Shining, I might be wrong but, that!” She pointed at me. “That’s Cadence, but that’s impossible. I have to be wrong.”

“Have you been wrong before?” Shining looked at me. Still with an angry look on his face. “Solders, close ranks.”

“Halt n’ desist, thy shall proceed any further.” A old English voice boomed

“Back away from them this moment.” Another voice boomed.

“This is a Royal matter, so we need room!” Yet another voice boomed.

That’s when I saw the princess that I looked like. She was accompanied by two other winged unicorns. One was midnight blue color, matching blue eyes and her main and tail that were flowing like the night sky. The last one was white and much larger than the others two, her main and tail where rainbow like her violet eyes were staring at me. All three were adorned with crowns and jewelry.

Royalty... Crap! I thought.

All the ponies were bowing to them. Shining Armor got up and walked up and walked towards the three.

“Cadence, Princess Luna, Princess Celestia. What are you...”

“We said, back away!” Cadence boomed at him. Shining Armor was knocked back by her voice.

“Cadence? You used The Royal Canterlot Voice, on me?” He had a look of shock and surprise. Cadence nodded at him and came closer to me.

“Twilight, keep your magic restraints up while the three of us perform a scanning spell on them,” The white one said.

“Please Auntie Celestia, we have to check,” Cadence pleaded to the white one.

“Sister, the three of us will be enough. At least ninety nine point nine present, The Elders are still needed for complete confirmation,” The midnight blue winged unicorn confirmed.

“I know Luna, but this is more for Cadence’s sake,” The one known as Celestia replied, looking at Cadence.

The midnight-blue one -- Luna -- looked at me and nodded. “Let us try this now.”

The three winged unicorns lowered their horns. An aura of gold, midnight blue and sky blue surrounded their respective horns, then all three produced a beam of light that swept up and down my body.

The three looked at each other. Then Luna and Celestia turned their gaze towards Cadence and nodded.

“Twilight, release your restraints from the other Cadence,” Celestia commanded. Twilight, confused, did what she was told. I was set free and dropped onto the ground.

Cadence slowly walked over to me. She moved so very slowly, looking up at me and down my form. I could tell she was fighting back tears, but I could see tears start from the corners of her eyes. I wanted to run, but Spooky was still bound up and I couldn’t leave him. He would have wanted me to, but I couldn’t. It seemed to take forever for her to come up to me, I'm guessing time for her was moving slowly, but it was normal for me.

Cadence was so close now, she raised a foreleg up and pulled me close to her, and she rested her head against my neck. I could feel tears touch my fur. Freaky, by the way. “I can’t believe this...” She started, her voice was trembling. “My beloved sister, you’ve come back to us.”

With a look of shock on my face I stammered. “Say-a-who’s-a-what Now?!”