My name is Tricks, and I can only hope that I will be forgiven for what I did.
Perhaps I should explain.
I came to this hustling, bustling city as a young buck in need of Bits. Previously, I was a small-town performer of magic shows – the kind of pony that would be hired for a young colt or filly’s birthday party by cheapskate mothers – and I had grown somewhat tired of performing the same thing over and over again. After that piece of work, the so-called “Great” Trixie, came through my hometown of Hoof’s Ridge, demanding a ludicrous number of bits for her appalling rip-offs of my stunts, I had decided to leave her to it, and come to the most promising place for a buck such as myself. Also, the salt was much cheaper here, and that was a big step up from Hoof’s Ridge, I can tell you!
Anyway. I arrived at this city on a freezing cold winter’s evening about twenty years ago. All the bright and shining lights of the city were ablaze and provided the only warmth as I trudged down one of the many streets of Manehattan, looking for the cheapest motel in the place to begin my new life at. I remember, at the time, thinking that this was perhaps not the best of starts to my time in the place, but I digress.
As I walked down this street, trying to find the welcoming neon sign of anything that didn’t advertise gambling or salting, I happened upon a commotion in the street.
“Gimme that bag!” came a rough and surly-sounding voice, immediately followed by a high and obviously female cry for help. Cantering around the corner in pursuit of the thief, throwing caution to the wind, I saw them. Two ponies were grappling over a fairly ordinary handbag – one, a brown-coloured slab of a buck; the other, a grey-haired old mare. The buck was winning the fight, and within the first few minutes of my time in this new city I was confronted with a choice. On the one hand, it was my moral obligation to tackle the burly slab of meat attacking her, and return the bag to the old mare, but that would surely result in my face being rearranged. On the other hand, I was frozen, broke, and in need of a place to stay. The bag was well within range of my horn’s reach, so I could easily snatch it with telekinesis and gallop off in another direction. But of course, that was the immoral choice and I would never do that.
Ten minutes later, as I burst into the lobby of La Couture, the most expensive hotel in the city, with sweat plastering my mane to my skull and mud ruining the plush carpet, I received a number of odd looks from pretty much everyone in the joint. I’d dumped the bag in a nearby alleyway – emptying the heavy purse and gold necklace from it beforehand – and shoved them away, safe in the knowledge that I would never be considered the criminal. Walking up to the counter, after rearranging myself in a way that made me look at least somewhat presentable, I booked a room for the night and hightailed it deeper into the building.
I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long. Throwing my head over my shoulder, I saw the buck I’d started internally calling “Browncoat” run into the lobby and look around as if I’d be the one to personally welcome him to the place. Needless to say, the route from the lobby to my room was covered in a matter of seconds.
Bolting the door behind me, I waited a few minutes before letting out the breath I’d been holding and flopped onto the very welcome bed. Reflecting upon the night so far, I had come to the realisation that within the first night of my new life, I had become a potentially-wanted criminal, after a life previously spent pandering to the very same kind of older mares I’d stolen the bag from – the same mares that would find my magic shows interesting. It would have felt ironically liberating if I hadn’t been repressing the urge to throw up at the time. Of course, the night wasn’t nearly over yet, and I realised that this was my first mistake as the door flew off its hinges and Browncoat stepped into the room.
I woke up some time later, bound to a chair in a darkened room. The first thing I noticed was the stinging sensation from a blow I’d received to the forehead – probably the one that knocked me out in the first instance. The second thing I noticed, noting that I would have probably received that particular blow from Browncoat if I’d tried returning the bag to the old mare, was that the contents of my saddlebags had been unceremoniously emptied upon a nearby table. Finally, I noticed the navy buck standing right in front of me, and thought that perhaps that blow had done a lot more damage than I had anticipated. He was looking at me with a quizzical expression upon his face – well, the part of his face that I could see, as the room was pitch-black. Eventually he spoke.
“Ah said, what the blazes did you think ya were doin’?” he asked me in a distinctly Appleoosan drawl. Realising that I had not heard him the first time he asked, I shook my head to rid me of the grogginess I was experiencing and replied.
“What do you mean, ‘what did I think I was doing?’” This was, apparently, the wrong answer, as I received another hit from the blue buck’s forehoof. He was clearly used to doing this, as I ended up passing out again for a few minutes.
“Shall we try that one again, son?” I heard as I came to once more. “Clearly yer not willin’ ta talk, so Ah guess Ah’ll hav’ta do this the ol’ fashioned way.” Cracking his neck, Bluecoat (since I didn’t know his name) sneered at me in a way that clearly read talk now, or I will break you.
“I d-d-don’t know what you m-m-mean,” I stammered, losing my nerve entirely under his gaze. “I was j-j-just trying to find a place to stay, and I had no m-m-money, and-“
“Wait up there a sec,” he replied, looking confused, pointing at the contents of the table. “Ya mean none of them Bits there are yers at all?”
“No.” I firmly replied. I was going to tell this guy anything he wanted if it meant I could just get out of this chair. The ropes they’d used to secure me there were starting to cut off the circulation to my forehooves, which, I reflected, was probably the point. “I came here with nothing but the saddlebags, which only had my box and cape in them. Everything else isn’t mine.”
“Ya do know who yer messin’ with, right?” he asked me. When I responded in the negative, he looked slightly less confused. “So yer not from round here?” Again, a negative answer from me. “So why did ya think it was wise to git that bag? Why did ya take it?”
Wanting to facehoof at this guy’s stupidity, I responded, “I already said I had no money, and nowhere to stay.”
“Hmm.” the buck grunted, starting to pace around the table with a face as though he was trying to multiply two large numbers together. “Ah need ta git the Boss. Sit tight here fer a sec, an’ don’t move.” As if I could do anything else. A few minutes later, Bluecoat returned, with his brown counterpart in tow.
“So, Wiseguy here’s telling me you have no idea who I am.” Browncoat said. “You don’t come from here, you have nothing at all, and you seem an entertainer by trade. What’s your name?”
Cursing the fact that it was so obvious what my job was from my name, I replied. “Tricks. And yeah, I used to do magic shows in my old hometown.”
“You’re a unicorn. Why haven’t you got out of those bindings yet?” Browncoat asked. I cursed myself again for my grogginess, and shook my head once more.
I sensed that this guy seemed to be much more intelligent than the navy buck – Wiseguy, was it? “It takes me a while to wake up after being knocked out. Thanks, by the way.”
Browncoat looked at me. Ah. Right. That last bit was probably too far. I steeled myself for the next hit.
Then, instead, he reared his head and barked a laugh. “You’ve got a tongue on you, haven’t you? I like that. Name’s Brawn. How ya doing’.”
I was confused. “Er, right. Why are you being nice to me? Weren’t you hitting me a moment ago? You burst down my hotel room door!”
“Yeah, I did.” Brawn said, looking at me with a gleam in his eye. “But I’ve just had a thought. Since you basically did the job for me, by taking the bag and retrieving all the important stuff from it, I’ve decided that there’s no point in keeping you.” And with that, I was out of the chair, very relieved to be back on my own four hooves, but nevertheless still confused. “Okay, sure,” I said, “But what do you want from me?”
“From you? Nothing.” Brawn said. “What you’re gonna do, however, is totally different. You work for me now.”
“And why the buck would I wanna do that?!” I retorted.
“Because I practically OWN this city,” Brawn shot back, “And if you try and do anything else, I’ll turn you in as the one that stole the bag. The police here are in my pocket. They’ll arrest who I want. You’d last three seconds in jail, I’ll wager.”
He had me stumped there. Yes, I could run back home, but he’d just get the police to follow me there. I could go somewhere else, run away from both Manehattan and Hoof’s Ridge, but that would probably result in me dying in the wilderness somewhere. I still had no money, and nowhere else to hide from Brawn.
“So you’re the Mob boss of this place, and I can’t get away even if I wanted to?”
“No.”
“Then it seems I’m stuck here. Fine. I’ll work for you, but I probably won’t be much help.”
Two days later, I stood outside the Manehattan National Bank. Brawn and Wiseguy flanked me on one side. On the other stood two more nearly-identical Mob ponies, who introduced themselves as Flim and Flam. These two were twins, who used to work as con artists so as to “win” rigged bets with whoever they met – be it for food, drink, land, and sometimes actual money. They were inducted into the underground of Manehattan shortly after trying to con the nearby Casino out of a thousand Bits each, which attracted Brawn’s attention. Apparently, they needed the money so as to buy their own apple orchard from somepony in Ponyville, but by the time they started talking about that I’d already stopped caring.
Back to the issue at hand. The reason we were standing outside the bank was fairly obvious – Brawn wanted to rob it. Why he wanted to remained unclear to me, but since I was being offered a generous payment for any job I carried out, and since it gave me a roof over my head and food in my belly, I wasn’t exactly fussed over the nitty-gritties of the situation.
“We haven’t planned anything about this robbery,” I mentioned to Brawn as we circled the building, looking for a useful entrance into the place away from the security cameras, “Why are we trying to rob a place like this now, in broad daylight? We’ll get shot to pieces if we even attempt it!”
Brawn looked at me as if I was an idiot. “We planned this before your little interruption the other day.” He started to walk off.
“What, even my part? I thought you were supposed to know everything, Brawn. There’s nothing for me to do in this and I’d end up getting in your way,” I replied, catching up with him before he disappeared around a corner.
“Not if you’re a careful little colt you won’t, Tricks,” he said back to me. “You’re gonna go in there and cause a distraction. That’s something you’re good at, right?”
“Fine, but what am I gonna do without causing a huge suspic-“
“Listen here, rookie. I know what I’m doing here, okay? You’re gonna use some of your magic to set off an alarm on one of the upper floors. You’re then gonna find a way into the back room whilst their attention’s elsewhere. You think you can do that, or are you gonna wimp out?”
“Great. As much as I’d love to commit two crimes in the space of a week, this isn’t happening.” I tried to walk away in dignity, but a sharp blow to my right foreleg stopped me in my tracks.
“Yes it is. Manehattan changes a lot of us, you know. I don’t like this any more than you do, but it’s happening because I say so.” Brawn listened, prodding my chest as he punctuated the final three words. “This city has too much damn money, and nowhere else gets a look in. Why the hay would Celestia want her subjects to be like that if she wasn’t trying to repress them?”
I laughed out loud at his idiocy. “Oh, I see. You’re a Luna Republic sympathiser, then? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, there, Brawn, but this is a monarchy. More specifically, this is one founded on good and not evil! Unless you want Nightmare Moon to keep all the money to herself and shroud the entire nation in night, I suggest you take a good look at yourself!” I was shaking with fury at this point. This was nothing short of ridiculous. Brawn saw himself as some kind of Robin Hood, trying to take money and give it to the poor – but his reasons made no sense at all. If Luna came to power she’d end up doing exactly the opposite of what Brawn wanted – turning the entire place into chaos and ruin. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Equestria. No way, no how.
“Right. Forget it. You’re doing this, and that’s that. I have my reasons and I’ll explain them to you later if you want, but mark my words: you’re gonna make absolutely sure this is pulled off without a hitch, or I will destroy you, do you understand?” The mad look in Brawn’s eyes stopped me saying anything further, and I walked off towards the front entrance. “Let’s get this over with,” I muttered under my breath as I went.
The bank was huge, glass-fronted, with a second floor overlooking the first. Near the top right of the second floor, I noticed a door labelled “manager’s office”. On the left, a set of glass stairs led up to the second floor, guarded by a white buck in a variation of the Canterlot Guard uniform employed whenever the Princess was making her annual trips around Equestria. Additionally, the building was nearly empty of people. Three more security guards, two bank tellers and eight cameras all stared at me as I walked in. There was no chance in hay that this was going to work if I didn’t do something quickly. I put my head down so as to be less noticed by the CCTV, and walked up to the teller on the right.
“I’d like to open an account. I’ve just moved here, you see.”
“No problem, sir. I just need some details from you. Do you have any identification?”
The stage was set. I hoped everyone else was ready in time. “Yes. It’s in my bag here.” Gesturing to my saddlebags, I levitated out a sheet of paper.
Now, here’s a clever thing about unicorn horns. They multi-task. Whilst I was grabbing my documents out of the bag, I simultaneously lifted a camera off its mounting on the second floor of the building, and dropped it to the floor. Luckily, the camera was in range of my horn, although just barely. Not that it mattered much – a loud thunk, followed by a ringing sound, told me I’d been successful.
The alarm from the camera triggered a much louder klaxon, signalling that something was amiss. At the same time, Flim and Flam burst through a side-door, threw two smoke grenades into the room, and galloped past the blinded security guards to the top floor. Wiseguy disabled the other guards with a trademark blow to the temple each, and Brawn, as soon as this was done, cantered up the stairs, kicked down the office door and roundhouse kicked the manager square in the face. Within a few minutes, the key was retrieved from the desk drawer, and I was inserting it into a lock in the massive vault door situated to the right of the tellers’ desks.
The key turned, and the vault still stayed put.
“What the hay is happening?” Brawn shouted down from the top floor.
“It’s deadlocked.” I calmly replied back. “I told you that you hadn’t planned this properly, and it seems I was right.”
“Shut the bucking hay up!” Brawn spat down. No, really. A glob of it landed on my left shoulder. Classy, I thought. “Wiseguy, you got the bomb?”
“’Course Ah do, Boss,” the navy buck said, as he ran to the vault door and affixed a small piece of what looked dangerously like C4. “Ah’d advise ya ta git out of tha place before Ah blow tha doors off this here thing.”
Not needing to be told twice, I hightailed it away, as did the others, before Wiseguy set the fuse and galloped out to meet us.
“Well, that went well,” I panted to Brawn.
“Not over yet. Get down.”
“Huh? Wha-“
The sky ignited as I was pulled into a prone position, and the glass inside the building shattered with the force of the device.
Two hours later. I was sitting in the underground storage facility that acted as the base of Brawn’s operation. Brawn was sitting behind a desk, counting out piles of Bits and shoving them into bags.
“Looks like we’ve got around three million here,” he said, throwing heaps of gold coins into a sack. “You did well, rookie.”
“We had a deal, Brawn.” I coldly stated to the brown Earth pony. “I did what you asked, but I need to know why.”
Brawn sighed. “Look, kid, it’s a long story. But if you want it, I’m willing to tell you about it.”
“I have nothing better to do.” I replied.
“Clearly not. Fine. I guess I don’t have anything to do for now either, and it’s been a long day.” Brawn took a breath or two, poured himself a glass of some kind of amber liquid that didn’t smell quite the same as Apple Whiskey, and began.
“I grew up in a small farm just outside of the Everfree Forest. We lived a simple life together, until the day that my dad passed on. My ma was never the strongest of mares, and she ended up going crazy after he died. She ran off one day into the forest, never to be seen again.” Brawn was cold, unblinking, as he told the story – like he had told it a hundred times before, and yet had kept it a secret his entire life. “He was a good guy, my dad – always teaching me new things, supporting me as I grew older. Of course, when he went, and my ma ran off, there was only me left. The thing is, I didn’t want to leave my farm, and I really wanted to find and help my ma. I did the only thing I could in the situation. I walked from the Everfree to the nearest station in Ponyville, and snuck on a freight train to Canterlot.
“I thought that maybe with the help of the Princess, we could find ma. The Wonderbolts, or even just a search party, may be able to bring ma back. I didn’t have any money of my own, but I was counting upon the Princess to help my ma in any way she could, once she was found… as it turned out, because I ‘didn’t have an appointment’, there was nothing the Princess could do to help me. She was, apparently, ‘busy with other things’.
“I never saw Celestia in the end. I did, however, when trying to find a place to stay as the sun set, catch a glimpse of Princess Luna. She saw me, and, after raising the moon to begin the night, she swooped down from the highest rafters of the castle to speak to me. I don’t know why she came to me of all ponies, but maybe it was the hopelessness of the situation that drew her to me. Maybe it’s Alicorn magic, I dunno. Whatever it was, she spoke to me. I can still hear what she said now – ‘Celestia didn’t speak to you, did she? What is wrong? … Oh? Maybe I can help. Of course, she wouldn’t bother trying to help you. You know what she was doing today that made her busy? Speaking to her student! About some kind of test!’
“We never did find ma, in the end. She was too far gone into the forest for even the Wonderbolts to find. What I know is that my ma would have been found if Celestia bothered to help, but even after her sister helped me she refused to assist me. Maybe she was just too busy, but I doubt that’s true.”
“Fine. I get it.” I said to him, as he knocked back the not-quite-whiskey and poured another. “But what does this have to do with robbing the bank?”
“I want to help the ponies who don’t live somewhere like here. I want them to have the money they need just in case what happened to me happens to other ponies. Nopony should ever have to go through that kind of helplessness. That’s kinda part of the reason I took you in. You needed a place to stay, too. You know who that mare was? One of the richest businessponies in all of Equestria! She had hundreds of thousands of Bits in that bank, and more at home! She deserved it! It’s not fair to see so many ponies suffer under Celestia!”
This stopped me dead in my tracks. Not only was he right about the mare, but his logic seemed reasonable as well. “I may as well tell you this, then.” I said to him. “I also lost my parents. They died and left me with nothing. I… I never actually knew them. My magic tricks were just a way of making me some money, or some food, or even for some new clothes. I never knew either of them, really. They… they died when I was three.”
“Do you see?” Suddenly the burly hulk of a pony looked like the colt I imagined he once was. I certainly felt like the lost pony I was all those years ago. Maybe he saw it too, because he quickly straightened up, his composure back.
“I think we need to get rid of Celestia.”
Five weeks later. Canterlot Castle, main hall.
We had planned this perfectly. The whole gang was here. I would be the one to make the distraction, once more. Once that was done, Flim and Flam would act as the criminals by stealing a painting. Wiseguy and Brawn would find a way to Celestia, and I would find Luna.
The first half of the plan went off fine. I made a show of not being able to see Luna because I didn’t have an appointment. Whilst this was going on, Flim grabbed the painting and ran off. Flam, being his twin, ran off in another direction, causing the guards to panic and chase after them. In the confusion, I slipped through a passage to the Northern Tower’s entrance, where, upon climbing, I’d find Luna’s chambers. Brawn and Wiseguy went the other way to find Celestia.
Panting, I reached the bottom of the tower’s spiral staircase. Luna should be up there, but guards will be there too. Because we had arrived here just before sundown, Luna would definitely be awake – and, with any luck, away from her usual entourage of guards. I galloped up the stairs, burst through the door to the giant circular room, and found myself face-to-face with Luna herself, about to push open the very door I had just burst through.
“GUARDS!”
“Wait a second. I know Brawn. We need you.”
“What?”
“You helped a young colt twenty-four years ago in trying to find his disappeared mother. You couldn’t find her. He came to Manehattan. He needs you.”
“What?”
“He’s on his way to Celestia. You need to come with me right away.”
“Why?”
I looked her dead in the eye. “Because you are the rightful ruler of Equestria.”
Five minutes later. Luna had ensured the guards it was a false alarm and sent them on some kind of meaningless errand; I forget what. She guided me thorough a connecting passage, allowing me to reach Celestia’s tower with relative ease. She was running beside me now, shouting something about her being right all along, and why work needed to begin on redistributing Equestria’s wealth, and other things I can’t entirely remember.
“I think they’re planning on killing my sister.”
“They are. Why would you have thought otherwise?” I panted as we ran through the hidden causeway.
“She doesn’t deserve to die.”
“Doesn’t she? Think about what she’s done to her subjects. To you. Countless ponies have been killed due to her own negligence. Her governing method is completely unjustified. She imprisoned you in the BUCKING MOON!”
With that, we pressed further on. Luna, with fire in her eyes and power stirring in her gut; and myself, with steel-hard determination to do what was right, regardless of the costs. We burst through the hidden doorway to confront Celestia, and found a horrific sight.
Brawn and Wiseguy were dead on the ground. Celestia, for whatever reason, had found them first, and dispatched them on the spot. The Princess of the Sun was standing with her back to the balcony outside, alone, and resolute in her anger. The Elements of Harmony encircled Celestia, resplendent in their glory even as they were used as weapons of murder.
In a single instant, Luna, myself and Celestia charged.
In another single instant, Luna was dead on the floor. Harnessing the power of the Elements, Celestia had somehow fired a spell into her sister’s chest, leaving no mark whatsoever, but causing Luna to collapse and die in much the same way Brawn and Wiseguy had. I didn’t stand a chance.
Celestia sighed. “I am truly sorry, but I couldn’t afford to have you not hear my explanation. You are unarmed. I am sparing you because I need you to listen to me.” The Elements were poised in position, almost forming a defensive barrier around the Princess.
“And why? I trusted you! Your version of Equestria seemed completely fine until Brawn-“ I gestured to the departed soul of the brown-coloured buck sprawled on the rug “-told me what kind of monster you are! You are solely responsible for the deaths of not just these three, but also countless ponies in this world of yours!” I spat. I needed to find a way to get rid of her. Any way at all.
"And how exactly are you still controlling the Elements of Harmony?" I continued, addressing the six rough-cut diamonds surrounding her. "They should only be used by somepony that is pure of heart!"
"I don't quite think you understand." Celestia spoke. "The Elements are not sentient. They cannot detect when someone good or bad is using them. They simply are there to be used, and should be used for good - not evil."
"Then why are you controlling them still?" I shouted in disbelief. With Celestia holding the Elements, there would be no way for me to defeat her using magic alone. Her own raw power, including the power of the Elements, would overpower any attack I threw at her.
“I have my reasons. There are terrors out there far worse than you could imagine. If Luna had the throne, Equestria would be gone in minutes. There would be nothing left!” Celestia stomped her hoof in frustration, as though she had argued this issue with herself a million times over before.
“The lesser of two evils is still an evil. Killing, even indirectly, your own subjects is worse than defending them against an enemy. Your schools teach us that from the age of five. How many years have passed since you were five, Celestia? I know it has to be at least two thousand – after all, you’ve been around for years, and you banished your bucking sister to maintain your position!” The last words came out in pure fury, and as I spoke, I noticed a decorative set of crossed swords and shield hanging over the fireplace.
“There is no way I could have won. They are too strong.” The Elements shone with a splendour that only served to emphasise the green tinge to Celestia's eyes. It was as though her own dark magic was feeding off the power of the Elements, which, I reflected, was probably not that far from the truth.
“That is a lie. You have the Elements of Harmony. You defeated Luna… twice.” I pointed to Luna’s peaceful form. “You killed three ponies, one of which is an Alicorn, with a single spell. You can defeat anypony who dares attack, providing you control the Elements. You just won’t, because if you did, you’d be seen as a tyrant by your own people.” I made a mental note of one of the swords’ position on the wall. “The thing is, Celestia – a tyrant is exactly what you are.”
With that, I ripped the sword from its binding and hurled it at the white Alicorn. It met the other sword, clinking in a scream of steel, as Celestia levitated the other faster than I could. The Elements shone brighter. Their own magic was not only more powerful, but also much faster than my own.
“How fitting.” I mused to her. “Once, I would have never used these for anything more than a magic trick.” The sword I held suddenly vanished and reappeared, just behind the white mare. The Elements clattered to the floor as she looked around to see the point of the sword heading towards her.
“No!” she shouted, as the sword I controlled stabbed through her in a single motion. Her own sword, poised in front of my eyes, clattered to the ground. The Elements lay still, their brightness reduced to a shimmer in the dying rays of sunlight.
“I would be sorry,” I said to her as she lay there on the rug, the life draining from her eyes. “But this is payback for all those you never saved.”
Manehattan changes you completely, if you let it. The mark it left on me came through the guiding voice of Brawn, and made me open my eyes to the unfairness of the city, hidden in plain sight. I am unashamed of what I did, for it has allowed Equestria to become the true place of equality it should always have been. To those who suffered through her, I apologise, and only hope for your forgiveness.
