Life for the Famous
Hurricane Chapter 1 + Semi-Prologue - Life for the Famous
She herself wasn't well known. At least not as well known as her sister, Morning Cloud, or as she liked to call herself, Sky Streak. Her sister had many stage names, but Sky Streak was by far the most used. The Phoenix was also frequently heard around and about the streets, it had originated from her first ever performance of The Fire Streak, her signature move. Everything about her sister was just like Soarin' though, because their mother was a mystery to them, it was impossible to tell if she was like her or not. Though she did have little in common with her father, what she did have in common with the great stallion was her wings. They were almost a perfect match of his.
Quietly, Night Wing got up. Her sister was in a heavy sleep, softly snoring now and then, kicking at the covers then pulling them back for warmth. She had always liked the sky when it was navy blue, such a pretty colour. Inn her opinion, the day that Celestia brought could never be compared to the Lunar Princess's night.
Dreaming about one thing or another, her sister squealed in fright while she slept and murmured a few things, too low for Night Wing to hear. So much for bravery. Usually, it was now that a mother would come over to comfort her child, that was the problem though. They had no mother.
Night Wing had always wanted a mother, but her sister thought that mothers had too many rules and couldn't have or be fun. Morning Cloud was more of the rebellious type, and it was understandable that Pegasi like her would probably think the same.
Night Wing knew that even though she was only ten, she was capable of handling herself, but still, she would have preferred to have a mother to help her along. Sure, she had a famous and rich dad, but part of her life still felt, empty.
Her sister groaned and got up as one of the floorboards creaked loudly, she grumbled in an annoyed tone, "Nighty, lil' sis, c'mon, just go to bed."
"I'm only 9 minutes younger than you," she reminded her older sister, who kept treating her like a baby.
She swiftly trotted over to her bed and sandwiched herself in between the heavy blankets. Her sister lay down and almost immediately started rhythmically snoring, which by now, Night Wing was already used to.
"Good night." she softly whispered, but she knew her sister wouldn't hear, for she was already asleep.
7 Years Later
Ponies were swarming all over Morning Cloud from all around, sometimes, fame could get annoying. Her father used to be way more famous then her, then suddenly, when she showed up, a fresh new spirit, everypony wanted to know who she was, where she came from and who trained her. Just play it cool and keep up your smiling, she told herself, repeating what she used to hear her father murmur just before he went out on stage.
A pony was pushing his way through the seemingly endless crowd until he was roughly beneath the hovering Pegasus, "Excuse me! Your performance yesterday at the Wonderbolt's Young Fliers competition was simply amazing! What is the name of our star?" a Unicorn reporter asked, holding up a notepad and pencil with his magic.
Morning Cloud thought about it for a moment. Her name was so not cool. She would become a laughing stock if ponies knew her real name, she needed a stage name, and fast. She looked up at the sky, and a streak of sunlight pierced through her eyes. She was blinded for a few seconds, but then she knew what to do.
She soared up into the sky, and hovered in front of the sun, where everypony could hear her tell them, "The name's Streak! Sky Streak!"
Ponies all around burst out in applause, she could hear them calling, "Sky Streak! Sky Streak!" and with that, she did a move she had never done before. A move, she herself had made, and she knew what to call it. She did, the Fire Streak.
She flew up toward the clouds at maximum speed, and chose three clouds of about the same size. She flew in circles around them, but because of various different things, no tornado could be seen. Exactly what she wanted. The clouds started accelerating, the speed increasing by the millisecond. Suddenly, she flew out of the clouds, and in a flurry of events, she was high up in the sky, the hole in the centre of the clouds and her body aligned perfectly. The clouds where spinning, the friction increasing against them. Keeping her body perfectly straight, she dove right into the eye of the clouds.
There was no going back now, she knew that, once you where in the eye of the Fire Streak, there was only one way to escape, and it was all about timing. She kept going, and the lightning kept on her tail. Then, she was out. But she wasn't done yet. If she slowed down, she would be a goner. She could feel the electricity around her burning into her soul, and she knew she could do it now. Averting from her previous course, she started fly upwards, as fast as she could, the cone around building up the faster she went, then she reached the speed she needed, and she did it.
Below her, there was a trail of flame, swirling up to surround her with fire. She knew she would be alright, she had created a shield around her, which the fire was slowly burning up. When the shield went, so would the fire, but she had still done it. The whole time, the clouds had caught fire, and it was dancing a round in a lightshow, flickering around the sky as if in a ballroom. For a few minutes, the sky was alight with crimson reds and ambers of all sorts. From down below there many 'ooh's and 'ah's to be head and Morning Cloud felt quite full of herself, much to her sister's dismay.
"Cloudy! You know what happened to dad's team captain when she became over-confident!" Night Wing warned her sister, barely hiding the deep concern that she held for her.
Her sister rolled her eyes and answered her daringly, "She almost lost her ability to fly, I know, I know Night Wing," then her sister continued to her insensitively, "But why are you acting like such a mother! You know why mum abandoned us, it was because you were too weak a specimen for her taste."
Morning Cloud instantly regretted it. Night Wing sat down silently, not uttering a word in response. Talking about mother always kept her quiet.
Cautiously, Morning Cloud tried to redeem herself, without success.
"You know I didn't mean it sis', c'mon!" she said, her voice almost cracking at one point.
Night Wing ignored her sister and turned away, she would get over it soon, Morning Cloud hoped. The reasons for Night Wing's feelings were always quite hard to understand, but nothing that she said ever felt like a lie.
Night Wing stood up, an emotionless expression on her face.
"I'll just be upstairs if you need me Morning Cloud." She told her sister, her voice as full of emotion as her face, and she swiftly trotted up the stairs, not taking a second glance.
Morning Cloud, Night Wing rarely called her sister her full name, and most times she was just being formal because of some important meeting or something. Why did she trot anyway? It was much quicker to fly, and it was easier too. Why couldn't she actually use her wings for once, everywhere she went she went by hoof, she said it toughened her up, but Morning Cloud wasn't so sure.
Morning Cloud wanted to follow her, but at the same time she had to stay put, she couldn't have regrets, her sister had to regret it, not her. The room was struck with an eerie silence that seemed to last for eons, then breaking the silence, Morning Cloud walked out of the front door, leaving her sister alone.
Night Wing watched her sister leave while she leaned on the rails. The house was once again silent, and Night Wing was glad her sister was gone, because maybe her sister was starting to think, that she wasn't such a wimp after all.
Morning Cloud drew the black silk hood over her head, she had put on the cloak just as she had left the house. She walked down the busy streets of Manehattan, and turned a sharp corner down an alleyway. Beside her, water was dripping off of wood from the recent storm, and a sign hung wonkily above a door. In the swaying wind, she could just about make out the words,
The Queen Chrysalis
The door slowly creaked open, and a storm of noises came bustling through the crack. She peeked through, from what she could see, it was a pub, and a popular one too. There was a bartender handing out drinks like they were on the house, his hooves working quickly and smoothly.
In one corner, there was a turquoise Pegasus with a black hat and leather jacket on. There were some navy blue tufts sticking out from underneath the hat, but she couldn't make out his face in the shadow that had been cast. It definitely looked like something her father might have worn casually, but nowadays he was always out on business, so he had to wear his suit all of the time.
Morning Cloud shut the door slowly. All that she was going to do was quietly walk through town, so that she get the recent events off her mind. She had never wanted to hurt her sister, neither had she wanted her sister to achieve the point where she was acting like Morning Cloud's complete boss, and 'protecting my little baby' obsessed mum.
The shadow of the alleyway was left behind her, and she walked out into the sunlit streets again. She wanted to soar up high above the busy roads, into the skies, where she felt free and at piece, but she wasn't going to risk being seen. Not now. She had more important things to do.
Hurricane Chapter 2 - Searching For Some Answers
A light blue Pegasus shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Though the subject in question had ordered some Whisky, the bottle was untouched. He had been sat there for a few hours, but he neither did nor said anything. Many ponies questioned why he kept his hat on for the whole time that he was there, but a lot simply dimmised that fact and continued with their current activities. These conisted of gambling, smoking, drinking, and though there were more things to be done, they kept their places as the main activities on the house. There were a few torches placed unevenly, but there weren't any windows in the dimly lit room to avoid eye contact from both sides. It wasn't the most sophisticated place, but it was unnervingly clean and never seemed to be anywhere below spotless.
A Unicorn walked over to the blue Pegasus, using his magic to hold and clean a beer glass with a small white cloth.
He looked at the Pegasus with an all-knowing face, then spoke, "Are you going to finish that Whisky? Or should I lay my lips on your drink?"
The Pegasus quietly poured himself a glass, then absent-mindedly drank out of it.
"I'm not here for drinks," he told the Unicorn, then continued, "But I can't exactly sit at a fine place like this without paying my fair share of bits, now can I?"
The Unicorn smirked, and then answered, "Well, I can't exactly blame you for helping to pay my salary, so is there anything I can getcha?"
He put down the beer glass with the cloth stuffed inside, and used some magic to hold up a notepad and pencil, ready to take down anything that the possible customer requested.
"I don't really mind, as long as you can get it here fast as the north wind can blow." The Pegasus told the Unicorn who was supposively a bar-tender.
The bar-tender, recognised the word in an instant. He had been involved in drug-dealing plenty of times, and his recent job at The Queen Chrysalis was getting him some good money in exchange for his long term experience. He nodded curtly and trotted toward a wooden door labled 'Staff Only'.
The kitchen door creaked open and once he was inside, he hurried toward a white door that was painted to blend with the wall; so not many had the keen eye to spot it. The location of said door wasn't secret, but it wasn't visible when one first entered the room. He took out a key from his right pocket and injected in the lock. It swung gently open, revealing a long staircase, which was going down.
The end of the staircase was quite dark, to decrease the chance of anypony wanting to go down there or actually knowing what to find. Mostly it was dust that made the air so misty, but other things had accumulated over the past few years making objects seem dimmer and less interesting.
For most of the thing kept down here, though, this was not the case. Things to be found here could range from the essence of dark magic to the fang of a moonlight griffon. But what the bar-tender was looking for was far rarer than any of the other items kept in this basement of mysteries.
Keeping in mind what he wanted, he searched the many shelves for a white bottle labled 'The North Wind's Energy' and was finally happy with what he found. He prodded it with a hoof ever so slightly an the wall behind it moved, revealing a box that was ice white, but as hot as the Sun. They had been given three to keep the hold of, and of those, this was the third to be taken in a week. From the information given, what could be deduced was that this would be an advantage in the upcoming race, and that it had no side effects.
The bar-tender knew that anyone who tried to pick up the box would be branded with one of its fine patterns, and so he carried it with his orange magic up the stairs and back through the white door. He'd have to be careful when he went back through to the bar, even some of the staff didn't know about the dark drug-dealing buisness that The Queen Chrysalis was so commonly involved in.
Pushing open the wooden door silently, careful not to let it creak, he kept the small box low to the ground. An invisibility spell would be useful in this case, but any slight contact with magic with the capacity of any more than a levitation spell, could dangerously harm the precious months of hard work put into the pill.
Slipping through the croud like water through a drain, the bar-tender came closer toward table seven, where a light blue Pegasus sat.
"Here, and I suppose you have already payed? No no!" He said as the Pegasus inched his hooves toward it.
If he had in fact already payed, burning his hooves would not help the buisness, and if he hadn't, it wouldn't be a good start.
The Pegasus nodded, and confirmed, "Yes, two-thousand-and-ninety-nine bits and ninety-nine pieces as requested, I still think that's a bit expensive though."
"This stuff is rare you know, and it's not my price, it's the price of the guy who provides us with this stuff. Well, here, I've wrapped the box with a special plastic that'll make sure your hooves don't get scorched. I'd recommend keeping it in your pocket, but you choose what you do with it." The Unicorn told him.
The Pegasus didn't reply, he simply rushed out of the bar, leaving the door swinging violently behind him.
Night Wing knew her father would be home soon, but she also knew he was bad at lying. She didn't know where he went, but it certainly wasn't on buisness. She went down the glass stairs and made her way toward the kitchen.
Once both her relatives where home, they would be hungry It didn't really matter which was home first, because all of their attempts at cooking ended in the same way: a flour covered coat, mostly on the face; dough on the ceiling, not falling down anytime soon; and something that had exploded somewhere in the oven.
She didn't consider herself the best cook, but she could at least make dinner, without a mess on the side. She whipped up a quick lasanga and an eggless chocolate mousse (from Jaming Oven's book) which probably wouldn't last long in the hooves of her sister and father, though it would take even less time for them to consume an apple pie. She waited in the kitchen, and out of the corner of her eye, she spotted some keys on the table, more specifically, her sister's keys. Well, there was nothing she could do about that.
Morning Cloud had been out for about thirty minutes when she realised she had lost her keys. She checked her pockets, but decided to brush the thought away. Bah, what the hell. Dad or Nighty'll probably be at home anyway, she told herself, and she knew it was probably true. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.
She continued down the road, and took out a photo from her pocket. It had a faded picture of her father, and in the background she could see a pavement and a shop with some paint brushes, pencils and other art-related things on display. Somepony had a hoof wrapped around his neck, in a friendly sort of way, but nothing else of the other pony way visible since the photo had been torn in half. Only six letters were visible, from what she could see it said,
RT'S SHO-
She could guess that the second word was 'SHOP' because 'SHOE' would just be silly, but all she knew about the first one was that it ended in RT'S which meant it was probably a name.
Morning Cloud continued along the street, she wanted to find this shop, it may have some clues about that past. There was of course, her father, but she had tried to make him talk before; it hadn't worked. She walked down the road of infinite stores, maybe in ten years, I'll find something remotely close to that shop, she though to herself sarcastically.
When she looked at the picture again, something caught her eye. It wasn't the hole with singed edges at the side of the picture, or the fact that everything seemed to be a little clean, it was the small curves near her father's mouth. He was smiling. Physically, he did actually look happy, just to be there.
She was flying off course, she needed to find this shop and be back in record time so that her sister didn't get suspicious of her. Morning Cloud took out a map from her left pocket and crossed out half a dozen buildings thata where near where she was standing. A thought passed her mind, what if the shop had closed down? What if she was going after a lie? Only one way to find out.
She continued to refer herself until she had at least one useful clue. It looked like one of those shops up in the South. She could have a quick peek around there and report her findings in a diary of some sort.
The curiosity in her brain decided before she could give any input of her own. Well, damnit brain, she said to herself, but secretly, she was glad she could go. Those feelings, of course, were held by the over-curious part of her, the part which would not help one bit.
Seven Days Earlier
Giovanni waited until they far away from the busy city before he settled for one of the fields. He had decided that this should be the meeting place for many reasons, but the main one, was that they were unlikely to be spotted.
He saw a black Pegasus with a lime green mane land on the green pastures. His eyes were a also a vibrant green, and his wings were slightly jade-coloured at their feather tips too. Giovanni snorted, he trusted Victor would choose something like this, though he did look like a bald pony at one angle since the grass and his hair were almost the same colour.
"Greetings, Victor, we meet yet again," Giovanni welcomed him formally, he wasn't here for hugs and embraces, he was here because of work.
His business partner was no less formal than he in the greeting, "Greetings, Giovanni." he continued on as if he has read Giovanni's mind, "I expect you are wondering why I have called you to this meeting, and why I did not inform you of these facts before."
Giovanni raised a brow, "What facts?"
Victor ignored the question and explained, "You see, we have been working on a new pill in the North Laboratory. It uses changeling magic to change the wing-bone structure of any flying creature to that of another flying creature. We have used it in a form so that the consumer of the pill can control what wing-bone structure he uses, therefore controlling his speed and agility so that flying is easy in all conditions. For example, one could change to the wing-bone structure of a Griffon when winds are strong, but then use the wing-bone structure of a nimble humming bird when obstacles are in their way."
In this, Giovanni was interested.
Many questions buzzed around in his mind, but Victor was a pony of not many words, and he didn't like questions, so Giovanni asked the one he found most sensible to ask, "And when may I add these pills to my stock at 'The Queen Chrysalis'?"
Victor's eyes gleamed at the though of doing more business with 'The Queen Chrysalis'. Giovanni held the finest of the fine there, from the rare and expensive 'Apple Family Cider' to the simplest of beverages, like the 'Filthy Beer' which was cheap, but only for those who wanted a bitter taste on their tongue for the rest of the day.
"Actually, I have them with me right now." he told Giovanni eagerly, hoping to get a good deal.
He clapped his hooves twice, and five Unicorns that had previously cast invisibilty spells on themselves, appeared out of the blue, levitating one small box each.
"I currently only have five in stock," Victor told the owner of 'The Queen Chrysalis' and proceeded with caution, for he knew this Unicorn well, and one moment he was in the deal, the other, he had found a flaw, "but we are working on more, making these involves a very complicated process you know, it took a whole three months to make these five."
Giovanni nodded in understanding. He took out a pen and paper, and started writing some notes. Maybe two-hundred-bits for every month they had spent on one pill? It all added up to three-thousand-bits, but he decided to take off one bit for marketing's sake.
He first wrote down fifty-fifty. Though he knew that it wouldn't be happening, but he was just going to 'remind' Victor that when it came to making deals, he was still as serious as ever. Victor said this was 'outrageous' because of how hard it was to nail the pills and a bunch of other excuses. Giovanni asked about this, but didn't get a reply.
After some hardcore bargaining, they settled on sixty-five-thirty-five though Victor had said he would donate a small amout of money to the protection of the Pills, which the Unicorn gladly accepted.
He could tell that Victor had no intention of explaining the process to him, so he asked another question which had bothered him for quite a while, "How do you keep the Cops from getting suspicious?"
Victor had not yet been asked this question, but it had a simple explanation, "I've stirred up some trouble in the South. I can say it's a little bit of a, pandemonium around there."
Experiments
Hurricane Additional Reading - Experiments
The laboratory was dark, nothing but the eerie green glow to lighten it. A few ponies were gathered around a cylindrical contraption made out of glass and attached to the ceiling and floor so that monitoring what was inside would be simpler. Most of then were Earth Ponies, but there were five Unicorns and two Pegasi totalling the eighteen that there were. One of the Pegasi was adjusting a light which required his ability to fly, and the other was using his wings as a fan to cool a peculiar looking experiment. All of the Unicorns were gathered around the contraption, and there was one Earth Pony taking notes.
"The process is almost complete, Doctor." a yellow pony said, showing some messily arranged notes to another of his species, "Subject 081 currently stable, and the abilities have yet to give in."
The lime green pony smiled and questioned, "No side effects?"
he knew very well that side effects were a common failure, and in this company, nopony could come up to him with a failure.
"No side effects," the yellow pony confirmed, much to his master's pleasure.
The yellow pony left the room, his hoofsteps silent as the night, and walked toward a large screen which many a pony were observing.
The writing on the screen showed,
Subject 081
Status: Stable
Side Effects: None
This will definitely please master, he thought to himself, and walked over to where the five Unicorns were standing. Their magic ablaze, they stood upright, their gaze never leaving the glass. The progress was going well, and soon they'd be selling by the million. He watched was inside the transparent cylinder, a platform was raised, and neatly arranged on it, were five miniscule pills emitting green light.
"They are done!" the yellow pony shouted, and quickly everypony in the lab abandoned their projects and came to look.
In a flurry of green fire, master had flown up in the form of a Pegasus, free of his previous bonds. The five Unicorns hurried into the cylinder, and cautiously picked up the tiny pills with their magic. Moving swiftly, they cantered over to a box which was burning to the touch. Lowering in the berries with their magic, they simultaneously closed the box. Cheers arose from all around, after three months of work, they had finally finished the first batch.
