Hurricane

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."