Soul's Poison: Into the Dark World

The day in the Equestria was beginning. Sun was rising and birds with other critters were awakening. The same goes for ponies. As always, they did everything gradually. Not everyone though.

The story begins on a dusty road at the south of a village called Ponyville. Over there, two lonesome figures were slowly making their way to a forenamed village.

A tall figure and a small non-pony figure. Both of them under the dark cloaks, but the little one had his hood thrown back. An uncoverd head showed that the this was a little drake. He was mere three feet at height, even several inches shorter. The taller figure was hidden under the hood and the clock but the purple hands of the figure held a map.

"Hey, Spike," the taller figure said, turning his head toward the smaller figure, "After twenty minutes, we'll be a town of Ponyville."

"Um, a very... original name," he said. After some moments he asked a question that bothered him for some time, "Twi. Do you think that... our friends were honest with that that the Ponyville village is really a good to place to hide? It's so close to Canterlot."

"I don't know, Spike," Twilight said. "But they have no point in lying to us."

Twilight started to think over the matter. Spike in the same time only sighed. He wasn't too keen on the idea of trusting to the bandits, but they had no alternatives. How our lives could be if Twilight didn't drag those books into the Canterlot's castle? he mentally asked the question, that he has been asking for some time. If she didn't have those books then we will probably have a warm bed, a good food and a lot of money, we could spend on everything we want to. Instead of that, we are sleeping anywhere we are able to sleep and sometimes we aren't sleeping at all. We are eating everything that is edible, and counting every little bit we have...

"Hey, Spike," The train of Spike's thoughts have been stopped when Twilight called him. "Didn't you forget what I said to you about behavior when we are in town, did you?.. If you did, then let me repeat: don't draw too much attention to us, don't try to speak much to the locals before we get along with them, and of course don't speak with guards. Don't even get yourself spotted by them."

"Yes, yes. "Don't try to speak with locals before we get along with them"," Spike parodied Twilight. The sentence didn't get away from Twilight ears.

"What have you just said?" Twilight asked him, even though she heard what Spike said. Then, with a sigh, she said. "Spike, I just want to be sure, that you will be fine. I'm perfectly capable of standing for myself, but not you".

"Yeah, I know, Twilight... I know," Spike said, completely ignoring Twilight's words about his inability of standing for himself.

After some time of walking, Twilight stopped as if she'd stumbled upon an invisible obstacle. She turned her head to her right, glancing to the nearby bushes.

Spike, who walked by the side stopped in the same moment. Throwing a glance toward the greenery to the right, he asked. "Is there a trouble?"

"Probably... Not," Twilight replied, looking precisely into forest. "I just... There was someone, I just lost their tracks... It's probably better to follow them. Who knows, maybe they would be blabbering about important things?" She suggested, while getting closer to the edge of the forest.

"Now, Spike," Twilight continued. "I've found them. Two ponies ahead. Pegasus and earth pony, and they are increasing distance between us. It would be better to follow them, if we want to catch them up."

After this words, Twilight put off her map into dimensional pocket and quickly ran into the shrubbery, Spike not that far away. They immediately muffled their steps, though their stealth wasn't perfect, but for them it was enough.

"Over there," she whispered loudly, while pointing somewhere forward. "They're over there, somewhere like one hundred and fifty yards or something like that. Remember, Spike, move quietly and don't draw any attention. We don't know if that's an ambush."

Spike slightly nodded, while memories drawed a picture in his consciousness. Back at Canterlot, they were caught in a rather tricky trap. She and Spike were packing their stuff and was readying themselves for a trip to the Baltimare with ponies from the Syndicate*, all thanks to her brother, Shining Armor. The spell showed that in the place where they and Syndicate's intermediaries supposed to meet was only two persons. Those two and another dozen of ponies, that were hidden from her spell, were guards.

*(A bit of a history: Syndicate is a gang, which is everywhere in the Baltimare and some other cities. They lives like royalties, and everyone else is under their hooves. Their words are the law. Their deals are untouchable... But, those days are in past. Now, the mates are at each other's throat, and who knows who will get out of the whole thing.)

It was a great fortune that Firefly and Night Dream were nearby. There was a rule that Syndicate's members are not allowed to have a business with anyone who connected to royalty. That rule saved a lot of lives of Syndicate's members centuries ago. Now, not that much of ponies remembered those rules, but Firefly and Night Dream did. They got them by surprise, put all the contracts on fire and disappeared into the darkness with Twilight and Spike.

After that, they worked a bit on Syndicate or Firefly and Night Dream to be more precisely, since they had a debt. It was... an interesting time to say the least. That was a long time ago but the memory still fresh in mind.

"Twilight, isn't that a hidden pathway, we're going on," Spike said, interrupting Twilight from her thoughts. Twilight immediately looked down to the ground, and indeed there was a narrow pathway between bushes. There was different hoofprints on a ground. Some were old and unreadable, other were fresh but all prints were mixed so it was impossible to read them. At least, both of them didn't have enough experience in tracking.

"Yes, it is," Twilight stated while watching hoofprints thoroughly. "And, by the looks of it, this pathway is being used for a long period of time." Then, she looked forward, while checking her spell. "They're not far from here. Actually they're right after those bushes, and for some reason, they have stopped."

"An ambush?" Spike guessed.

"I don't know, but it would be better to have a look," Twilight said, closing the distance between her and the bushes, she pointed earlier. The scene before her wasn't the one she expected.

"Oh, crap... Ah swear, that Flutter's gonna kill me someday," an orange earth pony said, while coughing her lungs out.

"Probably," a blue pegasus mare, who was standing to the side, chuckled. After sometime, an earth pony stopped coughing and managed to stand properly. "Now, come on, take these bags and move. If nothing happens today, then I will probably take a nap."

"Ya having quite a lot of those naps, ya know?" An earth pony snarled, while taking two bags, that lay on the ground, in her hands. Twilight was impressed with a mare's strength. She had seen quite a lot of earth ponies carrying heavy things, but that mare not only was carrying heavy sacks, but also was wearing armor. It wasn't magic or steam powered exoskeleton, so there is no power boost from the armor. Instead, she wore the plate armor that was quite old and patched up, who knows how many times. By the looks of it, it also weighs a lot

"Yes, I do. You know, how much of energy..." But Twilight didn't hear the last words. Mares have gone forward.

"Well, shall we follow them, Spike?" Twilight said to the little dragon that was standing to the side.

"As if I have any kind of a choice," Spike replied, already knowing that there is no point in trying to convince Twilight in doing otherwise.