"I miss you, I miss you so faaar," A sharply dressed mare sang in tune to a the blaring of the guitar and drums behind her, "And the collision of your kiss that made it so haaard!"
Paper Pen, Rock Note, and Canvas Brush sat in metal seats high up within the stadium, they weren't great but considering that even these nosebleed seats cost like four hundred bits each, the trio were more than happy to even be there. In a rare turn of events Pen and Note had even managed to show up sober, both stallions loving 'My Alchemical Friendship' enough to actually want to remember the show afterwards.
"Way down, way down-" Vampyre Nightsong, the suited bat pony mare on stage, began the ending verse of the song before being cut off by a sudden and eerie interruption. Every single light in the stadium had gone dark alongside the band's equipment suddenly silencing; a power outage had occurred.
At first nopony spoke a word, though the combined chattering of some two thousand ponies filled the pitch black room. Note took his lighter from his bandana, striking it and holding the light in his wing.
"What the buck!" Pen semi-quietly emo-raged, "I finally get to see 'MAF' live and the power goes? I've never seen the power go out at a concert!"
"To be fair, this is only like your third concert ever," Canvas spoke, "But yeah, this is weird, usually venues as big as this have systems and magic in place to stop outages."
"Maybe it's theatrical?" Note suggested, "Y'know, like when Colty Coltborn pretended to bite the head off a bat on stage."
"Didn't that start a riot?" Asked Canvas, all three ponies paused for a moment, "Should we leave?"
"Nah, they'll get this fixed. Besides, a riot might be fun!" Note half-jokingly suggested.
"Easy for you to say, you have wings, I'll just get trampled to death!" Pen explained.
"Eh, teleport out of it." Canvas suggested.
"That's more the type of spell for somepony who doesn't use his magical encyclopedia as a stepping stool… I'm gonna hang just outside the door, if I hear music I'll come back." Pen began to get up from his seat before a bright red light suddenly lit up the stadium. At first he'd thought the power had come back, but upon looking back that dream was shattered.
An alicorn stallion hovered in the middle of the stadium for all to see, his coat a shade of black and his hair a mess of red streaks on a similarly black base. His wings were not the normal pair associated with alicorns, instead he possessed two batlike wings which scaled as a normal alicorn's wings should. The red light came from not only an aura of crimson magic enveloping his horn, but from the glow of his fiery eyes.
"Ponies of Manehattan!" He began, "I am Prince Dark Blade, or, as you may soon call me, your master!"
In any other situation Pen would have laughed his flank off at how ridiculous this pony looked, he'd looked back on his own decision to dye a red streak in his hair as a colt with regret, but this? This was just obsenely dumb. However, as stupid as this stallion looked, he was still an alicorn… somehow. When a being of that much power interrupted a public event to monologue it never meant anything good.
Note, however, seemed unintimidated as he proceeded to laugh loud enough for the suddenly interrupting villain to hear.
"What's so funny?!" Dark Blade asked with anger, shooting a gaze in Note's direction.
"You look like somepony bled on an ashtray, seriously, it's like a clown going through an emo phase!" Note managed to say between laughing, "C'mon, dude, what are you doing crashing a My Alchemical Friendship concert looking like that?"
"Everypony thought it was terrifying when Nightmare Moon did it!" The enraged alicorn defended.
"To be fair, we all knew her motivation." Canvas explained, "You? You might just be a levitating unicorn with bad fake wings!"
"They are not fake," Dark Blade got offended, "I'm literally flying with them!"
"You're some rich colt then, used mommy's money to get fancy animatronics." Canvas suggested.
"Listen here!" Dark Blade shouted, flying down towards the trio, growling in Canvas' face as he landed with a loud stomp, "I am an honest to Celes- erm, Nightmare Moon alicorn!"
"Ha!" Canvas laughed in the stallions face, "You almost said Celestia! Let me guess, you're new to being evil?"
"I'm super evil!" The stallion stomped in offense. The wannabe tyrant rose his hoof as if to strike, threatening the mare.
"Hey, buck off from my marefriend!" Note shouted, charging at Dark Blade. Note managed to swing his hoof and land a punch on his cheek, causing him to recoil.
"Insolent!" Dark Blade hissed at Note. His horn again lit up with an aura of crimson, the light growing until finally bursting forth in a beam striking the stallion. The pegasus was grounded, but still conscious. "My followers will take care of you, I've already taken Manehattan, you won't leave this city alive!"
"And when I do?" Note challenged, slowly rising his head from the ground.
"Should you survive? Unikely, but in that case I suppose you could deliver your heads to Canterlot Castle, they'll make good decor!"
And with that, Dark Blade dissipated into a puff of smoke. The lights came back to life and ponies rushed from the stadium in a panic, cries of fear escaping en masse.
Canvas rushed to Note's side, Pen leering at his injured best friend from behind.
"Note, are you okay?!" She frantically asked, tears of nerve on her eyes.
"I'm fine!" Note huffed, standing up. Contrasting everyone else, he held an intense anger rather than desperate fear. Even still, he held his marefriend close to comfort her.
"The one day I don't have cider on me…" Pen mumbled, still shocked. Maybe the joke was in poor taste, but it wasn't like comedy was the unicorn's only poor coping mechanism, "So, what do we do now?"
"Well, he said he'd be in Canterlot, so I'm going to finish this!" Note exclaimed, "I don't lose fights, I end them!"
"That's insane!" Pen pointed out, "He just floored you with a thought and you want to go and hit him in the face again?"
"Correction, I'm planning to dropkick him this time, then I'm gonna smash a guitar on his throat!" Note was clearly dead set on his revenge, "You guys don't have to come, this is between me and him…"
"Buck that noise!" Canvas interjected, "He threatened me and hurt my special somepony, I want blood!"
"Well, if all my friends are doing it!" Pen joined in.
The trio of ponies left the stadium, they were careful to keep their heads down and not draw attention. Ponies in black metal armor trotted or ran hectically through the streets, some rushed to detain seemingly random ponies though it seemed they were trying to intimidate rather than get anything specific done. If their allegiance wasn't already obvious enough an image of Dark Blade's cutie mark, a black heart with a sword through it, adorned the armored ponies chest plates.
"So, what's the plan?" Pen quietly asked Note.
"Well, I was going to just hitch the next train to Canterlot, I guess that isn't really gonna work with all these jerks around…" Note explained.
"What about Fillydelphia?" Canvas suggested, "There's a line running between the outskirts of the city and Canterlot, Lord Edgy Darkness probably hasn't even thought to try and take over that wasteland of corn fields!"
"Yeah, but then we'd have to go to Fillydelphia." Note pointed out, "I'd rather trot through the sewers of Manehattan!"
"C'mon, if you're from there it can't be all bad!" Canvas endearingly reasoned.
"And, y'know, it's our only option other than walking over an actual mountain range." Pen commented.
"Buck… we really have to go to Fillydelphia, don't we?"
"Hey, if it's any consolation I'm not happy about going south either." Pen joked, "A bunch of uncivilized brutes with stupid accents… I'm sure your family is great, though."
"Oh, no, they're horrible." Note assured.
The trio laughed at that last comment, pausing for a moment.
"So… how exactly are we getting there?" Canvas finally asked.
"My caravan!" Note proudly stated, "We'll just leave in my caravan!"
"Firstly, your caravan smells worse than Pen's apartment-" Canvas started.
"I take offense to that." Interrupted Pen.
"I don't care. Secondly, Note, I meant how are we gonna get past Edgelord's minions? There's only one bridge to the mainland and I doubt he left it unguarded."
Pen thought for a moment, he'd spent most of his colthood dodging the Manehattan police department and, even if that skillset had proved itself to not apply to the Royal Guard he highly doubted anypony as capable as a royal guardspony would bother working with Count Edge-ula. He could totally do this.
"You two worry about getting the caravan ready, I'll deal with the guards when we get there." Pen assured.
"You sure about that? I'm pretty sure I could take you, you're not gonna win in a fight with… well, anypony." Canvas reasoned.
"Just trust me on this, I have a plan. Actually, on that note, do you have any red lipstick?" Pen asked Canvas.
"Is that part of the plan or do you just want to look pretty?"
"Would it kill you to follow a context clue?"
"It was a joke, get off my flank!" Canvas retorted, digging around in her purse, "So like any shade of red?"
"Something closer to crimson than candy apple, think like the color of blood."
"Ah, I see where you're going with this!" Canvas said, handing a tube of lipstick to Pen.
Eventually they made their way past the roaming guards and to Note's caravan. Pen immediately entered, he didn't want to be the one elected to actually pull the cart and besides, he had a plan to work on.
Note began to walk into the caravan before being stopped by Canvas.
"Where do you think you're going?" The mare asked with an angry tone.
"In the caravan so you can start pulling it." Note innocently replied.
"What? Why should I have to pull it?!"
"I'm a pegasus, I'm made for flying, I can handle this thing normally but with the weight of two ponies… that's more of an earth-pony thing, y'know?" Note reasoned.
"Well I don't want to pull it, get Pen to do it!" Canvas commanded.
"C'mon Canvie, be real about this, Pen can't do that."
Canvas paused and sighed, thinking of what to say next. As much as she didn't want to bring this up, she knew she'd have to.
"Why'd you even let him come?" Canvas asked in a frustrated tone.
"He's Pen, he's been our friend for years!"
"I know, and I like him as much as you do, but being honest it's only been a few hours and I'm pretty sure this is the longest I've seen him sober," Canvas pointed out, "He's nice, he's a good friend and all but he just isn't that useful."
"You don't know him like I do, he isn't the sorta stallion you bring along because he's really good at something, you hang out with him and at some point he comes up with a last minute solution that fixes everything, it just works out." Note explained, "Just give him a chance, he'll surprise you!"
"Alright, I'll just pull the stupid cart then…" Canvas sighed, accepting her fate.
Finally Note trotted into the caravan. Upon entering the first thing he saw was Pen, the unicorn was laid asleep on a beanbag with an empty bottle of cider beside himself. He'd surprise Note, he had to.
Eventually the trio made their way to the single bridge leading out of Manehattan. The scene was one of chaos, hundreds of other caravans and ponies on foot alike were trying to get by and stopping all of them stood thirty guards on the ground, another thirty above, and a sturdy wooden barrier. It was clear they weren't planning on letting anypony out. Canvas and Note sat on top of the caravan, observing the scene.
"This is unlawful!" One stallion at the front of the crowd yelled at the guards, "You can't do this!". A guard responded by charging the pony and beating him to the ground, from their vantage point Note and Canvas couldn't exactly see what was going down but they knew it couldn't be pretty.
"Well, we're bucked!" Canvas dismayed, lying down in defeat, "Why didn't we just stay home and let somepony else save Equestria?!"
"It's about getting even, like I said, you didn't have to come." Note sighed.
"We both know it's not just about that, Note." Canvas looked to her stallionfriend with an expression of knowing doubt, "Besides, without me who's gonna pay for anything?"
"Pen has some money." Note shrugged.
"Yeah, well, Pen is curled up in the cart with a bottle of cider right now…"
Suddenly somepony in a purple cloak charged from the front of the crowd and towards the barrier. They held something up in the air before throwing it to the wooden blockade, a flurry of orange and red burst upon impact and within moments the barrier began to succumb to flames.
"Vive la révolution!" The heavily accented voice of a mare yelled from underneath the cloak before frantically running back into the crowd, the entirety of the grounded guards chasing after the cloaked figure. The scene erupted into a riot as ponies, Canvas and Note included, stampeded to get past the unguarded embers that were once a barrier. The flying guards attempted to stop the stampede but were very quickly overwhelmed. Note flew above the caravan and provided recon to his marefriend to better help her navigate the actual mob of frantic hooves. To Canvas and Note's surprise, Pen jumped from the riotous street and in through the door to the caravan, wiping something from his lips as he did so.
Fifteen minutes of running later, Canvas pulled the caravan over to rest with her stallionfriend soon landing to join her. Pen casually trotted from the caravan to talk to his friends.
"So, what the buck were you doing outside the caravan?" Canvas immediately asked the unicorn. It was strange that somepony like Pen would willingly choose to be in a crowd under normal circumstances, so that made this just absurd.
"Being useful." Pen simply responded, laying down in the grass to watch the now setting sun though taking one last look at Canvas' face, "What's wrong? You look surprised."
