With any given heist operation, no matter how organized or who is doing it, there is a luxury and comfort a would-be thief can never count on and that is certainty. We've just got to roll the dice and see what happens.

Take tonight, for instance. We had it all well thought out. We had our personnel in positions, gave each of them the needed equipment for the operation that we could spare, relayed reconnaissance information and the whole nine yards.

When I get to the Mon Amarie Inn that Princess Celestia is staying in, though, I discover that I am either late, or my comrades started ahead of me too soon, for some of the city guards around this Inn are unconscious outside.

Then it dawns on me that this should be suspicious. None of my gang should be amateurish enough to leave unconscious guards in plain sight. There really are some idiots in the Red Sands gang but none of them are that dumb. Even if they were, they should be supervised by others who know better.

Soon after, I get another blatantly obvious hint that something has gone amiss when I see whole herds of ponies galloping out of the Mon Amarie Inn while screaming in panic. Moments later I see two types of guards, those from Princess Celestia’s escort and those hired by the Inn both exit then immediately turn about and wave for still other guests to leave the Inn in an orderly fashion.

That is when I realize that the heist has gone dramatically wrong. Most likely because something else has gone wrong that we did not expect. Judging from the level of panic I am seeing from those exiting the Mon Amarie Inn in a rush, it’s easy to assume that there is a fire in the building or something equally intense. When all that dawns on me, I suddenly stop caring about the heist entirely. Something far more urgent is going down. Because of that, a large jumble of priorities suddenly rush to the forefront of my mind which leaves me momentarily confused and numb concerning which ones I should target first.

Before I even know it and can fully register how I feel, I find myself in front of one of the Canterlot guards who is coaxing the rest of the guests out of the building in as calm of a tone as he can muster, but I can still see a glint of panic hidden in this large green earth pony stallion too.

“What happened? What’s going on here?” I inquire upon arrival.

“Step back, Sir!” the Canterlot guard orders me firmly. “Clear the way. Make some room.”

“But there is trouble in the Mon Amarie Inn? What happened?” I press again.

“It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with,” the dark hide hired unicorn stallion guard of this Inn said from the other side of this door. “Just stay back and keep clear.”

“But I have family in the Mon Amarie!” I partially lie to the bunch, though it is true I do have association with some ponies in there. “Are they alright?”

“Then they should be evacuating the building soon,” the green Canterlot guard tells me just a bit more calmly now that he understands why I’ve been unusually persistent. “And even if they don’t, we’ll go back inside soon to search for stragglers as soon as we secure the majority of the guests and hotel staff from the building.”

“Isn’t the Princess still inside too?” I check. “Aren’t you concerned about her?”

The Canterlot guard’s eyes grow smaller as his expression tightens a bit. It’s clear to me I struck a nerve with that question, but he quickly explains to me with somewhat strained patience this time, “She was the one who ordered me to this position to make sure every other pony makes it out of the building safely. Meanwhile she’s in there doing what she can and I know she has some armed escorts with her. Trust me when I say she’s probably the last one in danger here.”

While another panicked mare addresses the guards upon exiting the building and complains that she lost some of her foals in there, I sink into a thoughtful trance as I mull over what I just heard. Apparently there is some kind of emergency in there and I doubt the Red Sands are responsible for this. They should not have screwed up this badly. Whatever this is, this is something else entirely. Bad timing on our part, I guess.

Originally we had planned to steal Princess Celestia’s torc while she was sleeping but that option is clearly off the table now. There’s a chance that our prize is still in her room and unguarded due to the emergency, but based on what I just heard, there is no way in Tartarus that we’ll catch her sleeping now unless one of us is the cause of that status. That, or whatever else is the source of all this panic.

Princess Celestia is a powerful and seemingly immortal alicorn from Equestria. I heard she’s quite a well trained sorceress so the odds are strong she is the least threatened pony in that building at the moment, but I can’t dismiss the suspicious coincidence that all of this happens on the one night that she’s staying here.

Furthermore, while the odds of her being in severe danger right now are decently remote, the consequences of her downfall could end up extremely severe not just from her own country, but the whole world in general because she is the one solely responsible for the rotation of the sun and the moon. Because of that, I feel it is very important to confirm her status soon and make sure she is not in severe trouble, and if she is, help out in any way I reasonably can.

Not only that, but I want to check on my other gang members and make sure they are okay too. I also want to check on what this danger is exactly. Perhaps I can help?

I do consider the sneaky approach to just climb in through the side window, but thanks to the mare in front of me distracting the guards, I just rush in.

“HEY!” one of them hollers after me but I ignore him. As I suspect, they are too busy ushering everypony else out of the building. They already know why I have an incentive to explore this place, too, so my behavior won’t even seem too suspicious to them. Right now it has the virtue of being the truth too.

“Hey, anypony know what’s going on in here?” I stop and question a wealthy-looking brown unicorn stallion who is dressed in a royal blue robe and wears a similar color turban with a red jewel in it. Despite all that, he doesn’t look too composed, but he seems more confused rather than frightened.

“Honestly, Sir, I have no idea,” the wealthy-looking stallion replies. “All I do know is I was trying to sleep on the upper floor when all of a sudden the hotel staff raps in my door, wakes me up, and tells me I have to evacuate this building.”

“Whatever it is, it has something to do with the fourth floor,” an elderly purple mare explains as she rushes her family immediately out of the foyer.

“Any idea why?” I ask the elderly mare as I spin about and face her in our escalating distance.

“Something to do with a ghost,” she calls back to me but her voice is soon drowned out by the surrounding crowd.

“A ghost?! Is she serious?” the wealthy-looking merchant stallion asks beside me in annoyance and disbelief. “I seriously got woken up for a ridiculous reason like that?” He scoffs and rolls his eyes before proclaiming, “That’s it! I am demanding my money back and I shall not be writing a glowing review of this place. That’s for sure.”

A ghost?

I balk since I cannot believe what I heard either, but the most important information I can discern from that report is that the main activity seems to be on the fourth floor, for now, and ponies think it has something to do with a ghost. Honestly, though, this hotel shouldn’t ever have gotten wealthy enough to cater to very high class clientele if it always had a supernatural entity within it dire enough to evoke a mass exodus from this place at any moment.

Regardless, at least this narrows down my search somewhat if I wish to seek out answers.

I narrow my eyes and look over my shoulder down the hallway that most other ponies are fleeing from. Somewhere down there, I know I’ll find some stairs leading to the upper floors. I decide to search the fourth floor in particular for the Princess or the Red Sands. They could be elsewhere, but if they are, then they probably aren’t in danger anywhere else so I might as well start in the one place here that could be a problem.

The vibes I got from the earlier floors certainly changed drastically when I reached the fourth floor. Sure, the architecture and decor of the place, such as the painted floral design on the walls, has not changed much, but there is something awfully eerie about the sudden silence I got as soon as I stepped onto the fourth floor. It is also the first floor I encountered that is devoid of anypony else. As if that isn’t enough, the magical glow lights hanging on the walls are faded and fluctuating. It is as if some force is trying to extinguish them but the lights are struggling to hold on. Occasionally I also hear a groan and creaking in the walls as if the shape of this hallway is slowly transforming forcefully.

I admit I don’t remember much, but of all that which I do recall, I have never encountered anything like this before. A chill sinks into my soul, yet there is a stubborn part of me that can’t help but feel like this is some kind of charade. This is just too abnormal.

Cautiously I step into the red carpeted hallway itself. When I do, I hear my hoofsteps thump onto the floor. Normally I wouldn’t, or at least dismiss it as normal background noise, but with the nigh absolute silence of everything else on this floor, somehow that normal background noise seems greatly magnified here.

Gathering my courage, I venture on to explore this hallway. As I do so, I notice signs that compound the idea that something very eerie is going on here. Examples of that are some of the doors to various hotel rooms in this hallway are open, but no pony is within. Inside the rooms, I don’t see too many signs of struggle or a disheveled look to the rooms. They don’t look like they have been ransacked by thieves looking for valuable goods. The odd thing about that is there is very likely highly valuable goods in each of these rooms and I happen to know some of my gang members targeted this place tonight, and they ignored this golden opportunity? After all, the Mon Amarie Inn caters to very wealthy patrons. Even if the rooms are totally vacant of any patrons, some of the appliances and furniture of these rooms alone are worth nabbing, yet each of these rooms appear largely untouched.

About the only thing I see that is odd in any of them is dropped objects as if the rooms got abandoned in a hurry. Those fleeing from the rooms didn’t even take their goods, luggage, and maybe not even their money.

Eventually I encounter something else that really puts me on edge, and that is painted images of ponies plastered within the walls and floor in very odd places. Whenever I can see the faces on these 2-D images, they seem frozen in horror.

I see them on the walls. I see them on the floor. Sometimes the image is both, like their lower legs are on the floor and their upper body is suddenly curved vertically part way up the wall. The majority of these images depict ponies wearing clothes which is a rare trait for our entire race, but it does tend to be more common among the wealthy elite.

I gulp as I look upon them. This is far from normal, but I have to remember that I live in a magical world. Just because things like this aren’t common doesn’t mean it’s impossible to believe. Based on everything I’ve seen so far, I’m beginning to think that those images were once real ponies that somehow lost their third dimensional quality? Since they are not moving as a 2-D image either, part of me has to assume that they might as well be dead.

As I venture on, things get even more creepy. I continue to see images of ponies in the walls and floor, sometimes both, but the colors are more faded and smeared. As I go on, they get more smeared and stretched. Eventually it’s like they are just an inkblot from a pen that leaked ink which stretched further across the walls and floors.

On a hunch, I go back and explore the images I already passed. When I do, I notice their colors are more faded now too, but it never happened when I was looking at them. It’s as if they can only change when I’m not looking at them.

A scream suddenly seizes my attention from further down the hall that I haven’t explored yet. I whip my head to look in that direction then gallop to her in a hurry. While I proceed, I marvel how crazy this all is. Why am I galloping towards the scream?

Arriving to the scene, I burst into an open room and witness a cloudy-blue filly in a fancy dress shriveling and melting into the floor and wall in one of the hotel rooms while a larger figure, which seems to be a stallion, looms over her and jabbing a shining black cane with a white tip into her body. His body is odd though insofar as it is hazy, shifty like he’s behind a mirage, and misty fog hangs close to his body.

I’m too late. Within seconds, the filly shrinks into a flat, 2-D image of herself in the bottom corner of a wall and floor. Her image even seems painted over cloth carpet.

The stallion that once loomed over her is still for a moment before slowly turning his head back to look at me. It seems he once was some kind of blue colt in life and he wears a white tuxedo that covers the upper half of his body. On his head he has a white fedora cap with a black stripe. When he fully turns his head to look back at me, I notice there is a white porcelain-looking mask on his face that depicts a grinning ghost that shows fat white teeth. The mouth is held open a few centimeters in a straight line. The eyes are creepy wide except the black, bead-like eye pupils are tiny small which gives the mask a highly crazed look. As for the “nose” of this creature, it sticks straight forward about four inches from the mask.

It is at this moment I finally notice something unusual and that is a beat sound. It’s either a drum beat or a heartbeat sound that repeats over and over again in a four beat rhythm. I don’t know where the sound is coming from, though. Maybe the walls. Maybe myself. Maybe this ghost creature, or it could even be in the very air itself. I just can’t tell if I feel it on my hide or within my own body.

This creature is saying nothing to me and I can’t even hear the rustle of his clothes. From him, there is absolute silence as if this entity is entirely incapable of making sound of any kind.

The ghostly looking stallion turns about and stabs the cane into the floor, but again it makes no sound. He seems to simply leer at me. Eventually his head tilts just slightly to the left. That movement is so faint, I have to ask myself if I imagined it.

For some reason that I cannot fathom, I don’t panic. I do feel fear, true, but I don’t lose my mind like many of the other ponies I observed earlier did. Maybe it is because a part of me still can’t believe that this is happening. That this must be a charade of some kind.

For as long as I am not moving, the “ghost” isn’t either. He seems content to stare at me with that really creepy white mask. While we pause like this, I swear that four drum beats are very slowly getting louder and louder. Beyond that, it feels as if he is waiting for something and isn’t getting what he wants yet. Maybe he wants my fear first before he can attack me? Or perhaps he wants me to flee in panic first before he even attempts to chase me.

Since I sense what he might want, I don’t grant it to him, or at least not completely. I do back off, but I do so very slowly and I keep my gaze fixed on him. If there is any movement from him then I want to know about it immediately. I won’t break eye contact from him for even a split second.

My tactic seems to work. Like the images in the walls that can’t change so long as I am looking at them, this entity remains frozen in place too except maybe a slight turn of his head to keep his gaze dead locked on my eyes, even as I slowly change positions. The doorframe slowly creeps up at my peripheral vision since I’m slowly backing up and around the doorframe into the hallway. In all that time, he does not move in this tense moment.

The drumbeats! They keep getting louder! By all the Holy Sands, when is it going to stop getting louder?

I fully back up into the hallway and keep my gaze fixed on the open door. As long as I stare at it, the entity doesn’t seem to advance to that point but I am nervous that I have lost line of sight to him. If he really is a ghost, I can’t dismiss the possibility that he can walk through the walls anywhere behind me, and since he seems utterly silent, I’d have no warning of his approach at all unless I can lock visual sight on him again. Pretty much the only audible thing I can hear is those repeating four drumbeats over and over again.

Until, eventually, I hear some hoofsteps advancing to my position from somewhere behind me. I dare not look behind to see who it is, but I feel relieved to have some new compony anyway and it very likely isn’t the ghost.

I jolt, startled, when a hoof lands upon my right shoulder. The next moment I notice the pressure there is very light. Apparently it is meant to be a gesture of comfort.

“You’re a very brave stallion to hold your position like this,” another stallion announced. “Consider me very impressed.”

“Are you the only survivor here?” asks another voice further back from me. I notice how steady she sounds and it also rings with an air of authority. Normally I wouldn’t call that unusual in a hotel like this with such wealthy clientele but this situation is far from normal.

I keep my gaze fixed at the door I emerged from while feeling convinced that is the only reason the ghost hasn’t advanced upon us yet.

“That I’ve noticed so far,” I finally answer when I at last gather enough moisture in my mouth and throat. Until I tried, I didn’t notice how dry my mouth was.

“It’s in there, isn’t it?” the strangely calm stallion asks beside and slightly behind me. “The creature that caused all this mess.”

“I believe so,” I answer back. “I think it can’t move so long as I stare at it, or the area it needs to emerge from.”

“Huh. That takes me back,” says the other stallion in a tone of familiarity.

“You’ve encountered this creature before?!” I ask in shock.

“No, but I believe I met others like it,” he answers me. “And I think I know what this really is.”

“Stand back, my little pony,” commands the mare behind me with an air of regal authority. At that moment I notice a brilliant, shimmering golden glow grow in this hallway. It is only in that moment do I notice her shadow on the floor. I am still not looking away from the doorway, but I notice, based on that shadow, that the one behind me is unusually tall. Moreover, she possesses both large wings and a tall horn.

“Princess Celestia!” I gasp in shock.

“We will take it from here,” the Princess assures as she advances ahead of me. The stallion does too which is enough to allow me to tell that this stallion is a brown earth pony wearing a green necktie. He has the cutie mark of an hourglass and for some reason is biting into a weird metallic device in his mouth.

“Are you sure about this, Your Majesty?” I ask cautiously. “It would be unfortunate for us all if anything were to happen to you, and I suspect this creature has killed others in highly unusual ways. You might not be prepared to deal with this thing.”

“Nothing will happen to me because I will not allow it!” Princess Celestia says firmly as she keeps a fixed stare at the open doorway for a moment until she glances back at me over her right shoulder with shrinking eye pupils as she orders me firmly, “Go!”

I almost comply reluctantly, but then I freeze when I notice Princess Celestia’s right eye staring back at me suddenly widens with shock. She looks like she is beholding a ghost right now, but she seems to be staring back at me!

Just to check, I finally look over my own shoulder to see if that ghost had somehow snuck up behind me, but nope. The rest of the hallway here seems clear.

The brown stallion that is beside Princess Celestia regards her with surprise as well. He looks like he does not expect her reaction to me at all. He then regards me curiously as if I might be a character in a stage play that shouldn’t be here. That I am not “in the script”, as it were.

This is very odd! I know her, but everypony knows her. Why, in the world, does she recognize me in return?! I’m just a street rat. A no pony.

Of course, my memories don’t go too far back either. Is she connected to my past for some reason?

I feel tempted to ask her, but we are interrupted when the entity finally advances up to the doorframe. The brown stallion regards this as well. Then, for some reason, the metal device he is biting on emits a high pitched sound and a light ignites at the tip.

“Juz gwhooo!” the brown stallion orders me but his speech is muffled because of the device in his mouth.

At last I finally panic. I spin about and gallop away as fast as my legs can carry me.

Author's Note

When it comes to this chapter, I have a confession to make. When I first wrote it, my original plan was to go through with the heist of Celestia's torc. Maybe also a charade encounter with on of Swift Hoof's underlings because Swift thought Celestia as going to use lethal force against this other underling, or the other way around and Swift's real role was to try to maintain the peace between them. I was just a few paragraphs into the story, though, when something felt wrong and I just put the story down as I reexamined my plans. What came out of this pivoted the in a newer and, in my opinion, a much better direction.

Considering the creepy scope of this chapter, I once again find a certain degree of irony that this chapter comes published close to Christmas time. The last time this happened was in the Daring Do and the Lost Continent arc of this story. More specifically Part 11: Tactical Assessment.

Anyway, thank you all for following this story so far. Hope you all enjoy it too, and I wish you all a Happy Holidays regardless when you actually read this.

The next chapter will be posted on December 29th, and that will be the last one posted for this year. You're in for a treat then too.