Finally A Day Off

Trebass stepped outside the prison grounds, and took a deep breath. It was refreshing to smell fresh air, rather than the smell of smoke and mold. But the sweet sound of nothing was interrupted by a quiet motor pulling up to him. A long black limousine was parked right in front of him, outside the prison gates.

The window rolled down, and a brown colt with a driver's cap gave him a salute, "Trebass? I've got an order from the boss to escort you to his concert."

Trebass nodded, then opened, and entered the car door. The the limo immediately began to move, and they were soon on their way to The Canterlot Orchestra's concert.

The chrome limousine speedily drove through the clean white neighbourhood of Canterlot. Tall clean white buildings passed them by quickly. The pedestrians on the street were dressed up in formal dresses and suits.

"Not something you'd expect somepony to wear on the street. In the middle of a sunny day." Trebass muttered to himself.

The driver began to speak, "Well, we're in White Canterlot right now."

"White Canterlot?" Trebass asked.

"Well, most ponies don't usually know about this, not even some of the ones who live in Canterlot... But some ponies still think that this city is still under a caste system." The driver replied.

Trebass looked confused, "A caste system? What's that?"

The driver turned limousine into the next lane, "It's social stratification. In other words, our 'government' thought it would be a good idea to separate the poor from the rich. The sent anypony who couldn't pay taxes into Black Canterlot, the hidden slums in our fair city. Visitors rarely see any of Black Canterlot, since the head ponies do a fair job of hiding it."

"Princess Luna and Celestia?" Trebass asked.

"No, ponies that are even higher than the Princesses. But I shouldn't talk about that here." The driver said, as he began to decelerate his vehicle.

Trebass fidgeted in his leather carseat. Finally, they began to approach a large white dome. They drove and stopped at the base of a large set of stairs. The stairs circled all the way around the white dome in front of them, and led up into a series of small glass doors.

"Well, here we are, Canterlot Concert Hall. I believe the Canterlot Orchestra is doing a sound check right now. You could explore the hall, or listen in on them I suppose." The driver said, as he stepped out of the limousine and opened Trebass' car door.

The unicorn began thanked his escort. He looked up, a pure snow white overhanging ceiling cast a cool shade on him. He then began trot up the ivory stairs and into the glass doors.

He was immediately greeted two (2) door-ponies and a red velvet carpet floor, "Welcome to the Canterlot Concert Hall, may we see your ticket please?"

Trebass pulled a piece of paper from his coat chest pocket, "Of course, here you g--"

*BOOM*

"W-What?!" Trebass turned around quickly.

Screams rang from outside, as smoke began to rise into the air. Trebass burst through entrance doors of the concert hall. At the bottom of the ivory stairs was the wreckage of what looked like a limousine. Chunks of sharp black metal were scattered around the deformed body of a limousine. The limousine body's hood was on fire, and Trebass could see the pipes inside the hood that was blown open.

"What the hell? Another one?! This can't be a coincidence..." The unicorn muttered to himself, "The poor colt. Who could have.... Wait a minute!"

Trebass realized the connection between the explosion and the shooting near the hotel, "They both spoke to me about the division of Canterlot. And that organization..."

A crowd began to gather around the limousine, and fortunately, not around Trebass this time. Panicked chatter began to fill the area, and the authorities soon flooded in and began to control the crowd. Trebass disappeared into the flood of ponies and into the concert hall.

"It would be best if I avoided the authorities for now. I guess I'll explore the hall for now, maybe listen to the sound check. But then again, the musicians might have posponed it due to the assassination outside." Trebass thought to himself.

The red velvet carpet circled around the entire inside of the dome. Binocular eyepieces, shirts, and posters, were for sale on abandoned merchant stalls.

"The shirts a bit much. Eyepieces I can understand, but posters? Really?" Trebass said, as he kept following the red carpet around the dome.

He noticed that any entrances that led into the concert hall seats were blocked off by multiple chains.

"I don't think they could set this up that quickly. Everypony is still outside investigating that limo. Unless something happened in the concert hall before the explosion..." Trebass' train of thought went on and on until he realized he was already at the entrance of the white dome. He had traveled in a complete circle.

He turned away from the glass exit doors, and saw that one of the small hallways leading to the seating was not blocked. The chain that was supposed to attach to both walls of the hallway were now broken at the middle link.

"Huh, maybe somepony's inside?" Trebass said, as he decided to trot into the seatings.

He exited the small hallway, hundreds of rows filled with hundreds of seats were evenly distributed around the floor of the gigantic open concert hall. Trebass counted at least ten (10) opera-house styled box seats on each wall. The orchestra stage was about the size of large courtyard. The mere thought of how many ponies could sit in the theatre caused his head to hurt a little bit. The one thing that caught his eye was the magnificently large glass ceiling. The sun was shining into the concert hall.

He slowly trotted down the lit up middle aisle, as his head twisted and turned to admire the huge concert hall. He came up to foot of the stage, chairs and music stands were scattered around a small conductor's stand. A large ebony grand piano stood in the center of the actual stage. Just like the rest of the concert hall, the stage was completely empty.

*CRASH*

A loud noise came from behind the gigantic red curtain behind the stage. It startled Trebass, as he knocked over one (1) of the music stands beside him.

"What was that?" He thought to himself, as he trotted onto the stage, and began to approach the red curtain.

He quietly snuck up to the curtain, he then quickly parted the curtain to see what was behind it...