My Friends

Ever since that day, things were different.

Canterlot was a beautiful city, filled with thriving ponies, majestic architecture, and dozens of friendly shops, that felt like they would be something a pony would find in Ponyville. The streets were often filled with a wide variety of colored ponies, like gumballs in a machine, each one different colored than the rest. Most ponies would jam their way through the middle of the street, trying to get to their next destination as quickly as possible, but a few ponies would move to the side, trying to avoid the constant rush of the city, among these few was Fluttershy, her bright yellow coat and light pink mane just standing out among the others.

This was the day she was supposed to meet her friends at Canterlot Castle. She had been counting down the days on her calendar at home, this would be the first time in the new year she would see them and she hoped to share stories of what was going on lately in Ponyville.

As the yellow pegasus walked the streets of the city, she couldn’t take her eyes off of the gleaming castle that kept getting closer and closer. Fluttershy could distinctly remember the banners they put up on the day Twilight was crowned the newest Princess of Equestria. The pegasus smiled to herself at the thought.

Fluttershy trotted toward the castle quickly knowing who she would see first thing when she passed through the gates. The pony blinked as the gates open and a new light shined down upon her, the ocean blue, shimmering beauties that were her eyes squinted slightly as the light bounced off of Rainbow Dash’s armor into her eyes.

“Dashie!” Fluttershy squeaked, hugging her friend, who was turned to the side.

Rainbow Dash jumped back, making the pony fall off of her.

“Who are you?” Rainbow Dash asked loudly, her raspy voice silencing the room.

Fluttershy could feel the eyes of numerous soldiers staring down at her. She didn’t like to be the center of attention, actually, she hated being the center of attention.

“W-what do you mean, who am I?” Fluttershy asked Rainbow Dash, who still stood over her, not helping her up.

The pony stared down at her as well.

“Das-”

The cyan pegasus burst out into laughter, as well as the rest of the room.

Fluttershy was confused.

“I’m just kiddin’” Dash said, snickering still a little and helping the other mare up. “Let’s go get the others.” She said with a rather forceful punch to Fluttershy’s front arm, which made it sting for a second.

“O-okay.” Fluttershy said cautiously, looking back into the room with now talking soldiers as she walked into the castle.

Just as she entered the castle, the colors once again surprised her, it was always white that overtook the castle, but there were always different colors somewhere, the carpets were pink and most of the banners that hung from the windowsills were a deep magenta, most likely because of Pinkie Pie’s upcoming birthday.

“Rarity should be somewhere over here.” Dash said, walking up a few steps and turning to the left, where a giant door stood before her with Rarity’s cutie mark painted onto it.

Rainbow Dash held a hoof up to knock, but a screech behind the two mares stopped her.

“Rainbow Dash! Do you have no manners?!” Rarity shouted, quickly moving towards the two. “The paint is still drying!”

“Oh, well sorry, I didn’t think it was that important to you Rarity.” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just paint.”

Rarity looked insulted, she turned to Fluttershy, who smiled towards her.

“See what I have to live with, darling?” She said, putting a hoof around Fluttershy’s back and walking away with her. “Let’s get you away from this brute and get the girls all rounded up.”

“Okay, Rarity.” Fluttershy said, looking back to Rainbow Dash, who slouched her shoulders and gave Rarity a look.

“Who are we going to?” Fluttershy asked, turning back to Rarity.

“Why Spike of course.” Rarity laughed.

Fluttershy smiled, she had always enjoyed having Spike as company, he had grown rapidly over the past few years, starting to live on his own and going on to get a job under Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor with the military. The once tiny dragon had grown to be taller than all of the mares and even Big Macintosh, he was just under Princess Luna’s height, but still growing.

Rarity hadn’t seemed to of changed since she went into taxes, and other revenue and money things that concerned Canterlot, other than the fact she had talked about it so much.

“Spiiiike?!” Rarity called, “Spike?”

“I’m over here!” A deeper voice than Fluttershy had remembered called, appearing in a long hallway and quickly running over towards us, “Fluttershy!” He said, bending down to hug the smaller mare.

“It’s good to see you.” Fluttershy said in between the hug.

“It’s been too long.” Spike said, letting go.

Suddenly a loud beeping noise came from the room Spike had come from,

“Oh, dammit.” He cursed.

“Spike!” Rarity gasped, “Language!”

“Oh, whatever.” He said, running back towards the room and closing the door behind him. The beeping stopped seconds later, but the dragon did not come out again.

Rarity rolled her eyes and sighed, “That dragon, always going in his room and sitting there all day on days off.” She said, turning and dragging Fluttershy with her.

“Might as well go get Pinkie and Twilight.” Rarity said.

“What about Applejack?” Fluttershy asked, awkwardly moving out of Rarity’s grasp.

“Um, she probably won’t be up for awhile...” Rarity said, moving faster.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s... uh, down in the dungeon... tending to some of the ponies.” Rarity said.

“Oh, well I’m sure she’s taking good care of them.” Fluttershy smiled.

“Yes.” Rarity said. “She must be.”

Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle were both found in one of the throne rooms. Pinkie running in figure eights around most of the pillars in the sides of the room, while Twilight boredly watched her run back and forth from the throne.

“Twilight!” Rarity exclaimed happily. “Fluttershy’s here for a visit!”

Twilight immediately brightened up, her wings flaring up in excitement.

“Fluttershy! You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear from you!” Twilight explained. “How are you?” She asked.

“I’m doing great.” Fluttershy said with a warm smile. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, terrible.” Twilight said with a frown. “Everything here lately has been such a mess.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I come at a bad time?” The yellow pegasus asked, looking back towards the door she entered.

“No, no, no.” Twilight said, hopping off of her chair and coming towards the two ponies. “I think you're just what we need, would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Of course.” Fluttershy answered, hugging the alicorn. “You ask me that everytime I come.”

Pinkie Pie circled around and ran through Twilight and tackled Fluttershy with a hug.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy! I missed you, we missed you, so, so, so, so, SO much!” Pinkie giggled, jumping off of the mare. “I can’t wait to introduce you to our new friends at Abstergo!”

“At where?” Fluttershy asked, getting to her hooves.

The room around the pony was dark, so dark you couldn’t see the concrete walls or iron bars that confined him to a few hooves of space, so dark that he could feel the blood dripping from his face better than her could see it.

“Just tell me where you’re all holed up, and I promise I’ll make it quick, and painless.” A voice said in the dark.

The pony felt the bindings on his hooves rip against his fur as he tried to move his hooves.

“You expect me to believe your bullshit?!” He shouted, spitting in the direction of the voice.

A strong hoof connected with the tip of his muzzle, knocking him onto his back and allowing the pony another few swings as it got on top of him. Blood and spit was showered from his mouth onto either the ground beside him or the wall beside him as the pony kept on with the punches, beating the helpless stallion until he could barely talk without upchucking blood.

“Tell me dammit.” The voice said.

“Fuck you.” The stallion said through red teeth.

Metal ringed in the dark, and soon the stallion’s neck was slashed and refused to stop gushing blood onto the floor, staining it even more than before.

“Templar... bitch!” The pony struggled to say as he choked on his own blood.

“Stupid Assassin.” The mare said, opening a door and walking up cold, dark steps.