The Immortal's Game

Chapter 1: Escape

        Celestia and her guards walked down the hallway of the castle, heading directly for the royal spymasters room. She arrived at the door and tested the handle with her magic. Locked, like it always was. She focused her magic more intently and blasted the door into splinters, and her guards marched into room. Empty. She searched around and saw that Walker, the spymaster, was gone.

        She checked the bed and there was a note on it, addressed to her specifically.

Dear Tia,

Figured that you would be coming for me today, since you decided not to ask me for a report yesterday. I decided to turn the tables and check up on you while you slept. So, there’s that. I would also like to point out that I have enough money to keep me going... Well pretty much forever. Funny how that works, given our similar situation. Lets play a waiting game, shall we?

P.S. I might have taken all of my files. Wonderful thing, compression magic.

        Celestia glared at the paper, and with her wrath at what had just occurred, she accidentally burnt the paper to a fine crisp. Dream Walker... Your head will be mine. She threw down the ashes, still held by her magic. “Guards, search for Dream Walker, he can not be allowed to escape. When he is found throw him in the dungeon for treason.” She inhaled deeply. “And if he resists kill him.”

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        My name is Dream Walker, I used to be the royal spymaster working for princess Celestia, but now she wants me dead. Why? Simple enough, I have lost my use to her. I took over for princess Luna when she was banished to the moon for a thousand years. And I mean the ENTIRE time. Thats right, I’m immortal, like Celestia and Luna. A thousand years of walking through ponies dreams is an interesting way to spend your massively extended lifespan. So, now that Luna is back i’m pretty much useless to her. She has her job back and i’m out of mine, at least as a watcher of ponies dreams. I could still be a spy, but because I’m immortal and have this much knowledge, I am a threat to her. Now Celestia is plotting my death. I will say one thing though, I would like to see her kill me. She tried once before, and that ended in a town getting leveled.

        Anyways, I know all of her tricks and I know all of her plans. I know what places and ponies she has been manipulating for a very long time so I know where I should hide if I need to. Honesty, i’m not even afraid of her. The only ponies I fear are Luna and Twilight Sparkle. Luna is the only one with as much experience in dream walking as me and could easily take me down while i’m asleep, but Twilight Sparkle is a different case entirely. Celestia has been manipulating her, grooming her to be a successor. Her power far exceeds that of Celestia. Anyway, I’m already a step ahead of Celestia and heading off to an extended vacation. I pretty much have a thousand years of pay set off to the side that Celestia can’t access.

        Back to reality, I guess. I leaned forward in the seat and relaxed a bit, levitating my fedora off. Off to Manehattan it seems. I gave a small smile to myself, wondering what was going to happen over the next several days. The beginnings of a story are always the most interesting.

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        Celestia paced back and forth, waiting for her apprentice to arrive at the castle. She was fully aware that she could use Luna to hunt down Walker, however that would only be if he was asleep and ifLuna could find him. Walker had forced her hoof to take a measure that she was not happy about having to use. Twilight was not aware of who Walker actually was, she had seen him around during her time at the castle, she had assumed that Walker was just another unicorn who was part of Celestia’s court.

        She began to regret giving him immortality, like hers. The reason she had given him it was because she did not want to constantly hunt down a successor for him and she believed that if the power of a dream walker were to constantly be changing hands, it could only lead to disaster. Therefore she had picked one of the most skilled unicorns in her court to take on those responsibilities. On top of that, she did not just want her only companion to be a pheonix. She later decided to use his ability to spy on those she suspected of crimes or of hiding something from her, thus he became the royal spymaster.

        Now Luna was back, and Celestia knew that his allegiance was waning since her return. He was afraid that now the original holder of his job was back, Celestia would have no need for him to have his power or his immortality. And he was right.

        Celestia needed to have him brought back to her, dead or alive as soon as possible. She had picked the usage of Twilight for two reasons, the first being Celestia had forbid Walker from entering her dreams. She did not want her to become a weapon used against her were an event like this to transpire, and the second reason was because she was powerful enough to handle him.

        An hour later Twilight arrived at the castle. “Princess, you sent for me?”

        “Yes Twilight, I need you to find a certain unicorn for me. He has something of mine that was taken. I normally would have asked a group of guards to do this but i’m not sure I could trust them fully with this task.”

        “If I may ask Princess, what exactly did he take?”

        Celestia cringed for a moment. “Information that is very sensitive. Honestly all I want you to do is find him and bring him in for me. I will warn you though, when you find him he will likely put up a fight, and he is no pushover.”

        “Alright... But who exactly is this unicorn that you want me to find? Is it somepony I know?”

        “You have met him, but I doubt that you would really know him. He was the royal spymaster, Dream Walker. Do you remember him?”

        Twilight though for a moment, recalling some memories from her early days at the Castle, learning under Celestia. “He was a purple unicorn with black hair and blue eyes, right? And his cutie mark was a magnifying glass?”

        “Yes, thats the one. However, he was not always called Dream Walker. Its just what he goes by today. Back when he first joined my court he was called Scrying Knight. So there is a good chance that he is hiding under that name.” Celestia sighed. “If i’m not mistaken he is likely on a train to somewhere as we speak. You should check the station to see if anypony under those names or his description has been seen leaving.”

        “I will, princess. So, what should I do if he does not come with me?”

        Celestia turned around and stared off into the distance. She answered the question in a rather chilling tone. “If he resists, kill him. This is one thing that you are not to argue with me about, is that understood?”

        “But princess I... Yes, your majesty.”

        “Oh and one more thing before you set off, he is skilled in using magics on the mind of a target. Manipulating them or putting them to sleep. So it would be best if you warded against that.” She started walking off to her chambers. “Don’t fail me Twilight.”

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        I got up from my seat and decided to see if I could get something to drink from one of the food cars. These things always had great hot chocolate. I always thought that there was something magical about the liquid confection, so I always got some wherever I went. I proceeded onto the dining car and ordered my drink, while it was being prepared I decided to do what I did best. Observation is a key skill for a spy, a crack in the wall that you could peer through, a facial twitch to tell if somepony is lying to you or even if something in your room is out of place.

I sat there, enjoying my cup of cocoa, and thats when I heard the sound of somepony teleporting onboard the train. “Oh well, shame this train has a decent chance its going to be a scrap pile in the next five minutes.” I smiled and put three times the bits I owed on the table. The server looked at me in surprise. “Give the next two ponies that come in here a little treat. Wouldn’t you?” The server just shook his head in acknowledgement. “Perfect, see you later.”

        I slid off the chair and continued onwards to the next car, just in time to see a certain lavender unicorn trot on into the car. Perfect timing, now to see if she gets sidetracked by my little gift. I need a little time to think. The server called her over, telling her that a unicorn had decided to pay in advance for the next ponies in the car. Thankfully she decided to take the bait since, according to her, no sane pony would ever jump off a moving train. Sadly, that was not my plan. I began to spin the wheels of thought around and picked where we were going to have a showdown.

        I opened the door after about a minute of her drinking some tea. “Hey Twilight, long time no see.” Her concentration faltered and she dropped the tea on the ground and shot to her hooves off of the chair.

        “Walker!” She said, giving me a glare.

        “Look, I’m not going to be taken in by you so that means you either have to subdue me or kill me.” I smiled. “But first you have to catch me.” I slammed the door shut with magic and started to move my way to the top of the train, careful to keep my hat on. Time to get this party started.

        I stood on top of the train, above an empty car as to minimize casualties. She came up on top of it as well in under a minute. “Good to see you could make it, Twilight. Hope you enjoy the wind.” The wind was whipping around us, I had to put a hoof on top of my fedora so that it was not ripped from my head by the force. “I assume that Celestia told you who I was?”

        Twilight spoke over the sound of the wind. “She said you have something of hers, and that she wanted it back and you in the dungeons. She wanted you alive Walker, and said I should only try and kill you if you resisted.”

        I chuckled, finding her ignorance of the situation funny. “Thats what she said? She wants my head on a pike, Twilight. If you dragged my sorry flank back there I would only be executed.” I took a moment for myself and for what I had said to sink in. “And besides, the only thing I took was my own work. And we both know that you wouldn't kill anypony, at least not without your own reasons or to defend yourself.

        Twilight stood silent, looking down at her hoofs. I spoke up once again. “I’m going to give you two choices, Ms. Sparkle. Either leave the train or fight me here and now.”

        Twilight began charging her magic up for an attack, so I readied my magic. Might as well see if she’s unprepared. I used my magic on her, attempting to put her to sleep so that I could minimize the damage. My magic was blocked by her own. “So I see she told you about my powers. Good thing she was always too lazy to do any of her own information gathering on specific ponies.” I charged up my magic again, this time going for a bit more aggressive tactic.

        A jolt of electricity lept from my horn, heading towards the mare I was facing down. It barely missed her, but only because I meant it as a warning shot. She fired her own bolt of magic energy, which unlike mine was in beam form. I hopped to the side as it flew past me, punching a hole through the raise in the car behind us.

        “Man, you need to work on your aim. I wasn’t even that bad of a shot at your age.” Clearly my words had a better effect that I had hoped. A general rule of magic was to not let your feelings get the best of you, or else you lose sight of what you meant to do.Ah, a shot to the pride works wonders. She fired another bolt, and once again I dodged it. “I can keep this up forever, Twilight.”

        Twilight panted from the magic exertion. “What do you mean, forever?”

        “You mean that Celestia never told you? Wow, she must not trust you enough. You have power, but lack enough experience to face down an alicorn by yourself. Whereas I have experience but not that much power. There are four immortals that you have met, Twilight. And there is one other that you have seen, but is trapped in stone. Do some math and you should figure out what I mean.”

        Good, her emotions were running rampant and I was making her think. Now would be a good time as any to finish this. She thinks Celestia doesn’t trust her, she's questioning what she knows and I’ve pissed her off. I charged up my magic, for my final assault.

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        Twilight stood there, attempting to figure out what he meant when he had said that. She knew only three immortals, Celestia, Luna and her old foal sitter Cadence. So who else did she know that was an alicorn. Then it struck her, she already knew 3 off the top of her head, and if she included somepony she had just met, like Walker, that would make 4. Her eyes widened as she came to the realization of what she was up against. Dream Walker is... Immortal?

        She charged up her magic to quickly incapacitate him, but he sent a full fledged bolt of lightning at her. It connected with her squarely and she could feel it electricity flowing through her body. She was not about to be beaten so easily when she was distracted. She fought through the pain and forced magic into her horn, readying a blast to wipe him off of the train. She was about to fire when the wind hit her full force and sent her toppling over and she released the magic blast through all of the cars behind her.

        She stood up in horror she watched the train cars go up in flames, and heard the screams of ponies being burnt alive from the fires. No... This can’t be happening. She had a look of terror in her eyes, and Walker stood there laughing.

        “This is what happens when you try and fight somepony like me, Twilight. Ponies die from your carelessness and you can’t do anything about it.” Twilight just stared, and saw what was happening and just curled up in a ball, wishing for this all to be over. She just started muttering to herself,

        “No, no, no, no...”

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        Twilight lay curled up in front of me, muttering to herself the word “no” over and over again. I just stared at her. Rule number one of combat magic, never drop your guard. Thats when I can do what I do. I decided that a few mental scars were better than a dead body, so I just made her imagine killing innocents and failing Celestia. I knew it was cruel, but I hate violence. Heck, I have hemophobia. Thats why, when I have to kill, I fry them with lightning rather than other sorts of combat magic.

        “Oh well, I guess you’ll have some thoughts to work out.” I turned around and jumped off the train, using my magic to cushion myself. I sighed. Damn, there goes Manehattan down the drain. Next stop Dodge city it seems.